The History of a Difficult Child by Mihret Sibhat

Author:Mihret Sibhat [Sibhat, Mihret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

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After worship, it is radio time. Our new radio is gray and ugly like everyone else’s. An episode of Eset-Ageba will be airing tonight. We are eager to hear the history professor and the deputy ambassador argue with each other. I sit on my father’s lap, looking for the frequency. I am glad our Jesus Christ has cut Mamitu’s Bar out of our lives.

Asmelash says I am going to unseat Little Yonas as the minister of radio very soon, although he gets impatient with me when he is eager not to miss a program like today.

“Turn it back, turn it back, you almost found it.”

“Quiet, Abayé, I am trying to focus.”

I like it when we argue because he’s not ignoring me like he does when he prays. In the evenings, he kneels down to pray: forgive me Jesus, for everything. Sometimes he forgets I am next to him and whispers: what have I done, what have I done, what have I done.

He confessed at an evening prayer session about the last time he went to Mamitu’s Bar. Everyone surrounded him; Melkamu placed his hand on my father’s head to pray for him. Asmelash said he went to the bar and ordered a beer. Mamitu and the rest of his friends smiled, thinking he was back. He said it felt good to make them happy until the beer gave him a stomachache that caused him to throw up.

He is home most of the time now, leaving only to go to court and to travel. He’s been going to court to argue for his old flour mill back. After the revolution, he was entitled to keep one of his businesses. Local officials took everything and he was too afraid to ask for one back. Desperation for money has made him fearless now. He has also been traveling to Jimma on church business. When he is not sitting on the veranda or away, he shutters his bedroom window to sleep in the dark. Sometimes it’s because he’s sick; other times he doesn’t say why.

The radio says the government has continued killing innocent people in retaliation for a defeat by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front in a big battle. My father says the killings are a sign that the dictator is feeling weak. We don’t like that the Front wants to separate Eritrea from us. We just think anything is better than living under this bloodthirsty regime. I want the government to lose so that I’m free to finish comrade Rectangle-Head and his like.

It’s time for Eset-Ageba. The moderator says the two men should stay clear of personal attacks. Asmelash and I laugh every time he says that.

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