The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance. Philip Marsden

Tigray they came to the palace of Ras Seyoum. At the gates were many people—the sick, the poor and the needy. But the pilgrims’ leader was a well-known monk and Ras Seyoum himself came down to see him.

      ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

      ‘We are going on a pilgrimage. One of our brothers died.’

      The ras asked the monks to say a prayer for him at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. He gave them thirteen silver Maria Teresa thalers. The monks went on their way. They reached the border to the Sudan, and on the other side, the soldiers arrested them.

      ‘You are spies!’ they said.

      ‘We are not spies,’ explained the monks. ‘We are pilgrims on our way to Jerusalem. Look, we have no shoes.’

      But the soldiers put them in the prison. They stayed there for a month and then the monks heard the soldiers say: ‘Perhaps these men are not spies. They have no shoes.’

      So the monks were released. They carried on through the desert. It was a very difficult time. They found only salty water and the ground was hard and stony. One day a stranger came up to them and said: ‘Why do you walk without shoes?’

      ‘We are pilgrims. We are going to Jerusalem.’

      ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to the distance. ‘There is a train. I can ask it to stop and then you can travel easily to your destination.’

      They looked at the train. They saw the long line of carriages and the white trail of smoke above it. They saw its round spinning feet and they realised the man beside them was Satan, sent to tempt them.

      ‘Go away!’ they shouted, and he disappeared.

      Sometimes they followed the Nile and sometimes they were in the desert. They reached the border to Egypt and on the other side of the border the soldiers arrested them.

      ‘You are spies,’ they said.

      ‘We are not. We are holy men. We have no shoes.’

      The soldiers saw that it was true. But then one of the soldiers said: ’Be careful—they may be extreme believers!’

      So the soldiers put them in prison for being extreme believers. They spent months in that Egyptian prison. Abba Gabre-Meskal said the prison wasn’t too bad. It reminded him of the monastery. He did not mind being locked up, the poor food, the crowding. What he did not like were the rats. In the end the Egyptians released them and they carried on. They came to a famous place. It was, said Abba Gabre-Meskal, a great piece of water between Egypt and Lebanon. They stood by the water and they realised they could not cross it. They were very sad, but thought: It is not the will of God that we reach Jerusalem.

      ‘Our leader said he would stay. He would wait to try and cross the water. But we decided to go home. It was the end of the journey.’

      Abba Gabre-Meskal rose to his feet. He fetched a bowl of kolo, roasted corn.

      ‘There is one more interesting thing.’ He stood high above me, the sun behind his head and one finger pointing at the sky.

      On the way home, he said, the two of them reached a place where they’d been warned there was a great variety of wild animals. They decided they must sleep in the trees. They tied themselves to the trees so that they wouldn’t fall out, and in the night the wild animals came. First, he said, were the ones with horns, although in fact some of the ones with horns did not have horns. He and the other novice could see them down below in the moonlight. Suddenly the ones with horns began a great battle with the ones who did not have horns. There was such a noise and such fighting that the two young monks became afraid. But all at once the animals left—as if a lion or a tiger had come to the area. In fact, a lion had come to the area and beneath the tree there were suddenly many lions. Then there were also tigers. They had to beat metal objects together to stop the animals climbing the tree. Then the lions and the tigers started to fight and there was a terrifying noise as they fought.

      But then they too ran away. ‘That was when we began to hear another noise. It was the biggest noise you can hear in the forest. The lions and the tigers stopped fighting and they were afraid. They ran away.’

      ‘What was the noise?’

      ‘A great big one!’

      ‘An elephant?’

      ‘Bigger than an elephant. I don’t know its name. We did not see it. We only heard its noise. Like a, like a…thing.’ He failed to find anything worthy of comparison. ‘Everyone knows it. It is a hundred devils in one!’

      For the rest of the night they prayed and they heard the noise of the big thing moving among the trees. But as it became light, the noise stopped. Merchants came with camels and they came down out of the tree and the merchants gave them food. The two of them went on their way.

      In Tigray they wanted to see Ras Seyoum to tell him they could not reach Jerusalem. They wanted to give him back his thalers. But their leader was not with them and they were just ordinary churchmen and so they waited, standing at the gates for a long time. Then they gave the money to a guard.

      ‘We returned to Gojjam after many difficulties. But we also met good people on the way.’

      ‘So, did you reach Jerusalem later?’

      ‘I went to Addis Ababa. I became known there. Did you hear the name of Empress Menen?’

      ‘The wife of Haile Selassie?’

      ‘She said she wanted me to go. She was going to arrange it. “Abba, you must go to Jerusalem!” But she died.’

      He let out a long sigh. ‘I went to see the emperor’s daughter, Tenagne Worq. She asked her father. He said to me, Abba, where is your file? Where is my file? I didn’t have a file! But by God’s will they found my file. His Majesty held the file and said, You can go.

      ‘So I did go to Jerusalem. I went to the Holy Sepulchre, I went to Deir es Sultan, to Addis Alem monastery. I went to Bethlehem. But I was not as strong then as now. If I had gone now, I would have studied great books—they have books in Jerusalem that are as big as doors! But I was young then. I was not prepared.’

      Hiluf was on a bus from Aksum. He would be in Lalibela in a few days. I meanwhile was staying at the Jerusalem Guest House, trying to prepare for the coming walk. Information was still patchy. Even the mysteries of the rock-cut churches were easier to pin down. There’ll be plenty of food in the markets…no food in the markets…you will need one mule…three mules…a car…no idea…militia…very hot…very cold…very steep…no food…

      I had a problem with Ethiopian food. When I first arrived in 1982, I loved its spicy sauces, its spongy injera bread. But then on the second journey I picked up a stomach infection of such virulence that for a decade or more I lost a day or two each month to it. I assumed the years had sorted it out; but a meal in an Addis restaurant a week earlier had proved me wrong.

      So I went to Lalibela’s weekly market. I found shallots and garlic and chilli peppers. I found rice and pulses and tomatoes. I bought screwtop containers. I bought biscuits and sugar and a block of sawn-up salt from the Danakil desert. I lined all the food up in my room. I had the tinned fish from Addis, and the sachets of soup. I packed it all very diligently into a canvas bag. I spread out the maps from Ethiopia’s Mapping Agency. I sliced off the unnecessary parts—the desert to the east, the Takazze lowlands to the west. I taped the folds. I sliced the Maudes’ translation of Anna Karenina into three pocket-sized sections and taped the spine (I kept the five-thousand-rouble note I had used as a bookmark when I’d first read it, ten years earlier, in Lithuania).

      With the help of the Jerusalem’s proprietor, I settled on two mules and two muleteers—by the name of Bisrat and Makonnen. Bisrat was gentle and subservient, Makonnen canny and wiry. The mules looked healthy enough. They would come with us as far as the town of Sekota.

      The days slipped by. I jostled with pilgrims and travellers at the sacred sites.