The Garbage King

by Elizabeth Laird

  ‘What do you think?’ Zeni was saying. ‘Is she going to make it? She looks so sick, poor lady.’

  The cook cleared his throat and spat.

  ‘Not much of a chance. She’s got that look my mother-in-law had before she passed away, God rest her. How could she survive the journey? And that English nurse was only a girl. What good can she do?’

  Zeni gave a sharp sigh.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. There’ll be changes around here then. I’ll be looking for a new job, for a start. She was so sweet, it was her that kept me here. I don’t fancy working just for him, I can tell you. He terrifies the life out of me.’

  They moved on, and their voices faded round the far side of the house.

  Dani sat still on his bed, staring at the wall, trying not to think.

  At last he heard the familiar rattle of the metal gates, and Ato Paulos’s firm tread as he strode into the house. Dani braced himself, hoping that his father would walk past his door and on down the corridor to his room, or that Meseret would come running out to hug him, and distract his attention. But the footsteps stopped, the handle of his door turned, and Ato Paulos marched into his room.

  He stood looking down at Dani, the usual frown on his face.

  ‘Well, and what do you expect me to do with you?’

  His voice was softer than usual. He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  ‘I don’t know, Father,’ Dani said, trying to fill the silence.

  ‘I’ve tried everything I can think of. Threats, bribes, punishments. Nothing works.’

  Dani looked sightlessly at the floor.

  ‘It’s impossible to deal with you here,’ Ato Paulos went on, looking with irritation at the mess on Dani’s desk, and the clutter of old toys and drawings beside his bed. ‘It’s too soft. Too easy. There really is no alternative.’

  A cold feeling was settling in Dani’s stomach.

  ‘No alternative to what, Father?’

  ‘I called Feisal today,’ Ato Paulos said. His eyes didn’t meet Dani’s. He was staring at a stain on the wooden floor. ‘He’s coming to fetch you tomorrow.’

  Dani felt the blood drain from his face.

  ‘No, Father! You said, only if I failed the exams! The results aren’t even out yet!’

  His father reached down into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a slip of paper.

  ‘They came today. You scraped through a couple, did well in Amharic, I grant you, but the rest – hopeless. Appalling!’

  For once his voice was sad rather than angry. It pierced Dani like a bayonet.

  ‘I’ll try again. They’ll let me resit them. I promise, I’ll work harder, I’ll—’

  ‘No.’ Ato Paulos stood up. ‘I’ve been too soft for too long. When I make a threat, I carry it out. I’ve already written to the school, withdrawing you. A year of proper discipline, with Feisal . . .’

  ‘A year?’

  ‘I’ll visit you from time to time. You’ll be looked after. But there’ll be no more nonsense. No mooning about daydreaming, making up silly stories. A proper regime of work.’

  ‘I can’t, Father. Please don’t send me away. I can’t.’ Dani’s voice was barely audible.

  His father came over to the bed, dropped a hand on his shoulder, and shook it lightly.

  ‘It won’t be that bad. There’s no need to make a fuss about it. Feisal’s strict, but he’s fair, and he’ll make a man of you. Please believe me, Dani, I didn’t want to do this, but I really think it’s for the best. You’ll thank me one day.’

  Dani hardly noticed him leave. He jumped off his bed and stood in the middle of the room, his knees shaking and his head light with fright.

  There were lions in the countryside all round Jigjiga, and ferocious bandits armed with Kalashnikovs. A boy at school had heard someone talk about it. It was blisteringly hot, and the food was awful, and there were scorpions in the houses.

  But even the lions and bandits and scorpions would be bearable if he didn’t have to be with Feisal. Feisal would bully and terrorize him. Feisal would mock him and hold him up to everyone else’s ridicule. He would rather die than live with Feisal. He would rather run away.

  Run away! That’s what I’ll do! he thought. I’ll go to Auntie Tsehai. No, Father would find out and make her send me back. I’ll find someone else to stay with. Not Ato Mesfin. He’d say I had to go home. Someone in my class at school. Someone from my old school. Anyone. That nice waiter at the Hilton. Someone will take me in. It would only be for a while, till Mamma comes home.

  He swallowed, trying not to think about what would happen if she never came back at all.

  An idea suddenly came to him.

  Giorgis! That quiet boy in my primary school. We used to do really nice things together. And he doesn’t live with his parents, just with his uncle. An uncle wouldn’t bother about me, or get in touch with Father. I went to Giorgis’s house once. I can sort of remember where it is. That’s it! I’ll go to Giorgis’s!

  He was pulling things out of drawers already, making a pile on his bed.

  I’ll need clothes and stuff, and some spare shoes, and the money Mamma gave me. I’ve got fifty birr at least.

  The door behind him opened suddenly, making him jump.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ato Paulos said.

  ‘Packing,’ Dani said nervously.

  A rare smile crossed Ato Paulos’s face.

  ‘Good,’ he said, trying to hide his surprise. ‘Good boy.’ He hesitated. ‘I have to go to the office now. Feisal’s arriving tonight. I’ll see you both off in the morning.’

  He was about to close the door.

  ‘Father,’ Dani said urgently.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘About Mamma. Is she going to – be all right?’

  Ato Paulos frowned.

  ‘Yes, yes of course she is. That’s why I’ve sent her off to London.’

  ‘When’s she coming home?’

  ‘As soon as she’s well enough. Not long. I don’t know.’

  He went out and closed the door.

  He doesn’t believe that, thought Dani. He knows she’s going to die. He just won’t say so.

  He heard his father leave and the gates clang shut behind him. His heart was pounding and his palms were sweating.

  If I’m going to go, he thought, I’ve got to go now, before he gets home and Feisal arrives.

  He pulled an old sports bag off the top of the cupboard in the corner of his room and stuffed his clothes into it, then picked up his blue baseball cap and rammed it on to his head. He looked around one last time, and his eye fell on his desk. Should he leave a note? Try to explain? But what was there to say?

  He opened the door a crack and looked out. Meseret had wandered round to the back of the house in search of Zeni. He could hear her funny little voice raised in excitement as she tried to explain something. He wanted suddenly to go after her, to pick her up and give her a cuddle. Instead, he turned the other way, towards the front door.

  It was open. In the harsh sunlight outside, he could see the little kiosk where Negussie slept beside the big gates. He could tell it was empty. Negussie must have gone round to the kitchen too, or perhaps he was sleeping under the big tree at the side of the house, making the most of his employers’ absence.

  This was his chance then. It was now or never.

  Dani stood for a long moment, hesitating painfully, breathing in the familiar smells of home, the faint whiff of his mother’s perfume, the sharpness of onions frying in the kitchen, the slight mustiness of the old brown rugs. Then he crept down the front steps, and, his bag bumping clumsily against his knees, raced across to the gates. He opened them as quietly as he could and was suddenly outside in the lane, alone.

  Milk dribbling into his bruised mouth made Mamo choke. He opened his eyes. The face bending over him seemed a long way away, then very near, then it broke up into shimmering fragments. He closed his eyes again.

  He heard Yohannes say, ‘There’s still some of
that stuff in his mouth, Father, look.’

  Someone pulled down his lower jaw and he felt a finger hook round the last of the leaves that were clinging to his tongue. Then a man’s voice, which was somehow familiar, said, ‘Lift his head. Gently. We must get more milk inside him.’

  He didn’t choke this time. He let the warm fluid trickle into his mouth, and swallowed.

  ‘Good,’ the man said. ‘Help me lift him on to my back, Yohannes.’

  As they moved him, Mamo fainted again.

  When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a cowskin in a strange house. Light from the setting sun shone through the open door, hurting his eyes. A woman was squatting near the fire that burned cheerfully in the middle of the floor, with a couple of small children near her feet.

  From outside he could hear a furious voice.

  ‘You’ve no right. He’s mine. Good money I paid for him, and all he’s done is lose me my best cow.’

  It was the farmer. A shiver ran through Mamo. He shrank back from the light against the curved wall of the round house. The movement sent a wave of nausea through his stomach. He closed his eyes again and lay still.

  ‘I know, neighbour. I’m sorry.’ Yohannes’s father was speaking softly, soothingly, trying to calm the farmer down. ‘But what could I do? I thought the boy was going to die. He still might.’

  ‘Eating poisonous leaves! I don’t believe it.’ The farmer spat angrily. ‘I’m warning you, he’s a crafty one. You’re so soft you’d believe anything of anybody. He’s just trying to get sympathy and escape his punishment.’

  ‘I thought you’d punished him already,’ Yohannes’s father said drily. ‘His face is so battered he can barely see out of his eyes. It’ll be a while before he can walk again, even when he’s flushed out the poison.’

  The farmer growled out something which Mamo couldn’t hear.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Yohannes’s father said pleasantly. ‘Let him stay with me till he’s on the mend. I owe you a favour, after you brought that barley back from the market for me last month. As soon as he’s on his feet and can work again, I’ll send him back to you.’

  ‘On his feet?’ exploded the farmer. ‘He’ll be on his feet in the morning if he knows what’s good for him.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Yohannes’s father said. ‘Come and look at him yourself.’

  Mamo heard their feet cross the beaten earth floor towards him. He lay still, his eyes closed, too weak and shaky to dare to open them, not sure if he would faint again.

  The farmer drew in his breath.

  ‘Well, what would you have done?’ he said defensively. ‘He destroyed my best cow. He’s useless, I tell you. I wish I’d never set eyes on him.’

  ‘Then leave him here,’ Yohannes’s father said. Their voices were retreating as they went outside again. ‘I’ll look after him.’

  Mamo felt a rustle of clothes beside him and managed to look up. The woman had come over to him. She had pulled a low stool across and was sitting beside his cowskin mat, holding a glass of milk out to him.’

  ‘Drink it,’ she said kindly. ‘It’ll stop the poison harming you. Sip it. Slowly does it. I’ll hold your head up if you like. That’s better. You silly boy, what did you do such a thing for?’

  Something seemed to give way inside Mamo. Something loosened. Tears edged through between his swollen eyelids and ran down beside his ears. He turned his head away from her and sobs racked his chest.

  For the next few days, he hovered between sleep and wakefulness, between despair and a faint rebirth of hope. At first he could barely move. Convulsions of shivering and bouts of sickness would overcome him, and each painful bruise protested every time he stirred.

  But suddenly, on the third day, he felt life flow back into him, a new life, different from the old one, as if he really had died and come back to earth again as another person, and he was overcome by a strange euphoria, as if he had entered an enchanted world of happiness.

  For the first time in his life he felt surrounded by love. Yohannes’s mother fed him and washed his cuts. She talked to him gently, asking him about his mother and Tiggist. When she went to fetch water, she left him to mind the babies, to call out to them if they went too near the fire, and when she came back she smiled and thanked him.

  The best time was in the evening, when Yohannes, full of the day’s events, had brought the cattle home, and his father had come in from his day’s work. The family would sit round the fire and eat while the little ones nodded sleepily, and then they’d talk, mulling over the events of the day, telling stories, discussing the next visit to the market. And Mamo, when he was able to sit up, would be drawn into the circle. He’d sit with them, like a guest, eating what they ate, laughing when they laughed. His eyes would go from one face to the next, watching, almost breathless with love, as the firelight flickered on their coppery skin.

  On the twelfth evening, as the fire died down and Yohannes’s mother stood up and yawned, ready to unroll the bed mats and lie down to sleep, Yohannes’s father came over to Mamo and sat down beside him. He put a hand on Mamo’s knee.

  ‘You are well now,’ he said.

  A cold hand seemed to tighten round Mamo’s heart. He said nothing.

  ‘Tomorrow you must go back.’

  Mamo squeezed his eyes shut, as if to keep out what the man was saying.

  ‘I know it’s hard for you, but you can’t stay here any longer.’

  ‘I can’t go! Please keep me here, with you!’

  Mamo’s sharp cry made Yohannes and his mother look round. Then they turned away again.

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’ The man hesitated. ‘Try to understand your master. He lost his eldest son last year. Did you know that?’

  Mamo shook his head.

  ‘The boy was only a year older than you, and a great help to his father. His death made him feel bitter. He’s had bad luck since then, too – flooded fields, a fire in his grainstore – he does his best.’

  ‘They’ll kill me if I go back,’ Mamo said hoarsely. ‘They hate me. Especially Tesfaye.’

  ‘Tesfaye misses his brother. He can’t bear to see another boy in his place.’

  Mamo clenched his fists.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Yohannes’s father picked up the end of Mamo’s shamma and tucked it round his shoulders.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better about it in the morning.’

  But in the morning, Mamo woke with a lump as heavy as a stone in his chest. He couldn’t even eat the breakfast he was offered. Choked with tears, he muttered a few incoherent words of thanks, and walked stiffly away out of the compound, feeling more miserable with every step he took.

  He saw the farmer’s cattle straggling down the hill towards the river from a long way away, and recognized Tesfaye, who was herding them. His pulse quickening with fear and anger, he made himself walk on.

  They met where the lane from the homestead joined the broader path at the bottom of the hill. Mamo, braced for angry words, for insults and flying stones, was taken aback by the nervous, almost guilty look in Tesfaye’s eyes.

  ‘Are you all right now, then?’ he said, looking away.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then I’ll get off to school. Here, take my stick if you like.’

  He handed his stick almost politely to Mamo and ran back home to put on his uniform and fetch his books.

  The day was not unbearable. Falling into the old routine with Hailu and Yohannes, Mamo could put out of his mind, for quite long periods of time, the dread of returning to the farmer and the hated compound of his master. When the shadows began to lengthen, he lingered by the stream for as long as possible, knowing that there would be only hostile faces and the most meagre supper waiting for him when he’d driven the cattle home.

  At last, he could put it off no longer. He almost missed the difficult black cow, who had always veered off the path, as he drove the others round the corner of
the lane. He looked up when he came to the last stretch, and his heart gave a painful thump as he saw that the farmer was standing by the gate of the compound, his arms draped over the stick across his shoulders, waiting for him.

  He reached the top and shepherded the cows inside, then cried out as the man’s finger and thumb caught his ear in a vicious grip, and yanked him down to his knees.

  ‘Any more trouble from you, one more thing goes wrong, and I’ll kill you, do you hear? And there’ll be no more whining off to the neighbours, making a fool of me. Stay away from them or you’ll really know what it feels like.’

  He let go of Mamo’s ear, went into the house and shut the door, leaving Mamo outside in the gathering cold and darkness.

  The door opened a few times during the evening. Once or twice Tesfaye came out. He seemed about to speak to Mamo, but never did. The girl brought him a corn cob for his supper, and a glass of water. The woman went round behind the house to fetch something and went back inside without speaking to him.

  Huddled in his shamma under the eaves of the cowshed, Mamo saw himself suddenly as if from the outside, a pathetic figure, lonely, in a place he hated, with people who despised him.

  Anything, any place in the world is better than this, he thought, so why do I stay?

  The question came back, twice, three times, and suddenly the answer was there.

  I won’t stay. I’ll go away.

  He felt light-headed with excitement. Before, he’d been afraid of running away in case, out there in the unknown countryside, he might starve to death before he could find the way home to Addis Ababa. He wasn’t afraid of death any more. Death was a simple thing, just a separation of the soul from the body. It wouldn’t matter if he died.

  I’ll go tonight, he thought. Now.