Blue Gold by Elizabeth Stewart

raised two storeys off the ground.
    Fen threw Laiping a wary look. “You don’t know?”
    â€œKnow what?” replied Laiping, Fen’s tone making her feel stupid.
    â€œNever mind.”
    â€œTell me,” replied Laiping. She had to know these things, so people would stop calling her a country hick.
    Fen dropped her voice so the girls around them going in and out of the dorm couldn’t hear. “They’re to catch people who jump.”
    Laiping was confused. “Why would people jump? From where?”
    Fen rolled her eyes and kept her voice low. “Didn’t your cousin tell you anything?”
    â€œTell me what?”
    â€œThat workers have killed themselves, or tried to.”
    Laiping went cold. “Why?”
    â€œI guess you’ll find out, won’t you?” answered Fen.
    While Fen went inside, Laiping lagged behind. With good jobs and movie theaters and swimming pools, she thought, why would anyone want to kill herself? Then she remembered what the guy in the blue hoodie had said to her. There are things you need to know.
    Laiping followed Fen into the building with a nagging sense that there was another lesson to be learned here. She just wasn’t certain what it was.

NIGHTTIME WAS THE WORST IN NYARUGUSU , when there was nothing but mud walls and the old sacks they used to cover the doorway to separate the family from rats and thieves. But the terrors Sylvie feared most were in her jumbled dreams—the soldier on top of her, Mama screaming from the bedroom, Papa’s face when the bullets hit. This night, like so many others, she woke in a cold sweat, her heart racing. She could see nothing, but she heard Mama muttering and fretting in her sleep and could only guess at what nightmares she was reliving. Sylvie dozed fitfully for the rest of the night, until at last dawn framed the sacks in the doorway with soft light.
    But the mat where Olivier usually slept was empty. He hadn’t been home in two days—the last time Sylvie had seen him was in the marketplace, when she’d watched him take a call on his mobile phone.
    Mama stirred and sat up. “Has he come back?” she asked.
    â€œNo,” said Sylvie.
    â€œYou must have said something to keep him away, you and that temper of yours.”
    Without replying, Sylvie got up and took the lid off the cooking pot, encouraged to see that bugs and rats hadn’t gotten into the cold porridge she’d saved for their breakfast. Pascal and Lucie were soon awake and scooping the porridge from the pot with their fingers, while Mama continued to blame Sylvie for Olivier’s absence—“What did you say to him? You must have said something!” Sylvie gave Pascal a warning glance to stay silent about Kayembe.
    â€œOlivier doesn’t listen to me, no matter what I say,” Sylvie told her, yawning.
    She was tired from lack of sleep—too tired to care that her mother seemed to take pleasure in accusing her. But to Sylvie’s surprise, Mama’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. Through everything they had endured, Sylvie had rarely seen her cry.
    â€œWe’re just women and children!” she wailed. “With Patrice gone, Olivier is the man of the family. What will become of us without him?”
    Sylvie wasn’t sure which were worse, the days when Mama forgot that Papa was dead, or the days when she remembered. She looked at her mother sitting up on the sleeping mat, head in her hands, her thin shoulders heaving with each sob. Married Congolese women took pride in wrapping their hair in a colorful cloth, but Mama hadn’t bothered in months. Her hair sprung in clumps all over her head, as chaotic as the brain inside. Sylvie knew she should try to comfort her. But the truth was that Mama’s weakness made her angry. She wanted to shout, Haven’t I provided for the family by working at the clinic? Me—not Olivier! Instead she promised,