The Bay of Foxes (9 page)

He speaks of her dancing on the edge of the precipice, unable to imagine what was up ahead. He tells them the tale he was told by one of the ministers detained with his father who, unlike his father, survived: how the two of them were called during a luncheon to go to Menelik Palace, which was now the office of the Derg. There, about two hundred men were imprisoned in two basement rooms, the whole area ventilated only by the gap above a steel door and lit by a fluorescent bulb that burned night and day. They were held for months, beaten and insulted daily, paraded in public. On the night of the twenty-third of November, the door was opened, and the two prefects, chosen by the men themselves, were given lists of names, which they read aloud. They were told they were to be released, but there was no necessity for them to dress. Many of them were in their pajamas. They were handcuffed and pushed into prison vans, and taken to the Akaki Prison. Up until the last moment they believed that the soldiers would abide by their word of honor that they would receive a fair trial. But they were taken out in batches, the Emperor’s grandson among them, and machine-gunned to the screams of the common prisoners in the jail, who heard the guns firing and the screams and feared they, too, would be executed. They were all gunned down at night under floodlights.

As he speaks he sees his urbane father with his neat mustache,
deep-set dark eyes, upright dignified stance, and authoritative stare caught in the glare of the bright lights, in a line of distinguished men who had served their country. “They killed an elite group of educated men who had led the country, chosen simply because of being well-known,” he says, clenching his fists on the starched tablecloth. “They were innocent people, journalists, lawyers, doctors. Of course, there were abuses; there had always been abuses. The Emperor was almost eighty; he could no longer govern, really, but he clung to the fantasy that he was doing so. He was too old! But these men, my father among them, were the ones with the knowhow, the education, and experience to lead the country. They were killed without a trial. It was a terrible crime. My mother and I heard about it over the radio early the next morning—a list of names read aloud, followed by the statement that they had been executed by firing squad and already buried. There was no possibility of claiming the body.”

The three of them stare at him with wide eyes, over the remains of the
mousse au chocolat,
the
petits fours
, the champagne. For one giddy moment he is the center of attention again like a child blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. He shuts his eyes. They all murmur, “
Quelle horreur!
” and Simone takes his hand with sympathy and asks what happened to his mother and himself after that. He tells them that a few months later, they, too, were picked up and put in prison, where his mother died of untended wounds. He feels himself tremble as he says the words, suddenly in a rage with everyone, including these white people who are listening with their mouths slightly open. He looks at them with smoldering
rage, as though they were the ones responsible for all this carnage. He realizes he has said too much, with too much vehemence; he has shown them what he feels, and he hates them for their indiscreet, probing questions, their idle curiosity. He feels empty, as though he has lost something precious, his pride.

They feel his shift of mood, and there is an awkward silence at the table, with the remains of this splendid dinner incongruously still before them. They look at one another, uncertain of what to say. M. clears her throat and says it is all too terrible, really, to even contemplate: they must change the subject, she cannot bear it. They must speak of other things. “Life must go on,” she says to him, then smiles and finishes her glass of champagne.

He has revealed more than he wanted to, more than they wanted to hear, caught up in the bright light of their interest and what he took for sympathy. He has felt obliged to entertain them, and now he has spoken of these deaths, which mean more than anything else in his life. He has spoken in order to sing for his supper. Now they turn from him, from the emptied shell. They talk among themselves about something entirely unconnected to his tragic tale. “Have you heard about Michel’s review?” Simone says. “
C’est pas vrai!
” they say, obviously thrilled by someone else’s unhappiness. They speak of someone else they all know and he doesn’t, and he and his tale of blood and murder are fast forgotten. He has made a fool of himself, speaking of something intimate that they could never really share. He feels deflated, humiliated, pricked and airless like a balloon. He and his most intimate
feelings, the tragedy of his young life, his country, are but a moment of diversion.

But when they part, Simone reaches up on the toes of her elegant black shoes to whisper into his ear, “Do come and see me sometime soon, darling. I am quite smitten.”

“Y
OU TAKE THE CALLS THIS AFTERNOON, DARLING
, I
WANT TO
work,” M. says, waving a bejeweled white hand at him as he sits at her desk in the silk-covered Queen Anne chair. She drifts toward her bedroom. “Say I’m busy or whatever you like. If my editor calls, thank him for the dinner. We should have called him.”

Gustave does indeed call. “M.? How are you?” he says, taking Dawit’s “Allo” for M.’s, as most people do.

“Fine,” Dawit answers in her hoarse man’s voice, leaning back into the chair and waving a hand, though there is no one to see it. Increasingly, as he writes or talks in her voice, he feels he is M. He has stepped into her shoes both figuratively and literally.

“Wonderful dinner, thank you so much. Meant to call but was distracted by my book.”

“The book? How’s it going?” the editor asks, without great interest, it seems to Dawit.

“Sentence by sentence,” he says, as she would. He is Dawit but he is also M., talking about her work. Indeed, he is correcting her sentences, improving them. Her work is not what it used to be, he feels. She has lost some of her earlier energy, and he understands why Gustave would have turned it down.

“I have an author in town. He’d love to meet you. Le Clezio. Do you know his work?”

“Of course,” he says. He would like to meet the handsome, gifted Le Clezio. He picks up one of the fat pens on the desk and twirls it in his fingers idly, staring at the trees.

“Are you free for lunch next week?”

“May I bring my Dawit?” he says.

“Of course you may, he’s fascinating! What a handsome young man: those big black eyes; those slim hips! You lucky thing, you!” he says, chuckling conspiratorially. “And surprisingly smart—so much smarter than the one you had before.”

“Indeed!” Dawit says.

Gustave adds, “And by the way, I think my Simone rather fell in love with your Dawit. She can’t stop talking about him. You wouldn’t want to lend him out would you, just for a night? I was thinking of a birthday present for her at her party. She’s turning forty next month, and I’m planning something special. You have to come, if you’re still in town. You could deposit the present. I think Dawit would be a gift she might appreciate, don’t you? As you said, a brown diamond!” and he guffaws.

Dawit says, “I’m not lending my brown diamond, not even to my most favorite couple in the world.” As he puts the pen down on the desk, he clenches his fists.

“All right, all right,” Gustave says, laughing. “How about Wednesday at one at the Interalliée with Le Clezio for lunch?”

“Perfect,” Dawit says and writes the appointment down in M.’s leather Hermès appointment book in her neat hand. He looks out across the trees at the Panthéon, thinking of the famous dead French citizens buried there.

O
NE AFTERNOON, SHE COMES INTO HIS ROOM AND STANDS IN
the doorway, leaning against the jamb and listening to him play the piano. Outside it is raining, and the sound of the rain mingles with his music. Sometimes, he plays for hours. He has bought some sheet music and practices more difficult pieces. He finds it is such a pleasure. “You play so well,” she says.

She is wearing a loose white blouse, a dark cardigan, and her blue jeans and flat shoes. Most of the time she dresses simply like this, eats little, and leads a Spartan existence. She says, “Sing something for me. I want to hear your voice.” She expects him to be able to sing as well, but he cannot. “You can’t?” she says, mocking him as well as herself, and he laughs. “I can dance,” he says and gets up from the piano stool, taking her hand. He leads her into the big bathroom with the mirror and stands before it, stretches out his arms, and shakes his shoulders. He sees her watching him. “Take off your cardigan,” he says, and she obeys.

He teaches her the
esketa
, the traditional Ethiopian dance, as his mother once taught him. While the Parisian rain beats against the bathroom windows, he remembers his last glimpse of her before she was taken away.

It was three years ago, in the summer of ’75, before the Emperor’s death. He can still see the scene: a rainy day with fog in the air. He had not yet turned seventeen. The officers from the Fourth Division entered the large white and gold room, with its ornate furniture, the gold-edged mirrors. His mother was dancing in a small circle of people who were doing their calisthenics, stretching their arms and legs, jumping around as recommended by the Swedish physicians whom the Emperor had summoned, and who had stayed on despite all of the chaos.

Dawit was standing against the wall, half hidden by a potted palm. He watched closely as the guards of the Fourth Division entered the room and stood and stared around in disbelief. Most of them were so young they hardly had any facial hair, but the lead guard bore a well-trimmed mustache, like Dawit’s own father’s, which arched above his fat lips. He ordered everyone to stop. “People whose days are numbered, doing calisthenics,” he said scornfully, while the others snickered. Dawit’s mother just went on dancing, her arms spread, her gaze lifted to the ceiling, her bright fuchsia skirt, woven with gold threads, billowing around her as she turned, while the others, following her lead, continued to jump up and down.

She could not conceive of her country without its Emperor. He was the guarantor of freedom and justice, and also of order and discipline. Whenever she heard of children in trouble, she would say, “They should be sent to boarding school!” He remembers her saying, “Nothing is worse than chaos.” Tradition and hierarchy were essential to her.

With a studied, nonchalant air the guard lifted the butt of
his gun and leveled it directly at his mother’s chest. Dawit could see it happen and yet he could not move, transfixed. It seemed to him as if someone had lifted her legs from under her and then pushed her backward. She seemed to float, as if in water, and similarly inconsequential. They scooped her up off the floor and took her away to join the other members of the royal family in prison, where, untended, she would die of her wounds. He never saw her again. Soon it would be his turn.

He had managed to escape with one of the ministers and some of his mother’s jewelry that had been hidden in the garden, before he, too, was picked up, soldiers coming to the house and finding flyers for a student organization that he had promised to distribute. He was accused of being part of the SFD, Students for Democracy, and thrown into prison. He was only seventeen at the time.

Now Dawit stands in front of the mirror and has M. copy his gestures, but he is remembering his mother absurdly dancing to her death while M. learns to shake her bony shoulders like a white butterfly.