The Garbage King

by Elizabeth Laird

  The truck’s headlights, stabbing through the dark, roused him. Almost too late, he jumped up and ran out into the glare, shouting at the top of his voice. The truck veered sideways and the driver angrily sounded his horn, sending a long blast echoing through the night. And then it was past him and its red tail lights were growing smaller and smaller, mocking him, like a pair of evil eyes.

  Mamo felt furiously angry. Without knowing what he was doing, he began to run after it, yelling, ‘No! Come back! Take me!’

  He didn’t see the stone that tripped him up. It sent him flying and he landed with a sickening crash, grazing the skin off his hands and feet, tearing another hole in his thin ragged shirt and cutting a slash down his cheek. He lay half stunned for a while, then cautiously sat up. Blood was trickling down his face and now it was mixed with tears. He didn’t try to stop them coming. He sat on the road and let despair wash over him, not even noticing that he was shivering with cold.

  The second truck came as the first hint of grey was spreading along the horizon. Mamo didn’t bother to get off the side of the road. He sat still and did no more than raise a pleading hand. The truck saw him nearly too late, and had to swerve to avoid him. He looked up and saw the vague outline of the driver gesticulating angrily to him, and then it too was past.

  Two more trucks came by, then an early bus appeared in the distance, coming up very fast, its orange-and-gold livery gleaming dully in the first faint light of day. Scared, Mamo crawled off the road and hid from it behind a tree. They couldn’t possibly be searching for him yet, and anyway no one would recognize him, but supposing someone did? Supposing someone who knew the farmer caught sight of him, and made the bus stop, and dragged him away?

  The sky had slowly been turning from grey to blue while the band of pink on the horizon expanded and deepened. Blazing stripes appeared over the distant hills, and suddenly the great red rim of the sun came up. Its rays struck Mamo’s back and he realized how cold he’d been. He turned gratefully towards it.

  The sun seemed to warm his mind too. A new determination took hold of him. He would force the next truck to stop. He wouldn’t let it go without him. Somehow or other, he’d make sure he was on it.

  He heard it while it was still a long way off, when its gears were grinding up a distant hill, and he gathered himself, not sure what to do, waiting for inspiration. Then it came into sight, lumbering slowly under its heavy weight down the road towards him. The sun was glancing off its windscreen so that he couldn’t see the driver’s face.

  In a moment it would be past him, like the others.

  Without thinking of the danger, driven by desperation, Mamo ran right out into the path of the huge machine and stood in the middle of the road with his arms outstretched.

  The truck’s brakes squealed but its massive weight carried it on, the tyres skidding on the tarmac. Mamo stood still, watching the wall of white metal and sparkling glass roar down upon him. Mesmerized, he couldn’t have moved, even if he’d wanted to. The blood was pounding through his heart, in his ears, round his head.

  The truck shuddered to a halt at last, its hot radiator inches from Mamo’s chest, but Mamo didn’t see it. He had fainted.

  He came to a moment later. The driver had climbed out of his cab and was staring down at him, his full lips tight with anger, a furious frown creasing his pitted forehead.

  ‘You idiot! You fool! What the hell are you doing? I nearly killed you!’

  Mamo opened his eyes and stared up at him woozily.

  ‘Please,’ he said, ‘take me to Addis.’

  The driver was looking at him more closely now, taking in the bloody smears on his cheeks, the lacerations on his hands, and the old bruises that still showed through on his face and arms.

  ‘How did you get into this mess? What happened to you?’

  Mamo licked his parched lips.

  ‘I’ve got to get away from here. Please, if you’re going to Addis, take me with you.’

  Understanding softened the man’s face.

  ‘Running away, are you? All right. Can you stand up? You’d better come with me. Can’t have you jumping out on any more poor truck drivers. I nearly died of fright back there.’

  Mamo tried to stand up, but his head felt too light and his legs buckled under him. The driver bent down and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘You don’t have a fever, do you? I don’t want any infections in my cab.’

  Mamo managed to shake his head.

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Just hungry. Nothing to eat or drink. Been running all night.’

  The driver pushed him up into the cab and Mamo sank back against the padded passenger seat.

  I’m in a dream, he thought. This isn’t really happening.

  He closed his eyes. The driver put the truck into gear and it groaned into life.

  It was only the second time in Mamo’s life that he’d been in a moving vehicle, but in the oddest way he felt as if he’d come home. A delicious ease relaxed his whole body, and he slipped gratefully into sleep.

  He woke with a start. Someone was shaking his shoulder, and the noise of the engine had stopped.

  ‘What . . . ?’ he said, struggling to sit upright, suddenly scared. ‘Where . . . ?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ The driver was smiling at him. ‘It’s breakfast time, that’s all. Come on, or aren’t you hungry, after all?’

  Mamo half fell out of the high cab and walked groggily after the driver towards a busy bar. Its outside wall was painted scarlet, and the mortar between the breeze blocks was smartly picked out in white. He stopped in the doorway, feeling awkward. A haughty girl came up to him.

  ‘What do you want? They don’t let beggars in here. Hop it.’

  ‘He’s with me,’ the driver called across to her. ‘What are you waiting for, son? Come and sit down.’

  Mamo had never been served in a bar before. He had hung around the place where his mother had worked, looking in through the window or running odd errands for the manager, but the thought of sitting at a table like a proper customer made him feel really weird. He was horribly conscious of his filthy ragged clothes, his bare feet and his blood-stained face.

  ‘The tap’s out the back,’ the driver said. ‘Go and clean yourself up.’

  There was a bar of soap balanced behind the tap on the water drum in the backyard. Mamo washed his hands and face, relishing its smell. Even if only a few bits of him were clean, he still felt more human.

  The bar was crowded with truckers and early travellers, but the food had already arrived at the driver’s table. There was a plate piled high with crusty white bread, a dish of six or seven fried eggs and saucers of butter and honey. Coils of steam rose from two tall glasses of milky coffee, with a thick layer of sugar settled at the bottom.

  Mamo sat down and stared at the food. Surely the man wasn’t going to let him eat? Surely this wasn’t for him?

  But the driver was smiling at him.

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘I thought you were hungry.’

  He took a piece of bread, dunked it in the brilliant orange egg yolk and held it up to Mamo’s face. Like a child, Mamo opened his mouth.

  After that first heavenly mouthful, Mamo’s hunger almost overwhelmed him. He tried to hold back, tried not to stuff the food in, tried to leave a fair share for the driver, but he couldn’t help himself. He ate voraciously, feeling for every last crumb when the plate was empty, and falling on the second plateful of bread, which the driver had laughingly ordered, as hungrily as if it was the first.

  Replete at last, he drained the final drops of sugar-thickened coffee from his glass, put it down, and smiled at the driver with adoration in his eyes.

  ‘You are my saviour,’ he said.

  The driver didn’t hear him. He was clapping his hands for the bill.

  ‘On your feet,’ he said, turning back to Mamo. ‘We’ve got a long way to go.’

  It was amazing, thought Mamo, how different the world seemed by day, when you were ful
l of breakfast and warmed by the sun. Looking out of the window at the bright green of the fields and the brilliantly coloured dresses of the women, who were walking to market along the side of the road, he could hardly remember how terrible the night had been, how lonely and cold, and frightening, and full of despair.

  ‘Who are you, then?’ the driver said, breaking in on his thoughts. ‘Tell me about yourself. I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘It’s Mamo, but there’s nothing to tell,’ Mamo said shyly. He was awed by the magnificence and generosity of his rescuer.

  ‘Come on. Not everyone ends up like you, thin as a leaf, half starved, covered in blood, jumping out in front of trucks.’

  It took a while for Mamo to get started, but slowly he found his voice. He told the story of everything that had happened to him, and it seemed to him almost as if it had happened to someone else.

  ‘And then I reached the road,’ he said and last, ‘and no one would stop, and I was desperate, and then you did, and you saved me.’

  The driver didn’t say anything, and looking up at him Mamo saw the sun glinting on drops of water on his cheeks.

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’ he said anxiously. ‘Why are you crying?’

  The driver swallowed. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles stood out pale.

  ‘You didn’t say anything wrong. I know your story. Bad things happened to me when I was young. I had to run away too.’

  He didn’t say anything else, and he asked no more questions. Tiredness overcame Mamo again. His head lolled back against the seat and his eyes closed of their own accord.

  7

  It had taken Tiggist a few weeks to settle down in Awassa. Everything was really strange here. The town was stretched out along the shore of a huge lake, with sinister black storks nesting in the enormous trees by the water’s edge. The main street was a wide boulevard which ran up the hill away from the lake, and had all kinds of elegant shops and cafés. People came down from Addis Ababa to have their holidays here. They strolled around in nice clothes, relaxing.

  She’d thought, when they’d rushed down here in such a panic, that Mr Hamid was just about to die, but he seemed to have turned the corner, for the time being, anyway. He was still very ill though. The problem didn’t seem to be his eye, like the watchman back at the shop had said. It was something no one wanted to talk about.

  ‘He’s got a bad chest,’ Mrs Faridah answered awkwardly, when people asked her how he was. ‘He’s never got over his war injuries.’

  Tiggist hardly ever saw Mr Hamid. He lay in a darkened room and when she peeped in all she could see was the brightness of his eyes, glittering like diamonds in his skull-like head, and one skeletally thin hand which plucked at the sheet. She heard him coughing often.

  ‘Nothing to do with the war, whatever she says,’ she overheard one of the neighbours whisper. ‘Aids, that’s what it is.’

  Mrs Faridah was so busy looking after her husband that Tiggist had Yasmin more or less to herself. There was no shop to work in here, but the house (a very nice one on the edge of town) had to be kept clean and the cooking had to be done. There was a servant, a girl called Salma, who was supposed to do all that.

  Salma was friendly, a bouncy, plump girl with strong arms and a big voice, and Tiggist didn’t mind helping her out. She liked it. The two of them shared a room and spent nearly all their time together. Salma was a good cook. Her injera was fine and smooth and her stews were delicious, with rich, red gravy and plenty of flavour. Watching her, Tiggist was learning how to cook really well herself. She’d never learned much from Ma.

  One morning, as Tiggist and Salma were sitting on the back steps of the house, picking little stones out of a tray of lentils and talking and laughing as they usually did, Mrs Faridah marched outside, banging the door behind her. She went over to Yasmin, who was playing beside Tiggist’s feet with a piece of string and a broken comb.

  ‘Mamma’s little girl,’ she crooned, scooping her up and giving her a fierce hug.

  Yasmin let out a yell and wriggled angrily, stretching her arms out towards Tiggist, who jumped up and went across to take her.

  Mrs Faridah looked coldly at her over Yasmin’s still furiously rocking head.

  ‘You can leave her with me today, and I’ll thank you not to interfere. Go up to the pharmacy at the top of the hill and find out what’s happened to those medicines I ordered. And take off that ridiculous bracelet. Do you want people to think you’re a tart?’

  Shocked, Tiggist stammered, ‘Yes, madam, I’ll go as soon as we’ve finished the lentils.’

  Mrs Faridah frowned.

  ‘Are you deaf? I said go, and I meant now.’

  Tiggist ran off, her face burning. What had she done? Why was Mrs Faridah cross with her? Was she going to get the sack?

  She ran most of the way up the hill and all the way down again, and handed the medicines nervously to Mrs Faridah, still gasping for breath. Mrs Faridah took them without a word. Yasmin had calmed down, Tiggist was relieved to see, but as soon as she saw Tiggist she held out her arms to her and started wailing again.

  ‘Now go round to the back and clean the toilet,’ Mrs Faridah said. ‘It’s a disgrace.’

  Tiggist’s anxiety deepened. What had gone wrong?

  She ran about all afternoon doing one task after another, hearing in the background Yasmin’s fretful crying. When night came at last she crept into the tiny room she shared with Salma and lay down beside her on the mat.

  ‘What have I done? Why’s she so cross with me? She was always lovely to me before.’

  ‘Jealous, I reckon,’ Salma answered with a yawn. ‘Yasmin wants you all the time, and she can see we’re friends and like having a good laugh and she has to spend all her time with that grumpy old bag of bones.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not my fault.’ Tiggist felt indignant. ‘I can’t help it if Yasmin likes me best. She’s used to me, that’s all, because Mrs Faridah leaves her with me all the time. What does she expect?’

  ‘I know, but you’d better be careful.’ Salma dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Mrs Faridah can be like that. She’s fine to start with but she can go off you and get suspicious. Then you really have to watch your step.’

  Tiggist hardly slept a wink that night. She had been feeling so secure and happy in her job that she’d stopped worrying about the future at all. She’d assumed that she’d go on working for Mrs Faridah for ever. Now the prospect of being alone and destitute again was looming up out of the future.

  She mentally counted her little hoard of savings, carefully stowed in the tin box on a high shelf in the corner of the room. It hadn’t grown much recently. She’d got into the habit of spending more freely, buying little presents for Yasmin and bits of cheap jewellery for herself. She’d have to stop all that. She’d have to save again in earnest, in case she suddenly found herself out of a job.

  For the first time in ages she thought about Mamo. She’d got used to imagining that he was as happy and settled as she had been, but now she began to wonder. Well, there was nothing she could do for him. She had too many worries of her own.

  The next morning she didn’t put on her new earings or her brightly coloured scarf, and took care when she was out in the courtyard to keep her voice down. There was no problem stopping herself from laughing. There was nothing to laugh about today.

  As soon as she’d got Yasmin up and dressed, she picked her up and went to find Mrs Faridah.

  ‘Yasmin wants you,’ she said, her eyes cast down modestly. Then she bent down and whispered in the little girl’s ear, ‘Go to Mamma. She’s got something nice for you.’

  Her heart was beating fast. She was terribly afraid that Yasmin wouldn’t go, would cling to her instead, and she let out her breath in relief when Yasmin stopped clutching her skirt and tottered across to her mother.

  Mrs Faridah picked her up and smothered her face with kisses, but at that moment a groan came from Mr Hamid’s room.


  ‘Go back to Tiggist, darling,’ Mrs Faridah said to Yasmin. ‘Mamma will see you later,’ and she gave Tiggist a small smile.

  Phew, thought Tiggist. I’ll have to watch out. I’ll have to be really careful.

  Instead of rushing off to the kitchen to find Salma, as she usually did, she went round to the other side of the house, set Yasmin to play with her old baby bonnet and sat a little way apart, anxious and watchful.

  Dani stood outside the Ethiopia Hotel paralysed with indecision. He didn’t notice the beggar until a scrawny hand plucked at his sleeve. He jumped and looked round. A little boy, barefoot and wearing the filthiest rags, was looking up at him with pleading eyes.

  ‘No father, no mother,’ he murmured, holding out his hand. ‘Very hungry. Stomach zero.’

  Dani flinched and stepped back, almost bumping into another beggar, an old blind man who had come round behind him.

  ‘For the sake of Jesus,’ the old man chanted, in a singsong voice, ‘for the sake of Mary.’

  ‘God bless you,’ stammered Dani, using the formula his father always employed to fob beggars off. ‘Thanks be to God.’

  He picked up his bag and set off, walking away from the busy square down a long half-empty road. He felt as if a pit had opened out at his feet, a terrifyingly dizzy drop, and that he might fall over the edge and be catapulted down to nothing.

  ‘I wouldn’t ever beg,’ he muttered out loud. ‘I couldn’t. I’d rather die.’

  He walked for a long time, his mind in turmoil, not noticing where he was going, until the pain of his blister and the tiredness in his legs were so bad that he couldn’t ignore them any longer.

  Where am I going? he thought. I can’t walk for ever.

  He looked round. It was late afternoon now and the sun was dipping low behind one of Addis Ababa’s tree-covered hills. A cool breeze had sprung up. The long unfamiliar road curved uphill past a high wall behind which tall old trees were growing. A few people were passing by, walking purposefully home from work, intent on the promise of supper and rest, but only an occasional car seemed to pass this way. There were some small houses on the opposite side of the road from the wall. The sound of voices and the clatter of dishes came through the open doors, and woodsmoke from their cooking fires drifted across to him.