Beneath the Lion's Gaze

by Maaza Mengiste

  “Let them deal with this on their own,” she said. “You’ve done enough already.”

  Hailu sank back into his chair, resigned. “This had to be done,” he said. “There was no other way.”

  Dawit kept prodding his old friend until Mickey stumbled out the door and onto the ground. His glasses landed next to him.

  Mickey slipped on his glasses, then sprang up. He wiped the dirt off his trousers. “It’s only because of your father that I’m not reporting you,” he said quietly, voice shaking. He spoke softer. “They’ve been watching you. We can help each other, like we used to.” He raised anguished eyes to Dawit and searched his face. “I’m not a bad person.”

  “You’re a coward,” Dawit said. He poked Mickey’s chest and punctuated each word with a push. “You always have been, and you know it. Nothing will ever change that.”

  Mickey pulled himself upright and adjusted his belt and jacket. He inspected his sleeves and smoothed away imaginary wrinkles. He slipped a handkerchief from his jacket and wiped his upper lip with meticulous care. He stood straight and soldierly and saluted Dawit. Then he strode towards him so fast Dawit didn’t have time to react.

  They were suddenly face-to-face. Mickey blinked and focused through his glasses. “My mother knows how much I care for her,” he said. “I work so she can buy food. You sent your mother to her grave thinking her favorite son couldn’t even look at her while she was dying. Who’s the coward?”

  Mickey pushed Dawit so hard that Dawit fell backwards and hit the ground. Then he turned and walked away without another glance at his former friend.

  32.

  HIS OFFICE WAS comforting with the curtains drawn, when there was no red star to spill its colors across his walls and onto his floor. No hot sunlight to remind him of a helpless girl who came in wearing a bright floral shirt, recovering slowly. It had been days since he’d gone into her room, repulsed by his own efficiency. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to slow her recovery. He’d counted instead on the girl’s weakened resistance to infection. But her body had fought off illness with a spirit that normally would have made him proud. She was healing and it was thanks to him.

  Beyond the thin glass pane that separated him from the world outside, he caught the lilt of a sparrow. He reached into a small drawer in his desk and dug towards the back until he found what he was looking for: a photograph of Selam and himself when Dawit was born. It’d been taken on the front steps of this hospital, back in the days when there had been a short lawn thick with blooming bougainvilleas and roses.

  Selam was tired, it was easy to tell the birth had been difficult and she’d exhausted herself trying to push Dawit out. She leaned on his arm, her tiny hand gripping his, and her face, staring into the camera, was beautiful, serene. Her eyes were gentle. Her eyebrows were perfectly plucked, a routine she’d developed after moving to the city, her full lips parted but too sore from biting to fully widen into a smile.

  Far in the background, half hidden behind a pole and staring stiffly ahead, was Almaz, and he remembered now how reluctant she’d been to be photographed.

  “It’s bad for you,” she’d protested.

  Yonas was taking the picture and had pleaded with her to join them, but she’d agreed only after Selam’s insistence.

  Hailu smoothed down a creased edge of the picture and stared at the younger version of himself. His hair back then, just starting to gray at the temples, was shorter, neatly trimmed to his head in a style Selam disliked. It was only as she grew sicker that he’d relented and started to let his hair grow longer. He was proud that day, happy, confident he could do whatever he needed to provide for his growing family and keep them safe. It was evident in the arm he draped possessively over his wife’s shoulder. The other hand rested softly on Dawit’s leg, his fingers cupping his son’s small foot. He wasn’t looking into the camera, his head was bent towards his newborn son and his wife, his smile only for them.

  THERE WAS A SOFT knock at his door.

  “She’s awake,” Almaz said as she pushed the door open. “You need to see her this time, Dr. Hailu.”

  He’d begun to resent her reminders.

  “I’m not allowed to treat her,” she continued. “And she needs stronger medicine. She’s still in pain.” Almaz stood just outside his office. She wouldn’t step in unless asked, and this morning he took some small pleasure in keeping her out.

  “Why can’t you take care of her today?” he asked, putting the photograph in the back of the drawer. “There’s nothing different, is there?” He strained to keep his voice even. “We don’t have any new medicine anyway.”

  “She hasn’t eaten, she refuses,” Almaz said.

  “Make her eat.” The soldiers had begun to grumble about his absence. He’d assured them repeatedly that she was in capable hands.

  “I think you need to see her, Dr. Hailu. She needs more than my supervision. Her injuries—”

  “I want you to make sure she eats.”

  He remembered when it had become difficult to get Selam to eat, how the simple act of feeding her meant prying her jaw open and shoving food into her mouth as if she were an animal. He’d been unable to do it without Sara’s help. Those were moments his family never talked about, moments when he’d been reduced to a paralyzing helplessness.

  “How hard can that be,” he muttered to Almaz. He hoped his tone hid the tightness in his throat. It wasn’t until just now that he realized the girl was nearly the same age as Selam had been when they were married.

  “You know how hard that can be,” Almaz said, angered. “I’ve tried,” she added, her voice shaking.

  He felt a sudden rush of sympathy for his nurse. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.”

  “WHY IS THE WINDOW OPEN?” he said as he walked into the room. There was too much light falling on her bed, beads of sweat had collected on her forehead. Her damaged collarbone was dusted with a faint sheen of perspiration as well. Sunlight was pressing on her mercilessly. He closed the curtains with sharp tugs, yanking at the resistance of the curtain clips to slide easily over the rods. What he saw made him want to throw himself over the girl and shield her.

  “It’s such a nice day,” the soldier with the bowed legs said. “We wanted to get fresh air.”

  “The sun’s too hot,” Hailu said. “She’s been burned enough, don’t you think?” He watched the way his words twisted the soldier’s face and he relished his discomfort. “Go outside if you need to.”

  “You haven’t been here lately,” the soldier with the deep voice said. “We were waiting for you.”

  Almaz went around him to the girl. “She might have a fever,” she said, settling the back of her hand on the girl’s forehead tenderly. “She shouldn’t be sweating like this.” She checked the girl’s vital signs, her concern motherly, professionalism discarded long ago. “It might be an infection.”

  “Weren’t you leaving to get fresh air?” Hailu stared from one soldier to the other. “We need to dress these wounds,” he said. He didn’t say any more until he heard the soldiers’ chairs creak as they rose, then their footsteps in the hall.

  Almaz turned away from the girl. “She won’t last one night when they take her back.”

  Scabbed cigarette burns dotted her arms and legs; the bottoms of her feet were crusted with darkened skin and pink scar tissue. Hailu could tell by the intensity of the rope burns that circled her ankles and wrists that she’d tried to resist. There had been no mercy shown.

  “This isn’t healing so easily,” Almaz said, pointing to deep puncture wounds on her thighs. “I think it’s where they used something to attach the electric wires to her. A neighbor told me they’ve picked up new tricks and equipment from these ferengi. They’re coming in planeloads. Animals.”

  Almaz smoothed hair from the girl’s forehead and wiped fresh sweat away. The girl’s eyes were closed. Her breaths rattled in her chest as if the effort shook her ribs.

  “She’s the same age as my Al
em. God take care of my girl,” she said as she crossed herself.

  “Has she said anything else?” Hailu asked. He stood near the window and wondered how he didn’t recognize Selam in this girl earlier.

  Almaz leaned into the girl’s ear. “They’re not here now. Can you talk?”

  The girl stayed immobile.

  “I gave her something for the pain.” Almaz sighed. She felt gently around the girl’s stomach, drew the sheet back to reveal a large bandage. “I heard the soldiers talking. The person who does this puts all of them in a plastic bag first so he doesn’t soil his clothes.” She unwrapped the bandages and dusted off peeling skin with a damp towel.

  “Be gentle.” He could see her skeletal figure poking through the thin gown. The pale blue flowers were dingy from wear and sweat.

  He heard Almaz take a deep breath. “I try to forget how small she is,” she said.

  This girl was too weak to survive another round of interrogation. Even if she lived, she’d bear the scars for life. There would always be deep gashes on her thighs, her feet would never wear delicate heels. She would always walk with a limp. She had been raped, violently. She’d be so ashamed she’d never marry. Her days would be spent trying to prepare for the nightmares that would awaken when the sun died.

  “What are we keeping her alive for?” he suddenly asked, surprising even himself. But as soon as it came out of his mouth, he felt the words work themselves into meaning, then logic. What was there for her but more of this?

  Almaz was startled. Her hands stilled above the girl’s stomach. “What do you mean?”

  “This one is a special case,” Hailu said. He turned to the hallway and pointed at the door. “They’ve told us that much. Do you think they’ll let her live after all of this? And what kind of life—”

  “She’s important to them,” Almaz stammered. “She’s very important.”

  “It means they’ll show even less mercy this next time. They’ve killed her already.” He counted the number of lacerations on her chest, the severity of the burns on her legs, the depth of the wounds on the bottoms of her feet. “Give me her chart.”

  He took the progress report Almaz handed him and wrote each detail in medical terms that could never possibly describe the human capacity for viciousness and this girl’s own heartbreaking endurance.

  “We’re treating a corpse,” he said. He shoved the clipboard back in its place at the foot of the bed.

  “It’s better than dying,” Almaz said. But Hailu noticed that her hand had moved to lace fingers with the girl’s.

  “I don’t think so.” He covered the girl with the sheet again. “I don’t think you believe it either.”

  “I’m going to the bathroom to clean this towel.” She folded the sheet under the girl’s neck, then headed for the bathroom. “God help us.”

  33.

  SELAM SAID DEATH came in moonlight. There is this to know, she said. There is silence and no thought. All is carved away and swallowed in the dark. This is death, she told him each time she thought she’d breathed her last. It is like this, and I am leaving in this way. But this girl in front of me, Hailu thought, still soaking in sunrays, knows that life is in the moonlight, even in the silence. That death holds thoughts. It gouges and violates. Death is not in the absence and oblivion of letting go, but in the crash and tear of depravity and brutality, as electrifyingly putrid as excrement and rotting flesh. And what have I given her? What have I given her but another moment in the stink and mire of horror and noise?

  34.

  THE LION RACES berhane over the hill, rushes so fast he feels the wind lifting both of them high above the leafy tree, and soon they are running on clouds. His father barrels across the hill on a white horse, dressed in his white jodhpurs and tunic, a spear in his hand, his hair long and billowing from his head in proud curls. He looks up and waves, then turns and gallops through a field of yellow flowers. From the clouds, Berhane hears the sun call his father’s name. “Daniel,” she says. “Daniel.”

  BERHANE WOKE to find his mother holding him against her chest, rocking.

  “Daniel.”

  She was far from him even though her heart beat against his ear. He closed his eyes and left his mother alone in her thoughts. He pushed himself deeper into her embrace, drifted back to his bright fields and yellow flowers.

  Sofia held her son all night and hummed songs she’d forgotten since marrying Daniel. The sounds flowed like water, simple childhood melodies that calmed her and held back fears. Near her, her eldest son, Robel, turned fitfully, then pulled the thin blanket closer to his chin and continued sleeping. Outside, the long coo of an owl fell against their window.

  THERE WAS A NEW jail rising on the horizon near his home, a slab of concrete and steel carved into the forest where Dawit once played amongst tall trees and thick grass. Constant activity swarmed around the area. Men and women carrying concrete blocks trudged up and down the road, burdened by the added weight of sun and sweat. Dawit stood at his gate, on the way to Melaku’s kiosk, and watched the latest procession of tired workers. Their wide-brimmed hats cast shadows on the road.

  There was a long line at the kiosk when Dawit got there.

  “Dawit! Good morning, what do you want?” Melaku’s wide smile revealed the empty spaces in his mouth.

  Melaku’s small shop had become an alternative means for people to buy what ration cards wouldn’t allow. Shiferaw’s grumbling did nothing to deter the old man, who chose to irk the kebele officer further by taping Mickey’s notice ordering the kiosk closed onto one wall.

  “If the palace couldn’t destroy me, do you think you can?” he quipped to the man with the deformed smile. “And watch your wife around me,” he’d added for extra injury. “Women don’t want a man who smiles in bed.”

  The scowl Shiferaw’s mouth couldn’t form was nonetheless evident in his eyes.

  “Dawit, tell me what you want, I’ll hold it for you. These people are greedy today!” Melaku said, angling himself to look past the row of customers to the back where Dawit stood, embarrassed.

  “Am I invisible?” It was Emama Seble. She threw Dawit an irritated glare.

  Dawit offered her a smile. Seeing the black-clad widow still frightened him as much as when he was a boy. He couldn’t understand how Sara managed to be friendly to the sour, frowning woman.

  “Seble, shut up,” Melaku said, “or you’ll have to beg Shiferaw for more sugar this week.”

  “Melaku,” a man in front of them said, “I need to get home.”

  “Which woman are you taking eggs to today? You need a ration card for wives, Taye.” Melaku grinned as he watched the man’s mouth drop open. “Next,” he called out, counting money with vigor and continuing to hurl barbs at customers.

  “You have to be careful,” Dawit said to him once he was at the counter. It was just the two of them—and Emama Seble, who’d decided to linger. “One report is all it takes, and they’ll put you in jail.” Dawit felt uncomfortable under the woman’s stare.

  “They can go to hell.” Melaku wiped dirt out of his eyes, his long fingernails clean and carefully filed. He looked at Emama Seble. “Go home, old woman.”

  “I’m walking back with him,” she said, pointing at Dawit.

  Melaku turned back to Dawit. “I’m just an old shopkeeper,” he said.

  “That doesn’t matter, you know that,” Dawit said.

  “When I see the jailer, I’ll ask for his mother.” Melaku ignored Emama Seble’s snort.

  Dawit patted the old man’s arm. “One Coca-Cola.” He put coins on the counter.

  “None today, I ran out.”

  Dawit looked at him, surprised. “It’s only noon.”

  Melaku nodded. “A group of soldiers took everything, didn’t even pay for the ones I tried to hide.” He motioned to his shelves. “They bought some of my rations, too, complaining that soldiers weren’t getting any more than the rest of us, it’s all going to the officers. Imagine, just like old times.”r />
  “They’re from the new jail?” Emama Seble asked. Her arm rested between the two men.

  Melaku waved her question away, irritated by her presence. Dawit could feel her lean in. There were rumors that Melaku and Emama Seble had once been lovers, and it embarrassed him to stand next to them now and listen to the bickering he suspected covered a history of intimacy.

  “They use this road every day,” Dawit said.

  “Military jeeps. I saw Mickey in one. They’ve been patrolling this area more,” Melaku said.

  Dawit cringed at the mention of Mickey’s name.

  They all looked to the road as if expecting a jeep to rumble past them at any moment. There was only a row of women hunched with firewood on their backs and a boy herding his sheep.

  “Have you seen your friend lately?” Emama Seble asked.

  “No.” Dawit kept his eyes on the road in case her budah could detect his resentment.

  Melaku put a bottle of Fanta on the counter. “I’ll try to save Cokes.”

  Dawit and Emama Seble walked home without speaking. He caught the backwards glance she gave the kiosk before getting inside the compound and shutting the gate. He waited until she entered her house, then he stepped outside the gate and scanned the landscape for signs of a military truck or a group of soldiers. There was nothing but the silhouettes of his neighbors pressed against the outline of the jail.

  35.

  FROM AFAR, THEY could have been mere sheets of paper, flimsy pages with crudely printed letters. But on these pages were words deemed treasonous and illegal. And there was a box of papers with those words tucked under a heavy blanket in the back of his trunk; anti-government pamphlets that his brother, irresponsible, arrogant Dawit, had left in his car. A thousand ways to go to jail and disappear, bundled under neat cardboard flaps. If I close this trunk and sink back into the darkness of this garage, I can walk away and forget they ever existed.

  For a moment, still staring into his open trunk, Yonas didn’t hear the knocks. They came again.