Chapter 1

 

A clerk emerged from the doorway of the Administrator's office into the hot sunlight and surveyed the queue of of hopeful suppliants who waited as usual in the dusty mud-walled courtyard. He was a tall well set young man, cocky with a sense of his superior position. Like all public officials in Bamba in these post-Catastrophe days anxious to demonstrate their rejection of Western influences, he wore traditional dress. The billowing spotlessly white cotton gown gave his bare head and neck the semblance of an ebony carving as he ran his gaze down the queue.

Amongst the row of would-be petitioners seated patiently on wooden benches along the wall, one stood out instantly. The only European among them she chose that moment to lean forward in her place as if to make sure she caught his eye. She was a pretty woman still in her mid twenties, fair hair in a tightly plaited bun, her shapely figure enhanced by the skimpiness of her blue cotton dress with large white buttons down the front and worn with white high-heeled sandals. She had worn it every day that she turned up here. Clothing made of artificial fibres had had largely failed to survive the side effects of the Catastrophe, and since this had never been a cotton growing area, replacement cottons were now expensive. He guessed she probably had nothing else fit to wear. He knew her name, Angela Kerr and her history. She had been some sort of organiser for an American educational charity which had recently expanded into this area. She had been inspecting school buildings for the charity and had been stranded here by accident, penniless and with only a few words of French, and none of the local languages. Being able to speak foreign languages wasn't something one boasted in public just now. Idly he wondered if that was why the woman Ms Kerr lodged with didn't come along to translate? That one was an English speaker, but a crafty business woman he had heard, married into a local family and probably too wary, to get involved in a hopeless case. He saw how the rest of the queue, mainly women in billowing colourful robes and elaborately twisted turbans with a few old men in white gowns or the ragged shirt and shorts of bush pagans, looked askance at their white neighbour. In their eyes she had once been rich and powerful, but now reduced to poverty and powerlessness she was the very symbol of bad luck.

Since the Catastrophe, hysteria had been the common reaction to the totality of disaster, no-one could quite assimilate its dramatic inevitability and here where superstition had never really been eradicated, the outsider was a natural scapegoat. The clerk hardly needed the woman's forward motion to draw his attention. He knew her well enough. She had been waiting here a week already, hoping for a travel permit. She really had no hope. He knew she was penniless, the funds that once been available to Ms Angela Kerr seeming so lavish by local standards were now only memories of a banking system rendered meaningless. Very probably any other clothing that had survived had been sold for food or to pay her rent. Properly the white woman should have lined up with the rest of the starving refugees to be fed by public charity. The clerk supposed she had been slow to realise the extent of the disaster thinking that order and credit could be restored.

Bamba had been fortunate. Its Administrator had been quick to block access by refugees from the more thickly populated areas further south and only a few such filtered through the desert from the north. Being on the margins of the desert the crops the local peasants grew with traditional unmechanised methods were salt tolerant and so the disaster of the salt rain had been less fatal than elsewhere. The floods had flushed fish and shrimps from the old lakes into new environments where they quickly multiplied. With care the peasants would save enough seed to replant next year and the fortuitous fish harvest would tide over the population until then. Meanwhile the roads were closed and the movement of trading boats up and downriver closely controlled lest they spread the word and start a flood of refugees.

As if conscious of the clerk's interest the European woman visibly tensed. His dark eyes met her blue ones. An administration still existed in Bamba, paper was still being shuffled as if all was normal. Probably nothing seemed impossible to her. No doubt she still hoped things could be arranged. A hope the clerk decided he would encourage. This time his eyes didn't slide past with contemptuous indifference. He beckoned. With undignified haste Angela Kerr sprang up from the bench ignoring the scowls from all about her to followed the tall white gowned figure, her heart suddenly thudding. Over long weeks of waiting her ideas of what was possible had in fact undergone a drastic change. Originally she had intended to petition for assistance in quashing the ridiculous financial claims being made upon her, and for the restoration of her stolen vehicle and equipment, but reality had forced itself slowly upon her. By now she had narrowed her aim. She only wanted to escape from this place to somewhere more civilised.

The clerk didn't pause in the inner office where she had always previously been interviewed, but swept straight through the crowd of scribbling clerks, idling orderlies and babbling petitioners, towards a door in the rear. Despite having to scuttle to keep up with his stride, Angela didn't fail to take in the inscription announcing it to be the Administrator's private office. For a moment she thought she was going to get an interview with the great man himself and quailed a little thinking of her dusty hair and worn out dress. Then she remembered she had seen the man depart not an hour before with his usual grim expression and a half dozen orderlies trotting at his heels. To judge by the clerk's confident air before his fellows this young man must have been left in charge and she hoped by his swagger, inclined to take liberties with his borrowed authority. Hope sprang high as she followed him into his master's inner sanctum.

It was remarkably workmanlike. She knew the Administrator to be an aesthetic type, a former minister in an anti-western government displaced in a political coup and exiled to run this back of beyond dump. Since the trauma of the Catastrophe he had kept a tight hand upon the administration by what she had heard were unorthodox and sometimes ruthless methods. Unusually, his clerks were said to be afraid to take bribes and to follow the rules with excessive zeal, but Angela's instincts picked up the air of reckless excitement in the young man she followed. In Bamba since the Catastrophe erratic behaviour had become normal. This might be her last chance. She was even encouraged by the conspiratorial air with which he shut the door behind her. A solid piece of timber it cut off the chatter of voices completely. The private office was spacious if sparsely furnished, with a cool tiled floor and tall windows admitting a refreshing breeze from the palm grove beyond. An electric fan hung motionless from the ceiling, useless in the absence of power. Green metal filing cabinets stood against the walls and framed maps above them. The only item of grandeur was a large finely carved mahogany desk its polished top neatly set with papers and files, behind which the the clerk now seated himself. He gazed expectantly at Angela.

He was younger than she had thought. Perhaps he was the Administrator's confidential clerk. She noted uneasily that out of sight below the desk top his hands were busy.

"Je suis Madame Angela Kerr she began. "Je suis er..." She endeavoured to conceal her weariness. She should have her resume off by heart now, she had been made to repeat it so often to so many unresponsive faces.

"You wish a permit to depart this place."he interrupted in English. Her spirits lifted. At least this one had decided not to play that particular game. Of course he already knew. They all did. All that time wasted upon clerks who pretended not to understand her rudimentary French. In English and to the point! Leave this place indeed she did. If only she could reach the capital. There must be consulates or at least people who knew of her, organisations to assist people like herself. She was growing desperate. She had seen the hungry and ;penniless in Bamba some of them European refugees, fed on a meagre dole of grain, resented by the locals as a burden. She had heard horrifying tales of how the soldiers in charge of them kept order with beatings and barbarity. It was said that most European refugees died or were murdered in trying to cross the desert from the north. She couldn't keep these thoughts from appearing in her face.

The clerk examined her shrewdly. No jewellery, her ears pierced but no earrings. As he had thought she would be desperate. She had no future here in Bamba and would only fall deeper into the hands of whoever was providing for her. He licked his lips. "Msieu le chef. Il sont fait un tour des environs.. Angela nodded desperately guessing at his meaning.

"I... command here." he asserted in English and Angela nodded again, almost making it a bow, hoping to convey respectful awe of his alleged power, wondering what he could be persuaded to do with it, eager to flatter. Frowning the clerk drummed his fingers on the desk. "Perhaps I fix permit for you to go on boat."

There! Angela dug her nails into her palms endeavouring not to betray how much excitement she felt. Free of supervision he was reverting to type. She knew all about bribes to minor officials she had been handing them out almost daily during her inspection. A few banknotes passed and every obstacle disappeared. She almost felt triumph until she remembered her situation. Her heart had lifted at his words but the trouble was that she had nothing left that would make a worthwhile bribe. Really, only cotton clothing and foodstuffs were of any account in Bamba. Refugees struggling south, selling gold and jewellery at desperation prices had depreciated their value and in any case hers had been sold already to pay for her keep.

"Much payment I think." The clerk wiped his lips with a white handkerchief. Nervous about this petty scam Angela supposed. In another place and time an official would merely have named the sum and taken it in banknotes. Her heart sank as she remembered she would have to pay her way on the river boat too, unless she could persuade the clerk to add an official passage to the permit. Any trouble here would probably get to the ears of her principal creditor Moussa Abeyou who she knew had connections everywhere. Trembling with secret resentment she could only throw herself upon this young clerk's mercy.

"Please. I must get away from here. My hostess insists that I owe her for my keep and the owner of the school building claims I am responsible for the rent. I'll starve here if I don't get away. That beast of a woman has sold all my clothes just as pay for feeding me." Angela dabbed at her tears without concealment feeling a display of feminine weakness would serve her better than a stiff upper lip.

Quite well fed too, the clerk thought to himself admiring her curves, her tears only stimulating a lubricious calculation. Then his eyes bulged as she suddenly began to undo the buttons on her dress.

"Does the permit.. I mean... will I get a free passage? Intent upon what she was doing she missed the licking of his lips as she fumbled in her bosom and fished out a small purse from between the swell of her breasts. "This is all the money I have she said hopefully. Her anxious gaze caught the direction of his interest and she reddened furiously, thrusting the sweat stained wad of local banknotes towards him. The clerk admired the way that blushes spread upon a white skin and wondered how far down they went. He resolved to find out. Angela continued to blush. She was used to attracting lustful men but this time she was unable to choose just to brush it aside or walk away. Not least because she wanted so desperately what it was in his power to give her.

His eyes barely flickering to the notes, the clerk fended them away. "This kind money not sufficing." Local currency was still used for small transactions though only grudgingly, so it was a valid objection. Angela fumbled helplessly to restore the purse to its hiding place. Oddly she felt ashamed as if she had tried to cheat him. Tears started and her emotion made her breasts heave within the still unbuttoned front of her dress where the swelling curves showed a hint of lace. She was having difficulty getting the purse back inside.

"Money never mind." the clerk burst out, his eyes showing the whites with the intensity of his desire. "You make love with me, I fix. Give permit, no money." The words made Angela swallow hard, shame uppermost in her mind. Her eye went to the closed door then to the window where only blue sky showed amid moving green leaves. She couldn't pretend she hadn't understood. The proposal so crudely put should have made her flee but she stood paralysed by her dilemma, revulsion vying with need. The clerk stood up and she gave a start at finding him suddenly over topping her. "You give me good fuck. I give you permit and free passage also."

She had left it too long to pretend she hadn't been considering it. Nor could she deny the addition would solve both her problems.

"I like to have white lady," the black man grinned hugely. "White ladies hot stuff."

She wasn't that kind. Angela objected to herself thinking indignantly of some expats she had met. Nevertheless she cast a last glance at the door.

"No one come, no one hear"

No doubt it was meant as a reassurance but she saw it nervously another way. If she screamed and fought now, would anyone come to her rescue? She looked at his big black hands on the desk top. Would she be allowed to escape? She dithered, knowing that every second she delayed made it more inevitable that she would do what he desired. A few minutes unpleasantness she reasoned would set her free. A few minutes against what might happen to her if she remained trapped and helpless in Bamba.

"Come." the clerk urged. "Quick. I good fuck. Fuck many girls. Very good, very hard."

"What if someone comes." Angela suggested, gesturing.

"I fix." he held up a key triumphantly. She hadn't even realised it, but her retreat had been cut off all the time. "Let me have the permit." she said. There she had done it.

"Fuck first then I give you permit." he bargained out of habit. "How do I know?" Angela countered blushing in shame but determined. The young Bamban stared angrily, but finding her unshaken caved in with a shrug. He rattled a drawer open, dragged out a pad and wrote furiously, began to give it to her, then checked and finding a stamp pad and stamp, banged it down a couple of times and waved it at her grinning.

She took it and glanced about her, suddenly deflated. " Where do... Here...?"

The clerk seized the files on his superior's desk and shifted them hastily, dropping half the papers on the floor. " Here." A large hand recklessly swept the rest of the papers after them and then "Wait." the man checked Angela hastily. "Take all off. I fuck you like on movies. White girls all fuck naked." As if carried away by his own idea he was already tearing at the neck of his own garment. "Vite! Vite!" He had paid in advance and expected immediate action. Hastily stuffing the precious permit into her little purse the truth struck through Angela's reluctance and impelled her into shamed acquiescence. Cold sweat had trickled down between her shoulder blades and the insides of her thighs, seeming to have plastered her dress to her skin and making things more difficult than expected.. She struggled with the usually automatic process of undressing.

"See, I help." The expected beneficiary made a clumsy lunge.

"No! No!" Angela scrabbled at the clinging fabric clumsy with vexation but unable to allow herself the luxury of hesitation. She almost whipped the dress off at last, and dropped it on top of the papers strewn on the floor. Blushing nervously she stood in pale blue bra and knickers her eyes going instinctively to the man for a reaction, then registering a reaction of her own. Stripped of all his clothes he stood by the desk like an ebony statue, his tall frame full of muscle displaying tribal scars as proudly as any pagan warrior ancestor. White teeth gleaming he cradled in one fist the thing that had startled her. She had heard of the expression 'hung like a donkey'. He had a penis like a length of dusky hosepipe. She stood as if transfixed the transformation was so dramatic, from modestly gowned clerk to naked rampant warrior. Fortunately the Bamban seemed to take this as a tribute. He beamed in conceit.

"Ahhh, you see it is so big. You will be well fucked eh?"

Flight was no longer an option. Standing there in her underwear shivering a little as an unexpected draught goose-pimpled her sweat damp skin, Angela tried to control her emotions. His boastful vanity irritated her. She didn't see much enjoyment in the prospect of being penetrated by that thing, but she had to go through with it. That was all there was to it.

"Come woman. Make all naked." her undesired partner was getting impatient now that the prize was nearly in his grasp and she saw that her dithering was irritating him. With her precious permit in her purse, she still had to get out safely . Fearing that rising impatience might lead to direct action and lose her the purse along with her remaining garments, she hastened to appease him. With downcast eyes she reached back to the fastenings of her bra and quickly unclipped it,, feeling the nipples prick and stiffen in the cool exposure allowing her breasts to tumble free, heavy and bare on her ribcage. She stooped self consciously holding an arm across her breasts as they swung forward and dropped the flimsy blue scrap on top of her dress. She tried to slip out of the briefs with equal celerity but the damp material clung more obstinately to her bare curves. Balanced awkwardly on one leg she got them caught in a twist about her calves. She was very conscious of the erotic spectacle she must present, reddened and panting, bent over in the struggle, with her naked breasts swinging wildly and made more clumsy by the almost physical effect of the man's eyes upon her. In the end she tore the worn material irreparably before she got them off and straightened before the desk as naked as the man facing her. Despite her resignation to events her hands fluttered before her, conscious of being a target for his eyes. Her own eyes slid quickly away from the sight of his penis springing from an enclosing fist like an emerging snake, but as he started round the desk she stepped hastily towards it. Better to get it over with.

"You give me good fuck." It sounded enough like a threat to unnerve her with its implied demand for enthusiasm. She dithered again as he loomed up jiggling his penis shrinking back, but was fielded by a far-reaching male arm. Swung back up against the desk end, she scrabbled behind her, found a hard edge and hoisted herself up, assisted by a heave from him so enthusiastic that it threw her flat on her back, arms flung wide and legs kicking. With the desktop having been in full sunlight it was like landing on a griddle. Her reaction must have looked like an attempt to escape for the brawny Bamban slapped her back down with surprising violence. Seeing his angry glare she prudently submitted. Clutching the decoratively carved edges of the desk to either side of her she closed her eyes and spread her legs wide, hoping he would be quick. Suitably appeased he grunted approvingly and lifted her legs, hands under her knees pushing them upwards. Angela submitted to his designs fearing to annoy him further, even though she gave him no encouragement either. She felt the curve of her bottom just poised on the hard edge of the desk as she lay on her back awaiting his assault.