Free The Bay of Foxes by Sheila Kohler

ministers detained with his father who, unlike his father, survived: how the two of them were called during a luncheon to go to Menelik Palace, which was now the office of the Derg. There, about two hundred men were imprisoned in two basement rooms, the whole area ventilated only by the gap above a steel door and lit by a fluorescent bulb that burned night and day. They were held for months, beaten and insulted daily, paraded in public. On the night of the twenty-third of November, the door was opened, and the two prefects, chosen by the men themselves, were given lists of names, which they read aloud. They were told they were to be released, but there was no necessity for them to dress. Many of them were in their pajamas. They were handcuffed and pushed into prison vans, and taken to the Akaki Prison. Up until the last moment they believed that the soldiers would abide by their word of honor that they would receive a fair trial. But they were taken out in batches, the Emperor’s grandson among them, and machine-gunned to the screams of the common prisoners in the jail, who heard the guns firing and the screams and feared they, too, would be executed. They were all gunned down at night under floodlights.
    As he speaks he sees his urbane father with his neat mustache,deep-set dark eyes, upright dignified stance, and authoritative stare caught in the glare of the bright lights, in a line of distinguished men who had served their country. “They killed an elite group of educated men who had led the country, chosen simply because of being well-known,” he says, clenching his fists on the starched tablecloth. “They were innocent people, journalists, lawyers, doctors. Of course, there were abuses; there had always been abuses. The Emperor was almost eighty; he could no longer govern, really, but he clung to the fantasy that he was doing so. He was too old! But these men, my father among them, were the ones with the knowhow, the education, and experience to lead the country. They were killed without a trial. It was a terrible crime. My mother and I heard about it over the radio early the next morning—a list of names read aloud, followed by the statement that they had been executed by firing squad and already buried. There was no possibility of claiming the body.”
    The three of them stare at him with wide eyes, over the remains of the
mousse au chocolat,
the
petits fours
, the champagne. For one giddy moment he is the center of attention again like a child blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. He shuts his eyes. They all murmur, “
Quelle horreur!
” and Simone takes his hand with sympathy and asks what happened to his mother and himself after that. He tells them that a few months later, they, too, were picked up and put in prison, where his mother died of untended wounds. He feels himself tremble as he says the words, suddenly in a rage with everyone, including these white people who are listening with their mouths slightly open. He looks at them with smolderingrage, as though they were the ones responsible for all this carnage. He realizes he has said too much, with too much vehemence; he has shown them what he feels, and he hates them for their indiscreet, probing questions, their idle curiosity. He feels empty, as though he has lost something precious, his pride.
    They feel his shift of mood, and there is an awkward silence at the table, with the remains of this splendid dinner incongruously still before them. They look at one another, uncertain of what to say. M. clears her throat and says it is all too terrible, really, to even contemplate: they must change the subject, she cannot bear it. They must speak of other things. “Life must go on,” she says to him, then smiles and finishes her glass of champagne.
    He has revealed more than he wanted to, more than they wanted to hear, caught up in the bright light of their interest and what he took for sympathy. He has felt obliged to entertain them, and now he has