The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

  I’m ready, Your Majesty. His aide clutches the reports that he has folded neatly. We can sit in the boardroom if you would like.

  The aide says more but the emperor isn’t paying attention. He is thinking back to his school days, to his teachers and their demand that he remember the smallest detail. He has an exceptional memory now for the minutiae of the intricate systems that the reports imply. It is his enemy he cannot memorize. He cannot form a mental image of this man his people insist on calling Mussoloni. He cannot see him clearly. His eyes fail him in this effort, so he doesn’t know what else to do but listen. In the months since Benito gave his orders to invade, the emperor has done nothing but buy the music of the Italian people, sending his servants by train to Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Eritrea to collect the 78s and bring them back. Now there are three heavy boxes waiting to be moved with him, neatly catalogued.

  The records, Haile Selassie begins.

  The aide lifts his head. His shoulders fall. Behind him, the servant settling the gramophone in its crate pauses. The maid sweeping behind the curtains raises the broom off the ground. It is as if behind him, too, his children’s chatter has stopped and only Zenebwork leans in, challenging and afraid.

  Your Majesty?

  We will listen starting this evening, before we depart, to the music of these Italians. Which one would you suggest? We have time for one, the emperor says.

  The answer firm and swift: Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida.

  He thinks he feels Zenebwork slide from the rosebush into the open window. She is hunched in the corner to his left, shaking. Aida, he says. The story where the Ethiopian princess dies. He cannot keep his throat from closing.

  WHEN KIDANE WAS A BOY, HIS FATHER WARNED HIM: BE CAREFUL OF the runner with the trembling legs. Measure the man’s words and weigh his message. Stay calm and listen. Never let him see that you are bent by his words. Stand tall and motionless until he is gone. He will be watching your reactions. He will be gauging the danger ahead from the lines of your mouth. He will look for the tremor in your voice that will betray your distress. He will listen for the message you do not say aloud. Let him see nothing but certainty. Let him hear nothing but confidence. Be still, Kidane.

  Finally alone, Kidane steps back into his tent and sinks onto his cot. The messenger, Worku, has left to relay his warning of a coming Italian ambush to another nearby camp. Kidane has been ordered by the emperor to preempt the attack and lead a charge against Carlo Fucelli. Dessie has been bombed and the emperor is soon moving to Maichew and will lead his army against a larger Italian army in one final battle. So many armies have fallen to bombs and mustard gas and heavy artillery. The northern front is disintegrating and Kidane is being ordered to join the offensive after this ambush. But there is almost certain defeat if they confront the Italians in face-to-face battle in Maichew.

  The tent feels like it is shrinking; it is collapsing above his head.

  The ambush on Fucelli, then a battle in Maichew: it will be a death sentence for many of his men. Kidane tries to calm down. From outside his tent float the gentle voices of women bringing water and firewood. There is the low, sly whir of the reconnaissance planes in the distance. Somewhere in the camp, Aster is organizing bandages and supplies as he told her to. Hirut is with her, subdued but finally obedient. Kidane digs into his small satchel next to his feet and pulls out a picture of his little Tesfaye, a clipping of Haile Selassie’s picture, and the medal from Emperor Menelik to his father for his bravery in the war. Once his father returned home, he shied from contact with those who fought beside him, turning down invitations to dinners and weddings, declining attendance at funerals, and dropping out of his mehaber monthly gatherings. They’re ghosts, he’d once said to Kidane. They forgot how to stay alive.

  Was that Worku? It is Aster, speaking into the tent, her figure outlined through the canvas.

  He can make out the hem of her dress through the tent flaps: she is not wearing his father’s cape.

  She steps inside without permission and stands in front of him with her hands crossed, her mouth in that narrow, anxious line he has come to hate over the years. What happened? she asks.

  He starts to tell her this is none of her concern when he sees that just behind her, shrinking against the tent flaps outside, is Hirut. The girl’s knees are slightly bent and pressed together and it is that simple, childish gesture that takes him back to only a few days ago when he found Hailu sitting at the campfire cradling the Wujigra, doubled over in grief so intense that his entire body seemed ready to split from unspent cries: this was the way he announced Dawit’s death, and he has refused to mention his brother’s name since.

  The rage rises in Kidane again. There’s no time for this, he says. Get things ready, we’re moving against the Italians nearby.

  Aster frowns and points at the girl. But she saw a convoy, she says. They’re heading toward us. They’re coming with tanks, they have trucks filled with supplies. They’re getting ready for a big battle, she adds. You want to attack this camp instead of the convoy?

  She waits for him to respond, and when he doesn’t, she starts again, her voice conspiratorial.

  We can help, she says. She pats her hair and clears her throat. I’ve already separated the women who want to fight from those who’ll follow behind us. A good number on both sides. We can test the older guns for you, she adds softly.

  He wants to reach out and strike her. It would be so easy to bring the angle of his hand down on her ear. There is that small indented place on her temple that he discovered years ago. It will leave her dizzy and awkward and send her to the ground in an ungainly heap. He has not done this in a long, long time. He has not turned his wrist and brought it down on his wife’s forehead in this same way since Tesfaye died. He has felt some unspoken allegiance to her grief, an understanding of all the ways that loss can warp the spirit.

  You’ll follow behind us and tend to the wounded. Pack bandages and medicines, he says. Tell your women this is their way to fight. We’ll leave from here at sundown.

  KIDANE LOOKS DOWN at his feet. He feels as if he is gliding. Inside him are all the familiar emotions of battle: the eagerness and caution, the fear and the anticipation, and beneath it all, the freeing sensation of movement, of acceleration, of his body as an instrument of force. Dust collects in his eyes and he blinks to see past the tears. He extends his hands in front of him and stares at the shape they make in the falling night. They are strong, supple, capable of gripping a rifle and swinging a knife while leading his men in combat. This is his destiny, Kidane thinks as he listens for his army marching behind him. This is what all his days have led him toward. This is what awaits him at Maichew, once he has attacked this Italian camp and fulfilled the emperor’s orders.

  In Maichew, he will stand in daylight and face the enemy and fight until he dies. In Maichew, he will claim his inheritance, a promise passed down through blood. His father’s mistake was that he stayed alive, Kidane sees this now with painful clarity. His father found a way to cheat destiny and he died a splintered man, a ghost made of bone and flesh. All Kidane has to do is attack this Fucelli’s camp. It will harden his men and help them move toward that great defining conflict. His heart hammering, Kidane picks up speed, noting the quick jogs behind him, the huffs of breath as his troops struggle not to lag. Above them, a flock of dark-feathered birds scissor through the dim sky.

  ASTER GATHERS THE women around her. Just below the hill, the men are readying for the ambush. The Italians are nearby, she says. Kidane’s counting on us to help them stay strong and brave. Let no man retreat, run behind him and turn him around with mockery and song. Pick him up if he falls, drag his body away if he dies. Use your voice, use your arms and legs, turn your body into a weapon the Italians will never forget. It will not be the same as fighting, she repeats to them again and again, but it will help ready you for the front lines in the next battle. It will prepare you to look at dying men without collapsing at the thought.
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br />   Hirut stares at Aster and refuses to look away. It is as if the rest of the world has fallen aside and there is just the two of them on the hill that tumbles down into the Italian camp. There is no room for any thought that does not begin in that woman’s eyes. Because Hirut remembers now that it is all Aster’s fault that Kidane discovered her Wujigra. It is her fault that the gun is not in Hirut’s possession now. It is her jealousy and suspicions that made it so, and all Kidane has been doing is following the unspoken commands of an angry woman. Hirut blinks, then blinks again, but still the spell is not broken. Frightened, Hirut hums and looks down and when she raises her chin, Aster nods to her as if they have made a pact that no one knows. Hirut turns away, humming to herself, and glances up and the bright sun catches and swirls on the wings of a flock of dark birds. She keeps gazing until the birds disappear, until there is nothing left but the heavens and when she blinks once more, the sky itself is drained of color: there are no clouds, no bright splashes of sun, no deep and pale blues. What remains is the sad, lonely shade of ash.

  A DROP OF SUN ZIGZAGS THROUGH THE VALLEY TO SKID ALONG THE grass. It touches lightly on the patch of yellow flowers clustered on the side of the hill. It alights, graceful and quick, onto the tops of trees and disappears into a cloudless sky. Ibrahim tracks the elusive flicker: the planned ambush is now a battle and the Ethiopians have arrived. His ascari stiffen. When he raises his hand, his men draw upright and the movement shifts the Italians behind them into position. The valley swells with a thickening silence. Ibrahim looks toward Colonel Fucelli on the hill above. The colonel is a slender figure pressed into his binoculars, leaning toward them as if he might hurl himself into the fray. A flock of birds glides then dips in the bright expanse just beyond his head.

  Sounds come from around the bend, floating on a breeze: the rumble of large engines, the snap of rocks beneath chained wheels. The tanks are rolling in. Ibrahim’s men press forward. He has trained them well. He has lifted some with praise and broken others with discipline. He has molded them into a cohesive unit, and every one of them knows the enemy they face. They know what will happen if they are captured. He has left no doubts in their minds that it is better to die on the battlefield than to surrender to the Ethiopians.

  Above them, high on a plateau, Colonel Carlo Fucelli watches through his binoculars, pressing his feet onto solid ground, denying his mind the luxury of fear. There is Ibrahim, turned toward the signal from the Abyssinian fighting force. The ascari are in a perfect line, their precision a testament to Ibrahim’s endless drills. They exhibit none of the restlessness of earlier days. All hints of anxiety are gone. They stare ahead, immobile and alert, waiting for their leader, who waits for his leader, who waits for that crisp snap of light to manifest its human embodiment.

  Kidane flattens himself to the ground as Amha sweeps reflected light across the valley again. It strikes against the clear blue sky, startling the blackbirds, their angry caws piercing through the steady heat. Kidane has seen the man demonstrate his technique to Aklilu and Seifu, but Kidane still cannot understand how he does it, how he gets the light to move in such unexpected ways across vast distances, at impossible angles. And now he surprised Kidane once more by insisting that he and Aklilu find a way to hide close to the Italian tanks while the rest wait for Kidane’s signal to charge.

  Amha had pleaded: If you let us go after the tanks, we’ll eliminate their strongest weapons, the front lines will be stronger for it.

  There had been none of the postures of deference from him, none of the deep bows or lowered eyes that others used when speaking to Kidane. There had simply been this urgent insistence, punctuated by Aklilu’s silent but obvious agreement. Kidane had finally relented, trusting Amha’s instinct. As soon as he gives the signal, Amha and Aklilu will hide in the hills behind the tanks.

  Amha looks his way, and Kidane nods for them to head for the tanks. Then he listens. His order to attack will ricochet through the hills with the blast of the horn. A recent recruit, a slightly built man with the strange name of Minim, Nothing, will blow that thunderous instrument. Some of the men had grumbled about Minim’s selection. Why would a mother name her child the word for nothing, they had asked. It’s bad luck, they added. Aklilu, tell the Dejazmach what we’re saying, tell him it frightens us, this Minim, this nothing, maybe he’s a spy. Aklilu returned to Kidane and simply said, He was never made for war, but he’s a good musician.

  Above his head, the blackbirds slide into formation again, their squawks less shrill. Next to Kidane, Seifu is rigid, only his eyes, darting from one end of the valley to the other, give his tenseness away. They are all waiting for Kidane’s signal, but he is waiting for Amha and Aklilu to get in place, and he is waiting for the women to settle at a safe distance behind them, away from artillery fire but close enough to reach the wounded who will surely fall. As soon as Aster is ready, she will let him know.

  The sound punctures the tender base of his skull: a tap, no more than that. Carlo looks up, but the noise originates from beneath him, then inflates to either side of him, then shifts to hover just behind his hunched back and he feels a rolling momentum gather and he is standing on a pile of firewood staring down at his father’s stern face: Aren’t you a big boy, Carlo, aren’t you too big to cry? Jump or I’ll pull this log out of the stack, jump. And then the noise is everywhere and nowhere, primitive and controlled, strange and familiar. Lento, lentissimo, piano, pianissimo, he tells himself. But there is an electrical surge that is cutting into his resistance. It is softening his spine. The fear is gradual, wafting through him like a smell, old horrors flexing and straightening in the flimsy cage of his heart. He feels his throat tighten. His chest constricts. He stretches his mouth to form Ibrahim’s name. He will say it if he has to.

  Pause, he tells himself. Pick up the binoculars, put the strap on your neck. Check the map. Pausa. Lentamente. Tranquillo.

  It quiets.

  The horn disappears.

  Stillness creeps back.

  He listens again: nothing.

  Pause. Breath. Then: a light. The first straining sounds of a horn’s ferocious blast. The blare tearing a seam into the horizon. The sky shattering.

  Carlo is almost toppled by the force of his arm rising up then dropping down. Avanti, ragazzi! Charge!

  At Ibrahim’s signal, the ascari stand and arch forward and then they are gone and running, and it does not matter that nothing stirs in the valley in front of them. It does not matter that they run headlong into a silent field. It does not matter that while the soldati advance swiftly behind them in the vast stretch of land, the Abyssinians seem to have disappeared. None of this means anything because Carlo is certain that soon, those twitching blades of grass will unleash grown men and all that is unseen will make its treachery known.

  And then: noise. Ravenous and painful. Carlo leans into the pocket forming around him, hears his men shout his name and draw him into their fold. They hold him close, upright and balanced, with no other thought but total obedience. This is all they have been waiting for: for him to tell them what to do. Carlo steps back from the plateau, staggered by the power of it. This, he thinks, this is what it means. He raises his arm and brings it down and hurls his voice into the valley: Charge! He screams it though there is no way he can be heard. Charge! The war cries erupt, the ascari surge forward, the air thickens with dust and voice and horn, and soon the chaos no longer spins. It is his to control. It becomes exhilarating. And as the ascari dash across the field, he imagines the coming clash as colossal and symphonic, operatic and tragic. Carlo raises the binoculars back to his face and watches his battle unfold.

  LOOK: A HEAP OF BURNT HUTS, Ibrahim, openmouthed and lionhearted, leading his men across the rubbled field. There he is, soaring over stone and thatch, nimble as a gazelle, racing through a valley still refusing to reveal the unearthly source of those war cries and bullets. Ibrahim, courageous son of Ahmed, wondrous-voiced, swift-footed tamer of horses, watch him sprint through this bu
rnt land free of fear, propelled by those who run beside him, who look at their leader’s proud face and bend into the wind to gain momentum. And where are those men, those ghostly spirits descended from the brave sons of Adua? Who throws that slender rod of arrowed wood that graces the dusty sky? Watch as it tucks so neatly into the throat of a startled ascaro. See Ibrahim signal his own command. See the ascari obey, how quickly they stop and aim and begin to shoot at unseen men. Zoom to their stunned faces. Those perfect arching spears. Their high-flung arms. That quivering beam of light curving through the field like a god’s mocking defiance. See Fisseha fall, that last son of Samuel. See Girmay stumble, that only child of Mulu. See Habte drop to his knees, speared through lung and heart. Listen to the wind vibrate with spear and flung stone and hoarse shouts and agonized cries. And still Kidane’s army is no more than an expectation, a weighted thought without substance and form, no more than air.

  IT IS ALMOST TOO LATE when Ibrahim realizes what they have done. He is already rushing into those spears when he grasps that they have somehow been moving backward, uphill, through grass, invisible as air, while he and his men have been propelling themselves toward slaughter. Ibrahim shouts as he spins and hurls himself into the path of his men angling to push around him. He comes face-to-face with their eager terror and confusion. His heart stills then lurches at the sight and he vows to himself there will be no more days like this, when he finds himself surprised and unprepared. Ibrahim lifts his arm and points behind them and says again the only word solid enough to come out of his mouth: Back, back, go back! Pull back. He lifts his arm and there is Suleiman, refusing to stop, his startled eyes stuck on the hill, his mouth open, screaming something to him that Ibrahim cannot hear until he hears the thuk of pointed arrow breaking bone in its accelerating search for flesh. Ibrahim motions his men back, and this time, they are rushing toward safety, jumping over the bodies of their fallen, over the pools of blood, over the splintered spears, back to where they started.