Cold White Sun

by Sue Farrell Holler

  “Bring down the window,” he said, his voice generous. A breeze shifted the air in the vehicle.

  Gashe beamed. “Better? Yes?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. The change in air was welcome, but even more welcome would be if I was not in the vehicle with him. Why did he insist now that I accompany him everywhere?

  Our progress was slowed when the street filled with goats and sheep and cows and people on their way to the Mercato. Beggars and cripples with their stumps tied with the rubber from old tires pressed against the car trying to get close to Gashe.

  How was it that so many healthy-looking people were without hands? Without legs?

  Gashe reached his arm out the window and smiled as we crept along the crowded street. His was not a wide friendly smile but a smaller one that did not cause his lips to part. This expression said, “Look at me. Honor my greatness.” He grasped hands with people he did not know, wished them God’s blessing and received it in return. It was as if he was a prince, and they his loyal subjects.

  From time to time he reached for the spot between us where he kept birr of small denominations. He pressed the coins into hands and scattered them in the street the way Etheye scattered feed for the chickens. The diseased and the crippled scrambled to pick them up, their heads bobbing like birds as they bowed and gave thanks to Gashe, to Allah and to God.

  I hated this display of his wealth and power. It was wrong that he had so much, and these people so little.

  “Gashe! Look out!” I yelled. He was not paying proper attention to the road and the obstacles on it. What if the wheels of his car crushed a person? What was wrong with him? Did he not care?

  “Stop!” I screamed. “There! Close to the wheel. Do not drive!” A young man with no legs was on his bum near the tire. Using his arms to lift his torso, he twisted and tipped into the crowd to move from harm’s way.

  I cringed with embarrassment. To be so healthy. To have a car. To have two arms and two legs.

  Hands and arms in all shades of brown pushed in when we stopped, palms up or clasped together as if in prayer. “Gashe. Gashe,” they panted, the smell of their breath like an unwashed gutter. The man without legs had dragged himself to the side, but barely. If he had had legs, they would have been destroyed.

  I reached for Gashe’s coins, stretched as far as possible out the window, and with my arm dangling loose tossed a coin to the hand of the young crippled man. He bowed his head to give me honor. I watched the man as Gashe wove his Peugeot through the crowd, watched him stranded on the side of the road while the others trailed us like a swarm of flies smelling blood.

  “You see,” Gashe said, “how good it is to give? You feel better now, yes?”

  If I scattered all of his money in the street, I would not feel better, but I did not say these words out loud.

  I said, “Yes, Gashe. But what you give, is it enough?”

  “It is enough to live another day,” he said.

  Perhaps there had been a mistake. It was possible that he was not my father, was it not? Could it be that, like Ishi, I was a nephew or a cousin? Brought from the country for school?

  Or perhaps I was no blood relation at all, an orphan snatched from the gutter. Could this be the reason Gashe and I shared nothing in common? I smiled at this thought, that the self-centered businessman beside me was a distant relative or a stranger. It made absolute sense.

  “Ah, I see it now,” he said. “The look that tells me you understand. The best way to ensure loyalty is to give.”

  It was clear he could not read my thoughts. I remained silent. Let him think what he would. We shared no blood of father and son and that made me happy.

  We passed incomplete houses with steel rods sticking from the top like rows of antennae. Paint bubbled and flaked like dry skin from some houses, while others were painted only as high as a man could reach. A flimsy curtain danced through an open window. Elders sat in chairs nearly as broken as they were. Their heads turned to follow the car as we passed.

  But if Gashe was not my relative, how was I related to Ishi? It was not possible for two boys to look so much alike, to be two halves of the same whole, and not share the same blood. Could it be that we were true brothers? That it was the mother we shared?

  I focused on my hands folded in my lap.

  Not possible. Ishi and I were born just three weeks apart. We could not share the same mother.

  Cousins, then, related through Etheye’s blood, not Gashe’s. Was Ishi not the most like Etheye with his love of animals and plants? Did he not share her humble ways?

  Gashe slowed to allow a donkey to pass. It pulled a cart heaped with a tangle of long sticks that bobbed so low they nearly touched the road. Inside the car, the soothing strings of a cello, “The Music of Europe’s Greatest Composers.”

  For certain, Etheye was my mother. She told me often of my birth, how I was so small that I gave her no pain. She said it was for this reason that she loved me best of all.

  Etheye was my mother, so she couldn’t be Ishi’s. But one of her sisters. Surely he was the son of a sister. A cousin of Etheye’s line.

  I glanced at Gashe. My eyes caught his hand on the steering wheel, manicured fingernails that shone pink with good health. He had the lean, delicate and graceful fingers of an artist. Between his index and his middle fingers was a peculiar bowing.

  I knew this trait. Why had I not noticed before?

  His hands looked exactly like the hands woven together in my lap. My hands and his were identical. It was as if his pale hands had been dipped in brown dye and grafted onto my body. How could this be?

  The similarity of our hands was precisely the same as how Ishi and I looked so much alike. It could happen only if we shared the same blood. Only if Gashe were the father, and I the son.

  It was as if God was laughing at me, as if he had drawn my fate to become as pompous and controlling as Gashe, who hummed to the sounds of famous composers as he drove his expensive car.

  But why, if I wanted to be so different than him, did I crave his approval? Why did I excel at school and do everything he asked without question? Why did I not stand up to him? It was not love I felt, nor respect. It was duty, and it was fear of what would happen if he learned my true thoughts.

  Gashe slammed the brake and leaned on the horn. My body flung forward like a doll. The other driver threw his arm from the window and raised his fist, middle finger extended, but it was Gashe who had avoided the crash.

  “Everything is fine?” Gashe asked as he touched the accelerator.

  I settled back into my comfortable seat.

  “Everything is fine,” I said.

  11

  Something had changed, but I did not know what. Gashe still spent more nights away than he did at the house, and when he was at home, the air was strung with electric wires of tension. He still spoke in commands, demanded silence and mostly ignored everyone but the smallest children. But more and more often he sat head to head with my older brother, Tezze, teaching him the ways of business.

  We all still went to school every day. Etheye’s belly grew again with another child. The seasons faded, one to the other. It was as if nothing had changed, and yet it was as if everything had changed so slowly that you couldn’t tell it was happening.

  When finally I noticed, in the year I was in eighth grade, it felt as if I had awakened from a long sleep, as if only now did I see the world as it truly was.

  It remained dangerous to be out after dark. Special Forces and curfews ruled the night. The same curfew but different police. Different police, and yet familiar in their ways. Ready to shoot or to slash with a baton and ask questions later for those who lacked proper connections or money for a bribe. It was best to leave the walls of our compound only to go to school. This suited me, for what else did I need that was beyond the heavy gates spiked with wrought-iron?


  Ishi and Gashe had been right about Isaias. He became a powerful man, but more and more, I sensed that his politics and the politics of Gashe differed. No longer was Isaias a revolutionary fighting for democracy. He had become part of the government. He still spoke of democracy, but he no longer desired it.

  And with his power, he turned his back on the Amhara roots he shared with Gashe and sought to hide them.

  I was bent over my science homework, working from the light that came through the window, completing a detailed diagram of an ant.

  Gashe came to my door. He was dressed in his best clothes.

  “You will come with me. Now,” he said.

  I did not want to leave. I wanted to finish what I was doing, but I did not protest, nor did I ask where we would go. I put down my pencil. The drawing must wait.

  Gashe strolled to his newest Peugeot, a pearly white 504 that sparkled when sunlight hit it. It had square headlights and inside, bucket seats made of leather, shiny wood grain on the console and electric windows.

  I got in beside him as if it was something I did every day, but my brothers and I had only before peered through the windows. I kept my hands on my lap, afraid to leave fingerprints on the gleaming surfaces.

  The guards pulled open the gates. The beggars swarmed the car like ants to a drop of honey. We moved through the streets in the familiar pattern. Fast, then brake. Fast, then brake. Fast, fast. Brake. Swerve.

  Still, we had not spoken. I wanted to ask where we were going and why he had chosen me, but I was afraid of a reprimand. Better to look out the window and to enjoy the sights. He pushed a cassette into the dash when he stopped to let a shepherd wearing a drab headdress straggle his flock across the street. The car filled with soft music.

  Ahead was a military truck with metal ribs and a canvas covering. Crowded in the back were ordinary people. Armed soldiers stood on the bumper and on the step by the cab, watchful and menacing. One of them thumped the butt of his rifle on the roof of the truck. It rolled ahead, gushing black smoke.

  I did not understand the changes that were happening just beyond our compound gates, and Gashe did not explain. Could these be criminals? And if so, how could there be so many?

  “It is political,” my teacher had said. “It is of no consequence to you. It is not something to be discussed.”

  But it was of consequence to me. How could a sighted person turn a blind eye?

  “Be a child. Enjoy your freedom. Do not think too much. Do not see. You will grow up soon enough, and then you will wish you were a child,” the teacher told us.

  But he was wrong. Being a child was not freedom. It was having decisions made for you, like today, when I wanted to work on my diagram, and Gashe made me come with him. To be a child was to pursue the dreams of the father. I wanted to make my own decisions, but as the son of Gashe, I knew that would never happen.

  When he switched off the car, we were in a part of the city I did not recognize. He passed me a heavy cardboard carton he had taken from the trunk.

  “You will give out these,” he said. “To anyone who looks as if he can read.”

  Inside were half-size papers covered in writing and folded in half. He took another box from the trunk, a wooden one, which he upturned on the side of the road. He stood on it and began to speak.

  “One man,” he began. “One man standing alone.” He stood slightly above everyone else, his rich voice drawing people to him. When a small crowd had gathered, he repeated his words. “One man, standing alone, is like the flicker of a single candle. A small flame, easy to extinguish.” He paused. “But a thousand men standing together, a thousand men, their flames are a conflagration, a light that cannot be put out. Their light can light another and another. One candle can light the world.”

  The men assembled near the street corner nodded and murmured agreement as Gashe continued to speak. His voice was strong and sure. His conviction so deep and powerful that for a minute, even I believed him.

  “Will you hold a candle? Will you work for an Ethiopia where all are equal? Where tribes are of no consequence? Where anyone can prosper without thought of race, religion or tribe?”

  But how could he speak so? How could he talk of change and freedom when, within his own family, there was none? How could he speak of choice when he forced us to his will? When my sister now lived in a shanty because she disobeyed him and chose her own husband? How could he call for change?

  His voice grew quiet. The men pressed closer.

  “We know people are disappearing. Who will be next?” Gashe asked. He extended his arm to the crowd. Men looked uncomfortable. They cast down their eyes and shuffled their feet. Gashe laid his hand on his chest and asked quietly, “Will it be me? Will it be my son here?” He stretched his arm to identify me, displaying me as a valuable object.

  Inside I shrank from the open gazes of the men, but outside I stood as I knew he wanted, tall and proud, unsmiling, like a statue.

  His hypocrisy sickened me. Neither he nor I were in danger because of his status as an esteemed businessman and because we lived under the protection of Isaias.

  I stood on the edge of the crowd, watching.

  And yet …

  He made these men believe. How did he do that? How was it that when he spoke on the street corner, even I believed?

  “There are those who say they will stand behind you, protect your back. But these men with elegant words are cowards, not supporters. They will use you as a human shield to protect and advance themselves.

  “Do not trust these men.

  “The ones to trust are the timid ones who go about their business every day. These good, quiet men who toil in the heat for their bread are the beating heart of Ethiopia. They stand for what is right. They demonstrate their support with courage and action.”

  I remembered, then. I was to hand out the papers. It was an easy job. Everyone wanted one.

  “No matter what happens. No matter the time of day,” said Gashe. “No matter the circumstances. Remember this. Seek those who gain no profit. For we are the people, the bricks and mortar that will build one Ethiopia. Strong and proud. Free and equal.”

  Gashe was quiet on the way home. It was as if his thoughts, like mine, were elsewhere. People gathered easily to hear him, almost as if he had been expected, which led me to wonder what he was doing and why. Would true democracy not be bad for someone like Gashe? He already had a comfortable life. He was well connected. He knew the people in power. He had nothing to gain by change. Why would he care?

  I met up with Ishi in the goat room where he was scraping out old hay and laying down fresh. Lately, he was working more and more with Fiyeli and her new goat friends, letting Etheye have more time to make the cheese and spiced butter Gashe liked. We were hauling away the dirty straw in a cart when I told him about Gashe and his speech.

  “Well, what did they say?” Ishi asked.

  “They didn’t say anything. They cheered a bit, but mostly they just listened.”

  “Not the people, dummy, the papers. What was written on them?”

  I shrugged and pushed the heavy cart while he pulled. “I don’t know. Just a bunch of writing. I didn’t read them.”

  “You are such a dope. I can’t believe you,” he said.

  12

  Gashe ordered the heavy curtains shut and the house silent as he adjusted the dial to the European stations. The reception was best late at night when the young ones slept.

  “Tell no one what you hear, you understand?” he said. “Do not discuss it at school or with your teachers or with your friends. Trust no one.”

  Tezze, Ishi and I knew that listening to any stations not sponsored by the government was as illegal as it was for people to gather. Even two could be called an assembly by the police. Two friends joking on the street could be suspicious behavior.

  And so everyone kept to
himself. Each family cloistered behind walls. Silent as monks, but afraid. Anything could happen anytime without notice, and no one would speak up for fear of what might befall him. The fear was greatest for those with Amhara or Oromo blood filling their veins. Amhara was Gashe’s tribe.

  Radio Ethiopia and the headlines of Gashe’s newspapers reported the protection of citizens through the purging of terrorists. Dissidents and insurgents were detained for re-education. But my brothers and I noticed only the Special Police had weapons. They carried AK-47s and heavy sticks we heard were filled with lead.

  “Be hit on the head with one of those sticks and your skull would crack,” said Tezze. He dribbled the football between his feet, then nudged it to Ishi. The three of us were in the back garden gathered in a circle. “You might die. Or worse, you might not know who you were or where you belonged, information of great importance should the police decide to question you.”

  “With their boots,” said Ishi. He shot the ball to me with the inside of his foot.

  “You’ve seen them when you are with Gashe?” I asked Tezze. “Near the university? How they swarm in and grab anyone?”

  My brother nodded. “And stuff them in the back of a truck,” he said.

  I hopped back and forth, lifting the ball and shunting it from side to side.

  “Where do they take them?” asked Ishi. He wedged his foot between my legs and stole the ball.

  Tezze and I shrugged.

  “The prison?” I suggested. Ishi popped the ball back to me.

  “But with so many prisoners … It doesn’t make sense,” said Ishi. “Where would they put them all?”

  “Maybe they let them go after a while,” I said. I released the ball to Tezze. That answer did not feel right, but neither Tezze nor Ishi offered a better guess.

  “Or they don’t,” said Tezze. He tripped me and ran off with the ball. Ishi and I chased him and fought for the wobbly ball held together with thin wire and layers of tape, but our hearts were not with the game. Our thoughts were on the things happening around us that we did not understand, no matter how closely we watched Gashe or how often we strained to overhear conversations with his advisors.