The boys we could carry with just four members of the burying team; adults took six or more. The only burying I refused to do myself was that of babies. I told Commander Beltbuckle that I preferred not to bury infants and thereafter I did not have to bury babies. The babies were rare, for the parents preferred to bury them themselves. The babies that were put to rest by the burial boys were those whose mothers were dead or lost. The cemetery grew too quickly, grew in every direction, and the quality of the burials began to vary.
One day we were bringing a dead boy from the hospital to the cemetery when we saw a hyena fighting with something in the ground. It looked like it was trying to pull a squirrel from the ground, and I threw rocks at it to scare it away. It would not leave. Two boys ran closer to it, with sticks and rocks, yelling at it. Finally it turned and ran off, and then I saw what the hyena was chewing on: the elbow of a man. It was then that my team knew that other burying teams were not burying their dead very well. We reburied that man and afterward Dut gestured to me, and I came to see him. He lived in a sturdy house that could sleep four.
— Sit down, Achak.
I obeyed.
— I'm sorry you have to do such work.
I told him that I had become accustomed to it.
— Yes, but you shouldn't. This isn't the way I had imagined this camp, and our trip to Ethiopia. I want things to be better for you here. I want you to be in school.
Dut stared out at the camp with his small enfolded eyes, and I wanted to reassure him.-It's okay, I said.-This is temporary.
He opened his mouth to speak, but then said nothing. He thanked me for my hard work and gave me a pair of dates he retrieved from a sack on his bed. I left Dut's tent, worried for him. I had seen him lost before, but this despondence was something new. Dut was a faithful man, an optimistic man, and seeing him this way fostered doubt within me. I had no particular expectations that the long-promised schools would be created, but I did imagine that our time in Ethiopia was temporary. I lived with the assumption that the day would come when the group I arrived with would walk back to Sudan together, when the fighting was done, and at each village we would drop off whoever lived there, until our line of boys dwindled down to the Gone Fars, who would return home last. I would walk the longest but I would find a way home soon enough and would have many stories to tell.
I had many curious thoughts during the day. Dreams appeared before me. When I stood or turned quickly, I felt a dizziness that numbed my limbs and brought white flies to my eyes, and occasionally with this disorientation came people I once knew. I would see my father, or the baby of my stepmother, or my bed at home. I often saw the head of the dead man in the river, though in my visions I saw his face, which had been stripped like the faceless man's.
I often woke in the morning thinking I was in my own bed, and it would take me a moment before I realized that I was not at home, that I would not be at home again for some time, if at all. I had become accustomed to the visions, the way these faces from my home appeared before me. They frightened me at first, but soon they became a kind of comfort; I knew they would come and fade in a few moments. There were ghosts all around me and I had come to accept them and accept the sort of shadow world I lived in during those days.
But one day a certain vision, this one of Moses, would not leave me. I was washing my extra shirt in the river when he appeared next to me, smiling like he had a fantastic secret. It was not the first time I had seen Moses; I often imagined him with me, there to protect me with his strength and willingness to fight. But this day at the river the picture of Moses was moving slightly, his eyes wide open and his head tilting, as if he wanted me to acknowledge that he was real. But it had been a long time since I had been fooled by one of these visions, of him or anyone.
— Did you lose your mouth, Achak?
I went back to my washing, expecting the vision to disappear any moment. That this one was speaking to me was disconcerting, but not unprecedented. I had once woken up to my baby stepbrother Samuel talking to me about horses. Had I seen his new horse? he wanted to know. He accused me of stealing his new horse.
— Achak, don't you know me?
I knew the boy in front of me to be Moses, but the real Moses had been killed by the murahaleen. I had seen him in the moment before his death.
— Achak, talk to me. Is it you? Am I crazy? I gave in and spoke to the vision.
— I won't talk to you. Go away.
And with that, the vision of Moses stood up and walked away. This was something I had never seen a vision do before.
— Wait! I said, raising myself and dropping my shirt. The vision of Moses kept walking.
— Wait! Moses? Is it you?
As I ran closer to the vision of Moses, he seemed more and more a real Moses and not a vision of Moses, and my heart jumped around, as if looking for a way to exit my body.
And finally the vision of Moses turned to me and it was really Moses. I hugged him and patted him on the back and looked in his face. It was Moses. He was older, but was still shaped the same way, a muscular man in miniature. It was surely Moses.
I explained the visions and the real and not-real, and Moses laughed and I laughed and then punched Moses softly on the arm. Moses punched me back, harder, on the chest, and I returned the blow and soon we were punching each other and wrestling in the dust with more intensity than either of us had planned. Finally Moses threw me off of him, squealing in real pain.
— What? What hurts?
And he turned and lifted his shirt. His back was striped with deep crimson scars.
— Who did that? I asked.
— My story is so strange, Achak.
We walked under a tree and sat down.
— Have you seen William? he asked.
I did not expect him to ask about William at that moment.
— No, I said.
We were very far from home so I thought it was acceptable to tell a lie like that. I didn't want to think about William K. Instead, I asked Moses to tell his story and he did.
— I remember the fire, Achak, do you? It wasn't orange anywhere, though. Did you see that, when the village burned? The sun was directly above and the fire was clear or grey. Did you see this, how the fire was clear?
I could not remember the color of the fire on the day our village burned. In my mind the fire was orange and red, but I trusted that Moses was correct.
— I remember breathing slowly, Moses continued.-I was breathing in the smoke. It became so hard to breathe in our hut. I would take in a little air and would have to cough, but I did it anyway. I kept breathing, and soon I felt weak. I was so tired! I was going to sleep, but I knew it wasn't sleep. I knew what was happening, I knew I was dying. My mother was dead, I knew, just outside the hut. I knew all this but I don't remember how I knew it all. Maybe I didn't know it all and am guessing now that I do know.
I remembered seeing Moses's mother. Her torso was uncovered and her face had been burned on one side, burned beyond recognition, but the rest of her was untouched.
— So I ran. I ran through the door and I jumped over my mother and I ran. I didn't want to look at her because I knew she was dead. And I was mad at her for leaving me in the hut. I thought she was stupid, to leave me where she knew I would suffocate. I was so angry with her for just dying and leaving me inside. I thought she was so weak and stupid.
— Moses, stop.
I remembered Moses standing over his mother, yelling at her. I did not tell Moses I had seen this. I was ashamed I had not come to save him sooner.