Chris Beckett: Looking for Abebe, the cook's son

Abebe and his family in the garden in Addis Ababa, c. 1963

In his acclaimed new collection, Ethiopia Boy, Chris Beckett revisits the Ethiopia of his childhood, of the 1960s: 'a barefoot empire, home of black-maned lions..., old priests decked out like butterflies and blazing young singers of Ethio-jazz'. Here, he recounts his visit to Ethiopia to find Abebe, the cook's son, the friend he loved.

May 2007. I’m back in Addis Ababa after forty years: back home, a boy again!

Chris Beckett was born in London
but grew up mostly in Ethiopia,
where his father worked at the
British Embassy in Addis Ababa.

I have a photo of Abebe in my pocket, standing with his family in the garden in 1963. My first stop is the Embassy where Dad worked, because I remember we used to come out onto Yeka Road, turn left, then right and right again down a dirt track: left, right, right. Our house was the only one with two floors, surrounded by walls and eucalyptus trees and the shouts of donkey-drovers.

But now, the area right of Yeka Road is thick with office blocks. Have I mis-remembered? The taxi driver suggests we try left. When the going gets too bumpy, I climb out and boys with mad tufts of hair shout "FERENGI!!" and laugh themselves silly. It feels very like our old track, wooded and friendly, but there is no two-storey house.

I have come to find a house, but also Abebe, our cook Asfaw’s son. He is the one I really missed when we left. I thought of him every time I saw news of Ethiopia: the revolution in 1974, the Red Terror which followed, students gunned down in the street, the appalling famine and endless wars with Eritrea and Tigray. I thought Abebe might not have survived all this carnage. I was afraid to find out, but not knowing is unbearable too.

Over the next three weeks, I get to know Addis again. There are many more cars, but the same bittersweet tang of eucalyptus, the same chanting of muezzins and church bells, old 'lion' buses grinding up the street, the everyday plosive bustle of Amharic, the main language here. Addis is 2400 metres above sea level, so there is a breathless freshness to everything, an audible glint. I browse museums and coffee-shops, book-stalls and record-shacks. I go to the Mercato where Mum used to shop with Asfaw. Every teenage boy looks like Abebe to me, grins and struts and pops his shoulders. Even if I never find him, I feel Abebe is all around me again, flowering, like the meaning of his name.

Abebe shows me the fish he’s caught in Lake Langano, c. 1965

On the last day, I think, let’s try to find the house one last time.

Left, right, right. Begra, beq’eñ, beq’eñ.

This time we ignore all new buildings. The taxi noses down a cluttered tarmac road. When I dare to look, there it is, a nursery school now, bright yellow with a jazzy blue gate! Today is Sunday, only a guard answers when I knock. I show him photos of the house as it was in the 1960s, tell him about Abebe and Asfaw, our maid Aster.

"Aster?" he says, "I work for her too, I will tell her you are come!"

Next morning, as I pack my bag, the phone rings. It is a confidant young man's voice. His name is Ejigu, Aster's son, born after we left. He says that Asfaw and Aster and their families survived the revolution, the terrors and famines, because of their connection to the Embassy: Britain protected them without lifting a finger! He asks would I like to see Aster again, before I leave. I say of course, and when I ask about Abebe, he pauses.

"Oh yes, I will tell you what happened to Abebe."

Ethiopia Boy, Chris Beckett's
acclaimed collection, is available
now in paperback and ebook.

What Ejigu says changes everything. It unleashes emotions which my previous calm style of poem cannot handle. I need to inhabit the same space as Abebe, learn Amharic again and translate all the Ethiopian poetry I can find, meet Ethiopian poets, learn to imitate Ethiopian praise shouts, boasts, laments. Our old house in Addis is a nursery, like it was for me in the past, but Abebe and the city have moved on and my writing must open its eyes and ears.

-

Chris Beckett is an award-winning poet and translator. His collection, Ethiopia Boy, was published in February and is available in paperback and ebook formats. To find out more about Chris Beckett, you can visit his website at http://www.chrisbeckettpoems.com/chrisbeckett.

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Abebe, the cook’s son
by Chris Beckett

Abebe, from a distant afternoon
Abebe, from an afternoon where everybody naps
even the donkeys propped against trees on their little hoofs
Abebe, tall as a eucalyptus tree
Abebe, black all over when he pisses on a eucalyptus tree
who jaunties down dirt tracks to the honey shop buys two drippy honeycombs in a box
Abebe, the cool boy in drainpipe jeans and sky-blue sneakers
Abebe, the busy crossing where girls stop to chat
who clicks his fingers to the funky Ibex Band as we saunter back up track
Abebe, calling come here! to the dog called Come Here
Abebe, trotting round the dog-yard like a horse
who saddles up the smoky horses and takes me prairie-galloping
who makes a dash at mud-caves where hyenas sleep
who shows me how to cook kwalima beef and ginger sausages and a chickpea fish for Lent
Abebe, gobbling up the afternoon like a kwalima
Abebe, grinning like a chickpea fish while everybody naps


kwalima: a spicy dried sausage made with minced beef and ginger, as well as plenty of pepper, cardamom and turmeric