Disturbed in Their Nests

by Alephonsion Deng

  “Don’t worry.” She laughed. “They’re young. It’s a special time.”

  “I know. Speaking of a special time, they’re so eager to start school. That’s my next project, looking into that.”

  Sharon gave me a questioning smile.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “Jobs first. I get it. But in the meantime, I have found it’s best if we do fewer activities and focus on the things they really need. I’m learning to hang loose. Or you could say, they are teaching me.”

  “Enjoy it now.” Her tone became serious. “Things start to change. We call that first month or so after they arrive the honeymoon period. Soon the realities set in. Rent, bills, not driving, driving. You can imagine how it is for refugees. It’s tough for Americans.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, quite sure that I had a pretty good grasp of the challenges ahead.

  “Holds true for mentors too. You know: getting acquainted, doing the tourist stuff. It’s all fun in the beginning.”

  I was just beginning to feel confident and comfortable with the mentoring thing. “So what you’re saying is from this point on it’s a test to see whether I have staying power?”

  She smiled. “There’s no formal test, but I guess you could put it that way.”

  “I’m not sure who has the most to learn. Me or them.”

  NEW KIND OF LEARNING

  Alepho

  In Dinkaland, mothers taught girls to cook and take care of the home and children. Boys learned to be warriors, care for cattle, farm, hunt, and defend the village.

  When my father sold many of his precious cows to send Yier, the oldest son of his first wife, to a place called school, not everyone in the village agreed. They said, “Deng, this goes against our traditions.”

  My father listened politely since he was a gentle man with a quiet spirit who didn’t anger easily. After they spoke, he said, “Tomorrow’s future will belong to those who can read and write. The people who possess such power will hold magic in their hands. They will be the strong who survive.”

  Yier went away for a season to study. When he returned, he had magic power like a wizard. I wanted that too.

  Not everyone felt that way. Even after they’d seen Yier’s magic power, many in our village strongly disagreed with my father. “Deng,” they cried, “you are a visionless man. Who would dare send his own children to a place far away? We don’t want our sons going to this school. It goes against our traditional way of life.” They thought my father had gone out of his right mind.

  Yier took me aside once. “Alepho, our father has a heart for his children’s futures. But his heart is not only for his own family. His heart is for our people and all of humanity. Your time for school will come, too.”

  My brother Benson, two years older than me, was seven then. I asked Benson, “Do you want to go to school?”

  “Yes, I want to go when I’m older.”

  “I will go when you go.” I didn’t want to wait long or miss my opportunity.

  The next season, my father sold more cows and sent another son from his first wife to school. The elders continued their protests. “These children leaving the village for education will speak strange languages and lose their principles and values. They will become useless rascals—city boys, who have no respect for elders and culture.”

  My father ignored them and gathered more cows. Another son was about to have a chance, but my father’s second wife said, “No, I won’t allow my son to get his education.”

  Our mother was the third wife.

  I asked Benson, “Do you think our mother will allow us to go to school?”

  “I don’t know,” Benson said. “My time has not yet come.”

  “Father told me danger may come. Are you worried about the danger?”

  Benson gave me a serious look. “You must obey what our father has told you.”

  “What is the danger? What is coming?”

  “Our father is wise. Always follow his instructions.”

  “I will,” I said, still not understanding this danger. “But don’t forget, when you go to school, be sure to take me.” I’d miss Benson if he went away without me, and I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to read and write like a wizard.

  BUS INTERVIEW

  Judy

  James, the guys’ roommate, called me on Friday afternoon. He’d never called before.

  “The hotel only give two days of work,” James said. “I go in every store, every restaurant. Always the same. No jobs, no jobs.”

  Planes were still grounded. Things were only going to get worse, especially for the local tourist industry. “Did you fill out applications for them to have on hand when they are hiring again?”

  “I fill out some. But they will not call. Others say not even application available now. I go all the way to downtown. No job.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t prepared for this. The attacks had postponed everything, including my research and good intentions of helping them find employment. Unfortunately, their needs couldn’t wait. “Have you looked in the paper?”

  “I look. I call. There is one place. They say to come on Monday at ten. It is where they clean the buses.”

  “Oh, that sounds good,” I lied.

  “Can you take me there?”

  James had a bus pass and had traveled all over San Diego County. He’d passed his GED, was learning to drive, and had applied to college—all on his own. He was the most independent and capable of the Lost Boys I’d met. His request caught me off guard. Technically, I was a mentor for Benson, Alepho, and Lino—and apparently Benjamin too, when he arrived—but it seemed like James and Daniel didn’t have mentors at all. I didn’t mind helping them out if I could. “I’d be glad to take you, but doesn’t the bus go there?”

  Silence. Then I understood his request. Will you, American lady, go there with me?

  • • •

  Monday morning, I dropped Cliff at school and went straight to their apartment. Alepho, Benson, and Lino were on the couch, glued to the news on the TV. I’d had it on all weekend myself. There was only one story. It impacted everyone, and everyone wanted answers. None had come yet.

  I gave each of them an envelope of the photos from the day at our house. “Anything new on the news?”

  “Very bad,” Alepho said in a heavy, knowing voice.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  He took things so literally. “I mean I’m sorry it happened so soon after you guys arrived.”

  I didn’t want them to think that they’d come all the way here for nothing, that they’d never be free of terror. I couldn’t think of reassuring words except “things like this don’t happen in America,” and I’d already made that false promise after the fireworks. Besides, who was I to tell them anything? They knew more about terror than I ever would.

  “Who do you think did it?” I asked, not sure why I brought it up, but it was the question we’d all been asking the last few days.

  “There are Lost Boys in New York.”

  “I hope they’re safe.”

  “They are angry that the Lost Boys have come here.”

  Not again. Hadn’t listening to the news the last few days made them realize they had nothing to do with it? “Oh God, no,” I said. “No one is angry about you. We’re glad you’re here. If they are angry at us, it’s more likely because they don’t like Bush or Ariel Sharon or that we backed out of the UN conference two weeks ago. You haven’t brought this down on America.”

  “Thank you,” Benson said unconvincingly.

  A silent pause. There were many pauses in our conversations, and I was learning to be comfortable with them, even when they happened on the phone.

  A commercial for dog food came on the TV. “Are we going to the zoo?” Benson asked.

  “Sure, of
course.”

  “Can Benjamin come too?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You will be his mentor?”

  I’d meant to call Joseph about that but hadn’t gotten around to it. “Yes, I will, if he wants me to.”

  “Let’s go to the zoo when Benjamin gets here so he can go too.” The truth was I was concerned about going to the zoo or any public place right now due to warnings on the news, and maybe just because everyone else was.

  The commercials ended and the news came back on. Another rerun of the World Trade Center collapse played. The whole country was transfixed, in shock, or numb, and in a holding pattern. The only thing that was clear was that things in our country would never be the same.

  Alepho was quiet and rubbing his forehead. “How are your headaches?” I asked.

  “All the time.”

  “Did you eat breakfast?”

  “The tea makes my stomach hurt and then I don’t eat.”

  Then don’t drink tea! “Tea on an empty stomach makes me feel sick too. Have you tried the cereal we bought in the store?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d steered them from the sweet varieties in the colorful boxes and we’d selected cornflakes and raisin bran. “Did you like it?”

  “No. Too sweet.”

  I’d have to share that with Cliff. He thought raisin bran was inedible because it wasn’t sweet enough.

  “Joseph said I have a parasite.”

  “Really?” A frightening thought. Were they contagious?

  “Joseph said he will take me to a tropical medicine doctor at the university.”

  I hoped that was soon. This could help the other guys who probably also had some foreign creatures making a life in their guts, or who knew where else.

  They had so many challenges. Including many within, from nightmarish creatures to memories of war. It had to be hard to get the motivation and the energy for jobs, school, and all the learning about their new country.

  “Where is James?” I asked.

  “He is preparing.”

  I had arrived plenty early because I enjoyed spending time with them. But I wanted to turn the TV off. Enough of that for now.

  Would war always be present? The boys sitting beside me had had their lives and loved ones devastated by war. I hadn’t, yet much of my life had been molded by the aftereffects of war. My grandfather was an angry, reclusive eccentric as a result of his experience in WWI. My father wouldn’t say much about his own experience in the service except for an often-­told story, with inappropriate laughter, about his boat blowing up.

  I’d been born during the Korean War, and the Cold War had punctuated my elementary school Mondays with noon air-­raid sirens, just ten years after Little Man and Fat Boy had obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In school we studied strontium-90 fallout, and at home we knew which neighbors had bomb shelters.

  The Vietnam conflict sputtered to life in my middle school years and raged during high school. Friends went away and didn’t come back. The Berlin Wall finally came down the year Cliff was born, heralding the end of the Cold War, hugely symbolic for anyone who spent kindergarten diving under a desk during bombing drills.

  After the brief Gulf War, we’d had a decade of relative peace. I’d had high hopes for this new millennium and for Cliff’s lifetime to be a peaceful one. But here we were, just a year into the new century, and our ability to transcend violence seemed to be on shaky ground again.

  James came from the bedroom ready and dressed in his best pants and favorite shirt. That was the problem. The shirt. He loved it. I assumed so anyway, since he wore it frequently. An aloha style, brightly colored, mostly green, short-sleeve silk-­type print worn outside the pants. At first glance the design was abstract, but a closer look revealed martial arts characters performing a variety of moves. The real clincher was the gray-­and-­black life-­size machine gun that ran diagonally across the front from shoulder to hip. Not appropriate for a job interview. Even a job cleaning buses.

  “You look very nice,” I said. “But that’s your best shirt. Maybe you should save it for going out.”

  “I like this shirt.”

  “A long-­sleeved shirt is more appropriate for interviews.”

  “You see, Judy, I don’t like long sleeves.”

  If this had been Benson, he would have immediately run and changed. In fact, he would have read the job-­preparedness manual and had on the long-­sleeved shirt and a tie in the first place.

  “James, we’re going for an interview. You really need a plainer shirt, and long sleeves are best.”

  He grumbled and disappeared into the bedroom, reemerging a few minutes later in a cotton long-­sleeved shirt that was still not tucked in. This one had a busy but faded green print and sleeves so short he couldn’t button the cuffs.

  “We go,” he said.

  “What happened to the solid shirts I brought over?”

  At this point everyone was gathered in the living room, observing our negotiations. This made for a delicate balancing act. James was the oldest, had been a child soldier, and was now a strong leader and role model for the household. I didn’t like challenging him in front of everyone, but I didn’t want him to blow this interview or others in the future.

  “I like this shirt.”

  “Okay, okay, it’s fine. Just tuck it in.”

  “Tucked in does not look good.”

  Now he was a fashion expert. If I didn’t admire his capabilities, fierce determination, and independence so much, I’d be tempted to walk out and let him go by himself, even after driving all the way down here. “James, if you were a big boss in Sudan and three people came in and applied for a job, one Dinka, one Arab, and one white American. Which one would you hire?”

  He laughed. “The Dinka man.”

  “Okay, what if all three were American but one had on traditional Dinka clothing? Would you hire that one?”

  “Yes.”

  Lino came out of the bedroom with his job-­preparedness manual open and his finger on a line. He pushed it into James’ face and spoke sharply in Dinka. James looked resigned.

  “You see, Judy,” Lino said. “It say right here. No green shirts for interview.”

  It said no black or red ones either. That was a new one for me. “Thank you, Lino.” Especially for the support.

  We departed with James in a peach-­tone dress shirt, tucked in, and a belt. The sleeves were too short, but that was true of all the shirts that fit them otherwise. At least they were buttoned.

  James and I stood in the lobby of the bus-­cleaning business for ten minutes, watching the office staff pass by and completely ignore both of us. When I finally got someone’s attention, I first introduced James.

  She said to me, “We aren’t hiring.”

  “They told James to come down today and fill out an application.”

  Still speaking only to me, she said, “You have to have a driver’s license to move the buses around the lot for cleaning. Does he have a driver’s license?”

  Did she think that because he looked different he couldn’t speak English? I guided James out the door. A driver’s license wouldn’t have helped.

  We stopped in several other places. A grocery store that was not even giving out applications. A fast-­food restaurant where all the workers were Hispanic told us they weren’t taking applications. Another hamburger fast-­food place where all the workers were young, white males would not take applications for future reference. It was hot, depressing, and demoralizing. We headed back home. Clearly, I needed a better strategy.

  LIZARD POOP

  Alepho

  A few months after I’d fled my village, soldiers took over leading our large group of boys. They loaded us into lorries headed for a town called Torit, where they said they’d won the battle.

  When w
e arrived in Torit, it didn’t look like anybody had won. Broken buildings reeked of dead people. Black ash covered everything. Back in my village, ashes had protected grains from weevils, new plant shoots from bugs, and our food from rodents. My mother brewed ashes with water to make spice for soup. Seeing all those ashes made me wonder if my mother was still in the village weaving her baskets and making her soup. I hoped my village hadn’t been destroyed like Torit. Seeing burned souls shrouded by ash inside vehicle skeletons made me fear that my own body would soon burn up and disappear forever like a piece of wood.

  The lorries left us in that black ash and roared away. People could see that we were just young boys and directed us to the UN aid tent for sacks of dried corn and beans.

  “We have no cooking materials,” I said.

  The aid worker said, “We don’t provide cooking utensils.”

  We formed into groups of twenty or thirty boys and set about trying to feed ourselves. Behind a building we found a large metal barrel as tall as me.

  “We need to cut it in half first,” my cousin Joseph said.

  We scattered and found sharp rocks and an old metal blade. The sawing, hacking, and pounding took several hours but hunger made us determined. Finally, the top came off. Black goo coated the inside.

  “That goo is what makes vehicles go,” an older boy said. “It’s oil.”

  “It smells sort of nice,” I said. The elders had talked about oil when they talked about war. I hadn’t understood what it was all about.

  We washed out the barrel as best we could, filled it with water from a pump and started a fire from gathered wood. When the water finally boiled, we poured the beans and corn from their large rough brown sacks into the water and watched. The cooking took hours. Once the grain and beans were tender, we laid the sacks around on the ground and poured the contents onto the sacks for eating.

  “It smells like the black goo.”

  Joseph tasted it. “Tastes bad.”

  No matter the taste, no boy missed his turn for a bite. The beans were so hot they burned my hands and my mouth, but with so many hungry boys, I had to take mine when my turn came. We fed like vultures on a stinking carcass.