It is criminal that all of this has happened, has been allowed to happen.
In a furious burst, I kick and kick again, flailing my body like a fish run aground. Hear me, Christian neighbors! Hear your brother just above!
Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me.
CHAPTER 12
One afternoon in the first hopeful weeks of walking, we reached a village called Gok Arol Kachuol. On the outskirts, the women gathered along the path to watch our group, now over two hundred and fifty boys.
— Look how sick they are, the women said as they watched us pass.
— Their heads are so big! Like eggs sitting on top of twigs! The women laughed theatrically, covering their mouths.
— I have it, said another, an older woman, as old and twisted as an acacia.-They're like spoons. They look like spoons walking!
And the women tittered and continued to point at us as we passed, picking out boys who looked particularly peculiar or hopeless.
As soon as the first of our group entered the village, we knew we were not welcome.-No rebels here, the chief said, walking quickly out to the path.-No, no, no! Walk on. Keep going. Go!
The chief, with a pipe in his mouth, was blocking access to the village with his arms, waving his hands as if the wind he generated would blow us to some other place.
Dut stepped forward and spoke with a firmness I had not heard before.
— We need to rest and we'll rest here. Otherwise you will hear from the rebels.
— But we have nothing to give you, the chief insisted.-We were raided by the rebels just two days ago. You can sit here and rest, but we can't feed you.
His eyes swept over the line of us, still pouring into the town from the path, boys upon boys appearing from the forest and filling the village. He switched his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other.
— No one could feed so many, the chief said.
Dut was unfazed.-I want you to know the implications of what you're saying. The chief paused and produced a loud, resigned snort. A second snort was more conciliatory. Dut turned to us.
— Sit here. Don't move until I get back.
Dut followed the chief into his compound. We rested on the grass, hungry and thirsty and angry at this village. The meeting of Dut and the chief lasted far longer than it should have, and the sun rose high over us, examining and punishing us. None of us had shade, and we were afraid to leave. But soon we could not sit still. Some of the boys moved a few hundred yards to sit under a tree. Other boys, older boys, took it upon themselves to retrieve some food on their own. We watched as they crawled into a nearby home and found a calabash of nuts, with which they fled.
The scene that followed was chaos. First the screaming of women. Then a dozen men giving chase. When they could not catch the three thieves, they came after the rest of us, spears in hand. We ran, all two hundred and fifty of us, in every direction, finally settling on a path out of the village, the same way we had entered. We ran for an hour, as the men chased us and caught some of the slower boys and punished them as we retraced most of the path that we had spent all day walking. This is why our walk took longer than it might have: it was not a straight route, it was anything but.
When we stopped running, Kur gathered and counted us. There were six missing.-Where is Dut? he asked.
We had no idea. Kur was the oldest boy there, so everyone looked to him for answers. He didn't know where Dut was and this was troubling.
— We'll stay here until Dut comes back, he said.
Five boys were injured. One had been stuck in the shoulder with a spear. This boy was carried by Kur to a place under a tree, where he was given water. Kur did not know how to help the boy. The only place where he could be helped was the village that had done this to him. We had nothing and no one with us to help anyone with any injury whatsoever.
Three boys were sent with the most injured boy back to the village for treatment. I am not sure what happened to these boys, for we never saw them again. I like to believe that they were taken in by the villagers who felt regretful for what they had done to us.
These were bad days. Dut did not rejoin us for a full day, leaving Kur in charge. This was not in itself a disadvantage; Kur's sense of direction seemed more assured than Dut's, his uncertainty about the journey less overt than Dut's. But Dut was our leader, even though he often brought bad luck with him. Shortly after he returned, a lion leapt across our path in the dark and took two boys, devouring them in the high grass. We did not pause for long to listen.
When we passed other travelers, they warned us of murahaleen in the area. Always we were ready to run; every boy had a plan if the militias came. Every new landscape we encountered we first had to examine for places to hide, paths to follow. We knew that these rumors of their nearness were correct because Deng was wearing one of their headdresses.
We had been walking one day, our limbs leaden but our eyes alert, when he saw it in a tree. A piece of white material, stuck in the branches, flapping in the wind. I lifted Deng up enough so that he could retrieve it, and Kur confirmed that it had been worn by a Baggara; we could not guess at how it had ended up in a tree.
— Can I wear it? Deng asked Kur.
— You want to wear it like an Arab wears it?
— No. I'll wear it differently.
And he did. He arranged it loosely atop his head, looking absurd but claiming that it kept him cool. The effort he had to expend to keep it out of his eyes and from falling to the ground surely negated any immediate benefits, but I said nothing. I knew a piece of sturdy cloth like that might come in handy at some point.
But it was soon over and I was home. I was home and was helping my mother with the fire. My brothers were playing just beyond the compound, and my father was sitting on his chair, outside, with a cup of wine resting at his feet. Far off in the village, I could hear singing-the choir practicing that same hymn they sang four hundred times a day. Chickens chirped and roosters wailed, dogs howled and tried to eat through baskets to get at the humans' food. A round bright moon hung over Marial Bai, and I knew the young men of the village would be out, making trouble. Nights like this were long nights, when the activity all around would make sleeping difficult, so I rarely made any effort to sleep. I lay awake, listening, imagining what everyone was doing, what each sound meant. I guessed at voices, at the distance between myself and each sound. For my mother's benefit I kept my eyes closed most of the night, but at least a few times on these nights, I had opened my eyes to find my mother's open, too. On these occasions, we had shared a sleepy smile. And it was this way tonight, when I found myself again warm in my mother's home, close to her yellow dress, the heat of her body. It was good to be home, and when I had told my family of my adventures, they were greatly intrigued and impressed.
— Look at him, a voice said.-Dreaming of his mother, the voice said. It sounded like Deng. I had told him about my family; I had told him so much.
I opened my eyes. Deng was there but we were not inside my mother's home. In an instant everything warm inside me went cold. I was outside, sleeping in the circle of the boys, and the air was sharper than at any other night of our walking.