Dark Heart

by Tony Park

  He shrugged. ‘I was shot.’

  ‘Really? When? What happened?’

  ‘The trouble in Rwanda did not end with the return of the RPA and change in government,’ he said as they took their seats. ‘Hutus who fled to the DRC still cross the border occasionally and mount revenge raids against Tutsis. I was in one of the western border towns reporting on a flooded river when some rebels crossed and attacked the village I was in. They opened fire indiscriminately and four people were killed. Myself and seven other people were wounded. It was terrifying.’

  ‘Hell,’ Liesl said. ‘Most people think Rwanda is at peace these days.’

  Pierre shrugged again. She remembered, now, his Gallic indifference. ‘It is, by and large, but the Hutu extremists still dream of returning and wiping out us Tutsis. There is a new generation of hate and it’s hard to imagine that the old enmities will ever truly die out.’

  He had aged well, Liesl thought, although middle age had brought with it quite a bit of bulk beneath the cracked black leather jacket he wore. The broad smile was still the same as it had been back in 1994 and 1995 – something that amazed her considering the horror they’d both witnessed – and his moustache was in better shape than the wispy growth he’d sported as a twenty-year-old university student. Pierre was tall and broad-shouldered, a handsome guy. He was now a subeditor on Rwanda’s daily English-language newspaper the New Times, and Liesl hoped his contacts and street smarts would help her out.

  ‘I’m sorry, Pierre, for not getting back to you when you emailed me,’ she said.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have a job at the time – the newspaper I’d started on had closed down and I was pretty desperate, but it was embarrassing having to ask my old friends for help. It is me who should be apologising.’

  ‘Not at all. So, did you recognise anyone in the picture I emailed you last night?’

  ‘I showed it to a colleague who has also reported on the prosecution of génocidaires – I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No,’ Liesl said, though she now wished she’d told him to keep the picture private. People who had seen it were becoming targets. She felt guilty, too, about not telling Pierre her fears, but she desperately needed his help. Besides, she thought, he was a survivor who knew how to take care of himself.

  ‘My friend confirmed what I initially thought, that one of the men was a Colonel Jean-Baptiste Menahe who served in the FAR, the old Rwandan army that was dominated by Hutus. He was captured by Kagame’s RPA in 1994 and accused of multiple counts of genocide.’

  Liesl felt her hopes sink. She knew that the death penalty had been imposed on those senior figures in Hutu Power, the FAR and the Interahamwe militia who had been arrested. ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Remarkably, yes. He was convicted of organising genocide, but he appealed and a stay of execution was granted, much to the government’s annoyance. His surname means “young warrior”, and while he’s not so young any more, he’s still reportedly in good health and running a large part of Kigali Central Prison. Menahe has maintained all along that he didn’t personally kill any Tutsis and that his activities were confined to fighting the RPA. He says that as an officer in the FAR, the national army at the time, he was simply doing his duty by engaging in lawful battle with the RPA, which was technically an invading force.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Pierre shrugged. ‘The prosecution’s evidence was sketchy, but it’s hard to imagine a senior FAR officer not taking an active role in the genocide. Menahe is a Hutu, but if I played devil’s advocate I’d be asking why he didn’t flee to Zaire with the other senior génocidaires. The fact that he stayed and fought the RPA and was captured on the field of battle at least shows he was taking his duties as an officer seriously. Do you know what the weapon is in the picture, the one the white man is holding?’

  Liesl nodded. ‘A surface-to-air missile.’

  ‘You believe this has something to do with the assassination of the president?’

  ‘Honestly, Pierre, I don’t know. We can’t think of anything else that people would go to such lengths to cover up.’

  Pierre glanced across at her. ‘Who is we?’

  Liesl knew there was no way she could keep the truth from Pierre. He had put his life on the line to help her several times in the past, negotiating a path for her and the other reporters through checkpoints manned by angry, vengeful RPA soldiers and shepherding them away from firefights. ‘Pierre, I should have told you earlier, but myself and a doctor and the lawyer currently investigating the significance of this photo have all recently been the target of murder attempts. It’s like there’s some giant conspiracy going on here. We don’t know if it’s just coincidence or if there is someone, or some group, who wants to kill anyone who’s seen this picture. I’m sorry for not telling you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, Liesl. I am a journalist. I would have wanted to investigate this with you anyway. Now you have me even more interested, although I should warn you that discussing theories about who shot down the president’s aircraft in 1994 is a taboo subject in Rwanda.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. The current president is, I believe, by and large a good man. He wants to put the past behind us, but that sometimes means burying some things. As journalists we like to dig, and that upsets the authorities.’

  Liesl sighed. ‘We don’t even know if the missile launcher in the picture was the one used to shoot down the president’s jet, or if the men in the picture were involved. So, you said your car is outside. Where are we going now?’

  ‘To Kigali Central Prison, to see Colonel Menahe.’

  *

  When the lid on his wooden prison was prised open, with a squeak of bending nails, Vite was too dehydrated and exhausted to cry out. A pale face haloed by bright lights peered down at him and Vite blinked at the glare.

  The man spat angry words at someone out of sight and Vite slumped in the white hands that lifted him out of the crate.

  23

  Collette helped Richard wash the last of the dried blood from his leg as they both stood in the shower room of the Qantas Club lounge at Sydney Airport’s international departures terminal. Richard had his pants off and as he patted the wound dry with paper towel Collette took out the new pair of jeans she’d bought for him in one of the duty-free shops downstairs.

  Richard inspected the fresh steristrips he had applied and squirted Betadine over the wound before applying a fresh bandage. He rested his hand on Collette’s shoulder as she helped him slide his wounded leg into his pants. He winced in pain.

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’ she asked him.

  ‘I might still need a couple of stitches when we get to South Africa, but I’ll be OK for the flight.’ Collette had been able to change Richard’s ticket online to an evening service from Sydney via Perth, at a price, and she had been lucky enough to get last-minute but expensive flights for herself to Johannesburg and both of them on to Rwanda.

  ‘Oh, Richard.’ Collette’s lower lip started to tremble. ‘What have I done?’

  He squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Collette. It’s not too late, you know – you can stay here in Australia if you want.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I want to come with you, back to Africa. I cannot have whoever who is after us targeting my parents. I want to meet Carmel and tell her everything I know about the men in the picture. These people need to be prosecuted and put behind bars.’

  He admired her bravery. Richard zipped up his new trousers and buckled his belt and they went back out into the lounge. He scanned the room, fearing he might see some more Vietnamese gangsters or, almost as frightening, some uniformed New South Wales police or detectives in suits come to arrest him and Collette. He thought of the blood rushing down over his hand when he’d killed the first man, and when he inspected his fingernails he could see traces of the dark stain. He felt light-headed and steered Collette to the first available lo
unge chairs.

  ‘Can I get you a drink? Some juice?’ Collette asked him.

  ‘Tomato juice, please. With vodka, Tabasco and Worcester sauce.’

  ‘Is that good for you?’

  ‘I’m the bloody doctor.’

  Collette walked off and returned soon with the bloody mary and a glass of water for herself. ‘You didn’t tell me everything you knew about the picture, did you?’ he asked.

  She looked away from him. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not, Collette? It could have been important.’

  She looked down at the carpet. ‘I know, but seeing the faces of those men brought it all back to me. I wanted the memories to go away, but now I know the fear is real again and that I must face it.’

  ‘Who are they? You have to help me understand what’s at play here.’

  She sagged back into her chair and cast her eyes upwards, as though the memories were playing on some invisible plasma screen mounted on the far wall. ‘I do remember that day, as I told you. My father found me, after his meeting with the men in the jungle, and scolded me for sneaking around. He told me I was to say nothing of what I’d seen and, in particular, he told me to forget I had seen the white man with the blond hair. White men, foreigners, came to see him on several occasions. But the one I remember most is the one in the picture, with the white, white hair. He had such blue eyes. He was almost like an albino, though not quite.’

  ‘Where was he from, the man with the missile launcher?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure. I remember once he spoke to us – my brother and I – and that made my father angry, too. The blond man seemed particularly interested in my little brother, asking him what he studied at school, what sports he liked playing, that sort of thing. I knew the man wasn’t Belgian or French, because of his accent, and I thought he might have been South African. There was a lot in the news at the time about Mandela’s release from prison and the first multiracial elections. I asked him if he was from there, and he said something like, “Not from there, but near there.” He said his family were German.’

  ‘South-West Africa? The former Namibia maybe?’

  Collette nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I think now.’

  ‘What was his name, Collette?’

  She looked at Richard again. ‘I wish I could remember. I’ve been trying since you showed me the picture. It’s on the tip of my tongue; you know the feeling where something’s just out of reach, hovering close by but you can’t quite grab it?’

  He nodded. ‘Try, Collette. It’s very important.’

  ‘I know, Richard. I am trying.’

  ‘Why was your father so angry that you and your brother had spoken to the blond-haired man?’

  ‘He didn’t say – he just told us never to speak to him again, and to go to our rooms next time he came to visit. The next time was when the picture was taken, and I disobeyed my father by sneaking into the bush and watching them with the missile launcher. It was as if the blond man was giving them all a lesson on how it worked. I remember him putting it up on his shoulder and aiming it at the sky, through the trees. What I do remember about him, and it came back to me when I saw the picture, was how much he scared me.’

  ‘Why? Did he do something to you, or your brother?’

  Collette reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and pulled out a crumpled tissue. She dabbed the corner of her eyes. ‘No, he didn’t. But you know what, I am sure he would have if he’d had half a chance. I can see him now, touching my brother’s hair. It scares me even now, Richard. It’s all coming back to me. I went to the bush to watch him because I wanted to keep tabs on him to make sure he didn’t hurt my brother.’

  Richard thought about the new information. ‘Namibia had been independent for a few years before the genocide occurred. I wonder what this man was doing in Rwanda. Maybe he was an arms dealer?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Collette said.

  ‘And what about the other man in the photo? The Rwandan man? Do you know him, too?’

  ‘I have no idea who he is. A colleague of my father’s, I imagine.’

  ‘I wonder if the white man is the key to what’s been happening to us – the assassination attempts and your kidnapping.’

  Collette checked her watch. ‘We’re boarding soon. I want to get away from here, but I don’t know where we can be safe, Richard.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ And that was the problem. Whoever was after them had a worldwide network of contacts that could be paid to kill people. To draw on those sorts of resources you needed to be working for one of two organisations: a global crime syndicate, or a government.

  *

  Pierre parked his Nissan on the grassy verge of the street, two hundred metres past the entrance gate to Kigali Central Prison. ‘Ready?’ he asked Liesl.

  ‘Not really, but let’s go,’ she said. She’d read about Rwanda’s chronically overcrowded prisons in the years following the genocide. ‘Do we have official permission to meet this guy?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Pierre said. He smiled. ‘But this is Rwanda. I have a cousin who is a senior warder here. We’re going to meet him. All we’re doing is visiting a prisoner at 1930, right? There is no law against that.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ Liesl said. She remembered now that 1930 was the common local name for the city’s prison.

  As they approached the entrance gate, Liesl swung her camera bag around from her shoulder and started to unzip it. Pierre laid a gentle hand on her arm. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘No pictures here please, Liesl. The guards are jumpy.’

  She nodded. ‘Understood.’

  The prison gates, flanked by brick towers that reminded Liesl of a medieval castle, were on the crest of a ridge line overlooking the prison, a collection of red-brick buildings set down the hill in front of them, with the city of Kigali as a backdrop. Pierre and Liesl walked past a queue of prisoners’ wives and children that stretched from the gates to the road. The women, many of them carrying baskets of food on their heads and paper shopping bags, were waiting patiently to be checked by a guard with an AK-47. Pierre spoke in French to a warder in a blue uniform with a green woollen jumper. The man carried a swagger stick under one arm, which Liesl guessed denoted some seniority. The warder eyed Liesl coldly, but eventually gave a curt nod and Pierre motioned for Liesl to follow him to the gate office.

  In the office they signed their names on a register in front of a bored-looking female guard, and a younger prison officer was summoned to take them inside.

  ‘This prison was built for two thousand inmates, but at its peak, after the genocide, there were eleven thousand men and women in here,’ Pierre explained as they followed the guard.

  Liesl couldn’t help but feel unnerved by the stares of the men, young and old, who milled about in a muddy open area they passed through. Those whose relatives had arrived already sat at long wooden tables in the open, their spouses and children on the other side. Scores of eyes tracked her progress. Incongruously, Liesl thought, given their crimes, the prisoners’ uniform was pink shorts and short-sleeve shirts.

  ‘Pink?’ she whispered.

  Pierre nodded. ‘Yes. The inmates are given cloth and needles and thread and told to make their own clothes.’

  ‘Inyenzi,’ a skinny prisoner whispered as they walked by. The comment earned the man a short, sharp stream of what sounded like abuse from the young warder.

  ‘What was that about?’ Liesl asked Pierre.

  ‘He called me a cockroach. It was one of the names the Hutus had for us Tutsis at the time of the genocide. Some things never change.’

  They moved deeper into the ramshackle maze of buildings and there seemed to be inmates everywhere. ‘Even now there are still about six thousand men and women here. Obviously, we are in the men’s section. That open area, over by the left there, is for the dysentery patients.’

  Liesl saw a dozen or so men sitting or lying on the bare red dirt, resting. They looked even more gaunt than the rest of the prison population
. An open drain passed through the courtyard, and she guessed this was why those with the debilitating diarrhoea were there. The stench of faeces wafted over, further sullying the omnipresent odours of wood smoke and sweat.

  ‘You can go this way,’ the warder said to her in English, pointing ahead. He turned and started walking back towards the gate.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Liesl asked, unable to mask her alarm at their armed escort’s departure.

  ‘We’re entering another country, Liesl,’ Pierre said. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘Another country? What do you mean?’

  ‘The main part of the prison is ruled by the old regime – by the strong men of Hutu Power; at least those of them who are still alive because they have not been sentenced to death or because they are still awaiting trial. The warders are too scared to venture further into the prison. Also, the prisoners run their own affairs in a fairly orderly manner. There are systems of government in here. You have to remember that people from all walks of life were involved in the genocide.’

  As they walked people continued to stare at them, but Liesl felt the absence of the warden had lessened the tension as they made their way down a slippery lane between the red-brick buildings. ‘Is it violent in here?’ Her knowledge of prisons was mostly based on what she’d read or heard about places such as Polsmoor, in Cape Town, where murder, rape and drug abuse were everyday occurrences.

  ‘Sometimes, of course,’ Pierre said. ‘It is a community so there is crime and violence, but the génocidaires also police themselves and look after themselves. There are teachers who give lessons, ex-police and ex-soldiers who enforce the rules, doctors to treat the ill with rudimentary care, lawyers to represent the accused, and every other profession you can imagine.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  Now that she had overcome her initial fear and shock, Liesl took time to surreptitiously inspect the inmates she passed. She noticed that the uniform of pink shorts and shirt was actually not as uniform as it had first appeared. Some of the men’s outfits were frayed at the hems, with gaping seams where their hand-sewing was coming undone. Others, however, had neatly pressed outfits with perfect stitching and, in some cases, embroidered with decorative designs. Clearly the prison society was stratified into haves and have-nots, rulers and serfs. She was fascinated, and wished she could follow her instincts and start shooting some pictures to record her experience, but she’d been made to leave her camera bag at the office after signing in.