the corrugated iron roof over her head. It was a comforting sound, but
she thought briefly of the dam further downstream in the gorge, and
hoped that this shower was merely the harbinger and not the true onset
of the big rains.
When she started awake much later the rain had passed. Beyond her
uncurtained window the night was moonless and silent, except for the
howling of a pariahdog down in the village. She wondered what had woken
her, and was filled suddenly with a premonition of impending disaster, a
legacy from the Mengistu days, when any sound in the night might warn of
the arrival of the security police. So strong was this feeling that she
could not get to sleep again. Creeping quietly out of her bed, she began
dressing in the dark. She had decided to call her monks and start back
along the trail in the darkness. Only when she was at Mek Nimmur's side
once again would she feel secure.
She had just pulled on her jodhpurs and was searching beneath the bed
for her sandals when she heard the sound of a truck engine in the
distance. She went to the window and listened. The air had been cooled
by the rain and she felt the chill on her naked arms and chest.
The truck sounded as though it was approaching the village from the
south, up the track that followed the river bank. It was coming fast,
and her sense of unease sharpened. The villagers had spoken to the
monks, and it was now common knowledge that she was Mek Nimmur's woman.
Mek was a wanted man. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable and alone.
Quickly she pulled the woollen shamma over her head and thrust her feet
into her sandals. As she crept from the room she heard the headman
snoring in the front room where he and his wife had moved to make room
for her.
She turned down the short passage to the kitchen. The fir i I in the
hearth had burned down, but she could make out the shapes of the
sleeping monks on the mud floor. They lay With their shamnus pulled over
their heads, completer overed, like a row of bodies on mortuary
tables. She knelt beside the nearest of them and shook him, but
obviously he had enjoyed the tej at dinner because he was difficult to
rouse.
The sound of the approaching truck was much louder and closer by now,
and she felt her uneasiness take on a tinge of panic. Realizing that in
an emergency the monks would probably be of little real help to her, she
stood up and groped her way quickly towards the back door.
The truck was right outside the front of the house now. The headlights
flashed across the front windows and were briefly reflected down the
passageway. Abruptly the engine roar sank to a burble as the driver
decelerated, and she heard the squeal of brakes and the crunch of tyres
in the gravel outside. Then there was shouting and the trampling of many
feet as men jumped down from the back of the stationary truck.
Tessay froze halfway across the small kitchen, her head cocked to
listen. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the flimsy front door, and
chillingly familiar shouts of, 'Open up here! Central Intelligence! Open
the door! Nobody leave the house!'
Tessay ran for the back door, but in the darkness she tripped over a low
table covered with dirty dishes from the previous evening's meal. She
