BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
“In the name of St. Mary the Immaculate, alms, alms to the poor,” Asselefech intoned her customer begging refrain.
Professor Desta was used to her begging cry as he walked every morning to Addis Ababa University from his common living quarters, which were located near the University. The Professor never failed to be intrigued why such a beautiful, if unclean and shabbily dressed, young lady was reduced to begging. However, he had never bothered to give her any money in the belief that able –bodied people should strive to work rather than beg.
On that particular day, he decided to offer her some loose change which be fetched from his coat pocket, but he also wanted to find out why she was begging.
“Here you are, young lady,” the Professor said placing the loose change (about one Ethiopian dollar in total) in her stretched hand. (By the way, the Ethiopian currency was named the Birr by the Derg government).
“Why are you begging, young lady?” the Professor began his quest for the root cause of the circumstances which forced her to beg for alms.
“I need money to buy food”, said Asselefech the Beggar.
“But you already have enough money in your hand to buy bread,” the Professor said.
“My Lord, I need to eat all my life. So, I must beg until I die”, Asselefech answered.
“I am definitely not your lord. I am just a human being like you”, said the Professor feeling guilty about being considered to be anybody other than a simple human being. “How can you wish to continue to beg all your life? Don’t you realize that begging is a shameful act?” the Professor continued his inquiry.
“To me begging is a way of life. It has become second nature to me and, obviously, I can’t survive without it,” Asselefech said.
“Fair enough,” said the Professor and resumed his walk to the University. He was already late by over thirty minutes. Some of his students had started leaving the classroom when he arrived. “Sorry, guys, please come back and we will rush through today’s lecture in the time we have left,” the Professor pleaded with the students, who is fact were happy to have the day’s lecture on their favorite subject, social psychology.
“You may think begging is socially shameful, but Asselefech the Beggar does not think so. She in fact argues to the effect that calling a means of survival shameful is inhuman, because without being able to beg openly, she may well perish. That is quite a stumper and pretty difficult to deny,” the Professor tried to rush through his lecture as he promised.
One of his students raised her hand and said: “Well, Professor, if she deliberately caused her poverty which apparently forced her to beg for alms, then she is guilty and deserves contempt, but if society forced her into poverty then that would be a credible enough viewpoint.”
“That is what I am trying to find out, guys. Our time is up. Thanks for your forbearance,” the Professor said and wrapped up the day’s truncated session. On the way back home, Prof. Desta saw Asselefech again. He approached her and said: “You said you need money to buy food. What if you learn how to make food?”
“The problem is, what do I eat while I learn to make food and where do I get the money for tuition?” Asselefech cornered the Professor.
“What if I take care of that?” said the Professor.
“I don’t trust anybody. Besides, alms represent a shower of love and pity and I have got so thoroughly used to them. They are a sort of addiction. What could be more comfortable than to eat and live without having to work”, Asselefech said.
“By the way, how old are you?” The Professor asked.
“My parents told me I was 12 years old before they died two years ago within six months of each other”, Asselefech replied.
“What were the causes of their death?”
“It was the same cause, AIDS”.
“Have you tested for HIV?”
“They say I am fortunately negative”.
“Who are they?”
“Arsho at the Piazza.”
“Did your parents have jobs?”
“My father was a night guard earning a monthly salary of 800 birr. My mother was a prostitute at Serategna Sefer at the Pizza.”
“Where are you living now?”
“The kebele allowed me to keep the small governant -owned shack my father rented under the custody of my aunt who is also quite poor.”
“Did you go to school before your parents died?”
“Yes, Betemengist Elementary School down from Nazareth School.”
“Why did you go into begging?”
“The minor’s pension I am getting from my father’s salary is not even enough for food.”
The Professor placed another Eth. dollar in her hand and proceeded to his home. Prof. Desta started thinking how to help this potentially intelligent and beautiful young girl of 14 years of age. He thought to himself: “Asselefech will soon grow into an attractive young lady. She may well be sexually assaulted before that, which means devastating psychological and emotional problems, possibly driving her into prostitution and exposing her to the deadly HIV. I wish I hadn’t talked to her. I am now morally bound to rescue this little human being from self- destruction.”
Prof. Desta had a good night’s sleep perhaps because he thought he had made the right decision about Asselefech the Beggar. The next morning he did meet her on his way to the University and greeted her, but he refrained from giving her alms. Nevertheless, she uttered her customary imploring refrain: “In the name of St. Mary the Immaculate,”alms, alms to the poor.” The Professor resisted the temptation to yield to her touching plea and walked away.
In class at the university, Prof. Desta gave an invigorating lecture.
“Today I am going to tell you a little more about Asselefech the Beggar. She is orphaned by Aids, she is hooked on alms. In fact, she said alms are like an addiction. She has wrongly come to believe that alms are an expression of the society’s love for her, but alms are mainly a sign of pity not love. Pity is actually an expression of self –pity as if one were in the same unfortunate circumstances”, Prof. Desta said.
One of the students asked: “Is there anything we can do to help Asselefech?”
“Thank you, Askale. I am planning to adopt her after discussing the matter with my wife”, the Prof replied and ended his lecture for the day.
On his way back, Prof Desta walked right up to Asselefech and told her about his intention to adopt her and care for her as his own child. As a matter of fact, Prof. Desta had no children because of male infertility. He had always wanted to have children, but since his infertility could not be medically reversed, his only choice was to adopt children with his wife’s consent or have his wife impregnated by another man, which of course, was repugnant to a man of his high moral stature.
“Sir, I am happy as I am. I get enough alms every day for food and more without having to worry about work or anything else at all. If you adopt me, I will have to go to school, study, do homework and sit for exams which are all stressful and worrisome “, Asselefech said.
“You may be right for now, but as you grow into adulthood you will need more than just food and sleep. Your sex drive will get stronger and you may end up in prostitution like your mother .You may in fact be raped, trying to resist sexual abuse. You probably do not know but it is usually an uphill task to rebuild your life after such a traumatic episode”, Prof. Desta pleaded with her.
“Oh that! The other day street urchins tried to lay and hump me, but you see how big my fingernails are. I scratched them so badly their faces dripped with blood. I also have these!” Asselefech held up a pack of razor blades. Prof. Desta cringed and he was momentarily at a loss for words. He soon recovered his composure and said: “Asselfech, it is all a matter of time. They are bound to succeed one of these days and it will have been too late by then! Come with me, Asselefetch!”
Suddenly, Asselefetch became pensive recollecting how close the street urchins had come to deflowering her a few days ago. Her change of mind was dramatically spontaneous: “Ok, Sir, I will go with you!”
Prof. Desta’s face shone with a fool –moon smile, and ignoring the stench excuding from her body and dirty clothes, he held her hand and headed home. On arrival he rang the gate bell. His wife, Woizero. Abebech who was busy hanging the day’s wash on the clothes line, opened the gate. When she saw her husband with the beautiful dirty girl, it took her no time to recall the day when she had discussed the issue of adoption as a solution to infertility. Wzro. Abebech’s happiness was boundless. She lavished kisses and smooches on Aselefech, completely disregarding the serious inconvenience of foul body odor. Prof. Desta observed with vicarious depth of emotion his wife’s deep –rooted yearning for maternity. Then, Wzro Abebech raised her head and slumped her face into Professor’s chest, crying profusely and wetting his shirt with tear. He kissed her silky hair, wetting it with a few teardrops of his own spouting out of the hitherto unconsummated yearning for paternity.
Wzro. Abebech took Asselefech to the shower room and showed her how to wash herself. She rubbed her entire body with skin cream, combed lice and nits out of her hair and styled it the way she knew how and dressed her in one of her earlier dresses after
shortening it substantially. In the meantime, she immersed Asselefech’s dirty clothes in boiled water before washing them thoroughly. The next day Asselefech put on her own cleaned and pressed dress and Wzro. Abebech took her to a nearby clothes boutique where she bought her new dresses and shoes and accessories.
Now, Asselefech seemed pretty settled and it was time to enroll her in a nearby school. It was the Professor’s turn to do this and he took her to the nearby Nazareth Catholic Girl’s School. Asselefech did quite well with above – average grades in all her subjects. She made friends with Fiametta, a half-caste girl from Eriteria province. In less than three years, Asselefech grew into a stunningly beautiful young lady. Fiametta, who was suspected of having connections with the EPLF, kept a close eye on Asselefech. Meantime, Prof. Desta was expelled from the University for criticizing President Mengistu Hailemariam for not accepting the offer of rapprochement talks with the US government. However, he maintained secret contacts with Brig. General Fenta Belaye, Brig. General Tesfaye Tirffe and Brg. General Legesse Teffera, who were clandestinely trying to orchestrate a military coup to remove the President from power. The EPLF did not want this to happen for ovious reasons. So, the EPLF secretly ordered Fiametta to tell her mother, a lady from Eriteria province, to activate her spy network to get the information to the President who, upon receiving the information proudly said: “I have already got it from. Col. Tesfaye. Thank you, anyway.”
Fiametta walked casually to Asselefech who was playing volleyball with her other friends and said:
“Asselefech, sorry for interrupting. Could I talk to you for a moment?”
“Oh! Fami, what’s it for this time around. I hope it is not about that bloke from the Addis Ababa University who is badgering me to have a date,” Asselefech said coming off the volleyball court.
“Oh! No! It is far more serious!” Fiametta said quietly, but Asselefech’s friends on the court, who had overheard Fiameta’s serious tone, rushed to where Fiametta and Asselefech were talking, surrounding them from all sides.
“It is really nothing. Sorry for causing concern. I just wanted to ask Asselefech where she had her hair done. I rather like it”, Fiametta said.
“Oh!” the young ladies said in chorus and one of them added: “Fiametta, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. How can you sound so serious and disrupt our beautiful volleyball game?”
“Sorry again, I am terribly sorry, I did not mean to cause any panic whatsoever,” Fiametta said.
In the temporary turmoil created, Fiametta managed to whisper into Asselefech’s ears, “Your father is in serious danger. Go tell him immediately”.
Asselefech turned to her friends who were already getting back on the court, and said:” “we’ve got no more classes this afternoon. I might as well introduce Fiametta to my hair stylist. Bye, guys !” As the two of them were getting out of the school compound, Fiametta told her best friend Asselefech: “I will do my best to have your father’s name struck off the list of coup plotters being submitted to Col. Tesfaye and eventually to President Mengistu. In the meantime inform your father that he is being targeted by the regime.”
As she approached her home, there was something eerie about the whole block. Soon she discovered that her home was surrounded by armed troops. She started crying. She saw through the mesh of the fence that Wzro.Abebech, her beloved adoptive mother, was crying too. About half an hour after Asselefech’s arrival home, a sergeant shouted into his walkie talkie: “Disengage! Target cleared!” Troops standing at the ready relaxed and began going on board a military van and drove off. Professor Desta was saved from execution by Asselefech’s friend, but, Ethiopia was doomed to an uncertain future. Brig. General Fanta Belaye, Brig. General Tesfaye Tirfee and Brig. General Legesse Teferra were executed by firing squad the next day to the EPLF’s delight!
The Ethiopian herald December 17/2020
