Assefa
I DIDN’T BLAME Fleur for not responding to my messages. Why was I even calling her? What could I possibly say that would compensate for the hurt I had caused? The first time I pressed the starred key that would select her number from my contacts, I told myself that I did so because of our mothers’ connection, that it would be damnably awkward for the two of us to be on non-speaking terms. But the truth was that this Hanging Man had returned to Los Angeles still hanging: suspended now between two yawning pits of loss—an existential doubling of what Fleur might have called the void.
Clamoring within me were sorrow, self-blame, and guilt over what would befall Makeda with only an aging ex-priest as her comrade, along with the sensation of an iron gate closing with an inexorable fixity against hope and desire. I’d known at the time that Makeda’s plea to forget her was sheer folly—really, a bad joke. While her physical proximity had receded into that other universe that was Ethiopia, I knew I would grieve her forever, along with the eviscerating second loss of my native land. Tikil Dingay’s vast skies and animal cries, its vibrantly colored buildings, even the tongue-daring taste of toasted injera soaked in shirro all conspired to urge me inward. Proust had known exactly what he was talking about. Each way I turned in my suddenly much-too-large duplex, in the food aisles of Ralph’s, on my daily walk from the parking lot to the Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center, I was overcome by the sensation of being lost, the feeling that something was missing. Where were the aromatic teff fields, burning eucalyptus leaves, pervasive tang of bunna, and the permeating ubiquity of jasmine, frankincense, animal dung? The musk exuded by Ethiopian skin?
But to be perfectly honest—not the easiest thing for a Hanging Man—it was on my ride in the passenger seat of Enat’s gray Acura from the Tom Bradley International Terminal to my parents’ home that it dawned on me that Los Angeles presented a hopelessly dull palette without the crooked grin, penetrating blue eyes, luscious alabaster curves, and tantalizing honey scent of Fleur. And so, robbed of rhyme or reason or passion, I went about my business, inwardly disengaged and listless.
But my state of suspension gave way to a more turbulent twisting and writhing on the morning Abat and Enat interrupted my preparations for my shower by knocking on my bedroom door and leading me wordlessly into Medr’s room. Dear God, I wondered, had my grandfather died? But no, here he was, sitting propped up in his bed, wearing his best turquoise silk pajamas with a colorful Lion of Judah emblazoned over his heart. A trio of our wooden dining chairs had been arranged in a semi-circle facing him, and Medr gestured authoritatively with his wizened old hand for the three of us to sit down. Which we did, as promptly as students in a classroom, the sound of our chair legs scraping the wood floor like fingernails against chalkboard. I darted glances at my parents, but they kept their eyes averted from me and doggedly faced my father’s father.
I found myself wanting to leave the room, but knew that it was not possible. When I’d first alighted from my plane, Enat had greeted me as if she’d thought I had died and had only just learned I was among the living. Her tears were so copious that I tasted the salt of them long after she’d showered my face with a thousand kisses. She’d come to pick me up alone. I only saw Abat once we returned home. Leaning back in his favorite plush chair, he watched me carry in three heavy suitcases filled to near overflowing with gifts I’d brought home for family and friends. Before my journey (and his), he would have leapt up to help me. Now his unsmiling immobility told me I had not been forgiven for my rash words at the orphanage. He expressed no curiosity about what had led me to change my mind and return.
I presumed he hadn’t mentioned our angry conversation to Enat, who busied herself for days joyously unpacking the shammas I’d brought back for her, running into my room at all hours to extol this or that particularly vivid border. I’d felt especially pleased to see the broad smiles on her face; I’d chosen each shamma with care, this one because its rich orange and sienna diamond design reminded me of the ornamental combs I’d seen displayed across the top of an old dresser in Makeda’s humble room, that one because its bright reds and purples were like the red-hot poker flowers and hagenias that grew from the rich soil of Tikil Dingay.
But something serious had clearly taken place between then and now. Both Mother and Father were avoiding not only my eyes, but each other’s, and Medr’s face displayed, if possible, even more grief than it habitually wore. To my astonishment, my grandfather opened his mouth and began to speak. The sound of his voice was initially as faint as a dying kudu, but after a few scratchy words and a tinny cough or two, I could hear him just fine. Once it became clear what he was saying, I wished I couldn’t.
He spoke in Amharic, but I was able to follow him fairly well. Too well. “My son,” he said, rubbing his creased forehead repetitively with his thumb, “this life is never what we expect and often requires of us what we do not want. Your abat has confessed to me something I only suspected when he first informed me that we would all be coming to this new land. It concerns things we should not have to speak about, but I have convinced him and your mother that, if this family is to bring forward the fruit of further generations, speak of them we must.” His voice was growing more faint again, as if flagging from the strain of underuse. He managed a final, “Your abat has something to tell you. My son has something to tell you.” Then the room fell silent but for the soft sobbing of Enat, who rocked from side to side like a caged animal.
For the first time since I’d returned, my father looked me full in the face, but his voice was flat. “We were not honest with you.” My mother sat up and flashed him a sharp look. Abat nodded, as if responding to an unspoken command. “I was not honest.” His voice took on a pleading tone, and I found myself disliking him for it. “When I told you that you must not stay in Ethiopia with Makeda, I did not tell you why.” He stood abruptly and began pacing the room behind our chairs. I had to skew around in my seat to see him. “When we are young, we can lack ... wisdom. Sometimes we behave stupidly. I was more stupid than most.” He cleared his throat. “As I know you recall, the Geteye family next door was like family to us. Rede was my best friend.” My father’s face now streamed with tears, but from his voice you would never know that he was crying. “Genet—” He stopped himself. “His wife was your mother’s dear friend. We, I ... well ....” He shot a look at Medr, as if begging him to intervene, but my grandfather was sitting absolutely still with his eyes firmly closed, only his right hand pleating the gold border of his left sleeve betraying that he was awake. I saw the fabric quiver, as if responding to a slight tremor. “The two women became pregnant very close to the same time.”
My mother cried out, “I was so excited to be with child in unison with that woman. She was like my sister.”
My father reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and swabbed his face. “Assefa, you and Genet’s daughter were born only months apart. I tried not to think about the fact that you might in fact be ... related.”
It was at that moment that the Hanging Man went airborne. It was with absolute dispassion, as if I were miles and miles away, that I heard Abat say, “Of course, the two of you became inseparable. And at some point, Genet began to worry—”
“She told me,” Enat interrupted. “It was the day before Christmas, and we were fasting. We observed the ancient rituals in those days. She confided in me that she was pregnant again and wanted to reassure me that, at least with this one, she was sure it was Rede’s. I had no idea at first what she was talking about, but then suddenly the truth came upon me, and I knew.”
My father sat down and tried to get hold of my mother’s hand, but she shook him off. “It was only a few times,” he pleaded, and I couldn’t tell if he was addressing her, me, or his father, whose hands were still now and lowered by his sides. Medr showed not a sign that he’d heard any of this. Now he really did look as if he could be dead. I worried that this actually might kill him.
Somehow I found myself back inside my body. The room was stifling, my heart raced, and sweat had sprung up like a geyser across my forehead and cheeks.
“Of course,” said Abat, “your mother confronted me immediately.” He looked blindly across the room, as if he were seeing something we couldn’t. “I remember watching you through the kitchen window playing ganna with Bekele and Iskinder while we struggled to talk it through. Your mother was—well, I’d hurt her terribly. I hated myself for it and knew that I owed her everything. I’d never stopped loving her. The other was only ... and God bless your mother, I realized that despite my ... lapse, she still loved me.” He tried smiling at her, but she ignored him. I sensed that the events of the past days had re-opened old and terrible wounds. “By the time we entered Timkat, our plans were made.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “By then, Genet had miscarried Rede’s child. Your mother and I never mentioned the ... circumstances ... again. Until you spoke to her about Makeda. About my daughter.”
I shot him a searching look. Returning my gaze with a hapless shrug, he said, “Yes, if I’d had any doubts before, I was certain it was true as soon as we bumped into her at the airport. I saw my own mother in her face.” I heard a groan from Medr’s bed. “The woman is your sister. Half-sister. So you see why I ....”
I reached out and slapped him, hard, across the face.
Medr stunned us all by flinging back his sheet and flying out of bed like a napping cat springing for a bird.
In this case, I was the prey. My thin-as-a-rail grandfather took both my hands in his and held them over my head, pushing his pointed chin into my face. “Never do that. You must not do such a thing. This is your father.”
Father was in the corner, holding my mother away from the two of us. Wailing like a woman at a funeral, Mother fled the room, but not before Medr turned to my father and unloaded a series of curses. “This is what happens when you disrespect your family. The next generation learns to disrespect you.” Then his lower lip began to tremble and I watched in horror as he slowly sunk to the floor, gripping a chair leg to break his fall.
I dropped down next to him and pulled his trunk toward me. As I hugged him, he sobbed. His chest was terribly narrow and his arms felt like sticks. My God, what had I done to him? What had the Hanging Man done to us all? Had my father been a Hanging Man, too?
But the next thing I knew, strong arms had encircled me from behind. I smelled the bunna of my father’s breath, moist and warm against my neck. We three swayed, and I recalled the moment only a few weeks ago when Makeda and Father Wendimu and I had listened to Seyfou Yohannes singing his version of Tizita in Father Wendimu’s tiny closet.
Wordlessly, my father let me go and came around to help his father onto his feet and into his bed.
I heard my parent’s phone ring, and the next thing I knew Enat was kneeling beside me, handing me the phone. I nearly mistook my mother’s voice for a stranger’s. It was strained and tight, and I realized she was struggling to stop a torrent of tears.
“Here,” she said, urging the phone on me. “It is Fleur on the telephone. She said your phone has been disconnected.”
It occurred to me that I might not have paid my Verizon bill before I left for Ethiopia. I accepted the phone from my mother and, pushing myself up from the floor, took it with me into the next room. There was so much I needed to take care of.
