by Dave Eggers
Soon, though, Dut’s role as overseer of the burials was ceded to a cruel and nervous man we called Commander Beltbuckle. Each day, over his fatigues, he wore a silver-and-red belt buckle so large and ridiculous that it was almost impossible to face him without laughing. But he was very proud of it, its size and sparkle; it was never unshined and he was never seen without it. He employed a certain boy named Luol who was in charge of shining it each night, at which point he put it back on. Rumor had it that the commander slept on his back each night because he would not take off the pants that held the buckle, and to sleep on his side or stomach would drive the buckle into his abdomen. We did not have a high opinion of Commander Beltbuckle or his clothing accessories.
Commander Beltbuckle had a series of rules about carrying bodies and burying them, some of which were sensible and some of which were utterly divorced from any logic or purpose. When we carried the bodies, for the dignity of the person who had passed, we were to keep the body as stiff as possible; someone had to walk below the body, crouching, keeping the back from dragging on the ground. When we dug the graves, they were to be given perfect ninety-degree corners on all sides. When we lay the bodies down, their hands were to be placed atop their waists, and their heads turned slightly to the right. Then they were covered in a blanket and the graves filled with earth. No one questioned these rules. There was no point in doing so.
I had gotten accustomed to the burials, and was helping to bury at least one body each day. Some days there were two, three, four people, mostly boys. Burying boys was both blessing and curse—blessing because they were lighter than the grown men and women, but more difficult when we were aware of or even knew personally the boy we were burying. But such instances were thankfully rare. Commander Beltbuckle knew enough to cover the faces of the Zone Eights. We did not ask their identities, even though we could often guess. We did not want to know who was who.
The boys we could carry with just four members of the burying team; adults took six or more. The only burying I refused to do myself was that of babies. I told Commander Beltbuckle that I preferred not to bury infants and thereafter I did not have to bury babies. The babies were rare, for the parents preferred to bury them themselves. The babies that were put to rest by the burial boys were those whose mothers were dead or lost. The cemetery grew too quickly, grew in every direction, and the quality of the burials began to vary.
One day we were bringing a dead boy from the hospital to the cemetery when we saw a hyena fighting with something in the ground. It looked like it was trying to pull a squirrel from the ground, and I threw rocks at it to scare it away. It would not leave. Two boys ran closer to it, with sticks and rocks, yelling at it. Finally it turned and ran off, and then I saw what the hyena was chewing on: the elbow of a man. It was then that my team knew that other burying teams were not burying their dead very well. We reburied that man and afterward Dut gestured to me, and I came to see him. He lived in a sturdy house that could sleep four.
—Sit down, Achak.
I obeyed.
—I’m sorry you have to do such work.
I told him that I had become accustomed to it.
—Yes, but you shouldn’t. This isn’t the way I had imagined this camp, and our trip to Ethiopia. I want things to be better for you here. I want you to be in school.
Dut stared out at the camp with his small enfolded eyes, and I wanted to reassure him.—It’s okay, I said.—This is temporary.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then said nothing. He thanked me for my hard work and gave me a pair of dates he retrieved from a sack on his bed. I left Dut’s tent, worried for him. I had seen him lost before, but this despondence was something new. Dut was a faithful man, an optimistic man, and seeing him this way fostered doubt within me. I had no particular expectations that the long-promised schools would be created, but I did imagine that our time in Ethiopia was temporary. I lived with the assumption that the day would come when the group I arrived with would walk back to Sudan together, when the fighting was done, and at each village we would drop off whoever lived there, until our line of boys dwindled down to the Gone Fars, who would return home last. I would walk the longest but I would find a way home soon enough and would have many stories to tell.
I had many curious thoughts during the day. Dreams appeared before me. When I stood or turned quickly, I felt a dizziness that numbed my limbs and brought white flies to my eyes, and occasionally with this disorientation came people I once knew. I would see my father, or the baby of my stepmother, or my bed at home. I often saw the head of the dead man in the river, though in my visions I saw his face, which had been stripped like the faceless man’s.
I often woke in the morning thinking I was in my own bed, and it would take me a moment before I realized that I was not at home, that I would not be at home again for some time, if at all. I had become accustomed to the visions, the way these faces from my home appeared before me. They frightened me at first, but soon they became a kind of comfort; I knew they would come and fade in a few moments. There were ghosts all around me and I had come to accept them and accept the sort of shadow world I lived in during those days.
But one day a certain vision, this one of Moses, would not leave me. I was washing my extra shirt in the river when he appeared next to me, smiling like he had a fantastic secret. It was not the first time I had seen Moses; I often imagined him with me, there to protect me with his strength and willingness to fight. But this day at the river the picture of Moses was moving slightly, his eyes wide open and his head tilting, as if he wanted me to acknowledge that he was real. But it had been a long time since I had been fooled by one of these visions, of him or anyone.
—Did you lose your mouth, Achak?
I went back to my washing, expecting the vision to disappear any moment. That this one was speaking to me was disconcerting, but not unprecedented. I had once woken up to my baby stepbrother Samuel talking to me about horses. Had I seen his new horse? he wanted to know. He accused me of stealing his new horse.
—Achak, don’t you know me?
I knew the boy in front of me to be Moses, but the real Moses had been killed by the murahaleen. I had seen him in the moment before his death.
—Achak, talk to me. Is it you? Am I crazy? I gave in and spoke to the vision.
—I won’t talk to you. Go away.
And with that, the vision of Moses stood up and walked away. This was something I had never seen a vision do before.
—Wait! I said, raising myself and dropping my shirt. The vision of Moses kept walking.
—Wait! Moses? Is it you?
As I ran closer to the vision of Moses, he seemed more and more a real Moses and not a vision of Moses, and my heart jumped around, as if looking for a way to exit my body.
And finally the vision of Moses turned to me and it was really Moses. I hugged him and patted him on the back and looked in his face. It was Moses. He was older, but was still shaped the same way, a muscular man in miniature. It was surely Moses.
I explained the visions and the real and not-real, and Moses laughed and I laughed and then punched Moses softly on the arm. Moses punched me back, harder, on the chest, and I returned the blow and soon we were punching each other and wrestling in the dust with more intensity than either of us had planned. Finally Moses threw me off of him, squealing in real pain.
—What? What hurts?
And he turned and lifted his shirt. His back was striped with deep crimson scars.
—Who did that? I asked.
—My story is so strange, Achak.
We walked under a tree and sat down.
—Have you seen William? he asked.
I did not expect him to ask about William at that moment.
—No, I said.
We were very far from home so I thought it was acceptable to tell a lie like that. I didn’t want to think about William K. Instead, I asked Moses to tell his story and he did.
—I remember the fire, Achak, do
you? It wasn’t orange anywhere, though. Did you see that, when the village burned? The sun was directly above and the fire was clear or grey. Did you see this, how the fire was clear?
I could not remember the color of the fire on the day our village burned. In my mind the fire was orange and red, but I trusted that Moses was correct.
—I remember breathing slowly, Moses continued.—I was breathing in the smoke. It became so hard to breathe in our hut. I would take in a little air and would have to cough, but I did it anyway. I kept breathing, and soon I felt weak. I was so tired! I was going to sleep, but I knew it wasn’t sleep. I knew what was happening, I knew I was dying. My mother was dead, I knew, just outside the hut. I knew all this but I don’t remember how I knew it all. Maybe I didn’t know it all and am guessing now that I do know.
I remembered seeing Moses’s mother. Her torso was uncovered and her face had been burned on one side, burned beyond recognition, but the rest of her was untouched.
—So I ran. I ran through the door and I jumped over my mother and I ran. I didn’t want to look at her because I knew she was dead. And I was mad at her for leaving me in the hut. I thought she was stupid, to leave me where she knew I would suffocate. I was so angry with her for just dying and leaving me inside. I thought she was so weak and stupid.
—Moses, stop.
I remembered Moses standing over his mother, yelling at her. I did not tell Moses I had seen this. I was ashamed I had not come to save him sooner.
—I’m sorry, Achak. This is just what I thought. I prayed for her and asked forgiveness for how I thought. I ran and I saw the school in the distance.
—But they burned the school, too, I said.
—I didn’t think the school would protect me, but I thought that other people might be there, and that they would help me know what to do. I ran through the village, still coughing. There was smoke everywhere. So many screams, screams from people fallen and bleeding. I jumped over two more bodies, old men in the middle of the path. The second man grabbed my ankle. He was alive. He grabbed me and told me that I should lie with him and play dead. But he was bloody everywhere. One of his eyes was burned closed and blood flowed from his mouth. I didn’t want to lie down with the bloody man. I ran again.
—That was the old drunk man from the market.
—It was, I think.
—I saw him, too.
—He died.
—He died, yes.
—I didn’t see any murahaleen, and for a while I thought they were gone. But then I heard the hooves. There were many of them moving around the village, saying God is great! God is great! Did you hear them yelling that?
—Yes, I heard that, too.
—I looked to my right, toward the market, and saw two men with their horses. They were far enough away. I was sure I would make it to the school. But I wasn’t running very fast. I was so weak and disoriented. The hooves got closer. It was so loud, the sounds of the horses—the violence of the hooves filled my head. I thought the horses would run over me, that any moment their feet would crush my back and head. Something struck me, and I was sure it was the foot of a horse. I fell and landed on my face; dust filled my eyes. I heard the sound of a man landing from his horse and some shuffling. Then I was in the air. I had been lifted by the man, whose hand was gripping my ribs, the other hand my legs. For a few seconds I expected death. I expected a knife or a bullet to end my life.
Again I wanted to tell Moses that I saw him being chased by the horseman but I did not and soon it was too late to tell him. And my memory of the pursuit was different than Moses’s memory. I stayed quiet and replaced my memory with his.
—Then my face was against the leather. He had put me on his saddle and he tied me onto it. I felt a rope against my back, digging into my skin. He was tying me to the horse in some way. It took him a few minutes, and he kept tying more and more knots, each one bringing more rope cutting into my skin. Finally we began to move. He had caught me. I was then a slave, I knew.
—Did you see Amath?
—I didn’t at first. Later I saw her for a moment. We began to ride, and I vomited immediately. I had never been on a horse. I could see the ground underneath me, and the dust overwhelmed my eyes. The movement of the ride was like being thrown around inside a sack of bones. Have you been on a horse?
—Not while it was moving.
—It was terrible. It didn’t get better. I didn’t get used to it, though we rode for many hours. When the horse finally stopped, I stayed on the horse. I was tied to it and could feel it breathing beneath me. I could hear the men eating and talking, but they never removed me from the saddle. I slept there, and after a while began to sleep more and more. I couldn’t stay awake. I awoke and saw the ground racing under me. I awoke and it was night, it was noon, it was dusk. Two days later I was thrown onto the ground and told that that was where I would be sleeping, under the hooves of the horse. In the morning I dreamt that my head was being pressed into the sun. In my dream, the sun was smaller, the size of a large pan, and my head was being pressed against it. The heat was so strong, it seemed to be melting my hair and skull. I awoke to the smell of something burning. It smelled like flesh on fire. Then I realized that the dream was not a dream: the Arab was putting a burning metal rod to my head. He was branding me. In my ear he branded the number 8, turned on its side.
Moses turned to show me. It was a very rough marking, the symbol raised and purple, scarred into the flesh behind his ear.
—Now you will always know who owns you, this man said to me. The pain was so intense that I passed out. I woke when I was being lifted. I was thrown on the saddle again and he tied me down again, this time tighter than before. We rode for two more days. When we stopped, we were at a place called Um el Goz. It was some kind of military camp for the government army. Hundreds of boys like me were there, all under twelve, Dinka and Nuer boys. I was put in a huge barn with all of these boys, and we were locked inside. There was no food. The barn was full of rats; everyone was being bitten by them. There were no beds in the barn, but at night we didn’t want to be lying on the ground, because the rats weren’t afraid of us, and would come to bite us. Have you been bitten by a rat, Achak?
I shook my head.
—We decided to make a sleeping circle to guard against the rats. We carried sticks and the boys outside the circle would scare off the rats. This is how we slept. Do you know a circle of sleep, Achak?
I said I had learned this way of sleeping.
—The next day we were taken into a building and they laid us on cots. It was some kind of medical building. There were nurses there, and they inserted needles into our arms and took our blood. I threw up again when I saw the blood coming out of another boy’s arm. The nurses were very understanding, though. It was very strange. They cleaned up my vomit and then gave me some water. Then they put me back on the cot and another nurse came to hold me down. She leaned over me, holding one arm and with her other hand on my chest. They put the needle in my arm and that way they took two bags of blood from me. Have you had a needle in your arm, Achak?
I told him I had not.
—It’s this long, and hollow.
I wanted to hear no more about the needle.
—Fine. But it was huge. Its point is at an angle. They stick it in you like that.
—Please.
—Okay. Afterward the nurse gave me some sweet lemon juice, and then sent me back to the barn. In the barn, I learned that some of the boys had been there for many months, and that they had been giving blood once a week or more. They were being used as a blood supply for government soldiers. Every time there was a battle with the SPLA, the boys would be brought out from the barn and made to give blood.
—So that’s where you stayed?
—For a while. But then it was quiet for a while. There were no more wounded, I don’t think. We weren’t needed. Not all of us at least. So after four days at Um el Goz I was put onto the horse again and we rode with about a hundred other m
ura-haleen, this time very far. It was while riding that I saw Amath. I heard the screaming of a young girl, speaking my language, and saw her on another horse, very close to me. The man who was holding her was striking her with his gun, and laughing. I caught her eye for a second and then I lost sight of her. I didn’t see her again. That was strange, to see her so many hundreds of miles from home.
The strings inside me snapped again but I said nothing.
—We rode for many days. We stopped at a house, a very well-built house. It was the house of an important man. His name was Captain Adil Muhammad Hassan. The man who brought me there was somehow related to this man. I heard them talking, and I learned that I was being given to Hassan as a gift from this man. Hassan was very thankful and the two of them went inside to eat. I was still tied to the horse outside. They were gone inside all evening and I stayed on the horse. I stared at the ground and tried to think about where I might be. Finally I was untied and brought into this man’s house. Have you ever seen the house of a man like this, a commander in the Sudanese government army?
I shook my head.
—It’s a house like you could not imagine, Achak. Very smooth floors and everything clean. Glass for the windows. Water running inside the house. I became this man’s servant. The man had two wives, and three children, all the children very young. I thought that the kids would be decent to me, but they were crueler than their parents. The kids were taught to beat me and spit on me. To them, I was one of the animals. For four months I had to watch the goats and sheep in the yards, and I cleaned the house. I washed the floors, and I helped with the making of meals and serving at meals.
—You were the only servant?
—There was another Sudanese there, a girl named Akol, the age of your sister Amel. Akol worked in the kitchen, mostly, but she was also Hassan’s concubine. She was pregnant with Hassan’s baby so his wife hated her. The wife would find Akol crying for her mother and she would scream at her, threatening to slit her throat with a knife. She called her bitch and slave and animal. I learned many Arabic words, and these were the ones I heard most often. She only called mejange —dirty infidel, uncultured person. They gave me another name, too: Abdul. They sent me to Koranic school and renamed me Abdul.