He laid a photo of Elizabeth and Carrie on the cot. From the leather satchel, he took the one photo of Rocky he had and laid it on the cot next to the other. Staring at them, he allowed himself to think just how far from home he was. Even if he flew the Beech to Cairo to catch a jet to the states, it would still take him two or three days to get home. Flying the Beech meant more than a week with no long stops, assuming the plane did not break down. The picture of his daughter and granddaughter was framed and he sat that on the small table beside the cot. The picture of Rocky had no frame. Hanley sat it on a ledge above his cot, the ledge created by a two by four used to frame the building. If possible, he would buy a frame for Rocky’s picture in one of the larger towns when he had a chance.
Hanley left the barracks and found Jumma waiting for him sitting cross-legged beneath a tree. In his lap was a large book. Looking up, the younger man smiled and asked, “Do you know Julia Child?”
“Yes, everyone knows Julia Child,” Hanley responded.
“I like to read her recipes. She is so thorough. I think she gives her work much thought. This is important, don’t you agree?”
“Yes.”
“I like to cook. Someday, I want to attend a school to learn to make great food. Maybe in Paris or New York. A place where food is so plentiful you can use it to decorate other food. We don’t decorate in Sudan, not with food. Not with anything really, not now.”
“Maybe someday you can study with Julia Child,” Hanley said.
A smile that Hanley thought could not possibly get bigger did. “Julia Child teaching me to cook coq au vin would be a dream come true,” Jumma said. He closed the book and rose effortlessly from the ground. “Let me put my book away and we will help with the children.”
The wasteful practice of using food for decoration had not occurred to Hanley, but it had to Jumma. Hanley felt stupid. When you must fight each day to find food, it would matter. Sister Mary Kathleen told Hanley that starvation was now a weapon being used against the people in western Sudan. The war being waged in Sudan was ugly, even for war. Starvation, rape, mutilation and slavery were now weapons and tactics. Killers changed tactics and alliances to the point that understanding the nature of the conflict and its participants had become difficult. Human rights groups and relief organizations, including the Christian organizations operating in the area, struggled with identifying who to cooperate with and who not to trust.
***
Dinner at the mission that evening consisted of a thin soup, bread and fruit. Water in bottles was all that was available to drink. That people drank bottled water was not a surprise to Hanley; its availability was. Cigarette smoke divided the air in the room into two layers the smoke floating among the exposed trusses, creating shifting halos around the bare lightbulbs. A disinfectant smell overpowered the odors of the food, the bare-wood floor damp in the corners, small puddles reflecting the light bulbs overhead as quivering eggs in the pooled water beneath.
“How difficult is it to find bottled water?” Hanley asked no one in particular as they ate. The same group of people sat at the table eating as the night before, less one doctor, the younger one who fetched a glass for Hanley and Father Robineau. The doctor and the priest were visiting a family at their tent not far from the compound. A child was too sick to come in for treatment, requiring a house call, one of the other physicians explained. He was the oldest of the Slovakian physicians, nearer to Hanley’s age. His name was Dr Ivor Malsoiak.
“Bottled water is not easy to come by,” one of the French nurses answered. “We have been to Yirol and Rumbek several times in the past month and were able to stock up. When it’s not available, we use tablets or boil the water. Bottled water is better.” Her name was Estelle. She was also a nun, from the Mary Knoll Order, as were all the French nuns.
“Father Jean-Robert said a report had come in over the radio, saying the SPLA was in the area north of Rumbek, searching villages for supporters of the government. He suggested everyone stay near the compound for the next few days until we know what’s going on,” Dr Malosiak said.
This was the first such report Hanley heard since arriving. For some reason, he thought it likely he would find the compound surrounded and the countryside full of war.
“The SPLA must be running low on food. They try to fool the outsiders by disguising their confiscation of food and supplies as searches for government sympathizers. They’re just looters like the GOS forces or the Janjaweed. They don’t rape as many women or kill as many children, so they think they’re the good guys,” Sister Estelle explained to Hanley. Her look bordered between sad and bored.
The soup tasted vaguely like vegetable soup, but stronger. It was made of mostly onions with some beet or potato-like ground fruit and something long and green, but definitely not a bean; more like grass. It tasted strongly of pepper, but sweeter. In a chipped white bowl were apples and pears, all small and misshapen, sculpted by birds and bugs before picked by humans. Jumma was not present. He ate
