The fun had just started. We kept adding more wood and brush; the bonfire crackled and snapped, and we kept moving back the perimeter until it felt like we were standing a kilometre away from a small, angry, erupting volcano.
‘It’s a thing of beauty!’ Mohamed said in admiration of our handiwork.
‘But it is so damn hot!’ Kidane, now more like The Diva I remembered, echoed my thoughts.
‘Well, sometimes beauty is not comfortable,’ he said, passing a bottle of Scotch to her.
‘Getting a bit philosophical?’ she asked, sounding annoyed.
On my way to sudden drunkenness, all I could think was that something had been brewing between the two of them.
‘No, just saying that sometimes beauty can be dangerous. Have you ever seen a cancerous ovary up close?’ he asked with a smile that, in the yellowish-red firelight, looked a bit sinister.
‘Mohamed, why do we have to go through this each time? What happened last night?’ She turned to me to explain. ‘He does this — he brings his work home with him.’
‘As if you don’t. But I don’t mind coming home and finding you at work,’ he retorted, giving her a nudge. ‘What I mean is, it is the most beautiful thing, and once you see it — to be able to see its beauty — it usually means it’s too late,’ he went on.
‘What about cancerous balls?’ The Diva joked.
He gestured at me. ‘Imagine — you are a journalist, aren’t you? — imagine a beautiful white cloud, covered by a reddish layer of needle-thin strings. And then, on top of that, the brightest rainbow stripes of blood red and brown all around it. In your hand, it’s alive. Cancer — you know what cancer really is? It’s your body trying to fight off something; you don’t catch cancer like a cold; it’s your body producing cells to protect the damaged ones. It’s beautiful in many ways,’ he said, sounding like a musician finding beauty in the pain that produced a song.
‘Then why do we try to kill it before it kills us?’ I asked him.
‘Because we do not understand it. If you can’t tell the difference between a friend and a deadly enemy from a distance, you can let them get closer. If it’s a friend, then you are safe, but if it’s your enemy, then he is within killing distance, and boom, you are gone. We do a pre-emptive strike. If it was your enemy, well, then I guess your gamble paid off. If it was a friend, your attack turns him into an even deadlier enemy. A recent study just showed this. It is like our war with Eritrea; it is the same thing — we couldn’t tell whether they were friends or enemies, and we could not wait to find out. We went to war. It turned out they were our friend, whom we turned into a dangerous enemy. Cancer is beautiful in many ways,’ he explained, but underneath his words, there was a real pain that I could not understand.
‘What? You are a writer now, are you, Mohamed? Am I a cancer? Or is that what you wish on me now? You knew what I did before we met—’
‘And yes, I knew. I knew you were beautiful, as you still are—’
‘You know I am on the road again tomorrow — is this what this is all about? Poor Doctor Mohamed, at home with his two children while I sleep with strange men?’
She was tipsy and angry at the same time. Mohamed tensed up. Not for the last time I wondered why she had invited me into her home. We could have met in a hotel lobby or a coffee shop.
Then something seemed to click for her, and she groaned, raising the bottle to her lips.
‘My God, it’s not about me. Did something happen last night? How is the patient you went to see?’ she asked him, passing the bottle to me and hugging him.
I knew I should have gone back to the house, but being what I am, I stayed, reasoning one of them would have asked for some privacy or walked off and come back when calmness had returned.
‘She died,’ he said. They hugged, making their world their own, leaving me, as one blues singer sang, on the outside looking in.
‘And the baby, did it make it?’ The Diva asked with so much empathy that I thought she would burst into tears.
‘See, this is what I mean, Kidane — that was fucking six months ago. Both mother and child survived. I am talking about a different patient,’ Mohamed said.
Kidane started laughing. It really was time to excuse myself. But then, Mohamed joined her and they laughed — I mean, laughing until they were down on the ground and rolling around. So much so that I was scared they were too helpless in their laughter to mind the fire. Leading two intense lives, they had to make it work, and they found catharsis wherever they could, I figured.
They both sighed and started laughing again. Astrophysics, medicine and the Tizita — I was either with two of the most dynamic, intelligent and sensitive human beings out in the hills and valleys of Ethiopia, or we were all very drunk. Either way, I was happy they had pulled me out of bed. The Diva, Kidane, in her red dress, flames lighting her unevenly, looking so beautiful, so present and in love — and alone at the same time — for that alone, it was worth it.
15
‘Mohamed, can I ask you something, since we are sharing the green?’
We sat around for a while, taking turns throwing dry brush into the fire, taking delight as it flared up even higher. Kidane, already drunk, still had enough sense to go to bed. There was another bottle lying somewhere nearer to the fire. I looked around until I found it, together with the glasses we had long abandoned. The bottle was hot, and Mohamed let out a big cheer, yelling that there was nothing like boiling whisky to soothe the soul. He poured himself a long drink, looked over at my glass, nodded and filled it to a point where I knew a spill was inevitable. It reminded me of when I first met Kidane at the ABC and her rather long pour, and I commented to him that it must be a family trait.
‘No, my friend, it’s called the disease of plenty. The Americans and their fast food, Kenyans and goat meat — diabetes and gout. The disease of plenty for those who can afford it — it kills us in the end.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a joint, lit it and said to me, ‘But what better way to go, no? Now, you take the green.’
I took a long drag.
‘You see, Kidane does not like it when I smoke,’ he explained as he impatiently beckoned I hand him the joint. ‘Ethiopian versus Kenyan Cannabis sativa?’ he asked.
A statistical tie we concluded.
‘Ethiopian versus Kenyan runners?’ I asked him
Another statistical tie, given our earlier sprint from the explosion.
‘Ethiopian food versus Kenyan?’ was his rejoinder.
We both laughed at the question.
‘Cheers then!’ he said happily.
‘Cheers!’
‘So, what do you need for Kidane’s profile? I can only say nice things. I live here, you know,’ he said with just a slight humour to his voice.
‘Well, her music, what do you think of it?’ I asked him.
He thought a moment. ‘When my mother died, Kidane sang at her funeral. I laughed and cried at the same time, and people thought I had gone crazy. To this day, I do not know why.’
‘Yes, it happens sometimes — trauma,’ I offered.
‘Yes, trauma. But I do not mean that kind of cry-laughter. I mean, I was laughing in pain and crying in joy at the same time. There is something about the way she sings the Tizita that brings out many full emotions at the same time. Or maybe it’s because she is my wife. What do you think? You have heard her sing the Tizita?’ he asked.
I thought back to the early evening Tizita-Malaika performance, and her ‘failed’ song at the ABC.
‘That is what I am trying to figure out. That is why I am here. I want to understand…okay, I want to feel.’
‘Remember the uncertainty principle — maybe we can never ever truly know,’ he said.
‘Mohamed, can I ask you something, since we are sharing the green? How does she live with herself? All that intensity, how come she does not burn up?’ I said, thinking about what the old man had said.
He added more brush to the fire.
‘Th
is farm, her family — nothing can get her here — we all hold her together. You know you are the first journalist she has allowed here; I was surprised and angry, to tell you the truth. Do you know why she let you in?’ he asked, leaning closer towards me.
‘I have no idea. I was honest — I have a wound and scars…. I do not know where they came from…. I don’t even know if they are mine…. Maybe she took pity on me. I need to find out more about her and the Tizita. I need to know — that is what I told her,’ I replied, and asked him how they met.
It was the old man’s son who brought them together 15 years ago. When he shot himself in the head, the old man found his body still twitching, probably death spasms, and thought he was still alive. He had sent for Mohamed. By the time Mohamed got there, Bekele was dead.
Mohamed and Bekele were age mates, but had never really developed a friendship. Mohamed was too much into books, and Bekele was more interested in sports, football especially. And he was good enough to be drafted into the under-16 national team. But, like his father before him against the Italians, when the call for freedom from Mengistu’s tyranny came, Bekele signed up and distinguished himself as a guerrilla fighter. He could have written his ticket into almost any political office in the Meles Zenawi government, but he was a soldier’s soldier, and in the new, blended army of former government and guerrilla fighters, he was named a major. And then the Ethiopian-Eritrean war — and he was once again killing his brothers with whom he had fought to get rid of their dictator. It was too much for him, Mohamed explained.
Did he know Kidane before then? Of course, he did. Everyone knew her as a talented singer. He had feelings for her even when they were kids. But she was the headmistress’s daughter — only Bekele dared mess with her.
‘She told me that the boys called her horse mouth?’ I asked him.
‘Boys can be stupid. What can they know of true beauty at that age?’
Something about his tone suggested to me that he was probably one of those boys. But that was fine by me. We are all allowed to rewrite our histories, as long as it was in meaningless ways. I do it all the time.
Bekele and Kidane’s love affair was well known. It had started when they were very young, and Mohamed’s first thought as he stood there, looking at the body, was that now he stood a chance with her. Bekele was buried; Kidane moved to the city, and it was not until two years later when she returned to bury her mother and look after her sick father that she and Mohamed reconnected again. And so had begun their courtship, until one day she asked him to kneel, and then she proposed.
‘Love. Why didn’t Bekele stay after the first war?’ I asked him.
‘If presented with the same opportunity as Bekele, what would you have done?’ he shot back.
‘It’s not an opportunity—’
‘You know what I mean,’ he said emphatically.
‘Probably nothing — my family was in bed with our dictator. I would have been on the side-lines at best,’ I said, thinking that is exactly what I had done — stood on the side-lines as my friends joined the pro-democracy movements, showing off their eyes, bloodshot from teargas, like they were battle scars. Lives were lost, some through assassination and others torture, but my family and I, we thrived. My father would turn off the TV every time reports of the demonstrations came on and would shake his head from side to side, as if to say, These youngsters have no idea what they are doing. My brother had defended some of the arrested, but it was with the clinical detachment of a criminal defence attorney; innocence or guilt did not matter, just a question of whether he could get them off and get paid. And soon after, he re-applied himself to corporate law. But at least he had been in the fray — somewhat.
‘Then we must not judge. He did what was right the first time, then the second time he thought he was defending what he had fought for the first time,’ he said, more for me than for himself, I thought.
‘You remind me of the brother I have but never really had,’ I said to him.
Jack never was one to pull me back; he would rather push me into whatever muck or raging waters were in front of me and then point a finger.
‘You are wrong about that — your brother is always your brother,’ he replied with conviction.
I did not say anything.
‘Do you have children?’ he asked.
‘I like my freedom too much, so no. Why?’ I asked in return, surprised.
‘Believe me, I know they are not for everyone, but I cannot help feeling pity for those who do not. To not know absolute love — to give it and to receive it. I cannot help but pity that,’ he said in a tone that was sad and passionate at the same time.
‘I cannot miss something I do not know,’ I said. I knew I sounded defensive but could not help it.
‘I wake up in the morning, get the kids ready for school; sometimes Kidane is here; often she is not. Sometimes, when an emergency call comes, they have to do the best they can and stop at a neighbour’s for breakfast on their walk to school. But I do — Kidane does — we do what we do because this community keeps us all alive. Can you understand that? No, you cannot, because you have nothing more to lose than yourself.’ He was not being judgemental. He was reading me as much as I was reading him and his family.
I kept quiet.
‘If I have learned one thing from the Tizita — it’s precisely those things that we don’t know that we miss; you just don’t know it,’ he said.
‘Do you think people like me and you ever meet again?’ he asked as an afterthought.
‘Maybe. I hope so. But the truth is, we shall never meet like this again. It will always be in lesser circumstances. Another night like this? Very unlikely,’ I answered, feeling both relieved and lucky.
‘I…then a toast to a bigger fire. To the heavens!’ he yelled at the sky.
He stood up, and I followed him to get a water hose. We sprayed the fire down to smouldering cinders.
***
Someone was knocking on my door urgently, and I ran to open it, half-asleep. Kidane walked in, opened my curtains. And as the sun streamed in, I realised she was wearing a tracksuit and muddied white running shoes. She rummaged through my bag as I tittered around in my boxers until she found shorts and a T-shirt, which she threw on my bed. It was 6:30 in the morning.
‘Kidane, where are we going?’ I asked her, the words finally finding their way through the fog.
‘Don’t you want to join me for a run? You will love it. It’s a lot like Kenya,’ she said. And in case I had any doubts that she was serious, she started jogging in place.
‘I have no running shoes,’ I protested.
She went out and came back with a pair of sneakers, her husband’s, but they were too big for me. She stuffed two socks inside and handed them back to me. There was no way I was going to run in shoes stuffed with socks, so I put on my safari boots, knowing there would be some blisters coming my way.
We stepped outside to a beautiful morning; it must have rained sometime at night because the gravel path had small puddles of water, and the mist was thick and wet as the sun warmed its way through. These types of mornings — if you have lived in a rural area, you come to miss them. And given the right set of conditions, it is like a former smoker smelling cigarette smoke after a long time — it invokes vivid memories of comfort and welcome familiarity.
‘I would rather not run,’ I said to her. In fact, the last time I remembered running was during an all-high-school marathon try-out — 42 kilometres. Eight hours and countless scoops of glucose later, my friends and I staggered to the finish line. That was the end of my running career.
‘No shame in resting, just like yesterday,’ she teased.
And she was off — light, slightly bow-legged and smooth. I followed her. We ran for about 30 minutes. Whatever had been gripping my chest tighter with every exertion started to relax, but I knew I was running on pure adrenaline, and tomorrow morning, if not sooner, would be pure agony. I sprinted to catch up with her. Something I imme
diately regretted, as I felt the early tremors of a muscle pull. We stopped, and I doubled onto my knees.
‘How long do you run for?’ I asked her.
‘About an hour,’ she said.
‘Why?’ I asked, but that was not what I meant. ‘I mean, you have a concert in a few hours. You will be exhausted,’ I explained myself.
‘Running — at that moment when I feel like I am almost dying — that is where the Tizita takes place for me. It gives me energy. That is how I know the Tizita is not about death, but about life,’ she answered, now lying down so that her back was resting on the hill, her chest heaving.
I lay flat on the hill, feeling gravity tagging at my toes as the cool dew soaked in through my T-shirt. I tried to feel my feet through the heat of the safari boots and gave up. She undid her laces and laced up again.
‘Can I ask you something? I have seen your posters all over the place. On YouTube you have millions of fans. You have been invited by presidents to sing in their palaces and you have declined. You are bigger than this place, this farm. What are you doing out here?’ To take the edge off my question, I added, ‘Is all this for your children?’
‘It is home — this is where I grew up. This is where I get my music. For you, all you can see are hills and valleys, but for me, this landscape is like a living map of my life, of my history. I met a boy and fell in love here. I had my first period playing not far from here. My parents are buried here. These hills and valleys were once soaked with the blood of our freedom fighters. You see what I mean?’ She stood up and started stretching.
“Hills and Valleys” by Buju Banton came to mind.
‘When I am here, I have no nostalgia. Besides, why can’t my singing also be like a city job, where every few months I get to go back home? Are you a city boy?’ she asked.
Unbury Our Dead with Song Page 8