God Is Dead Read Online Free Page B

drip.
    â€œSora,” Powell said. “Thomas is here.”
    God opened his eyes, blinked a few times, coughed weakly.
    Powell pulled the doctor aside. “How long will the treatment take?” he asked. “We have to leave as soon as we can. Today.”
    â€œIt is not possible,” the doctor told him. “She needs three or four rounds of antibiotics. Much too sick to travel. Maybe in a week or two, with improvement. But right now, no.”
    God sat up and struggled to focus on the figure at the foot of the cot, thinking that his eyes, blurred by fever, were misleading him. He took a long look while the boy shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do.
    â€œYou are not Thomas,” he said finally, in Arabic.
    â€œI am,” the boy said without much conviction.
    â€œNo. Your face is similar, and you are tall like him. But you’re not Thomas.”
    The boy wrung his hands. “Please,” he said.
    â€œThe men who brought you here. Did they tell you to say you were my brother?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut you’re not. You’re not Thomas.”
    The boy looked toward Powell and the doctor. “No.”
    â€œDid they threaten you? The soldiers?”
    â€œYes.”
    God regarded him for a moment, then said, “Turn around slowly so I can look at you.”
    The boy did as he was told. His wrists, ankles, and neck all bore the banded scars left by rawhide straps when they stay tied too tight for too long. His back, twisted by work and malnutrition, was crisscrossed with the rougher raised scars of the whip.
    â€œWhere do you come from?” God asked.
    â€œUntil this morning I tended goats for a man named Hamid.”
    â€œAnd before that? Who were you before?”
    â€œI don’t know,” the boy said. “I’ve forgotten.”
    Guilt gathered in God’s throat and formed a lump there. He realized with sudden certainty that this boy, or any of the people in the camp—the men suddenly alone in their old age, the young women with disappeared husbands and hungry children—were as deserving as Thomas of his apology, would serve just as well as the altar for him to confess his sins of omission and beg forgiveness. God slid from the cot and stooped on his knees before the boy, like a Muslim at prayer. The unfamiliar twinge of tears stung his eyes, and he was about to speak when the boy crouched and put a hand on his shoulder.
    â€œPlease,” the boy said, “get on your feet.” He cast frightened glances around the tent, as if expecting Ismail and the soldiers to appear at any moment.
    God looked up. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    â€œPlease,” the boy said again, tugging urgently at the shoulder of God’s dress. “If you show weakness, it only makes them angry.”

    Several hours after Powell departed, taking the boy with him and promising to return, God removed the IV from his arm and staggered outside to seek relief from the stale air inside the tent. He gazed out toward the eastern horizon and spotted the first plane, a tiny blemish on the sky. Soon it was joined by a dozen more, all drifting around one another in tight slow circles like a swarm of tsetse flies.
    Most of the camp’s inhabitants had taken shelter in their lean-tos or under tamarinds to wait out the hottest part of the day, but as news spread of the odd spots in the distance, people began to stir. Mothers looked at the sky as though checking the weather, then roused the children and gathered their belongings as an ominous wall of dust formed in the east and the planes drew nearer, flying now in attack formation.
    God crouched on his haunches, pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders, and waited. The Dinka scrambled with mounting urgency. They rushed to the well for a last drink of water and untethered the few goats and donkeys in their possession. One woman lost a sandal in her haste, but rather than stop to remove the