Inconceivable! Read online

  “We eat breakfast in the main house at eight. You’re welcome to join us. Then, we’ll head over to the orphanage and start painting.”

  I heard a slight twang when she spoke. Though Plato grew up in Iowa, Desta had spent most of her life in a suburb of Nashville.

  “That sounds perfect.” I placed my backpack beside the small kitchen table.

  Desta showed me around the cozy cottage, explained how to get hot water for my shower, and then she and Tariku left me alone. I inhaled slowly, experiencing the rich new aromas that drifted in through the screens that separated me from the mosquitoes and animals milling around the yard.

  I plopped down on the white blanket spread across the low bed. This was a definite departure from palace life. I took out my phone, happy to see two bars. Addis was only one hour ahead of Toulene, so I knew John was still awake. I sent him a text to let him know I was getting settled.

  He wrote back, “Have fun and be safe. Love and miss you. Whatever you’re searching for, find it. I need you back here.”

  amush’s van was full of volunteers from a church in Virginia. We’d stopped at a guest house to pick them up. I introduced myself as Hatty Meinrad, and saw small flickers of recognition on some of the faces. Though John and I certainly received some coverage in the U.S., it wasn’t close to the level of attention we got from the media in Europe.

  I sat by a window in the back next to Bernard and listened to some of the volunteers talk about their impressions of Addis Ababa. As we drove along in stop-and-go traffic, I willed myself not to get carsick as I’d done when I was a child riding on back roads in the Ozarks.

  I pushed open the window as far as it would go to let in a bit of fresh air. We stopped at a traffic light, and a hand touched my arm. I looked out the window and saw a woman standing in the road reaching up to me through the narrow opening. Her right breast was exposed and a sluggish baby was latched onto it. Just then, the van moved.

  “Here. Give them one of these.” The woman sitting in front of me handed over a granola bar.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Shoving sugar-filled processed food stuffs at these poverty-stricken beggars seemed insulting and terribly insufficient. As I looked at the dusty, parched faces along the roadside, I tried to reframe my own infertility struggle. See? These people have real problems. Survival problems.

  The van turned into an alley that sloped downhill. We slowly rolled over rocks in a road that looked like a creek bed. It probably was in the rainy season.

  Ten minutes later, we turned down an even narrower path that ran between green corrugated fences. The van stopped and Mamush hopped out. He opened a gate off to the right. As he pulled the van into a wide driveway, I saw clotheslines covered in damp baby outfits and children’s clothes, a brightly painted metal swing set, and a plain one-story cinderblock building. Another van sat empty, having brought in another set of volunteers ahead of us.

  Plato and Desta sorted us into groups and sent us into the orphanage’s main building. I was supposed to help the nannies move the infants because their room was about to get a fresh coat of paint.

  Just as the others had done before entering the building, I slid off my shoes by the front door. The textured tile was pleasantly cool under my feet. When I got to room A, I stood in the doorway, unsure what to do. All the nannies sat on the floor; most of them held two babies. A few infants sat propped on little pillows, their heads angled to drink from a bottle resting next to them on blankets.

  “Hi. Desta said you need help.” How ridiculous. It was obvious they needed more help than I could give them.

  A nanny with a slender, elegant face smiled at me. I went to her and she nodded toward a baby on a pillow. I scooped up the infant and the bottle propped on the blanket beside her. As soon as I tilted the bottle into the optimal position, the baby came to life and drank with enthusiasm. I smiled at the big brown eyes that locked on my face.

  “She’s a girl, right? Why is she making that grunting sound?” I asked without knowing whether any of the nannies spoke English.

  “She has a throat problem,” a nanny sitting across from me said with a light accent. “Hold her up. It is better.”

  I raised up the baby girl and the sound softened considerably. She also seemed to be drinking with less effort.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Tigist,” the nanny said, pronouncing a hard G sound in the middle. “We call her Tidgie.” Baby Tidgie was the cutest June bug I’d ever seen.

  “My name’s Hatty. What’s your name?”

  “Alemtsehay.”

  I watched as the babies drifted from drowsy to deep sleep. The nannies deposited each infant into a painted wooden box that had a thin pad in the bottom. Tigist was the only one still awake and drinking.

  Alemtsehay sat down next to me. She began to sing softly: “Tidgie-ay, konjo. Tidgie-ay, nay-konjo.”

  Tigist’s top and bottom lashes slowly met over her eyes. The gradual motion reminded me of the tiny Venus Flytraps my grandparents had years ago, and how they slowly closed to capture the food they needed to survive.

  I followed Alemtsehay to the remaining wooden box and placed Tigist inside with great care. The tiny baby started snoring like an old man.

  “Does she always do that?”

  “Oh yes. Throat problem.” The nanny pointed to her own neck for emphasis.

  With all the babies asleep and secure, the nannies and I moved the boxes down the hall to a room with bright white walls. The air was heavy with the smell of fresh paint. I wondered about the impact of the fumes on such tiny lungs. Once the boxes were all inside, two nannies went around opening windows and I turned on the ceiling fan.

  “Are you from the states?” Alemtsehay motioned for me to sit with her on the floor where she folded blankets.

  “I grew up there. But I live in Toulene, in Europe. My husband is there. Are you from Addis?”

  “No. I’m from a village in Sidamo. Aleta Wondo. You’ve heard of it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She laughed. “I suppose not.”

  “Where did you work in Aleta Wondo?

  “At the orphanage. I came here to see the city. But I may go back to my village. The orphanage director left, and they need help.”

  I lost count of how many blankets we folded while the babies slept in their boxes around us. Baby Tigist’s grunt-like snores floated through the room as we worked.

  As I got to the last blanket, Mamush stuck his head in the room. “Lunch, Hatty?”

  I excused myself and got in the van.

  “We’re going for pizza,” one of the volunteers told me.

  “Pizza? In Ethiopia?”

  “Yes. Mamush says Ethiopians love Italian food, even though they drove out the Italians in 1941 after a six-year occupation.”

  Bumping along in the van toward an air conditioned café, I wondered where the nannies ate their lunch.

  My hands shook as I read the email on my phone a second time. I tried not to convey my alarm to the people at my table. They laughed and talked too loudly as they finished their pizza.

  It was from James Compson, my former editor at The Morning Dispatch. I had no idea how he’d gotten my personal email address.

  He explained he’d left his position at the paper to work for Xpress. As a “courtesy” to his former colleague, he wanted to give me an advanced copy of the story he was about to drop. I knew he was fishing for a comment from me.

  Palace Insider Says Duchess Hatty Had Miscarriage; She and Prince John are Separated

  By James Compson for Xpress

  November 17, 2015

  The Belvoir source, who asked to remain anonymous, says Duchess Hatty had a miscarriage in late October following a cycle of in vitro fertilization. As Xpress previously reported, the couple has been trying to get pregnant for months without success.

  Now, it appears the strain of the infertility treatments, the details of which have been kept secret, has torn the p
air apart. Xpress has confirmed Duchess Hatty left Roeselare Monday and flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She’s reportedly there to do humanitarian work with a longtime friend. Public records show she has no return ticket.

  Meanwhile, Prince John is still in Roeselare, and his public schedule doesn’t show plans to travel to Ethiopia. The palace source says the trip is a trial separation.

  Royal observers say the situation doesn’t bode well for a couple already under extreme pressure to produce an heir.

  “The last thing they need is to spend time apart. How is Hatty going to make up for her miscarriage by getting pregnant again if she isn’t even on the same continent as her husband?” said Nic Capucine, royal observer.

  Belvoir’s public affairs office did not return calls for comment.

  James concluded his email with a zinger: Hatty, you should’ve listened to me when I was your editor. You could’ve been one hell of a reporter.

  “Hatty? You look sick. Are you okay?” The question came from the woman sitting across the table and two people down from me. She furrowed her brows. I recognized her as the person who’d given me a granola bar to hand out to the beggars. “Do you need something else to eat?” She reached in her purse. Prepackaged food can’t solve everyone’s problems, lady.

  “No. I just need to make a phone call.”

  “Time to go, everyone.” Mamush announced from the head of the long table where we sat.

  I fumbled in my haste to pull up my phone’s keypad. Once I had it, I dialed John’s cell. Call Fail flashed across the bottom. Great. No bars. I typed a quick text and hit send. A couple of moments later, a red exclamation point appeared by the text message, punctuating my status: incommunicado.

  That night, I wanted to see if James’ story had hit, but I still had no bars on my phone and the Internet connection at my cottage was out. I opened my laptop to type a long message I’d email to John when someone revived our lifeline to the world.

  I wrote a confession: I’ve fallen in love. Someone has filled the emptiness of my heart. I wrote about how Baby Tigist caught my attention and wouldn’t let it go. Even as my fingers clicked on the laptop, I worried about how she’d get fed overnight when there were fewer nannies. What if she woke up screaming and no one went to her?

  I shared in my message to John the story Alemtsehay told me after lunch about how Tigist came to the orphanage. A woman from her village had walked into the city carrying the sickly child, begging for someone to help her. She said Tigist’s birth mother had died, and no one knew who the birth father was.

  In conclusion, I wrote: John, I know this sounds crazy, but I may stay here a bit longer than a week. Will you please come to me? I miss you so much. And I love you.

  Exhaustion overtook my worry for Tigist as I listened to the noises of the city penetrating the thin walls. In a way, the jagged city cacophony reminded me of the soundtrack of Roeselare, except here, the mix included roosters crowing and goats grunting.

  hen I arrived at the orphanage the next morning, I couldn’t wait to check on tiny Tigist. I bounded out of the van and went inside. Smiling nannies greeted me when I stepped into the freshly painted infant room. Once again, my bare feet registered the cool temperature of the tiles.

  I scanned the room. “Where’s Tigist?” An alarm sounded in my head.

  “She’s in the clinic. We had to move her because her cough got worse,” one of the nannies said as she changed a baby’s diaper. The day before, Tigist had coughed some after I fed her, but it sounded like a minor cold.

  “May I go see her?”

  “Yes. Go through the middle hallway, through the kitchen, and out the back door. It is a small building. You will see it.”

  Almost before she finished giving me directions, I was on the move. The front room of the clinic was dark. Nannies sat on small cots holding babies who were bundled tightly like flies bound by a spider’s thread. A nanny wearing a kerchief had a sizeable toddler on her lap. The child’s eyes moved in strange ways and weren’t in sync. I scanned the room but didn’t see the baby who mattered the most to me.

  “Tigist?” I directed my question at a nanny in the corner.

  She motioned toward the door to my right. I walked through it and found Tigist lying in a tiny bed, head shaved and an IV inserted in her scalp. Medical tape held the needle in place. She had the same glazed look I’d seen on Baby Juan when he had been ill a couple of months earlier. Alemtsehay was in the room, folding clothes and putting them in a pile.

  “May I?” I asked, indicating I wanted to hold Tigist.

  She nodded and came to help me. Tigist was hooked up to a bag of liquid suspended from a hook above her head. Alemtsehay pulled up a wooden chair next to Tigist’s bed. I sat and she put the baby in my arms. Tigist looked at me a moment before coughing harshly. I put the back of my hand across her forehead. She felt warm but not hot.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Pneumonia.”

  At lunchtime, I tried my phone and got a signal. John answered quickly.

  “Hatty. You have to come home. Did you see the story in Xpress claiming we’re separated? My father planted it.” Aha. So, James’ article had hit.

  “What? Why would your dad talk to the press and lie about us being separated? That’s unconscionable.”

  “It is. But he told me he did it. He says the story lays the groundwork for the order he’s about to issue to annul our marriage.”

  “You can’t let him do that. And I can’t leave Ethiopia. There’s a sick baby here who needs me. She’ll die if I abandon her.” Panic raised the pitch of my voice as, for the first time, I articulated my fear that Tigist might not make it.

  “Come back so we can formulate a plan to deal with Leopold. He says if you refuse to do another round of IVF, he’s going to sign the annulment papers.”

  “Threaten him.”

  “What? He’s the king. I could go to jail for threatening him.”

  “I don’t mean physically. Threaten to leak the story of his relationship with Louisa. You think they still see each other, right?”

  “I know they do. I’ll have to think about it.”

  Sigh. I have to do everything. “You can’t think about it. You have to do it. I’ll see if I can catch a flight out of here this afternoon. I can probably be in Roeselare by tonight. We’re going to set your father straight. Then we’re both coming back here tomorrow. This baby needs us.”

  ohn and I slammed into each other, embracing and kissing deeply in the midst of the crazy bustle at Toulene’s International Airport. Bernard held back several people trying to snap photos. Let ‘em rip, baby. Show the world we’re together and we’re in love. It’s about time something true about me and John made the rounds on social media.

  “Are you ready to do this?” John scooted into the seat next to me in the back of the black car.

  “Like we have a choice. My goal is not to drop the f-bomb in front of Leopold again.”

  “If ever a situation called for a fuck or two, this is it.”

  “Listen to your mouth! I’m gone for a few days and you start swearing? Makes me wonder what would happen if I’d stayed in Addis for the whole week.”

  Herr Schroeder told us where we’d find Leopold. When we burst into the game room, Louisa sat on the billiard table, her skirt hiked up. Leopold stood between her legs.

  They looked shocked and pissed at our intrusion, but Leopold didn’t let irritation seep into his voice. “Let me guess. You want to announce a divorce rather than endure the embarrassment of having me annul your marriage. I think that’s commendable.”

  I held up my smartphone and snapped photos.

  “Stop it!” Louisa yelled. She scrambled, bringing her legs together, and hopped off the table. Leopold didn’t move.

  John stared at his father and I put my phone in my back jeans pocket.

  Leopold spoke again in a casual way that betrayed the weight of his words. “I know you didn’t want your relationship with Hatty to
end like this. But your commitment to this family, to our country, is much bigger than the vows you made to Hatty.”

  John remained still and silent.

  “I’d say the reaction to the article has been neutral at best. There’s no outcry over the break-up of your marriage. The people of our country realize what you don’t: she’s just an American who caught your eye after Claire cut you off. It’s time to move on. Be a man, John.”

  “He’s more of a man than you,” I interjected. “And if you don’t leave us alone, I’m going to hit ‘send’ on every photo I took and shoot them to my friend James Compson at Xpress. You’re not the only one with connections to that cesspool.”

  Leopold ignored me and spoke directly to John. “I know if you loved Hatty as much as I loved your mother, you’d do everything you could to avoid an annulment. I was the one who sent Bea to Dr. Cloutier. He gave her an experimental drug to stimulate her ovaries. It worked two times―for you and Henri. She kept taking the pills, hoping she’d get pregnant a third time, but the medication caused cysts.” Leopold walked to the sideboard and poured himself a drink.

  “You mean the pills brought on the cancer?” John’s face was pale.

  “Dr. Cloutier told her the pills were causing the cancer to grow, that taking them was like throwing gas on a fire. But she was committed to fulfilling our dream for this country.” Leopold swallowed the drink in one gulp and threw the glass against the wall. Louisa jumped back as shards flew toward her.

  “I will never sacrifice Hatty like that.” John was making fists and curling his fingers tighter.

  “Your mother knew exactly what she was doing. She risked her own health, her own life to bring you into this world. I won’t let you walk away from your duty.”

  “Promise you won’t annul our marriage or we send out the photos.” John paced. His movement reminded me of footage I once saw of a caged lion.

  “As with your mother, I’m doing what I must to protect the country.”