Free Little Bee by Chris Cleave

dere.”
    “I
do not know people,” said the girl with the documents. “I do not know anyone.”
    “Well,
yu jus gonna do yore best, darlin.”
    The
girl with the documents frowned.
    “How come there no one here to help us? How come my caseworker she not here
to fetch me? How come they give us no release papers?”
    Yevette
shook her head.
    “Ain’t
yu got nuff papers in dat bag of yours already, darlin? Some people, yu give em
de inch, dey want de whole mile.”
    Yevette
laughed, but her eyes looked desperate.
    “Now
where is dat dam taxi?” she said.
    “The
man on the phone said ten minutes.”
    “Feel
like ten years already, truth.”
    Yevette
fell quiet. We looked out over the countryside again. The landscape was deep
and wide. A breeze blew across it. We sat there on our heels and we watched the
cows and the sheep and the white man tying the gates closed around them.
    After
some time our taxi came into sight. We watched it from the moment it was a
small white speck at the distant end of the road. Yevette turned to me and she
smiled.
    “Dis
taxi driver, he soun cute on de phone?”
    “I
did not talk to the driver. I only talked to the taxi controller.”
    “Eighteen
month I gone without a man, Bug. Dis taxi driver
better be a rill Mister Mention, yu know what I’m sayin? Me like em tall, wid a
bit o fat on em. Me no like no skinny boys. An me like
em dress fine. Got no time fo loosers, ain’t dat right?”
    I
shrugged. I watched the taxi getting nearer. Yevette looked at me.
    “What
sorta man yu like, Lil Bug?”
    I
looked at the ground. There was grass there, pushing out of the tarmac, and I
twisted it in my hands. When I thought about men, I felt a fear in my belly so
sharp it was like knives piercing me. I did not want to speak, but Yevette
nudged me with her elbow.
    “Come
on, Bug, what sorta boy be madam’s type?”
    “Oh,
you know, the usual sort.”
    “What?
What yu mean, de yoo -sual sort? Tall,
short, skinny, fat?”
    I
looked down at my hands.
    “I
think my ideal man would speak many languages. He would speak Ibo and Yoruba
and English and French and all of the others. He could speak with any person,
even the soldiers, and if there was violence in their heart he could change it.
He would not have to fight, do you see? Maybe he would not be very handsome,
but he would be beautiful when he spoke. He would be very kind, even if you
burned his food because you were laughing and talking with your girlfriends
instead of watching the cooking. He would just say, Ah,
never mind. ”
    Yevette
looked at me.
    “Forgive
me, Bug, but yore ideal man, he don’t sound very rill istic. ”
    The
girl with the documents, she looked up from her Dunlop Green Flash trainers.
    “Leave
her alone. Can’t you see she is a virgin?”
    I
looked at the ground. Yevette, she stared at me for a long time and then she
put her hand on the back of my neck. I ground the toe of my boot into the
ground and Yevette looked at the girl with the documents.
    “How yu know dis, darlin?”
    The
girl shrugged and she pointed at the documents in her see-through plastic bag.
    “I
have seen things. I know about people.”
    “So
how come yu so quiet, if yu know so dam much?”
    The
girl shrugged again. Yevette stared at her.
    “What dey call yu anyway, darlin?”
    “I
do not tell people my name. This way it is safer.”
    Yevette
rolled her eyes.
    “Bet
you don’t give de boys your phone number, neither.”
    The
girl with the documents, she stared at Yevette. Then she spat on the ground. She
was trembling.
    “You
don’t know anything,” she said. “If you knew one thing about this life you
would not think it was so funny.”
    Yevette
put her hands on her hips. She shook her head slowly.
    “Darlin,”
she said. “Life did take its gifts back from yu and me in de diffren order,
dat’s all. Truth to tell, funny is all me got lef wid. An yu, darlin, all yu got lef is paperwork.”
    They
stopped then, because the taxi was pulling