Tears flowed. Sobs followed as all the anguish burst out. His cousin wore only a man’s cotton shirt with buttons missing, and Ayuel was still in the T-shirt he’d slept in back when life was normal. They sat on the dry grass, hugging, each comforting the other. Somehow it seemed strange to Ayuel that Madau was out here, just a little boy, wandering about all alone. He felt that he, himself, had already become a man, living on his own these few days. Yet seeing his cousin made him aware that he, too, was but a small child.
“Where’s your—your group?” the cousin asked when finally they sat apart, their sobs reduced to sniffles.
“Don’t have one,” Ayuel said simply. This was the first time he had cried since the bombing, and it left him exhausted. “I saw some boys I knew in a pumpkin field, but they ran away before I could talk to them.” He wiped his face on the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“I’m with several of our age-mates. You know them. Your cousin Chuei…”
“I’d love to see Chuei. He’s always saying something funny.” Ayuel watched the smile fade from Madau’s face.
“Not now. Chuei has trouble keeping up—and he cries a lot.”
“What about Tor?” He remembered the last time he’d seen him—wounded—and hadn’t stopped. Maybe he’d just imagined it.
“Someone said he died.”
“Oh.” Ayuel rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Who else?”
“Your half-brother, ‘Funny Ears,’ and Malual Kuer. They just caught some little fish with a bucket and I went to get some firewood to cook them.” The dropped sticks lay scattered around them. “You know how to make fire by rubbing sticks?”
“Sure. Done it lots of times.”
“Come on.”
The boys gathered up the firewood and Ayuel followed Madau through the crowds, eager to see his friends.
At last, Ayuel felt less lonely. He now belonged to a group of five seven-year-olds—his age-mates—who stuck together as part of a larger group of older boys, a few girls and two women. They looked for food, ate, hid, slept and walked together. Malual Kuer’s father, who had been the pastor of the Christian church in Duk, had written songs based on Bible teachings. Sometimes they sang these as they went along.
Malual was his best friend. They’d never lacked for anything to talk about. Now, even more, as they walked side by side, they chatted constantly, which made the time go by. Before, he’d not played much with his half-brother, Gutthier. Their mothers resented each other since they were both married to his father. But now, their mothers were no more, so the boys became friends. Like the others, he teasingly called Gutthier “Funny Ears,” because his ears stuck out. Gutthier was tall like most Dinkas and considered the most handsome among the age-mates in spite of his ears.
Every day, a few more joined their group while others left, all Dinkas from the region of Duk. Some, like his age-mates, he knew very well. They had played together in the village. Others had common acquaintances or knew about Ayuel’s father, the chief and judge of Duk.
Each had a story to tell of the escape from his torched home—about those who died and the wounded left behind. Some said they’d found dead people whom they knew, laying on the ground. Thus, they believed all the people in that area must have been killed. A large group of boys had been found shot in one cattle camp, but Ayuel didn’t know which camp his brother Aleer had gone to. Ayuel had seen a few dead bodies, but no one he knew. He thought about what his family would look like dead and squeezed his eyes tight to shut out the images.
Most of the talk centered on who had survived and who had not. Like all Dinka children, Ayuel had been taught the names of his relatives, living and dead, and how they were related to each other—even those he’d never met. It all made sense now, all those names that had seemed so tiresome when he’d recited them for his father. Now he said them to ask if anyone had seen or heard of them. He learned about several aunts, uncles and cousins who had been found dead. Someone had seen one of his father’s half-brothers alive. Groups from his village began to travel near each other. Sometimes they mingled to ask about loved ones.
Three weeks passed. The hundreds became thousands walking across Sudan—a sea of people in columns moving east. No one seemed to know what happened to the man who had said to go to Ethiopia, but they still followed his orders to walk at night and sleep by day. Some boys carried bundles on their heads, unashamed to do as the women did. Food and water became scarce. There were always children crying, if not nearby, then in the distance.
At first when they passed through bombed villages, they’d found the dead, lying out on the ground. Now, as they crossed the desert, bodies lay under an arrangement of dried weeds and small branches—apparently an attempt at burial. And these corpses were the people who had gone ahead of them. Walking just like them. The awful stench of death was everywhere.
Arguments broke out continually, followed by shouting and fist fights. Mostly the Dinkas fought with the Nuers, who had always been enemies. Equatorians clashed with both of the other clans. Those who didn’t fight whined and complained. For Ayuel, weary from hunger, thirst and fatigue, a sense of hopelessness set in.
Many of the grown-ups began to say, “I can’t do it. I would rather die here.” Those words scared Ayuel for he knew that meant they were giving up. In Dinka culture, you must stay strong. You must take care of your body so you will have strength. But how can you take care of yourself with nothing? And with no one to tell you what to do?
One evening, as they prepared for the night’s walk, Ayuel and his age-mates watched in disbelief as the women formed new groups and started walking back the way they had come, toward the setting sun, not toward Ethiopia. Back to the burned villages? There had never been many men along, but most of those remaining left with the women. Ayuel had heard stories that the men were first to be shot in the attacks. They may have killed my father at his office in town, he thought. He tried not to think about how that would happen.
As they stood watching the adults leave, Malual Kuer turned to Ayuel and recited a common proverb they all knew: “To quit is a shame on future generations.” Others around them nodded agreement or repeated it in low voices.
Ayuel remembered what the religious leaders had said in teaching from the Holy Bible: “God punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Surely it is wrong for the grown-ups to leave us children to find our own way. We will be punished for their wrong, he thought, but said nothing.
Most of the girls, in keeping with tradition, chose to go with their mothers or with women they knew. A few of the boys hung onto their sisters or mothers and quietly pleaded with them not to give up. Not to leave them to walk alone.
The abandoned children stood in silence as the setting sun dropped out of sight, leaving streaks of red across the western sky. The outlines of their grown-ups diminished and disappeared into the dusk. With the rest of the boys Ayuel turned and walked into the gathering darkness.
The
