Beneath the Lion's Gaze (6 page)

Hailu switched the radio on. Voices sputtered and then flattened into crisp sentences. An announcement from a reporter: Churchill Road was blocked; all roads to Meskel Square were closed due to the rally. No injuries to report. Patrols would be extra rigorous tonight.

“Students set three buses on fire this morning. Do you know why?” Hailu asked. “Because they’re government-owned. But their parents need buses to go to work. What sense is in that? And they broke the windows on two Mercedes parked near Banco di Roma; shops in Piazza and everywhere else are staying closed, we can’t buy things we need. Ethiopian Airlines flights have been grounded. The emperor already dissolved his cabinet and created a new one, but they’re not satisfied. And now they have this rally.” He turned down the radio. “That’s where he went, isn’t it?” Hailu paused and looked out the window. “How do I handle him?”

Yonas wanted to shrink away from this agitated voice that spoke to no one in particular. He turned the radio off instead.

His father turned to him. “The rally called for the resignation of the emperor.” Hailu was incredulous. “Do these children think they can take down a monarchy of three thousand years? Do they think all they have to do is raise a few signs and the world will change?” He was counting his prayer beads one by one. “That their ideas can stop bullets?”

His father’s statement reminded him of one of the few fights they’d had, fourteen years ago. It had been in 1960. He was eighteen then
and
the country was at the height of a coup attempt. Two brothers had waited until the emperor had flown out of the country to stage their rebellion with the help of the Imperial Bodyguard. The Neway brothers. One was a brigadier general, the other a graduate of Columbia University in America. Yonas had believed in the brash and vivid dreams of these courageous brothers, had taken up their galvanizing calls for change and marched with full-throated shouts through the streets of Addis Ababa. His father, back then, had sat at the door and waited for him, too, had stayed awake at night and gone to work the next day without sleep. He had asked Yonas the same question: What can you do to take down an entire government? You have eighteen years, the emperor has three thousand. But Yonas believed until the very end, even as the country watched a poorly planned coup turn into a bloody showdown. In a matter of days, the Neway brothers and their men were dead, three of the corpses, including that of one of the brothers, Germame Neway, hanged, then put on display in St. Giorgis Square as a warning. All hopes of change had been extinguished with them, but the rumblings left by their calls for revolt had managed to snake their way from 1960 to 1974. And now here was his father once again questioning a son’s ideals.

Sara came into the living room, smoothing her long skirt and tucking hair back into her orange scarf. “Tizzie won’t sleep,” she said. Just the way she walked, with sturdy, graceful steps, eased his anxiety.

Yonas made room for her on the sofa. “Didn’t you try to get her to lie down earlier?” He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close to him. “She’ll fall asleep when she’s tired.”

“Selam started getting sick as soon as Tizita was born,” Hailu said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the door.

“Was it at the same time?” Sara said. “I was so weak.” She laid her head on Yonas’s shoulder. “Those early days,” she said, shuddering. “Tizita was so tiny.”

“It was Emaye’s first trip to the hospital,” Yonas said.

“Tizita will be four soon. Shouldn’t we give a party?” Sara asked. She looked up at Yonas. “She’s old enough to remember it later.”

Yonas was surprised by the idea. He looked at his father but Hailu was staring into the distance. “It doesn’t seem right. Not now.”

“Emaye likes parties,” Sara said. She smiled gently at him. “She was
talking
about giving Tizzie a party. Abbaye needs to relax, seeing his friends will be good for him.”

“Abbaye, what do you think?” he asked his father.

“Four years,” Hailu said. He shook his head, the lines of his mouth lengthening. He stood with effort. “I’m going to lie down.”

A HARD RAIN FELL.
Thick drops that pooled and shimmered on the asphalt road. A bright moon hung in the starless pitch. Dawit drummed on the steering wheel of Yonas’s Fiat, speeding when he shouldn’t have been. He’d left the hospital and gone to meet with the organizers of the student union in a small house near the Sidist Kilo university campus. Solomon had tapped him to head recruitment for the next rally.

“People like you,” Solomon had said, grim-faced though he gave a compliment. “Talk to your friends, tell them to talk to their friends. We’re gaining momentum, we need more people. Choose them wisely.”

Dawit made a mental list of his friends: Lily, Meron, Markos, Teodros, Zinash, Anketse, Tiruneh, Gebrai, Habtamu, Getachew—there were so many who would be willing. He ran through the names of those he knew in passing, and as the asphalt road crumbled into dirt in front of the stately French Legation, he thought of Mickey, the friend who was a brother in all but blood.

They were seven years old when they met. He was a thin, wiry child with a reputation for fights and inattentiveness; Mickey was the son of a widow, a heavy-breathing boy with a soft heart and nervous eyes that never seemed to stop blinking away the light. They’d met at the bottom steps of Dawit’s veranda, Dawit staring, along with the rest of the compound, at this newest addition to their community. Mickey and his mother carried only one bag between them, a small leather case no bigger than Hailu’s medicine bag. Mickey waved shyly to Dawit and squinted, his neck jutting forward like a chicken, and Dawit realized he had poor vision. Hello, Mickey said, my father died, so I’m going to live here. Dawit had returned his wave and said he had a father, and given the new boy a tentative smile.

Mickey had followed his mother to their one-room home, a tiny structure squeezed between others just like it on a thin pathway barely wide enough for two people. He set their bag at the door, then came
back
to the veranda. Can your father be mine, too? Mickey asked.

His father had accepted Mickey’s offer to be his third son with a seriousness that left Dawit jealous.

“What happened to your father?” Hailu asked, bending low to meet Mickey at eye level. He was holding the boy’s chubby hand.

“He’s dead,” Dawit had said, leaning closer to his father. “He told me.”

“What happened?” Hailu asked, his smile fading, his hand moving to a firm, gentle clasp around Mickey’s shoulders, drawing the boy near.

“He fell down,” Mickey said, squinting at nothing, looking away. “He was working and then he fell.” Mickey looked past Dawit and his father and took in the house. Its two-story structure suddenly seemed too large and imposing to Dawit, who followed Mickey’s eyes. “Your house is big,” he said.

Hailu guided the boys up the veranda, Dawit holding on tightly to one of his hands, looking for a way to get his father’s attention back. “You’ll go to school. You won’t have to work like your father.”

Mickey’s mother, Tsehai, had been watching. “Mickey, come here!”

Hailu had let his hand go. “Tell your mother we’re all a family. If she needs anything, just let me know.” He’d patted Mickey’s head, pulling his hand out of Dawit’s grip to give Mickey a hug.

The two boys grew inseparable. At school, Dawit’s protectiveness of him prevented many of the other children from saying anything about Mickey’s shabby clothes and worn shoes. In the classroom, while Dawit’s mischief and laziness earned him lashes or kicks, Mickey’s earnestness warmed even the strictest teacher’s demeanor. The two boys were closer than brothers and Dawit shared everything with him: his marbles, his lunch, even his pet turtle. It was only after they’d finished secondary school that things changed. Mickey had to work and could not attend university, though his grades and scores had been better than Dawit’s. He’d joined the military, waving aside Dawit’s guilty looks and mumbled condolences.

“I have new clothes, now,” Mickey had joked. “Finally, I look as good as you.”

And now Mickey was in Wello. His letters becoming increasingly enraged, showing Dawit a side of Ethiopia, and his friend, he’d never seen.

9.

THE EMPEROR WASN’T
sure how these soldiers had crept into his meetings. Somehow they’d managed to crawl out of their barracks and into Menelik Palace, their distaste for educated and cultured men clear in their haughty glares. They had been meeting at the Fourth Division headquarters when one day a few of their select had driven in their jeeps onto his grounds, pushed past his startled guards, and settled themselves around his table. This defiance brought Endalkachew’s already-dwindling cabinet to stunned paralysis. Endalkachew, stripped of all semblance of power, most of his ministers jailed, was forced to resign, and then was arrested himself. These low-level officers selected another one of his men, Mikael Imru, as prime minister, all the while bowing in deference and murmuring their unending loyalty.

He’d become confused by how many they were, these men in dark green fatigues who now cradled his elbow in palace meetings and whispered that he must remember their demands, he must remember his people. He no longer knew their numbers. Did not know which of these earnest soldiers had taken control of his radio station and breathed these words into every home and restaurant in his city: “We do not believe in an eye for an eye. We will bring to trial all those who misused their power. There can be justice without bloodshed.” And was it only the wind or had his people sent joyous shouts into the night sky? In the whirl and speed of so much happening so fast, the bodies of these men had disintegrated into mere voices in his ear. They seemed molded out of the shadows that clung to dark corners of his palace, drifting in and out of his line of vision, leaving traces of smoke and the scent of burning wood in their wake. They talked to him in his sleep, their words nestling against his head and burrowing into his brain. The emperor slid through his days shaking the noises loose from his ears, trying to bat the prodding requests away. Let us help you lead the country, you are
old
and we are young, you are one, we are many. We will do everything you ask.

The pressure built in Emperor Haile Selassie’s head, drilling behind his eyes. Thoughts collapsed into a hundred scattered words floating in front of his face, pinned onto pages that were shoved under his pen. He found himself numbed by the honeyed smiles that sliced his resistance more than their hard, sharp eyes. Your name here. And here, these officers he’d never known before said. Sign this and dissolve your ministry and the Crown Council, we have a new and better way for you to rule. They were mere men instructing God’s chosen, the monarch with blood that could be traced to wise King Solomon of the Bible. Soon, the voices floated from the radio and called his best men to submit to the wishes of all and go to jail. There will be no bloodshed, the radio said, only justice. His senators and judges, cabinet members and ministers, his noblemen, began to leave their posts and walk with grim confidence to turn themselves in. Sign here, and here, no time to read, we must hurry, trust us. Don’t sit, there is no rest. We must show that change is coming. Don’t you hear your people? The emperor stood. The emperor walked. The emperor followed the backs of the uniformed men from one meeting into another. What has become of us? he asked himself. When will angels lead us out of this fray? Emperor Haile Selassie tried his best to become immobile. To stand rigid without following. To sit without signing. To watch without nodding, without expression, without revealing the panic that fluttered through him. But things kept moving forward. We must not be anything other than what we are, he reminded himself. We are and so we will be. We are here, in these days of locusts and noise, but it has been written that this shall pass, and so it will.

THERE WAS NO ONE IN
Jubilee Palace today. No footsteps approached his room in the hallway, no shuffle of servants’ slippers moved through cavernous rooms. There was only the scent of overdried wood dying into ash, pungent and strong. A faithful servant shifted restlessly in front of him, waiting for his next orders. Emperor Haile Selassie held a crisp white piece of paper and extended it to the man. Write this, he said to his servant, and heard his own voice drift back to him. Write
this
, it said, floating to him, fading. They must remember, my subjects must be reminded that I was once in exile in a country beyond these borders and even from afar, I ruled victorious. Remind them of those terrible days of Mussolini’s mustard gas and tanks, when I stood before nations and battled bigotry with truth. Write. Write, the echo returned, softer and less insistent. Emperor Haile Selassie handed a pen to the old servant and watched the man tremble. Write, he ordered. Write so they are reminded, so that they know the Conquering Lion of Judah still sits on his throne. Tell them I have not left my people, that I rule still, over eighty years old and wise, kin to God’s most blessed of kings. The emperor looked outside his window at his lions pacing in their cages, their growls like far-off thunder. We have not finished our time. The servant, eyes cast low, bowed. Call the minister of the pen, the emperor said, looking to the red sun falling in the distance. He will write for us. Call him here. The servant whispered: He is gone. Where is he? the emperor asked. Where are they all? Where are my people?

10.

THE LIVING ROOM
was more crowded than it had been in a long time. This celebration was to honor New Year’s Eve and Tizita’s birthday, but all Hailu could think about was that his watch was slow—once again, he hadn’t wound it. He was forgetting his most routine habits.

“We needed this party,” said Kifle, a pleasant-faced man with a long scar near his ear. “I’m glad you invited us, in spite of everything you’re going through.” He smiled. “We’re all praying for Selam. These days, that’s all we can do.” His smile wavered.

Kifle’s gentleness, so characteristic of the man who was one of the emperor’s most trusted financial advisors, threatened to bring tears to Hailu’s eyes. “We’re supposed to listen for a report at five o’clock,” Hailu said as he stirred the ice in his fresh glass of whiskey, careful not to spill any on the traditional white tunic and white jodhpurs given to him by Selam. “My watch isn’t exact.” He’d been walking through his days disorganized, unprepared for what lay ahead.