A car suddenly stopped by the curbside, and she cringed. Nervously she watched the driver get out and approach her. He was big and heavily built with a clean-shaven head and the car, a black BMW with dark, tinted windows seemed new. There were other occupants in it as well.
"Are you Kamilla?" The man wanted to know, his beady eyes scrutinizing her from top to bottom. He had a huge gold watch on his wrist and he reeked of an expensive male fragrance. "I am Josef and I have been sent by the modeling agency to accompany you to South Africa."
Kamilla gave a sigh of relief and nodded as Josef opened the rear passenger door for her.
"I'm sorry that I'm late," he said, after getting into the driver seat once again. "But I was held up at another appointment." He spoke with the accent of that peculiar to the Nigerians and he seemed anxious to be off again. Their was another man sitting next to him.
Kamilla had to squeeze in next to three other girls who all peered at her in the semi darkness of the car. They were all from the Jinja district on the north eastern side of Uganda, they told her, and they were all unmarried.
She shivered involuntarily as a sudden feeling of uneasiness swept over her. She sat still while the BMW weaved its way through a string of vehicles until it reached the freeway that led out of the city. At least she wasn't the only girl going to South Africa, she reassured herself. One of the girls, as a matter of fact, she had met at the agency's head office in Kampala; the other two she hadn't seen before, but they looked like, and acted like models themselves and, they were chatting and laughing non stop.
The man next to Josef turned round in his seat and stared at Kamilla. She frowned- he was a white man!
"Hello girls," he said, smiling, but keeping his gaze on Kamilla. "It won't be long now then you will be on a plane to South Africa. Isn't it exciting?" He was small and round and spoke with a South African accent. His name was Marius.
They all stared at him breathlessly. "Are we going by plane?" They exclaimed in unison. "Ugandan Airways?"
"No." Marius laughed. "We have our own charter plane. It's much quicker and much more exciting!" He took out a packet of chewing gum and stuffed a strip into his fat cheeks. He stared intently at Kamilla. "You'll be booked into a posh hotel in Johannesburg. What do you think of that?"
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