I’ve taken Dave Eggers’ mid-noughties novel, What is the What: The autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, on my mini-vacation in the Breede River Valley. It’s presented from the point of view of a Sudanese “Lost Boy” who ends up in the USA. Here’s an excerpt:
I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door. I have no tiny round window to inspect visitors so I open the door and before me is a tall, sturdily built African-American woman, a few years older than me, wearing a red nylon sweatsuit. She speaks to me loudly. “You have a phone, sir?”
She looks familiar. I am almost certain that I saw her in the parking lot an hour ago, when I returned from the convenience store. I saw her standing by the stairs, and I smiled at her. I tell her that I do have a phone.
“My car broke down on the street,” she says. Behind her, it is nearly night. I have been studying most of the afternoon. “Can you let me use your phone to call the police?” she asks.
I do not know why she wants to call the police for a car in need of repair, but I consent. She steps inside. I begin to close the door but she holds it open. “I’ll just be a second,” she says. It does not make sense to me to leave the door open but I do so because she desires it. This is her country and not yet mine.
“Where’s the phone?” she asks.
I tell her my cell phone is in my bedroom. Before I finish the sentence, she has rushed past me and down the hall, a hulk of swishing nylon. The door to my room closes, then clicks. She has locked herself in my bedroom. I start to follow her when I hear a voice behind me.
“Stay here, Africa.”
Book details
Please register or log in to comment
