‘Well, sometimes beauty is not comfortable.’
Kidane in the kitchen was pure chaos, pots and pans all over the place — and in the end, dinner was spaghetti and tomato sauce. She had a concert the following day, she said, to explain the haste. Her kids ate away, as I did — spaghetti and tomato sauce was one of my favourite dishes as a kid.
I went up to my room intending to write, but after an hour or so, I gave up — I had not seen enough. There were some nascent questions, though: what kind of an African middle class doesn’t have kitchen help? Or a watchman to stand by a gate? What was it I was missing?
I undressed, hopped into bed and tried to fall asleep, but I was exhausted — the kind of exhaustion that makes sleeping impossible. I called Alison only for her to sleepily tell me to fuck off.
A stiff drink seemed like the next best thing. On my way to the kitchen, I noticed the light was on in the small room with the piano and decided to turn it off. But Kidane was in there, stark naked, headphones on, playing a song I could not hear.
‘In space and heaven there is no sound,’ she had said back at the ABC. This was as close as I was ever going to get to hearing, or rather witnessing, music without sound. I did not dare enter to disturb her, so I just stood there observing a naked woman, her hair down to her back, her statuesque figure shaking gently, and other times violently, as her hands moved across the keyboard, sometimes so forcefully that I could feel reverberations on the wooden floor and up my naked feet, and other times so softly that all I could hear was a light flutter. Sometimes, she would hum, but without the music, the melody sounded disjointed. It was like watching a painting come alive.
I could get why she was playing late into the night — but naked? To stand naked before the Tizita? To share vulnerabilities? To feel it on her skin in a way that she could not in front of an audience? Or was it just too hot, and she thought I would be sleeping? Or was it my dream?
I could have stood there and watched her for hours, but I heard the key turning. It was her husband returning, and, understanding there would be no easy way to explain why I was standing there watching his naked wife play soundless music, I took that as my cue to quickly but quietly go back to bed.
I soon heard his footsteps pause by the music room. They were talking, and in spite of myself, the tabloid journalist in me was curious enough to decide to eavesdrop. What kind of a conversation would I have with, say, Alison if I found her stark naked writing on her laptop? What was I thinking? Of course, they would speak in Amharic. I lost interest and went back upstairs. I heard their laughter followed by lovemaking amplified by the increasingly urgent creaking floors.
It was funny: seeing her naked had not turned me on; it hadn’t even occurred to me — I would say it was sensual or, more accurately, sensuous without being sensual. But now, hearing them making love, there was nothing to do but to masturbate along, matching their intensity, so that we all came together.
What must have been an hour or so later, I heard giggles by my door. I thought the kids were up for some reason. I put on my boxers and opened my door, only to find both Mohamed and Kidane beside themselves with laughter. They were standing there doing rock, paper, scissors to see who would knock on my door. They were clearly tipsy, and I tried to show my annoyance by letting out a loud yawn, to which they laughed even more.
‘Come on, you know you want to join us! Put some clothes on, we are going to start a bonfire. You can help,’ Kidane said and dragged Mohamed down the stairs with her.
We piled up a mountain of wood and brush. One slight problem, it was all mostly damp. Mohamed had an idea; he had some petrol in the shed. He fetched it and liberally poured it on, struck a match and threw it onto the brush. Terrible, stupid idea! An explosion! I have never moved so fast, or seen other people move even faster. We sprinted off in different directions and congregated back when it was safe. They were drunk enough to find it funny — who ran faster, the Kenyan or the Ethiopians? Adrenalin still coursing through me, I took liberal swigs of whatever bottle they had thrust into my hands. Luckily, the tired kids (thanks to me) were completely wiped out and did not wake up.
The fun had just started. We kept adding more wood and brush; the bonfire crackled and snapped, and we kept moving back the perimeter until it felt like we were standing a kilometre away from a small, angry, erupting volcano.
‘It’s a thing of beauty!’ Mohamed said in admiration of our handiwork.
‘But it is so damn hot!’ Kidane, now more like The Diva I remembered, echoed my thoughts.
‘Well, sometimes beauty is not comfortable,’ he said, passing a bottle of Scotch to her.
‘Getting a bit philosophical?’ she asked, sounding annoyed.
On my way to sudden drunkenness, all I could think was that something had been brewing between the two of them.
‘No, just saying that sometimes beauty can be dangerous. Have you ever seen a cancerous ovary up close?’ he asked with a smile that, in the yellowish-red firelight, looked a bit sinister.
‘Mohamed, why do we have to go through this each time? What happened last night?’ She turned to me to explain. ‘He does this — he brings his work home with him.’
‘As if you don’t. But I don’t mind coming home and finding you at work,’ he retorted, giving her a nudge. ‘What I mean is, it is the most beautiful thing, and once you see it — to be able to see its beauty — it usually means it’s too late,’ he went on.
‘What about cancerous balls?’ The Diva joked.
He gestured at me. ‘Imagine — you are a journalist, aren’t you? — imagine a beautiful white cloud, covered by a reddish layer of needle-thin strings. And then, on top of that, the brightest rainbow stripes of blood red and brown all around it. In your hand, it’s alive. Cancer — you know what cancer really is? It’s your body trying to fight off something; you don’t catch cancer like a cold; it’s your body producing cells to protect the damaged ones. It’s beautiful in many ways,’ he said, sounding like a musician finding beauty in the pain that produced a song.
‘Then why do we try to kill it before it kills us?’ I asked him.
‘Because we do not understand it. If you can’t tell the difference between a friend and a deadly enemy from a distance, you can let them get closer. If it’s a friend, then you are safe, but if it’s your enemy, then he is within killing distance, and boom, you are gone. We do a pre-emptive strike. If it was your enemy, well, then I guess your gamble paid off. If it was a friend, your attack turns him into an even deadlier enemy. A recent study just showed this. It is like our war with Eritrea; it is the same thing — we couldn’t tell whether they were friends or enemies, and we could not wait to find out. We went to war. It turned out they were our friend, whom we turned into a dangerous enemy. Cancer is beautiful in many ways,’ he explained, but underneath his words, there was a real pain that I could not understand.
‘What? You are a writer now, are you, Mohamed? Am I a cancer? Or is that what you wish on me now? You knew what I did before we met—’
‘And yes, I knew. I knew you were beautiful, as you still are—’
‘You know I am on the road again tomorrow — is this what this is all about? Poor Doctor Mohamed, at home with his two children while I sleep with strange men?’
She was tipsy and angry at the same time. Mohamed tensed up. Not for the last time I wondered why she had invited me into her home. We could have met in a hotel lobby or a coffee shop.
Then something seemed to click for her, and she groaned, raising the bottle to her lips.
‘My God, it’s not about me. Did something happen last night? How is the patient you went to see?’ she asked him, passing the bottle to me and hugging him.
I knew I should have gone back to the house, but being what I am, I stayed, reasoning one of them would have asked for some privacy or walked off and come back when calmness had returned.
‘She died,’ he said. They hugged, making their world their own, leaving me, as one blues singer sang, on the outside looking in.
‘And the baby, did it make it?’ The Diva asked with so much empathy that I thought she would burst into tears.
‘See, this is what I mean, Kidane — that was fucking six months ago. Both mother and child survived. I am talking about a different patient,’ Mohamed said.
Kidane started laughing. It really was time to excuse myself. But then, Mohamed joined her and they laughed — I mean, laughing until they were down on the ground and rolling around. So much so that I was scared they were too helpless in their laughter to mind the fire. Leading two intense lives, they had to make it work, and they found catharsis wherever they could, I figured.
They both sighed and started laughing again. Astrophysics, medicine and the Tizita — I was either with two of the most dynamic, intelligent and sensitive human beings out in the hills and valleys of Ethiopia, or we were all very drunk. Either way, I was happy they had pulled me out of bed. The Diva, Kidane, in her red dress, flames lighting her unevenly, looking so beautiful, so present and in love — and alone at the same time — for that alone, it was worth it.