by Ele Fountain
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I shrug. “I didn’t check it.”
“I need to know where you are when I’m at work. If I can’t trust you at home on your own, then perhaps you will have to come and stay with me in the shop.”
I get up from the floor. “I’ve been coming home on my own for six years. Now you want to treat me like a little kid?” I’m beginning to feel that maybe I should be the one who’s annoyed here.
“You don’t let me go to other friends’ houses if they invite me. I always have to be at home so you know where I am.” Someone in my chemistry class is arranging a trip to the movies this weekend, and I wasn’t even going to ask Mom if I can go, because I know what the answer will be. “Isn’t it okay to just walk down the street? I’m not eight anymore.”
She seems to calm down a little and picks up the bag of injera from where I left it on the floor. “Tomorrow is your big test—am I right? You should get some good rest tonight. I’m going to get dinner ready.”
My mother prepares the food with the same energy she used to tell me off. It’s as if she’s afraid to be still, in case something bad happens within the space she has created. While she prepares dinner, I finish a game of gebeta with Lemlem and let her win.
Mom talks about the beautiful dress she’s been working on and I run through matrix formulas in my head, nodding every time she looks over and says, “Don’t you think?”
Finally, when Lemlem is sleeping, I sit next to Mom and ask quietly, “Why is it okay for me to hang out with Bini, but not okay if I want to bring other friends home, or go to other friends’ houses?”
Mom seems tired now—very tired.
“Shif, you know it’s better to have a few close friends you trust. With too many friends, you don’t know who else they will talk to, or what they might say about you.”
“To who?”
She smooths the fabric of her dress over her knee. “The army has ears everywhere. We don’t want to give them any reason whatsoever to take an interest in our family.”
“But we’ve done nothing wrong. Why would they take an interest in us?”
“Tonight you gave them a reason. You ran away from a soldier and now he will be wondering why. He didn’t see where you went, but do you think he won’t come back? The more you go out or bring friends back, the more people will talk about us. They will say that you’re often out, say that strangers visit our house. People will say anything to deflect trouble from themselves, but they often don’t have very much imagination. Don’t give them anything for their imagination to work on.”
“The government can’t put everyone in jail. If they put everyone in jail, then who will be left to spy on?”
“We can talk about this, Shif, but not now. Tonight you need your sleep. You have to get good grades on your math test.”
She knows I get nothing but good grades in math. But I can tell that the conversation is over before it has even begun. Again.
I can be patient. I’ve been patient for a long time.
Test
With a slight flutter in my stomach, which may be the math test or may be the stale bread I had for breakfast, I knock on Bini’s door. No answer. Weird. He normally gets to our house first while I’m still getting ready.
I can’t be late today so I start walking slowly down the road, knowing that with his long legs Bini will catch up with me in a few minutes. I’ll hear the crunch of his shoes as he runs down the sidewalk after me, and lurch forward as he slaps me on the back when he could just as easily say hello.
Twenty minutes later, I arrive outside the school alone. I realize it’s the first time I’ve walked to school on my own this year. I head to my homeroom to go over my notes one last time.
Bini doesn’t come to the test.
He doesn’t come to school all day.
When classes finish, I walk to the market alone to buy tomatoes and then go home.
No one answers when I knock on Bini’s door.
I knock again more loudly and shout, “Bini, it’s me!”
As I turn to leave, the door slowly opens and Bini’s mother, Saba, looks at me.
“What is it, Shif? Bini’s at the market.”
“I just wanted to check to be sure he’s okay,” I answer, confused—I didn’t see him at the market. “We had a big math test today and he missed it.”
“Bini is okay,” she says.
“If he’s not sick, then can I come around a bit later? So we can go over the answers?” I add, realizing I sound a bit desperate.
“Don’t worry about that,” says his mother. “There’s no need. Bini won’t be coming to school anymore.”
She closes the door and I stand very still, wondering whether she will open the door again, laughing at the joke she’s played. But Bini’s mom isn’t the joking type.
Secret
How was the test?” Mom asks cheerfully as she walks in with Lemlem.
I look up from my homework. I haven’t really done any of it. I can’t concentrate. It’s as if my brain doesn’t come to life without Bini there to irritate me.
“It was mostly easy. Just one question I wasn’t sure about.”
“I’m sure you will get top marks,” she says, kissing me on top of my head.
“Maybe this time I will,” I answer.
She looks at me quizzically. She doesn’t like it when I’m not open with her, I realize, even though she’s keeping things from me.
I eat dinner mechanically, not thinking about the food in front of me. I am able to think only of Bini’s mother’s words: Bini won’t be coming to school anymore. This is a massive deal, yet she seemed unmoved, normal. As if Mom said, Dinner is ready. Please step over the meteorite that landed in the house—I haven’t had a chance to sweep it up.
We only have to complete this year, then go to military school for two years, then we’ll be free to apply to a university, to study whatever we want. Everyone spends two years at military school, but Bini and I have moved up through school so quickly that we’ll go early. Going early was exciting when it was Bini and me. I don’t want to go on my own. On my own I won’t be special; I will be the little kid whose friends are still at regular school.
Anger swells slowly inside me. I can always line my thoughts up like chess pieces waiting for moves. But now all I can think about is how soon Lemlem will go to bed. How soon I can confront my mother. This time I will not let her turn me away with promises of “later.”
Eventually, after we have cleaned up by candlelight because there has been another power cut, I hear Lemlem gently snoring on the bed she shares with my mother. Now that the time has come to speak, I can’t think of how to frame my questions. As my thoughts sprawl, I look over at my mother sewing a colorful strip of fabric to the edge of a white gabi. Finishing her day’s work.
She looks up at me and smiles. “When will they tell you your results?” she asks.
“Next week. Mom, Bini has quit school.”
She looks down at her sewing, concentrating, even though I know she could sew with her eyes shut.
“He’s top of the class.”
She is silent.
I feel the anger grow once more. This time it is sudden, like a flame on paper.
“Why would Saba take him out of school? I mean, is school dangerous now, too?” I think of what Kidane said to us during lunch break yesterday. “Someone at school, one of the other kids, said Bini’s dad was dangerous. I think he was talking about Dad, too. Why would he say that? Is there something else I have to be careful about?”
More silence. I can’t bear it any longer. “If Dad hadn’t died, then perhaps I could have asked him. Perhaps he would have talked to me instead of ignoring me.”
I’m almost shouting now and Mom leaps out of her chair and puts her hand over my mouth. Her hand smells of new fabric.
“Don’t wake Lemlem,” she says softly.
But I know it’s not Lemlem she’s worried about disturbing. It’s our neighbors. Anyone on the st
reet who isn’t Bini or his mother, the only people we can trust.
My mother sits back down. I can tell she is organizing her thoughts. Her response will be calm and orderly. The exact opposite of my questions. She will start by telling me that it’s part of living in a big city, that she grew up in a village but in big cities you cannot trust people in the same way.
But she doesn’t say that.
She says, “Shif, your father isn’t dead.”
Truth
It feels as if time has frozen. We stare at each other but my mother’s face is blank, impossible to read, the only movement caused by the flickering candlelight.
“There are many things I haven’t told you, Shif. But I can see that I have no choice but to tell you now.”
I sit. Not next to her, but close enough that her words won’t wake Lemlem.
She pauses. “Your father was a lecturer at the university.” She momentarily closes her eyes. “He was brilliantly clever. At school he was always top of his class, but there was only ever one thing he wanted to do. He wanted to be a teacher. After military school he started teaching at the university. The kids loved him, and he was very popular with the other staff. Your father always made people feel they could be themselves around him, because that’s the way he was around other people.” She pauses again. “One day there was a meeting between the teachers and some government officials. They told the teachers that they wanted to know what the government could do to improve teaching standards. Your father suggested that they could be paid more. A man sitting at the back of the meeting asked your father to come outside into the corridor for a moment. No one saw your father again.”
“Who was the man?” I ask.
“The man worked for the government. They tricked your father. They tricked everyone in that room. They didn’t want to know about how to improve lives for teachers. They wanted to know if there were any teachers at the school who would criticize the government.”
“But he only asked if they could get paid more.”
“The government pays teachers’ wages.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Then you could accidentally criticize them about anything. Without even knowing you’d done it.”
“Now you’re beginning to understand.”
“Why take him away? Why not just tell him to be happy with what he’s paid?”
“The government had to be sure your father wouldn’t make anyone else feel the same. They wanted to make an example of him.”
“Make an example of him? But everyone thinks he’s dead.”
“His friends don’t know what happened to him. And that frightens them more.”
“So if Dad isn’t dead, then where is he?” I can feel hot tears pooling in my eyes.
“There are camps where they send people like Dad. No one knows where they are and no one can visit. Your father cannot leave. He may never leave. I don’t know for sure that he is still okay after six years in prison. That’s why I told you he’s dead.”
I feel as if Dad is dying all over again.
“Shif, I didn’t tell you these things because not knowing them is safer for you. But I’m learning that you are just like your father. You’re not happy with answering questions—you must ask them, too. But for your safety—for our safety—you must understand that you can’t.”
Lemlem begins to stir.
I wait for a minute, then do exactly what she asked me not to do. “How can this be connected to Bini not going to school?” I ask.
Lemlem opens her eyes.
“Shhh, shhh,” Mom soothes her. “It’s time you went to bed,” she whispers to me. “We’ve talked enough tonight. We’ll talk again tomorrow evening. We’ll talk every evening until I’ve told you everything. I think you realize, Shif, that you must tell no one what I’ve said tonight.”
I lie awake on my hard bed, listening to Lemlem and Mom softly snoring. Everything is as it was last night. But I feel as if a new life has begun tonight. A life with no secrets. As I stare up at the shadowy ceiling, I wonder what Dad is doing now, what kind of room he is sleeping in.
I remember Dad coming home from work one day with a present wrapped in a cloth. My chess set. I step softly toward the cupboard and slide it out. I lay it on my bed and take out the pieces. I look at them, as if I expect them to reveal more. Instead, I feel as if each piece is a connection to my father. They have an energy. My father is alive.
I will not stop asking questions until I know everything. If Mom is right about the dangers that brings, then she will have to keep her promise and tell me herself. Then there will be no need for me to ask other people what is going on.
For the first time ever, I will already know.
Leave
The next morning, I sit in geography class but cannot concentrate on what the teacher is saying. I realize, too late, that he is talking to me. I look at him blankly.
“Ato Girma, would you mind repeating the question?”
He gives me a stony stare. “Then will you be joining us for the remainder of this lesson?”
I nod as the rest of the class laughs.
I feel as if the words my mother shared with me last night are hovering above my head. My secret is lit up for everyone to see. No one has mentioned the empty seat next to me, Bini’s seat. Normally Bini and I would see who could solve an equation the fastest, who could finish his exercises first. Today I want to be invisible, and I want my lessons to end so I can run home and discover the other pieces to the puzzle of my life.
To pass the time, I begin to daydream again. If I want to become the best engineer in the country, I must get top grades in math. But for the first time I begin to wonder if that’s what I want. I want to get top grades, of course, but maybe I could do something different. Would I like being a teacher? If I were a math teacher, I could help the smartest kids. Unlike Ato Hayat, I would know how to teach them new things—hard things. Perhaps that’s why my father wanted to be a teacher. To help others learn what he already knew. To do it well.
The bell rings for lunch and I head toward the cafeteria. Other kids from my class sit in groups around the edge. I could go over and join them, but I know they won’t want to talk about differential calculus. Without Bini, I will have to become self-sufficient. I will need to push myself at school because he won’t be there to do it for me.
There is a Bini-shaped hole, threatening to swallow me up.
When the bell rings to mark the end of English, I stuff my things into my backpack and rush to the gate. Maybe the boredom of another day off school has made Bini more desperate to beat me at chess. A small part of me also wonders if Saba will have changed her mind. I push away the thought that something serious must be behind her decision. Something that Mom has promised to explain.
I put the key in the front door and realize that it’s already unlocked. I push it open and see my mother sitting on the bed with Lemlem on her lap and Bini’s mother next to her. I can see that Mom has been crying.
“Shif, come and sit down,” she says without looking up.
As I sit down, Saba hugs Mom and says she will go home to get things ready.
Mom whispers in Lemlem’s ear to go sort through the threads in her sewing basket.
“But I want to stay and listen,” Lemlem says.
“Find some bright thread and maybe I can sew a pattern on your dress this weekend.”
Lemlem hops down and walks eagerly over to the basket in the other room.
As soon as Lemlem has gone, Mom turns to me and says, “Shif, the soldiers you saw two days ago are taking part in a giffa.” Reading my mind, she says, “They are rounding up any boys or girls they think are trying to escape military school. Sometimes they have a tip-off; sometimes they just take anyone who looks old enough.”
“Why do they need to round people up? I thought everyone just went?”
“Whatever you’ve been taught about military school, Shif, forget it. Forget it all. You’ll learn how to march and how to clea
n. You won’t be allowed to leave for two years, and I won’t be allowed to visit. There will be no math; there will be no lessons. It can be like this for any student. But as the son of a traitor, they will make it unbearable for you.”
I stare at her. “Dad is not a traitor.”
“Of course Dad isn’t a traitor.” She blinks the possibility away. “But that is what they will call him. How else can the government justify what it has done—what it continues to do?”
“When were you going to tell me this? When I was already on my way to military school?”
Mom is unmoved. The truth seems to be giving her a new kind of strength. She hasn’t finished.
“The sons and daughters of traitors don’t serve two years. Some of them never leave.”
“Never?” I gasp, searching her face for a clue that she might be making this up to scare me.
“After your training they’ll send you to the gold mines. You’ll work for sixteen hours a day but earn no money. You won’t even earn the bus fare to come home—not that you would be allowed to use the bus, anyway.”
I stand up. I have no intention of going anywhere, but I cannot sit still while my mother rearranges the pieces of my life around me.
“I’ve been waiting to tell you everything.” Mom looks at me intently. “But I’ve waited too long. Saba and I had a plan to get you and Bini out of military service; we thought we had a couple of years before we needed to act, but you’ve both been pushed up through your grades so fast. We were proud but also frightened by the speed at which you were approaching grade twelve. Then when the soldiers came to our district, Saba decided to take Bini out of school. Lots of parents do it, hoping it will make their children harder to track. Out of sight, out of mind. But you are not out of sight or out of mind. The soldiers did see you, the evening when you went out to get injera. Now they want to track you down. They will be back. Maybe this week. It wouldn’t take them long to find out that Bini is living next door, and he’ll be rounded up, too. That is why you both have to go now.”
