Minim shifts in his seat and sighs. He is trembling so hard that the medals on his jacket sway.
All you have to do is sit on the horse, Hirut says to him. She has to stop herself from patting his arm. We will all stand in the shadow of your light, she adds, repeating what Aster told her: To be in the presence of our emperor is to stand before the sun. You must respect his power to give you life and burn you alive. Sit up, Minim.
KIDANE’S HORSE, ADUA, gallops from Debark to Dabat, from Dabat to Gondar, from Gondar to Azezo to Woreta and into Gojjam, a flash of white across a bombed and ravaged landscape. The rumor begins like this: with a secret message sent from Kidane to priests announcing the horse as a sign of the emperor’s imminent arrival. From blasted doorways of churches, the news weaves through every mercato and home and gathers the strength of truth: the emperor is coming. The emperor never left us. He will appear before us soon to confirm that victory is near. Villagers step out of their huts every morning to search the horizon for a white horse. Shepherds and farmers point to flashes of sunlight and wisps of fog as proof of divine assistance. Crowds gather at wells dotting the highlands and whisper amongst themselves, waiting anxiously for the emperor’s appearance.
HIRUT RUNS HER hand across Adua’s braided mane, the horse’s hair weighted with red velvet threads that dangle amber stones. The jewels catch the morning light as the animal shakes its head, reflecting warm color across Hirut’s new uniform, mimicking a constellation of bright stars. Hirut looks down at herself and marvels once again at what she sees. She is dressed as a Kebur Zebegna, a member of the emperor’s elite army. Her uniform, handed to her by Aster with unusual gentleness, have been perfectly sized to fit her. A rifle Aklilu took from an Italian is on her back, cleaned and polished. An ammunition belt is cinched at her waist. She is ready to join the procession that will present Minim to the villagers who have gathered in the Chennek valley surrounded by the Simien Mountains, the news relayed over the course of two days by messengers and negarit drums, the sky vibrating with the metered beats of frantic hands.
She touches her chest and feels her heart still thudding violently beneath the khaki jacket. She has moved through these last days trembling in fear, unable to sleep, so worried about her duties that she has spent an entire night marching while Aster slept. She has practiced the high-stepping gait of the emperor’s guards until her feet ached. She has swung her arms stiffly with each step. She has learned to pivot her head crisply in one direction then the other, performing it again and again for a stern and relentless Aster until the woman finally nodded, satisfied. Aster has not left her side since this mission began, so intent on teaching her correct protocol and manners that even Aklilu and Seifu came by in the evenings to watch, fascinated by the many details she is required to learn.
All of this for one man? Aklilu said. But isn’t he human like us? he whispered at one point before Aster’s glare silenced him.
Rapturous ululations rise up and puncture the morning silence. Adua tugs against the reins, huffing loudly, trying to shake loose of Hirut’s firm grip as she waits for Aklilu and Seifu to arrive, for the drummers and singers to get into place, for the march to the top of the hill to begin so she can lead the emperor while holding his red umbrella to shield him from the sun that is no equal to the man himself.
THIS IS WHAT’S possible, Kidane thinks as he stares, stunned, at Minim sitting straight and tall on Adua. He has to remind himself it is not the emperor. Kidane bows deeply before the man and raises his head toward the sky. He shuts his eyes from the brilliance of the morning sun. For a moment, he thinks he sees the outline of his deceased son’s face hovering just beyond his vision, a cloud disappearing in the early breeze. He wants to reach out and tell him: My son, my Tesfaye, I didn’t know this was possible. I didn’t know that we could tread that narrow passage between the living and the dead. I did not understand that we could make a man appear where there was once no more than empty space. Tesfaye, lijé, we can mend that breach between the mortal and the divine and find a way to make it whole.
On the hilltop where Aklilu and Seifu and Aster wait patiently behind him, Kidane wants to reach out and cup that small boy’s face and beg forgiveness: I did not know, he whispers. Kidane takes his rifle and holds it in front of him. He salutes the King of Kings. He shouts all the names of the emperor, feeling the earth tremble beneath him as villagers in the valley below shift forward to get a better look. He says quietly to the ghost of his son: I thought all this time that I had lost you, that it was impossible to remake you in the form of another. I thought all this time that there was no more hope for me. Then Kidane turns to open his arms wide at the top of the hill, and in that gesture, he gathers his people together and holds them in his embrace.
He is here, our sun, our emperor, he says to them.
Kidane glances into the field as the villagers fall to their knees. The emperor comes forward on his white horse, led by his female guards. Kidane takes in Hirut’s uniform, her proud stance, her fierce defiance, and sees his redemption.
HIRUT’S GAZE CANNOT take in the crowds all at once. They spill over onto the surrounding hills, balancing on inclines, spread across other plateaus. Their soft prayers rise and fall in steady waves, a growing murmur drawn tight with anticipation, bursts of shouts punctuating it all. Aklilu and Seifu are beside her, striking figures in their uniforms, full ammunition belts draped across their chests. Kidane wears his headdress and cape, a ferocious expression on his face. Next to him, Aster nods to the spectacle, dressed in a uniform with a pistol holstered around her waist. They surround Minim, his bodyguards, and when Kidane moves aside to let the emperor step forward, the crowd gasps.
The valley grows silent.
They want us to believe our emperor has abandoned us, Kidane says. They want us to think they have killed all our fighters.
The morning light falls evenly across his features, revealing the fierce intensity in his eyes.
They want us to give up hope and give them our land. They want to think that you who are left, old men and able-bodied women, cannot face their armies with our help. Kidane turns and in the generous sweep of his arm, he seems to draw Hirut closer to him. Look at who is here to fight with you. Pay attention to his guards, these women who are also warriors, soldiers, daughters of our Empress Taitu who once led forty thousand against these ferenjoch the first time they invaded forty years ago. Have you forgotten your blessed leader, daughters of Ethiopia?
Hirut glances quickly at Minim and steadies the horse. Minim is uncomfortable, embarrassed, his head down. Up, she says, head up.
Minim takes a breath, his eyes close, and his back straightens. He lifts his chin and clears his throat and when he opens his eyes again, Hirut finds herself staring at the emperor and she has to drop her head and turn around to avoid his royal gaze.
Hirut, Kidane says in a voice that carries through the valley. Show them who guards the emperor. Let them see that a woman will lead and fight, just like everyone else.
Hirut steps forward, refusing to meet Kidane’s gaze. She looks down into the valley and says softly, I’m a soldier, a blessed daughter of Ethiopia, proud bodyguard of the King of Kings. She takes her rifle and lifts it above her head.
It is not horror but elation that shakes the trees that day. It is not a poisonous rain but unbearable awe that forces the cries from the emperor’s people. As the emperor lifts his hand to bless his beloved subjects, they shout his many names: Jan Hoy, Negus Nagast, Abbatachin, Haile Selassie, Ras Teferi Mekonnen. They mold the sounds into the cadence of a joyous prayer while Minim gazes at them in the body of the King of Kings. Hirut steps back beside him, silent and stunned, feeling her chest swell, overcome by the display of loyalty and passion.
It was, she will later say, as if they loved me too.
CARLO REFILLS HIS CUP OF WINE AND SETTLES BACK ONTO HIS COT, A dull ache climbing up his spine and into his head. Strewn across the bed are new maps that indicate roads recently built or in prog
ress. A train schedule lies on the crate next to him, and on top of it all, waiting for his immediate attention, is an alarming telegram asking him to verify rumors of Haile Selassie’s return to Ethiopia, to these very hills where Carlo’s camp is based.
Can I bring you coffee? Fifi calls to him from across the footpath that separates their tents.
From where he sits, he has a clear view of her and her servant drinking coffee. He can see the stack of wood that will soon become his new office, a space where he can work without intrusions.
He shakes his head and shifts back in case she can see him. I’m fine, he says, then continues watching them.
They are an unlikely pair: Fifi with her vibrant personality and lush beauty, and this sullen woman in a shapeless cotton dress with a rag on her head. Her face has that shiny, smooth patina of dark skin too long in the sun, the wrinkles almost invisible. Like so many natives, it is difficult to tell her age, only her eyes, wary and fatigued, give the years away.
He looks down at the telegram. Rome is paying attention to this peasant’s tale of the emperor’s return. Haile Selassie was just photographed in his English residence in Bath. There is no truth to these rumors. What is true, and what needs his attention, is the report of a series of attacks on construction sites near Azezo. Railroad tracks leading to Addis Ababa have been ripped up again as far north as Axum. All of this while there have been no actual sightings of rebels in any of these areas. This is a country full of phantoms and he is being asked to wage war on ghosts even as Rome keeps insisting publically that the war is over.
Carlo wipes the sweat off the back of his neck. His hair is getting unruly. He can feel the itchy beginnings of a beard. For the last two days, the village women have not brought their usual gourds of water, and he hasn’t allowed his men to risk assault by bathing in the river. The growing smells are starting to permeate the camp. He pulls out the telegram and notices it is stuck with another, this one informing all members of the armed forces that their great leader, Benito Mussolini, wants a list of every officer with a Jewish surname. Carlo tosses that one on his pillow, annoyed. Here in Africa, there are only two types of people, the native and the Italian. Every other distinction just gets in the way, and yet these bureaucrats want to complicate things with a directive that will only create discord for his troops.
ETTORE GETS TO the edge of the camp and keeps walking through the ascari section, ignoring the curious stares, the sudden drop in conversation and laughter. He keeps going until he realizes he is heading toward that dead place where the prisoner once hung. Ettore veers away from the tree and sits down near the edge of the plateau, and waves to the construction workers working on the foundation of the prison not far away. Huge rolls of barbed wire sit in the crevice of two large boulders overlooking a deep ravine. Planks of wood and piles of straw wait to be turned into walls. He leans against a large rock to gather himself. Colonel Fucelli has just told him of the order to provide Italy with the names of all Jewish officers. They haven’t started on those at your level but they will, I can guarantee you, Fucelli had said. To me, you are Italian. Don’t worry about what you hear, trust me, the colonel had added. Trust my love for this army and for every soldier who follows me.
He takes out his camera and sees there is one picture left, so he lifts it to look at the valley, then the hills. As he pivots, he spies Fifi’s maid coming to sit at the tree, the deadly rope still dangling from the tall branch. She hunches over, her legs folded beneath her dress, as if aware of none of it, and starts to pick at grass and flowers and smell the strands. She is searching for something, staring at the roots of what she has pulled up, lost in her world. The light falls across her in a flat, gray sheet, smoothed of its edges by gentle fog, so he meters carefully, frames her figure against the tree, angles away from the rope, and draws in the grass around her and the rocky terrain just past her shoulders. He aims high enough to bring in the vast sky. Then he takes the photo and watches as her head comes up, perplexed by the nearly inaudible noise. He expects her to get to her feet and turn around to him, and when she doesn’t, he breathes a sigh of relief and keeps watching. She pulls clumps of dirt and grass, sifting through it methodically, searching for something that makes her frown.
SHE ONLY PRETENDS not to see him. She who has known what it means to be ignored and shrugged aside is well aware of the pressure of a stare, the sleek hand of observation. That she sits beneath the tree is no accident of fate. There is that fragment of rope that still hangs and swings in fog. She is aware of its former weight, of the burden it once carried: a name now moved into remembrance. She sits because she is slowly sinking into rage that knows itself to be helpless. Tariku, she whispers. Son of Seifu and Marta, may you live forever in memory. But she is also looking for roots and picking through dirt as she repeats those names because she knows, too, the needs of man and desire; knows what a woman can withstand of embraces and nightly visits before that body, too, must bear a new weight. She is aware of ratios and probability, of monthly cycles and inevitability. She understands the fickleness of chance. She knows precisely that to take from one day gives nothing to the other. That what the left hand hides, the right does not necessarily reveal. That blood can conspire to give life and to take it, to murder and to bless, to confirm a woman’s place in the world every month, and deny it. And so she gathers and collects to give to Fifi, to end what grows inside of her and right the balance.
THE TWO ELDERLY WOMEN ARE DRESSED IN BLACK. THEY WEAR BLACK scarves around their heads, and they plod slowly into the camp, hunched by age and supported by their walking sticks.
Fucelli, we must see this Fucelli, one of them says in a wavering voice, her watery gray eyes searching the camp, the field, the ascari who are approaching. We saw a vision, and it involves a dead boy. Where is he?
Ettore pauses on his way to the canteen to pick up weekly rations. They are an odd sight, made stranger by their request to see the colonel. They look like twins, their features carved by identical wrinkles that weigh against gaunt cheeks and the same filmy eyes.
We’ve had dreams about Fucelli and a dead boy. He must do as we say to avoid the curses, the old woman repeats. She coughs and points a finger at one of the several ascari who are rushing toward them, curious and frightened.
Emama, a tall ascaro says as he bows in front of her. Our leader is coming, just wait. He motions for the rest of the men to move back, and even the soldati who have begun to make their way to the spectacle shift to make room. Why are you here? Are you a witch, tenquay newot?
The women are now in the center of a shrinking circle, the men leaning in, made breathless by fascination and fear.
We know his name is Tariku, this dead boy, the old woman says. She looks to her partner, who nods slowly. Tariku, who also calls himself Anbessa.
Ibrahim approaches, tense. Tariku, he repeats. They said Tariku?
The name is a ripple moving through the crowd.
A sharp glint pulses in Ibrahim’s eyes. Ettore moves to stand beside him and eases his camera to the front of his chest. He can sense Ibrahim’s confusion, something wavers in the creeping tension, something urgent and sharp that makes him flinch and turn his head, suspicious.
Ibrahim sweeps his hand in the direction they came. Go back to your people, we don’t believe these things.
There was a boy who died here and he is restless. It was not right, the old woman says. She nods to her friend, who shakes her head and lifts the same pale eyes to Ibrahim.
Son of Ahmed, you know we are true, the second woman says. She reaches out to touch Ibrahim’s cheek but he draws back, visibly shaken.
Who told them? Ibrahim looks at his ascari. Who told them my father’s name? He steps away from them. Who told them?
We’re here to see Fucelli, the first woman says again. Your ferenj leader took Tariku and he must find peace.
Several of the ascari laugh and translate for the others. Murmurs rise in a steady stream around Ettore and soon, more Italians ar
e pushing into the circle, some breaking through to stand behind Ibrahim and take a better look. One of them shoves Ibrahim from behind and the ascaro spins around and stares directly at the grinning soldier, threatening and unafraid.
High up in the hills, Kidane watches through his binoculars. He is hiding along with Aklilu and watching as the Italians gather closer to the village women they have dressed in black to distract the camp. The women have all the information that other villagers have been able to provide: Fucelli stays in his tent in the mornings by himself, and his trusted ascaro is the son of a man from Keren named Ahmed, a good man with an honest son. Hirut and Aster are to keep their focus on the old women, waiting for them a few meters from the camp. They will rush in if there is any trouble. They will push their way into that growing circle and drag the women out, feigning surprise at two old and senile aunts who wandered away from market.
They have not counted on Ibrahim, though. His unwavering concentration is so intense that he will soon be able to discern every lie. He will only have to follow the stray thoughts in the women’s heads to find himself looking over their shoulders, into the hills, toward Seifu and the other men.
What is it? Ibrahim shouts so loud that his voice echoes. Get out of here, he says, prodding the women away. Go!
The spell is broken as the women turn and hurry away. Then the earth swells with noise. The wind rises. And Ibrahim listens, stunned.
What is this? He puts his hands on top of his head. He turns toward Fucelli’s tent, toward the single, piercing voice punching into the chaos: Ibrahim! Ibrahim!
THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN at the center of his reckoning: that the beast is strongest in the quiet, that it gnaws first at its own throat, and all those men who search for its presence in treacherous sound will be destroyed by what rests mute in bright corners. It is not mayhem that births the creature. It is silence that plumps the meat on its bones then sends it off to kill. For years, Carlo has pressed his ear against the menace of his worst fears and told himself to listen. He has held every nightmare close. He has trained himself to expect the unexpected. He has bled his assumptions dry and turned them inside out. He has forced his phantoms to harden to bone and give the enemy form. This is how he has stayed alive. He has slipped past light and buckled into shadow both stupefying and dangerous.
The Shadow King Page 22