And yet his eyes are fierce, and I can’t deny that what he says has some truth in it. I take a very slow, very deep breath and reconsider all the things I was about to say. I remember Khadija insisting in the truck that Seydou needs to be able to do some things for himself. I know his arm’s not coming back, but maybe if I let him do more, we can get him to be whole again on the inside.
“Okay,” I mumble, pulling him against me and resting my face on his head. “Okay.”
Seydou’s body goes slack in surprise. Then I’m getting the breath squeezed out of me.
“I ni cé, Amadou,” he mumbles into my shirt.
I glance at Khadija. Her eyebrows are high in her oval face and her mouth hangs open a little. She looks like she’s about to say something that might make me feel uncomfortable, so I push Seydou away and rub my hand over his hair.
“Don’t thank me,” I say. “I’m just too lazy to do it myself. What’s the point of having a younger brother around if you don’t make him do the boring stuff for you?” And though Khadija looks about ready to kill me, I see a small spark flash in Seydou’s haggard eyes and he snorts a laugh.
Forcing a smile while trying to ignore the gnawing fear in the pit of my stomach, I reach into my pocket and hand Seydou our precious money.
“He’ll be fine,” Khadija whispers, but the muscles in my neck are tense and my hands are in fists by my sides as I pretend not to follow Seydou as he walks into the Daloa central market.
I can see the looks he’s getting from the men and women there—wary, pitying—and I try to forget that he’s my brother and see him as a stranger would. Young, skinny, maimed, wrapped in torn, oversized clothes and filthy bandages, he looks like a beggar. I swallow my feelings like gravel and continue to follow him.
Seydou doesn’t look back. For a moment he puts his hand on his hip, a pose that makes me even more aware of his missing left arm, and then he heads toward a tall square woman who is slouching against a cart, talking to a skinny man. She is not the vendor I would have chosen. She looks hard and is very loud. I regret giving in to this idea.
Seydou lists a little to the side as he walks up to the woman. I wonder when he’ll find his new balance.
“Aw ni sógóma,” Seydou says politely. “What are you selling?”
The woman and the man stop their conversation and look at him.
“Eggs,” she says in a monotone, clearly not impressed, “and corn. Go away, beggar boy, I only sell to customers, I don’t give charity.”
On the farm I would never have let any of the boys speak to Seydou that way. It’s only Khadija’s hand on my arm that keeps me from running over there.
“I’m a customer!” says Seydou brightly. I don’t know how he’s not bothered by what she’s saying, but his shiny smile is still in place. He pulls all of our money out of his pocket and holds it up. “My auntie sent me to buy some things, but she said I could get myself lunch too. How much for three eggs?”
“Three eggs just for you?” She bellows a laugh. “How are you so skinny when you eat like that?”
“Maybe after I’ve eaten them, I won’t be so skinny,” Seydou jokes easily.
For a split second the woman and her friend stare at him. Seydou’s smiling, open expression never wavers. Then, almost grudgingly, the woman tells him the price. Seydou haggles a little, but not so much that it seems rude, and they agree on a price that makes me cringe. It’s not too far off the price for three eggs, but at almost a third of what we had, it’s certainly more than I wanted to pay. Seydou asks her for help counting out the bills while he puts the eggs carefully in his pocket with his one hand. Another thing I would not have done. I would never have trusted a stranger to hold all of our money.
A one-handed boy trying to put hard-boiled eggs in a shallow pocket is a fine show and many people have stopped what they were doing and are now watching him. I feel twitchy with so many eyes on my brother. Once the eggs are safely tucked away, Seydou takes his change and thanks the woman politely. Then he turns, with a big smile for the whole market, and walks to a kindly-looking fat woman sitting beside a blanket covered in dried peanuts. He kneels in front of her in order to be at her eye level and starts chatting. A voice at my elbow distracts me.
“Your brother is so clever,” Khadija says in an awed whisper. I tear my eyes from Seydou for a brief second to give her a look of disbelief.
“You’ve got to be kidding. He just paid more than full price for three eggs to that witch over there.” Now it’s her turn to stare at me.
“Don’t you see what he did?” When my silence answers for me, she goes on, waving her hands around as she makes her point. “He picked someone who was loud and stingy so that everyone would hear that he had money and wasn’t a beggar. Then he paid a good price and was all open and trusting and sweet, smiling so much, being polite, handing her the money. Didn’t you notice how everyone’s expression softened when he was struggling to put those eggs in his pocket and she had to hold his money for him? He may have paid full price for those eggs but I bet he doesn’t pay full price for anything else. He melted every heart in this market.”
I turn in time to see a woman from two stalls away walk to where Seydou is still chatting with the fat peanut lady and pinch his cheeks. Within half an hour Seydou is trotting out of the market with a bag of roasted peanuts, three hot ears of cooked corn, a small papaya, and a length of sugarcane balanced in the crook of his only arm. A small handful of leftover coins jingles in his other pocket.
Khadija shoots me an I told you so look.
I shrug, and shuffle out of the market after him.
One full meal of roasted corn and peanuts later, we all sit in the shade sucking on the ends of the sugarcane I sliced open for us with my machete. We leave the three eggs in Seydou’s pocket for later and I have plans for the papaya. As the sweetness of the sugarcane floods my mouth, I finally feel the knot of uneasiness in my gut over sending Seydou into the market alone unclench. I squeeze his shoulder.
“I’m proud of you,” I tell him.
Slouched against the alley wall, exhausted and shaky with fatigue, Seydou beams. He knows he did well. I stare into his eyes and see a little of my brother come back. Maybe Khadija had a point after all.
Finally, I force myself to my feet and reach out to help the others stand.
“Let’s go,” I say. I want everyone to get walking while they still have sugarcane to chew on and are happy, and not after all the food is gone and they only want to sleep.
“First let’s clean this up,” Khadija says, pointing to Seydou’s stump. I use my machete to cut the little papaya into thin slices and we rebandage Seydou’s arm, using the last of the gauze. I try not to think about what that means.
Once we’re moving, the realization that I don’t know where we’re going or how to get us there pounces on me and won’t let go. I walk confidently ahead, and the other two follow me. Maybe they haven’t realized yet that I don’t have a plan.
We’re pretty much out of Daloa now, passing big industrial compounds, and soon I’m going to have to stop and talk to the others. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot a familiar truck.
“Isn’t that Oumar’s truck?” I ask, without thinking.
“What?” asks Khadija.
I take the sugarcane stump out of my mouth and repeat myself. Khadija and Seydou squint in the direction I pointed. A few blocks farther down, a battered truck is pulling through an open double gate.
“I think it is,” Seydou says, letting go of his arm in order to shade his eyes to see.
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or maybe it’s the sugar, but I wonder what’s inside that gate. I check my curiosity against my usual caution. But the farm is far away and Oumar showed that he was someone we could trust. Curiosity wins. I lean down to Seydou’s level and smile.
“Want to go find out what happens to al
l those seeds we collected?” I ask.
Seydou considers for a moment, holding on to his left elbow.
“Awó,” he says.
The three of us walk across the street to the compound where Oumar’s truck disappeared just moments ago. When we get to the gate in the high wall we peek through.
The cinder-block edge is warm in the morning sun, and rough under my fingers. I stand there, struggling to take in the scale of what I’m seeing. A series of long, low pavilions, covered with tin sheeting mounted on poles, are stacked to the roof with bulging sacks. Oumar has parked next to it, and men and boys are hefting the sacks off his truck and onto a flat metal square.
“It’s a scale,” whispers Khadija beside me. “They’re weighing the seeds.”
The combination of the familiar earth-and-paper smell of dried seeds and the sight of boys working is making me reconsider the wisdom of this. I watch our farm’s sacks pile onto the giant scale.
Seeing those sacks gives me a strange feeling. Once the seeds left the farm, I forgot about them. I had always been too focused on Seydou and on getting through the day. Now, seeing hundreds upon hundreds of sacks crammed into the long pavilions, I wonder who wants them all.
Whistling, Oumar gets into his cab and drives his now-empty truck out through the gate. He doesn’t see us hiding off to the side, but Seydou gives a small wave anyway.
“Let’s go,” I say, to get everyone’s attention again. I hustle us across the street.
“What do they want so many of them for?” murmurs Seydou.
“I have no idea,” I say, “but we shouldn’t stick around here any longer. I don’t want to get caught.”
Seydou nods solemnly, but Khadija seems distracted, staring at the bustling compound.
“Khadija,” I say, “let’s go.”
“Huh?” She half turns to look at me, clearly not having heard a single word I just said.
“Let’s go,” I say again. I’d really like to get out of sight of that gate. All these men work with the bosses from our farm, one way or another. I’m getting a crawling feeling all over my skin. I can’t get away fast enough.
“No, wait,” she says, “I think I might have figured out—wait here!” And with that, before I can stop her, she’s off, running into the compound. For a moment I’m so stunned I don’t do anything. By the time the shock has worn off, she’s already across the street and through the gates.
“Khadija!” Seydou whispers after her, as loudly as he dares.
“Stupid, crazy girl,” I mutter under my breath. Then, to Seydou, I say, “Come on!” There’s nothing I can do for her now that she’s in. I take Seydou’s hand in mine and run into a narrow alley between the walls of two compounds across the way.
“Wait,” he says, pulling against me, “we’re not leaving her behind, are we?”
I don’t know what we’ll do if she gets caught, I think grimly. You wouldn’t survive being returned. But aloud, I say, “No, we’re hiding so that we don’t all get into trouble and we can help her later if we need to.”
This seems to be good enough for Seydou because he follows me without another word. We crouch between the crumbling walls, quiet as two geckos on a rock. From where we’re hiding I watch Khadija walk to the nearest man stacking sacks. He pauses his work to talk to her. My heart is in my throat as I watch the two of them, waiting for the man to grab her. But after a few minutes, she waves to him and skips out of the compound. For a minute our view is blocked by the arrival of one of the biggest trucks I’ve ever seen, but then there she is, standing just outside the gate.
Seydou pops his head out from where we’ve been hiding.
“Khadija!” he calls, and when her eyes find us, the lost look leaves her face. She hurries across the street.
“What are you doing over here?” she asks accusingly.
“We were hiding so that we could help you later if you got into trouble,” Seydou says.
She shrugs.
“Well?” she asks. “Aren’t you going to ask why I went to all that trouble?”
I glare at her. No information could possibly be worth the danger she put herself into. All her promises are worth nothing to me if she gets caught and strands us in the middle of the Ivory Coast.
“See,” she goes on, “I had this feeling, and so I went up to that man and pretended I was a Daloa girl who was sweet on one of the drivers. I thought he might be willing to tell me where the trucks go.” She can hardly keep the excitement from making her voice squeak as she goes on. “See, I had this hunch. I thought to myself, This is just a weigh station. I bet they’re taking the seeds from here and shipping them off for further processing, you know what I mean?”
I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about. Khadija rushes on.
“So anyway, it turns out I was right. Guess where they’re taking them?” She doesn’t wait for us to guess, even though I see Seydou open his mouth to do so. “San Pédro!” She bounces on her toes, making her tattered blue dress swish around her knobby knees. She grins at the two of us as if this news should make our day.
“So?” I finally ask.
“San Pédro is the last place I saw Mama. Maybe she’s still there. And if we can get into one of those big trucks, they’ll take us all the way to the coast. Even if Mama’s not still in San Pédro, we’ll know for sure and we can go find her in Abidjan. We won’t have to walk, which Seydou can’t do, and we won’t have to take the bus, which we can’t afford.”
I think over Khadija’s idea again. Seydou looks like he’s considering it too. I guess, through all our morning wandering, Khadija has been thinking of how to move on from here too. A bus had never even occurred to me, probably because we barely had enough money for one meal, let alone bus fare for three.
“Well?” she prompts.
“I don’t see how we’re going to get into one of those trucks without being seen.”
I mean it as a criticism of the whole idea, but only as it leaves my mouth do I realize that it can also be seen as agreement. The grin that stretches across Khadija’s face makes me realize my mistake just a little too late to fix it.
19
We spend a few hours watching the weigh station without trying to do anything. The trucks are like giant metal boxes with arched bars on the top instead of a lid. They roll into the drying compound empty, hinges rattling and wind whistling through the bars. When they lumber out filled with sacks of dried seeds, a canvas is stretched over the metal ribs to protect the cargo, and the high metal tailgate is locked. The fully loaded trucks drag along the road and the wind sucks the canvas against the metal ribs, making them look like giant starving dogs.
I turn to Khadija.
“There’s no way we’re going to be able to get into that truck while they’re loading it.” Many men carried the sacks onto the waiting trucks and there was a man with a clipboard, watching them. Far too many eyes.
“Once it’s moving—?”
I shake my head.
“These trucks aren’t Oumar’s pickup. They’re huge. The metal sides are taller than the men loading them, and a man with a clipboard makes sure the sides of the tailgate are latched. No way could we manage to sneak into that once it’s moving.”
“Another roadblock?” Seydou suggests. “Maybe if it stopped, we could—”
“No.” Khadija shakes her head definitively. “That won’t work here. We’re not on some bush path anymore. There are too many people who could see what we were doing, or try to stop us, or fix what we’d done before the truck got there.”
We muse in silence for a minute. I turn and watch the latest truck rumble out of sight, so tall that it rips some leaves off the branches of one of the trees growing by the side of the road. And that gives me an idea. I turn to Khadija, feeling like an idiot even as I say it.
“How do you feel about climbing trees?
”
I sit in my tree, about two kilometers from the drying station, and chew my lower lip nervously as I see the giant truck lumber into sight in the distance. I am ferociously counting seconds in my head because how long it takes for the truck to get from one spot to another really, really matters.
The idea is simple, but there are so many things that could go wrong, it makes me dizzy to consider them. The plan is to jump onto the top as it passes under us, then scoot to the rear where the canvas is open and drop into the truck bed. Khadija is in the first tree and I climbed the second one with Seydou on my back. If she doesn’t make it onto the truck, we won’t jump. But if she does make it, then Seydou and I will jump after her.
Seydou is gripping my neck in a near chokehold with his one good arm and his legs are wrapped tightly around my waist. I’ve taken off my shirt and tied it around my machete, using the sleeves to secure it flat against my thigh so that the blade is less likely to hurt us if we fall wrong. I don’t know if it’s the heat or the fear or the lack of my shirt, but I’m sweating heavily into the space between us.
It’s the only plan you’ve got, I remind myself. But it already hasn’t worked twice. The first time, Khadija was too nervous to jump, so none of us did, and then the second time, she missed and fell from the tree right onto the ground, after the truck. I don’t know that I’ve ever moved so fast in my life, afraid that she had hurt herself horribly.
When I got to her, she was lying in the dust, dazed. I pulled her off to the side of the road and checked her over. She had only twisted her arm slightly, but we were all scared by the close shave. I tried not to imagine how badly Seydou could have gotten hurt if it had been him that fell.
I watch the truck grow larger as it speeds toward us and I swallow against my suddenly dry throat. If only they weren’t going so fast!
I hold my breath as the truck rumbles up to the first tree. My hands are gripping the branch of my tree so hard that I can feel the bark cut into my skin, but I don’t look away. Please jump at the right time, I beg Khadija in my mind. Please don’t get hurt.
The Bitter Side of Sweet Page 17