Sweetness in the Belly (22 page)

to hold a girl

T
he Faras Magala still fluttered. Qat addicts pleading with qat sellers, city folk bartering with peasants, tailors humming away on their old machines, goats and donkeys farting and dumping, children whining and groveling and lepers begging without arms and legs and noses. Produce had become fresh and plentiful again with the end of the drought. This was lucky: the qat addicts had become abusive during the drought, as they do whenever their drug is costly or unavailable, hurling insults and stones at passersby.

There was only one communal taxi to Dire Dawa these days. The minibus was already full when I slipped on board, with several Oromo returning to smaller towns outside the city and two Harari women off to spend the day shopping or visiting relatives from whom I deliberately concealed my face.

Over the years, many Hararis had gone to live in Dire Dawa. The French had built a railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa at the turn of the century, and Dire Dawa was one of the only stops along the five-hundred-mile route. Imported goods, most from India and China, were cheaper there, where they were offloaded straight from the train.

Hararis would move as far as Addis Ababa to make money, and prospered in trade wherever they went. But the majority of them still remained in the old city, and none of them left the country, except to make the hajj. Ethiopians as a whole did not leave their country. A few students had made their way west to pursue further education, which they planned to put to use back in their own country, but there was no emigration, there was no such thing as a diaspora; the words for these things would not even come into existence until sometime later in history.

I paid a huge sum of money for the trip and as the bus pulled out of the main square, I waved behind me, a tear rolling down my face.

“Why are you crying, dear?” a toothless Oromo woman with a chicken in her lap asked me in Harari.

I was grateful she assumed this to be my language. It was in my dress and the way I carried myself. It helped that her eyes were clouded with a white film.

“Because I’m leaving my mother,” I replied, looking backward again, lying because I didn’t really know the answer. Conflicted? Partly. Lies were becoming more frequent. And easier. Nouria and Gishta had given me their blessing, believing I was on my way to meet Sadia in Dire Dawa, where we would stay with some relatives of hers and spend the weekend shopping for items that Munir and his family were obliged to provide for their eventual new home.

It was not implausible; we were planning to do this soon enough, just not yet. Sadia happily colluded in my risky adventure, saying she would cover my tracks if I might, in return, please try to visit the new boutique with its fashinn gidir imports from India and memorize everything on its shelves.

“You are a good daughter,” said the old Oromo woman, stroking her chicken.

After an hour of twisting mountain roads, we reached the desert floor. I had to fight my way off the bus as returning passengers attempted to cram their package-laden bodies on board. I lifted my head to see him, an obelisk standing strong and solid in the middle of the teeming square.

“This way,” he said, leading me by the elbow through the crowd, past fruit stalls piled high with mangoes, goats scavenging for vegetables, a storefront displaying plastic buckets in primary colors, a boy shining shoes though he himself was not wearing any.

We turned into a beautiful street lined with acacia trees bursting red and purple, speckling the street with color and shade. The buildings, modern and spacious, were cheerful pinks and yellows and crisp, clean whites. Vines spilled suggestively over their compound walls, saying: There is life here and life is good. It was so much cleaner and brighter than Harar. And so much hotter. The air was unwhispering, utterly still, and the sun blazed white even though it was already late afternoon.

We slipped through an alleyway between two buildings, at the end of which shone a bright blue metal gate, and I followed Aziz into a small, shady, meticulous courtyard made up of yellow and blue ceramic tiles, an ornate fountain standing at its center. The house belonged to Munir’s grandfather, and Aziz stayed here whenever he came to Dire Dawa, as he occasionally did to collect books or pick up medical supplies.

“Let me introduce you,” Aziz said, climbing the three steps to the main room. “Prepare yourself,” he warned me. “Grandfather Ibrahim!” he yelled.

A wrinkled little Harari man with flaming red hennaed hair was sitting on a pillow, a cup of water on one side of him, the Qur’an on the other.

“This is the girl I was telling you about!” shouted Aziz. “The Arab girl!”

The old man’s eyesight was obviously worse than his hearing, but what he lacked in senses he made up for in strength. “Ahlan wa sahlan!” he said surprisingly loudly. Welcome. “Have you ever met anybody who is ninety-eight years old?” he asked in Arabic.

I laughed and told him no, I never had. He pulled out his false teeth then, and I couldn’t help but shriek, causing him to laugh so hard that his entire body shook. Suddenly, the old man leapt to his feet.

“I might not have my teeth, but I can still dance!” he shouted. He jumped off the platform onto the floor and ran into the courtyard. “Look at me!” he shouted with a snort, running around in circles, his red curls bouncing. “I have the energy of a man half my age! All my wives died!” he yelled. “None of them could keep up with me!”

“It’s true,” said Aziz. “He’s alone here now. Most of his children are dead. He’s got only his grandchildren and great-grandchildren now.”

“You’re incredible,” I said.

“I’m ninety-eight!” he shouted again, before running back into the main room and hopping onto the platform to resume his seated position. He immediately closed his eyes and began to snore.

I stifled my laughter.

“He has a medical condition,” Aziz whispered. “Narcolepsy. He drops off to sleep in the middle of things. I honestly think it’s what’s kept him so young. He must have slept through half his life. He’s really only forty-nine!”

I tiptoed out of the room and followed Aziz up a narrow staircase. The balcony overlooking the courtyard ran the entire length of the first floor. Aziz showed me to my room at one end. It was simply furnished, but it had a bed. I hadn’t slept on a bed since being at the palace. The edge of the mattress sunk under my weight.

“I thought only royalty slept in beds in Ethiopia,” I said.

“Grandfather’s second wife was Italian,” said Aziz, “and she insisted on beds. With Egyptian cotton sheets. And good chocolate. She had it sent from Rome. I’ll leave you now, shall I? I’ll come back and fetch you for dinner.”

I stretched out on the bed, leaving the door open so I could enjoy the late-afternoon sun, and stared at the dust dancing above my head. How strange to be here, free of prying eyes, liberated from cramped quarters. I thought about the grandfather and his Italian wife. Wondered how they’d met and whether the Italian woman had learned Arabic or Harari and converted to Islam, and whether they’d had children who were half black and half white and whether those children were despised because of their mixed blood. I wondered if the grandfather had ever been to Italy, skied the Alps. I envied his narcolepsy and drifted off to sleep.

A
ziz was standing at my door. He was wearing a navy blue suit, the arms of which looked a bit too short.

“I thought I could take you somewhere European for dinner,” he said somewhat self-consciously.

“I didn’t know there were any Europeans living here,” I said.

“The Europeans are gone, but their food isn’t. There’s a very special Italian restaurant here. You can have anything you want—spaghetti, risotto, lasagna. They make all of it in their kitchen.”

I grimaced. “I’m afraid I don’t have any nice clothes.”

He pulled a scarf from behind his back and held it out to me—a loose and beautiful pink and purple chiffon. “Grandfather’s Italian wife used to wear this,” he said, pressing it into my hands.

“It’s beautiful.” I ran its soft length through my fingers. “But won’t he be upset if he sees me wearing it?”

“He told me to give it to you.”

I put one hand on his shoulder and stood on my toes to kiss his cheek. As I leaned into him he cupped the back of my head and pulled me in.

“I’m so glad you came,” he whispered in my ear. I could feel his heart beating through his jacket. He smelled like burned matches and cologne. I closed my eyes and breathed him in before stepping back and draping the scarf over my head.

H
e linked arms with me as we walked down the dark street. It was a lot less conservative in Dire Dawa, he assured me. “Harar is so old-fashioned. It makes me crazy sometimes,” he said.

We passed through a pair of red curtains into a small courtyard where a wooden shack sheltered a single long table covered in red-and-white checkered cloth under an awning. The table was lit with candles and lanterns hung from the beams. It was magical. It reminded me of sitting in a café with my parents somewhere in Europe. But such scenes were always noisy and crowded. Here a lone couple sat huddled together at one end of the table, too lost in each other to spare us a glance.

A man stepped out of the shadows and shook Aziz’s hand roughly.

“Ciao, Girma,” Aziz said. “It’s good to see you.” They gripped each other by the shoulders. “How are you? How is your family—that mischievous brother of yours?”

“I’ve got Ibsaa with me at the moment,” Girma said, lowering his voice.

“I haven’t seen him in years!”

“Since they closed the university.”

Aziz stepped back in surprise. “When did they do that?”

“Beginning of last week. The students were demonstrating outside the palace.”

“Because of the inflation?” Aziz asked.

“It started when they raised the petrol prices. The students came out in support of the taxi drivers; they even started setting the emperor’s buses on fire, but the police put an end to that with their batons. Of course, this only made the students more determined. But you know it, Aziz, they make trouble for themselves; they are too young to know that they are not invincible.”

“But they are right to act on their principles. I envy them what they don’t know,” Aziz said.

Girma sighed. “What is to envy? This time some of the students managed to get past the palace gates and, well … poof.” Girma raised his arms as if hefting a rifle.

Aziz encouraged his friend to continue, though he gripped my shoulder in a way that suggested he could sense my growing horror.

“So now they’ve prohibited public gatherings of any kind,” Girma continued. “You stand with four of your friends in the street talking about the weather and they can arrest you.”

“But we never see any of this on the television,” I blurted out.

“The emperor owns the television station,” Girma said. “We didn’t see the garbage collectors go on strike either. Or the civil servants. Or the journalists. Anyway,” he said, cupping Aziz’s shoulder, “this is enough talk of politics. You and your friend have come here for dinner. Let me not spoil it.”

Aziz was silent for a moment after we sat down. He stared at his hands in his lap.

“Why do we never hear any of this?” I asked him.

“We’re very cut off in Harar,” he finally said to the tablecloth. “We hear only bits and pieces. An uprising over here, a protest over there. People keep calling these things isolated incidents because most of them happen in small towns, but if this is what is happening in the capital, I really doubt …”

“What do you doubt?”

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s best I don’t let my imagination start,” he said, sweeping his palm across the table.

Girma handed Aziz a menu and set down two small glasses. “Grappa,” he announced.

“It’s a lot less conservative here,” Aziz assured me for the second time that night. “I don’t think it hurts anyone to have a drink now and then. In the right circumstances. And only if you don’t make it a habit and neglect your responsibilities.”

I smirked. “You’re very practical. The most practical Muslim I’ve ever met.”

“I think true discipline comes through exercising moderation. I see the rules as simply guidelines for those times when we lack the strength or wisdom to decide for ourselves.”

But that must take such courage, I thought. It is harder in many ways to live in the middle than at the edges. Much harder to interpret as you see fit, because then you have no assurance you are doing right in the eyes of God, no confidence you will be rewarded in the afterlife.

Aziz ordered veal, and I asked for something called gnocchi because Girma described it as “every bite having completion.” Girma laid down napkins and knives and forks. I picked up the fork and turned it over.

“Do you miss eating with a knife and fork?” Aziz asked.

“I like eating with my hands.”

“But it’s not very hygienic.”

“It’s much more sociable, though. There’s something uncharitable about having your own plate, something wrong about stabbing your food with a piece of metal. Food tastes right from the hand.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Where did you get this open spirit from? Did your parents teach you this?”

I stared at him and found my reflection in his twinkling eyes. “In a way, I suppose,” I answered, having only just considered it. No one had ever asked me such a thing. Under the Great Abdal’s tutelage I was asked to look forward, never back, as if my life before was the Jahiliyya—the time of ignorance before the arrival of Islam. My memories of my parents were tainted. Predicated by questions. Were they fundamentally immoral? Did they deserve to die? It was easier somehow to believe that the answer to both questions was yes.

“They were very adventurous,” I struggled, not knowing how to put them into words. “Passionate and curious about life, but those same things often led them to be rather careless and irresponsible.”

Our food arrived, but neither of us touched it while I attempted to pull something concrete out of the hazy pre-Islamic times spent wandering Europe with my parents. Moments of joy were brief and isolated, lived out against a backdrop of uncertainty and not infrequent loneliness.