— Yes. Thank you.
— So what is it? How can I help you?
I waited for a moment to make sure he was ready to listen to my words.
— I only want to go to Marial Bai. I don't want to go to Bilpam.
— Marial Bai? You saw Marial Bai from the tree! You remember? Marial Bai is now the home of the Baggara. There's nothing there. No homes, no Dinka. Just dust and horses and blood. You saw this. No one lives there now-Achak, stop. Achak.
He saw something in my face. I was exhausted, and I suppose it was then that I finally felt the crush of it. The possibility, the likelihood even, that what had happened to the dead in Marial Bai, to all the families of these sullen boys, had happened to my own family. I pictured all of them torn, punctured, charred. I saw my father falling from a tree, dead before he landed. I heard my mother screaming, trapped in our burning house.
— Achak. Achak. Stop. Don't look like that. Stop.
Dut held me by the shoulders. His eyes were small, hidden beneath a series of overlapping folds, as if he had learned to let in only the smallest quantities of light.
— This group doesn't cry, Achak. Do you see anyone crying? No one is crying. Your family might be alive. Many survive these attacks. You know this. You survived. These boys have survived. Your mother and father are probably running. We might see them. You know this is a possibility. Everyone is running. Where are we all running? We're running in a thousand directions. Everyone is going to where the sun rises. This is Bilpam. We're going to Bilpam because I was told Bilpam would be a safe place for a bunch of boys. So here we are, you and me and these boys. But there isn't a Marial Bai now. If you find your parents, it won't be in Marial Bai. Do you understand?
I did understand.
— Good. You're a good listener, Achak. You listen and you listen to sense. This is important. When I want to talk sensibly to someone, I will find you. Okay. We need to go now. We have a long walk before nightfall.
Now I walked with confidence. I was in the grip of the belief that in a group like this, I would find my family or be found. I walked near the back of a line of three dozen boys, all of them near my age, a handful old enough to have hair under their arms. I considered it a good idea to be with them, so many boys and with a capable leader in Dut. I felt safe with all of these boys, some of them almost men, because if the Arabs came, we could do something. So many boys surely would do something. And if we had guns! I mentioned this to Dut, that we should have guns.
— It would be good, yes, he said.-I had a gun once.
— Did you shoot it?
— I did, yes. I shot it many times.
— Can we get one?
— I don't know, Achak. They are not easy to come by. We'll see. I think we might find some men with guns who will help us. But for now we're safe in our numbers. Our numbers are our weapon.
I was sure the existence of us, so many boys walking in such a line, would become well-known and my parents would come for me. This seemed logical enough and so I shared the idea with the boy walking ahead of me, a boy named Deng. Deng was very small for his age, with a head far too big for his frail construction, his ribs visible and slender like the bones in the wing of a bird. I told Deng that we would be safer, and would likely find our families if we stayed with Dut. Deng laughed.
— Were the Arabs afraid of the boys in your town? he asked.
— No.
— Did they shoot them?
— Yes.
— So why do you think the Arabs will be afraid of so many of us? Don't be stupid. They don't fear our brothers or fathers. If they find us we'll be taken or killed. We're not safer, Achak, just the opposite. We're never safe. No one is easier to kill than boys like us.
Michael, as I have said, I am sure your story is a sad one. I will not discount that. I do not think the man and woman who left you here are your parents. So where, then, are your mother and father? It cannot be a happy story. But you are clothed, and you are well-fed, and you have your health and teeth and surely your own bed.
But these boys were not so blessed. I did not hear many of their stories, because we all assumed we had come from similar circumstances. It was not interesting to us to hear more of violence and loss. I will tell you only Deng's story, or allow Deng to tell it as he told it to me, as we walked in the early evening through a more tropical land than Marial Bai was at that time of year. We were already very far from home.
Deng's village was not much different from mine. He had been at cattle camp, a few miles away, when the murahaleen had come. The shooting began, older boys fell where they stood and soon the cattle camp was overtaken.
— I ran, Deng said.-I ran back to the town, thinking this would be best, but this is where the horsemen were headed. It was a stupid place to go. I ran toward my house but it was already on fire. The Arabs love to burn houses. Did you see them burning houses?
Deng was always asking me these questions.
— I ran to the school, he continued.-It was just a simple building, cement and with a corrugated roof, but it seemed safer, and I knew it wouldn't burn because our teacher had always taught us that, that the way it was built would prevent it from burning. So I ran to the school and I hid there; I stayed in the school the whole day. I crouched in the locker where they keep the supplies.
It seemed a silly place to hide, given that they were usually looking for children to steal. But I didn't say this to Deng. I only asked if the Arabs came looking for people in the school.
— Yes they did! Of course they did. But I was hiding in the cabinet, a metal cabinet. I was in the lower shelf, and I put a sisal bag around me. I was under the bottom shelf covered in the sisal bag, and they didn't see me, though a man did open the locker. I stayed there for two days, as they burned the town.
I asked Deng how he could stay in such a small space for so long.
— Oh I'm ashamed to say that I wet my pants that time. I shat at that moment and I still can't understand why he didn't smell me! I'm still ashamed that I shat in those pants. And I walked in those pants for many days, Achak. Those same pants. I stayed in the locker for two days. I didn't once come out. I saw the day come and the night come through the keyhole in the locker. Twice I saw the day come and go. There were sounds of horses and the Arabs for all that time. Men were sleeping in the school and I could hear them.
— They didn't open the locker again?
— They did! They opened it many times, Achak. But this is where my waste was not my enemy, but my friend! Every time they opened the door they gagged, smelling the waste I'd made! It made me so happy. I was punishing the Arab bastards with my waste and it made me proud. Ten times they opened that locker and every time they gagged and they slammed the locker door closed again and I was safe. They kicked the door every time. Those stupid bastards. They thought an animal had died in there.
I was amazed by the cursing that Deng knew how to do.
— Eventually the Arabs left the school. I didn't hear them anymore so I opened the door slowly. I was so sore from sitting like that and from having no water or food.
When I got out there was no one in the school but there were men outside. Most had left, but some had stayed. Some men on camels and some soldiers. I don't know why they were there, but they were living in our houses, those they had not burned. Two were living in my grandmother's house. It made me very sick to see them coming out of her house as if it were theirs. I hid in the school until night and then I left. It wasn't hard. I was only one boy and the night was very dark. So I left my town and ran and ran and then I was far enough away that I felt safe. I ran until the morning and found a village where two Dinka men took me in and fed me. They were scared when they first heard me. I came out of the grass and one of them raised a gun to me. He had a small gun, one that fit in his hand. Like this. Deng pointed his small bony finger at me.