Beneath the Lion's Gaze (23 page)

But this morning, the beat was broken at the very end of the line by soldiers he’d never seen before. They were a trio of too-skinny boys. There were no sliding coins, no soft slap of palm on bottle, no grunt of thanks, then retreating footsteps. There was only the spare, tight shrug of shoulders and the gentle, womanly clearing of throats.

“Coca-Cola.” They spoke as one. “Three.”

He held a bottle towards them. No hand met his halfway. One of them planted a palm on the counter and slid coins towards him. He had eyes the color of new leaves and those eyes watched Melaku’s every move.

“Anything else?” Melaku asked as he produced one bottle, and another, then another, and stepped back.

They shook their heads. The bottles and coins sat untouched. They stood rigid as stone, a neat row of shoulders and necks. Melaku felt the heat of six eyeballs darting over his face in what seemed like six different directions.

“You know a man named Hailu,” they said.

“Who?” Melaku felt his knees begin to shake.

“Dr. Hailu, the father of Yonas and Dawit.” They pointed in the direction of Hailu’s house, three bony fingers with curved, sleek nails.

Melaku couldn’t tell the difference between them. “That’s a common name,” he said. “I get many customers every day. This area’s growing quickly.” Fear bent his resolve, shook his voice.

They draped their hands across the countertop and leaned forward. “Tell him we must see him today. We’ll be waiting at the jail.”

Melaku smelled the hint of myrrh, saw mouths singed brown from too much smoke. Their words wrapped around his chest.

“I don’t know if I’ll know which one he is,” he said. “Not everyone comes here, especially since the
kebele
store opened.” He gave them the look of a confused old man.

They swiveled towards the road. “He drives past here every morning.”

The soldier with the pale eyes pushed another coin towards Melaku. “For your work,” he said.

Melaku shook his head. “Keep it.” But they were gone by the time he could get the words out.

THEY’D TAKEN THE
girl’s body yesterday. The soldiers had gone to make their report and had come back hours later, dumped the body onto a gurney, and wheeled it into a waiting jeep, their frightened whispers falling behind them.

The girl’s departure had been abrupt and lacking ceremony. Hailu had said a quick prayer over her, tucked the sheet around her shoulders, and told them to be careful.

“She’s been weak,” he said. “Tell her father she asked for him often,” he added. “She was brave considering the pain,” he reminded them.

But he’d been ignored, and within minutes her hospital room was empty, leaving a shallow dent in her pillow.

In the car driving to work, Hailu took a deep breath. It would be a while before he’d be able to forget the sound of the girl asking for her father. He honked a greeting to Melaku. He was running late.

Melaku dashed out of his kiosk and pounded on the car’s hood. “Stop!”

“What is it?” Hailu said. He braked abruptly. “I could have hit you!”

“Soldiers came asking for you.” Melaku’s voice was thin. “I told them I didn’t know you, but I don’t think it worked. They wanted you to come to the jail.” He ran a hand over his head. “That means they’ve built it already …”

Hailu felt his chest tighten. “When did you see them?”

“This morning.” Melaku pointed to Hailu’s house, just as the trio had done. “They know you have two sons, they called them by name.”

“They know my sons?” Hailu stared ahead of him. “What else?”

Melaku wiped his forehead. “I didn’t think to ask questions.” He lowered his eyes. “I wanted them to leave.”

Hailu wanted to be alone. He wanted to let his anxiety unfold so he could examine it in private. “I’m running late.”

Through the rearview mirror, Hailu caught Melaku’s reflection. The man was standing next to the road, his hands hanging at his side, stark fear plain to see even from the growing distance. Hailu rolled down his window to dry the sweat that soaked the back of his shirt.

38.

A LION IS
fast and strong. A lion can jump into the sky. A lion is brave like a soldier.

“It’s brave like me,” Berhane chanted while he struggled with a bundle of newspapers stacked as high as his chin. He stumbled and bumped into Robel.

“Let me carry them,” Robel said. He took a few out of Berhane’s arms. “Don’t trip on the rocks.”

They were near the Sidist Kilo campus of Addis Ababa University, and the road in front of them was a wide asphalt circle that bent around Yekatit 12 Martyrs’ Square. Short concrete steps led to a tall obelisk. At the base of the obelisk were scenes from the 1937 Italian massacre that followed an assassination attempt on the ruthless General Graziani. Further up, a granite lion stood proud on a ledge above the fray, his paw curled around his scepter.

Berhane’s heart raced. “It’s a flying lion!”

“That’s where the emperor used to live.” Robel pointed to a large, imposing building across the street, tucked behind a thick stone wall, hidden by thickets of lush purple and red bougainvillea. “He had many houses so he gave it to the students.”

Berhane shifted the newspapers in his arms.

Robel grabbed several more. “You can’t see anything and you’ll miss the lion zoo.”

Berhane stopped. “Where?”

“Smell,” Robel instructed, wrinkling his nose. “Can you smell them?”

“Lions stink?” Berhane asked.

“They eat rotten meat. They’re over there behind that wall.” Robel pointed to a pair of metal lion statues that sat dulled and gray on either side of a dirty gate. A red sign arched above the entrance. Yellow letters in shaky handwriting were scattered unevenly across the curve.

“Are they in jail?” Berhane asked. He noted the short, brush-covered
wall
. He could climb that wall and take a lion from there. “Soldiers can’t kill lions.”

“It’s a zoo.” Robel guided him across the street. A taxi stopped and let out three students in front of the school. “Come on, I’ll show you where you have to be.”

Robel set his wooden shoeshine box down, then opened the lid to take out polish and his brush and a stained cloth. He flipped the box lid down and patted it for Berhane to sit. “You’ll be over there.” He pointed to a corner near to him. “I’ll be able to see you. Don’t run into the street. Just sell to the students. If you see a truck with soldiers, come back to me.”

“What if we see Abbaye on this road? What if a jeep comes to buy my newspaper and he’s inside?”

“Pay attention.” Robel took two coins out of his pocket. “This is how much a newspaper costs. Two of these.”

“I’m hungry,” Berhane said, sitting obediently until his brother gave the command that he could go to his station and start work.

Robel patted his arm. “I’ll buy you food once I get a customer.” He hugged his brother. “Don’t be scared, okay?”

“I’m not scared,” Berhane said, staring at the granite lion.

HAILU SAT AT HIS
desk in the dark. He’d been summoned to the jail officially. His presence was requested in writing, delivered to him by three skinny soldiers who spoke in unison. They’d walked into the hospital and gone to his office. They stood in a straight line, their shoulders even. Their identical uniforms, the way they each planted their feet the exact same width apart and had their hands folded in front of them, fingers plaited together, made Hailu think he was looking at triplets, though they were nothing alike in appearance. One was darker than the others, another was heavier, and the third had strange see-through eyes that looked like chips of stained glass. Watching them address him had been as confusing to Hailu as the order itself, handed down by a man most only knew as “the Colonel.”

“You were told to come in, we spoke to your friend. Here is a written order. Come to the jail tomorrow, arrive by dawn,” they said. “The Colonel wakes up early.”

They kept their eyes lowered, but even then, Hailu felt their indifference to his status and age.

“What’s this about?” He looked at the inked signature at the bottom of the letter and tried to imagine the man whose hand moved across the page with such jagged sweeps of the pen. “I have to work tomorrow morning, I’m scheduled for surgery.”

Two of them turned to look at the third soldier. He stepped forward. “Please don’t disobey orders,” he said. His eyes were the color of a premature leaf, his pupils black coins floating in a pool of green water.

“Should I bring a suitcase?” Hailu asked.

Most prisoners were ordered to bring a suitcase of clothes under the pretext that they’d return home eventually. Soldiers took the suitcases and added to their wardrobe, many of them wearing to bars and parties the clothes of those they’d executed.

“You won’t need to,” the third soldier said.

Hailu tried not to think about the fact that no one he knew ever returned from a summons to jail.

“Tomorrow,” they said before walking out of the office. “Don’t disobey this time.”

Now, Hailu was in his chair with the lights off. He sat with his back straight as a tree and waited, though for what, he wasn’t sure.

YONAS WAITED IN
the middle of the noisy traffic. The roads were packed in every direction; it was impossible to move. In the distance, tanks and trucks crawled in perfect symmetry. Pedestrians milled and pushed around cars, strained to see what they could of the roads; a cautious, curious mass.

“What’s going on?” he asked a driver near him.

“I don’t know,” the man said as he wiped his forehead with his tie. “Someone said there are dignitaries, Cubans. Maybe even Castro.”

“More Cubans?” Yonas said. “For what?”

“To help us kill each other faster. They’ll be in the north, Eritrea.” He turned off the engine and got out of his car. “We’ll be here a while,” he said as he leaned against his door.

“I want to see what’s ahead.” Yonas stepped out of his car. “Do you think my car will be safe?”

“Communism has been the best thing for crime, my friend. What thief wants to be in jail these days?” He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

Yonas couldn’t see through the throng of people. He was squeezed in every direction. The crowd was impatient, no one was moving, people pressed from behind. There was a surge forward, a stumbling backwards, an impatient kick. Tension was high.

A loud bray brought a groan from the crowd.

“I’m stuck just like you,” a man standing near his donkey retorted. He held a stick in one hand and the animal’s rope in the other. “It’s not my fault.”

“Peasants,” someone said.

Yonas smiled at the farmer. “I need to see how far this goes. Can I stand on your donkey?” Yonas pulled out coins from his pocket.

The farmer grimaced and shook his head.

Yonas took out more. “That’s it.”

The farmer grumbled but took the money.

Yonas looked over the ocean of heads. At the edge of the crowd were rows of tanks and groups of soldiers sitting on top of them at attention. A cavalcade was rolling through, a sleek, shiny entourage of Mercedes and jeeps. The new Ethiopian flag flapped from each antenna, its green, yellow, and red stripes free of the proud lion. In one of the jeeps was Major Guddu, wearing a tan government uniform and pumping his fist into the air emphatically, his smile determined, his teeth flashing. The crowd remained still, silent. A fat man wearing black glasses sat next to the major, and when the man shoved his glasses higher on his nose it was then that Yonas recognized Mickey, smiling blandly, waving meekly. He could have been mistaken, but he thought that for a brief moment Mickey looked at the man standing above the crowd, and recognized him as well.

39.

A GIRL KNOTTED
in tight ropes was dumped in Yekatit 12 Martyrs’ Square. Her skirt was lashed to her legs with rope that dug into her wrists and ankles and brought her limbs to an unnatural point.

Students gathered around her, their fear carefully draped. Dawit pushed through them and forced himself to take a better look. He could count her ribs through her bloodied shirt. One earring was ripped off. In her face, as swollen as it was, was a full beauty and something else. Dawit stared at her. He remembered her. Ililta. Once, Ililta’s face had been tear-stained and her wide eyes had been shut to block the image of her naked mother, Mulu, with a cruel, cruel boy. Once, this girl had kissed his cheek and smiled. She had joked with Bizu and served his father coffee on visits, her legs skinny and ashen as she tiptoed through his dining room. Dawit dropped to his knees in front of her and began to untie the ropes.

“Leave her alone.” The voice was gruff, authoritative behind a rifle. “Get out of here.”

Dawit felt the circle close around him as spectators bent down for a closer look. The mouth of a rifle pressed into his shirt. He pulled away.

“I know her,” he said. “She’s my neighbor.”

In front of him in the crowd, Solomon dangled a cigarette in a shaking hand. His head moved back and forth. His eyes begged Dawit’s obedience.

“But I know her,” Dawit said again, this time for Solomon.

“Get away from her before we arrest you,” the soldier said, smelling of raw steel and petrol.

“I want to move her out of the square, out of the sun.”

The soldier shook his head. “She’s a lesson to all of you. And there will be others unless all of these anarchists stop their bourgeois assaults.”

Solomon’s eyes narrowed, his mouth set in a straight line. He shook his head again, more emphatic.

“Get up!” There was the sound of running, more soldiers. “Now!”

Dawit refused to let go of the rope. The soldier lifted it with the end of his rifle and dropped it back on the girl. He pushed Dawit, sending him backwards into the crowd.

“Get out of here,” the soldier growled. “All of you!”

SOLOMON AND DAWIT
sat in the old, dark teahouse, a cup of sweet tea in front of them. “Are you crazy?” Solomon asked, pounding the table. “Are you that stupid?”

“I knew her,” Dawit said.

“It doesn’t matter who she was.” He paused. “Especially if you knew her, you keep away. You keep the hell away, do you understand me?!” He shook Dawit’s arm. “You pretend you don’t notice. Idiot!” He glanced around the room and lowered his voice though there was no one there. “They’re watching us and now they know to look at you every time you’re on campus. If you do anything like this again, you’re out.”