by Leah Bassoff
“I see,” he says.
Does he see? Does he believe me? I see the pink of his ears, see how he swats at flies like a foreigner, but there is no sign of concern on his face. My story is every story he has already heard. We all of us walked. We all of us saw people die. Why should he help me? Help one person, and a hundred more appear with their hands outstretched.
In telling him my story, I am pulling out bits of myself, handing them over like offerings. Yet he only needs the bad parts of my life. He does not want to hear about the mangoes, the laughter. He does not want to hear that my childhood was a happy one, that everyone in my village had eyes on me, that there was no such thing as a closed door.
But I am willing to leave it all behind for a country I know nothing about.
As if reading my thoughts, the interviewer asks, “Why do you want to go to America?”
“It’s a place where I can get better schooling.” Should I show him the knot of skin on my finger? Tell him how hard I have studied?
“In school, I am always first in my class. But I have run out of books to read here. I have dreams, you see, of going to America. Then one day I might be able to return and bring peace to Sudan.”
“Thank you,” the interviewer says. “You will hear back from us in a few months’ time.”
That’s it? It is over? “There is more that I can tell you if you need — ”
“No. I have everything.” He nods at me and gets up. I practice the handshake Sister Hannah has taught me. The man’s hand is smooth on the inside, soft and unwrinkled, so different from the red, gnarled hands of Sister Hannah. I watch him gather his recording machine and notes, then leave the room with his black leather bag slung over his shoulder. A bag containing countless stories, each story representing a life just like my own.
My fate rests in that black bag of his.
———
WEEKS PASS. Surely I know better than to get my hopes up. Though I was able to reach Sister’s on my own, I cannot go to America without help. I cannot walk and swim that far. There is nothing to do but wait.
I have been waiting for half of my life, but this new wait is unbearable.
———
IT IS, IN FACT, Nyanath who knocks on my door weeks later to tell me that the commission has contacted Sister. She does not leave me in suspense for very long.
“Will you still remember me when you go to America?”
“Are you making a joke or have I really been selected?”
“Poni, you know I have no sense of humor. Do you know where Colorado is?”
“No,” I say, still in shock.
“Sister says it is near mountains. They are just like the Didinga Hills, so you’ll feel at home there.”
“The Rocky Mountains? But my primary teacher showed me these on a map many years ago,” I say excitedly.
“You see. It was a prophecy,” Nyanath replies.
———
WHEN SISTER SEES ME, she immediately motions me in.
“Ah, Poni. You have heard the news from Nyanath? You must be so pleased. What’s more, we have already secured a place for you at the university, and they will even give you student housing.”
The thought of getting to attend an American university fills me with absolute awe. I have no idea what to expect. I wonder whether Americans do have a toilet in every single room of their house.
“Wait until you see the library at the university, Poni. You’ve never seen so many books.”
I know I should feel nothing but happiness, but for some reason it still seems as though there is a weight on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe.
“What about the other girls?”
“Most are still waiting to hear. But don’t worry. Your going to America will give the other girls hope.” I nod, but inside, I feel so heavy.
How can I tell her that being someone else’s hope feels like too great a burden to bear?
“Remember when you first showed up here? You told me how hard you would work, and you did, Poni. You made everything happen for yourself.”
I want to tell Sister everything, want the stones removed from my chest.
“God sees everything. Right, Sister?”
“He does.”
“I told lies to get here...” I cannot finish. But Sister does not need for me to.
“God sees, but he understands. I believe he understands everything, even the not-so-pretty things people do to survive. Most important, he forgives.”
“I’m scared, Sister,” I tell her. It is the first time I have ever uttered these words. “My mother is dead, but she is still here in Africa somewhere. How can I leave her behind?”
Sister pauses. “There is this American children’s movie. I saw it in Germany when I was young. It’s called Bambi. Do you know it?”
I shake my head.
“It’s the story of a deer, a deer like the ones we have here in Africa. One day hunters come, so the deer and his mother have to run away. Do you know what the mother deer says to Bambi as they are running for their lives?”
I shake my head.
“She says, ‘Don’t look back. Keep running.’ Yes, you see, the mother wants him to keep moving to safety away from the hunters.”
“And does he make it?”
“He does.” Then she adds, “But his mother doesn’t.”
“The mother dies?” I’m surprised to hear that children’s movies are so sad in America.
“She does. I remember crying at this part.”
“But what does this mean?”
“You must look forward, not backward. You see?”
I nod. “I think so.”
“Good. Go now, Poni,” she says with a smile.
I get up to leave, but then I turn back. I forgot to tell Sister how much I will miss her, how much I owe her. But when I start to open my mouth, I see that she is already bent over her notebook, working. I quietly walk away.
———
THAT EVENING, as I am walking to my room, I hear someone sobbing. I look, and there is Grace Choi huddled in the hallway, curled against the wall.
“Grace? What has happened?”
“I did not pass my interview,” she says, her back still to me.
I kneel down next to her. “But why?” Grace Choi has five children whom she cares for all by herself. If anyone deserves to go to America, it is Grace and her children.
“Even though my husband disappeared, I cannot prove he is dead. I don’t qualify as an unattached minor or something like this.”
I put my arms around Grace, feel her body vibrating with tears and disappointment. It is the first time any of the girls here has allowed me to touch her.
After a few moments, she collects herself and looks at me. “And you, Poni? Have you heard back from the commission?”
I stare for a long moment and then simply shake my head.
One last lie. I think about Sister’s words, about how God forgives.
———
THAT NIGHT, I HAVE a dream. I am trying to flee my village and have arrived, once again, at the river. As I try to swim to safety, human arms emerge from the river. These hands pull at me from all sides, try to claim me, drag me under.
Suddenly, I take out the long black whip made of rhinoceros skin that the elders used during my brother’s initiation rite. I start to whip at these arms. The cracking is too loud, and I want to cover my ears but I cannot. Thrash, thrash. I see the arms shrivel away under the impact of the blows I give them. Thrash, thrash. Yet some of these arms grow back, regenerate as quickly as I can destroy them.
I do not stop. I keep whipping, whipping, until finally I have reached the other side. I run and run until I trip on a tree root and fall to the ground. The sensation of landing with a jolt is what wakes me up.
I si
t upright, disoriented.
Where am I? I am in my bed, but what woke me? Does Sister need me? Is she having trouble with her breathing? But as I listen, all is quiet. I hear the sound of Sister’s soft snoring across the hall, the dogs barking outside. When I look up, I see the familiar cross above my bed.
All is calm.
———
BACK IN KAKUMA, I felt time had ground to a halt. Now it feels like events are happening too quickly.
Sister Hannah receives a computer from her sister in Germany, and all at once, we can access the Internet. I can hardly believe it when I learn that there is actually a Southern Sudanese chat site. Naturally, all the girls line up to use this site. Many of the girls are hoping to locate lost relatives or hear news of their villages back home. Sister Hannah shows me how to create a password and log myself on.
It turns out that there are hundreds of Southern Sudanese people who post messages on this site — messages in which they try to find one another or to talk about Sudanese politics.
Suddenly, it is as though hundreds of voices, unheard for so long, are all trying to tell their stories at once. A desperate chorus.
On a sudden impulse, I add my own post. I am Zenitra Lujana Paul Poni, about to relocate to Colorado, where I will begin studies at the university. Then I add, I am alive.
— 26 —
THREE DAYS MORE until I fly to America. Sister Hannah has helped me register online for classes at the university. These classes have strange names: The Politics of War and Peace, Women’s Gender Empowerment, Rap Music as Social Commentary.
Will I be able to understand the classes themselves, much less their names?
At night, before I go to sleep, I check the Sudanese chat site once more.
Once I start, it is hard to stop reading all of the messages people have posted, all of the back-and-forth debates:
We must forgive the SPLA soldiers. During times of war, bad things happen, and there is no sense blaming those who are fighting for our cause.
Signed, Parek Bul.
Would you forget those who abused your aunt and burnt your hut? No. These men who do bad things go against their own people. I am not willing to forgive.
Signed, Lam Kuol.
Southern Sudan will one day stand as an independent country. We will wait for this new country.
Signed, Eliakim Akol.
I am still in the camp. We have only one blanket which we have torn into two pieces to share. It is not enough. Do not forget us here.
Signed, Margaret Hasaan.
I make myself read through the death announcements, like doing penance. This one killed in town violence, this one dead from malaria, this one killed by a bullet wound, this one’s whereabouts unknown. I look for names of my family members and am both frustrated and relieved when I do not find any. I look at the list of refugees who have been resettled in the United States, in places like South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota — states that, until recently, I had never heard of.
Then, suddenly, I read a message that nearly stops my heart.
Poni? It is me, your cousin Keiji.
It is as though a hand from the past has reached out to grab me. Keiji? Could this really be my cousin Keiji with her fluttery butterfly laugh? Keiji who braided my hair and giggled as she handed me the love letter from Lokure so many years ago? I can picture her, her smile. I want to scream out with joy.
But then I read the rest of the message.
Poni, if this is really you, I need to tell you that I am here with your mother. You must phone me right away.
Suddenly the room begins to spin around me. I grab the wall, feeling as though my legs might give way. I am afraid I might become ill.
Mama?
I run to Sister Hannah’s office. I can barely enter Keiji’s phone number with my fingers shaking so badly. It feels as though I have entered a dream, one in which my fingers and feet are no longer my own.
The phone rings, and then a female voice answers. Time stops.
“Keiji?” Is it really her? It doesn’t sound like her.
“Who is this?” The voice is suspicious.
“Me, Poni.”
Another long pause. Then, finally, “So it is true. You are truly alive. Yes, this is your cousin Keiji.”
“Where are you? Where is Mama?” It is as though I cannot ask her the questions quickly enough, as though I can barely breathe.
“Cairo, Egypt. It has been a long journey to get here, but please know that I am here living with your mother, Mama Nahoyen, and several others.” Keiji’s voice has gotten flat over the years. I remember Mama calling Keiji foolish so long ago. Gone is Keiji’s laugh now, replaced by something dull. Things happened to so many girls.
“All these years I thought Mama was dead. Let me speak with her.” My heart is pumping so hard, I can feel it in my ears.
There is a long pause. “Well, I didn’t want to tell you by e-mail. Your mama is alive, but she is very ill.”
“Ill? In what way? I have to speak with her.” My voice is now pleading, that of a child.
“She is very weak, has stopped eating. She goes in and out of sleep a great deal.”
“Have you taken her to a doctor?”
“We took her. They said she has a bad infection of the blood and sent us home with medicine. The doctor wanted her to stay in the hospital, but she refused. She doesn’t trust this doctor, and neither do I.”
“Is Mama dying?” Keiji would know. After seeing so many people die around us, we have all of us gotten good at identifying those ready to depart this world.
Keiji does not answer my question directly. Instead she speaks in that dispirited voice of hers, “When can you come to Egypt? If you come soon you might be able to see her before God takes her.” Though I cannot see Keiji’s face, I know that the cousin I once knew is gone.
“Come to Egypt? Right now?” My mind is whirring. How can I do this? Yet if what Keiji is saying is true, this may be my only chance to see Mama alive. There is so much I want to ask her, so much I want to tell her. Mostly, I just want to touch her. “Keiji, I’m leaving for America in a few days’ time. I am going to start taking classes at the university there.”
“So for a university, you would turn your back on your mother?” Her words are scorpion bites.
“Keiji, please, put Mama on the phone. Even if she cannot speak to me, she can listen. I need her to hear my voice.”
“Poni, she might not know you anymore, might think you a ghost.”
“Please, please bring the phone to her ear. I’m begging you.”
“Okay. I am bringing the phone to her,” Keiji says after a long pause.
“Mama?” There is no response. I try to listen for her breathing, but the connection is not that good. “Mama, it is me, Poni.” I picture Mama, remember the time when she sat by my bedside while I recovered from malaria, remember her praying over me. “Mama?”
Still no answer. Not knowing what to do, I suddenly begin chanting the names of all of my ancestors. I chant and chant, but then I stop because all at once I hear Mama’s voice.
It is quiet, but it is unmistakably hers. “Chi Chi?”
Upon hearing my nickname, I cannot contain the tears. For so long in Kakuma, I was too dry to produce any water, but now I am crying so hard that I am drowning. Tears are running into my ears and down my face.
Still I try to speak, to tell her everything. “I ran so fast that night, Mama, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t see you again, that so much time would pass. Did you tell me to run, Mama? Did you tell me to run and not look back?”
Mama does not reply, but simply begins to sing:
Quiet, baby. Don’t cry, baby.
Mama will come bring you milk fresh from the cow.
It is the song she used to sing to me when I was a child. The song is every
thing at once. The mango trees, the Kinyeti River covering every part of me, my ears, my nose, my eyes. This song threatens to pull me under.
Is this God’s final test of me?
What should I do? I could go to Egypt. Yet if I do this I will sacrifice everything: my chance to go to America, my placement at the university. How long will it be before I am given another chance? A semester? A year? What if I never get this chance again?
“I have an opportunity to go to America, to continue my studies, but now that I know you are alive, I can’t leave you behind. Tell me what to do, Mama. I am begging you. If you tell me not to go, I won’t.”
I wait to hear my mother’s voice, but she is silent again.
I remember Mama lifting her dress above her knees, making me run my fingers across the scars. Those scars felt like small roads.
Maybe all this time she was preparing me for this moment when I would have to take a different path from hers, when I would have to leave her behind for good.
Suddenly, I know what I must do. It feels as though someone is squeezing my heart.
“I love you, Mama,” I say softly.
When Keiji takes the phone back again, she says, “You will come see your mother?”
“No. I can’t come, Keiji. The university ... it’s the only chance I have.”
“I see. Well, perhaps you can send money for the funeral, then.”
Keiji’s words have their desired effect. They rob me of my breath.
“Keiji, please take care of my mother. Put any anger you have towards me aside, and don’t let her die alone.”
“She is my auntie, and I’ll care for her like I would my own mother. Unlike other people, I have not forgotten who I am.” And then suddenly the phone call has ended.
I stare at the phone, the same phone through which, moments ago, Mama sang to me.
I think back to that time so long ago, the time when Nadai died giving birth. Her mother threw all the grains and broke all the dishes. I remember the shard that I found, then stuck in my pocket. How good it felt to run this sharpness along my skin.