The Quest: A Novel (9 page)

“He’d have screwed up someplace else and gotten shot.”

“Perhaps. But never look arrestable, Frank.”

Purcell grunted. There had been one moment there, back in Cambodia… a French-speaking Khmer Rouge officer. There were things he could have said to the officer. Being an American was not necessarily grounds for arrest. There were Americans with Communist forces all over Indochina. There were American newsmen with the Khmer Rouge. Yet he had blown it. Yes, Mercado had hit a sore spot.

Purcell came around a curve in the road and said, “Well, you have
a chance to prove your point, Henry. There’s a man up ahead pointing a rifle at us.”

Vivian sat up quickly and looked. “Where?”

Mercado shouted, “Stop!”

Purcell kept driving and pointed. “You see him?”

Before Mercado or Vivian could reply, the man fired his automatic weapon and red tracers streaked high over their heads.

Purcell knew the man’s aim couldn’t be that bad, so it was a warning shot. But Mercado dove out of the Jeep and rolled into the ditch on the side of the road.

Purcell stopped the Jeep and shouted to him, “You look arrestable, Henry!” He stood on his seat and waved with both arms. He shouted, “Haile Selassie! Haile Selassie!” He added, “Ras Joshua!”

The soldier in the dirty gray
shamma
lowered his rifle and motioned them to approach.

Vivian peeked between the seats. “Frank, how did you know he was a Royalist?”

Purcell slid back in the seat and put the Jeep in gear. “I didn’t.”

Mercado climbed out of the ditch and crawled into the passenger seat. “That was a bloody stupid chance you took.”

“But you weren’t taking any chances at all.” Purcell moved the Jeep slowly up the road.

Mercado, trying to explain his dive into the ditch, said, “I thought he was a Galla.”

“I could see that he wasn’t.”

“Do you even know what a Galla looks like?”

“Actually, no.”

They drove closer to the man, who they could now see was wearing a sash of green, yellow, and red—the colors of Ethiopia and of the emperor.

Purcell said, “Well, we’re now in the Royal Army.”

Mercado replied, “Good. This is where the story is.”

Purcell reminded him, “The Provisional government forces could have gotten us back to Addis. Prince Joshua probably can’t even get himself out of here.”

“We don’t know what the situation is.”

“Right. But I know that your safe-conduct pass from the Provisional government won’t do us much good with the prince.”

Mercado didn’t reply for a moment, then said, “I’ve actually met Haile Selassie here in ’36, then again when he was in exile in London.” He assured Purcell and Vivian, “I will tell that to Prince Joshua.”

Vivian, who knew Henry Mercado better than Purcell did, asked, “Is that true, Henry?”

“No. But it will get us royal treatment.”

Vivian said, “That’s why I love you, Henry.”

Purcell advised, “Don’t look arrestable.”

They were within twenty meters of the soldier and they waved to him. He didn’t return the greeting, but he pointed to the right.

Mercado said, “He wants us to take that small path.”

“I see it.” Purcell swung the Jeep to the right and gave a parting wave to the tattered soldier on the rock. The smell of the dead began to permeate the air, although they saw no bodies yet. Purcell navigated the Jeep up the narrow path that looked like a goat track.

Mercado pointed to a flat area ahead. About a dozen bodies lay ripening under the sun. A soldier with an old bolt-action rifle walked toward them. Purcell wove around the dead bodies and drove the Jeep toward the man, who was looking at them curiously.

Mercado stood up and yelled a few Amharic words of greeting. “
Tena yastalann!
”

“That’s the stuff, Henry,” said Vivian. “Ask him how his kids are doing at Yale.”

“I did.”

The man approached the Jeep and Purcell stopped. Mercado waved his press card and said, “Gazetanna,” as Purcell held out a packet of Egyptian cigarettes.

The soldier wore a shredded
shamma
and bits and pieces of web gear. He smiled and took the cigarettes. Purcell lit one for him. “Ras Joshua.”

The man nodded and pointed.

Purcell moved the Jeep farther up the hill through grass that
came up to the windshield. There was little evidence of military activity and few physical signs of the night’s artillery barrage. As in most third world armies, Purcell knew, the weapons of modern war were more for the sound and the fury than anything else. The artillery barrages were small compared to modern armies, and most of the ordnance went wide of the mark. The real killing was done in a manner that hadn’t changed much in two thousand years—the knife, the spear, the scimitar, and sometimes the bayonet of the rifles without ammunition.

They continued on and Purcell realized he was in the middle of the prince’s headquarters. Low tents, much too colorful for tactical use, sprang up out of the high grass and bush. Ahead, down a small path, Purcell could make out the green, yellow, and red flag of Ethiopia emblazoned with the Lion of Judah. As he drove toward it, the bush around him came alive with soldiers. No one spoke.

“Wave, Henry,” said Vivian. “Invite them all to your country place in Surrey. That’s a good chap.”

“Vivian, keep still and sit down.”

Purcell stopped the Jeep a respectable distance from the tent with the imperial flag. They all climbed out, waved friendly greetings, and smiled. Some of the soldiers smiled back. A few, however, looked gruff and mean, Purcell noticed, like infantry soldiers all over the world fresh out of battle. They didn’t like relatively clean and crisp-looking outsiders walking around. Especially if the army had been beaten. A beaten army was a dangerous thing, Purcell understood, much more dangerous than a victorious one. Morale is bad, respect for superiors is bad, and tempers are rotten. Purcell had seen this with the South Vietnamese Army as the war was being lost. Mercado had seen it all over the world. The embarrassment of defeat. It leads to rape, pillage, and random murder. It’s a sort of catharsis for the soldiers who can’t beat the other soldiers.

They walked quickly toward the prince’s tent, as though they were late for a meeting. Purcell worried about the equipment, but any attempt to carry it with them or to make prohibitory gestures toward the Jeep would have invited trouble. The best thing was to walk away from your expensive possessions as though you expected that they
would all be there when you returned. Vivian, however, took one of her cameras.

The prince came toward them. There was no mistaking him. He was young, about forty, and very tall. He wore a European-style crown of gold and precious stones, but he was clad in a lionskin
shamma
with a cummerbund of leopard. He also carried a spear. His aides, who walked behind him, were dressed in modern battle fatigues, but wore lions’ manes around their necks. They had obviously put on all the trappings for the Europeans. Mercado knew this was a good sign.

The prince and his entourage stopped. The beaten-down track through the high grass was lined with curious soldiers.

Mercado stepped up his pace and walked directly to the prince and bowed. “Ras Joshua.” He spoke in halting Amharic. “Forgive us not announcing our coming. We have traveled a long distance to be with your army—”

“I speak English,” the prince responded in a British accent.

“Good. My name is Henry Mercado. This is Frank Purcell, an American journalist. And our photographer, Vivian Smith.” He bent at the waist again as he took a step to the side.

Vivian came up beside Mercado, who whispered, “Curtsy.” She curtsied and said, “I am pleased to meet you.” Purcell nodded his head in greeting and said, “Thank you for receiving us.”

“Come,” said Prince Joshua.

They followed him to his tent and entered. The red-and-white-striped pavilion was sweltering and the air smelled sour. The prince motioned them to sit on cushions around a low wood-inlaid table that looked like a European antique with the legs cut down. This, thought Purcell, was as incongruous as everything else in the country.

Ethiopia, he had discovered, was a blend of dignity, pageantry, and absurdity. The antique table with the shortened legs said it all. The battle fatigues with lions’ manes maybe said it better. The country was not a mixture of Stone Age, Bronze Age, and modern, like most of Africa below the Sahara; it was an ancient, isolated civilization that had reached towering heights on its own, long before the Italians arrived. But now, as Purcell could see, the unique flavor of the old civilization was dying along with the old emperor.

Mercado asked, “Would you like to see our press credentials?”

“For what purpose?”

“To establish—”

“Who else could you be?”

Mercado nodded.

Prince Joshua inquired, “How did you get here?”

Purcell answered, “By Jeep, from Addis Ababa.”

“Yes? I’m surprised you got this far.”

“So are we,” admitted Purcell.

The prince’s servants brought bronze goblets to the table and poured from a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. Mercado and Purcell pretended not to be surprised by the good choice of refreshment, but Vivian made a thing of it, as though she had expected fermented sheep dip. “Well, what have we here?” She leaned across the table and raised her camera, saying to the prince, “Do you mind?” and shot a picture of the bottle with Prince Joshua in the background. “Great shot.”

Mercado was mortified. Bad manners were one thing he could not accept from the very young. It was cute in New York and London, but it was dangerous in countries like this. The prince seemed a charming enough fellow, but you never knew what would set these people off. He smiled at Prince Joshua and said, “Wattatacc,” the Amharic word for “youth.”

The prince smiled in return and nodded. “No soda, I’m afraid. And no ice for the American.” He smiled at Purcell. But Mercado knew it was a strain to be polite when a three-thousand-year-old dynasty was coming to an ignominious end, your emperor was under arrest, and about a hundred members of the royal family had already been executed.

Prince Joshua looked at his guests and asked, “So, you have come into the lions’ den? Why?”

Mercado was keenly aware that this was an Old Testament country, and important things were always said with biblical allusions. He replied, “So the Lord was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country.”

The prince smiled again.

Vivian said, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” She, too, smiled.

Mercado looked at the prince, then at Vivian. “Vivian.”

“Book of Jeremiah, Henry.” She looked around. “Bad choice?”

The prince stared at her, then said, “I am black but comely; thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. Song of Solomon.” He eyed her for a long second.

Vivian smiled. “I like that.”

The prince raised his goblet and said, “Welcome.”

They all raised their goblets and Mercado said, “To the emperor.”

Everyone drank, but the prince said nothing further.

Mercado took the lead and began conversationally, “I was here in 1935 when the Italians invaded your country. I had the honor, then, of meeting his royal highness. And then again in England, when the emperor was in exile, I had the honor of writing a news story on him.”

Prince Joshua looked at Henry Mercado with some interest, then said, “You don’t look old enough for that, Mr. Mercado.”

“Well… thank you. But I assure you I’m that old.”

The prince asked, “So what can I do for you?”

“Well,” Mercado replied, “we have come from Addis Ababa to find you and your army. But we have had many mishaps along the way. The Gallas roam the countryside and the fighting is confused. So we ask you to give us safe-conduct passes—perhaps provide us with soldiers so we may return safely to the capital and report—”

“Mr. Mercado. Please. I am no fool. You are here because you couldn’t find the Provisional government army forces. I cannot give a safe-conduct pass anywhere. I am in control of nothing more than this hill. My forces are badly beaten and at any moment the army will ask for my surrender or they will attack again. Unless, of course, the Gallas attack first. My men are deserting by the hundreds. We are living on borrowed time here.”

Mercado glanced at his companions, then said to the prince, “I see… but… that puts us in a rather tight situation…”

“Well, I am sorry for that, Mr. Mercado.”

Purcell said, “We certainly understand that your situation is worse than ours. But we would like to be able to tell your story and
tell of the bravery of the Royal forces. So if you could spare a few armed men—”

The prince interrupted, “I will see what I can do to get you into the army forces. From there, perhaps, you can get a helicopter or a resupply convoy to the capital. I have no wish to see you die here with me.” He spoke the words simply, but they were strained. He asked, “Any news of the emperor?”

Mercado replied, “He is still well. The army moves him from one palace to another in and near the capital, but he is reported in good health. A fellow journalist saw him last week.”

“Good.” He sipped his scotch. “I have here another Englishman. A Colonel Sir Edmund Gann. Do you know him?”

Mercado nodded. “Heard of him, yes.”

“He is my military advisor. He is out inspecting the positions. I told him there were no positions left to inspect, but he insisted.” The prince shook his head at the lunacy. “The English are sometimes strange.”

Purcell lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

“He is overdue now. But when he comes, I will try to make plans to get you all to safety if I can.”

“Thank you, Ras.” Mercado felt the old sadness return. It was the Spanish Civil War again; Mount Aradam, 1936; the trapped men at Dunkirk; fleeing Tibet with the Dalai Lama. All the losing causes met here on this hilltop. And always, he, Henry Mercado, had slipped away at the last moment while brave and doomed men waved at him and wished him bon voyage. But he had gotten his. Berlin, 1946. With a lousy U.S. Army surplus Kodak camera. He no longer felt any guilt at slipping away. He felt relief. “Yes. That would be fine.”