THE MAP OF THE COUNTRY

The morning after the opening of the cinema, Saba was at Eyob’s compound. She dipped her hands into the bucket full of Tedros’s clothes from the previous night. Hajj Ali came through the gate holding a gift.

Saba bumped the bucket as she stood up to welcome him. Water spilt over the clothes she was about to wash, the ones her fiancé and his best man were to wear on the wedding night.

This is my gift to your man, said Hajj Ali. His hand rested on hers, heavy like a rock, as he handed her a bag of meat.

Where is the businessman? he asked.

Saba pulled her hand away. He is resting, she said.

A businessman who seeks rest has forfeited his calling, Hajj Ali said, laughing. Our hope rests in you. When will you reopen the shop?

Soon, Saba said. Adding, as if to calm his impatience, God willing.

Indeed, in Him we trust, said Hajj Ali, clapping his hands and calling on Eyob to come out. Get up and show this young lady your vitality, old man.

By the time the businessman emerged in his tunic, Saba had prepared tea.

Eyob didn’t talk, as if, when he kissed Hagos the night before, he had swallowed all the silence on her brother’s tongue.

Finally, Hajj Ali put an end to this silence by revealing information about the village he and his family had stayed in before they arrived at the camp. Information he’d been withholding since his arrival. His eyes on Saba, he said, Although it took us a long time to get here with the animals, I would say it is ten hours by foot. I am sure as a businessman yourself, brother Eyob, you will agree with me that in a camp like this, every piece of knowledge about the outside world is priceless.

Saba, though, was certain Eyob no longer wanted to leave the camp, escape its remoteness, its scarcity, now that he had found love that grew in a camp, love he couldn’t find at his villa in Asmara, in his own country. Hajj Ali’s information was for her.

Saba raised her eyes above the bucket with dirty clothes, looking at the man who had asked for her hand before Eyob.

What a village it is, brother Eyob. It has a fantastic school.

Saba slowed the movement of her hands. So the village is only ten hours away? the businessman asked, in a whisper. Really? Saba was sure that he had conveyed a note of excitement only out of politeness.

Yes. Maybe a bit more, said Hajj Ali. But this village is reachable with His grace, and the rest of this country and even the world is accessible from that point on.

Hajj Ali smiled at Saba. Her mind, though, was occupied by the same thing that enlivened her heart, the thing that had kept her awake at night back home. What does it take for a dream to die? Saba wondered to herself.