The Garbage King Page 2

  Dani looked over his shoulder at his mother. She had raised her hand and was waving it slowly at Meseret. Then she tucked it back under the shawl that was wrapped round her shoulders. She must be the only person beside this crowded pool to feel cold on such a hot day.

  Zeni, the maid, had been sitting next to her on an upright chair. She got up quickly and went to the edge of the paddling pool.

  ‘Don’t disturb Mama, darling,’ she said to Meseret. ‘She’s resting.’ Then she looked over towards Dani.

  ‘Are you going to sit there all day?’ she called out loudly. ‘Why don’t you go in?’

  Dani’s face felt hot with shame. Reluctantly, he shifted his bottom closer to the edge, then forced himself to slide over the side into the water. He sank immediately and kicked out wildly. Mercifully, his feet hit the bottom of the pool at once and he righted himself. The water wasn’t very deep. It only came halfway up his shoulders. He began to move his arms, pretending to swim, while keeping one foot on the bottom.

  He reached the far side of the pool and hauled himself out again. Then he took up his old position, sitting on the edge with his legs in the water. At least he was on the opposite side from Meseret and Zeni now. There were fewer children on this side too.

  Several European women were lying out in the sun, grilling their pink oiled skin, their straw coloured hair looking brittle and stiff. Beyond them, in the shade of a tree, sat two Ethiopian women, talking with their heads together.

  Dani let his mind wander away into a daydream. The sounds of the pool, the splashes, the squeals of children, the occasional trilling of a mobile phone, the bursts of laughter from the adults lounging around the pool enclosure, and the murmur of waiters circulating among them, faded away.

  He was standing in front of a burning building. Flames were shooting out of the windows, and smoke was billowing up into the sky. His father was calling out, ‘They’re in there! Meseret and your mother! They’ll burn to death!’

  He was dashing into the building, fighting his way through the heat and smoke, braving instant death. His mother and sister were cowering in a corner.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right.’

  He was picking Meseret up now, and pulling his mother by the hand. As they emerged, choking, into the open air, his father ran forward.

  ‘Dani! You’ve saved them!’ he was crying. Then, as Dani sank in a dead faint at his father’s feet, he heard him murmur, ‘I’m sorry, son. I’ve misjudged you. That was the bravest thing I ever saw.’

  His mother’s name jerked him back to reality.

  ‘Ruth,’ he heard someone say.

  He looked round. The two Ethiopian women were looking across the pool towards where his mother lay on her lounger, wrapped in her shawl. The pool had momentarily almost emptied itself, the noise had died down, and he could suddenly hear their conversation quite clearly.

  ‘Yes, that’s her. That’s Ruth,’ one of them was saying. ‘Poor thing. Look at her. You can see from here how sick she is.’

  ‘What is it? Cancer?’ said the other one.

  ‘No. Heart, someone told me. She needs an operation. She’d have to go to Europe or America for it.’

  ‘But that would cost a fortune!’

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty of money. Paulos has done all right. I’m glad I’m not married to him, though.’

  ‘I know. He scares me stiff. Those eyes! Every time I see him I feel I’m in court, up before the judge. He probably thinks poor little Ruth should pull herself together and stop malingering.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. My cousin’s great friends with Ruth. She says he absolutely adores her, in his starchy sort of way. He’d take her off abroad tomorrow for treatment, only he’s scared she won’t survive the journey.’

  ‘That bad? Sad, isn’t it.’

  ‘Yes, awful. Waiter! Over here! We ordered a club sandwich and a couple of Pepsis at least half an hour ago.’

  The pool had filled up with children again, and Dani couldn’t hear the women’s voices any longer. He didn’t want to, anyway. What did those stupid cows know about his mother? They’d only been gossiping. Women would say anything once they got going.

  He looked over towards his mother’s lounger. Zeni was bending over her, holding out a plateful of snacks. Without being able to hear, he knew she was coaxing his mother to eat.

  Then he saw someone else. His father was walking in through the entrance to the enclosure, past the guard, who was standing to attention in his gold braided uniform as if he was a soldier who had just seen a general. His father had spotted his mother at once, and was walking towards her, his firm tread radiating power. His tall, spare form was immaculately dressed in white tennis clothes, and he was carrying a heavy sports bag from which the handle of a racket was protruding.

  Silently, Dani levered himself down into the water, and pretended to swim again, making purposeful movements with his arms. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that his father had reached his mother’s lounger, and was standing still, looking down at her.

  Dani reached their side of the pool. He could hear their conversation from here.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Fine.’

  ‘What about your headache?’

  ‘It’s nearly better.’

  ‘Did you eat something this morning?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve been stuffing myself on all these snacks. And I walked all the way down to the pool without any help.’

  She was trying to please him. It had taken two of the hotel staff, one on each side, to get her down the steps and through the hotel gardens.

  ‘Good. Well done. Where’s Dani?’

  ‘In the pool. He’s been swimming for hours. He must be worn out.’

  Dani’s heart glowed with gratitude. She always stood up for him. He looked away, and tried even harder to make it seem as if he was swimming. His father was frowning critically at him, he knew.

  ‘Call that swimming?’ He winced at the scorn in his father’s voice. ‘The boy’s hopeless. I’d pay for a teacher only I know it would be a waste of money. Dani!’ He had raised his voice. ‘Come on out. It’s time to go home. Zeni, get Meseret. We can’t waste the whole day lounging around here.’

  Dani floundered to the ladder at the side of the pool and climbed up it. He looked up briefly into his father’s eyes, then looked down again. If he let his father read the fear and resentment in his face it would only make things worse. He picked up the towel and his bundle of clothes, lying on the grass under Zeni’s chair, and moved off towards one of the changing rooms, a pretty booth made to look like a typical rural Ethiopian farmer’s hut.

  I hate him. I really do hate him, he muttered guiltily to himself, as he pulled on his T-shirt and shorts.

  As he left the booth, he looked up at the sky. A fan shaped cloud was blowing up across the vast expanse of blue sky, and a sudden sharp breeze was stirring the red hibiscus flowers in the hedges by the entrance to the pool. It almost looked as if it might rain.

  2

  The bus, with Mamo and Merga on board, was two hours into its journey when the rain began. It came on with such fury and suddenness that the driver nearly skidded off the narrow ribbon of road into one of the fields of fresh green barley that stretched away into the distance.

  The drops slashed against the window at the back of the bus where Mamo was squashed in beside Merga. He stared at it unseeingly. Like everything else that had happened today, it seemed unreal. Unbelievable. As if he was in the worst kind of dream.

  While the bus had been weaving through the crowded outskirts of Addis Ababa, hooting its way through the dense traffic, Mamo had kept struggling, trying to get past Merga and force his way to the door. He had stormed and wept and even shouted out that he was being kidnapped, and pleaded with the passengers around to help him. But Merga had made a joke of it, telling everyone that Mamo was a runaway, and that he was taking him home to his father, to get the thrashing he dese
rved.

  The whole bus had obviously believed him. Even if Mamo had been able to get past Merga, he’d have been stopped by a dozen others before he could possibly have reached the door.

  He’d given up at last. He’d stared out of the window with a growing feeling of helpless desperation as the bus had ground up the steep mountain road above the city, leaving the familiar tangle of streets behind, to emerge at the top on to a vast high plateau stretching emptily away on all sides. He’d never been out in the countryside before. It terrified him.

  He started going over everything in his mind, from the moment Merga’s dark shape had appeared in the doorway. Was Merga really his uncle after all? His mother had never said anything about having a brother. She’d never mentioned any relatives at all. And if Merga was her brother, why had he asked about Mamo’s father? Didn’t he know that his father had disappeared, almost as soon as Mamo had been born? And why hadn’t Merga ever heard of Tiggist? But then, on the other hand, if Merga wasn’t his mother’s brother, how did he know she had died? How did he know Mamo’s name? Why had he come? If he’d been just a thief, looking for stuff to steal, why had he paid a fortune in bus fares to take the two of them all this way out of Addis Ababa? Maybe there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps it could turn out all right after all.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked for the hundredth time. ‘Where are we going? How much farther is it?’

  ‘Stop your play-acting,’ Merga said loudly, looking sideways at the man crammed into the seat on the opposite side to Mamo. ‘You know where we’re going. Home to your father, you little rascal.’

  Mamo shivered. He hadn’t been wrong. Merga wouldn’t talk like that if he only wanted to help him.

  The rain was long since over when at last they stopped. Mamo had no idea how many hours had passed. It had seemed like a lifetime. He followed Merga off the bus.

  They were standing on a dusty patch of open ground in what seemed to be the middle of a little town. Single storey shops ran along the dirt road in both directions, but they soon petered out into open country.

  Mamo’s heart began to thump. Now, perhaps, was his chance to make a break for it. His eyes darted about, looking for a sign, a clue, for anything that might give him an idea.

  A couple of trucks were pulled up on the far side of the road, facing back the way the bus had come. Maybe, if he managed to give Merga the slip, he could sneak under the tarpaulin into the back of one of them, and hitch a secret ride back to Addis Ababa. Or perhaps he could hide somewhere in the town – anywhere – and get on to the next bus home. He’d try to creep under one of the seats, so that the conductor wouldn’t see him and throw him off for not being able to pay.

  Not many other passengers had left the bus in this little place. A few had jumped off to run into the bar nearby, to grab a glass of tea or visit the toilet. The bus was sounding its horn now, trying to hurry them back on board. Perhaps, thought Mamo, he could pretend he needed the toilet too, and once inside the bar he could run through to the back, climb over the wall, and get away.

  ‘I need to go in there, to the toilet,’ he said to Merga, edging away from him towards the door of the bar.

  Merga’s hand shot out and caught his arm in a vicious grip above the shoulder.

  ‘You can wait,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re up to. What’s your problem, anyway? I thought you wanted a job? Look at all the trouble I’m going to to get you one.’

  The last passengers hurried back and climbed aboard. The conductor shut the door. The old engine coughed and wheezed as the bus lumbered off down the road. As Mamo watched it go, cold desolation swept over him. The bus was his last link with Addis Ababa, with Tiggist and home. Its chugging noise had begun to sound almost comforting. Now he was surrounded by a horrible eerie silence, like nothing he’d ever known before, used as he was to the constant din of the city.

  Merga, still gripping his arm, was standing still, turning his head impatiently as he looked in turn in each direction. He seemed to be waiting for someone.

  At last he gave a grunt, and set off at a fast pace down the road, dragging Mamo along with him. A middle-aged man was coming towards them. He was dressed like a farmer, with a heavy white shamma draped round his shoulders. He carried a thick stick, and his feet, below the ragged legs of his trousers, were bare.

  Merga stopped when they reached him.

  ‘Good day.’

  ‘Good day.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m well.’

  ‘How is everything.’

  ‘All is well, thank God.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  They exchanged the usual greetings quickly, without enthusiasm. The man spoke Amharic with a slow country accent, quite different from the fast city patter Mamo was used to.

  ‘This is the boy then?’ the farmer said, looking critically at Mamo. ‘Bit small, isn’t he?’

  Merga laughed.

  ‘He’s strong. Look at him! Fourteen last month.’ He held up the arm he was still holding for the farmer to inspect.

  ‘Hm.’ The farmer frowned down at Mamo, but his eyes were not unkind. ‘What work have you done before?’

  ‘Oh, all kinds of things,’ Merga broke in quickly, before Mamo could say a word. ‘Running errands, portering, helping out round the cattle market . . .’

  ‘No, I—’ objected Mamo, but Merga’s fingers bit even deeper into his arm, and he subsided.

  ‘All right.’ The farmer jerked his head. ‘It’s a deal.’

  He reached a hand under his voluminous shamma, looking for the pocket in his shirt. He pulled out a thin wad of notes and counted them into Merga’s hand.

  Mamo suddenly understood. Merga was selling him! He was being sold! He’d been snatched away from Addis Ababa and Tiggist just so that this – this people thief could make some money!

  For a moment, he was too shocked to react.

  Merga was staring down incredulously at the money in his hand.

  ‘What’s this? We agreed on 150 birr!’

  ‘130,’ said the farmer.

  ‘150!’ Merga waved the notes derisively in the other man’s face. ‘And the bus fares. Two of us out to here, and my return.’

  The farmer shrugged.

  ‘It’s all I’ve got. It’ll have to do. Take him back if you don’t like it.’

  Mamo was suddenly warmed by a brief flame of hope flaring up inside him.

  ‘A bargain’s a bargain.’ Merga was scowling now. ‘Look at all the trouble I’ve gone to, coming out all this way . . .’

  ‘All right.’ The farmer smiled sourly. ‘If you want the rest of the money you’ll have to come and fetch it. From my house. It’ll be a long walk in those fancy shoes.’

  Merga hesitated. The farmer’s grin widened. It seemed to flick Merga on the raw.

  ‘Let’s go then,’ he said angrily. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘You won’t get another bus back to Addis tonight, if you come home with me,’ the farmer said, looking uneasy now.

  ‘You’ll have to put me up then, won’t you?’ said Merga. ‘I’ll come home with you, get the money, and go back to Addis in the morning.’

  The hope in Mamo’s heart dwindled to nothing. There was to be no way out. This man was his new boss, his master. Working for him was to be his new life. He was going to be a farm boy, and live miles away from anywhere.

  Merga’s hand, which hadn’t slackened its grip all this while, moved now from his arm up to his collar. Mamo felt it like a shackle on his neck. It would be impossible for him to break away.

  All the terrible things he’d ever heard about the wild lands outside the city came flooding into his mind. Hyenas and jackals roamed about at night, people said. Everyone had to work from dawn to dusk. When the rains failed to come, the people starved.

  A sob rose in his chest. He swallowed it down. He mustn’t let himself give in yet. There might still be a chance to escape, if he kept his wits about him.

  They we
re walking fast out of the little town now. Rolling countryside stretched out on all sides, frighteningly vast and empty, while above the sky seemed more huge and distant than it ever had at home. The track they were following was uneven and littered with large stones. Merga suddenly stumbled over one of these, and for a moment his grip on Mamo’s collar slackened.

  In an instant, Mamo had snatched his chance. He broke free and gathered himself to run, but before he had taken a single step, the farmer had thrust his stick between his legs, tripping him up. Mamo fell full length on the ground, grazing both his hands.

  ‘Here, you hold him,’ the farmer growled to Merga.

  He reached under his shamma again and pulled out a length of rope. Quickly, he tied one end of it round Mamo’s neck.

  ‘Try running away again,’ he said with dry humour, ‘and you’ll end up strangling yourself.’

  The next couple of hours seemed to Mamo to last for ever. He was exhausted, famished and parched with thirst, and his feet were horribly pinched inside his old shoes. His throat was tight with misery, and his heart felt like lead inside his chest. His face burned with shame at the feel of the rope round his neck. He felt like a slave. An animal. A thing.

  I’ve been sold, he kept thinking, the words running round and round in his head. Like a donkey, or a goat. That man sold me. He just put me up for sale and sold me. Like a sack of flour.

  It was nearly dark when at last the farmer turned off the rough track they’d been following for the last hour. Mamo stumbled after him, up a narrow path between two fields. Thick cactus hedges, too high to see over, grew on each side of it.

  The lane turned a sharp corner and suddenly, in front of them, was the entrance to a small compound. Two huts, their mud walls crumbling and their thatch thin and ragged with age, were clustered together inside a thick thorn and cactus fence. Three or four cows and a few sheep and goats turned their heads to look at the new arrivals, and a little boy with thin legs and a big round belly, naked except for a ragged shift that barely reached his belly button, let out a frightened wail at the sight of the strangers and bolted into the biggest of the huts.