by Junot Díaz
She was late getting back to her uncle Fassil’s house, where family and friends of family were waiting for her to say goodbye, to chat and eat and see her one last time, departures being even more momentous than arrivals. Twelve chairs had been moved into the cramped living room. Along with the three couches, they transformed the space into a theater packed with guests, each of whom sat with his or her elbows pulled in toward the torso to make space for all. They came, they said, to offer help, but she sensed it was the kind of help that gave—and took.
It was time to go, and she was relieved when Fassil said—in English, for her benefit—“We are running out of time, so we have already started to fill this one for you.” He pointed past the suitcase that Saba had packed before her walk and gestured to a second, stuffed with items and emitting the faint scent of a kitchen after mealtime. At her mother’s insistence, Saba had brought one suitcase for her own clothes and personal items and a second that for the trip there was full of gifts from America—new and used clothes, old books, magazines, medicine—to give to family she had never met. For her return, it would be full of gifts to bring to America from those same relatives and family friends.
Saba knew this suitcase wasn’t just a suitcase. She’d heard there was no DHL here, no UPS. Someone thought there was FedEx, but that was just for extremely wealthy businessmen. People didn’t trust the government post. So Saba’s suitcase offered coveted prime real estate on a vessel traveling between here and there. Everyone wanted a piece; everyone fought to stake a claim to their own space. If they couldn’t secure a little spot in some luggage belonging to a traveling friend, they’d not send their things at all. The only reasonable alternative would be to have the items sent as freight on a cargo ship, and how reasonable was that? The shipping container would sail from Djibouti on the Red Sea (and with all the talk of Somali pirates, this seemed almost as risky as hurling a box into the ocean and waiting for the fickle tides). After the Red Sea, a cargo ship that made it through the Gulf of Aden would go south on the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to the Pacific, up the American coast to Seattle. An empty suitcase opened up a rare direct link between two worlds, so Saba understood why relatives and friends wanted to fill her bag with carefully wrapped food things, gifts, sundry items, making space, taking space, moving and shifting the bulging contents of the bag.
Fassil placed a scale in front of Saba and set to zeroing it. She leaned over the scale as he nudged the dial to the right. The red needle moved ever so slightly, so incredibly slightly that Saba doubted it worked at all, but then Fassil’s hand slipped, the needle flew too far, to the other side of zero. He pushed the dial just a hair to the left now, and the red needle swung back by a full millimeter. He nudged the dial again; now it stuck.
“Fassil, Saba has to go,” Lula said, shaking her hands like she was flicking them dry. “Let’s get going. Her flight leaves in three hours, and with the traffic at Meskel Square and Bole Road . . .”
Saba leaned toward that wobbly needle as Fassil used his fingernail to gently coax the dial a breath closer. A tap, nearly there. A gentle pull.
“Looks good, Fassil,” Saba said kindly but impatiently.
“It has to be precise,” Fassil replied, then turned to the gathered crowd. “Look what you’re making the poor girl carry.” He pointed to that second suitcase.
Saba tried to lift it, but it was as heavy as an ox. Fassil rushed over and helped her pick it up, and when he felt its weight, he said, “There’s no way they’ll let her take this.” The crowd was unhappy to hear that, and so was Saba. The room hummed with disapproval, punctuated with tsks and clicked tongues. “I can just pay the fee,” Saba quickly said, but Lula stood again, put up her hands, and boomed, “You will not pay a fee. It’s too much money. You are our guest, and our guest will pay no fee!”
“It’s okay,” Saba said. “If we must, we must.” But now the resistance came from everyone. Saba looked helplessly at Fassil. “Let me pay. I have to go. What else can I do?” she asked. She looked at the others and wondered if this was one of those times when a “No” was supposed to be followed by a “Please, yes!” “No, no.” “Really, I insist.” “No, we couldn’t.” “Really, yes, you must.” “Okay.” “Okay.” Was it that kind of conversation? That call and response? Or was it the other kind, the “No, no!” “Really, I insist!” “No, we just couldn’t.” “Okay, no, then.”
“Of course you can’t pay. They will never let you,” Fassil said, ending Saba’s deliberation. He announced, “I’ll weigh the suitcase,” and there was a general sigh of approval. “But,” Fassil continued, “if it’s overweight, which it is, we are going to have to make some tough choices.” He turned to Saba. “You are going to have to make some tough choices.” She nodded and hoped silently that it would come in at weight, please. If she could be granted one earthly wish in this moment, that was what she would wish for. She watched Fassil heave the suitcase onto the scale and winced as the needle that hovered, almost vibrated, above zero shot to the right. Thirty kilos—ten kilos too heavy.
The crowd began to murmur anxiously, and a few shouted out sounds of frustration. Then one by one, the guests began to speak in turns, as if pleading their cases before a judge.
Konjit was the first up. She was old, at least seventy, a verified elder who settled disputes and brokered weddings and divorces, part of that council of respected persons that held a neighborhood together. As Konjit walked toward Saba, Saba bowed a little.
“Norr,” Saba said, a sign of respect.
“Bugzer,” Konjit replied, acknowledging that the order of things hadn’t been completely turned on its head. Konjit lifted the edge of her shawl, flung it around her shoulder, and walked slowly right up to the suitcase and unzipped it. She took out a package of chickpeas and tossed it on the ground, and though someone grumbled at this, Konjit just smoothed her pressed hair behind her ears as if she were calming herself before an important announcement, an orator about to make a speech, an actress set to perform. Konjit held a hand up to the others who sat on the couches and chairs, and waited for total silence. Then she turned to Saba, put her hands on both her hips, which swayed as she stepped closer to Saba, and said in a low voice that filled the small space, “Please, Sabayaye, I haven’t seen my grandchildren since they were two years old. How old are you?”
“Twenty,” Saba said apologetically.
“Twenty? Ah, in all the time you’ve been alive in this world I have not seen them. Imagine! I’m old now. Who can even say how old I am? I’m too old to count and getting older. I want to send this bread so they know people here love them.”
Most of the others in the room nodded in agreement, but not Rahel. Rahel shook her head as she stood from the couch and walked right up to Konjit, putting a hand on Konjit’s arm. “Who can say how old you are, Konjit? Me, I can say how old you are. Not the number of years of course, but I can say for sure that I am older than you. One month, remember.”
Rahel brought up that one-month position of seniority often, and Saba had come to expect it. Within just her first week there, Saba learned that Rahel and Konjit had grown up and grown old fighting often about things like which church had the most blessed holy water, Ledeta (Rahel) or Giorgis (Konjit), or whether it was better to use white teff flour (Konjit) or brown teff flour (Rahel), or where you could get the best deals on textiles, Mercato (Konjit) or Sheromeda (Rahel). Without fail, each argument ended with Rahel staking out a win by virtue of being slightly elder.
Rahel bent down and removed one of the three loaves of bread from the suitcase and tried to hand it back to Konjit, who refused to take it. Saba, wanting to hurry things along, reached out for the loaf, but Rahel placed the bread on the floor by her feet. “You can bake a loaf, Konjit, I give you that, but it takes you three hours to make that bread? Eh? I spent two days—two days—making this beautiful doro wat for my nephew. The power kept switching off. I had to go to Bole to freeze
it in Sintayu’s freezer, and she has all those kids and all those in-laws and hardly any space in her house, let alone her freezer, but still, that’s what it took to make this beautiful wat. Then I had to wrap the container so tight that, should any melt in transit, it will stay safe and secure—and with these old old old fingers,” she said, putting up her index, middle, and ring fingers. “Can you believe it? These old old fingers,” she said, now raising her pinky and thumb. “These fingers a month older than yours, Konjit.” She pulled Saba over and put her fanned fingers on Saba’s left shoulder, leaning on her. “Just take this beautiful wat for me. It will be no problem, right?”
Before Saba could say that this seemed reasonable, Wurro walked up to Saba, and Saba shifted her attention again. “I may not be the oldest, and my hands don’t ache like Rahel’s, but please, think about this objectively, Saba,” said Wurro, whose utilitarian views led her to make obviously questionable decisions, like employing fifteen workers in her small grocery so that fifteen more paychecks went out each month and fifteen more families would be happy, even if it put her one family on the verge of ruin. Wurro never argued her utilitarian views as forcefully, though, as when they matched her own purposes. She cleared her throat, and Saba waited for what she feared would be another well-argued plea. Wurro began, “If you don’t send this bread, Konjit, your family will still eat bread. If you don’t send this wat, Rahel, your family will still eat wat.” Wurro took Saba’s hand and said, “My niece had a difficult pregnancy. You have to take this gunfo because if you don’t take it, well, there is no way to get gunfo in America, and who has ever heard of a woman not eating gunfo after labor? If you don’t bring it, she won’t have it. Milk for the baby, gunfo for the mother. It’s natural logic. You can’t deny it.”
“But American women don’t eat gunfo. Do they eat gunfo, Saba?” asked Lula.
“She’s never been pregnant in America, right? How would she know?” asked Wurro.
“She’s never been pregnant here. Does she even know gunfo?” Konjit asked.
Saba said, “I know gunfo,” and was met with whispered words of approval, so she refrained from adding how hard she had to swallow to get a spoonful down of the thick paste made from (she’d heard) corn, wheat, barley, or banana root, she wasn’t even sure. Whatever gunfo was, she’d rather not bring it, if it was up to her, but she wasn’t actually sure of that either. Was it up to her?
“Saba is a smart girl,” Lula said. “She probably read at least ten books in the four weeks she was here.” Saba felt guilty then, because it was true that she had declined as many invitations as she accepted, choosing sometimes to read alone at home. “She must know Americans have high-tech things for women after their pregnancies. They don’t need gunfo,” Lula said, rearranging the contents of the suitcase to make room for her own package. “But you know what they do need in America? Have you ever tasted American butter?”
Lula looked at the others as if this would end the discussion. She stood up, opened her arms. “Have you had American butter?” No one spoke. Saba kept quiet, for of course she had eaten American butter, but what good would it do to mention that now? Besides, few had the courage to challenge strong-willed Lula, even with the truth.
“No one here has ever had American butter, so then that settles it.” Lula took out another of Konjit’s loaves of bread and a bag of roasted grains. “I have eaten American butter. I have tasted it with my own tongue. I can say with certainty that American butter is only the milk part, no spices, no flavor. It just tastes like fat. Please bring this butter to my best friend for her wedding banquet,” Lula said with her hands now pressed over her heart and looking pleadingly at Saba. “Ahwe, her wedding! And what a feat to get that man to the altar. His gambling and staying out late and—”
“Aye aye aye,” Konjit interrupted, shaking her head and removing Lula’s butter and putting a second loaf back into the suitcase. “You want her to bring butter so your friend can marry a bad man? Have you ever heard such nonsense?” Konjit asked Saba. Saba shrugged, and Konjit said, “See, she has never heard such nonsense,” and Saba didn’t have the heart to correct her and didn’t have the heart not to correct her, and she didn’t know which would have helped her bring this to the right resolution, so she just made a vague gesture and let them finish.
“He is not a bad man, just a man man,” Lula said.
“Well, my son is a good man raising good grandchildren. Lula, my son brought you the stretchy pants you asked for from America when he visited. Wurro, my son brought you a laptop last time he came. Rahel, he brought you cereal with raisins, the kind you always ask for. Fassil, he brought you books, since you have long gone through everything at every library here, I assume. Saba, one day if you live in Ethiopia, he will bring you something too, anything you ask. Name something you miss here.”
“Too much talk, Konjit!” Rahel yelled. “The traffic, she has to go!”
Konjit swatted away Rahel’s interruption and gestured to Saba.
Saba tried to think of what to say. She didn’t want to offend them by making them believe she had lacked for anything. She remembered how hurt Konjit had been when Saba visited after lunchtime, only to find a full meal waiting for her. When Saba refused, Konjit insisted that the dishes were very clean and the food fresh. That wasn’t as bad, though, as sitting down to eat “just a little” and passing on the salad, the water, the cheese, the fruit, eating only the lentils and bread, accepting some coffee but not even the milk. “You have all been so kind to me,” Saba said, bowing respectfully, pronouncing all her syllables perfectly, precisely, as quickly as she could. “I have not missed a thing. But it’s late, and it’s true, the traffic is bad . . .”
Konjit dismissed Saba. “She has learned the Ethiopian way. Good girl. Too polite to say you need anything here,” Konjit replied, putting an arm on Saba’s shoulder. Konjit continued, “Okay, don’t tell us, that’s okay. But if you visit again to stay a while, and if you find you are homesick for something you grew accustomed to there in America, my son will bring it. He is a good son. I am asking you to take two loaves of bread. Okay, forget about the third, I don’t want to ask too much of you, even though I am an old lady who has not seen her grandchildren in, oh, who knows how long. But these two loaves must stay in the suitcase, two loaves for my three grandchildren so they know I am thinking about them. That I have not forgotten them.” Saba could see that Konjit was too proud to say what she really meant: she didn’t want her grandchildren to forget about her, a fear she must bear, living so far away for so many years with only limited lines of connection.
Konjit’s argument hung there in the air until Fikru stood hesitantly and walked over to the suitcase, finding his bags of spices on the floor beside it. He reached into the suitcase and took out three Amharic-English dictionaries and tossed them onto the coffee table. Hanna shouted out, “Aye! Why, Fikru, would you do that?” She ran over and picked up the books, then threw them back in, but Konjit took them out, for they crushed her bread.
Fikru, who kept opening his mouth to speak but found himself overpowered by the more forceful voices, seized his opportunity like a fourth-chair orchestral musician stealing a flourish at the end of a number. He stood next to an overwhelmed Saba and said, “Everyone here has a relative in Seattle, yes? Then why is it that only my son is going to pick Saba up from the airport?” He turned to the others. “You talk about what so-and-so needs or has done, but my son, without asking for anything, has volunteered to get her. He will be carrying this heavy suitcase to his car. Then he will take her to her dorm and bring this heavy suitcase up the stairs, if there are stairs, or down the hall, should there be a hall. What can it hurt to bring a few items for him?” Fikru showed Saba his items. “Just a few bags of spices: corrorima, grain of paradise, berbere. Please, Saba, a humble parcel for my humble son.”
Saba turned to her uncle Fassil and discreetly pointed to her watch. “Okay, you all have something to say,” Fassil offered, cutting off the remaini
ng guests who gathered around the suitcase, eager to make their appeals. “But the traffic!”
“Yes, the traffic,” said Fikru.
“The traffic,” Rahel and Konjit said in unison, and Lula nodded.
Fassil turned to Saba. She asked him, “What do you want to do?”
“What do you want to do?” Fassil asked her. Though each person in that room had his or her body turned to the suitcase, all eyes were on Saba, who was trying to figure out how to navigate this scene. They looked her over and imagined she looked so . . . what? Different? Just . . . apart with her woven bag, which intermittently glowed with the light from her iPhone or beeped and pinged and vibrated from the sound of her other gadgetry, her American jeans tucked into tall leather boots, a white button-down shirt and gold earrings, while they wore modest clothes and hand-me-downs, some of which she had brought herself.
She had been in the country one whole month and had tried, they must know, to learn the culture, to reacquaint herself with her first home and fit in. And now, here she stood, on the last moments of her last day, still not sure what to do, while they looked at her lovingly and with curiosity too. Saba felt the weight of choosing what should be taken and what should be left behind. She was looking for a way out and a way in, but she realized there really were no shortcuts here.