‘Yeah . . . Mum . . .’ adds Nati slowly, too jammed up with food to speak.
‘No . . . no . . . I can’t let her go. Sorry.’
We resume dinner, but the family plate is now bare. Nati has successfully exploited the hiatus, his jaws almost unable to function against the solid ball of injera stuffed into his mouth.
We sit silently for a while. I have lost my appetite anyway. Lebanon is off. Nati chews sullenly. Henok is in danger of losing a head-full of blood. Mum is trying to make conversation with me.
‘How are the customers at Elephant Walk?’
‘Fine.’
‘How’s Tsehay?’
‘Fine.’
‘How’s the traffic in Bole Road?’
‘Fine.’
‘How’s the food in Elephant Walk? What’s on the menu?’
‘Pizzas, injera, firfir, tibs, kitfo—’
‘Mum! Let her go!’ barks Nati, unable to stand the names of delicious Ethiopian dishes unless he’s actually eating them.
‘No, I can’t,’ says Mum firmly.
‘Look at us . . . sitting here, bored as always . . . no television, no satellite, no variation in food . . . at least let one of us try for something more. In rich countries, dollar bills just lie around on the street,’ pleads Nati, now sounding impressive.
‘No.’
‘Mum, you’ve done enough . . . I can get us back to where we were. This is for the family, not just for me. I want to see us return to comfort . . . the way it was,’ I push, suddenly happening upon a valid motive for Lebanon.
‘Yeah, Mum!’ shouts Nati. ‘This is all for you!’
‘In that case, no, thank you. I decline the offer.’
I groan. Nati has ruined it.
Blood is spurting and bubbling out of Henok’s nose with a life of its own. The three of us look aghast at him. It’s never been this bad before. Mum holds Henok’s shoulders and shakes him violently. I expect to see limbs flying off.
‘What are you thinking? Say it! Say it!’ she shrieks into his face.
Henok’s forehead scrunches in concentration. So rarely do they flow, but words must be squeezed out of that head: words as sharp as the lemon juice dripping from his feet and vital as the blood spitting from his nose.
‘Mum . . . will you please let her go to Lebanon before I drop dead?’ says Henok steadily.
‘Even Henok supports me! And it’ll be better than plodding up and down Bole Road every day . . . I’ll be useful at last!’
‘Ishee,’ says Mum at last, indicating a non-retractable ‘Yes!’‘All of us want her to go, except you, Mum. What’s your problem?’ continues Nati.
‘I said ishee! If you push me any more, I’ll withdraw my ishee,’ says Mum tetchily.
‘She said ishee!’ I proclaim. ‘Nati, shut up! I’m going to Lebanon! We’ll be rich!’
‘But what about your age? You must be too young,’ says Mum, detecting a fault line.
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘The minimum age is eighteen, Meron . . . you’re sixteen.’
‘Nooo . . .’ I whine.
‘Change your birth certificate!’ shoots Nati.
‘How can I do that?’ I ask. ‘How, Mum? Tell me, please!’
‘I’ll talk to the kebelle. I have a contact person there at the local municipal office . . . they can get a false one for you, I think.’
Nati and I cheer as though Thierry Henry has scored for Arsenal. Henok staggers to his bed and lies down for a while, leaving droplets of blood about the place. Mum’s face darkens as though she is peering into a blackened oven of sizzling meat. We have no meat. No animal has been slaughtered. At least, not yet.
Mum obtains the falsified birth certificate within days. I am suddenly an absurdly young-looking nineteen-year-old. Coincidentally, Mum stops wearing her wedding ring at this time – a major development for her – but with my head so full of Lebanon, I forget to ask her why. She is hardly talkative anyway. Perhaps her heart is open for business again after a protracted closure.
The agency sends my details to Beirut. A potential employer, the ‘sponsor’, chooses me on the basis of my photo. The agency arranges a work visa. Vaccinations are acquired, a health check endured. We pay three thousand birr for all of this. Mum now has no savings. The agency books the flight for Beirut. I start packing.
The anticipation electrifies my every thought and movement but I work hard at repressing my urge to giggle at nothing in particular. Nobody else around me has an exit from the grime of Addis; nobody else is in the mood for sniggering like a fool. Now I can ridicule the brazen men and mock the constant morass of the rainy season. I can even tolerate the unrelenting flies. I am sure there will be no flies in Lebanon.
My Funeral
Today sees the end of the thirteenth month on our calendar, and tomorrow is New Year’s Day. Every Ethiopian year enjoys a straggle of five or six extra days, ganging together to form what we generously describe as the thirteenth ‘month’, though it looks more like a ‘week’ to me. This is not the only unique feature of our calendar: by taking a flight from Addis Ababa to Beirut today, I will instantly jump from 10th September 1996 to 18th May 2004. There is nothing special about the Ethiopian Airways flight. It will not be whizzing through time: merely 2,800 kilometres of space. Seven or eight years – depending on whether it’s a Leap Year – always separate the Ethiopian Coptic calendar from the International Gregorian calendar. And whereas we have thirteen months, the rest of the world has twelve. I learnt all this at school.
We tell the time differently too. By travelling to Beirut, I will relocate from an ancient system based on the number of hours passed after sunrise or sunset to Universal Time, previously known as Greenwich Mean Time: in Addis, it is often termed ‘international time’ in contrast to ‘Habesha time’. Nine o’clock in the morning Universal Time is three hours after sunrise in Ethiopia: therefore, it is three o’clock Habesha time, not 9am. Fortunately in Ethiopia, the sun always rises and sets around 6am and 6pm in Universal Time, and the twelve-hour clock recommences at these times. No difference officially exists between Beirut and Addis Ababa, but as an Ethiopian abroad I will soon be aware of the six-hour gap. School also taught me this.
It is unlikely that anything else learnt in school will serve me in any way at all, except hopefully my English. They did not teach us how to be domestic servants. Or how to survive two years and three months without my mother. Or how to cope with the Middle Eastern culture. Calendars, Leap Years, time zones and clocks all seem meaningless today. I go today. I leave my family, my home, my city, my mother today. Whether it’s nine o’clock or three o’clock, 1996 or 2004, heart-mangling physical removal is heart-mangling physical removal. School didn’t ready me for this.
‘Auntie Kidist is here to say goodbye,’ announces Mum, jolting me from my last-minute brooding.
‘Good luck, Meron . . . but it’s a big mistake,’ says Kidist, trying to pull a smile across her broad, slightly squashed head.
Younger than Mum, Kidist is a sturdy-framed woman with little rolls of fat evenly dispersed about her body, cleverly saved up for another major food shortage. These little rolls also appear in her cheeks, thus softening the blows of her husband’s fists when he beats her. It is strange that such a bright, kind face would invite the sharp knuckles of the one who loves her. Kidist is designed for cuddling not punching, but her husband, Desalegn, thinks otherwise.
‘I know you think it’s wrong, Auntie, but we all make mistakes . . . let me make a really big one and I might even learn something,’ I say, beaming bravely.
She kisses and hugs me, but there’s something missing in her embrace. If she thinks I was hinting at her mistake in marrying Desalegn, then she’s absolutely right. Or it could be that she is terrified of our family becoming wealthier than hers.
‘Bye, Auntie,’ I c
ontinue, ‘and don’t be jealous of my escape from Addis, or the riches that I’ll gather.’
‘Uh? I’m not.’
Kidist baulks and leaves abruptly. Mum rolls her eyes at me, as if to say ‘sorry’ for her sister.
Sat on his usual step outside our house, like a wizened old timer, bare feet splayed, grubby hands resting on scuffed knees, itching to slap his own thighs at his own jokes, the usual mucky rags hanging from his frame for the sake of modesty, face screwed up into a constant scoff at the harsh midday sun, Abush, a stunted nine-year-old street kid who serves no useful purpose in the world, looks me up and down, licks his lips and makes an utterance.
‘Hey, Lemma, you’re almost Beyoncé.’
‘Thanks, Abush,’ I reply curtly, lumbering with my luggage.
He calls everyone by the old countryside names of their fathers. This is to embarrass my neighbours who prefer to forget their rustic peasant pasts. In Addis, only modern surnames will do. Names make no difference to me today. Lemma, Meron, Beyoncé, who cares? I’m almost not here.
‘Don’t worry, Lemma! Beyoncé’s eyes are wonky . . . yours are straight. Where are you going with the suitcase?’
‘Lebanon, two years. Will you survive that long?’
‘Survive? That’s what I do,’ he replies, beckoning me closer so he can whisper. ‘Listen, I think the government has missed something, something big . . . just between you and me, okay? I eat food from everyone else . . . from their garbage. I get all my food from other people’s garbage, Lemma. Free food! I pay nothing!’
‘Eh? But that makes you sick, Abush, eating other people’s rubbish.’
‘Sick? Never. Stomach adapts, and anyway, no germs in Addis . . . they’re all in Germany . . .’
He falls on the ground chortling. Three other boys race over and join in. They have no idea what they are laughing at. All the germs are in Germany. Ridiculous.
‘Hey, Lemma, who’s going to pay me your one birr every day?’ yells Abush.
This is a street kid’s way of saying ‘I’ll miss you’. Abush does not admit to soft emotions like that.
‘Payment in advance . . . one birr per year . . . two years, that’s two birr. Bye, Abush.’
‘Good girl . . . and don’t give yourself to an Arab. You’re already spoken for, Lemma. I’ve got first claim on you!’ he shouts threateningly.
I toss the two birr at him. It is expected. The dreadfully poor of Addis live off the generous poor of Addis, an informal safety net to ensure nobody dies of hunger in the streets. Abush nods appreciatively, a pair of lens-less sunglasses flopping down from his forehead onto the bridge of his buckled nose, endowing him with an almost intellectual look from a distance. But close up, he and the gutter run seamlessly.
I hesitate in case there’s a ‘Bye, Lemma!’ but it doesn’t come. I glance back. He pokes out the end of his twirling tongue at me, with its disgusting implication. Managing a slight grin, I shake my head; the final enduring memory of Abush, preserved. Two years for a street kid is a long time. I’m sure there will be no street kids in Lebanon.
Twelve of us board the blue and white minibus. There are ten supportive neighbours, my mother, the driver, myself and a black canvas suitcase with the huge white words ‘MERON LEMMA’ chalked onto it. This is not for reclamation purposes at the final destination: instead, my mother has assured me that nobody will steal baggage with a scrawled name on the side.
‘It looks like you’re boarding an aeroplane for the first time,’ she explains.
‘Well, I am.’
‘It makes you look poor and ignorant . . .’
‘Thanks, Mum . . . I appreciate that.’
‘Which means there’s nothing of any value in your suitcase.’
‘And there isn’t . . . except my snack bag of roasted barley and chickpeas, my kolo,’ I joke. ‘A potential thief might see the suitcase and think it’s full of bedbugs,’ she continues seriously. ‘Open the thing and suddenly his house is infested . . . within a single night his bed linen is dotted with blood.’
‘It should act as a deterrent then, like my tracksuit and trainers.’
The tracksuit I’m wearing is like a mat of slime-green algae draped over my shoulders. The trainers are more orange than oranges. It’s Mum’s idea for discouraging a new Arab master from love at first sight. My hair is tied up into an unkempt ball: he might think my head is a mouldy cauliflower. Below this, no earrings, nail varnish, make-up or perfume adorn this girl. To be attracted to me will require an addled imagination, immense willpower or some mind-boggling perversion that has yet to reach Ethiopia.
As the minibus pulls away from our neighbourhood, my mother is very quiet. Her face tilts downwards as though unbearably burdened with sadness. The neighbours jabber with excitement behind us. Their eagerness to accompany us to the airport is what I choose to interpret as ‘well-wishing’, rather than cynical attachment to me in the hope of receiving lavish gifts upon my return. They help to divert attention from the pure awfulness of a mother–daughter parting.
Mum and I are in the passenger seat next to the driver, who is youngish, skinny, bored. At this moment, I envy him his boredom. He knows tomorrow he will be sitting in the same seat, shouting abuse at the same fellow drivers in Bole Road. He will finish work, chew chat leaves, eat injera, try to have sex and then sleep in a hut. Tomorrow, I will be in Lebanon under the charge of a complete stranger, possibly realising I have made the mistake of my life. If the driver should offer a job swap in these long agonising minutes from home to airport, I will embrace him.
Urgh! He’s noticed me. Purely because I’ve looked at him for a second, he assumes I’m drooling over his spectacular driving skills and my heart is a single flutter away from undying love. There will be no men like him in Lebanon. He begins to say something.
‘I wouldn’t mind being a taxi driver . . . I’ve seen sixteen-year-old drivers before,’ I say to Mum quickly, before I’m flooded with his inanities.
‘You’re a girl, not a boy. You can’t drive taxis.’
‘I wouldn’t mind being a boy.’
That would be the easier option in Ethiopia.
‘Shut up, daughter, you are what you are . . . an unworldly girl with low blood pressure who has no idea what she is doing. What do you know about cleaning a large house?’
Thank you, God. Bole Airport is suddenly before us, the international hub of Africa. I choose to check the contents of my pockets rather than answer Mum’s question. I know nothing about cleaning a large house. Why would I?
Today, there’s jostle to rival Merkato, the city’s great market. Dozens of families are hanging around next to the barriers into the departures lounge, mainly led by wailing mothers.
‘Okay, bye, Mum,’ I say casually, readying my passport and ticket in my free hand, the downbeat suitcase in the other.
We hug tightly. I can’t let go of her white robe. She’s crying without sound or shudder. Mum is a passive crier with only the trickle of tears proving her sorrow. I am the same. If anyone can see me from behind, they will see that I am pumping water onto the concourse like a burst pipe silently gushing in the dead of night. Inanimate weeping is a family trait.
‘Okay, Mum, it’s time . . . time to go now. Tell Nati and Henok I love them . . .’
They stayed at home playing football in the street. Boys! I’m incensed at their indifference to my departure. Winning a game of street football is obviously a serious affair. When I return, I will ask them what the score was, and expect a detailed analysis of every minute of that single crucial game.
‘They’re just boys, don’t be angry,’ says my mother.
As though blind, she is stroking my face, hair, neck and shoulders, savouring the last few moments of my physicality. There’s dread in her touch. I feel it.
‘I’ll miss you so much, Mum, I can’t . . .’ I’m crying
again.
‘I’ll you miss you too . . . you’re doing a good thing with your life, I respect that . . . all I ask is that you pray, you remember your family . . . and be a good worker, show them your Habesha spirit, do what they say . . .’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Remember Proverbs 6:20–23: “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart always: tie them about your neck. When you walk, they will lead you: when you lie down, they will watch over you: and when you awake, they will talk with you.”’
‘Thanks. It’s a good one.’
‘Your father is still with you . . . we will both be with you whatever happens and wherever you are,’ she whispers, another chiffon clinch enveloping my body.
‘Oh God, I want to stay!’ I moan.
‘You can! Let’s go home and be happy!’
A security guy smirks across at me suggestively. Stay here and I’m exchanging my adult life in return for that, or something a lot like that. The alternative to Lebanon is not pretty. The security guy provides the little push that I need to walk away into my new future. Is this why the airport employs him?
‘Mum, I’m really going now . . . I’ll be in touch, I promise.’
‘Put your trust in God and He will deliver you back to me.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ I splutter.
One final frantic hug and I run from her. I don’t even see the barriers. But I take one last quick glance back.
No! She’s adopted her funeral posture: hands behind back, standing to attention, head bowed slightly, fending off the frown of grief before it folds in upon her entire head. Does she think her daughter is as good as dead? The face collapses with catastrophe as everything beneath and behind seeps into a hidden drain that can never be closed. Is this how it is to die in front of your own mother? Because I have never seen anything so terrible.
I want to shout at her. Mum, I’m not dead! But it’s too late.
I must concentrate on catching the flight. I race towards passport control, rubbing tears from my face. Maybe I will die. Oh God, how can a ‘goodbye’ turn into a presumption of death? Mum! I’m so sorry!
No Lipstick in Lebanon Page 4