Free You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers Page B

limp hands I held momentarily and dropped. They looked about twenty, twenty-two. They were sisters and I felt again, as so many times with Hand and Jack, like deadweight, alone.
    “They’re from Sierra Leone,” said Raymond.
    “Refugees,” added Hand.
    They were just short of glorious, with large dark eyes and crooked, oversized teeth. Raymond and Hand were trying to speak French with them.
    “We speak little French,” the older one said. “Speak English. In Sierra Leone we speak English.”
    “So you are liking it here in the Dakar?” Hand asked.
    Raymond looked at him like he was nuts.
    “What?” said the younger. The younger was taller.
    “Dakar. Do you like it,” Raymond said, annoyed.
    “Yes. It’s good.”
    The older one nodded. Hand ordered more drinks and then leaned toward them. He was about to dig in.
    “So what’s the situation like in Sierra Leone now? Is Charles Taylor still lurking around? I should know this, I guess, but it’s been a while since I read about it. Have you seen any of the violence around the diamond trade?”
    They looked dumbfounded, turning to Raymond for reason, as if he might translate. Hand continued:
    “What did you do for a living? Are you students? When did you guys leave? I mean, are your parents still there?”
    The sisters looked at each other.
    “What?” the older said, smiling.
    “Your parents? In Sierra Leone?”
    “Yes. Live there.”
    “So how old are you two?” Raymond asked.
    —Raymond, you’re callous and cheap.
    —I’ve seen more than you.
    —That means nothing.
    —It means everything.
    —It’s the laziest excuse of all.
    “What?” the girl said.
    “How old are you?” Raymond repeated.
    The older one, to whom Raymond had directed the question, laughed and looked at her sister. Her sister shook her head. She didn’t understand.
    “How many years are you?” Hand tried.
    The older held up her hands in a “Stop” sort of motion, closed them, then did it again.
    “Twenty,” Hand said.
    She nodded.
    “And her?” Hand motioned to the sister.
    She did it again, with eight fingers on the second flash.
    “Eighteen.”
    She shook her head vigorously, laughing. Then she flashed the fingers again. Eighteen.
    “Eighteen.”
    “No!”
    This went on for a while. Raymond laughed.
    “Your English is not very good, is it?” Hand said.
    “What?” she said.
    Raymond said it in French. His French was amazing.
    “Speak English!” the girl said. “We are from Sierra Leone!”
    Where was this going? No one could know. I wasn’t listeninganymore, and each girl began concentrating on one man—the younger on Hand, the older on Raymond.
    I watched the sidewalk over the café’s low hedge. The place was stocked with chubby European or American men, mostly middle-aged and cheerful, patient. Some had garnered the attentions of the available women, others waited with friends, hands cupped around tall glassed beers. By the door was a man with no legs, sitting on a mat.
    Now the younger sister was laughing about something Hand said, making a point of grabbing his arm with both hands and burying her head in his shoulder to demonstrate the great mirth he’d generated. Hand rolled his eyes to me like a cat had jumped into his lap. More drinks were ordered.
    “So we go to disco now?” the older said to Raymond.
    Hand and Raymond looked at each other, then at me. I shrugged. They reminded me of twins I’d known at La Crosse, sisters who knew their skin was more perfect than the rest of ours, and who were very forgiving of the white boys’ many fumbling entreaties. These sisters, the Sierra Leonians, had the same bright but complicated smiles.
    “No,” said Hand, “I think we’ll go home. To the hotel.” It was clearly a lie. He extended his hand to his younger one. She and her sister stood up and glared at me and went back to the bar.
    “Let’s go,” said Raymond.
    When we’d been all together, and when I’d assumed Hand would ask me if it was