Dear reader,
The call came through just as I had parked in front of the brothel.
“Rather meet us at the police station,” the voice spoke through the muffled speaker, urgent and crackling “it’ll be better for you there.”
Better for me?
I turned the ignition and my silver steed spluttered to life, groaning under the pressure of its own existence – not unlike myself.
The sun dripped from the exhaust pipe-grey buildings, the last nectar of the day. It was about 18:30; not quite witching hour, but not the time of day you want to be on the prowl looking for prostitutes either.
My silver steed and I snaked back through the city, picking up speed as we approached St. George’s Park, which by night often resembles Dante’s second circle rather than the oversized traffic circle which it actually is.
The police station’s parking lot vibrated with a low hum that washed through the air; it could be heard on the breeze through an open car window long before it could be seen.
“These are just illegal vendors we picked up on the way back,” the officer said, motioning at the tattered-shirts slowly descending from a truck’s loading bay, “mostly Zimbabwean.”
“Zimbabwean?” I asked, “are they here because the shops’ shelves are empty in Zim?”
Silence.
We both knew why they were here.
They were here because it was here or death – and they had chosen life.
I was lead past the holding cells.
‘What are you in for?’ I wondered, staring at a sober-looking, well dressed man sitting on the floor in the darkest corner of an empty cell.
The remorse radiating off of his glistening skin nearly driving me to confess to crimes I’d never committed against people I’d never met.
Just past the holding cells, 24 alleged prostitutes were waiting for me.
I braced myself to be confronted with the muck of the world, with the wretches of our town.
I braced myself for sink holes in meth-addicted skin.
I braced myself for mouth ulcers and fever blisters.
I braced myself to hear nothing but undecipherable Shona or Ndebele – most of it probably aimed at degrading this pesky journalist who knew nothing of the life of a prostitute.
“Turn around girls!” The officer commanded.
They turned their faces away from the camera, the youngest of the lot cowering under an array of fleece blankets.
A thousand Zimbabwean prayers leaked, like siphoned gas, into the sky and inhabited the empty spaces between stars; whose family would see a photo on Facebook tonight, and know that the money their little girl sends home every week is sex work money?
“Are we done?” a petite voice enquired from the line-up, “can we turn around yet?”
I lowered my camera.
The light was terrible – I was sure the photos would be terrible too, but taking a million shots in bad light doesn’t seem to improve your chances of getting a good one.
“We’re done,” I muttered, shoving my camera back into its disorganised-pit.
“Thank you,”
the petite-one said, slowly turning around and wrapping her arms around me.
She felt so thin.
I could feel her bones.
“For what?” I asked, stunned.
“For treating me like a woman – because you are a woman too,” she replied.
I wasn’t sure what I had done; nothing more and nothing less than making them line-up for a photograph for the newspaper.
That night, as the officer explained the procedure to be followed to the twenty four women in the courtyard, I stood with them. Hip to hip.
Elbow to elbow.
For a millisecond, I too was a Zimbabwean prostitute, as I listened to how we’d possibly be remanded to a women’s prison facility tomorrow after our first court appearances and how we’d possibly be sent back to Zimbabwe, the place we had worked so hard to escape, after all was said and done.
For a millisecond, we were all hungry together.
All tired together.
All cold together.
All women together.
Anxiously yours,
Aimee.
