“OK, Selam, I’m sorry,” you said. “I’ll speak to you. Best friends . . . hugzee, hugzee?”
She nodded. “OK, best friends . . . hugzee.”
You hugged. The waitress clapped and cheered and pushed your chairs back together.
“Well, my Selam, I want to say this before we continue eating,” Daddy said apologetically. “You’re always free to eat what you’re comfortable with, aw?”
“Yes. Already, my daddy said I could eat pork if I wanted.”
“Did he?” he asked, sounding relieved.
“Yes.”
“Because this evening I was going to ask your dad to talk to you. I’m going with him to Cinima Bahminya to watch Premiereship football.”
“I was just trying to tell Best Friend what Hadiya said.”
“That’s why I like your dad,” he said, and rubbed her head. “Open-minded . . . nice man.”
You sat down and began to eat, sipping fresh pomegranate juice with long red and white straws. You talked about the games you would play together when you got home and how much you looked forward to school the next day.
THEN ONE DAY, after you and your family and Best Friend’s family had gone to watch the Jimma Bicycle Race in the next town, you didn’t wake up in your bed but in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. The flat was full of a burning smell. The streets were almost empty. Daddy said there was no school that day.
All morning, your parents didn’t leave your side. Their bedroom didn’t have windows that faced Selam’s flat. They sat with you and watched cartoons and later told you about their childhood and the Yelijoch Gizay TV show they watched long ago in Addis Ababa. Daddy, acting the part of Ababa Tesfaye, told you many children’s stories; Mommy played Tirufeet, assisting and fleshing out the stories.
Mommy allowed you to spend a lot of time in the bath and brought your clothes to their room. Daddy made you read all your books aloud for him and recited church prayers. They didn’t hurry to go to work; they didn’t hurry to go anywhere. The house help didn’t show up.
You yawned and jumped out of bed.
“I’m going to see Best Friend.”
“Come and sit down for a minute,” Mommy said, patting the space on the bed between her and Daddy. You went and sat down. She looked at Daddy, who was looking at the wall.
He cleared his throat and said, “Honey, we don’t want you to play with that girl anymore.”
“What girl?”
“That Muslim girl,” Mommy said, moving her huge body close to you.
“Best Friend?”
Silence.
You looked at Mommy, then Daddy. They couldn’t be serious, you thought, and waited for them to say it was a joke. “No big deal,” Daddy said, shrugging. “There were riots last night. Houses were burned in our neighborhood.”
“Selam’s flat?”
“No,” he said.
“Could I go talk with her . . . ?”
“We say ai,” Mommy said, looking you straight in the face.
“No? I just want to hug her. Please?”
“We understand how you feel,” Daddy said. “We really do. . . . At six you’re a bit too young to understand these things.”
“Listen up, sweetie,” she said, “you’re our only child . . . our only child.”
“But I really miss her.”
“Do you know her parents have also told her to keep away from you?” she said.
“They did? Emaye Selam? Abaye Selam said that? Who’ll play with me?”
“We’ll play with you,” Mommy said.
Daddy rubbed your back and translated what Mommy said: “Kanchi gara mechawet iwedallehu.”
“Who’ll play with Selam?”
“Hadiya,” he said.
“Hadiya?”
“Her brothers, then,” he said. “You don’t worry about that.”
“But I don’t want Hadiya to play with her. I don’t like her.”
You threw the remote control on the floor and ran to your room before they could hold you back. You opened the big window’s blinds and looked at Selam’s house. A part of her building was burned, but not Selam’s flat. The building was now red and black because of the fire. Some of the burned flats looked like empty black shells, the rock-hewn blocks as solid as ever. With the blinds and windows gone, you saw inner walls and parts of singed furniture.
But Selam’s flat was fine, and the blinds were closed. It looked lonely because of the fire. Looking around, you saw black smoke still rising from other houses. The sky was dirty. The donkeys and horses were gone, and a cluster of damaged buggies stood by the street corner like unwashed dishes in a sink. Even the birds were absent from the wires.
You wanted Selam to come out onto the balcony. You wanted to see her face. Your heart began to beat faster because you imagined her standing there behind the blinds, waiting for you. You imagined her sitting on her bed with her parents. You imagined her being told she would now have to pick a new best friend. You saw her playing with Hadiya. You saw them going to braid their hair and heard them giggling. Hearing them addressing each other as Best Friend, you balled your fists and wanted Selam to run onto the balcony.
“A part of our house has been burned too,” Daddy said, squatting behind you, holding your shoulders. “If you open the window, the smoke will come in. . . . It’s bad out there.”
“Your daddy’s Peugeot has been vandalized,” Mommy said, sitting on your bed.
“Where’s Selam?”
“They’re fine, dehna nachew,” she said, and Daddy pulled you away from the window back to your bed. “Your daddy and her daddy spoke this morning about you two. There’s tension between us and them.”
“Did you quarrel with Emaye Selam?”
“Ai, no, she’s a sweet woman,” she said.
Daddy was quiet, fidgeting with the broken remote and the batteries. On the wall of your room, you saw the world map your teacher, Etiye Mulu, had taught you to trace in school. Your eyes came to “Africa, Our Continent,” which Best Friend had penned on the map in her sweet handwriting, and you fought back tears.
Mommy hugged you.
“Daddy, did you quarrel with Abaye Selam?”
“Not ‘us’ as in us,” Daddy said.
“It’s not personal,” Mommy said. “You know they’re Muslims?”
“Yes.”
“Faith differences,” he said. “Just faith differences.”
“Faith?”
“It’s complex,” she said.
“It’s a difficult time,” he said, nodding.
“Are they bad people?”
“No, not really,” she said.
“OK,” you said, though you understood nothing. “Are we going to school tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow, nega atihedjeem,” Daddy said.
“Soon, baby, soon,” Mommy said.
That evening, lights came on in Selam’s flat. You rushed and opened your blinds and looked. Her blinds were also open, but nobody was there. You pinched yourself for not being there when the blinds parted. You waited there in silence, hoping for someone, a shadow, to walk by the window. Nothing.
For the next two days, when Mommy left the house, Daddy stayed with you. When Daddy left the house, Mommy stayed with you. Though the streets were filling up again, and the birds had returned to the wires, your house help didn’t return.
You dreamed bad dreams of Selam, even in your afternoon naps. In one dream she turned her face away from you and would not answer your greetings. When she looked at you, she wore a scowl, which burst her dimples. On her balcony, she recited the multiplication tables with Hadiya and taught her the beautiful handwriting and shared her Smiling Cow toffees with her. Hadiya’s English became better than yours. While Hadiya’s face became leaner and prettier and Selam liked her walk, you became ugly and twisted like the old coffee trees of Jimma. You felt so bad you sobbed, and Hadiya came to hug you. She told you that it wasn’t Selam’s fault, that her parents wanted her to avoid you because you weren’t one of them. You cried all the more because it was Hadiya who was hugging you, not Best Friend.