by Ger Duany
MUM: If they followed us here, they are likely still among us. We cannot let anyone learn we know he is alive…or anything else.
My mothers said one of the main leaders of Anya Anya II, Bidit Deng, had been my dad’s closest friend.
ELIZABETH: Even though Bidit is his mortal enemy, he was his friend first.
MUM: Bidit led the attack on Bukteng! Yet he is the one who told him Anya Anya II was looking for him. I suppose if Anya Anya II has spies, it’s only fair we have them too.
I sensed that my dad was somewhere not too far away, possibly hiding in the nearby bush. He seemed omnipresent, running the show although we couldn’t see him physically. There was consensus among my mothers that if Anya Anya II fighters got my family and took us hostage, they would be using us as bait to get to him.
The other thing my mothers spoke about at night was their wish to have us eventually go to Cuba to get a better education, like my brother Oder had done.
I had grown up hearing stories about Oder and Chuol, the warriors of the family, and had always wondered what it would feel like to be around these two young soldiers with whom I shared a bloodline, who remained remote ideas inside my head. Then one evening, out of the blue, a young man showed up at our family home in Itang. He came and sat under a tree, not speaking to anyone. I had absolutely no idea who he was. My mother approached him.
MUM: Young man, who are you?
The person looked up.
YOUNG MAN: I am your son Oder.
Everyone got hysterical. Everyone, including myself and my little brothers and sisters, started crying, embracing him. No one had imagined they would see him alive again, at least not that soon. My mother was especially overcome with emotion. It had been four or so years since Oder had left home to join the army. And now he was back. And I knew my father was somewhere nearby too.
There wasn’t much else I could have wished for then. My heroes—the men I knew least but dreamed of becoming—were back in my world. I felt more whole than I had in years. But something gnawed at the back of my mind—it’s one thing to know intellectually that your heroes are out there alive, fighting, performing feats historians will one day write about. It’s another to have that flesh and blood before you. It all becomes real again. Thus, on the arm of joy, escorting it into your heart, is fear—fear that this is all temporary and, like life itself, could all be extinguished in an instant.
ODER WAS THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE in my life growing up, just from hearing stories about him, but now I could hear, and see, and embellish stories of him in the flesh.
After a feast celebrating his return, Oder took me aside. For so long I had been holding down the position of the eldest boy in the house, so in this moment he felt he should convey to me some truths the eldest boy should know.
ODER: I know you heard me say I was her son, but your mother, Nyamuon, is not my biological mother, Ger.
I laughed. I knew of Oder’s great strength and fighting skill, but his reputation was also of a jokester.
ODER: I am not kidding with you. I am not your full brother. We are halves.
He explained he was the only child from Nyakier, my father’s first wife. Elizabeth was my father’s second wife, and my mother was the third. His mother had divorced my father when Oder was still a little baby. And because his mother had a tough personality like my father, whenever they fought, she wouldn’t relent. This was how she eventually decided to give the baby Oder to my father, who was fighting in the bush, and walk away.
ODER: This was during the original Anya-Anya rebellion, and Dad was moving from village to village. Apparently, our father struggled with baby me. So he needed another wife, and she ended up being our stepmother Elizabeth. Funny thing is, Elizabeth had an equally strong personality and wouldn’t take Father’s military dictatorial tendencies lying down either.
ME: Dad can be gruff.
The pain of being yelled at stabbed at my heart a little as I said this, but I patched over it with the respect I had for him as a warrior.
ODER: Our— Your mother had been orphaned at age twelve and had to take care of her little brothers and sisters, much like you do, Ger. One day our father passed through her family home and watched this twelve-year-old tend to her siblings and run the home.
ME: She ran the house at twelve?
ODER: She did. So you need to step up your game. She was fetching water, making food, and being all grown-up, which impressed Dad. He hinted to her extended family that he was interested in marrying her in the future and gave them some heads of cattle.
ME: Just the heads?
ODER: No! That is an expression. You know how valuable cows are—four hundred dollars each! Five hundred for a bull! And then Dad gave me to your mum so he could return to fighting. Your mother raised me. She is the mother I know and is my real mum. So, yes, I was telling her the truth when I said I was her son. But the truth is always complicated.
I was shocked to learn Oder and I were not full siblings—I wanted every piece of me to be just like him. But the truth is, it all made sense. He was wide and stocky, an acacia, while I and my full siblings were long and slim like mahogany. But it didn’t matter. In a polygamous society like ours, where we have numerous brothers and sisters from one dad and many mothers, we value our relationships with each other until the end of time.
ODER: I hope you know this doesn’t change a thing about us being brothers. Blood is thicker than water. But brotherhood is thicker than blood.
I thought about that. About the blood that ran down Uncle Tut’s face as he vowed to fight for his people. About the bloodshed I’d seen all around me as friends, like my dad and Bidit Deng, and even family fought one another. And then about the people Oder and my father fought beside, despite most of them being a different ethnicity. My father and brother had chosen a family of fighters—brethren over kin. That made Oder even more special to me—for I was choosing him as my brother. And that love was thicker than blood or water or any other element known to man.
MY OLDER BROTHER‘S NAME, ODER, means “order”; my father named him after a guerrilla leader from his battalion in the 1960s and ’70s. Given that, his path in life—to become a soldier like my father and also to be the one to order me around all the time—seemed preordained.
Oder taught me how to bathe myself thoroughly; he was not impressed by how the village kids in Itang cleaned themselves.
ODER: Wash your testicles, penis, and bum thoroughly, Ger. There is no reason for people with access to water to be nasty.
I laughed out loud, but he was serious. He watched over me and was disgusted when I, for lack of a better term, half-assed it.
ODER: Get back in there and do it right. This is no laughing matter.
Maybe he found it a little funny, but he didn’t let on. It was more important to him that I showed some self-respect and maintained the dignity of our family. And I could at least do that by making sure my hygiene was on point.
Oder was like a father to me, in that he taught me everything he knew and wanted better for me. Each evening, he took me to watch him play with a group of young Ethiopian men in an organized soccer game. He might have been one of the younger guys on the field, but Oder was aggressive, fast, and a great midfielder, plowing through defenders and assisting in countless goals. I guess you could say Oder fulfilled his duty countless times over; he continually showed me the way and inspired me to play soccer throughout my time in refugee camps.
When I wasn’t kicking around a ball with Oder, Lual Nyang was my go-to guy. He owned a real soccer ball everyone wanted to play with, and you had to be in Lual’s good graces for him to pick you to join in. Kids would follow Lual for hours on end, and every time he put his soccer ball on the ground, there would be a stampede, as everyone wanted to kick it. At times, this would make Lual angry and he would take the ball away, fearing it would get ripped.
Lual was a little older tha
n me, restrained and philosophical, with long, girlish eyelashes and a frame so small and wiry it annoyed him greatly. Lual had spent more time in Itang than most of us, and was the only one who spoke what was considered proper English. Even Deng Alier thought of him as one of the brightest kids, which was hard to hear coming from the mouth of my favorite teacher.
* * *
—
Oder also taught me the proper way to breathe when I swam.
ODER: Like this. Turn your head to the side and take a breath in. Don’t lift your head above the water; that stops you in your tracks and you will start to panic.
Sometimes I would pretend to be worse at swimming than I was and fake-drown, just to get on Oder’s nerves. I was very successful at that.
And then there was the day I boxed him one time too many. I bapped him on the arm, then on the knee, then on the shoulder, trying to rile him up. That was my job as the little brother—to annoy the bigger ones. But this time I was met with a blow I never saw coming.
ODER: Ghehii!
Right to the gut. I felt like I’d been blown back by a rocket launcher. Lying flat on my back, I opened my eyes to see the stark blue sky, so clear and monochrome that I was not certain if I’d gone blind—until Oder stepped into my field of vision and offered me his hand to help me up.
ODER: Do not start a war you cannot finish, Ger.
But I was not interested in lectures or life lessons—now I just wanted to know how to hit like that!
ME: Teach me! Teach me that!
Oder told me he had been practicing Shotokan karate katas.
ODER: You became my test subject to see if it really works. I’m happy to report it does.
ME: Can I try it on you?
ODER: If you’re going to do something, do it. Study it, then apply it, but not until you’ve mastered it. You, little brother, have a lot more learning to do.
Oder told me the importance of discipline. Needless to say, after that day, I sought out anyone at Itang who could teach me karate. The more I could do like Oder, the more I could be like him, and the closer I felt to him. He was just the coolest person ever. Eventually, I made a friend named Garang Barjok, who got selected along with me to train for karate in the camp. He loved sparring on the riverbank, which helped keep those moments of duking it out with Oder alive in the back of my mind. Garang was rugged, with slick black hair set atop a rectangular, chiseled face, and his perfect white teeth gleamed out from his dark gums when he smiled or laughed—whenever he threw me to the ground.
ODER: If you become great in fighting, you can’t use those skills on just anyone. Be wise, judicious, and fair. Know when it’s time to walk away—when your enemy is beaten, be gracious, not a bully.
I often think back on those words, and how much Oder knew, even just as a teenager. Had I followed his advice, it might have saved me some heartache later. Then again, there was so much suffering to come, it was hard to keep straight in my head which words of wisdom to apply when.
I NEVER GOT TO SPEND as much time as I wished I had with my brother Oder. My earliest memory of him was during the Christmas season sometime in the early 1980s.
We all gathered at the Presbyterian church, which looked ancient. People said it was built by British missionaries decades earlier, but who knows. It was made of well-worn red bricks and had a zinc roof. The walls were covered in flowery decorations, and a huge white cloth with a red embroidered cross covered an old wooden table, which served as the altar. The rafters, wrapped with glittering holiday ribbon, held it all firmly in place. It smelled inside like a mixture of custard apple, guava, and mango trees in the rain.
While the adults stayed cool and refreshed inside, kneeling and praying at the altar, the children gathered outside to “act wild,” as though the devil himself had possessed us.
Name a game and we played it. Back-and-forth races, skipping rope, climbing trees; we didn’t have fancy sneakers or regulation balls and bats, as though that somehow made your God-given skills and athletic abilities more legitimate. Anything you could do with a little, we made a lot out of. And it didn’t feel like missing out.
I was especially good at climbing between two trees, ping-ponging from left to right, with a trail of tinier children following after me like ducklings. Normally, I would have played like that for hours, but this time I got distracted. I jumped to the ground, leaned against one of the trees, and marveled at Oder, who was wiping the floor with everyone in every way.
No one could catch him, no one could outjump him, no one could outsmart him. No one impressed me more. And that’s when it got funny, because everyone started ganging up on him. Two against one. Holding his leg. Jumping on his back as he raced throughout the compound. Grabbing his left arm as he attempted to chuck stones the farthest—he was a lefty, like me, which I was so proud of. Made me think I was like him and could be like him when I got older. Nothing could have made me happier than to follow in his footsteps and do everything he could as well as he could—hopefully, by his side.
Yet nothing could stop him. He was a force, but one with a positive spirit. One larger child got upset that Oder kept winning, and he refused to play anymore, sulking behind a tall, gangly tree. Oder patted him on the back and consoled him—he told him it just takes practice, like everything, and that he could get better and maybe one day surpass Oder in kids’ games. That made the child feel better. It built up his confidence, and he challenged Oder to another race. We all gathered round to cheer the boy on. At which point Oder beat him soundly once more.
In the evening, after night prayers at the church, I had a moment to enjoy Oder’s company on our walk home.
ME: I saw how fast you ran this evening. You were so fast, none of the kids could catch up.
ODER: I didn’t run as fast as I wanted to. No one can run faster than me if I wear my favorite shorts.
I laughed. For Oder, taking a compliment was like showing weakness. He responded by showing more strength.
ME: One day I want to run as fast as you. Will you give me your shorts when they get old?
ODER: You already have a better pair of shorts than mine. You can use those to run and still be fast.
ME: Can we race home and see who wins? Let’s see if I can run faster than you.
It was fun, teasing Oder. He didn’t like to be teased, but he hated losing even more. Even though he didn’t seem interested, I kept pushing.
ME: You have to give me a head start, because you have stronger feet than I.
What a weird thing to say, I know. Finally, he gave in.
ODER: Okay. You start running, then I will catch up with you.
I started running and, after covering some ground, turned to see if Oder was behind me. But he wasn’t. He was gone. I hurried back in his direction to see if something had happened, or if he’d left me alone to get home in the dark by myself—which would have been uncharacteristically mean, but I figured it’d serve me right for pushing his buttons. I had run about twenty yards back, when all of a sudden Oder jumped from behind a tree trunk, where he’d been hiding, his hands formed into claws, as if he were a beast ready to devour me. He knew he didn’t want to race, so he’d changed the game, and I fell right in line. I screamed with excitement.
Oder seemed to want to cultivate some form of independence in me, as if preparing me for a time when he wouldn’t be around for me to imitate him or for him to protect me. Just like him, I was becoming good with my left hand, so I threw some punches at him, as though beating a monster back. Oder frowned. My attempt to be as cool as him was landing as softly as my jabs.
ODER: Ger, why are you so quick to toss punches around? You’re going to hurt yourself or hurt someone else one of these days. And when that happens, no one will be there to defend you.
This left me feeling a bit ashamed and speechless. All I wanted was to be like him, do like him, impress and flatter him. But what
he wanted—what he always seemed to be telling me—was for me to do my own thing. Be only me. Not follow him around or put so much stock in his validation. Yet his telling me not to care so much made me unsure if I should take this advice too. Big brothers can be so confusing, but you don’t stop loving them, nevertheless.
ME: I’m sorry, big brother. I’ll do better next time.
Oder smiled and nodded. But his gaze seemed distant. Like he wasn’t sure when that next time would be. Or if there’d even be one. That brought me back down to earth, and we walked the rest of the way home in cricket silence.
MY MUM, STEPMOTHER, COUSINS, AND siblings all gathered under one roof now to listen to Oder narrate his adventures. There’s nothing like hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth.
ODER: I was in the first group the SPLA took to Cuba. We traveled by boat from Ethiopia and were twenty-nine days in the water before we made one stop in Jamaica, where our boat was detained by Jamaica’s government. They suspected Africans had been taken as slaves. We were allowed to continue on to Havana. So many young men and women vomited heavily on our journey. But you know me, I would not let something like seawater defeat me.
That had been in 1985. He explained how in Cuba, no one person could fight him. He was short, stocky, and well built, like my father, and was always on the front line, looking out for everyone else. SPLA chief of staff William Nyuon Bany Machar had called Oder into his office and expelled him because of his relationship with Bany’s daughter. He thought Oder was distracting her from her studies and that he might get her pregnant. It’s just as well because Oder was tired of dodging the liberation movement in Havana, and getting out was a blessing in disguise, even if it was for reasons our mother might not like to hear!