In the morning, my mother and my sister came crying. I told them that we were safe, and to not worry too much about us. I had read in the newspaper that Muze had a good position in the new government and I thought he could help me. I asked my sister to track him down.
After four days, Muze arrived and intervened in our case, and we were released from prison. We were accused of supporting the antipeace forces, but Muze made sure we became known as propeace supporters. Muze stayed a day with us and then invited me to see him in Finfinne.
A week later, I went to visit him. He told me how he had gone to Sahel, Eritrea, and then to the free land of Tigray where he became one of TPLF’s prominent leaders. Then he returned to our present case and said, “Look, you are wrong; I don’t know why you want war. Things are not like yesterday. All that we were struggling for is now in the hands of the people. It is time to think about development. Let us eradicate poverty. Let our people eat three times a day. That is what we have to do.”
“Muze,” I said, “I know you have done a great job; I admire your commitment to creating a democratic political system after all these years of war. I must thank you and your comrades for your painful struggle for our freedom. But I am afraid that you’re now stifling dissent and kicking out all of the other political parties. How is that democracy?”
“We don’t have any other options.”
“If we do not compromise, there won’t be any political tolerance, and without political tolerance, there is no democracy. Democracy is nothing without appreciating different opinions.”
“That is not the case, my friend. If there is no peace there is no democracy, but let’s forget these dirty politics.”
That night, Muze invited me to dinner at a five-star hotel in Addis Ababa. We had an excellent meal complemented by very good whiskey. When I asked for the bill, he said, “Do not worry, it has been paid.”
I asked him, “Who paid for it?”
“The government,” Muze said with a laugh. “How was life in Europe?”
“It was not good, you know. Every time you are in somebody else’s home, you feel strange. You have a home but you do not feel at home because you are not in your own culture. You are cut off from your roots. So I made up my mind to return to my homeland with the skills I learned in the West. But then I was accused of being antigovernment and detained for silly reasons, which makes me question my decisions.”
“So you regret coming back?”
“When I came back here I had great hope. I wanted to invest and establish a good school and hospital in my hometown. But all of my dreams have evaporated like the morning mist.”
“You better go back to Europe. I know you love your country but that doesn’t matter anymore. You should leave as soon as possible.”
Five days later I flew to Germany, where I soon learned that my ex-friend Muse, the new Ethiopian finance minister, had two billion dollars in Swiss bank accounts.
When I discovered this, I realized that my forty years of struggle had ended in nothing. Maybe struggle is not good. Maybe struggle is a curse! We all carry the agony of a congested heart. My agony, my people’s agony.
About the Contributors
Sulaiman Addonia is an Eritrean-Ethiopian-British novelist. His novel The Consequences of Love, short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was translated into more than twenty languages. He currently lives in Brussels where he has launched a creative writing academy for refugees and asylum seekers, along with the Asmara-Addis Literary Festival (In Exile). Silence Is My Mother Tongue, his second novel, was long-listed for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Mikael Awake is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York, who was born in Boston to Ethiopian parents. His fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, Witness, and Callaloo. He is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Lafayette College.
Girma T. Fantaye is an Ethiopian writer based in Addis Ababa. In 2007, Fantaye cofounded Ethiopia’s leading political weekly newspaper, the now defunct Addis Neger, which was shut down due to government pressure. In 2013 he published a collection poetry in Amharic, Yetefachewun Ketema Hasesa (The Quest for the Lost City), and his debut novel, Self Meda (Fields of Queue), was published in 2014. He is currently working on a new Amharic novel.
Rebecca Fisseha is the author of the novel Daughters of Silence (Goose Lane Editions), which was a Quill & Quire magazine breakout debut of 2019, and was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 2020 gritLIT Festival Spotlight Series. Her short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in Selamta, Room magazine, Joyland, Lit Hub, and Medium, and her plays have been produced in Toronto, where she currently lives.
Hannah Giorgis is a writer who splits her time between Brooklyn, Washington, DC, and Addis Ababa. The daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, she is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the Lifted Brow, and Pitchfork.
Lelissa Girma is a writer who has lived in Addis Ababa his entire life. He has worked as a columnist and contributor to several local newspapers. He has published five books in Amharic, three of which are collections of short stories.
Meron Hadero was born in Addis Ababa and immigrated to the United States when she was a child. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, the Iowa Review, the New York Times Book Review, ZYZZYVA, and others. She has previously been a fellow at Yaddo, the Ragdale Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and is currently a 2019–2020 Steinbeck Fellow.
Solomon Hailemariam was born and raised in Addis Ababa. He is the author of a number of works including Love and Anxiety, The Search, The Priest and His Son, Once the Climax Is Over, None of Your Business, and The Young Crusader. He is the president of PEN International’s Ethiopia Centre and has taught at Addis Ababa University and New Generation University College. He was the recipient of the inaugural Burt Award for African Literature.
Maaza Mengiste is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arts Writers Grant Program. Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was selected by the Guardian as one of the ten best contemporary African books and was named one of the best books of 2010 by the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe. Her second novel, The Shadow King, was published in September 2019.
Cheryl Moskowitz (translator) is a US-born poet, novelist, and educator living in London. She has been producing English translations of the poems and stories of Bewketu Seyoum since 2007; they have been published in World Literature Today, Prairie Schooner, the Manhattan Review, and Modern Poetry in Translation. In the UK she runs projects for Creative Translation in the Classroom. Her own books include the poetry collection The Girl Is Smiling and the novel Wyoming Trail.