Bitter Chocolate

by Sally Grindley

  He thrust a rifle into Olivier’s hands and showed him how to use it. Olivier was still unsteady on his feet. When he pulled the trigger he nearly fell backwards.

  ‘Nice one,’ Seb hooted. ‘That frightened a few monkeys off their branches.’

  Olivier took aim again. This time the bullet hit the rock.

  ‘Got it!’ Olivier cried. Without being told, he fired a third bullet and hit the rock again.

  Pascal cringed at the knowledge that in a moment it would be his turn. He would miss, he knew it, and not just once, but every time. He hated the look of excitement on Olivier’s face. This wasn’t a game they were playing. This was real. Seb and Gustav weren’t teaching them to shoot for the fun of it.

  ‘Good shooting,’ Seb said to Olivier. ‘We’ve got a natural here, Gustav.’

  Gustav grunted. ‘You’ll have the whole world descending on us if you keep that racket up.’

  ‘They’ve got to learn,’ Seb argued. ‘It’s the littl’un’s turn now.’ He took the gun from Olivier and handed it to Pascal. ‘See if you can hit it first time.’

  Pascal listened carefully to Seb’s instructions. He held the gun out in front of him, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, and focused on steadying his arms. He squinted down the barrel and pulled the trigger, closing his eyes as he did so. The shock of the retort and the way the gun whipped backwards made him stagger into Seb’s arms. He waited for the laughter.

  ‘Blimey!’ he heard. ‘Did you see that, Gustav? The littl’un hit the rock plum in the middle.’

  ‘Bet he can’t do it again,’ Gustav replied gruffly.

  ‘Good shot, Pascal,’ Olivier joined in.

  ‘Prove him wrong, littl’un. Go on, have another go,’ said Seb.

  Pascal raised the gun and tried to stop himself from shaking with fear and excitement. Could he do it again, when he was struggling to believe that he had hit the target in the first place? He took his time, held his breath, then pulled the trigger and stood firm.

  ‘He’s done it again!’ Seb exclaimed. ‘Proved you wrong, Gustav. This boy’s a genius.’

  Pascal could feel his heart swell with pride. He sat down next to Olivier, who was looking at him in astonishment.

  ‘How come you can do that when you’re so pathetic at using a slingshot?’ Olivier asked.

  ‘Maybe I don’t like killing things,’ he said.

  ‘You’d kill someone soon enough if they threatened you or your family,’ Seb butted in. He didn’t wait for Pascal to reply, but handed them both a cigarette. ‘Here’s to two top marksmen,’ he grinned. ‘If you can fire a gun, you can smoke one of these, no sweat.’

  Chapter 19

  Over the next few days, comrades of Seb and Gustav returned to the village with boys they had rounded up. As the first arrivals, Olivier and Pascal felt somehow important, even though Pascal was one of the youngest. None of the new boys could match his prowess with a gun, and he forced himself to cope with smoking in order to stand out from those who were being made to try it for the first time and coughed violently.

  The days began to merge into each other. The boys would wake, groggy and nauseous, eat the thin soup with its token bits of vegetables, make sorties into the forest to search for fugitives, scrap a bit amongst themselves, fire a few rounds at makeshift targets, smoke, drink and sleep. They were issued with blue T-shirts and had their heads shaved down each side to show that they belonged to the same group. They were all housed in the same village hut with its blacked-out window and the door firmly locked at night.

  Pascal tried to remember his previous life, but couldn’t find his way through the blur of images. Nothing seemed to make sense, only what he was told by Seb and the feeling that he could be someone special if he obeyed. He wanted Seb’s approval. And he needed Seb’s help to find his family.

  ‘Do you think they’ll take us home when it’s safe?’ he asked Olivier. ‘I mean, they like us, don’t they?’

  Olivier pulled a face. ‘We don’t even know who they are,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what they want with us.’

  ‘They’re just protecting us,’ said Pascal. ‘That’s all. We could be dead by now if it weren’t for them.’

  Olivier looked at him vacantly. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘We could.’

  ‘At least we’ll be able to protect ourselves if the rebels come,’ Pascal continued.

  ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead!’ Olivier snorted. ‘Is that how it goes?’

  Pascal hadn’t really thought that far, except in a vague, detached way. He didn’t want to think that far now, either. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag and closed his eyes as he blocked everything from his mind. He was sure it wouldn’t come to that. Seb and his friends would sort the rebels out.

  ‘You soon got used to smoking,’ Olivier observed.

  ‘It makes me feel sort of like I can be who I want and do what I want. And it helps me forget,’ said Pascal.

  ‘Drugs do that,’ said Olivier, ‘as well as screwing your brain up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Pascal asked, opening his eyes and rounding on Olivier.

  ‘They’re not ordinary cigarettes,’ Olivier replied, lighting up one for himself.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s not as if there’s anyone here to tell us off, and right now I don’t care if I screw my brain up.’

  A picture of Pascal’s mother appeared briefly before him, as though she had been summoned to deal with his misbehaviour. She vanished just as quickly, leaving Pascal to choke on the cigarette before stubbing it out and bursting into tears. He turned his back on Olivier and pretended to busy himself cleaning his gun. An image of his father floated before him then, an image that was instantly blown away, as usual, by a flash of white light. Pascal gripped the gun tightly, raised it to shoulder height and fired.

  Time seemed to stand still, then a rough hand grabbed his arm and wrestled the gun from him.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Gustav raged. ‘You could have killed one of us.’

  Seb joined him and slapped Pascal across the face. ‘I thought you were a good kid,’ he snarled. ‘Now you’ve proved you can’t be trusted.’

  Pascal put his hand to his face. ‘I saw my father and my mother,’ he said bleakly. ‘I want to go home. Please take me home.’

  ‘The only place you’re going is in the pokey, till you’ve cooled down that hot head of yours,’ said Seb.

  ‘No, don’t put me in there!’ Pascal pleaded.

  ‘Don’t, Seb,’ Olivier joined in. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid again.’

  ‘He needs to be taught a lesson,’ Seb replied. ‘All of you need to learn this lesson.’ He pushed Pascal ahead of him towards a tiny wooden hut, shoved him inside and barricaded the door behind him.

  Pascal wanted to vomit immediately. There was only just enough room for him to stand with his feet straddled either side of the hole in the ground. The smell was foul and the hut was teeming with flies. Pascal pulled his elbow across his face and stretched the sleeve of his T-shirt over his nose to filter the stench. It was so hot and airless he was scared he would pass out. He was scared too that Seb would leave him there all night, as well as being mortified that he had angered the one person who treated him as someone special. He leant awkwardly against the side of the hut. He had no idea what time it was. He no longer had any idea what day of the week it was. But all of a sudden he remembered one thing: around now it was his birthday. Was it today? Was he spending his eleventh birthday in a filthy latrine?

  Chapter 20

  The day wore on in its usual monotonous fashion. The rain stopped and the sun came out. The piles of pods, empty and full, lay on the ground hissing and steaming with the moisture as though daring anyone to come near them. Pascal filled another sack, mechanically, his thoughts chaotic but fired by one single, sustaining certainty: he had made the decision to leave, and soon, and nothing was going to chan
ge that decision. All he had to do was to find a way, and he believed that the sacks held the answer.

  Tiene continued to pester him from time to time, sometimes threatening, sometimes pleading. Pascal ignored or tried to appease him, but refused to allow him to dampen his resolve. For months he had drifted from day to day, not caring what he did or what happened to him. He had existed and that was it. Now, though, something had stirred within him, some feeling that had become almost extinct but was now showing signs of rebirth. Pascal was determined to nurture it, because wrapped up in it was his only hope for a future. And he had discovered it because of the fight with Tiene. He was thankful to Tiene for that, but it was Tiene who had the power to take all hope away from him again, simply by blocking his escape.

  What he had discovered was a yearning, a longing, a passion, even. Instead of just plodding from day to day with the vague, unformed notion that sometime in the future he would be somewhere else, and that sometime in the future he might find his mother and sisters again, now he had woken something inside that would not allow him to spend another passive hour doing only what it took to get through to the next passive hour. He had to have action. Every minute he had to move one step closer to freedom, and every minute he had to move one step closer to going home to his own country. There were no more excuses. So what if he hadn’t been able to save any money? So what if it was dangerous? Nothing was going to change to make it easier next month, or next year. He was a fool to think that someone would suddenly hand him a large wad of money and say, ‘Here you are, boy. Off you go and have yourself a nice time.’

  ‘What’s so funny, boy?’ A voice cut through his thoughts.

  ‘Nothing’s funny, Mr Kouassi, sir,’ said Pascal. ‘I’m just pleased that the sun is shining.’

  Le Cochon looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you mockin’ me, boy?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Pascal replied. ‘It’s easier to work when it’s not wet.’

  Le Cochon continued to stare at him. ‘If it’s easier, then I want to see you workin’ harder,’ he said. ‘Now get those sacks there loaded on to the truck.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Kouassi, sir,’ said Pascal.

  ‘And don’t let me see you smilin’ too often, or I’ll know you’re havin’ it too easy.’

  Pascal turned away, hiding the smirk that stole across his face as he walked towards the truck and another part of his plan fell into place.

  Chapter 21

  When Seb finally released Pascal from the pokey two hours later, he refused to return his gun.

  ‘You’ll have to prove I can trust you again,’ he said. ‘In the meantime you can practise being my bodyguard – but without a gun.’

  Up until then, the boys’ movements had been restricted to the immediate vicinity of the village, apart from the brief sorties they had made with the men. Now, they were trained to go further and further afield, sometimes crawling on their bellies through the undergrowth, sometimes negotiating barbed wire, sometimes climbing trees to scan the horizon.

  ‘You need to be skilled at moving around unseen,’ they were told. ‘There are enemies all around.’

  Occasionally, they came across an abandoned village, where they were made to collect any items of food and clothing or valuables that had been left behind, and take them back with them.

  ‘Better we have them than let them get into the wrong hands,’ said Seb, grinning.

  Some of the boys fought over the best of the pickings, until Gustav made it clear that anyone who tried to keep things for themselves would be slung in the pokey.

  ‘They make us do all the work, but they don’t allow us anything,’ Olivier grumbled.

  ‘They feed us and give us clothes,’ Pascal argued.

  ‘Whoopydoo,’ said Olivier. ‘They feed us crap and give us lovely blue T-shirts. We’re so lucky.’

  Soon, they were divided into two groups and told they were going out on special missions to capture rebels. Pascal was horrified when he was put into a different group from Olivier, but was relieved to find that Seb was going to lead his group. They sat round a fire, drinking and smoking, while Seb issued instructions and handed out AK-47s. Pascal cradled the rifle in his lap, delighted to have regained Seb’s trust. He was excited. This was his chance to prove his worth. This was the chance to avenge the devastation of his family. That was all he needed to focus on.

  ‘We’ll have a team name,’ said Seb. ‘We’ll all have names. We’ll be the Forest Lions. You, Pascal, will be our Little Lion. Our mascot. And my bodyguard.’

  Pascal glowed with pride while Seb gave names to the rest of the group. He couldn’t wait for night to fall, which was when they were going on their first mission. He watched as the sun sank beneath the horizon and darkness swallowed all but the things that were closest to him. It was as if nothing else existed now. He was waiting for a signal. When the signal came, he would leap into action. The Little Lion was ready to pounce.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Seb’s voice. ‘Remember what you’ve been told, Forest Lions. Don’t let me down.’

  A low murmur spread among the other boys. In the heightened silence it sounded too loud to Pascal. The shuffling of their feet could have echoed that of an elephant stampede. He wanted Seb to tell them to be quiet, but all Seb did was order them to get a move on. There were six in the group – three men and three boys. The other two boys were in front, while Pascal brought up the rear, just ahead of Seb.

  ‘Stick with me, Little Lion, and I’ll see you’re all right,’ Seb whispered to Pascal, as they pushed through low bushes and vines and skirted round palms and ancient trees. ‘Just keep your eyes peeled and listen out for anything unusual.’

  Pascal nodded in the dark. He felt as though all his senses were on red alert. The further they walked, the more his excitement grew. And all he could think about was that they were going to capture the rebels who had killed his father and possibly Angeline too. Hadn’t Seb told him so? Seb had given him the ability to embrace the knowledge of his father’s death, simply by offering him the possibility of revenge. Revenge would come soon, and revenge would be sweet. He was his father’s son. He owed it to his father.

  Word passed down the line that they were coming to a village. Seb gave the order for everyone to flatten themselves on the ground and crawl. Pascal imagined himself as a snake, ignoring the scrapes and scratches to his elbows and knees, and telling himself that he wasn’t scared. Seb was breathing heavily behind him, more like a warthog than a snake, Pascal thought. He wanted to tell his leader that he was making too much noise. Was that what a bodyguard should do?

  ‘Be ready to fire,’ Seb ordered.

  Be ready to fire. Was that what he had to do? Capture the rebels. Fire at the rebels? Kill the rebels? Capture the rebels. Take the rebels back with them. Fire at the rebels?

  Gunfire.

  ‘Run, now. Run in and shoot anything that moves. It’s them or you.’

  A rough hand on his shoulder, dragging him to his feet, pushing him forward.

  ‘Go, Little Lion, go. Don’t fail me now.’

  Don’t fail me now. Go. It’s them or you, Little Lion. Gunfire. Shoot anything. They killed your father. Gunfire. Where from? Shouts. Loud screams. Pascal raised his rifle. A woman, screaming. A woman. More gunfire. An explosion. His father’s face. More shouts. Something jolting his shoulder. A child’s voice. Pounding feet. Another explosion. A flash of white light. Screams. Pounding feet.

  ‘Time to go, Little Lion. Mission accomplished.’

  Another explosion and a huge burst of gunfire. A tug at his T-shirt. Pascal dropped his rifle to his side, turned and ran as fast as he could. He could just make out the shapes of three men fleeing before him. Behind him, more feet were pounding. He hoped it was the other Forest Lions.

  When, finally, they arrived back at their village camp, daylight was breaking and it had started to rain. Pascal threw down his rifle and rushed to the pokey to be sick.

  ‘Too much excitement?’ Seb chuckled when he reap
peared.

  Pascal looked around. He could only see two of the other boys, and Olivier’s group had not yet returned.

  ‘Where’s Raoul?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s just say he stayed behind,’ said Seb.

  Pascal tried to force the meaning of what Seb was telling him to sink in, but he couldn’t make sense of it. ‘We didn’t capture any rebels,’ he muttered instead.

  ‘They didn’t seem to want to be captured,’ Seb replied casually. ‘But they won’t trouble us again.’ He handed Pascal a cigarette. ‘You did well today,’ he said. ‘I’m proud of you.’

  Chapter 22

  Screams. Screams, tearing the air to shreds with their desperation. Words, loud but incoherent. Worthless words. Then panic, stripping away sense and smothering senses. Flames, licking at the dryness of grass. Lapping at the vulnerability of straw. Legs, pumping hard but going nowhere. Going nowhere and going everywhere. Heart, beating against the confines of a heaving ribcage. Beating so loudly that it confuses itself with the rampant rat-a-tat that had broken the night. The ground, rising up to meet the sky, then falling down under a sunken sea.

  Then there were people, so many people, thousands of people, people for as far as the eye could see, their own eyes blank and fathomless. A rigid silence enveloped them. They were waiting and waiting, drowning in the rain that fell and soaked their souls. They had waited for so long already, hearing distant promises pass them by, one after the other after the other.

  ‘Where is home?’ a child wailed. ‘I was never there.’

  ‘Where is home?’ some people moaned, a sound so low and muttered that it spread and mutated like a Chinese whisper, until every single person called out, ‘Let us home! We can’t stay here!’

  Bicycle chains crashed against the ground, slashing the bare earth, which billowed, red and angry, hovered, then settled to dust again, a bleak and failed attempt at rebellion. Nobody dared move when the chains rattled for a second time. Blood drained from petrified faces. In an instant they turned into ghosts that were doomed to wander for ever.