Dave Eggers - What Is The What

A few moments before, I was thankful to the man, and was considering asking him if I could stay with him indefinitely. But now I decided that the man had lost his mind and that I should leave. It was strange, that a man could speak normally for a certain time, and then reveal himself to be mad. It was like finding rot underneath a fruit's unblemished skin.

— I should go back to the group, I said, rising. Alarm took over the man's face.

— Sit. Sit. I have more. Do you like oranges? I have oranges.

He reached into his hole yet again, his arm this time disappearing up to his shoulder. When his hand emerged, he held an orange, perfectly round and fresh. He gave me one and as I devoured it, he replaced the carpet over his underground cavity.

— I don't live anywhere, and you should learn from this. Why do you think I'm alive, boy? I'm alive because no one knows I'm here. I live because I do not exist. He took the water from me and replaced it under the ground.

— Out there everyone is killing each other, and those who don't kill each other with guns and bombs, God is trying to kill with malaria and dysentery and a thousand other things. But no one can kill the man who's not there, correct? So I am a ghost. How can you kill a ghost?

I had no comment on this for it seemed the man did indeed exist.

— By this contact alone, me with you, I'm making a great deal of trouble for myself. I have fed you and I have seen your face. But I feel safe only in knowing that no one is likely looking for a boy like you. How many of you are there? Thousands?

I told them that there were as many of us as he could imagine.

— So you won't be noticed. When we're done talking, I'll send you back toward them but you must never tell where you found me. Are we in agreement?

I agreed. I do not remember why it occurred to me to ask this man about the What but it seemed that if any man might have an answer, even a guess, it would be this strange man who lived alone and had saved so much, had even thrived, amid a civil war. So I asked him.

— Excuse me? he said.

I repeated the question, and I explained the story. The man had not heard this story but he liked it.

— What do you think is the What? he asked. I didn't know what I thought.-The AK-47? He shook his head.-I don't think so, no.

— The horse?

He shook his head again.

— Airplanes? Tanks?

— Please stop. You're not thinking right.

— Education? Books?

— I don't think this is the What, Achak. I think you need to keep looking. Do you have any other ideas?

We sat in silence for a moment. He could sense my deflation.

— Would you like to try the bicycle? he asked. I could not find the words for how I felt about it.

— You didn't expect that, did you, listening boy? I shook my head.-Are you serious?

— Of course I am. I didn't know I would offer this to you until I already had done so. I never thought I would offer my bicycle to anyone else but since you are headed for Ethiopia and you might die on the way, I'll let you use it.

The man saw my face fall.

— No, no. I'm sorry! I was telling a joke. You won't die on the way. No. You are many boys, and you'll be safe. God is watching over you. You're strong now with a belly full of groundnuts. I was only joking because it would be so absurd if you were in danger. It is absurd. You'll be fine! And now you will ride the bicycle.

— Yes please.

— But you have never done so.

— No.

The round-bellied man sighed and called himself crazy. He rolled the bicycle out of his home and into the sun. The spokes shimmered, the frame shone. He showed me how to sit on the seat, and while I arranged myself upon it, he held the bike upright. It was the most astonishing bicycle ever seen in Sudan, and I was sitting on its luxurious black leather seat.

— Okay, now I'll push the bike so it moves. You have to start pushing on the pedals when I begin. Understand?

I nodded and the wheels started moving. Immediately it was too fast but the man was holding onto it so I felt steady. I pushed the pedals, though they seemed to be moving on their own.

— Pedal, boy, pedal!

The man was running alongside me and the bike, huffing and heaving and laughing. I pushed on the pedals and my feet swung low and then rose up again. My stomach was in turmoil.

— Yes! You're doing it, boy, you're riding!

I smiled and looked ahead and tried to calm my stomach, which threatened to send its contents onto the dust. I swallowed and swallowed and looked straight ahead and told my stomach to be still. It obeyed and allowed me to think. I was riding the bicycle! It was very much like flight, I thought. The wind in my face felt so strong. I had the unexpected thought that I wanted Amath to be able to see me. She would be so impressed!

— I'm going to let go, the man said.

— No! I said.

Still, I thought I could do it.

— Yes! Yes, the man said.-I will let go. He let go and laughed.

— I let go! Keep going, Red Army! Keep it straight!

I could not keep it straight. In seconds the bicycle tilted and the tire turned slowly and I fell like the horseman had in Marial Bai, caught under the bike. My leg struck a hard patch of dirt and roots and my wound opened up, wider than before. In a few minutes I was back in the round-bellied man's hut and he was nursing the wound again. He apologized many times but I assured him the fault was mine. He told me I rode well for my first time, and I smiled. I was certain that I could ride it successfully if I tried again. But I knew that if I did not find my way back to the group I would lose them forever and might have to live with this man until the end of the war, whenever that came. I told him I had to leave. He was not overly sad to see me go.

— Please don't tell anyone about the bicycle. I told him I would not.

— Do you promise me this? he said. I promised.

— Good. Bicycles are secret in this war. Bicycles are secret, listening boy. Now let's return you to your army. I will take you back to them. Which way did you run from?

It had seemed like hours that I had run the night before, but we walked back to the group in a far shorter time. I saw the mass of boys not far from the man's secret home. Dut was not to be seen, and it did not seem that morning that anyone else cared that he was gone, or that I had been missing. I asked what was the matter and learned that a dozen boys were missing from last night's run. Three boys had fallen into wells; two were dead. The hundreds of boys were scattered and listless. I said goodbye to the round-bellied man and found William K, who had found a large sheet of plastic and was trying to fold it to fit in his pocket. The plastic, even after folded a dozen times, was as big as his torso.

— Which way did you run? William K asked.

I pointed the way I had just come. William K had run the opposite way but had stopped after a short time, hiding in the roots of a baobab tree.

— Did you hear what happened? What the rumbling was, the lights? he asked. I shook my head.

— It was us. It was nothing.

There had been no attack in the night. There were no guns, no shots. It was only a Land Rover driving through the night. No one knew whose car it was, but it was not an enemy's. It might have even been an aid truck.

When Dut arrived, later in the morning, and gathered us, he was exasperated.

— You can't simply run every which way at every sound in the night. We were all too confused to argue.

— We lost twelve boys last night. We know three are dead because they fell in those two wells. Too many boys have fallen into wells. This is a bad way to die, boys. The others have run to God knows where.

I agreed falling into a well was a bad way to die, but I was sure that it had been his deputy, Kur, who had sent us fleeing during the night. But at that point nothing was clear. After an hour away from the round-bellied man and his bicycle, I was no longer sure if he himself had been real. I told no one about him.