by Ger Duany
She told fewer stories to us at night, and I missed hearing about how various animals that roamed the wild came to be the way they were. When I saw her once-bright eyes shining with tears while she swept the floor and did other simple tasks, I knew I had to try in every way possible to be of help to her. I dedicated myself not only to tending the cattle, but also to helping bring up the newborn twins, primarily by serving as a human baby carriage. I was seldom seen without one of them clinging to my back, although Mum also devised a small dieny—a traditional baby carrier made of a bundle of sticks—that the twins could ride in during our annual trek.
More importantly, I tried even harder to be for her everyone her heart had lost. It tears you apart inside, the inauthenticity of living as someone else. And just think—I had taken on the burden of four others (including my dad), and counting. Needless to say, as much as I wanted it to, that could not last forever. To be frank, it could not last for long.
There would be endless reports reaching my family about Oder’s time in the army, and whenever this happened, there would be excitement all around me, with everyone going on and on about Oder this and Oder that. All I could rely on was an almost empty sense of nostalgia, feeling like I knew him, yet knowing that I hadn’t spent enough time with Oder to speak about him with the sort of familiarity everyone else did.
My feelings about my brother centered mostly on a profound neediness—needing more conversations with him, more observations, more shadowboxing, more hugs. Less wondering about an enigma and more time with a boy who’d become a superhero to me. And isn’t it always the case with heroes that their greatest sacrifice is time with their loved ones in exchange for fighting for the greater good? But what if what’s good is unclear? What if neither side is actually on yours? What if having that hero away from home causes more harm to the family than help in resolving political conflicts? Yes, what if.
FIGHTING HAD BECOME WIDESPREAD AND unpredictable during the wet season that year. One morning in July or August, as I brought the cattle out to graze on the fecund, almost neon, verdant grasses, a man dressed in laawË or kuir, a traditional piece of clothing tied across the body with a knot at one shoulder, approached. I had my favorite cow with me, which stopped its grazing to instead study the stranger with wide-set eyes.
STRANGE MAN: Are you a son of Thabach Duany?
I knew better than to just give up my identity to someone whose intentions I did not know or trust.
ME: I am a farmer and I am minding my business.
STRANGE MAN: You do resemble him. You have a lot of teeth.
By his reply, I knew he had been sent by my father with news of some kind: maybe a warning, maybe instructions, maybe word about a loved one. I would come to dread, in the ensuing years, the sight of a straight-faced man scarified with six lines across his forehead, floating across the horizon toward us, because it would often portend a deadly outcome.
This time, however, his sudden appearance was far more benign.
STRANGE MAN: Your mother is to take you, the twins, and Nyakuar to Diror Village in West Akobo. Your half brothers and sisters and their mums will not be far away, in Buong Village. Your father wants all four of his wives and his brother’s wife, his seventeen children, and their cousins safe.
Without hesitation or debate, within two days we’d prepared maize, sorghum flour, and cashews, packed them up with not much else, and were on foot on the road to Diror, twenty miles away.
* * *
—
My father was very resourceful in finding ways and people to pass along messages and communicate with us. At the start of the dry season in 1986, he sent word with a different man that last year’s camp, Luääl, was no longer safe because Anya Anya II was expected to attack.
The man found his way to our well-organized hut in Diror, which was made of mud and wood and had a grass roof. My uncle Reat had built it alongside a huge cattle hut. My mother was taking out Nyakuar’s hair so she could wash and rebraid it, and the smell of butter and milk from the wal wal and kööb in our outside kitchen hit my nose, causing my stomach to blurt out its approval.
There was a knock at the door, and Nyakuar and I raced to answer it, while the twins rolled around on the floor.
I beat Nyakuar to the door, but she pushed me back and opened it, revealing this new stranger on the other side. He didn’t actually stop to speak to us, just strode right in, like he was a long-lost relative home in time for supper. He addressed my mother, Nyathak, who was called Nyamuon as a term of endearment.
NEW STRANGER: Mama Nyamuon? It is time. Your husband has summoned you to Bukteng. He is in the barracks of the temporary SPLA headquarters there. The whole family will reunite.
MUM: That is wonderful news! Did you hear, Ger? We finally get to be together again!
The energy on this trek was different from that of years past. I was buzzing on the outside, and inside my own head. What would it be like to be a family of twenty-plus people? We’d been separated for months, but now there’d be no end of children to play with—maybe even less responsibility since, among my father’s four wives, there would be at least one free parent available to watch over the youngest kids. Even though I found the twins amusing, I’d be delighted to hand them off to somebody else to look after. Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—I just wanted time to be a kid myself.
Along the way, we ran into members of our extended family. Coming from the east and west, their herds of cattle joining with ours, they all walked north with us. We kids shouted, played, and ran like crazy through dry, cracked mudflats, brittle brown scrub grass, and, as we finally approached Bukteng, head-high green grasses that bent to and fro in the wind, like fingers beckoning us. As much as possible, we kept clear of dangerous jungles and confusing swamps, enjoying the safety of our numbers, yet always keeping our eyes out for lions and other carnivores that wouldn’t hesitate to eat a human.
Gradually, the Duany extended-family group became complete as we trekked the hundred or more miles across Akobo into Upper Nile. The twins, Both and Nyandit, took turns riding on my back, and Nyakuar clambered along at my heels as I urged our sixty to seventy cattle ever forward. Our herd was rather ostentatious in its size, but my father was wealthy. And with all these kids, he would need that many cattle to successfully marry us all off.
ME: Wunbil! Come help! Kuach-Taar is so lazy, it’s slowing us down!
My cousin ran over with his staff and poked at the lazy beast, which huffed and voiced its extreme disapproval at being forced to take a single step more.
As we entered camp, I noticed it looked well protected by plenty of SPLA soldiers. There was room enough for huts for all of us in a clearing beside the Nile. With the river running shallow at this time of year, I was hoping Nyandit would be less terrified of getting her bath, and I was looking forward to learning to spearfish. More than anything, I hoped I’d get another chance to kill an antelope out in the bush. This time, I felt sure I wouldn’t be frightened.
The camp was partitioned into three sections—one for cattle, one for the SPLA, and a space for us, the families of SPLA fighters. The first order of business was to build the grass-thatched houses we’d stay in for three to four months.
Feeling like a grown-up, I immediately headed off to gather the longest, strongest blades of grass.
AUNT NYANTEK: Look at Ger! He’s such a good boy, so reliable. Help Ger burn cow dung to repel flies and mosquitoes, Wunbil. You’d do well to follow his example.
Mum beamed: I was being recognized by another wife. I was happy to show Mum and everyone else that I was responsible and lovable—that I took care of my family. The best part about it, though? The quicker we set up, the sooner we’d be freed up to get into mischief.
Before we finished the last of the huts, built in a line parallel to the bank of the Nile, and before I could make my way toward the great river’s shore to mee
t up with my siblings to play, I noticed Dad’s dark brown eyes trained on me from the edge of the village. I took a deep breath and headed toward him, excited to see him but also full of trepidation.
My father seemed to approve of me, but I could never quite tell since worry always clouded his face. Back in Liet, Dad used to worry about business matters in addition to the war, but here, in this SPLA camp, his brow looked even more furrowed and his AK-47 never left his shoulder, not even while he slept.
I waited for him to speak first, as that was the polite way of greeting one’s elders.
DAD: Ger, you are bigger than I remember.
Did he mean taller or fatter? Maybe a bit of both.
DAD: Have you been taking care of your mother?
ME: Yes, Dad. I am a man in our house and I help Mum with the chores and the twins.
DAD: You are still a boy, Ger, but you are growing up well.
ME: I have killed my first antelope.
Dad let out a noise that sounded like he was both gasping and sucking his teeth. I believe that was his way of telling me he was glad about my progress, but that I would have to kill more than a single antelope to be the kind of man he expected his sons to become. I eyed his AK-47 and wondered when I could shoot a gun like that. For then I surely could take down anything or anyone. Like my brother Oder, I would then have earned my dad’s undying respect.
WE HADN‘T EVEN BEEN IN Bukteng for a month when I awoke just before dawn to the rhythmic rat-a-tat of AK-47s and the snap-snap-snap of RPGs, followed by explosions and the sound of women and children screaming. I ran outside and saw in the distance that the barracks, where Dad bunked, were the epicenter of a ground attack. We had thought the SPLA would keep us safe here, but as it turned out, the army’s presence actually attracted enemies. Anya Anya II rebels had surprisingly joined forces with soldiers of the government in the northern city of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, to wage a massive assault against their common enemy, the SPLA.
The attackers descended upon us from a place of strategic advantage, attempting to force the entire population of our village into the Nile. We were trapped. Either we were going to die of gunshots, or we’d have to escape into the river, where the soldiers would still pursue us.
My dad and the entire SPLA were almost immediately outgunned. Why their spies did not know of or alert anyone to the ambush, I cannot say. Regardless, my family and I—all of the civilians, actually—were now on the run, and on our own.
Mum was visibly afraid, yet acted as though she’d rehearsed for this situation a thousand times over. She mounted one twin on each shoulder, then whispered to me.
MUM: Take Nyakuar’s hand and do not let go for anything.
I grabbed my sister’s left hand—in her right, she clutched her security blanket—and we dashed away from the gunfire, along with other fleeing villagers. Wherever bullets kissed the earth, puffs of dirt leaped from the ground all around us; it was as though we were in some kind of magic act where we’d vanish into thin air by the time the dust settled.
This time there was no forest nearby to hide within, so we did as our attackers had hoped and ran toward the Nile. The river was low, and its currents were relatively weak, but there were some sections that remained very deep. There was long grass along its banks, and some of the escapees tried to hide in it. But our attackers shot everywhere indiscriminately, in hot pursuit, flattening the SPLA camp, then shooting into the water and grass and across the river, using heavy artillery.
Charging through the high grass and splashing right into the knee-high river in the predawn darkness, I looked back momentarily and could see the piercing eyes of an enemy soldier as he fired in my direction. Quite frankly, I have no explanation for why I did not die that day…or any of the innumerable other days I’ve stared right in the face of death.
The spray of bullets and people charging through the obsidian-blue liquid reminded me of frenzied fish spawning or crocodiles thrashing their prey about. Nyakuar’s wet blanket was slowing us down, and I wanted to yank it out of her hand. This was life or death, and none of the other villagers carried anything at all, except for their injured family members, and sometimes their dead. But if the blanket was the difference between a slower but focused child and a scattered, screaming one, letting her keep it was the better choice.
After slogging through the river for what felt like an eternity, we made it to the opposite bank and again ran through more high grass. We could still hear the gunfire on the other side of the Nile, but at this distance, we were safe.
To my surprise, Mum set us kids beside a termite mound and ran back the way we had come. I watched her flipping over dead bodies on the riverbank and questioning the living.
MUM: Have you seen my husband, Thabach Duany? Have you seen my husband?
People were too busy trying to reunite with their own loved ones to pay any real attention to her. I couldn’t believe how much she had lost in the past two years. I did not know if her pure, beautiful heart could take another loss, even with three of her children still with her, needing her. Loving her.
Mum trudged back over, willing the tears back inside her head. But I was strong, I thought. I knew what to say to make her—and myself—feel better.
ME: Dad is a soldier. He knows how to fight, how to hide, and how to ambush them right back. He would not have retreated with us. He would have led his soldiers to safety.
MUM: Oh, Ger. Your father had all his family in one place. For a moment, our village felt like home. What devastating loss he must feel.
I knew she was speaking of her own loss too.
I figured Mum must have been awfully in love to have raced back to the riverbank in search of a man who could not have been there. What she’d done made no sense. But then again, neither love nor war ever does.
Along with other survivors, we watched the sun begin to color our world with broad brushstrokes while enemy soldiers across the river overran Bukteng. The SPLA had lost the fight, which meant we had lost our cattle—our livelihood—as well.
This battle felt different from the helicopter assault in Liet. It was one thing to be shot at from high up in the sky, but to look into the eyes of the enemy running down our streets, walking into our huts, that was something else entirely. I began to doubt, for the first time, that a soldier’s life was for me.
At nightfall, people clustered into little groups, sitting, talking of the attack and the escape, trying to figure out who was dead and who was alive. We slept in the open air, both for lack of accommodation and to be able to spot the enemy were they to pursue us that far across the Nile.
The sun came out the following morning, and it was unanimously agreed that it was time to keep moving. Mum gathered her children together.
MUM: We had better get out of here before those soldiers find us.
I could hear exhaustion and high-pitched fear in her voice. Making another long and dangerous trek—before the blisters on our feet from the previous long journey had even healed—was the last thing she wanted to do.
ME: Can we walk home to Liet?
MUM: No, not in the dry season. Nothing grows. We’ll only starve there.
I didn’t know in which direction we were going, but because my mother had been through a civil war before, she knew where we had to head in search of safety. Then I asked her in a small voice what I’d really been wondering since we’d fled.
ME: Is Dad okay?
MUM: I don’t know, son. All we can do is find a friendly village to stay in and try to send word to him that we’re alive. Perhaps we’ll hear back. I hope so.
Underneath her statement was our mutual concern—that we might not hear back because Dad might not have made it.
ME: Perhaps he is gone for good, like Uncle Machiel?
My father’s younger brother was brought up around my mother from the time he was a little boy. He
went to Khartoum as a teenager, intending to get an education. Over time, many uncles were sent to find him and convince him to visit Akobo, but it was a daunting task. Sometimes no one could find him for years. Many considered him a lost cause; he had no interest in returning to southern Sudan. He was a ghost uncle to me, which must’ve been what upset my mother.
MUM: Your father is in no way like his brother. He is steadfast. He is brave. And he always comes back.
Finding a friendly village to take us in was going to be no easy task, as we were strangers in the region, and some villages were loyal to the SPLA, while others were pro–Anya Anya II. My father was well-known as an SPLA first lieutenant (first lieutenant is a single star in military rank), so while one village would welcome us Duanys with open arms, if we walked into the wrong one…
The sun now sat atop the horizon, an orb of blinding white gold, revealing endless grassy plains on our side of the river. Other villagers dispersed in different directions, obviously scared and confused. I lifted Both onto my back, and he clung to my neck out of habit. I liked the feeling of his tiny, warm body against mine. I pointed to a tree in the distance.
ME: Should we walk toward that?
MUM: No.
She shielded her eyes from the morning’s glare.
MUM: We’ll walk toward the rising sun. That way lies Ethiopia, our ally.