Abhad nodded soberly. “Did you wish he wasn’t?”
“Khalief, don’t make me answer that. Keep me chained.”
“That is an answer. You’re in love with him.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. You’ve had a powerful effect on me.” She grinned. “You’re fond of James Dexter yourself. I can tell.”
“He’s a rare bird. I’m lucky in him too. But I’ll keep you apart.”
“If I ran away with him, would you kill us both?”
“I would not kill you. I might make you very uncomfortable.” He affected his best Oxford drawl. “After all, y’know, I’m just a savage.”
Caroline shivered deliciously. It was involuntary, without guile. “You’ve infected me.” Her eyes became tender. “That first time I saw you—I wouldn’t have believed . . . !”
“Sure it’s not my unusual endowment?”
“Oh, that’s a part of it all right! Dammit, Khalief, with that cannon pointed her way, no girl’s going to take you lightly. I was wanton before you got me. I’m doubly so now.”
“You can wait ’til we get back to the Residency. I’m damned if I’m going to take off these pin stripes in the car.”
They laughed in their easy intimacy. Then, Caroline suddenly asked. “That uncomfortable thing you spoke of if I was unfaithful . . . ? What would you do to me?”
Khalief Abhad’s smile was wise. “You’re wetting your pants over the thought, aren’t you! I’ll swear, if I don’t horrify you too badly you’ll be tempted to try.”
“Would you have me tortured—mutilated—?”
“I shouldn’t indulge you,” he said affectionately. “But I will.” He picked up the intercom to the driver and gave an order.
Like most public buildings in Zindawba the “Correctional Institute for Females” was impeccably British. Each stone block was a fist shaken admonishingly at human frailty. It was disinfectantly clean, but the interior was most definitely Zindawba. The Matron was everything a Matron should be. She too was of Zindawba.
“A brief look around, Matron. You need not bother. I know the way.”
“Of course, sir. But you’ll need keys.” She handed over a ring. Her manner became diffident. “The young lady, sir? Will she be staying,?”
Caroline blushed. The President boomed appreciation. “Not unless she misbehaves herself on the tour.”
“The shackles, sir. They led to suppose—” They had both forgotten. Once more there was laughter. Caroline felt sorry for the woman’s embarrassment.
“I’m afraid I’m incorrigible,” she admitted demurely. “I’m thinking of having them welded on.”
“If she decides to stay in one of your cells, I’ll let you know on the way out,” the President assured expansively. “Mrs. Dowling would make you a most entertaining prisoner.”
“I am sure she would, sir—”
“Let the Matron guide us, please, Khalief?”
Caroline pleaded impulsively. “I’m sure she’d like to.”
“Thank you, Madam.” The woman was nervous.
“But this is a very personal matter for our President. I would not wish to intrude.”
“What did she mean?” Caroline asked when they were well down the first corridor. “Personal?”
Amidst the stone and the bars Khalief’s chuckle was grim. “There’s several old acquaintances,” he confessed. “I haven’t always been as lucky as I have with you.”
A prison is a prison. It confines those of whom society disapproves. Caroline peered through interminable bars into sad small cells, each with its own sad occupant. They were all female and of all ages. They wore a trim small smock, crisply clean. It was easy for a woman to know it as their only covering. On the younger ones it came with a belt, accentuating feminine waists and busts. They peered back at their visitors without recognition. Caroline decided she preferred the cage in the market place.
“All very drab and ordinary,” Khalief admitted.
“What you are expecting to see is in this next wing.” He used keys. The girl was naked. She was beautiful, possibly a quadroon. She stood in the centre of her cell, her hands crossed and bound behind her back. From the ceiling a rope ended in a noose about her neck as though she was about to be hung. But the rope was slack. It’s function to prevent the girl from sitting or reaching a wall against which to lean. She must perforce stand. Weariness and frustration were in every line and curve of her nudity.
Recognition was instant. Flesh and sinew became vibrant. “Khalief!” The girl took a step towards the bars until the rope upon her neck snubbed her short. She stood, gazing at them, her eyes wide in appeal.
“Her name is Penelope Cranshaw,” said the President blandly. “She was a prominent member of the resistance group who opposed my regime. On one occasion she fired a shot in my direction.”
“Khalief, you know I wouldn’t have . . . ! Oh, Khalief, it’s been so long . . . in here . . .”
“We had known each other as friends. I was disappointed.”
“Khalief, forgive me—please! Set me free?”
A firm male hand propelled Caroline forward.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to endure importunities,” he apologised. “Don’t feel too heartbroken about anyone of them. Miss Cranshaw has only two more months to serve.”
“Standing with that rope . . . ?”
“The discomforts are varied daily. It is more humane.”
“That must be awful for her! Just standing . . . !”
“Don’t become a social worker, my dear. Maintain perspective.”
“But she seems so sweet.”
“So would you in similar circumstances. But that young lady shot and wounded several of my men.”
Caroline choked back remonstrance. She was not Elizabeth Fry, and this was not the U.S.A. It was Zindawba. A stranger seeing her chained in the cage might have supposed her scarred for life, but she had endured the exposure with some zest and a secret thrill.
“This one used a knife, but the wound was not deep,” Abhad was saying affably. “Mrs. Dowling, may I present Miss Nancy Mogewba.”
This girl too was naked. It appeared that all the President’s former enemies were beautiful—and female! Miss Mogewba was collared against the cell wall, standing. Her right ankle was chained to the stone well above the floor, compelling her to a stork-like dependence on one foot. She too looked tired. “Yo’ come to make mock o’ Nancy,” she accused without any trace of hope. “I should have killed yo’ sure.”
“Miss Mogewba and I share a small pleasantry,” Abhad said drily. “She is to remain here until she can forget homicide. She has been our guest for seven months, a most dedicated girl.”
“He fix yo’ like this someday, woman,” Nancy prophesied darkly. “Yo’ already got chains. He no good for girls.”
“A simple confession and an oath of loyalty, my dear? Then freedom.” The President was magnanimity personified.
“Fuck yo’!”
“She is not a lady,” said Khalief regretfully. “A good upbringing would have made a great difference. I am afraid she will stand on one leg a long time.”
“You’ll really keep her like that until she breaks?”
“It will not be more than a few months longer. Her discomforts are scheduled to become less tolerable. When she thinks no one watches she weeps. The Matron is very competent.”
“Khalief, you make me shiver. Good gosh—!”
“Want the daylight? We can—”
“No! We’re here. I may as well—” Caroline detected his knowing smile. “So all right! I get wet pants out of this too. I picture myself in one of these cells. Am I depraved?”
“Just a female being honest, and delightfully herself.”
“If I thought it wouldn’t annoy you I’d ask you to let them all loose. They’re so young, and so lovely . . .”
“This female distributes pamphlets and makes speeches—”
“She’s white!”
“A misguided member of the Woman’s Liberation Movement from the United States. She decided to embroil herself in Zindawba’s affairs. Before she was, er, sequestered she had managed to infect many impressionable young. Her name is Harriet Stapleton. The name ‘Harriet’ has always struck me as—”