Desta 3- Chapter 1

No school certificate. No kinfolk in town or in the countryside to live with or lend him support. Not enough money to pay for his room and board. No one to affirm that Desta hadn’t just sprung from the bare earth like a weed, or washed onto a riverbank like driftwood.

His sore feet and burning legs were the wages of yesterday’s twelve-hour trek from Yeedib to Finote Selam. He had come to continue his modern education and search for the second Coin of Magic and Fortune.

He was staying with his school friend Fenta and his family. In the wee hours of morning, he awoke in the outbuilding he shared with Fenta and began thinking about his past fears and current problems.

He had finished fourth grade in Yeedib two years earlier, but stayed in school there, having found no one to sponsor him in the bigger towns where he could advance through eighth grade. His country family didn’t see the value of modern schooling; they felt Desta should fend for himself, the way church students do, and he couldn’t depend on their help.

For Desta, self-reliance meant first having faith in himself and the world. Second, it meant learning to solve his own problems and overcome his challenges.

In the two years he spent stuck in fourth grade, Desta built and flew his own aircraft. This experience had given him the confidence he needed to leave town to further his dreams. And Desta’s belief in the benevolence of strangers had spurred his plan to journey to Finote Selam for the start of the second semester in January 1964.

Then, as if to ratify his convictions, a mysterious secondary-school teacher, a Ferenge—white man—sent an emissary, a student named Mehiret, to bring him to the town of his dreams near the end of the first semester. The Ferenge lived in the province’s capital 150 miles away, and Desta had no idea who he was or why he had sent for him.

No matter, Desta readily accepted the invitation, knowing that being in the wider world was the only way to encounter the kind of people who could help him pursue his goals.

But now that he was in Finote Selam, faith and belief seemed very far from reality. He had no idea how to find the benevolent people of his imagination. And he would need support not for a semester or two, but four years—from fifth through eighth grade. It seemed like a pipe dream. Where could he possibly find strangers to help him for so long?

He knew, too, that his previous experience living with people did not bode well for his future in this new town, where he knew only Fenta. Desta’s heart sank.

He might work part time to support himself, but in Yeedib there had been few jobs for adults, let alone a fourteen-year-old boy. Desta shivered to think that his problems might reduce him to a homeless beggar.

And he had come here without his transfer certificate. Suddenly, all looked as dark and void as the pitch-black night he now stared into.

Fears and doubts he had never felt before seized him. He was too small to face the world on his own, without family or mentors, like
Masud of Dangila. He might get sick, or be hurt by bullies at school, or in town; adults might exploit his vulnerabilities.

He turned and lay on his back, gazing into the darkness, as his mind devolved into another realm. Trying to bring himself back, he placed his fingers over his forehead and drew a line to the tip of his nose. This settled Desta’s mind and helped him focus on his problems, and his feelings about them.

He wondered how close night was to dawn. He wondered if there were roosters nearby to signal the hours before daybreak. The cock’s crow would remind him of familiar places and calm his nerves in this strange city. Ears cued, he waited for the herald, but no rooster crowed. He wondered if people in Finote Selam didn’t keep poultry, or if the night had halted and the roosters patiently awaited its advance.

Dawn finally arrived but no rooster had crowed.

A tear welled and trickled down the side of his face. It cascaded into his ear and slid down the lobe, trailing his neck, and finally nestled in the hollow between his collarbones. It felt like thawed ice, and its course made Desta think about how far he’d come, and the distance he had yet to go.

A faint, faraway voice came to him, packed with words he didn’t grasp at first. “Have you already forgotten who your family really is?” It asked imperatively. Desta lifted his head and listened again. The voice urgently commanded him to answer.

“The coin,” Desta said, finally.

“And its image on your chest,” the voice added. “You should know by now that from here on, the world is your family. The coin is your protector and guide. No family, relatives, or friends will travel with you, but the shekel and its image will.”

Desta rose, went to the door, and opened it. Thick eucalyptus trees shaded much of the ground beyond the leaf-strewn courtyard. He stared at the trees and considered the message he’d just heard. What he needed right now wasn’t a clairvoyant declaring Desta’s infallible future, but consoling arms and soothing words.

The air was motionless. The abundant eucalyptuses lent a familiar feel. They were everywhere in Yeedib and Dangila, too. . . .

After Desta and Fenta had breakfast, the friend left for school. “I need to get there before the gate closes, at nine sharp,” he said. “My uncle will bring you to register. . . . I’ll see you at the midmorning break.”

“I hope so,” Desta said, looking away.

“Don’t be pessimistic,” Fenta said. “I’m sure the director will accept you, even at midterm. He has great respect for students from our little school.”

Desta sat on a bench outside the entrance and waited for Ato—Mr.—Bizuneh, a stern, quiet man whom he had seen only in passing when the family lived in Yeedib.

Ato Bizuneh approached and asked, “Do you have your notebooks and transfer document from your school?”

Desta rose and said he had his notebooks but not the certificate. He explained why.

Ato Bizuneh’s chubby cheeks trembled, his eyes studying him. “I’m afraid they may not admit you, then.” He hesitated. “We can try. . . .” His voice dragged. “The director is not an easy man, but we can at least see what he says.”

A searing wave went through Desta. He wanted to ask why not, but he realized what Ato Bizuneh’s answer would be. He left the question hanging on his tongue, and it rolled out under his breath as he shook his head.

Ato Bizuneh placed his big hand on Desta’s small shoulder. “Cheer up. We’ve not talked to the director yet. Let’s go quick. I need to get back to my office soon.”

Desta followed. Once they emerged from the shady grounds and moved south on the main road, they found the day in full bloom. This was November, one of the dry months when the sun shone blissfully.

The straight road that came into town from below arrested Desta’s gaze, just like the day before. He traced its linear course, musing that his life in this new town would be as straight, flawless, and unimpeded. The notion consoled him.

Farther down, the road became an arrow that pierced a circle, splitting the town’s center in half. On the left, shops, teahouses, and food places lined the perimeter. On the right, a mammoth warka tree claimed much of the half circle, behind which squat grass-roof homes sprouted next to tin-roof buildings. Eucalyptus trees swayed here and there. Desta loved the giant warka, the same kind of tree where he’d first met his grandfather’s spirit, and where the mystery of his family’s past and his own future began to unfold. The town was slowly growing on Desta.

The school was situated on the south side of the plaza. Bound by a wire fence, the campus seemed the original settler, the town growing around it.

A dusty sidewalk ran along the fence, parallel with the road. Between sidewalk and road was a strip of grass where thorn bushes grew freely, their leaves dry and shriveled from the sun. The grass looked as if it had gone without water for years.

The sidewalk led the visitors to the school’s entrance. Closed double iron doors were moored to stout stone pillars. Behind the gate stood a serious guard in a gray jacket and shorts with a long leather whip in his hand.

“Registering a new student?” he asked, opening the doors partway.

Bizuneh replied that he was.

“Isn’t it a bit late? We’re already three-quarters into the semester.” The guard looked down at Desta.

“I know. Can we talk with the director just the same?”

“Sure. I know Ato Tedla will say it’s too late, but . . .” He lifted the vertical latching rod and fully opened one door.

“You probably don’t remember me. My name is Bizuneh,” Desta’s host said, extending his hand to the guard.

“My name is Sitotaw,” the guard said. “Follow me.” He led the visitors along a stone walkway to a tall stone building that sat like a majestic bird, its roof like spreading wings. Beneath the high roof at the building’s center, a gray plaque read Haile Selassie the First Elementary School, in Amharic and English, the letters arching around the image of a flaming torch. It was the first such building Desta saw named after the emperor of his country.

On a grassy patch of earth to the left, a green, yellow, and red flag rippled gently in the breeze atop a silver pole. Three identical buildings sat to the right, past scattered oak trees.

They continued on the walkway, now flanked by rosebushes, some in bloom, filling the air with the scent of spring. The visitors followed Sitotaw up a half-dozen shallow steps and landed on a gleaming tile floor inside the stone building. Bizuneh’s hard shoes echoed through the hallway they now found themselves in. Desta loved the cool, smooth surface beneath his bare feet.

“Please wait here,” the guard said, pushing open a partially closed door. Moments later he invited the visitors in.

Tedla, a tall man with a slightly bulbous nose and neatly trimmed mustache, rose from his desk and, with a familiar air, shook hands with Bizuneh. Tedla wore a smoke-gray suit and crisply ironed white shirt. “Please sit down,” he said, motioning to a chair before his desk. A blue fountain pen with a brass nib lay squarely on a white pad of paper.

After Bizuneh sat and Desta stood next to him, the two men briefly engaged in small talk. Tedla soon brought up the obvious. “I suppose you want this young man to register,” Tedla said, his voice clipped, he glancing at Desta.

“Yes,” Bizuneh murmured guardedly.

“The students will be taking end-term exams in three weeks. It won’t be fair to the boy if we accept him now. Though the curriculum is the same countrywide, each school and instructor teaches the lessons differently. . . . So I’m afraid he’ll have to wait for the second semester in January.”

“I realize that, but . . .” Bizuneh trailed off.

“There is just no point to his being in class this late in the term,” Tedla said, filling the void.

“I mean, if you could let him sit in class, he can still learn something I’m sure. He traveled all day hoping to enroll at your school.”

“Traveling all day—where did he come from?” Tedla asked, his voice rising a notch.

“The high country—Yeedib, the little town where we lived before coming here.”

A smile passed Tedla’s face. “Where students get 150 out of 100 on their exams!”

Seeing Bizuneh at a loss, the director said, “There is a running joke here about the Yeedib school director. When students complain about their grades, the teacher often replies, ‘You mean, I should give meto amsa inde Aba Goosa?’—150 out of 100, like Aba Goosa?” Tedla chuckled. “I actually have seen 150 for a grade on some report cards from that school.” Tedla now openly laughed. When he realized he was the only one laughing, he stopped.

He leaned forward as if confiding a secret. “The story is, Aba Yifter Goosa had been a priest. He doesn’t have formal training in modern academics and doesn’t know much about percents and fractions. So we often see grades higher than 100 for his good students. Because of his age, somebody nicknamed him Aba Goosa—an old monk who lives in the forest. And so the joke persists among the teachers here.”

“Aha,” Bizuneh said awkwardly. A polite smile spread across his face.

“He is brilliant otherwise, a strict disciplinarian. All his students are well mannered and good academically,” Tedla said, to mollify Bizuneh, whose nephews were students of the well-respected Yifter.

Desta couldn’t agree more with Tedla about the stern teacher. He could still see Aba Yifter’s fierce brown eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses as he stood by the door of his old school, meting punishment with his chenger—a twig whip—to any late student, or hitting a boy on the head with a ruler for idleness or talking in class. Any student who had not done his homework got the same treatment.

“Let me show you what I mean,” Tedla said, eyeing Desta. “If this boy is a good student, we are likely to find grades above a hundred.” Tedla placed an outstretched palm on his desk.

Desta fidgeted on his feet. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get a chance to bring my transfer certificate,” he mumbled under his breath.

“No certificate then?!” Tedla exclaimed.

“As I understand, events beyond his control abruptly took him here. He had been a classmate of Fenta, my nephew. I understand he is a good student. He has finished fourth grade at the top of his class. Regarding the documents you seek, we can easily arrange to have them sent,” Bizuneh interjected.

“Students who come from that school generally are very good, but they don’t learn much beyond arithmetic, Amharic, and some English. Our students learn science, geography, and history—and all in English, starting in the third grade. This boy wouldn’t have a rudimentary knowledge of these subjects.

“Like I mentioned, he should spend Christmas at home, and come back in January with his certificate and report card. There is no more discussion,” Tedla said, withdrawing his palm. He raised and capped his pen, slipping it in the breast pocket of his jacket to indicate the visitors were dismissed.

Desta’s eyes brimmed.

Bizuneh rose awkwardly. He looked down at Desta. “We need to honor Ato Tedla’s wishes. It’s only a month, and it will go very fast,” he said, bending down a little.

Dejected, Desta and Bizuneh left the director’s office. Bizuneh walked briskly to the gate, Desta trotting behind. Outside, Bizuneh stopped and turned to him. “I’ll find someone from Yeedib who’s here for court or business, and you can go back with them. Then you’ll return in January with all the things Ato Tedla asked for. Ishee—okay?”

Desta hung his head and drew lines in the dust with his big toe as he contemplated Bizuneh’s suggestion.

“What do you think?” Bizuneh said, nudging Desta’s shoulder.

“Can I give you my answer later?”

“You don’t have to answer me now or even later, I’m just repeating what Ato Tedla said. Go home. I’ll see you when I come for lunch.”
Bizuneh shuffled off, gravel crunching beneath his big feet.

 

Desta was glad to be alone. He watched for a few moments as Bizuneh walked up the gravel road and then across the eastern portion of the plaza past the warka tree. He took a divergent path and soon vanished into the trees. And now that the director refused to accept him, Desta decided not to go back to campus and see Fenta at his midmorning break.

The pleasant morning sun now felt cloying. Desta could see road dust shimmer in the heat. Instead of going home, he made his way to the warka tree to sit under its spreading branches and think.

Once there, he sat on a bench facing the shops, restaurants, and teahouses across the road and past the open, bare earth. His eyes intensely probed the distance as his mind reeled. He was not sure who or what to blame for his lot: himself, the white man who sent for him, his dire circumstances, or the lack of relatives in faraway towns. But it was his family’s indifference to his efforts that had moved him to seize the offer to come to Finote Selam—conveyed by a stranger at the behest of a man Desta had never heard of. Relying on nothing more, Desta had dropped everything and left Yeedib.

The white man, an American named David Hartman, had provided him with fifty birr, but his intentions were a mystery. Desta blamed himself for coming to Finote Selam before learning more about him. And he regretted having a family who never understood him, his needs, or his ambitions.

But as dismal as his situation seemed, Desta thought coming here late in the semester might not be a waste of time. He had learned a lesson from his mistake. Now that he was here, he needed to find a solution to his problem. He knew there was no going back—no matter what happened. He had no desire to celebrate Christmas with his hosts in Yeedib, or on his own in the country.

His mind went to the Ferenge man, for whom he reserved judgment. He needed to meet him somehow. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the card Mehiret had left him. He studied the text on the little white rectangle, trying to pronounce the words.

He studied each letter, then whispered “Da-vid Hart-man” under his breath. He incorrectly said “ən-iversity” for “u-niversity,” recalling the u sound in “under” and “unknown.” He pronounced “Che-ca-go” for “Chicago” and “p-hone” for the word “phone.” And he didn’t know what “phone” was or what the number next to it meant. The text was as meaningless as the names and the man. He put away the card and reached for the five red bills Mehiret said the man had sent. He fanned them in his hand and concentrated on the intricate patterns on their surfaces, and the ever-peremptory presence of Emperor Haile Selassie in their centers.

Then he thought of their value to him. Regardless of their purchasing power, they meant no more than the white man’s card. They didn’t come from a parent or sister or brother, neither from a dear uncle nor an aunt, but from a man he hadn’t met, of unclear intentions, from another country, who seemed to take much for granted.

Desta pulled the bills together, folded them, and put them away. He passed his right hand over his heart. He would find people who needed a shop attendant or an errand boy.

He rose and walked toward the shops across the road. He came to a clothing store, where a middle-aged woman stood behind the counter, knitting a sweater. Her hands moved mechanically as she talked, glancing down occasionally at the long needles. She said her own children helped around the house and the shop.

Desta approached more shopkeepers, offering his services, but no one had need of him. The smell of food from the restaurants made his stomach growl. He was greatly tempted to spend the money in his pocket, but his forbearance against his desire was greater. After blundering along for some time around the plaza looking for a job, Desta looked down at his shadow, a circular gray blob around his feet, indicating midday, the time students and office workers came home for lunch. He needed to give Bizuneh his decision. And he would share with Fenta the outcome of their meeting with the director.

He crossed diagonally from the first row of shops to the second, perpendicular to the first. In front of the corner building, near the turn for Bizuneh’s house, he saw a corpulent young man standing near a flatbed scale, his head down as if laden with thoughts. Along the wall was a pile of bulging sacks.

Desta stopped. “Excuse me, my name is Desta. Would you by any chance need an errand boy?” he asked, trying to sound casual, hopes dwindling.

The man looked up with a start. “Right now I don’t, but on Saturdays I would,” he said hesitantly.

“What would I have to do?”

“I need boys who can pull the farmers’ donkeys when they come from the country loaded with grains.”

The merchant studied Desta. “But I need someone bigger and stronger—and a good talker. Sometimes the farmers or the donkeys are not cooperative.”

“How much do you pay?”

“Twenty-five cents for every donkey you pull.”

Desta thought about the offer, computing quickly in his head how many donkeys he would have to pull to earn his weekly meals. Ten donkeys would be two and a half birr. If the restaurants here sold twenty-five-cent meals, he could cover five days of food. Four more donkeys would make a week’s worth.

Satisfied, he asked, “When can I start?”

“Next Saturday . . . if the work appeals, but you’ll see it’s not easy. And it’s competitive. I have other boys who do this kind of work for me. Come early Saturday morning, and we will go to my veranda near the market.

“I’ll . . .” Desta started to say, trying hard not to show his excitement.

“Better yet . . . ,” the man said, as he walked over to Desta. “My name is Amare. Come here tomorrow and I’ll take you to my veranda. That way you can see where it is.”

“Okay, thank you,” Desta said, turning and walking off briskly.

When he arrived at his host’s home, neither Ato Bizuneh nor Fenta had returned yet. Senayit was busy in the kitchen preparing lunch. Fenta was the first to arrive. “What happened? I didn’t see you at school,” he asked Desta.

Fenta shook his head once his friend told him. “So what’re you going to do?” he asked.

“Well, stay put,” Desta replied, smiling. “Look, I’d already decided not to return to Yeedib for December and come back here after Christmas, as the director suggested. I won’t ever look back again.

“When things didn’t work out in Dangila, I went back to our little school, because I trusted father’s advice to live only with relatives. But I won’t find them everywhere I go. I’ve accepted my fate, and I believe there are good people in this world who’ll treat me like their own. I had a taste of this in Dangila, and I have faith I will find good people here.”

Fenta dropped his books on the table and sat down. He stared at Desta, registering the deep emotion that tinged his words. “I’ve no doubt you’ll find people to live with, like I said last night. I’m just sorry that the director didn’t accept you for this semester.”

“It’s not over yet. I plan to see him by myself tomorrow. And I’ve already found work with a merchant, pulling farmers’ loaded donkeys for him on Saturdays. He’ll pay me twenty-five cents per animal.”

“You’re amazing!” Fenta said. He sat back and stared at Desta in awe.

The two years Desta wasted in Yeedib repeating fourth grade flashed in his head. “No, I’m not amazing. This is what can happen when you rely only on yourself,” Desta replied sharply. “Well, I still have to find someone to live with,” he added, his voice flagging.

“You’ve not been here a full day, yet you’re halfway there,” Fenta said, smiling. “If you find someone to live with by the evening, I won’t be surprised.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Desta lobbed back. “I’ll find a family, but I’ll probably need a week. I want to talk to more people before I decide. I’d be grateful if you’d ask your aunt and uncle whether I might sleep with you in the kitchen house until I find a family to live with. I’ll see what I can do for my meals.”

“You can stay with us as long as it takes to find someone. I’m sure they won’t mind. Aunt and Uncle were happy to see you. My nephew Sayfu used to live and eat here. Aunt Senayit knows about your family situation, and your hosts in Yeedib. She will be offended if you don’t eat with us.”

“Thanks. This arrangement would be of great help to me.”

Bizuneh arrived. “Good afternoon, boys,” he said, and walked past them. He seemed preoccupied.

After lunch, Bizuneh took a nap. Fenta and Desta left for their sleeping quarters in the kitchen house. Fenta studied for his afternoon exam, while Desta lay on his back and thought about how to convince the director to let him start school straight away.

After Fenta left for school, Desta prepared for his morning meeting with the director. He went through his pouch and pulled out all his recent exam papers, as well as his unofficial report card and the commendation letters from his teachers. He took out the parchment and recited the legends around the coin while visualizing meeting the director and gaining admission to the school. In another round of recitation, he saw himself meeting a loving and kind couple who would take him in. This done, he folded and returned the parchment and documents to the pouch. Encouraged by his morning success, he left for the center of town, determined to speak with more people.

To his amazement, he found everyone extremely friendly. They seemed intrigued by a boy so young seeking work and lodging. Some asked if he’d lost his family in some catastrophe. Others wondered if he had run away from home.

Some shopkeepers and restaurant owners offered money or food; he refused both. He wanted work, not charity. One tall, handsome man named Aklilu, taken aback when Desta refused his money, said he knew a single woman in need of someone to mind her chickens while she visited her ailing mother in the country; and after her return, she might need a full-time errand boy. Desta would have to check back with Aklilu in a day or two to make sure the woman had not found someone else.

That night after Desta and Fenta went to the kitchen house to sleep, Fenta lay on his belly and studied, with the little kerosene lamp by his pillow. Desta lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He envied his friend, and his desire to join Fenta at school only made him more determined to plead his case with the director. Things had already started looking up; he would have work on Saturdays, and possibly a new home before long. Desta stayed awake while Fenta studied, and he closed his eyes the moment his friend blew out the light.

 

“WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE AGAIN?” Sitotaw asked when he found Desta standing at the gate.

“I want to speak with the director,” Desta replied, eyeing the man nervously.

“What for? I understand that the director told you to come back in January with all your documents. Do you have them already?” Sitotaw said, dropping his eyes on the stack of papers in Desta’s hands.

Desta said he didn’t, but he had something to show him.

“Let me see what you have,” Sitotaw said, putting out his hand.

Desta gave him the papers and watched the guard’s face intently for a reaction. The man bit his lip and slowly flipped through the pages, completely absorbed by what was before him. The report card held his attention the most.

“These are very good grades. . . . C’mon in,” the man said, smiling. “Let’s go to the director and see what he says.” When they got to the director’s office, he wasn’t there. Sitotaw told Desta to sit on the steps and walked away. Shortly before the flag ceremonies, the director emerged from behind the building, followed by Sitotaw. He had Desta’s documents in one hand.

Desta stood and waited nervously, hands crossed over his chest, the right pressed over his heart.

“You came back so quickly,” the director said with a smile.

“Awwe—yes.”

“This is what we’ll do. I’ll register you for fourth grade. You don’t need to take the exams, but you can sit in the classes and learn as much as you can for the rest of the month. Follow me.”

Desta wished he could kiss the man’s knee. Instead, he simply said, “Ishee,” and followed him. As soon as he registered Desta, the director took him to the fourth-grade classroom and sat him down at a desk with two other students. Desta had to fight hard from shedding tears of joy.