Beneath the Lion's Gaze (9 page)

“Tizzie!” Sara yelled, jumping up from her stool near the oven.

It came again, rising, then splintering like broken glass.

Bizu paused at the kitchen door. “Where is she?” She held a hand to her ear.

“Emaye!” Tizita shrieked.

“Tizzie!” Sara raced out of the kitchen, nearly colliding with Bizu. “Tizita!”

There was no response. Sara flung the front door open. Her daughter was writhing on the ground, just below the veranda, her head tucked into her chest. “Get up, it’s okay,” she said. “Get up.”

Tizita started shivering.

“What’s happening?” Sara asked. “Answer me! Tizzie! Tizita, get up. You just fell.” Sara stumbled down the few steps of the veranda. Tizita’s eyes were closed. “Wake up,” Sara said. The little girl wasn’t moving. “Wake up!”

Tizita felt cold, her breaths came in shallow puffs.

“Abbaye! Yonas!” Sara tried to carry her daughter but the little girl was too heavy, her own legs too weak.

“Sara, I’m right here, calm down,” Hailu said. “Let me see her.”

Sara wouldn’t let go. “What’s wrong with her? Tell me!”

Hailu put a hand on her face. “Pay attention. Sit down or you’ll drop her.”

“She’s not moving,” Sara said. “She’s having trouble breathing.”

Hailu pried into the grip Sara had on Tizita. “Let me see her. You’re frightening her.” She resisted. “Let me look at her. Now!” He used the voice that made his nurses jump.

Sara dropped back to the step, ashen and trembling. “She screamed.”

Hailu laid his granddaughter on the veranda and listened to her heart. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head. She was breathing quicker, sweat collected on her upper lip. There was no scratch on her.

“Where did you find her? Are you sure she only fell down?” He started to pick her up but Sara pushed in front of him.

She cradled Tizita. “Let’s go to the hospital … Where’s Yonas?”

14.

THE SAGGING MATTRESS
protested under Mickey’s shifting weight, his shoes gaped empty next to his bare feet. The news that the emperor had been deposed was not a surprise. The documentary had broken open the flood of outrage against the monarchy. He’d known it was inevitable, that the Derg, these officers from the Fourth Division, were merely biding their time until they removed him from the throne and maneuvered themselves into seats of power. The radio announcement only verified what had been known by the city much earlier. But no one had considered what would happen to the emperor after he was overthrown.

The call came from the same officer who had ordered him to Wello, Major Guddu. The words rolled into sharp bursts that flared from static: Meet me at headquarters. The emperor is under arrest. More prisoners on their way. Come immediately. Hurry.

“What?” he’d asked. Not because he hadn’t heard, but because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Come to the base!” Major Guddu shouted.

Mickey stammered a response, then dropped the phone. He hadn’t considered the fact that someone would have to watch Emperor Haile Selassie, walk in front of those eyes that could strike down a man with a simple blink. Never had he thought of the possibility that he would be the one ordered to guard him. His work as a soldier was merely a job, consisting of nothing more than a series of menial tasks authorized by manhandled paper and smeared stamps.

Now the phone’s crackling beeps came through, muffled against his thigh.

“Mickey,” he said to himself, “Mickey, get ready.” His uniform hung on an old wire hanger from a bent nail in the wall, its dark outline a stiff-angled silhouette of his own body.

“This is your chance. You deserve it.”

But the declaration rang false. His whole life had prepared him to accept the fact that in nearly everything, there would always be someone better. There were too many others in positions much higher than his, with connections stronger than he had, with a fervor for competition he could never teach himself to stomach. He assumed the military would be another series of missed chances. His life was a long list of privileges never meant for him. It was the way things were in Ethiopia for countless others. He was no different, nothing special.

But now, there was this call, and Mickey found himself ordered to assume duties no mortal would have wanted. The emperor was God’s chosen, that the blood of King Solomon and King Dawit flowed in his veins, and Mickey imagined that anyone who dared to corner and trap one of God’s own, who dared to defile that divine blood, was committing a blasphemous act for which there would be no forgiveness.

DUST FLOATED AND DRIFTED
in the air, veiled everything in an ashen brown. Mickey stood in front of a thick door with peeling paint. Beyond those doors, through a slender hallway, in a musty room with a dirty cot and an unclean blanket, was Emperor Haile Selassie. He let the dust accumulate on his glasses, drop a glum, dark haze on his entire day. Muscles spasmed and jerked in his eyes.

“Go on,” said Daniel, another officer who’d been called to duty. “He’s lying on the bed, he hasn’t moved since they brought him. I think he’s praying.” Daniel’s voice relaxed him; Mickey felt his fatherly assurance. He put both hands on Mickey’s shoulders and pushed him forward. “I’ll take over as soon as I’m done with the new prisoners.” He sighed. “So many.”

Mickey was frozen in place, his bladder ached. He squeezed his legs together and his rifle fell to the ground. “Can I sign them in instead?”

Daniel picked up the rifle. “I pulled a chair into the corridor for you. It’s next to the room, but it’s far enough away so you won’t have to see inside it.”

“If he looks into my eyes, I’ll be cursed.” Sweat collected under his arms, he could smell himself. “He’s the emperor. Janhoy. Who am I?”

Daniel smiled, his eyes gentle. “My oldest son has eyebrows that join in the middle.” He put two fingers in the space between Mickey’s
eyebrows
. “You’re fine, no bad luck for you.” He tried to widen his smile but it was strained. “He’s sleeping. He’s old and tired. He can’t hurt you.”

Mickey resisted the move to open the door.

“He’ll know you’re not one of them,” Daniel said. “You don’t have that look.” He patted his back. “Be kind to him. He’ll remember you when this is over.”

IT WAS COLD
in the corridor. The slanting wooden chair was splintered and the sharp edge of the faded seat dug into his thigh and numbed his leg. Mickey plugged his ears to drown out the erratic breathing zigzagging from the emperor’s cell into his chest. The tiny room was directly behind him, its interior exposed like a hungry mouth, its door no restraint for the man who could have easily called angels to his aid. A soft wind brushed against his neck and Mickey jumped and scraped his chair forward.

A low moan slid across the floor. It seemed to dangle in front of him, then weave around his throat. He fought the urge to wail. His chest jerked. He couldn’t tell if the emperor was crying or praying. He’d heard other soldiers contend that despite the permanent chill in the building, the emperor’s cell pulsed with subtle heat, and he wondered if that was why he couldn’t stop sweating, why his shirt now clung to his back, why he felt as if he were suffocating under a pressure as thick as a hot towel.

“Mickey,” he called to himself, “Mickey.”

He remembered the day his father collapsed in the fields he tended for the landowner. They had been living outside the town of Awasa in an uneven thatched hut his father had tried to shape into a perfect circle to please his mother. Plastic sheets over the windows served as their only protection from rain and wind. He’d seen his father stumble, then go down. His slingshot still in his hand, the target bird forgotten, Mickey had rushed to him as fast as his seven-year-old legs could go, and lowered his head to his father’s mouth. His father was flat on his back, and Mickey had listened for what he was sure was his name coming through the strangled breaths. But his father was mouthing his own name. “Habte. Habte. Habte,” he said again and again. He must have
seen
Mickey’s questioning eyes, noted his confusion over a dying father who could only speak of himself, to himself, with his last breaths. “Say your name, force yourself to exist,” he’d said. “Make life come back.”

“Mickey,” he repeated now, trying to remind himself that he was alive, that soon he would leave this chair and exist somewhere else, far away from the heat, safe.

15.

SARA CLASPED HER
palms between her knees, shivering as if she were sitting in a cold breeze. She was a frightened girl again. “Yonas should have been watching her,” she said. She dug her knuckles into her stomach.

Hailu frowned. “Are you feeling okay? Can I bring you something to drink?” He put an arm around her.

The pale green waiting area of Prince Mekonnen Hospital was nearly empty except for an old woman tucked into a corner, sleeping with her head on a bag of clothes. Almaz, calm and reassuring, had met them at the emergency entrance and whisked Tizita away on a gurney, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking loudly on the marble floor. She’d refused Hailu’s request to do an examination himself.

“Stay with your daughter,” Almaz said. She’d always called Sara his daughter. “She needs you.”

Hailu felt restless and agitated, useless.

“They’re taking a long time. Please go find out what they’re doing,” Sara said, rocking in her seat.

“They’ll let us know.” He stood up, then sat back down. There was nowhere to go. “You can’t rush them.”

“I never told her not to run on those steps.” Instructions, reminders, a mother’s duties. She’d forgotten that one, the most important.

“It’s not your fault,” he said.

She stared at the fist in her stomach. This child had been tangible proof that God listened. Tizita was evidence that she, Sara Mikael, was worthy of mercy and pity. Her daughter’s life meant that this vengeful God, who had already taken her parents, was capable of compassion.

“It was a simple fall,” Hailu said, but she heard in his voice his own disbelief and confusion.

A young physician made his way to them in strides at once wide and sauntering. He had a thin frame, slender face, and shoulders that
seemed
to slope down and tip him forward as he walked. Both Sara and Hailu jumped from their seats. “Sit down,” he said, standing with more authority once he’d stopped moving. “I’m surprised you could get here so fast. Demonstrators have blocked most of the roads. Did you hear the shooting?”

“How is she?” Sara asked. She sat only to maintain eye contact with the young physician, who had found a seat next to Hailu.

“What happened?” Hailu asked.

The physician leaned forward, his long fingers clasped together. His eyes were bloodshot. He had the bland expression of a man accustomed to delivering bad news. “Her intestines twisted, Dr. Hailu,” he said.

“What? I don’t understand.” Sara noted the doctor’s youthful face and fatigue. “Abbaye, what does he mean?”

“Intussusception?” Hailu had heard of this happening only once, from a doctor who’d treated a child in Dire Dawa.

The physician nodded. “The fall happened in such a way that her stomach shifted. A segment of her intestine slipped inside another segment. It happens sometimes to children.”

“That means she’s in pain.” Sara stood and took hold of Hailu’s arm. “That means she’s hurting.”

The physician walked them to the swinging doors. “We’ve given her medicine for the pain. She’s asleep. She needs to be under observation, no food can get past the obstruction. There’ll be swelling.” He opened the door. “She’s a small girl, maybe that has something to do with it.”

“I can’t make her eat,” Sara said, biting her lip.

“I only meant she’s young,” the doctor said. He stepped into the hall and looked both ways, frowning. “Soldiers came to take Lieutenant General Essayas and Dr. Tesfaye out of the ICU. They can’t survive back in jail.”

“What can we do about Tizita?” Hailu looked down the long corridor for Almaz. He wanted to talk to her, not this young doctor with so little information.

The doctor shook his head, turning his attention back to them. “We can control the pain. The rest is up to God.”

“No,” Sara said.

“She’s strong,” the doctor said. “We have to wait, but she’s got every
advantage
on her side.” His voice was mechanical, his concentration focused on the door leading to the quiet corridors of the ICU.

“She’s so small, she’s not strong at all,” Sara replied.

SARA HELD HER DAUGHTER’S HAND
and looked around the overcrowded room. Sick adults lay quietly on thin cots with metal rails that rose like jail bars around them. Her small child slept in this cold, ugly room that smelled of disinfectant and sweat. Sara wanted her out of here and home before she woke and saw these listless patients with tubes pushed down their throats. She noticed one young patient, a man with a bloodstained bandage over his eye, raise his head and let his other eye wander over her. She turned her back to him.

“The bed’s too big for her.” Sara kissed Tizita’s cheek and looked to Hailu. “Can we get a private room, will you ask Almaz?” She looked at the young doctor. “What did you give her? What do we do now?”

The doctor folded his hands in front of him. “Something for the pain. She’ll sleep it off, then we’ll check her again.”

“We can’t wait until something happens, we have to help her now. Abbaye, tell him. Check her yourself. Go find the nurse!” Sara’s voice was shrill and loud.

The patient with the bandaged eye grumbled. “This isn’t Mercato.” He turned towards the wall. “Quiet.”

“He’s come,” Almaz said, leading a pale and shaken Yonas with her into the room. “He didn’t even park the car, it’s sitting in front of the door. Dr. Hailu,” she said, dangling keys on one finger, “go park it properly. Hurry.” Her voice was clipped, competent. “You, sit,” she commanded Sara as she pushed Yonas gently towards his wife. “Doctor, let me talk to you outside.” Within seconds the nurse had managed to bring a sense of order.

Once they were alone, Sara pulled out of Yonas’s arms.