[b]Gondar, Ethiopia[/b]

Akanni sat with Ita Thabiti on the shaded terrace of their hotel, underneath a turbulent sky. The city had been inundated with a monsoon rain that morning. Rainwater still dripped from the thatched awning overhead, which had managed to keep the terrace mostly dry, though the balusters and everything near them were soaked. 

The Hotel was built in the mixed style of the African Colonial period. European design presented itself in iron balusters and bright blue shudders, while the Arab and Indian influence came out in the boxy shape of the building, the rounded doors and windows, and the adobe walls. 

Thabiti, a balding man with the face of a bird, was Princess Taytu's assistant, and with the Princess captive in Dar es Salaam, he had taken on her duties in government. Akanni did not know Thabiti very well, though he knew the rumors about him and Taytu, and he could not help but view the man through the lens of that gossip. But they did not talk about Taytu just then, or about her personal life. They talked about the death of the Walinzi director Amare Debir in Armenia.

"The Armenians are sending us a copy of their investigative work." Thabiti said. He was an anxious man, Akanni could see that by the way he sat, and by the way he fidgeted with his wine glass when he wasn't speaking.

Akanni stared across the city, lost in his own thoughts. Gondar wasn't much compared to Addis Ababa, and though it had the modern amenities that Akanni expected in a city, he could see quite clearly where the edge of town blended into the rough Ethiopian highlands surrounding it on all sides. The city orbited a wooded patch near its center, where the grounds of the late-medieval Imperial Castle stood silent and unoccupied. The Castle, built in an Hispanic style, was a compact construction of grey-stone. It had suggestively phallic towers, and crenels that reminded Akanni of crocodile's teeth. The rest of the city was a colorful mixed-bag of simple African-style buildings made from cheap wood and recycled metal, ancient stone structures, and the sleeker, resort-like buildings such as the hotel. 

"Do we know what this was yet, that killed Amare?" Akanni finally spoke.

"I haven't heard a reason. We don't even know what his mission was, or if he had a mission at all. If the Walinzi know, they haven't told us."

That was strange enough to give Akanni a slight chill. Amare wasn't some field agent, he was the Director of that entire region's Walinzi activity. Amare Debir had also been Ethiopia's Ambassador to Armenia for some time. How could a man like that disappear for no reason? "I'd like to see a copy of their report when it gets sent. What can we possibly be losing agents to in Armenia anyway? Their war is already over."

"Perhaps Spain has some interests in the area?" Thabiti suggested.

Akanni said nothing, but the idea that Thabiti was so willing to jump to Spain as a culprit annoyed him. Sure, they were at war, but it seemed foolish to blame everything that ever happened to them on the Spanish. Doing so made the world feel right perhaps, and it justified a feeling that their enemy was the only thing they needed to worry about, but it made them more prone to being wrong, and being wrong was the worst thing. If they failed to catch the threat and opted to presume instead, then whatever had killed Amare could cause them more troubles later on.

"I doubt it. Could there be anything else?"

"We do not know. I will send you the reports when I get them, but I wanted to keep you updated even now. If it is big, it will be an important case going forward, and the Emperor's Government should be prepared."

Akanni longed for the days when things happened that he could prepare for. Nowadays, everything they were faced with seemed much too large for them. "You are a friend to the government. I know this. We will always look out for you."

At that moment, it almost felt as if the conversation was done. But Thabiti did not look finished. He held himself like a man who had yet to start talking. His eyes were fixed; he was stirring a word with his lips. And then he spoke. 

"There is another thing you might find interesting." Thabiti said, and a nervous grin spread across his face. When Akanni agreed to have lunch with the Assistant Foreign Affairs Ad visor, he had done so with Agent Amare Debir in mind. He did not know what else Thabiti could possibly have to bring up aside from the typical small-talk. "I was told to bring you this information when I checked in with the Walinzi about the Amare case." Thabiti produced a colored photograph and slid it across the table to Akanni. When the Prime Minister saw what it was, his eyes went as wide as a bug's, and he felt rage broil in the lining of his stomach. 

It was a photograph of James Lutalo, the leader of the Wakomunisti, standing in front of a settlement that he had apparently founded. Lutalo had snuck out of Gondar several weeks before, taking the melodramatic route through an irrigation canal in order to avoid questioning by the Walinzi, who were supposed to be keeping a watch on him. 

"Look at these walls." Akanni hissed, slamming the photo onto the table. The communist bastard had completely surrounded his settlement with red-painted metal walls, on which his followers had made childish two-dimensional portraits of Marx, Hou, and several other men that Akanni couldn't identify, but assumed to be important figures within the Communist movement. 

"Where is this?"

"Just a mile away from Lake Victoria, somewhere near Masaka in Swahililand. He had his followers built it. They call it 'Revolution-Town'. It is supposed to be an autonomous commune. He wants it to be the capital of his communist vision in Africa."

"Revolution-Town? In English?"

Thabiti nodded. "For the international attention, I guess. He likes attention."

Akanni had a more reasons to dislike Lutalo than he had reasons to pretend to like him. The Wakomunisti leader was a rabble rouser who's letters to China had threatened to destabilize their vital alliance. He had spent his Senate career egging on all and any dissenting opinions, allying himself with Fitawrari Iregi, and pulling ridiculous stunts like wearing an armored leather brigandine in public most of the time, or singing The Internationale while the Senate was in session. This move was just as bad. In leaving Gondar and creating his own commune, he opened the door for the further splintering of the African Empire.

Thabiti produced another photo. It showed a grey-haired Lutalo, in his signature brigandine, wrestling young men in the heart of his new Communist compound. For Akanni, it felt like the entire nation was being mocked by the Wakomunisti.

"I want to shut him down." Akanni whined. 

"What would that look like? The Chinese wouldn't like it if we went hunting for communists."

"Could we ask them to do it? Or maybe explain the situation."

Thabiti shook his head. "No."

"I know." Akanni waved his hand as if he were shooing the idea away. "I know, they won't go hunting for communists either. I am being foolish."

"Is Lutalo a problem, really? His 'Revolution-Town' might help us, even if it is just a place to dump people fleeing from the war."

Akanni was incredulous. "He's making the Emperor's government look weak. When the war ends, do you see him abandoning his project? He is doing what the Rouge General did in Katanga. He is trying to make a new country within our borders. That is insurrection. We cannot abide by it!"

"At least it is not an armed insurrection. Lutalo is doing whatever he really is doing peacefully." 

"Do you not know who James Lutalo is? Even if he is not shooting at us, I can promise you that he is collecting arms, and that is an easy thing to do in our country."

"That is true." Thabiti conceded. He looked at his watched and, without looking up, he sprung out of his chair as if his watch had just told him where to find one million in Spanish Pesetas. "I have to get back to work. Our lobbyists in America have been keeping us busy."

"God will see it done." Akanni encouraged. And then, once Thabiti slid away from the table, the Prime Minister was alone. 

He had finished his wine, but a half-eaten bowl of fit-fit - shredded injera fried in butter and spices - was going cold on the table, sitting like a gravestone dedicated to the Prime Minister's nerve-wracked appetite. He had accepted to go to lunch with Thabiti because he needed to eat, and because so much of his job came down to cultivating political relationships. But the De-Facto Foreign Minister had only given him more to worry about.

He stood up and went to pay for his food, passing by only a few other diners eating their meals on a terrace that felt eerily abandoned. The war meant higher prices. The war also meant people were preparing for lean times. He settled his account and went down into the streets.

Gondar, so far north of the action, had yet to completely put on the appearance of war, but like the cold wind before a rain storm, the first signs of the coming conflict were starting to appear. Flags were ever-present. Young people could often be seen growing their hair out, or carrying rifles on their backs at all times. Bomb shelters were being constructed near government buildings, and gas-masks were being bought up by a population of people who had never heard of such a thing until only a few weeks earlier. The fear of bombing loomed over the Ethiopian consciousness here. If the Spanish were to launch bombing raids, Gondar would be a target, and the people here knew that. Worse then bombing was the dread that, like Seattle in America, Gondar would be wiped out by the terrifying weaponized gas that the Europeans now had in their arsenal. Akanni had been given a rubber suit to protect him in case of a gas bombing, but hadn't yet got into the habit of wearing it, and he was rarely in reach of it's protection. It was hot and uncomfortable; the wet-season humidity made it even worse. Besides that, it caused his clothes to clump awkwardly in places, and that made the rubber-suit difficult to grow used to. He had gotten used to cultivating a certain look - his hair trimmed like a French topiary, and his clothing consisting of tailor made shirts and pants under luxuriously decorated open-front kaftan robes. It was a vanity he allowed himself to pursue as a supplement to his power. To hold his office correctly, he had to be able to [i]feel[/i] like his office.

Gas was not on his mind anyway. His concern was holding the country together while Hassan and the military handled the war, and that meant Lutalo was a meaningful complication. As he walked down the road, passing the ancient Imperial castle, he entertained a thought about what Yaqob would have done in his position. Yaqob would have went after Lutalo's legitimacy as a communist. That wouldn't have been very difficult; Lutalo was an adventurer, not a philosopher, and he could not defend himself against the scrutiny of a Yaqob-styled scholarly critique. But that was not Akanni's style. Akanni wanted to close Lutalo away from the process of government, to prune him like the dead branch of a tree, so that he was left in the dark to wither and disappear. He didn't want to see Lutalo in jail. He wanted to see him destitute and abandoned. 

Despite the war, people still came from the surrounding countryside to participate in the market. Here, wiry men crouched near carts filled with bundles of drying khat. Others sold food of all kinds; bananas, gourds, dates, tomatoes, lettuce, chickpeas, pomegranates, and many other kinds that Akanni did not take specific notice to today. His favorite was the spices, which filled burlap sacks placed on the ground. The wet tarps that had covered them during the rainfall were crumpled and tossed aside, allowing the sacks of beautiful, earth-toned spices to breath in the open air. The smell was rich; like the blend of a dozen suppers with his grandma in the countryside, synthesized into the concentrated smell of her favorite spices. It mixed with the wafting scent of injera frying in the local shops. It smelled like the best memories of home. 

--

Akanni returned home - or at least to the home-in-exile that he had made in an apartment near the center of town. He came home to a smell he had smelled in the market - frying injera - and he suddenly felt bad that he was not hungry.

"I have returned." he called out. His boots tapped loud against the creaking wooden floor, and he sat down on a loose-cushioned chair before pulling them off of his feet. 

Akanni's wife, Werkenesh, came out to greet him. She was in her thirties, with common height and weight, but a bony thin-featured face and a somewhat toothy smile. She wore a wrap around her wiry hair, and a white dress with gilded borders. There was something simple about the way she carried herself - a common girl from an important family in the capital, who had married Akanni looking for something resembling stability in the unstable African Empire. Akanni, having been caught up in the violent eddies of Imperial politics, had wanted the same thing. This wasn't to say either them were remotely stupid, but rather that both of them had desperately wanted something that seemed traditional. So for them, that was each other. 

"You have brought mud into the house." Werkenesh pointed. "Why would you want to do that?"

"I didn't want to bring it. It just followed me." Akanni smiled. His wife accepted that answer. She had never been so worried about the mud. Both of them knew that something like mud in the house bothered Akanni much more than it bothered her.

He kissed her on the cheek, and tasted the teff flour against her flesh. Akanni went to his office with Werkenesh following him.

Akanni's office was a desk and a chair near the window of a small room in their apartment. He had a detailed political map of Africa on one wall, and a traditional painting of vividly colored, cartoon-like musicians playing their instruments against a plain leather background on the other. His book shelf was loaded with books, and he had several filing cabinets stocked full of paperwork. 

"Was the meeting with Ita fruitful?" his wife asked.

"I discovered where James Lutalo went." Akanni replied, sitting down. "He's building a commune in Swahililand."

"Like the Rouge General? What is he thinking that he would see that lasting long?"

"Exactly. He is a target to everyone. That is what he wants, but he is still a headache to me."

"People like him are headaches to everyone. He gets in everyone's business and puts thoughts in people's heads. Are you worried?"

"About Lutalo? I have to be some. But..." Akanni rubbed his eyes. "Well, I do have bigger problems. He is just another problem, and I do not need more."

"You know the Chinese." Werkenesh said. She rested her hip on the arm of his chair and leaned over him. "Would they intervene? Would they want to make Lutalo into something like an African Hou?"

Akanni snorted. "They would be in for a surprise if they did. Lutalo wouldn't have the ability to sit down like an adult and handle a position like 'Chairman of Africa'. He would be about the world, starting fires so that he has something to do. Hou knows this I think. But... the Chinese are difficult to understand in things like these. On paper, they would have to support Lutalo, but in the real world, they are not so stupid as to do this."

Werkenesh nodded slowly. "You know these people. I have faith in what you say about them. I am making dinner, are you going to be hungry?"

"I will be later." Akanni smiled. He watched his wife slip out of the room, and when she was gone, he felt all of the pressure of his office come to rest on his shoulders.

The worst thing was that he had nothing much to do but wait. As Prime Minister, his job had been to manage the Senate, but the legislature in Gondar was an embarrassing rump body that struggled to meet at all. This war had exposed cracks in Yaqob's constitutional government, and Akanni was trying to patch those cracks with correspondence. He sent messages to the Emperor, and to individual members of the legislature, in an attempt to organize something resembling a working body. 

And so he worked into the night. He read reports from the entrenched army at Dire Dawa, and dozens of begging requests from all of the administrative districts across the Empire. He read about how the son of an exiled Ras was gathering together his own militia band near Lalibela, and his personal request for tanks and cannons to help his glorified shifta band take the fight to the Spanish. He realized that his people saw the war as an reason to scramble for money, and not a reason to give. But where to get money? That was Akanni's problem. Aid was trickling in from all over the world, and flooding in from China. But that was not enough. He could not raise taxes, for doing so would cause more Lutalo's to see this war as an opportunity for their independence. But what else could he do? Sell the few meager government properties? The grain stores? The absentee offices in the legislature? These were all awful ideas. 

In his frustration, he drafted a bill that he hoped to give to any willing senator so that it could be forced through the rump-legislature he was sitting on now. It was a desperate attempt to bring back the fleeing legislators, including that bastard Lutalo. The way it worked was simple; the government would begin to charge absent legislators for all of the time that they stayed away.