Free Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste Page B

Below them, he watched two young boys ambling down Churchill Road towards the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia with a large bundle of branches strapped to their backs. They paused to stare at one of the tanks resting at a corner, then continued on, their high-pitched chatter rolling into the room during a brief lapse in street noise.
    “That documentary was horrible, but why arrest Princess Tenag-nework and the other princesses? What do they have to do with it?” Sara angled Selam’s face away from the glare of sunlight. “We should leave. Sofia started today,” she said. “Bizu’s not happy, but she’s too old to do all the housework herself.”
    Hailu sifted through pill bottles. Selam had lost weight, her skin was pale, her face was slack and dull. She looked much older than him. “Almaz keeps telling me to take her home,” he said, shaking pills into his hand and counting them.
    “She’s right,” Sara said, watching Hailu separate pills by color and size in his palm. She held out her hand. “Let me have them. You should call home and check on everyone.”
    “I called. Dawit’s out.” He shook his head in disgust and let his gaze follow Churchill Road’s long path from Piazza to the railway station.
    Just a few months ago, protestors had marched on this road with their cries for reform. They’d worked their way from City Hall past the post office, turned towards the hills of Entoto at Meskel Square, passed Jubilee Palace, Parliament, and Arat Kilo, and made their way from De Gaulle Square to St. Giorgis Cathedral, completing a nearly perfect circle. The city had felt under siege by that steady onslaught of marching feet. Their shouts had been like rolling thunder breaking again and again, so deep and loud that residents had locked their doors and stepped away from windows. It had all been full of fury and noise back then, but he’d been sure that diplomacy and respect for the monarchy would triumph. Today, however, the emperor, his only surviving daughter, his grandson Commodore Iskinder Desta, his granddaughters, and hundreds of his ministers and officials were under arrest.
    Hailu shook his head and turned away from the window. “Did Bizu have you write down rules for Sofia to follow?” he asked. Bizu had never learned to read or write.
    Sara smiled. “She drew a line on the floor in the kitchen that Sofia can’t cross. She can’t get to all the spices.”
    “She used to make my life miserable when I was a boy with her rules.” He tried to return Sara’s smile and failed. He watched her gentleness with Selam as she held a cup to his wife’s mouth and tilted her head to help her swallow the pills. She wiped the corner of Selam’s mouth with her finger when she finished. The simple gesture made Hailu look away. His wife was completely helpless.
    “Emaye’s lost more weight,” Sara said.
    “She’s stable,” Hailu repeated, then held the door open for Sara. “Let’s get home,” he said as they left the room. He looked back at the closing door. “I’ve almost forgotten what she was like before.”
    SELAM DIPS INTO THE crevice of a rolling cloud, sourness coating her tongue. A dry whirlpool threads dust through its hollow middle and a thousand startled crows flood the sky. A sad owl coos and moans, its wings beating against powerful gusts. A feather falls in wide circles to the earth. Selam tucks herself behind a veil of clouds and sinks into the gray. She flies over Legehar train station and sees a dingy square building with peeling paint and a long line of men shuffling in front of soldiers seated at metal tables, their soft leather shoes kicking dust, sending puffs of dirt into the air. Selam descends towards a small window and a hungry dog gnawing on stone. She hears a string of prayers resting on the wings of a white-tailed swallow hurtling into the heavens. She listens, breaks the words apart, a mother once again, and hears a man, once God’s chosen, caught in the choke hold of