“Do I look like I need to be set free?”
“Oh yes. I suspect you’re terribly like my husband. Very English and correct. And dull. He just sits in the corner looking awfully uncomfortable. And he doesn’t approve of politics. I don’t invite him to our parties anymore.”
“I’m not English,” he said. “I’m Irish.”
“You’ve no excuse at all, then.” She picked up a gin and took a gulp. “Come on and dance.” She took his arm.
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t be boring.” She was dragging him onto the dance floor again now.
He was saved when, with a loud bang, the amplifier blew a fuse. The music stopped abruptly, the lights snapped off, and the room was filled with a giant groan of disappointment. The dancing wound to a halt.
“There will be a short interval,” somebody quipped in the darkness.
“Someone go fix the gen.” A laugh.
A girl’s abrupt scream was followed quickly by a slap and a shout: “E netulum aka! Keep your filthy hands to yourself, old man.”
“Give me a kiss!”
“Go away. The darkness does not stop you being ugly.” An even bigger laugh.
A couple of people found their lighters and dark faces shone in the blackness.
“Blackout. Now I am homesick.” More hilarity. More matches lit.
They stood there in the thick, sweaty darkness, waiting for the lights to come back on, jostling for space, until someone started to sing a slow, solemn song.
“All hail Biafra, land of the rising sun,” came a rich baritone. Voices joined in. “We love and cherish.”
Soon the whole room was filled with singing. In the dim light Breen could make out a young man with diagonal scars cut into his forehead raising his arm in a stiff military salute. Breen watched eyes stream with tears, damp cheeks that shone in matchlight. “We have vanquished our enemies, all hail Biafra.” Voices quavered. Harmonies thickened the song. Men reached out and held hands with other men. Breen looked over towards Okonkwo. In the darkness he could just make him out too, standing, almost shouting the song. “We have emerged triumphant from all our foes.” And Ezeoke, holding Frances Briggs’s hand, chin jutting out, chest full, crying like a child as he sang.
Afterwards, the party moved outside onto Wardour Street, where Ezeoke handed Breen an opened bottle of beer. Still hot from the nightclub, women fanned themselves with leaflets about the war, men leaned against the shop windows and smoked cigarettes. The amplifier had blown. The music was over. After the singing, the atmosphere was subdued.
Breen found Tozer talking to Mrs. Briggs.
“Of course it’s a real photo,” she was saying, “the boy is starving.”
Tozer was holding a bottle of beer in one hand and a leaflet with a photo of an African child on it in the other. She had kicked off her heels and was standing on the pavement in her bare feet. “If he’s starving, how come his belly is so big?”
“Have you heard of kwashiorkor? It is one of the few West African words to have entered the medical dictionary,” Mrs. Briggs said. “It says something that while we make Africans learn Shakespeare, all we take from them is a word like this. It’s from Ghana. It’s a type of starvation. You should get Sam to explain why it leads to the distended belly. It’s something to do with the failing of the liver function, I believe.”
“That’s terrible. Is that taken in Biafra?”
“In one of the relief camps. Yes. There are hundreds of thousands of young children there. That boy died two days after the photograph was taken. Hundreds are dying every day. It’s inhuman.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is a monstrosity,” said Okonkwo, joining them. “Let me ask you. What does it make you feel?”
“I don’t know. It makes me angry, I suppose.”
“Does it make you angry that your government is helping this to happen?”
“I suppose it does,” Breen said.
“Yes. You should be angry. I can give you copies of the leaflet if you like. We are printing them. We want everyone to see the truth about what is happening in Biafra. You see? He did not die in vain.”
“That’s an awful thing to say,” said Tozer. “It’s like you’re almost glad he died.”
Ezeoke came and snatched the leaflet out of Tozer’s hand.
“I was looking at that,” she protested.
“Have you progressed any further with your investigation?” In the orange streetlight Ezeoke looked tired and drawn.
“Not since I saw you last.”
A boy on a scooter rode past, pausing to look at the unusual sight of a group of black people in the middle of Soho, then revving on down Broadwick Street.
Ezeoke said, “You don’t strike me as the kind of man who goes to parties. Perhaps you’re investigating now?”
“He’s not the kind of man who goes to parties,” said Tozer. “I brought him.”
“That explains why you are a much better dancer than him.”
Tozer laughed. The young man was next to her still. He attempted to put his arm around her waist and she pushed it back, wriggling away from him. “Get off.”
“Why?” he said. “I’m just being friendly.”
“I know your type of friendly,” she said, still laughing, but she didn’t move away from him.
“Are you OK?” Breen asked her.
“Of course I’m OK.”
“You are neglecting your beautiful Biafran wife, Samuel,” said Okonkwo.
“Yes, mazi-Okonkwo. You are right. You are always right. Let me tell you a little about Mr. Okonkwo,” said Ezeoke. “He is our minister of propaganda. He sees every starving Biafran baby as a present from God. He believes he can shame the British into changing sides. He does not understand the British have no shame. But with him the objective is everything. He cares nothing for whether people live or die.”
“Are you drunk, Sam? Go home before you say something you regret,” said Okonkwo.
“I’m not drunk.”
“Didn’t your wife tell me you had a plane to catch tomorrow morning? Ezinwa? Shouldn’t you take your husband home?”
His wife was talking to another woman, ignoring Okonkwo.
“I am fine.”
“Where are you flying to, Mr. Ezeoke?” asked Breen.
“Belgium. I am attending a conference on causal links between heart disease and cigarette smoking.”
“Which means you should go to bed.”
A light blue police car turned into the top of Wardour Street and drove slowly towards them. The men moved off the street onto the pavement to let it past. As it drove by, the policeman behind the wheel wound down his window and looked sideways at them. The Africans shuffled their bottles of beer into their coats and behind their backs.
The car passed on and turned round to Broadwick Street.
“Smoking does not give you heart disease. It makes you strong,” said Tozer’s young man.
“You got a cigarette I can smoke?” said Tozer. “I’m feeling weak.” The man laughed and pulled a crumpled packet from his trousers. Breen was surprised at how jealous he felt.
A minute later the police car was back, returning from the north and crawling past them again. This time when it reached Broadwick Street it stopped. “Go back into the club,” said Okonkwo. The younger Africans hesitated. “Go back downstairs. Now.”
A few of them had begun to move just as the car started to reverse back towards them, rapidly. It braked right outside the nightclub and both doors flew open.
The copper who had been driving was a lanky fellow. He unfolded himself from the car, saying, “Right. What’s going on here?”
Okonkwo stepped forward. “We were having a party, sir. We are going home now.”
The other policeman eyed them across the roof of the car. “Is that beer you’re drinking?” he called.
“Sorry, sir. We were having a party in the nightclub, but the electricity broke.”
One of the partygoers giggled.
The first officer shouted, “I’m going to give you one minute to get out of here.” Breen could see Ezeoke’s jaw clenching. “Move. Now,” said the copper.