Chapter Twenty-seven

I STILL DON’T know how we survived the road to Aksum. To say the paving was uneven would be a serious understatement. My bum felt like a sadistic masseur was pounding it. We bounced and jiggled and, I hate to say, skidded around narrow hairpin turns pitched precariously at the edges of verdant, misty mountains. The scenery was stunning, but who cared? My relief when we reached flatter ground was momentary. Now we convulsed across tire-threatening stony roads lined with brilliant red hot poker plants and giant lobelias, captive to the limitations of Melky’s little machine and the contrasts of extreme poverty and extreme beauty we observed through its insect-smudged windows.

1. Crude thatched houses painted the most vibrant hues of turquoise, coral, and purple—many of them embellished with murals of streaky clouds and sandy beaches;

2. Boys wearing impossibly threadbare clothes and ornately-designed basket hats;

3. Long lines of blasé-looking camels, bearing tall piles of vivid baskets and woolen blankets that towered over the inevitable dented and dusty auto rickshaws crawling alongside them.

But Ethiopia, rich in just about everything but literal cash, offered its own bountiful brand of comic relief. A case in point: after an hour of my thirsty whining, Melky agreed to adjust his ambitious timetable by stopping at a wind-whipped roadside diner, where we sat at the one inside table, throwing bottles of Coke down our throats while a troop of about twenty gelada baboons ambled across the road to what must have been a lusher grazing spot than the one they’d left behind. They scratched their behinds, the babies comfortably clutching their mothers’ backs, and stared at us curiously as if we were zoo animals. If this had happened in Pasadena, someone would have called the local animal shelter, but here, the notion of animal control seemed inflated and ludicrous.

I think I annoyed Adam and Melky by interrupting their rather passionate conversation to ask for Melky’s key so I could tiptoe out to the car to retrieve my camera from my suitcase. Melky had managed to fit our luggage into the miniature boot of his car—thank God the bulk of my boxes were waiting for me in his flat in Addis Ababa. He and Adam had hit it off like a house afire, and I could barely keep up once they discovered they were both fans of what was also Dhani’s favorite football team, Arsenal. As we sat at the funky-smelling café, they couldn’t stop rhapsodizing over the player they agreed was the best Arsenal member ever, France’s top goal-scorer Thierry Henry.

Managing to catch a humorous shot of the rear-guard of the straggling band of primates, my mind traveled along an odd associative loop from baboons (which I have to confess I found, despite their signature bleeding heart markings, rather ugly) to Amir (whom I realized I was missing rather badly, along with the whole gang back home) to Lord Hanuman. It occurred to me that Amir loved that chimp as much as I’d thought I’d loved Assefa, though admittedly in a far different way. My mind then wended its way to the chimp-championing Jane Goodall (who I couldn’t miss or love, because I still hadn’t met her) and took a final incomprehensive leap to the Lamed Vav.

“The Lamed Vav?” you might ask. Or, as Nana might have put it, “What’s that when it’s home?”

The thing is: the Lamed Vav are never home. I’d first learned of them from Jacob—with whom I prayed Sammie had had the guts to break up while I was away. In one of his less obnoxious moments, Jacob had spoken of a Kabbalistic belief that, at any moment in time, there are thirty-six good men who, by virtue of their decency and good deeds, make the continuance of the world possible. Hearing about that sacred thirty-six from the mouth of one of the least admirable people I knew didn’t exactly incline me to credit the idea, but then I’d thought about Jane Goodall, who would surely be one of them if they existed at all, and I’d decided that the important thing was to behave as much like that as possible. Oh, those good intentions. Yours truly was hardly succeeding in the High Moral Aspirations Department, what with failing to resurrect Grandfather, nearly ruining the chances of P.D. by babbling about his bulbous balls during my Nobel speech, murdering Baby X, driving Assefa to near-suicide, and most recently ruining Makeda’s belief in almost everything she’d held dear.

Of course, the notion that only thirty-six people could manage to keep the world going was a bit, well, ambitious, but then again, people had thought that dematerialization was impossible until my award for P.D. and recent experiments with our mossy little sister-species, the water bears.

The other thing about the legendary Lamed Vav was that, not only did no one else know who they were, they themselves didn’t know. It seemed like that would screen out a whole slew of characters, like Father, who were rather terrifyingly certain they were directly channeling the wishes of God.

Then again, what if there were another thirty-six people out there, sort of anti-Vavs, hell-bent on destroying our world? (Actually, if you asked Gwennie, I’m pretty sure she’d insist there were many more than that, and every one of them either a global capitalist or a Tea Partier.) Perhaps, as with the asymmetry of matter and anti-matter, there were only thirty-five of the anti’s, which is why I still existed and could actually visit the supposed home of the Ark of the Covenant, through which, according to the Jews, God had pretty much conveyed to our species that what we do actually matters.

All of this was to say that I had more than one way to fill my void while Adam and Melky dissected every Arsenal match known to mankind.

I’m happy to report that my mind’s peregrinations lasted me the rest of the way to Aksum, the onetime capitol of an empire known alternately as Abyssinia, Ethiopia, and India. When I unfolded my cramped limbs from Melky’s car and hobbled toward our penultimate destination, here is what I saw:

1. A gray cement block Chapel of the Tablet that was far humbler than I’d imagined, sandwiched between the old St. Mary of Zion Cathedral (which didn’t allow women, so we’ll say no more about it) and the newer, Neo-Byzantine one, built—along with the Chapel—by Haile Selassie in gratitude for Ethiopia’s liberation from fascism. All this I learned from a couple of pamphlets thrust at me by a man with a wart the size of a quarter and shaped like a water bear above his upper right lip.

2. An iron gate surrounding the Chapel that was painted a particularly pleasing matching blue to the decorative iron grates behind its white, cross-shaped window frames.

3. Pretty, if hodge-podgy touches of decorative stonework embellishing the chapel, along with a circular window and a square-cross design above the doorway, which was completely covered by a rather unevenly suspended, long, red drape, out of which my errant mind imagined the bogus Wizard of Oz shamefacedly emerging.

4. A rather dull turquoise-tiled dome crowning the Chapel that was marred by numerous missing tiles, but redeemed by a lovely Ethiopian cross at its top.

Behind the Chapel, a low rocky hill dotted with a few trees and an equally humble small yard of craggy grass, a few struggling bushes, and no pilgrims, which was notable, since there were hordes of them everywhere else, looking more than a little awed. While their garb was mostly the same, variations on the theme of enwrapping white netelas, their faces bore the features of many of the eighty ethnic groups that made up Ethiopia. I could have studied them—undoubtedly, quite rudely—for hours. Instead, we quickly circumambulated the building complex and made our way back to Melky’s little car.

We were pressed for time. Thanks to Thierry Henry, our journey here had taken longer than anticipated. And it wasn’t as if we were missing much. Melky had already warned us that we couldn’t enter the Chapel, nor set our eyes on the Ark. In fact, I knew that no one could, save a lone guardian monk who served as Keeper of the Ark for his lifetime.

Nonetheless, something about the simplicity of the setting touched me. I took a moment to kneel and surreptitiously swept a small fistful of dirt into my windbreaker pocket. As I rose, a young girl of eight or so standing beside a rather restless little lamb caught my eye. The child was assiduously attempting to place postcards into the hands of passing pilgrims, most of whom met her efforts with utter indifference, looking right through her as they rushed toward their goal at the crowded blue gates. I say assiduously, but she couldn’t help but giggle from time to time at her wooly companion, whose four-footed frolicking was nothing if not endearing and put my skipping with Uncle Bob and Stanley to shame.

The lamb’s haphazard black and white markings were a striking contrast to the girl’s habesha, woven with what appeared to be threads of every color of the rainbow. But it was the child’s deep dimples and sweetness of countenance that took hold of my heart. I left Adam’s side to run to her, holding out my hand.

“Sälam,” she said, overjoyed to be able to place in someone’s palm one of her little cards, which at a glance seemed to bear directions to the Church of Debrie Birhan Selassie in Gondar, as well as photographs of its exterior and interior. Hoping to cheer her even further, I studied the card and pointed to the image of a church ceiling covered with row upon row of round, brown-skinned faces. “Mekonnen?” I guessed.

I thought of all the people who’d saved me during my first incarnation under Father’s devilish dominion. Nana. Sister Flatulencia. Fayga. Cook. Dhani. Ignacio. Not to mention those of my second, third, and fourth incarnations: Adam, Stanley, Gwennie, Amir, Katrina, Tom, Gunther, Sammie, Aadita, Serena. I imagined all their faces lined up in rows, interspersed with the Mekonnen of Gondar, and wished for a moment that I had Sammie’s skills at portraiture.

But the girl who’d given me the postcard was tapping my shoulder, bringing me back to the moment. She pointed to the lamb, who’d ventured out a little to gambol amid the pilgrims, a little spark of unacknowledged, animate joy. The girl winked at me.

I planted a kiss on her cheek and we silently beamed at each other. With a little wave, I ran back to a waiting Adam and Melky with the feeling that, here in this place where, 2500 years ago, the Ark had supposedly ended its diaspora from Mt. Sinai, a very different sort of covenant had been made between this child and myself.

Buckling up next to Adam, who threw me a curious look but then got caught up in a discussion with Melky about Haile Selaissee, I thought about what our Ethiopian friend had told us about the Ark: that there were replicas of the tablets in all of Ethiopia’s churches; that the sole monk who’s ever allowed to set his eyes on the supposed original burns incense before it and recites to it all day from the Book of Psalms.

I myself had memorized the Book of Psalms at the age of four, the Bible having been my primary means of trying to comprehend what grownups made of being alive—well, that and Elle and Vogue magazines and Charmin toilet paper packaging, with its emphasis on the importance of feeling “fresh and clean,” with softness being a particular premium, emphasized by a rather astonished looking bear proffering a six-pack roll to the reader. Nana later informed me that not everyone reads toilet paper packaging, and I was astonished, since someone had clearly taken considerable care to festoon Father’s preferred brand with words of all sizes set in eye-catching designs.

The truth was, if the powers-that-be of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church ever decided to join the twenty-first century and have a woman monk for a change, I’d be a natural to recite the Psalms by heart to the Ark and anyone else who needed to hear it. Though why the Ark needed such constant recitation was beyond me and might have something in common with its originator, the Old Testament Yahweh, who really did seem to require a rather constant stream of praise and affirmation that he was a good God, a just God, and, in fact, the only God, as if he was perhaps more than a little, well, insecure.

As Melky pulled our tiny car away, I skewed around for one last look at the dimple-cheeked girl, a forlorn little lighthouse in a roiling sea of pious people. Children are a heritage from the LORD. I prayed this child wouldn’t always be cursed with the cross of invisibility. Such a sweet humor as hers deserved its own crowned dome.

Before saying our final goodbyes to Ethiopia, we needed to stop at Melky’s apartment in the heart of Addis Ababa, and I was surprised, as we unfolded ourselves from his cramped car, to see that he lived in a rather luxurious-looking, multi-storied terraced building with a façade of alternating orange and gray blocks, flanked by a pair of redolent eucalyptus trees and fronted by a deep flower bed filled with prolific climbing roses and majestic, white calla lilies. He grinned at my expression, cried out, “All hail to Cambridge University for its generous grant money,” and then quickly appended, “It’s not nearly so posh as it looks,” which became quite apparent as we laboriously mounted five sets of stairs—“Bloody lift’s always broken”—whose once-white paint was chipped and scarred.

Melky’s scantily furnished apartment (worn brown leather couch, piles of books on a thin beige carpet generously daubed with stains, small kitchen table and two straight backed chairs) would have been characterless without the large framed photos lining the walls depicting scenes from Gombe: wide stands of lush vegetation surrounding pristine, sandy beaches on Lake Tanganyika; fields of deep-green coffee plants bearing flowering white blossoms and bright red coffee berries; chimps in every configuration imaginable, some tapping knuckles with Serena, Jane Goodall, and Melky himself.

Despite Adam’s objections, he and I were ordered to sit at a small tile table on Melky’s patio and take in the view of the city. Adam objected fruitlessly as our host carried my boxes from a room beyond our sightline, through the living room and down the stairs, his heavy footfalls like a herd of elephants in the echo chamber of the stairwell. I wondered how in the world we’d all fit in the car with the boxes in it, but somehow had faith that Melky would figure it out. He was that sort of man.

Melky had plied us with bottles of Ambo mineral water and little packets of Kolo. Adam tore his packet open with his teeth, threw a fistful of Kolo into his mouth, and flushed when I commented, “Man overboard.” He quickly brushed the vagrant roasted grain of barley from his lower lip and asked, “All gone?”

I nodded, assuring him, “Handsome as ever.” He blushed an even brighter shade of crimson, and I could feel my own face heat up. Really, Fleur? What was wrong with me?

We quietly surveyed the vista Melky’s balcony afforded us. Adam was the one to break the silence. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Such extremes—modern freeways looping over all those unpaved roads. Everywhere you look, skyscrapers going up next to tin-roofed huts and tiny souks. Makes you wonder if the rich’ll push the poor right out of the city or raise their level of existence by employing them at all these bank headquarters and hotels.”

“What do you think?” I replied, and then chuckled, pointing out a man blocking traffic as he herded a small tribe of goats across a wide street.

I was pleased to note that Melky’s part of town had plenty of trees, including the beautiful specimens out front, but then I caught a glimpse of quick movement and was anything but pleased.

“Oh no!” I shouted, pushing up from my chair and running out of the apartment, nearly tumbling head first down the stairs.

I could hear Adam behind me, screaming, “Wait! Fleur! What is it?” But I had no time.

Shooting out of the building, I nearly careened into Melky, who was just slamming shut the boot. I slowed myself like a cartoon character as I neared the end point of the scene I’d spied from above. It was, as I’d feared, a baby bird, feverishly flapping its little wings, which were circumscribed by the intersecting branches of a thickly thorned white rose bush.

I sensed rather than saw the two men arriving on either side of me as, without thought, I knelt and carefully teased one sharply thorned branch away from the bird. It made no sound, but its chestnut wings and gray head and shoulders suggested it was some sort of sparrow. The poor creature was so small I was afraid it wouldn’t be able to fly, but as soon as it perceived it had clearance, it took off, making it to the bent antenna of an ancient, pale blue Cadillac before succeeding at a longer ascent to a limb of a peach tree. Then it winged out of sight.

“Fleur,” Adam whispered. “Oh, Fleur.” Sucking my bleeding finger, I could barely breathe.

“Good God, woman,” Melky boomed, “that was a hell of a feat. You must have the best vision on the planet.” Realizing I was currently beyond reach, he turned to Adam. “She’s got a surgeon’s hands. Glad she’s doing some important work, or I’d suggest she change professions.”

“She’s got vision, all right, in more ways than one. Plus, she’s the sweetest soul I know,” is how Adam replied. But I barely noticed. I was in shock, trembling.

After that, our ride to Bole was pretty anticlimactic. Once he’d made sure a porter was doing the right thing with our luggage, Melky offered us warm bear hugs followed by a brotherly pat on Adam’s shoulder with a solemn, “Let’s keep up the energy for Arsenal.” Then, making some poor excuse that he needed to convey a message to me from Jane, he pulled me aside and murmured in an uncharacteristically soft voice, “So. Makeda. Do you happen to know if she has a boyfriend?”

I stared and then bumbled, “Well, as a matter of fact, I do. I mean, no. No, she doesn’t.”

This big man’s voice was actually shaking. Was it like this for all of us? Poor us. “Why not?”

Afterward, Adam asked me what he’d said. It shouldn’t have been hard to explain, but I felt a strange reluctance to tell him. “Oh, nothing,” I said.

And I knew it would most likely end up being nothing. Then again, I couldn’t help but imagine.