from his notebook: Girma

Those guys? Man, you won’t find them.
They went off on a whim.
To find the wäqama kätama of Gebre
Mesquel Lalibela maybe?
You never heard of King Lalibela’s
lost city? Carved from the layers
of rock and filled with gold, man. Gold!
Many men have been killed
trying to find it – fall foul of bandits –
or come back empty-handed.

The king, he had this dream, see, this vision
of Jerusalem, decides he’s got to build another one.
He renames Roha after himself, has churches cut
out of the mountain stone. It’s not enough;

he wants a whole underground city, richer
than any other, man. You get the picture?
Secret. Fortified. Unconquerable this time.
They say that to find it –

but that info’ll cost you, friend. Those guys,
they went off to find it, I’m sure of it.
Last seen hitting the Merkato, for supplies.
Your eyes,
your appetite,
ferenji. Unfriendly.