1992
NINE
ALTHOUGH IT WAS THE MIDDLE of Itumba, the rainy season, clouds failed to gather, and the earth remained dry and wrinkled as a grandfather’s skin. Lake Kivu had withdrawn, leaving a ring of black sand where waves had tickled Jean Patrick’s feet the year before. The fish had disappeared, taking Uncle Emmanuel’s motorboat dream with them.
Some days, before dawn or late in the evening, storms erupted across the peaks, and people began to hope. But when the sun climbed high and no rain materialized, the women clucked their tongues and went back to hacking the thirsty ground with their hoes. Red dust stained their pagnes and settled like a blanket over the entire countryside.
Jean Patrick, home for Easter vacation, stood with Mathilde among the hilled rows of beans. Skinny pods drooped between the leaves. Pili lay in their scant shadows and chased lizards in her dreams. “What do you call inyanya in French?” he asked.
“Ça s’appelle tomate.”
“Fruit or vegetable?”
Mathilde wrinkled her nose. “Tomato is a vegetable. No, wait. It’s so sweet. Maybe a fruit.” She groaned. “I don’t think I have to know this to pass secondary school exams.”
“You’re Tutsi. You have to know everything. You have to get first place.” Two pied crows clucked from a branch in the jacaranda. Jean Patrick heaved a rock, and they flew away, complaining loudly.
“Ko Mana! I forget. It has something to do with seeds.” Mathilde sighed. She took a mango from the basket of harvested fruit and vegetables, peeled back the skin with her teeth, and took a bite. “This one is so sour.” She made a face and threw it back.
“You have to finish it now. No one wants a mango with your teeth in it.” Jean Patrick tossed it back to her.
Laughing, Mathilde inspected the bitten place. “I don’t see any teeth.”
Jean Patrick picked the last of the beans and moved to the rows of peas. He shook a dried pod in Mathilde’s direction. “What is the taxonomic system of classification?”
“Kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, family, species.” Mathilde accompanied each word with the strike of her hoe.
“Which comes first—genus or family? You’re mixed up.”
A lizard scurried into the vines, and Mathilde chased after it. “I’m too tired. I still have three weeks before exams. You can help me tonight.”
“Lazy! One more. What’s the genus of our tilapia?”
Mathilde didn’t answer. Jean Patrick followed her gaze. She was watching someone on the path climb briskly toward them. It was Roger.
Jean Patrick whooped and bolted toward him. “So many days no word of you, and now you just come dancing home?” In his embrace, Roger’s body felt hard and spare. He wore blue jeans, and beneath a beret, his hair stuck out in an Afro.
“Look at you!” Roger wiped his brow and made a show of looking up into Jean Patrick’s face. “You are Little Brother in name alone.”
With a shock, Jean Patrick realized his eyes were even with the top of Roger’s forehead. Only six months before, they had stood eye to eye.
Mathilde sprinted toward them. “You’re back from Ruhengeri! And only last night I dreamed you’d return.”
Jean Patrick smiled at her fluid quickness, her muscular kick. “Here she comes, Mathilde Kamabera, our new Olympic hero!”
Roger spun her around. “Are you studying hard, little bird?”
“Of course.” Mathilde danced. “Jean Patrick beats me if I don’t. I take placement exams after vacation.”
Roger cupped his hand to his ear. “What’s this? The wind tells me you’ll get first place.” He patted Jean Patrick’s back. “And you—ready for the Olympics? I’ve told everyone you’re Rwanda’s best runner.”
The first suggestion of a beard graced Roger’s chin, and Jean Patrick ran the tip of his finger across it. “Not Olympics, but Nationals in Kigali in June. Come and watch. You’ll see how fast I’ve gotten, even without you to chase me.”
Roger frowned. “I’ll do my best.” Then the frown was gone and he flung one arm around Jean Patrick, the other around Mathilde. “Let’s go to the house. It’s hot, and I have walked a long way. I’m thirsty.”
LATE IN THE afternoon, rain clouds rolled down the hills. Across the lake, thunder rumbled. Jean Patrick and Roger leaned against the eucalyptus, waiting for Mama.
“I don’t like her doing other people’s housework,” Roger said.
Jean Patrick shrugged. “Fishing is bad. Jacqueline is already in secondary school, and Mathilde is going next year. What can we do?”
“Why should we suffer more because we’re Tutsi? Jacqueline came in near the top of her class, and still she didn’t get a financial award. Why should Hutu get all the scholarships, all the best places for jobs?”
“Everyone is suffering. Neither Tutsi nor Hutu can make rain.”
“Our government is not suffering. Have you seen how Habyarimana grows fat?” Roger slapped his forehead. “Tsst! I forgot your present.” He jogged to the house and came back with his knapsack. “Look—it almost fits in your hand.” He pulled out a box with a transistor radio inside.
Jean Patrick extended the antenna to its full length. “So fancy! But we have a radio.”
“This is for you alone, to keep with you wherever you are. I think at night you could catch Radio Muhabura, the RPF station. I tuned to it in Ruhengeri, but you may have to adjust a little.”
Funnels of dust chased across the ground. Thunder resonated across the lake from Zaire. “Why would I want to listen to them? Radio Rwanda’s bad enough.”
Roger leaned in close. “If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“I swear.”
“I’m joining the RPF.”
Jean Patrick sank back against the tree. He touched Roger’s wrist, seeking the familiar feel of his skin. “The rebels? Why?”
Roger took a rolled-up newspaper from his pack and tapped it against his palm. “After all that’s happened, you still think the RPF are troublemakers?”
“It’s because of them the country is suffering, and I’m tired of being blamed for it. All day long I hear icyitso, Inyenzi. Traitor, cockroach. Twice, some guys beat me.” He showed Roger his chipped tooth.
“What guys? Boys I know?” Roger slapped the newspaper hard.
“It doesn’t matter. I could take care of it, just me and them, but because I’m Tutsi I can’t fight back. I could lose my scholarship or get hurt so I can’t run. Me, I can’t take a chance. I wish the RPF would go back to Uganda and leave us alone.”
“This country is theirs as much as it’s yours or mine,” Roger said. “Exile was not something any of them chose, and all they—we—are asking for is an end to government corruption and the right of return, to participate in the political process here in our motherland.”
Jean Patrick felt the first bubbles rise to the surface in the pot that boiled over whenever talk turned to politics. “I’m not getting you. Uncle told me the same thing, but I don’t understand. Those RPF—they were born in Uganda, right? Rwanda is not their home, so why, all of a sudden, do they come down here and invade?”
“Some were born here, some are the children of refugees, born in Uganda or Tanzania. Every time Hutu massacre Tutsi, more Tutsi flee the country. It wasn’t just in ’seventy-three, when our grandparents were killed. It started in ’fifty-nine with the first Hutu uprising when the mwami, King Kigeli the Fifth, fled. Then again in ’sixty-three and ’sixty-seven. No one wants to live in exile forever. And if you opened your eyes, you’d see it could happen again, is happening again.” He slapped the newspaper open and gave it to Jean Patrick.
It looked like Kanguka, the name just one letter different: Kangura, Wake Them Up, instead of Kanguka, Wake Up. Next to a drawing of a machete and a photo of Kayibanda, Rwanda’s first president, was the headline, SPECIAL. WHAT WEAPONS SHALL WE USE TO CONQUER THE INYENZI ONCE AND FOR ALL??
“So this is what the paper looks like,”
Jean Patrick said.
Roger watched him closely. “Tricky, eh? At first people bought it thinking it was Kanguka. “
Jean Patrick nodded slowly. “I knew about it from the Ten Commandments, but before now, I never held it in my hands. If I saw someone had it, I turned away.” He sucked his teeth. “I got my foot broken because of those stupid commandments.”
Lightning arced across the ridges. Current thrummed between the high branches. The pages of Kangura rippled as if the wind wanted to tear them from Jean Patrick’s grasp.
Roger snorted. “It’s time to stop looking the other way, Little Brother. I’ve done a lot of studying, and I’ve discovered most of the history we learned in school is a lie. It’s by listening in the street that you learn the truth.” He pulled a book in English from his pack: Decolonising the Mind.
“You can read that?”
“It’s hard, but I manage.” Roger took a photograph of a woman from between the pages. “Her name was Anastase. We were planning to marry.”
“My brother getting married! You never said a word.” Jean Patrick studied the shine of her skin, a polished ocher brick. He liked her makeup and stylish Western clothes. “When?”
Roger caught the first drops of rain in his cupped hand. “I think finally we’ll have a storm.” He looked up toward the thickening clouds. “Have you heard about Bugesera?” Jean Patrick hadn’t. “After Kayibanda gained power, many Tutsi were put in trucks and dumped in the swamps there, to live however they could, because the new government wanted to give their good land to the Hutu.
“Anastase’s family was among them. They settled in Nyamata. Last month, the government claimed some RPF were planning to murder Hutu leaders there. They broadcast the story on Radio Rwanda, screaming and shouting that it was time to kill or be killed, getting Hutu heads so heated up they took up clubs and machetes. By the next day, there were Tutsi bodies lying in the streets.” He pointed to Kangura. “A few days before the massacres, free copies of this issue were distributed in Bugesera. It was not by chance.” His eyes flashed. “Anastase had gone to visit her family. I went to join her, not knowing what had happened. I planned to ask her father for permission to marry her. Instead, I found their house burned to the ground. No one survived. Right there, in front of those blackened bits of timber, I made my decision to fight with the RPF.”
A white heron wheeled across the sky, pushed by the storm. Jean Patrick imagined soaring to freedom, shedding the gravitational force of his country and lifting into the air. “What are you saying? The government planned it?”
“This wasn’t the first time. Anastase told me it has been going on in Bugesera since she was small. One year, two or three killings; another, forty or fifty. Maybe some talker on Radio Rwanda lit the fuse, or maybe some Tutsi cattle trampled a Hutu field. Peace between Hutu and Tutsi was uneasy from the beginning, and in this swamp, there was always conflict over land. The government knew how to exploit it. What I am saying is, think about the situation. Be prepared.”
Jean Patrick looked again at the photograph. Anastase’s hair was pulled back from her face to show off her thin, arched eyebrows. Her lips were parted in a shy half smile as if she were about to speak. “She’s so beautiful. I’m sorry.”
Hard drops of rain spattered the earth, breaking the air’s eerie stillness. Mama appeared on the path below, walking toward them.
“We better hurry to meet her,” Roger said.
They had walked a short distance when the sky ruptured, thunder and lightning simultaneous. The bark on the eucalyptus exploded, shreds flying into the air. The force knocked them to the ground. Smoke rose from the tree, and Jean Patrick’s skull rang like a struck bell. Roger lay on his back, knapsack twisted to the side.
“Are you all right?” Jean Patrick’s tongue was thick in his mouth. He touched Roger’s shoulder, and current sizzled in his fingers. Rain came down in a sheet.
“Such stupid little calves,” Roger said. “Lying in the dirt with our mouths open.” He helped Jean Patrick up, and they abandoned themselves to laughter. Mama called to them, her voice frantic. “How much will you bet me,” Roger said, “that if we looked hard enough, we could find our souls seared into the tree?”
Jean Patrick glanced back in awe at the scarred trunk. At Christmas, Roger had still moved in the circle of family, his identity merged with theirs. Today, he had stepped from the circle. He had taken Jean Patrick by the hand and walked with him to the edge of his new life. But when Roger left, he would jump alone into its dizzying possibility. Soon enough, Jean Patrick would follow his own path, an oval tarmac four hundred meters around, to wherever it took him. Until then, Jean Patrick would have this tree as proof that this day had really happened. He could put his hand against the bark and feel Roger’s soul, his heart with its steady beat of love.
JACQUELINE CAME HOME from school in Gitarama in the morning, the family complete for Easter once more. Jean Patrick marveled at her long, straight hair, its iridescent sheen. As she walked up the path, the breeze lifted it from her ears and blew spidery strands across her face. Like Anastase, she wore Western slacks and a smart Western blouse.
On Easter Sunday, they joked and ate the afternoon away, sharing news in a constant onslaught of noise. A stream of neighbors and cousins filled the house. Jean Patrick traveled back through the years, carried on the steam from pungent dishes, all his favorites. For that moment, his worries seemed small and far off. He remembered the morning he first arrived, how he and Roger had stood on the hillside above the compound and quipped about Uncle’s family. How much this book of life changes, he thought. And we are not the ones to write the pages.
WHEN DAWN BROKE on Wednesday, Roger was packed and ready to leave. “Stay one more day,” Jean Patrick pleaded. “Mama is so happy with you here.”
Roger hoisted his pack. “That will only make it harder when I leave.”
Jean Patrick had noticed the way Roger lingered at the table and held Mama’s arm as if afraid he would never touch her again. In the mornings, he stood at the door and inhaled deeply, looking out toward the lake. Jean Patrick imagined the land absorbed into the tissue of Roger’s lungs so that when he marched through the mountains, cold and hungry, it would warm him at will.
“Did you tell her your news about becoming RPF?”
“That is for your ears, and your ears alone.”
“Then what will you tell them when you disappear into thin air?”
“That I am going to Kenya with a friend to work. Make some good money.”
“I’ll walk you to the road and wait with you for the bus,” Jean Patrick said. “Uncle won’t mind; there’s nothing to fill our nets.”
Mukabera met them on the path, a machete balanced on her headscarf. “I am going to harvest my three beans.” She laughed, hoarse and hearty, showing her large brown-stained teeth. “I wish you the peace of God.” She waved and walked on. Dust swirled at her feet.
AT THE BUS stop, Roger bought two ears of corn from a vendor stooped over a charcoal grill. They moved into a private corner of shade to eat. “Are you going to the Virungas?” Jean Patrick asked. “Everyone knows RPF is hiding there.”
“You’d be surprised. We’re everywhere.”
“Will you finish the school year first? You will never be forgiven if you don’t.”
“Don’t worry,” Roger said. “I’ll finish.”
“What about National Championships? Will you come to Kigali to watch me win?”
Roger picked a kernel of corn from his teeth. “So many questions.” He smiled in his familiar way, wrinkling his nose. “I’ll try.”
A pang that felt like hunger twisted Jean Patrick’s insides. He embraced Roger a final time. “I better get back, in case Uncle needs me,” he said.
A civet hurried out from the bush, a mosaic of shadow and light falling across its body in the same crazy patchwork as its fur. It froze, stolid and doglike, a bristled ridge of hair on its back. Its sweet, dungy scent hung thick in the air
. Roger motioned as if to strike it, and it bared its teeth. “That’s the spirit: brave and stubborn,” he said. He stomped, and the creature retreated toward the undergrowth. “Don’t worry about me. I’m like him. Listen for Radio Muhabura and think of your brother.” He pulled his beret out of his pack. “We’re getting stronger every day.” He saluted and jogged off toward the approaching bus. The civet surveyed the scene warily from its haven, as if it, too, found this small occasion worthy of committing to memory.
TEN
ON THE DAY OF National Championships, Jean Patrick felt strong and confident but, he had to admit, a little nervous. He put down his running magazine and flipped onto his back, head dangled over one side of the bed and feet over the other. He poked Daniel’s shin with a toe.
“How long to Kigali?”
“The same as when you asked me yesterday and last week and ten minutes ago—maybe six hours. I don’t think it will change.”
“Aren’t you going to class?”
“There’s nothing to do but review for exams,” Daniel said. “I’d rather wait with you.”
Jean Patrick peered out the window. “Do you think Coach has a wife?”
“Coach? A wife? Mama weh!” Daniel roared. “He’s too mean.”
“Maybe he had one and killed her.”
Daniel grabbed Jean Patrick’s jiggling thigh. “Be still, eh? If this is what Championships does to you, maybe you shouldn’t go.”
Laughing, Jean Patrick pushed his hand away. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“If it was three weeks later, I would. Then you could come to my home and meet my mama and my sisters.” Daniel aimed his finger at a noisy bird beyond the window. “Papa could teach you to shoot.”
“Aye-yay. What do I need a gun for? Me, I fight with my legs.”
Running the Rift Page 7
