by Dave Eggers
—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 1800s. 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.
William and I understood almost nothing Dut said, but he seemed very satisfied.
—That was written by the British, when they were trying to decide how to handle their departure from Sudan. They knew it was wrong to have the country as one unified Sudan. They knew we were anything but unified, and could never be such a thing. They were very conflicted about this. They called it the Southern Sudan Question.
I was unsure what that meant.
—Your fate, all of our fates, were sealed fifty years ago by a small group of people from England. They had every ability to draw a line between north and south, but they were convinced by the Arabs not to. The British had an opportunity to ask the people of southern Sudan whether they wished to be separate from the north, as one with the north. It’s impossible that the chiefs of the south would want to be as one with the north, right?
We nodded, but I wondered if this was true. I thought of the market days in Marial Bai, of Sadiq and the Arabs in my father’s shop, the harmony that existed between the traders.
—But they did, Dut continued.—They were tricked by the Arabs, they were outsmarted. Chiefs were bribed, were promised so many things. In the end, they were convinced that there would be advantages to living as one nation. This was folly. Anyway, all of this will change now, Dut said, standing up.—In Ethiopia, there will be schools, the best schools we’ve ever had. There will be the greatest teachers of Sudan and Ethiopia, and you will be educated. You will be prepared for a new era, when never again will we be outwitted by Khartoum. When this fighting is over, there will be an independent nation of southern Sudan, and eventually you boys will inherit it. How does that sound?
I told Dut that it sounded good. William K, though, was asleep, and soon I joined him. Dut walked off, and I wanted to simply rest and be near William K. It seemed his arrival, his resurrection, came at a time when I was unsure if I could have gone on without him. Would I have gone into a hole like Monynhial? I don’t know. But without William K, I would have forgotten that I had not been born on this journey. That I had lived before this. Without William K, I could have imagined myself born here in the tall grasses, paths broken by the boys before me, that I had never had a family, had never had a home, had never slept under a roof, had never eaten enough warm food to fill my stomach, had never fallen asleep feeling safe and knowing what could and could not happen when the sun rose again.
I closed my eyes and felt happy there, by that river that day, reunited with William K, as the clouds came in perfect intervals, keeping the day cool, bringing forgiving shade over my eyelids as I slept.
But in the evening this life ended with the coming of thunder.
—Get up!
Dut was yelling at us. The war was coming, he said. He did not tell us who was fighting who or where, but we could hear distant guns, the rumbling of mortar fire. And so we did not linger in that village, which I am certain did not stand upon the earth long after the coming of the sound of the guns. We left as the sun reddened and dropped and we directed ourselves to the desert. We had been told by the villagers that we were close to Ethiopia, that all that was left was to cross the desert, that in a week’s time we would find the end of Sudan.
First we left everything we had. We would be more secure, Dut said, from bandits, if we had nothing anyone wanted. We ate the food we had found or saved, we left any possessions we could not wear. I ate a small bag of seeds I had kept tied to my wrist, and many boys even removed their shirts. We cursed Dut for this directive but had no choice but to trust him. We always trusted Dut. At that time, we were boys and he was God.
We walked all that night, to distance ourselves from the fighting, and in the early morning we rested for a few hours before beginning again.
Those first few days we walked with some confidence and some speed. The boys thought we would be upon Ethiopia in a matter of days, and the proximity of our new life awakened the dreamer in William K, who filled the air between us with the beautiful lacework of his lies.
—I heard Dut and Kur talking. They say we’ll be in Ethiopia very soon, a few days. We’re going to have problems with food, though. They say there’s so much food that we’ll have to spend half of every day eating it. Otherwise it’ll go rotten.
—You’re lying, William, I said.—Shh.
—I’m not lying. I just heard them.
William K was not within half a mile of Dut and Kur. William K had not heard anyone saying anything like this. He continued.
—Dut said that we’ll have to choose between three homes each. They show us three homes and we have to pick one. We’ll have floors made of rubber, like shoes, and inside it’s always very cool and clean. We will have to pick between blankets, and different colors for shirts and shorts. Most of the problems in Ethiopia are because of all this choosing we’ll have to do.
I tried to block out his voice, but his lies were gorgeous and I listened secretly.
—Also our families are there. What Dut said was that there were airplanes that came to Bahr al-Ghazal after we left, and the planes took everyone to Ethiopia. So they’ll all be there when we get there. They’re probably very worried about us.
His lies were so exquisite I almost wept.
But there was no water and there was no food. Dut had been told, by whom I am unsure, that in the desert we would find food and could make do with a limited amount of water, and he was wrong on both accounts. Within a few days, our pace became sluggish, and boys began to go mad.
On the morning of the fourth day, I woke to find a boy named Jok Deng peeing on me. He was among the first boys to lose his head in the desert. The heat was too strong and we had not eaten for three days. When I woke to the peeing of Jok Deng, I pulled his leg until he fell over, his penis still shooting urine in lassos. I walked to the other side of the sleep circle and lay down again, smelling everywhere of the urine of Jok Deng; he peed on people each day. There was also Dau Kenyang, who could not answer to his name and whose eyes retreated so far into his skull that they lost their light. He opened his mouth but said nothing. We all began to know the quiet popping of his lips opening, closing, nothing coming out.
William K was next. His madness began with his inability to sleep. He stayed up all night, in the middle of the sleep circle, kicking everyone around him. This we found annoying but it didn’t, alone, seem to indicate that William was slipping from the grip of his faculties. But then he began throwing sand at all of the boys. He seemed always to be carrying a handful of sand, and would throw it in the faces of any boy who spoke to him, sometimes referring to them by the name of his arch-enemy in Marial Bai, William A.
I was first to receive William K’s gift of sand. I asked him if I could borrow his knife, and he threw the sand. It filled my mouth and stung my eyes.—Enjoy your meal of sand, William A, he said.
I was too tired to be angry, to react in any way. My muscles were weak, cramps came and went. I felt constantly dizzy. We all did our best to walk straight, but our collective equilibrium was so poor that we looked like a line of drunkards, swaying and stumbling. My heart felt like it was beating faster, irregularly, fluttering and shivering. And most of the boys were far worse off than I.
We ate only what we could find. The most-sought treasure was a fruit called abuk. It was a root that could be extracted if the hunter saw its single leaf protruding from the ground. Some of the boys were expert at this hunting but I saw nothing. A boy would rush off in some direction and begin digging, while I had not seen anything. When there was enough, I tried the abuk. It was bitter, tasteless. But it contained water and so it was prized.
Each day Dut sent us into the trees, if there were trees, to find what we could. But not too far, he warned.
—Stay close and stay close to each other, Dut said. In the region, he said, dwelled tribes that would rob boys like us. They would kill boys
or kidnap boys and make them tend their livestock.
We ate, if we were fortunate, a spoonful of food each day. We drank as much water as we could keep in our cupped hands.
The dying began on the fifth day.
—Look, William K said that day.
He was following the pointed fingers of the boys in the line ahead of us. Everyone was looking at the shrunken corpse of a boy, our size precisely, not twenty feet from the trail we were following. This dead boy was from another group, a few days ahead of us. The boy was naked but for a pair of striped shorts and was positioned against a thin tree, whose boughs bent over him as if trying to shield him from the sun.
Kur soon took a position between our walking line and the dead boy, making sure everyone continued walking and did not investigate the corpse. He feared any diseases the dead boy might have carried, and every moment was too precious in those most difficult days. When we were awake we needed to walk, he said, for the more we walked the sooner we would be somewhere where we could find food or water.
But it was only a few hours after passing the corpse of the boy that a boy of our own line stopped walking, too. He simply sat on the path; we saw the boys ahead of us walking around him, stepping over him. William K and I did so, too, not knowing what else we could do. Dut finally heard about the boy who had stopped walking and came back for him; he carried him for the rest of the afternoon, but later we heard that he was dead much of that time. He died in Dut’s arms and Dut was only looking for an appropriate place to put him to rest.
By the next afternoon, we had seen eight more dead boys along the path, those from groups ahead of ours, and we added three more of our own. On that day and in the days to come, when a boy was going to die, he would first stop talking. His throat would be too dry and to speak required too much energy. Then his eyes would sink deeper, circled in ever-darker shadows. He would no longer answer to his name. His walk would slow, his feet shuffling, and he would be among the boys who would rest longer. Eventually a dying boy would find a tree, and he would sit against the tree and fall asleep. When his head touched the tree, the life in him would fall away and his flesh would return to the earth.