The Quest: A Novel

sacrifice. The bishop of Asmara rang the church bells and everyone sang the Fascist anthem, ‘Youth.’ Everyone seemed happy on the outside. But on the inside, there was much sadness. I know this because the soldiers came to me and told me they were sad. We marched on Ethiopia. At first it was not so bad, except for the heat and the fatigue. In the early part of October we entered Adowa. There was little fighting. But then we marched out of Adowa and the army of the Ethiopians began to fight. So, this Ethiopian emperor was a brave man. Haile Selassie—they called him the King of Kings. The Conquering Lion of Judah. Descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, they said. A descendant of the House of David. A brave man. He led his army with his own person, while our new Caesar sat in Rome. I am sure this man is dead, no? He must have died in battle.”
    “No,” said Mercado, “the emperor escaped to England, then returned to Ethiopia when the British drove out the Italians. He is still alive, but a very old man now.”
    Purcell wondered if Father Armano could follow all this, but the priest said, “So, they are not all dead, then. Good. Someone lives from my time. This emperor was a brave man. His army was ill-equipped,but they fought like lions against our tanks and planes. But we won that war. That much I could see before my imprisonment.”
    “Yes,” Mercado said, “you won that war. But you lost the big one afterwards. The one with the Americans and the English. Italy fought with Germany.”
    “With Germany? Insanity. Which war is this one, then?”
    Mercado was pulled in two directions. On one hand, he wanted to put the old priest’s mind to rest about all that had transpired in forty years. He actually enjoyed telling it to him. But on the other hand, there was the priest’s own story, which had to be finished.
    He glanced at Purcell, who now seemed resigned to the priest’s recounting of all he remembered of the past and all his questions about the present. Mercado said to Father Armano, “It is a civil war, Father. Ethiopia now owns the old Italian colony of Eritrea. Some Eritreans, mostly the Muslims, want independence. They are fighting the Ethiopians. Inside Ethiopia itself, there are Christians and Muslims who no longer want the emperor. Mostly it is the army that no longer wants Haile Selassie as emperor, and they have arrested him, but he is well. He lives in his palace under house arrest. There are some Royalist forces who still fight the army. There are others who want neither the army nor the emperor. It is a very confused war and there is much unhappiness in this land. Also, there is famine. Famine for two years now.”
    “Yes, I know of the famine.” He asked, “And the Gallas? I heard you mention them. They are not to be trusted. In the last war, they took advantage of the fighting and killed many on both sides. They love fighting. They love it when there is strife in the land.” There was actual anger in the old priest’s gentle voice. He said, “It was the Gallas who attacked the place where I was imprisoned… they killed everyone…”
    Henry Mercado remembered the Gallas very well—fierce tribesmen with no loyalty beyond their clans. He said to the priest, “Yes. I remember from the last war. I was here then. I am from your time, too, Father.”
    The old priest nodded and said, “You must not fall into their hands.” He looked at Vivian.
    Mercado did not respond, but the priest’s warning awakened old and bad memories of that colonial war, and especially of the Gallas. Between 1936 and 1940, they fought the Ethiopian partisans who still carried on the fight against the Italians, and when the British took Ethiopia from the Italians in 1941, the Gallas harassed the retreating Italians as well as the advancing British and the reemerging Ethiopian partisan forces. Wherever there was a clash of arms, the Gallas heard it and rode to it on their horses. This was how they lived; on military plunder. And they didn’t know a white flag or a press card when they saw one. In quiet times, they stayed in the Danakil Desert, near Eritrea, or the Ogaden Desert, near Somalia. But when the dogs of war were let loose, as now, thought Mercado, they were all over the countryside, as though someone had shaken a beehive, and the famine had made them more fierce and more predatory than usual.
    Mercado had suspected and the priest had confirmed that the Gallas were in the area, that