Daughters of Silence by Rebecca Fisseha

The narrative of Daughters of Silence centers on Dessie, a flight attendant for CanAir who finds herself unexpectedly grounded in her birthplace of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The story unfolds through a dual timeline: the present-day layover in Addis (2010) and a series of vivid, often painful flashbacks spanning Dessie’s childhood in Addis Ababa, her adolescence in Vienna, and her recent life in Toronto. The central conflict revolves around the recent death of her mother, Zimita (referred to as Ema), and the long-buried trauma of sexual abuse inflicted by her adopted brother, Le’ul.

The Diversion and the Return to Ethiopia

The book opens mid-flight, where Dessie is performing her routine duties as a flight attendant on a journey from Johannesburg to Vienna. A volcanic eruption in Iceland has blocked the jet stream with ash, forcing the captain to divert to Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Dessie, who has not set foot in Ethiopia as an adult and on her own, feels an immediate sense of panic. Her mother, a prominent diplomat and former consul general in Toronto, died only a month prior of melanoma. Dessie is haunted by the fact that Ema was buried in Toronto at the Scarborough Bluffs Cemetery, rather than being returned to Ethiopia as her grandfather, the Shaleqa (Babbaye), had demanded.

Dessie reluctantly takes a taxi to her grandfather’s house. She recalls leaving the country at age eight, remembering the Shaleqa pinning her arms and asking an impossible question: “How do you feel about leaving this land?”. At the time, her mother was the only surviving child of the Shaleqa’s seven children; the six brothers had “disappeared” during the Red Terror. Dessie had promised to return in four years, a promise that went unfulfilled for nearly two decades.

The House of Mourning and the Memorial Program

Upon arriving at the Shaleqa’s gated compound, Dessie is met with a theatrical display of grief from a housemaid named Gela, who flings herself at Dessie’s feet and wails Ema’s name. The Shaleqa is now eighty-seven years old, a frail but still-commanding figure who was a “Patriot” (arbegna) during the Italian occupation. He is currently preparing for Ema’s tezkar, the Forty Day memorial service. Dessie observes four old friends of her grandfather Uncle Whiskey, Uncle Bug, Uncle Pilot, and Uncle A B Z who are drafting the memorial program.

The program serves as a summary of Ema’s public life: her education at Addis Ababa University, her marriage to Mesfin (Aba), and her rise through the diplomatic ranks in Vienna, Rome, New York, and finally Toronto. Dessie notes a discrepancy in the program’s epitaph the translation of a Bible verse alternates between “charity” and “love” a detail her father had fretted over back in Canada. She also discovers a poem in the program attributed to her, which her grandfather actually composed in her name, capturing the voice of the granddaughter he wished she had become.

Flashback: The End of Ema and the Rift with Le’ul

The narrative frequently returns to the weeks surrounding Ema’s death in Toronto. Ema’s cancer, which first appeared as a “bad spot” or “false kiss of Mariam” on her thigh when Dessie was a child, had returned and metastasized. During her illness, Ema attempted a “forgiveness project,” trying to force a reconciliation between Dessie and Le’ul. She often gave Dessie books like The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace, which Dessie resentfully accepted but refused to read.

Dessie’s relationship with Le’ul is defined by “catlike anger” and profound avoidance. To the outside world and their community, they are grieving siblings. In reality, Le’ul was adopted from a village near Harrar after being orphaned at eight. Dessie’s trauma is slowly revealed through memories of “checking-time,” a horrific ritual Le’ul began when he was twelve and Dessie was five. Under the guise of a game where they would “erase” imaginary leaves drawn on Dessie’s skin, Le’ul systematically abused her. He threatened to kill her if she ever told their parents.

Dessie did try to tell, in a way. At age eight, she wrote a letter to her Canadian pen pal, Anja, detailing what Le’ul was doing. She left the letter unsealed for her mother to send, but later found it torn into pieces in Ema’s wastebasket. Ema never spoke of the letter, but shortly after, she and Aba took Le’ul on a “pilgrimage” to Kulubi Gabriel, which Dessie later realized was an attempt at an exorcism or spiritual healing for Le’ul’s “sickness”. Ema and Aba’s refusal to address the abuse openly, opting instead for “holy water” and “verses of repentance,” left Dessie feeling “erased” and “poisoned”.

The Presence of Gela and the Secrets of the Shaleqa

Back in the present in Addis Ababa, Dessie spends her days assisting the temporary cooks and maids Lomi and Aberash while avoiding the constant scrutiny of the mourners. She develops a tense but curious relationship with Gela, who seems to know more about Dessie’s family than a typical servant.

The Shaleqa continues to pressure Dessie about Ema’s burial, refusing to accept that she is in “the earth of strangers”. He orchestrates a meeting with Teka, a funeral director specializing in “diaspora repatriations”. During this meeting, Dessie is forced into a surreal speakerphone conversation with Stanley Chan, the funeral director in Toronto, where they discuss the logistics of disinterring and moving Ema’s body. Dessie plays along with her grandfather’s delusion to maintain peace, even though she knows Aba will likely never sign the necessary papers.

A pivotal moment occurs when the Shaleqa sends Dessie to fetch photos from his dresser. There, he reveals a hidden stash of letters written by Ema to someone named Yene Abeba (My Flower). The Shaleqa drops a bombshell: Dessie has a sister who is alive and currently in Ethiopia. He claims this sister “wants her mother first” before she will meet Dessie.

The Reveal: The Letters and the Sister

Dessie steals the letters and reads them in secret. The first letter, dated 1980, reveals that Ema had an illegitimate child in the city of Dessie before she met Aba. She was forced by the Shaleqa to leave the baby behind to “resume a life without shame” and return to Addis Ababa. The subsequent letters (1991, 1996, 1998, 2003) show that Ema maintained a secret relationship with this daughter through letters and occasional visits during her diplomatic trips. In the letters, Ema portrays Dessie as a “troubled” and “unforgiving” daughter, omitting the context of the abuse.

As Dessie processes this betrayal, she realizes the identity of her sister. Through a series of clues Gela’s overbearing nature, her lack of servant-like deference, and her physical presence in the house Dessie understands that Gela is Yene Abeba. The maid she had been trailing and bickering with is actually her elder sister, hidden in plain sight.

The Forty Day and the Public Reckoning

The day of the tezkar (Forty Day) arrives. The house is filled with guests, and the air is thick with the scent of roasted coffee and tella (traditional ale). During the feast, the Shaleqa’s friends share “tizita” (memories) of Ema, carefully omitting her time in Dessie. Gela reveals one more secret to Dessie: during the Red Terror, the Shaleqa had hidden Ema inside a tella barrel to save her from the squads. This experience of “suffocation in silence” defined Ema’s life and led to her renaming herself Zimita (Silence).

Overcome by the hypocrisy and the weight of the secrets, Dessie confronts Gela in front of the assembled guests. She throws the stack of letters onto Gela’s lap and declares, “That’s my sister”. The room falls into a stunned silence. Gela, horrified and shamed, flees the room, and the letters scatter onto the grass. Dessie collapses into a “wailing excellently,” finally expressing the grief she had suppressed for so long. She is comforted not by her grandfather or her sister, but by Emmahoy, an old nun and grand-aunt who had previously dreamt of the family’s reckoning.

Reconciliation and the Soil of Ethiopia

In the aftermath of the explosion, a quiet understanding emerges between Dessie and the Shaleqa. He admits that he saw Dessie and Gela sleeping side-by-side and realized Ema’s final wish: “Tobya wanted to be where all her children are”. He interprets this not as a demand for a specific burial plot, but as a desire for her daughters to finally know one another.

The Shaleqa finally gives up his demand to repatriate Ema’s body, telling Dessie to “leave things be” and that he has “earned his punishment”. Dessie, in a final act of devotion, gathers a handful of soil from the Shaleqa’s garden, which he blesses. She intends to take this “Ethiopian soil” back to Toronto and mix it with the earth at Ema’s grave.

Dessie and Gela spend one final day together at the Ghion Hotel, a place Ema frequently stayed. Gela reveals the hardships of her own life: her father was likely killed on the Eritrean front, and her grandparents were deported during the border wars. She had lived for years as a “dog leashed to this land,” while Dessie lived the “good life” abroad. They acknowledge their shared mother the “woman who had to lose both daughters so she could keep them” and Dessie promises to help Gela and the Shaleqa come to Canada for a visit.

The Final Confrontation at Bole Airport

As the ash clears and flights resume, Dessie prepares to return to Toronto. Before leaving, she visits her childhood home in the Bole district. She bribes a watchman to let her enter the empty house and stands in the bedroom where her childhood was “lost”. In the darkness, she stands naked and “waits to hear Le’ul’s commands,” only to find that the past has no power over her anymore. She leaves the house with a flimsy skeleton key, a symbolic reclaiming of her autonomy.

At Bole Airport, while waiting for her flight, Dessie sees Le’ul through the glass of the arrivals area. He has followed her to Ethiopia, desperate and “alone in the world” after Aba went on a “thinking drive”. They meet at an arrivals café. Le’ul attempts to maintain his mask of brotherly concern, but Dessie Finalmente confronts him with the truth: their parents did know what he had done, and his “pilgrimage” to Kulubi was a failed attempt to “exorcise” his sickness.

Le’ul breaks down, admitting he wanted to beg for forgiveness for “erasing” her. Dessie is unmoved by his pity. She refuses his apology and tells him to “be dead to me”. She tosses a bottle of “holy water” in his face as a final rebuff to the rituals that failed to protect her.

The book concludes with Dessie walking toward the departure gates. She feels as though she is finally catching up to the “before-girl” she used to be the child who raced against the speed of airplanes on the Bole observation deck. As she prepares to soar, she recalls the first line of the broken letter she once wrote to her pen pal: “No body know one thing about me”. For the first time in her life, the truth has been told, and the world has “split open”.