There wasn’t a single day Woubshet didn’t wake up at dawn grumpy. His neighbors to the left and right of his rented room were like law-appointed alarm clocks: the loud prayers of the woman who just recently converted from Orthodox Christianity to Pente, and the ear-piercing music blasted by the banker who sang along in hopes of drowning the woman’s prayers, woke Woubshet up each morning. On top of everything, the landlord’s cow also contributed to the cacophony by making strange loud sounds: either it was protesting being milked or declaring a longing for its calf.
But today, he awoke to the sounds of a fire truck, the I am coming for you declaration passing through the area. He sat up on the edge of his bed, trying to open his eyes. He sent his legs to the floor in search of his slippers. He couldn’t find them. He couldn’t remember where he had thrown them the previous night.
He knew he had slept in. How could he have slept this much on this day? On this special day! Angry with himself, he made his way to his shelf in search of his watch. It read 9:30. As he had feared, he was late. He dressed quickly, and hurried his way up Africa Avenue toward Abyot Square. His rushed movements made it look like he was being chased by an angry ostrich.
His long legs felt the strains of fatigue, and couldn’t satisfy his heart’s desire to travel faster, but his long strides sufficed in swallowing up the road quickly enough. After passing the Flamingo restaurant, he paused briefly, looking at churchgoers dressed in white, walking up and down the stairs of St. Estifanos Church.
He bent his head in the direction of the church, crossed himself, said, “Help me spend a good day, hold back my enemies, my Father,” to St. Estifanos, and then went on his way. He walked by Addis Ababa Stadium toward Churchill Avenue.
He slowed his pace. He realized that he was sweating when he got to Ras Hotel from Churchill Avenue. From the left pocket of his wide coat, he took out a blue handkerchief and smiled to himself as he dabbed the perspiration from his face. He could sense it was going to be a good day — Roha Café would be filled with excitement. He couldn’t even remember the last time a poetry night was held at Roha Café. It must have been over ten years ago. Renowned and esteemed poets, homegrown critics, journalists scouting for gossip, actors whom he saw daily enjoying the morning sun at Beherawi Theater would all come.
From Ras Hotel, he started moving at an even slower pace. He put his hands on his shirt to check that his collar was placed properly under his sweater. He then glanced down at his shoes and noticed that they weren’t clean. He called out to the listero boys sitting in the sun across the main road. A listero in his midteens came sprinting toward him. Without removing his eyes from Woubshet’s shoes, the listero dropped his box on the ground, knelt, and started wiping his shoes. Woubshet, with his shoe on the listero’s box, drifted away in thought, thinking of the evening ahead and the short speech he’d make.
It had all started last Tuesday. A young, skinny, dark-skinned, and messy-haired boy came to Roha Café and stood by the entrance. Woubshet was preparing a cup of macchiato with hot coffee.
“What’s keeping you there? Either come in or go next door!” he yelled, pointing to the lively neighboring Sheger and Arada cafés.
The young boy ignored Woubshet. He stood awhile longer at the entrance, then called out, “Woubshet the poet!”
Woubshet stopped preparing his macchiato and stared intently at the boy. No one had ever called him a “poet” before.
“You’re cursed. Restart the poetry evenings. You think it’s enough to simply write one book, and then spend your life burning that book?” the boy said. He left without waiting for a response.
Woubshet didn’t know who the boy was or who might have sent him. After closing the café he went to Tele Bar to have a drink, then spent the evening walking aimlessly.
What had he done in the past ten years? Nothing! What had he done besides burn every copy of the one book he wrote, making a bonfire like the Meskel Demera? He wanted to pound his head against a brick wall.
Woubshet Mesfin had published a poetry book titled The Early Bird’s Decree, which became the laughingstock of critics, and professional and amateur poets alike. He had written about a bird which, unlike the Meskel bird, did not come just once a year following the scent of the adey abeba. It was about a bird who, when the sky became the color of the belly of a donkey, would disturb the peace of Addis Ababa by declaring, Allehu, allehu, I exist. One day, all the other birds copied her voice and began to say, Allehu, allehu, and stole her melody. That bird was never seen again. She never came back to Addis Ababa. He wrote, “Where did the bird go?” When the book made it to the public, it was mocked mercilessly. He was accused of disrespecting literature, and it had been ten years last Tuesday since, like Arius, he’d been excommunicated from the arts.
He wrote his poems at a time when Roha Café had been seen as the hottest spot for literature. It was a wonderful time for both the café and the arts. At least twice a week, Roha would host poetry accompanied by music from the krar and washint, and once every two weeks a famous artist would be invited to lead spirited conversations.
The week his book was published, critics drew their weapons and fired shots at him. When he went to open Roha Café early in the morning five days after publication, he found a copy of his book thrown on the café’s veranda. He hadn’t expected to receive such negativity. Poets, critics, and journalists who once jam-packed Roha Café disappeared entirely.
He closed Roha Café and disappeared from the area for two weeks. The news of Woubshet’s retreat was heard across the town. He went to Dire Dawa. Upon his return, now despising poetry, he stopped all arts programs from taking place at the café. He removed the poems from the walls. He stopped associating with any poets or critics and started purchasing all the copies of his book from publishers and distributors in order to burn them, hoping that the coming generation would know nothing of it.
Roha soon became a typical café where only coffee and macchiato were sold. The glamour of the place further deteriorated once the neighboring Sheger and Arada cafés were opened.
Woubshet wanted to manage Roha Café only until all the copies of his book had been burned. He had printed 950 copies. Less than two months after returning from Dire Dawa, he had bought 930 of them. But finding those last twenty books took him over ten years. Since he didn’t know who had bought them, he kept visiting old bookstores. He would wait until the close of business to ask: “Does anyone have a book called The Early Bird’s Decree?” But even so, up until last Tuesday, he had only bought and burned sixteen of the remaining books. He still had four books left.
But then on Tuesday, he decided to drop his ten-year effort and instead organize a great poetry event. He plastered posters across town and sent descriptions of the event to newspapers. The only concern he had was regarding the number of people attending; despite all the promotion, he didn’t want too large of a crowd to turn up.
He gave the listero one birr and headed calmly to the café without waiting for his change. Observing the number of people outside Beherawi Theater, drinking tea, coffee, and macchiato, it might seem that Addis Ababa had been asked to come out for battle. A sense of jealousy crept up on him when he realized that his café was not open, and that all of these people were being served at Arada and Sheger instead.