Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers Page 6

  “What happened to Iyasu?” Ceseli asked.

  “He decided to convert to Islam, wanted to deny the Amharic people their traditional power and make Islam equal to the Coptic Church. Everyone opposed him, particularly the Church. There was almost a civil war. The solution was to depose Iyasu and make Menelik’s daughter, Zauditu, the empress. Installing Tafari, that’s his baptismal name, Haile Sellassie is his throne name, as her regent was also a very popular and politically astute move,” Rutherford said. “Let’s sit outside. It’s such a beautiful night and I could use a brandy,” he said as he walked out to the verandah. “Tafari became emperor only five years ago, you realize. By the way, get Standish to tell you about the coronation. It’s a wonderful story.”

  “The emperor told us that he took a lion to the king of Italy.”

  “I wish a lion would satisfy them now,” Rutherford looked up at the sky and sipped his brandy.

  “But why WalWal?” she asked.

  “Water,” Rutherford answered. “Controlling the southeastern Ogaden desert can only be done by controlling the water supply at WalWal. The emperor has his own reasons for wanting the League to find in his favor. If WalWal belongs to him, he can trade it to the British in exchange for a port on the Red Sea. He has tried several times to acquire a port, but for one reason or another, France, England, and Italy have all turned him down. They own all the land along the Horn of Africa. This is his last chance.”

  “And that’s why Italy doesn’t want him to get it.”

  Standish and Rutherford nodded together.

  “Do you have a copy of my father’s paper on WalWal?” Ceseli asked Standish.

  “Yes. Come to my office tomorrow morning.”

  The next morning, Ceseli opened the door to Standish’s office, surprising him sitting with his feet up on the desk and his chair tilted backward. It was the first time she’d been to his office. She sat down on the only wooden chair not covered by books, as he went to a shelf and began rummaging through papers. Next to the wall map of Africa was a photo of President Roosevelt. The floor-to-ceiling bookcases were all jammed. More books were piled on the floor. Outside the French doors she could see that the tortoises were sunning themselves.

  “Here it is, a little worse for wear. If you want you can read it here.”

  “I understand what he’s saying about WalWal, but I don’t understand why the United States didn’t join the League of Nations?” Ceseli asked after she had finished reading.

  “We were afraid of getting involved in other wars. Then President Wilson had a stroke. He was the real inspiration for the League.”

  “But we fought in World War I.”

  “Only at the end. There was no alternative. But the Republicans hid behind the isolation issue. You know what that means?”

  “That a nation should not get involved in the troubles of other countries,” Ceseli answered as she studied Standish.

  “The founding fathers believed that the oceans would protect us, and our ideals of freedom and equality. We didn’t want other countries to dominate us, particularly, Great Britain.” Standish added. “Let’s not forget the Boston Tea Party.”

  “That was a long, long time ago.”

  “But the principle is the same. We like to get involved only when it comes to expanding our markets. I’m here to work on Ethiopia’s economic development, stimulate the trade in coffee, and develop the project for the dam across the Blue Nile. That would earn the U.S. a great deal of money.”

  “But getting back to the League. Daddy argues that the basis of the functioning of the League is that each country, big or small, has only one vote.”

  “That’s part of the Covenant of the League of Nations. But in reality, the League is dominated by its two strongest members, Great Britain and France.”

  “Standish, what made you come to Ethiopia?”

  “Yifru used to come to our house every Sunday for dinner. My father and he would discuss ways to improve life here. Then when I finished graduate school at Princeton, Yifru invited me to come for three months and help him in the preparations for the coronation. That was in 1930. It was an amazing experience. Afterwards, I joined the State Department and was posted to the League in Geneva. While I was in Geneva, the League was still involved in some important issues as a result of the World War I. Fifteen, even twenty years though it may seem a lot, is not much time to settle all the problems that started because of that war. There were problems with new borders and new frontiers. We needed to find a place for refugees and decide how to limit the trade in narcotics.”

  “You were involved in that?”

  “So was your father. We were observers. The only real difference between being an observer and being a member was that the U.S. didn’t have a vote. But your father was a very influential person and he was consulted on several important issues. He believed in collective security, that by joining the League, each country would be protected. That’s also what the emperor believes and why he joined the League. After WalWal, I actually advised the emperor to send a telegram to the League denouncing the Italian action at WalWal.”

  “Standing up to Mussolini?”

  “Your father was against Mussolini. He thought he was a bully and you had to stand up to him. And Hitler as well.”

  “You think that the British and the French will stand up to Mussolini?”

  “I certainly hope they will.”

  After Ceseli left, Standish put his feet back onto the desk and stared at the map of Africa. On his desk was his most treasured possession: a hardball of the New York Yankees, signed by Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, and next to it a signed photo of the Babe. Standish picked up the hardball and clenched it in his hand, remembering.

  It had been a beautiful warm day. He sat in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium between his father and Yifru. It was his birthday. He offered the popcorn to Yifru who was dressed in a long blue kaftan. It was his native costume, he told Standish, and showed him that there were pants underneath. It looks more like something my mother would wear around the house, Standish thought.

  Standish had carefully explained to Yifru all the rules of baseball. You hit the ball and run to first. Then the next batter tries to hit the ball. If you’re really lucky someone will hit a homerun and that meant at least another point. The very best that could happen would be a homerun with someone on each base. But the Yankees weren’t doing so well this afternoon.

  “What do you think, Standish?” Yifru asked him, taking a handful of popcorn.

  Standish’s father winked at Yifru over his head. “It’s okay.”

  Suddenly the ball was flying out over center field. Lots of people were on their feet. You could hardly see. “Wow!” Yifru yelled, jumping to his feet and clapping enthusiastically. “Look at that. Did you see that, Standish? That was some homerun.”

  Standish looked up at him. Tears were prickling his eyes.

  “Well! You said you wanted a homerun,” Yifru shouted, above the din and looking at the young boy. “What did you think?”

  Standish’s father caught Yifru’s eye. Standish looked up at Yifru. “It’s the White Socks.” Standish looked at him miserably. “Not the Yankees.”

  “Oh.”

  Standish pitched the ball into his left hand. He had forgiven Yifru after a while. You can’t know everything about baseball the first time. Yifru had redeemed himself in Standish’s eyes by buying him the photograph of Babe Ruth. The ball he had caught himself at another game. There was certainly going to be a game of hardball in the near future. He wondered who would win.

  CHAPTER 9

  HUGE TORCHES SET OUT all along the drive flamed heavenward as the black Ford stopped at the front entrance of the Ghibbi Palace. Ceseli felt like a glorified Cinderella. She was thrilled when Rutherford asked if she would like to join them, particularly because state dinners were not common. Ceseli had been to many receptions and dinner parties with her father, but not in Africa. She was curious to know what this one wou
ld be like.

  As she waited to be presented at the receiving line, she looked at the wide yellow room with its white stucco columns, gold-highlighted ceilings, mirrors, blue patterned Persian rugs, and crystal chandeliers. The room contained elaborate Louis XV style chairs with embroidered cushions. An ornate vermeil clock with a lapis lazuli face was on the mantelpiece, with gold, wide-branch candelabra as sentinels on each side.

  Her Majesty Menen, the Empress of Ethiopia, wearing an embroidered blue silk dress and a tiara stood next to Haile Sellassie in the receiving line. Empress Menen Asfaw was now forty-four years old and had borne the emperor six children: three princes and three princesses. Whereas he was angular with high cheekbones, she was plump. They were about the same height and shared the same background as both were descendants of the House of Solomon. She had married Ras Tafari at the age of twenty.

  As soon as they had passed through the receiving line, Ceseli was happy to see Marco across the room. He looks so handsome in a black tuxedo with a floral cummerbund, she thought. He has shaved.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” he said, kissing her hand.

  “I thought you were going to call me. To see your hospital.”

  “I thought it was the other way around. You’d come and show me your head,” Marco smiled. “Can I get you something to drink? There’s everything except Italian wines. The emperor is not interested in helping the Italian economy,” Marco said taking her elbow and steering her to a long table set up overlooking the garden illuminated by more torches.

  Bats flickered and soared in the semi-darkness almost in unison with the bows of the string quartette playing on a platform in the rear. Here instead of violins, cellos, and violas, the chordophones or stringed instruments were the masengo, a one-stringed lute, a begena, a large ten-string lyre and a five-string lyre. Ceseli stopped to listen to the music she had never heard before.

  “Try this,” Marco said, handing her a gold goblet of champagne. “The French are still in good favor.”

  Ceseli took it and followed him to a quieter area of the terrace.

  “How do you like Addis?”

  “I can see what you mean about the pace of life.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I’m not going to be here long enough to get used to it.”

  “How about your trip? Is that working out?”

  “I was really afraid that the emperor would find some reason to prevent me from going, but he was very helpful. I like him.”

  “By the way, you look ravishing. Is that the right word?”

  “Thank you, it’s certainly one that’s nice to hear,” she said, remembering what a long time it had taken her to get herself ready. Hoping that Marco might be there, she had indulged herself in a luxuriously long hot bath. She had plaited her hair into a French braid and chosen a tortoise shell clip to hold it together. The uplifted braid accentuated her long neck and small ears. It wasn’t that she had a great deal of choice for her formal dress, but the clean, long line of a white cotton one would compliment the black morning coats the gentlemen would be wearing. She put two gold bangles on her wrist, and replaced her father’s beloved World War I dog tag with a thin gold chain. I’m ready to go to the emperor’s party, she thought.

  Ceseli and Marco were abruptly interrupted by the man she remembered as the journalist on the train ride from Djibouti. He had exchanged his worn blue shirt for an elegant black silk tuxedo. She still felt unnerved by his physical size.

  “Ah Antinori! And our American signorina. Not much Italian wine, I see, even if Antinori. Oh, Signorina Larson, I was hoping to find you here,” Bruno Zeri said, handing her an envelope. “I took a photograph of you and the Afar girl. I hope you like it.”

  “It’s for me?” Ceseli asked, looking more carefully at Zeri as she took the photograph out of its envelope.

  “Look at the girl’s eyes,” he said softly.

  “Where did you take it?” Marco asked, looking at it over Ceseli’s shoulder.

  “At the first watering station.”

  “I must have been sleeping.”

  “Soundly, like an angel,” Ceseli smiled at him.

  Marco looked at the photo and then at Ceseli. “The way she looks at you,” he said, studying the photo more carefully. “It’s almost as if she were looking at something from another world.”

  “The girl had quite obviously never seen a white woman before,” Zeri said.

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Ceseli said. “Thank you.”

  “What kind of stories are you writing?” Marco asked.

  “Local color. What an Italian doctor is doing in Addis. Trust me, I’m not saying he’s an Antinori. That might create undo problems for you,” he said patting Marco on the shoulder. “I’ve heard the people here eat raw meat.”

  “It’s considered a delicacy when it comes from a freshly killed animal,” Marco said, sipping his champagne. “There are many accounts of the Empress Zauditu serving raw meat at her banquets.”

  “She was Menelik’s daughter, right?”

  “Yes, and the empress before Haile Sellassie,” Marco clarified.

  “Well, my assignment is to do some stories about local customs. I guess that eating raw meat might be one of them,” Zeri smiled.

  “But the French eat raw meat too, as I’m sure you know,” Marco commented. “Steak tartare and Florentine steaks are pretty raw too, for that matter.”

  “I wasn’t meaning to start a gastronomic war,” Zeri laughed as he lit his cigar.

  Ceseli studied the two men. Even though Marco was tall, Zeri towered over him. His sheer size was threatening. She felt his intense and mocking eyes, his disciplined expressions, and his unreadable countenance. She felt uneasy in his presence.

  “I’m wondering what you’ll do if there is a war. Will the hospital continue here?” Zeri asked.

  “I guess that depends on our leader,” Marco replied.

  “I’ve just spent four months in Geneva covering the League of Nations. I’m sure that there’ll be war.”

  “You think so?” Ceseli asked.

  “Everything points in that direction, Miss Larson. I can’t believe that Mussolini would be spending so much money on what he claims is a purely defensive action. He is spending that money so he can defeat Ethiopia. He’s taking no chances on another defeat like the one at Adowa. The only question is when.”

  Ceseli was thankful when their conversation was interrupted by the commotion from the next room where they could see that the emperor was leading the empress into dinner. Ceseli took Marco’s arm and followed him toward the dining room where an elaborately laid U-shaped table awaited them. Most of the guests were European and she calculated that of the almost fifty guests, men outnumbered women by three or four to one. She was pleased to find herself seated between Standish and Marco.

  “Be careful of the wine. It packs a punch,” Marco said, holding her chair.

  “And no raw meat?” Ceseli smiled.

  When it was served, the six-course dinner was in the French style of well-chosen dishes, prepared by an accomplished chef and served faultlessly by waiters in elaborate burgundy velvet jackets. The beef bourguignon was superb, as was the lentil and teff soufflé and the fruit tart. The French wine came from the emperor’s extensive cellar. No detail was missing, and if there were anything about it that might be deemed barbaric, it was only the display of golden tableware that was dazzling. Plates, serving dishes, flatware, and high double-decked fruit dishes all were solid gold. The gold was of Ethiopian origin, but the elaborate design was that of fine European craftsmanship.

  “Look at the goldfish” Marco said, indicating the large golden fishbowl on the table in front of them.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to eat them,” she smiled. “I think I’ll remember this for a long time.”

  “So finish the story about Axum. How are you getting there?”

  “The road is supposed to be finished as far as Dessie, but a
fter that it may be by mule. I wouldn’t mind that. I’ll do just about anything to get to Axum.”

  “Surely the Americans have one of these big overland trucks? Or you could fly.”

  Standish had turned to listen to their conversation. “I doubt the emperor will agree to that. Gasoline is very costly right now.”

  “I don’t know,” Marco said, weighing the alternatives. “The press has reported that the emperor wants to get his university started so there’ll be a higher level of trained Ethiopians. If the Neguse wants a university and you’re willing to help him, a very good case could be built for getting you there. Besides, the United States minister is probably not willing to have his chief assistant gone for long, at a time like this,” Marco added.

  “His only assistant,” Standish corrected, smiling.

  “His only assistant. Agree to give him copies of your photographs and write a report. That should do it.”

  Standish hesitated, looking again at Ceseli. Clearly this idea was inviting. Their discussion was cut short by Yifru who was standing to propose a Champagne toast. He looks so stately, Ceseli thought, in a white dinner jacket with an aquamarine tie that set off his vibrantly blue eyes.

  “To the oldest Christian nation in Africa,” Yifru said, raising his glass and nodding in her direction. “And to Joe Louis, and the mighty punch that felled Primo Carnera.”

  Ceseli looked at Marco. Marco whispered that Joe Louis was the American Negro boxer who had just defeated the Italian heavyweight champion, Primo Carnera.

  “I wish it were that simple,” Standish said.

  Ceseli looked down the table at Bruno Zeri. Although his hand was raised, he wasn’t drinking. She felt again that he was studying her and it increased her sense of insecurity. Worst of all, she didn’t know why this should be.

  Ceseli turned back to Marco. “That’s a very good idea. I’ll ask Yifru what he thinks. He seems to be not only the Keeper of the Pen, but the Keeper of the Purse.”