from The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades

The Lamb at the Altar

As she was brought to the district courthouse in handcuffs, past a motley crowd of hushed strangers, Azeb wondered, for what may have been the hundredth time since her arrest the week before, when her problems had really begun, and she concluded it was the day she ate a roasted sheep's testicle despite the grim warnings of her family.

She dredged up other childhood misdeeds as well. She recalled, for instance, how, following her first attempt at baking injera, Werknesh tried to rein her in by force-feeding her the ruined bread mixed with ash and water, and how, when Azeb tried to avoid blame and accountability by taking refuge behind her godmother's accommodating skirt, Aba Yitades stepped in with all the might and fury of an early summer storm. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 8 to 12 had come to assume a special place in Azeb's heart following the incident.

With startling clarity, seemingly innocuous episodes came back to haunt her. She shuddered at the thought of how, not long after the injera incident, she had violated one of her father's most rigid tenets, slipping unseen inside the church Bethlehem to satisfy her curiosity. "No matter what you do," Aba Yitades had told his negligent daughter the first day he brought her along as his personal attendant, "no matter how itchy your legs feel, do not set foot inside the Bethlehem. If no one else sees you, remember, Saint George will, and he will come after you with the same wrath and resolve as he did after the serpent that had browbeaten Etiye Brutawit." Years too late, Saint George finally had, Azeb told herself.

When she recalled the last six months of her life with the man who had become instrumental in her downfall, Azeb asked herself, "How did I tolerate his excesses for so long? How did I fail to see what so many others saw, the telltale signs of my doomed marriage? How come I . . ." What Azeb also failed to see was the possibility that her court trial would turn into a circus, drawing voyeurs from as far away as Europe.

Already on the day of her arraignment, a sizable home crowd awaited her at the approach to the courthouse, thanks to the Hardings, who had gone from door to door picking up those who wished to come along: Werknesh, who reluctantly donned her netela; an aging dabtara whom Azeb had once nursed back to health; two cousins from the old colony, her father's loathed relations; and Genet's best man, who by virtue of the Oath of a Mizae had become her surrogate brother, making him duty bound (now that Genet was home bound for health reasons) to be by Azeb's side in her darkest hour.

Etiye Hiywet and her soul-father had arrived long before, prepared to call the Memorial Hotel home at least until the arraignment was concluded. Aba Yitades, true to his word that he had washed his hands of his scandalous daughter, stayed behind.

The presiding judge was unique among that most singular of breeds—district judges—in that he had no formal training. But that only made him one of the people. He was a self-proclaimed reformist, a revolutionary of sorts. And that was the problem, not only according to Etiye Hiywet, who had a lot at stake in Azeb's trial, but also to many respectable members of the community.

As the son of a humble weaver and the fifth of seven children, the judge had been destined to eke out a living at a menial job.

His steely resolve and will to rise above his lowly beginnings became apparent at the tender age of ten, when he enrolled in the public school following the Emperor's initiative, which gave preferential treatment to children of ethnic minorities. And he excelled in his studies.

By the feudal standards of the day, sixth grade was considered a dizzying height of formal schooling, so as soon as he earned his certificate, the young man set out to find his...