2006 - What is the What (72 page)

He was a South African man of mixed race. When he arrived, before he could speak, I launched into my plea. We will fight! I said. We will do whatever is asked of us if you only send us to America, I said. We have waited so long! We have waited twenty years only to know that something good will happen! Can you imagine? Do not deprive us of this. You must not. We will do anything, everything, I said. My companions looked at me warily, and I suspected I was doing more harm than good. I was overtired and perhaps sounded desperate.

The man walked out of the room, having said nothing. He left a piece of paper, and on it was printed an IOM directive: the flights were to continue as soon as the airports were reopened in the United States. In the mythology of Goal, my speech became the deciding factor in the resumption of flights. I was celebrated for days, no matter how many times I denied responsibility.

The postings began on September 19. Every day, a list of twenty refugees was taped to a window by the television set, and those people would be picked up the same afternoon and taken to the airport. On the first day, the men whose names were on the list packed, unbelieving, and got on the bus at two-thirty. The bus left and that was that. The rest of us could not fathom how simple and quick the process had become. When the first three groups did not return, we became relatively certain that if we got on an afternoon bus, we would indeed leave Goal for good.

I have never been so happy to see Sudanese people disappear. Each day there were fewer people at Goal—first 300, then 260, then 220. On the fourth day I was placed in a new room, a small room with one window, high above and striped with steel bars. I had a bed to myself but shared the room with fourteen others. Every night that I knew I would not be leaving the next day I slept well, hearing the planes leaving from Nairobi.

On the fifth day my name appeared on the sheet taped to the window. I would be on the bus the next afternoon. That night I lay in bed staring at the other young men in the room, all of them shadows, only a few asleep. Half were leaving the next day with me, and those who were leaving could not rest. The mood was very different than it had been eight days earlier. The Sudanese, as far as we knew, were now spread all over the world, stranded, redirected; some who were meant for one country were now staying, indefinitely, in another. But we would be flying into all of this the next day. None of us were sure we would ever see the earth again. To fly from Africa, over the ocean, in an airplane, bound for the city where planes were flown into buildings? It wasn’t just about a country at war. We were leaving everything we knew, or thought we knew; each of us had only one small bag of possessions, and no money at all, no family where we were going. This journey was an act of reckless faith.

It was dark in our small room, the fan above us unmoving. The youngest among us, a young man named Benjamin, had turned to the wall, awake and shaking.

—Don’t be frightened, I said to him.

I was the oldest of the group and I felt it was my responsibility to calm him.

—Is that Valentine? he said.

—It is. Don’t fear tonight, Benjamin. Or tomorrow.

The men in the room murmured their assent. I slipped out of my bed and down to Benjamin’s bunk. Now that I saw him close-up, he looked no more than twelve.

—Already we’ve seen more than most of our ancestors. Even if we disappear while flying to our destination, Benjamin, we should be thankful. Do you remember the flight to Nairobi? We had to close every window it was so bright. We’ve seen the earth from the sky, we’ve seen the lights of Nairobi and all the people of the world walking through its streets. This is more than our ancestors could have dreamed.

Benjamin’s breathing slowed, and the men in the room agreed that this was true. Emboldened, I continued to speak to Benjamin, and to the shadows of these men. I told them that the mistakes of the Dinka before us were errors of timidity, of choosing what was before us over what might be. Our people, I said, had been punished for centuries for our errors, but now we were being given a chance to rectify all that.

We had been tested as none before had been tested. We had been sent into the unknown once, and then again and again. We had been thrown this way and that, like rain in the wind of a hysterical storm.

—But we’re no longer rain, I said,—we’re no longer seeds. We’re men. Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown. I’m so proud of everything we’ve done, my brothers, and if we’re fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace. There has been pain but now there will be serenity. No one has been tried as we have been tried, and now this is our reward, whether it be heaven or something less than that.

When I was done talking, Benjamin seemed pleased, and words of agreement were sent up into the dark from all of the room’s men. I climbed back into my bed but felt as if I was floating above it. Every part of my body felt electric. My chest ached and my head throbbed with the great terrible limitless possibility of the morning, and when it came, the sky was washed white, everything was new, and I hadn’t slept at all.

W
hen the morning ends and my work is done at the Century Club, I leave, knowing I am leaving this job and I am leaving Atlanta. I walk outside; it’s an unremarkable day. I know that I will not miss the sky that guards over this city. The heavens here have been a hammer to me, and I will be moving, as soon as I am able, to a quieter place. A place where I can spend some time thinking. I need to make some new plans without the eyes of these clouds over me.

My plans are a jumble for now, but I do know certain things that I will and will not do. I will not file fabric samples again. I will not haul television sets or sweep tinsel from the floors of a Christmas-themed shop. I will not butcher animals in Nebraska or Kansas. I have no prejudice against these jobs, for I have done most of them. But I won’t go back to that kind of work. I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasures I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight. I will not smile reflexively at every person I see. I will live as a good child of God, and will forgive him each time he claims another of the people I love. I will forgive and attempt to understand his plans for me, and I will not pity myself.

At the beginning of this unremarkable day, I will first drive home. Achor Achor and I will cover the floor that bears my blood with a plant, a lamp, perhaps a table, and we will replace the things that were stolen. I will tell Achor Achor that I am leaving the apartment, and he will understand. It will take him very little time to find a new roommate. There are plenty of my brethren in Atlanta who will appreciate that apartment, and the next man will not care about what happened there.

Today I have options. There is a friend of mine who has a new baby. He’s one of the Dominics, actually; he and his wife live in Macon. Maybe I’ll drive there, bring greetings and a gift. I could go to Macon, hold the newborn for a time, and then, if I felt strong, I could drive on to see Phil and Stacey and their twins in Florida. The ocean would be cold at this time of year but still I would try to swim. Or should I drive the other way? I could drive all day and night and find Moses in Seattle, stay with him and eventually join his walk. I dearly want to walk with Moses again, and will do so, I promise I will do so, unless he plans to walk barefoot. Would he do such a thing, walk barefoot to Arizona to make some sort of point? In that case I would not join Moses; that would be madness.

I look across the roofs of cars and into the field that spreads out beyond. I close my eyes against the white sky and see the yellow of a falling sun. I can see her clearly now, moving swiftly down the path toward me, walking her tall gangly walk. I should be home. It seems wrong that I am not home with her. I could leave this struggle here behind and be with her, with my father and in the cradle of the vast family I have in Marial Bai. To stay here, struggling and with my head aching so with the pressure, is, perhaps, not my destiny. For years I have vowed to return home, but not until I had finished my college education. I saw myself stepping off a plane, wearing a suit, carrying a suitcase, my diploma entombed in leather inside, and into the embrace of the town and my family. I told my father this plan, too, and he liked it very much, though he insisted that I wait until he, too, had regained the ground beneath him. He did not want me to see him again until his business was rebuilt, and not before our compound was again as it was when I came into the world.

I believe this day will come. It is, though, taking longer than expected.

Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories. I have spoken to every person I have encountered these last difficult days, and every person who has entered this club during these awful morning hours, because to do anything else would be something less than human. I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist.