Black Dove, White Raven

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  Momma is also right – she’s not so different from any of them. She is taking pictures for the Italians and selling the same pictures to the Ethiopians. She doesn’t think of it as double-crossing in the least. It is just more of the sharing she does wherever she goes, making everybody love her when she lands on someone’s doorstep, showering people with smiles and beautiful Tazma Meda honey and coffee.

  After today, I understand how our ties to this country are tighter than I knew.

  Teo won’t write about it, so I will.

  Momma is getting wise to me trying to avoid flying and as soon as we were off the airfield she just let go. I don’t think she would have let the plane fall out of the sky, but I wasn’t brave enough to find out. I took the controls in a hurry.

  I landed at the same field in Aksum where Teo landed yesterday. Momma did a lot of yelling at me: ‘Back! Back – pull ’er up! More! Listen to the wind!’ etc. and it was not my worst landing ever. Ras Amde Worku had come out to the airfield to meet us. He wanted to see Teo flying, so he had to be disappointed.

  Serves him right too.

  It was only midday and he took us riding. I think he is older than Momma, but it is impossible to tell. He is kingly. That is the right word for him, in his leopard skin and cloth of gold. Hard to imagine him as a diplomat in Paris, or to remember that his brother Ras Assefa is a railway official in a suit. Ras Amde Worku brought horses for us and he was standing there at the field where we landed, waiting like a lord in a medieval painting with a bunch of other men holding the horses.

  We were all buffaloed into thinking this was going to be a real treat. We rode a couple of miles out of town where there is a rock with a thousands-of-years-old lioness carved on it. Momma and Amde Worku rode ahead so that Teo and I couldn’t hear them chatting.

  ‘You’d think they were old pals!’ I grumbled.

  ‘Aw, they are old pals,’ Teo allowed. ‘They were both taking flying lessons at the same airfield, weren’t they? Back in France.’

  We watched Momma and Ras Amde Worku riding a little ahead of us. They were both wearing white shammas but she still looked like a tourist and he looked like the king of Constellatia in The Adventures. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t any stranger to foreigners and that he got paid rent by Italian pilots.

  Remembering about the Italian pilots helped me to make my mind up about telling Teo what had happened earlier to frighten Momma back at the airfield hidden on top of the amba.

  I asked, ‘Remember the priest who threw a spear at us at the first amba we buzzed this morning?’

  ‘I’ll say so!’

  ‘Well, remember when Momma climbed out of the cockpit while you were flying over the Italian airfield? She wasn’t doing it to show off. That’s what she made it sound like afterward, and that’s why she tried to fool us with all that silly chattering. She got out of the cockpit because one of the soldiers was pointing a gun at us. She got out so he could see she was a white woman. So that he wouldn’t shoot.’

  ‘But our plane is Italian!’ Teo said.

  ‘But it’s not one of theirs.’

  ‘I sure hope she knows what she’s doing,’ Teo said ominously.

  We caught up to the others when they stopped to look at the carved rock. Momma was busy with the camera, so I didn’t notice how her mood had changed. She let me take pictures of her leaning against the rock alongside the lioness. Then she showed Amde Worku how to frame the picture. She got it set up and focused for him, and he took a photograph of all of us standing there.

  ‘Family group – with ancient Tigrayan lioness!’ he joked in Amharic. ‘You are tourists today. Where did you go after you left Aksum this morning?’

  ‘We circled over the ancient graveyard and the church of Mary of Zion here in Aksum, and then we went to find Debre Damo, the monastery on the clifftop amba, where they only allow men,’ Momma answered. ‘I have always wanted to see Debre Damo!’

  ‘You saw it from the air?’ Amde Worku asked skeptically. ‘Did you photograph Debre Damo?’

  ‘I did not photograph Debre Damo or Mary of Zion!’ she told him, sounding shocked. ‘I don’t take photos of churchmen without asking for their blessing. I am not a real tourist!’

  ‘They might think of you as an invader, however,’ Ras Amde Worku said, smiling so it didn’t sound exactly like a criticism. ‘But you are not the first. About a thousand years ago, Debre Damo was invaded and looted by a woman soldier called Judith.’

  ‘Really!’ Momma exclaimed. ‘Well, then I am twice as glad I didn’t take any pictures there. That would have been like a woman looting the place all over again.’

  Amde Worku laughed. He put Momma’s camera carefully back into her hands and said, ‘You will take me to see it tomorrow.’

  ‘I owe you a flight,’ she agreed.

  ‘You are indeed in my debt,’ he said calmly.

  There was an awkward silence. For a moment everybody stood around saying nothing, and Teo and I exchanged looks and wondered what was going on.

  Finally Momma said, ‘You can go ahead and tell Teodros what you have to tell him.’ With her voice still quiet and even, Momma added, ‘You have to tell him yourself, Ras Amde Worku. You have to tell him yourself, because I will never do it.’

  I didn’t hear him say it. But I am going to write it down.

  Ras Amde Worku walked away with Teo for a little while. They disappeared around the other side of the big rock with the huge, ancient lioness carved on it. Amde Worku walked with a confident hand on Teo’s shoulder, guiding him, while me and Momma held their horses for them.

  ‘What the heck?’ I asked Momma, not for the first time that day.

  ‘It’s Teo’s business,’ Momma said, her tone still so level and careful it sounded like she was trying not to move her mouth. ‘It’s about his father. Something Teo has to hear about Gedeyon Wendimu. He can tell you himself if he wants to.’

  He did tell me himself, on our way back to Aksum. We rode a little bit behind Momma and our host just the way we had on our way to see the rock lioness.

  Teo looked – different. You could see instantly. He looked like Momma had in the first couple of weeks right after Delia died. Like someone had taken a pump and sucked all the life out of him, all the light out of his eyes. Like he had his eyes open, but he was sleepwalking.

  ‘My father wasn’t just Ras Amde Worku’s secretary,’ he told me hollowly. ‘He was his slave.’

  I was so flabbergasted that for a moment I couldn’t say anything. Then I just burst out with, ‘Didn’t Delia know that?’

  Teo shook his head. ‘I don’t know. If she did, it’s the one thing she never told Momma. Momma didn’t find out till today.’

  ‘The French let Ras Amde Worku bring a slave with him to help them set up their foreign office?’

  ‘They didn’t tell anyone in France he was a slave. There are all kinds of ways you can be freed. As a gift. Or you can earn it. Amde Worku was going to free my father for the work he did in France, but Gedeyon died first.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. This was shocking news for sure.

  ‘Wow,’ Teo echoed bitterly.

  I had a feeling there was more. I waited for him to say something else. I wanted to grab his hand and squeeze it four times, but we were both on horseback and he was too far away and the look in his eyes was a little too private.

  I knew he would tell me sooner or later, because he always does. So I waited.

  Teo continued suddenly, ‘When I was talking to those soldiers in Addis Ababa, when we went to see Mateos before the Little Rains, one of them told me that if you were born to a slave before 1916 then you are automatically a slave too. They are still a lot of old laws in place.’

  ‘Good thing you were born in 1919,’ I said.

  He turned to look at me and he was crying.

  ‘1916 is the Ethiopian date,’ he said. ‘You know how the Ethiopian calendar is a little over seven years behind? You know how we always used to put the Ethi
opian date on our themes for Miss Shore, just to annoy her, as well as the English date? The English year of the reform was 1924.’

  For the next couple of seconds I could only stare at him in horror. Then I started crying too.

  I bet Mateos knows. I bet he knows and never said anything to Momma in the whole seven years she’s been here. He is such a polite and private person – he wouldn’t ever have mentioned something like that unless she mentioned it first. He probably doesn’t even find it shocking. He was probably somebody’s slave once too and it is just the way things are to him.

  Haile Selassie is trying to get rid of slavery gradually, because he needs rich generals like Ras Amde Worku to give him loyalty without reservations. When people don’t like his reforms they rebel against him. The emperor can’t risk offending his aristocracy with new laws they resent, or suddenly leave a couple of million people with no work and no place to live, not when the whole country is about to be invaded.

  How could Delia not have known? She must have. But how could she have known and never told Momma? How could she have wanted to go to Ethiopia anyway? Delia is the biggest dirty double-crosser of the bunch.

  Teo stopped crying before we got back to the house, before anyone could see him. But I have pretty much not stopped.

  Ras Amde Worku owns that Italian airfield, and he owns Teo too.

  Em, can I write on your paper? You OK? You were gone a long time.

  I AM FINE.

  I am worried they will make me stay here.

  OH. I was being selfish. I am sorry I went without you. It was just a stomp around the ruins. Trying to think. I won’t leave you alone again, I PROMISE. If they make you stay, I will stay too. We are in the soup together. They can make you stay, but they can’t make me go.

  They might not let you stay with me.

  Em? You OK?

  DAMN. DAMN. DAMN.

  They can throw me out of the house, but they can’t make me leave. They can’t make me leave Aksum if they keep you here. They will have to tie me up and drag me out of town.

  I think Ras Amde Worku is too polite to throw you out of his house, Emmy.

  Black Dove, let’s write. Let’s work on a story. Let’s work on Glassland.

  Make me a prisoner in the Fortress of Clarity.

  Got to rescue you.

  Episode from THE LAND OF GLASS

  The entire Fortress of Clarity was made of the clearest glass, from the dungeons to the highest tower. White Raven could see the whole way through every room. She could see soldiers marching in a column down a glass corridor and she could see a row of miserable-looking people sitting about ten feet apart from each other, not talking. Those were the prisoners in their cells. Clear glass walls separated them.

  White Raven was sure they must have brought Black Dove here when they captured him. She could not see him in that cell block, but maybe he was invisible.

  She looked again at the row of prisoners. She was too far away to see their faces, but they all glimmered with the iridescent lustre that was ground into the skin of all Glasslanders. So none of them was Black Dove.

  Because White Raven could see into the Fortress of Clarity, of course anyone inside could see her too, but she was disguised in the uniform of a Glassland cavalry girl. White Raven had dusted her face and arms with powdered silver to imitate the Glassland lustre. Nobody cared that she was standing beneath the big glass stronghold gate. She looked like she was reporting for duty or delivering a message.

  She counted the prison cells, using the prisoners to mark them.

  There was a gap. There was a space between Prisoners Number Three and Four, a space wide enough to hold another prisoner in a cell. From where White Raven stood it looked like the cell was empty. But there was no other gap in the line.

  The high gate in front of her was barred. But the line of marching soldiers was coming in her direction and soon they opened the gate and began to file through. They all nodded politely at White Raven as they marched past her. She smiled back and walked boldly into the fortress before the last soldier came out.

  She headed straight for the cell that seemed empty. Her Universal Single Key would only work once. It was a risk to use it if her guess was wrong.

  But when White Raven got close she had no doubt she was right. Black Dove was waiting for her, watching through the clear glass door as she approached. She could tell because he was bleeding. He had left a smear of blood against the back wall where he had been sitting, and when he saw his partner he had stood and paced across the small cell to the clear door. He was standing there now. A single drop of blood suddenly appeared in mid-air and splashed to the clear floor, the only colour in the room.

  Now White Raven did not need to worry about wasting her one use of the Universal Single Key. She felt for the lock, found it and fitted the key inside. The glass key shattered as she turned the handle, just the way the locksmith had explained would happen.

  ‘Tafash! You’ve been lost! Don’t hug me,’ she warned softly as she pushed open the smooth, heavy door. ‘You’ll smear my phoney lustre. It comes off much too easy. Are you OK? You’re bleeding!’

  ‘It’s just a little cut.’ Black Dove’s voice was reassuringly familiar. ‘My arms are cuffed behind me.’

  Now that he pointed it out, White Raven could see the outline of the thick glass manacles he wore, stained with another pink-red smear of blood.

  ‘I tried to smash the handcuffs,’ he said. ‘They’re chipped now – that’s how I cut myself. The pain is nothing, but I can’t break the chains.’

  ‘You’ll leave a trail for the guards to follow if you’re bleeding,’ White Raven said. Fear and worry gave her voice a sharp edge of anger. ‘Every speck of dust or loose thread shows up against the glass.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here fast!’ he said fearlessly.

  She hooked her arm through his to help him balance. Then they ran together to escape the Fortress of Clarity. The whole way out, all White Raven could think about was how they were going to get rid of Black Dove’s invisible chains without hurting him any more.

  Momma took Ras Amde Worku flying this morning, like she promised. When they came back they were both very calm and polite. They’d worked out an agreement. He was so danged apologetic, without actually giving an inch. He has known this since the day Teo was born because he registered Teo. Registering slaves is also part of the reforms – it is supposed to make the legal requirements harder for slave-owners. Amde Worku showed us a copy of the official document that is kept in Addis Ababa. He has just been waiting for us to turn up freely on his doorstep because otherwise we could have argued that Teo had run away, and the 1931 Emancipation Law would have protected him. But here he is in Amde Worku’s house and the registration has never been in dispute.

  Spiderwebs joined together can catch a lion.

  Amde Worku has sat here like a spider. A big, rich, elegant, friendly spider, waiting for us to fly into his web. But he is not going to let go now because now he wants something from Teo – or Momma.

  She took him to see his Italian airfield. They landed there and shook hands and drank tej which Ras Amde Worku had brought with him. I don’t know what he talked about with the Italian airmen, but after they got back he made us all sit down together and talk about war. There is so obviously going to be one, even if only about ten people outside Ethiopia and Italy are paying attention.

  ‘You are going to have to choose sides, Woyzaro Rhoda,’ Amde Worku said.

  ‘I am a Friend,’ said Momma, which for sure meant nothing to Ras Amde Worku and doesn’t normally mean much to Momma either. ‘I am a conscientious objector. Do you know what that is? I am a Christian, a follower of Christ like you, but I do not believe in making war. How can I choose a side! I have an Italian daughter and an Ethiopian son, and their fathers have left them both a worthless legacy, and you are all going to be trying to kill each other inside a year! The Italians will dive on you from the air, like eagles hunting. They wil
l do it as soon as the Big Rains end.’

  ‘They will not attack Aksum with air fire. I have seen to that in my dealings with them.’

  ‘They may honour their contract with you yourself, but it will not stop them laying waste to all those around you.’

  ‘And we will fight back,’ Amde Worku answered calmly. ‘With men and with mountains. Mile upon mile of the Simien Mountains, where we can beat them back like we did before. They are ill-supplied and they don’t know how to use the land. Distance and earth are our weapons. We beat them at Adwa nearly forty years ago and we will do it again.’

  Momma shook her head. Her lips were pressed together tightly.

  After a moment she said, ‘Don’t you see? Don’t you see what I showed you today? Your brother is a modern man – he works for the railway! You’ve been to France. You know that distance and earth are nothing to a man in a flying machine. We can fly from here to Addis Ababa in six hours. It takes your retainers ten days on foot. The Italians have hundreds of planes. The emperor has only a dozen, and they are not armed. Don’t you see?’

  ‘I do see,’ Amde Worku said. ‘I see very clearly how I can use Gedeyon’s son and his flying skill in service of his country.’

  In service of his country – ugh. I can see why it brings out the Quaker in Momma.

  ‘He is not old enough to take an international pilot’s licence,’ Momma said. ‘Not for another six months.’

  ‘Then I will expect him back in six months,’ Amde Worku said. ‘At the end of the Big Rains. When the war starts.’

  Oh, what difference does it make, any of it? When war is declared, Amde Worku says, there will be a conscription call for all Ethiopian men, and if they don’t join they won’t be put in prison – which has happened before to so many Quakers who won’t fight. No – they will be executed.

  Delia didn’t want us to go to war. She didn’t want her boy to have to fight.