the wild animals came. First, he said, were the ones with horns, although in fact some of the ones with horns did not have horns. He and the other novice could see them down below in the moonlight. Suddenly the ones with horns began a great battle with the ones who did not have horns. There was such a noise and such fighting that the two young monks became afraid. But all at once the animals left—as if a lion or a tiger had come to the area. In fact, a lion had come to the area and beneath the tree there were suddenly many lions. Then there were also tigers. They had to beat metal objects together to stop the animals climbing the tree. Then the lions and the tigers started to fight and there was a terrifying noise as they fought.
But then they too ran away. ‘That was when we began to hear another noise. It was the biggest noise you can hear in the forest. The lions and the tigers stopped fighting and they were afraid. They ran away.’
‘What was the noise?’
‘A great big one!’
‘An elephant?’
‘Bigger than an elephant. I don’t know its name. We did not see it. We only heard its noise. Like a, like a…thing.’ He failed to find anything worthy of comparison. ‘Everyone knows it. It is a hundred devils in one!’
For the rest of the night they prayed and they heard the noise of the big thing moving among the trees. But as it became light, the noise stopped. Merchants came with camels and they came down out of the tree and the merchants gave them food. The two of them went on their way.
In Tigray they wanted to see Ras Seyoum to tell him they could not reach Jerusalem. They wanted to give him back his thalers. But their leader was not with them and they were just ordinary churchmen and so they waited, standing at the gates for a long time. Then they gave the money to a guard.
‘We returned to Gojjam after many difficulties. But we also met good people on the way.’
‘So, did you reach Jerusalem later?’
‘I went to Addis Ababa. I became known there. Did you hear the name of Empress Menen?’
‘The wife of Haile Selassie?’
‘She said she wanted me to go. She was going to arrange it. “Abba, you must go to Jerusalem!” But she died.’
He let out a long sigh. ‘I went to see the emperor’s daughter, Tenagne Worq. She asked her father. He said to me, Abba, where is your file? Where is my file? I didn’t have a file! But by God’s will they found my file. His Majesty held the file and said, You can go.
‘So I did go to Jerusalem. I went to the Holy Sepulchre, I went to Deir es Sultan, to Addis Alem monastery. I went to Bethlehem. But I was not as strong then as now. If I had gone now, I would have studied great books—they have books in Jerusalem that are as big as doors! But I was young then. I was not prepared.’
Hiluf was on a bus from Aksum. He would be in Lalibela in a few days. I meanwhile was staying at the Jerusalem Guest House, trying to prepare for the coming walk. Information was still patchy. Even the mysteries of the rock-cut churches were easier to pin down. There’ll be plenty of food in the markets…no food in the markets…you will need one mule…three mules…a car…no idea…militia…very hot…very cold…very steep…no food…
I had a problem with Ethiopian food. When I first arrived in 1982, I loved its spicy sauces, its spongy injera bread. But then on the second journey I picked up a stomach infection of such virulence that for a decade or more I lost a day or two each month to it. I assumed the years had sorted it out; but a meal in an Addis restaurant a week earlier had proved me wrong.
So I went to Lalibela’s weekly market. I found shallots and garlic and chilli peppers. I found rice and pulses and tomatoes. I bought screwtop containers. I bought biscuits and sugar and a block of sawn-up salt from the Danakil desert. I lined all the food up in my room. I had the tinned fish from Addis, and the sachets of soup. I packed it all very diligently into a canvas bag. I spread out the maps from Ethiopia’s Mapping Agency. I sliced off the unnecessary parts—the desert to the east, the Takazze lowlands to the west. I taped the folds. I sliced the Maudes’ translation of Anna Karenina into three pocket-sized sections and taped the spine (I kept the five-thousand-rouble note I had used as a bookmark when I’d first read it, ten years earlier, in Lithuania).
With the help of the Jerusalem’s proprietor, I settled on two mules and two muleteers—by the name of Bisrat and Makonnen. Bisrat was gentle and subservient, Makonnen canny and wiry. The mules looked healthy enough. They would come with us as far as the town of Sekota.
The days slipped by. I jostled with pilgrims and travellers at the sacred sites. I tried to ignore the immensity of the backdrop mountains, the heat that clambered up through the hours of each morning, my own breathlessness. In the evening, I sat on the terrace outside my room and read. A breeze would come up from the south and a thousand eucalyptus leaves brush together with a long watery shhhh. I was filled with expectation. Each morning I lay in bed and watched daylight leak into the eastern sky. Each morning I heard a blast of the tirumba: ’Citizens of Lalibela—come out, come out! Come out for the burial…come out, come out!‘
One evening I returned to the guest house and there was Hiluf sitting on a wall. A small bag lay beside him, a water bottle and three tied-together batons of sugarcane. He had the thick-lashed eyes and easy smile of the Tigrayans. He jumped down and we embraced. I liked him at once.
In my room, I showed him the neatly-packed bag of supplies. At once he set about repacking it, with the reverence for food of those who have lived with real hunger. We looked at the maps. I ran my fingers up across the dense contours of Wag and Lasta, into Tigray, Tembien and Gheralta.
‘Do you know any of this?’
He shook his head.
I glanced at his feet. ‘Hiluf, your shoes!’
He bent down and poked his finger through the sole. ‘It’s all right—they are quite good shoes.’
He looked up at me. He began to laugh, and I couldn’t help laughing with him.
‘We’ll have to get you new ones.’
Hiluf bent down and took a needle and thread from his bag.
In the morning Bisrat and Makonnen were at the gate. They held a mule each. The sun was a pale glow behind Mount Eshetan. We loaded the mules and set off. It was a feast day at Beta Giorgis. I let the others go on and went down to join the ring of worshippers on the edge of the pit. Another crowd filled the shadowy space below. The fat cruciform block of the
church rose high above their heads. The debtara were dancing. The beat of a kebbero sounded from among them.
The sun reached me with a warning flash in the corner of my eye; in a few hours it would be hot. I turned to leave and wound up through the gathering crowds. I stopped a woman with a flat-pan basket on her head and bought six bananas. They were stumpy and very sweet. The woman had a burn-mark covering one cheek. ‘Pay me what you like,’ she said.
As I caught up with the others, there was a distant cry: ‘Citizens of Lalibela! Come out! Help bury Girma Gabre-Selassie! Citizens of Lalibela, come out, come out!‘
