The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

  THANK YOU, CARLO. THEY NEEDED TO BE ABLE TO BURY HIM, FIFI says, sitting on a stool next to his cot. Her arms hug her knees, her head is hidden in the crook of her arms.

  This is the first thing she has said since she turned her back on him at the tree on her arrival and walked into his tent, disobeying their long-standing agreement that she would never step into his workspace without him. She is rocking back and forth, her knee tapping against his leg each time she moves. Carlo shifts away and looks down at her. She is dressed in her traditional clothes. Her hair is braided in the way of native women. Her lipstick and the dark kohl around her eyes have been wiped off. He can see the peasant girl she used to be: Faven from Gondar, the ravishing beauty of the northern highlands. The young woman who fled to Asmara to remake herself into a shermuta, a wishima, a whore: Fifi, the stunningly beautiful madam loved by some of the smartest, bravest Italian officers Italy has ever known.

  Carlo unlaces his boots, exhaustion washing over him in a deep and heavy wave. He groans with relief as he flexes his feet, then looks up when something moves at the corner of his eye. Her attendant: hunched under a blanket outside his tent, the silhouette of her figure an unnerving, ghostly presence.

  Tell her to go to her tent, he says. And why doesn’t she talk?

  I’m not safe here, Fifi finally says. This—this prisoner you hanged means there are Ethiopians waiting to ambush you. You know what they’d do to me if they caught me. She wraps her arms around the top of her head as if to shield herself from a blow. You’re breaking the law by having me with you. A native woman with an Italian . . . I can’t stay, Carlo.

  The men are singing outside as he untucks his shirt, and the servant still sits like a blanketed hulk, listening to every word.

  You’ll be guarded, he says, dropping his voice. I’ll give you your own security. And Rome is too far from here to make a difference. He takes off his socks and starts to undo the buttons on his shirt. He slips it off and folds it neatly, smoothing the sleeves and collar. He flips the socks inside out and shakes them loose of dirt, then turns them back and puts them on top of his shirt. He pulls off his undershirt and pats it flat then folds it too. He finds comfort in this nightly routine, even though the clothes are filthy. It’s not safe to bathe or wash at the river, and his men are trapped in the camp until he can make sure he has cleared the area.

  You don’t know these arbegnoch, Fifi says.

  Oh, I know them, he says. And they’re rebels on Italian soil, not patriots. He stares at her, upright on the edge of his cot, his palms flat on his legs, dressed in nothing but his trousers.

  She rises to her feet slowly, taking in his desk, the messy pile of papers, the stack of bullets, his binoculars.

  They’re building my office, he says. I’ll be moving in there soon.

  Letting them bury the body isn’t going to stop an attack. It just delays them, Fifi says. Her face is drawn and serious, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

  He leans back on his arms. Tell that woman to get away from here, and look at me when I’m talking.

  Her movements are laborious, reluctant, as she turns. She speaks to the woman in a voice more affectionate than he’s heard her use before.

  The older woman responds with a question, the tone flat and hinting at disapproval.

  Fifi smiles and nods, then says “yes” in Amharic with that typical Ethiopian inflection that makes it sound less like a word and more like a sharp intake of air.

  The cook struggles to her feet and walks away. Then Fifi faces him, fatigue drawing her mouth down again, her hands balled into fists at her side.

  You have your bodyguards, I have her, she says.

  Even without her kohl and lipstick, her beauty radiates, but just behind those lovely eyes are the thoughts that she keeps carefully hidden. He imagines them in the hundreds, thousands, all volatile pieces of information that could help him unlock the native mind.

  I don’t think she would be good for much. Carlo tilts his head back and laughs. What’s her name again? And nothing happens here without my knowing, he adds. I can keep you safe. He lies back and folds his arms beneath his head. A faint light quivers through the canvas, a stray star, he thinks, or the extended reach of the moon, but it is no enemy signal for an attack.

  She says to just call her the cook, Fifi says. She runs a hand over her face and lets it rest on her cheek as she glances outside. It is a gesture he’s seen many times in native women, this momentary pause before the troubled sigh.

  I don’t understand.

  Il cuoco, Fifi says. The cook. I know, it’s strange. She says she was stolen as a child, brought to work for a family. She refused to give them her name. So she’s the cook.

  You’re Faven and now you’re Fifi, he says. Every other waitress across Eritrea and Ethiopia is called Mimi. What is it with your people and their names?

  I can’t stay here after what you’ve done, Carlo. She stands between his legs, a slow, practiced smile erasing the worry out of her eyes. She kicks his boots aside and dips her head. She kisses the tip of his nose, and then settles her soft mouth on top of his. They’re going to attack, I’m sure of it.

  You’ll stay, he says, wrapping his arms around her waist. He buries his head against her stomach. I’ll keep you safe, I’ll make all the arrangements for a bodyguard you choose yourself.

  And this useless law says I go to jail if they catch us, not you. Only Italian men. He grins. You’re safe. I’ll get ten ascari to watch over you.

  She gives a short, quick laugh. Ascari? Who? Your faithful Ibrahim?

  He looks up into her face. He’ll do as I say.

  She brings her face close to his again and he can smell the cinnamon on her breath, the tea she likes to drink. I’m leaving, she repeats. She focuses on a spot near her feet, her mouth settled in that same frown she had when he walked in. One hand is in her hair, loosening the ends of her braids absentmindedly. The silence stretches and starts to tug at them, drawing him closer to her. I can’t stay here, she says.

  Maybe it is the way she hunches into herself as she sits next to him on the bed. Or the way her braids are in disarray. It might be the way she crosses her arms and places one hand over each shoulder as if cold and frightened at the same time. Or maybe it is the strange, bright moon seeping through the canvas and exposing every detail to the night. Carlo can’t explain what it is that makes him put an arm around her and press her against him. He is not prone to these acts of tenderness, but he does it without thinking, guided by nothing but the gesture itself. He doesn’t know what he would say if she asked him to explain the warm feeling rising in his chest when she lays her head against his shoulder then moves her face so they are cheek-to-cheek, and heat travels to his face and rests in the center of his head, and there are no other memories of a night before this one.

  She gets up slowly and steps away from him and lifts her dress above her head and drops it behind her. She does this in silence, as if they have come to an understanding. As if he knows exactly what to do when a woman who has just disobeyed him sheds her dress and stands as still as a graceful tree rooted in calm waters. Carlo picks up the dress and holds it tight against his chest. He breathes in the scents of her, the earthy musk, the hint of sweet perfume, and his stomach twists. Only then does he look up.

  Even after nearly a year, when he first met her in an officers’ club in Asmara and decided he would accept any price for her time, he is still jarred by the sight of her, the glow of brown and gold playing on her skin. He wants to lower his eyes as if this is nothing special, as if he is angry, as if she does not stand there naked, her slender body shaved clean of any hair except what is on her head. He should do the smart thing and refuse her until she says aloud that she will stay. He knows what she is doing, but it has been weeks, months, since he has looked at another woman. He has avoided the native brothels and turned down the new Italian prostitutes sent from Rome. He has waved aside those immaculate and stunning Ethiopians and Eritreans and Som
ali and Sudanese and Egyptians in the officers’ clubs between Massawa and Addis Ababa. He has waited for Fifi because there is no one else like her, no one else who behaves as if she is not rendering a service, but bestowing a favor. There is no one else who will sit all night and talk to him in an Italian that rivals his own. There is no one else who dares to argue about the finer details of payment as if it were a diplomatic endeavor. Yet beyond the face and the curves and the supple muscles, there is also this: that sharp intellect that masks much more than it reveals.

  She speaks in her language, saying something to him in that soft way that sounds like a song. He tries to concentrate on the words that he is beginning to learn in Amharic. He picks out only one: “home,” beyt, casa.

  You’ve gone somewhere, she says, smiling. She draws tiny circles across the back of his head with the tip of a finger and moves down to his neck and slides her hand up to massage the tender place at the base of his skull.

  The sensation is immediate and intense: he feels tension rolling off of him, spiraling out of his head, drawing out every thought except the woman in front of him. He slides to the ground on his knees and traces the long line of her waist. He reaches behind her to feel the dimples in the small of her back, then he cups her buttocks. Slowly, he slides a hand between her legs, then works his finger into her. He gives into the illusion that this woman stands in the center of his palm, under his control. He looks up. Her head is thrown back, soft moans push from her throat.

  One of my men will always watch over you, he says. I need you here.

  He closes his eyes and imagines her guiding him toward Addis Ababa, pointing to the horizon, warning him about the signs of a coming ambush. He imagines her beneath him, giving away codes and secrets in that way that makes her words indecipherable to all but him. He imagines climbing steps in Rome, in Venice, in Brescia, in Calabria, cheered by adoring crowds. He imagines the flash of cameras, the microphones, the newsreels emblazoned with his picture. As she moves against him and pushes him deeper, his head spins and tips him into delirium. Soon, he will fall into a state of stupefied euphoria, aware of nothing but the sound of her voice saying his name, open to anything, including ambush.

  He braces himself and clears his head. You’ll stay with me, he says. He gets to his feet abruptly and presses her down by her shoulders, rougher than he needs to be.

  She falls to her knees in front of him with a surprised gasp. He grips her hair and tugs her head closer to his stomach, then lower; feels her lips, the warmth. And as he pushes into her mouth, Carlo begins to feel that rush, the familiar surge of will and strength and force that is his. Unable to stop himself, he gives in to the pleasure, engulfed by awe and adoration and the ecstasy of it all, until he is collapsing against her and tumbling forward onto the bed, moving together.

  HIRUT IS TENDING TO ONE OF THE INJURED WHEN THE CAMP FALLS silent. She turns. Seifu, Aklilu, and Hailu stagger up the hill bearing their awful burden. Marta walks beside Seifu, pressing Tariku’s hand against her stomach. They are all bowed by grief and tiredness. And when Kidane and Aster rush toward them, insisting they relieve the parents of this task, Hirut sets down the basket, ready to help, trying to steel herself against fatigue. She has been working without break to tend to the wounded in Hailu’s absence. She has spent two sleepless nights cleaning and wrapping bandages and mixing powders. She has witnessed the final breaths of those too frightened to let go of her hand. She has held those who could not bear the agony of their ailment. All of it has stripped her clean of emotion, pushed her deep into a pit of debilitating fatigue. But none of this has prepared her for an inconsolable mother pressing a dead hand against her womb.

  Farther away, a bomb rattles against the horizon, breaking into the looming night. As the group carries Tariku past her to Seifu and Marta’s cave, Hirut turns back to the wound she is dressing. She must finish this before she joins them. She tries to shake free of a wave of dizziness. As she applies a fresh bandage, she swallows air to hold off the gnawing hunger. Her exhaustion is stupefying, but she works mechanically, numbly. When she is done, she stumbles to the mourners and wraps an arm around Marta’s shoulder. She murmurs a short prayer for Tariku, then releases Marta back into Seifu’s embrace before picking her way toward her bed to collapse into sleep then start her work again.

  HIRUT IS STARTLED AWAKE by a touch on her arm, then a hand on her back.

  Then his voice: Little One, come.

  Kidane tugs at her until she has no choice but to stand. Hirut reaches for her Wujigra but he kicks it away. He clamps a hand over her mouth and whispers into her ear: I’m not going to hurt you. Be quiet, Hirut. Be quiet, shut your mouth. Shut it.

  So this is why she stumbles into the forest silently and empty-handed. He races ahead with her in tow, turning one way then another, throwing her off balance while she does her best to yank herself away. She cannot see through the dark confusion, through the shrubbery, through the leaves that slap at her face. He does not stop until they come to a pile of leaves. He spins her toward him then draws her close in an embrace.

  Little One, he says. You’re shaking. Why so scared?

  She cannot speak. Words have no weight, there is no language sturdy enough to save her. There is nothing she can do.

  I’m not going to hurt you.

  He presses on her shoulders, the weight steadily getting heavier until her legs are forced to bend, and then she is made to sit on the ground and look up at him.

  You’re all right. His voice balloons in the nightmarish well. You’re all right, stop crying, it’s okay. He kneels in front of her and takes her hands. I’m not hurting you, see? He kisses each wrist then he pushes her backward until she is flat on the ground, and he settles on top of her.

  Her dress rises up, above her knees. His breathing quickens. An owl pivots to turn away. And then there is no sound to convince her she has not died. This is why she looks at his tightening features and opens her mouth: because there is nothing else to do, there is nothing left to be done. Even language has made its escape and freed itself from her. She has no body, no heart, no tongue, no breath. Only a fire bubbling inside, trembling like a tightening fist, pushing against her throat, climbing into her head, stretching inside of her until there is no past. There is no future. There is no time that is not here. This is why Hirut takes his face in her hands, to hold something that is not hers. To twist something in her direction. This is why she presses her palms into the side of his face and digs her nails into his head.

  He pauses and says, Say my name, tell me my name, say it.

  Instead, Hirut, empty of words, tries to drown herself in a wave of indifference. She does this because he leaves her no choice and no chance and no hope and no escape, and because she will never have the right words to make a path out of this moment. And because there is really nothing, nothing left to say, Hirut opens her mouth. At first it is a mockery of herself, of her emptiness, but then her mouth opens wider of its own accord, a bubble rises up from the back of her throat into her head. And then, she yawns. It is both absurd and luxurious. A shock and a relief. It is a fist uncoiling and expanding inside her body, a long, extended breath singed and shaped by hate.

  He gasps as if stumbling. As if he has just broken and is now buckling in half. As if that open mouth and that bubble of air have begun to undo him. Hirut sees his surprise, sees the way it traces a path across his eyes. He is so startled that his mouth sags open and his breathing stops until all he can do is gasp again. Hirut blinks and squints, baffled. She purses her mouth, readies it, and then slowly opens it and watches him flinch as if repulsed. She shuts her mouth and opens it again: it is a loaded gun that she waves in front of him.

  Stop that, he says, confusion rippling across his face. He closes his eyes but it is too late. He is growing limp.

  She loosens her jaw and opens her mouth again. He shrinks and draws himself back but he cannot find a way to move around her. He is trapped by the compulsion that binds him to her, caught i
n the temporary shame of surprise.

  She takes a deep breath and arches her neck back, privately stunned by her body’s obedience, by its absolute servitude to any command.

  Enough, he says, but it is a feeble order, unsure of itself.

  Emboldened, Hirut tries to push him off but he is a dense, stubborn weight. He presses against her unsteadily, confident once more, and begins again. She looks at him, at the darting eyes, the slack mouth, the uncertainty creeping over the strong planes of his face. She is numb. She is terrified. She is helpless. She is furious. She is all these things that are finding a way to hollow out and become a bubble that starts to swell. She takes another deep breath and it is so easy, this time, to let the yawn tumble forward, round and robust. It pries her jaw apart. It pushes her eyes shut. It blooms, a sweet respite in the horror.

  He tries to grind himself into her, but it is too late. He cannot escape the complete indifference stamped across her face, and Hirut refuses to look away. Because she sees it now: the fissures in the sternness, the crumbling ground giving way to reveal his weakness. It has been there all along, waiting for her discovery: all that he has ever wanted from her is a fight, another battle he can win.