What Is The What

Deng and Achor Achor wait at the hospital. Julian, an African-American man, checks Deng in and tells him that the hospital will treat him, regardless of insurance. They wait for a while, and decide to call another of the Lost Boys, Lino. They tell him that they are at the hospital and Lino comes to join them in the waiting room, much to Deng’s chagrin. Lino is about to take a trip back to Kakuma to find a wife, something that has become increasingly popular among the Sudanese refugees. Deng thinks about Tabitha, and the wedding they might have had.

When Tabitha had first moved to Seattle, she began dating a Sudanese man. The man turned out to be abusive and unpleasant, and Tabitha began talking often with Deng. She asks Deng if he would like her to visit him; two weeks later, she arrives in Atlanta, and they begin falling for each other. “The moment she took my shoulders in her hands, when we faced each other square--so close it was difficult to look straight into her perfect face—we were as man and wife” (249). Tabitha’s ex-boyfriend, Duluma, phones Deng in order to insult Tabitha, calling her a whore and saying she had aborted their baby over his objections.