Beneath the Lion's Gaze

by Maaza Mengiste

  The first soldier stepped forward. “You delivered my baby boy, we named him Hailu,” he said. “He’s four now, a strong boy. A good boy.” He was slender with a potbelly and knees that bowed awkwardly.

  Hailu refused to look his way. He stayed focused on the girl. Her interrogator had been careful not to touch her face.

  The second soldier, thick-limbed and deep-voiced, stepped closer to Hailu. “She has to stay alive. No one can know she’s here, make sure this hallway is blocked off. This is between you and your nurse,” he said, clearing his throat. “We’re under strict orders.” He looked at Almaz sternly. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her face expressionless, her hands still folded in front of her.

  Hailu walked around the bed to look out the window. Addis Ababa returned his gaze, sunlight twinkling like a watchful eye. He drew the curtains.

  “Did Russians train you how to do this to people?” he asked, his chest so full of anger he was sure his voice was tight. “I heard these Eastern Europeans have been teaching you how to interrogate your own people,” he spat out. “Is this what happened?”

  The bowlegged soldier stayed silent, his head low. Neither spoke until the soldier with the deep voice stepped forward again. “There will be no questions,” he stated flatly. “Do what you do best. Heal her.”

  He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it when he saw Almaz shake her head. “She needs a bath. Leave us with her for a few minutes,” he said.

  The soldiers walked out. The girl moved her head. Hailu lifted a corner of the thin plastic away from her hand. It drew a small patch of burned skin with it. He saw one of her fingers shake.

  Almaz wrung her hands, eyes finally gazing around the room. “This isn’t good.”

  “She’s trying to say something,” Hailu said. He wanted to step close to her, but couldn’t. “See if you can hear her,” he said.

  Almaz pressed her ear against the girl’s mouth. Hailu saw the girl’s chest expand, her eyes fluttered to slits, her pupils rolled under her eyelids.

  “Come here,” Almaz said, grabbing his arm and pulling him near the girl. “Listen.”

  The girl’s breath was sour and smelled like dried blood. She spoke faintly: “Abbaye.”

  Hailu drew back sharply and shoved his hands in his pockets. He searched instinctively for the prayer beads he still carried with him every day. “God help her,” he said. He started pacing, rubbing his eyes, a headache growing in a thick band around his temples. “Help her. Who is she? Ask her name, quick, before they come back.” He didn’t want to think of the father who was frantically looking for his little girl right now. He stopped, frustrated by Almaz’s slowness. “Find out who her father is!”

  “What did you say, my daughter?” Almaz whispered soothingly, hovering close to the girl. “Who is your father?” She waited, then shook her head. “Nothing. She’s out.” She looked at Hailu with terrified eyes. “What do you think they’ll do to her once they get her back?”

  Hailu turned away from the bed, stared at a cobweb draped in one corner of the room. “We have to take the bag off,” he said. He wiped his brow; he was sweating. “It’s going to take some time.”

  Through the curtains, trees shook shadows onto the hospital lawn. There was the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, the blaring horns of traffic, and the shouts of farmers and vendors. Life outside these walls went on as always. Inside, it seemed the world had shifted off its axis and was breaking into two.

  27.

  TIZITA, NEARLY SEVEN years old and long-limbed, skinny, and temperamental, kicked a ball and jumped, twisting and twirling in that leap, causing Sara to gasp. Sara tried to focus on Democracia and an article about rebel control of major cities in Eritrea. The capital city, Asmara, and the port of Massawa were under siege. Cubans were training new recruits of the Ethiopian army. The Derg, the article said, was using fascist tactics against civilians.

  “Emaye, I’m kicking higher than Berhane!” Tizita yelled. “Look at me!”

  Sara let the somersaults of her heart still before allowing herself to watch her daughter play with their servant Sofia’s son. She tried to remind herself that her daughter was healthy, that her prayers had been answered. She wished she could accept Tizita’s recovery as a gift, and not a concession she had forced from a grudging God.

  “I’m the winner!” Tizita ran towards Berhane. A grin as wide and open as Sara’s stretched across her face. She had her bright eyes, Yonas’s thick eyebrows, and lips whose gentle fullness echoed Selam.

  Sara set the newletter aside and pretended to cheer the children’s earnest game of soccer. Her body was tense and she didn’t understand why. She’d kept a careful eye on Tizita as she played outside all day, afraid this anxiety was a sign that her daughter might get sick again. The close scrutiny was exhausting. She was sweating and her back ached. She glanced at her watch, a gift from Yonas to her on Tizita’s sixth birthday, and clapped her hands loudly.

  “Dinner,” she called out. “I need to go inside and get ready. Come help me, both of you.” She didn’t want to let her daughter out of her sight.

  “I’m not finished,” Tizita said. She tossed the ball to the boy.

  Sara clapped her hands again, more emphatically. She recognized the ready pout on Tizita’s face. “Get in,” she said.

  “No,” Tizita said, her lips jutting out, frowning. “I don’t want to.”

  Sara took the ball away from Berhane.

  “I told her,” Berhane said. He raised a handsome, alert face to Sara. “I’m hungry.” His sincerity made her smile and she hugged the boy to her. She regularly begged Sofia to move in with them and out of their shack, but the younger woman had refused, citing her husband Daniel’s disappearance, though Sara had suspected it was also a question of pride.

  “If we’ve moved, how will he find us when he comes back?” Sofia responded, her dark eyes sad.

  “Emaye, look,” Tizita said, pointing at the gate.

  The gate was shaking. Its bottom scraped the hard ground. There was a struggle on the other side to open the gate through sheer force. Every resident in the compound knew the latch would stick if not jostled just right.

  “Someone’s trying to come in,” Berhane said.

  Sara stepped away from the gate, opened her arms, and let the children run to her.

  “Go inside, get Abbaye,” Sara said, pushing Tizita towards the front door. She picked up the copy of Democracia and handed it to her daughter. Sara pushed her harder. “Hurry!”

  Tizita didn’t move. “Bad soldiers are coming,” she said, whimpering and standing closer to Sara.

  “Go inside!” Sara shouted. “Take this”—she tucked the newsletter under her daughter’s arm. “Go. Go get Abbaye.” The children scrambled up the stairs. “Yes?” she said, stepping back and unlatching the gate. “Who is it?”

  She saw the barrel of a gun probe through the open gate, then a hand, calloused and ashy, a thick leg, heavy boots, an entire body, and she tried to piece together the man’s grim eyes, his high forehead, the military uniform, his words: “There’s an order …” Papers unfolded in his hand, grew from a perfect square to a neatly creased declaration. “Residence nationalization … new kebele rules … mandatory.”

  The soldier stepped in. Following him was a thin man with a long, slender scar that ran from cheek to cheek, extending the edges of his mouth.

  “I got your letter,” Hailu said; he’d walked up without Sara noticing. “But I thought I had a week.” He gave the soldier a disdainful look. “Can’t you follow your own instructions?”

  “What’s going on?” Sara asked, surprised by Hailu’s terseness and noting his red-rimmed eyes. He looked tired.

  “They’re nationalizing the house in the back, where Bizu sleeps,” Hailu said, settling his eyes on the thin man next to the soldier. “As if they haven’t taken enough. All of my grandfather’s land is gone. So is the land Selam’s father gave us. Now this.”

  The sol
dier cleared his throat and raised the papers higher. “Orders,” he said.

  “Nationalizing the house?” Sara asked.

  “Anyone with an extra house is now required to offer it to the Derg as part of our efforts to help all of Ethiopia’s poor,” the soldier said.

  “But it’s not extra,” Sara said. “It’s Bizu’s. That’s where she sleeps. She’s been sick lately and needs it.”

  The soldier smirked and pointed to the man who’d moved to stand beside him. “This is your new kebele officer, Shiferaw. He’s proven his true revolutionary spirit to us and he’ll be here to collect taxes, just like the old kebele officer. But you must also report any deaths, weddings, or births in your household to him. He’ll be giving weekly classes on socialism. He’ll live in your compound.”

  Shiferaw nodded his head in eager obedience as the soldier pushed him forward for all to see. His mouth pulled into a smile when the soldier looked his way, the thin scar moving higher across his cheeks, distorting his grin.

  “What’s this?” It was Emama Seble, her black figure making its way to them, her eyes resting on Shiferaw. “Hailu, you should check his mouth.”

  The soldier took Shiferaw’s arm and shook it lightly. “A strong state begins with its people.”

  “The Derg has new rules for their neighborhood associations,” Hailu said. “They want to control everything we do.” His eyes hadn’t wavered from the soldier, but Sara sensed an air of resignation in the way he spoke; his shoulders slumped slightly.

  “It’s a necessary step in our progress,” the soldier said, matching Hailu’s tone. “Unity is a guarantee of sure triumph.” He smiled stiffly, mechanically. “Do whatever he says,” the soldier added, pointing to Shiferaw.

  A bewildered crowd had gathered around the two men, Hailu’s community of families now a quiet circle watching the spectacle cautiously.

  “But that house”—Hailu turned towards the courtyard—“it’s not empty.”

  The small house hidden in a corner of the courtyard was where his mother had died. She had found a peace in that dark home that no one could understand. It held for Hailu all his childhood fears and hopes, those moments when he saw life doggedly maintaining its grip on a body that was resisting all such effort. His mother lay in that single room whose windows swallowed up the sun, and she waited for the battle to rage, then end over her existence. “It isn’t up to me,” she said, daily forcing him to cross each arm over her chest in preparation for her last breath. “It is only up to me to wait.” But every day she lived, the disappointment and sorrow in her face became harder for him to bear. He began to feel responsible, to see an accusation in her eyes that none of his hugs and kisses could erase.

  It was in the days and months after his mother’s death that he decided to become a doctor, determined that one day, he would help tip the scales towards the patient’s wishes. No one would be helpless anymore. It had not been simple with Selam, he had broken his own vows to himself, but the possibility of her full recovery had pushed him. Hope, he’d decided while caring for his wife, was the only exception.

  The house had been locked tight, its curtains forever drawn, until Bizu, sunken into a sadness since she’d seen the documentary about the famine in Wello, had begun to sleep there. “It’s warm here,” was her rebuff to them. “It’s nice and dark.”

  In the courtyard, two pretty young women hanging clothes to dry stole shy glances at the soldier, whose chest inflated with each flirtatious look.

  “His name is Shiferaw,” the soldier said again. “He’s an important man, but you can come to me if you have any questions.” His eyes lingered on the tallest girl, who smiled and then went back to her clothesline. “I’m stationed in this neighborhood.”

  “Let’s go inside,” Sara said to the children. “Your mother’s made us dinner,” she added to Berhane, pointing to Sofia, who stood at the doorway with her hand over her mouth.

  “Berhane, come here,” Sofia said, frantic. “Hurry!”

  Berhane, fascinated by the rifle and the soldier’s uniform, stood gaping at the older man as if staring up at a looming mountain. “You’re a soldier?” he asked.

  “Berhane!” Sofia shouted, running down the steps of the veranda to get him. “Stop talking to that man!”

  “Yes, do you want to be one?” the soldier said, ignoring Sofia. “My son does.” He smiled, revealing a toothpick-sized gap between his lower front teeth.

  Berhane nodded. “My daddy’s a soldier. But we can’t find him.” He held up three fingers. “It’s been three years.”

  The smile disappeared from the soldier’s face.

  “Berhane, get over here!” Sofia grabbed her son and dragged him into the house.

  28.

  A WHISPER FLOATED into the late afternoon sky and settled back on Dawit and Lily lying in a thick shaft of dying sunlight. Soft shadows played across the rounded curves of Lily’s face as she looked at a small stack of letters next to Dawit.

  She shook her head. “There was no way to get letters to you except through another zemecha who was running away and coming back to Addis,” she said. “I wanted to see if I remembered everything. Thank you for bringing them.”

  Lily had been one of the tens of thousands of students sent across the countryside of Ethiopia to teach peasants about land reform and other changes made by the Derg. She’d come back gaunt and frightened, her hair cut short, it seemed, to highlight her startled stare.

  “Sometimes, I was just writing to myself.” She held the letters gingerly, weighing them in her palm. They were folded sheets of paper without an envelope, dotted with fingerprints around the edges. “You felt so far away. We were so far from the city.” She pressed her naked body against Dawit’s.

  She unfolded one letter. “Our first day Tariku called a mandatory meeting of the village elders.” She started to grin. “He spoke for one hour before one of the men stood up and walked away.” Her smile widened. “They didn’t speak Amharic, they didn’t understand anything Tariku was saying. It was a beautiful speech.” She let out a sharp laugh, her eyes alert and cold. “You’re so lucky your father found a way to keep you in Addis,” she said.

  Dawit watched her open the next letter.

  “It rained so much I used to think the farmers prayed for storms to drive us back to the city,” she continued. She took his hand and held it tightly, talked to him as if he’d never read the letters, as if he hadn’t memorized every fact and imagined the terror of a young girl stuck in a village full of angry people. “The night Tariku and Meseret destroyed their altars, they came after us with guns. The police just watched. I found out later they had orders from the Derg to arrest any of us who survived.”

  Her eyes were closed. She shook her head slowly with a finality Dawit couldn’t understand and picked up the third letter, then put it down. This was the first time she’d talked about that night.

  “You’re back,” he said, hugging her close. “You’re home now.”

  “The Derg executed some of the zemechas,” she continued, holding her head. “Meseret was jailed. They almost suspended me from exams, but they said they’d give me one more chance. Tariku …” Her mouth quivered. “Enough of this.” She sighed and smiled softly at him.

  He kissed her and watched her wipe her eyes. She’d gained back the weight she lost in the countryside and styled her growing hair to show its curls to full effect. She was once again the immaculate, groomed girl he knew, but across her cheeks were spots where her skin had darkened, madiat. It was, his mother had once told him, the physical evidence of a woman’s deep distress.

  “We should go,” she said, looking at her watch. “It’s almost sundown.” Her troubled eyes, slanted slightly at the edges, followed Dawit’s hand trailing a path down her body under the blanket.

  “Curfew’s at midnight.” He wrapped his arm around her.

  She leaned into his chest, composed again. “I have an exam tomorrow,” she said. “And there’s a kebele meeting in m
y neighborhood.” She stared at him and let her eyes linger on his. “I have to speak at the meeting. That’s why I needed these letters.”

  Dawit sat up, surprised. “Since when did you start doing what the Derg wants?”

  “It’s not for the Derg,” she said, pulling the blanket closer around her bare shoulders. “Don’t you know me by now? It’s about the women’s associations we tried to start in the village. I’m explaining what we can do to make sure it works in the city. I have to.”

  “You’re helping the Derg,” Dawit said. He moved away from her.

  She shook her head and put an arm around him to draw him close. “Teaching women about their rights is a good thing. And since kebele meetings are mandatory, we might as well use it to our advantage. We can take them over one day, or at least get close enough for a clear shot,” she said coyly, kissing his shoulder. She was quiet. “Maybe the way to fight is from inside. As long as we keep fighting.”

  Dawit drew his knees to his chest and stared at his feet. “Everything’s become another way to fight. Every rule is there to break,” he said. “But how are people being helped?” He reached for his shirt.

  Lily handed Dawit his jeans and watched him dress. “Sara said Mickey came looking for you.” Her voice was carefully controlled. She slipped on her blouse and skirt.

  “I’m not talking to him.” Dawit stomped his foot as he tied his shoes and a cloud of dirt leapt and hung in the light streaming from the window.

  “He made sure you didn’t get caught distributing pamphlets when you first started.” She put her jacket on and wrapped her arms around his waist. She was much shorter than him and had to raise her head to look him in the eyes. “You owe him something.”