lounge to be embraced by Zeno. He had already booked a table at a secluded restaurant in a new Addis hotel.
Over dinner he raised the prospect of Louise returning to Addis Ababa to undertake fieldwork within a few months, much earlier than she had originally planned. She was enthusiastic and told him that her university in London could arrange for scholarship support when she studied in Ethiopia. Zeno talked about his research in anthropology and Louise wondered how she might navigate her way through preliminary thesis preparation in London and arrive back much earlier. Life makes an offer like this only once, she thought.
He settled himself in his chair opposite, reflected on this new reality and said in a measured voice, ‘And you, Louise, have the talent to produce original work which will contribute greatly to the understanding of Ethiopian life. You remind me of the Ethiopian jazz song ‘Lomiwen teqebelech’ (‘She accepted the lemon’) sung by the 1970s Ethiopian jazz star Mahmoud Ahmed in which a lemon is thrown at his girlfriend’s feet and, if she picks it up, it means she will marry him.
‘And you know,’ he whispered, ‘the girl in the song is like you, as beautiful as Makda Queen of Sheba … and she picked up the lemon.’
‘That’s a beautiful story.’
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