Disturbed in Their Nests Read online

  The screen showed that a second plane hit another building beside the one with a huge smoke plume rising into the sky. Another fiery explosion. That glued my feet to the carpet in wordless utter shock. The enormity of what I saw threw me back into my old world.

  “Two planes don’t crash like that,” James said.

  The screen switched to a man giving the news. My English comprehension was shallow. The newsman confused me. I’d flown into New York just three weeks earlier. That could have been us. I didn’t know about the twin towers then. Even if two planes hit buildings, couldn’t it still be a fault in the planes? Please, not an attack.

  They kept playing the video over. Crowds of panicked people fled down the street, through buildings so jumbled together they could all catch fire.

  “Look up there,” James said, “above the explosion. People are jumping out of the building.”

  “Could soldiers inside be pushing them out?” When my older brother Yier was at the university, northern troops set the black students’ dorm on fire. Yier and his two friends jumped from the window and were the only students who survived, even though the soldiers shot at them. But that was from the second floor. This was too high. These people could not survive.

  “They are jumping to escape the fire,” James said.

  Shock stopped my breathing. Would I jump from that high to escape fire?

  Daniel, Benson, and Lino came into the room. “Ya ngo yin de?” they asked. What is going on?

  “America has been attacked,” James said.

  “No way,” Daniel said. “No one would attack America.”

  He was right. Who would attack America?

  The five of us stood in a circle, trying to understand the news, but the reporters didn’t seem to know what had happened either, or who had done it, or if it was an attack. The awful images of people fleeing with smoke and dust covering their skin reminded me of how we’d often fled from cross fire and bombs in our homeland. They had the same look on their faces.

  Judy said the explosions we’d heard the night before were just fireworks. This wasn’t fireworks. This was war. Was there no safe haven on earth? My skin blistered with fear.

  “Evil has followed us,” James said. “We brought bad luck. Our government is angry at America for bringing us here.”

  Could he be right? No one had ever attacked America before, but now it was attacked right after we came here. If evil had visited this land so far away, we could never outrun it. I would not have left Africa if I’d known it was going to follow me here, too. I would have faced it there. I’d seen what evil did to innocent people; it devoured everyone so quickly. I didn’t want to bring this to America.

  Lino shook his head and headed into our bedroom. Daniel, Benson, and I sat on the couch, each of us silent in our thoughts. James still stood, his legs spread and hands on his hips, a military man. James had been forced to be a soldier as a child.

  What about Benjamin? “Benjamin. He is coming today. Did he fly to New York like we did?”

  Benson hung his head. “I don’t know.”

  How could we know? We would just have to wait.

  I turned back to the television. The news reporters were talking when the screen changed to a building falling down in a huge crash of white dust.

  We looked at each other. No words came from our mouths. For so long South Sudan’s population had suffered under the regime of the North. Sudan hosted terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden had been there for four years recruiting and training. Now they had come after us to destroy us once and for all.

  “This is our fault,” I said. “This is the biggest mistake of our lives that we have brought this here to America.”

  We were so sick of war in our native land. By sheer luck we were alive and here in the United States, the safest place on earth. But maybe it wasn’t as safe here as we thought. Would danger always lurk? Peace would be only the moments in between, when no danger took place. I’d always be looking over my shoulder with a sharp eye. In Sudan, I’d learned how to avoid war. Here in America I didn’t know where it might come from. I had to be alert for war all the time.

  DANGEROUS PLACE

  Judy

  The day after the attack on the World Trade Center our country was paralyzed. Planes still weren’t flying. We were glued to the news as the search for the attackers began. The world had our back.

  Like first awakening from a nightmare, I was dazed and suspended. Nothing but eating, brushing my teeth, and trying to sleep seemed appropriate.

  Joseph had told me not to worry about Benjamin. He was with a group of Lost Boys. Their plane had been diverted. He’d know more in days to come.

  I’d called the apartment and spoken with Alepho. He’d said they were sorry for the attack on America. If it had caused him more angst than that, he didn’t reveal it on the phone.

  Alepho had asked to visit our home more than once. I’d been hesitant, concerned about their perception of our relatively large suburban home after they’d lived in a mud hut with a tin-­can roof and no water or electricity for nine years, and now they were in a dingy apartment in City Heights. Even though they’d been too busy to visit, my slowness to invite them was beginning to feel rude. A day at our house seemed more fitting than a park or some other public place, which everyone was avoiding.

  I picked them up at their apartment. As usual, Benson in front, Alepho and Lino in the back.

  “Any more news about Benjamin?” I asked.

  “We did not hear,” Benson said. He handed me folded papers. More writing than ever this time. “Thank you, Benson, I really look forward to reading these.” I tucked them into the side of my purse for later.

  We headed north on Interstate 5. The car was quiet, full of people in a state of shock, including me. “I live about thirty miles from here,” I said to lighten the mood. “So we’ll get to be on the freeway for a much longer time than we have before.” I thought that might even excite them.

  No response. No chatter about Rush Hour, Jackie Chan. Guess they were feeling the way we all were about the disaster in New York. I wanted to know, but the moment seemed inappropriate to ask. No words came to me.

  Few cars were on the roads. People were hunkered down. We passed homes, condo complexes, and business centers. About halfway there, as the freeway veered toward the coast, I said, “You’ll see the ocean soon.” I thought that would get an ooh or ahh, but it went by without comment.

  “Now we’re leaving the city,” I said.

  The guys were quiet. New York and its potential consequences must have triggered some awful memories and emotions. Talk about it or not talk about it? I’d wait for them to bring it up.

  We came to an area with sprawling gated communities that had recently recontoured the rolling hills where I used to ride my horse. I exited the freeway. Paul and I had relocated north of the city twenty years earlier to enjoy a rural lifestyle and find a place where I could keep a horse. That meant a forty-­minute commute for both of us. I’d quit working when Cliff was born, but Paul still drove it, sometimes more than once a day if there was an emergency at the hospital. He said the refuge from the city was worth the trip. With new housing developments spreading far to the north of us, the area was no longer as rural as it once had been. Quiet horse trails had been consumed by homes and streets.

  A few pockets of older neighborhoods retained that country feeling, and we drove through one on the winding, shrub- and tree-­lined road to our house in silence until Benson turned to me. He looked worried when he asked, “Why do you live in a dangerous place?”

  “Dangerous? No, not at all.” Especially compared to their neighborhood. “Really, it’s very safe here.” After their night of fireworks and planes flying into skyscrapers, I’d hoped this would be a peaceful day in the country for them.

  “Too much low bush. Animals can hide and you can’t see
them.”

  “Oh, animals. I thought you meant people.”

  “Soldiers, too.”

  “We don’t have soldiers or dangerous animals here. No lions or leopards. Oh, except for rattlesnakes. Just watch where you walk. They’re not aggressive unless you step on one.”

  “Oh. That is good.”

  I didn’t want to mention the mountain lion that hung around. Few people had seen it. Not the kind they were familiar with anyway. In fact, it wasn’t technically a lion, just a big cat in the cougar or puma family, about one fifth the size of an African lion.

  “Are there bears?” Alepho asked from the back seat. “We don’t have bears in Africa. I read there are bears in America.”

  “Yes, there are bears in America but they live way up north.”

  Benson said, “I did not know there is forest here. It look like Africa.”

  I thought they might be pleasantly surprised and relieved not all of America was cemented over. I felt the same way at times, when I stayed too long in the city. “Actually most of America looks like this. Large mountains with forest and huge deserts.”

  Benson pointed a long finger toward the hills. “Very beautiful here. It look like Sudan with all the trees.”

  Benson’s description altered my image of Sudan. I needed to find a book with more information. Barnes & Noble hadn’t had one. Maybe the downtown library.

  The road straightened and we passed through our one-­block-­long town. Small, older tile-­roof, Spanish style buildings housed banks and real estate offices now. The bookstore, toy store, and market had closed up, unable to pay the increasing rents.

  “Is this your village?” Benson asked.

  “Yes, this is the village center.” I pointed. “That’s the school where Cliff is right now. That’s the library.”

  We passed a golf course, went around a reservoir, and up the hill to our house. We’d built in the middle of an old orange orchard. At the entrance to our long driveway, Casey and Vader, our two Labs, greeted us. They knew my car coming up the hill. They pursued us all the way into the garage.

  As the dogs circled the car and bounced up to look in the windows, I recalled that Alepho had said he’d been bitten and was wary of dogs. “Don’t worry. The dogs are just happy to see us. I can lock them up if you like.”

  “No, it is okay,” he said.

  The guys got out. Casey, the yellow female, ran straight up to Alepho. That figured. She was overly friendly and had boundary issues. Alepho didn’t flinch.

  “Outside, Casey,” I commanded.

  To my surprise, she ran out of the garage.

  Alepho looked stunned. “You talk to your dog?”

  “Well, yes.”

  He shook his head. “He understand you?”

  “The yellow one is a she. She understands a lot, but she doesn’t often obey.”

  Benson reached out to touch the black Lab, Vader, who ducked and ran out of the garage.

  “It’s okay, he’s just shy.” I didn’t want to mention that he’d been rescued from a bad childhood, though probably not nearly as bad as theirs.

  We entered the house straight from the garage and headed toward the kitchen. Benson looked down a side hallway. “Does another family live there?”

  “No, that’s Cliff’s room.”

  Benson pointed up the staircase. “Does another family live up there?”

  “That’s our room up there. This is one house. For just one family.”

  He looked perplexed. “Then where is the family?”

  “Paul is at work. Cliff is at school, but he’ll be home at three.”

  “Where is the family in the photo?”

  Oh, he meant the twenty-­five of us in the driveway for my dad’s eightieth birthday. No wonder he looked confused and disappointed.

  “I’m sorry, Benson, those were cousins and relatives who were visiting. I’ll be sure you meet them soon. Each family has its own house. Just the three of us live in this one.”

  “Only three.” His eyes widened. “Why?”

  “American culture. Each family lives separately. It’s just me here today.”

  “You are alone?”

  “Only in the daytime. I like it. Come on in.”

  I’d wondered how they would interpret my lifestyle but hadn’t anticipated him feeling sad for me.

  We entered the open area that housed the kitchen and family room. “Have a seat,” I said. “Sit anywhere you like.”

  “Your house is nice,” Alepho said. “How much does it cost?”

  I’d rather share details of my sex life than give him the answer to that. “We get a loan from the bank to buy a house so actually the bank owns it mostly.”

  “Do you pay rent?”

  “No. We pay the bank.”

  “How much does that cost?”

  “It depends on the price of the house. They can be a few hundred thousand or millions.”

  Alepho took a chair at the kitchen table. “Is your family safe?” he asked.

  Safe? “Yes, they are fine.”

  “Does anyone live in New York?”

  Newspapers were spread out across the tabletop, every page covered with photos of New York. “My brother once lived in New York, but he is here now. They’re all here.”

  I gathered the newspapers into a pile. “I’m sorry this happened so soon after you arrived in America.”

  Alepho’s eyebrows furrowed as they often did. “Will Americans blame Lost Boys for the attack?”

  “Oh my, no. Why would they do that?”

  JUDY’S HOUSE

  Alepho

  The night after the attack in New York, a friend of our uncle Ajak Awer who had a phone called us from Uganda. “Uncle Ajak Awer needs your help,” he said. “He’s stranded in Kampala. He came here to Kampala to make some money for the families, and there is nothing here for him. He can’t get home. He needs to get back to the kids in Pageri.”

  Pageri was back in southern Sudan. Uncle Ajak needed six hundred American dollars.

  The news saddened us. Our uncle had stood up for us in hard times. He’d supported us during the war. He’d inspired me to go to school and get my education. We couldn’t just leave him in Kampala. His children and those of his dead brother depended on him for food.

  We were in America. Maybe people thought we were rich now, but how could we ever collect six hundred dollars?

  “Our sponsor seems rich,” I told Benson. “Her car is new. We could ask her.”

  • • •

  Judy came to take us to her house. Every time I saw Judy she wore different clothes. How many clothes did she have? The women in Africa wore dresses. Judy never wore dresses, always pants like men do. African women braided their hair so that it was neat and close to the head. Judy’s hair was always loose, and the wind blew it everywhere like dead grass.

  I didn’t feel well, but I went with Benson and Lino to Judy’s house. I’d always thought my headaches were due to lack of food in the camp. Now in the US, there was a lot of food. At first when I ate the American food, the feeling of a full belly was good. Then it became bloated and a problem.

  Back in the camp, I did not consider that there was something wrong with me. My headaches had been going on for years, but everyone suffered with them there. They made me tired all the time. It didn’t matter how long I rested or slept. I really couldn’t do much.

  Now with all the food in America, my headaches had grown worse, my stomach hurt too, and I just wanted to sleep like a lizard in the sun.

  I’d expressed to Diar, the IRC caseworker, my awful stomach pain. I didn’t tell him that I had this problem for years in the refugee camps because those things were normal there. You bear your own suffering silently.

  Diar took me to a clinic with a Chinese doctor and also the Catholic Char
ities clinic. They didn’t find anything wrong. “Your stomach is going through adjustment.” That sounded right. Since I’d just arrived, every part of me required adjustment.

  Driving to Judy’s house I asked myself: Why should I suffer this much when our sponsor’s husband is a doctor? I’m sure he can find out what is wrong with my head and stomach.

  Asking Judy would be a hard task. A sense of embarrassment came over me. Where I came from, a man expressed his problem to another man, not a woman. I was new and didn’t know the cultural etiquette.

  The area where Judy lived was farms with more space than the crowded area where we lived. Kakuma camp had been crowded too. I thought maybe I’d like to live here one day. I wondered if it would be boring out here by myself. I couldn’t see any other houses around, just trees. Did she get lonely with no cars or businesses like in the city where more things happened? It was nice but isolated, hiding out here alone.

  Judy’s dogs chased our car to her house. She had told us there were no dangerous wild animals in her area, so why did she keep dogs? We kept dogs to scare away lions and hyenas and strangers.

  When I got out of the car, the dog the color of a lion ran up to me. Judy talked to it. It understood her and ran outside. The black dog went to Judy. She rubbed its body and hugged it like a human. Then she kissed the dog.

  “She kissed the dog,” I said to Benson in Dinka.

  The black dog ran over to Benson but when he tried to touch it like Judy, it ran away.

  “The white people must be very loving,” I said. “Look how they love their animals and the animals love them.”

  Judy’s house was big and smelled different from our house. Why didn’t our house smell fresh and clean like this? After Kakuma, where we’d lived in mud huts with flattened tin-­can roofs, our apartment in San Diego was the best home we’d ever seen. Now I saw that Judy’s house was the best.

  “One day I will own a house like this,” I said. “How much does it cost?”

  I didn’t understand Judy’s answer but when she said thousands, that made me forget about it. I didn’t even have my job yet.