How would I tell Gashe what I had done? How could I live with such shame?
“There you are! Finally,” said Ishi. He slid across the floor and bumped my shoulder with his as soon as I stepped through the doorway of our sleeping room. “We were worried that Gashe was beating you.”
“You’re here? How?” I could not believe my eyes. Ishi and Tezze here? Safe?
“It was a great idea you had, keeping the guards busy,” said Tezze.
“We came right through the gate,” said Ishi. “Past where you were talking to the guards and pretending to cry.”
“They never saw a thing!” said Tezze.
“You’re here? You are really here?” I asked. This was the happiest day of my life.
Etheye noticed the dirt and the cuts on our feet as soon as she saw us.
“What you be doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. She twisted the skin on the inner part of my thigh until I yelped.
“Tell me,” she said. She lifted my foot, then Ishi’s, then Tezze’s, looking at the crust of dirt that was up past our ankles. “This be no dirt of the garden. This be filth of the street.”
“It was my fault,” said Ishi. Everyone turned to look at him.
“The football,” he said. “It was broken.”
“And so, a broken football slices the feet of my sons?” asked Etheye.
“I said to use a rock,” he said. “It was hard and it did not roll well. It was not a good idea.”
“Yes, that is true,” I agreed. “He did say use a rock.” Ishi was brilliant. We were not lying at all.
“And I said it was a poor idea,” said Tezze.
“My sons have brains of chickens,” said Etheye. She shook her head. “Eat, and then you soak those feet, and I put on coffee grounds.”
The oil she put in the water stung like a nest of wasps, but still, it felt good to be all together with six feet shoved into a bucket of water so hot that we had to begin by putting in only our biggest toes. It was easy to believe our lie, that our feet had been cut by kicking rocks, and that we had not heard or seen all of the things we had heard and seen that afternoon. That there were no soldiers, no tanks, no blood.
I looked at Ishi to erase the images. I would never leave my brother again. Not ever. Not for any reason. Even a tank could not drag me from him. They would have to shoot me, and I would have to be all the way dead.
5
I did not recognize the revolutionary Isaias when he returned. Only a single week had passed since the peace talks in London, but it was as if he was a different man. His hair was cut as short as Gashe’s, and he wore the dress of a Western businessman — a coat with broad shoulders, lapels down the front and matching pants. His shirt was white, buttoned to the throat, and he wore a blue patterned necktie. At first I thought he was a friend of Gashe who had come to talk politics, or a well-dressed student looking for sponsorship to study overseas.
“Ah, Tesfaye,” said Gashe when he saw me. “Come. Come.” He beckoned that I should join them.
A roll of khat was on the low table in front of them, and near it a bowl of melted honey. The air smelled of the coffee Etheye poured for them in small cups. Besides Gashe and Isaias were the two elders who gave advice to Gashe on all things large and small. All of them had one cheek swollen with khat.
I stood by the table, not sure what I was supposed to do. Why had I come into the house at just this time? I should be happy to see Isaias, but I wasn’t. I dipped my head respectfully to stare at the floor and to hide the ungrateful confusion I felt. Was this well-dressed Isaias here to take me away?
“I am happy to see you,” Isaias said. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “I have brought you something. All the way from London.”
I hoped the surprise was Nike high-tops. The soles of my sneakers were loose and flapping in a way that made them embarrassing to wear. But such an extravagant gift? Not possible. Not even Gashe could afford Nike. I hoped for chocolate, enough to share.
Isaias lifted a white plastic bag with English writing that was beside his chair. It bulged in a way that suggested it might be Nike sneakers that would make me jump as high as Michael Jordan.
“Come,” he said. “For you.”
Inside was something better. Smooth and perfectly round. Black and white, stitched with pentagons, and stamped with the Umbro symbol.
A real football! I rubbed my hands all over it, traced the straight lines with my finger and examined the logo. This wasn’t a cheap ball made in China. This was a true football, the kind they used in the World Cup.
“You like it?” he asked. His smile spread like sunshine after the rain.
I had no words. I had never received such a gift. I nodded up and down and up and down like an imbecile. My smile would never come off. A football! How soon could I try it? What was expected of me now? How long must I stand there? My hands wanted to drop the ball and my foot ached to kick it. How far would it go? Would it bounce?
“Well, why do you wait?” asked Gashe.
“I may go?”
Gashe smiled, too, a slow gracious smile. He nodded as if he had given the gift himself.
The ball rolled so easily that we had to sprint to keep up with it, and when I kicked it, it flew through the air like a missile, just the way it did on television.
“Does this mean you will have to go away again?” asked Ishi as we jogged side by side, trying to claim the ball.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Isaias is different now. More like Gashe.” I didn’t ever want to go away, even if it was to the palace.
Everyone played in that crazy match — all the girls, the guards, the servants. Everyone wanted to be the one to catch the splendid ball with their feet and dribble it and kick it and feel it float through the air. Gashe played. And Isaias, who took off the coat of his fine suit. Etheye stood at the house to clap and cheer, but soon joined the wild game, her strong legs running up and down the garden faster than anyone. When the adults got tired and lost their breath, Isaias took my hand.
“It is time,” he said.
I glanced at Gashe, who nodded. A satisfied smile lifted the edges of his lips, as if everything was going as he had planned.
I tucked the ball under my arm. My eyes and Ishi’s locked on each other as I walked beside Isaias to the car that waited, my head turning to keep his gaze. Ishi’s mouth drooped on either side. No grin with the hole in the middle where two teeth had fallen out. No tongue poking through the gap. He looked as worried and afraid as the day he had come to live with us. He took a few steps toward me, trailing, and then stopped. His eyes said what my mind thought. If only I could stay …
“Stop!” I said, when Isaias opened the door of the car. “My sneakers. I must get them.” I ran back to the veranda and stuffed my feet in worn-out shoes that smelled nearly as rotten as a squat toilet. I put the ball where my shoes had been, to hold my place.
“Ante, what’s the matter? So quiet?” Isaias reached across the car and touched my shoulder.
His accent didn’t make me want to laugh. I didn’t say anything. It was not possible to speak. I stared out the window and let the scene blur out of focus. I wished he would turn around the car and take me home, to the place where I belonged.
6
My wish came true by the time the season filled with clean smells and the music of afternoon rain reached its end. I missed sliding barefoot in the gray slicks of mud with my brothers. I missed the pitter-patter on the tin roof that sang us to sleep at night. I missed everything about home. Even the scrubbing of the too many windows in our house. Even the evil older sisters who struck us with brooms and sticks. I even missed Gashe.
The palace had been a too-quiet and too-perfect world with nothing to do.
Unlike Tezze and Ishi, I was glad for the coming of the New Year when it was the law agai
n that children could return to school. It was then that Isaias, now an important man with a Mercedes and more than one suit of clothing, returned me to my family. I was at home for the entire thirteenth month before the New Year, when everyone received new clothes and new sneakers to begin the next grade in school.
My lunch was the only thing in my backpack on the first day. No heavy books yet that would sag a boy’s shoulders and almost make him fall over backward.
Gashe was behind the wheel of the pickup, and beside him an elder advisor perched on the edge of the seat, arms extended, body stiff with fear, even though the engine was not yet running.
Ishi and I were the first to arrive. We took the best seats, the ones closest to the cab, where the wind would be less. We kept our legs wide open to take up as much room as possible. The rest of the kids and the servants who were still of an age for school streamed from the house and piled on the wooden benches with us.
The dirty bundles of rags between cement walls and road had begun to come alive. The beggars called to Gashe as we waited to pull onto the street.
“Sile Mariam. Sile Gabriel,” they cried. “Gashe, by your mercy.”
“Praise Allah, the Almighty,” said others.
On this day, he scattered coins through the open window. The beggars swooped to gather them and to bow to Gashe, some with palms pressed together as if in prayer.
“God answers our prayers,” they called, faces raised to the Heavens.
The streets teemed with the noise of people and cars and animals. People lined up at windows to buy things. A boy pulled a restless donkey by a rope. Men with white beards played dominoes beneath awnings. Small pockets of younger men gathered to discuss politics and football. Orange and yellow buses decorated with the symbol of a lion picked up people and zoomed from the edges of the road. Drivers yelled from blue-and-white taxi vans looking for fares. There were bright yellow taxis with dark windows that carried important government officials. Horns honked. Drivers stuck their arms from open windows to shake their fists at other drivers.
It was a regular day on the streets of Addis.
“Stop squirming!” my sister demanded, but it was impossible not to squirm when someone grabbed your ear or wiggled his fingers in your ribs.
“I can’t see! Move your ugly head, dedebi.” Another sister cuffed Ishi in the head. I jabbed her hard with my elbow.
Bells clanged from the tower of the cathedral. Soon prayers would be recited through loudspeakers on its corners: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name …” Hundreds of beggars had their arms shoved through the railing already, palms up, hoping for alms or for food. Those without arms rocked back and forth or bent forward with their faces pressed to the cement, a small container near their heads to collect coins. Others held their blind children, tugging on the clothes of passersby.
I was glad to drive past it all.
Brick and stone walls pasted with paper notices lined either side of the road that led to my school. Kids walked in groups down the center of the street, talking and laughing, and sometimes chasing a football. I wished we could walk to school or that Gashe would drop Tezze and me some distance from the gates so no one would see the embarrassing old pickup. Or better, I wished Gashe would buy an SUV.
We rolled through the iron gate, past the guard house and past the big tree to my school — one of the best schools in Addis. Here, everything was ordered and clean.
It was unnatural for a boy to say he liked to go to school, to sit all day at a desk and learn, and so, even with my brothers, I kept my opinions to myself. But I liked the way the desks were lined up in rows, the smell of the pages of textbooks and the crisp sound when they turned in a quiet room. Writing things down and solving problems, being the first to know the answer, knowing what to expect and what was expected, having rules that never changed. All of these things made school the ideal place.
Ishi, the girls and the servants raised the palms of their hands to us as Gashe eased around the fountain, through the gate and into the gnarled mess of traffic. Tezze and I joined the lines of our classmates ready to go inside when the doors opened.
The first day it was exciting to see our friends and meet our teacher. The second day was exciting. But already, by the third day, even the best of students remembered how dreary and boring and confining school could be and began to count the days until the next Holy Day. It was hard to concentrate when sunshine beckoned. Why were the two months off during the winter rains? We should be off now, to hunt salamanders, create ant wars and spend the day chasing a football. Who made up these rules that made children study during the best time of the year?
The teacher’s long ruler slammed on my desk, the wind of it brushing my face like the air rushing beneath the wing of a bird.
“What is nine times seven?” the teacher barked.
“Sixty-three,” I said.
“Correct!” he said, but he did not look happy that I knew the answer. It was fortunate, at times like these, that I was so lucky in school.
* * *
◆
Time passed, with one day piled on top of the other. Not so many things changed. I wore out four pairs of the Made in China sneakers that Etheye liked to buy. My ankles had shot again from the bottoms of the jeans I shared with Ishi, but the metal button at the waist still closed.
I did not return to the palace, and I saw Isaias only following arguments between him and Sabba. He came to us then, to sleep in the room with my brothers and me, and to debate late into the night with Gashe, their voices rising and falling.
Sometimes my brothers and I sat quietly, just out of sight, to listen. But mostly it was uninteresting talk of politics.
7
“We want Tom and Jerry,” I said.
Well past dark, rain drummed on the roof of the house, spilled over the edges and cascaded in great waves against the windows. The sky rumbled and flashed. Etheye sat in the center of the sofa, a shallow basket of popped corn cradled between her thighs. The younger kids moved in and out like birds, nipping at the kernels and running away. Our sisters nestled close beside Etheye, the servants on the floor. All of them bent toward the television. All of them had tears streaking their cheeks.
“We want Tom and Jerry,” I repeated.
“Shhh,” said Etheye and the girls all at once. Their eyes were suctioned to the television. I was upside down on the sofa, with my head hanging close to the floor.
“This is so-o-o-o boring,” I said. My sister shoved me with the side of her leg.
“It be romance,” Etheye said. “Shhh … this be the good part.”
“Shut your eyes! Close your ears!” yelled the girls. I covered my face with my hands but opened my fingers a crack so I could see. A man and a woman mashed their lips together. The girls cried.
“Romance is just boring kissing. This show is too long,” I said. My sister Layla knocked my legs from the back of the sofa.
“Go away!” she said.
“Why do the girls always get to the pick the shows?” Ishi complained. “It’s not fair. All they ever pick is kissing.”
“We want Tom and Jerry. We want cartoons!” our brothers yelled. They jumped around the sofa in a wild dance. They squealed when Tezze, Ishi and I dropped on all fours to chase them.
“Quiet!” Etheye said. She shifted to the edge of the sofa and turned up the volume.
My smallest brother, Kato, jumped on my back. He rolled off when I reared up, then chased after me for another ride.
“Me! Me! Me!” the little kids yelled, fighting to get on our backs.
“Shut up!” yelled the girls. We pretended deafness.
We tickled the ribs of our little brothers and sisters until they shrieked and curled up like slugs touched by salt. We dragged them by the legs and spun them in circles until they giggled with dizziness.
Etheye raised th
e volume again. It was so loud, we had to yell.
“Tickle me! Spin me!” hollered the little ones. “We want a ride!”
“It’s my turn!”
No one heard the door open. No one heard Gashe walk in, but we felt the chill of him when he strode across the room. He left a trail of raindrops all the way from the front door.
Everyone froze, just like Tom and Jerry when the VCR was turned off in the middle of a scene.
He snapped off the TV. The room was silent. He stood, glaring. Rain dripped from his hair to his shoulders. His hands clenched into fists. Unclenched. Clenched. Unclenched. The servants rushed from the room like cockroaches exposed to light.
“Honored husband!” Etheye leapt to her feet. Popcorn shot from the basket and spewed onto the floor. “We not expect you coming at this late hour.”
“What is the meaning of this?” His voice was sharp.
“It be just television,” she said. “A silly show.”
“There is no discipline here! What are you teaching with this?”
“Come,” she said. “I make food.” Gashe did not follow. He stood between the television and the sofa, dripping half on the carpet and half on the patterned wood. He stared at us one by one, his eyes a threat, and one by one we dropped our heads.
We had done wrong and we had been caught.
Ishi was the first of the children to move. He grabbed a rag, then fell to his knees near Gashe, patting the water that had splattered on the floor.
Soft melodies of the masinko drifted from Gashe’s room, accented by the clinking of cups being gathered on a tray.
“Clean this!” Gashe commanded. The girls moved quickly, heads down. They scooped spilled popcorn into the hammocks they made with their skirts. Kato stuck the basket on his head and jumped around, wiggling his bum. Gashe ripped it from his head.
“Not a toy!” he said. Kato burst into tears. Gashe stomped — not to his quiet room where he liked to eat, but to the exterior cooking room. I carried Kato.
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