Don't Cry: Stories (26 page)

Everything depended on it: I pulled my husband out of bed to a standing position and led him backward, holding hands. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. I got him on the john, waited for him to finish, and wiped him. I bathed him in the marble shower, which was so big, it made the whole room a shower where we could be naked together. We sat on the fancy marble floor and played, passing the hose back and forth, spraying, laughing— And Sonny, with his little forehead blazing, several times nearly falling, climbed the stairs, leaning heavily into my hands. His hands radiated into my hands, imparting his being and sampling mine. "Look,” I said aloud. Look, my husband, my father, my lover, my child: Look at this little boy and bless him.

When Katya came home, she would jealously take the baby from me—of course jealously. Every day, she walked in and saw me having intimacy she couldn’t have because she was out doing the shit. What she didn’t see: It didn’t matter. Sonny knew that Katya was his mother and that I was his nurse; the uncanny gleam we had seen the first day had found mental form quickly. But still Katya grabbed him jealously and fed him and talked angrily about the Head while I ate dried fruit and nuts. I half-listened. I looked at the spoon going in and out of the baby’s mouth. I thought, If I am the nurse and Katya is the mother, who or what is the birth mother to him? Is she the earth of Sonny, the sky? The unseeable place the child walks when he sleeps? When I asked Thomas what he remembered about the birth mother who had abandoned him, he just said he liked her. He said he liked to picture her getting on the bus with a battered suitcase, in a long coat and flat shoes, her large eyes bold and intense, her hair like a movie star’s. She was an adventurer, he thought, and he didn’t blame her for leaving.

On our seventh day in Addis, Katya succeeded; she came back with a letter from the Head and another letter from an orphanage (run by a friend of the Head) that said they would sponsor the adoption. Out of fighting mode, she was dazed and unsure of how this had happened. “We were going at it as usual,” she said. “I told him I would be back in his office every day until I got permission, and he said, ‘Fine.’ And then a stomach cramp doubled me over; my head went between my legs, my teeth were gritted, and my intestines made this indescribable sound—I thought I was going to have diarrhea right there. The only reason I didn’t leave was that I was worried about what might happen if I got up suddenly. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me—almost like he felt sorry for me! Then he got a piece of paper and wrote the letter and pushed it across the desk.”

That nigjit, we finally went out for dinner. We wore the dresses we had brought to celebrate in; Sonny wore his orange jumper. I chose an Italian restaurant we’d walked past several times, because the people in it always looked lively. But it wasn’t lively this time. On the way there, the streets were nearly empty, and the few people who were out seemed angry and tense. We were the only people in the restaurant. Katya didn’t feel well enough to eat more than a few bites of pasta anil she was too tired to talk much.

The next day, Katya and Sonny went to the American embassy in the morning and returned early in the afternoon. Sonny was tired and cranky so Katya wanted to rest before going to the travel agency to arrange our flight out the next day. They napped together while I went to the laundry room and washed our clothes. While I was in the dining area, waiting for the clothes to come out of the washer, I met our host’s Italian mom. She was feeding her pug dog sliced fruit from a dish in her lap. I told her we were about to leave; she said it was a shame that we hadn’t gotten to Lalibela “I hope you can get out,” she said. “You choose a terrible time to come. You didn’t know about the election?” I pointed out that she was here. She shrugged and meticulously peeled the skin off a fig. "I grew up here,” she said. “I know the place. You don’t.”

I woke Katya and we tried to call Yonas. We couldn’t reach him. This was unusual. We waited an hour and tried again; nothing. We waited another hour. We heard the huge gate open; people came in, talking loudly Someone ran up the stairs, past our door. Katya and I stared at each other. Sonny stirred. It wasn’t right then that we heard gunfire, but maybe ten minutes later. It wasn’t close by But close enough to hear. Not steadily, but off and on, during the afternoon and into the night.

Much closer than the gunshots was the machine of my body, buzzing inside me. It came from inside me and also enclosed me like the darkness and the warmth of the night. It said, It doesn’t matter if you die here. It might be better if you die here. But Katya and Sonny have to get home. It won’t be better if they die.

The next day, Yanas came in his uncle’s car instead of his taxi.

We saw him pull into the driveway, and we ran out to meet him.

From the car, he held up a hand to indicate he was talking on the phone. We stopped; he had never signaled for us to wait before, and this signal scared me more than anything so far. But he didn’t

keep us waiting long. He put the phone down and got out to tell us: There had been a demonstration about the election. Twenty-five people had been killed. The city was under martial law. He could not take us anywhere. He would be in touch. He had to get home as quickly as he could.

We played with Sonny all day, both of us, going up and down the stairs, knocking the film containers all over the stairs, then picking them up again. When we heard shots, we looked up and then went' back to what we were doing. The buzzing said, Your parents are dead; your husband is dead. You should be dead. But Katya and Sonny don’t deserve to die.

In the early evening, Katya said, “We have to get something to eat. We haven’t eaten for almost twelve hours.”

“We can’t go out,” I said. “It isn’t safe.”

“Sonny is out of food. He hasn’t eaten for eight hours.”

“Katya, nothing is open; you heard Yonas.”

“The fruit stand will be open. There’s no way they’ll close, They’re just down the street.”

“We’re hearing guns.”

“The shots aren’t close. I have to go out. If you won’t go, I’ll go alone.”

We took Sonny; I carried him because Katya was too weak. Outside on the street, people and animals were walking around like normal. Who were these people? I felt half-scared of them, half-linked with them, and didn’t know which feeling was most real. I reached inside my shirt and held the rings for a moment in my cupped hand. Thomas’s face, flat and beautifully misshapen, rippled in me like a reflection in water. There was a boy at my side, trying to push a cow out of the \yay Thomas’s face stretched unrecognizably on the moving water. The boy came suddenly around the cow and tore my chain off my neck. I screamed; the boy flashed

down the street. I was after him. My legs are long and I almost had him, but I couldn’t grab him because Sonny was screaming, forgotten, in my arms. I darted back to Katya, who was standing motionless, and thrust Sonny at her. The boy was a quick pixilation of limbs, disappearing. Katya shouted, “Janice!” and I ran. The boy was bright movement that I chased like an animal with a single instinct. I turned a corner, stumbled into a pothole full of warm brown water, and nearly fell. I staggered and bent to catch myself with my hands. I looked up; he was gone. I whipped my head around, looking, my instinct trying to leap in every direction—but it had nothing to leap at. I panted raggedly, sweat running in my eyes, my instinct exiting through my eyes as I stared around, wild. Women holding children stared back at me. Faces peered from the broken hole of a window. Skeleton dogs, fierce and cringing watched with starving eyes. My instinct felt them all as it felt itself: quick force in slow mammal bodies; soft brain in hard bone; a machine of thoughts; a machine of sex. The dark radiance of emotions; the personality; eyes, nose, mouth. You, specifically. A little boy with a large round head pointed at me and said words I couldn’t understand. My instinct broke; everything that had been joined was now in pieces again. I put my face in my hands and cried like an animal.

I came out of the alley to find my way back to Katya. I tried to stop making noise. I couldn’t. I felt people following me. I understood. The current had reversed. As I had chased the boy. they would follow me. They would kill me. I heard myself sobbing. Thomas was dead. I had let him die. They would kill me. It was right.

"Miss? Miss?” A small voice was at my side, gently tugging me without touching me. “Miss? What’s wrong miss?”

I looked at the voice. There were two young girls, maybe thirteen years old, tagging at my side. They were dressed in school uniforms. Their faces were soft but intensely focused. I wiped my face; I glanced behind me. There was a small crowd following me, made up mostly of teenage girls and a few boys with curious faces. I turned to face them. “My husband died,” I said. “He died and somebody stole our wedding rings. Now I don’t have anything.” Tears ran down my face—human tears now. “I have to find my friend and her baby. Thank you.”

The girls nodded gravely. I continued to walk. One girl followed me. “It will be all right,” she said. “God will help you.”

I said, “Thank you, honey.” Machine-gun fire sounded in the distance. The girl dropped away.

“Janice!” It was Katya, rounding a corner, Sonny in her arms. She said, “What happened? Why did you do that?”

“I was robbed. That boy took my wedding rings. I couldn’t catch him.”

“Then we need to call the police.”

If she hadn’t been holding Sonny, I would’ve slapped her. Do you know how stupid you sound?” I said. “Call the police?” “Janice—”

“Look around you!” I was trembling, still dripping tears with no force. “They’re in the middle of a war and you think the police are going to come because of my rings?”

“Janice—”

“Shut up!”

I turned to get away, to go back to the B and B. In my head was Thomas well and virile, Thomas sick, our house with its marble shower, its riches of detail, its condiments and candies, paintings and knickknacks, baskets on the wall, baskets from all over the world, from places we had traveled together, shelves of books, the books he had written, the languages he had spoken, his children,

my students— Now I don’t have anything. But once I’d had everything; I had betrayed everything so I could fuck somebody I didn’t love, “Stop.” Someone touched my arm from behind; I turned. A very small old man stood before me.

“What?” I asked, or thought.

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t cry. Please. It’s okay.” He said “Please,” but his eyes had an expression of command. I lifted my hand to wipe my eyes. He reached out and took it. He held it palm up; he put my rings in my hand and closed my fingers over them. “Okay?” he said.

“But how—M m

He shook his head and said, "Just don’t cry. Okay?”

I stopped crying. He turned to go.

“Wait,” I said. “There was a chain, too?”

He turned his head and looked hard at me.

"The rings were on a chain. Do you know about that?”

He shook his head and walked away.

Years later, I told this story at a party at the university. I told it to a woman who had traveled extensively in Africa. She was a big woman, very grand, with a high chest and a chunky necklace made of precious stones. When I told her how I had lost my rings and how the old man had given them back, she made a face. She said, "Really, you make too big a fuss of yourself. You should not go to Africa and then make such a fuss.” I answered her vaguely. I let myself be chastised. Because in that room, she was right. In that room, I was a privileged and foolish woman running around bawling about rings while a whole city fell apart and people were killed.

But I didn’t meet the old man in that room. I met him in a place of biblical times and modern times, where people walked back

and forth between times, all times. In this place, I walked back and forth between the time of the living and the time of the dead. In the middle of my walking, war broke out, and the path between I the living and the dead opened up and everything dear to me fell down the crack. I fell, too, and I might’ve fallen forever—but the I old man came and said, “Stop.” And I stopped.

That same night at the university, another person asked, “Did you thank him?” And I was amazed to realize I didn’t know. Probably I did not. How could I? Thanking him would have been like thanking an angel.

I sit in my darkened house sometimes, holding a glass of wine, and I thank him.

The next day, we rode through the streets, crouched on the floor of a car Yonas had borrowed from his uncle. We rode to the American embassy, sharing the car with five Ethiopians, women and girls whom Yonas was taking “to safety.” He didn’t dare drive his cab lest taxi drivers striking on behalf of the protestors turn it over and-burn it. But there were no taxis in the street, no cars, no people. There were huge high trucks full of soldiers in camouflage with automatic weapons. Still, the Ethiopian women sat on the seat and we crouched on the floor, hiding the whiteness that declared us paying customers. One of the women, a girl really, held Sonny against her breast. A military truck passed close by, bristling with guns. The girl holding our baby looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. Katya pressed her forehead to the sweat-drenched seat and stretched her hand up to clasp Sonny’s foot as though it were a hand.

Outside, the embassy was surrounded by guards with machine guns; inside, it was jammed with frightened people and officials

behind windows. We took a number and waited. Waiting next to
_us
was an American doctor who had been on emergency-room duty when gunshot victims began to come in. He was calm, overcalm, but he smelled like fear, and when he got up to one of the windows, he began talking loud and fast, telling someone, really everyone, that there had been many killings, many more than the reported twenty-five. The whole room smelled of fear. Something was missing from Sonny’s file, and Katya was shouting at someone, her jaw moving like cheap animation on her stark chalk white face, her body giving off a smell that was nearly savage, the smell of something ready to attack. She turned to me suddenly and I flinched. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll be back.” She was already dialing Yonas on her cell.