Asha Miró and Anna Soler-Pont

Traces of Sandalwood

Translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Coombe

World Editions

breda 2016

Published in Great Britain in 2016 by World Editions Ltd., London

www.worldeditions.org

By Agreement with Pontas Literary & Film Agency

Copyright © Asha Miró and Anna Soler-Pont, 2007

English translation copyright © Charlotte Coombe, 2016

Cover design Multitude

Image credit © Hollandse Hoogte/Magnum/Raghu Rai

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published as Rastros de sándalo in Spain in 2007 by Editorial Planeta

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978-94-6238-058-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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ADDIS ABABA, 1974

Daybreak came quickly. As soon as the first faint rays of dawn appeared, the night immediately drew back its dark veil. Solomon sat on the windowsill gazing at one of the facades of the Entoto Mariam church, imagining the people inside the surrounding wall, all dressed in their white cotton clothing, crouching by the wall or leaning against tree trunks. There were always sick people around the church. Waiting. Most of them hoping that death would come soon. The smell of eucalyptus hung in the air. In the distance, far from the octagonal-shaped Orthodox Church, the shape of the city could just be made out through the dense fog. The hills around Addis Ababa rose up, three thousand metres high, cloaked in a leafy forest of eucalyptus trees. During the night, hyenas had been scrounging around for food next to the houses. They invaded the flooded, mud-filled streets trawling for bones, the remains of chicken carcasses, a stray lamb escaped from a pen or some old dog too crippled to fend them off.

‘Come on Solomon! Get up! Get dressed and come and eat something, you’re going to be late for school!’

‘Has Dad already left?’

‘Yes, he and Aster have both gone. It’s just you left! Come on, up you get!’

Maskarem bustled around the house listening to the radio which was always on. The repetitive beat of military marches sounded out. They seemed to be on the radio a lot these days. Maskarem always had to make sure that there were embers burning in the small stone oven that their father had built, so that they could cook injera[1] whenever they needed it. In one corner, on the floor between some large stones, was the fire that they used for heating water and cooking. Since their mother had died two years ago, Maskarem stayed at home while the others went out to work or to school. It was a small single storey house sufficient for the four people who lived in it.

At last, Solomon did as he was told by his older sister, got dressed and gobbled down a quick breakfast of injera with some shiro wat[2] left over from the day before, using his fingers to tear off large pieces. He grabbed the cloth bag containing his notebooks and pen and ran out of the house, down toward the road to Shiro Meda, the neighbourhood which nestled at the foot of the Entoto hills, some five hundred metres below. Sometimes he would cut through the forest, leaping like a little goat so that he didn’t slip. If he took the main road, he would run as fast as he possibly could. The road sloped steeply, with many sharp bends. There was very little traffic but there were a lot of people walking up and down it. There were also many donkeys carrying clay pots and plastic drums full of water, fastened tightly to their saddlebags with ropes. At this time of day, before it got too hot, many women were carrying bundles of firewood on their heads or tied to their backs, either going to sell it or taking it home. Others carried jars full of fresh milk. The smell of burning eucalyptus was all around.

When Solomon reached Sintayehu’s house he didn’t need to call for him. As soon as he drew near, his friend came dashing out clutching his schoolbag. His mother was busying herself with buckets of water and waved goodbye to him from the window. For most women, the morning was the time for water. They either had to go and fetch it or wait for someone to bring it before they could start their cooking or cleaning. In that particular neighbourhood only a handful of the houses had running water. When Sintayehu caught up with him, Solomon slowed down and they walked side by side to school, which was still some distance away. They were both eight years old and in the same class at school. They both had brown skin and very short, curly dark hair.

‘So have you asked your dad yet which day we can go?’

‘No, not yet,’ replied Solomon.

‘What on earth are you waiting for? My dad says they’re going to kick the emperor out soon. So if you don’t hurry up we won’t get to see the lions!’

‘What do you mean they’re going to kick out the emperor? My dad’s one of his cooks!’

‘I heard my dad talking about it a few days ago with my uncle and some of their friends who came to the house. I didn’t really understand what they were going on about but they sounded really angry. I heard them saying that they’ve had enough of Ras Tafari and the time has come to throw him out.’

‘Why are you calling him Ras Tafari when his name is Haile Selassie?’

A flock of goats grazed casually at the side of the wide road, nibbling the green grass, quite indifferent to the cars and buses rumbling past.

‘Right now he’s the king of kings; the lion of Judah; God’s chosen one; but my father says that his name is Tafari Mekonen, that he’s just a normal guy and he can’t even read or write!’

‘No way! You’re always telling silly stories!’

‘Well, believe what you like. But if my dad says that the emperor never went to school then it’s true!’ replied Sintayehu, leaving Solomon lost for words. ‘So can we feed them?’ he insisted.

‘The palace lions? Are you crazy? Only the emperor can do that!’

‘Yeah, but maybe your dad can ask them to let us do it. Or at least let us see them in the cages in the garden!’

They reached the school. Dozens of boys just like them and little girls with their hair in plaits were making their way inside the building. Solomon and Sintayehu could hear a large group of people shouting, mostly young men. They were yelling slogans against the emperor. It was yet another demonstration by university students, moving slowly up the avenue and bringing the traffic to a standstill. The cars, small vans that served as collective taxis and buses were all beeping their horns. Demonstrations like this one happened often. If it wasn’t students then it was farmers clamouring for their rights. Every time, more and more groups of different people came together wanting the same thing.

‘Meret le arashu![3] Land to the tiller!’

‘Down with the feudal regime!’

‘Meret le arashu!’

‘Give us back our land!’

‘End the tyranny!’

The crowd repeated the same cries over and over. Solomon and Sintayehu watched them with curiosity and without the faintest idea what was going on.

Some of the men doing the shouting were red in the face with anger and looked like they might kill the next person who got in their way. There were some soldiers amongst the students too. Everywhere you went lately, there seemed to be more soldiers than ever.

‘Come on, everyone inside! Hurry up!’ a teacher told them.

‘Do as you’re told, or there’ll be trouble!’ The school guard gripped the gate railings, ready to close it once all the children were inside. Then it was just him standing by the railings and the flagpole with the Ethiopian flag rippling in the morning breeze.

The school day usually started with all the boys and girls lining up in the playground to sing the national anthem while the headmaster raised the three-coloured flag. But when there were protests like that morning, the children went straight into the classrooms. There was no lining up, no national anthem, nothing. They took their seats and the teachers immediately went round closing the windows overlooking the street. It was hard to concentrate, both for the students and the teachers. There were days when the noise outside made any other activity other than copying out of textbooks absolutely impossible. Text after text, copied diligently into their notebooks, while the teacher watched what was going on in the street with interest.

‘An end to hunger!’ shouted the protesters, their voices rising above the din of car and taxi horns.

‘Meret le arashu!’

Other times, the protesters were taxi drivers, complaining about the price of petrol. Without taxis, Addis Ababa was a ghost town. But it was even worse if the Ambessa bus workers decided to join the protest too, demanding a pay rise that never came. Then it was complete and utter chaos.

‘Which land are they talking about?’ Solomon asked Sintayehu.

‘Which land do you think? Ours of course!’

Solomon definitely didn’t understand what was going on; why so many people were shouting in the streets; why everyone seemed so on edge.

‘Quiet!’ said the teacher.

Solomon knew that things were happening that he didn’t understand and no-one would explain to him. He didn’t play much. He went to school early in the morning, made his way back up through the woods for his lunch, went down to the city again for his afternoon classes, slower and quite tired when they finished. He was a good pupil just as he had promised his mother he would be, before she died. She had barely been to school. She had spent her childhood in the mountains of Tikil Dingai, between Gondar and Dansha. The mountains were known for their “well-placed rocks” which were unusual shapes. When she became a city woman, although they lived in the Entoto hills, her main concern was that her children should study. At last year’s prize-giving ceremony for the school’s best pupils, Solomon had won his class prize. More than one child received lashings and punishments from the teachers, using all kinds of whips. Solomon had never been punished either at school or at home. He was possibly the only one who had never been punished. He did his homework every day at the wooden table in their house and helped out as much as he could. He had no reason not to. Before he went to primary school, he went to a small school run by Orthodox priests, next door to the church. There he had learned to read and write, monotonously repeating the syllabic alphabet out loud. Ha, hu, hi … It seemed more like a singing recital class than anything else. Anyone who made a mistake or fell behind was hit with a wooden stick or a whip. Striped whip marks on their skin were a common occurrence. Ma, mu, mi … The parents didn’t complain; quite the opposite in fact. They would often beat their children even more for having angered the teachers.

They were going to the Entoto Mariam Church as they did every Sunday morning. Solomon’s sisters wore long white dresses and their hair covered with a netela[4], a white cotton cloth with a single blue-coloured border around the edge. Small silver crosses strung on black wool hung round their necks. As well as the cross, Maskarem also wore one of her mother’s necklaces, made from some pieces of old silver from her northern homeland.

‘Salam[5], Biniam!’ said Solomon, seeing his friend on the steps of the church.

‘How are you?’ asked Maskarem as she came up the steps behind him. Without saying anything else, she discreetly slipped him a few birrs[6]. Biniam stuffed them into his pocket immediately, looking down at the floor.

‘Thank you, I’m fine.’

Biniam was slightly older than Solomon and lived alone on the streets. They had known each other a long time, since before Biniam’s parents had become ill and died, one after the other. He had some relatives in a town in the north, near Lake Tana, but all of his close relatives were dead. They used to play together, making shoes out of empty cans so they could see the world from a few inches higher, but now Biniam just did what he could to survive. He shined shoes on the city’s streets, carrying his father’s old wooden box full of brushes and polishes and an empty paint can that he used as a stool when his customers sat down on a low wall.

‘Do you want to come with me this afternoon? I have to take some sheep and goats out to graze.’

‘Okay! Where are you going?’

‘Not far. There’s fresh grass everywhere. I have to collect Getasseu’s sheep from near your house so I’ll come and call for you after that. Then we can go and get the Denberus’ cow and two goats from their neighbours. When it gets dark I have to take them all back to the stables.’

‘Do you graze them every day?’

‘Yes, I do now. They don’t pay me very much but I prefer being out around Entoto with the herd than going down to Shiro Meda with my shoe polish box.’

‘I think I’d prefer to stay round here too.’

The men and the women entered the church through different doors. Before taking their shoes off and going inside they spent a few minutes standing in front of the walls of the main facade; they kissed it and then kissed the ground. The doors were painted with brightly coloured angels, dressed in red, their almond-shaped eyes lined in black. The people would not leave the church until at least two hours later, sometimes more. Biniam always said that the thing he liked most about going to church was that it was the only place where he felt calm and protected. The church was filled with the strong smell of incense and sandalwood that a monk was burning in a copper bowl full of smouldering charcoal. A huge painting of Saint George, the patron saint of Ethiopia, riding a white horse with a sword in his hand, dominated one of the walls. Biniam also felt at home in Solomon’s house, where he spent many hours and sometimes stayed the night, sleeping in a corner to keep out of the way.

‘Come round for dinner. My father has cooked some doro wat[7] and you know he makes really good injera,’ Solomon said to him, before he started singing.

By the time he got home it was already starting to get dark. His father was listening to the radio, Aster was embroidering a piece of cotton fabric and Maskarem was sitting by the window sewing buttons onto a little dress. Maskarem had found work in the house of an American family living in Addis Ababa; she looked after their two blonde-haired children, cooked and did sewing for them as needed. It was a good job and was a chance for her to practice her English; she had learned it at school and spoke fairly well.

Peter Howard had moved to Addis Ababa four years ago with his wife Jane and their two children: Sarah, who was eight years old, and Mark, five. He was a paleoanthropologist working on various research projects. Occasionally he had to spend whole weeks in the Danakil region in north-eastern Ethiopia, directing various excavations. He was fascinated by the Rift valley, the geography of Ethiopia and its history, culture and language. He had learned Amharic[8] and his team included students from the University of Addis Ababa who were working with him. Jane Howard was a cheerful, easygoing woman who adapted easily to any situation. She had travelled to many different countries, following her husband wherever his excavations and research took them, and she liked discovering new ways of life and particularly learning new recipes. She was English but when she met Peter she decided to go and live with him in the United States and so their two children had been born there.

Maskarem and Mrs Howard talked at great length about Ethiopian cooking, about the secret to making a good injera, the exact amounts of different spices to put in each dish and the cooking times for vegetables. Sometimes, the Howards had guests over and they asked Maskarem to stay and carry out the coffee ceremony.

She placed the coffee cups on a tray full of eucalyptus leaves. Sitting on a low stool, she roasted the green coffee beans on an iron grill with sandalwood smoking at her feet. When the beans were fairly blackened, she ground them, while everyone watched, crushing them in a small wooden mortar. She poured boiling water into a ceramic jug containing the ground coffee. Then she filled all the cups. Then she filled the jug with more water to serve a second round. Once everyone had left their cup on the tray she served one more round of cups. Each time the coffee was smoother.

Maskarem liked teaching her customs to these pink-skinned farangis[9]; foreigners who showed a genuine interest in her country. But she didn’t like having to stay over and sleep at the house when it got too late. She had told them this, so they would drive her home, up the road to Entoto. The Howards had hired an older married couple as servants because they didn’t like the idea of being working parents, although this was quite normal for the foreigners who lived in Addis Ababa. The couple did the cooking and housekeeping. They told Maskarem that lately, all the Howards and their guests had been talking about was the country’s drought and the government’s failure to do anything to prevent more people dying of hunger. That, and the intentions of the military. On the radio they never said anything about that. Families lived their lives with their radios blaring out; their radios that didn’t tell them what was really happening.

It was raining. It had been raining continuously for weeks and the streets, very few of which were tarmacked, had become muddy tracks. In the rainy season everything slowed down. Donkeys’ legs sank deep into the mud making it hard for them to walk; bicycle wheels ran aground; cars skidded. People walked more slowly too, beneath their umbrellas, looking carefully where they were going, dodging puddles and mud so they didn’t slip, and taking care not to dirty their shoes more than necessary. In the city it was frowned upon to be seen in gum boots like the peasants in the mountains, even though some streets were as bad as those in the villages.

Sintayehu was still insisting on going to see the lions the emperor kept in cages in the palace gardens and Solomon continued to assure him that it would be impossible. Apparently, the palace servants prepared meat on silver platters which the emperor would throw to the animals through the bars of the cages.

‘Meat on silver platters? When I tell my father about that he’ll be furious!’ said Sintayehu.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you know that thousands of people are dying of hunger? They’re dying next to huge storage barns full of food because the wealth is so poorly distributed!’

They reached Sintayehu’s house and after barely mumbling goodbye, Solomon continued walking on his own up the road to Entoto. Sintayehu was talking like the grownups; he repeated everything he heard his father say. Solomon never knew what to say back.

Solomon kicked off his muddy shoes at the front door. ‘What do you think will happen?’ he heard Maskarem asking their father, as he came into the house.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Everything’s moving so fast … ’

Solomon sat down at the wooden table listening with interest to the conversation between his father and sisters. Outside the rain was still pouring down.

‘Have they let any of the servants go?’

‘I don’t know … Why would they have to do that? We’re just palace workers, nothing more than that! We sera bet[10] are the emperor’s best cooks; we make the most exquisite delicacies … We haven’t done anything wrong!’

‘What’s moving fast? What’s going on?’

‘Palace things, Solomon, just palace things … ’

‘What things, Dad?’

The man looked at his little son. He wasn’t that little any more.

‘The army are arresting ministers and dignitaries and the emperor isn’t doing anything about it … ’ replied his father, who seemed tired, dog tired, and older than he actually was. ‘If only you could see what things are like inside the palace. There are dignitaries who have taken refuge there and are sleeping all over the place inside!’

‘And no-one says anything to them?’

‘Who would say something to them? They are dignitaries, and if his Highness allows it … Sometimes there aren’t enough plates or food for everyone. Then they get angry; they call the servants and the cooks and ask us if we’re taking orders from the rebels; they say we aren’t serving them properly!’

The three children listened intently to their father. When he fell silent for a few seconds, all they could hear was the sound of the rain beating down on the tin roof.

‘Sometimes there’s too much food … and then the dignitaries argue with us because they say we haven’t portioned out the food properly. It’s a nightmare. I don’t know how it will end.’

Mornings in early August were always misty and cool. But that August the mornings seemed colder and mistier than ever before. Thick fog hung over everything until well after daybreak and crept back again before darkness started to fall. You could hardly see the sky or the city at the foot of the mountains, at any time of the day. Water had flooded everything, running in great rivers along both sides of the main road and bursting out into wild streams in the forest. When Solomon left the eucalyptus forests and the leisurely grazing herds behind him and went down into the city, life seemed to be carrying on as normal. People were going to the market to buy and sell things, children were chasing each other around and some were playing football, without a care in the world, their bare feet caked in mud. There was no school; they were on holiday. But nothing had been the same since a minister, furious at not being served the food he had ordered, had gone into the palace kitchens and thrown out any staff that were in there at the time. His father was among them.

Student demonstrations were taking place more often and in larger numbers; now they happened practically every day.

‘The country is drowning in corruption!’

‘End the tyranny! We’re sick of promises!’

‘Meret le arashu!’

There were daily demonstrations that were noisy and violent. Students threw stones at the windows of official buildings and celebrated every time the army arrested one of the emperor’s inner circle.

‘Is this your brother?’ a very tall, well-built man with blonde hair and blue eyes asked Maskarem as they stood at the entrance to a house surrounded by a garden. There was a swing hanging from a tree. Solomon had never seen a man with eyes that colour and he looked at him curiously. He had also never seen such a garden; it was so neat and full of flowers.

‘Yes, this is Solomon,’ replied Maskarem.

‘Hi, Solomon. My name’s Peter,’ the man said to him, shaking his hand. ‘I hear you’re very good at drawing. It’s a shame Jane and the children aren’t here. I’m sure they would have loved to meet you. Please come in. My wife has left some clothes for you to mend, Maskarem; I’ll go and find them. Would you like anything? Some water? Kolo[11]?’

‘No thanks, I’ll just get the clothes and then we have to go.’

Peter Howard disappeared through a door.

‘Why are his eyes blue? Is he ill?’

‘Ssshhh! Don’t talk so loud!’

‘But has he always had blue eyes, or have they turned blue since he’s been here?’

‘Farangis have eyes of all different colours! It’s the way they are!’

‘Really, have you seen them? What colours?’

‘Blue, green … I don’t know Solomon, just be quiet, okay?’

The house was filled with all kinds of objects - masks, rugs, ceramic jugs and wooden sculptures. At one end of the room there was a bookshelf that covered the entire wall. There were books and photo frames everywhere. In one black and white photograph, a smiling girl and a boy with golden hair were sitting on a donkey. The boy was in the front and the girl behind, with both her arms round his waist.

‘Here are the clothes. Jane told me there’s no rush,’ said Peter Howard cheerfully as he came into the room holding the bundle of clothes. ‘Look, Solomon, I wanted to show you something. Do you know what this is?’

Solomon saw he was holding a stone in his hand. But from the way he was showing it to him, it was obvious it wasn’t just any old stone.

‘I found this fossil when I was eight - your age. At my school just outside Houston, in Texas, they were doing some building work to extend it and whenever I could, I would go to the site where the bulldozers were working and spend a long time looking for fossils like this one. I found so many! Do you know what it is?’

‘No, sir,’ Solomon said hesitantly.

‘A bison bone! A fossilized bison bone. Do you know what a bison is?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I thought you might not, don’t worry! Bison are … Hang on … ’

Peter Howard went to the bookshelf at the end of the room and took down a book.

‘Look. This animal here is a bison,’ he said, showing him the book which he had opened at a page with a full-colour illustration. ‘In my country they’ve always had them, but now they’re becoming extinct … ’

Solomon left the Howards’ house with a bison bone fossil in his pocket and a book on American flora and fauna in his hand. He felt like he was carrying two treasures of immeasurable value.

‘Can I come back another day?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘But why not? He said I can come back whenever I want!’

The eleventh of September was drawing near; the Ethiopian new year according to the Julian calendar. Everyone was more anxious than usual. Yet it wasn’t the usual excitement of the holidays or the preparations for one of the most important celebrations and festivals of the year. It was something else. The hyenas also seemed more restless than usual. They roamed between the houses of the Entoto hills looking for anything they could eat. Everyone was scared of the hyenas. Men lit fires around the church and spent the night there, endlessly chewing chat[12] to stay awake. They wanted to protect the ill people who were waiting for death in that holy place; to prevent the hyenas turning them into their prey. No one who had heard the terrified cries of someone being attacked by ravenous hyenas would ever want to hear that sound again. Chat wasn’t just a stimulant; it also kept hunger at bay.

The fields were covered in a carpet of adei abeba[13], the wildflowers that heralded the coming of the new year after the rainy season. They had sprung up everywhere in a burst of bright yellow.

‘ … at the age of eighty-two he is incapable of fulfilling his obligations … His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I is hereby deposed on 12th September 1974, with the Provisional Military Administrative Council taking power. Ethiopia first!’

‘Please turn off the radio, Maskarem!’

Maskarem, who was sitting sewing next to the radio, did as her father told her. A weighty silence descended on the room.

Time seemed to stand still.

‘How can they say that they’ve overthrown the emperor because he was too old to go on ruling? How dare they! There is only the emperor under God, that’s why he’s lived so many years in good health!’

Their father’s cries broke the silence. The three children didn’t know what to say. They couldn’t remember ever seeing him as worked up and angry as that day, the day after the eleventh of September. They didn’t know what to think either. Why were so many young people spending so much time shouting in the streets and holding up the traffic, claiming their land for those who worked on it and begging for no more people to die of hunger, if the emperor was as good as their father said?

‘It’s a coup! They say they’re loyal to the crown, but the military just want power; they aren’t loyal to anyone!’

‘It’s lucky you weren’t at the palace … it’s a good thing they threw you out before!’

‘How can you say that, Maskarem? It would have been an honour for me to serve the emperor to the end! He abolished slavery, he brought us electricity … He was a brave man! He stood up to Mussolini and nobody colonized us. The Italians tried but they couldn’t!’

Outside, dogs were barking.

‘I can look for work,’ said Aster suddenly. ‘Two of the girls in my class don’t come to school any more because they have gone out to work.’

‘No, darling. Your mother made me promise that you and Solomon would study. She wouldn’t want you to do what she did … leaving school early … I’m the one who has to find work wherever I can.’

After that day, Solomon never saw his father smile again. The death of his mother had turned his father into an unhappy, serious and untrusting man, and now he was overwhelmingly so. He spent hours sitting in front of the framed black and white photo of his wife. Solomon knew every last tiny detail of that picture as well. He had also spent long moments sitting in front of it, talking to her without speaking. He had never known any other woman like his mother. Quiet and observant; her presence had filled the house. It filled everything with life and energy. He had also never seen another woman with a tattoo like hers on the forehead; it was a cross inside a circle. She had explained to him that her mother had done it with a fine needle when she was very little. She didn’t remember it, but had always been told that she hadn’t cried one bit. In the mountains in the north of Gondar, nearly all the little girls were tattooed on the forehead. Each tattoo had a meaning, a symbol of beauty and relevance to the family. Some women also had their necks tattooed—they would tattoo one another when they came of age—so it looked as if they were wearing three or four blue necklaces.

During the first months of the revolution the streets of Addis Ababa were the scene of mass demonstrations. Some in support of the new military government, and others calling for it to be removed. There were also people calling for the fortunes of the emperor to be made public and shared out among the people.

Solomon didn’t walk to school with Sintayehu any more. He ran down on his own from the Entoto hills and continued running through the streets of the city until he reached the school in the Shiro Meda neighbourhood.

‘It’s your fault that I never got to see the emperor’s lions!

‘I don’t want to be your friend any more!’ Sintayehu angrily blurted out.

‘It’s not my fault! Anyway, your father is in the army and so is your uncle! I don’t want to be your friend either!’

Sintayehu used to get in a lot of fights, both at school and in the streets. For a moment, Solomon thought that he might hit him, scratch him, kick him and rip his shirt like he had seen him do so many times to other children. But Sintayehu just looked at him and said nothing. He turned his back on him and walked off in the other direction.

When he got home from school, Solomon would often find his father in the same place he had left him when he said goodbye. Sitting by the front door, just staring out.

‘They’ve murdered him. I’m sure they’ve murdered him,’ his father kept saying. ‘I don’t understand why they had to kill an old man who was so admired and respected by everyone.’

Lately there had been talk of nothing else but the death of Haile Selassie and more than fifty officials. Solomon couldn’t imagine the country without its king; surely it would be impossible for Ethiopia to survive without an emperor. In his neighbourhood, life appeared to go on as usual. The women still got up early to fetch the water and firewood, just as they did every morning. At daybreak the roads and paths from the Entoto hills were filled with women of all ages carrying jugs of water and bundles of firewood tied to their backs or balanced on their heads. Then they would sit at the entrance to their houses, grinding chickpeas and lentils with one stone against another larger, bowl-shaped stone; crushing the dried legumes with slow, steady movements. Others would grind grains of wheat in wooden mortars with sticks that were taller than them. But everything was different; everyone was afraid. Solomon had heard the neighbours talking about some boys who had disappeared, all of them students from the university. A nephew, a cousin … The military patrolled at all hours of the day and night in soft-top jeeps, armed with machine guns mounted on the passenger seat. They always cruised round very slowly. At night they would stop outside a house, a pair of men would get out, kick down the door, drag the suspects or members of the former regime out of bed, barefoot and without their documents and whisk them away with such force that the family wouldn’t dare to protest. They just watched the jeeps roar off into the night. The dogs barked, but people no longer heard them.

The authorities ordered everybody to be registered. Everywhere. For any reason. Everybody was suspected of being the enemy. The registering was constant, as was the threatening feeling that hung over them. Solomon didn’t understand what torture meant. Women spoke in whispers when they mentioned the word and he could never catch the end of the story.

‘They had him hidden in his house for three weeks, and I’m sure they only came looking for him because some old friend turned him in; if not, I don’t understand how they found him … ’

‘They must have sent him outside the city, to some relative or other, or further, to Bahar Dar or to Gondar.’

Everything was in chaos. Everyone was telling terrifying stories: stories of young people hiding to avoid capture, or being tortured and killed; stories of families torn apart by the anguish of having to hide one of their children; the pain of losing a child, or more than one.

Every morning there were corpses lying in the streets. The families of those who hadn’t come home the night before roamed the city, looking to see if any of the lifeless bodies were theirs. Official trucks collected them and took them to the morgue. Families queued up to pay the twenty-five birrs that the military demanded in exchange for releasing each body so they could be buried with dignity. Forty-eight hours after each night-time crackdown, if nobody had claimed the bodies or paid the twenty-five birrs, they took the bodies to the outskirts of Addis Ababa and dumped them, leaving them for the hyenas and vultures to feast greedily on.

Even though the arrival of the Ethiopian New Year had brought many changes, at school everything was the same, although they no longer sang the anthem of the flag in the playground before lessons started. One day, as there was no school in the afternoon, Solomon stayed to help his father run some errands on the other side of the city, in a neighbourhood he didn’t remember ever having been to. They boarded a bus full of taciturn people carrying parcels and packages. The women’s heads and half of their faces were covered with white netelas. Many of the men also wore white gabis[14]. Everyone was eyeing everyone else suspiciously. They managed to find two empty seats at the back. A herd of donkeys laden with sacks was crossing the wide avenue, probably on their way to the Merkato to sell their goods; flour or teff[15], or perhaps Afar salt which would have arrived in Ethiopia by camel caravan. Solomon was watching two young shepherds trying to guide their donkeys across the street without being mown down by the traffic, when suddenly the bus stopped and he bumped his head on the window glass. The driver opened the door and three men in sunglasses jumped on. They were brandishing sticks. From the front of the bus they scrutinized the faces of the silent passengers as if they were looking for someone.

‘You! Get up! And you!’ one of them shouted at two well-dressed passengers. He was wearing sunglasses. Waving his stick around imperiously, he pointed to their pockets and made them empty out whatever was in them. The men took their money, documents and watches from them, then got off the bus as arrogantly as they had boarded it. The driver moved off as if nothing had happened. Checks like this had become a frequent occurrence. No-one knew exactly who had the authority to check and register people, they might be military or police, or they might not.

‘At least they didn’t hurt anyone,’ whispered an elderly man sitting opposite Solomon. ‘The other day they made all of us get off the bus and those who wouldn’t hand over their money were beaten severely with sticks. I think they killed one of them right there and then.’

Solomon was shaking with fear.

Most of the people who worked in the palace and all those with links to the emperor had been shot. Of those who hadn’t been imprisoned, some had been able to flee the country, and others were hiding out in the mountains in the north or disguised as monks in monasteries. The few that had stayed in Addis Ababa avoided the military surveillance and checks as best they could.

‘It’s lucky that angry minister threw you out of the palace kitchens!’ Maskarem would say to her father sometimes, although she knew he didn’t like to hear it.

Solomon and Biniam were sitting at the top of a very high rock. Below them, through the forest of eucalyptus trees, they had an impressive panoramic view of the city. The sheep, goats and cows that they had brought up with them were grazing close by. From up there, in the silence of the Entoto hills, three thousand metres high, it seemed as if nothing was happening. Life seemed calm and peaceful.

‘Here, take a look at this,’ said Solomon, showing Biniam the bison bone fossil.

‘How do you know it’s a bone? He could have made it up!’

‘Not you as well! Sintayehu said the same thing!’

‘Well, you see. Now there are two of us who think the farangi has tricked you! How is this stone meant to be a cow bone?’

‘A bison!’

‘Same thing … an American cow!’

‘Because Peter Howard told me it is … and his job is finding fossils in the Afar.’

‘But he told you he found it when he was eight, right? How did he know it was a bison bone when he was eight?’

The radio was almost always on in the house, the volume turned down very low.

‘The Howards are leaving; they’re being thrown out,’ said Maskarem, leaving the clothes she had been mending in the basket to one side.

‘They’re being thrown out of Ethiopia? Who by?’ asked Aster.

‘The military government, the Derg. I don’t know why exactly, but they’re finding any excuse to throw out lots of foreigners who work here,’ replied Maskarem.

‘Where will the Howards go?’

‘To London. They don’t want to go back to the United States and Mrs Howard’s family are in England.’

Nobody said anything. Solomon and Aster sat at the table doing their homework and their father carried on transferring the teff flour that he had fetched from the mill, into jars. He didn’t even look up.

‘But I still have a job, don’t worry,’ Maskarem added.

Her father looked at her, still pouring the flour through a funnel made out of newspaper.

‘They’ve asked me to go to London with them.’

Solomon looked up from his notebook full of sums.

‘They’ll pay me a good wage; I’ll have my own room in their house. I’ll carry on looking after the children, taking them to school, keeping things tidy. They’ll sort out all the passport and visa formalities. In fact, they’ve been doing it for a few days now, everything is almost ready … I couldn’t find the right moment to tell you … ’

Her father sealed one of the full jars, slowly screwing the lid on.

‘It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to turn down!’

‘When do they want to leave?’ he asked, as if it was a trivial question, concentrating on what he was doing. There were still two jars left to fill.

‘Really soon. They’ve got sixteen days … They’ve already bought the plane tickets. I’m sorry. It’s something I have to do, I’m sure Mum would understand. I can send you money … ’

Aster closed the notebook she was writing in and sat very still at the table, looking at her sister as if she had just realized what this meant for her. She knew that Maskarem would go through with it. She would leave. And Aster would become the only woman in the house. She could feel herself growing older with every second that passed. The weight of responsibility that was about to fall directly on her shoulders.

Solomon jumped up, tipping over his chair, and fled from the house, leaving the door wide open. He ran down the street, taking no notice of his sisters who were calling to him to come back. A dog ran along after him until it grew tired and gave up. At sunset, the same intense smell of burning eucalyptus filled the air as it did first thing in the morning; it pervaded the air all around. He ran and ran blindly toward the city. There were many armed soldiers around, on foot or in trucks. He ran until he heard a voice calling his name; it was Biniam, blocking his way.

‘Hey, Solomon, where are you off to? What’s wrong?’

Biniam was walking up the main road, helping a blind monk who sometimes paid him a birr to accompany him from one place to another. He carried a huge silver Orthodox cross in his right hand. With the other he clutched Biniam’s arm.

‘You’d better go home, there are soldiers all over the place, and we heard shots … ’

‘I don’t care, let me past,’ he said, panting.

‘But Solomon, wait!’

Solomon tried to move past them, to carry on running down the road, when suddenly the wrinkled old man spoke out from beneath his white shawl, in a deep voice.

‘Listen to your friend, my boy. Go home.’

The three of them walked slowly back up the road. They said nothing more until they reached the surrounds of the Entoto Church. A few people approached the monk, knelt in front of him and kissed the silver cross, waiting to receive his blessing. Before he went home Solomon also knelt in front of the blind monk, who placed his hand on his short, curly hair and rubbed the silver cross on his shoulder. Like all Ethiopian children, Solomon had been brought up to respect and obey his elders without complaining. Even more so if they were holy men.

‘I don’t know what you were running from, my boy. But nothing can be solved by running away downhill. Life is an uphill struggle. You have to be strong.’

Jane Howard sat on a kitchen chair in tears. Maskarem was folding the clothes she had laid out in the morning, piling them on the table, not knowing quite what to say. The house was full of cardboard boxes filled with books and objects. The library was now just a wall like any other; Peter Howard’s study, which had always been in disarray, with mountains of papers, books, fossils and tools all over the place, now sat empty. Only the desk, lamp and chair remained. Peter Howard pottered in and out of the room, occasionally saying things to his wife to try and console her. They were speaking in English and so quickly that sometimes Maskarem couldn’t understand what they were saying at all. But she understood enough to know that Mr Howard was very angry with someone. With someone who wasn’t Ethiopian. With some other farangi who did the same thing as him and that it had to do with the discovery of that strange ancient skeleton that everyone had been talking about for months now.

‘They’re the ones who want me out of here! They’ve managed to get the Derg to throw me out; they’ve badmouthed me to the military! They’re annoyed—they want to be the only stars of the show! They think they own the Afar!’

‘But we have to go, Peter! Whoever it is, they want you out. And you’ll be in danger if you stay,’ Jane pleaded. ‘Please, do it for me and the children. I’m scared. I want to go home. I don’t want anything to happen to you!’

‘I’ll go for you. Just for you. And because we’ve already got our tickets and we can’t afford to waste them … ’

When Maskarem went, she left a huge void. Their mother had died too young of a disease that took her from them very quickly, and the absence of both women could now be felt immensely. Father stayed at home or went to the market; he went to fetch teff from the mill; and he took care of their clothes as best he could or asked the neighbours to add them to their own piles of laundry. Most of the time, however, they would never accept even a birr from him. They had been friends of his wife and they missed her too. Washing her family’s clothes was the only way they could honour her memory. He prepared injera and various dishes to order; his reputation as a fine cook had spread throughout the city, particularly among the families closest to the emperor and those who were most nostalgic for the old days.

‘Sintayehu always says that cooking is women’s work. I don’t know any other men who cook at home. You’re the only one.’

‘That Sintayehu … Come on, grab that knife and help me peel the potatoes. I’ve got a lot of work to do. In a few hours they’ll be coming to collect their order. And they’ll be coming up here by car, so it had better be ready!’

‘Couldn’t you have found work in a hotel?’

‘What, you think I haven’t tried that? Come on, get those potatoes peeled or I’m going to go and get Sintayehu to help us and then there’ll be three men in the kitchen!’

Aster smiled as she plucked the chickens she had just plunged into a bucket of boiling water, so that the feathers would come off more easily.

In the kitchen there were always large jars full of teff flour mixed with water that, after resting for a few days to ferment, turned into a whitish liquid ready for making injera. Using a small jar, their father took small amounts of this liquid and placed it on the round earthenware grill which was kept hot over the wood fire in the oven. He wiped a cloth soaked in sesame oil over it, then let the liquid pour slowly onto it, drawing a spiral shape which started in the middle and became larger to form a circle which thickened as it came into contact with the heat. Then he covered it with a hat-shaped lid. Using a wooden spatula he lifted up one edge of the injera which was now cooked and taking care not to break it, lifted up the whole pancake with a round fan made of woven straw. It could take hours before all of the liquid had been made into mountains of injera, which was the foundation of all their meals.

The radio was constantly playing music which sounded like fukera[16], used many centuries ago by tribes preparing for battle, to strengthen their morale and frighten their rivals. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military government had composed a song in the style of fukera, called ‘Yefiyel Wetete’, to announce the names of all those who had been executed the night before or that day.

‘Sshhh, the song’s starting!’ said father, turning up the radio volume. As soon as the first notes sounded, people all over the country would stop what they were doing to listen out for the names of the dead. Mengistu had started a campaign of widespread execution to eliminate those who were opposed to the regime. Those who survived fled into exile.

In the streets there were more and more people begging or rustling through rubbish heaps for food scraps. More and more young or adolescent girls were finishing school, and still in their uniforms, would make their way to the hotels in the centre of the city to sell themselves for less than a dollar.

‘Why is it 1975 in the rest of the world, but here we’re still in 1967?’ Solomon asked his father.

‘Ethiopia is a different country … ’

‘But why can’t we follow the same calendar as the rest of the world? Why does our year have thirteen months, and why does it start on the eleventh of September?’

‘Because we’re different … ’

‘But I don’t understand why we have to be different and tell the time in a different way. Why, when it should be ten o’clock in the morning, do we say four o’clock?’

‘You carry on studying and then you’ll understand.’

‘Studying, studying … The more I study, the less I understand what’s going on … Do you think they’ll close down our school too? Sometimes boys come and throw stones at the windows … ’

Neighbouring Somalia claimed more than three hundred thousand square metres of Ethiopian land in the Ogaden region. It tried to unite all the Somalis of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya into one territory, to create Greater Somalia. The Ethiopian military had already started fighting to prevent the borders being changed, in the hope that some countries that were allied with the Derg government would send reinforcements. If this didn’t happen, then defeat would be assured.

‘As if the war in Eritrea wasn’t enough, now we’re also at war with Somalia.’

The radio was always on. Military marches continued to be heard very often and news of what was happening in the country was relayed covertly, with very little detail. People lived in a state of absolute uncertainty and fear.

‘Have you heard?

‘Heard what?’

‘They’re calling for all men who are not in the military but who want to serve their country to enlist in the army. They get paid a lot.’

‘Do you want to go to war, Dad?’ exclaimed Solomon. ‘But you always said you didn’t like the army!’

‘I don’t like them … But I have no choice.’

His father didn’t say much more on the subject. A few days later he went to the training camp. He had become very introverted and secretive. It was hard to talk to him or to know what he was really thinking. He went away leaving Solomon and Aster alone in the Entoto hills.

‘But what did you do as a job? You don’t know how to shoot a gun and you’re totally uncoordinated!’ an official asked him, exasperated with this man who definitely didn’t have the makings of a soldier.

‘I worked in the house of some farangi diplomats, sir,’ he answered, so as not to give away the fact that he had been a cook in the emperor’s palace.

‘What did you work as? A gardener taking care of their fancy flowers?’ mocked the officer.

‘No sir, I worked as a cook.’

‘A cook? Well that’s just great! Women’s work. Say no more!’ the officer and two soldiers who were listening to the conversation couldn’t control their laughter.

‘Sir, I wouldn’t want to speak out of line, but the Ogaden detachment has only got five cooks; five old women to feed so many mouths,’ said one of the soldiers.

The officer looked at Solomon’s father with contempt.

‘Well that’s settled then. Since you used to do women’s work, now you’ll make food for all of us! And you’ll be in trouble if you’re lying and your injera isn’t any good! I’ll send you to the front line, to entertain the Somalis!’

Everything was foggy. The forests of the Entoto hills were covered in a thick mist hanging between the tall trunks of the eucalyptus trees. The stacks of damp chopped wood all around gave off a heady aroma. Solomon walked. With no father, no mother, no older sister. He walked in a daze, like so many other children who walked countless miles every day. He walked and he ran, unaware that further upheaval awaited him beyond the fog.

[1]Injera. Ethiopian dish, used as the basis of all meals; a kind of pancake made from fermented teff flour (a local cereal), to accompany various stews such as doro wat (chicken with sauce) misr wat (thick lentil puree), shiro wat (thick chickpea puree), etc.

[2]Shiro wat. Chickpea puree which forms part of Ethiopian cuisine.

[3]Meret le arashu. “Land to the tiller” in Amharic.

[4]Netela. White cotton garment with a coloured border around the edge, worn by Ethiopian women to cover themselves particularly in church (Christian Orthodox).

[5]Salam. Greeting used in many countries. In Arabic, it literally means “peace”. In Ethiopia it means “hello”.

[6]Birr. Currency of Ethiopia.

[7]Doro wat. Ethiopian dish consisting of chicken cut into very small pieces, in a spicy sauce. In Amharic, doro means “chicken” and wat means “sauce”.

[8]Amharic. Official language of Ethiopia. It is a Semitic language.

[9]Farangi. The word for “foreigner” in Amharic.

[10]Sera bet. Name of the chefs in the palace of Haile Selassie, in Addis Ababa.

[11]Kolo. Mix of corn, chickpeas and toasted peanuts that is eaten at any time of the day in Ethiopia. It is offered to unexpected guests and is taken on journeys or long walks.

[12]Chat. Shrub with small green leaves (Catha edulis) that is grown widely in Ethiopia and sold in all of the markets. It has stimulating properties and causes euphoria. It is often chewed as part of traditional customs. It is not prohibited and is exported to neighbouring countries.

[13]Adei Abeba. Yellow wildflowers that grow in the fields of Ethiopia following the rainy season.

[14]Gabi. Thick, cream-coloured cotton fabric worn by men in Ethiopia, wrapped around themselves.

[15]Teff. Cereal widely grown in Ethiopia; the basis of injera, the most common food in the country.

[16]Fukera. Ethiopian music used many centuries ago by tribes to strengthen their morale and frighten their opponents before a battle.

KOLPEWADI, INDIAN STATE OF MAHARASHTRA, 1974

Muna walked along the edge of the field, her feet sinking down into the hot earth. The mud houses roofed with palm leaves were still a long way off. The spindly trunks of a few tall palm trees broke the monotony of the flat landscape. Everything was silent; just the sounds of her footsteps and some vultures feasting on the remains of a dead buffalo. The monsoons were late this year and the weather was swelteringly hot and muggy. Oxen with long pointed horns were dragging a plough through the field. Muna was returning home from the well along the ploughed fields, with a large brass container of water balanced on her head, holding it sometimes with one hand, sometimes with no hands at all. She walked with her back nice and straight as she had been taught to do ever since she was very young. Muna thought that she must be eleven years old but she didn’t know for sure. She wore a salwar kameez[17] that had once been pink but was now a non-descript faded colour. Her black hair was tied back in a ponytail that hung down her back. The dust clung to her damp sweaty skin, forming a dark crust as it dried.

As soon as she had dropped the water off at the house, she set off again carrying a huge pile of saris[18] and dirty clothes down to the river. Sonali, the wife of her uncle Suresh—one of her father’s younger brothers—was waiting for her there, to wash the clothes together. Muna had lived with them and their son—who was only a few months old—since the child had been born. Her work consisted of fetching water, finding fresh grass for the cows to graze on, washing clothes in the river, collecting firewood, lighting the fire and making sure that it didn’t go out so that they could cook, and tending the oil lamps when darkness fell … She was always kept busy. She woke up at first light and slept when it was dark, lying on a rug on the floor in the small adobe house with its glassless windows, on the outskirts of Kolpewadi. She was eleven years old and she was exhausted.

As she walked barefoot over the warm earth toward the river with the bundle of clothes balanced on her head, Muna couldn’t stop thinking about Sita[19]. Her beloved Sita, sitting on the lap of a woman strangely dressed all in white, with a sort of small turban on her head, in a jeep driving away down the dusty road. Everything had happened so quickly. Sita had left without realising what was happening. The jeep disappeared and Muna was left standing there crying, watching as the cloud of dust that was whipped up gradually disappeared as well, leaving the flat, dry track deserted once more. She had never seen Sita again. It must have been three years ago now but she remembered it as if it had just happened. Hot tears sprang up when she thought about her little sister, of the hours she had spent looking after her since she came into the world.

She remembered perfectly the day Sita was born. Her mother screaming as she lay propped up on the floor of their house with her legs open, two women holding her by the arms and another at her back, talking to her constantly to soothe her, while other women brought buckets of hot water and towels. There were endless towels stained with blood.

‘Ritu, work a bit harder, push hard!’ cried one woman.

‘Come on, just a little more Ritu. Ritu, you’ve got to do what we tell you!’

Muna had watched it all from a corner of the room with a mixture of fear and concern. A terrified five-year old girl who didn’t know what was happening to her mother, who was emitting loud howling noises. She was also surprised to see how people were born in more or less the same way as cows. Not long before she saw her sister being born, she had witnessed the birth of a calf.

Although she was young, Ritu was in very poor health and she didn’t recover from the birth of her second child. After Sita was born, she fell ill with an extremely high fever and spent her days lying on the bed in their small house which had only one room. Her husband didn’t pay them much attention; neither Ritu nor her daughters. His name was Anjaney and he had never overcome his sadness at the death of his first wife. He had been madly in love with her. He had always been grateful to his parents for finding him a woman like her, his Namrata. For him, life without her had little meaning.

He had worked hard looking after the cows and fields to put enough food on the table for his five children and Namrata. But when he became a widower and his children were all gradually married off, the time came for him to find another wife, as he couldn’t go on alone. He was contacted by a family with a daughter who was very beautiful but in poor health. They were prepared to offer a considerable dowry to anyone who wanted to marry her. Her name was Ritu and she was the same age as his oldest daughter. It was too good an opportunity to miss. Anjaney and Ritu had a child immediately: Muna. Ritu has spent her whole pregnancy wishing for a boy, like all women in India. Nine months imagining the parties and celebrations to announce the birth of an heir; nine months praying to the gods that it wouldn’t be a girl. The birth of a girl was always a disgrace; some believed it was a bad omen for the family. Relations and neighbours came sorrowfully to the house to wish them “better luck next time”. A girl was a burden on the family until they could be married off. Ritu didn’t fall pregnant again for a long time. Finally, five years later, Sita was born.

The prayers and pujas[20] to the gods were all in vain yet again: another girl was born. A neighbour who had helped with the birth suggested drowning her in a bucket of water straight away. In rural areas, many newborn baby girls were sacrificed within a few minutes: it was better for everyone that way. But Nadira, the eldest daughter of Ritu’s husband, wouldn’t let it happen.

Nadira and Ritu had become very close friends. Nadira didn’t care that Ritu was her stepmother but was the same age as her; and Ritu didn’t care that Nadira was the daughter of Namrata, her husband’s first wife, who everybody missed so dearly. Nadira had given birth to a son, Raj, two months before Sita was born. The two friends’ bellies had grown big at the same time.

Ritu’s health was failing. Muna would hug her mother, who now hardly left the house, and then take her sister in her arms to stop her crying. Ritu’s milk was drying up and little Sita was weak and thin.

‘Nadira,’ Ritu said to her friend, ‘I think I’m dying … ’

‘Don’t speak, Ritu, try to rest … ’ answered Nadira, scooping up the tiny Sita, who was lying on the bed next to her sick mother.

The emaciated baby started wailing inconsolably in Nadira’s arms. She was hungry.

‘I’m not strong enough. I can’t take the pain any more … ’

Sita was still crying and Nadira didn’t think twice. She sat at the foot of Ritu’s bed, lifted the short blouse that she wore under her sari and put the child to her breast. Sita immediately clung to her as if she knew that she wouldn’t have many opportunities like this to save her life. Ritu watched from the bed.

‘Nadira … If I die, please take care of my children, I’m begging you … ’

That evening Ritu died with her head on Nadira’s lap, while the two babies, Sita and Raj, slept soundly in a corner of the house. Although she was only five years old, Muna was very aware of what was going on. She entered the house softly and sat down next to Nadira. Looking at her mother she asked, ‘Is she sleeping?’

‘Yes, Muna. Your mother has fallen asleep, but this time I think it’s forever.’

Muna became her little sister’s protector. She carried her, strapped to her back with a strip of cotton fabric, while she helped out with all the housework. When Sita was hungry and cried, she would hurry to wherever Nadira was so that she could breastfeed her. Nadira was full of life and had a good, kind and happy husband, Pratap. The two of them did everything they could so that their son Raj, as well as Muna and Sita, wanted for nothing. They worked in the fields and sold the milk from their cows to neighbours who didn’t have their own cows.

They lived in a very humble way but they were happy.

Shortly after Ritu died, Anjaney fell ill. His legs swelled up and he could no longer stand up. Luckily, Nadira and Pratap lived very close by; there was only one field to cross to reach their house. Anjaney grew weaker and weaker, until one day when Nadira went to take him some rice and vegetables, she found him lying dead in bed. They cremated him in the same field where they had cremated Ritu a few months earlier; and where they had scattered Namrata’s ashes a few years before that.

‘Don’t worry Muna,’ Nadira said, stroking the girl’s cheek. ‘From now on, you and Sita will come to live with us.’

Nadira and Pratap were very young and thinking about the future was a struggle for them. But they had adopted these two little girls and they would love them as if they were their own children. Nadira had also promised her friend that she would take care of them.

The adobe house was very small and inside it was practically empty. They all slept together, lying on the floor next to one another. Muna’s main activity was looking after Sita, from the moment her little sister woke up hungry in the morning until the last lullaby at night. She washed her, fed her the meals prepared by Nadira and carried her everywhere strapped to her back. She copied Nadira’s every gesture, becoming Sita’s mother. A child became a mother. She watched how Sita quickly grew and changed; how she learned to walk.

Almost three years passed. Life wasn’t easy. The rains were late and in the fields the crops were failing. Nadira was pregnant again as well; she was about to give birth.

One day, Pratap’s father showed up, ready to alter his son’s plans. He was an authoritarian man and was accustomed to being the head of the family and deciding what was best for everyone.

‘But can’t you see how thin Raj is?’ he roared at them.

‘Thin? He’s a healthy little boy!’

‘That’s enough, Pratap! What are you thinking? The gods have blessed you with a healthy boy and you’re risking his health by making him share the little food you have with these two intruders? Don’t you know how hard it is to be responsible for four children? You know that one day you will have to offer a dowry for these two girls? Where are you going to get two dowries from? Eh?’

‘There are quite a few years before that, father, we’ll be alright, you’ll see … ’

‘I’ll see?’ replied the man growing increasingly irritated. ‘I won’t hear of it! I will not have it! Have you gone mad? One thing at a time! You’re too young to look after four children at once. Not to mention if you have another girl!’

The discussion between Pratap and his father—as well as Nadira, who dared to intervene a little—was a long one. Or at least it seemed so to Muna, who listened to them as she sat on the floor in a corner of the house, her back against the wall, paralysed with fear.

‘Enough! I said that’s enough! Those two girls are a nuisance; they can’t carry on living in Shaha with you. It’s high time we found a solution. End of discussion!’

There was nothing that Nadira and Pratap could do. Pratap’s father found the solution in the house of a catechist in a village not far from Shaha. Every Monday a chaplain and a nun from a catholic convent in Nasik went there to hold mass, bring medicine and visit sick people. The nun was a nurse. Pratap’s father told the catechist about the two orphan girls living with his son and his wife, a couple who were too young and without sufficient means to bring up three children, and with a fourth on the way. The catechist listened intently. He could ask for help for an individual case, but for two girls it was a bit much. The younger girl seemed to be the most fragile. The older girl was now eight years old, strong and independent; she could look after herself. So between that man and Pratap’s father, it was decided that the following Monday, the chaplain and the nun should take Sita away.

‘But why do they have to take her away, Nadira?’ asked Muna, uncomprehending. ‘I’ll look after her; I’ll make sure she doesn’t break anything or make a mess!’

‘I know it’s hard to understand. But Pratap’s father is the head of our family, he makes the rules and we can’t go against his decisions. That’s just the way it is.’

‘It’s impossible not to do what he says. The elders are always right; they always know what needs to be done. He knows that we love you both very much and that I promised your mother I would look after you, but he’s made us realize that if we really want to take care of you, we have to find another place for you to live. I’m sure Sita will go to a much better place than this godforsaken land where it never rains … She’ll have chicken and lots of fruit to eat … Muna, here we can’t offer you much and she isn’t very strong. You don’t want her to get sick, do you? If she got sick we wouldn’t be able to treat her and she would die.’

Muna listened to Nadira and the mere thought of seeing her sister die made her stomach turn.

‘Muna,’ Nadira went on, ‘do you think that these people who come every week to our villages to bring medicines and tell us so many things are bad people? If they were, they wouldn’t do everything that they do for us; I mean we don’t know them and we aren’t their family!’

And so the dreaded day came. The day she had to say goodbye to Sita. The day that Muna grew up. She was eight years old, but that day she suddenly aged and could no longer look at Nadira in the same way. She had let her down. Early in the morning they made a puja at the small altar in a corner of the house. They made very few because they couldn’t afford to buy the oil for burning, the incense and fresh flowers. But that day was special. Pratap jingled his little bell, while with the other hand he drew circles with the smoking incense in front of a faded image of Ganesh[21] and sang prayers to the elephant god who solved problems and removed obstacles from daily life. They painted a tikka[22] on Sita’s forehead so that the gods would protect her: first a drop of oil, followed by the red powder. Sita disappeared in a jeep down the dusty road, sitting on the lap of a nun all dressed in white.

Now Muna was walking barefoot toward the Kolpewadi River carrying a huge bundle of dirty clothes on her head. She was eleven years old and she was responsible and well-behaved. But she was fed up of being docile and obedient! An old, faded bus was making its way over the bridge. It was a bus like the one that had brought her here from Shaha, stopping at all the villages, crossing the flat landscape of the sugarcane fields along roads full of holes that made you jump out of your seat when you were least expecting it. She saw Sonali and some other women washing clothes and exchanging gossip. Two neighbours folded saris together; taking one end each, they pulled the seven metres of cotton clothing taught between them and moved toward each other with each fold. Sonali’s baby was sleeping under the shade of a tree, next to the calm waters of the Godavari.

‘Namaste[23], mausi[24],’ Muna greeted them before putting the bundle down on the floor.

‘Muna, what took you so long? I thought you weren’t coming!’

‘I’m sorry, mausi Sonali. I came as quickly as I could.’

‘Come on! Get the clothes in to soak before the baby wakes up. We have to get it hung out quickly if we want to come and collect it this afternoon.’

The days, weeks and months rolled by. Muna’s life continued to revolve around the firewood, the fire, the pots on the fire, the water from the well, the grass for the buffalos, the buffalo milk, all the chapattis[25] she had to make, the clothes she had to wash in the river … For how long? When would this routine that wasn’t hers come to an end? Sometimes, when she went to the village to buy things at the market she saw other girls dressed in school uniform and she looked at them enviously. She saw the white, well-ironed shirts, dark checked skirts and red ribbons in their plaited hair. She imagined herself dressed like them and daydreamed that she went to school too. The boys wore the same uniform but with shorts instead of skirts. In the morning they sat in groups of seven or eight boys and girls, in bicycle rickshaws[26] that took them to school and picked them up in the afternoon. Their backpacks and bags hung together on each side of the vehicle. Sometimes, one or two of the children had to get down from the rickshaw to push and help the rickshaw–wallah[27] get going again, as it was hard work for him carrying such a heavy weight. When the rickshaws crammed full of boys and girls in uniform went past her, Muna couldn’t keep walking and she stopped to watch them. Why could she not go to school? She wasn’t sure how, but she was going to learn to read and write. She would have dresses too one day.

Very close to where the women washed their clothes, there was a small island with two palm trees. There were always little boys clambering up them and jumping into the water from high up. The smallest ones took off all their clothes, the older ones jumped in fully clothed. Their raucous shouts and laughter became the usual background noise to their afternoons of laundry. Muna watched them while she scrubbed clothes against the rocks with a huge bar of soap. Some of them went there to swim after school. Others looked as if they had come from the fields where they worked with their parents. It must have been fun to jump off that little island, trying to touch the leaves with their hands and jumping into the water. That part of the river was fairly deep and it took a few seconds for the children’s heads to bob up above the surface of the water. Why were there never any little girls jumping from the little island with the two palm trees? Why were there never any girls shouting and laughing freely like the boys from the village?

Muna sorted the lentils, picking out dozens and dozens of stones before cooking the dhal[28]. The smell of drying cow dung pervaded the air and could be smelled everywhere, more or less pungently, depending on the direction the wind was blowing. She was also responsible for collecting the half-dried dung and arranging it in rows on the ground so that it dried out completely, or sticking it to the lower part of the house walls, and later, when it was dry enough not to smell any more, stacking it up next to the stable. Dried cow dung was the fuel that burned most efficiently and ensured that the fire turned to embers and didn’t go out.

Sitting on the ground outside Suresh and Sonali’s house, while she picked through lentils, she could hear them talking about her. It wasn’t the first time. She heard them saying the names of villages she had never heard of; names of families; men’s names. But that afternoon she realized what they were talking about: they were looking for a husband for her! A little while ago they had all been invited to the wedding of a girl not much older than her. She didn’t know her; she didn’t even talk to her. After the wedding she went to live far away and Muna never saw her again. She would never forget the scared look on that girl’s face as she sat on the floor in front of the flames of a small fire, dripping with jewellery and dressed in a garishly yellow sari edged with a red trim, a necklace of flowers, her eyes elaborately outlined in black kohl[29] and her lips painted like a sculpture in the temple of Ganesh. She stared blankly, with a large red tikka painted in the middle of her forehead and the parting of her hair also painted with a red line of sindoor[30]. The groom was ten years older than her, or perhaps more, and looked equally unhappy. He was sitting next to her in front of the fire, wearing a garland of flowers round his neck like the girl. Both families, on the other hand, were ecstatic. Everyone was dancing and laughing. The women were dressed in their finest saris, their hands painted with henna[31] drawn in elaborate and intricate patterns, their dark, well combed hair decorated with jasmine flowers, jangling their colourful glass bracelets that were bought specially for the celebration. They also wore ankle bracelets—fine silver or brass chains that jingled with every step they took. The men were elegantly dressed in white with their kurtas[32] and Gandhi topis[33], the white hats that they wore to make them feel important. The tables were overflowing with food and flowers.

To Muna that wedding seemed like anything but a celebration, however many garlands of orange flowers had been hung from the ceiling and walls, however much music they played.

Now Suresh and Sonali were looking for a husband for her, just like that girl. She was sick and tired of other people’s decisions that she didn’t understand. She got up off the floor with the aluminium bowl full of lentils and padded barefoot and determined into the house. Her uncle instantly stopped talking. Sonali looked at Muna with a sly smile and started peeling onions in the corner where the kitchen was. But Muna couldn’t say anything. What could she say? What could she do?

The fields of wheat grew taller. Muna carried on with her routine, day and night; with the sticky heat of the dry season, the dusty roads, the hot earth of the fields, hours spent washing clothes in the river, carrying them back and forth, hours selecting lentils for the dhal and sifting the rice full of stones … However much of a misfortune it was for Suresh and Sonali, she was happy that they no longer had any buffalo because it meant less work for her. They had been forced to give them up before they were taken ill by a strange epidemic that was affecting buffalo in the region, which led to them producing less and less milk. They didn’t eat the meat. Hindus don’t eat meat from cows or oxen. Whenever they could—which wasn’t very often—they ate chicken or lamb.

She was returning home one day carrying a load of firewood on her head when she noticed a car parked in the dry street, just in front of Suresh’s house. Some chickens scampered out in front of her, nearly tripping her up and making her drop her load of firewood. There were hardly any cars in the village. She drew closer, intrigued. She set the firewood down next to the small stable, now empty of buffalo. She tried not to make a sound … but they spotted her at once.

‘Muna, we’ve been waiting for you!’ said Suresh, coming out of the door holding a lit bidi[34] in his hand. He never normally smoked.

‘Oh yes? I didn’t know!’

Behind Suresh came a man with a black moustache, dressed in a light blue shirt and trousers that were not like the ones any men in the village wore. Sonali also came out, cradling her son in her arms.

‘This is my niece. As I’ve already told you, she is obedient and hard working. She helps us with everything here.’

The man with the moustache looked her up and down while Muna busied herself, pretending to stack the firewood into a pile.

‘I can’t give you more than a thousand rupees[35]. That’s the most we can offer. A thousand rupees and I’ll take the girl to Bombay.’

Muna froze.

‘To Bombay? What for?’

‘Muna, please don’t interrupt grownups when they’re talking!’

‘But if I have to go, I need to know where I’m going, don’t I? Who do you want me to marry for a thousand rupees?’

‘No-one,’ said Suresh seriously. ‘We don’t have enough money for your dowry. We can’t find any family who wants you for one of their sons. You’re too young and you don’t have a large dowry. Mr Patil is visiting all the families in the village to offer us a loan … We need to buy buffalo for milk again; we have to make repairs to the house which is falling down. I’m sorry, Muna, but this is our only solution.’

‘And why do I have to go with him to Bombay? Can’t he give you the money and you pay him back when you can? Mausi, why do I have to go?’ she asked Sonali, who just looked away.

‘It’s been decided,’ Suresh replied in a firm voice. ‘The agreement is that he leaves us the money and you go to the city to work in the house of a family. I’m sure you’ll be able to go to school … ’

‘To school?’

Mr Patil didn’t say anything. He just looked at them.

‘And when will I go?’

‘Right now,’ the man from Bombay finally said, touching his moustache. ‘We have to get there today and it’s a long way.’

Muna had no belongings apart from the salwar kameez she was wearing that had once been pink, some worn-out plastic sandals and the red glass bracelets that had remained intact since the wedding of the frightened-looking girl. For that wedding she had borrowed a sari from some friends of Sonali who lived close by. Muna had nothing and nobody keeping her in Kolpewadi. She said a hurried goodbye to Sonali and Suresh—who had already stuffed the thick wad of a thousand rupees into his pocket after counting all of the notes while sitting on the only bed in the house—and got into the back of the car, as naturally as if she had done it all her life. It was the first car she had ever been in: the car that would take her far away. She didn’t cry. What would be the point?

Mr Patil didn’t have a particularly kind face, but then again Muna didn’t find any adults’ faces kind. Nadira and Pratap stopped having kind faces on the day they separated her from her sister. As they were leaving the village, they stopped in front of a house with a buffalo tied up at the door under a canopy of dry branches. Mr Patil got out of the car without a word and went into the house. Muna sat silently in the back of the car. Close by, a man was sharpening knives on a spinning stone rigged up to his bicycle. A few minutes later a girl perhaps a year or so older than her got into the car next to her. Her eyes were full of tears and she was staring at the floor. They didn’t say anything to each other. As the car started to drive off they heard the terrible cries of a woman behind them:

‘Nalini! Nalini! My Nalini!’

The girl turned and knelt on the seat to look out of the rear window but the road was full of dust and she couldn’t see anything. She stayed there for a long time, kneeling on the seat, with her hands on the glass, as they crossed the bridge over the river Godavari and drove away from Kolpewadi.

Mr Patil drove in earnest, swerving now and then to avoid a cow, or a bicycle, or a lorry driving too slowly the wrong way up the road, a pothole that the car might get stuck in or the clothes that women laid out along any slightly better tarmacked stretches of the road, which seemed to be the best place they could find to do it. The landscape was immensely flat. The two girls looked at everything out of their respective windows, in silence. Muna had heard about Bombay. She knew that it was a big city; a huge city. She looked out of the window and thought about those boys leaping into the water from the little island with the two palm trees while she washed clothes. Surely they felt something similar to what she was feeling know; that lurching feeling in their stomachs before they fell in and splashed all the others. She was hungry. It was already midday and she hadn’t eaten anything apart from a chapatti and a small amount of dhal at dawn. They turned off suddenly down a narrow, dry road that seemed to lead nowhere. The car drove on and on, swerving around holes and bumping over rocks until in the distance they finally saw a cluster of small adobe houses with plaited palm roofs, like the ones in Shaha. Mr Patil stopped the car and before getting out he turned and stared at the two girls.

‘You two stay where you are, or you’ll be sorry.’

He was back in no time at all, accompanied by a boy of around eight or nine with short, inky black hair and a hungry look in his eyes, who sat timidly next to them in the back seat. The car pulled away, bouncing its way back up the narrow road full of potholes they had driven down to reach the tiny village.

‘That’s all of you. Now we’re off to Bombay,’ said Mr Patil, his moustache twisting into a slight sneer. None of the children said anything. They went on looking out of the windows in a strange silence. A necklace of slightly withered jasmine flowers hung from the rear view mirror. It swung to and fro with every bump in the road. They passed a herd of emaciated cows with long horns. The boy herding them, who was wearing a tattered shirt and carrying a stick, waved.

After more than two hours of travelling in silence through an unchanging landscape, Mr Patil stopped the car at a petrol station which also sold food and drinks. He let the three children get out of the car to relieve themselves behind a small building with a latrine in it, while he bought some bananas, chapattis and a cooked cob of corn for each of them. They ate them right there and then, standing up, not far from the car. A young boy brought them brass cups full of water on a tray. The people around were all men, and no-one took any notice of them. They were all too involved in their conversations and their work. There were a few lorries parked up; their drivers sat on sarpois[36] outside them, drinking tea and smoking.

‘My name’s Vikram. What are your names?’ whispered the boy when the three of them were alone.

‘Muna.’

‘My name’s Nalini. I want to go home. I don’t want to go to Bombay.’

[17]Salwar kameez. Set of baggy trousers with a tight waistband, and a long wide tunic. Worn by both men and women. Men usually wear light-coloured, smooth cotton; women tend to wear more elegant, patterned fabrics.

[18]Sari. Dress worn in the Indian subcontinent, consisting of seven metres of cloth wrapped around the body to form a skirt and short blouse. Usually in very bright colours. It is worn in a different way in each region.

[19]Sita. The goddess of agriculture. Also the protagonist of the Ramayana (the story of Rama and Sita is one of the most popular legends of India).

[20]Puja. Prayers, a Hindu ritual that is carried out several times a day.

[21]Ganesh. Hindu god in the form of an elephant. The most beloved of all the Hindu gods, Ganesh is the god of everyday life.

[22]Tikka. A mark with holy connotations that Hindus paint on the forehead with coloured powders. There are also adhesive versions of all different shapes and colours that most women use to decorate their foreheads.

[23]Namaste. Greeting of the Hindu religion.

[24]Mausi. “Auntie” in Marathi. Sometimes used to refer to woman who is seen in this affectionate way, even though they are not a real aunt and have no relationship to the family.

[25]Chapatti. Bread made from flour and water, cooked over a fire.

[26]Rickshaw. Indian method of transport, particularly in large towns and cities. Consists of a bicycle with a carriage for two people.

[27]Wallah. This Hindi word, meaning “man”, is added to practically anything to define different professions or activities: taxi–wallah (taxi driver), rickshaw–wallah (rickshaw driver), etc.

[28]Dhal. Indian dish based on lentils with spices, which is eaten like soup. Poor families tend to eat mainly dhal and chapatti.

[29]Kohl. Black colouring used as eye make-up in India and other countries.

[30]Sindoor. Painted hair parting using the same coloured powders that are used to decorate people’s foreheads in India.

[31]Henna. Mixture of herbs that are crushed, boiled and used to decorate the skin, dying it for several days, particularly for wedding celebrations. It is used in many countries around the world, from the Maghreb to the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

[32]Kurta. Indian shirt worn by men. Also common in other countries in the region, such as Pakistan.

[33]Gandhi topi. Hat worn by men in some regions of India, like the one worn by Ghandi.

[34]Bidi. Indian cigarettes, usually made from laurel leaves tied with thread.

[35]Rupee. Currency of India.

[36]Sarpoi. Wooden bed frame without a mattress, found in cafes and outdoor areas, for people to sit and drink tea and rest on. Found in many eastern countries.