Haben Page 3

  Girma goes on, “What you have to understand, Haben, is that the Eritrean struggle was a justified one. A large neighbor tried to squash and silence a small neighbor. You don’t have to be Eritrean to understand what the Eritrean people went through. Whether one is American, German, or Vietnamese, one can understand the story of a small group of people fighting for their freedom against a larger, more powerful group. What the Ethiopian government did to the Eritrean people was unjust.”

  “Did you know about the war when you were growing up in Addis Ababa?” I ask.

  “No, I hardly knew about it. At the time, the fighting was only in Eritrea. I grew up with Ethiopian—”

  “When you visited Keren, you learned about what was happening in Eritrea,” Saba says.

  Girma continues: “When I was in Ethiopia, the culture, the people, everything was spoken and written in Amharic. The Ethiopian government claimed Eritrea was part of Ethiopia. When my family visited Eritrea, though, it felt like a different country. Everyone spoke Tigrinya, for example. It’s true that there was guerrilla warfare, but I was very young—the knowledge I had then was limited. We would go to Keren and go hiking, swimming, having fun with my friends. I didn’t know about the politics. Then, when I got older, I heard about Ethiopian soldiers burning villages and hurting innocent people, and I knew that was wrong.”

  “How did you manage to cross the Eritrean-Ethiopian border if there was a war going on?” I wonder aloud.

  “At that time, Eritrea was the fourteenth province of Ethiopia. We didn’t need permission to travel to Eritrea. It was like going from California to Nevada. The fighting started in ’61, but it didn’t become a full-scale war until the seventies. By then I was attending college in California.”

  “What was school like in Ethiopia?”

  “I went to St. Joseph’s, a Catholic school. We had good teachers. Haile Selassie’s grandkids went there, too.”

  Haile Selassie was the last emperor of Ethiopia. His full title reflects the mix of fear and reverence he commanded around the world: “By the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Elect of God.” Haile Selassie traced his lineage to Menelik I, the son of King Solomon of ancient Israel, and Makeda, the queen of Sheba. After World War II, Haile Selassie ordered his military to prevent Eritrean self-determination. He passed away in 1975, though the war with Eritrea continued for another sixteen years.

  “Haile Selassie came to the school when they opened a new building. We all gathered to hear him speak. He encouraged us to continue our education—he always supported education. He handed out degrees to the university graduates, and my sister received her degree from him. He also gave my father a medal for being an Arbenya.”

  “A what?”

  “Arbenya. It means like a hero, a patriot. During World War II, the Italians colonized Ethiopia, Eritrea, and part of Somalia. My father was a businessman in Djibouti at the time, and on the side he helped pass on information about the Italians to Haile Selassie. What they were doing, where they stationed troops, what weapons they used, stuff like that. He was helping Haile Selassie push the Italians out. Italians prevented Eritreans and Ethiopians from going to school past the fifth grade, and forbade them from walking on the same side of the street as an Italian. Your grandfather led a group of young men in Eritrea who resisted Italian colonization. That’s what we mean by Arbenya.”

  “Wow. I wish I had met Grandpa Kidane. Why didn’t you stay there? Why didn’t you go to college in Ethiopia?”

  “Ethiopia had just one university, and only students in the top one percent of their class gained admission. I was in the top ten percent of my class—good, but not good enough. My older sister Hannah had already gone to California, so that’s why my father wanted me to go to school there. He gave me two hundred dollars—that was all I had to start my life.”

  “He could have given you more!” Saba says. “Your father was rich.” Grandpa Kidane ran a successful business producing an Ethiopian liquor called areki. “Why only two hundred dollars?”

  “The Ethiopian government set a limit of two hundred dollars. They wanted to prevent people from moving out of the country. After I left, Ethiopia became a communist state and the government confiscated my father’s properties.” He pauses, remembering. “But my biggest struggle in America had nothing to do with money. In Addis, I had thirteen brothers and sisters. In San Francisco, I only had my sister Hannah, and she soon moved to Las Vegas with her boyfriend. I worked as a busboy at a burger place called Zim’s, and took classes at City College. My studio in San Francisco felt like a jail cell. The loneliness almost killed me.”

  “Haben, do you know what happened?” Saba giggles. “His sister told me this: When he got to America, Girma couldn’t cook! He didn’t even know how to clean! At your grandfather’s house, he had people to cook and clean for him. So, one day, your grandfather called Girma in America and asked if he should send him a housekeeper, and Girma was like, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’”

  I burst into hysterics. “No way! Girma, how did you manage?”

  He chuckles, remembering his early mistakes. “I burned a lot of pots. I burned a lot of skillets. All while just trying to cook spaghetti and tibs.” Tibs are pieces of meat covered in Ethiopian herbs—spicy and delicious. “But really, I didn’t care about food. I didn’t care about money. In America, I hated the loneliness. I missed my family in Ethiopia.”

  Sitting here with these stories I can feel the similarities between their struggles with war and loss, and my struggles as a Deafblind girl in a sighted, hearing world. Saba developed the internal strength to resist an oppressive regime and survive the dangerous journey of a refugee. My father gained the courage to leave the comforts of his home—seeking independence in a strange and lonely country, practicing self-reliance over a plate of burnt spaghetti. My parents found a way through injustice, and I will, too.

  Chapter Four

  Gender and a Load of Bull

  Asmara, Eritrea. Summer 2001.

  A soul-warming sun radiates over Asmara, but my sister TT and I can’t feel it. We’re huddled in our grandmother’s semi-dark living room, hiding.

  The women in my family, including my mother, Saba, are all in the kitchen preparing food for my aunt’s wedding. They plan to mince an enormous pile of onions, onions that release tear-inducing fumes. Saba told TT and me to join. We snuck off to the place in the house farthest from the kitchen.

  “I’m bored!” I whine.

  “I’m bored!” TT echoes. Nine-year-old TT loves animals and exploring the world, just like me. She’s a few inches shorter than me, wears glasses, and is sighted and hearing. Still, our relatives frequently mix up our names. Often they just call both of us “TTHaben” or “HabenTT.”

  A family friend named Rimon sits across from us in an armchair. Ten years old, he’s the perfect age between TT and me. He lives here in Asmara.

  “Rimon, what should we do?” I ask.

  “I don’t know!” He sounds frustrated, too.

  I fall back against the sofa and close my eyes. Whatever we do, we need to avoid the kitchen. The kitchen is a one-room building in the backyard. The large backyard has fruit trees, a chicken coop, and now for the first time this summer, a bull.

  I sit up. “We could go see the bull! I mean, all the cartoons say bulls don’t like the color red, so we could find out if it’s true or not. It’ll be like a scientific experiment! And if Saba says anything, we’ll just tell her it’s educational.”

  “Wait, what?” Rimon couldn’t follow my English.

  I stand up and point to the other side of the room. “Over there, bull,” I say, in my best broken Tigrinya. I point to where I am standing, “Me, here.” I grab a sweater off the couch and wave it energetically. “Toro! Toro!”

  “Aha! Yes!” Rimon leaps out of his chair.

  “Wait! We need something red!” I point to the sweater. “Keih.” Red.

  “Oh, okay. Whe
re can we find red?” he asks.

  “Follow me!” I race out into the hall, moving with memory and residual vision. I turn left into our bedroom. The house has three bedrooms, and my parents, TT, and I share one of them.

  Once inside, I open our suitcase. Every item has a different texture, a different shape, a different style. My hands search through the clothes, and finally I pull out a top that meets our color requirements.

  “That’s my shirt!” TT says.

  Technically it’s mine—it just doesn’t fit me anymore. “We’re only going to hold it. It’ll be fine.”

  TT crosses her arms, a begrudging concession.

  I lead the way out of the bedroom, across the hall, and into a second bedroom. This one has a window overlooking the part of the backyard where the bull awaits his fate. Leaning over the windowsill, I squint at the dark colors below.

  “Can you see it?” I ask.

  “Yes.” TT has her keep-me-out-of-this voice. I immediately know it would be pointless to ask for descriptions like, how big is it? How long are the horns? Has it spotted us? But maybe she’ll answer this one:

  “He’s tied up, right?”

  TT ignores me.

  I turn to Rimon. “Is he tied up?”

  “Yeah, he’s tied,” says Rimon. “So, are you going to do it?” Beneath his question I hear another one: Are you brave enough to try?

  The challenge urges me on, flooding courage into my arms. I hang the red shirt out the window, shake it, and run back inside.

  Nothing happens.

  I try it again, this time holding it out longer, vigorously waving the red shirt.

  Nothing happens.

  “We have to go outside,” I tell Rimon and TT.

  “No!” TT blocks the door. “You can’t, it’s not safe!”

  “TT, don’t worry,” I assure her. “He’s tied up. He can’t do anything.”

  “Yes he can! We’re gonna get killed!”

  Her fear stirs up mine. Are his horns that long? What has she seen? What if I misjudge the length of the ropes and get too close?

  My desire to explore the world outweighs my doubts. “TT, how about this: you stay in here and watch us through the window. If anything happens, you can be the hero and call for help. Rimon and I will go outside, but we’ll be careful. I promise.”

  TT stands there, blocking the door.

  “TT, please,” Rimon says.

  Still not speaking, she stomps away from the door.

  Rimon and I skid to a stop at the corner of the house just before the bull’s part of the backyard. Stepping around that corner will bring us within feet of the animal.

  I shove the red shirt into Rimon’s arms. “Here, you first!”

  “Hey!” He pushes the shirt back at me. “No, you first!”

  I try to give it back to him, but he stays well out of my reach. I suddenly realize that TT can hear us through the window. She deserves a fearless sister, a role model.

  Summoning my courage, I take two steps forward. Somewhere in the space in front of me is a big bad bull. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I realize I don’t know the exact location of the animal. My feet feel for any vibrations from its movement. Nothing. Since I can’t see or hear the bull, I need the next best thing: feeling the ground shake when the bull roars.

  I raise the red shirt in front of me and shake it, waving it to the left, to the right, to the front…

  “He’s not doing anything!” I complain to Rimon.

  Rimon snatches the red shirt and takes my place in front of the bull. “Toro!” He jumps up and down waving the red shirt in the air. “Toro! Toro! Toro!” All the jumping looks like a wild dance. A piss-off-the-beast dance. A guaranteed-to-get-a-response dance.

  “RIMON!” a woman yells.

  At that exact moment, I remember that people in the kitchen have a clear view of the bull. Oops.

  Rimon and I run back into the living room where TT meets us. Laughing, we recount the adventure to one another, comparing all three perspectives. Rimon earns top marks for his daring performance. I win points for my brilliant idea. TT admits it wasn’t a bad idea. After all, we managed to avoid cooking!

  Preparations for the wedding intensify over the next two days. My backyard has transformed into an obstacle course of wine barrels and construction materials. Worst of all, the backyard smells atrocious after the bull’s slaughter. I no longer walk through the backyard alone for fear of stepping in something disgusting or walking into hanging bull parts.

  The bedroom feels safe. No dead animals dripping blood. No invisible wires trying to trip me up. No exasperated relatives wondering why I don’t recognize them. In here, I can relax.

  Someone opens the bedroom door.

  Placing a bookmark in my braille book, I brace myself for a conversation.

  The person walks over to the closet and starts searching through it. She’s wearing a netsela, a traditional white scarf that covers the wearer’s hair and upper body. Usually only Grandma Awiye wears the netsela around the house, but right now all the adult women wear them out of respect for the visiting elders. With all of the women covered in white and all of them being practically the same height, I can’t tell them apart. So I wait for a clue.

  The woman closes the closet door and walks over to me. “What are you doing in here? You need to help us prepare!” It’s Saba.

  “I will! As soon as I finish this chapter.”

  “No, now. TT is cooking with us. Rimon is helping us set up the tent. Everybody’s asking me, ‘Where is Haben? Where is Haben?’ Everybody is working except you. Why are you refusing to help?”

  My face grows hot. Explaining my discomfort with all the obstacles out there feels impossible. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Come help us in the kitchen.”

  “No, I don’t want to become a Cinderella.”

  Saba laughs, a happy, musical sound. “What does that even mean?”

  “Look at Hiwet.” I name her youngest sister. “She spends almost all day cooking and cleaning like Cinderella. She hardly has a social life, and that’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not fair. But if everyone here helps with the work, then it won’t all be on Hiwet. See, that’s why we need you in the kitchen.”

  “But that’s how it starts! Once a girl goes to work in the kitchen, she’ll always work in the kitchen. Everybody will start asking her to ‘cook this, clean that, make this, bring that.’ If she ever asks for someone else to do a chore people just say, ‘Oh, but you’re so much better at it than me.’ I don’t want to become a Cinderella.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “I’m not opposed to doing chores, I just don’t want to do work that’s designated as girls’ work. What’s Teme doing?” I ask after her youngest brother.

  “Okay, let’s go find Teme.” She heads for the door and I follow close behind.

  Chaos greets us in the hallway. Loud animated voices come from the living room. We walk past it, stepping out into the backyard. Somewhere to our right is the doghouse and its occupant, a white spotted mutt named Hyatt. We go out the front gate to the unpaved street in front of the compound. The temperature drops from hot to warm as we step under a huge tent that blocks out the sun.

  Saba stops in front of a group sitting around a table. “Teme, Haben wants to help you.”

  “Wait…” I sniff the air, trying to identify the odd smell. “What are they doing?”

  “They’re cutting meat for the stew,” she says.

  My jaw drops. How can she do this after my stellar Cinderella speech?

  “Go sit down on the other side. Jessica is here, too.” Saba knows I love Jessica. My twenty-year-old cousin has entertained me with stories of college life in the Netherlands.

  Squeezing onto a bench at the table, I look around. There are about eight people at this table, guys to the left and right of me. I don’t know which one is Teme, but across from me and to the left is a lighter-skinned person who mu
st be Jessica. Every now and then someone reaches into a big pile in the middle. I touch the pile and discover sticky, hand-sized chunks of meat. A piece coats my palm with the sticky liquid as I transfer it to the cutting board in front of me.

  The guy to my right passes me a knife with a long and wide blade.

  “Here.” Saba puts a tiny piece of meat in my hand. “Make it that small, Cinderella.”

  “Don’t call me Cinderella.” My cheeks burn as I sense everyone at the table staring at me, wondering why Saba called me Cinderella. They wouldn’t dare. If one of them calls me that name…

  I position the chunk of meat in front of me so the shorter side faces perpendicular to my knife. My fingers estimate a small section to chop off.

  How rude of these boys to not identify themselves. They should say hi.

  My right hand positions the knife just past the fingers on my left hand. I start sawing the meat, putting weight into my right hand. The blade suddenly connects with the cutting board, which means it’s gone all the way through the meat. I scrape the cut piece aside with the blade, clearing space for the next one. With my left hand, I estimate another section and reposition the knife.

  This must be the big bad bull.

  Slicing all the way through, I push this small piece to the side.

  Remember how you humiliated me, bull? Remember?

  Finding a rhythm, my fingers start to move faster. I cut piece after piece, building a little pile.

  You learned things the hard way—ignoring me was a deadly mistake!

  Sawing furiously, I finish the last piece.

  While I work, the guys talk around me. Mumble, mumble. Fine, be that way. Don’t include me in your conversations.

  I snatch another chunk of meat from the large pile and start cutting again.

  The group bursts into laughter. Murmurs. Muttering. More laughter.

  I keep my head down while I work. I hate missing out. I hate exclusion. I hate cooking.