Demons now come roaring in on Obulejo. Their hot breath scorches his throat; their strong claws tear at his vitals. They taunt him with visions of hideous tortures, and his own painful death. He has no strength to call for help or to cast them out. The demons have him in their power.
‘Adis!’ they jeer. ‘Now you are ours!’
‘You will die! Your family will never know what became of you!’
Obulejo hunkers lower, hands crossed over his head to block out the tumult. But the demons never let up. They dance their triumph over his bowed head.
Is this the end?
Tears slither down his knees and pool on the dusty earth.
Hours later, when he finally is able once again to pay attention, Obulejo finds they are in a fully equipped Rebel camp manned by seasoned soldiers who are obviously angry that they have been assigned to guard a miserable rabble of prisoners.
Meagre rations are brought to the other prisoners, but the boys are given nothing that day.
Akere and Ayella curl up like puppies and fall asleep – or pretend to – holding each other tightly. Loding agitatedly paces the perimeter of their prison. But Ochan and Obulejo just sit, knees to chests, saying nothing.
Ochan seems steady and unperturbed, but perhaps he has simply done as Obulejo has – taken his mind and spirit out of this barren prison and sent it back to familiar places, back to the gardens, to the banks of rippling streams, to the firesides in the compounds at night with families gathered, where the elders tell stories in the flickering light and the girls by the grain houses send sideways flirty glances from under downcast eyelashes at boys they fancy.
No, those memories are too painful. It is better to stare vacantly at the ground. And wait.
Darkness comes at last. Night birds call. Faraway cattle low mournfully and then are silent.
The next day, no food, no water, and a soldier stands guard to make sure the other prisoners don’t share anything with the boys. Frantic with thirst and nearly fainting with hunger, Obulejo is almost relieved when the last morsel and sip have disappeared, and he is no longer taunted with the hope of food or drink.
At regular intervals, different prisoners are led away by a scowling guard. Those left behind hear screams of agony, ending only when the suffering ones are dragged back, half-crippled, and flung to the ground and new victims are selected.
Obulejo averts his eyes from the wounded faces, the bloodied limbs of the tortured. Soon it will be the cane on his bare back, across his calves, over his bowed head.
When his turn comes, it begins with questions he’s already heard.
‘Will you join the Liberation Army?’
Silence.
Kick.
‘You are a traitor.’
‘No.’
‘You are an infiltrator. Admit it!’
Silence.
Slash.
‘Then why do you refuse to join the fight to free our country from the Arabs?’
Silence.
Obulejo is accused of being unpatriotic, decadent, selfish and corrupt.
Again and again the demand is put to him, ‘Will you join the fight to free our country – yes or no?’
Silence.
If he says no, the soldiers will beat him or even shoot him. If he says yes, he will be thrown into the fighting and forced to become a killer himself.
His silence enrages his interrogator, who rains down further blows on Obulejo’s shoulders, all the while spitting out insults.
‘Mangy dog!’
‘Useless filth!’
‘Less than nothing!’
‘Speak, or you will die!’
Silence. Punctuated only by the thud of boots into flesh and the groans that escape from Obulejo’s lips. When at last the session is over, Obulejo is dragged back, semi-conscious, and hurled in among the other prisoners.
Each interrogation session brings some unthinkable new horror: sharp metal pincers to squeeze the skin of his thighs and genitals, strokes beyond counting from the mercilessly wielded canes, a burning brand pressed on his skin. Each takes Obulejo to the brink of endurance and beyond, engulfs him in a red haze of suffering. His cries rise like those of a crazed animal, tormented beyond bearing by cruel hunters.
He begs them to kill him now. Longs for his own death.
But his body is not so easily defeated. When he faints, water is dashed in his face, an army boot applied to his ribs.
As the sessions continue, Obulejo slips into such a high wide red terrible wilderness of agony that he cannot even speak to his friends when he is returned to the lock-up.
The youngest and smallest of the prisoners, he has surely borne all he is capable of bearing. Yet, there is no escape. For, cruel as this landscape of agony is, it is far worse to be returned to his full senses and discover that he is still living, forced once again to inhabit his broken and battered body.
11
THREE MORE days pass.
With each beating inflicted by the Rebels, Obulejo withdraws even further from life. His breath becomes shallower and more rapid; he can feel his pulse trembling in his throat. Ochan and Loding whisper encouragement, but Obulejo is unable to respond.
The next day, Akere and Ayella do not return from their interrogation session. No one dares ask what has become of them. They might have given in and agreed to join the Rebels, Ochan whispers. But where are they? Everyone fears the worst.
Older, more hardened prisoners at last begin to mutter among themselves.
‘They’re just boys,’ Obulejo hears one prisoner whisper to the man beside him. ‘And that little Ma’di lad isn’t even full-grown. Look how small he is. It’s not right to beat him so.’
Trucks are coming soon to take them to another barracks, they are told, and until then all prisoners will be put to work cutting poles. In return for their labour they are given a little extra food and water, so they don’t become too weak to work.
Obulejo and his companions are marched out with the rest. Obulejo tries to cut poles as directed. Takes a sip of water when prodded, eats a mouthful of cooked maize when the pot is placed on the ground beside the prisoners, washes desultorily when marched to the stream near the camp, but he has become an automaton, barely able to move or speak of his own volition. Existing in a haze of pain.
On day five of their imprisonment, they hear the other prisoners, most of whom are Dinkas, whispering to each other that the following day a truck will come to take all of them away for military service.
‘There’s a tiny chance we could escape before the trucks get here,’ Ochan whispers to Obulejo.
Obulejo does not respond. Curled up on the ground, he listens, eyes shut.
‘Some of the Dinkas here were captured after running away from the army,’ Ochan says, then adds, ‘You know Deng?’
He touches Obulejo’s shoulder and gestures towards a tall, brawny man lounging with a group of other Dinka prisoners to one side.
Obulejo nods wearily.
‘He’s been a soldier since childhood. The Rebel troops are the only family he has known. Even so, he is sickened by what the Rebels have made him do, so he has decided to run to Kenya. He told me he’d help us get away.’
A Dinka is willing to help a Ma’di and an Acholi? Obulejo thinks hazily.
‘He said to me, “Tell that little one not to give up, for soon he will be free. Deng will see to it.”’
Ochan tells Obulejo Deng’s plan. Part of it depends on an older guard who also has agreed to help. He’ll turn a blind eye when Deng and the boys slip away.
‘Please God it will rain heavily tomorrow,’ Ochan says. ‘We need rain for the plan to succeed.’
Next day, their prayers are answered. The rain pours down in a never-ending torrent, turning the barracks and its surrounds into a sea of mud. The prisoners are confined to their enclosure.
At nightfall they are called to eat. Obulejo, Ochan and Loding limp out with the rest to where their food is placed on the ground. The teeming rain
quickly turns the maize porridge into a thin, watery gruel. Guards and prisoners gobble their rations as quickly as they can, the guards under a thatched roof and the prisoners out in the open.
Obulejo’s insides crawl with anxiety.
Everything goes according to plan. Deng asks permission for the boys to collect water to clean off all the mud. He takes them to the fast-running stream a short way from the camp. The guard does not follow. The banks are sticky with red mud, the stream swollen with rushing water and the scrub beyond wild and wet and dark.
Every muscle quivering tensely, Obulejo readies himself.
When they reach the shadowed dip of the bank, the signal comes from Deng.
‘Now! Follow me!’
How they run! As silently as they can, they race along the bank, slithering through the bushes, wet prickly branches thwacking their faces in the dark, slick slurrying soil clutching at their feet as they slip and slide, close to the roaring stream.
Panting furiously, Obulejo runs after the others, blindly following their Dinka liberator.
The biggest hurdle now facing the boys is the flooded stream.
Below them, the waters roar and thunder; there is no chance of crossing here. They head downstream where the river is broader and the flow less chaotic. Obulejo has no idea which direction they are heading in. Everything depends on Deng guiding them to the Kenyan border.
Can a Dinka be trusted? he wonders as he runs. It was the Dinkas who created the war and it is their leader who heads the Rebel forces. The Dinkas are so different from the Ma’di; they drink blood and milk from their cattle, and they are warriors who fight first and ask questions later. They think the Ma’di and Acholi are traitors for not joining the Rebel forces. So why would a Dinka rescue three Ma’di and Acholi strangers?
At last they find a place where it seems possible to ford the swirling waters. Obulejo shudders when he sees the black depths. This would be the time to be a long-legged Dinka, he thinks, or a giraffe. Too bad I’m just a Ma’di boy, and will never grow so tall.
As they step into the flood, Deng takes Obulejo’s hand. Obulejo reaches out for Ochan’s hand, and Ochan clutches Loding’s, and together they let themselves down into the murky water. The force of the current is shocking, beyond the strength of a hundred boys. It drags at their ankles, forcing them downstream. Obulejo’s whole body clenches with the effort to stay upright and hold on to the others.
Little by little they make headway through the flood. There is one heart-stopping moment when Ochan stumbles and is swept off balance. The chain of boys sags, the link is broken and all is lost – until Obulejo’s flailing hand finds Ochan’s and clutches it hard. But where is Deng? In the dark Obulejo can see nothing. Has the river snatched him away?
Finally they stumble out onto the opposite bank, soaked through, coughing and spitting water, shaking and shivering. They fall to their knees, panting but triumphant.
They’ve made it!
And there is Deng, dragging himself out onto the bank a little way downstream. And although the night into which the four escapees have been liberated is cold and dark, to Obulejo the darkness suddenly seems less smothering, the storm less wild, the way they still have to travel not so hopeless and long. They are free and Deng knows the way to the border. Truly they are blessed to have the Dinka man with them.
Baba would be proud of this man, Obulejo realises suddenly.
Moini has always taught the children, even the tiniest, that they must never let differences between themselves and others rule their lives. For even enemies may turn out to be friends. If you allow them to be.
And Baba is right, as usual.
The storm proves to be both a blessing and a curse, as they push on that night.
The blinding rain and thick dark impede their progress but also wrap them in a cloak of invisibility. They dare not stop, though, in case their absence has been discovered and the soldiers are already out in pursuit.
As Deng scouts for the best and safest route, far from the main road and official checkpoints, Obulejo’s spirits rise. Freedom is surely near!
Each time one of the others suggests they rest and take cover, Obulejo argues against it.
‘We must hurry,’ he urges, ‘and get there before the soldiers catch us.’
Obulejo feels that his body is travelling separately from his soul. He feels no pain or cold. He is fired by a single burning desire to keep pushing onwards. Energy rushes through his chilled body. His legs throb, his overstretched muscles jag and cramp, but he pays them no heed.
‘Let’s go, let’s go,’ he gasps, over and over.
‘How much further to the border?’ Ochan asks Deng, at long last, when they seem to have been dragging through the sticky mud forever.
‘We’re close now,’ Deng replies. ‘But the guards at the checkpoints search all the convoys and everyone coming through.’
‘Then how can we get through?’ Loding asks.
‘We’ll keep going till we find a part of the border that’s unguarded,’ Deng says. ‘They can’t post guards along the whole nine hundred miles.’
He leads the boys far away from roads, through a wide sweep of claypan and thornbush and prickly acacias. Here there are no dwellings, no campfires, no soldiers: their footsteps will not be heard.
Everything is hushed, the usual night sounds smothered by the drumming of rain.
Their luck holds.
When dawn breaks Deng announces that they are now on the Kenyan side of the border.
Obulejo is worried that Deng has tricked them. ‘We saw no barrier,’ he says doubtfully. ‘And the land looks just the same.’
‘What is there to show we’ve left one country and entered another?’ Loding asks.
Ochan says nothing but he is looking worried too.
Deng laughs. ‘Did you think there would be a fence you could follow the whole way to Somalia, or a sign saying You are now leaving Sudan and entering Kenya? I tell you, we have crossed the border. But our troubles are not over,’ he reminds them. ‘We have no rights and no legal status in this new country.’
Their jubilation fades.
‘We are truly displaced persons now,’ Ochan says.
‘With no home and no country,’ Loding adds.
But they are still probably better off than poor Akere and Ayella, Obulejo thinks.
‘What do we do now?’
‘We must go to Lokichogio,’ Deng says, ‘and report our arrival. The UNHCR will interview us and consider our cases. But first we must clean up.’
Obulejo suddenly realises that he is filthy and bleeding; his clothes are torn and muddy. The others are the same.
They search until they find a borehole. Then each takes a turn pumping the water up for the next, so they can wash. Runnels of mud flow down and puddle at their feet. The cool water feels icy on their chilled bodies. But they are glad to rinse the muck out of their hair, to sluice their limbs and torsos and scrub away at their stained clothes.
Finally they are clean. They wring out their dripping shorts and shirts as tightly as they can. There is no choice but to don the tattered wet garments again. Obulejo feels sick with the cold. And sick with shame. What would his family think if they could see him looking no better than a half-naked wild man?
Obulejo spots what looks like a muswak tree, plucks a twig from the branch and hopes fervently that this Kenyan tree does not prove to be poisonous. But soon the familiar foamy, slightly soapy taste fills his mouth and he chews on the twig and scrubs his teeth till his mouth feels fresh and clean.
Shivering and nervous, they set out for Lokichogio.
‘UNHCR reception centre for displaced persons?’ they enquire of people they meet.
Some throw the ragged group looks of disdain. Others turn away at the sound of Arabic, ignoring their query. Conscious of their dishevelled appearance, the boys and Deng speak quietly and respectfully, repeating their request in Dinka, Acholi, Ma’di and rudimentary English.
Fi
nally they are directed to the right place.
They approach hesitantly, uncertain what to do next.
A tall, skinny Kenyan saunters over to them, and waves imperiously to a big open area in front of a demountable building. The yard is filled with people, variously sitting, standing, lying on bundles or squatting on the ground. All look weary and depressed. A few babies cry fretfully.
‘Wait here until you are called,’ the official tells them in Swahili. ‘Once your name is written down you will be taken to the reception centre for Kakuma refugee camp.’
The day drags on. The sun climbs higher in the sky.
People are called into the office, one at a time or in small groups. Vehicles drive in and out of the compound. Kenyans bustle about, or lie in the shade of the few stunted flame trees. Vultures in the twisted branches look down on the scene with lazy, knowing gazes.
Deng and the boys sit and wait.
They have done all they can. It is up to others now to help them take the next step.
12
THE BOYS DISCUSS whether to give false names when their turn comes to be interviewed.
‘It might be safer,’ Deng says, ‘especially if the soldiers are on our tracks.’
‘But it also might reduce the chances of locating our families, or of our families finding out where we are,’ Ochan points out.
Obulejo agrees. He is not going to lie. He wants to claim his name; admit to being Obulejo, son of Moini. Trouble tomorrow. Well, the trouble has come. What more can tomorrow bring?
At last they are called, one by one. Obulejo neatly writes the name of his town and district on the proffered form.
‘Ma’di?’
‘Yes, sir.’
A barrage of questions about how he came to be in Kenya follows, and when he has answered he is waved out to join the others.
There is another wait of several hours. Finally, along with a crowd of other people, they are ushered out to a UN truck. Everyone climbs up onto the tray behind the driver’s cab, the young and nimble reaching down to help the old and infirm. Babies and small children are passed over people’s heads.
Trouble Tomorrow Page 6
