The Bitter Side of Sweet

by Tara Sullivan

  The room is much the same as the other two: gray mattress, torn pictures. But this room has one addition that makes me whole again. Because the person sleeping on the mattress, his left elbow stump wrapped in a bandage and propped on a pile of crumpled newspaper, is my brother. I look around the room again and see Moussa lying across the doorway on a blanket. It’s where I would have slept if I was being careful to keep the other bosses away from Seydou and I feel an odd warmth in my heart for Moussa.

  I feel a pull on my arm. When I turn, Khadija points away from the house. Though it feels like going in the wrong direction, I follow her until we’re both crouched in the thick shadows where the yard turns wild. I’m breathing hard. Beside me, Khadija is completely calm.

  “We have to get him out of there,” I say. Even though we’re more than five meters from the windows and the night breeze is blowing in our faces, taking the sound away, I keep my voice pitched low.

  Khadija chews on her thumbnail, pulling with her other hand at the fraying knot of braids at the top of her neck.

  “There are bars on the windows,” she points out unnecessarily. I know there are bars.

  “What if I went in and carried him out?”

  She shoots me an unbelieving look.

  “He’s in the same room as Moussa! You think Moussa’s not going to notice you dancing around him to grab your brother?”

  I imagine Moussa waking and catching me with Seydou in my arms. Trapped in that little room, there would be nowhere for me to hide; no way to run. With the added weight and awkward bulk of my brother, there’s little hope I could get out of the house without him catching us.

  “Maybe he wouldn’t wake up,” I mumble.

  “You’re willing to risk all of our lives on a maybe?”

  I stare at the window. To be so close to Seydou and unable to get to him is so frustrating I want to punch something. Instead, my frustration washes out of me, taking the last of my energy with it and I surprise myself by yawning.

  “What else can we do?” I ask around the yawn. How long has it been since I’ve slept? A day and a night? More? How long since I’ve slept well? Forever. I yawn again.

  “I don’t like our options,” she finally says, around a yawn of her own. “You can sneak in now and probably get caught, or we can wait until tomorrow and try to get him away from them sometime during the day. Waiting means we get to sleep before we run, which we need, but we can’t be sure that we’ll have another chance to get him, especially once they see that you’re not in the shed where you’re supposed to be.” She shoots me a fierce look. “And I’m not going into that shed again, no matter what.”

  I chew on my lower lip while I consider. I imagine all the terrible ways this could go wrong. Then I imagine not ever having this opportunity again.

  Khadija sees the look on my face.

  “You’re going in,” she says. It’s not a question.

  I nod.

  She shakes her head slowly. “All right, let’s go.”

  “What do you mean, let’s?” I ask. It’s too dark to see the look she gives me.

  “We do this together” is all she says.

  I shrug, slap my hands against my cheeks a few times to clear the sleepiness that is making it hard to make decisions, and creep across the yard to the house, heading for the front. I’m grateful the door has no lock, but remembering the padlock on the boys’ sleeping hut makes me angry. I’m grateful for the anger because it burns off the sluggishness.

  We step carefully into the main room of the house. Instantly, Khadija heads to the table near the simple stove. When she touches the stuff on it, it rattles softly. I race over and grab her hand.

  “Shh,” I whisper, shaking her wrist. Does she not have any idea how dangerous this is? She wrenches her hand away from me and points. I look more closely at what’s on the table and see a small open box beside a half-sliced papaya. Spilling out of the box are various small canisters and rolls of bandages. Khadija points between the stuff on the table and the room that Seydou’s in. I see the need for bandages, so I shrug an apology.

  Leaving her to find whatever she’s looking for, I tiptoe to Moussa’s room. At the darkly shadowed doorway, I freeze. The gray mattress on the floor under the window looms in my sight. Seydou’s not moving. Why is he not moving? Moussa’s back is centimeters from my toes. I find that I’m having trouble breathing normally. All my doubts about this come rushing over me, making me reconsider.

  A soft clatter from the front room makes me jump.

  What is that idiot girl doing? Sorting through their silverware?

  Heart hammering, I turn my attention to the situation in front of me again and note, to my horror, that Moussa’s breathing is shallower and more irregular. Khadija’s noise is slowly waking him up. I don’t have any more time.

  Stretching on my toes as high as I can go, I step over Moussa, as far away from his face as I can get. Holding my breath, I walk toward the bed slowly, oh, so slowly. Lifting each foot straight up, and then lowering it, toes first, rolling silently onto my heel. It is the quietest way to walk. All the while, my eyes dart between Moussa’s face and Seydou’s. I keep dreading seeing Moussa’s eyes fly open. I can nearly touch Seydou. I can smell my own terror. Another step. Another jingle from Khadija. I am going to kill that girl myself if we all get away from here. And then I’m at the end of the mattress, and Seydou is sprawled below me.

  Now is the time to move fast, whispers a voice in my head, but I can’t obey it. I touch Seydou’s face. I’m terrified that he’s going to startle awake screaming like he did in the sleeping hut. Instead, touching him is like pushing on river mud—he doesn’t move or give any sign that he’s alive. Only the shallow movement of his chest tells me he’s not dead. Even though the evening is cool, I’m sweating. Any second now, Moussa or Seydou could wake up and we’d all be done for. I squat beside Seydou and slowly work my arms between his body and the mattress. He’s still hotter than he should be, but not as hot as he was before.

  After what seems like hours, my hands work free on the far side of my brother. Slowly, even though my back screams in agony at lifting so much weight at such an angle, I roll Seydou against me and lift him off the mattress. His good arm is sandwiched between our bodies and his wrapped elbow hangs free.

  Cradling him against me, I turn around and stare at the form blocking the doorway. Behind Moussa, through the door, I can see Khadija, biting her lower lip in terror. I look at Moussa’s face. There’s a furrow between his eyebrows now and his breathing is light and very irregular. The hairs along my neck rise and prickle, but I’m committed now, and I keep walking. One step. Another. I’m close enough to feel Moussa’s body heat. My sweat is making Seydou slippery in my arms.

  Taking a deep, silent breath, I clutch Seydou to me as hard as I can, and step over Moussa. As soon as my two feet touch the floor of the main room, I head toward the door. Khadija slips out a second ahead of us. I follow on her heels and find myself outside.

  I feel a lightness in my chest, an opening up. The sky is high and clear and covered in the last few stars before dawn. It’s what I imagine my soul looks like right now.

  Khadija comes up beside me.

  “Is he okay?” she asks in a whisper.

  “I don’t know. Can you help me get him in a better position to carry?”

  “Awó,” she says. “Let me just find somewhere to put all this . . .” I glance at her. I hadn’t even noticed until this minute how much she’s carrying.

  “What’s all that?” I ask, bending backward to hold Seydou’s weight while she shoves things into my pockets.

  “A water bottle, the medicine kit I found, and some money.” I feel the irregular bulges press into the sides of my legs. The weight of the water bottle pulls one side of my pants down lower on my hip than the other. “I’ll take them in a sec. Here, what do you want me to do?�
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  “Put his hurt arm up and get his head onto my shoulder . . . yeah . . . and—” But I never get any farther than that because suddenly Khadija’s eyes go wide. I whip around to see why, and there, framed in the shadowed doorway to his house, is Moussa.

  For a split second, we all stare at each other. Then Moussa lunges after us. Reflexively, I grab Seydou tighter against me and run, but I haven’t made it a dozen steps when Moussa grabs me.

  Seydou jolts awake and twists in my arms, screaming in fear and pain. I stagger off balance, but don’t drop him. Moussa’s fingers cut into my biceps, and I struggle against him, but can’t get free. He backhands me across the face and I stop struggling as my world spins. It was crazy to run, crazy to hope. Now I’ve doomed Seydou to a horrible life, and Moussa is probably going to kill me. I waste a moment wishing I could have seen home again, just once more, or at least that the people I love knew what happened to me, but then I sink into my empty place and wait for the worst to happen.

  Suddenly, Moussa lurches away, leaving me unbalanced. I see small arms wrapped around his neck, and my empty place explodes into sound—Moussa, yelling his head off, and Khadija, grabbing on to him and kicking at his legs with all her might, screaming at me to run.

  Over Moussa’s head, my eyes meet Khadija’s and hold for a moment. She’s frightened, but isn’t letting go.

  Seydou is warm and heavy against my chest.

  I turn on my heel and run as fast as I can.

  For a while I run through the bush fueled purely by fear. I absolutely expect to hear the bosses getting closer and closer to me as I pound away, but instead I hear only an ever-increasing hum of bugs and the loud thrashing of my own clumsy feet through the dead leaves on the forest floor. As the terror of the night burns off, exhaustion takes over. Seydou feels heavier than anything I’ve ever carried, and the damn water bottle Khadija put in my pocket slams against my leg with every step.

  When I can’t run anymore I collapse on the ground with Seydou. I’m panting from the jarring run and Seydou is clutching his arm to himself and sobbing. As the minutes pass and our breathing slowly returns to normal, I finally feel the truth: they’re not coming. We got away.

  Sure, they’ll probably still come chasing us but this is the best chance to escape that we’ve ever had. I pick myself off the ground and touch Seydou lightly.

  “How are you?” I ask.

  Seydou whimpers and shakes his head, but won’t talk. That’s okay. He should save his strength for later. Right now, we need to use this amazing head start we’ve been given and run.

  I pull out all the things Khadija put into my pockets and rearrange them so that they’re easier to carry.

  I drink about a third of the water from the bottle, give another third to Seydou, then haul myself to my feet and pick him up again. He cries out in pain, but we have to move, so I try not to listen. I continue away from the camp, carefully now, gently picking my way through the brush so as not to leave an easy trail to follow.

  You got Seydou out, I tell myself over and over to keep the pace. That’s all that matters.

  I make it almost half a kilometer repeating that to myself before I stop. Because it’s not all that matters, and every step I take makes me wonder what happened to her.

  I put Seydou down and rest against a tree while I think. He curls into a ball, making mewling noises. I try to focus. She could have gotten away. It’s possible. She didn’t have anyone to carry, and she’s quick on her feet.

  Maybe.

  “I guess I’ll never know.”

  I can hear the lie in my own voice. I pound my fist into the tree savagely. “There’s no way I’m going there again to see what happened to her! It would be suicide!”

  The tree doesn’t argue, but the voice in my head does. She tackled a boss for you. She could have run when Moussa had you but instead she gave you the chance to get away. And to think . . . you called her selfish.

  Beyond the tops of the trees I see the first orange streaks crossing the purple sky. It’s dawn. For a few moments I just stand there, letting the exhaustion of too much time awake take over. Then I pull Seydou to me.

  “Seydou . . .” I lean my cheek against the top of his head. Hot, too hot. He seems to be getting warmer the farther we get from camp. I want to tell him that we’re going to keep running, that he’s safe now, and that everything is going to be all right. But what comes out of my mouth is, “Seydou, I’m sorry. We’re going back.”

  12

  I wish Seydou could argue, tell me to take him to safety. But his eyes are hollow and glassy again and he’s not answering me. I have to make this decision all by myself.

  Slowly, over the next few hours, I pick a careful, looping trail through the bush until we’re close enough to camp to see what’s going on. Far enough uphill to be out of earshot, I lay Seydou against a tree and cover him in leaf litter because he’s beginning to shiver. Then I climb the tree so that I can see into the clearing. I’ve broken into a cold sweat and the morning breeze raises bumps on my arms and legs. We should be far, far away from here by now. We should not be mere meters from returning to that life. We should not be waiting here to be caught, minute after terrifying minute.

  The camp is bustling with activity and it’s not hard to see why. Parked next to the bosses’ pickup truck is another one, even more beat-up looking than theirs. The tailgate is down and the bosses and the boys are working to get everything loaded. The boys carry sacks of the fermented, dried seeds and stack them high in the truck bed, tying them tightly with ropes. They’re stacking them so high that the driver’s not going to be able to see out his back window at all. I guess it doesn’t matter way out here in la brosse.

  Part of me wishes I was close enough to overhear what the boys are saying, but it isn’t worth the risk to get nearer. I don’t see Khadija anywhere. I tell myself this means that she must have gotten away, but I stay clinging to my tree, unsure. I think if I even saw Moussa I’d be able to know. After years of watching his face, I know what most of his expressions mean.

  Below me, Seydou stirs. I slide to the ground and rest my hand against his face. He’s still hot to the touch and he’s been slipping in and out of a restless doze.

  “Amadou?” he manages.

  “Hi, cricket,” I say, a big fake smile on my face.

  “What . . . Where . . . ?”

  “I got you out,” I whisper, rubbing my hand on his head like I used to when he was just a baby. “We’re running away, Seydou. We’re going home.”

  “Home . . .” he mumbles, but the word sounds hollow when he says it. I wonder whether it’s that he’s in too much pain to process all this or whether it’s been so long that he’s forgotten what home is like. There are days when I struggle to remember the texture of the walls of our house or the exact lines of Moke’s face. I’ve never said anything about it because I was ashamed. Now I wonder whether Seydou had those days too.

  “Come on,” I say, propping him on my arm. “Try to drink some more water.” I pull the mostly empty bottle out of my pocket and hold it to his mouth. He sips weakly at it for a few seconds, but then loses interest. The water dribbles over his chin. That frustrates me because he needs to drink. I wedge the plastic rim of the bottle between his teeth and tip his head. Seydou, half-asleep again, chokes on the water and starts coughing. The force of the coughing pushes him into a sitting position and spasms rack his body. He curls forward, spitting the water on the ground.

  “Shh! Shh, Seydou,” I whisper frantically, rubbing his back. He’s howling and rocking. I swing my head around, terrified that somehow they’ll hear this in the clearing. I have to make him stop. “Hush!” I shake him gently. “Hush now. I won’t make you drink any more.”

  “It hurts!” he wails, and I see that he’s clutching the wrapped stump of his elbow in his other hand. “It hurts! Make it stop, Amadou!”

&n
bsp; “I can’t,” I whisper to him. “Oh, Seydou, I’m sorry.” I lower myself behind him so that I’m sitting against the tree and he’s sitting between my legs. I pull him gently against my chest and let him sob into my shoulder.

  I don’t count the minutes we sit there like that, or the hours since I’ve slept, because in that moment there’s only one thing that matters, and it can’t be counted.

  After what feels like forever, Seydou’s sobs calm. He sits up and takes a look at his bandaged elbow. He gently touches the air where the rest of his arm should be.

  “I can still feel it,” he says.

  “What?”

  He looks at me, his face a mess of tear streaks and snot.

  “It hurts like it’s still there,” he says. “I can feel it, even though it’s gone.”

  I have no idea how to make that better, so I ramble on about other things instead.

  “You were getting really sick from an infection, so Moussa had to cut it off. You’ll get better now, you’ll see.”

  Seydou blinks, fading away again. Terrified to lose this slightly-awake-and-talking version of my brother, I rush on.

  “I was so mad at Moussa I punched him in the face.” I’m rewarded by a glimmer of interest in his eyes at this piece of information. “And then Khadija and I broke out of the toolshed where they put us and came and rescued you.”

  Seydou looks around.

  “Khadija?” he asks.

  “Moussa caught her again.” I wince. I had meant to say She ran in a different direction and we’re just going to make sure she got away. “But,” I hurry to add, “we came back and I’m going to find her and get her out and then we’ll all escape together, okay?”

  “Why do we care about her?” Seydou asks acidly, stroking the short stump of arm he has left. “She’s the whole reason all of this happened!” I see the tears well in his eyes and I realize that he may not remember anything that she’s done since she knocked him down six days ago.