Escape Under the Forever Sky (10 page)

“Selassie had a dog?” I interrupted.

“Oh, yes, Lucy. Her name was Lulu, like your father's nickname for you. The emperor loved her very much. She slept in his bed every night and traveled with him always. However . . . Lulu was not
so well trained.”

I looked sharply at Iskinder and saw the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. The story was about to get good, I could tell. I stopped building.

“As I said, Lulu ran around the men's feet. And then, about halfway through their presentation, Lulu urinated on one of the men's shoes.”

“She did
what
!”

“Oh, it was not at all uncommon. In truth, Lulu urinated on visitors' feet nearly every day. Of course, the esteemed gentlemen had to pretend they did not notice. It would have been the height of disrespect to draw one's attention from the emperor himself or to suggest that his dog was ill behaved.”

“So all of them just had to stand there with pee on their shoes?”

“Oh no, Lucy. That would be dishonorable for the visitors.” Iskinder leaned back to consider the throne room that he had just completed. It included a seven of hearts we had covered with tin foil to make it look like Selassie's huge wall mirror, one that Iskinder told me had special distorting glass to make the emperor look taller. Satisfied, he started working on another
audience chamber. “No, Fasilidas would step in immediately and wipe the urine from the men's shoes with a purple satin cloth.”

“Wait. I'm sorry, Iskinder, I just have to make sure I understand you. Are you saying there was a man at the palace whose job was to wipe dog pee off dignitaries' shoes?”

“That is correct. Fasilidas was keeper of the cloth for ten years.” Iskinder held up two cards and rubbed them together. “Am I going to build this palace all by myself?”

“I'm sorry. This is all just so wild! You were pillow bearer, Fasilidas was keeper of the cloth. What other jobs did people have at the palace?”

“Well, perhaps the most powerful position was minister of the pen.”

I could just see it: a man in a little room surrounded by cups with pens of every variety—ballpoint, fountain, felt-tip, quill . . .

“Okay, I'll bite. What did the all-powerful minister of the pen do?”

“Now you will begin to understand the wisdom of King Haile Selassie. You see, Lucy, although the
emperor was able to read and to write, he never did so. Never. Instead, all documents were read to him, and all his orders were transcribed by the minister of the pen. And His Highness was just as careful with his speech. When His Majesty spoke, it was in a whisper so quiet his lips barely moved, and the minister of the pen had to put his ear inches from the emperor's lips in order to hear him.”

“But why would he do that? Didn't he worry that people would think he couldn't read?”

“Ah, Lucy, you are thinking like a modern American girl. The literacy of His Most Unparalleled Highness, the Supreme Chosen One, was not of primary importance to his subjects. What do you think would be more important?” Now Iskinder stopped building.

“I don't know.”

“Think, Lucy.”

“Um, infallibility?”

“Yes, go on.”

“Power?”

“Exactly! If Emperor Selassie used the minister of the pen to speak for him, he could always blame anything that did not go well on the minister's
getting it wrong. When things did go well, His Royal Highness could take all the credit.”

“You talk about Selassie with so much respect, Iskinder. But what about how he wouldn't let most people own any land? And how he let all those people die during the big drought because he was too embarrassed to ask the rest of the world for help?”

“That is true, Lucy. But Ethiopia is a proud country. Yes, we were occupied by the Italians during the Second World War, but we are still the only country in Africa that has never been colonized. Emperor Selassie was a symbol of our independence. Did you know that at one time he was the longest-serving ruler in the world? That meant if he was in a room with other heads of state—other presidents, kings, and prime ministers—he was treated as the most important person there. You see, even though we are a democracy now, for many people life is harder today than it was forty years ago, during Selassie's reign. Nothing is simple, Lucy.” Iskinder's voice drifted off, and he stared at our finished work.

“It was a very beautiful palace,” he said quietly, almost as though he had forgotten I was there. With
a flick of his index finger he knocked over a king of diamonds, sending all the other cards fluttering down after it.

Iskinder was right. Nothing is simple.

Why can the lion lie unafraid in the grass? Why does a man spend his days on his knees cleaning dog urine off other men's shoes? Why does an adult tolerate the rudeness of a child?

Why kidnap an American girl in Ethiopia?

Power
.

T
HE BEAMS OF
early-morning light crisscrossing the room were so beautiful I could almost forget the ugliness of my situation. Almost, but not quite. The beauty was shattered by the cold, hard fact of E-Day, Escape Day. I had to get ready. I sat up carefully, because my bruises still hurt. My contacts felt worse than ever, and I rubbed my eyes to loosen them.

No
.

One of my lenses popped out.
No, no, no!

I froze, knowing the worst thing I could do was move quickly and risk stepping on it or flinging it from wherever it had fallen. I'm so nearsighted that even with one lens still in, I can hardly see. For a full
minute I sat perfectly still, my eyes squeezed shut, panicking.
This isn't happening. I can't get away if I can't see
. I had to find it.

Very slowly I examined my lap and the area around me on the mat. Nothing. Without moving my feet, I leaned over and looked around the dirt floor. Still nothing. Choking back tears of frustration, I searched the dirt inch by inch, patting the ground in front of me, my nose practically in the dust. I looked like one of those truffle-sniffing pigs. All I could think about was the inside of my medicine cabinet at the residence and the boxes of extra lenses stacked neatly on the third shelf. It's so easy at home. You lose something and, no big deal, you just grab another.

There!
It was underneath the edge of the mat. How it had gotten there, I'd never know, but I didn't care. I just felt so incredibly relieved to have it back. I looked it over carefully. It wasn't torn, but the lens was already a little dried out, and one side was covered with dirt. There was no way I could put that thing back in my eye the way it was.

Fine. So I had a choice: spit or water.
Do parasites attack your eyeballs or just your intestines? God, I can't believe I'm
in a situation where I even have to ask that question
.

I chose water. At least that way I wouldn't end up eating the dirt that was on the lens and adding to all the other microbes that were already partying in my digestive system. I poured some water from the jug over my fingers and rubbed the lens to get the dirt off. My eye doctor had told me many times never to rinse my lenses with anything but sterile saline. Ha!
This is going to kill
.

It killed, all right. Like a hundred little toothpicks jabbing the underside of my eyelid. My eye started tearing like crazy, but I resisted the overwhelming urge to get the thing
out
of my eye, hoping my tears would wash away the tap water and what was left of the dirt.

And, thank God, it worked. After several agonizing minutes the worst of the pain was gone, and I could function. E-day was back on.

There wasn't a lot I could do to get ready. Since I couldn't carry it with me, I drank all the water that was left in the jug. Who knew how long it would take me to find a water source? I wanted to be maximally hydrated before I left. I ate half of the
injera
I had saved from the night before. I would bring the other half
with me—plus whatever Helena gave me this morning. Now all I could do was wait. Wait for the dogs to go to sleep and for my jailers to get out of the way.

“You have a bruise on your face.”

It was 9:33, and Helena had come with my breakfast. I touched my cheek gently and winced. Amazing—with everything that had been going on, I hadn't even noticed.

“Yeah.”

“I wish I had ice or something cold, but there isn't any electricity here.”

“Whatever.”

Helena put the
injera
on the crate. She stared at me like there was something she wanted to say but she wasn't sure she should say it.

“It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

“Really? How was it supposed to be?”

“Quick. You were supposed to be on your way home by now.”

I shrugged. “It's not really my home.”

“No, I suppose it's not,” she conceded.

“It's not your home either, Helena.”

I waited for her to say something, but she didn't.

“Just out of curiosity, what are you doing in this country, anyway?”

She paused before answering me. “I work here.”

“What are you, some kind of aid worker or teacher or something?” A kidnapping English teacher didn't seem likely, but teaching and aid work are the kinds of jobs most white women tend to have in this country.

“No, I came to Ethiopia for business. Regrettably, your government has created some obstacles.”

“Oh, I get it. So you figured kidnapping me would be the best way to remove those obstacles.” I nodded my head like I was thinking it over. “And how's that working for you?”

“Don't talk about things you don't understand,” she snapped. “And watch the way you speak to me.”

“Oh, I understand all right,” I said, ignoring her warning. I had already seen that her tough-girl act was mostly just for show. “I know exactly what you're up to. I know all about the committee. And I also know that Markos is a psycho and you've totally lost control of the situation.”

“Committee?” Helena snorted, a scornful little
British sniff. She squatted down by my mat so she could look at me eye to eye. “You're a very smart little girl, aren't you, Lucy? You think you have it all figured out. Well, you don't. There is no
committee
, and I should think that by now you'd understand that I really don't care whether you go home to your mum and dad.”

No committee? Was she for real or just covering up? I couldn't tell.

“And what about Dawit? What does he care about?”

“I expect he's in this for the same reason I am: money.”

Helena stood up to leave. When she got halfway out the door, I stopped her. “So how much am I worth?” I held her gaze.

“We'll find out,” she said.