Pierre Laflamme ROMANS

Foreword

 

 

    At the end of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution disrupted the established order and forced European companies to seek raw materials to support the accelerated pace of production. But they also had to think about creating new markets to counter the protectionist policies of countries.

    Leveraging their technologies, France and the United Kingdom turned to an easy prey: Africa. The expansion of national territories beyond the seas became a factor of power and prestige. Faced with the economic advantages that ensued, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Spain entered the African competition.

    Filled with arrogance dominated by the idea that "superior Whites" should civilize the "inferior" race, the colonizers carved out new borders, deliberately ignoring ethnicities, tribes, and kingdoms established for decades. Enriched by empires plundered from the natives, the occupants embarked on the development of coffee, tea, and pineapple plantations.

    From the vast continent, only isolated, forgotten corners remained: the Horn of Africa still held no one's attention. Seeing France and Great Britain stranded in the desert in search of diamond, gold, and copper mines, Italy, until then seizing the opportunity to conquer Abyssinian lands and enhance its prestige by insinuating itself into the expansionist territorial rivalry, Eritrea, previously discreet, emerged.

    Before 1993, Eritrea knew nothing of the attributes of independence. A colony of Turkey in the 20th century, the country was successively subjected to Ethiopia, Italy, and England. The Italian occupation, which began in 1880, reached its peak just before the start of the Second World War in 1936: at that time, Protestant missionaries, sources of education beyond the fourth year, were expelled, and Italians simultaneously banned natives and mixed-race individuals from schools.

    Benito Mussolini decreed the creation of Italian East Africa.

    Under the influx of Italo-Fascist capital, an excessive and avant-garde construction program was accelerated in response to the expectations of the Duce, who dreamed of founding a new Roman empire and establishing Asmara as the flagship of the fascist regime.

    Attracted by this El Dorado on the shores of the Red Sea, the brightest radical architects from the Italian boot rushed and competed boldly to realize the plan of a city originally designed by Odoardo Cavagnari in the 1910s. Eager to please Il Duce, the master builders gave birth to a flamboyant capital with Art Deco-style villas, Italian-style country houses, a Fiat garage shaped like a futuristic airplane, houses resembling ocean liners, and a cinema with a facade of red marble, all on grand avenues lined with majestic palm trees. These works transformed the former caravan town into an African Piccola Roma (Little Rome). According to all reports, the beauty of Piccola Roma surpassed the Art Deco suburb of Miami Beach in Florida.

    Throughout this dreamlike decade, money flowed like a Nile swollen with spring waters spreading its silt, and cities and villages were connected by telephone lines and paved roads. Supported by underpaid local labor, factories sprang up from the ground.

    However, the splendor of Asmara proved to be short-lived. Military confrontation ended the macabre operetta of the fascists and Mussolini's grand-guignolesque reign. At the end of World War II, abandoned by Italy defeated by Churchill's army and its allies, the orphaned colony began an economic decline, hastened by the looting of factories by the British, who claimed a war treasure in compensation for the costs incurred by the conflict with their country. On their part, the majority of Italian immigrants who came to seek fortune in this Arcadia packed their bags and returned to the motherland.

    Forced to live under British protectorate until 1950, the Eritreans unsuccessfully opposed the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of Resolution 390, which subordinated their territory to the Ethiopian empire of Haile Selassie. In 1962, as an emancipatory pandemic spread across the African continent, a legion of the Ethiopian Caesar besieged the parliament of Asmara and forced the dissolution of the government in order to offer the Negus, an irredentist Solomonic, the opportunity to subjugate Eritrea as the fourteenth Ethiopian province.

    In the savannahs and canyons, Eritreans engaged in a fratricidal war of independence (1962-1991), a war that left thousands of infantrymen as prey to hyenas. The endless combat devastated the country's impoverished economy (a country whose riches had once been plundered by the armies of the pharaohs of the VI dynasty. Launched to conquer the "Land of Punt," these armies sought gold, ebony, ivory for temple construction, incense, myrrh, and spices for the embalming of bodies).

    The conflict with Ethiopia came to an end in 1991. The official proclamation of Eritrea's independence in 1993 led to disillusionment in the short term. Issaias Afewerki, "the great liberator of the Eritreans," adopted a repressive and authoritarian stance towards his population, particularly through compulsory military service, which sparked a wave of emigration in the early 2000s.

    On September 18, 2001, while the world's attention was focused on the United States following the attacks on the World Trade Center, Eritrea descended into dictatorship: ministers, diplomats, and officers were imprisoned by their former comrade-in-arms, President Issayas Afewerki. Press freedom was abolished, and journalists were thrown into prison. Since then, detentions without trial and without contact with the outside world have become commonplace.

    Today, Eritrea is nicknamed "the African North Korea." Asmara, its capital, is often compared to Havana in the early years of Fidel Castro. Expatriates describe the country as an "open-air prison. »

    From the wave of immigration hitting European shores in recent years, Eritreans represent the second largest group of refugees, with an estimated 5,000 people fleeing Eritrea each month.

 

 

Part I

 

 

 

"The beauty of this city, Asmara, is painful and not comfortable."

Jean-Christophe Rufin, Les causes perdues, 1999.

 

                        1

 

Asmara, Eritrea, May 27, 2011

    Since sunset, carried by a breeze of freshness that gently touched the high plateau of the capital, a motley crowd strolled along the passeggiata adorned with flags and banners in the national colors: the banners wove a festive atmosphere in a city adorned with decayed scenery, burdened by decades of poverty. For a long time, Piccola Roma no longer offered anything to behold but facades of houses afflicted by decay: the makeup, the red, and the seductive curves of the ancient beauty queen of the Horn of Africa were reduced to distant memories in the minds of the elders.

    In the emerging night, the call to prayer of the muezzin had faded away with the first bombs that marked the beginning of the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of independence. Enthralled by laughter, the crowd, quivering with pleasure, exclaimed with admiring "Ohs" and "Ahs" as they watched the bursts of multicolored fireworks ignite the night. Languid, the music lightened the steps of lovers strolling hand in hand. Elderly gentlemen with circumflex-accented mustaches, dressed in their light suits, shoes covered with white spats and crowned with a Fedora, paraded with their aristocratic-looking ladies. Golden skin, regular features, proud bearing, and generous smiles, decades after the departure of the colonials, the Asmarinos maintained the charm and elegance inherited from the southern Italians. On the café terraces, customers delighted in machiattas and fine pastries brightened with cannoli and panettone while children savored their gelato. The Asmarinos perpetuated a Felliniesque lifestyle and indulged in rare moments of Dolce Vita. Tonight, they forgot their sorrows, their miseries, and the senility of their city until a wave of military Fiat trucks stormed the grand promenade of Asmara located between the Albergo Hotel and the Impero cinema three hundred meters away. The Fiat trucks disgorged convoys of soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs and batons.

    "GIFFA, GIFFA (roundup, roundup)!

    Once again, the population found themselves trapped inside a perimeter.

    "GIFFA, GIFFA alarmed the men and women who, a few minutes earlier, were walking and dancing on the sidewalks.In the snap of a finger, laughter and conversations came to a halt. Like a freeze frame, the crowd stood transfixed, refusing to believe what was happening. The battalion deployed with ruthless efficiency. The sound of boots on pavement and the clinking of weapons gave way to laughter and music. Pickup trucks, equipped with flashing lights, blocked the cross avenues, while militiamen searched houses and shops, pushing men and women onto the streets. Only severely ill patients confined to their beds and mothers with young children were spared by the soldiers. Three soldiers chased after boys of military age who had darted into a building. They caught up with them, dragged them outside, and beat them mercilessly until they submitted completely. Handcuffed, faces bloodied, they were thrown into a van.

    Terrified to the point of forgetting to breathe, the trapped Asmarinos were terrified at the thought of ending the evening in a jail cell. Everyone knew the futility of arguing with an askari. Negotiating with a citizen could land the askari in jail. Faced with a soldier, each person had to empty their pockets, extend their arms to be frisked on the back, belly, and between the legs. What were they looking for? An illicit weapon, incriminating documents?

Sorted, filtered, selected, and jostled, the law enforcement officers gathered the Asmarinos into groups: men in their thirties, young boys, young women, women with children, etc. Each group was further divided between those with valid, expired, or counterfeit papers. Even with a valid pass, no one knew the outcome of a giffa. Without hesitation or remorse, the soldiers, at the slightest suspicion, pushed the person apprehended toward a truck. When it was full, the Fiat started its journey toward the dreaded Adi Abeito camp north of the city. Everyone followed the instruction: not to provoke the militiamen until suddenly, a man bolted:

"The poor soul," murmured an old lady who was waiting behind him to present her papers.

Mebratu, the commander in charge of operations, drew his pistol and shouted:

    "GET DOWN!"

    The order echoed:

    "GET DOWN!"

    The crowd rushed to the ground. The footsteps of the fugitive pounded the asphalt. The officer extended his arm, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Struck in the back, the defiant man collapsed as a barrage of fireworks fired by the pyrotechnicians lit up the sky with a shower of stars.

    With a smile on his lips, Mebratu holstered his weapon.

    In the morning, without verifying his identity to notify his family, the unfortunate man's body would land in a mass grave.

    To the west, in a destitute sector of the city, eyes fixed on the ground, a man dressed in worn jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket with the hood carefully pulled up to avoid recognition, walked briskly. The explosions lighting up the capital's sky made him startle and turn around several times. His last visit to this neighborhood, witness to his first steps, dated back two years. Nothing had changed. The small houses built from cement blocks, corrugated iron sheets, and materials salvaged from the public dump stubbornly resisted time. Winding through the maze of dark and tangled alleys, he stopped abruptly and smiled: twenty meters ahead of him, he recognized the eastern wall of his house. One day, his friend Yamane and he had carried a huge metal sign found at the dump for a kilometer, on which an African couple, smiling, claimed that happiness was within everyone's reach... in a bottle of Coca Cola. His mother had fixed it against the wall to support the structure, then she had drilled a window that made the young girl smile.

With a tight throat, knowing the pain he was about to cause to the one he loved, he approached and knocked on the door:

    "Who's there?" a feminine voice called from inside the shack.

    He waited. When the door opened, the woman with graying hair remained speechless, her eyes misted over, her mouth contorted, and tears gently streamed down her cheeks:

    "Hello, Mama."

    She opened her arms:

    "Yusef, my son, it's been so long!"

    She hugged him:

    "Yusef! I'm so glad to see you again. Without any news from you, I was desperate."

    "The life at the military camp is very difficult."

    "I've been told."

    Consisting of a single room, serving as kitchen, dining, living, and sleeping space, the house remained unchanged. The space accommodated beds, a table, four chairs, and a small wardrobe, without toilet or potable water. Yusef had illegally rigged a connection to the electrical grid; the bulb hanging from the ceiling emitted a yellowish light.

    The shrill whistle of the firecrackers continuously shooting into the sky pierced the walls effortlessly.

    "This morning, as I woke up, my first thought flew to you, my son. You celebrate your birthday today..."

    She approached him and hugged him again:

    "Happy birthday, my dear."

    "Thank you."

    "Sit down. Can I offer you something to eat, something to drink? If only I had known..."

    "No, I'm fine."

    A broad smile illuminated the tired woman's face:

    "Do you know that your sister Tekea gave birth to a son?"

    "But... then... did she resolve, like the other women?"

    "You mean paying a one-night stand to get pregnant to avoid military service! I don't know. Tekea remains a secretive person."

    "She didn't reveal the father's name of her son to you."

    "She simply stated that he wasn't one of those idlers wandering the streets."

    "Is she talking about marriage?"

    "No."

    "And the baby?"

    "He's sleeping in the shed. Do you want to see him?"

    "Yes, of course. »

    "Follow me."

    They headed there. Yusef stood there for a moment, looking at the child unaffected by the external noise.

    "How old is he?"

    "Eleven months."

    "What's his name?"

    "Abel. He's beautiful, isn't he! A happiness that life offers us."

    "He looks like Tekea. How is she?"

    "Good. She's working tonight... you know, with the celebration on the passeggiata."

    "Has she been officially removed from the military service list?"

    "Yes, thank God. She will escape the treatments given to girls in army camps. The government says they are equal to men..."

    "False. They do all the tasks during their enlistment and end up enslaved to sexual slavery by officers or simple soldiers."

    "I've heard. I dare to believe you're not one of them!"

    "No, of course not."

    "That explains the role reversal. Since the exemption of mothers from conscription, young women pay for love services and as soon as they expect a baby, they dismiss the father."

    "Tekea refused to prostitute herself with a stranger to avoid mobilization."

    "And I didn't want her to go to Sawa. I've seen too many girls come back from that hell completely destroyed."

    "So, she'll stay close to you."

    A bomb exploded. The sky lit up with a huge burst of fire and the iridescences projected glimmers through the window. Abel made a grunt. Mama smiled:

    "Come, let's leave him to sleep. Do you remember when you were a child?"

    "I do! You told me you had ordered this huge fireworks display to celebrate my birthday."

    New conquering and promising arrows whistled into the night.

    Mama laughed:

    "You believed it."

    "Yes! But my friends laughed at me when I told them."

    "What does it matter! You were overflowing with happiness and every year, you looked forward to that moment."

    "That's far away now."

    "You grew up too fast, you're a man now. Proud of him, she stepped back and observed him for a moment. From a frail child, he had become a sturdy lad, almost athletic in stature: a smiling face, a frank and bright look, his skin decidedly tanned and fine features gave him a certain charm.

    "I miss the days when you used to snuggle up to me."

    "I did that often?"

    "A few times..."

    She shook her head:

    "... believe me, life goes too fast."

    A new bomb made them jump:

    "The city celebrates tonight," Yusef said, seeing through the window the gold and silver bursts falling in the distance.

    "The Asmarinos love to feast; meanwhile, they forget their misery, their sad reality. Besides, we should also rejoice, it's your birthday! Twenty-one years old: you were born on the day of the liberation of your country." Yusef's face darkened:

    "Did I say something?"

    "No celebration today, Mama."

    "..."

    "I came to bid you farewell. »

    "Goodbye! You've just arrived!"

    "I have five days of leave, I have to take advantage of it, and I didn't want to leave for Europe without holding you in my arms."

    He embraced Mama.

    "You've finally decided to make the journey!"

    "Yes, you know I've been dreaming of it for years."

    "Rumors say the roads are very dangerous."

    "I know."

    "Why leave tonight?"

    "With the capital celebrating, security will relax, and I'll be able to easily leave the city."

    With moist eyes, Mama placed a hand over her mouth.

    "Don't cry, Mama!"

    With her head against her son's chest, she nodded:

    "I prayed for this day never to come."

    "When I arrive in Europe, I'll find work, go back to school, and send you money: Abel, Tekea, and you will live better. Here, this country promises no future. Since my sixteenth birthday, I've been held prisoner by the army."

    "They always say it will only last two years."

    "No one is ever released after such a short time. At the barracks, I'm surrounded by men who have borne arms for ten years, twenty years. Under the pretext of an imminent new war against Ethiopia, we are kept on alert simply to control us. And when we are released from the uniform, mandatory national service awaits us. In this country, no one is allowed to cross the border before the age of fifty. Phone lines are tapped, friends, relatives disappear without a trace, without us ever knowing the reason. The government leads us through fear. Poverty is rampant among the population."

    "Lines lengthen outside the stores. Getting provisions or water with state ration tickets becomes very difficult."

    "Anyone who dares to speak of freedom ends up imprisoned. Impossible to think of multipartism, let alone elections. Independent press has disappeared, and as soon as a humanitarian group tries to settle, the army expels it. The Eritrean Liberation Front did not keep its promises. At the end of this struggle for self-determination, 'DIA' (dictator Issaias Afewerki) imposed his Maoist philosophy on the people. He abolished the right to property and deprived the population of autonomy. Organizing opposition is impossible because we are so closely monitored. Eritreans live in fear, in the heart of an open-air prison."

    "Our lives are made up of hardships and torments that we accept with resignation. You forget that this people has almost always lived under the yoke of a foreign power. You were born at a time when Eritreans believed that independence would inevitably bring well-being, freedom; the leaders of the revolution claimed to change this land of misery into a land of plenty. How could we decline such a seductive prophecy?"

    "But it turned out differently! Instead, the poverty that assails us does not even allow us to afford a rope to hang ourselves. I refuse to become idle and to live governed by fear. I want to decide my own destiny. In the north, in Europe, there is work, there is hope."

    Mama wiped her tears:

    "I understand!"

    "For years, Tekea, you, and I have saved up to build a fund for my journey. Allowing me to immigrate is the ultimate investment for us "Our family: families receiving money from a son abroad have a better daily life. Tonight, I will leave, I am leaving this country, this oppressive and forgotten gulag ignored by the rest of the world."

    "You've made your decision..."

    "Yes."

    "And you're pass?"

    "Valid But I'll avoid the main roads, I don't want to risk being interrogated by a patrol."

    Again, she hugged Yusef. With a choked voice, she added:

    "You must be very careful. Promise me!"

    "I promise you."

    She unclasped from her neck a chain adorned with a cross, once given by her husband. She placed it around her son's neck:

    "Why part with this memento?"

    "It will protect you, I leave you in God's hands."

    "Thank you. I have to go now, I must not miss my appointment outside the city."

    "With whom?"

    She tapped his chest in approval:

    "You're right, let's not mention names..."

    Hanging on the wall near the entrance, Yusef looked at the photo of his father killed in the war in the early days of his birth. One knee on the ground, weapon in hand, he appeared alongside two comrades like him.

    "Your father never imagined what would become of this nation; he and thousands of other martyrs did not sacrifice their lives for this. Their battle for prosperity, development, and freedom has been annihilated. Today, the regime's ideology weighs on us like a lead weight."

    "Yet, Article 19 of our constitution states: 'Everyone has the right and freedom of thought, conscience, and belief'!"

    "But what's the use? The document was never ratified; the state chose to govern by decrees..."

    Yusef looked at the photo again:

    "And I, his son, am about to flee this country that shed the blood of its children to gain independence."

    "Your father believed strongly in Issaias Afewerki; he saw him as a savior who would bring wealth to Eritreans. If he were alive today, I assure you he would oppose this false liberator who has betrayed his principles of equality and freedom."

    "But unless he went into hiding, he would probably rot in a filthy prison where opponents of the regime end up."

    "Perhaps!"

    "Afewerki has imprisoned his fellow combatants who dared to stand against him."

    She nodded in agreement.

    Yusef grabbed his backpack. Inside, an old K-way, a winter sweater, water, a pencil, scraps of paper, and two magazines for his military pistol which he discreetly tucked into his belt. Yusef knew the treatment reserved for deserters. The day he decided to flee Eritrea, he also resolved not to be captured alive. He forbade himself from telling Mama.

    "Wait!"

    She stepped away for a moment and returned with biscuits cooked that morning and an envelope.

    "Embashas!"

    "Take them, you need provisions."

    Then she handed the envelope to her son.

    "Here is the money we have saved. This envelope represents the result of sacrifices, work, and suffering."

    "I know. Thank you."

    "When did you decide to leave?"

    "I've been thinking about it for a while. By the way…"

    Yusef pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. "It looks like a letter?"

    "Yes, for you."

    "For me?"

    "I wrote this letter to inform you that I am about to leave the country. The military will start looking for me, and I assure you they won't delay once they realize I'm gone. You will give them this letter; it will clear you of any involvement. Never admit that I came here; tell them you knew nothing about my leave. If the militia suspects you're complicit in my escape, you'll end up in a dungeon. Can you lie to them?"

    "I'm used to it."

    "When do you need to renew the food tickets?"

    "Don't worry about that."

    "You might struggle..."

    "I'll manage!"

    He pointed to the sheet. "Make sure to answer their questions, but if you admit to receiving my visit, they won't let you go."

    "Yes, I know."

    With a heavy heart, she cupped her son's face in her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks. Would she ever see him again? "From now on, danger and death will accompany you at every moment. I will pray for you."

    As he left the house, he turned one last time to etch the memory of this home, this attic, the place of his first joys and sorrows. His eyes blurred, the Coca-Cola girl still smiling. Determined, he turned away and looked straight ahead. In the distance, another shower of sparks fell on the city.

    "Keep faith in the future," he murmured.

❊

    To avoid prying eyes, Yusef hugged the walls, out of reach of the streetlight halos. With a heavy heart, he thought of those he was leaving behind"mama, Tekea, and his friends. They were probably playing a game in the elegant bowling alley from the thirties or gathering at Aquila's bar to play a game of cinque birilli before chatting up girls. Memories flooded him. Deciding to leave his family and friends had weighed heavily on him. He tried to push away the dark thoughts and focused on his meeting with Yamane, not wanting to jeopardize his childhood friend. A question crossed his mind: what if Yamane had turned to the other side? In this country, authorities considered betrayal a cardinal virtue. No, he dismissed the idea. Yamane wouldn't betray for money or favors. Otherwise, he, the fugitive, would end up in a filthy dungeon without anyone ever knowing.

    The meeting with Yamane was scheduled to take place in a park outside the city. He would drive him on his moped along the Keren road, about ten kilometers from Asmara, to give him a head start before daybreak. In Keren, Yusef planned to hop on the Bisha mine train, a vital artery of the country's economy, and from there, he would walk towards the Sudanese border.

    The engine of a truck roared behind Yusef. The hair on his arms stood on end. Immediately, he slipped and froze in the entrance of a shop before the Fiat's headlights could fall on him. The truck passed by him, and he saw men and women in the back, escorted by soldiers.

    "A crackdown is happening somewhere in the city," he thought, "probably on the passegiatta. Even on a festive evening, the tyrant torments his people."

    Yusef spotted the wooded area at the intersection of Harnet and Denden street. His friend should be waiting there. He approached the park with infinite caution, slipping from tree to tree, looking for a sign of his friend's presence.

    A hand rested on his shoulder, and his blood pulsed in his head. Ready to defend against an assailant, he turned abruptly... face to face with Yamane.

    "You scared the hell out of me!"

    "Sorry! I didn't recognize you with your hooded jacket."

    "The moped?"

    "It's there, in the foliage."

    "Let's go, no time to waste."

    As they left the city, they passed by the university and its stadium. Tomorrow, in that arena, the population would celebrate the great patriotic festival. After a minute of silence in memory of the liberation martyrs and the national anthem sung by children, the military would march on the football field, with a "fly-by" of the Air Force's Mig-29s before an indifferent crowd. After the show of force, Issayas Afewerki would deliver his traditional long-winded speech. Surrounded by his cronies, he would shower them with carefully chosen patriotic words, presenting himself once again as a loving father and benefactor of "his" people. In an indescribable jumble of words, the alcoholic dictator would try to convince the Eritreans of what they should think, feel, desire, and dream of. The president would promise to enact the constitution he had buried in a drawer for two decades, and he would ignore the ban on opposition parties, monitored communications, restricted and controlled movements, border guards who shoot at fleeing people, the car bomb attack from which, unlike his lackeys, he escaped, and he would turn a blind eye to the ten thousand political prisoners locked in underground cells or metal containers in the middle of the desert. Then, Mao's disciple, the ally of the mad Iranian mullahs, the autocrat would bless his child soldiers and his slave-actors, surrounded by flags fluttering around him. Once his diatribe was over, the Asmarinos would finally watch the football match. In the evening, before returning to their dilapidated factories, they would bet hard-earned nakfas on camel races.

    About ten kilometers from Asmara, as agreed, the moped came to a stop. Beyond this imaginary boundary, they risked encountering a patrol. Without government authorization to travel, indicating the departure and arrival points and the time window for the trip, Yamane risked being arrested.

    "So, my friend, our paths diverge here!"

    "Yes."

    "I worry about you. There are horror stories about migrants trying to reach Europe."

    "I'll make it. I'm determined."

    The two men embraced.

    "Be careful!"

    "You too. Are you still involved with that group of dissenters? What's it called?"

    "A name would only attract attention."

    "You're exposing yourself greatly."

    "I know, but we must fight against this government, this dictatorship."

    "What are your plans?"

    "All sorts of things, too long to explain. Go on! You need to go."

    "You risk imprisonment, maybe death."

    "We won't confront the authorities head-on; we'd be doomed to fail."

    "And watch out for prying ears; in this country, the walls listen to you."

    "We're a very small group, and we only focus on devising strategies. As for the future, we'll see."

    "Okay. I ask you to look after mama and Tekea; they'll be exposed to harassment as soon as they realize I'm gone. »

    "Count on me, I'll look after mama...

    He smiled:

    "... and Tekea, with pleasure."

    "You love playing the charmer with her."

    "The timing isn't right to talk about that..." Yusef nudged him.

    "... let's not linger here; a patrol might show up."

    "You're right."

    They embraced one last time.

    Yusef watched Yamane head back towards Asmara until the moped's headlight had disappeared.

    Months earlier, in vain, he had sounded out his friends in the hope of finding a companion for this odyssey, but the rumors about the treatment meted out to deserters and their families required careful consideration before committing. Tormented for weeks by the idea of leaving despite the risks involved, the choice seemed to make itself for anyone wishing for a better horizon. What could the forgotten ones of God hope for in this tropical gulag, in this dream-crushing country?

    With ears pricked, he walked along the rocky path parallel to the asphalt road, ready to dive into the embankment at the sight of headlights from an approaching vehicle.

    Yusef found himself alone with his destiny.

    He looked up, a shooting star streaked towards a land of freedom.