The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

  I’ll get them, Berhe says at the same time that Kidane shouts into the courtyard:

  They’re here! Bring water, they’ll be thirsty. We’ll eat after I’m done.

  THEY ARE a wall: men hardened by the uncertainties of a peasant’s existence, callused feet cracked like old leather, wrinkles deepened by the sun. Across their arms and shoulders, down their legs and chests, they bear the evidence of crushing labor. They have names that she will not memorize until later, but what she sees of them, she recognizes. They carry the familiar scars of village life: the poorly grafted broken bone, the cratered marks of childhood disease, the raised knot of an old burn. They are young and old at the same time, weary and alert, straight and bent: ferocious. They stand in front of Kidane at the bottom of the veranda and watch him with awestruck eyes.

  There are six of them, wiry men with determined faces. They are dressed in old jodhpurs and tunics darkened by wear. They do not smile, even after Kidane’s face softens when he looks at them and nods. They do not break their sternness when he lays his hand on one man’s shoulder then the next. It is hard for Hirut not to stare at their fearsome expressions, the burning anger that shades their eyes. They are slender but muscular with broad feet and wide shoulders. One has an earring made of a black stone. Another has a scar near his jaw. The shortest one carries a curved sword at his waist. The tallest, a rifle with a bayonet. None of them would ever bend and cower beneath a whip.

  The photo of this moment does not exist. There is only this remembrance molded by Hirut, a thought collecting weight with each backward glance. For weeks, she and the cook will speak of it in the sparest terms: of strength and valor, of patriotism and pride and complete obedience. Only later will she look again and see what she could not see. Here, Kidane is a different man from the one who stood in front of Hirut and trembled at the sound of his angry wife. Different from the one who bent to kiss her cheek. Back then, he was bowed by the absence of many things: a living son, a content wife, a quiet home. Here, he claims what cannot be seen: a loyalty that has presented itself fully formed and unshakable, an adoration that borders on fear. The men watch his every move through half-lidded stares, his station a weight that keeps their heads tilted to the ground.

  Will you die for your country? Kidane asks a man who steps forward and introduces himself as Seifu. Kidane paces around him, the others stepping back to make way. Will you follow me into battle and run past me if I fall?

  The sun is a sheet of light behind them, dropping evenly into the valley below. The sky, a clear and vivid blue that holds up the lingering moon, a faint and ghostly intruder on this day.

  Hirut is caught by the expression on Seifu’s sharp-boned face. He is confident, unbowed by Kidane’s physical closeness.

  I said, Will you die for Ethiopia? Kidane leans in to speak into the man’s ear.

  First I’ll kill. Seifu’s answer draws the men more upright.

  Then there is Amha, shorter than the rest, barrel-chested with a sly smile.

  What do you know better than anyone else, soldier? Kidane leans into his ear.

  I know the caves in this area into Keren, Amha says. I know every place we can hide and ambush. I know more than a shifta, I can outmaneuver any banda. I can watch a man die then sit down to eat.

  The sword he carries is so sharp that the cook leans forward and exclaims with envy. He clasps the handle and slices through the breeze with the curved blade. And this, he says. A slender finger traces a row of delicate letters etched along the edge. A prayer for the dead.

  Eskinder knows the mountains and their secrets. Yasin is as light as a ferenj and can speak the language of the Italians and of the villagers in the surrounding areas. Hirut sees Kidane smile when he asks, French? And the man nods and replies, Yes, that too. Hailu can identify poisonous plants and those they can crush for medicine. And then there is the one with the scar on his shoulder and the intelligent eyes, the same one who looked at her and then turned away, his face full of revulsion and pity.

  I’m the greatest sniper you’ll ever meet, he says. No man can stop me, Dejazmach Kidane. No bullet will ever kill me.

  That’s Aklilu, you’ve seen his mother in the mercato, so proud of him. The cook is whispering. These are his special guards, sons of relatives some of them, she continues. If he had a son who was old enough, he’d be there.

  After he goes down the row, Kidane closes his eyes and lifts his face to the sun. My name is Kidane, son of Checole, the greatest son of the greatest warrior named Lemma, he says. I carry the name of his father, the bravest man who ever lived. My blood is not afraid to leave my body and soak into this soil that is also mine. I’m giving you this oath today: from now on, I’ll act as your shield in battle. You must lead the rest of my army in the same way. I’ll protect you with my life, I swear that to each of you right now. You’ve each become my sons, my own flesh and blood. To lose any of you is to lose part of myself.

  The cook’s mouth hardens. His father gave this same speech when Kidane was a boy, she says. She points toward the stable. They were standing right there, armies of men in the compound and on the road and down the hill. Everywhere.

  You were here? Hirut asks.

  The cook throws her a sharp look and shakes her head. Of course not, Berhe told me. Before Kidane’s father marched to fight in Adua, Kidane took his father’s sword and cut his hand. Just a young boy, but he’d been trained like a warrior. She holds out her hand, palm down. He let his blood drip down then he rubbed the dirt onto his father’s feet. A tradition in their family. When men went to battle, the son spilled blood before the father. She nods and looks toward Berhe, watching her from the stable. A secret understanding crosses the distance between them.

  You’ll go to your villages and return with an accurate count of all the weapons your people have, Kidane says. Pick the men you can trust to serve under you and take them to Kossoye, where you met me. I don’t want a large army like the others are putting together. We’ll be small and flexible, but powerful.

  A murmur of approval rises from the group.

  Dejazmach Kidane, we already brought all our weapons to you. It is Aklilu, speaking with his eyes lowered in deference. We’re short of ammunition and rifles. He dares to meet Kidane’s gaze. We can’t use our fathers’ guns.

  Aklilu from Gojjam, son of my younger cousin, born in Dega Damot, Kidane says. Show respect when you speak to me. He folds his arms across his chest. You’re the one that villagers talk about. The horseman with the aim of a sniper. But still, just the son of my cousin.

  Aklilu bows then straightens, careful to keep his eyes averted. They are almost the same height, though Aklilu is taller. He is taut energy next to Kidane’s mature strength.

  You’re worried that I can’t lead you to victory?

  I have complete faith in you, Dejazmach. Aklilu bows again. It’s my rifle I don’t trust.

  Kidane narrows his eyes. You sound like your father. Mehari should have taught you to obey your commander. The weapons will come, he adds.

  Aklilu waits for Kidane to continue, his expression shifting back to a remote sternness.

  Kidane nods kindly to Berhe, who is holding a sack and extending it toward the men. Get some water, he tells his men. Berhe has cups for you. Then we’ll eat. Meet me in the courtyard.

  And here is where history falters. According to popular song, Kidane is interrupted by Aster, who appears like a ghost next to her husband. The story goes that on the day the great Kidane mobilized his men, a lone figure rose up from her bed to heed his call to fight. They say the sight of those men gathered around her beloved husband pulled Aster back from her untended sorrows and carried her from the bedroom to the veranda to stand at her husband’s side, clothed for war in his cape and lion’s mane headdress. But Aster does not rise from her bed and walk to her husband while dressed in his clothes. She does not take her husband’s hand and pledge her allegiance. She does not ask to be forgiven for her unfettered grief and anger. She does no
t swear to die at his feet if he should fall defending their country. She does not, in fact, touch her womb and declare more sons for Kidane’s army.

  No: Aster stands up from her bed, dressed in black, and makes her way to her husband’s office. She moves, uncaped and unapologetic, out of the land of the aggrieved because she remembers what he does not: that this is her late son’s birthday. And she, before Tesfaye’s last breath, had made a mother’s promise that she would leave him only when he was old enough to understand abandonment. And legend will never tell that Aster also realizes that all she once loved is truly gone.

  The Aster of those famous songs will come later, but even then, she will be a legend molded by her own devices. For now, it is 27 Nehas 1927, also called 2 September in the year that is both 1935, and also Anno XIII. So many ways to mark the month and year when Aster walks into Kidane’s office, sits down at his desk, and finds herself staring at a newspaper account of a woman they call Maria Uva, an Italian who lives near Port Said. While her husband draws himself into the circle of men and begins to speak to them of his father’s feats, Aster is leaning to get a better look at the picture of this ferenj woman who is shouting while waving a flag like a declaration of war. Aster stares at the photo, at the arrogant woman’s openmouthed glee, at that flag whipping freely in the wind, and by the time she lifts her head, Aster knows that she must make herself anew and meet this proclamation with one of her own.

  In fact, the famous Maria Uva is not shouting, but singing. And the war that will come will not be declared by her. In the instant of the photograph, published 30 August 1935, Anno XIII, she is launching into the chorus of “Giovinezza” while the Cleopatra eases its way into Port Said. The tricolored Italian flag is indeed behind her. In the ship in front of her, two thousand soldiers are screaming her name. The light in her eyes could be gleeful devotion, or more likely, a consequence of the sun’s sharp angle. But it is late afternoon and overworked journalists, frantic to fill word quotas and pass censorship before the day ends, report every movement of this ragazza del canale di Suez, la madonnina del legionario in the glorious terms of a seafaring goddess.

  It is also the fourth day of the Cleopatra’s weeklong journey to Massawa. The soldati have traveled in units from Rome and Venice, from Florence and Puglia to embark on their great African adventure at the port of Naples. We know Ettore is there, though there is no way for Aster to know that as she sits in Kidane’s office and stares at Maria Uva. Hirut understands the coincidence, sitting in the train station in Addis Ababa with the opened box on her lap, staring down at the same picture of Maria Uva. She remembers that day when Aster slipped out of Kidane’s office and brought the photo of that woman to the kitchen and said to the cook: We women won’t sit by while they march into our homes. This part, at least, the songs have gotten right.

  The Cleopatra: a steamer built nearly 100 meters long and 14 meters wide. A giant chunk of metal extending 5 meters from the surface of the sea to its deck. It is a heavy mass that rises out of the water like a fortress wall. It should have been impossible for a woman’s voice to travel across shoreline and water and then up, past that great steel hulk. I don’t know how she did it, Ettore once said to Hirut. We could hear her, every one of us, and she sounded like an angel. This is why Hirut reaches into the box while sitting in that train station in Addis Ababa and takes out the picture and looks on the back.

  La Cleopatra, it says. Carissimi mi mancate. Caro Papa, cara Mamma, sono in Africa. My dear ones, I miss you; dear Papa, dear Mamma, I’m in Africa. The picture is fragile and yellowed, torn out long ago from a wilting newspaper and pasted on an unsent postcard. Hirut flips it over again: she can see him only because she knows what to look for: he is on deck, staring down at white-garbed men rowing earnestly through choppy water, their galabias flaring in the morning breeze. In the picture, he is there but he is not there. He is one of the indistinguishable specks that hold no resemblance to a human form. There is nothing in this photograph that hints at what awaits these men, these shapeless figures blunted by light. This is Maria Uva’s moment and she is the center of the camera’s gaze, Mussolini’s beam of light casting herself across Africa’s dark borders, ushering men toward greatness.

  KIDANE COLLECTS HIS RIFLE AND BINOCULARS FROM HIS EMPTY office, orders Berhe to walk the horses and clean the stable, tells the cook he will be gone for some days then, without a word to his wife, who is back in their bedroom, he leaves with his men. A strange lull seeps into the day, slowing everything down, draping silence over the compound. This is why they all tip toward Aster when she opens the bedroom door, walks softly down the corridor, and steps out of the front door. She stands where Kidane stood on the veranda, an old cape across her shoulders, her black dress billowing beneath it. The unnatural quiet curves in her direction as she goes into the stable without so much as a glance toward the cook or Berhe. She walks out holding the reins of her horse, Buna. She goes to the gate and pauses, and all of the trees bend and the wind stills and the birds pivot to see what she will do next.

  I’m not waiting like a servant for him to come back, she says.

  The cook doesn’t get up from her stool beside the footpath leading to the courtyard, near where Hirut has frozen in place, dirty trays in her shaking hands. The cook doesn’t move. She is mesmerized by the woman at the gate turning slowly to look in her direction. They lock eyes and the cook shakes her head. Aster opens the gate just as Kidane did hours ago, then climbs on the mare, kicks its haunches, and gallops down the worn path that blooms into countless destinations. And then she is gone.

  Berhe and the cook exchange glances, both of them struck dumb by the effortless departure. They are spellbound and disturbed by something Hirut does not understand. Berhe peers out of the gate. He stares at the dust rising behind the racing horse.

  What happened? Hirut asks.

  What did she say to you? The cook rises to her feet and strides to Berhe.

  Berhe shakes his head, looking through the gate with his hands on his waist. What does that woman ever tell anyone? he says.

  The next day they prepare each meal and set the table and brew coffee as if she will appear at any moment. As daylight slips into dusk, they stand in the sitting room and stare out the window toward the gate that Berhe keeps opening, searching for the cloud of dust that will announce her arrival. When she does not come back by late evening, they collect the tray, set it on the veranda, and the three of them eat while listening for galloping hooves.

  Where’d she go? Hirut asks the second night in their room, but the cook glares at her then slips into bed.

  Let her stay, the cook says. What’s it matter? The cook wipes her face on her sleeve. And don’t think I didn’t see you and Kidane. She points an accusing finger at Hirut. You make her worse, you make her jealous and it’s your fault.

  I didn’t do anything, Hirut says, but the cook has turned her back and she’s lying down with the blanket over her head.

  THE RUMORS: There is a madwoman on a wild horse blazing through the hills, she is stopping at every church and shouting into the heavens and calling wrathful angels down to Earth. She is a nun shifting into a hyena, an angry spirit screaming vengeance from the tops of barren trees. She is Empress Taitu resurrected to fight these ferenjoch. She is an unnamed ghost thrown down by the Almighty, come to curse our foreign enemies. The villagers gather around their wells, their water gourds forgotten, to spread the news about further sightings. They pause while washing and during prayers to search for plumes of dust rising from the horizon. There are the whispers that start to breed the truth: It is Aster, wife of Kidane, racing through our hills with that horse the color of gunpowder. It is she who is rupturing our nights with those shouts, dressed in black. She is calling to us, ordering us to get ready to fight.

  The cook ignores the questions when they go to the mercato. She slides past the hands trying to pull her aside for a private conversation. She shrugs and shakes her head and covers the side of her face when he
r friends, those servants from other households, want to know if what their mistresses are saying is true, if what the gossip from the monthly gathering of their exclusive mehaber groups could possibly be right, if the call for these women to meet at the banks of the river does indeed come from the cook’s Aster. Is it her? Is Aster calling the women to gather at the river tomorrow? What are these women planning?

  She’s not my Aster, is all that the cook says.

  And then the day comes when Aster returns and the cook stands, speechless at the gate, a half-filled bag of spices from the mercato falling from her hand and spilling on the ground.

  You, the cook shouts, and pushes past Hirut into the compound. It’s you. Her voice has come unleashed, the anger finally finding its full release. She is pointing an accusatory finger at the parted curtains of the sitting room window where Aster is blocked in the bright glare of the glass.

  Aster turns from the window, and soon the front door opens. She steps out in her black dress, her hair unbraided and unruly around her solemn face. She is covered with dust and in her eyes burns a hard intensity: shifting light on a river’s surface.

  You thought I’d never come back, Aster says. Where would I go? Then her mouth curls in that way that only Aster can do. You could have left, I gave you the chance.

  The cook looks more tired than she has in the last seven days of Aster’s absence. I’ve had enough, she says. She slumps at the bottom of the veranda, drained of energy and will. Just give me money and let me go.

  When we came to this house—, Aster begins.