Mamo was standing alongside Dani now, with Getachew and Shoes close beside him. Dani, reading disdain in his father’s eyes as they swept over his ragged band of friends, tried to shake off a creeping sense of shame. Then to his surprise he felt Buffalo’s heavy arm encircle his shoulders, and Mamo’s hand, on the other side, grasp his elbow. He felt strong again, and looked back at his father.
‘No,’ he said.
‘What do you mean, no? What sort of answer is that?’ said Ato Paulos, but Dani realized with a flash of new understanding that behind the anger his father was at a loss. He was blustering because he didn’t know what to do.
‘You know why I ran away, Father,’ he said, managing to sound calm rather than defiant. ‘You were sending me to Jigjiga and I wouldn’t go.’
‘Ridiculous,’ scoffed Ato Paulos. ‘You can’t have chosen to live like this, just for that.’
Million, who had been watching closely, cleared his throat and spat expertly into the fire.
‘You heard Dani,’ he said. ‘He’s not going there, to that place.’
Ato Paulos rounded on him.
‘Who are you? What’s this got to do with you?’
‘Who are you?’ Million riposted.
‘I’m Daniel’s father, that’s who I am.’ The veins were standing out on Ato Paulos’s neck. ‘And I’ll thank you to . . .’
‘And I’m his joviro,’ Million said, jauntily adjusting his woolly hat.
‘His what?’
‘His joviro. He does what I say.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Mamo said unexpectedly. ‘He does what he wants. He can, now.’
Dani felt like a bone being tugged at by fighting dogs and although his heart was pounding he almost smiled. His confidence was beginning to rise a little.
Ato Mesfin took off the hat he had been wearing and scratched his bald head.
‘Why don’t we sit down,’ he said, moving towards an upturned crate abandoned nearby, ‘and talk things over?’
Million grinned delightedly and swept his arm out towards a second crate with an exaggerated flourish.
‘You are our guest,’ he said to Ato Paulos.
‘Preposterous,’ muttered Ato Paulos, but he lowered himself gingerly on to the crate, gathering the skirt of his long coat round him.
Ato Mesfin leaned forward to warm his hands at the dying embers of the fire.
‘Well, Daniel,’ he said. ‘You’ve certainly managed to surprise us. I’d just like to say, straight away, what an excellent story you wrote.’ He took the story he’d bought out of his pocket and waved it towards Mamo. ‘I believe it was your friend here who sold it to me. I was most impressed.’
All of a sudden Dani, who was feeling odd, as though none of this was happening, could smell the classroom at school. He shuddered.
I can’t go back there, he thought. What’s the point? I’d only fail at everything all over again.
Ato Paulos started to say something but Ato Mesfin put out a hand to stop him.
‘I’ve missed you in my class, Daniel,’ he said gently. ‘You are by far the most talented writer I’ve ever taught. I want to teach you again.’
Dani looked up at him.
‘But I can’t do all the other subjects,’ he said. ‘I’m no good.’
Ato Mesfin nodded.
‘I’ve been thinking about that. There are things we can do to help out there. I’m not sure if the school’s the best place for you right now. Not just yet, anyway.’
A snort came from Ato Paulos.
‘What exactly do you—’
‘Please,’ said Ato Mesfin. He turned back to Dani. ‘I’ve been talking to a couple of colleagues. No, not your old teachers. Friends of mine from outside the school. They’ve agreed to tutor you for a while to get you over the hump, to bring you up to scratch in your other subjects. It would take a term or two, probably. You could start back at school again when you’re good and ready.’
The boys were squatting in a circle round the fire, listening hard and looking from one speaker to another. They reminded Ato Paulos of the council of elders in the village where he’d grown up. The old men had sat together, just like this, passing judgement on everything and everyone. The comparison was annoying and ridiculous, of course, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
Now they were looking anxiously from Ato Mesfin to Dani, trying to understand the offer he was being made, envy and awe in their eyes.
Million laughed jerkily. His confidence was visibly ebbing away.
‘An educated man,’ he said.
Dani felt as if a path had appeared in front of him. It was temptingly lit, and offered a way out, up and away. But it was impossible to imagine taking the first step. It would mean leaping over a bottomless gulf out of which, once he’d fallen in, he’d never be able to climb again.
He shook his head. Mamo’s hand had tightened on his arm, but now it relaxed again.
‘You didn’t tell me about this plan of yours,’ Ato Paulos was saying irritably to Ato Mesfin.
‘No. I thought it would be best for Daniel to decide for himself.’ Ato Mesfin shot a nervous look at Ato Paulos, then turned back to Dani. ‘If you prefer, Daniel, you could live with me while you get back on your feet. There’s plenty of room in my house, since my wife – I would be glad to have you.’
‘No!’ The anguish in Ato Paulos’s voice startled everyone and their heads whipped round towards him. A struggle seemed to be taking place inside Ato Paulos. Dani, who felt as if he’d never known his father before, watched as the mask of anger visibly dropped from his face and real feeling shone through.
Ato Paulos put his hand up to shade his eyes, as if he couldn’t bear to be watched.
‘Please, Daniel,’ he said. ‘Come home. I’ve missed you so much, you’ve no idea. Please come back with me now.’
Dani swallowed. He was feeling something new and peculiar. It was as if he was almost sorry for his father. It was almost as if he loved him.
The abyss between him and the lit path was still there, but it was starting to close.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’d only disappoint you again. You’ll only get furious with me and send for Feisal.’
Million flung his hands up into the air.
‘Are you crazy, man? Give me a chance like that and look what I’d do! Ask any of us!’
The other boys, except for Mamo, nodded, muttering to each other in disbelief at Dani’s reluctance.
‘Your mother’s coming home next week,’ Ato Paulos went on. He was frankly pleading now. ‘What’s she going to feel if you’re not there?’
‘Mamma?’
Dani had been looking down into the fire, but his head shot up and his eyes seemed almost to start out of their sockets.
‘Yes. She called today. She’s arriving on—’
‘Mamma’s alive?’
‘Of course she’s alive. Why, you surely didn’t think . . .’
‘But the funeral at the house. Mamo saw the mourners. The woman at the kiosk said . . .’
‘What funeral? Oh, you mean cousin Asselefech. How did you find out about that? No, there’s nothing wrong with your mother now. The operation was a total success. She’s feeling better than she has for years and years.’
‘Oh, oh!’
Dani dropped his head down on to the dirt-stiffened knees of his trousers and began to shake with dry sobs. Ato Paulos stood up, hesitated for a moment, then went across to him. Awkwardly, he lifted Dani to his feet, and pulled him into a crushing hug.
Mamo watched unbelievingly as Dani walked away between his father and Ato Mesfin.
‘Mamo’s coming with us,’ Dani had said, once he’d given in and agreed to go home, but Mamo had seen the look of horror on Ato Paulos’s face and had shrunk away from Dani’s outstretched hand.
Dani hadn’t insisted. He was looking dazed and confused, obviously hardly able to take in what was happening to him.
When he’d gone, vanishing into the night like a disappeari
ng dream, Mamo felt stunned. Everything had happened so quickly. One moment they’d all been having a terrific party, and he’d been relishing his triumph over Merga and Dani’s victory over Buffalo, and the next minute everything had changed for ever. He couldn’t take it in.
He squatted by the dying embers of the fire, rocking backwards and forwards, a horrible feeling of sadness and loneliness washing over him. The others were subdued too.
‘Dani’s dad,’ Million said at last. He stopped. Mamo looked up at him. Million’s mouth was twisted sideways and his face had the cunning expression it always wore when he started calculating possibilities.
‘What about him?’ said Getachew, stirring the fire with a charred stick.
‘He’s rich. He might do something for us. Get us a place to live even. He could afford anything.’
Buffalo spat, making the hot ashes sizzle.
‘No chance. You saw the way he looked at us. He thinks we’re scum.’
‘Yeah, but Dani might . . .’ began Getachew.
‘Dani? We won’t see him again,’ Buffalo said sourly. ‘He never was one of us anyway.’
‘I wish he was here to tell us a story,’ Shoes said wistfully, wrapping his arms round his chest as the cold wind attacked him.
‘Well he isn’t,’ snapped Buffalo.
‘Sing us a song then, Mamo,’ Shoes said. ‘Sing us that one about wake up and live, you know the one I mean.’
Mamo jumped to his feet.
‘Why don’t you all just shut up and leave me alone?’ he burst out.
He couldn’t bear to sit still any longer. He walked away from the dim firelight, stumbling over the stones that littered the ground, until he came to a high concrete wall that bordered the patch of rough ground. He crouched down, leaning his back against it, and felt tears trickling down his nose.
Everyone always goes away and leaves you, he thought. You can’t trust anyone, not a single person in the whole world.
Something cold touched his hand. It twas Suri’s wet nose. He could make out her pale shape in the faint glare of light from a house some way away. She had rolled over on to her back and was waiting for him to tickle her tummy.
He picked her up and held her tight against his chest. She licked his nose.
Dogs are the only people who really love you, in the end, he thought.
Suri snuffled and settled herself more comfortably in his arms. The feel of her warm body made him think of Tiggist, of how she’d carried him around on her hip when he was little.
I’ll go and see her again, he thought, his spirits lifting a little. I’ll go tomorrow. She’s my sister, after all.
He stayed by the wall for a long time. At last he stood up, stretched his cramped limbs, which the cold seemed to have penetrated, and went back to the others. The fire had gone out but there was still a little warmth radiating out from the ashes.
He pulled his blanket out of Dani’s old bag, now stained and battered almost beyond recognition, which Million had kept beside him all evening, wrapped himself in it and lay looking up at the stars, unable to sleep.
The boy who sold fruit wasn’t at his usual place outside Mrs Faridah’s shop when he reached it early the next day. Mamo stood on the pavement, hesitating. There was no point in going inside to look for Tiggist. He’d only get sent away with a flea in his ear by that horrible man who’d shouted at him last time.
He crossed to the other side of the road and leaned against the wall in a patch of shade, waiting for the boy to reappear.
He came soon enough, limping round from the back. Mamo screwed up his eyes to try and see if anyone was hovering around inside the shop doorway, but he couldn’t make anything out from this distance.
He darted across the road and stopped in front of the boy.
‘Is Tiggist here?’
To his surprise, the boy gave him a friendly smile.
‘No. She’s gone off with her boyfriend.’
‘Her what?’
Mamo’s heart sank. If he’d lost Tiggist again, he’d lost everything.
‘She said to tell you if you turned up. She’s given up her job here. There was a real old carry-on, I can tell you. Him . . .’ he jerked his head towards the shop and lowered his voice ‘the boss, he was making up to your sister, and she didn’t like it. Then along comes this boyfriend of hers, and he makes a scene like nothing on earth. Quiet looking guy he is too. You should have heard him! And he tells your sister to get her stuff, and off she goes with him just like that.’
‘Who is he? She never had a boyfriend before.’
‘Yacob, his name is. Met him in Awassa. She’s been mooning around after him ever since she got back.’
‘She’s gone off to live with him?’ Mamo was struggling to take it in.
‘Yes, I told you. They’re getting married and everything. That’s what the guy told the boss, anyway. She’s OK, your sister is. Before she left, you know what she did? Gave me five birr out of her savings. I couldn’t believe it. They’re living down the Debre Zeit road now. She said to tell you if you came by. You have to cross the railway line and go down as far as the Shell petrol station. It’s a shop on the other side of the road. It sells taps and electrics and stuff like that.’
It was a long, long way to the Shell station on the Debre Zeit road, and by the time it came into view halfway down a long sloping hill Mamo was footsore, hungry and very thirsty. He was anxious too. What if the boy had told him wrong, said the wrong road maybe, or, even worse, sent him off on a wild goose chase for fun? If this all turned out to be another horrible disappointment he didn’t know what he’d do.
Unable to bear the suspense, he ran the last long stretch down to the petrol station, in spite of his sore feet. He looked across the road and saw the shop at once, or at least, a shop that might be the one. It was quite new looking, with metal pipes and coils of wire and rubber tubing in the window.
Mamo hesitated. This place looked too new and smart, too sort of professional and business-like for the sort of boyfriend he’d expect Tiggist to have.
If that guy back there sent me all this way as some kind of joke, he thought, I’ll murder him. I really will.
He crossed the road, dodging expertly through the lines of crawling, lumbering trucks and buses, then, plucking up his courage, he walked in through the shop’s open door.
It was clean, bright and tidy inside. A big man with a pock-marked face was standing behind the counter. He was untangling a heaped-up pile of electrical flexes.
‘Yes?’ he said pleasantly.
Mamo swallowed.
‘I’m looking for my sister. Someone told me she’d be here. She’s Tiggist.’
The man’s face opened out into a smile.
‘You’re Mamo, are you?’
Mamo’s heart leaped with surprise and relief.
‘Yes. Is she here?’
‘Wait, I’ll get her.’
Yacob went through a door behind the counter and Mamo heard the murmur of voices. Then, with a glad cry, Tiggist came running out.
‘Oh Mamo, I didn’t know where to find you!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t know if you’d ever get my message.’
He straightened his back and smiled at her.
Tiggist lifted a flap in the counter and pulled Mamo through, then dragged him on into the room behind the shop.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to show you everything. Isn’t it lovely here? Yacob,’ she shook her head with an embarrassed little laugh ‘he’s my husband now. He and his cousin, this business belongs to them. I told them all about you. They couldn’t believe that stuff about the man that sold you. Yacob says you can stay here now. You can help out selling things. Look at this, Mamo. This is where I do all the cooking. We’ll make a place for you to sleep somewhere in here, or in the shop, maybe. You’ll soon get used to selling things. I know you’ve never done it before, but Yacob’ll tell you what to do. He’s so great. He’s . . .’
Mamo was no longer listening. He was
standing in the middle of the room smelling the onions that Tiggist had been frying on top of a little gas burner. They smelled exactly like the onions that Ma used to cook, a long long time ago, in the old shack down the lane on the far side of town.
It’s like being at home, he thought, with a shock of surprise. It’s as if I was coming home.
19
It was three months later. The Big Rains had come and gone, the air of Addis Ababa was sparklingly cool and the fringe of hills above the city was clothed in fresh new green.
‘Darling, are you nearly ready?’ said Ruth, putting her head round the door of Dani’s room.
Dani was standing by his bed, packing something into a bag.
‘Ready?’ he said, looking up in surprise. ‘What for?’
‘We’re going to the pool, of course,’ said Ruth. ‘It’s Sunday, or have you forgotten?’
‘Sorry, Mamma,’ said Dani, ‘but I’m not coming. I’m useless at swimming, and anyway nobody I like ever goes there.’
Ato Paulos appeared behind Ruth’s shoulder.
‘So how do you propose to spend the afternoon?’ he said.
‘I’m going out,’ said Dani shortly.
‘Out?’
‘Yes. I’m seeing a friend.’
‘And who, may I ask . . .’
‘No one you know, Father.’ Dani looked up and met Ato Paulos’s eyes.
‘You’ll have to see your friend another time,’ Ato Paulos said impatiently. ‘I need you to make up a four at tennis. Not that you’re much of an asset on the court. Your back hand . . .’
‘I can’t,’ said Dani. A familiar tightness was closing round his throat, but he held his father’s eyes all the same. ‘I told you, I’ve arranged to meet someone. I promised.’
‘Call them then. Put them off.’
‘No,’ said Dani.
Ato Paulos seemed about to explode into speech when his eye fell on the bag that Dani was packing. A look of alarm crossed his face.
‘Daniel, what on earth . . .’
Dani crossed over to the door.
‘I’m going out for the afternoon,’ he said patiently. ‘There’s someone I’ve arranged to meet. I’ll be home before it gets dark. I’ll see you later.’
The Garbage King Page 25
