'This is the same with me,' I say. 'Fifty-five minutes.'
Julian puts his arm around my shoulder and squeezes my neck in an apologetic way. The elevator doors open and I can see Achor Achor and Lino across the way.
'Makes you wonder what sort of problem gets the cops running, right?'
Because Julian is smiling, I force a chuckle.
'Anyway,' he says. 'What do you want, right?'
I turn my head quickly. 'What did you say?'
'Aw, nothing, man. Just running my mouth.'
My body has a current shooting through it.
'Please. What did you just say?'
'Nothing. I just said, What do you want? Like, what are you gonna do? What'd you think I said?'
And like that, the current dies.
'Sorry,' I say. It would not be surprising to me to hear Julian ask about the What. The What, I think, has something to do with why he and I waited for almost an hour, after being held at gunpoint, to be visited by police. It has something to do with why it took nine hours for me to get an MRI, and why I am now being brought to a bed in the ER-passing Achor Achor and Lino, who begin to stand up-to wait for a doctor who, at some point, will judge my results.
'I wish I could expedite this process, Valentine,' Julian says.
'I understand,' I say.
I sit on the bed, and Julian stands there with me for a moment.
'You'll be okay here?'
'I will. Can you tell my friends where I am?'
'I will. Sure. No sweat.'
Julian leaves me on the bed, pulling the curtain, attached to a track on the ceiling, around my area of the room. I have little doubt that Julian would prefer having me here, where he does not have to see me, to me sitting in front of him in the waiting room. But when he gets back to his desk, how will he make Achor Achor and Lino disappear?
'Excuse me Julian?' I say.
He returns. The curtain squeals and Julian's face appears.
'I'm sorry,' I say. 'Can you tell my friends to go home now, that I'm fine?'
He nods and smiles broadly. 'Sure. I'm sure they're ready. I'll tell them.' He turns to leave me but then remains. He stares at his clipboard for a long moment, then looks at me through the corner of his eye.
'You fight in that war, Valentine, the civil war?'
I tell him no, that I was not a soldier.
'Oh. Well good, then,' he says. 'I'm glad.'
And he leaves.
CHAPTER 20
I was almost a soldier, Julian. I was saved by a massacre.
Pinyudo changed slowly and I felt the fool for not knowing what had been planned. I believe now that they, the SPLA leadership, had conceived it all from the beginning. If they are guilty of this foresight, I am split between awe and horror.
My awareness of the architecture of it all began one day, at the beginning of summer, when boys were everywhere dancing, celebrating. I was with the Eleven; we were eating our dinner under the low ceiling of a humid grey sky.
— Garang is coming! boys sang, racing past our shelter.
— Garang is coming! another boy, a teenager, roared. He skipped like a child.
— Who's coming? I asked the passing teenager.
— Garang is coming!
— Who? I asked. I had forgotten many of the details of Dut's lessons.
— Shh! the teenager scolded, looking around for listeners.-Garang, the leader of the SPLA, fool, he hissed. And then he was gone.
Indeed John Garang was coming. I had heard the name, but knew very little about him. The news of his arrival was delivered after dinner in an official manner by the elders. They visited all the barracks-we were now living in brick buildings, grey and cold but sturdy-and subsequently the camp fell into a state of pandemonium. No one slept. I had heard very little about John Garang before this time, only what Dut had told me long ago, but in the days leading to his visit, information flowed freely and unfiltered.
— He is a doctor.-Not a medicine doctor, he's a farming doctor. He went to school in the United States. In Iowa.-He has an advanced degree in Agriculture from a university in Iowa.-He is the most intelligent Sudanese man alive.-He was a decorated soldier, the most commended Dinka.-He is from Upper Nile.-He's nine feet tall and built like a rhino.
I checked with Mr. Kondit and found that most of this information was correct. Garang had received a doctorate in Iowa, and this seemed to me so exotic that immediately I had the utmost faith that this man could lead a new southern Sudan to victory and rebirth.
In advance of his visit, we were made to clean our dwellings, and then those of the teachers, and finally the road leading into Pinyudo. It was decided that the stones lining the road should be painted, and thus paint was distributed and the stones were made white and red and blue, alternating. On the day of the visit, the camp had never looked so beautiful. I was proud. I can remember the feeling still; we were capable of this, the creation of a life from nothing.
On the day of the visit, the residents of Pinyudo were frantic. I had never seen the elders so nervous and wild eyed. Garang's visit was to take place in the parade grounds, and everyone would be there. As Moses and I gathered in the morning with the rest of the camp, the crowd grew far beyond my imagining. This was the first time I had seen the camp's entire human volume, perhaps forty thousand of us, in one place, and the sight was impossible to take in. SPLA soldiers were everywhere-hundreds of them, from teenage boys to the most battle-hardened men.
The sixteen thousand or so of us unaccompanied boys were seated directly in front of the microphone and while we waited for John Garang, the forty thousand assembled refugees from Sudan sang songs. We sang traditional songs of southern Sudan, and we sang new songs composed for the occasion. One of the unaccompanied boys had composed lyrics for this assembly:
Chairman John Garang
,
Chairman John Garang
,
A chairman as brave as the buffalo, the lion, and tiger
In the land of Sudan
How would Sudan be liberated if not by the mighty power we possess?
The immense power the Chairman possesses
Look at the Sudan! It resembles the ruins of the Dark Ages
Look at the Chairman-the Doctor!
He's carrying a sophisticated gun
Look at John Garang
,
He's carrying a sophisticated gun
All the roots are uprooted
All the roots are uprooted
Sadiq El Mahdi remaining a single root
And John will uproot him in our land
We will struggle to liberate the land of Sudan
We will! With the AK-47
The battalions of the Red Army will come
We'll come
Armed with guns in the left hand
And pens in the right hand
To liberate our home, oh, ooo!
When the song was sung it began again and once more and finally the guards arrived, the advance guards who heralded the arrival of Garang himself. Thirty of them strode into the parade grounds and surrounded the staging area, all of them armed with AK-47s and looking with suspicion and displeasure at us.