Beneath the Lion's Gaze (29 page)

It was suddenly harder to breathe. Hailu sat down and felt the chair give way under his full weight.

“This jail is the pride of the state, clean and efficiently run. We don’t waste any unnecessary energy.” The eyes again—calculating and memorizing Hailu’s features in quick strokes. The Colonel continued. “I fought in the war with your youngest uncle, he was a good friend of mine, a true fighter.” He stared at Hailu. “I see the resemblance.”

Hailu’s uncle was known for his ruthlessness in the war against Italy. It was said that he shot any of his men who flinched when ordered to charge Mussolini’s front lines. Those who fought in his regiment had been no different in their distaste for weakness.

“You don’t have to talk.” The Colonel unfolded a crisp handkerchief on the desk, following the creases with the long nail on his little finger. “But you will want to soon.” His tight smile belied his words. Hailu sensed his impatience. The Colonel slid his chair closer to the desk and leaned forward. “You killed a young girl. The girl came in alive,” he said, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. “She left dead.”

Hailu thought of Selam and his sons and wondered how much Tizita had grown in the last few weeks.

“Pay attention,” the Colonel said, his voice louder. His hands were interlaced, gripped tightly. “You remember her, Dr. Hailu?”

Hailu sensed this man knew all the answers to anything he could ever ask.

“Do you remember her, Doctor?”

Hailu nodded. He smelled her again, that nauseating stench of flesh burned by electricity. Hailu wanted to go back to his cell, to the familiarity of his waste and his smell and get out of this warm, soft light.

The Colonel waited, hands clutched together. Then he stood up.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” the Colonel said. He paced in front of him, in steps cut to fit the room’s dimensions. “She came in alive, she was improving, and then she was dead. You killed her.” He bent over Hailu, his eyes cold, his voice tight. “She was sixteen.” His face twisted. “Why did you do it?”

His control frightened Hailu more than the officer’s unhinged anger. “She was already dead,” Hailu said. He wondered if the Colonel caught the whimper that escaped from his lips. “She was already finished.” Then he braced himself for the assault this truth generally brought.

“How could you think that?” The Colonel walked behind him. Hailu tried to turn, but he held him still with a sharp twist of his ear. “She was a special prisoner,” the Colonel said. “You were told that. There shouldn’t have been any doubt. No doubts at all. I leave clear instructions so there is never any doubt about what I want done.” The Colonel’s breath fanned his cheek. “I do this because most people are ignorant and lazy. What part didn’t you understand?”

“I tried to save her,” Hailu said.

The Colonel’s moist hand wrapped around his neck, a thumb pressed on his jugular vein. Tiny bones bent from the increasing pressure. He squeezed harder. I will feel light-headed, there will be pain, but I won’t die, Hailu reminded himself.

“Your nurse has already confessed. She told us everything.” The mention of Almaz forced him upright. The Colonel moved in front of him and sat again on his desk. His hands were elegantly draped over one slim knee. “It wasn’t difficult. We already had her daughter. What do
you
know about these stupid children who pass out pamphlets and play their little rebellious games?” he asked, looking up at the ceiling.

Hailu couldn’t breathe.

The punch came so fast Hailu had no time to brace himself. It knocked him backwards and nearly tipped him over. The pain was dull, his body by now accustomed to the blows, but the leaden weight of the hit wouldn’t leave him. He struggled to get up off the ground with his chains.

The Colonel took it all in, as calm as ever. “Your loyal nurse,” he said, smiling, “told us you ordered her to help you, that you’d fire her if she didn’t. It was your idea to steal the poison from the hospital.” He took his handkerchief and wiped each fingernail. “Is this true?”

“Where is she?” Hailu asked, sliding back onto the chair and trying to avoid falling sideways. What pain did they subject her to for her to lie like that? Hailu’s head ached, thoughts stalled, he looked up. The light in the room suddenly flared so bright his eyes watered. Selam laughed, her laughter like the chime of a thousand bells.

“Tell me what she was like when they brought her in.” The Colonel was standing again, walking back and forth in a military stride, his eyes straight ahead. “The soldiers watching her have died in the line of duty. She was buried before we knew what happened. So we’re depending on you. Tell me what she looked like. Tell me everything she said.”

The Colonel put both hands on his shoulders. Sharp fingers dug into tender nerves. Hailu tried to move to prevent the nerve damage he knew was slowly crawling into him. The Colonel pressed harder.

“Let me go home,” Hailu said. “My family.”

“You want to go home,” the Colonel said, laughing a laugh that held no warmth. “What are we without our family, Dr. Hailu?” he asked. “What are we but shells?”

“She was so sick,” Hailu said, and wondered if the Colonel could hear him. “She was so small,” he added, and heard nothing but his own breaths.

“Start talking and I’ll stop,” the Colonel said, squeezing all the air out of Hailu’s lungs. “Let me show you how it’s done.” The Colonel told him Yonas’s class schedule, his office room number, and the café where he bought tea.

Hailu spoke. He told the Colonel of the girl and her flowered shirt, her perfect eyebrows and stylish trousers. He talked until he realized there was nothing coming from him but moans, and Hailu learned that Dawit had quit coming to the jail to ask about him, that no one came anymore. As Hailu sank gratefully into a pillow of black, the Colonel told him things Dawit said, things about a father and an older brother too cowardly to resist the regime.

Hailu gave up and looked for Selam, but Selam was gone. He curled up in the dark, wondering how Selam could have left him, and why she’d taken the sky with her.

48.

A LOUD KNOCK
pounded its way through their quiet living room. An angry voice demanded to be let in. Sara had no time to think about anything but getting Tizita upstairs.

“Go! Go!” she screamed at the startled girl.

Yonas jumped up from the sofa and ran to the door. Ethiopian Television reported the nightly news:

After three more assassinations of our comrades this week, house-to-house searches are under way to rid Ethiopia of reactionary enemies. The Derg condemns the so-called Revolutionary Lion Resistance as an agent of subversion and counterrevolution. The War of Annihilation will destroy all enemies and free Ethiopia of bourgeois oppressors
.

The television cut to the inside of a classroom, where several bodies dangled from ropes.

“What is it?” he called out.

“Don’t open it!” Sara shouted. “Not yet.” She yanked Tizita towards the stairwell. “Go!”

The door was kicked open. A group of three soldiers with rifles aimed at Yonas and Sara strode into the living room.

“We have nothing! There’s nothing here!” Yonas said. He moved to hold Sara and froze when the rifles all pointed in his direction. “There’s nothing here,” he said calmly, raising both hands in the air. “Sara, come here.” He dropped his arms as Sara stood next to him. “We’ve nothing to hide. Please, go look. Everything’s upstairs, we’ve nothing to hide.” He spoke in a near whisper and put himself between the rifle and his terrified wife.

Two of the soldiers raced through the living room while one soldier remained, his gun still trained on Yonas and Sara.

“Tizita,” Sara said. She rushed towards the two soldiers making their way up the steps. “Tizzie!”

“She’s our little girl, she’s upstairs,” Yonas said to the nervous soldier, his voice even and soft. “My wife is going to get her and bring her here. That’s all.”

Upstairs, Tizita’s wails broke above the gallop of heavy boots. “Emaye!”

“Tizzie, stay there. I’m coming,” Sara called, trying to push past a soldier. “I have to get her,” she said. “Let me through. I don’t care what you take. She’s only a child! Move!”

“Emaye!”

“Tizita, don’t move, stay there. Close your eyes, don’t look at anything.” Sara squeezed into her bedroom and clung to her daughter.

IN HIS ROOM,
Dawit sat in his closet, waiting for the door to burst open. He’d pushed his notebook and a stack of papers under the bed though they contained nothing but homework. He knew he should get up, open the door, and walk out into the living room to stand by his brother and Sara. He understood that the man he wanted to be would have done that without hesitation. He could hear shouts, Tizita’s cries, Sara’s angry tone with soldiers. But nothing came from his brother, and he knew that on this night, he would have to share the blame for that shameful silence.

ADDIS ABABA WAS
buried in dark clouds of gun smoke. Waves of arrests swept swiftly through the city. Bullets fell like rain. Blood flowed in currents. Winds blew the rotten stench of the dead through deserted streets. Dotting the surrounding highlands and marching steadily into frightened neighborhoods, the Derg’s urban militia gathered more members, hefted Soviet rifles on their shoulders, and swarmed the city.

Snipers and firing squads worked relentlessly. A pulsing, steady rhythm bore down on the stunned city while on a narrow patch of barren land, moonlight closed around a pregnant woman pleading at the foot of a man with stones for eyes and a plunging bayoneted rifle in his hand.

49.

BERHANE HELD AN
empty fanta bottle to his lips and blew into the top. He grinned and bowed to an imaginary audience. “Thank you, thank you,” he said. His newspapers were stacked against the tire of an empty car at Peacock Café. It was a slow day. No one wanted to buy newspapers. Berhane, bored, played in the vast parking lot while Robel shined shoes two blocks away. The sun poured over his head.

“You.” The soldier was short and chewed on a stick. He pointed at Berhane with a crooked finger. “Come here.”

Berhane straightened. The grin turned into a nervous smile. “Me?”

The soldier grabbed him by the shoulders. He slapped him hard across the back of his head. Berhane winced and let out a sharp cry.

“Shut up,” the soldier ordered. “I told you to come here.” The soldier led him to a corner where there were no cars. “Do you work here every day?”

Berhane nodded.

“What did you see when you were working here and that man got shot?” the soldier asked.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

The soldier slapped him. “What did you see the day the man got shot?”

“I don’t know. Nothing,” Berhane said, cringing from the next slap he knew was coming.

The soldier hit him across each cheek, harder this time. “You want me to keep hitting you?” he asked.

“No,” Berhane said, starting to cry, tears mixing with snot. He looked for Robel; he was all alone.

“Then tell me what you saw and I’ll leave you alone.” The soldier looked around. “If you don’t tell me, more of my friends will come and they’re very mean.”

Berhane nodded, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He saw traces of blood. He could feel his knees shaking.

“The bullet went like this,” Berhane said, moving his hand in an arc. “It went into the car and hit the man and the man died. The soldiers came.” He braced for another hit.

“Who shot him?”

Berhane protected his cheeks with his hands and ducked his head. “I don’t know.”

The man crouched so he was eye level with him. Berhane saw dust in his thick eyebrows. “See, you lied to me, you said you didn’t see anything. How can I believe you now?”

“I’m not lying. I swear. The bullet went into the car, I don’t know where it came from.”

“What else did you see?” The soldier gripped his shoulder. “What else did you see?”

“Emaye, I want Emaye!” Berhane couldn’t escape the next hit. It was so powerful it sent him sprawling into the dirt.

“One man bought a newspaper and he told me to give it to the man who was shot,” Berhane said, lying on the ground.

The soldier leaned down over him. “What man?”

“I don’t know him.” Berhane crawled away from the man. “Robel!” he said. “Emaye!”

The soldier grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled him so close Berhane could see the twitch in his eye.

“He just gave me money for the newspaper and candy,” he wailed.

“What else?” the soldier asked. “Tell me everything and you can go home.”

“He gave me a note,” Berhane said.

“Where is it?”

Berhane fished in his pockets and pulled out the note. “You can have it,” he said. “I want my mommy.”

The soldier snatched the note and read it. He stood up, shoved the note in his pocket, and dragged Berhane by the arm. “Come on,” he growled.

Berhane resisted. “I want to go home.” But the soldier yanked him towards his truck. “Robel! Robel!” Berhane screamed. His cries were
cut
short by the fist that slammed into his mouth and knocked him back to the ground.

“Get up! You’re coming with me to jail.”

Berhane stumbled ahead, dizzy and disoriented, clinging to the soldier’s hand as he was shoved into the back of a military truck. He had a thought, fleeting and brief before a foot came out of nowhere and sailed into his stomach, that perhaps he would finally find his father.

SOFIA’S STOMACH CONVULSED
. “Sara …” She turned to the other woman. They were in the kitchen peeling potatoes for that night’s dinner, each lost in her own thoughts.

“What is it?” Sara asked. She brushed peelings off her skirt. “Should we do more? Bizu said she’d help after she rested.”

“I have to go,” Sofia said. She looked confused and stunned. “I don’t know why, but I have to go home. I’m sorry.” She scrambled to stand, knocking potatoes to the ground. “I have to go. My sons. My children.” She ran out, her apron still on.

THEY SAT, MOTHER
and son, in the empty belly of a bare room sweating and crying. Sofia began to pace, repeating the same questions to Robel that she’d been asking for hours. They’d searched the areas near Peacock Café and Sidist Kilo all afternoon. Sofia had even offered her savings, a small bag of bills and coins, to confused taxi drivers and shopkeepers who eventually shook their heads.