A Long Walk to Water (2 page)

Salva hesitated for a moment. He was only eleven, but he was the son of an important family. He was Salva Mawien Dut Ariik, from the village named for his grandfather. His father always told him to act like a man—to follow the example of his older brothers and, in turn, set a good example for Kuol.

Salva took a few steps toward the men.

"Hey!"

A soldier approached Salva and raised his gun.

Salva froze. All he could see was the gun's huge barrel, black and gleaming, as it moved toward his face.

The end of the barrel touched his chin.

Salva felt his knees turn to water. He closed his eyes.

I
f
I
die now
, I
will never see my family again.

Somehow, this thought strengthened him enough to keep him from collapsing in terror.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

The soldier was holding the gun with only one hand. He was not
aiming
it; he was using it to lift Salva's chin so he could get a better look at his face.

"Over there" the soldier said. He moved the gun and pointed it toward the group of women and children.

"You are not a man yet. Don't be in such a hurry!" He laughed and clapped Salva on the shoulder.

Salva scurried over to the women's side.

The next morning, the rebels moved on from the camp. The village men were forced to carry supplies: guns and mortars, shells, radio equipment. Salva watched as one man protested that he did not want to go with the rebels. A soldier hit him in the face with the butt of a gun. The man fell to the ground, bleeding.

After that, no one objected. The men shouldered the heavy equipment and left the camp.

Everyone else began walking again. They went in the opposite direction from the rebels, for wherever the rebels went, there was sure to be fighting.

Salva stayed with the group from Loun-Ariik. It was smaller now, without the men. And except for the infant, Salva was the only child.

That evening they found a barn in which to spend the night. Salva tossed restlessly in the itchy hay.

W
here are we going?
W
here is my family?
W
hen will I see them again?

It took him a long time to fall asleep.

***

Even before he was fully awake, Salva could feel that something was wrong. He lay very still with his eyes closed, trying to sense what it might be.

Finally, he sat up and opened his eyes.

No one else was in the barn.

Salva stood so quickly that for a moment he felt dizzy. He rushed to the door and looked out.

Nobody. Nothing.

They had left him.

He was alone.

The smudge on the horizon gained color as Nya drew nearer, changing from hazy gray to olive green. The dirt under her feet turned to mud, then sludge, until at last she was ankle-deep in water.

There was always so much life around the pond: other people, mostly women and girls, who had come to fill their own containers; many kinds of birds, all flap and twitter and caw; herds of cattle that had been brought to the good grazing by the young boys who looked after them.

Nya took the hollowed gourd that was tied to the handle of the plastic container. She untied it, scooped up the brown muddy water, and drank. It took two gourdfuls before she felt a little cooler inside.

Nya filled the container all the way to the top. Then she tied the gourd back in place and took the padded cloth doughnut from her pocket. The doughnut went on her head first, followed by the heavy container of water, which she would hoid in place with one hand.

With the water balanced on her head, and her foot still sore from the thorn, Nya knew that going home would take longer than coming had. But she might reach home by noon, if all went well.

The tears were hot in Salva's eyes. Where had everyone gone? Why had they left without waking him?

He knew the answer: because he was a child ... who might tire easily and slow them down, and complain about being hungry, and cause trouble somehow.

I
would not have been any trouble—
I
would not have complained! ...
W
hat will
I
do now?

Salva took a few steps to see what he could see. On the far horizon, the sky was hazy from the smoke of the bombs. About a hundred paces in front of him, he could see a small pond. Between the pond and the barn was a house—and, yes, a woman sitting in the sun.

Holding his breath, he crept closer, until he could see her face clearly. The ritual scar patterns on her forehead were familiar: They were Dinka patterns, which meant that she was from the same tribe as Salva.

Salva let out his breath in relief. He was glad that she was not Nuer. The Nuer and the Dinka had a long history of trouble. No one, it seemed, was sure where Nuer land ended and Dinka land began, so each tribe tried to lay claim to the areas richest in water. Over the years, there had been many battles, large and small, between Dinka and Nuer; many people on both sides had been killed. This was not the same as the war that was going on now, between the rebels and the government. The Dinka and the Nuer had been fighting each other for hundreds of years.

The woman looked up and saw him. Salva flinched at her glance. Would she be friendly to a stranger? Would she be angry with him for spending the night in her barn?

But at least he was not alone now, and that knowledge was stronger than the uncertainty about what the woman might do or say to him. He walked toward her. "Good morning, Auntie" he said, his voice trembling.

She nodded at him. She was old, much older than Salva's mother.

He kept quiet, waiting for her to speak.

"You must be hungry" she said at last. She stood and went into the house. A few moments later, she came back out and gave him two handfuls of raw peanuts. Then she sat down again.

"Thank you, Auntie." Squatting on his haunches next to her, Salva shelled the nuts and ate them. He chewed every nut into a paste before he swallowed, trying to make each one last as long as he could.

The woman sat without speaking until he was finished. Then she asked, "Where are your people?"

Salva opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes filled with tears again and he could not answer.

She frowned. "Are you an orphan?"

He shook his head quickly. For a moment, he felt almost angry. He was not an orphan! He had a father and a mother—he had a family!

"I was at school. I ran away from the fighting. I do not know where my family is."

She nodded. "A bad thing, this war. What are you going to do—how will you find them?"

Salva had no answer. He had hoped that the woman might have some answers for him; after all, she was an adult. Instead, she had only questions.

Everything was upside down.

Salva stayed in the woman's barn again that night. He began to make a plan.
Maybe
I
can stay here until the fighting stops. Then
I
will go back to my village and find my family.

He worked hard so she would not send him away. For three days, he fetched firewood from the bush and water from the pond. But the pond was drying up; each day it was harder to fill the gourds.

During the daytime, Salva could hear the distant booming of artillery from the fighting a few miles away. With every shell that exploded he would think of his family, hoping they were safe, wondering desperately when he would be with them again.

On the fourth day, the old woman told him that she was leaving.

"You have seen that the pond is only a puddle now. Winter is coming, and the dry season. And this fighting." She nodded her head in the direction of the noise. "I will go to a different village near water. You cannot stay with me any longer."

Salva stared at her as panic rose inside him. W
hy can't
I
go with her?

The woman spoke again before he could ask aloud. "The soldiers will leave me alone, an old woman on her own. It would be more dangerous for me to travel with you"

She shook her head in sympathy. "I am sorry I cannot help you anymore" she said. "Wherever it is you walk, just be sure to walk away from the fighting."

Salva stumbled back to the barn. W
hat will
I
do, where will
I
go?
The words repeated themselves a thousand times in his head. It was so strange—he had known the old woman for only a few days, but now he could not imagine what he would do once she was gone.

He sat inside the barn and stared out, looking at nothing. As the light grew dimmer, the noises of evening began—the buzz of insects, the rustling of dry leaves, and another sound ... voices?

Salva turned his head toward the sound. Yes, it was voices. Some people were walking toward the house—a small group, fewer than a dozen. As they approached, Salva took a sharp breath.

In the fading light he could see the faces of those nearest him. Two of the men had patterns of V-shaped scars on their foreheads. Dinka patterns again—the kind that were given to the boys in Salva's village as part of the ritual of becoming a man.

These people were Dinka, too! Could his family be among them?

Nya's mother took the plastic container from her and emptied the water into three large jars. She handed Nya a bowl of boiled sorghum meal and poured a little milk over it.

Nya sat outside in the shade of the house and ate.

When she was done, she took the bowl back inside. Her mother was nursing the baby, Nya's little brother. "Take Akeer with you," her mother said, nodding toward Nya's sister.

Glancing at her younger sister, Nya did not say what she was thinking: that Akeer, who was only five years old, was too small and walked too slowly.

"She needs to learn," her mother said.

Nya nodded. She picked up the plastic container and took Akeer by the hand.

Home for just long enough to eat, Nya would now make her second trip to the pond. To the pond and back—to the pond and back—nearly a full day of walking altogether. This was Nya's daily routine seven months of the year.

Daily. Every single day.

Salva held his breath as he scanned the faces, one by one. Then the air left his lungs and seemed to take all hope with it.

Strangers. No one from his family.

The old woman came up behind him and greeted the group. "Where are you going?" she asked.

A few of the people exchanged uneasy glances. There was no reply.

The woman put her hand on Salva's shoulder. "This one is alone. Will you take him with you?"

Salva saw doubt on the people's faces. Several men at the front of the group began speaking to each other.

"He is a child. He will slow us down"

"Another mouth to feed? It is already hard enough to find food"

"He is too young to do any real work—he'll be of no help to us."

Salva hung his head. They would leave him behind again, just as the others had....

Then a woman in the group reached out and touched the arm of one of the men. She said nothing but looked first at the man and then at Salva.

The man nodded and turned to the group. "We will take him with us" he said.

Salva looked up quickly. A few in the group were shaking their heads and grumbling.

The man shrugged. "He is Dinka," he said, and began walking again.

The old woman gave Salva a bag of peanuts and a gourd for drinking water. He thanked her and said goodbye. Then he caught up with the group, determined not to lag behind, not to complain, not to be any trouble to anyone. He did not even ask where they were going, for fear that his questions would be unwelcome.

He knew only that they were Dinka and that they were trying to stay away from the war. He had to be content with that.

The days became a never-ending walk. Salva's feet kept time with the thoughts in his head, the same words over and over: W
here is my family?
W
here is my family?

Every day he woke and walked with the group, rested at midday, and walked again until dark. They slept on the ground. The terrain changed from scrub to woodland; they walked among stands of stunted trees. There was little to eat: a few fruits here and there, always either unripe or worm-rotten. Salva's peanuts were gone by the end of the third day.

After about a week, they were joined by more people—another group of Dinka and several members of a tribe called the Jur-chol. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young, walking, walking....

Walking to nowhere.

Salva had never been so hungry. He stumbled along, somehow moving one foot ahead of the other, not noticing the ground he walked on or the forest around him or the light in the sky. Nothing was real except his hunger, once a hollow in his stomach but now a deep buzzing pain in every part of him.

Usually he walked among the Dinka, but today, shuffling along in a daze, he found he had fallen a little behind. Walking next to him was a young man from the Jur-chol. Salva didn't know much about him, except that his name was Buksa.

As they walked along, Buksa slowed down. Salva wondered sluggishly if they shouldn't try to keep up a bit better.

Just then Buksa stopped walking. Salva stopped, too. But he was too weak and hungry to ask why they were standing still.

Buksa cocked his head and furrowed his brow, listening. They stood motionless for several moments. Salva could hear the noise of the rest of the group ahead of them, a few faint voices, birds calling somewhere in the trees....

He strained his ears. What was it? Jet planes? Bombs? Was the gunfire getting closer, instead of farther away? Salva's fear began to grow until it was even stronger than his hunger. Then—

"Ah." A slow smile spread over Buksa's face. "There. You hear?"

Salva frowned and shook his head.

"Yes, there it is again. Come!" Buksa began walking very quickly. Salva struggled to keep up. Twice Buksa paused to listen, then kept going even faster.