The slaves of Freetown

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I have already served in this neighborhood years ago; I do not expect it to be so different. The Masters, whom I barely got to exchange with, prided themselves on having strong opinions on slavery. I learned there, from a young wealthy Master's preceptor, to read, write, and count. Something about Mohamed being indebted to him made him particularly sensitive to our situation.

"Can I help you?" the lady at the reception asks. "Where did Walt go? How could he let something like you in without warning me?"

"I am coming for Mistress Sky Freeman," I say, rummaging through my bag.

I hand her the files. She scans, goes through it quickly, whispers a little comment that makes her smile, and gives me the papers. She turns around and grabs a phone to reach my Mistress.

"This will be the very last floor. The elevator has already been programmed; there will be nothing to do. Do not touch anything, any button."

The elevator in question leads directly to the loft. I am immediately struck by the light tones, the clean style, and the cold colors of the decoration, contrasting with the rather old-looking furniture. The large room in front of me is bathed in light by the immense bay windows. Mohamed taught me to be sensitive to this kind of thing when I arrive at the Masters'; they reveal a lot about them. The mistake that slaves often make is to think rudely and enviously of these lavish things as if it were a personal insult to them and their modest origins, on which they sometimes feel like this "debauched plethora" was built on.

In the middle of the luxurious kitchen stands a figure, a little curved. When our eyes meet, she straightens up completely and walks towards me. I then notice the crutch that she is leaning on.

"Just come; I think it will go faster."

"I am sorry, but I cannot."

She questions me with her eyes.

"You must introduce me into your home, according to the segregationist rite."

"Oh, yes, my mother told me about it. Excuse me; this is my first time... You actually are my first slave."

She comes to greet me, giving me her permission, in a rather awkward way. She forgets some signs, gestures, and words of the protocol.

"I'm not very comfortable with this whole situation, sorry." She smiled shyly, and I try too. I wanted to hide my surprise when my gaze fell on her legs, revealed by her skirt.

True emotions should never be shown to the Masters. The slave guesses their expectations, adapts to them, is friendly, distant, reverent, or invisible. It is an exercise that I master but made noticeably more difficult because of my anxieties concerning Mistress Salvi.

Behind my new Mistress, I see a shadow moving quickly. The soft body of the feline approaches her feet, bringing my attention back to her wounds. I have an immediate surge of hostility towards this animal, which seems to taunt me of its superior civil rights.

"It's Zaz. He's pretty timid usually. Oh... By the way, I completely forgot to introduce myself: my name is Sky Freeman. It's not my real name, but "Sky" is less "communitarized" and closer to the American standards and expectations. And yes, as my last name suggests, my parents were slaves too. My mother was selected by the Lottery, and my father was freed through an enfranchisement scholarship. She's Bengali and he's half Indonesian, half Filipino. Unfortunately, I don't speak any of these languages. It didn't fit with my parents' assimilation project..."

"Freeman" and "Kim" — due to the high proportionality of North Korean slaves in the Freetown of New York, and by agreements with the government of Kim Il-sung; going back to the armistice promise, and the ceasefire of the Korean War —, are the names most commonly given by the administration of BC19 to the freed slaves. Just like "Doe" is, by definition, that of any slave circulating in English speaking enslaving nations, on the official paperwork.