Where is the midwife?

Has anyone seen the midwife?

It was Hagos stirring in his sleep who revived her.

THE TELEVISION

Saba was on her way back home from visiting the grave of the dead opera singer in the new graveyard, which was situated in a field north of the camp between the river and the open field, when she noticed Jamal sitting out and working by an oil lamp on a big cardboard box outside his hut. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his lips. The ex-cinema worker had announced the day before, as he marched away from the aid centre with two empty boxes, that television was coming to the camp. Delusional, said a few of those waiting for their food under the scorching sun. Delusional, others repeated. Labels and nicknames proliferated in this place of scarcity, as if they added to self-worth.

Not far from Jamal, two old men in colourful cardigans were talking about Asmara. Saba edged closer.

As far as I can remember, said a bald, clean-shaven man wearing a pink jumper, Cahsai sold his jewellery shop when the British defeated the fascists in Keren’s mountains. He had heard that once the British colonized a nation, they ransacked all its wealth. So, in a village only accessible by donkey, he hid his valuables under his mother’s pillow.

It’s too long ago, said his white-haired companion, who wore a blue cardigan with a gabi wrapped around his legs. You are too old for these detailed memories. Funny, though, how you seem to remember the bad things about the British while forgetting our life under Italian fascism.

I disagree, said the bald man, throwing his hand in air that was saturated with Jamal’s smoke. With age, we become selective, not forgetful. I recall a few things and I choose to remember the stories of love and passion. Cahsai’s wife, Madam Hadith, for example. I was having coffee on her veranda when she told me that Cahsai was going to the capital for business. She had a sad glint in her eyes then. She knew her husband had a lover in that city. A woman from the conquerors’ land took his heart, she cried. I held her. But how do you console a person dispossessed from love and land? Her shivering body that day awoke the heart I thought I lost when I saw what the Italians did to my father, God bless his soul.

But what has this story got to do with Italian fascism? said the white-haired man, as Jamal’s smoke circled above his head. This proves my point. You are old and mixing up stories. Like our land, our minds and memories have been franchised between the different European countries. That’s our tragedy.

The bald man shook his head. Ascolta, mia cara, he said to Saba in Italian. Saba sat down and leaned against the hut. She turned to her right. Jamal was drawing Benito Mussolini on a piece of cardboard that he had pegged on a clothesline between two huts in this lane. Saba’s attention returned to the bald man, who pulled his handkerchief from his cardigan pocket and rubbed his watering eyes. He continued his story: Madam Hadith, though, understood. That love can come from unexpected places and in its tide one can drift. We kissed. I was fifteen, and she was about to enter her fifties.