Saba was woken from sleep by the roar of engines. She followed Hagos out of the hut as dozens of lorries made their way into the camp and parked in a row. The square lit up as though it was daytime. A crowd gathered. Saba’s gaze darted over the dust-covered faces on the back of the lorries.
Unlike the previous occasion, when Saba and the current camp’s residents had arrived at this place, there was little weeping. The newcomers sat still on the back of the lorries. Heads dropped low. A woman near Saba raised her voice, asking: Why are you here? We hoped the war would be over. We hoped to make our way back instead of receiving you here.
We did not come here from our country, said a man, leaning over the frame of his lorry. We have been living in this country for years, but the authorities evicted us from the city early this morning without warning. We didn’t even have time to say goodbyes. They sent the army to our houses at dawn and now we are here.
He wept.
Attention. Attention, a voice came through a megaphone.
Saba looked up at the speaker standing on top of a lorry’s cabin, wearing dark glasses and white jellabiya, with a white imma wound around his head, Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. Attention drivers, said the man. Lorries can’t pass through the lanes to the east of the camp where these refugees need to go to. Drop them here and let them sort out the final metres themselves.
Drivers banged on the sides of their lorries: Come down. Hurry up.
Why the hurry? Saba wondered, recalling the way their driver, Tahir, had helped them.
The new refugees unloaded their belongings. Bed frames. Rolled-up mattresses. Cupboards. Tables. Chairs. Plastic flowers and plants. Sacks of fruit. Part of the city descended on the camp, carried on the backs of women and men whose lives had been interrupted earlier that morning to be dropped here, as though they were things.
An old man with a tape measure around his neck stood next to a foot-operated sewing machine fixed on top of a table, a half-sewn dress still under its needle.
A balding man with a sign – Barber of Taka Mountain – disembarked next. Further down the line, Saba saw a woman stepping out of the cab of the lorry in a silky black dress and red high heels. She stood and watched as a bed, a mattress, a wardrobe, three pieces of luggage and a turquoise beauty case were placed on the heads of men who followed as she swung her way into a dark alleyway leading to the east of the camp.
By the next morning, word had gone around that a father and his son had been allocated three huts between them. Saba joined the crowd that had gathered in protest around the huts. Two were adjacent to each other, and a third, the largest, was a few metres to the right, at the foot of a steep hill where Jamal lived. Here low shrubs with little distance between them were scattered about. Red soil stretched all the way up the hill with overgrown grass to where Jamal stood watching in front of his hut.
A woman next to Saba spat in the direction of the biggest hut. They came with three lorries, she said, rocking the child tied to her back. I saw them unload last night. I can tell from the beds, the furniture and the number of boxes they brought that they are rich.
This explains it then, said the athlete. If you have money you can buy anything. Even three huts for two people.
But why would anyone with money come to a camp if they had the chance to buy off officials back in the city? Saba asked.
Curse on them, the woman said, drowning out Saba’s question. Six of us, me, my husband and our four children, live in one hut.
Let’s throw them out now, the athlete said.
The judge arrived in time to stop the athlete and his group of friends from carrying out the threat. We have been in this camp for a long time, the judge said. And suspicion festers in isolation. We must reserve judgement until we know all the facts.
Saba noticed a glow under the door of the largest hut. Jazz music poured out. The door opened and a young bare-chested man came out wearing only shorts. Papa vieni fuori adesso.
The music stopped.
We came to greet you, said the judge, shaking the father’s hand. Welcome to our camp. It is a simple place but we have safety and sometimes that is all you need to reflect on life and its purpose. If you need anything, everyone present here would be happy to help.
Saba followed the eyes of the tall, broad-shouldered man as he inspected the crowd. He was wearing a blue robe with a spotted silk scarf knotted around his neck. He smiled and strode back inside the hut and shut the door. Then he turned the music back on.
Saba lay on her blanket with her hands behind her head and stared at the thatched roof, thinking about the father and son in their three huts. Sweat rolled down from her underarms. Hagos arrived holding wild flowers. He sat next to his sister and turned up the wick of her lamp, his eyes shining against the flame as he leaned towards her. He showed her his own hairless armpits.
Hagos, I do like it when you shave and look after yourself, but I prefer to be the way I am.
Hagos didn’t say anything.
I am like a wild animal, she said. She made a growling sound and curled her hand into a claw, mimicking a lion.
She laughed.
Silence.
Are you upset with me, Hagos? Saba asked.
Hagos shook his head. And then nodded in confirmation.
You are trying to confuse me, she said. Is that a yes or a no?
Hagos chuckled and kissed Saba on her cheek. He then rubbed flower petals between her fingers.
Put some here, Saba said, pointing to his long neck. Actually, let me do it for you.
Hagos tilted his head to the side. Magic, Saba exclaimed as she perfumed his neck.
Some time later, Saba perched on a stool behind the open furnace and made tea for her mother and the midwife. The women were full of mirth as they reminisced about the days they cooked chicken stew every Sunday.
I miss that life, said the mother.
I remember, said the midwife. Even my husband preferred your chicken. God bless his soul.
Saba served tea to her mother and the midwife without looking at them and sat back on her stool. The square bathed in the silver light of the moon.
I used to make the best butter, Saba’s mother said, recalling how the landlord she worked for would even bring her minced beef so she could marinate his meat in her spicy butter. He loved kitfo made my way, she said.
That man, said the midwife. He had money but no morals. The Europeans emptied him of everything our culture instilled in him. Let’s hope that Eyob is different. I pray to the Lord that he is a man of God.
Who is Eyob? asked Saba’s mother.
That man who came with his son last night, said the midwife. Apparently he is self-made. He owned shops and a transport business back home. He also had a hotel in Addis Ababa, but that and everything he owned was confiscated by the dergue, curse on them.
A businessman! Saba only realized she had yelled out when her mother told her to be quiet. She turned away with a smile.
This tea tastes of home, said the midwife.
Hagos taught Saba how to make it, said the mother. God bless him.
He’s a blessed boy, said the midwife.
Saba drew her stool nearer to the women. Sipping on her tea, the midwife carried on speaking: Apparently Eyob opened a shop in the city before he lost that one too when he was forced to move to our camp with his son, Tedros.
Poor man, said Saba’s mother, shaking her head.
Don’t worry about him, said the midwife. I heard he brought with him some of his stock. He will be fine.
The following morning, Saba arrived in the deserted square, firewood tied to her back. She paused when she saw the new arrival standing in front of the makeshift aid centre. The businessman looked around him. Saba wondered whether he was prospecting the area, looking for a spot to start his business all over again. The frown that had sat between her eyebrows all morning disappeared.
When the businessman turned around, their eyes met. But Saba lost sight of him as soon as the square filled with people who made clouds of dust rise everywhere. Saba shuffled the weight of the wood from her back and, hunching forward, she whistled on her way home.
Inside the hut, she untied her ponytail. Running her fingers down the back of her neck, she raised her hair high. Sweat trickled down to her nape. With the businessman’s arrival, she could see the camp transformed. Months from now, she imagined the square as a replica of her hometown market. Shops dotted along two sides facing each other. Fresh vegetables and fruits ripening in the sun. A butcher’s knife wedging the meat in portions. Traders selling chickens hanging upside down from sticks on Fridays and Sundays. Clothes of the latest fashion swinging from a hanging rack outside a boutique. Women selling henna and perfume, or braiding hair.
And Saba was queuing for the weekly ration when Eyob and Tedros marched into the square carrying boxes. The son caught her eye. The cardigan tied around his neck reminded her of Jamal’s puppet actor, Dawit. The father and son stopped on a dry spot, a cracked patch fed with the sweat of those who waited under the sun for food aid. They set up their makeshift market stall.
We have coffee beans, Tedros said, opening boxes. Come closer, ladies and gentlemen, and look at what we brought you from our beloved country.
He took out a jar. Our country hasn’t forgotten you, he said. Come, taste it, let this honey dissolve the bitterness of exile in your veins.
The crowd around the improvised shop swelled. Saba watched from the side as people shoved and pushed each other to get near this piece of their country. Eyob and his son were squeezed out, their goods left unattended. Saba ducked when the businessman pulled out a handgun from his side pocket and shot into the air.
Four times.
I can still hear them ringing in my ears, said the midwife to the judge later, as the case was discussed by the committee of elders. How could he do this to us after we escaped violence to come here?
Let’s all calm down, the judge said.
No, said the athlete. You must deal with this man now before he kills someone, or we will throw him out of the camp.
Saba imagined the businessman being chased away, the change she envisaged him bringing to the camp disappearing with him. She left the gathering and headed to the businessman’s hut, even though the judge had warned them against approaching him until the court had passed its verdict.
Eyob was sitting on a chair outside the door to his hut, his eyes shut. Saba stepped closer. He had a round face with a pointy chin. Incisions on his left eyebrow reminded her of her grandmother, who had had eye problems that had to be treated this way. His short hair was greying in parts. Despite his presumed wealth, Saba found that there was a contained manner about the way he sat. Shoulders hunched, hands folded on his lap, legs pressed together. She wondered if he was still traumatized at having gone from living in a villa to a hut, from the city to a camp, from owning a business empire to being just another refugee.
The door behind the businessman opened and his son came out of the hut and stopped in the middle of a stretching movement when his eyes caught hers. Hey you. What do you want? he asked.
Saba recalled his melodic voice at the makeshift stall. His angry tone now slightly took the edge off his appeal.
Without answering him, Saba turned towards the businessman, now awake. He chased away the flies swarming around him and greeted Saba as if he was behind a counter of a shop. How may I help you, Signorina?
I saw you struggling as you tried selling in the square, Saba said, and I thought you might need an assistant.
We don’t want any now, Tedros said. But we will need men to help us unload the boxes that we will import from the city as soon as we open a shop in this camp.
A shop? When are you opening it?
What’s your name? Eyob asked.
Saba pictured herself standing behind the counter of the first shop in the camp. Saving money. Leave for the city to study.
Hello. The son clicked his fingers. Refining his Asmara accent for her ears, he asked again: Whot – is – yoor – naame?
Saba noticed his thin lips, ravaged, she assumed, by biting. Perhaps from nerves, she thought. She was wondering whether to share with him tips on dealing with the first days in a camp. Yooo understaaaaaand meee?
Tedros, basta cosi, the businessman said. Turning to Saba again, he asked: What’s your name?
My name is Saba, she said.
Saba, Eyob said, I need someone to do chores – washing clothes, ironing. Can you do this?
Chirping reached Saba’s ears. The birds sang loud, as if to make up for the lack of cockerels crowing. Nature has ways of rebalancing, of compensating for the absence of things.
She rose from her sleep and was soon dressed and on her way through the square to the east of the camp, on her way to start her first day as a domestic servant. She had after all inherited her mother’s profession. She wanted to turn back inside the hut, wake her mother up and tell her the news that would perhaps mend some of what had broken between them.
In the early-morning light, other girls appeared. Some were going to the forest to fetch firewood. Others to the river to get water. And some to the aid centre to queue. Girls owned the square at this time of the day before dawn. Saba heard their giggles, their laughter, their greetings, the see-you-laters, the be-carefuls-of: the snakes in the forest, the strong current at the river that had claimed the lives of a few girls, and the men at the open toilet.
The sun dissolved the darkness. It was hot already.
When she arrived Tedros was standing next to a heap of dirty laundry by the wall of the main hut where the family of two slept. The second hut had been turned into a kitchen. A third made into storage for their boxes, stuffed with goods.
Tedros was wearing a T-shirt in the colours of the People’s Liberation Front flag. The yellow Marxist star rested on his chest. His heart must beat to justice and equality, Saba thought, recalling Zahra’s revolutionary slogans. She was about to collect the bundle of clothes and head to the river when Tedros stopped her. We have everything you need here, he said.
Saba followed Tedros with her eyes to the kitchen, from where he brought out a large yellow washing bucket, two metal pails, a small open furnace, charcoal, a metal pot, soap tablets, a stool, and a stiff impression pressed against his shorts.
You can use the water from the barrel, he said. But you must refill it after you finish.
He smelt of chocolate and powdered milk. He sat in front of her on his father’s armchair as Saba set to work. She placed the water with a soap tablet to heat on the furnace, and separated the dirty laundry between whites and colours. After, she poured the hot soapy water into the bucket, and started with the white clothes. Steam rose from the bucket.
Saba heard snoring. She looked up at Tedros’s long, thin face. His head slumped to the side. Saba was tempted to splash water on his face when she noticed a wet spot at the front of his shorts. That, she thought, I will have to wash later.
Tedros woke up when a group of parents arrived with crying babies.
Please, sir.
Please give us what you can.
Our children are hungry.
Heal a mother’s heart.
Tedros stormed inside the hut and slammed the door behind him. Saba wondered about his own mother, and why she wasn’t here.
When Eyob emerged from his hut, he greeted Saba as he lowered himself into his armchair. Heat released fragrance from his neck. He opened a notebook, holding it open, but he didn’t write a word. The blank pages flapped in the breeze. The nothingness of the camp has found its way to his lap already, Saba thought.
When Saba finished with her job, Tedros sauntered out of the hut holding cash. She couldn’t recognize the currency. This is not birr, she said.
Birr! Tedros laughed and for the first time, Saba saw the gap between his front teeth. His face became rounder. And more appealing, she thought.
If you lived in the city you would know that the note in your hand is a pound note. We are in a different country.
He shook his head.
Saba looked at the creased note again. This is perfect, she thought. It was what she needed to save for her education in the city once refugees could leave the camp. Permission to travel, promised by the aid workers, couldn’t come soon enough.
So you managed to find a job in a camp, said the Khwaja as he welcomed Saba. You are planning your departure already.
Who told you? Saba asked. One can’t even keep thoughts and dreams secret in this place.
The Khwaja laughed. Here, let’s go inside and study, he said.
Besides his yellow blanket, multi-coloured chair and jute sacks, he also had two books of poetry that he had promised to lend Saba once she could read English. His eyes bulged out when he put on his reading glasses. He jabbed his finger at the inequality article again. How can they have all this wealth and yet be so poorly versed in human matters?
The British graduate was on Saba’s mind when she arrived at work the next morning. Saba greeted the businessman and headed to the kitchen hut to collect the laundry. It was locked. She tiptoed past Eyob to where Tedros was sleeping to get the keys. Good morning, Saba said, as Tedros stepped out.
What’s good about life in this place? he asked.
He guffawed. A whiff of alcohol escaped his mouth.
With the keys in hand, Saba turned when she noticed Hagos walking towards them, balancing two jerrycans filled with water on a stick over his shoulders. He tripped over a stone and splashed water on Eyob.
Tedros rushed to his father’s side. Papa, are you all right?
Eyob sat still, eyes fixed on Hagos. He said nothing.
Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Tedros dried the water on his father’s shirt. I am sorry, Saba said. I am so sorry.
Why doesn’t he speak for himself? Tedros jumped to his feet, standing in front of Hagos.
Hagos didn’t move. Some water still ran from the sides of the jerrycans suspended on the stick over his shoulders. The evening before, Saba had shared with her brother her plans for the future. Saba hoped Eyob would not get rid of her. Not now.
I am sorry, Sir Eyob, Saba said again. My brother didn’t mean it.
But in her mind, she wasn’t so sure. She wondered if her brother had deliberately set himself to get her fired and thwart the dream she had started to work towards, to leave this place.
Back in their hut, Saba lay in her blanket, wondering if she had lost her job. Usually, after she finished, Eyob would confirm another shift for the week ahead. This time, though, he said nothing. He just stared at Hagos again. And as his eyes settled on her brother, Saba noticed how the veins on Eyob’s neck throbbed.
Lying on her blanket, Saba thought about Eyob and what it was about Hagos that had made the businessman’s heart almost pulse out of his neck. Hagos stretched beside her and put his arm around her. Saba turned to face him. Hagos, did you do that on purpose? she asked.
Hagos looked away.
Did you want me to get fired?
Silence.
I mean, why else would you just come there without telling me?
Silence.
But how could you have told me?
Hagos tried to jerk away, but Saba held him back. I am sorry, she said.
In the evening, Saba, her hair washed and wrapped in a towel by Hagos, was sitting outside with her mother when the businessman came to their hut. Saba helped her mother to her feet. Welcome, Mr Eyob, the mother said. Your presence brightens our home.
You and everyone in your household is the source of this glow, he said.
May God bless you, the mother said.
Saba, I am not upset by what happened earlier today, Eyob said. In fact, it would be my pleasure if you want Hagos to help you at work.
Saba called on Hagos to come out. He squeezed himself between his sister and his mother. When his hand shook against her, Saba held it and caressed it with her thumb. Eyob greeted Hagos, then raised his head towards the sky, and as he looked back at Hagos again, Saba saw the glint in the businessman’s eyes.
Silence.
Their mother coughed.
Ah, well, that’s all. Actually, I am going for a walk. Hagos, the businessman said, I could do with some company. Would you like to join me?
I am sorry, Mr Eyob, the mother said. But my son would be no good. He doesn’t talk.
Silence can make company even more interesting, Eyob smiled.
And as Hagos and Eyob entered the bustling square, where people asserted their existence with endless conversations, Saba felt as though Hagos was finally stepping outside his silent world.
Hagos was no longer invisible, she thought. People could see him now that he walked beside the businessman.
Hagos and the businessman walked daily. The businessman would come to pick up his new friend every evening. And the two would find their way to the outskirts of the camp. It is peaceful, Eyob told Saba and her mother one evening, as he waited for Hagos. He pointed to the wild hibiscus-filled hills bathing in the sunset. It suits us both.
But what suited them up in the hills? Saba wanted to ask. Was it the silence, the rugged landscape, the fresh air, the wild hibiscus or being away from people? Saba longed to hear Hagos’s thoughts and feelings now that he had found a friend other than her.
Soapy water streamed from under the door.
Saba, tell your brother to hurry up, said the mother. How long does it take him to finish his bath?
I am not in a hurry, said the businessman.
A group of men and women crept up nearer. Their murmurs grew. Saba looked away from them. Hagos emerged in white T-shirt and shorts, smelling as if he’d bathed in Indian coconut oil.
The crowd parted. Eyob and Hagos set off to the outskirts of the camp where the sunset had settled into the curves of the hills adorned with wild flowers.