Free You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers Page A

said.
    “Hello my friends!”
    —and had a taxi take us all the six blocks to the Italian place he liked. The streets were narrow and dark. We opened the windows and the warm air touched us with coarse hands. The buildings looked like buildings I’d seen before—they had straight lines and neat corners and windows in between—but they seemed closer to something imagined and built by architects of another world. We flew beneath their roofs and I grinned to the wind, because we’d at least come this far and that meant we’d won.
    The cabbie asked for the equivalent of fifty cents and I gave him ten dollars; he said thank you thank you, and that he’d wait until we were done to take us back, or anywhere else, anytime, while we stayed in his country, you friends!
    The restaurant was empty but for four drunk and round Italians at the bar talking to the drunk Italian hostess.
    “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” Raymond said. “That’s why I had to come back.”
    Hand agreed. “She
is
nice. But I’m really starting to have a thing for Senegalese women.”
    “You too?” said Raymond. “I know. They are superb.” Raymond raised his finger, about to make a point. “But,” he said, closing his eyes slowly and raising his chin, “they are all whores.”
    “What do you mean?” Hand asked.
    “You will see,” he said.
    Hand and I stared at Raymond and blinked slowly. We were stuck with this man for a while, even though it was becoming obvious that he was not of our stripe. Friendships, even temporary ones like this, were based on proximity and chance, and so rarely made any sense at all. We knew, though, that we’d part with Raymond tonight and never likely see him again, so it made it bearable.
    The music piped in was a short, ever-repeating loop of DireStraits, Pink Floyd, Eagles and
White Album
Beatles. We had fettuccine and Senegalese beer. We learned that Raymond worked in cellphones. Something involving GPS and cellphones and how, soon enough, everyone would know—for their own safety, he insisted, with a fist softly pounding the table, in a way he’d likely done a hundred times before—where everyone else in the world was, by tracking their cellphone. But again: for good not evil. For the children. For the children. For grandparents and wives.
    It was the end of an epoch, and I didn’t want to be around to see it happen; we’d traded anonymity for access. I shuddered. Hand, of course, had goosebumps.
    After dinner Hand asked the cabbie, who’d been waiting without radio or newspaper, to take us to see live music. “You know,” said Hand, “like Youssour N’Dour.” We’d read in the hotel lobby guidebook that Youssour N’Dour lived in Dakar and owned a club. The cabbie seemed to understand, began driving, and a few minutes later pulled up in front of an outdoor café.
    “Here is the location of the music that is live?” asked Hand.
    Raymond looked at Hand. Hand needed reining in.
    “Yes, yes,” said the driver, waving us out of the car. “You like, you like.” We got out.
    It looked fine, a French café sort of place, outdoor seating, inside warmly lit. But there was no music at all; just wrought-iron tables and a floor of white tile, a black slate bar with a bowl of Manet oranges. We walked in anyway. We’d get a drink and leave.
    All eyes jumped to us. There were groups of men and groups of women. The men were tourists and the women were local. I went to the bathroom. In the cool small space, walls like a cave’s wet, and brown, I washed my hands with a small piece of round scallop-shaped soap that smelled of home.
    I found Raymond and Hand at a table outside, with two women, lighter than most Senegalese, both with long braided hair. Raymond stood and gave me his chair and grabbed another for himself. The girls surveyed me briefly and looked away. I wanted to tear my face off.
    There were drinks for everyone. I was introduced to the two, whose names I pretended to understand and whose