2006 - What is the What

by Dave Eggers

  I still had not spoken to Miss Gladys, who was being quizzed and fussed over by the elderly women in the house. And Deborah Agok, our guest, would not look at me. She spent her time speaking to my sisters and attending to the girl now in her lap, who I learned was her daughter, Nyadi. She was a bone-thin girl wearing a pale pink dress, her eyes seeming far too large for her face.

  Dinner was consumed at an impossibly slow rate. I knew that the purpose of the dinner, and of Deborah Agok’s visit, would not be revealed until after dinner, until after the adults drank araki, a wine made from dates. All this is not uncommon among the Dinka, this sense of drama, but that night I felt that this sense of drama was perhaps overly precious.

  Finally the food had been eaten, the wine had been drunk, and Gop stood. He looked down at Deborah Agok, sitting on the floor with the rest of us, and he insisted that she be given the home’s one proper chair. Miss Agok refused, but he insisted. An elderly neighbor was moved from the chair to the spot on the ground previously occupied by Miss Agok, and now Gop continued.

  —Most of you do not know Deborah Agok, but she has become a friend to our family. She is a respected midwife, trained in both the Sudanese and more technological birthing methods. She has been working at the Kakuma hospital, where she met the esteemed Miss Gladys, whom we have all heard about from Achak, who has been so grateful for her…instruction.

  Everyone laughed, and my face burned. Miss Gladys glowed more than ever before. This was, it was clearer than ever, the sort of attention she relished.

  —Miss Agok was recently sent by the International Rescue Committee into southern Sudan to teach new birthing techniques to the village midwives. Now, as it happens, one of the villages she visited was called Marial Bai.

  All eyes fell upon me. I was not sure how to react. My throat shrunk; I could not breathe. So this was it, this was the reason for all the mystery, the special dish from my region. But the idea of receiving any news of my home this way seemed immediately wrong. I did not want to know anything about my family in the midst of such an audience. Deborah would be the first person in all my years at Kakuma with accurate and recent information about Marial Bai, and my mind spun with possibilities. Did the river still flow the same way as before? Had the Arabs cleared the region of its rich pastures and trees? Did she know anything of my family? But for this to be part of the theater of the evening! It was unacceptable.

  I looked for the exit. There were twelve bodies I would have to step over to make my way to the door. Leaving would require too much effort, would create a scene unbecoming to me and disrespectful of my adoptive family. I stared hard at Gop, hoping to convey my displeasure with this sort of ambush. Though the atmosphere had been buoyant thus far, it seemed perfectly possible that this Miss Agok had tragic news of my birth family, and Gop had gathered everyone I knew to lift me up after the news knocked me to the ground.

  Now Deborah Agok stood. She was a tall and muscular woman whose face gave away no answers about her age. She might have been a young woman or a grandmother, such were the crossed signals given by her taut skin, bright eyes encircled by hair-thin wrinkles. She remained sitting in the chair, her hands in her lap, and thanked Gop and Ayen for their hospitality and friendship. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse and low. By her voice, one might guess she had lived three lifetimes without rest.

  —My friends, I have traveled throughout Bahr al-Ghazal, visiting Nyamlell, Malual Kon, Marial Bai, and the surrounding villages. I bring a heartfelt greeting from the people of Marial Bai, including Commander Paul Malong Awan, the senior-ranking SPLA officer there.

  All the attendees of the dinner looked to me, as though it was a great honor to me in particular that Commander Paul Malong Awan had sent greetings.

  —Yes, she continued,—I have been to your village, and I have seen what has become of it. Of course there have been the assaults from the murahaleen and the government army. And related to those attacks I found rampant malnutrition and a rash of deaths caused by controllable diseases. As you know, hunger is at its peak; hundreds of thousands will starve in Bahr al-Ghazal this year.

  The Sudanese way of speaking was in full glory—the roundabout way to any given point. How could she do this to me? All I wanted to hear about was my family. This was cruelty, no matter how good her intentions.

  Sensing my anxiety, at that moment a shape appeared in front of me, and then filled the space next to me. It was Miss Gladys, with her smell of fruit and flowers and a woman’s perspiration, and before I could assess this new situation—it was the closest she had ever been to me—she was holding my hand. She did not look at me, but only at Deborah Agok, but she was with me. She would be there whatever the news was. The timing for this most intimate contact with the object of my innumerable daydreams could not have been less appropriate.

  —Because I am a midwife, Deborah continued, and I tried to listen,—I came to know a midwife in Marial Bai, a very strong woman who wore most days a dress of faded yellow, the yellow of a tired sun.

  All eyes were upon me again, and I struggled to keep mine dry. I was being pulled with such force in two directions. My hand was already soaked with sweat entwined within the fingers of the divine woman by my side, and at the same time, my ears had heard that my mother might be alive, that Deborah had met a midwife who wore a yellow dress. My eyes were wet before I could prevent it. With my free hand, I pulled at the skin below my eyes to drain the water back into my body.

  —This midwife and I spent a good deal of time together, comparing stories of bringing babies into the world. She had assisted in the birth of over one hundred babies, and had had great success in avoiding untimely deaths for these infants. I shared with her new advances in the science and techniques of midwifery, and she was a very quick and willing learner. We quickly became good friends, and she invited me to her home. When I arrived, she cooked for me the dish we had tonight at Kakuma, and she told me of life in Marial Bai, about the effect the famine was having on the village, about the latest attacks by the murahaleen. I told her of the world of Kakuma, and in talking about my life here, I mentioned my good friends Gop and Ayen, and the boys they had taken in. When I mentioned the name Achak to this woman, she was startled. She asked what this boy looked like. How big is he? she asked. She told me she had known a boy with that name, so long ago. She asked if I might wait a moment, and when I said I would, she left her home in a hurry.

  Now Miss Gladys held my hand tighter.

  —She returned with a man she identified as her husband, and he explained that she was his first wife. She asked me to repeat what I had told her, that I had known a family in Kakuma who had adopted a boy named Achak. What is the name of this man in the camp? the husband asked. I told him his name was Gop Chol Kolong. The man was very interested in this information, insisting that this man was from Marial Bai, too. But they had no way to confirm that the Achak who I knew of in Kakuma was the same Achak who was their son. It was not until I returned to Kenya and told this story to Gop that it all became clear. So now I must ask you some questions, to know the answers for sure. What is the name of Achak’s father? she asked, directing her query to Gop.

  I don’t know why she did this. She had yet to meet my eye.

  —Deng Nyibek Arou, Gop said.

  —His mother? she asked.

  —Amiir Jiel Nyang, I answered.

  —Was Achak’s father a businessman in Marial Bai? she asked.

  —Yes! almost everyone in the room responded. Her theatrics were insufferable.

  —Tell us! Were these people Achak’s parents? Gop finally asked. She paused, annoyed to have her spell broken.

  —They are the same. Achak’s parents are alive.

  In the next few days, before my scheduled trip to Nairobi, much effort was expended by Gop, Ayen, Noriyaki, and others in keeping me at Kakuma. Now that I knew my parents had survived, it seemed impossible to remain apart from them. Why wouldn’t I simply go back to Marial Bai and join my father in his business
? The purpose of all my journeys was to keep me safe and educate me, and now that I was both safe and educated and I was grown and healthy, how could I not return to them? The most recent raid of Marial Bai had been just months before, but this didn’t matter to me, not at all.

  I spent my hours contemplating my arrival at home, crossing the river, parting the grasses, emerging from the brush and into the village, striding into my parents’ compound as they emerged from their homes to see me. They would not immediately recognize me, but as they moved closer they would know it was their son. I would be twice the size I was when I ran from Marial Bai, but they would know it was me. I could not picture them, my mother or father. My siblings were also faceless to me. I had formed an approximation of all of the members of my family, drawn from people I knew at Kakuma. My mother’s face was Miss Gladys’s, but somewhat older. My father’s was that of Gop, plus many years of deprivation and decline.

  Once we had embraced and my mother had wept, we would sit together all day and all night, talking until I knew about every day, every week since I had been gone. Did you think I was dead? I would ask. No, no, they would say, We always knew you would find a way to survive. Did you think I would come back? I would ask. We knew you would come back, they would say. It was right for you to come back.

  —Are you forgetting that the country is in the middle of a famine? Gop asked. Gop knew my plans too well, and threatened to tie me to my bed, to cut off my feet to prevent me from walking out of Kakuma.

  —Are you forgetting that you would have to pass through land held by Riek Machar’s Nuer forces, who would not like to see a Dinka boy of army age? You’re leaving comfort and education and a job here to go back to what?

  I could not remember a time that Gop was so agitated. He followed me all the hours of the day; he amassed allies—other teachers, elders at the camp—in his quest to keep me from leaving. I was watched at all times, with friends and strangers both congratulating me on the news from home, and at the same time urging patience, a prudent course, to wait until the time was right to return.

  —At the very least, give it time, Ayen said one night at dinner.—Think it over. Go to Nairobi and think about this. Remember, on the Nairobi trip you will be with both Tabitha and Miss Gladys.

  When she said this, and I did not immediately respond, I saw her exchange a quick glance with Gop. They knew they had captured my interest.

  —Why not go to Nairobi, and then decide? Ayen added.—Then if you do go home, you can tell your parents all about your trip to the city. Ayen was a very convincing woman.

  When the day of the trip finally arrived, seeing Tabitha on that UN vehicle was devastating. I approached the bus as it idled and Tabitha’s heart-shaped and symmetrical face was there, by the window, ignoring me. She was sitting with another Sudanese girl, and she finally glanced at me, made no sign she even knew me, and then returned to her conversation. This was according to plan, I should note. We had decided to make no outward signal of our feelings, though a few on the bus knew our intentions. I played my part, climbing aboard the bus and sitting with the humorous Dominic, knowing he would help pass the time on the ride, which had been described as very long and punishing.

  —Hey, Madame Zero, will you be shopping for new dresses in Nairobi? he asked.

  Everyone laughed, and Anthony smiled a barely tolerant smile.

  It is hard to communicate how momentous it was, after seven years in that camp, to be on the way to Nairobi. It is impossible to explain. And most of those in the group were worse off than me. I lived with Gop Chol, and had a paying job with an NGO, but most of the other members of the drama group—twenty-one of us, all Sudanese and Somalis, all between twelve and eighteen—had nothing. Besides Tabitha, there were eight girls, most of them Sudanese, and this made the trip particularly enjoyable, and not at all punishing, for the rest of the Dominics. We rode on a standard blue UN staff bus, the windows open, the two days of driving buoyed by cool wind and constant songs.

  The scenery was astonishing, the peaks and valleys, the mist and the sun. We passed through the Kapenguria area of Kenya, much of it mountainous and cool with rain. We saw birds with bright plumage, we saw hyenas and gazelles, elephants and zebras. And corn! So many crops, everything growing. Seeing this part of Kenya made it all the more depressing and inconceivable that our refugee camp had been placed where it had. We pressed our faces to the glass and wondered, Why couldn’t they put Kakuma there? Or there, or there? Do not think it was lost on us that the Kenyans, and every international body that monitors or provides for the displaced, customarily places its refugees in the least desirable regions on earth. There we become utterly dependent—unable to grow our own food, to tend our own livestock, to live in any sustainable way. I do not judge the UNHCR or any nation that takes in the nationless, but I do pose the question.

  As the land passed by, I saw my parents, my approximated visions of them, on every hill and around each bend. It seemed as logical as anything else that they would be there, on the road ahead of us. Why couldn’t they be here, why couldn’t we will ourselves together again? Surely my father could find a way to live and thrive in Kenya. Just the thought of my mother here, walking with me along these green paths, along that river, near those giraffes—it felt so very possible for a few hours of that drive.

  We stayed in Ketale, in a hotel with beds and sheets and electricity and running water. Though this town was not the size of Nairobi, still it left us astounded. We were unaccustomed to the sky’s black being punctured by lights. Some of the Somalis had experienced these things before, but those of us from southern Sudan had seen none of this; even in our homes, in our villages before the war, there was no plumbing, and any of these amenities, bedsheets and towels, were rare and coveted. At that hotel in Ketale, we ate at their restaurant, drank cold drinks from an icebox, swishing the ice cubes—which at least a portion of the group had never touched—around in our mouths. If we had turned around the next day, just that one night in Ketale would have made for the most spectacular of journeys. In all of the time at Ketale, Tabitha and I barely spoke, saving any interaction for a later time. The opportunity would arise, we knew, and we needed only to wait and watch.

  We drove on in the morning, through the afternoon and through the night, and by the morning after, were in Nairobi. I have to attempt to communicate the awe that comes over a group of young people like us, after spending many years in a camp at the edge of the world, upon seeing something like Nairobi, one of the largest cities in Africa. We had nothing with which to compare it. On the bus there was a hush. You might imagine a bus full of teenagers loudly pointing at buildings, at cars and bridges and parks. But this bus was utterly silent. Our faces were pressed against the windows but no one said a word. Some of what we saw was impossible to understand. Houses upon houses, windows upon windows. The tallest building I had seen before that day was precisely two stories tall. And knowing that these buildings faced no threat, that they would stand untouched—the sense of permanence was something I had not known for many years.

  When we arrived at Nairobi that morning, we were dropped off at a church and there we met our sponsors. Each of us was assigned a host family, most of whom were in some way affiliated with the national theater. I was assigned to a man named Mike Mwaniki, an extraordinarily handsome and sophisticated man, I thought. He was perhaps thirty years old, and was one of the founders of the Mavuno Drama Group, based in the city; they performed original plays by young Kenyan playwrights.

  —This is the man, eh? he said to me.—You’re our guy!

  He shook my hand heartily and slapped me on the back and gave me a slice of cake. I had never had cake, and in retrospect it doesn’t make much sense that he would greet me at nine-thirty in the morning with cake, but he did, and it was delicious. A white cream cake with stripes of sunflower orange.

  The other members of the group went with their sponsors, and Tabitha went off with hers, an older couple dressed extravagantly and driving
a Land Rover. Miss Gladys quickly disappeared with a very handsome and wealthy-looking Kenyan man—we did not see her again until the performance two days later—and I went with Mike. He shared an apartment with his girlfriend, a diminutive and luminous woman named Grace, and together they lived in a part of the city called BuruBuru Phase 3. It was a mad neighborhood, busier than any place I had ever known. Kakuma held eighty thousand people, but there was very little traffic, few cars, no horns, scant electricity, very little bustle. But in Nairobi, in BuruBuru Phase 3, the hum of the streets was inescapable. The motorcycles, the cars and buses run at all hours, and the sweet toxic smell of diesel is everywhere. Even in their apartment, where the floors and glass were so clean, the street was there, the smell of the roads and sounds of people passing under their windows. The cars were so many colors, an array I didn’t know existed. In Kakuma all the vehicles were white, identical, all bearing the UN symbol.

  I was given the bedroom Mike and Grace shared; the mattress was enormous and firm, and in that first moment in that room the sheets were so white that I had to turn away. I put my bag down and sat on a small wicker chair in the corner. I had a crippling headache. I thought I was alone in the room so I dropped my head to my hands and tried to massage my skull into some kind of agreement that all this was good. But my head frequently was overwhelmed, and the best times of my life were often accompanied by migraines of inexplicable origin.

  —Are you set? Mike asked.

  I looked up. He was standing in the doorway.

  —I’m fine, I said.—I am very good. I am very happy. I forced a smile that would convince him.

  —We’re seeing a movie tonight, he said.—You’ll come?

  I said I would. He and Grace had to go to work. They worked at an automobile dealership down the road, but they would be back at six to pick me up. Mike showed me the TV and the bathroom and gave me a key to his front door and to the apartment building, and he and Grace jogged down the steps and were gone.