Dave Eggers - What Is The What

I went inside her hut and smelled its smells of pumpkins, sesame, and beans. Dried fish hung from the walls. The woman busied herself cooking outside and I settled against the wall of the hut, resting my back against a bag of flour. When she returned she poured a dish of flour and water into a bowl. When I was finished with that, she took a bowl of corn foo-foo and into it poured a cup full of wine, a concoction I had never seen before. When I ate that, she smiled a sad toothless smile. Her name was Ajulo and she lived alone.

— Where are you people going? she asked.

— I don't think we're going anywhere, I said. This surprised her.

— You're not going anywhere? Why would you stay here? I told her I didn't know.

— There are too many of you here, she said, now deeply troubled; this was not the information she expected. No one along the river had seen the Sudanese as permanent guests.-Until your people leave, you can come here any time. Come alone and you can eat with me any day, Achak.

When she said that, Julian, she touched my cheek as a mother would, and I crumpled. My bones fell away and I lay down on her floor. I was in front of her, heaving, my shoulders shaking and my fists trying to push the water back into my eyes. I was no longer able to know how to react to kindness like this. The woman brought me close to her chest. I hadn't been touched in four months. I missed the shadow of my mother, listening to the sounds inside her. I had not realized how cold I had felt for so long. This woman gave me her shadow and I wanted to live within it until I could be home again.

— You should stay here, Ajulo whispered to me.-You could be my son.

I said nothing. I stayed with her until evening, wondering if I could indeed be her son. The comfort I would know could not be approximated while living with half-naked boys at the camp. But I knew I couldn't stay. To stay would mean I would abandon the hope of returning home. To accept this woman as my mother would be to deny my own, who might yet be living, who might wait for me the rest of her years. And then, lying in the lap of the Anyuak woman, I wondered, What did she look like, my mother? I had only a shifting memory, as light as linen, and the longer I was with this woman Ajulo, the more distant and indistinguishable my vision of my mother would become. I told Ajulo I could not be her son, but she fed me still. I came once a week and helped how I could, bringing her water, portions of my rations, things she could not otherwise procure. I went there and she fed me and let me lie in her lap. During those hours I was a boy with a home.

After a month, my stomach was no longer wailing and my head ceased spinning. I felt good in many ways, I felt like a person the way God had intended a person to feel. I was almost strong, almost whole. But then there were jobs for healthy boys.

— Achak, come here, Dut said one day. Dut was a high-ranking leader at the camp now, and because we had walked together, he made sure my needs and those of those of the Eleven were addressed. But he expected things in return.

I followed him and learned we were going to the hospital tent, set up by the Ethiopians. Inside were those wounded in the fighting in Sudan, and those sick and dying at Pinyudo. I had never been in the tent and only knew it by its smell, which was rancid, piercing when the wind passed through.

— There is a man inside who has died, he said.-I want you to help carry him and then we'll bury him.

I could not object. I owed Dut my life.

Inside the tent, the light was blue-green and there was a body wrapped in muslin. Around the body were six boys, all of them older than me.

— Come here, Dut said, directing me to the dead man's feet.

I carried the man's left foot, and the other six boys each took a region of the man's cold hard form. We followed the path, Dut holding the man's shoulders and facing away. I looked to the clouds, to the grass and the brush-anywhere but at the face of the dead man.

When we arrived at a great twisting tree, Dut told us to begin digging. There were no shovels, so we clawed at the ground with our fingernails, throwing rocks and dirt to the side. Most of us dug like dogs, scratching the dirt between our legs. I found a rock with a bowl-like edge that I used to scoop dirt to the side. In an hour, we dug a hole six feet long and three feet deep. Dut directed us to line the hole with leaves, and we gathered leaves and made the hole green. Dut and the larger boys then lifted the body into the hole, the man's face turned to the east. We weren't sure why this was the case, but we did not ask when Dut told them to do this. We were directed to place leaves over the body, and once that was done, we dropped dirt onto the body of the dead man until he disappeared.

This was the beginning of the cemetery at Pinyudo, and the first of many burials in which I participated. Boys and adults were still dying, for our diet was too limited and the dangers too many. Most days, we were given just one meal, yellow corn grains and a few white beans. We drank water from the river and it was impure, rife with bacteria, so the deaths came from dysentery, diarrhea, various unnamed afflictions. There was very little medical expertise at Pinyudo, and the only patients who were brought to the Pinyudo One General Health Clinic were those who were already too close to death to save. When a boy would not rouse himself from bed, would refuse food, or fail to recognize his name, his friends would wrap him in a blanket and bring him to the clinic. It was a well-known fact that any patients admitted to the clinic did not leave, and so that tent became known as Zone Eight. There were seven zones at the camp, where the boys were housed and worked, and Zone Eight became the last place one went on this earth. 'Where is Akol Mawein?' someone might ask. 'He's gone to Zone Eight,' we would answer. Zone Eight was the hereafter. Zone Eight was the end of ends.

Burying Zone Eights became my job. With five other boys, we buried five to ten bodies a week. We took the same parts of the bodies each time; each time, I was the carrier of the deceased's left foot.

— You're a burial boy, Achor Achor said one day.

I smiled, at that time thinking it was a job holding some prestige.

— That's not a good job, I don't think, Achor Achor said.-I think this could be bad for you in some way. Why are you doing that job?

It was not as if I had a choice in the matter. Dut had asked me, and I had to agree. He had promised benefits for being a burial boy, including extra rations, and even another shirt, which meant that soon I had two-an extravagance at Pinyudo.

Soon, though, Dut's role as overseer of the burials was ceded to a cruel and nervous man we called Commander Beltbuckle. Each day, over his fatigues, he wore a silver-and-red belt buckle so large and ridiculous that it was almost impossible to face him without laughing. But he was very proud of it, its size and sparkle; it was never unshined and he was never seen without it. He employed a certain boy named Luol who was in charge of shining it each night, at which point he put it back on. Rumor had it that the commander slept on his back each night because he would not take off the pants that held the buckle, and to sleep on his side or stomach would drive the buckle into his abdomen. We did not have a high opinion of Commander Beltbuckle or his clothing accessories.

Commander Beltbuckle had a series of rules about carrying bodies and burying them, some of which were sensible and some of which were utterly divorced from any logic or purpose. When we carried the bodies, for the dignity of the person who had passed, we were to keep the body as stiff as possible; someone had to walk below the body, crouching, keeping the back from dragging on the ground. When we dug the graves, they were to be given perfect ninety-degree corners on all sides. When we lay the bodies down, their hands were to be placed atop their waists, and their heads turned slightly to the right. Then they were covered in a blanket and the graves filled with earth. No one questioned these rules. There was no point in doing so.