He carried it until he was past the horror on the ground before breaking it over a rock. He took a few bites, letting the warm juice drip off his chin. When another wave of people rushed by, he followed, tucking the largest piece of fruit under his arm and stopping just long enough to pick up an empty calabash gourd. The pounding of feet sounded less urgent now. Thankful for that, he panted for breath and tried to keep up.
THREE
FLEEING TERROR
Late in the afternoon, he could see trees ahead, outlined against the gray sky. The people were walking now. Just a little longer. Keep going. We will stop among the trees. No planes had flown over for a while. At last, he fell exhausted among the others in tall bushes and acacia trees. He heard someone say, “Here we will be hidden from the enemy planes.”
Ayuel lay still several minutes. His heart raced as he gasped for breath and tried to push the images of the pumpkin patch with dead bodies from his mind. Rumors of water to drink spread among the crowd. The chunk of pumpkin had sustained him through the day, but now he needed to drink. He pulled himself up and followed the others to a pool of stagnant water. Like everyone, he knew it should be boiled but no one seemed to be thinking about protection of health. At this moment they thought only of saving their lives. Ayuel knelt, scooped the water with his hand and drank; then filled the filched calabash.
Everyone talked at once, asking the same questions: “Have you seen my mother?” “Have you seen Bol?” “Nhial?” “Do you know my brothers?” Ayuel recognized no one, but he pleaded, too. Where were his family and friends? Images of Tor and his little sister flashed across his mind.
He squatted down among strangers. Some didn’t seem to be from Duk or even of the Dinka tribe. Where had they come from? He rubbed his sore and swollen feet. He had carried his sandals, gripped in his hand the whole way. Mutkukalei. The Arabic word meant “died and gone” because the tire rubber was known to outlive the wearer. Ayuel shook his head as he thought about the jokes he and his cousin Chuei often made about the funny name. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw his sandals sitting alone in the desert sand, their owner dead and gone; then he slipped them on.
A few people had picked up food from destroyed villages. Others had escaped with a bundle of supplies. One man had grabbed a pot, full of dried lentils and maize. Ayuel moved closer to him. Groups began to form around the “kings” with food.
Ayuel offered to gather firewood but the owner of the pot said, “We cannot build a fire at this time. The enemy may still be close and would see the smoke rising above the trees. Rest, now.”
He lay back on the ground then quickly sat up, Acacia thorns stuck in his back. A stranger picked them out without saying a word. He moved to a better spot, carefully lay back down on dry grass and looked up through the trees at a hazy sky.
The shade felt cool after the day-long journey. Scavenger birds squawked overhead looking for corpses. I want my mother. And my father. He was going to take me to Bor, to the souk. Did they bomb Aleer’s cattle camp? What about Deng at school? His thoughts swam in images, repeated, merged and faded as he closed his eyes. Confused and terrified over what had happened and not knowing why, he mumbled routine bedtime words: “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” Sleep soon mercifully overcame him.
Ayuel awoke to the sound of low voices and the smell of lentils cooking. For a moment he thought himself at home. He had overslept and his mother was starting the day’s meal. Why hadn’t his half-brothers and sisters awakened him to take the family cows out? He opened his eyes and stared up through sparse branches. The blue sky and heat meant mid-morning. He had slept a very long time.
He sat up and turned toward the giggling of children. They were queuing up with open mouths to get a few squirts of milk from a solitary cow. Ayuel jumped up and ran toward the woman doing the milking. Just as he opened his lips to shout Mama, she turned into an older woman who looked nothing at all like his mother. With a heavy sigh, he rubbed his eyes and got in line behind the other children for his turn at warm milk.
As the day wore on, no one seemed to be in charge, but somehow they all silently agreed to remain in the grove of trees during the day for safety. It was cooler there. Occasionally they heard gunfire and helicopters off in the distance. Other villages were being attacked. Families separated—hurt, burned, killed. People milled about looking for loved ones or slept. Ayuel did the same. Never had he felt so totally alone. No familiar face anywhere. No one to tell him what to do. Everyone else must know at least one other person because they are all talking to each other. He shivered in the heat, not understanding what had happened or why. Too young to think about tomorrow.
After a very long day, a small group of people moved out into a clearing. Ayuel followed. They were listening to a man who stood on a large rock and spoke loudly in the Dinka language. “We must travel to the east—toward Ethiopia.”
Ethiopia? That’s a far-away country. No one can walk there.
The rest of the three or four hundred people came out of the grove of trees and huddled close to the speaker, keeping quiet. The man waited, then repeated they must go to Ethiopia, but he didn’t say why.
“Fill whatever containers you have with water,” the man said. “We will walk at night and sleep by day. Be strong, for the weak will perish and…”
Quiet vanished as people rushed to the pool of water. Ayuel rushed too, but bigger boys pushed him back, and by the time he filled his calabash, the water was muddied. His mother had always warned him not to drink dirty water, but others were. So he did too.
The journey began in the dark of night. As they walked, Ayuel noticed groups forming—age-mates together, women with daughters, a few men and older boys. Where were his age-mates? Age-mates stayed together their whole lives, and now he would have no one to grow up with. He trailed behind a group of nine-year-olds and looked for Aleer. They paid no attention to him, but he imagined them as his group anyhow.
On the third morning, the crowd found refuge next to a trickling stream of water, sheltered by trees. Ayuel drank all he could hold, for it made him feel less hungry. He sat under a tree on the bank of the stream and washed his face, arms and legs with the water remaining in his calabash. He’d been taught to stay clean. At dusk he would refill it for the night’s walk. As he tied the empty gourd around his waist with a vine, a boy from the group of nine-year-olds he had been following came and sat next to him. The boy clutched several strips of dried meat and handed Ayuel a few.
“What animal is it?”
“I don’t know. Somebody gave it to me. It’s food.” The boy grinned at Ayuel.
He took it, ripped a bite off with his teeth and chewed on the stringy, tough meat for a while. “Thanks,” he said.
After taking another bite, he looked up to find the boy had vanished. Slowly he got up to search out a place to sleep for the day. His legs ached and again he felt very alone and abandoned.
He walked along, looking down for a good spot without too many twigs until he became aware of someone coming straight toward him—a boy carrying a bundle of sticks. He glanced up and faced his cousin—same age, but more muscular, always the best soccer player. At last someone he knew. The
