The Commander has warned us not to complain about walking or carrying. Get used to it, he says, you will be doing it for a long time. If you cannot go on, you will be killed. The choice is yours.
He also says: You have come too far to find your way home. Which way will you go? What will you eat? Think how much harder it will be in two weeks’ time. Then it will be impossible to run away. We won’t even bother to tie you.
I turn the stones over and press one against the palm of my hand with my little finger. This hollow one is Thursday. Yesterday.
Yesterday I was glad that Anya was walking in front of me. I felt that she was showing me the way. Today I wish she was behind me, so I did not have to see the blood and ash on the back of her dress. She is like a smudged drawing. I hardly recognise the lines of her body.
Today, Friday, is a round pebble, perfectly smooth except for a thin, rough seam around its middle. When I picked it up I saw that it was dark, almost black, with a yellowish vein running through it like fat in a piece of meat.
I keep the days in one pocket. I keep the sugar in the other.
This morning, something glistened on my wrist and when I passed it over my lips I tasted sugar. Reaching to the top of the bag on my head, I pushed my finger into the fold and found that it has pulled open there. The gap is just wide enough for the tip of a thumb and forefinger. A pinch of sweetness.
It is our sugar. It belongs to my family. The soldiers took it from our larder when they took us. Just as they took the sack of sorghum that Amito is carrying from her mother’s kitchen. It gives me a purpose here. I am watching over our things.
Mother was always so careful with the sugar. Waste not, want not. You had to be sure not to spill a single grain opening a new bag. Some sugar might be caught in the folds of the paper.
I steady the bag with one hand, reach into the opening and pinch a few grains between my fingers. After a few paces I raise the sugar to my lips. Sweetness. And sweat.
We are in the open now, following a path along the grassy ridge of a hill. It was a relief to come out from under the trees. It is hotter here but the path is open and that makes the carrying easier. I worry about Anya. She has stumbled a few times even though the path is good. She is carrying the box with the bullets, the heaviest thing even though it is made of plastic, even heavier than the radio. They gave it to her because she is the tallest. I watch her back but it says nothing. Perhaps the sugar feels lighter because it is sweet? We have eaten nothing but scraps since we left Atiak. When we pass a mango tree they will not let us pick the fruit.
I am taking sugar for this evening. I had the idea to hide some in my pocket as we walk, so that tonight when we are tied up together I can share it with Anya. I must be careful not to let them see what I am doing or to tear the opening in the bag. If they think I have stolen from them, they will kill me. Even though the sugar is actually mine.
I look for a landmark on the path ahead, a dead tree or an anthill, and wait until we are there before I reach into the bag again.
The first pinch turns to syrup on my fingertips. I have to wipe the sweat off my palm on the hem of my skirt and try again. This time I manage to carry a pinch of sugar to my pocket, but then I can’t be sure it is still there. Perhaps it fell into the stitching of the seam and my poking finger pushed it deeper or melted it to nothing. I must be patient.
We walk all morning. It is Friday, a black pebble with a vein of yellow fat in it, which no tongue will ever taste. Stone, sugar. Once Amito says that she cannot go on and sinks down under the sack, but they shout at her until she gets up again. One of the younger soldiers, he is no older than me, hits her on the shoulder with the flat side of his panga. Let me kill this one, he shouts. But the Commander says, Then who will carry this sack?
At midday, they let us drink from a stream they have muddied with their boots. They eat cold porridge from the night before, from the hollow belly of Thursday, and we get the crusts scraped from the bottom of the pot. There are stalks of grass or tobacco in mine but I swallow it just like that.
The niece of the neighbour from Atiak does not eat. She cries softly. Her heels are bleeding. She is from town and not used to walking. We are used to walking at home, but not this far, carrying such heavy things, without rest. My feet are also swollen. Anya and I kneel down together at the stream to drink and I try to show her how sorry I am but she will not meet my eye.
We go on. I feed my pocket. There is a little store of sugar there now. I stop myself from checking how much. For all I know it is only a pinch, but I imagine a spoonful or a cupful. I imagine scooping it out in a cupped hand. Tonight, when they pile the provisions together and tie us up under a tree or on the bed of a stream, I hope Anya and I are close together. Once the others are asleep, I’ll whisper in her ear and tell her to lick her finger and press it into my pocket.
Hans Günther paused again and paged forward to the last of the yellow flags. Now for the Valley of Death, he thought. And then the words she had inscribed on the manuscript. He could almost feel them through the printed page: handmade things in a world of flawless signs. His throat was tight. He pursed his lips and squeezed breath into his head as if he was trying to make his ears pop. The more practised listeners could tell by his attitude that the reading was not over, but some of the others shifted experimentally in their chairs or glanced at their companions. He ran a knuckle along the stitching to press the pages flat and looked over the edge.
The path falls into the valley. Some of the men want to stop here on the edge of the abyss, others want to press on. Amito and Kidega add their voices to the chorus. They are tired, their feet are sore, they need to rest.
It is a mistake. We have been told not to speak, neither among ourselves nor to them. The bearded one is suddenly angry. He knocks Amito to the ground. The boy with the panga is there but it is the one with the sunglasses, the one they call Shaggy, who rushes forward to beat her. He has a switch and he lashes her with it, across her back, on her shoulders, on her shins, and she cries out and tries to ward off the blows with her hands.
After half a dozen blows, I start counting, and then I stop again and look away. My face is turned to Amito, because they want us to watch, that is the point, but my eyes are not. Something is flickering down there to one side, but I cannot tell if it is something small right here on the ground beside the path or something big far away in the bottom of the valley. It twists like a flame.
There is nothing we can do, of course. Even Kidega is silent all through the beating. I wish she would get up. She is weaker than I am and more complaining. If he kills her, it will be worse for me. And who will carry the sorghum?
At last, it stops. The bearded one orders us to walk again and we get to our feet and start lifting everything. Usually one or two of the men have gone ahead on the path, leading the way, but now some of them are arguing about where to stop and others are dragging Amito to her feet, and so Anya is in front. The rest of us are still heaving up sacks and untangling ropes when she starts down the steep track with the box on her head. She has hardly taken a step before she slips on the shale and falls, pulling all of us with her, scrambling to keep our footing and set down our things. She tries to hold onto the box and so it is in her hands when it comes down on the rock, and it looks as if she has dashed it there rather than dropped it. The box breaks open at the hinges and the small cardboard boxes inside spill out, and some of them burst open too and the bullets flash and tumble down like a splash of coppery water over the rocks.