There was a recent article in this column dealing with the pitfalls of addiction to alcoholic drinks that were visible in our society and more particularly among the educated folks and the literati whose indulgence in drinks was the subject of many books, films, and autobiographies. This disorder of consuming too much drink to “fuel their creativity”. This was also the chosen lifestyle by our writers who often chose to sink their frustrations in bottles or glasses of hard drinks.
The following piece deals not with the true or real-life writer but with a fictional character created by a long-dead writer who delved into the world of illusion and fantasy by Tebeje, the leading character in the first short story in the Amharic language.
The first short story in Amharic is entitled “The Drunkard of Gulele”, and deals with the story of a drunkard who lived in the Gulele district in Addis Ababa in the period before the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. The story has nothing to do with history unless it is to demarcate the historical background that served as the setting for this fictional work. This columnist has translated this short story into English although it remains unpublished to this day. Temesgen Gebre, the author of the short story starts his narration by giving us the background information we need to see what kind of person the main character is.
From Geferssa to Yegezu Sefer, whenever people inquired about the well-known hen dealer who lived in Gulele, they told them his name was Tebeje the Drunkard or Tebeje the Hen Dealer.
The story of his life is full of adventures. He is an old man with a beard. He never washed or cut his hair. He does not talk in the morning. After drinking a great deal in the evening, he throws insults left and right or sings war songs. His voice was stronger than a well-fed dog. In the evening, he greets everybody he meets, whether he is an acquaintance or not. He laughs with anybody he meets in the evening. Whether he realizes it or not, the nature of his greetings entirely depends on his preferences and moods.
Temesgen’s description gives us a glimpse of the main character’s physical and psychological condition although the story deals mainly with the struggle against his alcoholic addiction and his decision at one point to quit drinking for once and all. The story is told in a humorous way tracing Tebeje’s fall and rise along the course of his recovery and relapse and ends with him on the doctor’s table as a victim of a car accident.
The story should not however be regarded in isolation to the social context and the values prevalent in society during that period. Ethiopian society has always been tolerant of the habit or abuse of drinking. Drinking is considered macho and the manifestation of bravado and male superiority. Drinking in society was and is a show of power, the power of the husband over his spouse, then the power of the rich over the poor, and the power of the downtrodden over their condition because alcohol is considered a potent remedy against people’s lack and hopeless simply because they can sleep in peace after imbibing a good deal of that poisonous liquid, called alcohol.
Tebeje, “the hen dealer” and the consummate drinker in the above story, enjoys drinking because it helps him keep in the same cycle of promising not to drink and drinking on the morrow of the evening’s drinking spree which ultimately leads him to his demise. Tebeje indulged in alcohol because he also loved to stay in that same cycle of drunken state in the evening and sobriety the next morning.
Apart from Tebeje, many people imagine or invent anything not to abandon their bad habit of overusing alcohol as a palliative, which is not in reality. Alcohol has never cured any trouble in our lives. It may be a temporary painkiller but not a lasting remedy. Whether we drink to protect ourselves from bad weather-if at all it gives us true protection to make the most out of a holiday, the result is the same. We drink to numb our senses, forget our sorrows, or indulge in illusory happiness whether in good and bad times, in sunshine or cold and rainfall.
Speaking of rainfall, we are now in the midst of our rainy season when the showers are more frequent, and the cold is almost breaking our bones. During these moments of natural bliss, many people choose to hurt themselves by indulging in drinking just to ward off the cold and feel and enjoy the deceptive warmth that embraces us after downing a couple of drinks at some wayside pub or at public houses where traditional drinks are usually served at a cheaper price.
Tebeje in our story above was the kind of drinker who does not choose his tavern or choose his drink. He is drinking anything that would keep him in his self-made prison of self-destruction, breaking his vows and making new vows that he broke the next day. And he enjoyed this kind of Sisyphean absurdity. In the Myth of Sisyphus, the protagonist is rolling up a boulder only to find it at his feet doing the same movement again and again until the end of existence.
Tebeje too may be called a drinker or a drunkard with a Sisyphean appetite for doing the same movement every day of his life until he could do it anymore following the car accident he suffered as a result of his bad habit. Tebeje did not drink to defend himself against the cold of winter. He was drinking because he loved it for one reason or another. And without knowing it he has become the victim of his own making, an addict.
Let us look at the following portion of the story to grasp the love the character felt toward the bottle. The author tells us that, “When he opened the bottle, he remembered that he needed a glass. He took the bottle to his mouth and drank three long gulps. He then thought about getting a glass. He was looking at the remaining drink in the moonlight. He just wanted to know how much was remaining. “I have drunk almost half of it!” He said and burst into laughter. “There is no need to get a glass to finish what is left.” He added, shaking the drink in the bottle.” Instead of the Sisyphean balder, Tebeje is rolling the bottled up and down, getting the pleasure he so craved as well as his suicide he found it in the street following the car accident.
There is something I overlooked here. Many people drink not only for pleasure but also as a remedy against insomnia and anxiety in their lives. Tebeje too embraces drinking as a palliative against sleeplessness. The author of the story tells us, “He slept well because he was very tired. He did not listen to the rain, thunder, or the flood. He thought he heard some other voice. He imagined he had heard a song or an ululation. He thought it was only the effect of the hangover from his previous night’s drinking spree. “This is rather madness and not drunkenness!” He said to himself and went back to sleep.”
Here, Tebeje passes from the “absurdity” of drinking for the sake of drinking, to one of “purposeful drinking” if there is anything like that. he is also drinking to fight off insomnia and in this, his addiction finds some justification. Although the source of Tebeje’s insomnia is unknown, we are indirectly told that he drinks to sleep well although he wakes up in the morning with terrible headaches and a growing need to drink more to deal with his hangovers. Tebeje also experienced some kind of hallucination during the night after he went to bed in a drunken state. The author tells us that, “He thought he heard some other voice. He imagined he had heard a song or an ululation. He thought it was only the effect of the hangover from his previous night’s drinking spree.”
By the way, the reasons, feelings, and emotions that Tebeje felt back then are ever present in real-life people in our modern times. There are still people who drink for one reason or another, knowing deep down that their actions are wrong and painful. Whether the reasons may be constructive or self-destructive, people continue to drink without minding the consequences that they feel after their addiction takes them too far in life and reaches a point of no return.
Tebeje’s life may provide us with relevant lessons as to the devastating effect of drinking on our lives. This may be more instructive to the members of the younger generation who are attracted by the false glitter of the bottle or the glass. Even a medical doctor would not tell you to stop drinking because that would interfere with your personal choices. Yet, you should not wait until the doctor tells you to stop. You can stop it yourself. You have the power and the will to come out of the evil of alcoholic addiction. Do it today and a year from now, you will remember how Tebeje, the fictional character messed with his own life by choosing the way of suicide.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 20 JULY 2024
