Every day a cockerel heralded dawn with all the urgency of an angel blowing the last trumpet. Jibreel crouched over a short broom, sweeping dust and dirt out of the tent opening, his figure throwing Jama back into darkness each time he passed the doorway. Dust blew up Jama’s nostrils and into his mouth and eyes, gritty and salty. Jama threw his arm across his face but Jibreel continued sweeping around him, motes of dust dancing around his head in the weak-tea-colored morning light. In grief, Jama felt cut off from life, as if there were cotton wool in his ears, in his mouth, in his mind, around his heart. His surroundings seemed muted and distant, even his dreams came to him in dull monochrome. Behind him Jama could hear the daily massacre of cockroaches and dung beetles. The unfortunate creatures did not understand the demarcation of their land and Jibreel’s, so were doomed to be bludgeoned by his broom every morning. Their shells were smooth iridescent gems in the dusty tent, they tinkled like jewels when with a flick of the wrist Jibreel threw them onto the hard soil outside. Jama waited for Jibreel’s shadow to disappear before retrieving his aday toothbrush; he barely spoke to Jibreel and the others now, he could not bear their small talk and laughter. He was approaching his thirteenth year and already his limbs were being stretched on an invisible rack, lengthening drastically and painfully each night. His mother’s amulet hung around his neck, a dull weight. Jama massaged his limbs, pulled himself to his feet, and stalked off toward the teahouse, his head and eyes down to avoid his neighbors’ greetings.

With a tray of dirty glasses resting in his hand, Jama surfed over the lunchtime wave of diners. The Italians ate first, and only after the last European had his fill could Africans be served. Plenty of saliva and dirt went into those first batches of spaghetti bolognese. A soldier with two stars on his uniform grabbed Jama by the wrist to chase after his order, Jama twisted his hand free and scooted back to the kitchen, and as he ran in, the tray balanced carefully in his hands, he tripped over a headless goat that lay sprawled across the floor. The glasses flew into the air and smashed against the wall. “Bravo, Jama! There go your day’s wages,” laughed the Eritrean cook.

“Why did you leave the bloody goat in front of the door?” snapped Jama as he brushed dirt off his scraped knees.

“I need some entertainment, don’t I? Stuck in this smelly hot kitchen all day,” replied the cook, laughing harder at Jama’s peeved face.

“I’ll get you back, you dameer, just you wait and see!” shouted Jama, taking the hot plates outside. Pain and irritation scrambled Jama’s usually perfect memory, and he handed the plates to the soldiers who shouted loudest for them. A young Italian at a table of officers took them out of Jama’s singed fingers, his dark olive hands passed lightly over Jama’s, and his dark eyes fixed on the boy. Jama looked back at him. The soldier had a thin goat face, his nose was long and hooked, his eyebrows unruly. His lower lip was fuller than the top and he chewed it ruminatively.

“You’re that boy from the bus, aren’t you? Who nearly got thrown off?” the soldier asked in Arabic. Jama stayed silent.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he continued.

“Stop talking to the Africans,” interrupted the Italian’s companion. He slapped Jama hard on his bony rear and shouted, “Move it. Move it!”

Jama stole a glance at the first Italian before running back to the kitchen, he had recognized him, it was the gangly man who had persuaded the thieving bus driver in Agordat to let him board.

“What’s the matter, Jama? You look like you’ve been bitten by a devil,” said the cook.

“One of the Italians keeps staring and talking to me.”

Cook laughed, “Shayddaans! Here, give me that glass on the side,” Jama handed it to him. Cook turned his back and slowly dribbled urine into the glass, mixing it with tea and sugar and handing the whole concoction back to Jama.

“Tell him it is free, our special drink for special customers.”

Jama laughed with sadistic mirth. He took the glass and placed it gently, deferentially in front of the gangly Italian; “For you, signore.”

The Italian raised an eyebrow, “Well, I guess he does recognize me after all.” He drained the amber filth down his throat in a few long gulps and Jama felt a pang of unexpected guilt at the sight.

The last few Italians were clearing out of the teahouse and hungry askaris waited under the shade of a dying acacia. Jama kept away from the gangly Italian after handing him the dirty drink, he hadn’t even told the other boys what he had done. Jama felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped when he saw the man looming over him.

“Thank you for the drink, it was kind of you,” the Italian began. His lips were wet and Jama turned his face to the side fearing his breath. “You Somali or Eritrean? I still can’t tell yet.”

Jama drew a shape in the sand with his big toe. “Somali,” he mumbled.

“You speak Italian? You after a job?”

Jama shook his head and carried on looking toward the side; he had seen and heard from askaris the value of keeping your distance from the Italians.

“Suit yourself, but the offer is open if you want it,” said the Italian with a shrug. His black-haired, long fingers felt in his breast pocket and emerged holding delicate wire-framed glasses. Jama watched from the corner of his eye as the fingers fumbled and placed the beautiful glasses on his too-long nose. Jama coveted them. It looked as if a metal-and-glass butterfly had decided to spread its translucent wings across the hard, bony face, giving the Italian a kinder, more thoughtful appearance. With his second pair of eyes in place the Italian strolled off, acknowledging the salutes of the askaris with a loose salute of his own.

After that day Jama watched the Italian. The Fascist legs splayed open in languorous authority, the booted feet playing with each other, crushing beetles underfoot with a satisfying crunch. Jama’s legs were stiff, tired poles compelled to keep moving, his feet so dry, gray, hard he could barely feel the ground underneath them. The Italian clinked a beer bottle against his friend’s. Jama collected glasses from the broken tables. More and more Fascists and askaris were being sent to fight the guerrillas, and the teahouse had a portentous, melancholy atmosphere. The Ethiopian Arbegnoch were a menace to the Italians; they overran forts, ambushed checkpoints, invaded garrisons. The army of ghosts in white shammas was impossible to fight; with the mournful faces of Coptic saints, the patriots skewered Italians on homemade bayonets. They materialized and vanished as if they had wings under their homespun cotton. Near Omhajer, the famous Abyssinian fighter Abraha and his men in their lion skins stalked the Italians, and like lions they picked off the last man or the last vehicle in a convoy. The trees hid them, the leopards warned them, the wind swept away their footprints.

A few askaris returned to Omhajer to report back on the front, where the Italians had turned against their own askaris when they could not catch the spectral Abyssinians. One man had seen the Italians force askaris to lie down one on top of another in the muddy water of a narrow river so they could cross along their backs, the men at the bottom drowning, murky water gurgling down their throats.

In this dangerous climate, a few of the lazier boys had been let go, but Jama had held on to his job. The gangly Italian and his stumpy friend got up and stretched out their arms, yawning with afternoon ennui as they picked up their rifles. The other Italian had dark patches of sweat growing out of his armpits, groin, and back.

“Waryaa! Hey, you,” shouted the tall Italian at Jama in heavily accented Somali. “We are going hunting, come and collect what we shoot, there will be a few coins in it for you.”