Divinity Road (33 page)

I am an only child, I begin. My mother nearly died in childbirth, she could not have any more children after that.

And were you close? Do you keep in touch? I mean, are your parents both still alive? She realises she is being pushy, looks a little sheepish.

Yes, no, and I believe so, in that order, I reply, and allow her time to digest my answers. She waits for me to go on. I come from a wealthy family. My father had a car dealership in Addis Ababa. My parents were brought up as strict members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. My mother’s uncle was a bishop, as was my father’s youngest brother. I grew up steeped in that culture, but I reacted against it, and although I loved my parents deeply I think from an early age I was questioning the doctrines. Why do we have to do this? Why can’t we do that? I used to drive them mad. I suppose I was spoiled, you know, an only child and all that. I studied hard at school and went to university. In my final year at college I met a man. We fell in love and decided to get married. But there were problems. He wasn’t Christian, wasn’t well-off, wasn’t even Ethiopian for that matter.

Go on, she says.

My parents were devastated. My boyfriend was a Muslim from Eritrea, a country we had been at war with until recently. If I wanted to marry him and get his family’s blessing, I would have to convert to Islam. I must admit I had my doubts about this at first, but I loved him and felt, to be honest, that it did not really matter which religion I signed up to – I believed in God, had a clear understanding of where I stood with Him, so why did it matter what I called him. That is how I looked at it. Well, my parents did not share my point of view. It was too much for them to bear. They told me in no uncertain terms that I would have to choose between my family and my fiancé. They were ashamed of me, of course.

So what happened? she asks.

I was in love, I could not give him up. The last time I saw them, I had already moved my things out, I was staying with university friends. I went round to our house to say goodbye. They were devastated, I could tell, but equally adamant that they could not accept my marriage, my conversion. They saw me to the garden gate and promised that if I came back a Christian, the door would always be open for me. We embraced and I walked away. A week later I left Addis for Asmara. A month later I was married.

Wow, says Nuala, impressed. Wow.

It was awful being cut off by my parents, but I felt they gave me no choice. Being in a new country with a new life made it easier, I suppose. They were physically distanced, as well as emotionally, so it wasn’t as if I kept expecting to bump into them at the market.

And now? Why don’t you contact them now? Nuala asks tentatively. I think about this. Of course she does not know about my situation, about the accident, about prison, the blood feud, our flight. I think about what she is suggesting. Could I re-establish contact? Of course not. Our separation has not affected the sanctity of our marriage. My Muslim status has not changed. The same conditions still apply. And of course there is another reason to remain silent. While my whereabouts are a mystery to everyone, I remain safe from the clutches of the Asmara boy’s family. Anonymity brings protection.

It is complicated, I say.

Nuala knows she has taken it as far as she can. She attempts to lighten the mood by changing tack.

I didn’t know you lived in Asmara. So did I. Three years I was there. Back in the early nineties. Small world, eh? Maybe we bumped into each other! That’s a weird thought.

I do know this. She has mentioned it several times in the classroom, but I feign surprise, and we spend a few minutes reminiscing about familiar Asmara landmarks and institutions. Nuala tries out a few words of Tigrinya she had picked up and I compliment her on her pronunciation, which makes us both laugh. Then the doorbell rings. Yanit is back with Abebe, and before we know it the conversation is forgotten and we are plunged into dinner preparations, the dicing and peeling, the warm homely aroma of frying onions and garlic.

I leave you with those appetising smells wafting through your imagination.

As always, you and Gadissa are never out of our thoughts and prayers.

***

Dear Kassa A welcome period of calm. I continue to search for a suitable home, to check my council ranking, despite Nuala’s insistence that there is no hurry, but in the meantime we are comfortable here. It is a relief to feel safe and secure and the children delight in the stability of their lives.

A period of discovery, too. Through Nuala, Sammy and Bethany, through the steady stream of their friends and playmates, I pick up facets of modern British culture and language from which in the past, with nobody to provide an explanation, I was excluded. I learn the difference between a wii and an ipod, between lol and omg, between a twit and a twat.

And through the innocent remarks of Sammy and Bethany, I learn about their family history. About their father.

First, last week, I overhear Abebe asking Sammy why there are paints and brushes in his bedroom.

That’s daddy’s room, answers Sammy. That’s where he does his pictures. But daddy’s lost in Africa now. And we don’t know when he’s coming back.

Then, a couple of days later, a Saturday morning, I eavesdrop on a conversation between Yanit and Bethany. They have just come back from town laden with new books. Nuala has taken them to a bookshop so that Yanit can spend some of her prize book tokens. Nuala leaves straight away to drop some shopping off for a neighbour and the girls spread out their new purchases on the kitchen table. Bethany has helped choose some of the books and, faced with such lucrative rewards, she is obviously working on her own creative inspiration. I am in the lounge on the computer searching for properties but the door is open and they are unaware of my presence.

I’m going to write my own stories, she begins. About my dad. About somebody putting a bomb in his airplane. About how it crashes in Africa and he has lots of adventures. It’s going to be a series, lots of different episodes. They’ll make a TV series, too, and a Hollywood film. There’ll be sequels. They’ll pay me millions.

Can I help you write it? asks Yanit. She sounds very impressed.

Sure. You can be in charge of spelling.

Come on then.

And the next thing I know they are at my side, clamouring for me to log off and abandon the computer. Back in the kitchen, I try and recall a terrorist attack that matches their description. I vaguely remember one or two such incidents, the most recent about seven or eight months ago. I make a mental note to google it later.

In fact, there is no need. Perhaps my willingness to open up to Nuala has helped her find the courage to speak about her own. One night last week, drinking mint tea after the children had been seen to, she opens up. She fills in the details of the air crash and her husband’s disappearance, or at least what few details she has grasped, for in truth her situation, like my own, is a kind of hellish limbo, her life suspended by uncertainty.

She is matter-of-fact and just tells me the bare facts. She avoids any mention of feelings and emotions.

For a few brief moments I consider telling her about the extent of my own loss. It is a natural reaction born out of belief that in exchanging our stories we might perhaps be providing relief, a reduction of the hurt. But as these thoughts flash across my mind, they are at once dismissed. I cannot speak for her, but I know that for me now, the process of sharing would neither halve nor double my pain, would only serve to underline the loneliness of my journey, so I continue to listen and nod, to murmur trite words of sympathy. The conversation drifts and finally draws to a halt.

I worry about our stay in Divinity Road. Every so often I bring up my awkwardness about abusing her hospitality but Nuala tells me not to worry. Recently I am offered a flat by a Sudanese couple I met at the mosque. They are moving to Coventry and have spoken to their landlord about me. When I mention this to Nuala, she offers to drive me over to the place to check it out. The flat is in Wood Farm. It is cold and cramped and gloomy, the second bedroom little more than a cupboard, the kitchen hardly bigger. We look around and I make positive noises, though I am silently dreading the prospect of a move to this place. Outside, back in the car, Nuala is emphatic. The property is just not suitable, she says. It is dingy and damp, a health hazard for the children. Something better will come up soon, she adds. We just need to be patient.

Nuala’s insistence sets me thinking. I begin to wonder whether my presence in her life is in fact more of a benefit than a burden. Perhaps that is the definition of friendship.

We continue to probe each other’s minds. She tells me about her childhood, growing up on a farm in Ireland. She describes how her brother used to milk the cows straight into her cupped hands, the warm creamy velvet slipping down her throat. In exchange I tell her about my dream of teaching and sketch out my career path from classroom learning assistant to fully-fledged teacher via a teacher training course.

One evening we are sitting together in the lounge.

The children are in bed, the evening battle with baths and bedtime stories eventually won, and Nuala has collapsed on the sofa with her newspaper. She is grappling with a sudoku, a passion of hers, but has made a mistake and is cursing, about to surrender. Finally she throws down the paper and looks up at me. I am reading the
Qur’an.
Yanit and Abebe have been told by their
Qur’anic
class teacher to learn a passage and I am trying to locate the right Surah. She breaks the silence.

Tell me about your faith, she begins. How did it change when you converted?

I consider the question carefully.

I don’t think it changed much, you know. God remained God. Just the details were dissimilar. Not just the obvious rule changes, but the different character, the colour and texture, the taste of the religion. It is difficult to explain.

Was it a big change? A big shock?

Not really. You know, if you study theological history, how religions began, how they developed in their early days, how they relate to each other, you see that Ethiopia holds a special place in the heart of the matter.

What do you mean?

History, of course, is my passion, and I soon warm to the task. Yes, Kassa, I can picture you now, rolling your eyes and groaning! Anyway, I tell her about the birth of Ethiopia, the reign of Menelik I in 1000 BC. I tell her that one of the Egyptian pharaohs, Taharga, was Ethiopian, that at the time that Christianity began, there were four great global powers – Rome, Persia, China and Aksum. I tell her that the Aksumite Kingdom was centred in what is now Ethiopia but its control spread to parts of Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Djibouti, even Saudi Arabia. I point out that emperors right up to the modern era have traced their lineage to that kingdom, to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

I look carefully at Nuala, try to assess her reaction. She does not appear too bored so I plough on.

I tell her that Christianity came to Aksum in 316 AD when a Christian theologian called Meropius was shipwrecked off the Ethiopian coast. He was taken to the royal court, along with two Syro-Greek brothers, Frumentius and Aedesius, both also Christians. Frumentius converted the queen, went back to Alexandria, and, when he later returned as Bishop of Aksum, he baptised her son, King Ezana. I inform her that after that, Christianity became the official state religion. That after Armenia, Ethiopia is the second-oldest nation to adopt Christianity. That references to Ethiopian Christianity go back as far as the New Testament. I instruct her to read
Acts
8:26 to 39, tell her they refer to an Ethiopian baptised by Philip the Evangelist.

Nuala laughs, a gesture of surprise, I think, and tells me she never knew that Ethiopia was such a Christian heartland. I shake my head and tell her no, it is not just Christianity, that traditionally Ethiopia has always opened its doors to any religion. That is what makes it so special. I tell her that in 615 AD Muslims fleeing from persecution by the Quraysh tribe in Mecca found refuge in the court of the Christian king, a man named Ashama ibn Abjar. He offered them a settlement in Negash which became one of the first Muslim communities in Africa. Did you know, I ask her, that the very first muezzin, one of Muhammad’s key followers, was an Ethiopian, a man named Bilal?

I have warmed to my theme now, so I move onto the Ethiopian Jewish community, I mention the Beta Israel, though point out that most of them were taken to Israel during the 1980s to escape the famine. I tell her that some Jewish scholars believe they were the Biblical ‘Lost Tribe of Israel’.

Nuala nods and tells me she remembers reading about that, so I soldier on. I say that even though Christianity is supposed to be the majority religion in Ethiopia, we have got our own version, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. I tell her that it shares some characteristics with the other religions and their doctrines.

Nuala frowns, asks me what I mean, so I explain that our Bible is more like the Jewish
Torah
. Our Old Testament includes some of the original Jewish books.
Enoch
and
Jubilees
, for instance, which have survived in our ancient Ge’ez script. Then I talk about our religious architecture, too, and how it differs from other Christian buildings, that our churches are monolithic, constructed from a single block of stone. I ask her if she has seen a picture of the Church of Saint George in Lalibela, tell her that we believe the original Ark of the Covenant is kept concealed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. I tell her that a new church cannot be consecrated unless a replica of the tablets of the Ark is placed in it by a bishop. It is a bit like the Jews and their Aron Kodesh, the special place in each synagogue where they keep the
Torah
.