The Quest

“Twenty years ago. She is a young girl, but an old aircraft.” He smiled. “She is American made, as you know, and all measurements are in feet, miles, and gallons.”

“What is her stall speed?”

“She stalls at any speed. So go as slow as you please. She will stall when she wants. Just give yourself enough altitude to recover.”

“What speed, Signore Bocaccio?”

He shrugged. “The airspeed indicator is inaccurate. And the needle jumps. The airplane is, how you say in English, out of trim. The leading edge is banged up.”

“I noticed.”

“Well, so, the stall speed is perhaps sixty. But when she was young, she could go forty-five. But what difference does that make? You must just give yourself the altitude to recover-and why would you want to approach stall speed?”

“I want to go low and slow. I want to make steep banks and turns. Will she do that?”

Signore Bocaccio looked at him closely. “That is not the way to Gondar, my friend. Gondar is three hundred miles due north. There are no steep banks or turns to be made.”

“We are looking for the war, Signore.”

“This is not a plane for that. She knows the way to Gondar as a straight line. She does not like to be fired at.” He put his finger into a bullet hole, then patted his plane and dusted off his hands. He also informed Purcell, “The government does not want you looking for the war from the air. That is their job. If you do that, they will think you are spying for the Royalists. Or the Eritreans. Or the British or the Americans-”

“Cruising speed? Altitude?”

“This airfield is already at eight thousand feet. You will get the best cruising speed if you climb to perhaps twelve thousand. To go much higher would take too long. Especially with four people. As you go over the valleys you can drop down if you wish, but you must remember that at eight thousand feet, you may meet a nine-thousand-foot mountain. You understand?”

“Si. And what will she make?”

“Perhaps you can get a hundred fifty out of her. I make Gondar in two and a half hours, normally.”

“How’s the prop?”

“She wanders. Sometimes a hundred-two hundred rpm. Give it no thought.”

“It can wander all it wants as long as it doesn’t wander off the airplane.”

“The hub is solid. It has no cracks.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Do you think I am”-Bocaccio tapped his head-“pazzo?”

“Well, Signore Bocaccio, if you are, so am I.”

He laughed, then looked at Purcell and said seriously, “Do not try tricks with Mia, my friend. She will kill you.”

“Capisco.” He said to Signore Bocaccio, “Are you ready to teach me how to fly Mia?”

He smiled. “After all I have said, you still want to fly her?”

“If the Ethiopian Air Force can fly her, I can fly her.”

Again Bocaccio looked at Purcell. “Whatever is your purpose, it must be important to you.”

“As important as your coffee beans.”

Apropos of nothing, Signore Bocaccio said, “This has become a sad land.”

“You should leave.”

“I will…” He smiled and said to Purcell, “Perhaps L’Osservatore Romano would like to buy Mia.”

“I will ask.” He looked up at the cockpit. “Ready?”

“I fly, you watch, then you fly and I watch you. Next time, you fly and I watch you from the ground.”

“Let’s hope for a next time.”

Signore Bocaccio laughed, and they climbed into the aircraft.

Chapter 34

Henry Mercado, wearing a bathrobe and undershorts, sat on the balcony of his top-floor room sipping coffee. The fog was lifting, and in the distance he could see a single-engine black aircraft rising off a hilltop airstrip. He said, “That must be Frank.”

Vivian, sitting next to him, replied, “He said to look for him about seven.”

Mercado glanced at her. She was wearing a short white shamma that she’d picked up somewhere, and she had obviously worn it to bed. The shamma reminded him of Getachu’s camp. The parade ground. The pole. He wondered if she’d thought about that.

Vivian told him, “Frank said he’d do a flyby and tip his wings.”

He supposed that meant she had to leave and get to her own room-or Purcell’s room-so that Purcell would not see both of them having coffee on Henry Mercado’s balcony at 7 A.M. But she didn’t move.

To make conversation, he said, “This is a squalid city.”

“It is not Rome.”

“No. This is the Infernal City.”

She laughed.

He had developed a strong dislike for Addis Ababa in 1935, and forty years later nothing he’d seen had changed his opinion. Even the Ethiopians disliked it. It was like every semi-Westernized town he’d seen in Africa or Asia, combining the worst aspects of each culture. Its only good feature was its eight-thousand-foot elevation, which made the climate pleasant-except during the June-to-September rainy season when mud slid down the hills into the streets.

He poured more coffee for both of them. Vivian put her bare feet on the balcony rail and her shamma slipped back to her thighs.

He was surprised that she had accepted his invitation for coffee on the balcony, and more surprised when she came to his door wearing only the shamma and little else. Or nothing else.