Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  “Are you all right?” Marco yelled into the wind.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s head over there,” he said, slowing to a trot and pointing toward a grove of trees.

  Jimmy wouldn’t like this at all, she thought. Never take cover under trees. Trees are the natural anchor for lightning. She followed him anyhow. They dismounted and held the horses tightly. The eye of the storm seemed directly above them. Lightning tore open the sky. You could see for miles despite the blackness of the storm. Ceseli counted the seconds between the flash of lightning and the crack of thunder.

  “It’s almost over,” Marco grinned. “Have faith. Are you wet?”

  “Oh no,” she grinned, knowing that her thick hair was hanging, as if they had become rivers of live water running down over her shoulders. And then the eye of the storm passed. The clouds raced on. The darkness ceased.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Marco said, remounting his horse. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Ceseli answered as she got on her horse and followed him back to Addis.

  CHAPTER 16

  IN THE SUMMER OF 1935, there were six thousand foreigners in Addis Ababa, including some rather unsavory mercenaries and adventurers. Among them were one hundred thirty men claiming to be journalists. The Times of London was represented, as was the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, and Paris Soire. Some of them were anti-Fascist, some anti-Ethiopian, some both. These journalists had their own war: who got the best story, and who got it first.

  The Greek owned, two floor, barracks-like Imperial Hotel, where Ceseli had not stayed, was their haven. The building had ornate lacy balconies outside almost every room, but only one bathroom in the entire hotel and no maid service. When the journalists were not running down important leads, they played chess or billiards in the lobby, or dined on greasy artichokes, sweetmeats, kebabs and copious amounts of beer, wine, and schnapps.

  At thirty-six, Bruno Zeri was proud of his job as chief war reporter for Corriere Della Sera, the prestigious Milan daily newspaper. It was the newspaper of the northern Italian industrialists, and of the monarchy. Before the total Fascist censorship came into effect, it was dedicated to excellence. Zeri liked to think it still was.

  His life with the paper had been interesting, and at times exciting. It did not lend itself to a family, although he had had several tortuous love affairs. He often thought that he should have been a lawyer like his father, or a doctor like his uncle. He had thought of teaching, which his mother loved, as had his grandmother. Religion had never played an important part in his life. If he had to think about it, he was probably more like his Jewish mother than his agnostic father. When he thought sarcastically about it, his greatest loyalty was to the Rome soccer team, Roma.

  Over the summer, the number of journalists was increasing, and now arrangements for interviews with the emperor devolved to Yifru. The war is coming soon, Zeri thought as he made mental notes of the interview he would conduct with the emperor. He wrote down the questions and submitted them. A few days later he received word that the emperor would see him for a few minutes on the following Thursday. Zeri realized that he was intensely interested in meeting him.

  As he walked to the Ghibbi Palace, he was thinking about the two leaders. The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, was only a figurehead. Benito Mussolini was now the elected leader with absolute power. Haile Sellassie was an emperor. Was there any real difference between an absolute dictator and an absolute emperor?

  Zeri knew that if Benito Mussolini were compared to Caesar, he would be an armchair Caesar. With total dictatorial power, Il Duce was more and more isolated. He spent most of his time alone in his offices in Palazzo Venezia, especially the Sala di Mappamondo, with its world maps on which Mussolini pinned little red and blue colored flags showing whether a country was friendly to him or not.

  Mussolini had already made his plans. He would need one hundred thousand Italian soldiers to conquer Ethiopia, and probably just as many natives. However, Ethiopia was not the main threat; Great Britain and France were. He ardently believed that the League alone could not, or would not, stop him. His main worry was how he could supply Eritrea and Italian Somaliland with the needed men and equipment if Great Britain and France intervened. Great Britain single handedly could stop him by slamming shut the Suez Canal.

  He also knew that the quicker the invasion could be completed, the less likely the danger of diplomatic complications. It would be enough to safeguard the interests of England and France. Mussolini understood this to mean, annex Ethiopia, but safeguard the French railroad in Djibouti and the British interests near Lake Tana and the Blue Nile. Furthermore, all this must be completed before Hitler was strong enough to start his own imperialistic warfare in Europe.

  While Mussolini sat and dreamed, Zeri grudgingly had to concede that the Italian people revered him. In official proclamations, Mussolini’s name was above that of the king. No laws passed the senate or the chamber of deputies except his. Nobody contradicted him, even in his outlandish whims. When he complained that he couldn’t see the Coliseum from his office window, the Via dei Fori Imperiale was built by leveling all the buildings around the Coliseum.

  And nobody would contradict him now. It was far too late.

  Yifru was waiting for Signor Bruno Zeri as he walked up to the palace and accompanied him to the emperor’s study. “Welcome, Signor Zeri,” he said, pleasantly shaking his hand.

  “Grazie.” Zeri answered, surprised at the warm welcome. “Thank you for letting me interview the Negus.”

  “It was his majesty’s decision, I assure you.”

  Yifru guided him up to the second floor and indicated the seat in front of the emperor’s desk. He walked behind the desk taking a well-worn leather seat behind the emperor, and to his left. The dogs lay obediently at the emperor’s feet.

  Haile Sellassie studied Zeri for a moment before beginning. “You represent an important newspaper. That is why we have granted this interview. We hope you will record it faithfully.”

  Zeri nodded in acceptance as he studied the small man seated in front of him. He knew he was facing a man of authority and intelligence. He saw that he economized gesture and sat perfectly straight. Only the jeweled hand moved a little under his black cloak. Zeri sensed the great dignity of his bearing. How different from the ranting and posturing of Mussolini, he thought.

  “On methods of negotiation,” the emperor began, taking the single sheet of questions. “Great Britain has not made proposals to Ethiopia, but we are delighted with the attitude of Sir Samuel Hoare and Mr. Anthony Eden.”

  Zeri already knew that the British had sent Sir Anthony Eden to Rome to negotiate the trade of the Ethiopian Ogaden desert area near WalWal to Italy in exchange for the port of Zeila on the Red Sea in British Somaliland. It was a last ditch effort to avoid hostilities. He also knew that Eden had failed. It was common knowledge that Mussolini detested the British diplomat and that he already possessed one hundred thousand square miles of desert. He didn’t need any more.

  Yifru, sitting behind the Emperor, remembered the number of times the two of them had discussed the frontiers that had been set up by Menelik through negotiations with the predatory European governments. Frontiers had become an urgent necessity. The idea of an encircling border, a kind of watertight state, which could be shown on a map in a separate color was new even in Europe. Innumerable frontier problems were an inheritance of the recent past, and were moving and shifting because of war. Political borders were even vaguer and sometimes meaningless in Africa where huge areas, empty and unmapped, separated nomads and tribal villages. But now well demarcated frontiers had become essential in Europe, and if Ethiopia was to survive as a modern state, it too must have them.

  The frontier lines had already been drawn, but many of them had never been surveyed or demarcated, and the territories they ran through were often unexplored. This was the case for the much disputed frontier between Ethiopia’s O
gaden and the Italian colony of Somaliland. Where exactly were the wells of WalWal? In Ethiopia, as the Ethiopians claimed, or in Somaliland as the Italians asserted.

  “We have in mind only an exchange of territory,” the emperor said. “If the Zeila offer is accepted, we are willing to surrender to Italy an equivalent amount of land. But the Zeila offer must stand. We still regard a seaport as much more important than loans or other financial assistance. But,” he added, “we have received no proposals of a territorial nature from any source.”

  The emperor paused as he read the next question. “We learn from press accounts in some parts of the world that Mussolini told Sir Anthony Eden, the British Secretary for League of Nations Affairs, that Italy’s minimum demand were the expulsion of Ethiopia from the League and an armed Italian protectorate over Ethiopia. You ask will Ethiopia accept an Italian protectorate?”

  The emperor paused looking at Zeri. “Monsieur Zeri, only a country which fails to accomplish its duty may be expelled from the League. Ethiopia has always respected all its international obligations. Only the League, not Italy, can decide as to the exclusion of Ethiopia. Concerning an armed Italian protectorate, an old proverb says ‘one shouldn’t sell the lion’s skin before killing the lion.’

  “In reply to your question concerning the Italian threat to raise the question of slavery at the League of Nations in Geneva, we are gratified that Italy would use Geneva for any question whatsoever. You are well aware that slavery is not confined to Ethiopia, since it flourishes too in Italian Eritrea and in Libya. Have you been to Eritrea or Libya?”

  “I have been to both, your majesty.”

  “Then I do not need to tell you that the fact of slavery is not denied by the Italians themselves, and a fact the League is well aware of. We believe it is an insufficient argument for the annexation of the so-called colonial provinces that have been member states of Ethiopia by treaty and in historical fact.”

  The emperor paused looking Zeri straight in the eye. “The Italian threat to peace appears to me to be flagrant. If Italy declares war, or her troops dare to cross the borders, Ethiopia will fight immediately and simultaneously appeal to the League.”

  The emperor paused letting the impact of his words speak for itself. “We believe these are our answers to the questions you put forth. Is there anything else?”

  Zeri hesitated. He wanted to ask about the rumor that Hitler was supplying arms. He thought better of it. He knew that even if it were true, the emperor would have to deny it.

  “We hope your article will be faithful to the spirit in which we have answered your questions,” the emperor said, still holding Bruno’s eyes with the magnetism of his own.

  Zeri, as he put down his notebook, studied the leader he could not help, but respect. “Your majesty, I will write this interview faithful to the way you have explained to me your views. I need to warn you though that there is a powerful censor in Italy. My paper is not as free as I, or your majesty, would like it to be.”

  “We ask only that you do your best.”

  “I promise you that I will.” Zeri said, nodding as he stood up. “Thank you again for seeing me.”

  “We deemed it necessary.”

  Zeri bowed and walked backward from the emperor’s presence, following a red carpet that had been placed to guide him.

  Outside the office, he turned to shake hands with Yifru. “Thank you for arranging this,” Zeri said as he put his notebook into his breast pocket.

  “It was entirely the emperor’s decision.”

  “Thank you anyhow.” Zeri started down the corridor to the stairs. Did the emperor grant this interview to issue a veiled threat, he thought. Yes, no doubt of it. He was still mulling over this when he almost bumped into Ceseli Larson coming out of one of the rooms. “Miss Larson. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, and you look well yourself.”

  “I’ve just been interviewing the emperor.”

  “That must have been interesting.”

  “I was very impressed. I didn’t think he’d see me. Just curiosity, but what are you doing here?”

  “I’m cataloguing the emperor’s papers on Axum that mention the obelisks.”

  “You mean you’re working for the emperor! Does that give you access to him?”

  “Through Yifru. Yes.”

  “His faithful amanuensis.”

  “That doesn’t do him justice,” Ceseli answered, a little piqued. “He handles everything the emperor does.”

  “The Keeper of the Pen. Rather Ethiopian, isn’t it?”

  “Any different from the British Lord Keeper of the Seal? Except that that man usually has a title and a seat in the House of Lords.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Zeri said. “Can I ask you something? Do you mind if we go somewhere where we can talk?”

  “You can come to my office,” Ceseli said, preceding him down the hall.

  Zeri followed her into the small office and as he walked over to the open window, Ceseli could not help again thinking how tall he was. She was five foot seven inches and he made her feel like a midget, but despite his size he was very lithe, almost like a panther might be. His eyes were alert and somehow troubling.

  Outside he could see the gardeners weeding the yellow and red roses. Farther on, the home guard was drilling. Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra! Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra!

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “That’s their drilling cadence. Gra means left, Ken means right.”

  “Some look like they’re children,” Zeri said as he watched them march back and forth with their smart uniforms and no shoes. He looked back into the room, and walked over to study the photos on the wall. The office was small, but adequate. The walls were white and she had covered one wall with her own photographs. Outside the window was the circular fountain, still without water. Besides her photographs, the unique part of her office was the Swiss made cuckoo clock that cuckooed ten minutes after the hour, not on it. Ceseli, and half the guards at the palace, had all tried to adjust it so that it ran on time. It wouldn’t. The amusing thing was that when the cuckoo finally burst out of its little peaked roof house, the parrot in the emperor’s office started calling to it as if the birds, one wooden, the other live, could have some meaningful communication. It was, Ceseli conceded, certainly not emblematic of Swiss efficiency.

  “It’s in Axum,” she said, answering the unasked question and noting his attention as he looked at the photos of the fallen obelisk. “It’s the only one carved on all four sides.”

  “Was that, what we say, a coup?”

  “Yes,” she smiled despite herself.

  “The picture is very good, you know. You use a Leica don’t you? And you’re good at it.”

  “You wanted to ask me something?” she asked, not wanting to be rude, but wanting to shorten the meeting.

  “I was curious about what you feel working here. I mean is the emperor upset? Testy? Worried?”

  “If he is, he keeps it well hidden. He’s always very gracious and polite.”

  “So you get to interact with him?”

  “He has stopped by a couple of times to make sure I don’t need something I’m not finding. Yifru on the other hand comes by at least once a day.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s totally loyal to the emperor. He’s the only one who knows him as a man, as well as a figurehead. Except his wife, I guess.”

  “You’ve met with the empress?”

  “I don’t see her at all. She and the princesses live in a separate pavilion.”

  “There’s something else I was interested in. I heard about the Falasha, the Jews of Ethiopia. Have you come up with anything in your research?”

  “Why are you interested in the Falasha?”

  Zeri shrugged as he took out his notebook.

  “I do know that they’re a native Jewish sect,” Ceseli began. “The name is Amharic for exiles, or landless ones. The Falashas refer to themselves as Beta Esrael, which means H
ouse of Israel. One Falasha tradition traces their ancestry to Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.”

  “As does everyone else it seems,” Zeri smiled, taking notes.

  “The bible of the Falashas is written in an archaic Semitic dialect known as Ge’ez. It’s ancient Ethiopic. Ge’ez is to the Amharic language what Latin is to Italian.”

  “That I didn’t know,” Bruno said, writing it down.

  “It is also the liturgical language of the Coptic Church. Most of the old manuscripts were written in Ge’ez, and services are still in Ge’ez. The Falashas live in the area above Lake Tana, but we ran into a community near Axum. They’re farmers. Until the seventeenth century, they had their own independent province at Semien in the north. But Emperor Susenyos expelled them from there. Sorry I don’t know more. But you should ask Yifru. I’m sure he’ll know.”

  “I was curious about what I heard about the animal sacrifice. My mother is Jewish, but I know that animal sacrifice hasn’t been used in Europe for thousands of years. That is why one thinks of this sect as being segregated for centuries. How many Falasha do you think there are?”

  “I read a book by a Reverend Henry Stern who was sent to convert the Falashas living in the Gondar area in the early 1890s. He thought there were about two hundred fifty thousand then. But there have been several famines since and many were forced to convert to Christianity. I’m afraid I don’t know how to calculate the numbers.”

  “That’s a good beginning,” he replied. “And keep up the good work with your camera.”

  After he left, Ceseli went to her desk, and started to read a letter she had taken from the archives. She paused thinking about Bruno Zeri. There is something about him that I don’t trust, she thought. It troubled her that she couldn’t understand her own feelings and it wasn’t the only time she had had these misgivings. Was it because he was a Fascist, or a journalist? An Italian? She felt that there was something missing. What was it?

  CHAPTER 17

  “IT’S THE LIONESS ISN’T it? The one you mention in your report,” Yifru asked, studying the photograph. It was the day after her talk with Bruno Zeri and she was working on some reports of the German expedition to Axum at the beginning of the century.