Blue Gold (27 page)

Laiping continued up to the factory floor and took her place in formation for marching exercises, just has she had done almost daily for the past eight weeks. Tonight, though, everything seemed different. Miss Lau's cheery voice over the loudspeaker irritated her—her kind tone a reminder of her unkindness. When they took their work stations, Laiping discovered that Bohai had been replaced by somebody else, a girl who didn't bother speaking to Laiping. She wondered if Bohai was being punished, and almost felt sorry for him.

Mr. Wu strutted up and down the aisle as usual, praising a worker here, ridiculing another there, like a self-important general.
Circuit board-capacitor-solder-
capacitor-solder; circuit board-capacitor-solder-capacitor-solder.
Laiping thought:
We aren't soldiers. We aren't robots, either. We deserve better.

 

IN THE MORNING AFTER HER SHIFT
, Laiping followed the flow of workers down the stairs. She looked for Fen going up and spotted her, but Fen didn't look her way—giving Laiping an unsettled feeling. Outside, she averted her eyes as she passed the security guard, afraid that somehow he would read what was in her mind.

The address Kai had given her was a fast food restaurant on the far side of campus. He said the meeting was at 9:00 a.m.—it was 8:30 now. On the main boulevard, Laiping got in line for a bus to take her there, but with the shift changes, two busses came and went, too crowded for Laiping to get on board. Laiping's anxiety grew. If she was late for the meeting, Kai might think she wasn't serious enough to join his group—or to be his girlfriend. When the third bus came, Laiping pushed her way on board. The passengers were packed like tinned fish, smelling of sweat and bad breath.

They stopped frequently on the way across campus and were delayed while people got on and off the bus. Laiping dug her fingernails into her palms, willing it to go faster. They were almost at Laiping's destination at the end of the route when the bus lurched to a halt. She craned her neck to see out the window. The street and sidewalk were jammed with people, pushing and shoving. She could hear shouting from nearby, then screams.

“Open the doors! Let us off the bus!” someone called to the driver.

“No!” she yelled back. Then she used the loudspeaker. “We have encountered an emergency,” she announced. Laiping couldn't see the driver, but she sounded young, and nervous. “Please be patient until it is safe to proceed.”

Laiping squeezed by other passengers to get a better view out the window, and saw a phalanx of police in visors and riot gear protecting the bus from the surging crowd. Beyond the police she saw people fighting—a thug thrashing his baton at a young man who was cowering at the blows. Another man hauled a youth out of a shop and punched him, bloodying his nose. To her horror, Laiping saw that the youth with the bloody nose was Kai. She wanted to cry out:
Somebody stop them!
But the police kept their backs turned to the fighting, making no effort to inter­vene. She watched helplessly as Kai and his friends were bundled into an unmarked van.

A whistle blew. Outside the bus, the police were ordering the crowd of onlookers to move along.

“Show's over!” they shouted. “Get going!”

One of the police waved the bus forward to its stop, where at last the doors opened and Laiping and the other passengers poured out. On the sidewalk, Laiping fought the crowd to reach the van. People bumped against her as they streamed by in the opposite direction, keeping their heads low and hurrying for safety.

“Keep moving!” commanded a policeman close by.

Laiping managed to reach the van, just at the moment when Kai turned his face, bloodied and cowed, to the window. He saw her, too, and his eyes filled with hatred. It took Laiping a long moment to understand. Then she realized,
He blames me for this! He thinks I gave him away!
Her next thought was,
Fen
.

“It wasn't me!” Laiping shouted to him through the glass.

But the van carrying Kai was pulling away, forcing the crowd to part around it. Laiping called out, “Let them go! They didn't do anything! Where are you taking them?”

“Get going!” a policeman yelled at her.

The van was gaining speed as it reached the edge of the crowd.

“Stop the van!” cried Laiping, to anyone who would listen. “Workers have rights!” A few people stopped and turned to her. Laiping couldn't be sure if they were on her side, or if they thought she had mental problems, but at least they were listening. “Why are they being arrested?” she demanded. “They didn't do anything wrong! Stop the van and let them go free!”

In the next instant, somebody grabbed her by the hair and yanked her backward so hard that she landed on the pavement on her back, the wind knocked out of her. She looked up to catch a glimpse of three policemen staring down at her through their visors, just as one of them drove his boot into her side. Another hauled her up by her arm, then all three of them began landing their fists on her face and body. Laiping was too shocked to feel pain, and then the beating was over. The police turned their attention back to dispersing the crowd, leaving Laiping curled up like a baby in the middle of the road. No one came near her. No one dared.

After a few seconds, Laiping forced herself to her knees, and then to her feet. The van carrying Kai and the others was nowhere in sight. She staggered forward, testing her legs. There was a sharp pain in her side where the boot landed, but nothing seemed broken. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and examined a smear of blood. A policeman approached her and gave her shoulder a hard shove.

“Get going,” he said. “Consider yourself lucky we're not taking you in.”

In a daze, Laiping limped to the bus stop and lined up behind some girls. They kept their backs to her, as though they were afraid the police might think they knew her. No one spoke.

Laiping was able to squeeze onto the first bus that came along, so maybe she
was
lucky. Luckier than Kai, at least.

ARMS FULL
of what supplies they could carry—bandages, syringes, medicines stuffed hastily into plastic sacks—
Sylvie and Marie made their way through the camp to the foreign workers compound, taking a back route to avoid the main roads where Kayembe's men might spot them. Neema had left ahead of them, but Doctor Van de Velde stayed behind to collect more equipment. Sylvie had changed out of Kayembe's pink frilly dress into the only other clothing available, a set of green surgical scrubs.

“What's your hurry?” asked a teenaged boy who was passing by. Sylvie realized he was Jean-Yves's brother, Luc, and that they were near the brothers' hut.

“Tell people to stay away from the clinic!” Marie warned him.

Sylvie nudged Marie along with her shoulder. “Careful,” she told her. “That family is with Kayembe.”

The peacekeeper at the wooden gate of the compound, a soldier with the African Union, was nervous, holding his weapon poised across his chest. When he saw them approach, he opened the gate quickly and hurried them inside.

“Did Neema arrive?” asked Marie.

“The nurse? She's inside. What's this about an attack?”

“Doctor Van de Velde has called for help,” Marie told the worried guard. “This girl's family is coming,” she added. “They have permission to come into the compound.”

But to Sylvie, the fence of thorn branches surrounding the compound was a ridiculous defense—easily destroyed with gasoline and matches. The soldier seemed to think so, too, because he licked his lips and asked, “What help is coming? The police or the army? How many?”

“I don't know,” admitted Marie.

As soon as they entered, Martin, the young American, rushed up to them. He looked as frightened as the guard.

“What's going on? Neema said there's trouble.”

“It's the local warlord, he's after Sylvie and her family,” Marie explained.

Sylvie saw Martin's glance shift to her, as though he was thinking,
Then why are we letting her in here?

“I need the sat phone,” Marie told him, heading for the communications hut.

Sylvie followed her inside and watched as she punched a long string of numbers into the phone, from a list taped to the desk. Sylvie glanced at the list and saw that she was calling the Canadian embassy in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, two days journey to the east, on the Indian Ocean. She wondered how help could possibly arrive in time from so far away.

“This is Doctor Marie Pierre,” she said when she connected. “I am a Canadian citizen working for the UN High Commission for Refugees at Nyarugusu Camp. I am in need of protection.” Marie waited while her call was passed onto someone else, then explained again who she was and why she needed protection. “I must tell you there are Congolese refugees in my care whose lives are at risk,” she told the embassy official. Sylvie watched her frown. “But that's exactly the point,” Marie said with frustration. “This family isn't safe in the DRC,
or
Tanzania!” She argued some more with whoever was on the other end of the line, then rang off angrily.

“What is it?” asked Sylvie.

Marie gave her a bold smile. “Don't worry,” she said. “When Olivier gets here with your family, we're leaving for Dar es Salaam. Once we're inside the embassy, we'll be safe.”

“But will they let us in?” asked Sylvie.

“They have to,” she replied, which wasn't the reassurance Sylvie was looking for.

 

AN HOUR WENT BY
. Sylvie and Marie waited anxiously by the gate for Olivier, Mama, and the children. Doctor Van de Velde hadn't appeared yet, either. The very air around them seemed tense, like the tingle before a lightning storm, and outside the thorn fence, the camp was too quiet. Sylvie wanted to go out to look for Olivier and her family, but Marie told her that if anyone reported to Kayembe that she was here inside the compound, then everyone would be in danger.

“But he must already know,” Sylvie pointed out. “Luc saw us, remember?”

Just as this truth dawned on Marie's face, a single rifle shot splintered the air, then the rapid-fire of an automatic weapon.

Martin ran out from one of the tents. “Where's it coming from?”

“The clinic, I think,” replied Marie.

Neema and the other nurses and aid workers started to gather, fear in everyone's eyes.

“Where are the police?” shrieked Neema. “Who is going to protect us?”

“Look!” said Martin, pointing.

They all turned to see a wisp of black smoke rising into the sky, from the direction of the clinic.

“Doctor Van de Velde!” exclaimed Neema.

“They won't hurt him,” Marie told her. “They have no reason to hurt him.” But she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Suddenly, Neema took hold of Sylvie's arm. “It's you they want!” She half pushed, half pulled Sylvie toward the gate. “Go! Get out!”

Marie grabbed hold of Neema—“Leave her alone!”—and all at once the entire group was bickering and shouting, some wanting Sylvie to stay and others all for sending her straight to Kayembe.

“Kayembe wants me dead, too!” Marie shouted. “Does that mean I should go out there?”

A piercing whistle silenced them. It was Martin, four fingers in his mouth.

“Stop it!” he yelled in his fumbling French. “Stop it right now! Sylvie is staying here, and so is Marie!”

But Sylvie's gratitude turned quickly to despair when she looked back to see that the wisp of smoke in the distance had turned into leaping orange flames. The clinic was burning. There were more gunshots, coming closer.
They're right
, she realized.
I have brought this upon them
. While the others stared in disbelief at the fire, she dashed for the gate and threw off the wooden bar that kept it locked. Marie reached her just as she pushed the gate open.

“Sylvie!”

The rattled peacekeeper swung his gun at them, ready to shoot.

“No!” Marie cried out, pushing the barrel away with trembling fingers.

“Marie, go back inside,” pleaded Sylvie. “I have to find my family.”

Tearfully, Marie told her, “Sylvie, they may already be dead.”

Sylvie looked into Marie's eyes, and went numb. She was right. Of course she was right. Too much time had gone by—Kayembe had caught them by now. Mama, Pascal, Lucie. Olivier. Sylvie felt her limbs go weak. Her legs wouldn't move. Her heart pounded—so hard it felt like it might burst through her chest. She wished it would, and then at last all the pain would be over.

Sylvie heard the rattle of a heavy truck turning into the lane behind her. She saw Marie's eyes go wide with dread. The peacekeeper lifted his gun and took aim.
A truck full of soldiers
, thought Sylvie. Would they kill them all here, or would they take her to Kayembe to give him the satisfaction of doing it himself?