When she returned to Seattle, she began to worry about Duluma. He was calling more often, agitated, issuing threats into her answering machine. She would hear noises outside her apartment at night, and once Duluma had left a note under her door, a crazed jumble of accusations and pleadings. When she told me of these developments I urged her to return to Atlanta, to me. She couldn't, she said. She had finals coming up, and anyway, she had her brothers to call upon in case she felt unsafe.
I decided to call this Duluma, to talk about his behavior, and when I did, the results were satisfying. Because I suppose I am always hoping to find a compromise, to find calm and agreement where there is rancor, I spoke to him with empathy and with an eye toward reconciliation for all three of us. And before the conversation was over, I have to say that we were friendly. I felt I could trust him and that he had reached a new equilibrium. He said that he had come to grips with her seeing me-he had called around and asked about me, and now that he knew about me, knew I was a good man, he was content. He was ready to let her go, he said, and I thanked him for being such a good man about it all. It is not easy to let go of a woman you cherish, I said, though I still found him to be a disagreeable and excitable man. We said goodnight as friends, and he asked me to call him again some day. I said I would, though I had no intention of doing so.
I called Tabitha afterward, and we laughed about the twisted mind of Duluma, about how perhaps some nerve gas had depleted his faculties during his SPLA days. I remember wanting so desperately to be with Tabitha that day. She was merry on the phone, and dismissive of Duluma and his wild talk, but she was concerned and I was concerned. I wanted to fly to her, or bring her to me, and I will always curse my hesitance to do so. She was in Seattle and I was here in Atlanta, and we let this distance remain between us. I could have easily left this city for hers; there is little here to keep me. But she was in college, and I wanted to finish the semester's classes, and so we felt compelled to stay where we were. I cannot count the times I have cursed our lack of urgency. If ever I love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.
I am standing outside the door to my own apartment, and I don't think I will go inside after all. I don't know what I was thinking in going home. In there, my blood will still be on the carpet, and I will be alone. Could I visit Edgardo? I have never been in his home, and it seems a poor time to visit unannounced.
I want to leave, go away from here in my car, but the keys to my car are inside the apartment. I spend a few seconds debating whether I can bear to be in the apartment long enough to get them. I decide that I can, and so I turn the key.
Inside, I can smell the strawberry memory of Tonya, and beneath it, the boy. What is his smell? It is a sweet smell, a boy smell, the smell of a boy's restless sleep. I keep my head high, refusing to glance at my blood on the floor, or at the couch cushions that may still be on the carpet. I find my keys on the kitchen counter, sweep them into my hand, and quickly leave. Even the sound of the door closing is different now.
I get into my car. I decide that I could sleep here, in the parking lot, for an hour, before I need to go to work. But here I am too close to them, the attackers, their car, the Christian neighbors, everyone who participated in or ignored what happened. I stumble through the possibilities. I could drive to a park and sleep. I could find a place to eat breakfast. I could drive to the Newtons' house.
This feels like the right idea. When I began working and studying, I saw the Newtons less, but their door, they said, would always be open. Now, this morning, I know I need to be there. I will knock lightly on their window, the one by the kitchen's breakfast nook, and Gerald, who wakes up very early, will come to the door and welcome me in. I will nap on their couch, the brown modular one in the TV room, for one luxurious hour, smelling the house's aroma of dogs and garlic and air freshener. I will feel safe and loved, even though the rest of the Newtons won't know I was there until I am gone.
I drive to their house, only a few miles away, leaving the disarray I live in, by the highway and amid the chain stores, and entering the shaded and winding roads where the lawns are expansive, the fences immaculate, the mailboxes shaped like miniature barns. When I first came to know the Newtons, I spent two or three days a week at the their house, eating dinner there, spending whole weekends together. We went on outings to Atlanta Braves games, to the zoo, to movies. They were a very busy family-Gerald was on the boards of three nonprofits and worked constantly, Anne was active in their church-and so I began to feel guilt about the time they created for me. But I felt that I was helping Allison to understand certain things, about the war and Sudan and Africa and even Alessandro, so perhaps it was somewhat mutually beneficial. I had known them a few months when we took a picture outside their house, on their lawn, Allison sitting on the grass, me standing with Anne and Gerald.
— For the Christmas card, they said.
Had I heard right? They would put me on their Christmas card? They sent it to me ten days later, the picture we had taken mounted on a green folding card, the four of us smiling in their lush yard. Inside, they had printed: Happy Holidays and Peace in the New Year, from Gerald, Anne, Allison, and Dominic (our new friend from Sudan). I was very proud to have that card, and proud that they would include me in such a way. I kept it on my wall, taped there in my bedroom over my end table. I originally displayed it in our living room, but Sudanese friends visiting me had occasionally felt jealous. It is not polite to show off these sorts of friendships.
Thinking about the card warms me to the idea of walking under the arched doorway of the Newtons' home, but when I arrive at their house, the plan seems ridiculous. What am I doing? It's 4:48 a.m., and I'm parked outside their darkened house. I look for lights on inside, and there are none. This is the refugee way-not knowing the limits of our hosts' generosity. I am going to knock on their door at nearly five in the morning? I have lost my head.
I drive up the street, now a block away, so they won't see me if anyone inside does wake up. I decide I will simply wait here until it's time to go to work. I can get there early, shower, perhaps buy a new shirt and pair of pants in the pro shop. I receive a 30 percent discount on all clothing, and have taken advantage of this before. I will clean myself up and buy the clothes and look presentable and tell no one what happened. I am tired of needing help. I need help in Atlanta, I needed help in Ethiopia and Kakuma, and I am tired of it. I am tired of watching families, visiting families, being at once part and not part of these families.
A few weeks after I spoke to Duluma, and laughed about Duluma with Tabitha, I was with Bobby Newmyer again in Los Angeles. He was holding a gathering of Lost Boys at the University of Judaism. Fourteen Lost Boys from around the United States had flown in to talk about plans for a national organization, a website that would track the progress of all the members of the diaspora, perhaps a unified action or statement regarding Darfur. We were just sitting down to begin the morning's discussions when my phone rang. Because we Lost Boys all seem to have a problem with our mobile phones-we feel that they must be answered immediately, no matter the circumstances-rules had been imposed: no calls during the meetings. So I did not take Tabitha's call. During our first break, I checked the message in the hallway. It had been left at ten-thirty that morning.