Dave Eggers - What Is The What

I had not been told that these papers would cost money. I knew if I entered SPLA-controlled territory, I would need an SPLA/SPLM-issued identification card, but I thought they would provide it for free. The SPLA/SPLM, I had been told, would put any name you wanted on the document, and I had planned to give them a name similar enough that it would be regionally correct; that way I would be able to answer any questions about clans in my part of Sudan. With the new document, I would ride back to Loki, sell the goats, and, at the Loki immigration office, I would hand them my documents and claim to be in danger if I returned to Sudan. I would be processed as a refugee, and under my new name be granted admission to Kakuma.

— No money left, huh? Thomas said.-You just left last night! Thomas gave me a curious smile, his head tilted.

— Poor planning, Achak. Do you have a new name chosen? No doubt you'll be glad to be rid of Achak.

I told him Valentine Deng would be my new name.

— Not bad. I like that, Valentine. There are a few other Valentines around. It won't look suspicious. Listen, here's fifty shillings. You can pay me back next time you come through. I'm here a lot; I do some business here and there. You take the fifty shillings, combine it with yours, you have one hundred. That might be enough if the SPLM takes pity on you. Give me a pitiful face, Valentine Deng.

I turned my mouth downward into a pout, and teared my eyes.

— Wow, not bad, Valentine. Impressive. You have a ride? I did not have a ride.

— Oh lord. Never have I encountered such an unprepared traveler. If you give me the face again I'll tell you where to get a ride into Narus. I gave him the look again.

— That is really a pitiful look, son. I congratulate you. Okay. There's a truck coming from Sudan right now. It's down the road and one of the drivers is a friend of mine, cousin to my wife. It's going back to Sudan in a few minutes. You ready?

— I am, I said.

— Good, he said. Here it comes.

And indeed a truck pulled up at that moment, a standard flatbed truck, the sort I was accustomed to seeing full of passengers. It was a dream, it seemed, to have found a direct ride so quickly. I had only been awake five minutes. The truck shook to a halt in front of Save the Children. Thomas spoke to the driver for a few minutes and then gave me the signal. The engine rumbled awake and the tires chewed the gravel.

— Go, fool! Go! Thomas yelled to me.

I gathered my bag and ran after the truck and jumped onto the back bumper. I turned to wave to Thomas, but he had gone inside the compound, finished with me. I threw my bag in and climbed over the back door. My first foot landed on something soft.

— Excuse me! I gasped.

It was then that I saw that I had stepped on a person. The truckbed was filled with people, fifteen or more. But they were grey, white, covered in blood. These people were dead. I was stepping on the chest of a man who made no protestation. I jumped off his chest and onto the hand of a woman who also offered no objection. I stood on one foot, my other foot hovering over the exposed innards of a boy only a bit older than myself.

— Careful, boy! There are a few of us still alive.

I turned to find a man, an elderly man, lying prone and twisted like a root, near the back of the truck.-I'm sorry, I said.

The truck jerked and the old man's head hit the back hatch. He moaned.

We were moving, and the truck quickly picked up speed. I gripped the side of the truck and tried not to look at its cargo. I looked into the sky but then the smell overtook me. I gagged.

— You'll become accustomed to it, the man said.-It's a human smell.

I tried to move my foot but found it stuck; blood covered the truck floor. I wanted to jump but the truck was traveling too fast. I looked forward, wanting to get the attention of the driver. A head emerged from the passenger side of the truck cab. A cheerful man hoisted himself so he was sitting on the window ledge, looking back at me. He seemed to be an SPLA soldier, but it was difficult to tell.

— How are you back there, Red Army?

— I'd like to get out please, I stammered. The maybe-rebel laughed.

— I'll walk back. Please. Please, uncle. He laughed until tears filled his eyes.

— Oh Red Army. You are too much.

Then he slipped back into the cab.

A moment later, the truck swerved and I lost my footing, and for a second I found my knee in the broken thigh of a dead soldier, whose open eyes stared into the sun. As I raised myself, I glanced over the contents of truckbed. The corpses were arranged as if they had been thrown. Nothing held them in place.

— It's pitiful, it is, the old man said.-Many of us were alive when we left Sudan. I've been keeping the vultures away. A dog jumped aboard yesterday. He was hungry. The truck jumped again and my foot slipped on something viscous.

— The dogs now, they have a taste for people. They go straight for the face. Did you know that? It was lucky that one of the men in the cab heard the dog. They stopped the truck and shot it. Now it's just the four of us, he said.

Four aboard were yet alive, though it was difficult to find them, and I was not sure the old man was correct. I glanced to a body next to him. At first it seemed that this man's arms were hidden. But now it was clear, because I could see the white bones of his shoulders, that the man's arms had been removed.

The truck swerved wildly again. My right foot landed on the arm of a teenage boy, wearing a blue camouflage uniform and a floppy hat.

— He's still alive, I think, the old man said.-Though he hasn't spoken today.

I raised myself again and heard wild laughter from the truck cab. They'd swerved on purpose, each time. The cheerful man's head again appeared from the passenger window.

— The driver is very sorry, Red Army, he said.-There was a lizard in the road and he was very concerned about killing such a creature of God.

— Please uncle, I said. I don't want to be here. I want to leave. If you could only slow down a bit, I'll jump off. You don't need to stop.

— Don't worry, Red Army, the maybe-rebel said. His face and tone were suddenly serious, even compassionate.-We only have to drop the wounded at Lopiding Hospital, and then bury the bodies over the hill, and we'll have an empty truck all the way to Sudan. Wherever you need to go.

The truck had taken a bump and the man's head had struck the top of the window frame. Soon he was inside the truck again, yelling at the driver. For a moment the truck slowed and I thought I had a chance.

— Take the ride, boy. It was the old man.

— How else will you get to Sudan? he said. He looked at me then, as if for the first time.

— Why are you going back, anyway, boy?

I did not consider telling the man the truth, that I was trying to recycle, to get another ration card. It would seem ridiculous to a man struggling to live. The people of southern Sudan had their problems, and by comparison the mechanisms of Kakuma, where everyone was fed and was safe, were not worth mentioning.

— To find my family, I said.

— They're dead, he said.-Sudan is dead. We won't ever live there again. This is your home now. Kenya. Be glad for it. This is your home and it will always be your home.

A sigh came from below my feet. The teenage boy turned over, his hands praying under his ear as if he were comfortably at home on a pillow of feathers. I looked down at him, determined that I should focus on him, for he seemed most at peace. My eyes assessed him quickly-I could not control them, and cursed them for their speed and curiosity-and realized that the boy's left leg was missing. It was now a stump covered with a bandage fashioned from a canvas tarpaulin and rubber bands cobwebbed to his waist.