Tizita Page 32

  “I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Couldn’t stand what?”

  “You making goo-goo eyes at Makeda.”

  “Goo-goo eyes? Are you kidding? We were laughing at the kids. They’re so cute.”

  “It was Makeda you thought was cute.”

  I could see Adam’s eyebrows lift in the moonlight. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Fleur. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

  I fidgeted with a button on my sweater.

  He looked puzzled. “Wait—what’s going on?”

  I didn’t dare respond. I was grappling with confusion myself.

  Adam took hold of my arm then, rather roughly, I thought. “Fleur, were you intending to come here all along when you flew to Tanzania with Amir?”

  “No! I told you it was Serena who suggested it. She said it would be so easy to stop over here and satisfy my curiosity.”

  “And you do everything someone tells you to do?”

  “No. I .... Well, I guess I did want to see ....”

  “See what?”

  “See why he preferred her to me.”

  He let go of my arm, and his voice flattened. “Of course. Makes sense. You’re still in love with him.”

  “I’m not,” I replied hotly. Which I realized right then was true. “I’m not, you know. I’m just missing—”

  “Him.”

  “Oh, stop it! Why do I feel like I’m being cross-examined? I just miss how it was before. I know there’s no going back. But I miss that feeling, just as I miss how I felt when ....”

  “When what?”

  Oops. There are some things that simply can’t be spoken. “Nothing.”

  “Oh, I give up.” He limped away.

  But I knew he’d gotten into bed before I did. I hated being out of sync with my oldest friend and purposely walked past the goat shed where he slept, only to hear the sounds of a man sobbing. It was a harsh and guttural sound, and I felt it deep inside my belly. Not knowing what to think, I tiptoed back to my own bed, nearly knocking over the vase on the side table with its solitary rose.

  Still later that night, Makeda came into the bedroom where I lay under her own thin sheets, sleepless.

  “Excuse me,” she said hesitantly, and I felt mortified. What must she think of me? I come here from out of the blue and destroy almost everything she’s believed in. And now, here I am, sleeping in her bed, and she’s apologetic?

  I started to get up, but she stopped me. She sat down at the foot of the bed, which creaked rather gratingly.

  “Why did you come here, Fleur?”

  Not again. I replied dully, “That’s what we all want to know, isn’t it? Adam. You.” I gave a wry shrug. “Me.”

  She cocked her head. “Do you really not know?”

  “Really. I mean, sure, I can tell you it was jealousy, confusion about why Assefa did what he did. Curiosity.”

  “About?”

  “You.” I spread my arms. “But also, Ethiopia. We’d talked for ages about visiting where he was born. I’d listen to Teddy Afro and picture the compound where Assefa lived, his school, the cousins he grew up with.” I realized that, for a moment anyway, I’d become animated. “I even had “Aydenegetem Lebie” on my ringtone.”

  “On your ringtone?”

  “Of my cell,” I answered lamely.

  “Ah.” She paused, shot me a piercing look. “We exotic people—we entertain you?”

  “No!” I replied hotly. “It wasn’t like that at all. I may not know you, but you don’t know me, either. Before I met Assefa, I felt like a specimen in a petri dish to any male who wasn’t a physicist. Assefa came along and he was actually interested in me. He was kind. He was brilliant. He was beautiful.” I began to cry. “And he wasn’t put off by my oddness. I don’t know, maybe it was because people thought he was odd, too. But I certainly never saw him like that. We had a similar sense of humor. And we loved the same music. Not just Teddy Afro. Kate Bush. Jennah Bell. Rokia Traore.”

  She threw me a blank look. I realized how defensive I sounded. I’d loved Assefa because of his protectiveness of his grandfather, his elegant language, his sense of mission to be useful as a cardiologist, his goofy humor, his catlike walk. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been fair to myself when I’d told Father Wendimu that I loved him solely for how he made me feel, though that was certainly a part of it. He felt like family—but also decidedly not. And anyway, since when was finding someone exotic so terrible? Throughout our species’ history, tribes that adhered to rituals of exogamy were healthier, lived longer, and benefitted culturally and economically from the exchange.

  But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I added, rather idiotically, “I mean, you think Adam’s adorable, don’t you?”

  She eyed me warily. “Adorable? I don’t know. He is your teacher.”

  “Yes, and he’s also a man. You can’t tell me you weren’t flirting with him tonight.”

  Her long lashes batted slowly a few times, and she looked as shy as a young girl. “Flirting?” I couldn’t believe it. Was I worse off than I’d thought? She actually sounded surprised.

  And then she burst into a broad laugh. “Do you know, I didn’t realize it. But I think I was.”

  Her admission made her feel simultaneously safer to me and more dangerous. I found myself remembering how tortured I’d been all those years ago by the very existence of Stephanie Seidenfeld. I was clearly a sick person. I was threatened by the appeal of this beautiful woman to a man who’d nearly raped me and to one who was in many ways like my older brother.

  But Makeda was still laughing. “He is a nice looking man, your teacher. A little pale, but ....”

  It took me a moment to realize she was teasing me. I forced a laugh.

  “You two worked together on your discovery, yes?” I nodded. “When you go back, are you confident your research will accomplish what you wish?”

  I replied quickly, “I really believe it can.”

  “Then I wish you success with it.”

  When she left the room, my mind was reeling dangerously toward the lip of a lurking void. Had all that been a signal she’d forgiven me? I distracted myself with the strident shrieks of an African fish eagle, the bleating of one particularly persistent goat, and a serious bout of pinching a particularly soft patch of my inner right thigh.

  I woke the next morning feeling famished. As if I hadn’t consumed mass quantities of food the night before. My mouth watered at the prospect of Adey’s bula for breakfast, spiced with its chili-heavy berbere. I threw on some clothes and sailed toward the dining room just as Makeda and a few of the children were piling in. She threw me an unreadable look, but before she could speak, a sobbing young boy burst into the room, crying, “Makeda! Tolo bäl!”

  We all rushed after him to see Father Wendimu sitting cross-legged at the farthest corner of the dusty yard. The sun had broken free from the branches of a wanza tree to spotlight a melancholy tableau. Father Wendimu was stroking the forehead of a flaccid-limbed child who lay across his lap. I recognized him as one of the older boys at the orphanage who was a bit of a leader of the younger kids. He looked as if he’d melted across Father Wendimu’s legs.

  Makeda ran toward them, screaming. “Zeki! Zeki!” She flung herself down to kneel beside the two of them.

  Tears were streaming silently down Father Wendimu’s face. It was shocking to see the sturdy man so distraught. My fingers slipped under my blouse to take hold of the skin at the outside of my ribcage. Father Wendimu kept repeating, “Yiqirta, yiqirta. Yiqirta, Zeki. Yiqirta, Makeda.” I knew what yiqirta meant. He was saying, “I am sorry.” Makeda’s face was a mask of horror.

  So much for hunger. I turned away from the children in front of me just in time to eliminate the previous night’s chicken wat. The pain of it was welcome. The inside of my nose and throat were fire.

  Turning back, I fought back the impulse to retch again as I watched Makeda bend over the lifeless body to cover it with chicken
-peck kisses. She let her head fall back, cupped her palm by the side of her chin, and loosened a sound I’d only heard in films or on TV. Her ululation split the air. The children surrounding me were all crying without restraint, the babies held by the older ones were crying, too. Adam had appeared by my side and seemed as transfixed as I was. He gripped me tightly to hold me up. I knew I must smell awful. Nice one, Fleur.

  After a mere minute or two, and as if on some sort of invisible cue, Makeda ceased her wailing, exchanged a look with Father Wendimu, and the two of them shifted into an entirely different gear. It was jarring. One moment they were overcome, and the next as competent as an E.R. team, with Father Wendimu setting his burden aside with heartbreaking tenderness so he could rise up, lift the rag doll that was now Zeki’s body, and carry it away. Makeda and Adey moved into action as if they’d done it a hundred times before, organizing the children into a small circle to sing a song with such purity of voice I had to work especially hard to stifle the impulse to flap. I saw Adam’s eyes stray to the disgusting mess behind me. “Do you want to shower?” he asked tactfully.

  “Yes,” I said, mortified. “Yes, I do.”

  The rest of the day was mostly a blur. At some point, Makeda told me they’d be burying Zeki the next day. “We like to do it quickly, so that the other children can return to their normal routines.” Routines? I myself had now seen a dead grandfather, a dead dog, and a dead child. I never wanted to see death again. I couldn’t imagine how these children, let alone their caregivers, could stand its ghastly pall constantly hovering over them.

  I said as much to Makeda. She shrugged. “What can we do? We cope as best we can. We try to direct them toward celebrating those they’ve lost. Remember, they’ve all lost their mothers, their fathers, their families. In Zeki’s case ....” She gave a small shudder before launching into an explanation of how he’d suffered a medication-resistant form of epilepsy since before he’d come to them. I sensed she was struggling with a sense of guilt and wished I could ease it for her, but of course I could do no such thing. “We knew it was why his family had decided they could not care for him. He was so young, he barely knew how to walk when we saw him coming in through the gate, clutching a blanket his mother had made for him so tightly we had to let him shower with it for a while.” She got up and went off, returning a minute later to hand me a multi-colored little fringed blanket. I stifled the impulse to rub it against my cheek. It was so threadbare it felt as smooth beneath my fingers as Jillily’s fur when she was a tiny kitten. Suddenly I missed my cat desperately, though her coat tended to be more matted than silky these days, as if she was so old she simply didn’t have the energy to bother cleaning it. My heart thudded. Don’t go there. Just. Don’t.

  “Soft, isn’t it?” Makeda smiled. “The women of Tikil Dingay perform miracles with cheap wool and waste cotton. I’ve been keeping it for him. He was a strong boy and helped very much with the younger children. He was so proud when he felt ready to let his blanket go. It will surely give him comfort in his grave.” Her voice broke.

  I wanted to comfort her, but what could I say? I’d nearly done her in the day before. I felt the void sucking me toward it like a giant vacuum.

  Makeda went on, speaking as much to herself as to me. “There really was nothing we could do. And he ... he knew his hold on life was precarious. It didn’t stop him. That is how these children are. You see how it is, don’t you? If they can be so courageous, it would be self-indulgent of us to capitulate to despair.” And then she shot me a look, as if something had just occurred to her. “He will be buried before breakfast tomorrow. It will be just us three—these children have no one else, and we don’t let the other children see their friends put into the ground. But if you would like to come ....” And then she paused. “You should not feel obligated.” And then, from out of nowhere “Someday you will have a bébé?”

  My heart fluttered crazily.

  “Oh, gosh, I ....”

  I think I astonished us both by bursting into tears.

  She put a hand on my cheek and with the other began stroking my hair. I closed my eyes and eventually let myself lean into her ample breasts. Her scent of cinnamon and frankincense was extremely soothing. Though I was several inches taller, she took my weight without effort. I hadn’t had anyone comfort me this tenderly since Grandfather died.

  When I finally stepped back, she nodded and excused herself, reappearing a few minutes later with two small cups of bunna. She handed me one of them and sat down beside me. I realized that the circles under her eyes were particularly dark this morning.

  I felt split open, raw. “I don’t think it’s hit me until just now. In all the insanity over Assefa’s ... crisis, I don’t think I fully comprehended what I’d lost. Really, it was like a whole universe had dissolved.”

  Makeda’s eyes filled. “I am sorry for your pain, ihite.”

  I froze. Ihite. She’d called me her sister. I reached up and pulled her face to mine, so that we were nearly nose-to-nose. “You are better than I am. You need to know that. After everything I told you, I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself. I’m a terrible—”

  She broke in, “No, Fleur. I needed to know the truth. It hurts very much now, and it made me very angry, but it will pass. At least now I will be able to let Assefa go.” Her frown belied her words.

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “It’s not that,” she insisted. “It’s only, well, to tell you the truth, I was very disappointed and angry to learn how weak and dishonest my mother was. But I can see now that she was human.” She stared out the window. “That is not a bad thing to know.”

  “Well, that’s something I can relate to. Up until a few years ago, my mother was often ... human, too.”

  Makeda directed her gaze back to me. It took her a moment, and then she chuckled. “It guess it is the same the world over,” she said dryly.

  “I guess it is.”

  She set her cup down on the small iron bedside table and stood, stretching and shaking off her tension. “What is it you told Father Wendimu the other night? The universe is in us? Do you think the stars are as crazy as we are?”

  Now that was a thought. “Not as crazy as I am, that’s for sure. How you can trust me enough to—”

  “Trust?” she asked wonderingly, as if the concept hadn’t even occurred to her.

  “Let’s face it,” I interrupted. “I don’t trust myself. I’m like a pinball in an arcade game. Every time I make contact with someone, I do more damage.”

  “Pinball?”

  I had to explain it to her.

  She shook her head. “Damage? I believe we are all damaged. Father Wendimu says we are all the abused children of God. It has not been lost on me that if terrible things had not happened to Kanshi and Elfenesh and all the others, they would not be here with me. I do not think you are evil. Just very naïve and very young.”

  I sensed she didn’t mean it unkindly, but I felt suffused with shame.

  When we emerged, Adam was standing nearby, looking more than a little awkward. His face was wreathed in worry. I sensed Makeda slipping back into the building. Suddenly, I felt very shy. Adam had officially seen me throwing up in an Italian restaurant, making a fool of myself in front of the King of Sweden, and now puking my guts out in the Ethiopian countryside.

  The smell of burning teff stung my nostrils. I nearly jumped at the outboard-motor sound of a warthog somewhere nearby. Could anything be more surreal than standing here with Adam in the middle of Africa? He’d asked me why I’d come, but why had he? He’d said he’d felt worried about me traveling all alone, but a ticket to Ethiopia on his Assistant Professor salary? That had to have been a whole lot of worry.

  Adam, for once, was speechless, but he watched attentively as I knelt to scrape at the dry dirt by my feet until I had half a handful of it, which I stuffed into my shorts pocket.

  Only then, did he break the spell by articulating what was on his mind. “Listen. I know the
timing’s terrible, but I’ve checked my emails on Father W’s computer. I had a whole slew of them from the team. There’s been an election to fill the office of that asshole who campaigned so hard against gay marriage and then turned out to have molested the young son of his campaign manager. Creep.” When I failed to chime in, he went on. “The long and the short of it is that the Dems have got a majority in the Senate again. Stanley thinks we’ll have a bill giving us the go ahead in our research within the month. I don’t know when your ticket’s for—mine’s open—but I’m thinking it’s about time to be heading home.” It took me a minute to even register what he was talking about. The lunacies of American democracy and even our work on the application of P.D. felt foreign, unreal.

  “But Zeki will be buried tomorrow.”

  Adam sighed heavily. “Fleur, I’m not saying we should leave right this second. Just that we should probably be making plans. I don’t even know when your flight back home’s booked for. I’d like to see if we could fly back together.”

  I would, too. I explained to him about Melky and my luggage, and we agreed to call both him and the airline right away.

  But before we parted, I asked him, “I know it’s just email, but how did Stanley seem?”

  “Seem?” He snorted. “Actually, his words just about jumped out of the computer. I haven’t gotten so many messages marked URGENT! since you won the Prize.”

  I was flooded with relief. I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about my mentor. I should have known. As long as there were theories begging for application, there was no keeping a scientist down.

  When I finally made contact with Melky, the connection was crackly, but he was his typically enthusiastic self. “Right. Glad you were able to change your flight. It can be a bear sometimes. And a friend, too? The more the merrier.” I remembered how tiny his car was. How in the world would we stuff ourselves in? “I think I can get out to you first thing the day after tomorrow. Will that do?”