The Garbage King

by Elizabeth Laird

  Without realizing it he’d walked towards the corner where he’d often spent his days hanging out with some of the other local boys.

  ‘Mamo!’

  His heart jumped. Someone was calling him. Someone had recognized him!

  He spun round.

  ‘Hey, Worku,’ he said, a grin spreading over his face. ‘It’s you!’

  The younger boy ran up to him.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Mamo? You haven’t been around for months and months.’

  Mamo grimaced.

  ‘I was in the country. I got taken away. Had to work for a farmer.’

  ‘You’ve got really tall,’ Worku said, looking him up and down. ‘And thin.’

  ‘Where’s Getachew?’ Mamo said eagerly, looking round. ‘And Mulugetta?’

  The thought of seeing his old friends was wonderful. He wouldn’t be alone any more.

  Worku looked at him incredulously.

  ‘Didn’t you know? I thought everyone did. Getachew got into trouble. The police picked him up.’

  ‘Getachew’s in prison?’

  ‘Yes. Since last month. And Mulugetta’s mum’s married again. He goes to school now.’

  ‘Oh.’ The ground under Mamo’s feet had seemed firmer for a moment, but it was shifting horribly again. He stared down at Worku greedily, as if this small boy, who’d only been a hanger-on to the older ones in the group, was the most important person in the world. ‘What about you, then?’

  ‘My dad’s come back,’ Worku said proudly. ‘He says I’ve got to stop hanging round the streets. He’s working in a furniture shop. I’m helping him. I have to polish up the wood. I’m only here because he sent me out to by some meths. Look.’ He held up a bottle of purple liquid.

  ‘Oh,’ Mamo said again.

  Worku was already running away.

  ‘See you,’ he called back over his shoulder.

  Mamo sat down on the kerb. His knees had suddenly felt too weak to hold him up.

  What am I going to do? he thought. Where am I going to go?

  It was mid-afternoon already. The sun was still high in the sky but the heat would soon be gone. Mamo shivered when he thought of the night to come. It was always cold in Addis Ababa when the sun had set. If only he’d thought before he’d run away! If only he’d brought his old shamma with him! His thin shirt and cotton trousers would give him no warmth at all.

  The driver’s ten-birr note still lay in his pocket and the thought of it encouraged him. He’d try to buy an old blanket or a coat with it. There were loads of places in town where people sold things second-hand. He’d be sure to get something nice.

  He’d think about food later. For the moment, keeping warm was the most important thing.

  Finding a blanket that he could afford was harder than he’d thought. He had to walk a long way, looking out for someone selling second-hand stuff cheap at the side of the road. He struck lucky at last. He’d spotted quite a good blanket, reasonably solid without too many worn patches, and he was bargaining for it when the woman selling it saw a policeman in the distance. She scrabbled her things together and without further argument agreed to his price and handed him the blanket, even giving him a few coins as change.

  He tucked his find under his arm, holding it tightly, and went across to the bakery on the far side of the road, handing over his last coins in exchange for two stale rolls. Then he went outside and walked aimlessly, looking for a quiet place to sit.

  He was in a busy shopping street. He’d often come here in the past and he’d usually stopped for a moment to look longingly in through the window of the pastry shop near the corner, wondering what the delicious piles of cakes and pastries might taste like.

  A plump boy wearing a baseball cap low over his eyes was looking into the window now. He was wearing smart clothes and carrying a heavy bag.

  Mamo hesitated. The boy looked as if he had money. Maybe he’d be good for a few coins. Mamo hadn’t ever begged before, but he’d have to start getting used to the idea. He moved towards the boy who, without seeing him, picked up his bag and walked off. Something in the way his shoulders drooped told Mamo that he wouldn’t be likely to give anything today.

  Mamo shrugged and walked on in the opposite direction from the boy.

  He knew of old that there was nowhere peaceful in a busy shopping street to sit. If you went into a shop doorway the owner would come out at once and hustle you away. If you squatted against a wall the local street boys would warn you to get off their patch.

  At the far end of the street was a minibus stand. The conductors were leaning out of the sliding doors, shouting out the destinations in hoarse voices. People were crowding round, trying to board the little buses, or looking up the street waiting for the next empty one to arrive. No one would notice him here in all this confusion.

  He moved away from the kerbside on to the piece of open ground behind and sat down, leaning his back against a wall of bare breeze blocks. He hadn’t realized until this moment how tired he was, how his turbulent night, and the journey and the clamour of the city had worn him out.

  He was almost too tired for food but he ate one of his rolls, although its dryness made him even thirstier. He told himself to get up and look for water, but found he was too exhausted to move. Instead, he wrapped his blanket round his shoulders, let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

  When he woke up it was getting dark. He sat and stared, bewildered, at the scene in front of him.

  The bus stand was busier than ever and the street beyond was crowded with cars. Everyone was going home from work.

  The thought of home, of the old shack and the promise of food, most nights, anyway, and a proper mattress under a real roof, and the friendly presence of Tiggist, and even, when she’d been in a good mood, of Ma, made him feel dreadfully miserable. He sniffed and wiped his dirty sleeve across his eyes.

  Thirst distracted him. He badly needed to drink.

  He looked round. There was a run-down little bar on the corner, an old-fashioned place with a mud floor and a few simple wooden benches ranged along the wall. He went to the door and coughed gently to attract attention. The tired-looking woman, serving home-made beer to a few elderly customers, looked up.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘A glass of water.’

  She brought him one. He drank it, and held the empty glass out for more. Clicking her tongue impatiently, she refilled it, and he drained it gratefully.

  The cool water cleared his head and he began to walk slowly along the street. He felt oddly reluctant to leave the bus stand. It had begun to feel almost familiar. It wouldn’t do, though, for the night, which was coming on fast.

  He was on a quieter stretch of road now. Apart from small kiosks on the street corners there were no shops, only small houses set back behind corrugated-iron fences, with open stony ground between them and the road. Surely he could find a quiet corner here where he could sleep in safety?

  He chose a place that seemed quite sheltered, in a curve where the road bent round, and he sat down on a stone. The evening breeze was blowing now and he was cold already. He draped the blanket round himself, took out his second bread roll and began to nibble it. He tried to eat as slowly as he could but within a few minutes it had all gone.

  But I’ve done it, he told himself, suddenly feeling triumphant inspite of everything. I got away from them. I made it to Addis. I’m free.

  He sat for a long time, watching the rising moon turn the corrugated-iron roofs on the hillside opposite first into dull grey, then into shining silver. He was trying not to think about what he’d do tomorrow.

  He didn’t notice the police car slowing down beside him, but boots crunching on the stony ground made him turn his head. The sight of a policeman’s khaki uniform sent a chill of terror through him. Could the farmer have followed him all the way to Addis? Could Merga be on his trail again? Were the police looking for him?

  He was up and off like a startled bushbuck, his bare feet flying over the sharp
stones. He veered off the road into a side turning and found himself going up a hill. Blindly he raced on. He was dimly aware that there was a long high wall on his left, behind which tall trees were growing, and that a row of small houses was on his right, but in his panic all he could think of was danger from behind.

  He was halfway up the hill when he heard the sound of a car behind him. It must be them! It must be the police! Any moment now their headlights would pick him up and they’d be after him like cats chasing a rat!

  He dashed off the tarmac and ran across the rough verge to the shelter of the wall. If he stood quite still perhaps they wouldn’t spot him under the overhanging branches of a tree. Then he saw, a little further on, that there was a gap in the long whitewashed wall. With a sob of relief, he darted up to it and bolted inside.

  The sound of someone panting close by disturbed Dani’s light, restless sleep. He was wide-awake at once and sat up, grabbing his bag and holding it to his chest.

  A few metres away stood a wild-looking figure: a tall, thin creature, whose torn trousers barely reached his ankles. It had whipped round at the sound of Dani’s movement and stood staring at him, perfectly still but seemingly poised for flight.

  ‘Who are you?’ whispered Dani, unsure, for a horrible moment, whether this thing was of the living or the dead.

  ‘Who are you?’ echoed Mamo, who was frozen with fear. The apparition in front of him seemed to have risen straight up out of a tomb.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Dani moved his feet, drawing them in closer and scraping his shoes along the ground.

  The sound reassured Mamo. A ghost wouldn’t have made a normal noise like that. He looked at Dani more closely. In the fading moonlight he could see now that he was only a boy.

  He took a step closer. Dani shrank back against the cold marble tomb.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Mamo said with a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not a ghost. I thought you were.’

  Dani’s grip on his bag relaxed a little, then tightened again. This person might not be a ghost but he could easily be a thief. He cleared his throat nervously and looked from side to side, wondering if he could get to his feet and make a dash for it if the stranger suddenly lunged at him.

  Mamo noticed and understood.

  ‘I’m not a thief either, if that’s what you’re wondering.’ He felt offended. ‘I’m just . . .’ He didn’t want to say that he’d been running away from the police. ‘I’m on my own,’ he finished lamely.

  ‘Oh.’ Dani screwed up his eyes, trying to see the boy’s expression, but Mamo’s back was to the moon and his face was completely shadowed.

  Now that Mamo was sure that the boy sitting against the tomb was a living human being, he felt better. The boy looked harmless, terrified in fact. He wouldn’t be the sort of person to stay where danger lurked.

  He crossed the last few metres to the tomb and sat down beside Dani on the stone platform below it.

  Dani could make out Mamo’s face now. This boy didn’t look dangerous at all, just scared. Dani put his bag down.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he said.

  ‘Mamo.’

  Dani realized too late that he’d have to give his own name, and he hesitated. If Father had got the police out looking for him, it would be better to give a false one.

  ‘I’m Girma,’ he said.

  A night bird calling out harshly in a tree on the far edge of the cemetery made them both jump. They were each aware of the hairs standing up on their heads.

  ‘Aren’t you scared, being in here at night?’ whispered Mamo.

  Dani thought about Mamma and how she’d felt close when he’d first come in through the gap.

  ‘I don’t think so. Are you?’

  Mamo remembered with startling clarity how, when he’d been by the stream, he’d felt his soul separating from his body.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  Dani realized with surprise that he didn’t want this strange boy to go. To be with someone else who was lost and alone was making him feel a bit stronger.

  ‘You can sleep here too if you like,’ he said. ‘It’s not so bad if you keep on this side, out of the wind. I thought I might have to go in there,’ he jerked his head backwards towards the tomb, ‘but I didn’t want to.’

  Mamo shuddered.

  ‘No.’

  A glint of something wet on Mamo’s foot caught Dani’s attention.

  ‘Is that blood? Have you cut yourself?’

  Mamo picked up his foot and examined the bare sole.

  ‘Must have done. There were lots of sharp stones back there. I had to run over them.’

  ‘I should have brought plasters and stuff,’ Dani said fussily. ‘I didn’t think of it.’

  Mamo looked curiously at him.

  ‘What are you doing here? You don’t look poor like me.’

  Dani wished he’d held his tongue.

  ‘It’s complicated. What about you?’

  Mamo thought back over the last few days and realized that he didn’t want to talk about it, either. An overwhelming weariness was creeping over him again.

  ‘I’ve got a blanket,’ he said. ‘If we spread it over both of us we’ll keep warmer.

  Dani was blinking rapidly, as he always did when he was uncertain. It was clear from the boy’s smell that he hadn’t washed for a long time. His filthy clothes were probably full of lice and fleas. Dani could see the fastidious curl on Zeni’s lips and hear his mother’s anxious command to come away. But the cold was getting to him now, penetrating even through his bomber jacket.

  ‘All right,’ he said, swallowing his disgust.

  They shuffled about for a while, arranging themselves and the blanket. Mamo, utterly exhausted and used as he was to sleeping on the hard ground, fell at once into a deep sleep but Dani, who had slept every night of his life on a comfortable bed under a clean sheet and blanket, lay staring up at the sky, from which the light was slowly draining as the moon finally dipped down behind the trees.

  9

  A loudspeaker crackling nearby woke Dani with a jerk. He rolled over and sat up, pulling the blanket off Mamo, who clutched at it wildly and sat up too. The two boys stared at each other, appalled, as the realization of where they were came back to them. ‘That noise, it’s so loud,’ Dani said thickly. He couldn’t believe that he’d slept under the same blanket as this filthy ragged boy, from whom yesterday he would have averted his eyes in disgust.

  ‘It’s the church. It’s Sunday,’ said Mamo, who also could hardly believe that he’d fallen in with the kind of rich kid he’d only ever seen driving round town in a car, or stepping into a hotel or a shop. He peered at Dani more closely through the thin dawn light.

  ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’

  Dani shook his head.

  ‘Yes, I have. Yesterday. You were standing outside the pastry shop in Piazza.’

  Dani felt uncomfortable and suddenly suspicious. Had this boy been following him?

  ‘What were you doing there?’ he said, sounding more hostile than he’d intended.

  ‘Looking. Same as you.’ Mamo felt his temper flaring up. ‘You don’t need to be rich to look at things.’

  Dani felt embarrassed and sank back into himself.

  ‘I’m not rich.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ Mamo put out his hand and touched the expensive soft material of Dani’s bomber jacket.

  ‘I mean I’m not rich any more,’ said Dani awkwardly. He’d have to give this boy some kind of explanation, he could see. He might as well get it over with. ‘I’ve run away from home, if you must know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My mother’s . . . My father . . .’ Dani didn’t know where to start, but he saw that Mamo had settled himself comfortably and was looking expectant, like a child waiting to hear a story. He began slowly, not knowing how to put everything into words, and came to a sudden stumbling halt.

  Mamo was frowning at him incredulously.

  ‘You ran away just because of that? Be
cause your pa beats you and you didn’t pass your exams?’

  ‘No!’ Dani felt his face go hot. ‘I told you. He wants to send me to Jigjiga, to this guy, Feisal.’

  ‘But you’d get fed there and everything,’ Mamo said, ‘and have a place to sleep and go to school, and you wouldn’t have to work or beg or anything.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘If someone gave me food and sent me to school I wouldn’t mind how much they beat me.’

  Dani winced at the scorn in Mamo’s voice. He hunched his shoulders.

  ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know my father.’

  Mamo was silent for a moment.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ he said at last. ‘Have you got any money?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Twenty birr.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mamo looked impressed. ‘But even twenty birr won’t go far. Not when you’ve got to eat.’

  ‘I was going to go to my friend’s house,’ Dani said, ‘but I didn’t – it wouldn’t work. I can’t go there after all. I didn’t mean to end up here like this.’

  He felt his throat tighten, and tried desperately to control it.

  ‘Why don’t you go home, then?’

  Dani shuddered.

  ‘I can’t. Not now. He’d kill me.’

  ‘Who? Your pa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Neither of them said anything. The loudspeaker from the church behind the trees was blaring out chanted prayers. The sun had risen and its first rays were warming them.

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Dani asked at last.

  Mamo felt a little spurt of pride. When he’d told his story the first time, the truck driver had been so touched he’d ended up with tears in his eyes. It would be easy to impress this soft rich kid. He sat back against the tomb, feeling his muscles relax gratefully in the warmth of the sun, and embarked on his tale, embellishing it here and there with little flourishes to give it a more heroic twist.