Beneath the Lion's Gaze

by Maaza Mengiste

  She dropped her head, chewed on her full bottom lip. “They’re not innocent, Dawit.” She tried to touch him again, but he moved away. She let her hand drop. “Sacrifices need to be made sometimes, change always causes pain.” She looked deep and steady into his eyes, into him. “It’s not easy.”

  Dawit found himself caught in the reflective gaze of a complete stranger. He looked away and got in the car and drove home.

  NEITHER BROTHER SPOKE at the dining table, they had not talked to each other in days, their conversations dwindling to stares as one week without their father turned into another, and days continued to pile upon days.

  “Emama Seble brought some eggs for us,” Sara said. She sat between them. “She says Shiferaw’s trying to nationalize her hen.”

  Tizita kept her face close to her plate as she picked at her food. The little girl had grown noticeably thinner since Hailu’s arrest.

  “Eat,” Sara said. “You didn’t eat your lunch today.” She spoke to Dawit. “Melaku’s been struggling, he doesn’t want to say it. The rations are getting smaller. No one’s selling him food.”

  Dawit pushed away from the table. “I’m full.” He carried his plate to the kitchen and left them at the table.

  Sara looked at Yonas. “Go talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me. You should go.” Yonas patted Tizita’s head. “Did you do your schoolwork?”

  Tizita nodded.

  Dawit was in the kitchen leaning against the wall when Sara walked in. His eyes were closed.

  “He’s coming home,” Sara said. “I promise you. He’s alive and he’s coming home.” She put her arms around him and held him tight. She rubbed his back in wide circles, the same way she comforted Tizita. “He’s a strong man.”

  Dawit stepped out of her embrace. “I can’t look at him anymore without wanting to hit him. The longer Abbaye stays in jail …” He stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “He shouldn’t have taken him to the jail, he should have asked me for help. We could have done something to help him. How can you forgive someone who does that?” His eyes, dark and confused, sank into Sara’s and held on. “How did you forgive him for letting Tizita fall?”

  “You’re not being fair. Those are two different things. One was an accident.”

  “And the other he could control, right?” Dawit said. “If he could control some part of it, why couldn’t he do the right thing?” He reached to hold her close, the awkwardness of his gesture sending her backwards into the dimly lit kitchen.

  “You’re twisting things.” She held his arms to his side. “What’s wrong with you today? How do you know you could have made Abbaye stay?”

  “Am I?” he asked. “How can you love someone who does the complete opposite of what you would do?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Lily’s gone.” Sara’s supple and lean figure was silhouetted against the soft light from the dining room. He dropped his gaze.

  “What do you mean? Did she get the scholarship?” Sara asked.

  He sunk to the ground. “She’s left me.” Tears ran into the corner of his mouth and he licked them away, sniffing loudly, a small boy again.

  Sara sat facing him, a comforting hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry.” She handed him a handkerchief.

  “Emaye was right. Lily was never going to marry me,” he said, blowing his nose.

  “Lily believed she was going to marry you. I think she changed. It’s these times, everyone’s changing.” She lowered her eyes to her hands. “You can’t help it.”

  “But you haven’t changed. Even Yonas”—he let out a bitter laugh— “even my older brother is still the same. I thought I knew her.”

  “You did know her, you still know her. This revolution.” Sara shook her head. “It’s turning everything upside down.”

  “She’s going to Cuba. As soon as she gets her scholarship she’s leaving.” He wrapped his arms around his knees. “Even if I didn’t see her, it was enough to know I would soon. Now …”

  Sara hugged him and held him tight. “I’m sorry.”

  He clung to her, leaning into her so heavily that it nearly tipped her over. His hand found the back of her head and he turned her face towards him. He looked into her eyes and without a word touched his lips to her cheek, then pressed, and Sara let him. She didn’t resist when he took her chin and raised her mouth to his.

  She pushed him away. “You’re not thinking right.” She smoothed her hair and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before walking out and leaving him alone.

  46.

  YONAS STEERED THE car towards the edge of the road and raked over the faces of pedestrians staring back at him in confused fear. This slowing down and looking had become a habit, starting the moment he woke up, when he waited for the familiar sound of his father’s footsteps and resigned himself once again to the silence of another cold morning. He felt Hailu’s absence in the radio that was no longer turned on, in the straight-backed blue chair no one ever used anymore, in the blanketed emptiness of his parents’ bed, in the unbearable tension sitting between himself and his brother.

  He’d gone to church today to ask forgiveness again for being the son he was and the man he’d grown into. He’d shut his eyes in prayer and tried to push away the image of his mother throwing her pills away. He felt renewed shame remembering her confidence in his obedience. She had been right. Despite the suffering he knew his mother’s illness was causing his father, Yonas had never said a word about the skipped medication. If he’d only resisted his father’s instructions, if he’d just done what he really wanted to do and gone to Dawit’s room to wake him up, his father might be safe.

  He eased the car next to Melaku’s kiosk and barely had a chance to knock before Melaku opened the door.

  The old man was abrupt. “No. Not again. Go home to your wife and daughter, they need you more than I do.” He began closing the door. “Stop coming here so much.”

  “Sara’s cooking. Tizita’s pretending to sleep,” Yonas replied. “That girl never sleeps anymore.” He stopped the door with his foot. “I wanted to see how business was.”

  “Couldn’t be better. The Russians discovered my arake is better than vodka,” Melaku said. He held out two eggs. “This is all I have. Take them home. You’ve been spending too much time here,” he repeated. “Both you and your brother should leave me alone and talk to each other.”

  “Please,” Yonas said.

  Melaku stepped aside and sighed.

  Yonas sat down and folded his hands on his knees. “Tizzie keeps asking about Abbaye.”

  Melaku nodded. “You’re losing weight, and you look tired.”

  “I’m fine,” Yonas said. He waited.

  “We’re not going to talk about the same things over and over again,” Melaku said. “I have a conversation with your brother, then the same one with you. I’m fed up,” he said, smiling. “We’re not doing anything for your father by worrying like this right now. You pray and take care of your family. If I hear something, I’ll tell you.” He sighed. “Same things I told your brother. Now, help me talk about something new.”

  Yonas returned his smile and looked around. “Can I open them?” he asked, pointing to the shutters.

  “Not yet,” Melaku said, checking that they were latched. “Seble comes here early and complains that I have no food.” He shook his head. “She should go buy from the kebele store instead of harassing me.”

  Yonas laughed softly. “She’s hiding her hen,” he said. “Shiferaw is trying to nationalize it, I think just out of spite.”

  “God help him if he does,” Melaku said.

  “She asks how you are sometimes.” Yonas watched the old man’s face flush underneath his weathered skin.

  “That woman needs to stop her meddling.”

  “She’s just concerned.” He stole a sideways glance at the old man and nudged him. “Has Emama Seble always worn all black?”

  “She still doesn’t wear all b
lack.” Melaku grinned.

  BERHANE RAN INTO SOFIA’S arms and clung to her. “I saw it. I saw it,” he said, pointing past the dusk-lit shanties to the long thin road. “It was like this”—he arched his back in a painful bend, nearly tipping over. In his eyes, a manic wildness that made Sofia nervous.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I saw a body. It was like this,” he repeated. Sofia stopped him from another back bend. “It was dead,” he said.

  “Where? Where were you?” she asked.

  “Near the lion, it was a girl and she was tied.” He licked his lips. “But I wasn’t scared. I looked at her.” He smiled the excited smile of a new discovery. “Her eyes were open.”

  Sofia shook him. “What are you talking about?” Her mind struggled to connect one frightened thought to the other. Her little boy had seen one of those bodies, one of those she’d only started hearing about recently.

  Robel came up behind her, worried. “I didn’t know he saw, I was trying to find him.”

  “You have to watch him,” she said. “You’re the elder brother.” She turned to Berhane. “You have to work somewhere else. You can’t go back there.” She shook Robel though she didn’t need to. “Move to Peacock Café, they have a big parking lot and it’s busy.” She lifted Berhane’s chin. “You have to run the other way if you see something like that again. It’s bad for you to see it.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Peacock Café is far.” Robel held his hand. “I’ll keep him near me. We make good money near the school.”

  “I’ll give you bus money. You’re moving starting tomorrow,” she said, her decision final.

  BERHANE’S STOMACH WAS full from too much tea and bread, round as a moon and satisfied. And because Robel wasn’t there to tell him to stop, he puffed his stomach out even more and walked with his legs angled outwards, the way he’d seen the fattest, richest men do. Peacock Café was bustling, and he liked walking by the parked cars in the lot and looking at his reflection. He made a face at his misshapen self on one door and giggled.

  “Today’s news!” he called out. “Get today’s news!”

  A hand shot out of a black car with mud splattered above the tires. “Here!”

  The shiny black car honked and he sped up and exchanged a newspaper for coins. Peacock Café was full of patrons taking their afternoon tea and Berhane prepared himself for another pocketful of heavy, clinking coins.

  “You! Over here!” another customer called out.

  Berhane approached the small car slowly; the man’s hands shook. His mother said only people with shame in their hearts had shaking hands.

  “Ten cents,” Berhane said. He squinted so the smoke from the man’s cigarette wouldn’t get in his eyes.

  The man took the paper, slipped a note inside the front page, then handed it back to Berhane. “Give this note and the paper to my friend over there.” He pointed to a car three spaces over. “Don’t tell him it’s from me,” the man said. “He’ll know already.”

  He dropped one birr in Berhane’s hand. The bill nearly flew away in the wind before Berhane clenched his hand.

  “It’s too much”—Berhane began to hand him change—“I just need two coins.”

  “Keep it, for candy.” He smiled and Berhane noticed his teeth were perfectly straight and small.

  “I like your teeth,” he said to the man.

  “Then buy milk.” He put another coin in Berhane’s hand and smiled.

  Berhane made his way to the man’s friend. “Here,” Berhane said to the small man bent over his cup of tea. “From your friend.”

  “Eh?” The man waved him away with a bony hand. “I didn’t call for you.” He sipped his tea delicately and pretended Berhane wasn’t standing there.

  “Your friend said for you to take this note and this.” Berhane handed him the newspaper, the note on top.

  “What man?” The man began to roll up his window. “Where?” The tray attached to his window tipped, his teacup slid to one side of the tray.

  “He’s gone,” Berhane said, confused. “Don’t you want the paper?”

  “Go away!” the man exclaimed. “Get away from me!” Berhane saw his forehead was peppered with sweat.

  “But he paid me already,” Berhane said. He tried again to give the paper to the man.

  The man started backing his car up, ignoring the tray tilting on his open window and the teacup that crashed to the ground. The car jerked as he spun his steering wheel. “Go away! Get away!” he cried.

  Berhane heard a loud crack above him, then saw a bullet drill its shape into the windshield. There was the burning smell of smoke. The man slumped over and the car horn blared and died. Berhane stood on tiptoes to see the man and saw blood dripping on the car seat from his head.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, but his voice sounded too far away for anyone to hear. It wasn’t until his ears stopped ringing and his eyes started watering that Berhane saw soldiers running towards the car, their guns drawn and aimed at him. He dropped his papers and slowly raised his hands the way he’d once seen a man do in the streets when soldiers surrounded him.

  “Move! He’s been shot!” the soldiers yelled. They brushed him aside. One pointed to a building nearby. “It came from that way. The balcony.”

  Berhane stepped away from the cluster of military uniforms and heavy boots and ran down the street to find his brother. It wasn’t until he nearly collided with Robel that he saw he was still holding the note the other man had given him. The jingle of coins against his leg slowed as he stopped to hug his brother.

  “I was coming for you. What happened?” Robel asked.

  “A man was shot, the other man’s friend, and I couldn’t give him this note.” Berhane pushed the piece of paper into his brother’s hand. “He didn’t want it.”

  Robel shoved the note in his pocket and pulled Berhane down the street. They made their way through the throngs of people who’d begun to crowd the parking lot and whisper through cupped palms.

  They made their way to another café and sat behind the building on the steps. Robel hugged Berhane. “Don’t be scared. Are you okay?”

  “The other man gave me paper money for milk,” Berhane said, talking fast. “He had nice teeth.”

  “Did anyone see you with the note?” Robel asked.

  Berhane shook his head. “The man didn’t give me his name, and the other man was really scared and the bullet went like this into the window and he fell like this.” Berhane pantomimed and then tipped over, his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  Robel unfolded the paper. “I’ll get you a sandwich,” he said. “Don’t tell Emaye anything about this.” Robel scrunched his face as he read.

  “What’s it say?” Berhane asked. He took the note from Robel and held it close to his face.

  Robel stared at the paper in Berhane’s hands for a long time, then finally read it aloud to his brother. “The essence of our existence is the destruction of the Derg.”

  47.

  DAWIT DRANK TEA in the dining room and read the morning’s headlines in Addis Zemen. A mid-level government official had been gunned down. No witness had come forward to identify the gunman. Major Guddu, the newspaper reported, was taking a personal interest in this latest assassination of one of his most beloved comrades and would not stop until the killer was found. Sincere condolences were sent to the wife and children of the deceased on behalf of all revolutionary Ethiopia. Investigations would begin immediately and any who witnessed the crime were urged to come forward. High schools and the university were closed until further notice.

  “Did you read what happened?”

  Dawit looked up to find Yonas carrying a book bag overflowing with papers under his arm. His normally close-cropped hair now curled sloppily and uncut around his ears, his eyes were ringed in dark circles. More and more, Dawit caught his brother staring off into the distance, his jaw slack in a look of stunned defeat.

  “Schools a
re closed,” Dawit said. “Why the bag?”

  “I’m going to try to get into my office and do some work. They’ll be looking everywhere for the shooter, you know that, don’t you? They think whoever did it is part of an underground group, something student-led.” Yonas searched Dawit’s face.

  “You think I know something?” Dawit looked past his brother to the living room. The curtains were closed tight, like they’d been since his father’s arrest.

  “Maybe,” Yonas said, glancing at the front-page headlines. “Why else would you be reading Addis Zemen? Why would you care what the Derg is saying about this?”

  “And if I did know?” Dawit flipped over the newspaper. “What do you want me to do, turn myself in? Maybe I’ll ask you to drive me,” he said.

  His older brother took a deep breath and spoke slowly, as if to a child. “He knew which one of us would do what was necessary, no matter how hard it was.” He cleared his throat. “You’re too selfish and irresponsible.”

  “You’re as obedient as a trained dog.” Dawit knocked the bag out of his arm and strode out, leaving Yonas to pick up the papers.

  HAILU TRIED TO focus on the arm dangling a long chain and handcuffs in front of him, but his vision blurred. The borders of his bed bled into the hazy outline of the officer’s shoes. Straight lines undulated like coiling snakes. All sharpness was gone in the world, his body nothing but bruised bones and swollen flesh. His mouth tasted of iron, his tongue was coated with a thick, sour film. No matter which direction he pivoted his head, pain lodged even deeper into his neck.

  The officer’s voice spilled over him laced with static. Hailu cupped a hand to his ear and leaned forward.

  “I don’t think you’re any match for the Colonel, even if you do bring people back to life,” the officer said. “Hold out your hands.” He snapped the handcuffs on.

  Hailu’s ankles were shoved together and cuffed. His hands and legs were attached to a heavy silver chain. His bones felt as if they’d slide out of socket trying to drag the chain around. He wanted to sit down on the bed but the officer kicked him in the back and sent him tumbling to the floor. His teeth smashed together as loudly as the handcuffs that hit the concrete.