Visitors were stranded, waiting for the onslaught to ease. Rumours brewed and festered.
They said that in Addis there were soldiers in the streets, tanks, roadblocks.
They said no one could understand what the emperor was doing. Why did he not act?
Every radio broadcast attacked the ruling classes, the rich, the landowners, and, by tacit extension – even though the Committee always made sure to declare its support for him – the emperor himself. And with each attack the question became more urgent. Why did he not act? What was going on?
Then her half-sister the nun came to see her. ‘They’ve arrested him!’ Who? ‘Asratè Kassa!’
The rainy season wore on. Everything smelled of curdled woodsmoke and old sweat and damp cotton. They washed clothes, trying to catch the brief hours of sunshine, but nothing would dry. People wrapped themselves up against the cold in layer after layer of rapidly greying gabis and shemmas and shawls, drawing them tight around their shoulders and over their heads, burrowing down to wait for spring. The voices on the radio grew more strident, more bold. The people must rise, end tyranny. They must take their true place in their own country. The Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police and Territorial Army became such a familiar phrase, so much a part of everyday life, it became just ‘the Committee’. The Derg. ‘Who is this prince, Derg?’ people asked, reaching for jokes to still rattled nerves. ‘We never knew the emperor had a son by that name.’ It was not that many didn’t agree with at least parts of the criticism: everyone had complaints – about bribery, nepotism, tithes, taxes. But to do anything more than hope Hailè Selassie would finally, finally declare a successor? That was, for most, unthinkable.
The Derg abolished the Crown Council and the emperor’s personal court. Memory rushed in on her then, of all those months in the press, in the sun, of the little man standing attentive at his desk. All those people who had waited, like her, for months and for years, waited for a word that might change their lives. All gone. A sudden feeling of vertigo, of unfamiliar air. A deep need to crouch down and curl in, like a woodlouse when the stone above it is removed and its home exposed.
Are you safe? Are you well?
I’m well, Nannyé, we’re all well, everything’s well. Ayzosh.
The radio was on all the time. News bulletins had always been dominated by the emperor’s doings, and that was still the case. But factories toured, countries visited, modernisations promised were now replaced by accusations that the emperor had deceived his people, had abandoned them by fleeing in their time of need, had sold public holdings for his own profit, that above all when his people were starving, walking from Wello to Addis and dying in their thousands, he had feasted on chicken stew and fed his dogs choice beef. They called him king instead of king of kings, and the increasingly lurid, increasingly bold whispers were of corruption and opulence and human sacrifice. And when on New Year’s Day she sat down to listen to Abunè Theophilos’s annual address, his usual prayers for the Lord of Lords, the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Elect of God and all his issue were replaced by intercessions for the Derg.
Emperor Hailè Selassie I was deposed just after dawn the next morning. His parliament and his constitution were void, said the newsreader. The crown prince would be enthroned as soon as he returned from medical treatment abroad. Any protest would be dealt with in military courts, against whose judgements there could be no appeal. Elections would occur in due course. Etyopya tiqdem!
That night, and then night after night, she prayed, not always sure what exactly she was praying for. For the emperor, as for a fallible father who had done much good as well as ill? For Princess Tenagnewerq, arrested at her home on New Year’s Day, as for a relative, a kind patron, or an impersonal royal? For her suddenly unrecognisable country? Was it hope she felt, or fear, or grief, or some impossible combination of all three? Fear for her children, certainly, for their health and for their safety. She prayed that Mary would always intercede for them, would remember that every one of them was named after her, wherever they might be.
With the rest of the country she listened and watched for signs and portents. The rains eased and rainbows flung themselves across the skies. At Masqal, which marks the beginning of spring as well as the arrival of the True Cross, the emperor was not there to light the bonfire. Long after dusk, when the flames had eaten through its heart, observers noticed that it collapsed not toward the palace, presaging a good year, or away from the palace, presaging a bad one, but in on itself, into a glowing, smoking, hissing pile of charred sticks and embers.
And when she finally slept, she dreamed, deep dreams from which she woke with her heart pounding erratic, or dreams entirely forgotten, then surfacing as false memories, full of foreboding. Dreams of cities and pageants, of the wild four corners of the world, dreams of her children.
Are you safe? Are you well?
I’m well, Nannyé, we’re all well, everything’s well. Ayzosh.
She dreamed of a country, this country, but somehow more beautiful than anything on earth could ever be. A drystone wall and next to it three trees, two eucalyptus and a juniper. It seemed to her that old Ras Kassa had come from abroad and stood there under them, preparing to cut the juniper down. And that she was begging, begging him in the name of the law, in the name of Hailè Selassie, in the name of the God above both of these that he should not. If you cut it down our boundaries will disappear. This is not your land, he replied. And she cried back, it is mine! It’s mine! But he turned away from her, and rather than using an axe, took hold of the trunk with his bare hands and began to rock and pull at the tree. Dust and berries and sharp narrow leaves rained down on his head and settled on his shoulders but still he pulled and shook, niqniqniqniq. Slowly, the whole tree began to lean eastwards and then to fall, faster and faster, until with a whoosh and a crash it was horizontal, branches splayed like a skirt across the scratched ground. Directly he moved to the eucalyptus trees and did the same again, and the air was vivid with the astringent smell of torn leaves and her vision filled with the ragged splinters of broken tree trunks.
Then, one bright summer morning, some weeks after the emperor’s deposition, there was another announcement. Yesterday, said the announcer, it became necessary to execute ‘all those responsible for the misery of the masses through abuse of authority, maladministration and judicial malpractices’. Execute? But there had been no mention of a trial! Military court or no military court, surely justice had to be seen to be done? Name after name followed, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, three former prime ministers, ministers, vice-ministers, one of the emperor’s grandsons, the commander of the imperial bodyguard, the chief of police, provincial governors, various members of parliament, the chief of staff of the territorial army, the Derg’s own chairman, Le’ul-Ras Asratè Kassa –
She stopped listening.
* * *
—
They had made an effort. The dining table had disappeared under the bowls of stews, of vegetables, of cottage cheese and injera and rice and salads. From the sideboard rose a city of bottles: beer, mead, Fanta, Coke, golden towers of Johnnie Walker. The guests sat around the edges of the room in mismatched chairs commandeered from the bedroom, the servants’ quarters, the neighbours. The rented house her son and his wife had moved into was comfortable but not large, and the living room felt very full.
She looked around, at her daughters bending to serve each guest in turn, at her sons, and tuned in and out of the polite hubbub. Conversation these days was full of new words. The word revolution, for instance – though it was almost always accompanied by an old word, to drive home the experience of it. The revolution exploded, people said to each other. How else to describe what had happened to them? There were more baffling words, like socialism, whose meaning seemed to shift according to who was speaking. Simple words like ‘change’, which seemed suddenly to carry a weight vaster than they could support. Words yoked together in alien and apparently
indissoluble ways, development through cooperation, Land to the Tiller – a dictum that had been acted upon only a few months ago: all rural land, said the Derg, now belonged to the people. Henceforth, and for the first time in the country’s history, there would be no tenancy, no tithes – and no private landowners, thus erasing at one swoop an entire ruling class (and dashing the hopes of any farmers who dreamed they might one day till their own fields). And so teff and wheat and peas would no longer arrive from Yetemegnu’s acres at Gonderoch Mariam. There would be no compensation. After the initial shock of the news she decided she would not miss it that much. The amounts had been dropping for years, administration was a challenge for a woman alone, and anyway, grain was cheap and easy enough to buy in the market on her doorstep with the money she earned in rent.
And always, everywhere, at the end of every broadcast, every official communiqué, repeated and repeated until promise began to assume the lineaments of threat: Etyopya tiqdem. Ethiopia first.
She looked around the busy room, and was in turn aware of being watched. She knew this lunch was in her honour, and also that they had something to tell her – she could feel it, in the glances of expectation and covert care. Was it a death? No one should learn of a death alone – but you would not host a party to announce a death. Prison? Had someone been imprisoned? So many had been. She looked across at the wife of the former pensions minister. A Betè Israel from Simano, her father’s village in Dembiya, he had been arrested along with the other ministers, but so far he had not been shot. Her moment of satisfaction at being avenged had shaded quickly into horror, horror and sorrow for all of the executed sixty, everyone had felt that; horror and sorrow and a waiting dread of what might happen next, if the Derg were capable of this.
What did they want to tell her? Her bowels turned then and she rose and threaded her way through knees and children and occasional tables and out into a bedroom, where she drew the door to and prostrated herself, praying to Teklè-Haimanot, to Gabriel, to Mikael, to Mary above all, that the news should not be too heavy to bear.
When the main course was cleared away, Edemariam rose and seemed about to speak. Then, obviously nervous, he sat down. A few minutes later he stood again, looked at her, made to speak, sat down. She could see he was in agonies and willed him strength. The third time he remained standing.
‘Mother, my mother. You’re strong, aren’t you? You’re brave?’
Of course I’m strong, she answered, comforting him, but fighting, also, her own fear and her weariness of fear. Didn’t I prove that, through all those years in court, fighting for my land, my houses?
He winced. And then he said, Nannyé.
Yes, child?
The houses have been taken.
What houses?
The houses in Gondar. The rental properties.
The fear poured out of her, leaving her empty and shaking.
What? That broken-down stuff in Gondar?
All taken, he said, his eyes hunting hers. He told her later he had invited guests to soften the blow; too many people had suffered fatal heart attacks on hearing they had lost their livelihoods.
She held his gaze.
Let them. As long as they don’t take my children.
* * *
—
And again she dreamed. She dreamed she was in her big house in Gondar, that she had visitors. That the chat was proceeding as it usually did, How are you? Well, and you? Well, and your children? And your husband? All well, thanks be to God. A convivial silence, and frankincense, drifting.
Then someone said, ‘Did you hear?’ Hear what? ‘The emperor is gone. He’s been called away.’
Her heart dropped. But my children! My children! I gave them to him for safekeeping!
Nannyé. She woke to a voice in her ear. Nannyé. Ayzosh. What is it?
Sweat trickled down her forehead and ran between her breasts. Sweat swallowed her up and spat her out, stranding her, shivering, among the bedclothes.
What does it mean? What does it mean? What is to happen?
* * *
—
When, days later, military music buzzed through her radio and a voice told her Hailè Selassie I was dead, it was as though she already knew.
HAMLÉ
THE ELEVENTH MONTH
Heavy monsoon rains almost daily, sometimes tornadoes. Cold. No visiting or outdoor work due to treacherous waterways and washed-out paths.
Teff tripled in price and chilli peppers followed suit. There was no wheat to be found, anywhere at all. The servant girl would disappear for hours, looking for a twist of sugar to put in the morning coffee. When Yetemegnu returned from Addis she had gone to the leader of the new local urban association and pointed out that now they had taken both her land and her rooms her only income was a tiny stipend, a percentage of the rent now collected by the government. If that was what everyone got, she could manage, she supposed, but what of her eldest, who could not hear? What was she supposed to do?
Eventually they gave Alemitu a small plot of land on which to build her own house. What did we do to deserve this? she asked Alemantè when he visited. Why was our property taken? We didn’t steal it. We are not the nobility. He had never seen her so bitter. He was by then permanent secretary at the ministry of land reform and administration, but he had nothing to say to her, because while he had agreed with the nationalisation of rural land he didn’t believe in the most recent measures himself.
Blame and counter-blame, mistrust and division, flourished. The merchants were hoarding, said the provisional government; they were profiteering. They had to be punished. There is nothing coming from the farms, the merchants countered. The government in its zeal has given state farms over to the workers, and the result is confusion and dropping yields. There is little to sell. In Addis the Derg executed a few merchants as examples, imprisoned more. Students who only a few months ago had marched into the countryside singing of revolution, hoping to bring it to every farmer and cowherd, saw they had been tricked; that the aim had been to get them and their ideals out of the way while the provisional military government consolidated power that had nothing to do with the people. So the students traded their khaki uniforms and soft caps for mufti and slipped back into the towns. Seditionary leaflets passed from hand to hand. Ras Mengesha Seyoum of Tigré, married to the emperor’s granddaughter, had led a guerrilla army into the northern hills as soon as the sixty had been executed. He accused the Derg of betraying the people, and argued for the right to form a true democracy. Argument, conducted in increasingly alien language – feudalism, imperialism, capitalism, proletariat – bloomed in the newspapers, on the radio, in the streets; it grew between siblings, between parents and their children, between childhood friends, and separated them. In Addis my father watched as Alemantè and Molla, newly back from Moscow, traded acronyms like blows and joked that they might as well be talking about pharmaceuticals, for all the sense he could make of them.
They arrested Abunè Theophilos. Never mind that he had led one of the few official bodies to respond wholeheartedly and constructively to the famine, was popular and known to be progressive – he had ordained bishops without the Derg’s permission. The patriarch had buried grain in the basements of churches, they claimed. He amassed wealth and kept women. How risibly transparent, she thought. He is holy! she said to anyone who would listen. He is like a saint! He helped me so much and was so kind. She imagined him in prison, felt it viscerally, as a violation of everything she held to be immutable, foundational, right.
Alemantè disappeared. One night he was staying at her son’s house in Addis; the next morning he was gone. Eventually they heard he was in Tigré, then, many weeks after that, in the Sudan.
Even she who could not read could see that the newspapers – which everyone scanned, urgent with the need to divine the contours of this new world – looked different. They were full of lists. What are they? she asked. Lists of the arrested, lists of the dead. Lists of enemies of the revolution, now
eliminated. These so-called enemies conducted their own eliminations in response, and although they did not publish lists, many saw, or heard, or smelled the results: bodies tumbled into badly dug graves or snagged in the debris under bridges. Bodies lying on roadsides, in the alleyways behind back fences. Women milling around entrances to prisons, self-effacing but intent on not having to take the food they carried home again, because that would mean the prisoner was dead.
Then one morning a face in those papers. Sloping-back brow. Large nose. Dark pockmarked skin. Small eyes. Obviously short. Like a slave, she thought, thrown back onto the divisions of her childhood. But entirely unslave-like he stood on a stage before microphones, mouth wide, throat corded with shouting. In one hand a piece of paper, in the other, raised high above his head as though launching a spear, a glass bottle full of dark.
Major Mengistu Hailemariam had that week led a coup against other rivals for leadership of the Derg and after a shootout emerged triumphant. ‘As a result of the determined and decisive step taken Thursday by the Provisional Military Administrative Council, our Revolution,’ he bellowed into the crowd, drawing them into collective responsibility, ‘has, in keeping with the demands of the broad masses, advanced from the defensive to the offensive position. Henceforth we will tackle enemies that come face to face with us…we will arm the allies and comrades of the broad masses without giving respite to reactionaries and avenge the blood of our comrades double and triple-fold…’ He smashed the bottle to the ground. It had contained water, dyed red.
It was evening and they were sitting in candlelight – as so often these days, there was no electricity – when Alemitu’s partner came to see her. The flame guttered as he opened the door and shadows quivered across the walls. Her heart rapped at her ribs and she was sharp with him. You scared me! What are you doing, creeping about in the dark?
The Wife's Tale Page 23