The Girl in the Road Read online

  I felt affection for the nuns who ran my orphanage, Sisters of Mercy Home for Children in Hawassa. I never misbehaved. The nuns noticed that I did all my assigned tasks with quietness and diligence because everything I did, I secretly did for you. They put me in charge of the library. We had such an odd assortment of books! There were pulpy comic books in Amharic, and dictionaries of Hindi and Mandarin, and flat hard squares of Japanese picture books showing albino children playing with cats. I was in charge of keeping records on the computer. With the help of the nuns, and other tutors and volunteers, I built on the Amharic that Francis had taught me. It was difficult at the beginning—and the other children called me Ghana Gorilla—but they left me alone once I commanded them to, in the voice of the kreen.

  The kreen never went away. I had become used to its presence during our odyssey across the Sahara, and now that I was safely in residence at my destination, the kreen took up permanent residence in my chest. It always hurt a little, true, but only as a faint soreness. And it was a source of power when I needed it to be.

  During the years of managing the library, I tried learning other languages in addition to Amharic. I memorized other alphabets, each of which had a distinctive look. Mandarin looked like ten thousand tiny houses. Hindi looked like the curls of grapevines hanging down from a trellis. Whereas Amharic, now my adopted mother tongue, looked like naked desert trees reaching from earth to sky.

  In school, a frequent assignment was to compose hymns and psalms. I got good at them, and once I even won a national prize in the age-ten-to-twelve category, and got to read my poem in Addis with the minister of education sitting right behind me, to five hundred people in an auditorium as well as millions of people across the country who had tuned in on their radios and computers and televisions to watch the newly minted, first-annual Pan-Ethiopian Pageant. I even won ten thousand birr, which the nuns helped me put into a savings account. After I won the prize, I kept composing poems, to Jesus, or Mary, or God—but to me, the golden meaning lay underneath; which is, I was praising you all along.

  So there was none that I loved as I love you.

  But I must confess myself. Yemaya, you know all that is within my heart. I know you’ve been watching me. I was young, only twenty years old, the age you were when you rose to heaven, studying political science at the university on a scholarship sponsored by the Chinese government, and active in the new anti-Indian ARAP Party. See? I had always remembered what you’d said to me: You’ll become educated and you’ll be one of the ones to fight back.

  But also, I had begun to look elsewhere for comfort and meaning without even realizing it. It hurts to admit this to you, but I’d begun to wonder whether you weren’t just a girlish fantasy. The strange thing is, Gabriel appeared to me in Addis exactly the way you did in Dakar, and on Timket, no less. So I was deceived.

  On that particular day, I was standing at the top of the steps of the university library, waiting for a student demonstration to start. We’d begun to hold them every weekend in the run-up to that year’s election, the first election in which ARAP might have a chance, now that the UN had cracked down on election transparency because it didn’t need Ethiopia’s help in the region since the dawns of oil in Somalia, solar in Sudan, and hydro in Kenya. We wanted to unseat the ruling Pan-Ethiopian Party, which had done great good by uniting Ethiopia to unseat the EPRDF in 2025, but retained the EPRDF’s too-friendly relations with foreign investors.

  That day, we were to march from the library steps to Sidist Kilo, where we would circle the roundabout once, stopping traffic; then down Entoto Avenue to Arat Kilo, where we would circle again; then all the way down to Meskel Square (we would be gathering crowds along the way, but especially at Meskel), and then down Bole Road to Embassy Row, where the Indian embassy sat behind high iron fences, secured with a laser perimeter and shards of broken glass glued to the ramparts. We were marching to kick out Indian farmers who had bought land from our government in the 2010s at cheap prices, not to grow food for Ethiopians, but for Indians. Activists had posted pictures of the ships that departed from Djibouti City, heavy with grain, while Ethiopian children still starved waiting for international aid. Anti-foreigner feeling was swelling across the country; indeed, across all of North Africa. So it was all the more remarkable that, that day, while I was standing at the top of the library steps waiting for my fellow students, I saw a young Indian man from a very long way off, who made straight for me as if led on a path by the divine, carrying a handmade sign that read QUIT ETHIOPIA.

  He stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at me. I’d noticed that I had this power, to silence people, to stop them in their tracks. I think it was the kreen, looking out through my eyes even when it wasn’t speaking with my tongue. But though this young Indian had stopped, he stared right back at me as if he knew he had power to match my own, a power of joy. He was golden. He glowed. I don’t know how else to describe it. He said,

  Salaam-nesh!—yikerta?—meuche … meutash?

  I answered in Amharic: I came about ten minutes ago. I’m early.

  Ishi, ishi, he said. Ke Hend naw … yemeta- … Hend neng.

  I can see that, I said in Hindi. You have quite the accent.

  He seemed relieved to not have to speak Amharic. Is this where we’re gathering for the march? he said.

  Yes, I said. How did you hear about it?

  The student newsfeed, he said.

  Are you a student here?

  No, he said. He had come a few steps farther up now, and we never broke eye contact. He continued, I’m a resident at the medical school. I work at Our Lady of Entoto.

  I noticed that he seemed eager to please me, to win approval from me, even though he himself was (I could tell on sight) never the sort who would need to seek approval. He had dark golden skin and thick smears of eyebrow, his glossy hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and his earlobes were long and round like a Buddha’s. He stood, waiting for me to say something, wavering slightly in place.

  So where are you from? I said. Delhi? Mumbai?

  Keralam in the deep south, he said. It’s God’s Own Country.

  Why is it God’s Own Country?

  He had not expected to be questioned on this. He stammered to justify himself. Well, that’s what the Brits called it, he said. But they were right. It’s very beautiful. It’s green and lush and full of colors and spices and rivers.

  He could see that I remained unconvinced.

  I said, I think Ethiopia is God’s Own Country.

  Tell me why you think that! he said, boyish, eager, open.

  Human civilization began here, I said. In the north of the country is the home of Dinkenesh.

  You mean Lucy, he said.

  Her name is Dinkenesh. It means “You are wonderful.”

  Understood, he said. Maybe you’ll take me to see her someday?

  I smiled slightly.

  He asked me, then, if he could approach.

  I nodded yes and sat down on the steps.

  He climbed the few remaining steps and sat down next to me.

  “Quit Ethiopia”? I said. That’s bold.

  I thought it would lend legitimacy to the cause, he said.

  You think we need legitimacy?

  That’s not what I meant, he said. (Oh, Yemaya, he was trying so hard to impress me, to communicate his good intentions effectively, to not embarrass himself.) He said, I meant, in the eyes of the Indian government. They’ve become so arrogant. They think that, because we’re the most populous nation on Earth, that we’re entitled to seize whatever land is necessary in order to feed all our people.

  I nodded. It was a beautiful, clear day in the dry season. The hyacinth trees were budding all over the city.

  So what do you study? he said.

  Political science, I said. And some religion.

  Religion and culture are one and the same in Ethiopia, no?

  That’s changing. Are they not also in India?

  That’s changi
ng too, he said.

  What are you?

  Catholic mother, Hindu father, he said. That’s why my name is Ramachandran Gabriel. I celebrate both and practice neither!

  He laughed at himself. Then he asked, What are you?

  It was always difficult for me to answer that question, Yemaya, because my religion was you. I had never felt anything more true or perfect than the time during which you walked on this earth. But how could I explain that to a stranger? That was my golden meaning, my semena werk, my true religion—and no one else knew it. No one, yet, had been worthy of knowing.

  So instead I said, I’m a student of religion.

  (Which was also true.)

  He understood my subtext and dropped the line of questioning.

  Thank you for speaking Hindi, he said. My Amharic is still terrible.

  How long have you been here?

  Only two weeks, he said. I just finished medical school. And then I go to Ayurveda school. But before that, I wanted to see the world. I wanted to help. In some way. In as many ways as I could.

  So you’re carrying a sign that says QUIT ETHIOPIA through the streets of Addis Ababa.

  Do you think its meaning will be understood?

  Well enough, by those who need to. Indian nationalists in India, certainly.

  Do you think ARAP has a chance of winning?

  Sure. As long as Somalia stays quiet and the PEP doesn’t whip up an emergency requiring martial law.

  PEP could whip up an emergency involving Somalia, he said.

  I gave him a Look.

  Then he tried to guess at my ethnicity. He said, you look Oromo, but your hair is done in Tigrayan style, and you wear an old-fashioned Amhara dress.

  (This was true. I was one of the activists reclaiming native Ethiopian fashion, which meant reimaginings of traditional dresses—white cotton with bright embroidered edges, just like the one you had bought me in Lalibela. Once I outgrew it, I wore it as a headwrap. See this cloth I carry? This is the very last bit of it!)

  I didn’t tell him what I “was,” but only shook my head whenever he was wrong. So no, I was not Tigrayan, nor Amhara, nor Oromo. I was not Somali or Harari or Eritrean or Dinka. I was content to remain a mystery to him. In my own heart, I didn’t identify with any tribe; I only knew I belonged to you.

  We stayed in a loose orbit that entire day. We marched together. We initiated slogans and heard them spread through the crowd. We arrived at the Indian embassy, which had been anticipating us; they had sent servants to meet us at the gate, to serve ladoos. We did not expect that! We didn’t know whether to eat them (as Ethiopians are, above all, a polite people) or throw them against the stucco walls of the embassy (as Ethiopians are, above all, a proud people). So we refused them and then chanted for a few hours. The media came. Dispatches and photos of the event were posted all over the world. We made Al Jazeera. Gabriel’s sign, QUIT ETHIOPIA, made it onto the front page of the Times of India.

  Darkness had fallen by the time the crowd dispersed. I saw the organizers shaking hands with individual protestors, slapping them on their backs, kissing cheeks. The march had gone well. We were dispersing back into the city. Gabriel said to me, Is there any seafood here? It’s like mother’s milk in Keralam. I miss the ocean.

  I felt a deep yearning. It had been so long since I’d thought of the ocean, the place you call home.

  So do I, I said.

  Have you ever seen the ocean? he said.

  Yes.

  (I could tell he was filing this information away, so as to better guess my origins, later.)

  Instead he asked again, So is there seafood in Addis?

  There’s certainly fish, I said. Come with me. I know where to take you.

  The restaurant would have been hard for him to find, as a ferenji. Only locals knew about it. We were seated at a traditional mesob, a woven table shaped like a chalice. A puffy golden lamp hung overhead. He was the only ferenji in the house and a few people stared. I ordered for us: two whole tilapia, grilled, from Lake Ziway. When the food came, he rolled up his sleeve and hunched over, his left arm propped on his knee. Eating was serious business to him. He turned the fish over once, then twice, like a dog ensuring his treat met muster, and then began to pull white flesh from the bones. He was adept with his hands. He had elegant, muscled fingers.

  After a few mouthfuls to sate his hunger, he asked if it was bad for me to be seen like this: alone in the presence of a foreign man. He’d read that Ethiopian women seen in public with ferenjis were assumed to be prostitutes. I told him that attitudes had changed drastically, especially in Addis, and that I also didn’t care what people thought. Impulsively I added, I’ve always moved lightly on the earth. Maybe a centimeter above it.

  Ninety-nine people would have ignored such a comment because it was too strange for common speech, especially between near-strangers. But not Gabriel. He just nodded, as if he knew what I meant.

  This is the moment, Yemaya, when I began to trust him.

  When we were done with our fish, and nothing but greasy piles of bones remained, I ordered buna for us. Black, for me. I asked him what he liked; he ordered a macchiato.

  I said, You like cream and sugar.

  He said, I’m a self-respecting Indian man.

  So I asked him to tell me more about himself. About his country. About what India was like. His feelings on Eritrea (“Let them be”). How many languages he spoke (five: Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, English). How old he was (twenty-one, one year older than me). How he liked Ethiopia (“fascinating”). Where else he’d been in Ethiopia (only Ambo so far, on a trip with the other medical residents, to bathe in the hot springs). What caste he belonged to (Brahmin mother, on her father’s side; Kshatriya father). What kind of music he liked.

  He liked Ethiopian jazz. He had real vinyl records and a record player, brought all the way from India in a trunk. He’d been combing the stores for pre-Derg records. Most had already been bought by foreign dealers who then sold them to collectors abroad for huge sums of money, but he’d found six so far. He intended to host a listening party at his flat for his fellow Indian residents and their fellow Ethiopian clinicians, and serve chaat, Indian street food. He invited me. I accepted.

  See how well I fit in, Yemaya? It was all a bit of a game to me. This person Gabriel could never know me the way you knew me, I thought; and so in the meantime, I would humor him. I would humor myself, even. I would pretend that I was a normal young Ethiopian woman, orphaned but blessed, and ambitious. Foreign scholars from all over the world were interested in the fledgling, real, post-EPRDF Ethiopian democracy. In fact, I was offered a fellowship and could have skimmed right out of the country, but I turned it down to study at Addis Ababa University. I felt invested in Ethiopia and wanted to stay, but I admit that the real reason I turned them down was that I was afraid of leaving the country at all, in case you chose to come back. I didn’t want to miss you.

  And even though I began sharing my heart with Gabriel, I don’t think he ever really knew me. He never watched over me and saw everything I did, as you did. There was the time—I’m sure you must have seen it—when I killed that man who was raping my neighbor. I had just started at the university and came back to my little flat near Tewodros Square. I heard a strangled scream from behind one of the doors and, my heart beating loud, tiptoed along the corridor to discern which flat it was coming from. I heard a man yell back. This was a normal part of city life—a city man bringing his village wife into the city and seven kinds of hell ensuing. The more I listened to the screaming, the lighter I felt, the more free. When the woman’s screams reached a sustained pitch I knocked down the door with my shoulder. It was as if matter had become immaterial. I came in through the kitchen and the first thing I saw was a scissors, used for cutting meat from bone, lying in the sink. I went through the kitchen to the living room to the bedroom and there it all was, exactly as I’d pre-seen it in my mind’s eye before rounding the corner, a man pressing his hands in
to a woman’s back while she struggled to get out from beneath him. His pants were down and her skirt was up. He turned too slow; he didn’t see me coming at all. He wore a black-and-white checkered shirt. He was unprepared. Jumping on him and stabbing him through the throat was one fluid motion. I kept the scissors there and he kept clutching at them, trying to pull them out, but it was like a contest of wills, and I pulled them out and drove them in again. Finally his hands stopped clutching and he relaxed. I had stopped him! I felt like I could do anything. I could run a race. I could fly from Oromia to the Simien Mountains. I could alight on mountain peaks, and find the Ark of the Covenant, and the True Cross, and Dinkenesh’s grave. I could find them all in one day. In that moment, I knew where they were.

  Then I heard a bird sing. The call and answer.

  Nhoo-nhoo? Nho-no-no.

  Nhoo-nhoo? Nho-no-no.

  I remembered that I’d needed to get rice on the way home from the theater. Had I remembered? Yes, I remembered buying it. Indian jasmine white extra-long-grain. It was in my backpack. Where did I last have my backpack? It was in the corridor.

  That was when the sweet buzzing in the back of my mind broke into its component pieces, and became the cadences of a human voice.

  I turned to face the woman who was huddled in the corner with her face in her hands.

  He was hurting you, I said, not as a question.

  The woman kept crying as if I’d said nothing. I recognized her. I’d seen her in the elevator before. She always wore a mustard-colored shawl over her Western clothes.

  I tossed the scissors toward her. They left a smear of blood on the tile and came to a stop at her feet.