Disturbed in Their Nests

by Alephonsion Deng

  “Please call at 4:00 a.m. That way we can have a bit of tea. We will be waiting outside.”

  • • •

  Friday morning I woke up before the alarm went off. Their big day had arrived. I was happy and relieved, but also so nervous. Karol had certainly added to that. Had I imagined or exaggerated her irritation? Maybe she’d had a bad day.

  I called at 4:00 a.m. and James answered on the second ring. Figured. He was the only person in the house that didn’t need to get up. The only one not getting this opportunity, and he needed it most.

  The training store was just a mile or so from me, but I needed to pick them up and bring them back up north. At five I set out for their house in thick fog and surprisingly heavy traffic.

  They were ready and waiting outside, dressed in their best. “You all look great.”

  “Thank you,” Benson said. “We are honored for this opportunity.”

  They were always so gracious. They climbed in, taking their places in their usual seating arrangement.

  The road wasn’t visible beyond a car length. Good thing we’d gotten that early start.

  “Is this winter?” Alepho asked. “It is so cold.”

  “This really isn’t winter weather yet. When the ocean is warmer than the air, it evaporates and makes this fog. It’s usually gone by the time you get up so you don’t see it. When winter does come, it’ll be colder than this. Do you have blankets?”

  “Yes, we have a blanket,” Alepho said. “Benson doesn’t have one.”

  “I’ll find more for all of you so that you don’t have to heat the apartment.” Which meant turning on that ancient radiator thing in the living room. I imagined it either blowing up or emitting carbon monoxide. Whichever, it scared the hell out of me. They wouldn’t have the money to spend on energy bills anyway.

  We arrived at the Encinitas store twenty minutes early and sat at a table near the front door to keep an eye out for Karol. Rigo, who worked in the bakery, recognized me and came over. I introduced the guys. He warmly welcomed them.

  Except for the people stocking the shelves, the store was nearly empty. At five minutes to seven two more wrapper trainees joined us. I’d yet to see Karol, who wanted to be sure we weren’t late.

  At about seven, Karol came toward us. I nodded and started to say something but she acted as though she hadn’t noticed us and headed around the corner to the coffee stand. Even if she didn’t recognize me from the other day, who wouldn’t notice them? Especially in this town.

  Oh well, I’d get her attention on the way back and ask where the training would take place.

  “That was Karol,” I told the guys, hoping her rudeness had escaped their notice. “She will be training you today.”

  We waited for Karol to come back from getting coffee. We waited and waited. She had to come back this way. I walked around the corner looking for her, but she seemed to have disappeared. I asked one of the stockers if he knew where the training would be held and he shrugged.

  We waited a few more minutes. I asked a cashier where the training might be but they knew nothing either. There was no one else to ask.

  I’d come to make sure things went smoothly. How hard could that be? But it wasn’t going smoothly. Someone was playing games.

  A man came around the corner. ted and manager on his tag. “Hi,” he said. “Are you here for the wrapper class?”

  Ted was nice, like Bob.

  “It’s meeting upstairs,” he said.

  Karol could have told me that on two occasions. Why couldn’t someone like Ted or Bob be doing the training?

  Ted gave us detailed directions on how to go up some stairs at the back of the store. The secret stairs Karol must have escaped up.

  When we got to the conference room, fifteen or so other students were already seated and Karol had started the class. She didn’t acknowledge our entrance, and went on with her instruction. I directed the four guys and the two trainees who had joined us to the empty chairs in the back, waved goodbye like a mother dropping off her kindergartner, and tried my best to look cheery for them while resisting the urge to glare at Karol.

  I went back down the stairs, spitting mad. Nervous sweat tingled my skin. Heat flooded my cheeks and flowed down my neck. Why was I so upset by a small thing? Because Karol could have told me yesterday we were to meet upstairs. She could have told me this morning when she walked right by us. The humiliation of being victimized and made a fool sent pricking heat to my ears. I’d failed when I knew better after going places with them these last weeks. The things I should have said and done to avert her subtle sabotage had come to me too late. I’d been a kindergartner mom in a moment when they needed a tiger mom.

  At noon, Paul and I were driving to San Francisco for a wedding so I couldn’t pick them up. Brianna at IRC had offered. I phoned her from the car and explained what happened with the trainer. “Am I imagining things?”

  “I don’t think so. But it’s the trainer’s loss.”

  Did she have to be so damn philosophical and forgiving?

  Since meeting the guys in August I hadn’t touched my novel. But the writing flame burned hotter than ever on a new subject. Some articles, perhaps. After all, the pen was mightier than the sword. Fortunately, I didn’t have a sword.

  NEVER DO WHAT I JUST DID

  Judy

  Monday afternoon I went to their apartment to hear how the training went. As I turned onto their street, Euclid Avenue, I saw it in a whole new way. The mothers with strollers and Laundromats and manicure shops were still there, but imagining Alepho and Daniel, and eventually the others, walking this street at night faded those things into the background. What remained were the houses with barred windows, dark vacant lots to hang out in and sell drugs, and the seedy bars that were closed now but would be open and rowdy when night came. Hopefully they’d start on the day shift. That would make their trip to the bus stop a lot safer. The neighborhood was diverse, more languages spoken than in any community in America, or so they claimed, but it also had the most gangs in San Diego, and the gangs might not be thrilled about newcomers. Who knew what lines were drawn in the sand by beer and bravado at night?

  Alepho greeted me at the door.

  “How did it go on Friday?” I inquired.

  “Very fine. We were a little bit lost in the first. I couldn’t understand. But it was fine.”

  They’d gotten through it. Two days away and I’d calmed down. Probably a good thing I hadn’t picked them up that day.

  Benson had a chair pulled up to the couch. His colored pencil set was out and he was working on a nearly completed drawing of a stick-­legged boy in a pair of tattered red shorts with a rope around his waist holding them up. He was quite an artist, and a musician as well from what the others said.

  “Is that you?” I asked.

  “This look like everybody,” Lino said.

  “When bombs come,” Alepho said, “we drop everything and just run. Our backpacks with books, clothes, blankets, everything. So we have nothing left. We all looked like this.” He pulled a little piece of paper from his pocket. “This my schedule. I start work tomorrow. Daniel starts next week.”

  Maybe it was me the trainer hadn’t liked. Or maybe she had had no choice. Maybe Bob had told her they were already hired, and her job was merely to do her best to train them. At any rate, she passed them and they were starting work. I added up the time. “They gave you twenty-­three hours. That’s very good for the first week.”

  “I am going to try very hard to do a good job.” He looked so earnest, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

  “I know you will, and you will do just fine.”

  “I am worried,” Alepho said in a soft voice. “People do not understand me with my heavy accent.”

  “Your English is good. Your accent is nice. You only need to speak louder.” I sti
ll didn’t know if the soft voices were due to culture or embarrassment of their English. “This job is good for you because you will get lots of practice speaking to Americans.”

  “I will try. I am a little bit nervous.”

  For him to reveal that probably meant that he was a lot nervous.

  “Don’t worry. Bob knows you can do it. That’s why he hired you. Just be sure to leave home early enough so that you’re at work on time. Daniel is going to show you the bus route, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful walking at night, okay?”

  “Where are you going now?” he asked.

  “You’ll be careful, right?”

  “Yes. Where you going now?”

  “Well, I was heading home but now that I’ve come this far, I’m thinking about stopping by IRC.” I wanted to speak with Joseph about making sure Alepho saw a doctor again. His medicine had been gone for a week and he wasn’t feeling any better.

  “May I come with you? I want to go to the bank.”

  “Of course.”

  Alepho brought some papers in the car and was writing something as I drove up their street and turned west onto University Avenue. I glanced over at him.

  “I am translating email from Dinka to English,” he said. “My friend send it. It has a little news about Sudan. You can read it.”

  “From Sudan. Does that make you homesick?”

  “No, I have not been there for many years.” His expression turned solemn. “I remember that night I was in the house. My mother was breastfeeding my little brother.”

  He’d never spoken about his personal experience before, mostly about conditions in the camp. I didn’t know what provoked it, but I wasn’t about to interrupt.

  “You know the government gives the guns to the Murahilin horsemen. They attacked our village that night. When the attack come, my mother yelled at me. ‘Alepho, what are you doing? Run!’ ” He shook his head, like he was ridding himself of the memory. His voice grew deeper. “I don’t know why she yelled liked that. I ran and ran.”

  I looked over at him. He was looking out the window. That last image of his mother yelling at him to save his life had stuck in his mind all these years. Did a seven-­year-­old only hear the anger in her voice? Could he hear the fear? What she had feared most had come true. From what I read, many women and small children were burned inside their huts. As Cliff’s mother, I could not even begin to grasp her state of mind. Two years earlier she’d lost Benson and never heard from him again. The baby in her arms was probably doomed. She was desperate to save Alepho.

  “Was that the last time you saw her?”

  “That was the last time.”

  “I think she yelled to save your life.”

  He looked right at me, which was rare, but I had to turn and look ahead to watch the traffic.

  He said, “People say it is a civil war in Sudan. But it is not a civil war. It is more like Gomorrah from the Bible. They just kill the innocent people. All the people’s bones are everywhere. Like an elephants’ graveyard.”

  I didn’t know much about the Bible and I’d never seen an elephants’ graveyard, but he’d painted a vivid picture. I looked him in the eyes for a moment to show him I was listening and understanding, but too quickly I had to turn my attention again back to driving. I needed to make a left at the intersection ahead and there was no turn lane. Preparing, I pulled partially into the hectic intersection, eager to get back to our conversation. The oncoming traffic began to clear as the light turned yellow. I was about to make my left when a large panel truck came straight toward us. He wasn’t slowing. He was accelerating. He’d never make the yellow. He was going to rush it anyway. I was stuck.

  The light turned red, leaving us stranded in the middle of the intersection. Two seconds later the truck blasted through at full speed. Thank God I’d waited. So close.

  “Whoa!” Alepho exclaimed.

  He recognized the infraction even with his little experience. I completed my turn with the cars from the cross-­traffic biting at my heels.

  A cop was to our left at the corner of the cross street. He had to have seen it all. With a quick right turn he could nail the truck.

  “Look at that!” I said. “They always say there is never a policeman when you need one, but he’s right there. That guy in the truck is going to get a very expensive ticket.”

  I looked in my rearview. The cop was still at the corner.

  “I am learning the patterns of the traffic,” Alepho said.

  “Yeah, I bet you are. That was not a good example. I read the other day that people running a red light are the biggest cause of traffic deaths. Don’t even run yellows and always be careful if you are the first one to enter the intersection when the light turns green because some jerk like that truck might be coming the other way.”

  The mood of our prior conversation about the night he’d fled his home in Sudan had been irrevocably broken. I pulled into the bank parking lot. We exited the car and were walking toward the bank when a police car pulled up and blocked our path. The same one who had been at the corner. He wouldn’t have had time to go after the truck. Why was he here?

  The policeman jumped out and came around his patrol car straight toward us. I hadn’t had a ticket in twenty-­five years. I was respectful, appreciative, and a little scared of police, even though my fear had no basis except not wanting a ticket. Still reeling from the truck that almost ran us over and flabbergasted that the cop was here and not chasing the truck, I yelled, “I got stuck out there!” before he could utter a word and accuse me of running a red. “That guy was going fast. He ran the light intentionally. I didn’t have a choice. You saw it. What could I do? It was green when I pulled out to make the turn. That guy went blasting through.”

  The policeman stiffened and looked slightly taken aback. We both stood there. He was middle-­aged, white, and had a kindly face. He looked over at Alepho, who was dressed neatly and conservatively, as usual, and stood quietly by my side.

  The policeman’s shoulders relaxed a bit.

  That gave me some courage. “Pulling into the intersection when it’s green is legal, isn’t it? I could see that guy in the truck was going to blast right through the red. He would have clobbered us if I’d turned. I couldn’t stay in the intersection. I had to finish the turn on the red after he went through, didn’t I?” I was pushing it, I knew it, but I’d go to court and protest if he ticketed me on this.

  The policeman didn’t answer me and didn’t actually smile, but I sensed a smile below the surface. “Be careful,” he said and walked back toward the driver’s side of the patrol car. I waited while he went for the forms and to check my license plates. But he got in, shut the door, and put the car into reverse. He looked into his rearview at us. I mouthed, “Thank you,” and wondered how it would have gone if I hadn’t spoken first.

  Then I told Alepho, “Never, never, never do what I just did. I was upset. That was a big mistake. You can’t do that. I can do that because I’m an old lady, but I won’t do it again. It’s different if young guys behave badly like that.” Especially young, tall, really black guys in this neighborhood. Or any neighborhood. They’d be stopped just walking down the street in mine.

  Back in the car Alepho worked on translating the email. I looked over at him. Collared T-­shirt, khakis, close-­cropped hair, nothing gangster about him, but tall and black. Was he the reason the cop hadn’t gone after the truck in the first place?

  DOCTOR

  Alepho

  A truck almost hit Judy’s car and she became angry at the policeman. Then she told me to never get angry at a policeman. I had no reason to be angry with the policemen in America. They were nice.

  At IRC Judy spoke with Joseph Jok and told him about my problems. “Would you mind if I take Alepho to the doctor? He’s starting work tomorrow and has stomachaches and hea
daches almost every day.”

  Joseph said, “Oh yes, please. That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

  Before she left me at IRC, Judy asked, “Please, practice taking the bus with Daniel this afternoon so you don’t have a problem tomorrow.” I told her that I would do that.

  Judy called later and said, “I’m taking you to an internist. She’s in east San Diego and has familiarity with tropical medicine, especially African. She’s Nigerian.”

  Judy took me to the doctor’s office. They gave me paperwork to complete that was like a job application. We had heard that doctors in Egypt had people sign papers and the people didn’t know what they were signing and that allowed the doctor to harvest their organs. I read every word before I signed that paper. I was happy that the doctor was from Nigeria and not Egypt.

  They weighed me and put me in a room with Judy to wait.

  Judy said, “Just tell the doctor how you’ve been feeling.”

  “My back hurts.”

  Judy said to touch my toes and stretch my back each day and she showed me how.

  I did the same and put my hands on the floor.

  “Yeah, like that,” she said. “Maybe stiffness isn’t your problem.”

  The doctor came in and examined me. She asked, “Do you have any problems?”

  I told her about the back pain.

  “Did it hurt when you were in the camp?” she asked.

  “After they beat me.”

  “Beat you?”

  “In ’97 the Kenyan police beat me with clubs. My back very sore after that.”

  The doctor examined my back. “I don’t see anything. Let’s see how it does.”

  Judy asked, “Alepho, do you want to tell her about your stomachaches and headaches?”

  I didn’t need to tell the doctor now, Judy had just said it.

  The doctor looked at me. “You might be still adjusting. I’ll order some tests. Stop at the nurse on the way out.”

  The nurse said she would schedule the CAT scan and gave me a stool kit. What did a cat and a stool have to do with my problems?