Dave Eggers - What Is The What

'Excuse me Julian?' I say.

He returns. The curtain squeals and Julian's face appears.

'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Can you tell my friends to go home now, that I'm fine?'

He nods and smiles broadly. 'Sure. I'm sure they're ready. I'll tell them.' He turns to leave me but then remains. He stares at his clipboard for a long moment, then looks at me through the corner of his eye.

'You fight in that war, Valentine, the civil war?'

I tell him no, that I was not a soldier.

'Oh. Well good, then,' he says. 'I'm glad.'

And he leaves.

Iwas almost a soldier, Julian. I was saved by a massacre.

Pinyudo changed slowly and I felt the fool for not knowing what had been planned. I believe now that they, the SPLA leadership, had conceived it all from the beginning. If they are guilty of this foresight, I am split between awe and horror.

My awareness of the architecture of it all began one day, at the beginning of summer, when boys were everywhere dancing, celebrating. I was with the Eleven; we were eating our dinner under the low ceiling of a humid grey sky.

— Garang is coming! boys sang, racing past our shelter.

— Garang is coming! another boy, a teenager, roared. He skipped like a child.

— Who's coming? I asked the passing teenager.

— Garang is coming!

— Who? I asked. I had forgotten many of the details of Dut's lessons.

— Shh! the teenager scolded, looking around for listeners.-Garang, the leader of the SPLA, fool, he hissed. And then he was gone.

Indeed John Garang was coming. I had heard the name, but knew very little about him. The news of his arrival was delivered after dinner in an official manner by the elders. They visited all the barracks-we were now living in brick buildings, grey and cold but sturdy-and subsequently the camp fell into a state of pandemonium. No one slept. I had heard very little about John Garang before this time, only what Dut had told me long ago, but in the days leading to his visit, information flowed freely and unfiltered.

— He is a doctor.-Not a medicine doctor, he's a farming doctor. He went to school in the United States. In Iowa.-He has an advanced degree in Agriculture from a university in Iowa.-He is the most intelligent Sudanese man alive.-He was a decorated soldier, the most commended Dinka.-He is from Upper Nile.-He's nine feet tall and built like a rhino.

I checked with Mr. Kondit and found that most of this information was correct. Garang had received a doctorate in Iowa, and this seemed to me so exotic that immediately I had the utmost faith that this man could lead a new southern Sudan to victory and rebirth.

In advance of his visit, we were made to clean our dwellings, and then those of the teachers, and finally the road leading into Pinyudo. It was decided that the stones lining the road should be painted, and thus paint was distributed and the stones were made white and red and blue, alternating. On the day of the visit, the camp had never looked so beautiful. I was proud. I can remember the feeling still; we were capable of this, the creation of a life from nothing.

On the day of the visit, the residents of Pinyudo were frantic. I had never seen the elders so nervous and wild eyed. Garang's visit was to take place in the parade grounds, and everyone would be there. As Moses and I gathered in the morning with the rest of the camp, the crowd grew far beyond my imagining. This was the first time I had seen the camp's entire human volume, perhaps forty thousand of us, in one place, and the sight was impossible to take in. SPLA soldiers were everywhere-hundreds of them, from teenage boys to the most battle-hardened men.

The sixteen thousand or so of us unaccompanied boys were seated directly in front of the microphone and while we waited for John Garang, the forty thousand assembled refugees from Sudan sang songs. We sang traditional songs of southern Sudan, and we sang new songs composed for the occasion. One of the unaccompanied boys had composed lyrics for this assembly:

Chairman John Garang

,

Chairman John Garang

,

A chairman as brave as the buffalo, the lion, and tiger

In the land of Sudan

How would Sudan be liberated if not by the mighty power we possess?

The immense power the Chairman possesses

Look at the Sudan! It resembles the ruins of the Dark Ages

Look at the Chairman-the Doctor!

He's carrying a sophisticated gun

Look at John Garang

,

He's carrying a sophisticated gun

All the roots are uprooted

All the roots are uprooted

Sadiq El Mahdi remaining a single root

And John will uproot him in our land

We will struggle to liberate the land of Sudan

We will! With the AK-47

The battalions of the Red Army will come

We'll come

Armed with guns in the left hand

And pens in the right hand

To liberate our home, oh, ooo!

When the song was sung it began again and once more and finally the guards arrived, the advance guards who heralded the arrival of Garang himself. Thirty of them strode into the parade grounds and surrounded the staging area, all of them armed with AK-47s and looking with suspicion and displeasure at us.

I did not like those guards. There were too many guns, and the men looked reckless and unkind. My mood, which had been euphoric with the songs and cheering, clouded over. I told Isaac, the other boy called Gone Far, of my feelings.

— They are here to protect Garang, Gone Far. Relax.

— From who? From us? This is wrong, the men with guns everywhere.

— Without the guards someone would kill him. You know that. Finally the leadership entered: Deputy Commander William Nyuon Bany, Commander Lual Ding Wol, and then Chairman Garang himself.

He was indeed a large man, broad chested and with a strange grey beard, unkempt and wayward. He had a great round forehead, small bright eyes, and a prominent jaw. His presence was commanding; from any distance it would be obvious that he was a leader of men.

— That is a great man, Moses whispered.

— That man is God, Isaac said.

Garang raised his hands triumphantly and the adults, the women in particular, whipped themselves into a furor. The women ululated and raised their arms and closed their eyes. We turned and the adults and trainees were dancing, waving their arms wildly. More songs were sung for his approval.

We'll adjust the Sudan flag

We'll alter the Sudan flag

For Sudan is confused herself

Sadiq El Mahdi is corrupted

Wol Wol is corrupted

SPLA has a knife-fixed at the barrel tip of an AK-47

Courageous men who fear nothing

These are the men that will liberate us through bloodshed

Red Armies-soldiers of the Doctor

We'll struggle till we liberate Sudan

The man who suffers from mosquito bites, thirst, and hunger?

He is a genuine liberator

We'll liberate Sudan by bloodshed

Then John Garang began.

— I seize the opportunity to extend my revolutionary greetings and appreciation to each and every SPLA soldier in the field of combat who, under very difficult conditions, has been and is scoring giant, convincing victories one after the other against the various governments of exploiters and oppressors.

A roar came up through the forty thousand.

— Half-naked, barefooted, hungry, thirsty, and confronted by a swarm of many other due hardships, the SPLA soldier has proved to the whole world that the trappings of life can never sway him from the cause of the people and the justice of their struggle. The SPLA soldier has once again validated the age-old human experience concerning the infiniteness of the human capacity for resilience and resolve against challenges to dignity and justice.