The Bitter Side of Sweet

by Tara Sullivan

  I tell myself that it doesn’t matter where she came from; she’s here now. Her full lips are split open and her blue dress has blood on the front of it. Fresh bruises are swelling her almond eyes shut and her hands are tied in front of her. I shake my head to get rid of all this useless thinking and set myself to the task of counting things that matter. She’s not my problem. Quota is.

  When we reach the area we were working before, I’m the first one up a tree.

  Grab a hard red-orange pod, smooth and ribbed and as long as my forearm.

  Chop with the machete raised, careful not to miss the stem, thin as my fingers.

  Pull the pod off the tree and toss it at the bag.

  Twenty-seven.

  Check on Seydou, make sure he’s all right. Begin again on the next pod.

  Chop, twist, toss, check.

  Twenty-eight.

  2

  When I’ve taken all the ripe pods off that tree, I drop to the ground, expecting Seydou to have collected them. Instead, I find him harvesting his own pods in a way I told him never to do.

  I stalk up behind him, watching him swing his machete in wide arcs. He knows better. Seydou is young and clumsy. When we’re harvesting, I make him hold the blunt side of the blade with two hands and saw it across the stem. I don’t let him use the machete any other way, and he’s not allowed to climb trees with it.

  “Seydou!”

  He turns and looks at me, his machete freezing in midair.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  I see his grip tighten.

  “I’m working,” he says.

  “You know better than to do it that way!” I point at his machete. He lowers it, still glaring at me.

  “I’m trying to help us make quota!” he snaps. “Your way takes forever and we already lost an hour.”

  I glance at the girl, who’s sitting in front of a tree, arms crossed, silently glaring at me. She’s no longer tied to Moussa’s waist. It must have been too difficult for him to move around. Instead, he tied her here. The knots are tight, complex, and out of her reach. Seydou’s right, of course. We did just lose valuable work time, and because they’re machetes, not saws, it does take him a while. But, even if it slows us down, I won’t see him get hurt.

  “This isn’t a discussion,” I say. “Do it properly.”

  Seydou’s face gets hard and flat. He’s furious.

  “I’m helping,” he insists.

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t care. Pay attention, and do it right.” I turn away to collect the nine pods I got off the last tree and shove them in my sack.

  “You never let me help!” Seydou yells at my back. I can hear the tears clogging his voice. I’m sick of arguing with him, sick of telling him he’s too young, too small. Sick of it always having to be my job to keep him from getting hurt. I grab my sack and look sideways at him.

  “If I see you being reckless with your machete again just to impress a stupid girl, I’ll beat you myself.”

  Then, to make sure that Seydou doesn’t follow me while I’m still mad, I carry my sack to where Moussa is working, and climb the tree next to his. I know Seydou won’t get closer to the bosses even to have the satisfaction of yelling at me.

  As I hack at the next pod, I hear a low laugh from the greenery off to my right.

  “Always on the lookout, aren’t you?”

  Hidden by the leaves, Moussa’s voice sounds oddly friendly. For a moment I think about how nice it would be if he actually were. But without being able to see what the rest of him is doing, I don’t feel entirely safe.

  “Awó,” I mumble.

  Moussa’s low laugh rolls over me again and, with a pang, I wish for Moke. My grandfather didn’t laugh very often, but when he did, his laugh was like warm honey.

  In the early days here I used to think all the time: How can I run away? What is my family doing right now? Is Moke worried about us? Are they searching? How much longer will we have to work before we pay off our debt and the bosses let us go home? The questions would seethe through me, twisting on themselves in new shapes again and again like an injured snake. I soon learned the price of thinking. It slowed me down, and I didn’t make quota. Now I count instead of thinking and I’m able to get through most of my waking hours in a daze. It’s better this way.

  Chop, twist, toss, check.

  Thirty-seven.

  I don’t say anything else to Moussa and I refuse to think of anything other than the rise and fall of my machete. After a while, I manage to enter my empty place: that strange state of mind I get to when I’m working, where the burn in my muscles is the only way to track the passing of time. It’s like being half-asleep or feverish. I move without having to think about it. Without having to think about anything.

  The sun has sunk about a hand lower in the sky when I’m finally not angry with Seydou anymore and I decide to go back and try to talk to him again. Numbly, I’ve followed Moussa for the past few hours and we’ve wandered well away from where I last saw Seydou. I heft my comfortably full sack (sixty) high on my shoulder to avoid the old bruises as I walk. It hurts to carry, but its weight feels good. Between what I’ve got and whatever Seydou managed on his own, we might actually have a chance of making quota today, even with the delay the girl caused by her arrival.

  I’m still a little ways off when I hear a soft sobbing filtering through the trees. My heart pounds as I break into a run. It was stupid to leave Seydou working alone just because I was mad. If he’s gotten hurt when I wasn’t there to help him, I’m never going to forgive myself.

  I break through the last bit of underbrush and rush to Seydou. At first I can’t tell what’s wrong. A quick glance around the nearby trees shows me a chest-high ring of sloppily cut stems. In the near-flat sack at his feet there are maybe a dozen pods. I can’t see his machete, or any obvious injuries. I drop my sack and grab his arms, turning him this way and that.

  “What’s wrong?” I shout. His eyes are terrified. Set in his round face, they make him look very young and breakable.

  Sobbing, snot and tears running down his face, Seydou points behind me. I turn, and for a brief second I don’t really know what I’m looking for. Then I see the rope dangling from the tree, empty. It feels like the world stops. I face Seydou again, my eyes as wide as his.

  “What did you do?” I manage, my voice barely a whisper.

  “I—I—” Seydou gasps.

  I’m shaking my head because, no, no, this day did not just get worse. We had the chance to make quota. Everything was going to be all right. Now there’s no way we’re going to be okay. If we helped a kid escape, Moussa’s going to destroy us.

  “She . . . asked me to cut her free . . . as soon as you . . . and Moussa . . . were out of sight. I said . . . I said no . . . but she . . . she tricked me.” Seydou is beyond panic. “She asked me to come over when we were talking . . . and then . . . she knocked me to the ground and took my machete . . . and she . . . and she . . .” He trails off, pointing at a spot in the bush to his right where the branches are bent at odd angles, then starts sobbing again. “A-A-Amadou, I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!”

  I wave my hand at him to shut him up so I can think. Of course he’s sorry. I’m always the one bailing him out when he makes mistakes. I bet he knew, the minute this happened, that I’d figure out a way to take care of this. I try to think over the panic churning in my belly.

  I can’t believe that she would put Seydou in this situation. Already I’m right: the girl’s not worth the trouble she’s causing. That little snake. I’m so angry at her I feel I’d like to kill her myself. But my terror quickly overrides my anger. Any minute now, Moussa is going to come here to check on all of us. I look at Seydou, curled on his nearly empty sack, his breath wheezing in and out of his skinny little ribs as he sobs. I imagine Moussa’s rage at losing the girl. The kind of beating tha
t’s likely to follow this disaster could kill Seydou.

  Not every boy survives here. Some have fallen sick and died of their diarrhea; some have been bitten by poisonous snakes or spiders while they worked in the bush. And one, a stringy boy named Yacouba, got beaten and went unconscious and never came out of it.

  I think of the scars that already crisscross Seydou’s back and I make up my mind. I reach over and smack him hard across the face.

  He reels, surprise cutting off his crying. I never hit Seydou.

  “You were an idiot to trust her,” I snarl, low and fierce. “Now pull yourself together and shut up.”

  Then I throw my machete at him, whirl on my heel, and race back the way I’ve just come. “Moussa!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Moussa!”

  I nearly ram into him. I was right; he was on his way to check on us.

  “What?” he says, “What is it?”

  I try to catch the breath my fear has knocked out of me.

  “The wildcat escaped,” I manage.

  “What?” he roars. “How?”

  My mind races.

  “When I went to check on Seydou, she tricked me into coming over to her. She knocked me off my feet and stole my machete. She cut herself loose.”

  “She knocked you over? A girl, a girl who was tied up, knocked you over and stole your machete?”

  Maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it.

  Moussa’s meaty hand slams into the side of my head.

  “You make me sick.” He grabs me by the ear and drags me to Seydou. Since I’m almost as tall as him, his grip on my ear makes me bend nearly double. Head still spinning from being hit, I have a hard time keeping my footing. But I’m still here, still standing, and even if he believes an embarrassing story, at least he doesn’t know the truth.

  When we burst through the bushes, Seydou jumps, holding my machete out in front of him. Tears are streaming down his face and his lower lip is trembling, but he’s stopped sobbing and I hope that Moussa will assume his distress is from being generally afraid and not from being responsible.

  Moussa lets go of my ear and examines the tree with its dangling rope. Reaching up, he slices through it near the knot and winds it into loops. My ear throbs but I know that I have to keep up my side of the story.

  “She ran that way.” I point.

  Moussa scowls, looks at the afternoon sun, and lets loose a tight curse. He takes a moment, fingers fisted in his hair, and then seems to come to a decision.

  “You.” He points at Seydou. “Keep working. Harvest as much as you can. We’re going to lose a lot of time chasing her and it will be your fault if we don’t bring in enough. Do you understand?”

  Seydou darts a glance to me, frightened, and I take a step forward, my mouth open to argue for him even though I don’t know what I’m going to say, but Moussa shoves an open hand in my direction, stopping me in my tracks.

  “I said, do you understand?” he repeats, softly.

  “Awó,” says Seydou, hearing that softness for the danger it is.

  Moussa looks at me and holds out the rope. “You, you’re coming with me.”

  My heart drops into my stomach. We’ll never make quota now. With one last look at Seydou, I take the rope from Moussa and follow him into the trees.

  Moussa wastes only a moment looking at the place where she disappeared and then he’s off at a lope, following the direction the girl has gone. I feel vulnerable running through the bush without a blade. Not only is la brosse full of pythons, vipers, and poisonous spiders, there are also leopards, panthers, and vicious wild pigs that will rip you to pieces with their tusks as soon as look at you. Even if no animal bothers us, I’m sick of branches slapping me in the face. But the wildcat took Seydou’s machete, and the only way to get it is to capture her.

  Also, I need to get back to Seydou. A hundred terrible images flash through my mind. What if he falls? What if he cuts his thigh open and bleeds to death? What if he steps on a snake? I shake my head and run faster. What’s more likely is that he’ll sit on the ground crying, too scared to move, until we return. And then, when neither of us make quota . . . I run faster still.

  Moussa doesn’t break his pace, checking her trail as he runs. As I jog after him, jumping over low plants and dodging between trees, I try to figure out what he’s tracking in the ground that I’m missing. It’s not an easy task and soon I find myself drawn in by the challenge. Even when we were still at home, I never really went hunting; I just set snares around Moke’s fields for rabbits. In front of me, Moussa takes a quick left and I slow. What made him turn? At first I see nothing. Then, as I’m passing the bush, I notice where a sandaled foot has pushed the leaves aside.

  I follow Moussa, eyes on the ground, scanning for telltale signs. Little by little, it gets easier. The ground tells a story: feet trod here quickly, here slowly. She’s getting tired: look, a line from a dragged machete tip. I have entered my empty place and the ground seems to shout its secrets. Pretty much every time Moussa turns I know why: a footprint in the soft loam, a smashed fern. Abruptly, Moussa veers off to the left again, but I see a track to the right. I’m so wrapped up in the task that I don’t even consider that he might not want my opinion, that he might not want my noise. I blurt out, “Moussa!”

  He turns around and glares, and his hand cuffs me on the ear.

  “Shush!” he says in a heavy whisper. “We’re getting close to her now, you idiot! Do you want to go shouting where we are, helping her escape?”

  “I . . .” I trail off, remembering what we’re tracking. I had forgotten, for a few moments there, that it’s a person we’re after: the difficult girl. That this isn’t just one more job, one more thing to count, but another kid. The rest of the words come out shaky, unsure. “I think that’s a false trail. Look.”

  For a moment Moussa is quiet as his eyes follow my pointing finger, taking in the slight scuffing of moss that shows careful steps leading away from the trail of broken branches. A slow smile creeps across his face.

  “Good work,” he says, and rubs his hand on my head as we turn to follow the real trail. Inside, my heart soars at the praise. It’s been so long since someone told me I did a good job at anything. I always have to be the one in charge with Seydou, always the one telling him it’s all right, that he did well. I’d almost forgotten how nice it is to be the one to hear those words.

  It’s not long before my new trail shows its worth. We are turning around a tree when I see a glint in the bushes. I act purely on instinct, calling Moussa’s name and pointing, and then the girl is exploding out of the bushes and sprinting away. For a brief moment I think she might make it, but then Moussa is after her and I know that the chase is over.

  Very aware of the fact that I am still the only one without a machete, I hang back and let him catch her. She lashes out wildly with the machete. A cold, distant part of my mind criticizes her swing. It wobbles with her exhaustion. It is poorly aimed. A few months working in the field would cure that, I think, and a small part of me smirks that that’s exactly what she’s about to get. Another part of me is ashamed of the thought. A third part of me, one that has slept dormant for months until this crazy girl showed up, wonders quietly how my work-trained swing would do if I were the one trying to escape. I brush the thought away like a bug near my ear, but a tiny echo of its buzz remains.

  Moussa leaps sideways, avoiding the blade, and then rushes forward. He uses his machete to beat hers aside and then grabs her other arm with his free hand. He’s shouting at her, shaking her, but I don’t look, don’t listen. Instead, I walk around them to where Seydou’s machete has fallen into the undergrowth and pick it up. I’m glad to have it again. But I can’t help noticing, as I take the loop of rope off my shoulder and help Moussa bind the struggling girl, that the handle is still warm from her hand.

  3

  We arrive at the grove hot,
tired, and cranky. I’ve worked all day and then chased a wildcat on nothing but the thin soup of breakfast and I’m starting to feel weak. I want to lapse into a deep, colorless sleep, but instead Moussa blows a double blast on his whistle and, one by one, Yussuf, Abdraman, and Konaté join us with their bags.

  Seydou arrives last, dragging both of our sacks. He runs over and throws his arms around me. He doesn’t need to say anything: I know he was scared. Scared to work alone in la brosse full of animals, large and small, that could kill him. Scared I wouldn’t come back, and he’d have to do this every day. It’s a terrible thing to be here. It would be worse to be here alone. I often think of what it would be like if I hadn’t taken Seydou’s side and convinced Moke to let him come with me into the Ivory Coast. I feel awful about it every day, but if I’m honest with myself, I know that I wouldn’t have made it this far if I didn’t have him. Without Seydou to protect, and to make me laugh, I’d have given up a long time ago.

  I squeeze him gently.

  “Let’s go!” Moussa’s in no mood to be trifled with and sets a punishing pace, dragging the offending girl behind him. We follow along, the others baffled as to the change in mood, and there is nothing I can do but put one foot in front of the other, and dread what’s coming next.

  In the two years I’ve been here, only a handful of boys have tried to run. The punishments have always been terrible. Unbidden, memories flood through me of my one and only attempt at escape. I cringe away from them and try to count the steps it takes us to get back to camp, pretending it’s a number that matters.