Dave Eggers - What Is The What

— Here! Agar said, quickly taking my hand and putting it under her shirt.

Can I feel, to this day, the heat of her skin? I can! Her skin was very warm, and taut as a drum, with the thinnest layer of perspiration upon it. I felt her hot skin and held my breath. Her skin surprised me. It didn't feel different than my own, or that of the boys, but still I thought I might explode.

— You have to look!

I forced my hand to make cursory explorations around Agar's torso. I didn't know what was what.-Okay. That was a good try, she said.-I think you found it.

— Now we have to find something on you, Agum said.

— I think it's in there, Agar said, pointing to my shorts.

This was a very different step, and I could not watch. Yes, there were hands in my shorts. As they reached and prodded, I stared at the wall over Agar's shoulder, unsure if God would strike me down at that moment or within the day.

In seconds, all three girls had looked for the missing thing in my shorts, and, satisfied that they had found it, informed me that something was now lost under their dresses. I obliged, looking under Agar's dress, then under Akon's. Agum, for whatever reason, decided that nothing was hidden in her dress.

At some point they decided that we would go swimming. The girls brought their towels to the door, one for me. I feigned delight at the idea, but was stricken as we walked. I worried about a certain something, and then found a solution, and put it out of my mind. The girls brought us to a secluded part of the river, at a bend and in the shade, and there, the girls quickly pulled their dresses over their heads and were naked. The three Royal Nieces were in their underwear and standing in the shallow water. My throat felt as dry as it had during our desert journey. This was all so uncommon. Never in Marial Bai, before the war, would such a thing happen, would a boy of my age-maybe eight, maybe nine or even ten-be invited to swim naked in the river accompanied by three girls such as these. But so much was different here, and my thoughts about my situation were deeply conflicted. Would I have suffered as I had suffered, would I have left my village and walked as I had walked, would I have watched boys die, stepped over the chalk-white bones of rebel soldiers, if I knew that this would be my reward? Would it have been worth it? Because the truth is, such a thing would not likely have happened in my village. The rules there were stricter, the eyes were everywhere. But in this camp, while we were in Ethiopia and our country was at war and we were divorced from so many customs, things like this, and the searchings in the bedroom of the Royal Girls, became possible and happened many times, the experiments varied and plentiful. My pleasure in this particular moment at the river, watching the girls play in the shallow water, was diminished, to a degree, by what happened next.

— Take off your shorts, Achak, Agar said. I stood rigid in disbelief, in terror.

— Achak, why are you standing there?

— I'll swim with them on, I stammered.

— No you won't. You'll be wet all day. Take them off.

— I'll just watch you swim, I said.-I like it here, I said, pointing to a patch of sand, on which I promptly sat. I did my best to look thrilled with where I was and with the general state of things. I even covered my legs in sand, to further connect myself with the earth and imply that a foray into the water was unlikely.

— Get in here, Achak! Agum demanded.

This continued for some time. I insisted that the shorts should remain on, and the girls could not understand why. Why would I swim with my good shorts on? Their aunt looked at me curiously, too. My strategy was not working.

I needed some chance to explain my predicament, but this was not the place. I am not like the boys you're used to, I would say. You didn't notice when you searched my shorts, I don't think. My clan practiced circumcision on its males, and I knew that the Dinka from their district did not. I was sure that when the Royal Nieces of Pinyudo saw me, the anguala-a circumcised boy-they would flee the water squealing.

Finally Agar ran out of the water and strode directly to me. She stood before me for a moment wearing a grin of sheer menace. Then she pulled my shorts down to my ankles. I did not resist. There was no time and they were too determined. And so I stood before them, my penis naked and unsheathed.

The girls stared for a very long time. Then we all went back to normal, or pretended this was possible. The girls and I continued to play, though for the next hour, anytime they had the opportunity, they peeked between my legs, having no idea what had happened to my penis. They had never seen anything like it.

— So this is what the Dinka-Malual look like? Agar muttered.

Agum nodded. I heard the exchange but pretended I had not.

We continued to play, but I knew everything had changed. Afterward, I went back to Group Twelve and the Royal Nieces of Pinyudo returned to Block 4. I assumed that I would never socialize with them again. I was asked to recount every detail to the Eleven, and decided I would not. For I knew that if I did, the story would make its way around the camp in hours, and the Royal Girls would no longer be considered Royal. They might be considered of easy virtue, and it is no exaggeration to say that out of the tens of thousands of people in that camp, there surely would be one man, perhaps more, willing to risk his life to despoil one of these girls. I told the Eleven only of having a delicious lunch with the Nieces, and of the fine decorating of their home. This was enough for the boys; even these details were sumptuous to them. That night, I lay in bed, not expecting to sleep, recounting every moment, committing all of it to memory, never expecting to speak to any of them again.

But the next day, they asked me to lunch. I was shocked and overwhelmed and said yes without hesitation. Their invitation, and our friendship, was a victory over the petty prejudices between clans, between regions, and a defeat to the caste system of the Pinyudo refugee camp. So I returned to their house, to the meat stew, to the bedroom-even at this moment I can describe every object in that room, the location of every nick on their floor, every knot in the plywood of their bunks-so many times I returned to play hide and seek, at which, thankfully, our abilities never improved. I was very bad at looking for things, so I had to look and look! This was my life for many of the days that year in Ethiopia. It was not the worst of my years.

'Let's go, Valentine.'

Julian is standing in front of me. He has returned.

'MRI. Follow me.'

I stand up and follow Julian out of the emergency room and down the hallway. The floor smells of human feces.

'Homeless guy shat in here,' Julian tells me, his walk surprisingly nimble. We reach the elevator bank and he pushes the button.

'Sorry you got mugged, man,' he says.

We step into the elevator. It is 1:21 a.m.

'Happened to me, too. A few months ago,' he says. 'Same kind of thing. Two kids, one of them had a gun. They followed me home from the store and got me in the stairwell. Stupid. They were about two hundred pounds, both of them put together.'

I glance again at Julian. He's powerfully built, not the sort of man one would expect to be targeted for a mugging. But if he were wearing his hospital uniform, perhaps they considered him a peaceful man.

'What did they take?' I ask.

'Take? They took nothing, man. I'm a vet! I was back from Iraq five weeks when they tried that shit on me. The whole way home I knew they were following me. I had plenty of time to decide what to do, so I made a plan: I was gonna break one of their noses, then take that guy's gun and shoot his friend with it. The one I didn't kill I'd hold till the cops came. He'd spend the rest of his life scared straight. Hey, what's your middle name, anyway-how do you say it?'