Oliver Benjamin
nights in filthy, bug-ridden roadside shacks and grisly truckstop fare
along the way hadn’t helped.
Roy took the journey alone. Webele declined, wisely predicting
he’d be too old and soft for such a trip, and Abora had business
dealings to attend to. Roy promised Webele he’d come visit when he
returned from Tana, and also told Abora he might import some of his
chat tea for sale in his coffeehouse. Despite only knowing them for a
few days, he found it difficult to say goodbye. Their farewell had been
long and redundant even by Ethiopian standards.
The bus arrived at Lake Tana with a squeal and diesel sigh. It was
very late, and dark as the desert. Roy dragged himself out of the
smoking machine, hunched over like a peasant, unsure of what to do,
shaky with the beginnings of fever. Somehow he managed to get a
room at a lakefront resort. He remembered someone guiding him to
the bright light by the lake, a smile and flash of blue gums. Then,
shortly after arriving at his room he lost consciousness, passing out
on the toilet like a thin black Elvis going to Graceland, albeit a dark
and unfamiliar one.
He slept for two days, waking intermittently to expel fluids from
his body. He felt that he was purging all his old water to ready himself
for a transfusion with the holy lake that lay just meters outside his
door.
On the afternoon of the third day a knock came at his door. It was
an employee of the resort. When Roy opened the door he found a
very drunk bellboy holding a tray of champagne. Half of the glasses
were empty.
“Halloo meester Makonnen. We have a wedding for you to have
to come to.” He took a glass off the tray and drank it himself. Then he
handed one to Roy.
“I don’t have any nice clothes,” Roy said.
“No problems,” the bellboy said. “Hold this.” He gave Roy the
tray and Roy put it down on his bed as the bellboy ran off. A minute
later he was back with a maroon tuxedo. It was the same kind of
synthetic maroon tuxedo that the bellboy himself wore. In fact it
wasn’t a tuxedo at all, but the standard uniform for the resort’s
employees. Roy, a bit giddy from drinking champagne on an empty
stomach threw on the uniform and followed the bellboy out onto the
magnificent resort lawn. There by the lake an Ethiopian wedding was
already in full swing. Roy finally beheld Lake Tana, a massive body of
emerald water surrounded by green hills and a baby blue sky. From
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