Mekelle፡ 30 September 2024 (Tigray Herald)
The Regal Disease
(an excerpt from an article in 2014 – by Yosief Ghebrehiwet)
Rahta and Mahta, the twin sisters that had been gone for five long years, working as chambermaids to the Queen (by the way, the highest honor that any woman could ever hope for in that land), were now back in their hometown for good. Understandably, the townspeople were excited to have their two most famous citizens back in their humble town. They felt proud and honored by their presence, even though there was a certain ambivalence that went with it all. This was because there was something about the way the twin sisters carried themselves, something aloof and distant and somewhat puzzling, that many of the down-to-earth townspeople found disconcerting, to say the least.
Some hastily concluded that living in the royal court for so long had turned the twins into snobs. What is it that has made them forget their humble upbringing, they kept wondering. Do they have to be so standoffish and arrogant, they complained in whispers – of course, all said and done with a tinge of jealousy. Others, on the other hand, openly displayed their envy; they even tried to imitate the way they carried themselves “regally” – as they loved to put it. There were also those who kept a mysterious silence, often accompanied with an all-knowing smile, whenever the subject matter came up, as if they were in the know about the whole matter but didn’t want to say. And then there were those who honestly professed they couldn’t understand it at all but who nevertheless vehemently asserted that the sisters must have a good reason for what they were doing (We have to have faith in them, they kept doggedly reiterating).
But there was one thing that all the supporters and detractors held in common: that this object of speculation – this object of wonder, hatred, derision, envy, praise, emulation or pure puzzlement – was to be located in none other than the twin sisters’ slender arms. It is the unique and strange way the twins carried their arms that kept the town fascinated and buzzing in speculation: the way they kept their arms akimbo most of the time when they walked around or stood still, as if in perpetual self-defiance to, and never-ending quarrel with, everybody around in sight; the way they sometimes kept projecting – or should we say, floating – their arms forward as if they were carrying something fragile; the way they waved their hands woodenly, as if they could not manipulate the hand independent of the arm, and the fingers independent of the hand; the way they used their index finger to summon someone by moving the whole arm back and forth, as if they were pulling an invisible string … An observant clown, who doubled as a ventriloquist, noted that whatever it was that they kept doing with their arms, they seemed to hardly touch their bodies, as if they had set out to prove that the arms had their own lives, independent of the body. And in a clever imitation, as the clown moved in slow motion with his arms suspended in the air, he would make his arms cry “Ouch!” every time the arms came in contact with the body – to the onlookers’ hooting delight. Whatever it is, the citizens of the town whispered among themselves in unusual concurrence, the object of the twins’ pride must be in none other than their arms. But that was as far as their claim would go, for the enigma was that the twins were never seen in the town without their long fashionable white gloves that covered them all the way to their upper arms.
Given the above facts, that the brain-racking question that was in every citizen’s lip should be the following is only understandable: what indeed lies behind those mysterious gloves? Obviously, various speculations were made, many tailor-made to fit the various opinions they had already made up about the sisters. Some said that some noblemen in the royal court must have proposed to them, and what were beneath those enigmatic gloves must be exotic diamond rings of engagement. No, others disagreed vehemently, they must be the famous diamond-studded bracelets that the Queen awarded to few of its most trusted subjects, no doubt as tokens of appreciation for their years of excellent service in the court. But then there were the skeptics (“the spoilers,” as most of the townspeople called them) who devastatingly argued that if this was the case, the twins would have absolutely no reason to hide them (The show-offs that they are, some of the malicious ones added in private, they would have made sure that everybody takes notice of them). Rather, they mysteriously added, those must be some kind of esoteric insignia or emblem indelibly tattooed in their skins, one that identifies them as members of some mystic organization that had a lot of influence in the royal court (That explains the mysterious covering up, they added self-satisfactorily, or an imposter with a good eye would be able to copy it. Some even dared to go so far as to claim the Queen herself must be a member of such an organization). And some others with fundamentalist streak, who obviously wanted to claim the influential sisters as their own, emphatically claimed that, by covering up their arms, they were setting a prudent example to “our hedonist society.” Others uproariously laughed at this suggestion, hilariously pointing to one fact that nobody could deny: the sisters were often seen in miniskirts, often without any stockings to cover up their slender legs (After that, they even mockingly referred to the members of this group as “upper-body fundamentalists”). And so the speculations and counter-speculations went on until …
… Well, until two gentlemen, who were head over heels in love with Rahta and Mahta, decided to bring matters to an end. For obvious reasons, the suspense was killing them more than anybody else in the town. What they found most unbearable was the rumors of their engagement to some “pretentious noblemen” – as they frequently put it – in the royal court. This cannot be, they kept lamenting … that was, until they finally decided to do something about it, come what may …
In one pitch dark night, the love-stricken gentlemen stealthily made their way to the twin’s compound, and courageously climbed up two balconies before they reached the front window of the twins’ bedroom. There, crouching beneath a table left in the balcony, hiding themselves behind the tablecloth, they waited patiently until the two sisters came into the bedroom. They held their breath in suspense as the twins began to take off their gloves. The suspense though was soon to turn into a nightmare of horror, for what they were about to discover was totally unexpected: the twins’ arms, all the way from their fingertips to their upper arms, were covered with some kind of a horrible disease! The sight was totally revolting; purple, swollen rushes of some kind had taken all over the skin. And as the sisters began to scratch their arms ferociously, blood began to trickle here and there and puss began to ooze all over … until the pain and suffering twisted the twins’ faces into ugly contortions that scared the hell out of the gentlemen …
Despite all this though, the two gentlemen could still detect a tone of unmistakable pride, tinged with envy and frustration, as Rahta exclaimed, “Oh, my dear and adorable Mahta, how I envy you! Your Regal Disease leaves no skin uncovered all the way to the very tip of your fingers. Look at mine. It is so patchy; you could still detect some healthy skin here and there. I can hardly wait for those beautiful purple rushes to take all over. Oh, how wretched I am!”
Mahta, although beaming with pride that she cannot hide, made a feeble attempt to comfort her sister, “Patience! Patience, my dear sister! You know perfectly well how mine used to look exactly like yours at the beginning. Remember that it was me who first contracted the disease from the Queen. No wonder there, for it was me who spent most of the time taking care of Her Highness. Besides, it took a lot of hard work, a lot of squeezing and scratching, however painful it was … Sister dear, we have to suffer, don’t we, to see the fruits of our struggle? But in time, look how it has handsomely paid off; it has blossomed beautifully!” Then she couldn’t resist adding maliciously, “It is as if spring has arrived too early to my arms! Don’t you think that now it more or less looks like our beloved Queen’s?”
Upon which note Rahta burst into tears; she could no more control herself, as her bosom heaved up and down in anger and frustration. “Oh, to have a disease just like the Queen’s!” she kept lamenting loudly, rocking her body back and forth in despair. But soon she collected herself, stopped her gyrations and put a determined face, and said, “I am off to work, off to work …” and started scratching her arms with such ferocity that our gentlemen could take it no more. They left as quietly and as stealthily as they had come, although totally shaken and devastated by the horrors they had just witnessed.
Soon the word got out. The whole town was abuzz about the infectious Regal Disease that the twins got from none other than the Queen herself. The reason why Rahta and Mahta had been covering their arms in the first place – even as they were terribly proud of their Regal Disease – was because they had been afraid that the ignorant townspeople would misunderstand the nature of their disease and stigmatize them. But their fear was totally unfounded, as they were soon to find out to their pleasant surprise; they had underestimated how the masses could get enlightened so quickly under the proper inspiration. And inspiration, they were willing to give in abundance.
After the initial shock subsided, it soon dawned to the townspeople that they had hit upon a treasure throve. Soon, everyone was devising impossible ways to contract this prestigious disease. In anticipation of good days to come, everyone was imitating the twins in every gesture and movement. As if the whole town was in some kind of a ghost movie rehearsal, the townspeople walked strangely as in a dream, with their arms positioned in the oddest ways that one could possibly imagine. The “arms akimbo” became the favorite among women, some of whom perfected it to a point of spontaneity. Some of the men tried it too, even as they resembled huge awkward birds flapping with broken wings. The more adventurous ones came up with improvised “manly” ones, one of which was named the “march,” with arms energetically swinging up and down, but without touching the body. And those with Christian religious bent, not to be outdone by the “secularists”, quickly invented the “cross,” moving with their arms outstretched sideways in imitation of the cross. Their Muslim counterparts instantly came up with the “crescent”, with one hand bent in crescent-ish way, as if they were holding a child with it, while the other arm kept moving in unpredictable ways as if in attendance to the need of that child. Hilarious as all this may seem, this was no laughing matter for the townspeople; they were taking it all with utmost seriousness. And the fashionable glove soon found its way in every household, with some going as far as falsely insinuating they had already got it (the disease was soon mysteriously dubbed as “it” – Nsa).
All of this was jealously noted by the two lovers, who had been almost falling out of love after the horrifying scene they had witnessed on that fateful night. But as soon as they saw how the townspeople reacted, they fell in love all over again – head over heels. They didn’t lose any time in courting the sisters, in the hope that they would be privileged enough to be the first in the town to contract this prestigious disease …
At first, Rahta and Mahta were reluctant to show themselves in public without their gloves. But the public demand for exposure was reaching a hysterical level. In the end, they gave in (for the sake of the masses, as they patriotically put it). On the Day of Exposure, a day the townspeople will remember forever (akin to what Eritreans reverently call the First Shot in Mount Adal), the whole town was there to marvel at the sight and, if possible, to touch it. But all that the crowd could do was watch from afar, as those in the VIP seats were given the handshake. In the next day, although most of the commentators in the media were extremely favorable, one fiery leftist columnist caustically wrote, “Are the masses to be denied the Regal Disease? Is it always the upper class that gets the best treat? Isn’t it the patriotic duty of the most famous daughters of this humble town to mingle with the masses and shake their hands too?” This did it; the next day the twins were out there in the streets unreservedly shaking the hands of the masses, as if they were running for the highest office in the country.
Most charmingly, the twins were often seen kissing children that were handed over by emotionally overwhelmed adetatat – a scene which, by the way, understandably provided the cover pictures of all the newspapers next day. No one could hold the enthusiasm of the mothers; not even the police, who were occasionally using the baton to hold the screaming and shoving crowd in check. In between the beatings and the shoving, the screaming and the shouting, many mothers miraculously found a way to reach close to their idol. After the crowd dispersed, one could easily identify those successful mothers who had had their children kissed by the beaming glow that never left their faces for long after the momentous event.
The testimony that the Rahta and Mahta did indeed an exemplary work of their patriotic duty is that the epidemic moved fast and furious both in rich and poor areas, sparing nobody along its glorious path. People who had it spent no time before they started showing it off to neighbors and friends. Even though the weather was kind of chilly at that time, the men who had it were seen walking up and down the streets with their shirts off. And the beaches became overcrowded, especially with women who had it – the only public place where they could take off their clothes. As it was with Rahta, one could see envious eyes wandering over the fortunate ones whose skins bloomed in a spring rash. Indeed, the spring fever, both as onlookers and looked-at, took possession of the entire town …
Soon, with everyone diligently fulfilling his/her patriotic duty, the epidemic turned into a pandemic, as people began to drop dead like flies – regally dead! Initially, when the deaths were a few over here and a few over there (all of them children), “the little martyrs” – as the townsfolk used to call them reverently – were given Regal Burials in the Martyr’s Grave unseen before in the humble town, with elaborate processions, marches and bands accompanying the flowers-bedecked little coffins. And lest anyone should confuse the cause of the little ones’ death with any other plebeian disease, a crown similar to the Queen’s was painted or engraved on the sides of the coffins to show the regality of their deaths. And those few who could afford it had little crowns made for the little heads of their little martyrs, proudly exhibited during the “viewing”, just before the burial procession started. And as for the white glove, it was a must for every dead child, from poor or rich family, to wear. The well to do families made sure that no poor family’s son or daughter be buried without those fashionable gloves; the White Glove Foundation was precisely founded for that, and only that, noble cause. But this story would remain incomplete if I fail to mention “the White Glove Scandal” that infuriated the whole town, a scandal that tested the townspeople patriotism as never before.
When one of the richest families in the town had their only infant child dead, as expected an elaborate funeral that all the dignitaries of the town attended was conducted. The coffin was not only griddled with the crown engravings embossed with silver, the dead infant’s head was covered with a real silver crown. All of this didn’t go well even with the well-to-do families, let alone with the poor families that wouldn’t be able to afford such extravagance. But a poor woman who had already lost seven children to the epidemic, and who was absolutely furious that a one-child-dead family was getting so much attention, had other sinister doubts in her head. Uncharacteristic of all those families privileged enough to have contracted the Regal Disease, this particular rich family had never let anyone know about the illness of their now deceased child. This struck her as peculiar, given the unbridled manner they displayed their child’s death. In a rather bold move on her side, one that kept the townspeople talking for weeks, as she lingered beside the coffin looking at the angelic face in grief (which the townspeople thought appropriate, given her loss to the epidemic) during the viewing, she suddenly and furiously pulled off the white gloves from the dead child, to the gasp of the onlookers. The gasp turned to horror when they found out that the arms of the child were “as smooth as baby bottom”, as the saying goes, with not the slightest bit of the purple rashes symptomatic of the disease. With the funeral abandoned in the chaos that followed, the corpse was swiftly taken to the town morgue for autopsy. The townspeople held their breath for three long days as the autopsy of the dead infant was conducted. And the old no-nonsense doctor didn’t disappoint them: infanticide! And the scandal was by that much scandalous because the patriarch of that scandalized rich family was none other than the president and founder of the White Glove Foundation!
Anyways, the attention to details that was given to those funerals at the early stage of the epidemic was soon to be abandoned. Even though the scandal had to do something with it in the beginning, there was a more pragmatic reason why it stayed that way for a long time to come: as the epidemic gained further momentum and reached every household, sparing neither young nor old, it was not long before people began to dig mass graves to bury their dead.
Through the entire course of the epidemic, the townspeople never lost their determination and pride – regal dignity and pride, that is! Not at all! To the contrary, they glamorized death as they had done with the disease itself. And, most admirably, they seemed to catch up with the ever raging epidemic, as it grew in leaps and bounds, with new innovative ways of dealing with it. Those families that had the biggest number of deaths were given a special honor; as they walked through the town with their heads up, passers bye stood still and bowed their heads in awe and respect. The Mayor, who had always had his finger on the public pulse, soon came up with an official version of this “awe and respect”. In the one-year commemoration of the epidemic conducted in the town hall, a mother who had lost seven children to the epidemic was showcased as the “Ultimate Citizen” and honored with the Golden Martyrs’ Certificate – one that instantly made her the envy of the town. In his speech, the Mayor didn’t fail to mention the patriotic role the mother played in exposing the White Glove Scandal (you guessed it, it is the same mother). As the face of this beaming mother, with her two clenched hands held high up in patriotic zeal, standing side by side with none other than the Mayor, made it to all the media outlets, many mothers began to look resentfully at those children of theirs who either were late in catching the disease or were hanging on to life long after infection. The eyes of these patriotically impatient and irritated mothers unmistakably said, “Go! Go join the martyrs! Awet N’hafash!” They did everything short of infanticide – God forbid, the town wouldn’t survive another scandal! – to expedite martyrdom.
Soon, with everyone giving a helping had to the Regal Epidemic, the town came to a glorious end – may I dare say, a regal extinction! The Martyrs’ Grave that started in a small corner of the town kept sprawling so rapidly that it was not long before it swallowed up the whole town. Today, one can still see a large sign, “MARTYRS’ GRAVE”, engraved at the top of the gate of the now totally emptied ghost town.
The gentleman who related to me this tragedy, the only survivor from this mass extinction, had tears rolling down his cheeks as he came to the end of his story. Very much touched by the tragedy that befell the humble town, I tried my best to console him, “What a tragedy! What a misfortune! I can understand how you feel with all your dear ones, all those you have grown up with, family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, parishioners, having perished …”
He didn’t let me finish my sentence. He looked at me with a puzzled and incredulous look, as his lips pouched in contempt, “Misfortune? Tragedy? No! No! You don’t seem to get it,” he went on shouting angrily as he pounded the table, “All those who have been martyred in this noble Cause have done their patriotic duty – those are the happy ones. It is the wretched me that I am crying for … Whatever I did, I was unable to catch the disease! Believe me, I tried … oh, how I tried hard. Don’t you see, I was more than willing to be martyred, but sadly it was not meant to be. I even seriously contemplated suicide, but I realized that no one would consider that as martyrdom …” The Last Man of this gloriously extinct town was inconsolable …
Then the Last Man abruptly stood up, stoically shook my hands, and walked away with all the “pride and dignity” that his townspeople were known for. As he disappeared through the door, it occurred to me that I had failed to ask the name of that historic town. Alarmed, I scrambled out of my seat and rushed to the door, shouting, “Hey you! Hey you!”
Reading my mind, he shouted back at me without turning his head, “Ereye-Erena!” and disappeared around the corner, never to be seen again.
As if by divine intervention, suddenly the radio in the bar was turned loud with the song “Ereye Erena, ketematat koynu measkerna” as I was making my way back to my table. Ladies and gentlemen, I couldn’t resist the infectious beat and lyrics of this most patriotic music and kept dancing furiously as if possessed, with my shoulders shaking uncontrollably and my feet outdoing each other in a stepping frenzy, with the amused look of the onlookers following me round and round. A reserved fellow that I am, as soon as I sat, I wondered where the hell I had gotten the courage to do all that. I hastily paid the bill, and rushed out of the bar to avoid the eyes of the onlookers.
Later, back at home, I wondered whether the handshake of the Last Man had to do with it all. Scared, I rose up and went to the bathroom and kept scrubbing and washing my hands over and over again … It used to be said, “Shewa’na shinfila tatbo ayteram” No more; now it is, “Ghedli’na shinfila tatbo ayteram”. After countless scrubbings and washings, I still sense remnants of that handshake lurking between my fingers …
