Hare in the Elephant's Trunk

by Jan Coates

  Jacob held on as tightly as he could, but the current was like a python, powerful as it grabbed at his arms and legs. He felt Oscar’s crooked arm start to slip away. He clung to his friend’s thin shirt, then watched helplessly as it stretched, pulling Oscar farther and farther away. Finally, it ripped; Jacob was left holding only a sleeve as the once mighty tarantula was torn in two. “Oscar!” Jacob screamed, spewing out a mouthful of muddy water and grass. Monyroor tried frantically to grab Oscar’s arm, but the smaller boy was tossed about like a twig. Through watery eyes, Jacob saw his friend’s blurry, wide-eyed face slam into a stone. Then it disappeared beneath the frothing brown water.

  Ahead of him, Jacob saw a crocodile sliding down the bank. Downstream, beyond the storm of thrashing arms and legs, he saw the giant, gray bulge of a hippopotamus. He put his head down and swam as hard as he could for the shore, plunging his arms deep into the water and shoving it away behind him. Dragging himself out, he crouched in the reeds and let the rain beat down on him. Gunfire echoed all around; pools of red swirled on top of the gray water. Monyroor and Willy soon joined Jacob on the bank.

  “D-d-d ... d-d-d ... do you see him?” Willy asked, his voice quaking like the rest of his body as he pointed. “Isn’t that him?” They huddled together, shivering and staring at the river, at the hundreds of heads bobbing up and down between the bodies. They could not pick Oscar out among them.

  For the first time in many months, Jacob felt completely hopeless. He collapsed on the ground, feeling as empty as an abandoned snake skin. Then he remembered. Desperately, he shoved his hand into his pocket. Still there! He pulled the stone out, then rubbed it across his eyelids. Hot tears mixed with the raindrops as he called Mama’s hazy face to his mind. I couldn’t save Oscar; it’s my fault. I should have tried harder ... where are you, Mama?

  “It’s all right. It’s not your fault, Little Uncle. You tried your hardest to save Oscar.” Monyroor squeezed Jacob’s knee.

  Jacob stared at the river, then looked at Willy, sobbing beside him. Jacob struggled to hold back his own tears; it felt like he’d swallowed a stone.

  Away from the center, a group of boys had strung a rope across the river, and others used it to cross, moving themselves along, hand over hand. They were easy targets for the shooters, and every so often, a blank spot would appear where a boy had once been suspended. The three boys huddled together, watching the river until darkness fell. One by one, the surviving boys raced away from the river. The Ethiopian attackers finally began to turn back. The whine of bullets stopped; the Sudanese leeches had been banished. Reluctantly, the three boys turned their backs on Ethiopia and faced Sudan once again. Jacob’s eyes continued searching for Oscar in the crowd.

  “All that work for nothing,” Monyroor said angrily. “Three years of our lives we put into building that camp!”

  “What did we do to them?” Jacob asked. “What happened?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all ...” Monyroor drove his fist into the palm of his open hand. “Civil war has spread now from Sudan to Ethiopia. The new Ethiopian government doesn’t like refugees, I guess.”

  “Where will we go now?” Willy sniffled and clung to Jacob’s hand. “Can’t we just go home? Isn’t this our country? What about Oscar?”

  “It’s not safe in Southern Sudan yet, Willy,” Monyroor said. “Just last week, more refugees arrived in Pinyudo from the Bor district. We still have no country of our own, but Adam and the SPLA are fighting to get it back for us.”

  “They don’t seem to be winning, Monyroor,” Jacob said.

  His nephew shrugged.

  Once more, they began trekking through Sudan. This time, the centipede turned toward the south and east.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Oscar?” Willy asked again, walking backwards and lagging behind. “He’ll be looking for us. He’ll be mad if we get too far ahead of him.”

  “He is probably farther back in the line,” Monyroor answered. “He’ll find us. He’ll follow all our footprints in the mud.” To Jacob, he said quietly, “He couldn’t possibly have survived being thrown about in that wild, angry river like that. Especially with his weak arm.”

  Jacob fingered his stone. He was very quiet as they walked through the rain and the darkness, hanging his head and speaking only when necessary. He wondered how they would get by without Oscar’s crazy jokes and monkey laugh to brighten their long days. Maybe another boy grabbed his arm. There was so much water and noise; maybe it was another boy’s head I saw go under. Or maybe the river python didn’t like the taste of him and spit him back out onto the bank. Maybe ... Jacob raised his chin and straightened his shoulders. The one thing he knew for certain was that Oscar would not have given up easily.

  Day 1.

  I wonder how many days and nights we will walk this time. They stepped around many bones sticking out of the muck, bleached white by the sun and picked clean, probably by lions and hyenas.

  “Why would the soldiers kill so many cattle?” Jacob wondered aloud. “Don’t they know they are sacred, the most important thing for our people? What could they be celebrating?”

  “Why would they kill so many of our people?” Willy asked innocently.

  “The militia are like wild animals; lions in the skin of men.” Monyroor spat out the words. “They have no respect for our traditions and customs. They hope that by killing our cattle, the Dinka people will not be able to exist. Then Southern Sudan will belong to the North.” Monyroor looked up as one of the older boys called his name. “Go ahead without me. I’ll be right back; I’m just going to help decide what we will do next.”

  “Where’s Oscar, Duck Boy?” Majok jeered as he strutted past Willy and Jacob. “Did the crocodiles have a monkeymeat dinner? Didn’t you hold on to your little crippled friend, Jacob?”

  Jacob ran to catch up to Majok. He grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “I did my best—do you hear me, Majok? Oscar will be all right—the river would never be strong enough to beat him. Even with his damaged arm, he is ten times the boy you are. You are nothing but an evil snake!” Jacob put both hands on Majok’s chest and shoved him, catching him off balance. The bigger boy stumbled backwards and fell to the muddy ground. Jacob turned to rejoin Willy.

  “Don’t walk away from me, you crybaby! Get back here!” Majok yelled, picking himself up and pushing away his friends’ offers of help.

  Jacob stopped walking and moved away from the line. Willy stood behind him. Jacob dropped his bundle, narrowed his eyes and stared at Majok. As his enemy approached, a vicious cyclone of the past three years’ horrors whirled and churned in Jacob’s mind. Everything spun wildly, making him dizzy as the cyclone searched for a place to touch down.

  A circle of boys quickly formed around the two. Softly, they began chanting, “Fight, fight, fight ...” It grew louder and louder as the two boys came to face each other, toe-to-toe.

  Majok spat between Jacob’s feet, then stood glaring at him with the tip of his gray tongue darting out to lick his lips. “You have no hole to hide in now, Jacob the Hare. And your monkey friend isn’t here to help you, either. It’s just you and me ...” Before Jacob could think of a response, Majok bent low and lunged at him, aiming his head for the smaller boy’s gut.

  Jacob sidestepped the attack, causing Majok to lurch into the circle of watchers. He lost his footing, stumbled, then fell to his knees. Uncle Daniel’s voice came to Jacob. A wrestler must learn not to show his next move in his eyes ...

  Jacob hunched over, hiding his eyes beneath his wet lashes and swinging his long arms in front of him like a monkey, just as Uncle Daniel had shown him. He kept his eyes on Majok’s feet. The bigger boy charged at him again and leapt into the air, aiming a zebra kick at Jacob’s head. Jacob planted his feet firmly, grabbed Majok neatly around both knees, and flipped him onto his back. He landed with a heavy thud. In a second, Jacob was on top of his enemy, grunting, and punching him, over and over again, with his eyes tightly closed. Oscar, Mama, Grandmother
, my sisters, Uncle Daniel, hunger, thirst, war, bombs, guns ... Oscar, Mama, Grandmother, my sisters, Uncle Daniel, hunger, thirst, war, bombs, guns ... and Majok. Always Majok ... hissing ..

  Finally, he became aware that Majok had stopped moving beneath him and was making choked gurgling noises. Jacob opened his eyes to find his bloody hands wrapped tightly around Majok’s throat. Quickly, he pulled them away and stared at them as if they were the hands of a stranger. The other boys stopped cheering and stood, silently watching. Jacob sat down in the muck, cradled his head in his hands and looked through his sticky fingers at his victim. Blood streamed from Majok’s nose, and his lips were already swollen to twice their normal size. He groaned, curled up in a ball, and rolled away from Jacob.

  Jacob got to his feet, wiped his hands on his wet shorts, picked up his sack and looked for Willy and Monyroor in the crowd. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m finished here.”

  The watching boys stood back, clearing a path for Jacob.

  “You showed him, Jacob. He won’t bother you anymore.” Willy bounced up and down excitedly. “You are a big, brave hare today, Jacob. You are more like an elephant!”

  Monyroor put one arm around Jacob’s shoulders. “Do you feel better, Little Uncle? That fight has been a long time coming.”

  Jacob shook his head. He looked down at his raw, scraped knuckles and opened and closed his stiff fingers several times. “I feel sick,” he said flatly, clutching his stomach. “I don’t know why I turned wild like that.”

  “Majok has been asking for it,” Monyroor said. “You should not feel guilty, Little Uncle.”

  “I don’t think I’m the fighting kind of boy, Monyroor.” Jacob fought back tears. “But Majok is—he will come after me again. Now he has a reason to hate me.”

  “But you are like a cat, Jacob—even though Majok is bigger than you, he was the one who ended up on his back.” Willy took Jacob’s hand and pressed his cheek into his arm. “You will be a wrestling champion some day, I am sure.”

  “Maybe, Willy. Maybe.” Jacob shoved one hand into his pocket and rubbed his stone. I’m sorry, Mama ... I think you and Matthew are right; fighting is not the way to get rid of problems—I have just made mine bigger ...

  POCHALLA, SOUTHERN SUDAN, NOVEMBER 1991

  “Why are we stopping here?” Willy asked several days later. “This is not a camp like Pinyudo. It is only a big, open field.”

  “We have been told we will be safe here—for a little while, anyway,” Monyroor answered. “We are being forced to play a game of Seek and Find with the militia. Except they are always the Seekers and we do not ever want to be found—not by them.”

  “But what will we eat? Who will bring us maize and sorghum?” Willy persisted. “Are the aid workers here?”

  “We will look after ourselves for a while,” Monyroor said. “There are leaves and grass around. We will be all right.” He held his face up to the sky and closed his eyes against the pouring rain. “And we will not be thirsty here!”

  “But Pochalla village is right there.” Jacob pointed to the nearby huts. “Won’t the people help us?”

  “They have to look after themselves. There are too many of us,” Monyroor answered. “We will not be here for long. We will soon go to Kenya. We have been told the aid people are building a camp for us there.”

  “Will Oscar know how to find us?” Willy asked. “We walked a long way after the big river.”

  Jacob shrugged. “Oscar can look after himself, Willy. I hope he will find us—someday.”

  Jacob pulled his grain sack up over his head as they settled in for the night. Between the driving rain and the buzzing mosquitoes, it was difficult to get to sleep.

  The rain continued to fall for many weeks, letting up only long enough for swarms of mosquitoes to attack. “I think there are as many mosquitoes as raindrops in Pochalla,” Jacob said. “At least they are happy to have us staying here. We are a feast for them.”

  “I hate both the rain and the mosquitoes,” Willy said. “Why doesn’t the rain drown the mosquitoes? I wish the sun would come out and make them both disappear.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Monyroor said. “It was not so long ago that you were wishing for this rain.”

  “Look!” Willy pointed down. As he leaned forward and pushed his toes down, the reddish-brown muck oozed up between them, creating long, slimy worms. He picked one up and dangled it above his mouth. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “No—I’m not that hungry, not yet.” During the short spells without rain, the boys tried to shape the mud into cattle and people, but the rain soon returned, destroying their creations. Jacob tried to practice his letters, but they were soon washed away.

  One morning, the boys awoke to the sound of an engine droning overhead. Jacob looked up to see a small airplane, circling slowly below the thick gray clouds. All around him, people stood with their hands above their eyes, staring at the plane.

  “Is it the bad men?” Willy asked fearfully, leaning into Jacob’s arm.

  Before Jacob could answer, a door opened in the bottom of the plane. It was flying so low that the boys could see the faces of the men inside. They shoved something large out of the opening, and it hurtled toward the ground. The watchers scattered as it appeared the heavy object would crash into the middle of their field. When it landed, the dull thud was followed immediately by the sound of splintering wood. Within seconds, the air was filled with cries of, “Maize—it’s bags of maize. Stand back now. There will be plenty for everyone,” as the elders tried to control the crowd of hungry people.

  “You go, Willy,” Jacob said. “It will be easier for you because you are the smallest.” He handed the boy their pot.

  Willy soon returned with the bottom of the pot covered with the small golden kernels. He beamed up at Jacob and Monyroor. “We are rich!” he said, picking up a handful of the hard nuggets.

  “One at a time,” Monyroor cautioned. “It could be a very long time before more food arrives. We must guard this pot as if it were real gold.”

  “It is better than leaves and grass—people food tastes much better than cattle food.” Jacob sucked on each kernel slowly, closing his eyes and pretending it was delicious stew.

  Each day, more and more of the huge field became covered with people. Soon there was no bare ground remaining, and the entire area was a sea of muck as the rain continued to fall.

  Gradually, the centipede boys from Pinyudo found each other again. Many had been lost in the Gilo; the eyes of others turned yellow, and they died of malaria brought on by the bloodthirsty mosquitoes of Pochalla. Jacob passed by Majok several times, but they did not bother to speak. There was no sign of Oscar and no one had seen him since the river crossing. When it was finally announced that they had been found by the government militia once again, few boys complained. They were sick of the rain, sick of the mosquitoes, and sick of too many hungry people.

  “How far is it to Kenya?” Willy asked. “Even though my legs are longer now, I don’t think I can walk so far again.”

  Jacob shrugged. “We have no choice. We don’t want the northern soldiers to find us, so we must move on. Maybe the UN will send trucks to carry us.”

  “You are dreaming,” Monyroor said. “They would never have enough trucks for all these people. The only thing we can count on to carry us is these.” He pointed to his mudsplattered feet. “Let’s go.”

  SOUTHERN SUDAN, FEBRUARY 1992

  As they began walking once again, the rain finally stopped. The blazing sun quickly baked the earth, turning it into rough bricks beneath the boys’ tender bare feet.

  “At least we have a road to follow this time,” Jacob said. “We do not have to worry about walking in circles again.” It was more a crooked trail of deep ruts than a real road, but it did give them a path to follow.

  The boys sang as they walked; songs of walking and of harvest, family and home, and, always, of cattle. Jacob recognized one song, about Mabior, a white bull, fro
m his time with Uncle Daniel at the cattle camp.

  My bull is white, like the silver fish in the river;

  White like the shimmering crane bird on the river bank;

  White like fresh milk!

  Gray oxen were compared to elephants; black bulls were compared to the shade of a tree and dark rain clouds. Several of the boys were natural song writers, Dinka poets, and their words brought his homeland closer to Jacob, even as he trudged away from it.

  “Can we go home now?” Willy asked, after several days. “I’d like to see my family—my other family, I mean.”

  “Have patience, Willy,” Jacob said. “All things in time.”

  “How do you get patience? I don’t think I have any.”

  “Maybe your family has arrived in Kenya ahead of us,” Jacob said. “Do they walk any faster than you?”

  “I am walking as fast as I can,” Willy said, jogging a little to keep up. He had to take many small steps to keep up with his long-legged friend. “I am like a hopping raven and you are like a leaping hare.”

  “I am only teasing you.” Jacob took his hand and squeezed it.

  The land changed as they walked. The dry grasslands of Southern Sudan gradually gave way to even drier desert land; the hot sand stung their bare legs and burned their feet. Sometimes entire days passed without sight of a single tree. Jacob thought longingly of the rains of Pochalla.

  “I can hardly stay awake,” Jacob complained. “There’s nothing here to think about.” The days blended together, and it was only by keeping track of the moon cycles that they knew how much time was passing.

  One morning, they awoke to a sky the clear blue of Jacob’s stone; Mama’s dress blue he called it. The sun will be extra hot today, Jacob thought, as he folded his blanket and the grain sack he used for sleeping. We must get an early start. The first part of the day was best for walking—the sand was still cool from the night before. It felt almost as good as soaking their feet in the river had once felt.