One Saturday afternoon, to avoid the dazzling rain drubbing the roofs and roads of Addis, I took a refuge in one of the famous brothels by the National Lottery Building behind Cinema Ethiopia. During those days, I had habituated sitting with a security of walls of my back.
After scanning the room with a cursory glance, I headed to one of the corners yet unoccupied by frequenters of bars. Right after I sat myself down, I ordered for Beer and indulged in contemplating about the murky future fate has in store for me-a luxurious self-pity that immediately pops up into the mind of a man tossed ashore by the turbulent tide of life.
Suddenly in the middle of revelers, making a boozing circle at the center and rumbling with laughter, I noticed a half-cast girl, an escort girl in the brothel whose company I often enjoyed. We used to often chitchat sitting amidst boozers in a liquor spree. She was deeply engrossed in the hullabaloo that permeated their table. Helen was what she went by, but many including myself preferred to call her by the pet name Helu.
Amidst this merrymaking at its crescendo, a tiny man nothing better than a dwarf but sumptuously attired, obviously the sponsor of the boozing circle, pulled out a hundred birr note from his shirt pocket and waved it on the air by way of summoning the girl in charge of the bill for that particular table.
All of them cleared their glasses with one shot and got up. Exchanging a-goodbye handshakes, Helen together with the other girl, cleared away the bottles and grasses littering the table.
No sooner than the boy at the balcony, tasked with washing glasses, received the glasses from them, spotting me from Afar, Helen advanced towards me, with sparkling eyes and a beaming face. Kissing our shoulders turn by turn, the Ethiopian way we warmly exchanged greetings. Pulling a chair I invited her to take a seat before I followed suit. Despite our intimacy and affection to each other, our affiliation, of its own accord, had turned into a sisterly and brotherly bond.
And as such she never failed in confiding me her sacred secrets. It was at our first amity that she repentantly told me the ignominious dumping she suffered at the hands of her boyfriend Samuel, a traffic policeman, for whose sake she eloped from home and gave birth to a baby girl.
Inviting her to take her favorite Beer, I posed the question.
“Why are you attired in full black? Are you mourning a relative?”
She said “Last week my stepfather passed away. You see, my real father, about whom I related to you last time, is a renowned artist. He doesn’t give a straw about me. Once in a while I go to his office and greet him. Even the blind could tell that I am his mirror image. I am a mulatto as he. I hope you know him the artist Belew Achenafi.”
“Yes, I know him! He is a public figure. I saw him on TV while giving explanation about the literary posture of the country that went down hills these days,”I said
She then began relating her story to me
I did tell him that I didn’t know he was my father till I was seventeen, for my stepfather brought me up with all due affection and parental love that left no room for doubt. My stepfather showed neither partiality nor preferential treatment between my younger three half-sisters and me.
“Could you imagine how I happened to know my father at home was not my real father?”
With a nod I let her heeding ear.
Once while my mother, I and her friend were walking up the stairs just on the way to Nazareth girls’ School by Ras Mekonnen Bridge, my mother unconsciously tightened her grip on my arm and uttered “Helen’s father!” when she caught the sight of a handsome half-cast chap fast approaching us from the opposite direction.
I was taken aback by what I heard. But I couldn’t doubt the veracity, for I read anxiety registered on his face and an automatic shift to feign a complete stranger.
Standing still, with a back shot, for half a minute, Mom saw him off as he quickly stepped down the stairs. By way of diverting my attention, her friend nudged my mother and alluded to their plan of visiting a close friend that got bedridden due to the hypertension.
I didn’t utter a word that day, but on the morrow I nagged Mom to death to tell me what exactly she meant by “Helen’s father!” when she just took the snapshot of the handsome mulatto, who passed by our side a day before. Disinclined to respond she went to bed under the pretext of a headache.
On the morrow, when I raised the same question again, she hushed me up flinging on my face “You are a heartsickness!”
The quest for identity overwhelmed me to the point of obsession.
So asking my mother’s friends and a close neighbor I got a clue that I was brought up by a stepfather. I also learnt my stepfather married Mom when she was evicted from home jilted by her boyfriend. She was at a loss what to do and where to go, degrading her conservative family’s pride giving birth to me before tying the knot.
As I was confused, I began to question my stepfather’s love. I started to see offense where offense wasn’t meant, and also began to sense favoritism. Before I knew it, my behavior got out of hand. I made a point stealing money and coming late at night.
It was when I was frequenting the pastries at Arar Killo, by the traffic light around the parliament, I came to fall in love with my ex-boyfriend, Samuel.
Once my stepfather, who foretasted trouble, summoning me into his reading room interrogated me as to what the hell had gone wrong with me.
“Helen you need check your manners!” was exactly what he said.
With tear loaded eyes, I asked him.
“Dad, aren’t you my real father?”
Shocked, he didn’t say a word for seconds. When he began to speak, I read anguish registered on his face and regretted why I posed the question.
Drawing out each word with pain, he said,
“It is I who brought you up ever since you were a toddler. What does it matter who is your biological father? Even Animals procreate and see to the well-being of their offspring, but your biological father was devoid of such instinct. Pondering about him you gain nothing but pain!”
“Helen dear, is that why your behavior proved unbecoming lately? I excuse you!” he said and went out of home and came late at night.
Despite this nice treatment my behavior took a turn for the worse. Even once I came home late dead drunk. My mother and my sister hauled me to bed while my stepfather, exercising patience, was watching TV pretending as if he was absorbed in the press statement a certain official was giving.
Sneaking out of home after everybody took to bed, I used to spend the whole night with Samuel at overnight parties and gently tap the backdoor early in the morning. My sisters who I per-inform were always ready to open the door for me.
Unfortunately, one morning, my stepfather opened the door and slammed it on my face. Having stayed at my grandmother’s house for a week, ashamed to see my father’s face, I talked grandma into brokering peace to no avail. My father refused to admit me home claiming,
“The elder child should rather be a role-model!”
He sternly convinced my grandma that I should better stay with her maintaining,
“If I fail to be harsh in my decision, the rest follow suit. The situation turned a blessing in disguise for me;I went on a love spree. Out of recklessness, however, I got heavy with child. You see history repeats itself. Like mother, like daughter.”
After I gave birth to a daughter at grandma’s house, and Samuel slackened his love, I decided to be a barmaid. The barmaids I talked to and who were in the same boat, encouraged me to join them painting the benefits that accrues from commercial sex work in dazzling hues.
Once asking his whereabouts from my mother’s friend, I did visit my biological father. Heading to his office, I told him pointblank
“I am your daughter, I need your help!”
He displayed no confusion nor did he say much. He simply took me out for a cup of tea and told me up front
“I have two children, if my wife comes to hear about my having a child on the wrong side of the blanket, she will give me a hard time. It is good you came to visit me. Keep coming occasionally, ”he added and borrowing one hundred birr from his secretary gave it to me and saw me off. Sometimes I go there and visit him.
But as my stepfather was unwilling to see me, I wasn’t fortunate enough to be by his sickbed and nurse him.
You know I am heavily indebted to him. I took it to heart and cried my heart out when he was buried a fortnight ago.
There is a saying stepfathers are cruel “but he was an angel. He couldn’t have failed me, had I not pushed him to the extreme.”
As a token of my reverence and love for him, by way of displaying my bereavement, I will be attired in full black for one solid year as custom dictates.
When she finished ordering for a second round of Beer, I asked her about the whereabouts of Sara, a fellow barmaid, that didn’t report to duty that night
“Why ?Have you forgotten, fed up with a commercial sex work and determined to live by the sweat of her brow, she had left for Bahrain to save some money. She intends to open a cosmetic shop here two years later. She did tell you! Have you forgotten it?”
“Oh I see!”
I said.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 26 January 2020
BY ALEM HAILU
