2006 - What is the What (41 page)

All of us, the Eleven and I, walked to school that morning in a fog. None of us had slept enough to facilitate effective thinking. We encountered the nieces as we walked in. The girls were seated in the back, on chairs. We took our seats in front.

—Okay, Mr Kondit began.—It is obvious that you all are of an age that makes concentration difficult when in the presence of young women.

We said nothing. How had he known? Mr. Kondit was a smart man! we thought.

—I have made a few adjustments to the seating arrangements to help you all in your concentration. I trust that today the lesson will be more captivating to you students. Now, today we will continue with the consonants…

We had no choice but to watch and listen to Mr. Kondit. But we had not planned to. We had, each boy, come to class with other plans. We had, in fact, already divided up the tasks, with two or three boys assigned to each of the girls, to obtain the maximum possible amount of information through close observation. Unless we wanted to turn entirely around, observing the sisters was now impossible. Fact-finding, thereafter, became possible only when we were all writing outside, before the lesson had begun or after it was finished.

Through our reconnaissance before school, after school, and during our writing exercises in the dirt, by the end of the first week, more was known about the sisters’ clothes, their hair, their eyes and arms and legs, but they had spoken to no one. They did not speak in class and they made no conversation with any boy. What was known was that they were uniformly beautiful and very smart and dressed far better than the unaccompanied minors like me had any chance to. The nieces’ clothes were clean, without tears or holes. They wore the most brilliant reds and purples and blues, their hair always fixed with the utmost care. I had never had any particular interest in girls as playmates, because they cried too quickly and didn’t typically want to wrestle, but each night for many weeks, after the talk of the Eleven had faded to whispers and sleep had overtaken us, I lay in the shelter and found myself wondering why I should be so blessed, to have these spectacular royal sisters in my class. Why should I be so fortunate? It seemed, then, that God had had a plan. God had separated me from my home and family and had sent me to this wretched place, but now there seemed to be a reason for it all. There was suffering, I thought, and then there was light. There was suffering and then there was grace. I was placed in Pinyudo, it was clear now, to meet these magnificent girls, and the fact that there were four of them meant that God intended to make up for all the misfortune in my life. God was good and God was just.

I found myself raising my hand more often. Usually my answers were correct. I was, improbably, smarter than I had been days earlier. I sat in the front. Though I was farther from the girls, I needed to be where I would be noticed by Mr. Kondit, and by extension, by his nieces. I answered every question asked of me, and I studied with great diligence at night. I had to get myself noticed by the girls, and if classtime was the only time I could see them—and it was, since they lived on the far side of the camp, where the more essential people lived—then that was when I would have to shine.

Each time I was correct in my answers, Mr. Kondit would say ‘Good, Achak!’ and if I could do so undetected, I would glance back at the nieces, to see if they had noticed. But they rarely seemed to do so.

The Eleven, though, had certainly noticed, and they hassled me without end or mercy. My new success at school was dulling the sheen on the rest of them, and this caused some concern. Would I, they wanted to know, always be this much of a pain?

—Why are you suddenly so interested in school, Achak? they asked.

—Is education your mother and father, Achak? Moses said. Their hounding forced me to admit my strategy.

—I don’t give a goddamn about education is my father! I said. The Eleven fell down laughing.

—You know why I’m raising my damned hand. Now shut up.

But I had not finished what I had begun. The more I tried, and the longer the nieces seemed unimpressed, the more extreme my efforts became. I helped after class, wiping the board clean and organizing Mr. Kondit’s papers and books. I took attendance at the beginning of class, which was both boon and curse. As I called out the names, I had to face the knowing stares of the Eleven, each of them grinning maniacally at me, some batting their lashes in mock-flirtation. When I was done with them, though, I was able to call out the names Agar, Akon, Agum, and Yar Akech, and in this way, I became the only boy the girls looked directly at, the only boy to whom they spoke. Here, the sisters said. Here, here, here.

They were the Royal Nieces of Pinyudo. One of my roommates named them and the girls were immediately known this way—or alternately as the Royal Girls—in the class of fifty-one and elsewhere in the camp, too. There were other families, other sets of sisters, yes, but none so uniformly exceptional. It was unlikely that these four girls were unaware of their nickname, and no one doubted that they found it agreeable. They were aware of the reverence we had for them, but still, they seemed oblivious to me in particular.

As the semester wore on, I began to doubt my strategy. I was the best student in the class, but they paid me no mind. I began to worry that they didn’t care much about the academic achievement of me or any boy. It was likely that they wanted nothing to do with someone of my status, an unaccompanied minor. It was very different than being the niece of Mr. Kondit. The unaccompanied minors were the lowest rung of the ladder at Pinyudo, and we were reminded of it constantly. Our clothes were few and tattered and our homes looked like they had been built by boys, which of course they had. When I arrived here in the U.S., one of my old friends from the camps bought me a gift, a set of Tinker Toys. The thin dowels were so like the sticks we used to construct our first shelters in Pinyudo that I had to laugh. Achor Achor and I built a facsimile of our Group Twelve home on our coffee table and then we laughed some more. It was so similar it stunned us both.

It took the entire semester, but finally my efforts toward the Royal Girls bore fruit. With one week left before classes let out for a month, as I was leaving school one day, Agum positioned herself in front of me and said something. It seemed impossible and I treated it as such; I said nothing, for I did not believe that she was really speaking to me. But was it possible? And if so, what had she said? I had to piece the words together; I had been looking at her eyes, her lashes, her mouth that was so close to mine. It was all so sudden, the changing of one life into another.

—Achak, my sister has something to ask you, she had said. Agar, the eldest and tallest, was suddenly next to her.

Her sister stomped on her foot and was punched in return. I didn’t know what was happening, but it seemed good so far.

—Do you want to come to lunch at our house? Agar asked. I realized at that moment that I had been standing on my tiptoes. I righted myself, hoping they had not noticed.

—Today? I asked.

—Yes, today.

I thought a moment. I thought long enough to think of the wrong thing to say.

—I cannot accept, I said.

I could not believe I said that. Can you believe this is what I said? I had refused the Royal Nieces of Pinyudo. Why? Because I had been taught that a gentleman refuses invitations. The lesson had been explained by my father, one warm night as I was helping him close the shop, but the context was not applicable here, I would later learn. My father had been talking about adultery, about a man’s honor, about respect for women, about the sanctity of marriage. He was not, I would later remember, talking about the refusal of an invitation to lunch. But at this moment, I thought I was acting like a gentleman, and I refused.

The sunny faces of Agum and Agar clouded over.

—You cannot accept? they said.

—I am sorry. I cannot accept, I said, and backed away.

I backed away until I walked into one of the poles that held up the classroom. It threatened to collapse on me, but I spun from it, righted the pole, and then ran home. For an hour I was happy with myself, by my unerring grasp of my emotions, my impulses. I was a model of restraint, a true Dinka gentleman! And I was certain the Royal Nieces now knew this. But after my hour of reflection, the reality of it struck me. I had refused a lunch invitation from the very girls I had spent the semester trying to impress. I had been offered everything I wanted: to spend time with them alone; to hear them speak casually, to know what they thought of me and of school and Pinyudo and why they were here; to eat a meal cooked by their mother—to eat a meal, a real meal, cooked by a Dinka woman! I was a fool.

I went about trying to recover. What could I do? I had to take the invitation, now dust, and somehow reconstruct it. I would make fun of myself. Could I act as if I had been kidding? Would they believe that for a moment?

The end of the semester was upon us, and with it final exams. When school let out there would be a month without school, and if I did not salvage the situation, I would not see them until school began again in the spring. I found the youngest, Yar, under a tree, reading her textbook.

—Hello Yar, I said.

She said nothing. She stared at me as if I’d stolen her lunch.

—Do you know where your sisters are?

Without a word, she pointed to Agar, who was walking toward us. I straightened myself and presented her a smile that begged forgiveness.

—I shouldn’t have said no, I said.—I wanted to go to lunch.

—Then why did you say no? Agar said.

—Because…

As we spoke, as I hesitated, Agum joined us. And under that sort of pressure, I had a blessed and fortuitous thought. In a week of obsession I could not come up with a suitable excuse but here, in a desperate moment, I came up with the perfect solution.

—I was concerned about what your mother would think of me. Now Agar and Agum were interested.

—What do you mean?

—I’m from the Dinka Malual Giernyang. I don’t speak your dialect. My customs are different. I wasn’t sure if your mother would accept me.

—Oh! Agar said.

—For a while, Agum said,—we thought you were brain-damaged. Agar and Agum and even Yar shared a giggle that offered ample evidence that the two of them had discussed me and my mental state at great length.

—Don’t worry about being Dinka-Malual, Agum said.—She won’t care where you’re from. She’ll like you.

Then Agar whispered something urgently into Agum’s ear. Agar corrected herself.—But just to be safe, maybe we won’t tell her you’re Dinka-Malual.

There was another moment of whispering.

—And we’ll tell her you’re from Block 2, not from the unaccompanied minors’ group.

I stood quiet for a second.

—Is that okay? Agar asked.

I could not have cared less. I only cared that my gambit was working. I had played the victim a bit, pretending that as a Dinka-Malual, I felt inferior, unworthy of their company. And it had worked. They were able to feel generous in accepting me, and I appeared all the more honorable for having refused in the first place. I congratulated my brain for its success under pressure. Still, I could not seem overanxious. I had to remain cautious, aware of the risks involved.

—That’s best, I said, nodding gravely.—What about your uncle?

—He works late, they said.—He won’t be home until dinner. At that moment, the two older girls seemed suddenly to take notice anew of the youngest, Yar, and they looked upon her like a thorn stuck to their collective heel.

—You won’t say anything, Yar.

The little girl, her eyes narrowed, gave them a defiant stare.

—Nothing, Yar. Or else you won’t sleep in peace again. We’ll move your bed into the river while you’re dreaming. You’ll wake up surrounded by crocodiles.

Yar’s round little face was still defiant, though now fringed with fear. Agar stepped closer, throwing a crisp shadow over Yar’s tiny body. The smallest sister’s consent came out in a whimper.—I won’t.

Agar turned her attention back to me.

—We’ll meet you at the coordination center after school.

I knew the place. It was where the kids who didn’t have to march loitered between classes and after school. At the coordination center, I would be among the kids with parents, those whose parents were in the camp—the wealthier children, the sons and daughters of teachers and soldiers and commanders.

When classes ended, I ran home. Once there, I realized I had no reason to be home. I paused a moment in the shelter, wondering if there was anything I could do. I changed into my other, light-blue, shirt, and ran to the coordination center.

—Why did you change? Agar said.—I like your other shirt better. I cursed myself.

—I like this one better, Agum said.

Already they were fighting over me! It was bliss.

—You ready? Agum asked.

—To eat lunch? I asked.

—Yes, to eat lunch, she said.—You sure you’re okay?

I nodded. I nodded vigorously, because I was indeed ready to eat. But first we had to walk through the camp, and this was—I knew it before it began and it fulfilled every expectation, every fear and dream I had concocted over three months of planning—the most extraordinary walk I have ever undertaken.

So we walked. There were two Royal Nieces on my left, two on my right. I was between these highly regarded sisters, and we were walking to their home. Yes, the camp took notice. It is safe to say that everyone in my class died of envy and shock. With every step, as we passed through one block and then another, more boys and girls gaped at our procession, which was obviously, to them, some kind of date, something significant, far more than a casual stroll. It was a parade, a procession, a statement: The Royal Girls of Pinyudo were proud to have me with them, and this was fascinating to all. Who is that? the parade-watchers wondered. Who is that with the Royal Sisters of Pinyudo?

It was me, Achak Deng. Successful with ladies.

I glanced at Moses, whose eyes, William K would have been happy to know, burst from his face. I grinned and suppressed a laugh. I was loving it all, but at the same time I was a jumble, my body an assemblage of unfamiliar parts. I was forgetting how to walk. I almost tripped on a hose, and then found myself thinking too much about my feet and legs. I was lifting my legs slowly but higher than necessary, my knees almost hitting my stomach. Agum noticed.