Her face is still beaten up but her expression is gentle behind the swelling. I see Seydou grudgingly meet her eyes and his frown softens. Seydou’s not used to having a girl look out for him. Our mother died when he was born and Auntie was pretty strict. And, until Khadija, there were never any girls at the farm. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with her attention, and hasn’t quite let go of being angry at her for betraying him that first day. But I can tell that somewhere deep down inside, he likes her being nice to him.
I clear my throat.
“Well, if that’s all we can do for now, we should probably move on. We still need to get off this truck before we’re caught and work our way north.”
Seydou slumps against me again as if the very thought of moving has exhausted him.
“Amadou, really?” he whines. “Can’t we stay here just a little while longer?”
“It’s not safe,” I say, but even I can hear that my voice lacks its earlier force.
“I don’t think it’s the best idea for any of us to jump out of a moving truck, do you?” Khadija counters. “Can we at least wait until he slows?”
I roll my shoulders stiffly. Small amounts of sleep in a bouncing truck bed haven’t made my injuries feel any better. I’m sure the same goes for her. I look at Seydou again and decide not to put him through anything else if I can.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s wait.”
Not long later the pisteur finally slows down. I shake both Khadija and Seydou awake. The falling dusk will help cover our exit. It’s perfect.
“This is it,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Khadija grabs the med kit and the empty water bottle and I reach for Seydou, who’s lying against one of the sacks.
“Come on, Seydou.” I pull on his good arm, trying to get him up.
“No,” he says, pulling away from me, still half-asleep. “No, I don’t want to go.”
We don’t have time for this. I shuffle closer to him and try to lock my arms around his chest so I can drag him with us.
“Seydou! Wake up! We have to go now, stop it!”
But Seydou thrashes around in my arms.
“No! I don’t want to!” His voice is rising in pitch, whining loudly. I’m glad the noise of the clunky old engine covers us, but even so, he’s endangering us with his shouting. Even with Khadija’s pills in him, he’s still hot to the touch, though not as hot as he was earlier.
“Shh!” I whisper desperately, but it’s no good. Seydou is screaming now.
“I want my arm back! It’s not fair! It hurts!”
Behind me I hear a quiet whisper from Khadija.
“Too late.”
I look out and see that the narrow path we were on that ran past rambling farms and thickets of untamed bush has turned into a real road and opened into the square of a town. I duck reflexively. Seydou struggles out of my grip and snuggles against the sacks. I glare at him, angry that he made us lose our opportunity to get out unnoticed.
Khadija crouches beside me. I risk peeking over the top of the tailgate. Across a dusty stretch I see a few houses. There’s a baby and a dog lying on the ground together and people are moving around the village now that the heat of the day is past. I hide again, flattening myself on the floor of the truck, hoping none of them saw me.
The truck shudders to a stop beneath us. I put my face close to Khadija’s ear and whisper. “We’ll have to wait until it gets dark, and then we’ll make a break for the bush when we see the street clear.”
Khadija makes a face.
“I don’t want to go into the bush in the dark.”
I stare at her, not believing what I’m hearing.
“I mean,” she goes on, “why not sleep here and wait until early morning? Why take the chance of getting eaten by something in the dark when we could stay here, safe in the truck, and then head out when it’s light?”
I don’t say anything. In principle, of course I agree with her: it’s not a great idea to head into la brosse in the dark and of course I’d rather not do it. But it doesn’t even seem like she’s processing that it’s much more dangerous to stay here. And it’s not like we could make it home to Mali in a day anyway. If she was so upset about sleeping in the bush, she should have let us jump out earlier so that we didn’t have as far to travel.
I’m just opening my mouth to say something to her, when a new voice chimes in.
“Hello, children.”
Khadija and I whip our heads toward the voice and there, leaning his crossed arms on the tailgate of the truck, is the pisteur.
15
I leap to my feet and grab my machete, hauling Seydou into my arms and bracing against the wall of sacks behind us. He flails around, which makes him hard to hold, and I realize that I don’t have very good odds of making it past the big man, especially carrying a fighting eight-year-old. I stutter to a stop. Khadija is on her feet too, clutching the med kit and our empty water bottle to her chest, her whole body pressed into the sacks of cacao, as if she’s trying to vanish into them. I see a small crowd forming behind the pisteur and my hope of getting away trickles out of me. It’s like losing blood: it makes me feel weak and shaky. I sink to the bed of the truck with Seydou in my lap and hang my head. Khadija moves to stand behind me.
“What are your names?” asks the pisteur.
He’s speaking Bambara and his accent makes me think he might be from Mali originally, like us, but I’m not about to tell him anything. Tie us up and take us back, I don’t even care anymore, I think. Now that I know we’re caught, I just want it to be over already. Hoping hurts too much.
“Do you not speak Bambara?” he asks, confused by our silence. Of course we do, but still none of us answers him.
The pisteur doesn’t move, but leans against the tailgate, looking at us. I glance warily at the muscles cording his thick arms and the stretch of his shirt across his wide chest. He’s every bit as big a brute as I thought he was when I first saw him in the clearing at the farm. But when I lift my head and look at his face, I’m surprised to see that it’s broad and open and that his eyes are gentle. He looks like he could have come from my village. Those eyes take me in at a glance and then spend a long moment on Khadija’s bruised face and Seydou’s missing arm. His smile, when it comes, is forced.
“Well, I’m Oumar,” he says, “and it looks to me like maybe you three could use some food. Come on.”
He unhooks the tailgate with one strong tug of his burly arms and it flaps down with a clunk. None of us move. I sit numbly clutching Seydou and my machete. Khadija makes a small noise behind me. I wish I could do something to comfort her, but I don’t see any way to get out of this.
The man’s big hand closes on my elbow and, as my options narrow to move or be dragged, I scoot forward and climb carefully out of the truck, holding Seydou tight against me. He’s gone still in my arms and his eyes are round as coins. The pisteur puts his other big hand on Seydou’s shoulder and steers us away from the truck. Oddly, he doesn’t try to take my machete. I shrug off his touch and turn back.
I tuck the blade into my belt and hold out my hand to Khadija.
“Come on,” I say softly. “Let’s stay together.”
Shaky with fear, Khadija slides to the end of the tailgate and grabs my hand in a death grip. Then she jumps out and, with Seydou in one hand and her in the other, I follow the pisteur, walking stiffly to one of the little houses that line the road. The villagers move out of our way, whispering to each other.
Feeling like each arm and leg weighs a hundred kilograms, I head into the small, dark front room. The shadow of the big man cuts off any hope of escape. Entering the little house after us, the pisteur is so tall he has to duck to avoid hitting his head on the rotting crossbeam. The floor is bare and there is one table in the center of the room with mismatched chairs and stools around it. Khadija, Seydou, and I turn and loo
k at the pisteur.
“Sit, sit,” he says, waving at the table.
Khadija sits on a low stool and pulls Seydou against her. It’s a testament to how scared he is that he lets her. I refuse to sit. Instead, I stand behind them and cross my arms over my chest, staring at the pisteur.
The big man sighs as he sits across from us. His gaze wanders from one to the other of us, resting on Seydou the longest. Finally, he leans forward.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions,” he says quietly, “and I want you to tell me the truth. I don’t need to know your names, but I do need to know this.”
We don’t say anything. The big man goes on.
“Were you working on the farm I collected cacao from today?” He pauses, looking at us. When none of us answer, he adds, “The one that had a fire?”
I’m pretty sure there’s only one farm that caught on fire today. Out of the corner of my eye I see Seydou nod, yes. I scowl. It can’t possibly help us to have this giant know that we were on that farm. But two years of answering automatically when a big man asks you something or suffering the consequences have sunk in.
“Are you family members of one of the men there?” the pisteur asks.
Seydou shakes his head, no.
“Did you get paid while you worked there?”
I can’t help it; an unpleasant laugh sneaks out of me. Khadija and Seydou both shake their heads. The pisteur’s eyes drift to Seydou’s missing arm.
“Last question,” he says. “Would you like to go back to the farm and continue working there?”
“Ayi!” The word bursts out of my mouth.
“No,” agree Khadija and Seydou, right after me.
The man purses his lips and looks at his big hands, spreading them on the table between us.
“I am going to say this only once,” he says carefully, after a pause, “and I don’t want you to tell me any more about yourselves than you already have because I need to keep a good relationship with the farmers I work with.” His eyes flick to our faces. “But I don’t agree with children being made to work without pay for people who aren’t family.”
I feel an odd squishiness in my chest and realize that it might be hope, bubbling back.
“I am driving east with my wares, to Daloa, where I will sell the cacao seeds.” The man looks me straight in the eye. “I am not offering you a ride,” he says. “But I am telling you that I will not be checking my truck when I leave in the morning, and I will probably stop somewhere quiet to look at the scenery. Do you understand?”
Numbly, I nod.
Khadija still looks stunned but, taking her cue from me, nods too. Seydou looks confused.
The big man smiles. He winks at Seydou and pushes away from the table. “I’ll have my niece bring you some dinner. You can sleep in this room for the night, but I suggest you wake up early. I leave just after dawn.” His smile widens to a grin. “Me and my empty truck.”
With that, he walks out of the room. Seydou twists around to face me.
“He’s going to help us?” Hope and fear struggle to claim his features.
“I don’t believe it,” I say honestly. I sink onto the stool next to Khadija and Seydou, not sure whether my knees are still capable of holding me up.
A woman comes out from a side room and puts some food in front of us. Hard-boiled eggs and fruit, bowls of spicy kedjenou and fluffy white attiéké to go with it. It’s the best meal I’ve seen in years. My stomach rumbles loudly and, despite my uncertainty about Oumar, I thank her sincerely, along with Khadija and Seydou.
Khadija sets the hard-boiled eggs and the fruit aside for tomorrow, tying them into a strip of burlap she must have ripped from a sack in the truck. By the time she’s finished, the panic in her eyes has pulled back like the tide. I put a bowl in front of Seydou, hand another to Khadija, and eat the portion that’s left. Seydou picks at the food with his right hand, not really eating it.
I reach past Khadija and rattle the little box.
“Should we give more medicine to Seydou?”
She considers. “Awó,” she says finally. “It’s probably been four to six hours. I suppose we could.”
She opens the box and squints at the faded labels again.
“You gave him that one first last time,” I say, pointing to one of them.
She takes the one I’m pointing to and looks at it carefully. Then she looks at me in surprise. “You’re right! How did you read it from there?”
“Read it?” I ask, staring at her. “It’s the bottle with the chip off the bottom, and its plastic is slightly darker than the other one.” I laugh. “I can’t read.” What on earth is that crazy girl thinking? Farm kids don’t have the time or the money to go to school. Even in the days before Seydou and I were forced to work for Moussa, we couldn’t afford that. We worked all day in the fields then too, but we were with family and growing things for us to eat, not stupid cacao. We barely made enough to feed our family, certainly not enough to pay for school uniforms and supplies. I shake my head.
Khadija looks away and shakes a pill out of each of the two vials. She doesn’t say anything, but it’s pretty clear she had been reading them. I wonder again at how much better off Khadija was than we were . . . How much money must her family have had to be able to spend it on all the supplies it would take to send her to school for enough years that she can read so easily? I have trouble even imagining. I’m surprised to realize that, even though I’ve started to think of her as a little sister, I don’t really know much about Khadija at all.
Seydou swallows the medicine and leans against her, and Khadija looks over his head at me.
“Here, let me take him,” I whisper, because even though he’s only picked at his meal, Seydou’s eyelids are drooping. I haul my drowsy brother to the edge of the room and lay him under a window so he’ll have the best odds of getting away if he needs to escape in a hurry.
I’m exhausted and the sound of Seydou’s even breathing filling the space makes me want nothing more than to drift off to sleep beside him, but there’s something we have to decide before we allow ourselves the luxury of sleep.
“It’s great that the pisteur isn’t turning us in,” I say softly to Khadija. “But I still don’t think we should go with him.”
“Why not?” she asks.
“Two reasons,” I say, walking back over to the table. “First, yes, he’s being nice to us now, but we don’t have any guarantee that he won’t change his mind. He could get to Daloa and decide that he’d rather turn us in after all, or sell us to someone else. You heard what he said about wanting to keep a good relationship with the farmers.”
“I don’t know,” murmurs Khadija. “If he’d wanted to turn us in, he could have easily done that here. We have no reason not to trust him after he’s taken this chance to help us. He doesn’t like seeing children made to work.” But it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.
I raise my eyebrows. Of course it’s possible that he’s telling the truth. It’s also possible that he’s not. We’ve both been lied to enough to know that either outcome is just as likely. After a moment she looks down at the table again.
“What’s your other reason?”
“The other reason is even simpler,” I say tiredly. “It’s nice that he’s offering to take us with him, but he’s going the wrong direction. We don’t want to go southeast, we need to go north.
“So,” I continue, “I think we should all get a couple of hours of sleep and then, when it’s close to dawn, we can sneak out into the forest. We know the road we came in on, and we can follow that a lot of the way. Maybe we wait in the bush for a few days, make sure the bosses have given up looking for us, then make our way around the farms to the border. Once we get past the farm we were on, it might be harder, but we can keep pretty good track of our direction from the sun. My trip to the farm from Sika
sso was less than a day using motorbikes and cars, so on foot we should be there in less than a week, even going through la brosse.”
“About that . . .” Khadija says, her fingernail tracing and retracing the grain of the wood in front of her. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
I look at her.
“Yes?”
“I’m not from Mali, like you,” she starts unsteadily. “I’m actually Ivorian. I live with my mama in Abidjan.”
Her dark eyes, wide in her oval face, dart to mine to see how I take this.
I can’t help but stare. I had figured out she was fancy, but I had always assumed she, like pretty much every kid on the farm, came from Mali. Her name is Muslim, like ours. She speaks Bambara, like us. I had never imagined she was Ivorian, like the bosses. I feel betrayed. I lean away from her.
Ivorian.
Rich, city-living Ivorian.
My feelings must show on my face because when she goes on, she won’t meet my eyes.
“So you see, Daloa is actually going in the right direction, for me. And, if it’s a town big enough for Oumar to sell his seeds, then that probably means it’s on a main road, which might make it easier for me to find my way home. And I . . . I was hoping you’d come with me . . . ?”
It takes me a minute to remember that Oumar is the pisteur’s name. I blink dumbly, not quite believing we’re having this conversation.
“Amadou . . .” she says, finally looking at me. There are tears piling on her lower eyelashes, but I don’t want to see them.
“Ayi,” I say. “No. You can’t ask me to go farther into this country full of bosses and cacao. You can’t make me stay here longer. I need to get home; I need to get Seydou home!” I wrench the med kit off the table and grip it hard. “You can get up tomorrow morning and sneak into Oumar’s truck and ride all the way south to the ocean if you want to, but Seydou and I are taking the medicine and we’re going home. Just because you’re rich and . . . and Ivorian, I don’t have to do what you tell me to do. I’m done taking orders from you people.”
The Bitter Side of Sweet Page 14
