The Song of Mawu. Jeff Edwards

belly protruding so far.

      His smile became even wider as the red-head handed him a glass of chilly champagne.

      Besides her own seductive smile, she wore nothing but a g-string and her stiletto healed shoes.

      The toss had been heads and she had lost.

      ***

      Joseph Lattua awoke to the sun streaming through his cabin window. He stretched out on the crumpled sheets but his groping hands encountered nothing. The women from the previous evening had left in the early daylight hours, claiming that he had not paid them enough for them to remain any longer.

      The absence of the women didn’t worry him overmuch. Their professional duties had been completed and he had no further use for them until it was time to venture out into the night once more. They were pretty decorations for him to show off and use, but nothing more.

      The idea of bonding with the women, in fact any woman, on some personal level was not something that ever occurred to Lattua. In fact, the only person he even remotely interacted with on such a level was his younger brother, General George Lattua, the head of the united forces of Namola.

      Joseph Lattua scratched at his groin, before sighing deeply and dragging his bulky form into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He considered pulling on his dressing gown, but just as quickly rejected the plan as he stood up and padded toward his ensuite.

      Leaving the door open, he lifted up the toilet lid and spread his legs, relieving himself and splashing noisily.

      Shaking himself enthusiastically, he flushed and saundered slowly back into his bedroom where he retrieved his dressing gown and slipped into it. As he tied the sash around his rotund stomach he placed his feet into a pair of soft leather slippers and wandered up the corridor. On the aft deck he found a table had been set for his breakfast.

      His steward had been waiting for the President’s appearance and appeared silently at his side with a mug of steaming coffee in his hand. Lattua accepted the mug which had the insignia of the President of the United States upon it. This was Lattua’s favourite and had come from Camp David when Lattua, as well as numerous other African leaders had been invited to visit the US President for the purpose of discussing ways to combat the spread of AIDS on the African continent.

      Lattua had paid little heed to the talks and the ideas that had been exchanged. For him the trip had been a wonderful opportunity to have his photo taken with the most powerful man in the world, and on his return he had made sure the photos were displayed on the front page of every paper in Namola.

      ***

      As he sipped his coffee, Lattua studied the other vessels tied up at the marina.

      All were toys of the very rich. Their size and the fittings they displayed attested to the fact that money had been no barrier to the creation of these floating palaces. He noted glumly that there were now many that surpassed his own in their opulence.

      In fact, the talk around the town was that yachts were now becoming passé. Why spend all your time travelling to your destination by sea when you could climb aboard a jet and be there in a matter of hours. Especially when you owned your very own jet and its crew were at your beck and call, twenty-four hours a day. Some of the very wealthiest were even flying the planes themselves, or pretending to do so.

      Lattua closed his eyes and imagined himself at the controls of his own plane as it winged its way across the Atlantic to land at such places as Rio, or, better yet, Las Vegas.

      He looked around at the yacht. From a distance it stood out as an object of wealth and indulgence, but sitting here on it’s deck Lattua could see that time and the lack of a maintenance schedule had taken its toll on his pride and joy. After years of service small patches of rust and dirt could be detected in the tiny, hard-to-get-at corners of the deck and he had seen that the motors now blew a great deal of smoke and made a great deal more noise than they had a couple of trips before. He knew that the ship’s engineer and his crew were below right now making some much-needed repairs.

      It all came down to a lack of money. There always seemed to be so many other things in Namola that needed to have money spent on. It was no wonder that he had been unable to agree to the captain’s request for the yacht to be dry-docked at one of the larger shipping yards outside Monaco so that her motors could be serviced properly and her keel cleaned.

      Lattua promised himself that the next oil cheque would go toward getting the yacht fixed and repainted. In the meantime, he would give thought to purchasing a new addition for the country’s air force. A large transport jet with the right sort of interior fittings would be ideal. He wondered who he could get to pay for such an acquisition. The World Bank was out of question. They wouldn’t even return his phone calls these days. He needed another sponsor and it would have to be someone with very deep pockets.

      Lattua pondered the problem as he devoured the large breakfast that his steward placed before him. He couldn’t enjoy the food when he recalled how little money the Namolan treasury held at that moment. In an effort to take his mind off such unpleasant thoughts he remembered what the blond had said to him the previous evening.

      Gesturing to his steward he issued his instructions, ‘Ring the escort agency. I want three women tonight.’

      2

      Rushing down the runway at ever increasing speed the small private jet lifted off from the dusty Namolan airfield and headed into the clear blue sky.

      The jet had been chartered by The Fund, a British charity, and it carried three passengers. As it banked to port the sole passenger, on that side of the plane looked down at the sprawling encampment below.

      Blue smoke from innumerable cooking fires gave the hastily erected houses a ghostly aspect, and the occupants of those small huts appeared as black specks, moving slowly up and down along the streets which separated the rows of prefabricated dwellings.

      A great sadness gripped at Eliza Strang’s chest as she watched the camp and its occupants disappear from view as their plane crossed the coast and headed north.

      Seeking moral support, she glanced over the aisle to where her companions sat holding hands. Nori and Ali Akuba were originally from Nigeria and had narrowly managed to escape persecution in their homeland by migrating to England. There they had been able to raise a family and start their own business until Fate in the form of the enigmatic Jade Green, had conspired to raise the couple from obscurity to the position they now held as Directors in The Fund, one of the newest and most heavily financed charities on the world stage.

      Nori Akuba, who also had a tear in her eye, smiled sadly and acknowledged Eliza’s look. She too, felt sad at their leaving but knew that it was for the best.

      All three of them were tired beyond normal exhaustion and it was a tiredness of the spirit as much as their physical being.

      There was always so much to do in the camp, and so very much that they could simply not achieve, no matter how hard they tried.

      On more than one night, Nori had dropped exhausted into bed and sobbed uncontrollably. Endless hours of hard work had seemed to prove fruitless, and the refugees she had attempted to care for continued to die. Taking her into his arms, Ali had held her. He had not tried to tell her to stop and allowed her tears to flow while wishing that he could do the same.

      Slowly, the three of them had come to the same unpalatable truth. You can’t save everyone, no matter how hard you try. It simply couldn’t be done. Money wasn’t the answer. Some of the poor souls were beyond help when they arrived. There was nothing that the three of them could do even with all the resources they had at their command.

      The only answer was tirage. Help for those who could be helped, and as much as it went against everything they held dear, they had to force themselves to ignore those who couldn’t be helped. In that way they had been able to claim some small victories. Lives had been saved and a future, even if it were a precarious one, had been obtained for the lucky few.

      ***

      When the jet reached its cruising