Escape Under the Forever Sky (2 page)

Mmmm My Flavor is a restaurant, and yes, that's really its name. Tana and I had been there a couple of times to hear some local bands, but there was no way my mother would let us go now. Ever since the Market Incident (
see
Lucy Hoffman's Stupidity), I'd been under total lockdown. I'd only just earned back Tana-visiting privileges. But I was hoping that maybe we'd get lucky and Tana's mom wouldn't be home, so we could sneak out.

With the highlight of my morning over, five empty hours stretched out ahead of me. I put in my contacts and took a quick shower, being careful to keep my mouth closed so I wouldn't swallow any of the microscopic parasites that lurk in the tap water. Then I twisted my wet hair into a ponytail, threw on some clothes, and headed outside to the veranda.

The veranda is my favorite place in the residence. It's basically just a big back patio covered by a sunshade. It has fans to keep the air moving and an incredibly comfy couch with soft green pillows that's a perfect place for reading. There's a table where I eat breakfast and lunch a lot of the time and where Iskinder and I build our card houses. Iskinder works in the residence, and I spend more time with him than with any other person here. I guess you could say he's the third close friend I've managed to make in Ethiopia.

It was pretty warm outside, even though it was still morning, so I stopped in the kitchen and poured myself a huge glass of iced Wush Wush tea, one of the local brands. Breakfast, as every healthy young woman knows, is the most important meal of the day, so I stuffed an entire chocolate-chip mini-muffin into my mouth. Then I grabbed a handful of granola from the plastic container on the counter and picked up the iced tea with my free hand.

After setting my glass on the table, I jogged to the middle of the back lawn to start my morning ritual. Standing perfectly still on the prickly dry grass, I whistled a long, fluttery call. I whistled again.

What an entrance: John, Paul, Ringo, and George—superb starlings I had befriended after two very patient weeks of making tempting overtures with wilted lettuce, dried mango, and other birdie delicacies. They swooped down and clustered two birds on each wrist, gently pecking my closed fists, where they knew I was hiding their breakfast. Their talons felt like pinpricks on my skin. I marveled at their glossy feathers, a psychedelic rainbow of iridescent blue, green, orange, and white.

“Morning, guys,” I said softly, opening my fingers so they could enjoy their meal. “I brought your favorite today.”

I've always been good with animals. They've been my passion for as long as I can remember. Back home in Bethesda, when I was little, I'd had absolutely no interest in dolls, but I had mountains of stuffed dogs, bears, lions, tigers, monkeys, even a wild boar named Schweinken. My mom offered to get me one of those amazing African grey parrots that live to be seventy years old and speak in full sentences, but I think it's wrong to keep animals in cages.

“Hi, Luce, what's on tap for today?” It was my
mother, and of course the instant the Fab Four heard her, they flew away. Annoyed, I turned around.

She looked impeccable, as always. Her gray pantsuit and white shirt would be as crisp and clean at the end of the day as they were now. She carried her briefcase in one hand and her silver coffee thermos in the other. Tall and perfectly proportioned, with my straw blonde hair and her own brown eyes, my mother looks like the kind of woman who should be riding horses in Virginia, not running an embassy in Africa.

“What's on tap? Let's see. First I thought I'd go play some tennis in the park, then maybe meet a bunch of friends for ice cream, and then go hang out at the mall.”

She raised her right eyebrow at me, unamused but unwilling to take the bait.

“Tana's home. I'm going over there later.”

“Okay. Iskinder will drive you. Ask him to wait at Tana's house until you're ready to go home.”

Hmm. I see we're still having some trust issues
. “Fine.”

“Have fun, Lu. I'll be home late tonight.”

What else is new?

By the way, my mother wasn't always as self-centered
and no fun as she is now. Let's just say there's an inverse relationship between how much she cares about her job and how much she cares about me.

I lay down on my favorite couch and leaned over to look through the stack of books on the floor. There were a bunch about African wildlife, plus the usual autobiographies by my heroes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. They're the three women who were sponsored by the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey to study the great apes in the wild in a way that no one had ever done before. People call them Leakey's Angels. If everything goes according to plan, I'll be doing exactly what they do in ten or fifteen years. Which means I need to be prepared. I decided to reread
Haines's Guide to African Mammals
, fifth edition, for the umpteenth time.

Around one o'clock, Iskinder came out with a tray of what he calls toasted cheese. It's my favorite lunch, so he makes it for me almost every day. Iskinder's toasted cheese is like regular grilled cheese except he leaves off the top, puts on a slice of tomato, and adds some secret ingredient that makes the whole thing superdelicious. I keep asking him what the secret is, but he won't tell
me. He just puts on his wise-old-man expression, the one that says,
Ah, Lucy, life is richer with a little mystery
.

He set the tray on the table. “Come. It is time you eat lunch now, Lucy.”

Iskinder is a small, thin man with snow-white hair, a high forehead, and skin the color of well-done toast. His eyes stick out a little, and they look even bigger behind his round wire-rimmed glasses. He reminds me of Owl in
Winnie-the-Pooh
.

“Thanks,” I said. I brought over my Wush Wush, sat down, and began to inhale the sandwiches while Iskinder watched me, highly amused.

“I cannot understand how all those sandwiches fit inside someone so small,” he said. I knew Iskinder was just trying to be funny, but I couldn't help taking it personally. I
am
really small, and it's kind of a sore spot. I'm thirteen and not even five feet tall yet. My father says I shouldn't worry, because everyone in his family was a late bloomer, and he was really short until high school. I hope I don't have to wait that long. It's mortifying to look like everybody's little sister.

“Okay, so give me the Araya update,” I said. The Arayas are Iskinder's next-door neighbors, and their
lives are like something straight out of a soap opera.

“Oh, there is big news today, Lucy. Very big news. Kaleb is coming home in three weeks, and you should see Mrs. Araya and Lishan running around the house getting everything ready.”

“Kaleb? Isn't he the one who's been living in America? The one who broke off his engagement to that girl everyone thought he shouldn't marry anyway?”

“The very same. And she has a new boyfriend now, so it will be interesting to see what happens when Kaleb comes home.”

“
Very
interesting,” I agreed. “Hey, do you know what today is?” I asked.

“Tuesday?”

“Well, yeah, but it's also the first day I'm allowed to go out!”

“The green couch will look very empty without you lying on it all day long.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Very funny, Iskinder. Do you mind taking me to Tana's when I'm done with lunch?”

He smiled at me. “No problem, Lucy. No problem at all.” The way Iskinder pronounces it, you can hear the
t
in
at
.

I munched in silence for a couple of minutes. “How about some urban development after dinner tonight?” I asked. This is our inside joke. Iskinder and I build card houses together. But not just regular card houses. We build whole cities of them, all different shapes and sizes, and pretend they're places like an Italian piazza, an American town, or an Ethiopian village. Iskinder is amazing at building card houses. He can build them six stories high, or round, or even pyramid shaped. He's taught me everything I know, and I have to say, I'm pretty good now. Of course, that says as much about how much time I've spent stuck in the house over the last six months as it does about my building skills.

“I look forward to it,” he said, smiling.

I finished eating, and we agreed to meet in front of the house in fifteen minutes. I checked my watch. It has a little compass on it, which told me I was facing northeast, plus two time zones, which said it was 5:03 in the morning back home in Maryland and 1:03 in the afternoon here. But no matter how I measure time, I always have way too much of it to kill.

I
SKINDER WAS WAITING
when I got outside, holding open the back door of the BPM, a.k.a. our bulletproof Mercedes. I buckled up and slumped back with my feet propped up on the passenger seat in front of me.

“Syed Ibrahim Kausri, the infamous Pakistani drug baron, is being held here in Addis Ababa while he awaits extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of conspiracy to import, manufacture, and distribute heroin.”
The local news blared from the car radio until Iskinder changed the station. Then we began the drive through the pocket of alien suburbia that is the American embassy compound.

Most of the Americans who work at the embassy live here, inside the compound. There are nine
other houses, but our residence is the biggest. When you add in the administration buildings, the whole spread is pretty impressive. It's like living in a kind of weird pseudo-neighborhood, with little kids and dogs and gardeners mowing lawns. The compound is surrounded by tall flowering trees and bushes. We need all that greenery so we can pretend not to notice the massive cement wall, topped by a foot of razor wire, that separates us from the outside world.

As we drove through the front gate, I mock-saluted Henry, the marine at the security station. Once we were outside the compound, we were no longer under constant observation by U.S. military forces, but that didn't mean I had any more freedom. I stared out the window at Addis Ababa, the capital of one of the world's oldest civilizations, and I thought about how the inside of a car is as close as I ever get to the city.

Everything looks so different from back home. I watched boys leading donkeys loaded with firewood along the side of the road, goats running wild, and women wrapped in white
shema
shawls reaching up with one hand to steady the bundles of firewood on their heads. Japanese cars zipped in and out of traffic
lanes along with blue and white taxis. There were also minibus taxis, the ones that people call cars of conversation because so many people are crammed inside that you can't help but chat with your neighbors (not that I would know since I've never been allowed in one). Barbershops, jewelry stores, and small groceries were mixed in with rows of corrugated-tin strip malls spilling out fabric, batteries, and bananas.

It didn't take long to get to Tana's. Like a lot of other rich Ethiopians, she and her family live in a big house surrounded by a high stone wall. Iskinder checked in through the intercom at the gate, and we pulled into the driveway. When we got to the front of the house, I said oh-so-casually, “Thanks, Iskinder. I'll call you when I'm ready to go home. Probably around five.”

Iskinder turned around in his seat to look at me. “That is all right, Lucy. I will wait for you.”

“Don't worry, Iskinder. I'll be fine. You can just come back at five.”

“I am sorry, Lucy, but your mother asked me to stay here with you until it is time to leave.”

Not just trust issues.
Big
trust issues.

“Please, Iskinder?” I pleaded in my most winsome voice, oozing charm with a hint of pathetic. “It would mean so much to me. It's my first time with Tana since everything happened—you know that. I
promise
I won't do anything I shouldn't do.”

Iskinder hesitated. I could see him debating with himself.

“
Please?
” Big eyes, small smile . . .

It worked.

“Ah, Lucy, how can I say no to you?”

“Thanks, Iskinder!”

Ignoring the hard lump of guilt I already felt in the pit of my stomach, I gave Iskinder a hug and headed up the path leading to the house, passing the Kassais' new driver on the way. He stared at me as I walked by him, and I noticed the two lines of skin that bisected his left eyebrow, scars called “elevens” because they look like that number. A lot of people have them here. When children are born, parents cut their eyebrows because they believe the blood will prevent eye disease.

Tana swung the door open before I even had a chance to ring the bell.

“Lucy!”

Instantly I forgot all about Iskinder and my mother. I was just so happy to finally be out of the house and with my friend. We hugged each other, and then Tana hooked her arm through mine, grinning. “I have good news,” she whispered. “My mother is going shopping in a few minutes with her friend Mrs. Beshir. So we can find something to do
outside
.” I got the hint.
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