The Bitter Side of Sweet

by Tara Sullivan

  It’s a disaster. A deep, jagged-edged gash slices down Seydou’s forearm, biting through the base of his hand. I see the pulp and meat of his arm and a white thing lurking in the red of his wrist that might be bone. When Moussa pinches the two edges of skin together, blood pours out of the sides. Seydou doesn’t move. I start to get really worried.

  “Hold this here,” Moussa says to me, gesturing with his chin to where he’s holding Seydou’s arm in place. I reach forward tentatively and cup my brother’s wrist between my hands. I put my two thumbs around it and replace Moussa’s fingers holding the mangled forearm together. I have trouble looking at the wound but I don’t want to look away, so instead I stare at my thumbs, examining the dirt under my fingernails. Moussa digs around in the bag beside him. A minute later he leans forward with a spool of black thread and a needle.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask, my voice husky.

  “I have to sew it shut. Hopefully that will stop the bleeding enough for him to get better.” Moussa shrugs. “One way or the other, we’ll do this quickly.”

  Part of me hates Moussa right now, but the rest of me is so grateful to him for showing up and knowing what to do that I don’t say anything as he bends over Seydou and binds the edges with large, irregular stitches. It takes a lot of stitches.

  “How did this happen?” I ask as he rethreads the needle.

  Moussa looks at me before bending over the work in front of him again, pulling the thread slowly through the muscle and skin of Seydou’s arm, tying him back together.

  “From what I hear, he was reaching around the trunk of a tree to pull at a pod just as another boy was swinging to cut it. The boy cut him instead.”

  I want to ask who the boy was. A rage so pure and white burns inside of me that I think I’ll find the boy and kill him with my bare hands. But I don’t let myself ask the question, even though Moussa has one eyebrow raised, waiting for it. I can’t trust myself with what I’d do with the information once I had it. Because really, it’s not that boy’s fault. Seydou should have known better. But he didn’t. I would never have cut a pod when his hand was there, because I’m always looking to see where his hands are, what he’s doing, whether he’s safe. He’s so used to being with me that he’s never learned the common sense of a crew: don’t put your hand around a tree when other people are cutting in the area. So really, it’s my fault the other boy cut him. I look away from Moussa and keep my mouth shut.

  Moussa shrugs, then goes back to his stitching. His stitches pull at Seydou’s swelling skin and the little black knots look like rows of ugly birds, flying down his arm and onto his hand.

  “Find something to wrap it with,” says Moussa, “and tie it tight.” He wipes the needle off on his pants, puts it and the thread into the little sack, and walks away from us, to where the other crews have prepared dinner.

  I cradle Seydou’s head in my lap. I’m not sure if I should use his shirt from before or not. On the one hand, it’s covered in blood and dirt and it’s wet. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to wrap stitches in wet cloth or not. On the other hand, the shirt is ruined for wearing, and I don’t really have many other options, unless I use my shirt. I sit there for a minute, undecided, and then I take Seydou’s shirt to the water pump.

  The metal handle flakes rust into my palm as I crank it, but after a few full-arm pushes, I’m rewarded with a gush of water from the spout. I hold Seydou’s shirt under the spout with one hand and pump with the other, squeezing the cloth in my hands as I go. The air in the shirt bubbles out through the fabric when I squeeze it and the whole thing froths red over my hands. I try not to let the mingled smell of my brother’s blood and my own fear turn my stomach. Instead, I pump harder and scrub the shirt between my fists, imagining it’s the face of the boy who cut him.

  By the time the water runs clear through the shirt, I’m standing in a red mud puddle that fills the wrinkles on the tops of my toes. I wring the shirt out and head to where Seydou is lying. I want to rip the shirt into strips: one to bandage him, one to wash him off, one to leave, cool, on his face, but we don’t have the luxury of destroying a shirt for comfort, so instead I fold it in three and then wrap it tightly around his arm, tying the sleeves in a knot to hold it together.

  As I pull the ends of the knot, Seydou cries out.

  “Seydou?”

  He starts keening in response, a high, awful sound. I look wildly around the camp, but no one tells me what to do. I notice that Khadija has stood up and has come as close to us as her chain will allow, but she’s still far away and no one else is coming any closer.

  “Hey there,” I say, low and soft, pulling him against me. “I’ve got you now. It’s me, Amadou. It’s your brother. I’ve got you now and you’re safe. I know your arm hurts, but Moussa stitched it up and soon you’ll be all better, I just know it. Shh.”

  I mumble on with whatever ridiculous things I can think of to calm him, but he continues to sob and tears roll down his face. When he thrashes, he tries to make a fist with his hurt hand, but only three fingers bend. I taste bile in my mouth and force myself to swallow.

  It’ll get better. It’ll get better, I say to myself.

  Clumsily, I lift Seydou into my arms, trying not to pinch his injured arm between our bodies. The ridges of the scars on his back rub against my fingers. I carry him to the pump and set him down a little bit away from the puddle I made before. Then I peel off my own shirt and wet it like I did for Khadija. I do the best I can to scrub the rest of Seydou’s body. When I’m done he looks cleaner but, without the layer of dirt and blood, he looks almost gray. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody look as pale as my little brother in that moment and I’m afraid.

  Now thoroughly wet, Seydou is shivering, so I pull on my soaked shirt, pick him up again, and go sit close to the fire. I pull his head onto my lap and stretch his legs toward the warmth. One of the other boys offers me a bowl of stew but Seydou won’t eat it and I can’t. I shake my head and eventually the boy leaves. I sit and rock Seydou until the bosses come and make us go into the sleeping hut.

  Yussuf comes over and helps lift Seydou into my arms. I pull away from him. You were there today, my eyes say. I don’t know if I can trust you.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and then he walks away before I can let myself think about what Yussuf might be sorry for.

  I stagger under Seydou’s weight into the sleeping hut. There is a general quiet rustling and murmuring as the rest of the boys settle for the night. I head to our usual corner and lay Seydou gently on the dirty straw. Then I hear the clink of a chain.

  I look up in time to see Khadija being shoved into the sleeping hut with the rest of us just before the big door swings shut, blocking out the last traces of light from the fire. I feel a small pang. In all my worry about Seydou I had forgotten about her.

  “Good luck,” says a faceless dry chuckle from the other side of the door, and I hear the bolt being thrown and the padlock click closed.

  For a heartbeat the entire hut is silent. Then I hear a whistle from the corner near the door where the oldest boys sleep.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” says a voice in the darkness, “come sleep over here.”

  There is a wave of soft laughter among the rest of the boys. I can tell it’s a joke, said to break the awkward silence, but Khadija doesn’t know it.

  She screeches wordlessly. A clatter follows and I realize she must have tripped over someone in her hurry to get away from the whistler. You get pretty good at seeing with your ears after two years in the dark.

  “Ow!” Another voice, this time from the person she must have fallen on.

  The laughter gets louder.

  Khadija sobs.

  In an instant I’m standing, following the sound, sliding my feet along the ground so I know when to step over a boy instead of bumping into him. Part of me can’t believe that I’ve left my hurt
brother to help a girl I didn’t even know existed four days ago. But I have to. The other boys may not know what she went through last night, but I do. And while I couldn’t do anything to change what happened then, I can do something about this.

  I get to the front of the hut.

  “Stop it,” I say, loudly, to the sleeping hut at large.

  There’s a startled break in the laughter.

  “Come on, Khadija,” I say, and reach my hand through the darkness toward her. I touch her and for a second she recoils.

  “. . . Amadou?” Her voice is shaky.

  “Awó, it’s me.”

  A soft hand grabs mine and I pull her forward.

  “Try not to step on anyone. Seydou’s in the corner.”

  The older boys recover the quickest, and as we shuffle to the back of the sleeping hut, I get some colorful suggestions about what I can do with my new girlfriend and a few fuzzy threats about what they’ll do to me if I ever give orders again. I ignore them. I’m one of the biggest boys here and pretty much everyone knows better than to mess with me.

  My foot bumps gently into a leg. It pulls out of my way.

  “You’re just about there,” says Yussuf, helping me orient myself.

  I turn slightly and creep forward until I hear Seydou’s jagged breathing, then I sit. Khadija settles beside me with a jingle. She’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off her body as well as Seydou’s. There’s a slim sound from her chains that makes me think she’s shaking.

  “It’s all right,” I say softly, hoping none of the others can hear me. “It was only a joke.”

  She doesn’t answer and since the joke isn’t really worth defending, I leave it at that.

  “We’re in the corner now,” I tell her. “If you’re careful, you can step over Seydou and sleep between him and the wall. I’ll be out here.” After a long moment of silence I hear her rustle and clank her way to follow my suggestion.

  Now that the area around me is clear again, I stretch out beside Seydou.

  The whistles and jokes continue for a while, but I don’t say anything and, one by one, the voices drop away as the boys in the hut fall asleep. Everyone had a long day of work today and is facing another one tomorrow. No joke is better than sleep.

  I only wish I could join them.

  Instead, as quiet settles into the hut and the noises of the night bush take over, I stare at the ceiling and wonder what on earth I’m going to do now that I have two hurt people to look out for instead of one.

  I don’t sleep well that night, waking whenever Seydou moves or cries out. I touch his face in the dark and my hand comes away feeling warm. I touch his arm in the dark and my hand comes away feeling wet. Neither of these comfort me, and when I do sleep, I dream I’m walking across ankle-deep fields of blood while lines of black birds pull together wounds in the sky, only to finally find myself standing by a yawning grave.

  I wake up shaking, my heart thudding in my chest and my breathing rapid. I clutch Seydou to me.

  When the bosses open the doors the next morning, I feel like I live in another world. I don’t see right, don’t hear right. It takes Moussa slapping me on the head to get me to move out of the sleeping hut to the fire with the other boys, Seydou still clutched in my arms, Khadija a clanking shadow behind me.

  Now that my initial terror is gone, I realize how heavy Seydou is. I walk stooped like an old man, shuffling one foot in front of the other, to the pump, where I peel the bandage off Seydou’s arm, wash it out, and put it on again, since I don’t know what else to do. He yells and thrashes around when I touch him, but he’s so weak it doesn’t take much to hold him still. I splash water onto his hot face and try to direct some into his mouth. Most of it dribbles down his chin, but I’m rewarded when I see the bump in his throat move, showing that he’s drinking at least something.

  I look up when Moussa stands in front of me.

  “Eat.” He hands me a bowl.

  I want to scream at him to take it away. Want to tell him I’m not hungry. Want to beg him to save my brother. But when I open my mouth no words come out. Moussa puts the bowl in my hands and takes Seydou from me.

  “Eat,” he says again.

  I do.

  Moussa turns around and walks back into the sleeping hut, carrying Seydou. I get to my feet and follow along behind them, Khadija still by my side.

  “Wait,” I say, “wait.” But Moussa ignores me and I’m not sure what I want him to wait for anyway, so I make myself finish the bowl of whatever it is as I follow them into the semidarkness.

  The inside of the sleeping hut is dim, with speckles of bright morning sun slicing through the tiny cracks in the siding and along the ground where the walls disappear into the floor. Because the door is open behind me I can see more than I usually can: the piles of dried grass and cloth scraps that the boys have moved around to make sleeping areas for themselves, the shadow-lined dents in the dirt floor that show where someone has slept for many months. I walk to our sleeping area, where Moussa is laying Seydou, pulling grass from nearby piles for under his head. His movements are gentle, and I’m grateful to him for that. I hover in the doorway and watch. Moussa looks at me.

  “Go fill a bucket with water and bring whatever’s left of that soup. You,” he continues to Khadija, “help me with his head.”

  To my surprise, she obeys and goes to Seydou.

  When I get back to the sleeping hut with the bucket of water and the half bowl of soup I was able to take from the other boys, Khadija is sitting on the ground beside my brother and Moussa is standing off to one side, looking at both of them in disgust.

  “Listen closely, Amadou,” Moussa says when I get to them. “In five minutes, we are going to leave for a day of work. You will be coming with us. I am going to leave this girl in here with your brother.” He looks at the watch he is so proud of on his wrist. “You have . . . four and a half minutes to persuade her to take good care of him.”

  With that, Moussa strides out of the sleeping hut and into the morning sunshine. Out of sight, I hear him shouting at the boys to get their tools and form work crews. A distant part of my brain notes that, being the last one in line, I won’t get a good blade, but the thought is such a small problem that I actually laugh.

  Khadija looks up.

  I put the bucket of water beside her and hand her the extra bowl of soup.

  “Do your best,” I say. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She doesn’t say anything to me, but takes the bowl. I brush my hand softly over Seydou’s face. He whimpers. I rearrange the pile of grass under his head, trying to make him more comfortable. Then I lean over and rest my forehead against his burning one.

  “You stay alive,” I whisper to him fiercely. “You stay alive until tonight. You hear me?”

  But Seydou’s eyes are wild and feverish, staring past me, and I don’t know if he’s heard me or not.

  “Amadou!” Moussa barks from outside. “Now!”

  I turn at the sound of Moussa’s irritation and get up to leave. A hand darts out of the shadows and grabs my ankle. I look at Khadija in surprise. She’s looking at Seydou, lying there making mewling noises of pain. Her fingers squeeze my ankle tightly. Then she looks up.

  “Hurry,” she says. “I’ll do the best I can.”

  It’s the first thing she’s said, other than my name, since it happened.

  “I ni cé,” I whisper, and walk out. Moussa closes the door behind me, padlocking it shut.

  “Get a machete,” he says, and heads into the trees, where the last group is disappearing into the green.

  I walk to the toolshed and pick up the last machete. I was right: it’s the worst one. But as I swing the cracked, warped handle in my hand and grab a sack, I feel lighter. Because the wildcat agreed to take care of my brother. And a bad machete is a very, very small pr
oblem.

  8

  The day is a humid ache of work accompanied by the drone of mosquitoes. I smack at the insects when I can’t stand it anymore, but others are always there to take their place. Mosquitoes are like bad thoughts that way. All day I swat away thoughts of Seydou and Khadija, but I can’t ever make them stop.

  Today more than most, I note the slow creep of the sun across the sky and I race to fill the bags, hoping to leave early. It still hurts to work, each swing of my machete pulling on the half-healed welts crisscrossing my back. But I won’t let myself slow. I’m on my second sack when someone joins me.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” says a quiet voice at my elbow.

  I rub my forehead against my upper arm, not wanting to put down my machete to wipe the sweat out of my eyes properly. It’s Yussuf.

  I don’t feel like talking. I keep cutting the ripe pods off their stems and for a minute we work side by side. An uncomfortable silence stretches, with only the chop of machetes to fill it. With Yussuf so close, it’s hard not to imagine what happened to Seydou. Why was he even working near someone? Why didn’t he get his own tree?

  I know that Yussuf is giving me the chance to say something, giving me the chance to talk. I want to think that Yussuf is being nice. But somewhere else in my head, a dark, poisonous voice whispers that maybe Yussuf’s conversation isn’t based on feelings of kindness. Maybe it comes from feelings of guilt.

  Could Yussuf be the one who cut my brother? I won’t let myself ask. But I also don’t make eye contact and I don’t talk to him. I focus on the movements of my hands and resolve not to talk to anyone for the rest of the day. After a while, Yussuf lets his work take him away from me. I don’t invite him to stay.

  The afternoon passes in a haze of sweat as I worry about Seydou. How is he doing? How is he feeling? Is Khadija alert enough to help him? Visions of the two of them sprawled on the floor, too weak to reach for the water, assault me, making me work faster, sloppier. But I don’t care. All that matters is seeing them again and knowing they’re all right.