Blue Gold (7 page)

Pascal brooded over this as they walked. Then he asked, almost in a whisper, “Sylvie, how did your face get cut?”

If anyone else had asked the question, she would have snapped that it was none of their business. But this was Pascal. He was there. He saw.

“You don't remember?” she asked.

He shook his head. He was watching her with frightened eyes, as though the memory was lurking somewhere in his mind, waiting to jump out.

“A bad man did it,” she told him.

“The same man who killed Papa?”

“No.” Then she revised, “Maybe. I don't know.”

It was possible it was the same soldier, she supposed. He could have gone to the school after riding away from the house with the other soldiers—after they'd finished with her and Mama. She wasn't sure she would recognize the man, except by his greasy smell of sweat and diesel fuel. And by the weight of his body. Pascal pulled her back to him by slipping his hand into hers, something he hadn't done in forever.

“Sylvie, why did he cut you?”

Why?
She had tried to accept that there would never be an answer to that question. But she thought she understood what he really wanted to hear.

“I don't know if Olivier is coming back, Pascal,” she told him, squeezing his hand. “I promise you this, though. I will never leave you.”

They continued walking in silence, hand in hand. When they got to the school, she told Pascal to go in by himself, and she'd be back soon.

“Where are you going?”

“To find him.”

With that Sylvie veered off toward the old marketplace. She glanced back to see Pascal standing in the dust, watching her.

“Go to school!” she called to him sternly, and he obeyed her. But would he for much longer?

 

MOST OF THE TIME
, Sylvie tried not to think about what had happened in their village, but as she walked past the abandoned stalls of the market, the ghosts of the past seemed to walk with her. When the Mai-Mai came five years ago looking for her father, they went first to the house. Mama was in her bedroom, resting with the new baby, while Sylvie played with Pascal in the sitting room. She remembered the rumble of the truck pulling up outside. When she looked out the window and saw the soldiers climbing out of it, she rushed to the door and locked it, but the soldiers burst through it. It was good that Pascal couldn't remember, but she would never forget—how Pascal screamed in fear, and how she held him tight, trying to comfort him, until one of the soldiers tore her away and pushed her down on the floor, pulling her skirt up, her underwear down.

She could hear the baby crying and her mother's shouts from the bedroom, “We have done nothing wrong! Take what you want! Let us be!” And then her silence—more frightening than her screams.

The whole time the soldier was on top of her, Sylvie listened for her mother—even through the searing pain of being split open, the smell of diesel, his crushing weight. When it was over, Sylvie saw the blood on her dress. Pascal was sitting against the wall, knees pulled up to make himself small, eyes wide and unseeing. Then she heard Mama sobbing in the other room, and felt a wave of relief that she was still alive. Soldiers came out from the bedroom, swaggering, laughing. One of them saw the crucifix on a silver chain around Sylvie's neck—a gift from Papa for standing first in her grade.

“Take it from her,” he told the man who had raped her.

“No!” Sylvie had cried, still on the floor, her legs sticky with blood. Hadn't they taken enough?

The man knelt down to her. “Give me the necklace and I won't hurt you.”

Sylvie slapped her hand over the crucifix to protect it. In nightmares, she still saw the sudden anger in the soldier's face, and how swiftly he drew the machete from his belt. After that, she remembered nothing. She woke up later, being jostled by a moving vehicle, a thick smell in the air from their burning village—blinded by the rag someone had tied over her face. She pulled the rag up enough to see that it was nighttime. She was in the back of an open truck with many other people, including Mama and the baby. Pascal was sound asleep against Mama's side. Olivier sat apart, sullen and staring at nothing. She felt for the necklace. It was gone.

“That's what you get for being so stubborn,” Mama said, and those were her last words about what had happened to them that day inside their house.

“Where's Papa?” she asked.

Olivier, only nine years old, told her, blank-faced, his eyes cold, “Papa is dead.”

His words cut deep, as though he meant them to wound. Sylvie remembered willing herself back to sleep in the hope that when she woke up, she would be in her own bed, with Papa close by in the other room, but that wasn't what happened.

She shook these thoughts away as she crossed a dusty open area into a road, heading toward the shack that was Kayembe's shop before the Tanzanians shut it down. Nyarugusu wasn't safe for girls walking alone—she had to stay alert for trouble. Men lingered in small groups by the food stalls sipping tea, or leaned against scrubby trees, smoking. Some were on crutches, others were missing an arm or a leg. Sylvie kept her eyes forward as she passed them, but she could feel their leering stares. She ignored lewd comments from those who were shamefully drunk. One of them offered her a few shillings to have sex with him.

Sylvie saw Kayembe standing outside his old shop, deep in conversation with two of his men, one short and scrawny and the other tall and round. Everybody knew that Hervé Kayembe was the most powerful man in Nyarugusu, and the armed men he employed were the reason why. They were dressed like makeshift soldiers, in camouflage pants and mismatched shirts. The skinny one had a handgun tucked under his belt, and the fat one a long machete.

When Kayembe saw Sylvie approaching, he dismissed the men with a nod of his head and they ambled off.

“
Mademoiselle
Sylvie!” he greeted her with a sweeping bow. Sylvie thought he was making fun of her. He was a big man of fifty, maybe even sixty years. His full cheeks were rutted with deep lines. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“We are clansmen, from the same village. I knew your father, and I knew your mother. She was so beautiful when she was young. Just like her daughter.”

Now Sylvie was certain he was making fun of her, calling her beautiful. Her face grew hot and prickly. She felt the scar tighten. “I'm looking for my brother, Olivier,” she told him.

He pretended to become serious. “Businesslike and to the point. I like that. Unfortunately,
Mademoiselle
Sylvie, I am not at liberty to disclose Olivier's whereabouts.”

“Then you know where he is.”

“Suffice to say he is doing a little work for me.”

Sylvie shouldn't have been surprised to have this confirmed, but it shocked her nevertheless. “What kind of work?” she asked, forcing herself to be bold.

“If I told you that, I would have to kill you,” he replied, and then he laughed so hard she could see his belly fat jiggling through his shirt. Kayembe must have seen how Sylvie feared him, because he hastened to add, “It's a joke! Have you never seen American movies, girl?”

“Please tell me where Olivier is,” she repeated, wishing nothing more than to be gone from his presence.

“You are a stubborn one, you are. Like your father. Tell your mother not to fear for her son. He will be back with her by tomorrow.”

Sylvie saw she would learn nothing more from Kayembe. She drew herself up, remembering her manners, and her dignity. “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded his head in a slight bow. “One moment, fair
mademoiselle.
” He went inside the shack that used to be his shop and came out with a small paper sack. “Please accept this with my compliments,” he said, handing it to her.

“What is it?”

“Cassava flour, from back home.”

Sylvie thought how happy the flour would make Mama. Now she could make real
fufu
! Then she wondered how it was that Kayembe received goods from the Congo, here in the refugee camp. Or any of the goods he traded in, really. She knew better than to ask.

“Sweets for the sweet, as it were,” added Kayembe.

As Sylvie walked away, she wondered why an important man like Kayembe found it necessary to mock her. But quickly her mind was filled with the question she had come to ask him, still unanswered:
Where has Olivier gone?
Now she had a new question:
Is it too late to save him?
She knew where she had to go next, if she had any hope of doing so.

 

“SYLVIE!”
exclaimed Doctor Marie. She took Sylvie's hand and squeezed it in the overly friendly way of North Americans, then checked herself and let her hand drop. “I'm so glad you're here,” she said, smiling.

In the waiting area, one of the nurses was taking a man's temperature. Otherwise it was quiet inside the clinic. Not even the hum of the generator out back disturbed the calm. They were saving petrol—one of the cutbacks that had taken place recently, along with food rations.

“The picture you took,” Sylvie began. “Do you still have it?”

Marie took her mobile phone out of her pocket and with a flick of her finger found the photo. “Here it is,” she said, showing the picture to Sylvie.

Sylvie studied herself. If people saw past the scar, she wasn't so bad looking. She might even look intelligent. Tears sprang to Sylvie's eyes.

“
Cherie
, what's wrong?”

Marie moved toward Sylvie to give her a hug. By reflex, Sylvie pulled back.

“Sorry,” said Marie.

Sylvie had never told Marie the reason why she didn't like to be touched, but with the militias raping women, children, and even men in the villages they terrorized, she supposed Marie must have guessed.

“Please, can you send the photo to your friend?” asked Sylvie, her voice choking.

“I'll send it to Alain right away,” Marie told her. “He and some friends of his have a website they set up to tell people what's happening in the Congo, because of coltan.”

The idea that people somewhere knew about the suffering of the Congolese made her feel a little better.

“I'm sorry for losing my temper the other day,” Sylvie apologized, and she meant it.

“No, Sylvie, it was my fault,” replied Marie. Now she was crying, too. “I had no right to make presumptions like that, to pressure you. Everything's going to be okay,” she said, forcing a cheerful smile. “Alain will find a way to get you to Canada, where you'll be safe.”

Safe?
Sylvie tried to imagine what that would feel like, to be in a place where there were no militias, no Kayembe. A worm of hope was taking hold inside her, that most deceiving of emotions that could lift the spirit but dash it just as quickly when promises fell through.
Someday we will be gone from here. Someday we will be free
. Could it be true? Could she trust this feeling?

“What are you thinking, Sylvie?” asked Marie.

“It's cold in Canada, isn't it?” she replied.

Marie laughed. “It's summer there now. It's not as hot as here, but it's warm. If all goes well, you'll see for yourself before long.”

She tried to imagine what it must be like there. She knew so little about Canada, except for what Marie had told her. But Marie was a happy person, and her family had immigrated to Canada, so perhaps Sylvie's family could be happy there, too. For just this moment, she allowed hope to lift her heart a little higher.

ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
on Monday morning, Fiona asked Lacey if she thought she should go looking for Ryan at his locker—he hadn't been in touch since Saturday night. But Lacey talked her out of it.

“You don't want to look like you're chasing him,” she said. “Especially after sexting him.”

As they walked along the sidewalk of the leafy Vancouver neighborhood, Fiona had confided all to Lacey—about the boob shot, and about Ryan not calling.

“You think it was dumb to send him that picture, don't you?”

Lacey shrugged. “It depends how much you trust him not to send it around to his friends.”

“I do trust him,” replied Fiona. But did she? She'd thought she did when she sent him the selfie, but since then she'd been having second thoughts. He
had
kind of pressured her into sexting. That wasn't very nice.

“Maybe he tried to call your cell,” Lacey suggested, “but the phone thief answered.”

Fiona had to admit it was a possibility. She had gone back to the ball diamond on Sunday to search for her missing cell phone, but it was nowhere to be found. Maybe it had fallen out of her bag and somebody picked it up. Or maybe somebody took it out of her bag while nobody was watching. Anybody could have it. Fiona felt sick about it. But a missing phone didn't let Ryan off the hook.

“I still have a laptop,” Fiona said. “He could have Friendjammed. Or emailed.”