The Shadow King

by Maaza Mengiste

  Across the country, guerrilla fighters have ambushed at night and walked peacefully through streets during the day, waving at Italian merchants and shopkeepers. The patriots have learned to attack in unexpected places: officers’ clubs in the early morning, in brothels reserved for Italians, in hotel rooms used by high-ranking officers. They have crept behind dozing guards and sleepy administrators and left nothing but slumped figures. They are everywhere and nowhere, men and women of a shadow world where a different king rules.

  And yet, here are Kidane and his army today, hiding in caves, waiting for a spy’s instructions before making a move. But his army has continued to grow. Soon it will be twice as large as at the start of the war. He has used Aklilu, Seifu, Nardos, and Amha to stay the fighters’ impatience. He has brought Emperor Haile Selassie into secret meetings and urged the patriots to wait, God’s time is coming, but wait. All of this while new messages from Ferres arrive with the same warning: Stay clear, he expects you, they are safe. So Kidane waits some more, crouched silently in the hills above the Italians.

  THERE ARE THINGS that no longer frighten her: the barbed wire and the ascari guards, the sudden jangle of the padlock, the unexpected intrusion of Fucelli and Ibrahim asking about Kidane. Hirut no longer flinches when a stone is thrown at their tiny window, nor does she stand up when footsteps stomp past the gate in the middle of the night. Since the photographs were taken weeks ago, a thick fog surrounds her every thought. She wakes up daily and goes outside as ordered, cushioned by a warm, invisible palm. Some days, she imagines a shield has fallen over her heart. Other days, she imagines her parents standing guard. Light-headed and oddly heavy-boned, she moves through her days and nights grateful for the respite from stark terror.

  So when Fucelli hammers on the gate and tells her and Aster to come out, there is nothing different on this day for Hirut to feel. This day, too, she thinks, will begin and end in the mouth of the dark. They will be taken outside and made to stand until the sun goes down. They will be forced to undress or put on a uniform or salute in their abesha chemise for newspapers and cameras, for those newly arrived ferenj settlers who have never seen a female soldier up close. Maybe today, too, a new captive will be brought out from the place where he was found and made to stand still for pictures. He will refuse salutes and poses as always. He will not speak a word of Italian. He will do nothing but stand in a way that manages to both displease and entertain Fucelli. Maybe today, journalists will once again nod and smile and applaud while they keep on snapping their pictures. They will call the new captive an Ethiopian lion, and at least one or two will do their strange salute and shout “Anbessa.” They will shake hands with Fucelli and some will hug him, thrilled to meet the great conqueror of Benghazi. Then they will leave and Hirut and Aster will go back into their jail, exhausted and dusty, and sleep.

  But today, Fucelli has two new prisoners, elderly priests roped tightly together by the leg. They walk in awkward steps between Ibrahim and the ferenj, hunched beneath their long robes, old men struggling to maintain a cruel momentum. Fucelli’s thick leather boots leave a plume of dust that rises into Navarra’s indifferent, pale face. Both Fucelli and Navarra wear identical large sunglasses, Ibrahim has his propped on top of his head. All three soldiers walk in long strides with purpose. As they get closer, an unspoken threat seeps from Fucelli, a vindictive malice that has not been there for some time, since that first set of photographs was taken. It is so strong that Hirut braces herself against the wall, the sharp breath she takes a needle puncturing her usual reserve. Startled, she puts her head down to avoid falling into the black hole of his covered eyes.

  Aster exclaims and moves closer to her. Priests? Old men? she whispers. She makes the sign of the cross and shuts her eyes.

  Hirut waits for the usual onlookers to make their procession, but there are no other spectators besides Navarra and Ibrahim. Fifi does not follow behind them. There is no eager audience of soldati or ascari. The cook has not been forced to climb up the hill. Even the guards have moved on toward the cliffs. A vulture hops near the cliff’s edge, pushing the guards away. It is all so out of the ordinary, so new, that Hirut senses the first threads of horror wrapping around her chest and climbing to her throat. She looks toward the landscape, toward the familiar, and waits for the numbness to return.

  I know as long as these women are alive, Kidane will come, Fucelli begins. And because they are here, we have no room for more prisoners in the jail. He slides his sunglasses from his face. He pats one of the elderly priests on the back. Which is bad luck for you, I’m afraid, he adds. But if they tell us where he’s hiding, then, maybe, you’ve got a chance. You want to live, don’t you?

  He looks at Aster as he speaks. These priests were praying over fresh graves in rebel territory, he adds. They claim there are innocent children buried there. I claim they’re lying. He clears his throat and slips his sunglasses on again.

  Ibrahim’s voice trails behind his, rapidly translating, the menace apparent in both languages. The priests grasp each other’s hands, their eyes closed. The glance Navarra gives Fucelli exposes the surprise that Ibrahim has shoved behind lowered lids and a pursed mouth.

  You think some are too old to die, Navarra? Fucelli smiles.

  It is Ibrahim’s voice, cracking at the last words, that pushes Hirut toward the fence and brings her hands around the barbed wire. The numbness returns and so she tightens her grip around the metal spokes, ignoring the soft tear of flesh.

  Abba, she calls out to the priests, Abba, tell them I’m here. Tell my mother to find me when you die. Tell her where I am. Tell my father I’m sorry.

  Ibrahim blinks rapidly and steps back.

  Fucelli frowns. Navarra, why aren’t you getting this? He takes out a handkerchief and wipes his forehead and neck.

  But Navarra is not paying attention to Fucelli. He takes off his sunglasses and steps toward her to clasp a hand around each of her wrists. His hold is tender, his touch is almost comforting, non-threatening. It is warm skin brushing against skin, bone steady against bone: a human being seeking firmer ground. Hirut squeezes so hard on the barbs that she can feel the puncture wound in the soft skin between her fingers. A thread of blood sits waiting to flow down her wrist. It is not until she feels an ache in her jaw that she realizes she is grinding her teeth. Hirut looks at Navarra’s bewildered face. She looks at his hands still hanging on to her wrists. She glances down at herself, at that clothed body pressed against that evil fence, and she tries to remember her name, but what comes to mind is the lone word that points to the singular mistake that led her here and to the end of her life: Wujigra.

  She shakes her head as Navarra begins trying to pry her hands off the fence. No, she says. Wujigra, she adds, speaking to the priests, throwing her voice across the space between them. Tell Abbaba I’m sorry about my Wujigra.

  And Navarra says: Abbaba, Papa, Mamma, carissima Gabriella.

  Behind her, Aster: My child, what’s happened to you.

  Navarra, let go of her. What’s going on? Fucelli asks, peering at her through his sunglasses, throwing her reflection back to her, forcing one Hirut to step away from the other until there is enough space between them to breathe fully.

  Ibrahim translates carefully, his voice caught in emotions that force him to stop and look at the ground. Colonello, he says, Colonello Fucelli.

  They think she is lost. They think she cannot see herself, double-bodied and split, clothed and naked, young and old, bending toward the priests who reach through the fence and put a hand on both her heads and give her solemn blessings. They think she has found a way to escape while standing still, but Hirut, daughter of Getey and Fasil, born in the year of a blessed harvest, knows that this is also a way to fight.

  Wujigra, she says to Fucelli, because that is the only word for the language of hatred she now speaks.

  Wujigra, she says to Ettore Navarra, because it contains the full range of the disgust that she feels for him.

  Wujigra,
she says to Ibrahim, because he must surely have a father who once had a Wujigra, because he must know the loss she means.

  Hirut says the word even as the priests are led away, making the sign of the cross in her direction, then turning to bless and pray for each other. Hirut says the word even as they are lined up, side by side, legs bound together, between the tall boulders. Hirut says it as the vulture pads down the field then launches off the edge to wait below. Hirut says it even as the priests link arms and throw their heads back and shout a word that echoes back as anbessa, lion, and Ethiopia. She repeats her private prayer while Navarra lets go of her wrists and whispers her name as an absolution she will never give him. She repeats the word while Navarra obeys Fucelli’s orders and staggers toward those old priests and photographs their final flight.

  Chorus

  We tip toward her in the dark well so she can hear: Make of this anguish something dangerous enough to throw, tender Hirut. Turn remembrance into a sly weapon you draw out and hurl in battle. You who are doubly bound to seek vengeance without retreat, rise up and walk toward your mothers and sisters who wait to strengthen your resolve. Stand, Hirut.

  But the girl cannot hear us through the smothering blanket of her rage. She is focused on her balance on that soft precipice she mistakes for firm ground, her arms extended like wings, her face lifted to harsh sun. When Aster comes behind her to hold her close, maternal and pitying, Hirut shoves her away and calls out a name that falls like a boulder between them: Kidane. And then this girl, senses attuned to every secret in Aster’s face, asks the question she has not known until now how to ask: What happened to my mother? What did Kidane’s father do to her?

  Aster says to her: We do not have to follow our mothers’ stories. We do not have to walk in the path they give us.

  So Hirut asks again, the sharp wire digging once more into her hands: Tell me about my mother.

  There is this: a young woman named Getey attached to a young bride named Aster like an appendage. Aster, full-bodied and treasured, bound like a gift to a new husband who is also a stranger. Getey is taken to Aster’s new house by Kidane’s father. Getey, the father says. I will miss you, but my son’s new wife needs assistance. You will be in a home with my son, who loves you like a sister. This Aster might be difficult, but you are a gift, don’t forget. You will always be my treasure, and I will come for you as I need. And Getey, taken from Kidane’s old home and left at Aster and Kidane’s new doorstep, stares at Kidane’s father’s retreating back. She is too stripped of language to say: Get away and leave me alone, and Don’t ever come back here, and Next time I’ll kill you. She steps across the threshold into the house through the back door, through the kitchen nestled next to the servants’ quarters where she will sleep and, she hopes, forget about her old nightly terrors. She will reach true womanhood in this home where Aster, too, will learn the ways of wives and women and all those who tread the difficult path in between. When Kidane’s father, prone to roaming his land in search of the enemy, comes looking for Getey, it is Aster who blocks the door and tells the old man: This is not your place anymore. It is Aster who holds Getey, and says, I’ll give you my gun and a bullet. It is Aster who forces Kidane to step in front of Getey and her love, Fasil, and say to them both: Run, hurry, and I will find a way for you two to be free.

  Aster tells all of this to Hirut, who listens while staring into that bottomless well, suffocating in the dense fumes of revenge. And when Hirut turns to her, as Aster has always known she would when this day came, and asks: And why did you do nothing to help me? Are you so jealous that you have no heart? All Aster can say is: Your mother was both beloved and brave. Your mother knew how to fight.

  HE REPEATS HER NAME LIKE A LAMENT, LIKE A SORROWFUL REFRAIN that is both a warning and a plea. Hirut presses her back against the jail wall as Navarra approaches, shocked by the fact of his appearance. It is too early in the morning. It is not time for new prisoners to arrive. There are no others with him ready to watch another spectacle. She lowers her head, trying to hide her fear when he gets to the fence and says her name again. He waits for her to respond, dropping to sit cross-legged, both arms leaning on his knees, his face twisted in emotion. He starts to speak rapidly, words bursting out of him, while he shakes his head. Deeply frightened now, she stares at this ferenj. He is at eye level. He is out of breath. His cheeks are flushed and sweat rolls freely down his neck. He is an unusual sight on a normal waking day. He has broken protocol. What was, is no more.

  He reaches into the bag he never leaves behind and takes out a photograph. He holds it up in front of her, his hand trembling, and says: I die. You die. We die.

  Hirut jerks her head away from that humiliation. It is a picture of her, one of those she knows the soldati and ascari pass around like a new fascination and an unending joke. They have come often to the prison waving the photos of her and Aster, laughing and shouting at the full-bodied women while caressing the flattened copies in their hands. Their arrival sends Aster sliding back into the building while Hirut chooses to stay outside and practice resilience, testing her strength in the face of their ridicule. She has managed, somehow, to keep the tears away and her head up, her back straight, her gaze locked on the horizon for long enough to watch them return to their camp, finally bored. She has counted each retreat as a triumph, another mark on an imaginary rifle.

  But Navarra: he is an abnormality, a distortion without his camera.

  Go away, she tells him, surprised by the firmness in her voice, pleased by the way it makes him flinch and shake his head and reach into his bag, desperately searching for something else.

  He takes out his parents’ photo and points. They die, he says in Amharic that is more fluid, more sure than she has heard him use before. They died. They are dying. I die. Irgitegna negn. Sono sicuro. I am sure.

  He knows the words and their meaning well enough to express their urgency, well enough to let each vowel stretch itself across varying shades of grief. Hirut cannot see past the shifting paleness of his skin to really look at him, but she can interpret the longing and anguish resting in each phrase. He takes out a letter she has seen him read repeatedly and opens it. He points to the handwriting, to the strange-looking characters, and then jabs a finger into his chest.

  Son, lij, figlio, he says the words then rattles the letter and adds, Abbaba. He points behind him toward the horizon and the hills, his hand sweeping across those two ravenous boulders and the cliffs.

  It is a letter from his father, she understands. His most treasured possession. Abbaba, she says softly, correcting his pronunciation. Abbaba, she says, calling out to her own father, a coiled fear settling in her stomach. Every cruelty has its methods, but this one she does not know.

  Hirut braces herself, brings her knees to her chest, tucks the skirt of her long dress under her toes. She waits. She imagines herself as a camera’s eye chewing through space to gnaw at his jawline and sink against that distant place where these ferenjoch keep their feelings and memories. Click: she blinks to capture his cautious pause when one of the guards ambles past him, curious and confused. Click: she focuses onto that paper he hunches over as if it is a secret treasure, as if it is an object he must protect at all cost.

  He points to another word and then jabs his finger toward the mountains and says, Hagere, my country, il mio paese. It is not my country.

  Aster peeks out of the door. She stares at Navarra, her eyes narrowing. What’s he doing? she asks. She pushes the empty tray of food toward Hirut. This morning, as usual, it was Hirut who got their bread and coffee from the gate and she will hand it back to the ascari.

  Navarra lifts his head and waits for Hirut to answer. Hirut stares back, caught in the uncertainty of his gaze. She has grown so numb that it no longer matters whether he might strike her or not. She does not care if he takes out his camera to push it in her face. She is not afraid of him anymore. She is a soldier trapped inside a barbed-wire fence, but she is still at war and the battlefield is her ow
n body, and perhaps, she has come to realize as a prisoner, that is where it has always been.

  Navarra! Navarra! It is Fucelli, his long steps leading him from the road onto the plateau.

  He is a propulsive object aiming at the jail, a weapon turned in their direction, preparing to explode. His arms swing in stiff rhythm, his feet raise clouds of dust behind him. A silence falls across the field, the sky behind him dims and all that pulses in the hidden bends and caves of the hills leans forward to watch his crashing momentum.

  Ettore draws back from her, unsettled but not surprised. He mumbles and purses his lips. There is a tightening in his features.

  Aster slowly closes the door to the prison.

  Hirut watches Ettore, the way he stuffs the letter back into his bag and slips the photo into his pocket, the way he secures the bag shut then slings it over his shoulder as if it has always been there. She recognizes that panic, that whiff of childish terror that also hints at debilitating obedience. She knows the impulse riding through him right now, that instinct to avoid confrontation through humiliating subservience. She looks at Fucelli striding toward them, the assuredness that can exist only if there is no resistance. He waves a piece of paper in his hand as if it were a flag.

  No, she says to Ettore. Be a soldier, soldato.

  Ettore jumps to his feet, fumbling with his camera. His smile is too broad, too effusive, and as Fucelli gets closer, he shoves his hands in his pockets. He slumps his shoulders, dips his head, his eyes gaze down then look up through lowered lids. This is the cook: You have to know how to stand so they see you but do not see you. You have to look at them as if you are not looking. Be invisible but helpful. Be useful but absent. Be like air, like nothing. Hirut crosses her legs. She rubs her hands across her dress, she keeps busy, pretends to be distracted. That she is not leaving him alone to go inside the prison with Aster is a detail she will not allow herself to consider for many, many years. He is a child, she says to herself now, he is just a cruel, frightened child.