2006 - What is the What (26 page)

There was tall grass on the bank of the river, and in the grass so close to the water, insects thrived. We had no mosquito nets. We slept outdoors, and we built fires with kindling and bamboo. But that did not help us with the mosquitoes. At night, there was crying. The adults moaned, the children wailed. The mosquitoes feasted, a hundred eating from each person. There was no solution. There can be no doubt that dozens contracted malaria while we waited to cross the water. It took four days to get from our side to the other.

Once we were across, there was a village, and in that village, we were welcomed. The inhabitants lived close to their sandy shore, and they cultivated maize. They shared their food with us and I thought I might faint from their generosity. We sat in our groups and the women of the village brought us well water and even stew, each bowl with one small piece of meat. Within minutes of finishing the food, boys were everywhere sleeping, so sated they could not stay awake.

When I woke the orange sun had fallen toward the treeline and I heard a voice.

—You!

In front of me I saw nothing but boys, some of them bathing in the water. Behind me there was nothing but darkness and a path.

—Achak!

The voice was very familiar. I looked up. There was a shadow in a tree. It looked very much like a leopard, its silhouette all length and sinew.

—Who is that? I asked.

The shape jumped from the tree into the sand beside me. I flinched and was ready to run, but it was a boy.

—It’s you, Achak!

—It’s not you! I said, standing.

It was him. After so many weeks, it was William K.

We embraced and said nothing. My throat tightened, but I could not cry. I no longer knew how to cry. But I was so thankful. I felt it was God giving me this gift of William K after taking away Deng. I had not seen him since the murahaleen came to Marial Bai and it seemed impossible that I would find him here, along the Nile. We smiled at each other but were too excited to sit. We ran to the river and then walked along the sand, away from the other boys.

—What about Moses? William K asked.—Did he come with you?

It had not occurred to me that William K would not know the fate of Moses. I told him that Moses was dead, that he had been killed by the horseman. William K sat down quickly in the sand. I sat down with him.

—You didn’t know? I asked.

—No. I didn’t see him that day. They shot him?

—I don’t know. They were about to get him. I looked away. We sat for some time, looking at the smooth rocks by the riverside. William K picked up a few stones and threw them into the brown water.

—Your parents? he asked.

—I don’t know. Yours?

—They told me they’d see me back at home during the rainy season. I think they’re waiting to come back. So I just have to go back home once the rain comes.

This sounded very wishful to me, but I did not comment. We sat for some time, quietly, and I felt like the trip to Ethiopia now would not be very difficult. Walking with my good friend William K would make it tolerable. I’m sure he felt the same way, for more than once he looked at me out of the corner of his eye, as if checking to make sure I was real. To make sure that all of this was real.

It took us a surprising amount of time to remember to ask how we had arrived here at the river with the groups traveling east. I told him my story and then he told me his. Like me, he had run that first day, all through the night and the next day. He was lucky enough to come upon a bus taking people to Ad-Da’ein, where he had relatives. He knew that Ad-Da’ein was in the north, but all of the Dinka on the bus were sure that there they would be safe there, for Ad-Da’ein was a large town and had long had a mixed population of Dinka and Arabs, Christian and Muslim. Like the group of elders with whom I had walked at the beginning of my running, they felt that being in a government-controlled town would be most secure.

—It was safe for a while, William K said.—My uncle and aunts lived there, and he worked as a bricklayer, working for the Rezeigat. It was a decent job and he was able to feed us all. We lived near many hundreds of Dinka, and we were able to do as we wanted. There were about seventeen thousand Dinka there, so we felt safe.

—The Rezeigat, Arab herders, held the power in the town, but there were also people there from the Fur, the Zaghawa, Jur, Berti, and other tribes. It was a busy town, peaceful. Or that’s what my uncle said. Things changed not long after I got there. Bad feelings developed. Militiamen were in the town more and more, and they brought bad feelings toward the Dinka. The Muslims in the town began to act differently toward the non-Muslims. There was a Christian church in the town, which had been built a long time ago, with the help of a Rezeigat sheikh. This church now became a problem for the Muslims. The people were angry at the Dinka and the Christians because of the SPLA. Every time they heard about the SPLA winning some battle, they got angrier. In the spring, the Rezeigat came to the church and they burned it down. There were many people inside worshiping, but they burned it anyway. Two people were burned inside. Then the Rezeigat went to where the Dinka homes were, and they burned many of those, too. Three more people died there.

—We were scared. The Dinka knew this was not a good place for them anymore.

My uncle brought us to the police station one morning, where many hundreds of Dinka had gone for safety. The police helped us, and told us to gather in Hillat Sikka Hadid, an area near the railway station. We stayed there all night, all of us huddled together. Everyone among us decided that in the morning we would begin to walk back to southern Sudan, where we could be protected by the SPLA.

—In the morning, government officials, with the police, moved all of us to the railway station. They told us that we would be safest there, and they would transport us away from the town on the train. We would be carried away from the town and would be safe to go back to southern Sudan or wherever we wished to go.

—So they helped load everyone onto the train, onto the cars where they keep cattle. There were eight cars, and most of the people were happy to be leaving, and that they would not have to walk. They told us that they wanted the men and boys on one car, so they could watch them, to make sure they were not SPLA. I was worried about this development, but my uncle said not to worry, that it was natural that they would want to make sure the men were not armed. So my uncle and cousins boarded one of the cars for men.

—I boarded a different train car with my aunts and younger cousins, all girls. My uncle was on the first car, and we were on the fifth car. We were very cramped inside the cars. There were almost two hundred women and children in the car with us. We could barely breathe; we pushed our mouths to the slits that were open to the outside, and we took turns inside the car, getting close to the air. Many children were crying, many were getting sick. A girl near me vomited all over my back.

—After two hours, we heard a lot of yelling close to the first car, where my uncle was. Then gunfire. We couldn’t see anything from where we were. We didn’t know if the army was fighting SPLA or what was happening. Then we heard the sound of burning, the whooshing and crackling. And then, like a wave, the yelling of hundreds of Dinka men. Rezeigat men were yelling, too, screaming things at the Dinka. ‘They’re burning!’ someone screamed inside our car. ‘They’re burning the men!’ Everyone started screaming. We were all screaming then. We screamed for a long time but we were trapped.

—I don’t know how our car was opened, but the door opened and we ran out. But it was too late for most. A thousand had been burned. My uncle was gone. We ran from the town with hundreds of others, hiding in the woods until we got to an SPLA town. Eventually my aunts thought I should join the walking boys.

William K. had been at the river for days before we arrived, having been brought by bus for part of the way, and then joining another, larger group of boys walking. Most of them had walked on while William had stayed at the river, enjoying the hospitality of the women at the riverside. He was healthier than most of us, and seemed optimistic about what was to come.

—Did you hear we’re very close to Ethiopia? he asked. I had not heard this.

—It’s not far from here, I heard. Only a few days, and then we’re safe. We just have to cross some desert and if we run we might make it in one day. Maybe you and I should run ahead to get there first. And then we’ll go home once the rains come. If your parents aren’t in Marial Bai, you can have my parents, and we can be brothers.

For the first time in my life, I welcomed the fabrications of William K. He told many that afternoon, about how he knew that his parents had already made it to Ethiopia, because he had been asking people along the way if they had seen people like his parents, and they had all readily agreed. Though his strength might have only recently been restored, it was nevertheless wondrous to hear a boy talk with such enthusiasm about anything at all. For weeks, the rest of us had been barely able to speak.

—Is this a new boy, Achak?

Dut had found us sitting by the riverside.

—This is William K. He’s from our village.

—Marial Bai? No.

—Yes, uncle, William K said.—My father was assistant to the chief.

Dut seemed immediately to know that William was a fabricator, though a harmless one. He nodded and said nothing. He sat with us, watching the passage of the people over the Nile. He asked William K how he, the son of the assistant to the chief of Marial Bai, had come to join us at the river, and William K told him a truncated version of his story. In response, that afternoon Dut told a story stranger than the one he had told about the Baggara and their new guns.

—I’m not surprised you had trouble in Ad-Da’ein, William K. The history of the southern peoples and the northern peoples is not a very happy one. The Arabs have always been better armed than us Dinka. And they have been smarter, too. This is why in Ethiopia we will reverse this imbalance. Have you heard of the people of England, boys?

We shook our heads. Ethiopia was the only other country we were aware of.

—These are people from very far away. They look very different from us. But they are very powerful, with more and better weapons than any Baggara you could find. Can you imagine this? The most powerful people you can think of.

I tried to imagine this, thinking of the murahaleen, but larger versions of them.

—The British people became involved in southern Sudan, in this land we’re walking through, in the 1800
s
. A long time ago. It was they who helped bring Christianity to the Dinka. Someday I will tell you about a man named General Gordon, who tried to abolish slavery in our land. But for now I will tell you this. Are you following me so far?

We were.

—The other part of the history of this land is the country of Egypt. Egypt is another powerful country, but their people are somewhat similar to the people of northern Sudan. They are Arabs. The Egyptians and the British both had interest in Sudan—

I interrupted.—What do you mean when you say that, they had interest?

—They wanted things here. They wanted the land. They wanted the Nile River, the river we just crossed. The British controlled many countries in Africa. It’s complicated, but they wanted influence over a lot of the world. So the British and the Egyptians made a deal. They agreed that the Egyptians would control the north of the country, where the Arabs lived and still live, while the British would control the south, the land we know, where the Dinka and other people like us live. This was good for the people of the south, because the British were enemies of the slave raiders. In fact, they said they would get rid of the slave trade, which at the time was quite active. They were taking many more than are taken now, and they were being sent all over the world. The British ruled southern Sudan with a very light hand. They brought schools to Sudan, where the children were taught Christianity and also English.

—That is why they are called English? William K asked.

—Well…sure, William. In any case, the English were good for this land, in one way, because they kept the spread of Islam in check. They made us safe from the Arabs. But in 1953, a long time ago, before I was born, near the time your father was born, Achak, the Egyptians and the British signed an agreement to leave Sudan alone, let it govern itself. This was after World War II and—

—What? I asked.

—Oh Achak. I can’t begin to explain. But the British had been involved in a war of their own, a war that makes our current conflict look very small by comparison. But because they had extended themselves all over the world and could no longer maintain their hold, they decided to grant control of the country to the Sudanese. This was a very important time. There were many who assumed that the country would be split into two, the north and the south, because the two regions had been fused under the British, after all, and because the two sides shared so few cultural identities. But this is where the British sowed the seeds for disaster in our country, which are still being harvested today. Actually, look at this.

Dut pulled a small batch of papers from his pocket. We didn’t know until then that he kept other papers, in addition to the roster of boys under his care. But he had many papers, and he flipped the pages quickly and came upon a crumpled yellow page, which he unfolded and presented to me. The print upon it looked like nothing I had ever seen. I could as soon read it as I could fashion wings from it and fly away. Remembering that I could not read, he snatched it back.

—It took me a long time to translate so I’ll give you the benefit of my hard work. Yes, now:

‘
The approved policy of the Government is to act upon the fact that the people of the southern Sudan are distinctly African and Negroid, and that our obvious duty to them is therefore to push ahead as far as we can with their economic development on African and Negroid lines, and not upon Middle-Eastern Arab lines of progress which are suitable for the northern Sudan. It is only by economic and educational development that these people can be equipped to stand up for themselves in the future, whether their lot be eventually cast with the northern Sudan or with eastern Africa, or partly with each
.