2006 - What is the What (18 page)

—Burned? By who? the boy asked. He was skeptical.

—The Baggara, Deng answered.

—The
Baggara?
Why didn’t you fight them?

—They had new guns, Deng said.—Fast guns. They could kill ten men in seconds. The boy laughed.

—You can’t stay here, another boy said.

—We don’t plan to, I said.

—Good. You should keep moving. You’re just walking boys. You look like you have diseases. Do you have malaria?

At that point, I was finished with these boys. I didn’t want to hear anything else from them. I turned my back to them. Quickly I felt a kick to my back. It was the boy with the cloud-white shoes.

—We don’t like beggars here. You hear that? Don’t you have a family? I did not react but Deng now was on his feet. His head reached the cloud-shoe boy’s chest. Next to this well-fed older boy, Deng looked like an insect.

—Boys!

It was Dut, booming his voice over us. The boys who were harassing us dispersed and Dut emerged from the market with a large older man dressed in a blood-colored robe. The new man carried a staff and walked with a brisk, contented sort of pace. At the edge of the circle of boys, he stopped, startled. He sighed a long confused sigh.

—I told you we were many, Dut said.

—I know. I know. So this is what’s happening? Boys walking to Bilpam?

—This is our hope, uncle.

The chief sighed again and surveyed our group, smiling and shaking his head. After a short while the chief took his staff with both hands and tapped it determinedly into the ground and walked back into the village.

—This is good, boys. The chief has agreed to feed us. Please sit where you are, and don’t ask for anything from these people. The chief has some women preparing some manioc for us.

Indeed, very quickly there was a great deal of activity in the huts near our group. Women and girls began to busily prepare food and when they were done, we were given food, portions dropped in our hands; there were not enough plates for the dozens of boys and Dut had insisted it was unnecessary. After we had eaten and the chief had given Dut two bags of nuts and two jerry cans of water, we were back on the trail, for we were not permitted to stay.

I had felt weak and heavy-legged that day, but now I was fortified, and I found myself in a good enough state of mind. I wanted to see what would happen next. Though I worried about my family, I told myself that if I was safe, they were safe, and until we were reunited, I would be on a kind of adventure. There were things I wondered about seeing. I had heard of rivers so wide that birds could not fly across; the birds would drop midway and be subsumed by the limitless water. I had heard of land that rose so high that it was as if the earth was tilted on its side; land that was shaped like the contours of a sleeping person. I wanted to see these things and then to return to my parents, to tell them about my journey. It was when I imagined doing so that the strings inside me felt taut again, and I had to breathe heavily to loosen them.

We walked through the twilight and passed women and men along the path, but when the night fell on them we were alone and the path was erased.

—Walk straight, Dut said.—The path is very new.

I had walked in the dark many times before. I could walk under a moon or in the blackest night. But so far from home, without a path, the strain was extreme. I had to lock my eyes to the back of the boy in front of me, and to maintain my pace. Slowing down for even a few moments would mean losing the group. It happened through the night: a boy would fall off the pace, or would step out of line to urinate, and then would have to call out to find the line again. Those who did this were scorned and sometimes punched or kicked. Making noise could bring attention to the group and this was undesirable when the night had been retaken by the animals.

Deng walked behind me, insisting on holding my shirt. This was a practice favored this night and on later nights by the youngest boys—holding the shirt of the boy ahead. Deng and I were certainly among the smallest of the walking boys. The most accommodating boys would remove an arm from its sleeve and allow those behind them to use the sleeve as a leash. Many boys did this with their younger brothers. There were many pairs of brothers in the group, and in the morning, when roll was called, when I heard their names called I felt such envy. I knew nothing about my brothers now: whether they were alive or dead or at the bottom of a well.

That night we stopped in a clearing and boys were sent to the forest to find wood. But the boys Dut chose did not want to go. The forest was wild with noises, squeals and shifting grasses.

—I won’t go, one strong-looking boy said.

—What? Dut barked.

It was clear that he was tired and hungry himself and had little patience.

—You don’t want a fire? Dut asked.

—No, the boy said.

—No?

—No. I don’t care about any damned fire.

This was the first time Dut hit a boy. He struck him across the face with the back of his fist and the boy fell to the ground whimpering.

—You, you, you! Dut stammered. He seemed as shocked as the boy that he had knocked him down. But he did not retreat.—Now go. Go!

Dut quickly chose three more boys, the fire was built, and when it was strong we sat around it. Quickly most of us fell asleep but Deng and I stayed up, staring at the flames.

—I didn’t want to hit that boy, Dut said.

Deng and I realized he was talking to us. We were the only boys still awake. We said nothing, for I could not think of anything proper to say to such a statement. Instead I asked Dut about what the old man had said—that the horsemen had fallen to the level of the animals. No one had yet explained to me why it was that Marial Bai had been attacked in the first place. I told Dut about what the man had said, that the Baggara had dropped to the level of an animal, had been possessed by spirits and were now lion-men.

Dut stared at me, blinking with a hard smile.

—He really said this? I nodded.

—And you believed this? I shrugged.

—Achak, he said, and then stared at the fire for a long moment.—I mean no disrespect to this man. But these are not lion-men. They’re ordinary Arabs. I’ll tell you boys the story of how this happened, though you won’t understand all of it. Do you want to hear this?

Deng and I nodded.

—I’m a teacher so this is how I think. I see you sitting like this listening and I want to tell you about this. You’re sure you want to hear? Deng and I insisted we did.

—Okay then. Where should I start? Okay. There is a man named Suwar al-Dahab. He is the minister of defense for the government in Khartoum.

Deng interrupted.—What is Khartoum?

Dut sighed.—Really? You don’t know this? That’s where the government is, Deng. The central government of the country. Of all of Sudan. You don’t know this?

Deng persisted.—But the chief is the head of the country.

—He’s the head of your
village
, Deng. Now I’m not sure you’ll understand this.

I urged him to try, and so Dut spent some time explaining the structure of the government, of tribes and chiefs and the former parliament, and of the Arabs who ruled Khartoum.

—You boys know about Anyanya, yes? Snake Poison. They’re the rebel group that came before the SPLA. Your fathers were probably members of this group. All of your fathers were.

Deng and I nodded. I knew that my father had been an officer in the Anyanya.

—Well, now we have the SPLA. Some of the goals are the same. Some are new. You remember the first attacks of the helicopters? We said we did.

—Well, the helicopters were the governments. They came in response to the actions of a man named Kerubino Bol. He was in the Sudanese Army. Remember when the army was made of Dinka soldiers and Arabs, too? Achak, you remember this, I know. There were many deployed in Marial Bai. I said I did remember.

—Kerubino was a major in charge of the 105
th
Battalion, stationed at a large town called Bor. Bor is in the south of Sudan, the region called the Upper Nile. The people there are like you, but different. We’re all Dinka, but their customs vary. Many clans scar themselves when they reach manhood. You probably have heard of this. There’s another town where all the men smoke pipes. We all have different customs but we are all Dinka. You see this? This is a vast land, boys, bigger than you could ever imagine, and then twice as big as that.

Deng and I nodded.

—Good. Now, Kerubino and his men had been there in Bor for some time, and they were content there. Giving power like this to a southern Sudanese was part of the peace agreement with the Anyanya. In Bor, Kerubino and his men were among their people, most had moved their families to the town and they were happy there. They didn’t have to work too hard. You have seen these soldiers. They don’t like to move much. Then one day, rumors came down that they would be transferred to the north, and this didn’t sit well with them, to be stationed so far from their families. This was made worse by the fact that Khartoum wasn’t paying them what they’d been promised. So things got worse, and finally loyalists to Khartoum, knowing that Kerubino was planning a mutiny, attacked the 105
th
Battalion. Kerubino Bol took the whole battalion and fled to Ethiopia. This is where we’re going, boys. Bilpam is in Ethiopia. Did you know this?

We stopped the story there. Deng and I had not heard the word
Ethiopia
before. We didn’t know what an Ethiopia was.

—It’s a country like Sudan is a country, Dut said.

—If it’s like us, why is it somewhere else? Deng asked. Dut was a patient man.

—In Ethiopia, he continued,—Kerubino was joined by a man named John Garang, a colonel in the Sudanese army. He had fled, too. And then the 104
th
Battalion, stationed in Ayod, also fled to Ethiopia. By this time it was a movement. There were hundreds of well-trained soldiers there, mostly Dinka, and this was the new rebel army. This was the SPLA. And so began this stage of the civil war. Do you understand these things so far?

We nodded.

—When John Garang began the rebel movement, General Dahab was very angry, as was the entire government in Khartoum. So they wanted to crush the rebels. But the rebels were many. They were armed well and they had something to fight for. For this reason, they were very dangerous. And Ethiopia was helping them, which made them even more of a threat.

—So the rebels have guns? I asked.

—Guns! Of course. We have guns and artillery and rocket launchers, Achak.

Deng laughed a giddy laugh and I smiled and felt proud. I convinced myself that the men who had beaten my father were different than these rebels. Or perhaps the rebels had learned better manners.

—The government was very angry about this new rebel presence, Dut continued,—so this is when the helicopters came. The government burned the villages to punish them for supporting the rebels. It’s very easy to kill a town, yes? Harder to kill an army. So as men left to train in Ethiopia, the SPLA continued to grow and they even won battles. They occupied land. Things were looking bad for the government. They had a problem. So they needed more soldiers, more guns. But raising an army is expensive. A government needs to pay an army, to feed an army, provide the army with weapons. So General Dahab used a strategy familiar to many governments before his: he armed others to do the work of the army. In this case, he provided tens of thousands of Arab men, the Baggara among them, with automatic weapons. Many were from across the Bahr al-Ghazal. Many thousands from Darfur. You saw these men with their guns. These guns shoot a hundred bullets in the time it would take to shoot a rifle twice. We can’t defend ourselves against these guns.

—Why didn’t the government have to pay these men? I asked.

—Well, that’s a good question. These Baggara had long fought with the Dinka over grazing pastures and other matters. You probably know this. For many years there had been relative peace between the southern tribes and the Arab tribes, but it was General Dahab’s idea to break this peace, to inspire hatred in the Baggara. When he gave them these weapons, the Baggara knew they had a great advantage over the Dinka. They had AK-47
s
and we had spears, clubs, leather shields. This upset the balance we’ve lived with for many years. But how would the government pay all these men? It was simple. They told the horsemen that in exchange for their services, they were authorized to plunder all they wanted along the way. General Dahab told them to visit upon any Dinka villages along the rail lines, and to take what they wished—livestock, food, anything from the markets, and even people. This was the beginning of the resurgence of slavery. This was in 1983. We had no concept of years.

—Just a few seasons ago, Dut said.—You remember when this began? We nodded.

—They would descend upon a village, and surround it at night. When the village would wake, they would ride in from all sides, killing and looting as they wished. All cattle would be taken, and any animals not stolen would be shot. Any resistance would bring reprisals. Men would be killed on sight. Women would be raped, the homes burned, the wells poisoned, and children would be abducted. You have seen all this I trust.

We had.

—It’s worked very well for the Baggara, because their own farms were suffering from drought. They had lost cattle and their harvests were poor. So they steal our cattle and they sell them in Darfur, and then they’re sold again in Khartoum. The profits are tremendous. The supply of cattle in the north has increased dramatically, such that there’s a surplus, and the price of beef has declined. These were all Dinka cattle, our dowries and our legacies, the measure of our men. Stealing animals and food from these villages solved a great portion of the Baggara’s problems, as did the enslaving of our people. Do you know why, boys?

We did not know.

—While they’re away stealing our animals, who’s looking after theirs? Aha. This is one reason they steal our women and boys. We watch their herds so they can continue to raid our villages. Can you imagine? It’s an ugly thing. The Baggara aren’t bad people by their nature, though. Most of them are like us, cattle people.
Baggara
is just the word in Arabic for cowherd, and we use it to talk about other herding peoples—the Rezeigat of Darfur, the Misseriya of Kordofan. They’re all Muslims, Sunnis. You’ve known Muslims, yes?