Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  “Where will you be staying?”

  “Uncle Warren said he’d take care of that.”

  “He’ll give you a choice. Either the legation compound, or the Imperial Hotel, which is there on your right.”

  “The Imperial Hotel? That sounds very grand,” she said as the car slowly passed the imposing Swiss chalet style dark green building, with its delicate white latticework balconies.

  “Names can be deceiving!”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Our little acre of the U.S. I prefer American cockroaches. At least you know what you’re getting.” She looked across at him, trying to judge how serious he was. “This is it,” he said, turning into a driveway. “It’s not as big or as old as the British, French and Italian compounds, but it’s comfortable. The building belongs to a wealthy ras. A ras is the equivalent of a medieval warlord. The emperor urged him to rent us the villa and the emperor is rarely refused. It’s handy because it’s close to the palace. We even have our own hyenas.”

  “Hyenas?”

  “They came with the villa. Now they’re used to American garbage.”

  She got out of the car and saw the sprawling two story building with an American flag fluttering from its nearby pole. The Legation was white with brick trim and a large front door painted blue. Behind she could see well-kept gardens with a wide lawn leading out to the Eucalyptus woods. A white picket fence boxed in what looked like a vegetable and herb garden. A magnificent purple Bougainvillea vine crawled up one side of the building making a smashing prismatic clash with the yellow and pink roses. Someone loves to garden, she thought looking at a large group of avocado trees. Ceseli remembered how she had once tried to raise avocados by precariously perching the pit sustained by three toothpicks over a glass jar filled with water. It did work, she could guarantee that, but these trees were large enough to bare fruit.

  “I’ll lead the way,” Standish said, over his shoulder, walking into the building and then striding down the hall past the faux marble columns and yellow stucco moldings of the entranceway. Lots of indoor plants were in terracotta urns. Through the long French doors she could see the clouds above Mt. Entoto.

  “Here we are,” Standish said, opening a door and allowing Ceseli to precede him into the room.

  At the far side of the room, Warren Rutherford, the fifty-year-old United States Minister to Ethiopia, turned, smiled, and walked toward her. “Ceseli, my dear. Ceseli, it’s so good to see you,” he said, bear hugging her with real warmth and kissing her on the cheek. “Welcome to Addis.”

  “Thank you, Uncle Warren,” she said, looking into his familiar eyes. They seemed darker and more tired than she remembered from his many visits with her father in their New York apartment, but his smile, as always, was engaging. He exuded friendship and authority.

  “Ceseli, please accept my condolences again. Hamilton was my best friend. I can hardly believe he’s gone. What a shock that was. I’m so very sorry I couldn’t get back for the service,” he said, beckoning her to a seat in front of his desk. He walked behind it and took a briar pipe from a rack filled with them. “When you write, please express my condolences to your grandparents. And a special word to Sotzy, of course.”

  “I will.”

  “How was your trip?” he asked, once she and Standish were seated.

  “Very long. I came from New York.”

  “You haven’t been to Geneva then?”

  “I’ll do that after I leave here. I’ve been very busy completing my studies at Penn and planning my dissertation.”

  “The obelisks of Axum, right?” Rutherford said, interrupting.

  “Yes. It sounded really exotic. And knowing my godfather was here was reassuring. And then . . .” Ceseli paused, her voice trailing off. She looked around for a moment trying to suppress the hot tears, overwhelmed with emotion at actually sitting here in Rutherford’s office in Addis, without her father.

  As she looked around to gather her thoughts, she noticed that the room was light and airy, the walls painted a butter yellow with a large bay window looking out onto the garden. On either side of the window were wide bookcases full of what looked like important official publications. The wide mahogany desk was a French style partner’s desk with two chairs on the side where Ceseli and Standish were sitting, and one for him on the other side. Along one wall was a comfortable chintz covered couch with two wing chairs at its sides and a mahogany coffee table. Persian rugs with a blue and gold motif covered the hardwood floors. Along the shorter wall was a huge fireplace with imposing wrought irons with brass decoration and matching fire tools. Displayed on the wide and handsome mantelpiece were Rutherford family photographs in silver frames.

  Over the years Ceseli had grown to know Warren Rutherford well. At a certain age she began to wonder how the two men had become such good friends. They were so different in every way. Hamilton had been blond. That’s where I get my hair color, she thought, and was six feet tall and very slender. Warren was dark and solid. While Hamilton loved to play tennis, hike, swim, and ride horses, Warren preferred sitting by the pool and doing the crossword puzzle, or painting, or playing the piano. They had been roommates for seven years in New Haven, Connecticut somehow making a perfect match during their undergraduate and law school days at Yale.

  Warren had married extremely well after he fell in love with Marnie Winthrop Barber, the only child of a cereal baron from Chicago. Her handsome dowry meant he could enter the diplomatic community early on. He was a full minister in Ethiopia and after reposting to Washington in a few years would surely acquire a good ambassadorship in a key European capital.

  Warren Rutherford was also a good godfather, never once missing her birthday. She and her father had spent a week every summer at Warren’s ancestral oceanfront family compound at Quogue on Long Island in the Hamptons.

  Finally, Ceseli regained her composure and continued.

  “I won a doctoral fellowship at the American Academy at Rome for next year and I’ve accepted. I thought a lot about whether I should change the subject of my thesis or come here as planned, and decided that would be exactly what my father would expect.”

  “Hamilton told me of your plans some time ago. I’m sure we can get you to Axum. You’ll need permission from the emperor, of course.” Rutherford turned to Standish. “I want you to arrange a meeting with Yifru.”

  “Actually, sir, Yifru has already met Miss Larson. They were on the same train. We’ll go to see him first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Excellent. Yifru can probably slip you in to see the emperor. As for accommodations, Ceseli,” Rutherford said, turning to her, “most Americans have preferred staying here in the compound. We can give you one of our tukuls.”

  “I’d like that very much. I shall enjoy hearing the hyenas.”

  “Indeed. The hyenas,” Rutherford laughed. “I’m sorry my Marnie isn’t here. She would love to see you, but Abigail is getting married soon and I guess young ladies like their mother’s help. Unfortunately, this is no time for me to leave so Standish and I will be bacheloring it for a few months. You’ll be most welcome to join us at meals and add a little luster to our existence. We can discuss everything else when you get settled in. At seven?”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Standish led the way walking from the main building behind which there were several of the round tukuls on a wide expanse of garden. “I’m right over there,” he said, pointing to another tukul. “Holler if you need anything. The minister is very precise, as you know. I’ll stop by for you a few minutes before seven.”

  Ceseli walked into the tukul, put her camera bag on a table and looked around. There was a large window overlooking the garden with mosquito netting neatly tacked around the edges and a double bed with a native blue and white cotton bedspread. A print of St. George and the dragon hung on the white wall. On the simple nightstand were a candleholder, matches and a good supply of candles. A book of the birds of Ethiopia was on the bureau
next to a vase of freshly cut white, yellow, and cornstarch blue wild flowers. She would put the photograph of her father next to the book. She stuck her head into the bathroom to find a large zinc tub and shower that looked like something that Tarzan might have used.

  Her steamer trunk, she noticed, was already waiting for her. I guess they didn’t think I’d stay at the hotel, Imperial or not, she thought as she walked back to the verandah. There was a small table and two slat-back Adirondack style chairs, which looked locally made and rudimentary, but comfortable.

  She sat down in one of them and, resting her head on the chair’s hard wooden frame, thought briefly of the train ride and of Marco. She closed her eyes and remembered the trip with her father to Florence when she was twelve.

  “Where are we going, Daddy?”

  “We’re going to climb to the top of the belfry.”

  The stairs were very steep, the polished marble slick under her feet.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “The whole city is red, Daddy.”

  Hamilton Larson hesitated for a minute then smiled.

  “You’re absolutely right, my dear. Those are the red tile roofs. And that is the Arno River. Florence was a trading center. They brought wool here from the Cotswolds in England and from Portugal and dyed and spun it into the most expensive fabric in the world. That’s one of the ways they made this city famous. Trade brought a lot of money to Florence during a period of years known as the Renaissance.”

  “What’s that, Daddy?”

  “It means rebirth. It was a time when a wealthy banking family named the Medici paid artists to make their city the most beautiful one in the world. They lived in a palace over there across the Arno. We’ll go there this afternoon.” He smiled at her affectionately as they studied the city below them.

  “I’d like an ice cream, Daddy.”

  “Ask for it in Italian, my sweet.”

  “Un gelato. Per favore.”

  “One gelato coming right up,” he said as they started back down the steep stairway.

  A low wu-wu-wu-wu-wuoo startled her. Ceseli looked out to the lawn, but she saw only a huge tortoise. It stopped in its grazing and looked at her with sorrowful almost doe-like eyes. Suddenly, she could hardly control the feeling of anxiety that crept over her. Until now, everything she had done was concentrated on getting here. The long journey from New York, the Italian ship from Naples, and then the drama of the train. Now she was in Addis Ababa. For the first time in her life, she actually felt afraid and alone in a place where she shouldn’t be alone.

  From a tree she heard again the wu-wu-wu-wu-wuoo of a mourning dove. Despite all her efforts to hold them back, her eyes filled with tears.

  CHAPTER 5

  “THOSE HUGE TURTLES?” CESELI asked as they sat on the verandah having a gin and tonic before dinner.

  “Land tortoises. Huge, yes, but very docile. The British ambassador gave them to us when we moved in,” Rutherford said, adjusting himself more comfortably in his chair. “He’s got quite a few of them. We have four and they certainly do eat!”

  “My father bought me two of those little green sea turtles in Chinatown. They were in a green glass bowl in my room, but somehow managed to get all the way to the kitchen and hide behind the icebox. It took us months to find them. They were hibernating. Daddy said they were on vacation.”

  Rutherford laughed, “Hamilton had a wonderful sense of humor. How do you like the tukul?”

  “It’s fine. Thank you for letting me stay here in the compound.”

  “I’m sorry Hamilton never got to come out here. He was quite an authority on Ethiopia,” he said as he pulled a pipe from his breast pocket. “You’ll like it here, Ceseli. It’s considered a hardship post, but we do have some amenities. There’s a decent library, and a phonograph in the sitting room. There’s electricity at times. There’s a curfew for his majesty’s subjects. You’ll hear the bugle each evening. Foreigners are exempt, but the city is blacked out. There’s no place to go in any case. Right Standish? If you like to play, there’s even an upright piano. The only other is at the British compound. We get together now and then to have some fun.”

  “There were six piano crates on the train. I saw them being unloaded at the station.”

  “Interesting,” Rutherford paused. “Must be for the emperor, but why waste money on music? He should be buying guns.”

  They were interrupted by a young Ethiopian girl wearing the traditional shamma, but in a very pale blue. “Dinner is ready, sir,” she said, curtsying gracefully.

  “Thank you, Hilina,” Rutherford said, pushing back his chair and walking into the dining room. “This is Miss Larson, Hilina. She’ll be staying with us for a few weeks.”

  “What does Hilina mean?” Ceseli asked.

  “I’m named after Saint Hilina,” she replied shyly, her head bowed.

  “The mother of Emperor Constantine,” Ceseli said.

  “Ceseli, my dear, why don’t you sit here,” Rutherford said, as he pulled back her chair.

  Ceseli looked around her. Despite her absence, this room was very much Marnie Winthrop Barber Rutherford. It did not look somber despite the eggplant purple walls. The four large windows were outlined by grey and white striped silk drapes. Over the sideboard was a huge mirror inside a mahogany frame. On each side of the mirror was a Tiffany glass sconce with stained glass shades. On the sideboard sat an elaborate Gorham silver tea and coffee set on a twenty-four inch tray. I wonder how long that takes to polish, she thought, and who does it? Hilina?

  Two large oil landscape paintings were on the short wall. She wondered if they were painted by Rutherford, who she remembered as a very good painter. She remembered that on one trip to a dude ranch in Wyoming that her father had taken her, Marnie, and Abigail riding through the mountains while Warren painted them. Warren Rutherford’s paintings, like the crossword puzzles he not only solved, but constructed, all had a theme. This painting had a cerulean sky with wisps of yellow, a string of purple mountains, and wheat fields. She wondered what it meant.

  When they were all seated, Rutherford turned to Ceseli, opening a small brown leather diary on the table next to him.

  “Axum. Let’s presume the emperor approves. I don’t think he’d refuse us anything right now. I know he thinks that President Roosevelt will come to his rescue and I know he will be disappointed. How many days do you think you will need up there?”

  “I think I could finish in five, or at most, six days.”

  “A week. That shouldn’t be hard to arrange. By the way, you mentioned going to Rome next year. You came through Naples, so you saw the number of Italian soldiers coming to Eritrea?”

  Ceseli nodded.

  “Ethiopia is in grave danger right now,” Rutherford said. “Mussolini has big dreams. He’s using a border clash at WalWal as an excuse to invade Ethiopia. The emperor, unfortunately, is in no position to fight the Italians.”

  “WalWal?”

  “WalWal is an oasis of several watering holes in the south of Ethiopia in an area that borders Italian Somaliland. There was a stupid border clash there last November. Mussolini is saying the Ethiopians were responsible because they provoked the Italians at the wells, but the emperor quite rightly maintains that the Italians had no right to be on Ethiopian soil in the first place.”

  “Were they?”

  “We believe that WalWal is about sixty miles inside the border of Ethiopia, even on the Italian maps,” Standish said.

  “The League of Nations is trying to arbitrate a settlement,” Rutherford continued. “Since this is his only excuse for invasion, Mussolini won’t give in easily. The emperor wants the League to stand up to Mussolini, but that’s not going to happen. Even though, in theory, each member of the League has a vote, the League is dominated by its two strongest members, England and France, and they are too busy courting Mussolini and hoping to entice him into an alliance to protect them from Germany.”

  “But why would Italy want
Ethiopia?” Ceseli asked.

  “Having Ethiopia would link together Italy’s two colonies, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, and that would be good. But what Mussolini really needs is good farmland. He has forty-two million people in a country one-eighth the size of Ethiopia and the highlands here are very fertile. And Ethiopia has less than eight million people so it wouldn’t be hard to govern.”

  “So you believe that war is coming?” Ceseli asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Rutherford said. “Roosevelt does not want to get involved. But how can he avoid it? Most discussions we’ve had are on how to stay neutral in the face of a European war. We seem to forget about the rights and wrongs of the crises that threaten war. But since we are sitting here in the middle of one of these crises, my opinion may be somewhat biased. This isn’t meant to be a first year college history course,” he continued. “In my next reincarnation, I’ll be a college professor. Then I can give vent to my pedantic talents.”

  Ceseli smiled. “I’m here to learn everything I can.”

  “You don’t have to flatter me, my dear. Standish, I never asked you. You were stationed in Geneva. Did you know Ceseli’s father?”

  “I never worked with him directly, but I studied his paper on WalWal. It was a very sound analysis,” Standish replied, looking at Ceseli.

  Ceseli stifled a yawn. “Uncle Warren, I think I’m more tired than I thought. It’s a lot to digest all at once. I’ll retire, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sweet dreams. Oh, Ceseli, one thing. Let’s do away with this Uncle Warren thing. It makes me feel like a relic. Why don’t you and I have breakfast tomorrow morning? We’ll let Standish sleep an extra hour. That’s okay with you isn’t it, my boy? 7:30?”