We did not know.
— While they're away stealing our animals, who's looking after theirs? Aha. This is one reason they steal our women and boys. We watch their herds so they can continue to raid our villages. Can you imagine? It's an ugly thing. The Baggara aren't bad people by their nature, though. Most of them are like us, cattle people. Baggara is just the word in Arabic for cowherd, and we use it to talk about other herding peoples-the Rezeigat of Darfur, the Misseriya of Kordofan. They're all Muslims, Sunnis. You've known Muslims, yes?
I thought of Sadiq Aziz. I had not thought of Sadiq since I had seen him last.
— The mosque in our village was burned, I said.
— The militias were mostly young men who are used to accompanying the cattle as they move and graze. In their language, murahaleen means traveler — and this is what they were, men on horseback who knew the land and were used to carrying guns to protect themselves and their cattle against animal attacks. It wasn't until the war began that these murahaleen became more of a militia, more heavily armed and no longer watching cattle, but raiding.
— But why couldn't we get the guns, too? Deng asked.
— From who? The Arabs? From Khartoum? Deng bowed his head.
— We do have some guns now, Deng, yes. But it wasn't easy. And it took quite a long time. We have the guns that the 104th and 105th left Sudan with, and we have what the Ethiopians have given us.
Dut stoked the fire and put some nuts in his mouth.
— But the men in Marial Bai had uniforms, too, Deng asked.-Who were they?
— Government army. Khartoum is getting lazy. They now send the army with the murahaleen. They don't care. Everyone goes now. Anyone. The strategy is to send all they can to destroy the Dinka. Have you heard the expression, Drain a pond to catch a fish? They are draining the pond in which the rebels might be born or supported. They are ruining Dinkaland so that no rebels can ever again rise from this region. And when the murahaleen raid, they displace the people, and when the people are gone, when Dinka like us are gone, they move into the land we've vacated. They win on many levels. They have our cattle. They have our land. They have our people to mind the cattle they have stolen from us. And our world is upended. We wander the country, we're away from our livelihoods, our farms and homes and hospitals. Khartoum wants to ruin Dinkaland, to make it uninhabitable. Then we'll need them to restore order, we'll need them for everything.
— So that is the What, I said.
Dut looked long at me, and then stoked the fire again.
— Perhaps, Achak. Maybe it is. I don't know. I don't know what the What is. We were nodding off, precisely where we sat.
— Put you to sleep, I see, Dut said.-As a teacher, I'm accustomed to this.
When we woke, our group had grown. There had been just over thirty boys the night before, and now there were forty-four. By the time we had walked through the day and settled again that night, there were sixty-one. The next week brought more boys, until the group was almost two hundred. Boys came from towns we passed and they came from the brush at night, out of breath from running. They came as groups merging with our group and they came alone. And each time our ranks grew, Dut would unfold his piece of river-green paper, write the new boys' names on it, and fold it again and slide it into his pocket. He knew the names of every boy.
I became accustomed to the walking, to the aches in my legs and in the joints of my knees, to the pains in my abdomen and kidneys, to picking thorns out of my feet. In those early days it was not so difficult to find food. Each day we would pass through a village, and they would be able to provide us with enough nuts and seeds and grain to sustain us. But this became more trying as our group grew. And it grew, Michael! We absorbed boys, and occasionally girls, every day we walked. In many cases, while we were eating in a given village, there began negotiations between Dut and the elders of the town, and by the time we had eaten and were on our way, the boys of that village were part of our group. Some of these boys and girls still had parents, and in many cases it was the parents themselves who were sending their children with us. We were not, at the time, fully aware of why this would be, why parents would willingly send their children on a barefoot journey into the unknown, but these things happened, and it is a fact that those who were volunteered by their families for the journey were usually better equipped than those of us who joined the march for lack of other options. These boys and girls were sent with extra clothing, and bags of provisions, and, in some cases, shoes and even socks. But soon enough these inequities were no more. It took only a few days before any member was as bereft as the rest of us. After they had traded their clothes for food, for a mosquito net, for whatever luxuries they could afford, they were sorry. Sorry that they did not know where we were walking, sorry that they had joined this procession in the first place. None of us had ever walked so long in one day but we continued to walk, every day walking farther, none of us knowing that we would never return.
CHAPTER 11
There are keys in the door. Michael, I am afraid you are in trouble now, because Achor Achor is home and there will be a reckoning for all this. If only I could see this scene through his eyes! He will handle you and your cohorts without much mercy.
The lock is relieved and the door opens. I see the hulking figure of Tonya.
'Look who's awake!' she says, staring down at me. 'Michael!' she barks. She has changed her clothes, into a black satin suit. Michael bursts from my room. He begins to apologize but she stops him short. 'Get your ass ready,' she snaps, 'we got the mini-van.' Michael goes to the bathroom and returns with his sneakers, which he begins to tie. I cannot fathom why he left his shoes in the bathroom in the first place.
Now there is another man, not Powder, in my kitchen. He is smaller than Powder, with long loose fingers, and he is sizing up the television set, staring at it as if guessing its weight. He unplugs the cable and sets the cable box on the counter. Gathering the electrical cord in one long-fingered hand, he squats before the TV and tilts it against his chest. He is out the door in seconds.
Tonya walks past me, smelling strongly of a strawberry perfume, and goes to my bedroom again. She is looking through my drawers once more, as if she lives here and has forgotten something. My stomach tightens again as I imagine her, too, finding my pictures of Tabitha. The thought of her handling those photographs makes me instantly nauseous.
Michael is near the door, with his shoes on and his Fanta in his hand. He will not look at me. I spend a long moment with my mouth open, ready to say something, but finally decide against it. I could ask to be untied, but that would only remind them that leaving a witness might be more dangerous than disposing of one.
Tonya appears again and in seconds is with the new man at the door. She scans the room one more time, without looking at me. She pushes Michael out the door; he does not look back to me. Now satisfied, Tonya closes the door. They are gone.
The finality and suddenness of their departure is startling. This time, they were in my apartment no more than two minutes, though her scent lingers.