Bitter Chocolate (13 page)

Sometimes, Pascal would relax enough to watch groups of boys playing football in an area that had been cleared for that purpose. He refused to join in, even when the boys pleaded with him because their numbers were short, and knew that his refusal was partly because he didn’t want to risk showing himself up. He could still remember the one occasion he had scored a goal and how he had felt, but there were too many times when he had suffered his cousins’ frustration that he wasn’t any better at the game.

Pascal was happiest when he could sit outside the stall of a man who repaired bicycles and listen to music on his radio. It reminded him of Mr Bon’s shop in his village, where everyone gathered whenever a television was brought in. The stall owner, Sheriff, and his wife, Patience, could both speak French, though their native language was English. In fact, they loved speaking French to him, and Pascal laughed at their mistakes. He even spoke one or two words in halting English to them, whenever he felt comfortable enough.

‘Practice is very well,’ they attempted in French. ‘Your English is very well.’

‘No,’ said Pascal. ‘It is evil.’

They had lived in the camp for three years and wanted to go home. But they had no money to travel back to their own country, and no home to return to. They always seemed so full of hope, though, and whenever Pascal was with them they helped him to rekindle his own hopes.

‘A mother will never give up searching for her child,’ Patience insisted. ‘Never.’

In the meantime, she and Sheriff were always happy to let him just be with them. They listened when he wanted to talk, but never pried when he sat in silence, nodding his head to the music. Little by little, Pascal told them about his life, but was unable to speak of the explosion that had engulfed his father, nor of what had happened to him from the time he had been captured by Seb and Gustav. He secreted that part of his history in a locked chamber somewhere deep in the dungeons of his mind, and tried never to go there. Sometimes, during the day, a sound, a sight or a smell would trigger a thought process that would leave him trembling on the threshold, but it was mostly at night that the door of the chamber broke open to release its demons.

Chapter 29

The days at the plantation seemed to go on interminably. Pascal felt permanently on edge. He became more and more anxious about being caught. He had to make absolutely certain that wouldn’t happen. He went over and over every last detail of his plan so that it was as foolproof as possible.

‘We need to listen out for the trucks every day so that we know what sort of time they arrive, when they leave, how many stops they make and how long they wait at each stop,’ he said to Kojo, as they sat together during a water break.

‘How are we going to get on to the truck without being seen?’ Kojo asked doubtfully.

In Pascal’s mind, it all seemed very simple, but he knew that in practice they would need an awful lot of luck.

‘We’ll have to choose our moment. As soon as everything falls into place, we’ll go for it.’

Kojo still looked doubtful. ‘What if everything doesn’t fall into place?’

‘It will,’ Pascal insisted.

They discovered that the trucks arrived in the middle of every afternoon and stopped at three different places on the plantation. Some days they collected empty pods, other days they took away sacks of beans. Pascal decided that they would be better off hiding on a truck that was carrying pods rather than beans.

‘A sack of broken pods will look much less smooth than a sack of beans. With your knobbly knees you’ll definitely need to be amongst the pods,’ Pascal said teasingly.

‘And you, with your big ears,’ Kojo riposted.

‘You leave my ears out of it,’ said Pascal.

‘Won’t they fit?’ Kojo sniggered.

‘Funny ha, ha. If you were anybody else, I’d wallop you for that.’

They worked out which were pod collection days, and Pascal was pleased to discover that the next pod collection fell on Le Cochon’s day off.

‘That’s two days’ time,’ he said to Kojo.

Tiene happened to pass by at that moment. ‘What are you looking so happy about?’ he asked.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know, you snake in the grass,’ Pascal snarled.

‘Snakes only go where there’s something juicy to feed on.’ Tiene smirked. ‘I reckon there’s something very juicy to feed on here.’

‘Pity you won’t be able to sniff it out, then, isn’t it?’ said Pascal. ‘Come on, Kojo, let’s go somewhere where the air’s a bit fresher.’

‘I know what you’re up to,’ Tiene called after them. ‘You won’t get away with it.’

Pascal resisted the temptation to respond. He saw Tiene as an irritation rather than a real threat. He reminded him of Kamil, when Kamil had used bullying tactics to get what he wanted. He wondered again, for a brief moment, what had happened to Kamil.

‘So what will we do then?’ asked Kojo when they were on their own again.

‘We stay on the truck until it stops, then we jump off and run for it.’

‘And then what?’

Pascal knew he had to find answers to that question, but every time it began to form in his mind he could feel himself avoiding it. The question was too big. He didn’t really want to think beyond their flight from the plantation. It wasn’t just about what they would do next. It was about how and when and why and where. It was about the fact that he and Kojo weren’t even from the same country and would, at some point, have to go their separate ways. It was about the fact that he had no idea where he would find his family, and whether they were even alive. It was about the possible discovery that he was all alone in the world.

‘Did your papa ever tell you he loved you?’ he asked Kojo all of a sudden.

‘I think so,’ said Kojo.

‘What do you mean, “you think so”?’ Pascal demanded. ‘Either he did, or he didn’t.’

‘Maybe he didn’t need to tell me,’ said Kojo defensively. ‘Maybe he just showed it. Anyway, he did tell me. At least, when I was little he did. And then I just knew.’

Pascal remembered the Barcelona shirt, and wondered if his father had bought it for him to show that he loved him, or because he hoped that it would make him a good footballer.

‘I let my parents down,’ muttered Kojo. ‘I was supposed to be helping them. That’s why I came here – to earn money to send home to them. I’ve never been able to send anything home, not even a letter. And now I’m leaving and I’ve got nothing to show for it.’

‘It’s not your fault!’ Pascal exclaimed. ‘Those pigs promised to pay us, and they haven’t. We didn’t come here to work for nothing, and if you stay you’ll still leave with nothing.’

‘It doesn’t mean I haven’t let them down,’ Kojo insisted. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to look them in the face when I see them again.’

‘They won’t blame you,’ said Pascal. ‘They’ll just be happy to have you back.’

‘What will you do if you can’t find any –’ Kojo turned the conversation round to Pascal.

‘I will find them,’ Pascal cut in. ‘Maman, Bijou, even Angeline – I will find them.’

Chapter 30

One morning, Pascal was wandering along one of the alleyways of the refugee camp, when a man approached him. The man was well dressed and carried a briefcase. He introduced himself as Mr Sakho, and said that he was working with a company that helped Guinean children to find their families.

‘Do you have family here?’ Mr Sakho asked, after he had checked that Pascal was Guinean.

‘No,’ Pascal replied guardedly.

‘Do you mind if I ask what happened to them?’

‘I was separated from them when rebels took over my village.’

‘And you have no idea where they are?’

Pascal shook his head.

‘If you come with me,’ Mr Sakho said, ‘I have an office in the nearby town and we can go through our files to see if your family is listed. We’ll take down your details and send them to our other offices across the country. We can find your family for you, even if they are no longer in Guinea.’

‘They wouldn’t go away without me,’ Pascal said firmly.

‘They may not have had a choice,’ Mr Sakho replied. ‘If you come with me now, I can bring you back by the end of the day.’

Pascal hesitated, unsure whether or not he could trust this man. He looked trustworthy enough in his smart suit, and he had been allowed into the camp, after all.

‘The people here are too bogged down with other work,’ explained Mr Sakho, seeing Pascal’s hesitation. ‘That’s why they’re asking outside agencies to help. We have all the facilities and lots of staff.’

Pascal wanted to check with Jaloh or Sheriff, but Mr Sakho insisted that they leave straight away.

‘There are others waiting,’ he said, ‘and the sooner we get started the better. Come, we’re going to put your life back together again.’

Pascal nodded. He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement. He didn’t say another word, but followed his new guardian towards the camp entrance. When they reached the barrier, the security guards opened it, grinned and saluted, while Mr Sakho touched his forehead to them.

Outside, a van was waiting. Another man in a suit jumped down from the driver’s seat and opened the back door for Pascal, who squeezed in among the other six boys, wishing he could have sat by the window.

‘All OK?’ Mr Sakho asked, before sliding into the passenger seat.

The boys nodded, but none of them spoke. Pascal was glad he wasn’t going on his own and felt that, as fellow Guineans, this was a group of boys he would make an effort to befriend once they returned to the camp. They would all have had the shared experience of visiting the agency and would all be waiting for news at the same time.

Pascal settled back and watched the van negotiating the potholed road ahead. His excitement mounted with every kilometre covered, and by the time they reached the outskirts of the town, he couldn’t stop fidgeting. The van drove right through the town, past numerous buildings that had been razed to the ground and others that had suffered considerable damage, before circling a large, dilapidated warehouse some distance beyond the final row of shops. They came to a halt at the back and Mr Sakho got out.

‘Stay there,’ he ordered, leaving the other man in charge. He disappeared inside.

A few minutes later, a different man appeared, pushing two boys ahead of him out of the warehouse. He was burly and rough-looking, carried an AK-47 and swore when the smaller of the boys tripped and nearly fell over.

Pascal shrank back in his seat. His head began to spin. White lights blinded him. A loud bang made him cry out. He lashed out on both sides, his fists striking soft flesh, then launched himself forward, cracking his jaw against someone’s skull. Voices, shouts, pain.

‘Get back in your seat and shut it, or else.’

A sharp jab in the chest and Pascal was falling. Two loud bangs. The roar of an engine. Steadying hands as he lurched sideways.

‘Are you all right?’ A soft voice next to him.

Pascal took a deep breath and tried to take in what was happening. The boys on the bench opposite were staring at him, one of them rubbing his forehead. Beside him was the smaller of the new boys.

‘Are you all right?’ the boy repeated.

Pascal looked at the raw skin on his knuckles and rubbed his chin. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘We’re going to work,’ the boy replied. ‘They’re going to pay us lots of money and give us bicycles and things.’

Pascal stared at the boy. He couldn’t have been much older than nine, younger than Pascal had been when his world had been blown apart.

‘What do you mean, work?’ he asked faintly.

‘To help our families pay for things,’ the boy replied. ‘Did your papa lose his job as well?’

Pascal didn’t answer. As the van picked up speed and swung on to a main road away from the town, he tried to take in what he was being told. He was a fool to have trusted the man in the suit. Why had he been so eager to believe him? Once again, he was losing control of his life. He looked towards the two men in the front of the van. The driver was focused on the road. The man in the passenger seat had turned to face them.

‘All right, boys?’ he asked. ‘You ready to make yourselves a heap of money?’

Most of the boys nodded. Two of them remained tight-lipped.

‘You promised you’d find my family for me,’ Pascal couldn’t help hissing, though he knew it was pointless.

‘Me? I made you no promises,’ the man scoffed. ‘And you’ll be back home in no time, with your pockets bulging. Just think how grateful your families will be.’

They drove on in silence, each boy with his own thoughts.

Pascal closed his eyes and tried to stop himself from thinking too hard, until the boy beside him said, ‘My name’s Kojo. What’s yours?’

Chapter 31

Sweat poured down Pascal’s face and neck. It was a burning hot afternoon. He chopped into a cocoa pod and emptied the beans on to the pile. On the track behind him, a truck was parked, several sacks of empty husks already loaded on board. The driver had left the truck and was sitting some distance away, smoking a cigarette and chatting with an overseer. As luck would have it, Tiene was working in another part of the plantation that day.