What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers Page A

will begin to rub off and eventually will fade in the sun.
    This helps Jok decide not to do anything. He decides that he will need more opinions before doing anything. Over the course of the day, William and Moses and I canvass the men in the market, and find that after dozens of consultations, the debate is perfectly split: half insist that the plastic is for shipping only and needs to be removed, while the others assert that the plastic remains on the bicycle, to protect it from all sorts of potential damage.
    We report the results of our survey to Jok as he continues to stare down at the bike.
    —So why remove it at all? Jok muses aloud.
    It seems the most cautious route to take, and Jok is nothing if not a man of caution and deliberation; that is, after all, how he came to be in a financial position to buy the bicycle in the first place.
    In the late afternoon, William K and Moses and I lobby for and are granted the right to guard the bicycle from all those who would steal, damage, touch, or even look too long upon it. Jok does not actually ask us to guard it, but when we offer to sit by it and keep it from harm or undue scrutiny, he agrees.
    —I can’t pay you boys for this, he admits. —I can just as easily bring it inside, where it would be very safe.
    We don’t care about payment. We simply want to sit and stare at the thing, outside Jok’s hut, as the sun sets. And so we sit beside the bike, with the sun to our backs, to better see the bike as it stands on its kickstand next to Jok’s house. We guard the bicycle for the majority of the afternoon, and though Jok and his wife are inside, we barely move from our spot. Initially, we take turns on patrol, circling the compound, holding a stick on one shoulder to imply some kind of weapon, but finally we decide that it is just as well that we all sit under the bike and stare at it.
    So we do this, examining every aspect of the machine. It’s far more complex than the other bicycles in the village; it seems to have far more gears, more wires and levers. We debate whether its extravagance will help it go faster, or the weight of it all would slow it down.
    TV Boy, you are no doubt thinking that we’re absurdly primitive people, that a village that doesn’t know whether or not to remove the plastic from a bicycle—that such a place would of course be vulnerable to attack, to famine and any other calamity. And there is some truth to this. In some cases we have been slow to adapt. And yes, the world we lived in was an isolated one. There were no TVs there, I should say to you, and I imagine it would not be difficult for you to imagine what this would do to your own brain, needing as it does steady stimulation.

     

    As my dream-day passes into the afternoon, I lean on my sister Amel as she grinds grain. I did this often, because the leaning and its expected result gave me great joy. As she squats I lean against her, my spine to hers. —I can’t work this way, little monkey, she says.
    —I can’t get up, I say. —I’m asleep.
    She smelled so good. You might not know what it’s like to have a sweet-smelling sister, but it is sublime. So I am lying against her, pretending to sleep, snoring even, when she thrusts herself backward and I’m sent flying.
    —Go see Amath, why don’t you? she growls.
    Such a good idea! I have certain feelings for Amath. Amath is my sister’s age, far too old for me, but visiting her seems a very good suggestion to me, and in a few minutes, in her family’s compound, I find her. She is sitting alone, winnowing sorghum. She looks exhausted, not only from the work but from having to do it by herself.
    When I see her, I cease to breathe properly. The other girls my sister’s age don’t care what I say or what I do. To them I am a boy, an infant, a squirrel. But Amath is different. She listens to me as if I am a man of consequence, as if my words might be important. And she is an uncommonly beautiful girl, with a high forehead and