This section is the continuation of the suspended previous narratives of the story, and driving it to actualization and eventual conclusion.
…After some time Selam started hanging out with Abate; she would invite him meals and even bought him clothes, the kind he had never worn. As he was from the rural, he did not know what fashion clothes are all about. He was out to look for his mother. Naturally, if a girl is interested in someone, she does anything as long as she thinks her acts can attract the person of her choice. This went on for some time. But in due course, her fiancé, after several attempts to understand why Selam, of late, started ignoring him, came to know their about affairs.
It did not take him long to threaten and sometimes even beat her. This viscous act could not deter her from moving with Abate. Her determination even was infuriated her fiancé and he had to hire a mercenary to blackmail and beat up Abate, which they did so. One day as she came to where he was, he angrily jumped at her handing the clothes she bought him to her and ran away from her presence like a mad man. She was shocked and puzzled why he behaved that way. They had departed peacefully the previous evening. She tried to follow him but could not keep pace.
‘What can I do?’ she asked herself. It was a very difficult question to which there was no a readymade answer. The last option she had was to go back to her house, rest awhile and soberly figure out things. The following day she got up early and hastened to Abate’s place to get before he leaves his house and thus she made it. ‘What’s the matter? Why did you run away from me?” she blurted. She did it thoughtlessly; all she wanted was explanation from him. Then it was his turn to cool things down.
“I understand why you are angry, I beg your pardon.”
“You still don’t answer my question, why? why?” she asked staring at him.
“It’s a long story. I didn’t want to tell you thinking that the attack would abate eventually, but didn’t; they threatened and beat me up.”
“Who did that to you?”
“Well, my friends told me that it was you’re fiancé. I didn’t know that you had a fiancé. I am in this city only to find my mother, nothing else.”
Extremely shocked and not knowing what to say, she simply stared at him; anger overwhelmed her. Later maintaining her composure, tearfully she clung to him. Both remained in that position for quite a while until the tide that engulfed them both subsided.
She was so much affected by what had happened to this young man; she decided to confront her fiancé. She went straight to her fiancé’s office and asked why he attacked Abate.
“He is an innocent guy who has come to Addis to look for his mother. What has he done to you? And what right do you have, let alone attacking, even to come close to him?”
“Since when have you become a human rights advocate? You should be more worried about yourself.”
“Are you threatening me? Don’t even think about it. I can protect myself. You don’t know what I’m capable of.” With this she briskly walked out of the office deciding never ever to see his face again.
The threat to Abate was so much that he wanted to go back to his birth place upon which Selam decided to go with in spite of his dissuasion. Finally, they came to an agreement and set the departure date and fanally headed for their destination; after hours of ride, they arrived there. Their arrival at his mother’s house was exclusive news to all; thus his rural wife came to witness her husband’s being with a city girl. She did not have the gut to say anything while people gathered around. But later in the afternoon when she found Selam alone sitting behind the house, she thundered her jealousy at her; she, in fact, threatened to kill her.
In spite of what his wife was planning to do to Selam, both the city girl and Abate secured time and convenience, free of the onlookers’ interference, to be alone together there in the countryside, upon which Abate, coupled with her consent, gained the courage to seduce her. He did so and she got pregnant as a result and that strengthened their love even more and that pleased his mother. This very situation worsened the relationship between the families of Abate and that of his wife.
Abate who was left along the path in a bag has become a love object for whom women vie with one another to own him. In principle, he was nothing but an illegitimate baby who nobody could have cared about. Yet, by the gracious deliverance of God, he grew up in the hands of a loving mother and became the focal point of love that merged the city and the rural influences. A baby destined to death inside a bag, became an abundant source of love.
At the same time, Abate’s brother and friends, after having learned about how he was beaten up, they decided to go to Addis to avenge their brother’s humiliation upon Selam’s fiancé no matter what it costs. They reached Addis as planned and Selam went along with them.
“It would be wise if we look for my friends,” Abate suggested to the group to which all agreed. After search of a couple of hours, they found them all.
“Look here, Abate is back,” said one of his city friends. They hugged and kissed him, an indication of how much they had missed him. They went to a hotel where they usually eat. That extremely pleased Selam, who had never experienced such exciting friends’ intimacy. The jokes and the teasing made her roar with laughter like she had never laughed.
The next move was to go to her house which was suggested by Selam upon which all agreed to.
“How can we, without prior notice, knock on your mother’s door, isn’t it rather rude?” asked Abate.
“Leave that to me,” replied Selam.
After a couple of days, one fine evening, she took Abate and his friends to her parents’ house.
The situation was rather a big surprise to her mother who had not met her in three months.
“Look, who is here at this dark hour of the day?”
“Well, Mom, it is a long story. I want you to meet my new friends who rescued me from a serious danger that could have cost me my life. They kept me safe and that’s why I am alive and stand before you,” she explained.
“What are you talking about? What danger are you telling me?
“The so called fiancé, with the help of the mercenaries he hired, Abate was physically assaulted and had we not been in the area, he could have killed him,”said one of Abate’s friends.
Wulaya, Selam’s mother, since she was forcing Selam into the affairs, now having heard what had happened to her daughter, could not control her temper. She was innocently pushing Selam to marry the rich man without knowing that he was such a ruffian.
“I’m sorry, my daughter. I thought he would be the right person for you. I made a big mistake for pushing so hard to be his fiancé.”
“I understand your good intentions but the man turned out to be an enemy.”
“It is not too late for everything,” said Abate suppressing his fury which was about to burst.
And his agitated friends, too, expressed the same feeling. It is amidst this situation that the door was banged opened in which Selam’s fiancé swaying his gun in the air, threatening to shoot Abate and Selam. While intimidating others in the room, by some miraculous intervention, Abate’s brother hit his head from the back and that sent him down to the ground.
Birtukan, Wulaya’s friend, and the mother of Abate, was at the scene. She could not restrain herself any longer; she sprang to her son Abate, hugged him tightly and kissing him all over his face at the same time loudly crying and begging for his forgiveness.
At the end of the day, reconciliation loosened the open wide the bag full love that had deliberately been kept secret and partly a mystery due to innocence or ignorance. After all, love does not envy and it is kind and not puffed up. More than a safe full of money, a bag full of love rewards tremendously. Let us all vie for it at every turn of life.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 15 December 2019
BY JOSEPH SOBOKA
