slob. The goddess by the window. This very cup would surely pour
something unprecedented. He surveyed the dusky doppelgang. Yes.
This was the place. He was sure of it.
Roy wrapped his long fingers around the small cup, raised it and
decanted.
Immediately he spit up all over the floor.
“What the fuck was that?” he sputtered, “That was awful.”
Abora conferred with the barman, then turned back to Roy. “He
says it’s the original coffee. The first batch his family ever grew. It’s
the oldest coffee anywhere in town.”
“How old is it?” Roy gasped.
Abora asked the man. The answer sent Webele into a wheezing,
paralytic laughing fit.
“Two hundred years old,” Abora told him, “He keeps a bag as an
honor to his ancestors. No one’s ever been crazy enough to drink it.”
“It was like eating dirt,” Roy admitted.
The barman offered him a cup of normal coffee to wash the taste
out of him mouth. Roy sucked at it greedily and asked for another.
Just then the boy in the purple T-shirt came over.
“What do you?” he said in English.
“Looking for a special kind of coffee,” Roy answered him. “The
original…”
“Go home,” the boy said evenly. Roy looked around, but it was
clear that none of the other regulars understood what he had said.
“Why?” Roy asked him.
“American?” he said.
“Yes. But my parents were…”
“You take enough. Ethiopia was green country. Now is brown
country. Now is dying country. You take enough. Go home.”
“They didn’t ruin Ethiopia,” interjected Webele, “We did that all
by ourselves.”
“America break the weather,” the boy said. “Stop the water.”
A voice wafted over from the corner of the room, “Well, yes, this
is what some say. Global warming, carbon emissions from
industrialized countries.” They turned to look. It was the dabtara,
holding forth in a perfect upper-class British accent. “However,” he
continued, “That’s not the reason we are in dire straits. Our country
used to be heavily forested. Now less than one percent is. We cannot
blame foreigners for this. We cut down our own trees. We planted
none. It is the fault of our governments. And ourselves.”
ABYSSINIA
236
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