After that exchange I knew Chidi and I were okay. He still considered me a friend. As we walked away from the security post I realised for the first time how quiet the place was and how dark. I doubled my steps to keep up with him, and to break the silence I said, “Sarfoa has her Adowa dance class here on Saturdays.”

“I know, she told me.”

“And thanks for defending me to her.”

He stopped by a cactus plant and took a picture of it.

“You’re like that.”

I looked at the plant and then back at him. “I’m like a cactus?”

“There’s a nicer person under all the thorns or spikes or whatever it is that a cactus has.”

“Technically those are types of modified leaves. They are called spines.”

“See, you can’t even take a compliment,” he said in disgust.

“Calling me a cactus is a compliment?”

“Shush,” he whispered. “You’ll wake up the animals.”

We had emerged out of the bush path and were in the zoo, at least the portion that had the huge trees that the bats slept in. Chidi knew his way around and I followed him trying to make as little noise as possible. He set up the stand in front of the elephant enclosure with the lens directly on the metal fence.

“Aren’t you too close? Won’t the fence show in the picture? It would look like a jigsaw puzzle.”

“Because I’m really close, the mesh won’t show in the picture. It will be out of focus.”

I didn’t know how that worked since the lens was resting right on the fence but he seemed so engrossed in what he was doing that I left it at that.

I sat on a small ledge that ran around the enclosure and wondered if the metal fence was strong enough to protect us from the elephants in case there was a stampede. I didn’t even know if three adult elephants and one baby elephant breaking out of a cage qualified as a stampede.

Chidi worked slowly but methodically. He adjusted the over a thousand and one knobs on his camera and placed a red screen over the lens, then he came to sit by me.

“I thought you were going to take pictures.”

“Timing is everything.”

“So what exactly are you waiting for? I thought it was easier to shoot stationary subjects.”

“You know that expression, ‘The eyes are the windows to the soul,’ right?”

I nodded.

“I need them to come close enough so I can take a shot where they’re either looking directly into the camera or close by.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you ever seen a picture and wondered what the person was thinking about just by looking at their faces?”

“I guess so. But these are animals.”

“Same difference.”

As if it had been listening to us, the baby elephant wandered over to the fence where Chidi had set up his equipment. He went to stand behind it, adjusted his knobs some more and took shot after shot after shot.

I left him and wandered around to the enclosure next to the elephants where the lions were.

Chidi caught up with me at the lion enclosure and set up his gear again. There were three cubs who were wrestling with each other and I was sure he was going to get some nice shots from there.

When he’d got enough shots we toured the zoo together keeping well away from the security post.

There were turtles and crocodiles, an aviary, camels and donkeys, peacocks, different types of deer and antelope, warthogs and pigs, monkeys and chimpanzees.

All around the zoo signs had been placed warning visitors not to feed the animals and not to try to touch them.

I yawned when we got to the snake section. Chidi checked the time. It was almost 3:30 a.m.

“We should be getting back,” he said.

I nodded. I was sleepy. Maybe it was all the fresh night air.

I couldn’t help myself, I yawned again.

We went back through the bush path to the Cultural Centre. When we got to the clump of bushes which had the cacti, he set his equipment down on the ground, got an empty black polythene rubber bag that had been caught in the clump of bushes and dug out one of the smaller cactus plants. He put a little soil around it and gave it to me.

“A memento.”

“Thanks.”

He picked up his gear and I followed him out of the Centre.

I must have dozed in the car because the next thing I knew he was waking me up. We were at my house. I slipped inside and locked up. My phone beeped as soon as I got into bed.

Do you know that cactuses exchange C02 for O2 at night?

I texted back.

No I didn’t.

I’d have sed u were lyk a rose bt roses r so ova rated. Be-sides I lyk cactuses and ones u get past their thorns their 9ice bits r 9ice. Plus their hardy n resilient n low-mainte-nance. Plus there rnt any roses in the zoo. Plus they have some really unique flowers.

I texted back.

I think roses are over rated too and who knows I might learn to like cacti. sleep tite. Thx for e company. Thanks for taking me. I had a nice time.