When Elephants Fight Read online

  The students return to their sweeping as Bol heads one way and I go the other. I do my best to clean the blood and dust off my face using the pail of water by the entrance to our classroom. The inside of my cheek stings when I touch it with my tongue. I can feel a small hole there. I must have bitten it when I fell.

  Some days I think it might be better if I didn’t come to school at all, but I like being here and I like learning. I don’t even mind maths that much, I’m just not any good at it. But knowing there’s someone out to get me makes it a lot harder to enjoy school. I’m not sure what I can do. I’m not a skilled enough fighter to beat Bol. And he’s been in so many fights before. Most boys just do what he says. I can’t imagine having to hide every time he turns up, and I don’t want to live in constant fear that he’ll try to hurt me.

  I take an extra long time washing. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, even if they want to tell me Bol is a bully and deserves to get sent home. At least I won’t have to worry about running into him for the rest of today.

  When I’m done I go back to sweeping. Most of the girls have abandoned their brooms completely and gathered in groups, arms linked. They’re making faces, whispering one second and laughing out loud the next. They act like they’re at a party. Part of their conversation drifts over towards me with the dust – they’re talking about the boys they think are cute. I hear my name, followed by shrieks of laughter. I don’t know if the laughter is a good sign or not.

  But I have little time to think about it because there’s suddenly another sound, a deep rumbling in the air like a plane. A flock of birds flies from a tree, moving as one mass, first this way then that. The rumbling grows louder and I scan the sky for the plane, hoping it’s one of those that leave white trails behind like a ribbon unfurling.

  I imagine the passengers on such a plane. People going someplace where they will spend their days relaxing, having fun. I can’t really picture what that would be like, but I’ve heard that’s what some people do.

  There is no plane, or at least none that I can see, only the clouds. I look around, but no one else seems to have noticed the sound. Chieng is talking with Akol. Aliens from outer space could land right next to him and if Chieng was with Akol he would barely notice. Thiko is nowhere in sight. The sound is buzzing in my head. How is it that no one else has heard? I want to scream at them.

  And I do. It’s bloodcurdling, the scream of someone who’s lost a limb. When I run out of breath and stop, my throat feels raw. Everyone is staring at me as though I’ve gone mad.

  Then two things happen at once. Miss Ayen appears on the far side of the yard with a ruler in her hand, and my schoolmates look up at the sky as they finally hear the noise. It’s right above us now, and there’s a new sound too, a whistling, whooshing sound I’ve never heard before.

  Miss Ayen yells, ‘It’s an Antonov!’ and before we can blink there’s a rapid boom boom boom and the earth groans as if suppressing pain.

  The ground heaves beneath me, a bucking zebra trying to throw me off. Another explosion follows quickly, a high buzzing sound, and I drop to the dust under a tree and wrap an arm around the trunk, anchoring myself as best I can and biting down on my lip until I taste blood. I remain there, eyes closed, my fingers gripping a root, until I feel brave enough to open one eye.

  I can’t believe what I see. The school buildings are in rags of fire and smoke. Trees have become pillars of leaping red, and flames gust out of the ground ahead of me. Dust boils towards the heavens. Everywhere there is noise and panic, students howling, feet stampeding. Not far from me, two boys lie curled on the ground, covering their ears with their hands.

  My whole body feels like it will explode. I want to run as far away from this as possible, but fear paralyses me. I cannot move. Then I see Thiko. She’s out in the middle of the compound, in the smoke and flying debris, just standing there like a living ghost, immune to danger.

  That’s enough to make my limbs move. I get up and run, dodging airborne objects. I trip and fall, spit out dirt, and when I get back up Thiko is gone. I call out to her and get no response.

  I turn to keep searching and my eyes land on a body lying on the ground in a pool of blood. God, no, I can’t be seeing this, I’m imagining it. I blink and look again.

  It’s Akol. Her eyes are open but she’s not seeing anything.

  Oh God, please. This is a bad dream, it will end, like all bad dreams eventually do. I close my eyes. When I open them again everything will be as it was. The bombing will not have happened, we will be sweeping the compound, Miss Ayen will be on duty.

  But when I open my eyes Akol is still there. Motionless. As if she’s playing a prank on me and will get up any minute, laughing at the look on my face.

  I am about to go to her when someone rushes past me. It’s Chieng. He collapses at her side. Screams louder than I’ve ever heard anyone scream. Then he shakes her, gently at first, but when she doesn’t move, when her eyes don’t lose that blank stare, he shakes her harder.

  ‘Akol!’ he sobs. He has her blood all over him.

  ‘Chieng.’ I take his arm. I want to talk to him to stop him losing his mind, I want to pull him away in case there’s another bomb, but he pushes me with a force that nearly knocks me over.

  I grab him again, tighter this time, and manage to get him to face me. ‘Chieng, listen to me, she’s gone. We have to get out of here, it’s not safe. She’s gone, Chieng.’

  ‘I can’t leave her,’ he cries, but his body goes slack and he allows me to pull him away and through the compound. I try not to hear the screams all around us. I try not to look. I don’t want to see any more dead bodies. I want to find Thiko and go home to Grandpa and Mama.

  Then, miraculously, as Chieng and I round the corner of a deserted hut behind the school compound, we run straight into Thiko. Relief floods her face when she sees me. She’s covered in dirt and dust but there’s no blood. She’s okay. She is here, dirty and scared and okay.

  ‘Thiko,’ is all I can manage to say, and she grabs my hand, the one that’s not holding Chieng, and tugs me away, out through the low shrubs bordering this edge of the compound.

  There’s a body here, another there, and another. Students who a short time ago were laughing, sweeping the yard, playing around. I don’t understand how this is possible. I can’t wrap my mind around how everything has so suddenly changed, how the air that was clean and fresh is now full of smoke and chaos and terror. I step on something warm and wet and almost trip over something harder. I want to believe it’s a log. I feel dizzy. I would have fallen if I wasn’t holding Thiko’s hand.

  A boy I don’t know lurches up to us, a wild look in his eyes.

  ‘Please help me,’ he sobs. There’s a gaping hole in his shoulder where his right arm should be.

  I grimace. If those white nurses were here they’d know what to do. But there’s no one here to help us, and before Thiko or Chieng or I can do or say anything, the boy collapses. His eyes roll back in his head and his body twitches. I look away.

  Then, something even worse. We come across Miss Ayen’s shoes. They’re not rainbow-coloured anymore, they’re stained dark with blood. A few yards beyond them are two long legs, unconnected to a body. The bright white of the leg bones shines through the charred flesh. I try to look away again but I’m not quick enough. My entire body goes rigid. I keep walking but I don’t feel as if I’m walking. The image is seared in my mind.

  My lungs seem to be filling with water, there’s no space for air. I can’t feel my legs at all now. I want to cry and I don’t want to. I don’t know what to do. A part of me is trying to get away from my body, trying to escape to where the trees are tall and the grass is soft. I can’t tell if I’m stepping on solid ground or off the top of a mountain. Everything around me is a blur of red and noise.

  And then, the part of me that wants to get away does. The screaming stops. The pain stops. The whole world stops.

  When I open my eyes the ceiling is familiar.
The mat beneath me is familiar. Mama is standing beside my bed, staring down at me. A smile begins to form on my face. It was all a bad dream. The bombing, the dead bodies, Miss Ayen’s shoes.

  But the look on Mama’s face makes my smile disappear before it can surface. She sits down and takes my hand. Pain courses through me. My head throbs. I try to remember what happened, how I made it home. I struggle to sit up but I’m too light-headed.

  ‘Be careful,’ Mama says.

  ‘Where are Thiko and Chieng? Is Majok okay?’

  ‘They are all safe,’ says Mama, easing me back down on the bed. ‘They’re unhurt. A branch struck your head, Juba. But there’s no bleeding. You’ll be alright.’

  Thon and Nyanbuot are hanging back with scared eyes. I put my hand to the back of my head. It’s swollen and sore to the touch and feels as if there’s liquid inside.

  ‘We must pray,’ Mama says. She folds our hands together and we close our eyes, and she offers up a prayer for the wounded and those who lost their lives. I try to listen to what she’s saying but my mind fights it. Terrible images explode behind my eyelids.

  ‘And Lord,’ Mama says, ‘I give my most humble gratitude for sparing the life of my son.’

  Her prayer brings me little comfort. I do not want to thank God, because I don’t understand why he’s let this happen. Grandpa has said many times that there’s no sense in war, but I don’t think I really understood what he meant until now.

  Chieng and Thiko and Majok come over later and sit quietly beside me. There’s not much we can say, there are no words for what happened. Then Grandpa comes back in and checks the lump on my head. He asks Mama to boil some herbal leaves in water, then leaves again and returns with a razor blade and a piece of cloth. When he asks Chieng and Mama to hold my arms down I get agitated.

  ‘Let me do it,’ says Thiko.

  Grandpa looks at her and shrugs. Thiko puts her palms on the backs of my hands and I relax. I know deep down that I have to let Grandpa help me. When he slices the lump with the blade it bursts and blood flows down my neck. He dips the cloth in the herbal water and presses it on the wound. I can feel the pain all through my body, right down to my toes. I focus on Thiko’s eyes and the little beads of sweat on her nose, grateful that she’s unhurt.

  When Grandpa is finished, Mama wipes the blood off and takes the cloth and bowl away. Grandpa sits back and looks at each of us, one by one. He stays like that for a long time.

  ‘You are all lucky to be alive,’ he says at last. ‘I know it might not feel like that now, but over time you will see how fortunate you are.’

  I look at Thiko and Chieng and Majok and we nod together. We do know we’re lucky.

  But Chieng’s grief is deep. ‘I close my eyes and all I see is Akol,’ he says, and his voice is barely a whisper. ‘I should have protected her. I should have, but we got separated and . . . and . . .’ He cannot finish his sentence.

  Thiko puts a hand on his arm. ‘You can’t blame yourself,’ she says. ‘And at least Akol knew how much you cared about her.’

  ‘But why?’ Chieng asks Grandpa. ‘My mother told me it was a government plane. Why did they do this?’

  Grandpa sighs. ‘I don’t know,’ he says simply. ‘Who can really know why such evil happens? But I could say that the government wants to send a message to villages they think might support the rebels, by attacking what’s most precious to them, their children. You know, the north can’t afford to let the south become an independent country.’

  Grandpa has explained this to me before, how the government of the north needs our resources. They have used the oil that’s here in South Sudan to develop their part of the country, and they don’t have to depend on international aid like we do.

  Grandpa goes on, ‘When the British governed Sudan as a colony, they administered the north and the south separately at first. North Sudan became Arabic-speaking, because Egypt was also in there. After the British left, Arabic was made the language of administration in the south too, so northerners began to hold positions here.’

  ‘But I don’t speak Arabic,’ Chieng says.

  ‘No, of course you don’t. But the southerners have been kept out of their own government even when they’re educated,’ says Grandpa. ‘The rebels say they’re fighting not just for political and economic independence, but also religious freedom. The north doesn’t like our Christianity, they want to impose Sharia law.’

  Grandpa looks sadder than I have ever seen him. I remember him telling me once that government forces are stationed in many towns in South Sudan, including Rumbek, just thirteen miles from Pacong.

  When my friends have left, Nyanbuot brings me food I cannot eat. All I want to do is go back to sleep, but I keep seeing Miss Ayen’s shoes. I talk to the ceiling. The noises from the explosion ricochet around my head. Thon comes to stand over me and asks if I know why the fire fell from the sky. I tell him to ask Grandpa.

  Eventually I sleep. In the morning the swelling on my head has gone down a bit, although it still hurts. I get up as the sun is rising and go to sit on top of my favourite rock, a hundred yards or so from our hut. From here I can see the narrow path leading to the waterhole, the path that leads to the market, and the wooded area where I collect firewood.

  Every season the view from this rock is different. In spring Pacong is a sea of colourful leaves. On dry-season nights, when all the crops have been harvested and stored away, the village comes alive with cooking lights, as though someone has taken a handful of glitter and sprinkled it over the huts under their blanket of black sky. One night, Chieng and I tried to count the stars and were lulled to sleep by the warm breeze and the songs of crickets.

  This morning, aside from the wind, there’s no sound. No one is working in their garden or sweeping their yard, no boys are herding goats to the fields. Pacong is completely silent. The sky is low with a scattering of thick grey clouds. Today they seem to me like pieces of an impossible jigsaw puzzle.

  Miss Ayen’s hut is not far from ours, and I can see people gathering there. Family members will arrive throughout the day, from distant villages. As I watch, some can’t control their emotions, they throw themselves on the ground, beating their chests in grief. One of her sisters strikes the dirt wildly with her palms until I am certain they will bleed. She is howling like an animal caught in a trap, a sound that’s coming from other parts of the village too. Mama told me that thirty students are dead and many others have been injured. I don’t know whether any other teachers were killed.

  I get down from the rock and then go with Mama to pay our respects at Miss Ayen’s house.

  ‘We must pray for her family,’ Mama tells me. ‘She took care of many of them, and now that she’s gone they cannot be sure how they will get by.’ Because of the war, Mama says, many things are scarce in parts of South Sudan, and Miss Ayen used to send her family money, soap, sugar and salt.

  I had never considered this before. I’d never thought about what Miss Ayen’s life outside school might be like, about how many people depended on her. I think of the book of Winnie-the-Pooh and I want to cry again.

  Outside Miss Ayen’s home a car pulls up. It’s Waterman. He’s with two other white men and his face is hardened when he gets out. I don’t know if there’s something he can do about those responsible for the school bombing.

  Today is the first time I haven’t seen people flocking to him. Waterman talks with Miss Ayen’s family while the other men place bags of food and jerry cans of water in the yard. Then he comes over to me and says they’re going to rebuild the school. It will be even better than it was before.

  ‘I don’t understand why they bombed it,’ I say. ‘Why would anyone want to bomb a school?’

  Waterman rubs his chin for a moment, as if he’s unsure what to say. ‘Some people don’t care what they destroy, I guess.’

  He seems reluctant to talk more about the bombs. But I know Waterman isn’t one of those people who like to destroy things. He could probably have
any kind of life, but here he is helping us.

  ‘We appreciate everything you’ve done for us,’ I say. ‘Even if the school doesn’t get rebuilt.’

  ‘Oh, but it will be rebuilt, Juba, I promise you that. All children deserve an education. You must never lose hope.’ He looks me in the eye. ‘This isn’t something you can be half-assed about, you know. Hope will keep you strong, even when everything else deserts you.’ Waterman’s voice is thick with passion and determination.

  I want to ask him why he cares so much, why it matters to him that we have a school, but I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want him to think I’m ungrateful, or that I’m questioning why he’s doing all this for us.

  And suddenly I wonder if the school was targeted because the more people learn, the more they will know there is something wrong with the government, and then they might want to join the rebels. But I know the rebels are no good either. They kill people too, take our food. I don’t know whether they took Deng or he wanted to go with them.

  Once Mama and I have spoken with Miss Ayen’s family, I head to Grandpa’s hut, which stands behind large tamarind trees. On hot afternoons I love to play in their shade and listen to the whistling birds. The bamboo fence encircling the hut is falling apart in places.

  Momo is cooking fish soup. I sit down and talk to Grandpa. I’ve been thinking about what he told me yesterday, that the bombs were dropped by pilots from the government of Sudan. I had always wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. I would put my arms out to the side and run around the yard yelling, ‘Pilot. I’m a pilot.’ It felt good the way the word formed in my mouth, the way it popped out, thuok tiera, every time I said it. I imagined myself as a grown man and people asking me what I did for a living, and me saying, ‘I’m a pilot. I fly planes above the clouds.’ I really believed I was going to do that someday, and whenever I said so, Mama responded the same way, saying I had to study hard. I got through many school lessons by telling myself I was going to be a pilot.