Saba: Under the Hyena’s Foot

Escape

From then on, when the soldiers give Saba bread or dried meat, she eats only a few bites. Just enough to dull the sharpest of her stomach pains. She doesn’t want to taste the food contaminated by their hands. When the soldiers notice she’s not eating, one of them gives her a small leather bag, again saying, “For the sake of your father.” He indicates that whatever she doesn’t eat should be placed back in the bag so she can eat it when she’s feeling hungry later.

For the next two days, they travel endlessly. The mountains make Saba feel small and afraid. At night, she cries herself to sleep, full of sorrow to be so far away from Emama. The soldiers make a fire, and Saba curls close to it, trying to shut out their voices. Emama was strong, but she wasn’t strong enough to climb the high mountains and down into the valleys and back again up the steep slopes. Even the mules pant, their sides steaming with sweat.

Late the second night, Saba decides she can bear the pain no more. She’s never made a plan by herself, but gradually an idea comes to her. Moonlight can help her pick along the path they just followed. She didn’t know all the steps to get back home, but she could start by going back downhill. She had a little bread and meat in her bag. And when that ran out, she would stand and stare at someone who had food, the way the girl on the side of the road did with her.

Saba gets up and moves calmly into the bushes. The soldiers watch her go, but no one moves. Saba is determined. She can’t even tell Mesfin, because how can two people slip away? Once she reaches the bushes she just keeps walking. She moves as quietly as moonlight touching this stone and flitting to that branch. She hears nothing behind her.

Then, a shout splits into the darkness. Running feet. Saba starts to run, too, panicked as any small dik-dik that dodges is along the path with Ababba dashing after. Feet slam into the ground behind her, and hands grab her shoulders and arms. Saba weeps and wriggles. The soldiers are stronger than she is.

When the soldiers have carried Saba back to the fire, one of them takes a leather thong from his bag. He goes to beat her, but another man stops him. He says in Amharic, “Let her brother talk to her.”

Mesfin wipes Saba’s eyes, and calms her over and over. He says she can’t put Emama’s life in danger, even if she can get back there. Emama would want her alive, not killed by the soldiers. This is the time to be brave. Saba holds onto her brother for a long time. Slowly, she comes to accept that he’s right. She must go forward. It seems like it was a long time ago that she sat in her house thinking that she wanted to see the glories of the world. She wishes she had never dreamt of such a thought.