At least I won.
I’ll talk to your counselor at school, Dave says.
I wonder from his sound if he has said
these words before.
Ganwar and I will go to school together?
I ask with hope.
No, Dave says.
Ganwar is in eleventh grade,
and you will be in fifth.
He pats my back.
Kek, if you need anything,
have your aunt get in touch with me.
I’m always here to help.
I will be OK, I say,
using my best English words.
Soon I will make snowballs.
I make a big grin
so that my new friend Dave
will not worry.
I wonder if he can tell
it is a pretending smile.
Kek, my aunt says,
he’s a good boy.
He will try hard
to make his new life work.
I can hear her struggle to
find the English words,
just like I do.
My aunt glances at Ganwar.
You’ll see, Dave.
Kek finds sun
when the sky is dark.
Ah, says Dave,
an optimist.
I look away.
I cannot find any sun today, I think.
Dave shakes my hand,
and when the door closes behind him
I’m surprised that I feel afraid,
a little bit.
Dave isn’t like my father,
not at all.
But it’s been good
to have someone watching over me,
even for just a while.
It’s been a long time
since I’ve known that feeling,
like a soft blanket
on a night when the wind howls.
FATHER
He had many cattle,
my father,
and the respect of our village,
but it was his voice that made him
a rich man among men.
His voice was deep,
like a storm coming,
but gentle,
like the rain ending.
My people are herders.
We move with the seasons,
with the wet and the dry,
so that the cattle
may be strong and well fed.
We cannot carry much with us,
and so our stories don’t
make their homes
in heavy books.
We hold our stories
in our songs.
No one knew more songs
than my father,
and no one sang them
with a voice as clear and sure.
He knew songs of the stars
and the wind,
of love and betrayal,
of war and regret.
Always the villagers would beg,
just one more song, Dak!
Our ears long for one more story!
At night, before we went to sleep,
my father would make new songs
for my brother Lual and me.
He sang my favorite
the night he was killed:
The crocodile snaps;
Still Kek swims.
The feet bleed;
Still Kek dances.
The calf vanishes;
Still Kek searches.
The sandstorm blinds;
Still Kek laughs.
My stubborn Kek,
my willful son,
if you tell me
you can dance with the wind,
if you tell me
you can sleep with the lion,
if you tell me
you can harvest the stars,
how can I doubt you,
my son?
BED
We must feed you.
My aunt speaks in my language,
the right way,
with the notes where they belong.
Ganwar will show you the other rooms.
There are more? I ask.
How can that be?
You have a kingdom here!
A TV machine, a sitting place,
a cooking fire!
The smile on Ganwar’s face
is a surprise.
Suddenly I remember him
playing with my brother,
wild boys chasing each other like
lion and prey,
searching out mischief
in every corner of our village.
Ganwar leads me to a little room.
For bathing, he instructs.
But watch out.
The water comes hot and fast.
I point to the magic water pot
like the one on the flying boat.
You don’t go outside?
He laughs. It would turn to yellow ice.
I laugh, too.
Ganwar stares at me.
Always his eyes seem to know
more than I will ever know.
You laugh like your brother, he says.
He is quiet. His grin is gone.
Too bad I do not look like him, I say,
and I am glad to see Ganwar’s smile return.
It means we will not talk of
why I am here
and Lual is not.
Too bad for sure,
Ganwar agrees.
I have a silly face, to tell the truth of it.
I have the eyelashes of a girl,
as Lual and Ganwar liked to remind me.
My ears look like they want
to fly me away,
and my smile takes up most of my face.
My brother was the handsome one.
Everywhere girls watched him
with shy, smiling eyes.
Another room is waiting.
On the floor
lie blankets and pillows
like gentle dunes.
I run my hands over covers
softer than a new calf’s coat.
Just one mattress so far,
says Ganwar,
and his voice tells me this is not a good thing.
Dave says maybe he can find more soon.
You and I will sleep in the other room.
We’ll take turns on the sofa.
So-fa? I repeat.
It’s a long chair
you can sleep on, Ganwar explains.
You don’t need to share, I say.
I’ll try not to get in the way.
You know you are welcome here, Ganwar says,
but I cannot tell if he means his words.
It’s a strange pain
to be with those you belong to
and feel you don’t belong.
Carefully I take a step
onto the blanket cloud.
I stumble, then stand,
then jump and jump
and fall
and jump some more.
Ganwar shakes his head.
You haven’t changed,
my cousin, he says.
You’re still a crazy little boy.
I stop my jumping.
I’m not a little boy, I think.
Not anymore.
But I keep the words in my heart.
BROTHER
My brother Lual was Ganwar’s age,
and just as tall.
Maybe that’s why he tried
always to tell me what to do.
Have you lost your ears,
my stubborn brother? he would say.
You must listen to our father and mother.
Soon you’ll be a man,
not a silly boy.
I would sigh,
I would laugh,
and once I even slipped
two snakes onto his sleeping mat
while he lay snoring.
The whole village awoke to his screams.
I kno
w it was wrong to do,
but they were harmless snakes,
and when I saw Lual’s face
I laughed until
my eyes rained.
Every day Lual scolded,
and every day I thought,
Lual, please just be my brother.
I don’t need two fathers!
I didn’t know that too soon
I would not have any.
Still, though he could peck at me
like a sharp-beaked bird,
Lual knew well how to make
his little brother laugh.
He would have known a soft bed
was made for jumping.
He would have growled at me
for misbehaving,
but then,
when no one was looking,
he would have jumped just as high.
I would give all the beds
in all the great world
to feel the sharp thorn
of Lual’s scolding once again.
TV MACHINE
My aunt makes food on the cooking fire.
We eat simply,
with tastes and smells of my home,
and we talk with the words and sounds I know
sweet in my mouth.
But the more home returns to me,
the more I remember all I’ve lost.
I feel the holes where
my mother,
my father,
my brother
should be,
my uncle, my aunt’s husband,
and their other children, too—
two girls, younger than Ganwar.
Sometimes, it seems to me,
a hole can be
as real and solid
as a boulder or a tree.
Outside snowflakes tap at the window
like stubborn mosquitoes.
I try out the word—
snow—
then shiver and shake
just like Dave.
My aunt lets a smile go free.
I have to go to work now, she says.
What do you mean, work? I want to know.
Mama helps at a house for old people, Ganwar explains.
His mouth is a line.
It’s not a good place.
It’s called a nursing home, says my aunt.
And they pay me money
so that I can buy things.
It takes a lot of money to live here in America.
But it’s night, I say.
And it’s cold.
My aunt touches my shoulder.
You’re a good boy, Kek.
You are your mother’s child.
Mama will be glad to see you, I say.
I hope she’ll get here soon.
My aunt looks at me with
questions in her eyes.
She glances at Ganwar.
He looks away.
Don’t hope too hard,
she says in a whispering voice,
and then she puts on her coat and leaves.
When she’s gone,
Ganwar and I watch the TV machine.
I’d seen one at the airport
and on the flying boat,
but this machine has
many more stories,
more colors,
more happy people
and mad people.
People are dancing
and singing
and shooting
and kissing.
So many people,
but they still cannot fill
the holes in the room.
NIGHT
The pillow like a mound of grass
under my head is good comfort,
and the blanket is warm as afternoon sun,
but still I can’t sleep.
Ganwar lies without moving,
but I know somehow
he is not sleeping, either.
After a while Ganwar sits up on his elbows.
He’s just a shadow to my eyes.
What’s that cloth you’re holding? he asks.
It’s from the camp, I say.
It’s true,
true enough.
I don’t want to say
the whole truth.
Are you glad that you’re here, Ganwar?
I ask.
He breathes in and out, in and out.
This is a good land, he says.
There’s great freedom here.
But even when you travel far,
the ghosts don’t stay behind.
They follow you.
You come here to make a new life,
but the old life is still haunting you.
We don’t say anything for a few minutes.
Finally Ganwar speaks.
They’re all gone, Kek.
They’re all dead.
I want to hate Ganwar for his words.
But I am too weary for anger.
Already there are so many people to hate,
too many.
Not all, I finally whisper.
Not Mama.
He sighs. It isn’t good to fool yourself.
I’ve learned that much.
Hoping isn’t foolish, I say.
If I can make it all the way here,
then anything can happen.
He shakes his head.
Crazy boy, Ganwar says.
Hoping doesn’t make a thing true.
Remember when you were
no taller than my knee
and you thought you
could talk to the cattle?
They listened, I say.
They just didn’t answer.
How about when you
believed you could fly?
Remember how you jumped from the top
of the acacia tree?
I still have the scar on my elbow, I say.
And anyway, the flying part was fun.
Only the landing was troublesome.
You can’t make yourself a bird, Kek.
Some things will never be.
A man does not give up, I say.
A man knows when he’s defeated, Ganwar replies.
I wipe away a tear
with the soft cloth in my hand.
I don’t answer.
I am afraid of what the answer might be.
MAMA
I have my father’s will,
my brother’s eyes,
and my mother’s light.
She is like newborn sun,
fresh with promise,
the just-beginning moments
before the day
fills like a bucket
with good and bad,
sweat and longing.
Even her laughter has sun in it.
Always when I think of her
I see a cloudless day blooming full,
I feel warmth on my shoulders,
I know hope’s embrace.
I am just a boy like any boy.
I make trouble,
I’m lazy,
I kick at the world
when I’m mad.
I don’t know why I have been so lucky,
to be so loved.
SLEEP STORY
I am on the flying boat
and so is Dave and
Mama and Father and Lual.
People from my village
are there, and many cows,
and a camel and a gazelle.
Airplane, Dave says,
Try to say it, Kek.
But when my mouth opens,
the only things that come out
are little white puffs,
cloud after cloud.
You must try harder,
Lual says,
and I give him my best scowl.
He laughs, and then
the round windows open
and guns are there
and hating words,
and I am screaming
empty white clouds of fear.
When at last it’s quiet,
the seats of Lual and my father
and all the other men from my village
are empty.
They’re gone, I tell my mama,
they’re dead,
and she takes my hand.
When we step outside
it isn’t sky we see,
but endless, barren land
dotted with dead trees.
Mile after mile
day after day
tear after tear
we travel,
to a place of tents and women and children.
Here in the camp we are safe, she says.
The men with guns will not come.
My feet are blistered
and her dress of blue and yellow
is stained with blood,
and all around us
snow falls
and my eyes burn
with the sight of it.
PART TWO
You only make a bridge where there is a river.
—AFRICAN PROVERB
PAPERWORK
Dave comes for me the next day.
He has snow in his eyebrows.
We drive in the red rattling car
to a new place.
Refugee Resettlement Center, Dave calls it.
It’s warm there,
with many chairs
and many more people,
all colors and shapes.
It’s my job to answer
a bored lady’s questions.
Her fingers bounce on
a machine with many buttons
while she stares at a bright box.
Her fingernails are shiny red,
the color of blood,
and I feel sorry
for her bad fortune.
At first I’m afraid to speak.
It’s OK, Kek, Dave says.
It’s called paperwork.
You can’t make a wrong answer here.
The bored lady asks her questions again,
and this time I answer.
Soon I grow sleepy,
and after a while her words
begin to fall like raindrops on the floor.
I try to understand,
but all I hear is a river of words,
rushing and thundering
and pushing me beneath the surface.
Now and then a word I know
darts up like a sparkling fish,
but then it’s all dark
moving water again.
We are there a long time.
I don’t think
I like this America paperwork,
I whisper to Dave.
It makes for
too many yawnings.
INFORMATION
Dave leads me to another room.
A woman sits behind a pile of papers
tall as a termite mound.
Is this Kek, by any chance? she asks Dave.
One and only, he says.
Kek, meet Diane.
Diane stands and shakes my hand.
She isn’t much taller than I am,