The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

  And then Colonel Carlo Fucelli hears the tanks. There they are, crushing stone, snapping broken thatch, roaring with a fury surpassed only by his swelling grief. There are their pivoting muzzles turning toward the enemy, those cowardly men who shoot while hiding and continue to hurl spears. These tanks will blast through the tall grass, the thick boulders, the large stones that hide the Ethiopians. The tanks—his tanks—will crush their skulls and pulverize downed bodies. His tanks will be merciless and inhuman in their attack. There will be no fear of spear or bullet, no hesitation in that mechanical forward drive. Then another ascaro goes down just in front of Ibrahim as his men clear the field for the machines. Carlo zooms to the injured ascaro’s stunned face, the blood blossoming from his chest. Is this the flower of youth? Is this what they mean? He raises his arm again to aim the tanks. And yet. And still. Despite. The bullets do not stop. The spears do not waver. The thuk thuk thuk is a steady rhythm, orchestral, and Carlo stands in Abyssinia but he is also tumbling from a stack of firewood and he is hiding beneath his bed and all that has pursued him in those darkest terrors remains invisible to humble human sight.

  Kidane stares at the approaching tank and repeats what he learned another lifetime ago about the machine: the hatch, the turret, the muzzle, the barrel, the mudguard, the side armor, the road wheel, the link. Beneath him, the earth trembles as if preparing for this latest violation. The grass bends and snaps in thick currents of fume and heat. Above his head, the wind whips dust and tiny pebbles that splatter back into his eyes and down his throat. They have done what they could while staying hidden. They have used the terrain to the best of their advantage. His men have defied his own expectations, done the impossible, and maintained a fight against unlikely odds. They have done all of this, but there is no more they can do. What comes for them now is beyond their strength. Quickly, he flashes his mirror, signaling retreat and through the grass, traveling along the damaged earth, he hears Seifu shout his order and the men begin their crawling ascent up the hill.

  Carlo feels the familiar fire of his childhood nightmares, the brimstone hurled from the dark palms of demons. This noise, the dusty plume of splitting rock, the tremor of tree roots rising from the bowels of earth—all this he has known in his deepest terrors. Carlo presses his binoculars closer, blinks the haze of wetness from his eyes, and reminds himself: But I am here. And he thinks back, past the march to this valley to that point on that mountaintop close to the fort, where this country spread glorious before him, her lush valleys resplendent in sunshine. He thinks of serendipity and divine favor and destiny. He should have known it then, but he is certain of it now: his moment of greatness has begun and it has started like this: with a spectacle that confirms the true grimness of this world.

  And then: a single human form, small as a child, crawling, stomach-on-rubble as all the noise of war lifts from the hot ground and shimmers like desert heat. And then there is another Abyssinian sliding across dirt, an apparition blinking into view. They are two come from nowhere, twin figures sprung from a darkening imagination, moving toward his tanks as the valley sinks beneath their war cries, as Ibrahim and the ascari retreat. But this is the miracle of man, Carlo thinks as he touches the scar on his chest. This is impossible and yet, this is the miracle of man: to withstand the blows, to rise beneath them unmoved and dry-eyed. That is man and yet there is this: two men scaling his tanks as if they were simply iron mountains. And look, how the childlike man raises his arm, sword held high, and screams at the hatch to the driver inside. See him pounding on the small door, his fury relentless, a clanging note in the valley suddenly empty of all sound. It is a voice that needs no language to express itself, and Carlo falls now to his knees, his arm up, but there is no crescendo, there is nothing but that voice splintering the sky and where are the bullets, where are my ascari, where is my Ibrahim, where have they gone because it is as if all has disappeared and muted itself in order to bear witness to the hatch creaking open, so obedient, and that head emerging into daylight and the sword swinging gracefully, so splendidly, so perfectly arched that the head has no choice but to follow.

  See: thick red ribbons of blood. See: viscous sun curving against the belly of sky, and still, despite, and yet, there is nothing to do but watch as the next Abyssinian simply stands close to the mudguard, leans toward the tiny window, and shoots inside, and then they jump down and there is nothing, there is nothing left to report sir, my men tried their best but we were simply surrounded.

  Then from somewhere, the tender voices of women.

  Carlo gets back to his feet, stumbling for balance, binoculars up again. Zoom and focus, focus, focus because: those tanks, majestic felled beasts, because: they are steel and rubber and ammunition and man is a miracle but this leaves no room for woman or song. This is impossibility itself, he thinks as he looks down on the smoky field and spies a bloom of white dresses, skirts rippling in the wind. They are tumbling down the hill as if gravity were of no consequence, as if sharp stones and tender feet did not matter, as if a human figure could be propelled at improbable angles and still maintain such effortless grace. He sees them but does not believe. He hears them but cannot grasp. Where he is in this place amongst steel and rubber and bullets and blood will not allow for distortions and fissures. They are not women, he decides, but illusions. They are a mirage, a glimmer on this mountaintop overlooking the churning valley. What is real is the distant warble of planes that are coming. What is probable is the assault that will rain down from his sleek flying machines.

  But: the voices persist. Carlo stands upright and puts down the binoculars and slowly tips forward and feels awareness flow over him cold and merciless, and he begins to comprehend that the body is wiser than he can even know. It is telling him to beware, to listen carefully, to look up, to scrutinize, because even a woman carries danger, and where she walks, there too is death.

  And then Kidane rises from the grass, his heart a solid mass pressing against his lungs, pushing bursts of air through his throat as Seifu stands beside him and raises his arm and the soldiers unflatten themselves and push to their feet. He trembles before the awesome vision of full-blooded rage. As he gives the order, they rush toward the tanks, gather Aklilu and Amha in their fold, and collect the rifles of the fallen. That his men—two of his men—could bring the tanks to a halt is a thought that Kidane feels more than comprehends at the moment. That they did this with one sword and one bullet, he knows, will become a song that will carve itself into a nation’s eternal memory. He finds his momentum by keeping his gaze on Aklilu’s back, by matching him stride for stride.

  From above them, as if raining from the sky, the women begin to sing. Aklilu laughs and Kidane shouts for his men to move faster, keep going, do not stop until we have won. Together, they race for the ascari, aware only of their beating hearts, their uniform pace, the battle cries that surge in violent waves from their women as they move, swift-footed and proud, through the dust-veiled air.

  Hirut sees Aster lift her arm: Louder, she shouts. Louder so they can hear you. And it is all such a surge of body and breath and song that Hirut has no thought but: Louder, louder, louder, and as she sings of valor and enemies, she feels the walls of the sky slip away and the cacophony soften to a rumble, and the valley opens before her, green and lush, its beauty unbearable.

  Later, she will not be able to say which happened first: whether she heard the rattles of the planes or saw Beniam trying to pull himself across dirt. It felt, she will say, like everything happened in silence, and happened slowly, and happened all at once. She will pretend that it was all too much, that memory blessed her with erasure. She will claim to remember the trees and the flock of birds that still clung stubbornly to the sky. She will say that there was nothing to witness until it was upon her, until those planes dropped their poison and they had to flee to avoid choking to death. She will repeat to any who ask that yes, she was there on that day, but no, she did not see much. She will flit around that first sighting of Beniam
and talk instead of the sharp smell of straw that followed the planes. We ran on blistering feet, she will say, our throats collapsing around our screams. It hurt to open my eyes, I moved like the blind.

  But: she sees the first puddles of blood-soaked earth, the stains that chew into the soles of her feet. She sees the edge of an arm, distended feet, a strangely angled head. Soon, she is forced to shift her gaze from the expansive landscape in front of her and stare down to avoid a fall. She will come upon Beniam in this way, as if he were a message thrown in her path to pick up. And from the corner of her eye, she will note how, here and there, other women drop to their knees while others still urge the rest onward, because, she will later say, we knew that there was no way but through it, there was no escape but to run toward battle, run toward the men, run toward those planes without thought.

  Hirut sees Beniam’s dark form and she hears the moan but she thinks: A tangle of cloth, dirty rags, blots of ink, chunks of mud, and she does not think anything else because how could there be a boy in front of her keeling to one side while trying foolishly to stand on legs that hang as so sloppily from the hipbone? What kind of logic allows for a boy to crumble in front of her with skinny hands flailing out for balance? She becomes angry. She gives in to fury, because there is no sense in his efforts. She wants to shout that it is a futile gesture and he should find another way to move out of her path. Then she sees the blood that is a small pool around him, thick as a blanket to lay atop, and Hirut thinks of Dawit and she thinks of Hailu and she knows that some must do what others cannot. So she bends and catches him as he collapses and they tumble together into the grass, limb entwined with bloody limb. And when those dark eyes find her and that mouth opens, Hirut leans into the slackening young face, her heart a series of tremors, and she peers into the flattening eyes to say to him, What are you?

  Because there is no word for what is shivering in her arms while wasting breath to say, Beniam, I’m Beniam. There is no word for the blood that seems to seep into her own skin. There is no way to comprehend what is withering, nameless and nearly formless, in her arms. Then there is no air anymore, only a hot spray that splatters then chokes and then she cannot breathe and there is no longer singing or shouting but another sound she cannot hear past the wretchedness of this boy’s pleas to save him. It is impossible, she thinks, to burn like this without fire, to choke like this in daylight. Impossible to be breathing and choking, to be alive and dying. So this next part she will practice forgetting every day that follows. She will not remember his screams for help, she will not recall his grasp on her hand. She will force herself to unremember, to go back and erase that moment when someone named Hirut got up and left a dying boy named Beniam, and ran.

  BLACKBIRDS. THEN THE RIP and tear of childbirth, of stillbirth, of first nights, of a body come undone and splitting at the seams. The women hold their stomachs, bend to the ground, gaze up in wonder. Blackbirds, they think. Dust rising from the carnage below. Hirut looks past the thick air but it is only a plane. Only two. Three. So low. Then four. Five. Then they are birds in formation, flying so close to Aster’s head she can see the grinning face inside, mouth open and gleeful.

  And Aster looks down into the valley for Kidane but the air is singed with gunsmoke, bristling with heat, wet with a stinging liquid that wraps around her neck and sets fire to her eyes. Her feet stick to grass, melt into soil, burning bone loosens its way free of flesh. She drops to her knees and looks down at her hands, at the swelling blisters, and still she finds a way to take a breath and shout her husband’s name and Ettore says, Father, there is this: that man is fragile. That wood and metal can easily puncture a young throat. That Icarus fell today, again and again and we who are left behind in the tower can only grope in the dark and aim at nothing. There is nothing to see, that is what I’m trying to say, Father. I cannot see the sun. It tricks my eyes and men are invisible and a vengeful chorus of women sings as we are told to stand. But it makes no sense what they are telling us, Father: to put on our gas masks and turn around and run.

  He watches Abyssinians rush back up the hill with cries ballooning behind them, the tin roar of planes and static bearing on their heels. Then come the shots fired from those low-hanging planes, killing those already dying, killing those dropped to their knees with poison, killing those lucky enough to survive the initial battle, killing those risen like Lazarus. The lieutenant shouts his name. Mario calls for him to follow them. Fofi screams they will kill him. The ascari brush past him, startled eyes large behind those masks. Even Ibrahim tries to take his arm and pull him along. But Ettore stays, no more than minutes but it is a lifetime, it is an eternity. It is enough to see what it means to be a soldier. But it was not war, Father, this is also what I’m trying to say. This was a slaughter.

  THEY WILL SAY this did not happen. That their planes did not fly above Kidane’s army and pour mustard gas across the fighters and rivers and land. They will deny the children dead, the women scorched, the waters poisoned, the men choked. But did you see the gas? reporters will ask Ettore. Did you see it drop from those planes? Then how do you know it happened? And when he points to his mask they will shake their heads and point to the sky and say, Those are two different things, my friend, we are here to report what you saw.

  Chorus

  Behold the emperor in the quiet bloom of despair. Behold him bent into the voice scaling the sky like a strange and desperate bird. There is the mournful curve of his back, the downward tilt of his crown-heavy head. On the sad mouth that age will tug into unswerving firmness moves the first sweep of an angry frown. That paralyzing thought: Kidane’s army was massacred, so many brave lives lost. We are in the room as he settles the needle back onto the spinning record of Aida and guides it again to the start of the opera. We watch as he returns his hands, slender and graceful, against his chest in quiet supplication. Listen as the aria fills the empty chamber of the dimmed room, as a young girl whispers her love for a warrior who holds her father captive and has slain her people beneath his sword. Hear the chorus of slaves, the firm ground they offer this traitorous girl, the refuge they give to her blasphemous secrets. This emperor, growing old before his years, listens to the songs and shakes his head again: O Aida, foolish believer in torn loyalties, what new ways will you find to keep your own people enslaved, he whispers. Is it possible you do not know the duties of one born of royal blood?

  THE PRIEST IS A YOUNG REDHEAD FROM MILAN WITH A nose like a boxer and scars on his hands. He has broad shoulders and short legs and the steady stare of a playground bully. He has a piercing gaze that winds through the long line of soldiers waiting to make confessions and be blessed. He is probing and inquisitive, searching their faces with a growing frown, a sternness falling across his thick features. It has been only one day since the battle and his arrival has punctured the agitation of the night before, when all the men could do was gather close around the campfire and make feeble attempts at jokes and song.

  Only Fofi was brave enough to voice what some of the others felt: Why didn’t they let us fight? I was ready. He made the motion of lifting his rifle to aim in front of him.

  The padre prays over a soldato who has buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he weeps. On the padre’s face rests a beatific expression. His rough features convey serenity. His lips are moving, a hint of a smile tugs at the corners. Ettore feels the sweat building up on the back of his neck, pushing through layers of dust and grime to soak into the collar of his shirt. He can hear his father: And you let yourself get pushed into this? Haven’t I taught you to question those who want to hide their brutal deeds behind some invisible god? The world was built by man, my son, we are made in our own crude image, there is no fate, there is no destiny, there is no divine will, there is only this: knowledge. Ettore finds himself shaking his head involuntarily and out of the corner of his eye, he sees with relief that a small number of soldati are gathering out of line, chatting easily. He moves to stand with them, aware of the stares at h
is back.

  The mail arrives soon after the priest is done and a crowd quickly gathers around the truck. The men push and shove to get first in line, shouting their names to get the postman’s attention, waving their hands in the air as if to catch whatever letter he might fling their way. Ettore waits at the edge of the circle trying not to worry that this will be another day without a letter from his father. The silence from Leo has stretched across the three letters his mother has sent. It has brought back memories of displeasing his father, of not answering a question right, of not doing what was expected, then watching his father calmly walk into his office and shut the door, silent, as Ettore begged to be let in so he could apologize, the door looming like an insurmountable wall between them.

  How old had he been when his mother barged into the office and started shouting at her husband: You know nothing of regret? You remember nothing of remorse? What transpired in the look between them was part of another story that the two of them had locked him out of long ago. His father had gotten up from his desk, come around to him, and dropped to his knees, his eyes uncommonly soft. Without a word, he brought Ettore close and cupped the back of his small head in an unsteady hand.

  I love you, my son, he had said.

  Navarra! Navarra! Hurry up, take it! The postman flings an envelope toward Ettore while his name, Navarra, Navarra, ripples through the crowd.

  Ettore grabs the letter and hastily steps away, eager to find a private place to read.

  Fofi is pushing himself out of the throngs of men toward Ettore. He waves his letter into the air, jubilant. From Sandra! He kisses the letter and presses it to his cheek. Let’s go over there. He points to a small group a few steps away sitting on the ground and reading their letters, taking turns trying to playfully peek over one another’s shoulders.