Free The Bay of Foxes by Sheila Kohler Page B

of the rain mingles with his music. Sometimes, he plays for hours. He has bought some sheet music and practices more difficult pieces. He finds it is such a pleasure. “You play so well,” she says.
    She is wearing a loose white blouse, a dark cardigan, and her blue jeans and flat shoes. Most of the time she dresses simply like this, eats little, and leads a Spartan existence. She says, “Sing something for me. I want to hear your voice.” She expects him to be able to sing as well, but he cannot. “You can’t?” she says, mocking him as well as herself, and he laughs. “I can dance,” he says and gets up from the piano stool, taking her hand. He leads her into the big bathroom with the mirror and stands before it, stretches out his arms, and shakes his shoulders. He sees her watching him. “Take off your cardigan,” he says, and she obeys.
    He teaches her the
esketa
, the traditional Ethiopian dance, as his mother once taught him. While the Parisian rain beats against the bathroom windows, he remembers his last glimpse of her before she was taken away.
    It was three years ago, in the summer of ’75, before the Emperor’s death. He can still see the scene: a rainy day with fog in the air. He had not yet turned seventeen. The officers from the Fourth Division entered the large white and gold room, with its ornate furniture, the gold-edged mirrors. His mother was dancing in a small circle of people who were doing their calisthenics, stretching their arms and legs, jumping around as recommended by the Swedish physicians whom the Emperor had summoned, and who had stayed on despite all of the chaos.
    Dawit was standing against the wall, half hidden by a potted palm. He watched closely as the guards of the Fourth Division entered the room and stood and stared around in disbelief. Most of them were so young they hardly had any facial hair, but the lead guard bore a well-trimmed mustache, like Dawit’s own father’s, which arched above his fat lips. He ordered everyone to stop. “People whose days are numbered, doing calisthenics,” he said scornfully, while the others snickered. Dawit’s mother just went on dancing, her arms spread, her gaze lifted to the ceiling, her bright fuchsia skirt, woven with gold threads, billowing around her as she turned, while the others, following her lead, continued to jump up and down.
    She could not conceive of her country without its Emperor. He was the guarantor of freedom and justice, and also of order and discipline. Whenever she heard of children in trouble, she would say, “They should be sent to boarding school!” He remembers her saying, “Nothing is worse than chaos.” Tradition and hierarchy were essential to her.
    With a studied, nonchalant air the guard lifted the butt ofhis gun and leveled it directly at his mother’s chest. Dawit could see it happen and yet he could not move, transfixed. It seemed to him as if someone had lifted her legs from under her and then pushed her backward. She seemed to float, as if in water, and similarly inconsequential. They scooped her up off the floor and took her away to join the other members of the royal family in prison, where, untended, she would die of her wounds. He never saw her again. Soon it would be his turn.
    He had managed to escape with one of the ministers and some of his mother’s jewelry that had been hidden in the garden, before he, too, was picked up, soldiers coming to the house and finding flyers for a student organization that he had promised to distribute. He was accused of being part of the SFD, Students for Democracy, and thrown into prison. He was only seventeen at the time.
    Now Dawit stands in front of the mirror and has M. copy his gestures, but he is remembering his mother absurdly dancing to her death while M. learns to shake her bony shoulders like a white butterfly.

PART TWO

The Bay of Foxes

XII

    T HEY ARRIVE AT THE VILLA ABOVE C ALA DI V OLPE AT THE beginning of July. In the early evening light