Chapter 33 is the shortest chapter
in Mengiste’s novel so far. Emperor Haile Selassie has been dead for three
years, and Ethiopia still struggles under the militaristic regime imposed after
the emperor’s dethroning and murder. Hailu, tasked with healing a young woman,
badly wounded and tortured by soldiers, is still coming to terms with the
changes to his country. The young woman also, painfully, reminds Hailu of his
wife, Selam, whose own death three years earlier still troubles him. As he
works to heal the woman, Hailu is amazed at her body’s quick recovery, but also
haunted by the fact that her return to health will be a return to the soldiers
and their torture.
“[Death]
gouges and violates. Death is not in the absence and oblivion of letting go,
but in the crash and tear of depravity and brutality, as electrifyingly putrid
as excrement and rotting flesh. And what have I given her? What have I given
her but another moment in the stink and mire of horror and noise?” (156)
The summary on the back of the book
tells readers that Hailu assists “a victim of state-sanctioned torture die” and
Hailu’s musings here foreshadows that this young woman is likely the victim he helps
to die. As a doctor, Hailu dedicates himself to healing and preventing the
deaths of others, but in this moment, his views are changing. Hailu cannot, in
good conscience, fix the girl and then release her to the soldiers, only to be
tortured again.
One of the major themes of the
novel is the power of the human body; some bodies are fragile, unable to
withstand much, but others are strong, powerful, and live beyond their expectations.
As a doctor, Hailu is particularly concerned with the human body. This passage
illuminates the extreme side of the spectrum, where the body is capable of
enduring “the crash and tear of depravity and brutality” and rather than
amazement at the durability of the girl’s body, Hailu feels horrified that he
is preparing her for torture and assault once more. The shortness of chapter 33
(less than a page) indicates the quickness of his decision; Hailu can only save
her (and his own conscience) from the brutality of the soldiers by helping her
end her life.
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