Al followed her into the tent, which was lined with twenty-four cots, all vacant at the moment, except for the one with Almaz’s father and a few others. Those in the cots were apparently too ill to go outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Almaz’s mother knelt by her husband’s cot and rested her head on his shoulder while he coughed weakly from time to time. She was facing the opposite direction and didn’t see her daughter and the foreigngee come in.
“My father,” Almaz told Al as they stood at the foot of his cot. Her words startled her mother, who raised her head to say something to Almaz, but when she turned to see Al with Almaz, her eyes widened and she paused before saying, “Almaz, what have you done?” Apparently only Almaz knew why she brought Al to her father.
Almaz then began an emotional exchange with her mother that went back and forth for several minutes. Al’s limited knowledge of Amharic prevented him from understanding what they were saying, but when they stopped their dialogue, both were in tears. Al felt he was intruding on a very private family matter and was about to leave when Almaz took his hand and placed it on her father’s forehead while her mother closed her eyes. Al thought about pulling his hand away but feared he would do more harm than good by doing that, so he followed Almaz’s lead.
Al’s hand got very warm in just the few seconds that Almaz held it to her father’s forehead. Finally, Al said in Amharic the only words that came to mind. “He is very sick, but I am not a doctor. He needs a doctor.”
Almaz’s mother then got up and walked around the bed to where Al was standing with her daughter. Her eyes still red from crying, and her dusty face washed slightly from her tears, she knelt in front of Al, saying, “God bless. God bless.” She then took Al’s hand and kissed it.
Al didn’t understand what was happening and it made him feel very uncomfortable, so he did the only thing that made any sense to him. He hoped it would be the right thing to do as far as Almaz and her mother were concerned. He took his hand from the mother’s, placed it on the father’s hand, and said, “God bless,” before returning to the warehouse where another truck was pulling up to be loaded.
CHAPTER 61
Mistaken Identity
Later that afternoon, just before his work day was about to end, Al sat on the three wooden steps of the warehouse’s entrance. His assistant manager, Berhanu, was telling him about a measles outbreak in the shelter that had just claimed the lives of two young children.
“That makes me sick. Isn’t it enough that these people had no food to eat, had to leave their homes, and had to suffer all kinds of hardships just to get here? Apparently not. Some still have to get sick and die,” Al said spitting the words out.
“How long have you lived in Ethiopia?” Berhanu asked.
“Why? What difference does it make?”
“I grew up asking questions like yours. Why is Ethiopia such a poor country? Why do most Ethiopians live every day hand to mouth? I still don’t know why,” Berhanu said.
“I have lived here for about a year.”
“After a while, I stopped asking for answers because it was too hard. I accepted this life and tried to make the best of it. Maybe it’s time to ask these questions again. It makes me feel good to hear you, an American, wonder about these things.”
“Yes, I wonder about them. That reminds me of something strange that happened to me today. Will you do me a favor and ask a young girl living in the shelter with her parents why she took me to see her father this morning?”
Al went on to tell Berhanu about what had happened to him with Almaz and her family. When Al finished, Berhanu asked, “Did you tell the doctor about her father?”
“Yes. As soon as we loaded the truck, after I left them, I asked the doctor to examine him.”
“Good. I will go to them now to learn why Almaz brought you to her father.”
“Thanks, Berhanu.”
About fifteen minutes later, as Al was locking up the warehouse before leaving for the day, Berhanu returned. “You are not going to believe this,” he told Al, who turned around to see Berhanu’s eyes open extra wide to dramatize his point.
“What is it?”
“I’ll give you a clue. It has something to do with her hair.”
“I just thought she had lice and needed to cut it off to get rid of them.”
“No. No. I’ll tell you. She offered her hair, her most precious possession, to God as a sacrifice to save her father’s life.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She believes that God will listen to her pleas if she does this. People here sometimes cut their hair when they are mourning. Since she didn’t cut it immediately after her brother had died, she decided to cut it now to mourn her brother and to ask God to heal her father.”
“I guess I can understand that. I’ve mourned the loss of people in my life and did some bargaining with God. Maybe things would have gone better for me if I had cut off my hair. Me and God haven’t been on speaking terms for a while. I gave up when he kept ignoring me.”
“Really? Then you will be amazed to hear why Almaz took you to her father.”
“Amazed?”
“She thinks you are an angel God sent. She had prayed and prayed for God to save her and the rest of her family after her brother had died. It seemed at times like they would not survive their journey, but after three days, they finally arrived at the shelter. And when Almaz was thanking God for answering her prayers, while they were being checked in at the gate, you appeared to them.
“That is when she began to think you were an angel who had been at their side during their journey, guiding them here. Then she became convinced you were an angel when she had seen you loading the lorries with food and supervising our crew in Amharic. Only an angel could make truckloads of food appear when nothing grew here this year. And since she had never heard a foreigngee speak Amharic, she thought that was another sign.”
“Yes. I am amazed,” Al said, shaking his head.
“Almaz convinced her mother in the tent this morning that you were an angel. That is why she knelt before you and kissed your hand, asking God to bless and save her husband.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. What’s wrong with this picture? What should I do?”
“Don’t you like being an angel?”
“I don’t believe in God or angels. That’s the problem. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
“You say you don’t believe in God and you can’t believe this is happening. Does that matter as long as Almaz and her family believe? You see they have so little. Do you want to tell them you are not an angel from God and take away even this from them?”
“So I should pretend I’m an angel?”
“Did you know about forty years ago a man said God anointed him King of Kings and the Lion of Judah, and he claimed to be a descendent of ancient Israel’s King Solomon? He then united fourteen kingdoms into one as Haile Selassie, which means ‘power of the Holy Trinity.’ He made his people feel that under his rule, their lives had more meaning and purpose, which helped them manage their hardships.”
“What are you saying?”
“What harm would there be to go along with what Almaz and her mother want to believe about you? Ethiopians wanted to believe what Haile Selassie had told them about himself, and it helped them live inspired lives for many years.”
“I don’t know. And that scares me. I don’t know how an angel is supposed to act. What if I do something wrong and they discover I’m not an angel. What will happen?”
“Wrong? Like Haile Selassie covering up the famine, which caused many deaths?”
“Why do you keep comparing me to Haile Selassie? Isn’t it bad enough that they think I’m an angel? You want to make me an emperor, too?”
“No. You misunderstand. I’m saying Haile Selassie could lose his job because of his mistakes, but you will lose nothing if you do something wrong. They only think you are an angel because of their faith in God,
and nothing will change that.”
“Nothing? How can you be so sure?”
“When people live day-to-day, never knowing if they will have what they need to survive tomorrow, their faith in God is all that is keeping them alive.”
“If you say so. I’ve never experienced that.”
“Maybe that is why you don’t believe in God and angels.”
“Tell me something. I don’t understand how people can believe in a God that has turned his back on them. You make it sound like the less Ethiopians have, the more they believe and trust in God.”
“First, you must tell me why people who have so much do not believe in God. It seems that the more they have been blessed, the less thankful they are and the more they want.”
“Phssst. OK. I’ll go along with it, but I won’t say that I am an angel or that I am not. I won’t say anything and I will continue doing what I do.”
“Good. Maybe you will like being an angel,” Berhanu said as he patted Al on his back.
“You mean pretending to be an angel,” Al corrected Berhanu while cocking his head.
“Yes, pretending. What do Americans call the one day that they pretend to be somebody else to get a reward?” Berhanu said, searching for the right word.
“Halloween?” Al offered.
“Yes. Yes. Halloween. This is Halloween in Ethiopia for you. Maybe you will even get a reward,” Berhanu chuckled.
“I will be happy if I am not tricked,” a wary Al replied.
CHAPTER 62
Trick or Treat
The next day, the beginning of Al’s second week at the shelter, was his busiest yet. Trucks were coming and going constantly throughout the day. As a result, he had not thought about Almaz and her family until he saw her sitting alone in the grassy field on the side of the road opposite the warehouse that afternoon. Her eyes were fixed on Al, studying every move he made, as if she were mesmerized. He smiled at her as he heaved a fifty-pound sack of vitamin-enriched milk powder off his shoulder and onto the truck, but she didn’t change her trancelike expression. When he returned with another sack, she was gone, but the image of a young, fragile girl, who had endured so much in her short life, remained.
Al recognized that look as the same he had seen in the mirror following Billy Bensen’s untimely death and Tommy’s conviction for killing Billy. It was a mixture of sadness, confusion, and bewilderment. Missing from Almaz’s face was the anger, which, for Al, was revealed in his eyes. Somehow, in spite of all her suffering, Almaz didn’t appear angry. Al wouldn’t wish the anger on anyone, especially someone so innocent.
Since her brother’s death and her family’s hardships had not destroyed her faith, Al understood that he was in a unique position to help her maintain or even strengthen it. But the questions for him were should he and could he make a special effort to do it when he had no faith himself? And if somehow Al was successful, wouldn’t that just postpone the inevitable conclusion that he had reached about God when some other immense suffering crushed her spirit? So why bother doing anything now?
On his way home for the day, Al stopped by the shelter’s clinic to talk with the doctor who had seen Almaz’s father. “How is the man I told you about yesterday? Will he be OK?” Al asked the doctor who was just returning from his rounds.
“The one with the wife and young daughter?” replied the doctor.
“Yes.”
“He has pneumonia and a fractured foot. I gave him medicine and set his foot, but he is very weak, so I can’t tell if it will do him much good at this point.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pneumonia is treatable, but there’s not much fight left in him. He’s been through a lot. From what I know, he lost his only son recently, and for some reason, he has no place to go from here. I am not a psychiatrist, but he seems depressed. As a result, I am not hopeful. He could die.”
“I see,” Al said and then left. As he walked away, Berhanu’s words echoed in his mind: When people live day-to-day, never knowing if they will have what they need to survive tomorrow, their faith in God is all that’s keeping them alive.
Maybe it was his last image of Almaz that struck a harmonious chord in his soul, or maybe it was the doctor’s gloomy prognosis for Almaz’s father that suddenly gave Al the answers to his questions—should he and could he do something to nurture their faith? Now he just needed to figure out what to do.
As Al saw the situation, it was a matter of saving a life and keeping a young girl and her mother from suffering more at a critical time in their lives. His relationship with God remained unchanged and had nothing to do with his decision. But the irony of it all made Al shake his head in amazement.
That night, Al wasn’t doing well in the small-stakes poker game he was playing with three of his housemates. All he could think about was Almaz’s father, not his cards.
“Hey, man. You haven’t won all night,” Paul said to Al as they tossed their cards on the table and Gerry collected the pot for that hand.
“Yeah, so why don’t you let me win one?”
“Let you win one? Earth to Al. Earth to Al,” Paul joked. “Your oxygen supply is low and you’re becoming delirious. Abort mission. Abort mission.”
“I’m just not into it tonight, so I’d better cut my losses,” Al told them as he got up and walked outside. What could an angel do to give Almaz’s father hope and a compelling reason to live? Al asked himself as a full moon illuminated him and his surroundings like a night light.
But since he wasn’t an angel and didn’t have a clue about the mindset of a peasant farmer, no answer came. For inspiration, he lifted his eyes to the star-speckled sky, but all that came to mind were more questions ... questions about the infinity of space and time, juxtaposed with others about the finiteness of life on earth.
“Homesick?” asked Paul, who had joined Al outside.
“What? Oh, no,” replied a startled Al.
“You seem like your mind is a million miles away.”
“In a way, you’re right. I was thinking about how far the stars are.”
“Uh oh. Whenever I do that, I’ve got something serious going on in my life.”
“Are you religious?” Al asked with a look of contemplation.
“I go to church when I can. I believe in God. Is that what you mean?”
“Angels? Do you believe in angels, too?”
“Sure. Aren’t they part of the God package?”
“What would you say if I told you somebody thinks I’m an angel?”
“You got a new girlfriend?” Paul replied with a playful smile.
Al rolled his eyes and chuckled. “No. I’m serious. A young girl at the shelter thinks I’m an angel God sent, and she’s convinced her mother that I’m an angel, too.”
“But you don’t have wings? So how did they mistake you for an angel?” Paul teased.
Al told Paul the story about his visit with Almaz’s family, Berhanu’s subsequent conversation with them, and the doctor’s prognosis.
“So do you have any miracles up your sleeve?” Paul asked Al.
“A miracle? Yeah, that’s what they expect from me. Do you have any ideas?”
“Hmm ... well there’s parting the Red Sea, and it’s not too far from here. Or there’s turning water into wine and feeding thousands by multiplying a couple loaves and pieces of fish. I’d mention raising someone from the dead, but let’s stick to something more doable,” Paul said tongue-in-cheek.
“Ha, ha. Funny. Maybe I’d better forget about a miracle.”
“No. Don’t do that. You just need to be creative. Find out what it would take for Almaz’s father to regain his will to live; then you’ll have the miracle you’ll need to perform.”
“I’m back to square one. I need to talk with Berhanu.”
The next morning, Al arrived early at the shelter and pulled Berhanu aside to talk as soon as he saw him. “Does Almaz’s father think I’m an angel?”
“No. He thinks his wife and daughter are crazy,” Berhanu told Al.
“What would he do if I told him I am an angel?”
“He’d think you are crazy.”
“What if I proved I’m an angel?”
“Now, I think you are crazy.”
“Let me explain. The doctor told me that Almaz’s father would die unless something happens to end his depression. The pneumonia will kill him. Didn’t you tell me that faith in God is all that keeps the poor like him alive? Well, the depression has apparently stolen his faith. So unless his faith is restored, he will die. I want to be his angel and do something miraculous so he will live, for his sake and for his family’s. But I need your help,” Al explained.
“What changed your mind? You weren’t going to tell them you are an angel.”
“Almaz. I saw something in her face the other day. I don’t want her to become bitter, like someone I know. And I can’t just stand by and watch her father die if there is something I can do to prevent it.”
“OK. How can I help?”
“The doctor told me they have no home to return to. I don’t know what he meant. Can you find out if they are homeless now and anything else that may be causing the depression? You already told me about his son. I want to prove to him that I’m an angel by doing something miraculous.”
“But you are not an angel. You can’t make miracles happen.”
“Yes and no. Just because I’m not an angel doesn’t mean I can’t perform a small miracle. I’m hoping that will be enough.”
“OK. I’ll talk with them today and let you know what I learn.”
“Thanks,” Al said as he tapped Berhanu’s shoulder.
CHAPTER 63
God’s Voice of Love
A miracle ... Al needed a miracle. Why not? Why not one more in the string of miracles that had taken place that year, 1974, in Ethiopia? Wasn’t it a miracle that Peace Corps volunteers eradicated smallpox from the world that summer in a remote Ethiopian village? Wasn’t it a miracle that the remains of a three-million-year-old human ancestor were discovered not far from Dessie, providing clues to the origin of human life, and wasn’t it a miracle that the days of Ethiopia’s ancient feudal system were about to end?