Beneath the Lion's Gaze Page 6

  “Here,” Sara said, handing him a plate.

  Yonas pushed it away. “Have you ever been outside the city? Have you ever tried to learn about the people you say you’re speaking for? All your demonstrations are about higher pay and lower petrol, middle- class elitist concerns, how does that help the poor in the countryside?”

  Sara shoved a plate towards Dawit. “Take it,” she said. “And remember we have guests.”

  Dawit lowered his voice. “Who’s going to speak up for them?” he asked. “People like you, who just want to hide until things get better?” He tore the square chunk of bread angrily and shoved a piece in his mouth. “At least we’re trying to get things changed.”

  ALL THE GUESTS WERE gone and the rest of the family was changing clothes. Sara sat alone in the living room and smoothed the place next to her where Selam used to sit. She missed Selam’s friendship, her vibrant womanly presence in a house otherwise dominated by men.

  “It’s just me again,” she said to herself.

  She switched on the television and watched the static skip before settling on a bland-faced newscaster. She didn’t want to think about Selam. It would only revive memories of her own mother and rekindle a loss that was as sharp as fresh sorrow. She frowned. What puzzled her was that more and more, she had to struggle to hold on to her father’s memory, even with the help of a faded photograph. She’d nearly forgotten his face. She could only hear, on the best of days, the faintest traces of his voice, remember the smallest fragments of his stories.

  Sara curled her legs on the long floral-patterned sofa and traced the edges of a low-hanging beam of moonlight that laced through the empty living room and fell into shadows across her arm. The window was open, a cool breeze seeping through thin curtains to curve over her chest and soak into her blouse. She closed her eyes and waited for memory to come back to her.

  Her father plants his finger in the middle of her palm and traces the longest lines of her hand to her wrist. Your mother and I ran away from here to there. We rode to here—he lets his finger draw a path up the length of one arm, across her back, down the other arm to rest in the center of the opposite hand. Then we did this—he takes her hands and presses them together in prayer—and then you came to us. My daughter. You are my daughter, he repeats.

  Sara flexed her hands and found that years had darkened the paths on her palms; calluses now formed rounded hills on the journey her parents took to safety during the Italian Occupation. She was eleven when she began to wonder how her father could run away from an Italian contingent searching for a tall boy in resplendent white and a frightened girl who’d strangled an Italian general in his bed. He laughed when she asked, his eyes filling with a soft sadness she didn’t understand. I would have died to help her escape, he said. The nature of love is to kill for it, or to die. He stared at her then, his eyes turning liquid with emotion, one day you’ll know what a life is worth.

  When Sara was seventeen her mother died, joining her father in their family plot and leaving her all alone. Sara cut her hair for the first time. She loosened each row of braid and watched it unfold behind her, dark and thick. Then she took her mother’s old scissors and hacked fists of hair. She stared in the mirror when she was finished and felt the prickly roughness of her naked scalp. Then, slowly, she dug the end of the scissors’ blade into soft skin. She dragged the blade across the middle of her scalp and watched as her pale brown skin became wet with blood. Then she said a prayer for her parents’ souls and asked Angel Gabriel to guide them to the girl with the scarred head, to tell them that even from the clouds, they would always know which girl was their daughter. She wanted them with her until it came time for her to have her own family, her own children. Until she was no longer alone.

  Sara touched her scar and traced a path to her stomach. There was a pocket of warmth that still held the shape of two babies that had died inside of her. Every month during her cycle, she imagined her stomach contracting, trying to push them out once again. Some nights, the spasms were stronger than others. Her father would have pointed to his lame leg, an injury from war, and told her that what is left holds its own promises, that what remains will give birth to hope. Her mother would have understood the grief, would know, as only a woman knows, that it burns hot and rests close to the heart. Maybe, she thought, maybe the body can only contain so much of a given memory before it begins to make room for more. Maybe it is better that I forget some things, maybe there is not enough room in me for two parents, just as it was with those children.

  11.

  THE FAMILY SAT together in front of the television, their cups of tea untouched in front of them. They were leaning forward towards the screen, repulsed and transfixed by what they were seeing. Vultures cawed and screeched, greedy and vengeful. They beat their wings furiously and fast, sent feathers tumbling into the eye of a camera. The steady glare of the sun shot balloons of light into the lens, forced shadows to skulk back into the sky. Under the vicious heat were flesh-covered skeletons that breathed. Covered in rags the color of dust, children crawled on all fours. Grown women with bones for breasts clung to emaciated babies. Defeated men let ravenous flies feast on their eyes. Naked bodies lay crumbled on cracked earth, scattered like ash.

  “My God,” Yonas said, pressing a hand over his face, wiping dry eyes, “my God. These poor people.”

  The camera was merciless. It swept past gaping faces, over destitute land, swung into the belly of the relentless heat and then down again to another body, another helpless mother, another bloated boy.

  “Mickey was there, he saw for himself what this government has done. These thieves! These money-hungry bastards!” Dawit had stood up. Now he was pacing next to the sofa, watching the screen in intense fury. “All along, the emperor has been watching these people die like this. He was there last year, he didn’t do anything. This is why we need a change. How many more have to die before Ethiopia wakes up?” He pointed to the television, then sat back down. One knee jiggled uncontrollably. He chewed on his bottom lip.

  “It’s because of the drought and some officials, you’re right,” Hailu said. “But not the whole government. Our leaders aren’t evil, not like this.” He straightened the table setting in front of him. “And this Derg committee, why didn’t they tell us sooner? They’re the so-called advisors of the emperor aren’t they?” He shook his head. “They couldn’t do something before tonight?”

  The documentary suddenly jumped to grainy scenes of lavish palace halls, glided over tables heaped with steaming delicacies, spun past the emperor feeding his lions extravagant foods, his numerous Mercedes. Then back to the hungry, the skeletal, the dead littering the paths that led out of one dried-up village into another. One small girl, her stomach so distended it looked like it would split, gnawed on a stone.

  “Did you see that?” Hailu said, pointing at the screen.

  Yonas frowned. “Those parts in the palace are from years ago, aren’t they?”

  “More propaganda,” Hailu said.

  “He’s a rich man who’s lost touch with his people,” Dawit said. He’d gone to his room to bring letters back. “Look”—he flipped one page open—“Mickey wrote me, he heard rumors of grain being sold in other towns.” He poked a finger at one line. “That grain was supposed to go to these people!”

  Hailu shook his head again. “Haile Selassie loves his country. We’re not being told everything.”

  “There’s more,” Yonas said.

  The family listened to the choked voice of the British journalist recount the numbers dead, devastated by the unimaginable famine. Biblical proportions, he whispered. A desolate valley, the sun too bright for shadows of death. Who will help them? he asked. Why haven’t they been helped by their government? he continued. Why has the emperor forgotten his own?

  In the unblinking eye of the camera: a sea of bodies bleaching under a fisted sun.

  Bizu, their elderly maid, was pressed against the archway of the dining room, her hands at her chee
ks, her gray filmy eyes floating in unshed tears. “They’re in Wello,” she whispered. “That’s Wello.” Her hands beat her chest. Wello was a province far from Addis Ababa, in the north. “That’s where they’re dying like this.” She leaned against the wall. “That’s my home.” It was the first time she’d ever spoken of her life before coming to live with them. “They’re my people.”

  Sara rushed to her side. “Bizuye, Bizu, let’s go into the kitchen.” She took the tiny woman in her arms and tried to lead her out of the room. Bizu resisted, her sobs growing louder.

  “I can’t leave,” Bizu said. “Did you see them? I can’t leave.” She stayed by the doorway, Sara helplessly rubbing her back.

  “He couldn’t have known how bad it was,” Yonas said. “There’s no way.”

  “How could he ignore this?” Dawit asked. He was standing again, pointing towards the television, his eyes on his brother. “All those ministers he made rich should be charged with a crime! That’s what a new government will fix. These rich elites are nothing but traitors to their people, and until we get rid of all of them, nothing will change!” He spoke with such force that a vein throbbed in his forehead.

  Hailu’s eyes were fixed on the screen and the rolling credits. “It’s true,” he whispered.

  “What’s true?” Dawit sat down again with some effort.

  Hailu turned, snapping out of his reverie. “Does it matter?” he said. “All your protesting and marching will do nothing for these people. You want to call the ministers traitors, you want another new prime minister, a new constitution? What happens in the meantime? The problem is too big. We need help immediately, not a new government and more disruption.” He wound his prayer beads around his wrist.

  Outside their window came a rising tide of voices. A young man shouted in the distance, followed by an answering yell, then a responding howl. Women called to each other in high-pitched tones. Families had already stepped into the courtyard of Hailu’s compound, their murmurs growing louder to rise above the noises beyond the gate. Heavy footsteps pounded down the road. A sharp rock crashed against the gate. Cars sped by, loud music blaring. No one would be locked in their homes that night. It seemed the entire city was slowly opening their doors and windows, their surprise and stunned anger too volatile to be contained within four walls.

  12.

  THERE WERE FIVE of them and they smelled of fresh sweat and gunpowder. They came to him in the dead hours of the morning, speaking in whispered tones. He was waiting, his back to the door, a Bible under his pillow, prayers for the hungry spilling from his lips. He didn’t move when the doorknob twisted, pliant and well oiled. He pretended not to hear the first shuffle of hesitant feet into his bedroom.

  “Emperor Haile Selassie,” one of them said, his tone as solemn as a prayer, “please get up.”

  The emperor forced his legs straight and smoothed his military uniform, the rows of shining medals swaying against his chest. He held out his hand for his coat and waited calmly. The day had finally come.

  The man who spoke coughed softly. “Get your coat and come with us, please. Your Majesty.”

  The emperor squared his shoulders and raised his eyes to look into the shadowed faces of the five. His advisors. Fully molded bodies in army fatigues, with sharp eyes and teeth, strong hands and firm feet. They could not meet his gaze, and he realized he could not remember their names. Only the man furthest to the left, shorter and darker than the rest, dared to glance in his direction once. An unfamiliar face, the emperor thought, but the look of him, that haughty defiance of a caged animal, he’d seen in some of his fiercest generals, and it was then that the emperor understood.

  “Our era is over,” he said. “Yes.” He stared into the dark, his back rigid. He let his eyes linger on each of the officers until they shifted uncomfortably and one of them sneezed. He noticed that all of them kept their heads bowed, maintained a respectful distance from him, his subjects once more. “There’s no use fighting the Almighty. Let us go,” he said, and led them out of his room and into the wide marble hallway, their footsteps echoing like a volley of gunfire.

  A perfect triangle of light crawled from under his library door and the emperor stepped into its path and out of the shadows as he entered his last day as the King of Kings. In his library, two groups of noblemen and soldiers, pressed into their chairs like windblown birds, rose and bowed deeply as he sat down at his desk.

  A trembling police officer dressed in shabby trousers stumbled in his haste to stand at attention. Sweat dripped freely from his temple into the neck of his ill-fitting shirt. The tallest of the five men shoved a document in his chest and instructed him to read. The officer took the paper, gripping it so hard it doubled into sloppy folds in his shaking hands. Another soldier held the policeman’s wrists to keep them still so the frightened man could read.

  “Recognizing that the present system is undemocratic; that Parliament has been serving not the people but its members and the ruling and aristocratic classes; and that its existence is contrary to the motto ‘Ethiopia Tikdem,’ Ethiopia First; Haile Selassie I is hereby deposed as of today, September 12, 1974.”

  The emperor felt the heat of a thousand eyes fall on him, and he looked from one minister to another, from one nobleman and relative to the next, and he folded his hands in front of him, index fingers and thumbs touching, an unbroken trinity. He remained seated, refusing to believe the end would be so undignified and without ceremony, announced by a man who carried traces of dirt under his fingernails. He said, “We have raised you up. Have you forgotten?”

  From the back of the room seeped the sound of tears breaking into uneven sobs.

  One of the noblemen walked to him and tenderly kissed his cheek. “Go,” he whispered. “Don’t make this more difficult.” He led him to the door, that simple gesture releasing chair scrapes and whispers, sending the noises crashing against the emperor, who found himself spiraling in the deafening cacophony.

  Dazed, the emperor trailed the five men outside and waited for his Mercedes. One of them motioned him to the back of a blue Volkswagen, and Emperor Haile Selassie needed no words to convey his contempt for the order, for the officers, for the treasonous plot. The shortest of the men, his movements spare and tightly coiled, pointed towards the car and swung the back door wider, his skittish eyes the only evidence of his impatience. Under a rising sun furiously beating its way through clouds, the five stood, neatly ordered and stiff, sweating, waiting, then waiting some more until the old man finally slumped, defeated, and squeezed into the back of the small car.

  Despite the onlookers who cheered as the Volkswagen drove past, despite the ringing in his head and the chorus of shouts that greeted him through the thick glass, despite the deep thud of drumbeats from hands as fast as wings, nothing could have convinced the emperor that heaven had not fallen into a sudden hush at this betrayal of his kingdom, and he knew that it would be in this absence of sound that God would hear the prayers of his Chosen One and heed his call.

  Overhead, the first crack of thunder rolled through the Ethiopian sky and then the rain. The emperor watched his beloved city blur and grow dim, and then everywhere, the quiet.

  13.

  “WE’LL HAVE A hard time getting home,” Hailu said to Sara as he opened the windows in Selam’s hospital room for fresh air. The thick smell of smoke and petrol drifted in. “Tanks are blocking most of the roads.” He stared outside for a moment, at the unusually congested roads and the gray haze that stretched across the hills like a stubborn stain. “Did they really arrest the emperor?”

  “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” Sara felt Selam’s temperature. “She’s sleeping more,” she said, frowning. “Yesterday, she told me she’s been having strange dreams.”

  “It’s the medicines,” Hailu said. “She’s stable.” Below them, he watched two young boys ambling down Churchill Road towards the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia with a large bundle of branches strapped to their backs. They paused to stare at
one of the tanks resting at a corner, then continued on, their high-pitched chatter rolling into the room during a brief lapse in street noise.

  “That documentary was horrible, but why arrest Princess Tenag-nework and the other princesses? What do they have to do with it?” Sara angled Selam’s face away from the glare of sunlight. “We should leave. Sofia started today,” she said. “Bizu’s not happy, but she’s too old to do all the housework herself.”

  Hailu sifted through pill bottles. Selam had lost weight, her skin was pale, her face was slack and dull. She looked much older than him. “Almaz keeps telling me to take her home,” he said, shaking pills into his hand and counting them.

  “She’s right,” Sara said, watching Hailu separate pills by color and size in his palm. She held out her hand. “Let me have them. You should call home and check on everyone.”

  “I called. Dawit’s out.” He shook his head in disgust and let his gaze follow Churchill Road’s long path from Piazza to the railway station.

  Just a few months ago, protestors had marched on this road with their cries for reform. They’d worked their way from City Hall past the post office, turned towards the hills of Entoto at Meskel Square, passed Jubilee Palace, Parliament, and Arat Kilo, and made their way from De Gaulle Square to St. Giorgis Cathedral, completing a nearly perfect circle. The city had felt under siege by that steady onslaught of marching feet. Their shouts had been like rolling thunder breaking again and again, so deep and loud that residents had locked their doors and stepped away from windows. It had all been full of fury and noise back then, but he’d been sure that diplomacy and respect for the monarchy would triumph. Today, however, the emperor, his only surviving daughter, his grandson Commodore Iskinder Desta, his granddaughters, and hundreds of his ministers and officials were under arrest.