by: Felleke

Imported machine-made Belgian Oriental rugs and modern Scandinavian furniture from Mosvold on parquet floors. Nothing short of that would induce Ityé Adey, my uncle's wife, to cross her well-manicured lawn and visit her mother-in-law, my grandmother, in our unassuming quarters tucked away in the backyard. Early on, Gash Gugsa, my flustered uncle, had attempted to mediate. "Mother, keep the chairs and the antiquated bed that you brought all the way from Gojjam but let me at least have hardwood floors installed and conceal the dirt in your salon."

Gashé's distress, much to his surprise and astonishment, had hardened Ema's iron resolve. "It's all right. Let her not deign to call on me. Just be sure you supply me with enough wood to keep the flames alive in the fireplace until we've concluded your sister's final memorial feast on Genbot Lideta."

Fatal stomach pains had taken my mother away from me on Genbot Lideta five months shy of seven years ago today. Ema kept the fire crackling night and day in the fireplace ever since Mother's death.

A few weeks ago, a lorry, following Ityé Adey's orders, dumped a mountain of tongue-and-grooved hardwood slats outside Ema's bedroom window. Outraged at her daughter-in-law's insolent hint, Ema had the reluctant gardener toss an armful of the symmetrical slats into the impartial flames.

Gash seethed and joined his livid wife in the villa. He did not visit Ema for an entire fortnight.

**********

A few days after I received a bouquet from U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey for participating in the Miss Addis Abeba beauty pageant, I decided to attend his speech on campus immediately after my late afternoon statistics class.

I arrived late at Ras Makonnen Hall with my two girlfriends, Menkele and Azeb, about ten minutes into the program. We were all three astonished to find more than a hundred surly students blocking the Vice Presidential motorcade from entering the hall.

Helmeted riot police had lifted their shields and narrowed the circle around the students when the most vociferous of the radicals raised President Lyndon Johnson's pendulous effigy above the crowd and doused it with turpentine. "Quit Vietnam! Quit Vietnam! Quit Vietnam!" the students shouted in unison as LBJ's double burst and blazed into a ball of fire. Two neo-classical gold-leafed, life-sized statues of vestal virgins, looming from a pair of pedestals on either side of the front marble step entrance, glowed voluptuously in the twilight.

My girlfriends and I fled the throng and dashed to the back of the enormous former palace. We trampled over a corner bed of budding marigolds to discover forty to fifty more students barricading the smaller entrance to the side of the building. A small group of infuriated guests in dark suits and evening gowns were glaring at the students from a safe distance. One at a time, I lifted my feet off the ground to shake off the tiny crushed orange and red petals stuck in my leather sandals before sprinting over to Menkale and Azeb who were gravitating tremulously towards the stymied guests.

Incensed at our unintentional defiance, the students shook their placards at us in fury. Instead of being intimidated, I suddenly became quite indignant at their coercive tactics. Menkale must have sensed what I was about to do for she immediately grabbed my wrist.

I pulled away from Menkale and advanced resolutely towards the hostile students. Of course, had I not been angry, I would have never had the courage to confront them. A large number of the protestors cheered my seemingly apparent defection while a skeptical minority brandished their placards, though with much less diminished fervor. "Heathen!" a bitter matron shrilled from among the guests.

The gangly ringleader followed my steps with an ironic smile. Gripping my sandals' damp dimpled insole with my toes, I climbed up a short flight of stairs and instantly disappeared in the swarm of triumphant students.

Ecstatic, four or five of them jostled around me, bending their placards into a makeshift tent over my enormous Afro. Within seconds, I became claustrophobic and had difficulty breathing. "Let me go, let me go," I said in a quivering but determined voice. Several hands from all directions grabbed and pulled at the bulky sleeves of my dashiki shirt.

The ringleader appeared, pushing the placards to the side and ordering his cohorts to release my arms. He broke into a smile and flashed his crooked but milky white teeth. "Susenyos. Senior. Smitten," he whispered, tilting his slender torso over my bulwark of an Afro. I recoiled instinctively. His checkered blazer reeked of the foulest tobacco smoke.

"And yet his teeth are so white" I thought to myself, sashaying past the bewildered radicals into the sparsely filled hall. "Banda! Banda! Banda!" they shouted, struggling with a few campus guards to push open the closing doors.

I had a whole row of seats to myself but the American Vice President never made it to the podium.

**********

Three weeks later, I saw Susenyos again at yet another blockade. Although I have since forgotten to ask him if he had anything to with that hubbub, my suspicions lingered long after his death.

It was a Monday afternoon, around 2:30 p.m. An hour and a half before my next lesson. An hour and a half before I walked up the slope past the Swedish Embassy to the home of my two private school pupils.

Ho Chi Minh's government had just launched a surprise offensive during the Vietnamese lunar New Year, attacking numerous South Vietnamese cities. American casualty figures had not yet been released but were expected to be very high. I folded the Herald Tribune and held it over my head to block the scorching sun as I walked past the Ambassador Theatre and crossed the street towards the Kidane Beyene building

Several agitated drivers were proceeding cautiously in tandem around a crane truck parked in the middle of the street. Dozens of onlookers further obstructed traffic by loitering around the vehicle and aggravating the already frustrated drivers.

Indifferent to the palpable excitement of the crowd, a wiry crane operator in a khaki jacket and a beige FIAT cap, barked contradictory commands at his browbeaten giant of an assistant. Barefoot, the latter climbed, with much trepidation, onto the back of a truck that was parked between the crane and the Kidane Beyene building and steadied a large hook extending from the overhead boom. "What are you waiting for, idiot?" shouted the operator. "Hook the sign! Hook the sign!" Flustered, the assistant attempted to grab a large black metal sign lying on the truck bed with the hook when his head wrap suddenly unraveled and fell. "Right away! Right away, sir!" he stammered and dropped the hook. "You're fired! You hear me, fired!" screamed the operator. Two laborers who were standing patiently on top of the scaffolding above the truck looked at one another and shook their heads. "What are you two bobbing your heads about?" snarled the operator.

Just then, a spectacled young woman in a lime-green paisley miniskirt emerged from her soon-to-be opened boutique under the building. She stooped through the scaffolding as the crane operator stood up from his seat and raised his hat. Taking advantage of the unexpected break, the assistant re-wrapped and re-knotted the cloth around his baldhead. Visibly alarmed at the sight of the enormous crowd and the congested traffic, the young woman walked briskly to the operator to instruct him to speed up the process. While she was still addressing him, the operator nodded his head several times and shifted one of the levers next to the gear. The cable whirred as it rove through the pulley and hoisted the sign off the truck bed. The two laborers atop the scaffolding stretched out their arms in preparation.

Then, Bekele "Timo", herald to the Emperor's massive motorcade, followed by a fleet of glistening dark olive green BMW motorcycles, appeared in the distance. They leaned left into the turn past the fledgling palm trees outside the Ethiopia Hotel and depressed their horn buttons. Beeeeeeeeep! Vehicles, old and new, careened to the curbs. Beeeeeeeeep! Acquaintances interrupted their middle-of-the-street salutations and bolted to the landscaped islands of the boulevard. Beeeeeeeeep! Idle shoeshine boys grabbed their boxes and jogged gleefully parallel to the motorcycle riders.

The Ethiopian and the Yugoslav flags mounted on the hood of the Emperor's burgundy Cadillac flapped in the wind as the finned vehicle emerged at the intersection and advanced past the red light. Both of the tri-colored flags collapsed into a fold as the motorcade slowed down to a complete stop in front of the Kidane Beyene Building.

But Bekele "Timo" was not about to let the splendid procession squeeze through in single file past the crane. Flabbergasted at the effrontery of the operator, Bekele "Timo" twirled his dropping waxed mustache into a straight line and glued his finger on the horn button.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

The crane operator must have pulled the wrong lever for the boom swung wildly over the sovereign's Cadillac. Shouting at the top of her lungs, the spectacled young woman ordered the operator to clear the street. The assistant clutched and held onto his head wrap.

Unaware of the overhead melodrama, the Emperor, Marshal Broz Tito and his wife, Madame Jovanka, waved languidly at the excited crowd from the back seats of the Cadillac. Pressing the hem of her miniskirt tightly against her thighs, the spectacled young woman bowed nervously at the monarch and the Titos.

Bekele "Timo" ducked as the black sign dangling on the boom swooped over him and dangerously past the polished roof of the Cadillac. Then, about a dozen bodyguards jumped out of a few Mercedes limousines parked behind the Cadillac and stormed the crane.

One of the bodyguards yanked the crane operator out of his seat and took control. The crowd cheered wildly at the crane operator getting his comeuppance. Roused by the applause, the Emperor and his guests looked out through their windows again and waved with a little more animation. The bodyguard steered the boom away from the motorcade as the assistant stretched out his long arms above his head and grabbed the precipitously swaying sign. It was then that I simultaneously made out the letters on the sign and heard a loud guffaw rising above the racket.

Behind the scaffolding, Susenyos convulsed, unable to break free from a paroxysm of laughter. Suddenly, the crowd began to clap in a steady but moderate tempo. The bodyguard on the crane was lowering the sign back on the truck bed. Through the moving sign that read "Caprice" I could see the Emperor's motorcade squeezing one by one past the crane.

He must have approached me while I was staring at the sign for all of a sudden I caught a whiff of the tobacco scent on his jacket. "Come, Yeshi," Susenyos whispered in my ear, "let's go have some coffee at the corner café."

**********

Susenyos leaned forward across the table over our nearly empty macchiato cups and pinched some yellow cake crumbs off of my plate. All at once, through the decorative wrought iron grill flushed against his chair, I saw hundreds of construction workers, balancing metal buckets packed with cement on their heads, creeping down numerous treacherous planks in Indian file to fill up the subterraneous foundation of the future multi-story National Post Office building.

"Look how I can make them rise to the top," Susenyos said sitting back in his chair. Just as unexpectedly as they had appeared, the construction workers and the entire site disappeared behind Susenyos' head. And he didn't even have an Afro to speak of.

We were seated on shiny new chairs on the ground floor of Anchor café, the trendy two-story establishment adjoining the Kidane Beyene building.

"Look," Susenyos said, reaching up and extending his long arm over a large cement globe covered with tiny black and gold square tiles. I looked at him quizzically. Perched on a low wall next to our table, this enormous ball eclipsed the chairs and tables crammed into the tiny café. "Look!" he repeated. "You're going to miss it."

Enthralled as I was by the sparkle in his firebrand-turned-boyish eyes I wriggled out of my chair and stood up to catch the tail end of his flicking fingers. The cake crumbs scattered and fell on a miniature crater lake burrowed deep into the solid globe. All at once, about dozen guppies emerged out of the crevice and devoured the remnants of my dessert as invisible cement mixers droned in the distance.

**********

Ema pressed her elbow against the armchair and looked back through the doorway to make sure that our houseguest was out of earshot. Without realizing what we were doing, Susenyos and I mimicked my grandmother's movement and spied in the same direction. Both of us were across the room from Ema on chairs that were lined up against the wall next to the fireplace. A small window separated our mismatched seats. Tété must have turned on the faucet for we heard the water splashing in the kitchen sink.

Clasping both of her knees with her rough hands, Ema leaned forward conspiratorially.

"Had she sided with my kin and the rest of the villagers who had refused to pay the new taxes," Ema whispered, "the leaders of the revolt would not have confiscated her property."

"It still does not --"

"Shush!" Ema said, interrupting my near outburst. "If she hears you she'll automatically assume that I've misled you, perverting the truth on account of her being my in-law. Even your mother was not yet born when her father died died, but he was your grandfather's much older brother."

"I know that, Ema. But they still have no right to take her property. Tété was simply obeying the law."

"How is it," Ema fumed, "that you grow up in my house, under my tutelage, and end up behaving exactly like your uncle in the big house yonder? I just hope you don't follow his footsteps too closely. I won't be able bear a second tax assessor in the family. No right to take her property. Upon my word!"

"Ema, she's demonstrating her loyalty to her country."

"Her loyalties," my grandmother burst out, "should first and foremost be towards her neighbors and her community. Why would she feel obligated to follow proclamations issued by a negligent government? The only time they remember to set foot in Damot is when they have to collect taxes. And tell me, how has Damot benefited from the money that your government has collected already?"

"Weizero Laketch," Tété declared magisterially appearing through the doorway with a handful of dripping raw coffee beans, "the taxes from Damot have paid for the education of her children."

Startled, Ema leaned back in her chair but did not turn around to look up at her in law. Susenyos and I stood up, towering over Tété's tiny frame.

"Did Lij Gugsa or Tsigemariam's daughter right here pay out of pocket for any of their schooling? No, Damot did. And I am not about to insult you by itemizing the benefits of that education to the rest of my uncle's family."

Tété stopped in front of Ema across the table. Water trickled down between her fingers forming a few puddles on the dirt floor under her feet.

I hurried to the corner to get her seat, a stool that she had brought with her all the way from Damot.

Teqebash, the maidservant, entered carrying a brazier piled with red-hot charcoal bricks and placed it next to Tété.

"Grab some wood from the pile right outside and toss it into the fireplace for me," Ema said looking up at Susenyos. "The fire is about to die."

Susenyos removed his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.

"I'll show him where it is," I said and quickly led him out through the front door.

"Why is your grandmother intimidated by your aunt?" Susenyos said as we passed Ema's bedroom window. "This is the first time I've seen her shirk from an argument."

We stopped next to the woodpile. "Here," I said, picking up a few slats.

"Hold on," he said and pulled a Gisilla cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, hidden behind a small spiral notebook, "I desperately need a drag before we get back." He looked towards the big house in concern. "Go ahead," I said, assuring him. "Both my uncle and his wife are at work. And the kids are not here yet."

Susenyos fished a lighter out of his pocket, shook it violently several times and lit his cigarette. Then he closed his eyes, tilted his head back and sucked a lungful as the tip of his cigarette glowed fiery red. Susenyos' chest expanded and heaved towards me.

"She is intimidated but I'm not quite sure why. I think she suspects Tété of dabbling in sorcery."

Susenyos coughed as he burst out laughing. "That tiny little woman?"

"I know, I know," I said, giggling. "It does sound implausible. But it's just that Ema doesn't eat or drink anything Tété offers her until Tété herself takes the first bite or sip."

Susenyos extinguished the cigarette with his foot and threw the stub into a barrel next to Gashé Gugsa's garage wall. "We better get back with the firewood."

"Here," I said, piling a handful of slats on his curled bare arms.

"You can't burn this!" Susenyos said, turning his arms away from me. "It's not firewood! These are slats for parquet floors!"

"I know, Susenyos. My grandmother insists on burning all of them. They were a gift from my uncle's wife. Evidently, Ema's not in the best of terms with her."

"It doesn't make any sense but I'm at your grandmother's service."

"It's very simple. Ityé Adey wanted to cover the dirt floor in our living room with these slats before the dignitaries came to pay their respects on my mother's final memorial feast three months from now. My grandmother refused."

"Ah, she's that kind of a person," Susenyos exclaimed.

"Yes, Ityé Adey is that kind of a person," I concurred.

"Come on, let's go burn this wood," he said and marched towards the house.

"Wait," I said running after him. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder as I wrapped my arms around his chest from behind. "Let me put the wood down," Susenyos said eagerly.

"No, no, stay still," I whispered, "We need to get back. I just want to hold you for a second." I pressed my head against his back.

Although we were still several yards away from the house, my grandmother's voice had become discernable. Ema and Tété must have been in a heated exchange.

"--return until the early evening. She is on her own throughout the day and could do whatever she pleased. What good would it do if I forbade her from inviting her friends? In fact, I would much rather know the people with whom she spends her time. He is a nice, decent fellow."

"Weizero Laketch," Tété responded, "for generations, the virgins in my family, praise be to God, have preserved their chastity until their wedding night. Beware lest Askalemariam's daughter sullies this distinguished tradition."

My arms turned limp and collapsed. They hung heavily from my shoulders. Susenyos turned around to look at me.

"I am delighted," my grandmother retorted, "for the infinite virgins in your family. But you seem to forget, Weizero Amarech, Yeshi is my granddaughter and I will make sure she conducts herself in a way that I deem fit. Now, they should return any moment so the conversation ends right here. Yeshihareg! Yeshihareg! Where have you disappeared? The fire is dying!"

I breathed in deeply and started walking towards the house. "We're coming! We're coming!"

**********

Teqebash tapped the bottom of the overturned mortar with the pestle, forcing the stubborn particles of the finely ground black coffee into the boiling coffeepot. Tété added a pinch of salt and capped the coffeepot.

"Mother, Tété, good afternoon."

As was his habit Gashé Gugsa simultaneously knocked on the doorframe and wiped his spotless black leather shoes on the doormat. Tété, Susenyos, Teqebash and I stood up. He stepped into the room, crushing the reeds and orange petals that Teqebash had scattered on the floor earlier.

He held his striped tie against his starched white shirt and bowed deeply in front of Ema.

"You're home early today," Ema said, pecking him with a kiss on both cheeks.

"Yes, I just concluded my meeting with the minister about half an hour ago. I left work early to share the good news," Gashé said kissing Tété in turn.

"What was the minister's decision?" Tété asked apprehensively.

Gashé glanced in our direction. "Children," he said gruffly and nodded. "Good afternoon," Susenyos and I said with a slight bow.

Gashé rested his gigantic arms on Tété's shoulders and looked down at her. "The minister," Gashé said with much excitement, "dictated, in my presence, a letter to his counterpart at the Interior Ministry, asking him to send an army, if necessary, to restore your property. He was outraged to learn that a law abiding citizen..."

Tété's ululation drowned the tail end of Gashé's reply. She removed his arms from her shoulders and pranced around the room. Flailing her arms with glee, she shouted, "You have replaced yourself, my good uncle! You did not die from Italian poison bombs for naught! You have replaced yourself!"

Not very impressed with Tété's histrionics, Ema puckered her lips and twisted them to one side.

Gashé chuckled, grabbing Tété's wrists. "That's enough, Tété. I've only done the right thing. I've only done the right thing. You were clearly...."

"Elelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelelele!" Tété would not stop. I looked back through the window. The two guard dogs chained to the garage posts sprang in the air and barked furiously.

"Tété, you’re incorrigible. I am going to sit down. The rest of you should sit down as well. Otherwise, she won't stop," Gashé said, sitting next to Ema. "Teqebash," Gashé added, "pour me some coffee, would you?"

Uncertain about what he ought to do, Susenyos glanced at me. "It's okay," I murmured and crouched into my seat.

"Before you sit down, my boy, please get some wood for the fire," Ema said. Gashé glared at Ema and quietly sipped his coffee. Susenyos sprang out of his chair once again and tossed some of the slats that we had brought into the fireplace. A group of snickering schoolchildren walked past the gate, singing off-color lyrics. Uncomfortable and embarrassed, we all avoided one another's eyes until their footsteps and voices became imperceptible.

"So," Gashé said, looking in our direction, "what do you demonstrate for today?"

"There were none today, Gashé," I responded at once before he lured Susenyos into another heated argument. I didn't want that to happen in front of Tété.

"Demonstrate? Demonstrate? Not my honorable uncle's granddaughter! She would never dream of entertaining such an idea or consider consorting with ne'er-do-wells who might, would she?" Tété exclaimed sanctimoniously.

"My granddaughter," Ema declared, "has no qualms about speaking out against injustice."

Although I had not participated in a single demonstration, my family all assumed that I had by virtue of being a university student. Tété's irritating comment prompted me to take action there and then. "Yes, I will be marching to the OAU to rally behind the thirty-two African nations that are boycotting the Mexico Olympics. If you haven't heard, the Olympics committee has admitted South Africa to the games in October!"

Susenyos looked up at me in surprise. "And I am going to march to the British Embassy," he added, "to demand that they get rid of Ian Smith and his administration in Rhodesia. He just had five African freedom fighters executed"

"The two of you talk utter nonsense," Ema said, shooing a few flies off the qolo bowl on the coffee table. "It's extraordinary! How can two generations of urban living wipe out the memory of the grandfathers that ploughed the land and the grandmothers that planted the seeds? Go to the streets to publicize your objection to the government's proposed agricultural income tax increase! Besiege the Parliament chambers until the Deputies and the Senators vote against the tax bill! Wave the placards for your kinfolk that have revolted in Damot and Motta against the heinous tax hike. Boycotting Rhodesian Games! What next!"

Then, out of the blue, Tété leaped from her seat and began swatting her cheeks rhythmically with the tip of her shawl. "You might as well slap me in the face! Damot thugs dispossess me of my patrimony and she dares tell my niece to support the brigands! I have had enough. I am leaving this instant and will not spend one more night in enemy territory."

"Leave! Do you think I'm going to beg you to stay? Go!" Ema said calmly. "Laketch Bezabeh has never gone on her knees for anybody. Not even for her husband. Remember that it was your uncle who capitulated and asked for my hand in marriage."

"That he did, forever disgracing the family name!" Tété shouted.

"And whom are you calling brigand?" Ema said, raising her voice. The fingers on my hands are not enough to count the predators in your family. Is there a more rapacious--"

"Ema, Tété!" Gashé yelled. "No need to go there. Especially in front of the children."

It irked me that even as a college student Gashé still referred to me as a child.

"Tété, sit down. You're not going anywhere," Gashé said.

Tété sat down immediately, her eyes fixed on Gashé.

We all sipped our coffee staring at the dirt floor for an uncomfortably long time. Ityé Adey honked her horn in the distance as the guard immediately opened the gates.

Teqebash walked around the room with a tray as each one of us in turn set down our empty cups on it for a third refill. Ityé Adey drove her car into the compound and parked on the driveway in the front of the house. Susenyos tossed some slats on the fire.

"Ema," Gashé began calmly, "we've talked about this before. All of us want an extensive network of roads, more schools and universal health care for our fellow citizens. How is all of this going to be financed? The government has two options. It can either borrow from foreign governments and organizations or raise the money within the country. If we borrow from outside sources we will most certainly be beholden to their interests. We don't want that to happen so we've borrowed very little from them. Now, in order for us to raise money from within we have but one option: the imposition of taxes."

"Money has been pouring out of Gojjam ever since the end of the Italian Occupation," Ema said angrily. "Except for the two statues of the Emperor in Debre Berhan and some other town, what has Gojjam gotten back in return?"

"If we consider ourselves a nation state, Mother, we cannot limit ourselves to the needs of just our own individual villages and regions. If all the money that was raised in a particular province were spent locally the disparity between rich and poor provinces would be even more acute," Gashé said.

"You have replaced yourself, my good uncle! You have replaced yourself!" Tété whispered with her arms raised to the heavens.

"Tété!," Gashé hissed. "Ema, compared to other provinces, money has not been pouring out of Gojjam."

"Encourage Yeshi and her friends," he continued, grasping Ema's hand, "to besiege Cabinet and members of Parliament," He glanced up at us, smiling ironically. "Your granddaughter and her friends ought not support insurrections here and there but pressure legislators to appropriate less money for defense and a lot more for, say, fertilizer subsidies. Do you know that in the last few years, Ema, India's wheat production has increased by 50% simply because of the introduction of a new generation of fertilizers? Farmers in the Philippines are marveling at the record yields from a new miracle rice. All of these improvements have brought and bought Asia much stability."

"Needless to say, Lij Gugsa," Tété said, "there was never a time when our granaries were not full. But I remember, when I was a little girl, that our grandmother used to buy wheat seed from a particular grain merchant who came from distant lands. Much to everyone's astonishment, she would mix the alien grain with our own right before the planting season began. 'Blend seeds for better yields,' she used to say. I wonder if we would have benefited had we been curious enough to learn from her. For whatever reason, the family never stopped being wary of Grandmother's foreign ways. I don't know if you know but Grandfather brought her with him as his bride at the end of a campaign. I can't remember now. I forget which."

"Never a time when our granaries were not full!" I don't know why Tété carried on the way she did. I stood up abruptly and drew open the curtains behind me as the last rays of the setting sun shone weakly into the room. "Gashé," I said leaning back against the window, "apparently Filipinos hate the taste of the new IR-8 rice you were talking about. It is also reputed to have very little resistance to--"

"Taste?" Gashé interrupted. "I tell you empty bellies are being filled and you talk about taste. I tell you that science's contribution to agriculture is helping Asia soar into First World realm and you talk about taste. With that line of argument, you probably don't think our people who live near the Rift Valley Lakes or the Red Sea ought to learn to integrate fish in their daily diet, do you? At the moment, they're not eating it because they don't like the taste!"

Gashé tightened his grip on Ema's hand. "Ema, these young people need guidance and they listen to you more than they do me. May I recommend another worthy cause? As we speak, hundreds of thousands of farmers in countries bordering the Red Sea, including our own, are losing all their crops to a new and devastating locust plague. Can you goad your granddaughter and her rabble-rousing friends to think of ways to increase public awareness and clamor for the government to find an urgent solution to this problem?"

Ema removed her hand from Gashé's grasp and covered her face. "Lord, forgive me for doubting you. You have not abandoned us. You have spoken once again," she whispered.

"What does God have anything to do with this?" Gashé asked, irritably.

"Your government," Ema declared, "is shackling my Damot kinfolk in tax bondage and He has expressed His displeasure. He has let loose the locusts. 'If thou refuse to let my people go', He had warned the Pharaoh, 'behold, tomorrow will I bring the locust into thy coast.' " Ema pronounced with much solemnity.

"What! Those are your relatives who have seized the property of law-abiding citizens. Those are your relatives who have held our field tax assessors hostage! Those are your relatives who are shirking their civic duties!" Gashé declared emphatically.

"Elelelelelelel!" Tété ululated, crossing her arms on her chest and rocking herself in her seat. "Uncle, you need not worry! You may rest in peace! You have replaced yourself! Elelelelelelele!" She then quickly dubbed her eyes with the tip of her shawl lest her abundant tears dissolve the kohl on her eyelids and streak her flawless golden cheeks.

"Tété!" Gashé yelled.

Without glancing at Gashé, she looked up at the ceiling and silently shook her arms in the air.

"What about Haile Gebre-Yohannes? Why has the government arrested him?" Susenyos ejaculated.

"He's one of those hoodlums who has been pelting cars and burning buses, isn't he?" Tété demanded.

"He's a patriot, not a hoodlum!" Susenyos hissed, cracking the four fingers on his left hand.

"Gugsa, beware! The signs are everywhere. People are protesting about how they're being treated." Ema said indignantly shaking her right forefinger at her son.

Teqebash quickly handed Ema her third cup of coffee before she lowered her arm.

"In my day, young man, patriots did not destroy public property. They fought against the invading foreign army!" Tété retorted.

Ema sipped the steaming coffee with a loud slurp and glanced from under her brow at me. "Yeshi, this Haile fellow, he's from Gojjam, isn't he, my dear?"

Susenyos and I broke into laughter.

"Ema," I said in a fit of giggles, "I have no idea where he's from but he is the student poet who won an award for his poem entitled Bereket Mergem last year."

Ema grunted and turned sharply towards Gashé. "Gugsa, what did you mean earlier by your relatives? Are they not your relatives as well?" she said, much irritated. "But why am I surprised?" she continued. "You have never gone to Damot to visit them. You, the junior member of the family, untroubled by your elderly great-uncles and aunts coming to call on you here in Addis Abeba. Why am I surprised? When have you not been impartial to your father's side of the family?"

"And for good reason, too!" Tété broke in haughtily.

"Ema!" Gashé said putting his arm around her shoulders, "when was the last time I went to visit Father's relatives?"

"None of that!" Ema said, disengaging his grip. "The damage is done. I know where I stand. And don't think I'm comforted because you brag about neglecting your father's relatives! You take me for a child, don't you?"

"Lij Gugsa," Tété interjected, "may you be blessed with your son, Admasu, as my uncle has been with his."

"Tété," I said much vexed, "I think you forgot to bless Gashé's daughter, Laketch. Admasu's older sister." Tété glanced sideways at me but didn't condescend to respond.

"But I am equally attentive to both sides of my family," Gashé said with a twinkle in his eyes, embracing Ema once again.

"Keep mocking me. No matter. Keep mocking me," Ema said. "But I tell you, if there are any sages left in your government, they should take heed. There's no turning back the clock once He says, 'Let my people go.'"

"Yeshi," Susenyos whispered, leaning towards me under the windowsill. "'Let our people go,' can be a great slogan, no? What do you think?"

"Surplus!" Gashé said suddenly springing to his feet. "That's what's going to save our country. Surplus. Create enough wealth to go around for everybody and it will be the end of this bickering. All Ethiopians will then be able to have their basic needs met."

"But how are we to assure that the surplus is divided equitably among our people?" I demanded.

"Certainly not by rebellions or insurrections. Look at the hundreds of thousands of Ibos starving to death right now in the Biafran War," Gashé replied, walking towards the door. Teqebash immediately stood up from her chair. Gashé pulled down the handle and looked back over his shoulder. "I better go and make sure Adey's ready for the cocktail. We've been invited to the inauguration of the new Commercial Bank branch near Mesqel Square."

Tété grabbed Teqebash arm and pulled herself up to her feet as her Damot stool tumbled and rolled on the floor. Susenyos and I stood up. Gashé opened the door wide and bowed deeply at Ema and Tété.

"Ato Gugsa," Susenyos called out with a slight quiver in his voice. Gashé turned in our direction.

"According to a recent report from the land of surplus, hundreds, possibly thousands, of malnourished American children are on the verge of going blind because of vitamin A deficiencies," Susenyos said.

Gashé paused to reflect. "Gugsa, I'm ready to go! Gugsa!" called out Ityé Adey mellifluously from the villa in the distance.

"Let's save that for another day," Gashé said. He acknowledged Tété's bow with a slight nod.

"Young man," Ema said, turning toward Susenyos, "please toss some more wood into the fire."

Gashé slammed the door behind him and walked briskly to the villa.

**********

To be concluded in next issue.