That gesture again! It hits me: the crowd is going crazy each time she holds back. It is so simple it makes me want to cry. The reason some preachers are better than others, or some poets better than others — they merely suggest, and your fears or wants, at their most absolute, manifest themselves. I can tell myself she is performing — but performance as I understand it is about show, fireworks — performances are not supposed to be what Kidane is doing, merely suggesting, being content to suggest and letting us do her work. I look at the lyrics.
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
Shimagilei Teffa, shibet ende’dirro
The choir comes in again, this time, allowing each voice to be soothing yet almost distinct. I can hear twenty voices, all of them with something to say, singing together — this loss, it’s ours; it’s not to be feared; it’s to be embraced. It is in the loss that they find life; they play with their voices. And The Diva is somewhere in their voices; her voice strong and vulnerable, almost lost but at the same time carrying them all. And then they slow down and let the krar take the lead until it too slows down, and the song and performance end. The stage is rushed. I expect Mustafa to jump into action. He shrugs when I look at him.
‘She is safest here — no one would dare touch her,’ he says to me.
I look again. Her fans are not rushing the stage to take a piece of her, to take a memento home; they are hurling love and kisses at her. Others rush and stand at a respectful distance — they just want to be close to her. I ask him if he can translate as I ask the people who have overrun our little VIP section some questions, or rather, one question, What is the Tizita to you? I pick the people randomly.
A schoolboy still in uniform — It fills me with pride.
A soldier — It makes death feel warmer. I ask him through Mustafa to explain a little bit more. Death, we are all going to die — me, maybe in a war. The way she sings it? It makes me know I am part of life, and I will be remembered even after I am gone.
A couple that wouldn’t be able to hide their love for each other even if they tried — If I was to lose her, I would kill myself, the man says.
And if he died, I would go on living — I would find the strength to live for the both of us, she laughs, and they try to make their way to The Diva.
An old white woman, high as a kite and dressed like a 1960s hippie — The Tizita is a mirror that does not like one single thing. I ask her to explain, but she pinches me on my cheek playfully, as Miriam would do, and says, Live long enough, son.
An old man with his son — My daughter died in the liberation war — I find comfort knowing I will join her soon.
The son/brother — The Tizita is the blood in our soil — the Tizita makes it boil. I ask him to explain, and he says he has no words beyond that.
Mustafa slaps me on my back. ‘And you, my friend, what does the Tizita mean to you?’
I am taken aback by the question but also surprised by how readily the answer rolls down my tongue. ‘Just how little of life I understand,’ I answer. ‘And you?’ I ask him.
He looks over at The Diva, and I am almost afraid of what he will say. ‘I will kill or die for her,’ he answers.
17
‘By the way, you are wrong about me. I am always me, even when I am many.’
After the concert, The Diva was too wired to sleep, and some of her adrenalin rubbed off on me. Mustafa, perhaps because of chewing khat, was looking like he had just woken up. She suggested we go to an all-night juke joint. Juke joints immediately recall run-down establishments where black American plantation workers would get together for booze and music during the Jim Crow era. But they are universal, existing in translation across all cultures — speakeasies during Prohibition; shebeens in South Africa during apartheid; holes in the wall for those wanting to do modern-day slumming; and urban after-hour bars. Certainly, the ABC, or indeed the CRP, would have translated into a juke joint in Ethiopia, but with the twist of having a diversified economy.
Generally speaking, these holes in the wall tend to be in the most dangerous parts of a town, yet safety is all but guaranteed. And these islands of the great coming together under suspended reality have another thing in common: there is no being out of place — an alien straight from Mars could drop in and be served a beer without the bartender so much as showing surprise.
This juke joint, out in one of the less savoury parts of Addis, was aptly and ironically named Chivas Regal. The Diva (or Kidane), Mustafa the bodyguard (or taxi driver) and I, a journalist (or tabloid writer) were not overdressed — all of us were right at home with the white tourists; the trying-to-be-tough-looking teens from the neighbourhood; the drunks; those cheating on a spouse; and the various wealthy subsets of Addis. There was a house band, a guitarist, drummer, bassist and singer, doing Michael Jackson covers. The band recognised The Diva by dedicating “Pretty Young Thing” to her.
‘The irony,’ she quipped.
Some of the clientele also recognised The Diva, but not in the gushy American way of getting an autograph to sell on eBay. They instead bought a bottle of beer, glass of wine, whisky or one of the roses being sold by the universal resident cupid and had it brought to our table, waved a thank you from a distance before returning to their conversation. Every now and then, someone would come up to her and say something, touch her hand gently and then go back to what they were doing.
We worked our way through the wine, beer and knock-off Chivas fast enough to have caught up with everyone else inside of an hour. Mustafa, who in here most certainly did not have any work to do, was soon on the floor dancing to a cover of “Beat It.”
‘So, you have not said anything — how did I do?’ The Diva asked me, half-jokingly.
‘The truth?’ I verified.
‘Yes, your version of it anyway,’ she answered.
‘Am I talking to The Diva or Kidane?’ I asked her.
‘Ugh, how many times do I have to…. You are talking to me. All of us are me,’ she answered, looking around as if bored, but I could tell I had just irritated her.
‘I thought that you have an integrated multi-personality disorder — that is why you have two — perhaps more — lives, and many voices in one. I loved it,’ I answered, after struggling for the right words.
She clapped her hands in delight. ‘You know how to compliment a Pretty Young Thing,’ she said with feigned sarcasm, or enthusiasm.
‘The truth is, I pitied you,’ I said.
She looked surprised.
‘I mean, I pitied you because you cannot hear yourself and realise how great you are. You can never really surprise yourself. Something in you knows what you are going to do next. I wish you can experience yourself the way we just did out there,’ I explained.
‘See, this is why I brought you to Ethiopia. You think about this stuff even when you are wrong. Yes, a part of me knows what is coming next even when I improvise, but the feeling of it — that is the surprise. I do get to experience myself outside of myself — when I feel. I do surprise myself — that moment between knowing, feeling, then falling into an abyss. It is rare, I agree, but sometimes I do get to do things I wasn’t supposed to do, even at the tip of it all.’
We both laughed seriously.
‘At the concert, why didn’t you hit the high notes? I know you can do it,’ I asked, aware that I sounded like I was accusing her of a crime, like she had cheated the crowd.
‘I think you know,’ she said and tapped my forehead.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do,’ she countered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think back — was I the only one?’ she asked, looking at me curiously.
‘My writing?’ I asked, feeling a sense of pani
c — I was in a space that was both utopia and dystopia.
‘The journalist wants to be part of the story? No, nothing to do with you; that is not it.’
I thought back — she was right, the drummer would every now and then mute the drum with one hand while hitting it with the other; the saxophonists and trumpet players would every now and then threaten to take us on a soaring journey, only to come back to the fold. In other songs, she had done everything with her voice, as had the band with its instruments. And when, somewhere in the middle of the concert, she introduced each member, they had in turn showed off their chops. But not when playing the Tizita.
‘Why?’ I asked her.
‘I told you before. Containment. The Tizita — it is private, a private love or sorrow that joins the public ocean of tears. We mourn and celebrate together and privately at the same time. A good Tizita walks that line — if you show off, you undo that balance. The people feel what they have lost, no need to slap them in the face with it. Besides, what can you tell an erupting volcano of the hotness of the lava? And the soldiers would never forgive me if I made them cry in front of each other,’ she explained.
‘They cried anyway,’ I said to her.
She shrugged to say, There goes that idea.
‘The worst Tizita is one that sounds precious. You know, like Whitney’s “I Will Always Love You,”’ she said, singing a bit of it mockingly.
There was one question I had been dying to ask, and now I had an opening. ‘What do musicians like you — musicians who care about the craft itself, its beauty and fragility, and worry about its potential to harm and distance one from life itself — what do you think of your Hollywood counterparts?’
‘Name the names,’ she said.
‘Madonna, for example. What do you think of her?’
She laughed. ‘Madonna? How about Beyoncé? I would love to have her money — as a businesswoman. But the truth is, I don’t think of them at all — as an artist, I don’t,’ she answered.
‘But you are all musicians,’ I said, regaining my balance.
‘They entertain; they make people feel good or sad, I will grant them that — there is nothing wrong with that. But what I do…. Are you really asking the question I think you are asking?’ she stopped and looked at me.
‘I just…’
‘Your Hollywood stars, they get on stage, and all they have is themselves, their voices, their aesthetic, you know, their coolness — me, and the others, we are motherfucking philosophers of the soul….’ She stopped and looked at me when I started laughing.
‘No, no — don’t laugh,’ she protested. ‘Take your pop song — it’s either sad or happy — it has no range. But the blues contain happiness and sorrow at the same time. A song with a single emotion? That is not music. A good song contains a rainbow of emotions. Children know this. When my daughter was a kid, she thought blues music had the colour blue. She would ask me, what is red music? What is white music? What is yellow music?’
‘So then, what is the difference between the blues and the Tizita?’
‘Is there a difference between languages? Between Swahili and Amharic?’ she asked and then continued, ‘Lots of difference, and yet there is no difference. In the end, we speak many languages to say the same things — see what I mean?’
I said no, and she shook her head and laughed.
‘I guess journalists are not artists,’ she said.
‘You know, I have heard that the Tizita was first sung by wandering musician poets, then that it comes from singing the psalms — what is your version of the truth?’ I asked her as she laughed.
‘Yes, the truth of the Tizita has many versions. But I believe it comes from the language itself. Amharic is the Tizita in conversation. Or Tigrinya or Oromo — you know what I mean? We are the same people, no?’ she asked, knowing very well I had no idea. She asked me for the lyrics she had given to me through Mustafa, and I laid them on the table.
‘Listen to this: Hiiwot zora zora, TeQuma tizitan / Dirron ayto madneQ, yesekenu eletta. Listen carefully,’ she said as she leaned into me and repeated the first two lines conversationally before singing them. I could hear it — the rhythm of the Tizita contained in the language, the soft q click adding a quick uptick to the syncopation.
‘The other versions might be true, but the one truth is that without the rhythm of our languages, there would be no Tizita,’ she said and playfully slapped the lyrics on the table.
‘What do the lines mean?’ I asked, hoping to get an English translation from her.
‘Without my Tizita, that sweet-sour memory / I can have no desire for tomorrow,’ she translated, then stood up to go join Mustafa on the dance floor. I got on my feet and joined them as the band did a jazz cover of “Thriller” — the crowd of misfits mimicking his zombie dance moves.
Speaking of Whitney, I wanted to dance with somebody — to connect, even drunkenly, fleetingly. There was a beautiful woman dancing. Just my luck, or more likely because she was on the dance floor, the band broke into their own Tizita, and I hesitated for just long enough for a white tourist to make his way to her.
‘Fuck off. I am not going to share my Tizita. Just buzz off,’ I overheard her tell the man, who, red-faced, walked away to the bar.
The woman glared at me, daring me to make the same ill-advised move. I was not brave enough. I looked over to see if The Diva was watching, only to find her walking towards me smiling. She asked me if I wanted to dance.
‘She just said the Tizita cannot be shared,’ I said to her, pointing at the woman swaying by herself.
‘She said that? There is a loophole — I sing the Tizita, I should know — we shall not be dancing to share — I will be teaching!’
We danced, my hands around her shoulders and hers on my hips — me feeling offbeat and lost, and she comfortably cupping my hips.
‘The Tizita — if you hear a good Tizita, you want to hold your arms across your chest. The Tizita looks inwards,’ she lectured.
‘A mirror? It allows you to see yourself?’ I asked, thinking of MJ’s “Man in the Mirror” and how clichéd this was getting.
‘A mirror — a reflection — gives you back who you are. No, the Tizita does more than that. It’s more…refraction; every part of you refracts the other. A blindness of total, complete realisation: your arms, mirrors; your brain, a mirror; your heart, a mirror — and somehow, they are all talking to each other. A good Tizita folds you inside out and back in again,’ the lecture continued.
‘Jesus, sounds a bit violent,’ I voiced out before I could stop myself.
‘No, it’s a beautiful thing to refract yourself back to yourself. Anyway, the point is, a good Tizita musician allows for that refraction. An excellent Tizita musician, no, wait…the once-in-a-lifetime Tizita musician allows for the refracted pieces to connect, to hear each other through their echoes. When you listen to a good Tizita, you can never be alone.’
She pulled me tighter towards her. In high heels, she was taller than I was. I leaned into her. For just a brief second, our slow dancing funnelled heat upwards through her dress, up her breasts and bra. I could tell she was as hungry as I was hard. I inhaled deeply. With each slow move and beat, I breathed in perfume, but not just hers; her desire, but not just hers; her breath spitting out alcohol, saliva, and her lips….
We pulled away even as we continued to dance close.
‘How does it feel to perform for 60,000 people?’ I tried to carry on.
‘In front of 60,000, I am lost in them. But at a juke joint or the ABC, I can feel myself, each word, each note. I can see it in the eyes of the audience. We dance and sing together, you know?’ she explained, pulling me towards her even tighter. I could feel myself becoming unbalanced — like I was falling into her, and it was both exciting and frightening.
‘Kidane, what is it you want from me?’ I blurted out.
‘It’s the other way around. I want you to learn something,’ she said and pulled me against her as hard a
s she could.
‘What?’ I asked desperately.
‘Not every desire has to be met,’ she said and walked away before the song came to an end.
I had to think fast how to solve the little matter of my tent. For cover, I coughed violently, bent downwards and walked back to the table. Had I lost her? No, wait, in all honesty she was never mine to lose. It felt more like something had snapped — for better if the sexual tension was behind us now, or for worse if that was the only thing holding us together. At the table, we continued on as if nothing had happened. Nothing had happened.
By 3 or 4am, the juke joint band was just jamming, throwing each other notes here and there until the bass finally caught a hypnotic puttering rhythm. The drums were just steady, with the guitar coming to life every now and then to give reggae-accented slaps to the rhythm. The singer, quite drunk, was at the counter trying to talk up the woman who had told off the white tourist, and they seemed to be getting along. The Diva walked to the microphone and started humming. The bass — lazy, hypnotic, puttering here and chugging — and she singing along, humming, throwing a word here and there, sometimes yodelling, showing off her voice in ways she had not at the concert.
The band played on and on until the song was no longer something outside of us, until it became so much part of our life, that life at the juke joint resumed: stories between friends, laughter, sounds of a breaking bottle — the nothings that make most of our evenings and nights. The song became the very air we were breathing. And at the same time, it was breath that announced itself, that reminded us of pain and love at the same time, extremes of several emotions felt at the same time. The band played on and she sang on, at some point taking a break to go to the ladies’ restroom. When she came back, the bass player went to the bar to get a beer, and the drummer took a puff of one thing or the other. They played and lived, and I guess we listened and lived.
Unbury Our Dead with Song Page 10