by Felleke

I resolved to learn how to drive one late September morning on my way back from Sylvia Pankhurst's funeral. If an atheist Englishwoman can be buried in state in Addis Abeba's preeminent cathedral as a Christian and an Ethiopian, I thought, there should be no reason why I could not, at the very least, regulate the rivalry between clutch and petrol pedals. 

********** 

I turned on the radio when my husband, the Colonel, braked barely avoiding a herd of donkeys crossing the street, laden with sacks of charcoal and bales of hay. The Colonel accelerated into the Liberation Square roundabout as Wzo (1) Romanwork's radio special crackled on the automobile speakers narrating the astonishing early years of the deceased as a suffragette. We rapidly moved up the slope, past St. Mary's Church to our left, when the Colonel abruptly turned off the radio. "Suffragette," I whispered to myself a few times lest I forget this mysterious word and questioned my young British-educated tenant about it. 

********** 

Neither the Colonel's humble parentage nor his remote provincial origins had hindered his steady promotion in the Air Force or his meteoric rise in high society. All affability and charm, he ingratiated himself with influential lieutenant generals and vice-ministers and hobnobbed with the sons and younger brothers of prominent nobility. He had gotten his break three-and-a-half-years earlier, when the Air Force general had chosen him to lead the formation of F-86 Sabres in an air show for Vice President Nixon during the latter's visit. Dazzled with the Colonel's mastery of the fighter plane, the Emperor soon after promoted him from lieutenant to a full colonel and awarded him one of the most coveted medals of honor during the farewell banquet held for the American politician and his wife. 

********** 

We motored past Bete Saida Hospital to our left, curved halfway around 19 February Martyrs Square and drove past the gates of Genete-Leul Palace. Several flags over the massive and ornate gate were flying half-mast. 

********** 

Standing by my side at the front gates of the Trinity Cathedral and at some distance from the crowded grave, my cousin raised her eyebrows, discretely tilting her chin in the direction of a woman in her early to mid-thirties. "That's her, that's her!" my cousin whispered. "She's the one who knows how to fly!" I glanced to my left and saw the lady as she gently pulled up a handwoven black tweed overcoat draped over her upright shoulders and walked past my husband and a senior aide of the commanding officer of our troops in the Congo. "She definitely didn't steer airplanes with those impossible nails," my catty cousin remarked. The Colonel bowed to the pilot as she passed without acknowledging his gesture. My cousin misinterpreted my smile and giggled at her own barb, covering her mouth with the black trim of her shawl. 

A cluster of dry eucalyptus pods bounced off a few baroque marble tombstones, syncopating Ras (2) Andargé's lugubrious eulogy. His voice reverberated through several speakers affixed at the feet of solemn life-size statues of the Disciples looming above the entrance of the basilica. 

**********

We approached the entrance to Prince Makonnen's residence to our right. "I will be leaving for Léopoldville the day after tomorrow," the Colonel said. "Again?" I asked in a neutral voice. "Why didn't you extend your stay three weeks ago?" I continued. "This time around I won't be transporting our delegates to useless mediating conferences. A full-fledged war is bound to break out anytime," he stated dryly. 

"The Americans are not mourning Sylvia Pankhurst," I said, pointing at their massive flag flapping above the embassy gate. "Joseph Mobutu, the 29-year-old army chief of staff," my husband continued, ignoring my comment, "has just taken power in a military coup. Lumumba's out." 

We passed the heavily wooded tuberculosis sanatorium on our left and started on the steep incline up the Entoto Mountains. "A chief of staff at 29! He must be exceptionally bright and talented," I remarked. The Colonel bristled. "Bright and talented! Don't talk about things you know nothing about. The man has not paid his dues. Not paid his dues, you hear! For all we know he's a thug propped up by the Americans. He'll do their dirty work for them, all right. Bright and talented, my foot," he repeated under his breath. 

The Colonel suddenly braked the automobile to a standstill. Hundreds of children and teenagers appeared out of nowhere and thronged around a white Volkswagen Beetle. "Abebe! Abebe!" the gleeful crowd shouted and cheered as the Beetle crept down the narrow mountain road. To my own and my husband's consternation, I leapt out of the automobile and ran around the hood of our Peugeot 404. Seated in the front passenger seat, Ethiopia's first Olympic marathon gold medallist flashed a smile and waved at his adoring fans. I joined the women of my neighborhood and began to ululate. 

********** 

"I tell you, the rest of the Armed Forces has had it with the Imperial Guardsmen," the Colonel declared, accelerating past the Ameha Desta School for the Blind. "Ever since Abebe Bikila returned from Rome two weeks ago, his insufferable superiors have not stopped swaggering at all of the officers' clubs in the city," the Colonel continued. "What else but strut and gallivant have their generals ever done?" I tartly exclaimed in feigned indignation, appreciating and acknowledging the undeclared truce. He turned left into the gravel road leading to our compound and squeezed my left hand with his right. I stroked Bekerie's wrist gently with my right hand. He braked in front of our gate, shifted the gear and blew the horn. 

Our next-door tenants' toddler, followed by his exasperated and worn out aged nurse, was chortling and running toward us. In spite of the old woman's feeble attempts to grab him by his suspenders, the kid reached our automobile and banged at my door. I released my husband's arm and rolled down the window. Shiberu tiptoed and grabbed the ledge, attempting to pull himself up. Chuckling, I leant forward and kissed both of his hands. Bekerie and I exchanged greetings and bows with the nurse. I barely managed to stifle my laughter. Shiberu's nurse mumbled and attempted to lift her charge off the ground, as he clutched the passenger door handle. I pleaded with the kid to go with his nurse, gently tapping at his fingers.  

The Colonel drove the automobile in the compound and parked. "Wzo. Hareg should really get a younger nurse for her son," he said, closing the driver's door and dashing up the short flight of stairs into our house.  

********** 

I tuned out my garrulous daughter and began to examine the contents of Bekerie's package. There were several sealed white envelopes, one large manila envelope and a small gift-wrapped box. I pulled out the small box and smiled. He had scrawled my name on a card taped on the box. I was just about to open the box when I felt the Peugeot lugging. 

Instantly, the perfume was wrenched out of my hands. "Madame Rochas!" my daughter burst out, gloating over the box. This just came out a few months ago. How did father manage to get it in Léopoldville? Mother, may I use it? May I use it for the embassy cocktail tonight? May I, Emama? 

"Your father is in Stanleyville, not in Léopoldville. Keep the bottle, I don't want it!" I replied angrily. Perplexed by the unexpected ferocity of my rage, my daughter became dumbstruck and looked straight at the road. 

We drove past the Parliament building as the tower clock struck one. I turned on the radio. The Soviet astronaut, Yuri Gagarin was orbiting the earth in Vostok 1, a six-ton satellite spacecraft. 

********** 

Stereophonic jazz blaring from the salon woke me out of my torpor. It was 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon and my temples had still not stopped aching. I tied the belt around my dressing gown and marched out of the bedroom in my slippers. The up-tempo bass rattled Bekerie's numerous tennis trophies arranged in the upright glass case in the corridor. No match to the robust female singer, a familiar and earnest male voice, nonetheless, resounded in the hallway. 

I flung open the door and glared at Girma, my 17-year-old son. He was standing next to the phonograph singing with great abandon. 

Girma looked in my direction and broke into a grin. "Hello, Mayé (4)!" he shouted. "You weren't napping, were you?" he bellowed. "Girma, turn the volume down!" I cried out. Girma smiled and held up his forefinger. 

"It's Ella! Let this song end, Mayé. Just this one." Ella paid us no heed and continued to merrily belt out the song as I briskly walked around the high back wing chair to whack my son. Thousands of blood veins and capillaries pounded my temple. 

Makonnen stood up nonchalantly, towering over us both. His eyes did not once waver from mine as we shook hands. 

Girma mentioned the names of Makonnen's family and relatives but none were familiar. "Now that my leg has healed and is out of the cast, I can finally learn how to drive," Girma continued, "Mayé, Makonnen has agreed to teach me. So soon you won't have to ask Iteté (5) Gashé (6) to do your errands. I can drive you around whenever I'm not at school. And maybe then I can borrow the car every other Friday night. What do you say, Mayé?" my son rattled. 

"I shall teach you how to drive," Makonnen said, continuing to look into my eyes. 

"Yes, I'd love that,"! I replied. 

********** 

We crossed a bridge and drove past Hakim (7)Worqneh's abandoned water mill to our right. Makonnen curved the Peugeot to the left and continued uphill where we passed the Princess Zenebeworq Leper Asylum on our left. Soon we were out in the open and isolated Jimma Road. Girma and Makonnen were in the front arguing about the recent foiled American invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. 

I flipped through a tattered copy of Paris Match. Color photographs of a Frenchman and an American who had set a record, diving 10,916 meters below sea level in a special submarine; striking black and white photographs of Brasilia in the final stages of construction; a color photograph of an ecstatic Paul Pender holding up the middleweight boxing championship trophy and a forlorn "Sugar" Ray Robinson in black and white. 

The Peugeot stopped abruptly. Makonnen turned and gazed at me over his shoulders. Conscious of his unsettling regard, my eyes remained glued on the magazine as I nervously flipped through the last few pages. He waited until I closed the magazine and looked up at him. 

"Let's begin," he said and smiled. 

********** 

Later, I treated them both to lunch at an Italian roadside trattoria, a few kilometers from where I had had my lesson. Soon the boys were out in the rifle range getting instructions from a middle-aged man who reputedly, along with a twin brother, was the most celebrated hunter before the Italian Occupation. 

Amazed, I moved to the chair next to the window and drew back the faded calico curtains to see my own Girma ahead of Makonnen as he struck bull's-eye, shot after shot. 

********** 

Several weeks later, I blew the horn and pumped the petrol pedal playfully as I waited for my front gates to be opened. As usual, Shiberu appeared and ran toward the Peugeot. Makonnen rolled down the front passenger window and stretched out his hand. But, before Shiberu managed to reach the automobile, a young woman giggled and overtook the kid, swooping him off the ground. Shiberu laughed and hugged the young woman tightly around her neck as she inched cautiously toward the Peugeot to greet us. I asked her about Shiberu's elderly nurse. The young woman did not respond. She and Makonnen were unabashedly staring at one another. I pushed and held onto the klaxon. Ambachew, the guard, quickly opened the door. Startled, the young woman stiffened her arms around Shiberu and leaned forward, peering through Makonnen's window. "What did you say, ma'am?" she asked. Makonnen gaped, feasting on the tattoos on her willowy neck. I shifted into first gear and jammed on the petrol pedal. The Peugeot lurched into the compound. I had apparently forgotten all the clutch tricks that I had recently mastered.

********** 

I sent the guard, the maid and the cook one after the other on separate errands and told Makonnen to wait for me in my bedroom. They would all assume he had left in their absence. When they returned, I took my meal alone in the dining room. Girma had exams and was sleeping at the dormitory. 

I ordered the maid to close all of the shutters and retire to bed early. I feigned a headache and left for my bedroom. Makonnen was impatient but understood the necessities of caution and discretion. I realized that he must have gone through this routine countless number of times but I did not care. 

About a quarter of an hour later, I left the bedroom and locked the front and the kitchen doors. I checked all the windows. The maid had shut and bolted all the shutters as instructed. I sighed with relief and satisfaction as I locked my bedroom door.  

********** 

********** 

Later, an Air Force private delivered a telegram from Bekerie. 

I left the telegram unopened and went next door to visit my British-educated tenant, instructing the servants to pack the Colonel's trophies in a box and sweep the shards of glass in the corridor.

********** 

I found Hareg in the kitchen, spooning mashed bananas into her son's eager mouth. Asheber's tattooed companion from the day before was nowhere to be seen. I asked Hareg about the elderly nurse. "She and I both agreed Asheber was too much for her so I found her employment elsewhere," Hareg said matter-of-factly. 

"No!" I interposed, "you need someone more mature to take care of your son. Preferably one who is already a mother. Your other nurse, I am sure, probably has raised five or six of her own. I saw the new one with Asheber yesterday. She was hardly paying any attention to him." 

Hareg glanced at me quizzically as she continued to feed Asheber on her lap. 

"I tell you the young today have absolutely no sense of responsibility," I continued. 

Asheber looked at me and smiled. He grabbed his mother's shoulders and attempted to stand up. Hareg replaced the bowl and spoon on the kitchen table and grabbed the toddler by the waist, forcibly sitting him down. She grabbed both of his hands with her right hand, restraining his shoulders with her left. Asheber began to cry. She rocked him in her arms and looked up at me. "For your information, Wzo. Aster, Nardos did not have any children of her own and I am very happy with how Wubit is looking after Asheber," Hareg retorted. 

"She's in her bedroom recovering." 

"Recovering? Recovering from what? I saw her yesterday afternoon. She looked all right to me then." 

"She became jittery after the earthquake last night." 

"Jittery? Hareg, dear, this girl is talking advantage of you because of your foreign ways. Jittery! Whose ever heard of a servant girl with jitters?" 

Asheber began to wail. 

"Was there anything else, Wzo Aster? As you can see I have my hands full." 

I lent forward and held Asheber's head, pecking him on the forehead. Asheber chuckled, wiping the tears off his face. "I'm telling you," I whispered. "It's not good to have an attractive, unattached girl in the house of a young couple. Men can be so easily led astray." 

"Thank you very much for your advice, Wzo. Aster," Hareg huffed and stood up. She rocked Asheber in her arms. "I will walk you to the gate." 

"Don't you worry about me. Sit down, Hareg. Why are you distressed over trifles? Do sit down. Please, Hareg, sit." 

Hareg sat down. I walked toward the kitchen door and paused by the doorway. I heard Hareg groan faintly. I thought for a few seconds without turning my back towards her. 

"What is it, Wzo. Aster? Did you forget something?" she asked vexedly. 

"Yes. Yes. I now remember. I've been meaning to ask you for a while but I always keep forgetting whenever I see you," I said, turning toward mother and child. 

Hareg waited for a few seconds. "Yes?" she said curtly. 

"Suf-frag-ette. Hareg, dear. What does it mean? Wzo. Romanwork used the word to describe Sylvia Pankhurst on her radio program a few months ago. Unfortunately, I caught the broadcast at the tail end. Do you know what it means? Suf-frag-ette? 

********** 

After several clandestine visits to my house over the course of a few months I realized that all the blinders of Selalé were not going to obstruct Makonnen's eyes from wandering past my gates. 

I tied my oldest scarf around my head, grabbed a tattered shawl and drove to Ato Desta's house. I had never seen so many cars parked outside his compound. I assumed they all needed Ato Desta's assistance since this has been a rather traumatic year, with the failed coup d'état of last December and the Kara Kore earthquake of a few months ago. I parked the Peugeot at some distance from the sorcerer's. 

********** 

Ato Desta's attendant followed me back, at some distance, to my automobile carrying his guru's concoction packed in goatskin. I opened the trunk and had the attendant lower the sack into a box that I had had specially prepared. I gave the attendant some coins without looking at his face and slammed the trunk shut. 

As soon as it became dark, I gave the cook and the maid a couple of difficult and time-consuming tasks in the back of the house. I immediately grabbed a flashlight and exited through the front door. Then, I sent Ambachew on an errand and walked to the garage. 

I went to bed early that Sunday night and did not wake up until 8:00 o'clock the next morning. 

********** 

Unable to restrain myself, I went to the vegetable garden before I had finished my scrambled eggs and had drunk my coffee. Hareg and her gardener, who were completely blocked from view by purple and pink Morning Glory in full bloom, were engaged in a heated discussion about the sack. 

I froze in my tracks and listened.  

"My lady, don’t! It's a talisman. You have to be chosen to be able to touch such objects without getting hurt," the gardener warned. "Let me run and get Wolde-Senbet. He only lives a few doors away from here. He can do it. He won't ask for a lot." 

Then I heard her swift footsteps brushing past a few bushes. 

"Don't, my lady!" the gardener shouted. "I beg of you. It will bring bad luck on us all." 

There was dead silence for a moment. 

"This is what you're scared of? Go get me a box! I'll take care of this. Who does she think she's fooling with?" Hareg exclaimed. 

********** 

That evening, I was seated in the salon with my son, my daughter, her husband and my brother-in-law listening to the radio while we waited for dinner to be served. The UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld and fifteen other passengers had died in an airplane crash near the border between North Rhodesia and Katanaga. We were all relieved to hear that neither Bekerie nor any other Ethiopian was on that ill-fated flight. 

********** 

At 9:00 o'clock the next morning I was having my coffee at the dining table when the maid brought a telegram delivered earlier by the Air Force private. I tore open the envelope and glanced uneasily at Bekerie's telegram. It read as follows: 

I folded the telegram and did not stir for a long time. I went to Bekerie's study and pulled out the box from under his desk. The large manila envelope was still there, unopened. I took it out of the box and headed toward my bedroom. 

Suddenly, I heard Chaltu, the cook, shriek in the backyard. Startled, I released the bedroom door handle and ran out of the house through the kitchen door. Chaltu was holding her head, screaming her lungs out in the vegetable garden. The maid and the guard were trying to appease her, pushing her forward between two rows of tall collard green stalks. 

"What is going on? What's the matter with Chaltu?" I asked gruffly. Chaltu continued to scream. "Ambachew, tell me! What's going on?" I asked the guard with great alarm. He pointed at the vegetable patch behind him and disappeared, with the cook and the maid, into Chaltu's room. I tiptoed toward the fence. Exactly at the spot where I had stood the day before lay a bloated zebra skin sack. I bolted out of the vegetable garden, trampling over several collard green stalks.

I ran into the house and locked my bedroom door. Tossing the manila envelope off my bed, I grabbed and drew the curtains shut. My teeth rattled; my entire body shivered uncontrollably. I grabbed a ghabi (9) from the cupboard and wrapped it tight around my body. I continued to shiver. Sitting at the foot of my bed, I pressed my toes down against my heels and removed my shoes. I lifted the bedcover and the sheets and jumped into the bed. My panting had subsided but the shivering continued. 

********** 

I did not leave my bedroom for another three weeks. I never saw Makonnen again. 

********** 

Bekerie returned one Sunday morning, about a year and a half after Dag Hammarskjöld's death. I drove the Peugeot by myself to the new Bole International Airport. Girma followed with my daughter and son-in-law in their car. I turned on the radio. Valentina Tereshkova had just left the earth to make a three-day flight in space, becoming the first female astronaut.