It was different somehow, with that man at the Zum Storchen hotel who said his name was Assem. I woke up in the middle of the night. I felt good. I let the sweet atmosphere of the room enfold me. I thought he was asleep at my side; I was wrong. He must have felt from the movement of my body that I was awake. Without moving, in a soft voice, he asked me to tell him about my profession, to tell him an archeologist’s story. I thought of Mariette Pasha. Because of the Bes statue, in all likelihood. Had I already decided, at that point, what to do with it? I don’t think so. But Mariette Pasha had come in the room and I could sense that Assem was all ears. I told him about the day in Abydos when the French archeologist showed his workers where they should dig. I told him how the men started digging and were amazed when they came upon the relics. And I told him, in that calm night that was happy like a an unexpected respite in our lives, how a worker asked Mariette how he knew they were there. And Mariette Pasha answered: “I knew because I’m three thousand years old.” Assem listened. He didn’t laugh. As a rule, when I tell this story, people laugh, they think it’s just some sort of witty remark. But Asssem didn’t. He didn’t laugh because he is like me: he knows it’s true. And he asked who Mariette Pasha was. So I told him a little about this pioneer of modern archeology. I told him about the discovery of the Serapeum. “What’s the Serapeum?” I explained that it was a tomb for the bulls of Apis. This intrigued him. “The bulls of Apis?” So I gave him more: the priest designated a sacred bull, with a black coat and a white upside-down triangle on its forehead. I told him about the animal’s long procession down the banks of the Nile and how the men everywhere would bow down before it. I told him how whenever an Apis bull died there were seventy days of mourning, and the creature was embalmed and then buried in the temple where all the bulls were buried one after the other, generation after generation, and the priests were already looking for the reincarnation of the bull that had just died. “All that over a bull?” he said, admiringly. Yes. And Mariette Pasha found the spot. Before anyone. Without even knowing yet that after this his life would never be the same and he would be forever bound to Egypt—this little man from Boulogne-sur-Mer who would end up a pasha and be buried in the museum at Bulaq. The difficulties with the digs. The waiting, to obtain the legendary firman that would grant him permission to dig, and the day when they could at last open the door they had managed to free from the sand. I told him how a column of blue vapor had risen from the open door, “as if from the mouth of a volcano,” says Mariette in his writings. For four hours the tomb exhaled the air that had been imprisoned there for centuries. I see Assem closing his eyes, imagining the scene. Deeper in, in the burial chamber, Mariette discovered not only the sarcophagi of the bulls but also, on the ground, the shape of a foot in the dust. The last priest to leave the chamber before closing the door. The shape of his foot, frozen in the dust, motionless for thirty centuries. And what should have been fragile, what should have been erased by the first gust of wind, had survived it all—the wars, the famines, the decline of civilizations, the upheavals of the world. I tell him all this. And I know from the intensity of his silence that he thinks as I do, both that it is extraordinary and also that in opening the door, in letting the air out and allowing the footprint to disappear, there has been a sort of violation that could reduce you to tears. At the end, when I fell silent, I thought he wasn’t going to say anything, that he must be a bit embarrassed, maybe I’d gone on too long, it was strange to be evoking Mariette Pasha and the sacred bulls of Egypt when we were lying there naked side by side, but there was no embarrassment. He didn’t say anything for a while, as if to let the images of the distant past live a little longer, the banks of the Nile, the crowd on its knees, the chosen bull entering the temple—then he too began to talk. He just recited a few lines of poetry. I remember. It was at that point, I think, that I knew what I was going to do. He said, “Body, remember, not only how much you have been loved, not only the beds on which you have lain, but also the eyes that shone, the voices that trembled, with desires for you . . . ” That was his way of responding to the bulls of Apis, to give me something in exchange. He added the poet’s name: Cavafy. I wept, quietly. It was as if he had guessed. Marwan. Alexandria. It was as if he knew about the disease that is inside me, and how tired I am, sometimes, of this life of struggle. So I wept, yes, and he did not try to comfort me, he knew it was better that way, that the crying was cleansing me of something I could not talk about. “Body, remember, not only how much you have been loved . . . ” That was when I knew that I would love this man, I knew that he was giving me Cavafy’s words because of a presentiment—through some inexplicable insight—that they would do me good, and that was when I knew I would give him the Bes statue I have had for so long without telling anyone, because in that moment I had met someone who, like me, was three thousand years old.
Could it be that four thirty in the morning on April 12, 1861, was the moment of his resurrection? Could it be that when young Beauregard, the Confederate Army general, ordered his artillery to open fire at Fort Sumter, where Robert Anderson was entrenched with his Union soldiers, that precise moment with its multitude of deaths, even if no one would die in the next thirty-four hours, the thirty-four hours of pounding it took to reduce the fort to rubble, the thirty-four hours for the South to proclaim its deep, joyful secession, a brief period of liberation and defiance as incarnated by the confrontation between young Beauregard and the man who had been his instructor at West Point—the very same Robert Anderson who, a few years earlier, had been so impressed by the young Confederate’s talent that he had offered him a post as his assistant—could it be that when that shot was fired, when the stone was shattered, this great eructation of pleasure was, for Ulysses S. Grant, a moment of resurrection? He can feel it. He reads and rereads the article in the little Illinois newspaper his father left on the table there in the overpowering smell of the tannery, and he knows this is his chance. Thirty-four hours of shooting and at the end, Anderson raising the white flag, and Beauregard smiling, the joyful cheers of the entire population of the South. Fort Sumter has fallen. And in Mississippi and Louisiana and South Carolina they are dancing for joy. That newly elected president by the name of Lincoln, no one knows him, and he won’t be theirs. Let the North have him! Ulysses Grant reads and rereads the article just to feel the slap. Because that is precisely what Beauregard has done with his artillery: he has given Lincoln, and all of Washington along with him, a slap in the face. A slap in the face, too, to old General Scott, the hero of the Mexican wars, and to all the Yankees. Ulysses Grant wants a drink. It would do him good. Even if it is only ten o’clock in the morning. That never stopped him from drinking. Until he collapsed, even. He can’t hold his liquor, never could. But isn’t that the very reason you drink? To blow your brains out with shots of scotch. He would very much like to have a glass or two right now, so his hand would stop trembling, and to ease the sting of humiliation. But he knows he won’t. Because Beauregard’s artillerymen have just set him free. A wreck. That’s what he was until now. A man of a thousand wasted lives. Alcohol forced him out of the army. What could he do? Stay in that isolated posting in the north of California, where the slow passage of days seemed to delight in tormenting him, and where there was nothing to do but drink, and watch the procession of clouds in the sky, reminiscing about the fear he’d known at Molino del Rey? He’d tried. Seven lives. Farmer. Real estate agent. Firewood dealer. A wreck. He couldn’t do it. The bottle was always better. He had always known he’d be condemned to this: the self-hatred, the spectacle of his mediocrity constantly there before him, his shame in the eyes of his wife, who knows she’ll have to raise their four children on her own, and he loves her for this, for her resilience, but it hasn’t been enough to make the bottle go away. Only the shells at Fort Sumter can do that. He could tell, right away. He has been waiting for so long. What a sweet feeling . . . No slap has ever been sweeter. So he reads the article again, until his cheeks are flushed. He
tries to picture Robert Anderson, head bowed, emerging from the rubble with his men, and the cries of joy everywhere that make Beauregard smile with satisfaction. This, yes, this is strong enough to make him forego the drink. This, he can tell, will sweep away his father’s tannery, where he came back to work for lack of anything better, it will sweep away the days of depression, the painful memories of Chapultepec. He will become a warrior again, and so much the better, because perhaps he is only ever really himself when he’s in uniform. Right down to his name, which the army modified in error: Ulysses S. Grant, which he prefers to his real name, Hiram Ulysses Grant, because the latter is the name of a failed life, of trades where he did not earn a penny, the name of the bottle rolling under the chair where he has fallen asleep, it’s the name of his wife’s gaze, not reproachful but disappointed, it’s the name of a long life that is going to wear him out, so yes, Ulysses S. Grant, he’ll always like that better. And may Beauregard go on smiling, wherever he is. May Jefferson Davis make all the declarations he likes, may Virginia continue to hesitate, then join the camp of the Confederates, that’s fine, it’s in need of a few slaps. Only anger will save him from boredom. And he can sense, now, that the defeat at Fort Sumter is an opportunity, one of those that come along only once in a lifetime, and it will save him from disaster.
Today, he must resign himself to dying. And yet, everything is so beautiful . . . His army occupies the hill overlooking Maychew plain, a huge crowd, led by the princes of Ethiopia, all of them, like him, descendants of the heroes of Adwa, the glorious warriors who defeated Italy: Menelik II, Taytu Betul, Mengesha Yohannes. Today every fighter is thinking of that as they hurry through the colorful crowd. They invoke the spirit of their ancestors and hope to prove themselves as brave as they were. They beat their chests, and encourage each other, hair disheveled, beards unshaven. They have braided their hair and are covered with jewels. They move forward in their brightly colored clothing. None of them are wearing uniforms. They have armed themselves with iron, occasionally guns or knives. They let the rage of war well up and again hope that this will be the day of their great victory. Haile Selassie gazes out at the still-swelling crowd of people. For months everything has been converging toward this place, this day. It is as if all his efforts since the beginning of the war have had no other purpose than to end in this battle. It was to reach this moment that on last October 3 at eleven A.M., to the sound of the kitet, he launched the call from the steps of his palace for a general mobilization, and throughout the country the beating of drums proclaimed war. It is for this moment that a dense, spontaneous crowd of warriors, men of all ages, has swarmed toward Addis Ababa. Since the Italians’ very first attack, at Walwal, this great final battle has already been in preparation. Mussolini wants his revenge. He only sent this expeditionary corps under the command of Marshal Badoglio in order to wipe away the affront of Adwa and retake Ethiopia. And today everything is ready. His warriors are massed there before him. They are waiting for his signal to rush onto the plain and rout the enemy. He holds himself straight, between Ras Desta and Ras Kassa. He is calm. He is taking his time to study everything. Soon the rush will come, and the combat. Soon the blood. One last time he says the name to himself, Maychew. He does not address those who surround him because he dares tell no one what he truly thinks: that they have come here, to Maychew, to die.
I am sitting on the Bellevueplatz in the concrete kiosk; there’s a continuous bench all around it to provide seating for people who are waiting for the tram on rainy days or for those who, like me, would just like to sit here and gaze at the comings and goings in the street. I am slowly drinking the coffee I bought, to go, at the bar next to the kiosk where the tickets are sold. The trams pass each other, stop, set off again, number 5, number 7 . . . On they go, on their continuous gliding route. Some will go along the lake, others cross the bridge. Men and women alight. The city grows livelier. Everyone going about their daily life: shopping, picking up the children, meeting a friend. I no longer belong to that life. Where are they all going with such a determined air? Can they actually believe in this life, be truly a part of it? Something in me has shifted. It’s imperceptible, but I can feel it. I know that I shouldn’t be thinking about anything besides my meeting with Auguste, I should be giving it my full concentration, but I just can’t seem to. Soon he will tell me my next destination. We will sip our ristretti calmly, and Auguste will give me a certain amount of information. I can’t focus on it. I keep seeing Mariam’s thick hair shining in the night. I see her bare shoulders and the gentle movements of her hands. I continue to watch the trams go by. The coffee is getting cold in the little paper cup I’m holding in the palm of my hand. Is this a sign I’m getting old? There’s this feeling of an imperceptible rift, it’s distancing me from things, it leaves me feeling not as tense, not as sharp, and more and more often I find myself observing the world as if it were a stage set. Perhaps I made an appointment with the woman solely to leave myself the possibility that something might happen before my appointment with Auguste, before the French Republic once again grabs hold of me and gives me a new name, a mission, a zone of operations. Is that what I want? To delay the moment when the man who is my superior, whom I’ve known for years but have always called Auguste, in the full knowledge that Auguste is not his real name, will give me an envelope containing—as they all have for ten years now—plane tickets, a contact in a faraway city, and precise instructions. I wonder if this is not what I hoped for last night, when I told Mariam I would be at Bellevueplatz at ten o’clock: to escape from who I am.
Alive. He made me feel alive. I hadn’t felt that way in such a long time. So when he told me to meet him at Bellevueplatz at ten o’clock I didn’t reply, but I knew already that I would go. I left the hotel and walked out into the cool morning air of the waking city. I crossed the Bellevue bridge and then went along the eastern riverbank. I felt like breathing in whole lungfuls of that air. Alive. Yes. In spite of the disease lurking inside me, the disease they told me about as they scrutinized my blood work, with that serious, concentrated expression, the disease that has called for further tests, that will require a specialist and certain protocols, the disease I finally saw on an X-ray they waved in front of me. But even then it was still abstract. How can I believe that an opaque spot could have the slightest influence on my life? How can I even believe that what was on the X-ray, lying flat on a backlit surface, had anything whatsoever to do with me? Often, now, I try to listen to myself. In the evening. I breathe more softly, and listen carefully in hopes that I will be able to hear from inside my body what it is that is eating away at me and feeding on my strength in order to grow. This man, with the pleasure he gave me and the close way he listened while I was talking about the Serapeum and Mariette Pasha, he made me forget my inner enemy. That is not why I am going to the appointment, not out of gratitude, or desire, but because I could see his shortcomings. He didn’t hide. A man perched on the edge of an abyss. I felt he was going to disappear and it seemed to me that there should be someone there to witness the moment he left himself. I can tell he is leaving for a place you don’t return from, or if you do, you are so changed that it is impossible to say whether you have truly come back. I board the tram, and it’s not because of the package I slipped into his bag before dawn, when he was still sleeping. I doubt he’s found it yet. I board the tram but I won’t tell him anything about the Bes statue I tucked at the bottom of his suitcase between two shirts, with a little note written in the dawn light; I tried not to make any noise. Maybe he won’t understand just what the statue represents? Maybe our paths will never cross again, but I know it was the right thing to do. The statue was made to be passed on. From hand to hand, century to century.
The defeat has come. Do the others not see it? Cruel, ravenous defeat, irremediable. They cannot escape it. Is he the only one who can feel it? The generals are handing a little pair of binoculars back and forth, counting the Italian troops and the Eritrean regiments over an
d over. Sometimes they hand him the binoculars as well so he too can evaluate the situation, but he doesn’t. He is the emperor of them all, king of kings, Haile Selassie, he is sure of their defeat but what good would it do to tell them? He keeps his legendary calm, saying nothing, no words of fear or haste. He is time remaining impassive, the eyes that see what shall be. His men gaze at him, a little man in his impeccable uniform, the only man wearing one. The others, all the others, are shaggy, with blankets over their shoulders, jewelry around their necks and in their ears, on their wrists, and knives in their belts. He says nothing. He was against this battle. What good does it do to count the enemy’s numbers again and again? They are going to die today. He knows it. The Italians may not be as numerous, but Ras Desta and Ras Kassa are wrong to see this as a good sign, to see it as a reason for hope regarding the outcome of the battle. The only thing that is certain is that the Italians are going to crush them. He has known this ever since they imposed the blockade and he didn’t know how to break it. Neither France nor Britain would give way. He tried everything, in vain. And today he knows he has no weapons. Only one 75mm cannon, given to him by the Maréchal Franchet d’Espèry on behalf of a hypocritical French nation on the day of his coronation. Just one cannon. And not a single fighter plane. His men are brave, yes, but they march on foot or on the backs of mules, so they are going to lose. For a while he thought that the weapons Hitler had agreed to sell him would be enough to break the blockade, but the rifles arrived in small, scattered shipments and were lost in the vast country . . . He has no armaments. The only war he might have envisaged, and which might have led to victory after months or years of fighting, was a guerrilla war. Let the enemy come in, take possession of the country, then harass them, wear them out, ruin them bit by bit in a war at the end of the world, a war they would eventually abandon because it was costing too much. That is what he should have done. But he is Haile Selassie, king of kings, prisoner of his own self, and he could not. His generals told him: “A king doesn’t fight a guerrilla war, like some shifta,”2 and it sounded like a slap in the face. A king fights a proper war. And if he is meant to lose, the best thing is for him to die on the battlefield. That is what lies ahead for them, all of them, his sons-in-law, his warriors, all his subjects put together: they will die in one last, great battle. A head-on collision, pointless and bloody, but History will remember it. It cannot be any other way. So what does it matter, the movement of enemy troops, the number of planes Mussolini unleashes in the sky over Ethiopia: he knows that from now on he will be living in chaos, and nothing else.
Hear Our Defeats Page 2
