Garang Mayen Deng arrived at the headquarters of the South Sudan Council of Churches in Juba at nine o'clock on the twenty-fourth of April. He was seventy-nine years old. He was born in 1947. He had been an officer of the Sudan People's Liberation Army from 1983 to 1992, then a primary school teacher in Bor until he retired. He had travelled two days. From Bor to Yei by jeep, from Yei to Juba in a shared minibus. He kept the staff between his knees the whole way. The staff was called rweng in his language. It was of local mahogany. Its upper end had been rounded by the palms of three generations.

At the entrance a young clerk in a white shirt registered him. He gave him a plastic badge with his name printed on it and a blue cord to hang around his neck. Garang took it but did not put it around his neck. He held it in his hand together with the staff.

The meeting room was on the first floor. A long table of polished mahogany. Fourteen chairs. Three windows onto the street, where a mango seller passed every twenty minutes.

Garang entered. He saw the arrangement. On the right, seven Jieng men. On the left, seven Nuer men. Bor, November 1991: a Nuer faction attacked the Dinka town, three thousand dead in two weeks, the herds scattered. Bor, December 2013: the town burned a second time. Civil war 2013-2018, government Dinka forces against opposition Nuer forces: four hundred thousand dead, four million displaced. Jonglei, the third of February 2026: government aviation bombed the hospital at Lankien. Pankor, the twenty-sixth of February: civilians killed while the elders' consultation was being held at the Council of Churches. Two hundred and eighty thousand displaced in Jonglei.

Among the seven Jieng, Garang recognised two men he had known from before 1991. Among the seven Nuer, only one. The man he knew was called Kuol Riek. Their lands at Bor had bordered each other. They had shared the wells in the dry season for twenty-two years. The herds of the two families had grazed together from September to March. The herds scattered in November 1991 had never been brought together again. They had seen each other for the last time in that month. Kuol had fought with the Nasir faction from 1991 to 1995, then had become a civil official at Malakal. Garang and Kuol had never met in battle. Kuol had his staff propped at his right side, against the leg of the chair.

The moderator was a Presbyterian pastor of Kenyan nationality. His name was Reverend Wamai. He spoke English and Dinka. He did not speak Nuer. The Nuer translation was entrusted to a young woman. Her name was Nyamal. She was twenty-four years old.

The moderator opened at nine forty. He said that the protocol of the peace process provided for three days of consultations. He said the first day was devoted to listening. He spoke for twenty minutes. He cited the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan of September 2018. He cited the consultative conference of the Council of Churches of the twenty-sixth of February 2026. The sentences were long. The sentences were polite. Garang listened. He kept his hands flat on the table, palms down, either side of the badge he had still not put around his neck. The staff was between his knees.

Nyamal passed the water to Garang. She passed it with her left hand, because she was translating for Kuol Riek on her right and her right hand was occupied. Garang took it with his left hand. He kept the right one still on the table, palm down. The left hand was not the correct hand for receiving water from a younger woman. Garang took it anyway. He drank a sip. He set the glass down.

At this point the moderator proposed a ten-minute break.

Nobody rose. The room stayed still. Even the noise of the street, outside, seemed to soften: the mango seller had passed seven minutes earlier and would not pass again for another thirteen.

Garang rose. He took the rweng. He took it with two hands, at the ends. He walked the four steps that separated him from the centre of the table. He laid the staff horizontally on the surface of the table, along its long axis, so that it separated the seven Jieng from the seven Nuer. He let it go. He returned to his chair. He sat down.

The staff lay at the midpoint. The light from the three windows took it from behind. It cast a thin shadow on the mahogany of the table. The shadow reached the opposite edge.

The moderator did not speak. He looked for his note. He found it. He left it.

Kuol Riek rose.

He rose slowly, because he was seventy-seven years old and had a hip operated on in 2019 in Khartoum. He took his own staff from the side of the chair. It was of teak. It was called kwoth. He walked the four steps. He laid his own staff on the table, parallel to Garang's, at about fifteen centimetres' distance, along the same axis. He returned to his place. He sat down.

Now at the centre of the table there were two staffs. Parallel. Fifteen centimetres apart. The mahogany staff and the teak staff. The two shadows on the mahogany of the table were almost superimposed: the light confused them.

Nyamal, the translator, stopped translating. She held her pencil still above the notebook. She did not know what to write.

The moderator said, in English: gentlemen, shall we return to the agenda?

Garang replied, in Dinka: no. We begin from the staffs.

Nyamal translated, in Nuer: the old man says we begin from the staffs.

Kuol Riek nodded.

The Jieng elder on Garang's right was seventy-two years old. He had been a primary school teacher in Bor. He was a distant cousin of Garang's. He had lost his brother and two sons in November 1991. He said, in Dinka: we begin from the staffs.

Nyamal translated.

The youngest of the Nuer, a man of forty-three, commander of a sector of the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Opposition in the Leer region until the ceasefire of February 2025, last documented action at Mayendit, looked at his own staff. It was of metal and plastic. Recent. He rose. He walked the four steps. He laid his staff on the table, parallel to the other two, fifteen centimetres from Kuol's kwoth, along the same axis. He returned to his place. He sat down. He said, in Nuer: we begin from the staffs.

Nyamal translated.

The moderator took his note and turned it face down on the table. He said: we begin from the staffs.

Nyamal took up her pencil again. She wrote one line in the notebook. It was not a translation.

Now at the centre of the table there were three staffs. Parallel. Fifteen centimetres from one to the next. Two of old wood and one of recent metal. Three shadows on the polished mahogany: the first two almost superimposed, the third straighter and sharper. The light composed them into a single broken line.

The three staffs stayed parallel at the centre of the table for the rest of the morning. The light from the three windows moved across the polished mahogany. The three shadows drew apart by a few centimetres towards eleven. They drew together again towards midday. At ten past twelve they merged once more into a single line.