F Campbell - Chain of Jedrah

“Do you have a sister?” asked Mr. Boshan.

With the cigars, both slave girls came into their own, they began to earn their daily bread. Each had been briefed. Their ankle chains clinked constantly as they flitted back and forth with the brandy, the cigars and the ashtrays. It was a beautiful little cameo Rannah had coached. Their movements were studied and gracefully stylized. When not actively engaged, they stood erect and waiting at each end of the room, their hands behind their backs so that their breasts attained their full contour and the nipple rings hung free. There were penalties for failure. Even Stacie had been promised a whipping if she failed to please. The threat did not worry her; she felt secure in all that she was.

But it worried Suzie. “I’m scared to death,” she confided in a whisper when they were together at the serving table. “I’m not as good at this as you. Besides . . . he’s . . . he’s impossible.”

How to console! Stacie could think of nothing but lies, the truth might be more than Suzie could handle. She saw herself as gloriously fortunate by comparison. Her soul revolted at the thought of being taken to Mr. Boshan’s “My Country” as a plaything for one of these men. It would be best for Suzie to put on a poor performance and be rejected. Rannah’s whip might be preferable to what she now faced. She was almost glad their brief moments side by side forbade her telling all she knew. But she need not have worried: Fate is always there! A slave girl in serving her masters must kneel, she does not stand. To proffer a small tray and whatever was upon it is most elegantly done by falling to one knee before the lordly male, eyes discreetly veiled so they neither impart or receive a message. It is not normally a hard thing to do. But when the serving girl’s ankles are chained it is no longer easy, it becomes both difficult and hazardous. The number of links between the anklets of the two girls were barely sufficient to make it even possible.

Stacie had mastered the art. Rannah had compelled her.

In any case she was by nature graceful and had a will to excel. Suzie would have had small incentive. She was in trouble from the start. Moreover it was she who must serve the honoured guest. Her distaste and her fear of him helped her not at all.

Amatar Moghere loved to harangue any Assembly of the United Nations into which he could insert his bulk. He now used his host’s lounge as a sounding board. His staff listened with reverence, Yasin nodded gently, his thoughts elsewhere. Rannah’s attention was anxiously but unobtrusively upon the two slave girls, one of which was unwittingly the raison d’être for the gathering.

“We have reached that point in time . . .” Mr. Moghere declaimed sonorously. “When, with the armaments of our allies we may sweep clean this continent of its polluting white -”

It was at this precise point that Suzie dropped the glass on his trousers. The glass was full of gin!

It is quite possible that Mr. Moghere’s desolation may have been considerably modified by this fortuitous proof of Caucasian decadence. It put a neat period on his sentiment. Unfortunately it also put a large and spreading wetness on his trousers. Stacie longed to giggle. Suzie did! Pure nervous hysteria, but ill timed.

“Let us whip her here where we may all enjoy her punishment,” said Mr. Moghere magnanimously.

In the flurry of servants and the brandishing of towels and napkins Suzie managed to get both her knees on the carpet, she buried her face in her hands and wept. Stacie and the lady Rannah exchanged glances of despair. The scent of juniper hung menacingly.

“Stop your crying, girl. Make amends. Show our guest you are capable to serve him,” Yasin’s voice held cold authority. For him there was more at stake than a pair of trousers or a slave girl’s bottom.

Both Stacie and her mistress were horrified. But the Master had spoken, neither dared contest his order.

The unfortunate source of the disaster managed to dry her tears and look fearfully around. Taking heart from the absence of cane or whip she stumbled to her feet. Showing about the same enthusiasm as Ann Boleyn approaching the headsman’s block she went forward to retrieve her honour. Stacie poured the drink and placed it on the tray.

It says much for Amatar Moghere’s courage and sense of destiny that he did not head for the door to seek refuge in his own particular emergent nation. He sat expectant and beaming. After all, any witch doctor will tell you lightning does not strike twice in the same place . . .

But Suzie and lightning had little in common. This time the falling glass decanted just below the senior Statesman’s vest inundating that portion of his person sometimes referred to modestly as ‘private parts’.

It became immediately evident that this alcoholic invasion of Mr. Moghere’s most secret asset was exacting a toll. He sat erect, his mouth fell, his eyes bulged. He showed all the evidence of acute distress. This time Stacie’s giggle would not be denied. With great presence of mind she held her hands before her face and pretended to weep—no doubt in sympathy for the great man’s pain! Suzie was already shedding copious floods of salt. An anxious aide retrieved the fallen glass. With a horrified exclamation the visiting head of State headed for the door.

Whatever stringencies of economy emerging Nations might be subject to they evidently were not reflected in the wardrobe of its ruler. Amatar Moghere returned resplendent, even to the decorations. The evil effects of alcohol, in the wrong places, no longer to be observed on his features. “Such a thing could never happen in an African State,” he proclaimed with satisfaction.

A stern rebuke from Rannah and an awareness of her Master’s regard cured Stacie of her ill timed hilarity. She busied herself with bottles and glasses and with a considerable flourish delivered their V.I.P. a fresh gin with an obeisance that captured the attention of all. However, while she continued her duties it became all too clear that every eye was focusing on the kneeling, naked, sobbing figure of Suzie in the centre of the floor.

“I think just twenty with a cane across her bottom will be enough,” said Mr. Moghere grandly. “I am a kind man.”

Stacie looked at Rannah askance. Only a girl to whom it has actually happened could know the awfulness of the sentence just pronounced. There was an excited susurration of talk among the men, Mohammad Yasin sat frowning, the tempo of Suzie’s weeping intensified. Mr. Moghere sipped his drink, happily expectant of entertainment to come.

For Stacie Blair it was one more graphic emphasis on her slavery. She felt a righteous compulsion to rise to the defense of the lonely girl kneeling in her grief without a friend, but she knew it useless and unwise. It might add to the punishment, certainly it would get her punished too. She was impotent. She was slave. She was unhappily aware that Yasin would have forgiven the first blunder. But in deference to his guest, and in hope of retrieving lost ground, he could scarcely forgive the second. Suzie’s sentence as pronounced by his visitor would stand.

It seemed that by mutual consent the weeping delinquent would be allowed to return to the world in her own time and in her own way. Possibly there was curiosity as to how she would comport herself in contemplation of what was to be done to her. Suzie took her time. When she emerged from behind her hands she used them on her tear drenched cheeks as she looked from one to the other of the intent faces as though seeking a friend and champion. She received a wide lipped smile from Mr. Moghere and a cold absence of expression from Mohammad Yasin. Inevitably her pleading eyes came to rest on Stacie and Rannah. Rannah knelt before her parent. “Please, Lord, may we counsel her, the child needs guidance?”