Dave Eggers - What Is The What

— Red boy! a soldier yelled.

I turned. I looked down at my own shirt; I was wearing red.

— Come here if you want something good.

I ran toward the soldier, a short man with a broad face and deep Nuer scars across his forehead. He held out a small package of yellow candies. I stared but didn't move.

— Take a few, boy. I'm offering them to you.

I took one and put it quickly into my mouth. Immediately I regretted being so impulsive. I should have saved it in my pocket, saved it for a special occasion. But it was too late. It was in my mouth and it was delicious-like lemon, but not sour like a lemon. More like a lemon-shaped lump of sugar.

— Thank you, uncle, I said.

— Take another, boy, the soldier said.-You have to know when to take what's offered to you. Only a rich boy could be so careful. Is that true, boy? Are you wealthy enough to be choosy?

I was not sure if it was true. I knew my father was prosperous, was an important man, but I couldn't agree that this had made me choosy. I was still trying to think of an answer when the soldier turned and walked away.

The war started, for all intents and purposes, a few weeks later. In fact, the war had already begun in some parts of the country. There were rumors of Arabs being killed by rebels. There were towns that had been cleared of Arabs, mass slaughters of Arab traders, their shops burned. Rebel groups, mostly Dinka, had formed all over the south, and they had sent a clear message to Khartoum that they would not stand for the enforcement of sharia law in Dinkaland. The rebels were yet to organize under the banner of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and their presence was sporadic throughout the south. The war had yet to come to Marial Bai, but it did soon enough. Our village would be one of the hardest hit, first by the rebel presence and later by the militias empowered by the government to punish the rebels-and those who supported them, actively or otherwise.

I sat in my father's shop, playing on the ground with a hammer, pretending it was the head and neck of a giraffe. I moved it with the giraffe's slow grace, having the neck bend down for water, reach upward to eat from the high boughs of a tree.

I walked the hammer-giraffe silently, slowly over the dirt of the shop floor, and the giraffe looked around. He'd heard a sound. What was it? It was nothing. I decided the giraffe needed a friend. I retrieved another hammer from a low shelf and the second joined the first. The two giraffes glided over the savannah, their necks pushing forward, first the first, then the second, alternating in time.

I pictured myself as a businessman, running my father's affairs, organizing the store, negotiating with the customers, ordering new goods from over the river, adjusting the prices to the nuances of the market, visiting the shop in Aweil, knowing hundreds of traders by name, moving with ease through any village, known and respected by all. I would be an important man, like my father, with many wives of my own. I would build on the success of my father, and would open another store, many more, and perhaps own a greater herd of cattle-six hundred head, a thousand. And as soon as I could manage it, I would have a bicycle of my own, with the plastic still wrapped tightly around it. I would be sure not to tear the plastic anywhere.

A shadow grew over the land of my giraffes.

— Hello! my father said in the sky above.

The greeting in return was not warm. I looked up to see three men, one of whom carried a rifle tied to his back with a white string. I recognized the man. He was the grinning man from the night at the fire. The young man who had raised the question of the What with my father.

— We need sugar, the smallest of the men said. He was unarmed but it was clear he was the leader of the three. He was the only one who spoke.

— Of course, his father said.-How much?

— All of it, uncle. Everything you have.

— That will cost a good deal of money, friend.

— Is this everything you have?

The small man picked up the twenty-pound sisal bag resting in the corner.

— That's everything I have.

— Good, we'll take it.

The small man picked up the sugar and turned to leave. His companions were already outside.

— Wait, his father asked.-You mean you don't intend to pay for it? The small man was at the door, his eyes already adjusting to the light of the mid-morning sun.-We need to feed the movement. You should be happy to contribute.

— Deng, you were wrong, the smiling man said.

My father came out from behind the counter and met the man at the doorway.

— I can give you some sugar, of course. Of course I will. I remember the struggle. I know the struggle needs to be fed, yes. But I can't give you the entire bag. That would cripple my business-you know this. We all have to do our part, yes, but let's make this fair for both of us. I'll give you as much as I can.

My father reached for a smaller bag.

— No! No, stupid man! the small one yelled. The volume startled me to my feet.-We'll take this bag and you'll be grateful we don't take more.

Now the grinning man and his companion, the man with the gun tied with a string, were back, standing behind the small man. Their eyes held on my father. He stared back at the men, one by one.

— Please. How will we live if you steal from us?

The smiling man wheeled around, almost stepping on me.

— Steal? You're calling us thieves?

— What can I call you? This is the way you-

The smiling man threw a great sweeping punch and my father crumpled to the ground, landing next to me.

— Bring him outside, the man said.-I want everyone to see this. The men pulled my father out of the shop and into the bright marketplace. Already a crowd had gathered.

— What's going on? said Tong Tong, whose shop was next door.

— You watch and learn from this, the grinning man said.

The three men turned my father onto his stomach, and quickly tied his hands and feet with rope from his own shop. My mother appeared.

— Stop this! she screamed.-You maniacs!

The man with the rifle pointed it at my mother. The small man turned to her with a look of deepest contempt.

— You'll be next, woman.

I turned and ran into the darkness of the shop. I was sure my father would be killed, perhaps my mother, too. I hid under the sacks of grain in the corner and pictured myself living without my mother. Would I be sent to live with my grandmother? I decided it would be my father's mother, Madit, who would take me in. But that was two days' walk away, and I would never see William K and Moses again. I rose from the bags of grain and peered around the corner, into the market. My mother was standing between my father and the three men.

— Please don't kill him, my mother wailed.-Killing him won't help you.

She was a head taller than the small one but the man with the gun had it directed at my mother and I could not breathe. My head rang and rang and I blinked to keep my eyes open.

— You'll have to kill me, too, she said.

The small man's tone was suddenly softer. I looked through the doorway and saw that the man had lowered his gun. And with that, without any sort of passion, he kicked my father in the face. The sound was dull, like a hand slapping the hide of a cow. He kicked him again and the sound was different this time. A crack, precisely like the breaking of a stick under one's knee.

At that moment something in me snapped. I felt it, I could not be mistaken. It was as if there were a handful of taut strings inside me, holding me straight, holding together my brain and heart and legs, and at that moment, one of these strings, thin and delicate, snapped.

And that day, the rebel presence was established and Marial Bai became a town at war with itself-contested by the rebels and the government. The soccer games were forgotten. The rebels came at night, raiding where they could, and during the day, government army soldiers patrolled the village, the market in particular, reeking of menace. They cocked and uncocked their rifles. They were suspicious of anyone unfamiliar; young men were harassed at every opportunity. Who are you? Are you with these rebels? Trust in the army had evaporated. The uninvolved had to choose sides.