Lionboy: the Truth

by Zizou Corder

  But Haiti was also one of the most godforsaken lands known to man, seemingly cursed since the Europeans slaughtered the two million Indians who had lived on Hispaniola and replaced them with African slaves. Death and poverty and violence had always hung over the island. And now it was manforsaken too, to a large extent, after the floods and earthquakes of the early twenty-first century. Mountains had tumbled, rivers had burst their banks, lakes had joined up and much of the pure water had become salt.

  But it remained the home of voodoo, and voodoo was strong and much misunderstood, and in these desperate times survivors turned to it even more.

  ‘Take us there,’ said Aneba. ‘If the ingredients I need are available anywhere, then it’ll be in Port-au-Prince.’

  Suleiman muttered a prayer under his breath.

  Each time a ship passed close by San Antonio, a camera noticed, and a statutory alert went out from Intelligence and Security, telling those who needed to know. It appeared on their computer screens, or via the internal microchip communications system that was inserted under the skin behind the ear of all Corporacy staff.

  The Head Chief Executive had asked to be informed of any unusual shipping, and the alert came up on his screen. He redirected his page to the security camera for that sector, and took a good look at Suleiman’s Joy. It wasn’t identified on his database of international shipping, but that wasn’t surprising – Poor World boats often weren’t licensed. But he could see it was Poor World, African, sea-battered, too small for the journey it had undertaken.

  He froze the image and zoomed in. No one visible on deck matched the descriptions of Charlie, Aneba or Magdalen.

  He sent a message to Intelligence and Security: keep an eye on the ship. Get images of those on board. You never know.

  Chapter Eleven

  As the night drew on, even Charlie’s sailorguard couldn’t take the smell in the slave dungeon. He pulled off the sacking that had been hanging over the door. Through the black bars were revealed stars, glowing far away in the hazy hot night sky. There was a little breeze still off the sea, but it didn’t reach in to stir the damp, fetid air. Outside was the noise of crickets, an owl’s hoot, some music from far away, drumming. And the low, ceaseless roar of the sea.

  The girls were sleeping. Their breathing was soft and they seemed remarkably peaceful given that they too were chained to the wall, and had nothing but the bare damp floor to sleep on. Next door was a different matter – odd cries and mutterings had been coming from there all evening.

  It was so hot.

  A tiny voice spoke in Charlie’s ear.

  ‘Do you want me to go somewhere?’ it whispered. ‘I tried to get past the cloth on the door, but it was too heavy for me. I could go now … Find Sergei … It might be safer at night.’

  Ninu! Charlie inclined his head towards him in a friendly fashion. He couldn’t stroke him because he was still hung up to the bar (and his shoulders were feeling the pain of it), but he wanted to show his pleasure that Ninu was there.

  ‘I was scared!’ said Ninu. ‘Nearly got squashed! You and me both!’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Charlie whispered.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ninu.

  The owl hooted again.

  ‘Don’t go out,’ said Charlie. Apart from the owl, there were vultures. Charlie had seen them earlier, soaring beautifully like eagles, but with their giveaway tiny bald heads. And the big tricolour lizards – he didn’t know what they’d make of Ninu. Anyone might want to eat him. ‘Stay here till we’ve thought something out.’

  Thought something out! Well, they couldn’t just think themselves out of this fort, that was for sure. More’s the pity.

  Across the way, the sailor opened one eye. Wearily, he pulled himself up. Ninu scurried behind Charlie’s neck, but the sailor just said ‘Shut up’ again, before letting his eyes droop closed.

  Charlie was so scared. Now that he was under constant surveillance, how could he ask Ninu or Sergei to find out for him where they were being taken, or what Maccomo’s plan was?

  He couldn’t.

  So did he just have to wait and see?

  He stared over at the sailor. What could bring a grown man to keep children prisoners?

  Where was his humanity?

  Hmm, thought Charlie. Maybe he would look for it. Maybe if he could find the man’s humanity, remind him of it, challenge it …

  But before he got a chance, the next thing happened.

  First, a harsh rattling at the gate. Then a crowd of sailors, and with them Majid, squeezing through the dark portal, swarming into the dungeon. Then Maccomo, aloof and authoritative. Then a squawking and a silencing as the boys – there were quite a few of them – and the girls and Charlie were dragged to their feet, unhitched from their hooks and bars, and bustled, still bound, stiff, half asleep, out into the night.

  The air, hot as it was, was welcome. It seemed nearly as wet as the sea.

  The small boat was right there on the beach. Beyond, in the dull moonlight, Charlie could make out Old Yeller waiting for them in the deeper water.

  One of the boys was fussing and shouting. A swipe to the head from a sailor shut him up.

  ‘Careful of them!’ hissed Maccomo. ‘We need them in good shape!’

  Charlie swapped quick, nervous glances with Seventeen and Twenty-One. They said nothing.

  And then they were in the boat – loads of them, it seemed.

  ‘Sorry,’ Charlie muttered automatically as he trod on someone.

  ‘Eh, Charlie,’ said a male voice – Ghanaian, between boy and man. ‘Worse things happen – like worse things are happening right now.’

  For a moment Charlie thought he was being addressed by name – but no, it was the general Ghanaian Charlie.

  And then, in the moonlight, he looked at the boy he had stepped on – and he squawked aloud. ‘Jake Yeboa!’ he said, and then shut himself up. The boy shot him a look.

  Jake Yeboa! Number ten for the Starlets!

  ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ Charlie whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the boy. ‘It’s all of us! Who are you?’

  But Charlie wasn’t interested in answering. He knew who he was. What he wanted to know was what in heck Maccomo was doing stealing the entire Ghanaian junior national football team.

  And then suddenly he did know. He knew exactly.

  Being able to talk Cat? Braiding before you are born? Discovering a cure for asthma? Being simply the best junior football team the world has ever seen?

  This had Corporacy written all over it. They were after the talent again.

  Suleiman’s Joy glided past the Isle of Gonaïve into Port-au-Prince on heavy glutinous seas, under a hot sky. Mists were rolling over the mountainous interior of Hispaniola, and a sweaty, unrefreshing rain hung about in the air.

  Aneba shook his head as he looked ashore. A tatty concrete quay ran out into the harbour, sprouting shafts of twisted metal, and some low, weather-stained buildings lay along the seafront. A ragged flag slumped on a rusty flagpole. There was nobody around.

  ‘Well, we don’t have to stay too long,’ he murmured.

  Then he turned to Suleiman.

  ‘Give me two hours,’ he said. ‘Wait offshore. Then return every hour on the hour, and I’ll signal to you.’

  Magdalen bit the inside of her cheek. Of course it made more sense for Aneba to go, and to go without her – there might be Corporacy spies here who would report on the big black man and the red-haired woman – but she didn’t want to let him go. She pressed her fingernails into her palms.

  ‘Bye,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Bye,’ she said.

  The main market was right there by the harbour. It seemed merchants didn’t want to hang around too long here, or go too far inland. Aneba picked his way across what had once been a road, avoiding the deepest potholes, but even so his shoes caked up with sloppy mud. He glanced over the stalls: vegetables, batteries, guns, chemicals. One was offering hormones, vitamins and viruses. Ano
ther had scraggy chickens. He glanced around him. The stallholders were skinny and blank-faced. Business was not booming. He didn’t want to look too obviously a stranger, but equally he needed someone to tell him where to go for what he wanted.

  Above the sick smell of the mud came another smell, a fabulous mixed-up aroma of nutmeg and cardamom, black sugar and ginger, tea tree and rose. Spices. Aneba followed the smell. He knew exactly what he wanted. He’d identified it when they’d been imprisoned at Vence, and he knew he’d find it here, but he wasn’t seeing it.

  He stopped for a coffee at a stand with a tattered cloth roof.

  ‘Tu cherches quelque chose de spécial?’ asked a soft voice beside his elbow. Are you looking for something special? ‘De l’opium? Du hashish? Du peyote?’

  Aneba looked round. He didn’t want opium, hashish or peyote, but someone who could supply those things might also have what he needed.

  ‘J’ai besoin de quelque chose, oui,’ he replied.

  A child was standing there, barefoot, half invisible in the shadows.

  ‘Viens,’ she said, and scooted across the lane, down an alley. The buildings were half ruined – rooms falling off them, wires sticking out of them, mud seeping, seeping everywhere under the fine rain. She slipped into a dark doorway beneath a shabby ornamental balcony. Aneba followed after her, his feet heavy with claggy mud. The building was painted pale green, and the paint was peeling off.

  ‘Attends,’ she said, and his eyes started to get used to the dimness.

  He could hear voices inside, talking a kind of French, only it wasn’t French.

  ‘Kisa saa-a ye?’ said an old voice, male, dusty.

  ‘Gin oun gason, boko,’ said the child. ‘Apa.’

  ‘Mown ki peyi li ye?’

  Aneba couldn’t understand. He waited. There was a dead mouse half buried in the mud of the floor, and the sole of an old shoe. He wondered if the house had been built on a rubbish dump.

  Soon the child returned. Following her was an old man.

  Aneba knew all too well that there would follow a long preamble, a lot of talk and courtesy, waiting, making of excuses, arguing about prices … Everything in him wanted to yell, ‘Cut to the chase! Let’s get down to business!’ But he knew it had to take the time it had to take.

  In the end it was only an hour and a half, including discussing the exact recipe (the old man was very knowledgeable) and locating the additional ingredients. Aneba came back up the alley carrying two large and one small sealed bottles of maximum-strength essence of exactly what he wanted, plus the information that, although it was hard to find processed, the rose that was the main ingredient grew wild in various places around the islands, if you knew where to look.

  He had checked the essence. It was the real thing. He sat on the concrete quay and waited.

  When Suleiman’s Joy appeared, he felt a ripple of relief.

  But as the boat approached, he stood up. There was a figure on deck – a man. He didn’t look like Suleiman, or either of the sailors. He was more slender – fairer. Magdalen was on deck too, talking to the new man. Chatting. Happily. She turned and waved to Aneba.

  He was still wary as he stepped aboard.

  ‘Mag?’ he said questioningly.

  Her face was full of a big grin.

  ‘Did you get it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Plenty. But, er –’ He gestured to the blond man – and as he did so, he recognized him. It was Charlie’s Venetian friend.

  Aneba couldn’t help himself. He flung his arms round Claudio and gave him an immense bear hug.

  ‘You came!’ he said. ‘You really came! Did you follow us all the way here? My god – you must be Charlie’s real friend. Wow. Wow,’ and he hugged him again.

  Suleiman hadn’t even moored the boat. He was taking off again without any hesitation, muttering his prayers.

  ‘And it’s not just Claudio!’ cried Magdalen. ‘He’s brought –’

  ‘Who?’ Aneba smiled.

  ‘Well. Any person who is not crazy would maybe not believe it,’ began Claudio.

  ‘Try me,’ suggested Aneba.

  ‘The King of Bulgaria and two Lions,’ said Claudio.

  Aneba was silenced. He stared.

  ‘Um – also Charlie’s loyal friends?’ he said finally.

  ‘Yes,’ said Claudio. ‘Yes, they came for Charlie.’

  ‘Oh, my word,’ said Aneba. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘On board our boat. Is called El Baraka. We just arrive in this dreadful place, following you, and we see this your boat, so I board – we are offshore. You can come and see. Please.’ He gestured out to sea. In the distance, Aneba could make out another small ship.

  ‘Glad to,’ he said. ‘Glad to.’

  Once his cargo was safely aboard Old Yeller, Maccomo made his telephone call to the Chief Executive.

  The Chief Executive wanted him to bring the merchandise to him in Vence. Maccomo refused.

  ‘I go straight to the top,’ he said. ‘There has been too much nonsense. I will not risk my investment.’

  So the CE rang the HCE, and the HCE smiled happily because he had been right. Charlie was coming to him, and where Charlie came, his parents could not be too far behind. He’d just carry on keeping his eyes open.

  The crossing, for Charlie, was just dull and unpleasant – or rather it was curiously suspended, because he knew it was going to get scary, but it wasn’t actually scary yet. He wasn’t too seasick, though he would have given a great deal for some fresh air and clear sunshine. But, incarcerated, he soon forgot that outside the walls of his wooden cell was the vast Atlantic Ocean, filling the basin of the world, stretching for thousands of miles, deep and wide. Under other circumstances what an adventure it would have been, to cross the Atlantic by boat! But it was not. He was in a tiny, stuffy cabin with no company but for his beady-eyed sailorguard and Ninu, who dared not even show his little green face.

  Charlie didn’t know where any of the others were – not Rafi, not Seventeen and Twenty-One, and not the Starlets. He imagined that they might be all together somewhere, without him. Part of him was a tiny bit flattered to be put on his own. He knew why Maccomo had done it: Maccomo now knew that Charlie was clever. Charlie could no longer kid him that he was dim and docile. Maccomo had put him on his own expressly because he didn’t trust him not to come up with another plan for escape.

  And, of course, he did entirely intend to come up with some such plan.

  But what? How?

  He tried his hardest, sitting in that dim cupboard, to keep hold of his bravery, his brains, his good sense – all the things that had helped him so far. But it was harder than ever before. He had lost his parents, again. The stakes were higher, he was more alone, and more powerless. No day-light, no fresh air. A bowl or two of not very nice slop each day.

  And there was another sorrow. He didn’t know if Sergei was on board. He couldn’t send Ninu to find out; they could hardly even talk. Charlie was watched all the time and Ninu was still in his pocket, coming out only during the brief moments when the sailor snoozed, to catch mosquitoes and boat bugs with his long, extraordinary tongue.

  Charlie sat on the rough wooden floor, carefully so as not to squash Ninu, and stroked the back of his frilled head. Apart from that contact, Charlie was alone, all the way across the Atlantic, for thousands of long and lonely sea miles.

  He couldn’t even liven his time by wondering where they were going. He knew. They were going to some bigwig Corporacy place. Some Gated Community mastermind mothership central office headquarters. Some dreadful place, where the doctored air his parents had told him about would befuddle his mind, and he would be lost to himself and the world, powerless. No one was going to kill him or beat him or hurt him. They were just going to soak him up until he didn’t exist any more. His body would putter blindly about, but his self, his Charlieness, would be gone. He could not think of any way round it. And he tried. Lord, he tried. In that dim little room, he drov
e himself round in dismal circles with the idea that he must be able to do something, to think of something, to prevent this from happening. But he could think of nothing. Sometimes he thought of how ashamed he was to be thinking of nothing, but mostly he just thought of nothing.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charlie had been sitting in his despondency for some weeks when a charming young woman with shiny hair and a freckly nose knocked on the door, beamed at the sailor and invited Charlie to come and join her on deck.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘I’m Sally-Ann, welcome! I’m your Assigned Companion! We’ve been expecting ya! I guess where you’ve been sleeping hasn’t been too comfortable – but never mind, you’re here now!’

  The sunlight blinded him as he came out on to the deck. Blue, blue sky. Brightness everywhere. The sea sparkled up at him, and a tiny bright bird buzzed past. It’s heaven, he thought confusedly. This is the beginning of the end. His breath caught in his throat. I’m going to start breathing that stuff Mum and Dad told me about and this is the last thought I will have that will be mine … He coughed. He could smell the sweetness on the air.

  ‘Where am I?’ Charlie said as Sally-Ann led him on to a pretty wooden jetty. He knew, but he wanted to know the name. He wanted to be intelligent and logical while he still could. And where were Seventeen and Twenty-One? And the Starlets? And Rafi?

  ‘San Antonio!’ she said with a little laugh, stepping down on to a beach that could only accurately be described as perfect – the palest of pink sand, bluest of turquoise seas, lightest of halcyon breezes, gentlest of caressing suns. The contrast with the dim cabin in which he had crossed the ocean, or with his dim mood, could not have been greater.

  ‘And where’s that?’ he asked, smiling back at her.

  ‘Why, it’s here, of course!’ she said.

  She led him across the beach on to a track, where a little electric tram waited for them. For about ten minutes it carried them silently through a natural paradise of rocks and beach, sandy dunes and graceful trees. Little monkeys chattered in the branches, and more tiny hummingbirds spun between flowers four times their size, glittering in the sunlight like scattered jewels from a broken necklace. And the air was sweet. Charlie put his fingers to his mouth and nose, tried to feel the inside of his lungs. Was it in him yet? Was it affecting him?