Free Six Months in Sudan by Dr. James Maskalyk Page B

directions. It’s almost dark now. The girl throws some incense on the coals and the scent of frankincense swirls on the smoke. In the sky above Tim’s head, the minaret of the town mosque glows from within. A young boy in ripped brown shorts walks by barefoot, two goats tethered behind him.
    “You got a girl back home?” I ask.
    “Yeah. You?”
    “No. Not really. You miss her?”
    “No. Not really.”
    I laugh. Tim lights a cigarette with the end of his last.
    “We’re going to see how things are when I get back.” He exhales.
    “One of those.”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s tough,” I say.
    “No. I mean, yeah. It’s just … it wasn’t that hard to leave, but it’s … you know … hard to figure things out.”
    “Tell me about it.” I’ve been letting Sarah’s emails hang in the in-box. Too heavy.
    “I mean, who knows. Do you ever know?” Tim asks.
    “I don’t think so, not really. I think your mind keeps on fucking with you. I remember an ex-girlfriend of mine. She was an occupational therapist, you know, helped people recover from strokes or accidents or whatever. Taught them to dress themselves again, make toast, stuff like that.”
    “That’s cool.”
    “Totally. Anyway, she worked mostly with old people, of course, and whenever she met someone who had been married for years and years, she would ask them their secret. I don’t remember all the answers, but one was from a woman who said, ’Well, you just can’t fall out of love with each other at the same time.’”
    Tim nods. “I kinda thought it would help being here.”
    “And?”
    “Well, I don’t seem to think about it too much. Mostly I just keep on thinking about how terrible the food is.”
    “And how hot it is,” I add.
    “And how there’s no beer.”
    “And no girls.”
    “Which is probably good.”
    I throw my cigarette into the coals. “I think at some point, you just have to decide to go for it or not,” I say.
    “Yeah. I don’t know. I’m just hoping for something that fits. But it’s tough to find, I guess. Some people do.”
    “Maybe. You ever look around, like on the subway or something, at all the other people reading or listening to music or whatever, and think, how does everyone have it so sorted out? Am I the only one who’s just trying to hold things together with, like, bits of … wood and white glue? You know? Why aren’t we all freaking out, or making out, or something.”
    “But everyone on that subway’s thinking that, about you.”
    “Yeah, exactly. Sucks.”
    The handset crackles. Tim takes his lighter from the table and reaches for the radio below his stool.
    “Think we should get back?” I ask.
    “Probably. Bev’ll be worried.”
    We stand up. Tim hands the girl a crumpled dinar note.
    “Thanks,” I say.
    “I never know what to pay,” he says.
    “Dude, when thirty years from now economists look at Abyei’s inflation rate, you know, with a line graph? The first thing they are going to point at, right at the beginning, is a mark that says ‘Tim’ and below it will be your face.”
    “So true.”
    We start to walk back. The light from the stalls’ naked bulbs shadow ruts from last year’s rain. We creep along carefully.
    “So, Tim. Paola, she has a boyfriend for sure?”
    “Yeah. I think so.”
    “What about her friend, the one who works for the UN?”
    “Think so.”
    “This is going to be a long six months.”
    We are nearing the end of the market and are close to the compound. To our right, a Misseriya man leans on his counter, his chin in both hands, a small selection of canned and dried goods behind him. We stop to buy some tins of pineapple.
    “You know how much to pay for these?” I ask.
    “Not really,” Tim says, handing the storekeeper a 1,000-dinar note.
    We turn onto the last market stretch and pass a group of armed soldiers sitting down, drinking. One of them stands up, lurches towards us.
    “My friend,” he says, extending his hand, “my friend!”
    I