So when an ascaro bursts into his tent without asking for permission, this is Carlo’s first thought: the man must be punished. But then the ascaro doesn’t stop and there is no apology. There is just that body barreling in at an ungodly momentum, colliding against him with a force that knocks him flat and leaves him breathless. He considers all the ways he can make this man pay, but a sharp blade flashes silver in the dimming tent and he hears his name crushed in the mouth of the intruder. It is shorn clean of respect, so empty of deference and discipline that he knows he is staring at an enemy Abyssinian. Carlo stares at the terrifying man. It is darkness itself that presses against him. It is vengeance dug up from the depths of the earth, rippling with muscle and noise. Time slows then speeds up. All memory tumbles backward.
A sharp knife scrapes the tender skin of his neck, slices into flesh and draws blood that warms the collar of his shirt.
That’s all right, he says. It is a nonsensical phrase. A boyhood phrase. A series of words he has always used to fill that gap between terror and recognition: That’s all right, Papa. Mamma, it’s all right. That’s all right, sir.
Carlo is pinned down on his back by strong arms and legs and there is that blade, searching for something it cannot seem to find on the stubbled skin of his bleeding neck. His mouth knows to open but every word has abandoned him except his name:
Carlo. It is a whisper, helpless and futile and it’s all right, sir, it’s all right.
A callused palm blocks his mouth, and air is replaced with stench and sweat. What was outside has crept inside. What was human has grown beastly. He who once led armies to victory is now alone staring at a thousand black nights wrapped in sinew and skin. It is a blackness that shrouds every thought. It bends time and thickens air until it is impossible to move his head. Impossible to do anything but listen to his name dropped from that hard mouth like a splintered bone sucked of marrow.
Fucelli, the intruder says. He stares down, almost bored. Eyes cold as stone, shiny as a river, rimmed in red, murderous.
Fucelli.
Carlo shuts his eyes. He opens them. Another person crawling into the tent, dressed in white, no bigger than a child. Rough hands pry his legs apart at the same time as his arms are spread wide and flattened to the ground. How many hands? How many men? He imagines wraiths and spirits, considers amorphous nightmares and unending dreams. But these are men, he reminds himself, thick with flesh and blood and bone, sharpened by hatred. They are savages bred from all that the world has ever rejected.
His belt is loosened, his trousers unbuttoned, his undershorts yanked down. He tries to jerk free and the knife pokes into his thigh, so quick it is cold as the tip of the blade comes out. The blade drags itself down the middle of his belly, curious, tests the soft meat above his hair. It glides down the tender crease of his pubis. It nuzzles the split curve of his buttocks then inches toward his anus. Carlo freezes, held hostage and trembling in anticipation. From a place inside his head where no words reside, in that space reserved for only the most special of muted horrors, he understands that a stranger’s hand is reaching for the base of his penis, grasping it and tugging as another arm slips beneath his chin and forces his head back so he cannot see what is going to happen, so he cannot prepare himself for that brutal cut. Because it is sure to happen.
He struggles against that arm, brings his chin down so hard that he begins to choke himself. Flashes of a black curtain. Tears. Please. Please. Aiutami. Help me. He is begging and he doesn’t care. Every word is meaningless. Every gesture futile. Every memory holds no sway in the face of this gargantuan, feverish disease eating through him, chewing its way out of every pore. That he has pissed on the hand circling that blade around the base of his penis, that his bowels contract and there is the stink of him, that he is rotting from the inside out, that he is quivering and pleading and wailing his own name, that it ricochets from that sweaty palm back into his throat, that he is forced to swallow his own pleas: all of this Carlo will choose to forget. All of this he will say happened to another man who was no man at all.
Then the Abyssinian slides off his chest and there is a momentary pause in the numbing terror, because what man would dare to do more than that?
Tariku, the man says.
The panic is a stray eyelash in Carlo’s eye, a nagging warning that if he does not do something, he will be as he is: hands bound and legs splayed, his trousers at his knees, submerged in his own filth while held prisoner to a knife beginning its meticulous work. Behold the man, see him shrink and quiver, useless as a girl in the hands of an assailant.
A great and ancient weight sinks into his head. He smells blood. He smells his shame. He can sniff the coming carnage that will make him trophy and victim, spectacle and symbol, something else that is no longer a living man. And now there is that hard fist driving into his head again and again. See: blackbirds. See: dying light. If he wants he can end this. He can slip away and let them finish, leave them to their own wishes. But can I come back? He mouths this against that soiled palm and waits for an answer through the rushing in his head.
From somewhere: Fifi calls his name. But there is no Carlo, so there is no name, there is nothing that holds him firm in this fractured dark. She is an apparition; he, just a metaphor, the broken husk of a dying man. Stones drop from trees. Fruit sprouts from the ground. How easy it is to traipse across the valley of the sky. Right becomes left. Up plummets into soil. What makes a man can now unmake him. A pistol fires. A steady ache across his body. Heavy feet race past his head. A touch on his forehead. He will shut his eyes and sleep it away.
Carlo. She speaks in that terrifying language.
He hears: Faven?
He hears: Please, Seifu.
Then he opens his mouth, astonished at the freedom, and adjusts his eyes to a speckled world coated in tears and blood. Somehow, he manages to trace the path of horror to check himself: he is still intact.
He lets her say it again: Carlo. He lets her lean his body against her. He lets her hand pull up his trousers and hide his frailty, and press a cloth against his neck. She does everything except sweep aside his humiliation and in the half-life of his disintegration, it happens: terror snaps free and floats loose, unhinged. And as it uncoils inside of him to claim new territory, he begins to scream a name: Ibrahim! Ibrahim!
I LET HIM LIVE. THAT IS ALL SEIFU SAYS AS HE STANDS IN FRONT OF Kidane, tired and worn out. I let him go. His face is a twisted plane of emotions too frightening for Hirut to decipher.
Hirut shrinks back against the farthest wall next to Minim, unable to take her eyes off the men. Aklilu and his men are scattered through the hills, readying for the reprisals, helping to move the villagers into surrounding mountains. The women, the elderly, the children have begun their treks from their homes, carrying water and baskets with food, racing to avoid bombings and raids.
Kidane shakes his head again in disbelief. We’d killed all of his bodyguards, he says. We got rid of some of the other banda, there was no one left to stop you. You had the chance you were begging for. Because of you, Aklilu and the others are risking their lives right now. Even those old women did as they were told. This is the third time he has repeated the details of the ambush and Seifu’s failure.
If I’d killed him they would have attacked by now, Seifu says.
Kidane picks up a whip that has been coiled and waiting at his feet. He slowly unwinds it and snaps it, testing its trajectory. The sound is crisp and cruel, a snake’s hiss. Marta drops to her knees. Aster bends to pull her against her chest, shaking her head silently.
I don’t care, Dejazmach, do it. What’s worse than losing my son? Seifu takes off his shirt and flings it down. His chest is a series of scars that form hash marks from the sloping muscles of one shoulder to the other. Close to his heart, unnaturally tight skin the size of a fist: a healed burn.
Do it, Seifu says again. You’re not the first rich man to try to teach me my place.
Aster wipes her forehead with the
edge of her shawl, then covers her nose and mouth until only her eyes are visible. Stop, Kidu, she whispers. She takes a quick look at Hirut.
Hirut meets Aster’s gaze, and she cannot help reaching up to feel the scar that no uniform can ever erase. Aster flinches and turns away.
I’m not finished with Fucelli, Seifu says. He’s useless to the army now. He’s too humiliated to tell what happened. That man soiled himself like a child, he begged. He’s useless. Unfit for war.
Kidane rears back, angry, and cracks the whip. It cuts the air at an angle and slides into Seifu’s back.
Seifu inhales sharply and buckles. The whip arches back toward Kidane, sprinkling drops of blood on its path.
Aster clasps her stomach. Enough, she says, he’s one of our best fighters.
Kidane stares at her, then throws down the whip and rubs his hands in dirt. If you disobey me again, he says, his voice trembling, I’ll finish on you what you started with that Italian. On Tesfaye’s grave, I swear it.
Aklilu appears at the mouth of the cave, wiping his blade. We found a few more looking around, he says, I took some uniforms, so did a few other men, we’ll need them later. The collar of his Italian uniform is smudged with blood. He makes a jarring, odd figure in the enemy’s clothes. He notes the whip and the blood creeping down Seifu’s back, and his look at Kidane holds none of his usual respect.
Hirut puts her head down to avoid the question in his glance.
Seifu stands and puts on his shirt. The blood seeps into his ascaro uniform and spreads, branching like a deformed tree.
You’ve put us all in jeopardy, Kidane says. He smothers the quivering in his chin by pursing his mouth. Sweat rolls down his forehead.
Seifu puts a hand over his heart. I’m not afraid to die in this war, he says. To punish me is a waste. It’s not enough to simply kill these ferenj dogs, he says. Some need to die slowly.
Kidane stares at the whip, stiffening gradually, then he leaves, rushing roughly past Aklilu.
IT HAS BEEN three days and Carlo still hasn’t allowed anyone into his tent. He hasn’t spoken since the attack except to tell Fifi to get out after he managed to revive himself. Fifi had watched him carefully, her heart hammering in her chest, the hatred in Seifu’s eyes still a stinging wound. There was, in the paleness of Carlo’s skin and the dark hollow of his eyes, the sign of something gone, a thread-thin fracture in the steadiness of his gaze. She had reached out to test him, to see how much he understood of her pleas to Seifu, but he had shrunk from her and stood up to place himself in front of his radio: the act of a man already in the solitude of his own thoughts. She had expected tears, some expression of anguish from a man so close to death. Instead, the sharp drone of radio static had climbed into the silence and surrounded them both as he flung off his soiled clothes to stand naked. A shapeless fear had sucked out the tent’s rancid air.
Get your servant in here to clean this up, he had said, throwing on a clean uniform and kicking the dirty one toward her. It better look as if nothing happened when I get back. Then he looked at her, repulsed.
Fifi had stared at him as he left, surrounded by new bodyguards, truly afraid of the man for the first time.
Have some coffee, Fifi. It’s the cook, holding up Carlo’s cleaned uniform. Stains are all out, finally, she says, sniffing it. Your dress is drying, she adds. I had to soak everything a while.
Fifi stares at the pale blue chiffon dress she is wearing. The skirt’s gold trim is garish, vulgar in the clear morning light. She wraps her shamma tighter around her shoulders and tucks it around her legs. If it’s dry enough, I’ll just wear it, she says. It’s better than this.
You wear that with ferenj men?
Fifi smiles. You don’t ask much about my work. She nods. They like it.
The cook shrugs. It’s not my business. She pauses. But they know you’re abesha. So why dress like a ferenj? Aren’t they paying for an abesha woman?
Fifi looks at her quickly. They pay more when I imitate their women.
So you learned Italian, the cook says.
Not for them. Fifi takes Carlo’s uniform from her and sets it on her lap. Why these questions now?
Who was it? The cook glances into the hills.
Fifi is careful to keep her face composed. I don’t know, she says. So many groups make their own armies these days, they’re everywhere in these mountains.
You’re a traitor to them. These arbegnoch would kill you, too, if they could, the cook says. She speaks bluntly, without judgment.
Aren’t you a traitor, then, working for me?
The older woman shakes her head, looking at her carefully. I’m nobody to Italians, and I’m nobody to them.
Ibrahim approaches, his hand on the holster. He is moving slowly, without the usual rigor. Dried bloodstains mark the front of his usually immaculate uniform.
He nods to the cook. He’s still not out? He hasn’t asked for food? Nothing?
The cook shakes her head. Isn’t that office he’s bulidng done?
Why don’t you talk to him? Fifi asks. Maybe you can get him out.
Ibrahim nods to the cook. He’s supposed to move in there. If he comes out, I’ll be with the priest and imam for the burials, he says. He pauses and stares down at his feet then shakes his head. More Ethiopians managed to get in multiple attacks not far from here last night. I don’t know where they’re coming from, he says, sounding surprised.
It’s a different group, Fifi says, or why would they leave Carlo alone?
It was the women, Ibrahim continues, looking at the cook. I thought they were villagers. Shock and regret are plain in his voice. We can’t find them, the villages are empty.
Keep pretending I’m not here, Fifi interjects softly. As if you’re so different from me.
Ibrahim stops and for a moment, his face contorts and all traces of remorse give way to spite. Tell him I need to see him, he says to the cook, then he strides away.
Fifi laughs, a short, bitter sound. Bright clouds slide overhead and for a moment, a cool wind rises and scatters dust. The cook stretches out her legs, drawn and tired; the liveliness that usually rests behind her intelligent eyes is a cautious stare. She is observing everything around her, turning at any sound.
Do you think it’s true, Fifi says after awhile. That we’ll be safe if we trust in God?
They’ve killed monks and nuns, haven’t they? The cook dusts off her dress. What’s God doing about that? She glances over her shoulder then squints up to the sky. I’m afraid for us when they come back for him, because they will.
Where are you from? You’ve never said. Fifi is careful to keep her gaze ahead, away from the cook.
The cook brushes a fly aside. She watches the hills with an alert wariness. The village doesn’t exist anymore, she finally says to Fifi. Everything’s gone.
You were there when it happened?
A hardness slides across the cook’s face. She nods. Then they took me to Yifag and sold me.
Fifi reaches to touch the woman’s arm but the cook pulls away and adjusts the scarf on her head. Tiny gray curls are visible around her ears but when hidden beneath her scarf, she appears ageless.
Quietly the cook adds: You should be careful.
Farther ahead, a burial procession marches down the hill, led by an imam and a priest, followed by Ibrahim and other ascari. Four black-clad women trail beside them on either side. They are professional mourners, expressive faces upturned, their fists pounding on their chests.
He’s going to be worse from now on, the cook says. He’s going to be crueler to everyone, especially you. Get away from here, let’s leave now.
Fifi rubs her forehead and wipes her eyes. I can’t leave, she says. She puts a hand on the cook’s arm and rests it there when the woman does not resist. Go, you go and find a safer place.
The cook shakes her head. Where’s there to go in this country? What place is for me?
ETTORE WAITS OUTSIDE COLONEL FUCELLI’S TENT, CLUTCHING THE camera h
e was ordered to bring. He clears his throat and glances at the six new bodyguards that stare at him. They are formidable-looking soldiers, all Italian, all in Blackshirt uniforms, men he has never seen until they came by truck three days ago and quietly posted themselves outside Fucelli’s tent. Rumors say they are mercenaries from Asmara, that they hail from Massawa, that they are in fact former Blackshirts much too ruthless for even that most vicious arm of the military. They have the strong-jawed meanness of movie villains, one has a long scar down the side of his neck, and another has a tattoo of a woman’s leg peeking from his sleeve.
Navarra, are you just standing there? Fucelli’s voice comes through the canvas, sharp-edged and gruff.
Ettore steps inside, aware of the guards shifting ever so slightly in his direction, observing his entrance. He draws back at the smell that greets him: as pungent as curdled milk. It hangs, thick as another body, in the warm and humid tent. Fucelli sits upright on his cot, rifling through a stack of papers. His jacket is buttoned all the way, and a sweat stain spreads along the wilted collar. A thick bandage around his throat is stained with iodine and a pink line of blood. It is a dampened light that casts the space in pale yellow.
The colonel glances up at Ettore and nods. It’s not as if I didn’t expect this, he says. Maybe it was inevitable. Fucelli nudges the stool beside him. Sit, Navarra, we have some things to discuss. His eyes are bloodshot, swollen. There’s something I want you to see.
Fucelli slips a photograph out from a stack of papers. The strong scent of cologne wafts past as the man shoves the picture at Ettore. Take your time, he says. Above Fucelli’s lip is a thin sheen of sweat.
The Shadow King Page 23