After a few minutes, Ana and her ward stood up and strolled along the calm city streets in the direction Ferhana assured led back to the Brothel. More of the city was awaking, but it still had a very sleepy atmosphere. A few cafés had opened with tables outside sheltering customers under parasols from the harsh midday sun. Many seemed very young and several had newspapers on the table piled in front of them. As they passed by one café, Ferhana suddenly exclaimed: “Well, look who is here!”

“Who?” Ana wondered following the long purple arm pointing towards a table at the Café des Jeunes, where a teenage boy in a black leather jacket and jeans was sitting alone smoking a cigarette and idly watching people go by. At least, she thought it was a boy - perhaps an old boyfriend of Ferhana’s from her earlier life - but she became aware that it was in fact Zabba, who had seemingly not yet bothered to start reading the newspaper in front of her.

“Why, hi there!” Zabba greeted them as they strode towards her. “Have you finished your sentence already?”

“Not at all,” the black girl replied. “I’ve just been given leave to go to the cathedral, looked after by Ana here. We were on our route back to the Brothel.”

“Well, I’m sure you don’t have to hurry. Come on sit down. I’ll buy you some coffee.”

Before Ana had the opportunity to decide whether this was what she really wanted to do, Ferhana was sitting on a chair next to Zabba, so she joined them.

Zabba held up three fingers to the waiter, and shouted out “More cappuccino, Jason. You like cappuccino, don’t you Ana?” She nodded, though she mostly only drank instant coffee or tea. Zabba smiled as the waiter hastened away. “Doing a bit of overtime? You are keen! I hope Ferhana’s been behaving herself?”

“She’s been very well behaved.”

“Like a saint!” added Ferhana good-humouredly.

“Well, you would be if you’ve been to church. Me, I’ve got no time for religion, but I guess if I were a prisoner like Ferhana here I’d take any opportunity there was to get away from the Brothel. It must be awful being stuck there all day.” She drew on her cigarette, saw that she was very nearly inhaling on the filter and stubbed it out. Ana noticed that the cigarette packet was for an expensive imported brand sporting a health warning which was never printed on Alif cigarette packets. “In fact, I’d hate to be like Ferhana or your friend, Binta. All that hard work and nothing to show for it! Mind you I’d never dream of doing it unless I got paid pretty damned well for it. Much better than you, Ana. I’m sometimes hard pushed to spend all of it.”

“You do not have to make me feel bad,” commented Ferhana.

“Well, it’s not as if you’d not made a fair bit yourself when you were dealing in alcohol. I’ve met some of your old friends and they told me how well you were doing. It might not have been legit, but you didn’t pay taxes and you were at least as well off then as I am now!”

“That was in the past, Zabba. When you were still at school, studying for exams and playing games in the school playground.”

“Less of the studying and more of the playing games I’m afraid, Ferhana dear. I was a dreadful schoolgirl you know. If I’d been better at school maybe I’d never have been so keen on taking up this trade. But then lots of the other girls and boys who studied ever so hard, and might even be going onto university: they’re never going to be earning nearly as much as me. So who’s the mug?”

“Did you take up prostitution because you weren’t a good student?” speculated Ana.

“Well...! That was one reason. But actually I didn’t think about it until I was faced with the choice of staying on at school or being unemployed. Both options seemed rather awful. Some of my friends are unemployed and living with their parents, and all they ever do is argue with them all the time. And there’s no money at all in unemployment. Then I saw the brochures for the Brothel in the school careers’ library. They weren’t exactly prominently displayed. No one could claim that my school encouraged me. Although it’s perfectly legal, it’s still treated like a dark secret. But of course everyone - especially the boys! - liked to read the Brothel literature. And I suppose the school was obliged to supply the stuff. I thought it was a real joke: all the business about PAR and pensions and opportunities for work abroad. Join a Brothel and feel a man, as the joke goes! But I didn’t know what to do, so I went along to the recruitment office at the Brothel...”

“Recruitment office?”

“Of course! Haven’t you seen it, Ana? It’s not by the Brothel’s entrance. That’s for the clients. It’s round the back. Sometimes Khedra’s there, but usually there are just prostitutes doing a bit of overtime. When I went there, the woman who chatted to me was only a Gamma, and I bet she doesn’t earn much! But she got really enthusiastic about working in the Brothel. Well, I suppose she had to be. She probably gets some kind of commission for the girls she recruits. She made it sound really good: swimming pool, garden, paid holidays, bonuses and good pay. I thought if a girl like her can get so much out of it: what would I get? But what really made me go into the profession was when she provisionally estimated that my rating would be at least a Beta Plus or an Alpha Minus. I saw what rates those grades got, and it just looked like an absolute fortune to me. And of course I’ve actually been rated as an Alpha. I asked her: how can a girl like me with no figure and no breasts get such a high rating? Was the Brothel that short of talent? Well, she told me, if I cut my hair and dressed right then the sky would be the limit! And as they say, the rest is history.”

“It must be very strange to dress and look like a boy all the time. What can your customers be thinking?”

“Don’t be so naïve, Ana!” laughed Zabba, lighting another cigarette as the waiter returned with three milky coffees on a tray and placed them decorously on the table. “Thanks Jason! ... No. That’s exactly what they want. The more like a boy I am the happier they are. Their biggest disappointment is that I’m not one for real, but why should I care what they think.”

“But what about other people? Those who aren’t customers?”

“It doesn’t bother me what they think either! But actually, - and I’m sure I shouldn’t be saying this, but I know you’re great chums with Binta, - I actually rather like it. Girls often think I’m a boy and it makes it much easier for me to get on with them initially...”

Ana felt an uncomfortable bounce in her chest. Ferhana sipped on her coffee and made no comment, while Zabba drew on her cigarette. “You don’t mind girls thinking that?”

“Of course not! In fact, Ana, I have a lot more in common with your friend Binta than you seem to realise. The only difference is that she’s been caught and I haven’t.”

“Do you mean that you’re a ... you’re someone who ... that you ...?”

Ferhana put down her coffee and smiled reassuringly at Ana. “It’s not that uncommon you know, Ana,” she remarked. “Zabba’s just someone who’s interested in women as well as men.”

“Does that make you, like Binta, someone who is, as they say...?”

Zabba put a hand on Ana’s wrist. “Don’t say it out loud. Someone might hear you. But of course I am. I’m just not exclusive like Binta. There’s nothing wrong with it, whatever President Marmeluke and his prudish government might say. It doesn’t get you pregnant. It doesn’t spread diseases. And I’m a lot more choosy with the women in my life than I can ever be with the men. Don’t act so shocked. If Binta does it, why shouldn’t I?”

Ana smiled weakly. She was being revealed to attitudes she couldn’t comprehend. A world where women loved women and men preferred making love to boys. And how could someone as lovely as Binta really be remotely like the crude and disturbingly androgynous Zabba.

“So, Ana, are you enjoying life at the Brothel?” Zabba asked. “Is it the sort of place you always wanted to work at?”

Ana shook her head. “I thought I’d be working in a more conventional office.”

“I bet you did! But it’s definitely an eye-opener for you, I’m sure. Prostitutes, pimps and sex. You don’t get that in most offices. It’s more like a factory than an office block if you ask me. Girls like me are on a conveyer belt of sexual diversion. We’re nothing more than live meat as far as the punters are concerned, with clothes to stimulate the punters’ rather poor imaginations and holes to be filled. Or do you have a more positive image, Ana dear?”

Zabba’s views were curiously disloyal for someone who had chosen prostitution as a career.

“Don’t you like working at the Brothel?”

Zabba laughed - slightly cruelly, Ana thought. “Of course I don’t. Do you think I would ever voluntarily put myself through all that groping and mauling for fun? It’s just a job for me! I take it you’re not a great fan of prostitution yourself?”

“Not really. But I don’t really have much to do with what happens in the Brothel.”

“I suppose we’re just so much data on your databases. Each of us with our individual serial numbers and a set of attributes like our PAR and years of service. We might as well be tins of baked beans or factory tools.” Zabba laughed. “I can never forget my serial number. I have to key it in every time I enter or leave the building. I can see why I have to enter it when I leave. It’s so that people like Ferhana here and your nudist friend don’t just saunter out of the building. I don’t really understand why I have to enter it when I go in. Who’s going to try sneaking into the Brothel if they don’t have to? Unless they’re paying customers of course. And what about your boss?”

“You mean the Director?”

“The Pimple we call him. Fairly obvious of course - he is the Big Pimp in the Brothel and he looks like some kind of obnoxious pimple. Do you get on with him?”

“He seems all right,” Ana commented unconvincingly.

“Me, I hate him! You don’t like him either do you, Ferhana?”

Ferhana smiled softly. “I’d rather not say what I think about him.”

“Too unladylike for you, I suppose! I think he’s absolutely disgusting. He smells like a fag end, dresses like the big villain in an amateur pantomime and he keeps pawing my bum. I’m fortunate his tastes don’t stray very far from the conventional. If there’s anyone at the Brothel I’d like to see come to a sorry end, it’s the Pimple, preferably by a particularly revolting species of venereal disease. Don’t you think he’s revolting, Ana?”

Ana didn’t want to express a too negative opinion about someone she had to work with every day, but she did get very tired of his habit of touching her on the shoulders and around the bottom. His humour was rather tasteless and unsympathetic.

“I wish his hands wouldn’t wander so much. And he does smoke an awful lot!”

“Well, I can’t be too sanctimonious about that!” admitted Zabba, stubbing out her cigarette. “I guess you don’t like smoking very much! But there are a lot worse things about the Pimple than his taste in tobacco. I don’t like the way he samples almost all the prostitutes in the place. There can’t be very many who’ve not endured his disgusting intimacies...”

“Does that include Binta?” wondered Ana, blanching at the thought.

“You really are very concerned about your friend’s welfare, aren’t you? Well, I can’t speak for Binta. You’ll have to ask her yourself if you want to know if the Pimple’s shoved his filthy warty body against hers. But most girls have got to find out about his little habits before they leave the Brothel. What do you think, Ferhana?”

“I do not wish to comment,” Ferhana remarked, looking remarkably uncomfortable.

“The Pimple’s attentions don’t stop with a bit of rumpy pumpy. He’s been known to upgrade girls by nearly an entire category as a reward for services freely and frequently offered. If you ever see a Beta who you think ought to be a Gamma or an Alpha who really doesn’t have the physical appearance of her grade, you can be pretty sure it’s because they’re one of the Pimple’s harem of willing helpers.”

“I thought the criteria of assessment were really very stringent.”

“And so they are, Ana, if you don’t cooperate. Look at your friend Binta. Only a Beta. Not even a Beta Plus. There’s enough subjectivity in the PAR system for a little bit of fiddling, and I don’t think Khedra’s that fastidious about keeping standards that rigid. After all, she didn’t get where she is by merit alone.”

“She does work very hard,” Ferhana defended, annoyed at the turn of conversation.

“I’m sure she works very hard at everything she does! She’s an ambitious woman. She’s almost certainly got her eye on the Director’s job for herself. All it takes is for the Pimple to overreach himself or to offend one of the President’s representatives and it’ll be Khedra who’ll be running the show. She’d be a lot better than the Pimple. She wouldn’t treat the weaker and more vulnerable girls so unscrupulously. She wouldn’t practise the filthy things the Pimple gets up to. And when I say filthy, Ana, I mean filthy! The smell is apparently dreadful! And some of the girls he’s entertained look like they’ve been in a fight rather than having offered their services voluntarily and for no extra pay. If a client treated them like the Pimple does, he’d never be allowed back in through the Brothel doors again. Or at least for a long time. Have you ever heard of the Client Black List and the compensation terms for loss of earnings that the Brothel operates? It’s one thing for the punters and another thing for the Brothel’s own Director!”

“I think you are making poor Ana think the Brothel is horrid place to work!” Ferhana stated a little abruptly. “She has to work with the Director. You do not even have to see him very much! She has to see him every day. Ana does not work in the Brothel as we do. She is a secretary. Her work is very much different.”

“Like it was with Inta, I suppose!” sniffed Zabba.

“Inta is another girl. For Ana it is for her like it is to work in any office. She does not have to know about prostitution any more than a secretary in a travel agent has to know about travel. Or a secretary in a power plant has to be a scientist. The Brothel has very nice offices, a good view over the city, a swimming pool and a subsidised canteen. The Director may not be the most nice man in the world, but he is only bad with some of the prostitutes, not with all the staff.”

“So, you’re defending the Brothel now, Ferhana!” sneered Zabba. “You really are striving for time off for good behaviour. Next you’ll be saying the Pimple’s quite a good chap really and that the girls he treats so badly just deserve what they get.”

“That is not true, Zabba! I am saying only that Ana does not have to work in the Brothel and be unhappy. I am saying that she does not have to think about what the Director does or what you and I do with the clients. What I think about the Director and my work as a prostitute is not the issue!”

“I guess you’d rather not discuss such things,” mused Zabba. She pulled another cigarette out of the packet and thoughtfully lit it. “Well, perhaps you’d rather talk about your home, in Haj. Are there any brothels there?”

Ferhana smiled. “They’re not like our Brothel at all. They are very small and they are privately owned. The government of Haj does not like prostitution, but it is not illegal. The government does not like very much things that are not illegal. There is much alcohol and homosexuality is allowed. But the government does not say that they are good. Or that they are bad. And we may be very poor in Haj but we can say what we like about the government. And the government does not like it very much when people say bad things about it. But they do not stop people. And they do not stop the newspapers saying bad things either. Not like in Alif, where what the President does not like, the people must not do. But people are poor. They want money and do not care for having freedom.”

“Well, you can’t have everything!” commented Zabba. She looked at her companions’ empty cups. “Do you fancy another coffee? I’ll pay of course!”

Ferhana looked at Ana who was conscious that she was to be paid only for the time she spent taking Ferhana to the Cathedral. She didn’t want to shorten Ferhana’s precious moments of freedom, although her ward was more considerate.

“Although I like very much to talk with you, Zabba, Ana must take me back to the Brothel. Or they will think I have escaped.”

“Well! Hurry back then!” sniffed Zabba, pointedly picking up her newspaper. Ferhana and Ana stood up, and bid her farewell. Zabba kissed Ferhana tenderly on the lips and Ana on the cheeks. “It’s been nice speaking to you. Don’t be a stranger.”

“No,” whispered Ana uncertainly.

She and Ferhana continued along the main road, sheltering from the harsh sunlight in the shortening shadows. Ferhana was quite muted, leaving Ana to her own troubled thoughts. She felt on the edge of a great change in her life. Elements were fitting into place, but she couldn’t quite see where they would fit, although somehow Binta was central.

They were soon back at the Brothel. Ana sat on a sofa in the foyer, keeping a good distance from the clients who gathered in somewhat larger numbers than earlier that day. An aggressive security guard, a machine gun slung rakishly over his shoulder, emptied Ferhana’s handbag onto the counter and scrutinised the contents with considerable detail. As soon as Ferhana was through the staff entrance her body would be strip searched and probably no less roughly. Brothel policy was extremely strict on the possible import of any illegal substances that could be brought in by prostitutes on penal service. A policy which in no way inhibited the free movement of such illegal substances that might be in the possession of the majority of prostitutes.

Ana wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of the day. Perhaps she would visit Binta. She knew her friend wasn’t scheduled to be working that afternoon.