One String Guitar

by Mona de Vessel

  The cake was already out of the oven when the phone rang. A beautiful cake, à l’américaine, an American cake, the way Eloise at the hospital had taught me to make. Eloise was Belgian, a good doctor with a strong hand for difficult cases. Not at all squeamish, not afraid of anything. Eloise had traveled to America and she showed me how to make Mélanie’s cake with pépites de chocolat, the chocolate chips I tossed in the batter like they were tiny diamonds in a sea of gold.

  Fidèle answered the phone. I heard something shift in the way he breathed. He stopped moving and for a moment everything was still and then I heard him under his breath:

  “God help us. God help us all.” I felt a strange chill. The way he said this. The way he spoke those words.

  “That was my brother Philippe. He called to say that President Habyarimana’s plane has crashed. He was killed just hours ago.” We both rushed to the radio and turned it on.

  “Classical music everywhere we turn, even on Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines.” I fumbled for the dial. My hands were shaking. I looked at Fidèle for answers but he looked as shocked as I felt.

  We both stood prostrate by the radio, in the living room of our house waiting for the music to stop. A voice came on speaking of the plane crash. And then the orders began to come:

  “You must stay in your homes. Everyone stay in your homes and wait for further orders.”

  “Whether this is an assassination of the president or not, with him gone, the Hutu militia will take over power. We’re not safe,” Fidèle had a look of fear and urgency I’d never seen on his face before.

  “Where would we go?” I asked him. “I think we should stay put and see how things unfold. Let’s at least sleep on it.”

  “I am telling you Francine, we don’t have time! Every Tutsi man, woman and child will be hunted down and killed if the Hutu militia take over the government. And with my own work as a member of the Social Democratic Party, we are prime targets.” Fidèle’s voice was strained.

  “But where should we…”

  We heard an explosion in the distance. The house shook, or maybe I imagined it shook when I heard the loud, raucous rumble break through the eerie silence of the night. I looked at the clock in the kitchen. It was ten o’clock. The phone rang again and it was our neighbors the Kagirangas who wanted to know if they could bring their kids to our house for protection. They said that they would be safer with us because we were a lot less prominent than they were with their job in the ministry of foreign affairs. Fidèle and I agreed. We didn’t know who was in the most danger, but we figured there might be more safety in numbers.

  At about eleven, our neighbors brought their three little girls to the house. Elise, the youngest one, Mélanie’s age was asleep in her father’s arms when we opened to the door. The two older children Sylvain and Philippe, who were six and eight stood next to their father, like little soldiers rubbing their eyes from sleep.

  “We will be back later once we figure out a plan,” the neighbors whispered before leaving again.

  We put the three children to bed and sat in the living room trying to figure out a plan. The radio was still on, it played intermittent classical music followed by orders. The voice kept repeating:

  “You must stay in your homes, there is a curfew in the city. Stay in your homes.” I looked at Fidèle, I saw the danger in his eyes.

  “Let’s try to get some sleep. We’ll need our wits about us when we head out in the early morning.”

  I slept fitfully and woke every other hour until the first light of dawn bathed the nightstand by our bed. Fidèle and I sprung out of bed, rushing to the radio to hear they had begun reading a list of names of the people who were ordered to be killed by the militia. Clearly, the government as we knew it had toppled and every Tutsi on this land was in danger. We needed to move fast.

  I woke the neighbors’ children first and called their parents.

  “We have to move fast. Come and get the children. We are leaving in half an hour. You should do the same.”

  I then woke my girls, starting with four-year-old Angélique, even though she was usually the one to sleep the longest.

  “Maman, where are we going?” she asked, having seen our suitcases on the floor.

  “Are we going on vacation?”

  We had traveled to Tanzania the year before and she still remembered playing in the hotel swimming pool with her sisters fondly.

  “No, sweetheart. Let’s go wake your brothers.” I woke the boys next. Michel and Christian shared a room together. In those days, I treated them like tough little soldiers because they were among the oldest. But in reality, they were so young. My boys were so young. Christian was only five years old and my oldest child, Michel was eight. Now that I have had time to think about all of those years past, I realize how tough I was on them because they were boys.

  “Get dressed, we are going on a trip,” I told them, letting them do it on their own while I went to wake my youngest last. Mélanie was the baby, she was the one who really needed to be spared from everything. I wanted my baby to be spared.

  “Where is the cake Maman? Where is the cake?” Sylvie wouldn’t stop asking questions. It was as if her mind had been holding that single thought in place from the night before.

  She tugged at my sleeve. I knelt down by her side and held her firmly.

  “Listen to me Sylvie, we are going on a serious trip now and you need to be good.” I saw my own fear reflected in her eyes. I could see myself in her and she in me. We were held by each other’s fear. She began to cry, rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding the corner of her nightgown for comfort, with the other. I pulled her into my arms and tried to reassure her.

  “Is Calimero coming with us?” That was our canary. I remember my mind registering the odd fact that we had named our yellow canary after the well-known cartoon of the lone black chicken who wore its half shell still on its head, in a family of yellow birds.

  “We can’t take the bird, sweetheart. Calimero needs to stay home. Don’t worry, everything will be OK,” I said. “Everything will be OK.” My daughter sensed that I was lying to her. I was lying to us all.

  Fidèle was making phone calls while we still had a line. I heard him in the background talking to the people we knew, while I took care of the children. Our neighbors, Jean and Marie-Antoinette came by and picked up their children and left. I wondered if I would ever see them again.

  Our rambunctious boy, Christian, came running into the room holding up his toy soldier.

  “Can I take this toy with me, Maman?” He asked. Although Christian was our middle child, not old enough to distinguish himself from the others with maturity and wisdom; not young enough to require the constant pull of a mother’s heart, he did not get swallowed by the needs of the younger children, simply because he demanded to be seen and heard and all times. Instead, this burden fell on my four-year-old, Angélique, who whose brooding nature reminded us of those summer skies when everything turns heavy and dark right before the rains liked to watch the world and hold it inside her. Most of the time, I didn’t know what Angélique was thinking or feeling. It wasn’t until later, when she and I were thrown together in the unraveling of our world that I got to understand the mystery of her.

  “No, Christian, we can’t take any toys with us. We’re going on a trip where objects can’t help us.”

  “My toy soldier can help us,” he told me before putting it down on the bed disappointed.

  When Fidèle got off the phone, his movements were sharp and abrupt reminding me that my husband was scared and there were dangers ahead.

  “That was Laurent calling from the party. He said that most of the members of the current government have been killed already. We have to leave the house at once! They will come for us. They will come for me.”

  A voice came on the radio. “Fight the inyenzi, pound them. Stand up. Keep away from lies and rumors. If they pound you with heavy artillery, bombs, go into bunkers. Take spears, clubs
, guns, swords, stones, everything, sharpen them, hack the Tutsi enemies—those cockroaches, those rivals of democracy—show that you can defend yourselves, support your soldiers.”

  The radio broadcasts referred to us, the Tutsis, as inyenzi or cockroaches. I couldn’t believe this call to arms and open hatred of our people was being broadcast on the radio.

  Fidèle and I began to move quickly. Sylvie began to cry, mumbling something about the cake. I gently took her by the hand into the kitchen and showed her the cake that still needed to be frosted on the counter.

  “You see, there it is. The cake is beautiful, you were a great helper.” Now that she could see the product of her creation, Sylvie stopped crying.

  “Are you going to write Mélanie’s name on it?” She asked still rubbing her eyes that were now red from her fit of tears. I held both her shoulders firmly and looked her into the eyes.

  “Listen Sylvie, you are my oldest girl. You’re going to have to be brave now. There is trouble in the city and we need to leave the house right away so we can be safe. We need to leave the cake behind us.” Something changed in Sylvie’s eyes, the little baby crying about a cake vanished and for the first time, I saw the wisdom in my oldest daughter.

  “Do you understand what I am saying to you?” She nodded and I knew that she would be strong. Fidèle had woken Mélanie; he was holding her in his arms. I can still see my sleeping angel resting her little head on her father’s shoulders while sucking her thumb. I still hold this image in my mind. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night screaming because their faces, their scent are vanishing from my memory. The smell of Mélanie’s neck, Fidèle’s laugh, Sylvie’s stomping feet and the way her knees dimple when she pounds the ground with her little feet in anger. Christian’s smile, revealing the gap in his two front teeth, Michel’s eyes, the seriousness in them, the old man’s gaze in his eight-year-old body. I scream sometimes because it’s all slipping away from me like water droplets slipping through my fingers.

  Michel and Christian came into the hallway carrying a small suitcase Fidèle had put together. He handed me a bag to carry.

  “Here are our papers, some money and a change of clothes. We don’t need anything else. Let’s go to Eloise and Pierre’s house. We’ll be safer there.” I took Angélique by the hand, slipped the strap of the bag across my shoulders and offered my other hand to Sylvie. My heart sank as I heard Calimero’s strange frantic chirping before I closed the door behind me. I am sorry bird. This is not the way things were supposed to be for any of us.

  When we stepped into the streets, a strange wave of quiet came over us. For a few seconds, we heard nothing and I felt like we’d just been put under a strange spell where the world had suddenly been robbed of sound. The gunshots from before had vanished and we moved quickly into the early morning streets. Fidèle kept alternating between a jog and a walk ahead of us. I watched Mélanie’s head bouncing up and down in her father’s arms as the boys ran behind him keeping up the pace. At first, I tried to keep up the pace with them but Angélique was whimpering next to me.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked her while trying to entice her to keep up the pace by pulling on her hand.

  “My foot hurts me.” I picked her up and carried her in one hand as I held Sylvie in the other—she was my brave daughter this one, running like a little soldier next to me. We passed the gates of several homes. Most of them were closed except for one house; a neighbor we did not know. The gate was wide open and in the distance I saw the shape of two bodies lying down in the garden, a small pool of blood surrounding them. I held Angélique closer to me and pulled Sylvie urging her to pick up the pace. Fidèle was gaining some distance now. Soon, he and the boys would become tiny specks on the horizon.

  Eloise and Pierre’s house was down from the home with the opened gate and the dead bodies. Suddenly, I saw two soldiers wearing khaki military clothes each carrying a machete in their hands. Others were dressed as civilians. They began running towards Fidèle while I slithered along the wall of a compound. We were still in our neighborhood, but the properties here were more expensive, larger, and occupied mostly by European nationals like Pierre and Eloise.

  I put Angélique down on the ground and motioned to both the girls to hush. They looked at me with the seriousness of ancient souls and they stayed quiet by my side waiting for further instructions. The men had disappeared and I couldn’t see where they had gone. I moved slowly along the walls of the compounds until I found an opened gate. Sylvie, Angélique and I entered the yard and hid behind large bamboo plants outside of the house of a British man I had met once at a cocktail party. He worked at the embassy. We crouched and stayed there in silence. I could hear my heart beating madly in my chest. Angélique clearly wanted to cry so I squeezed her hand and shook my head “no.” She seemed to understand. We heard some gunshots in the distance and the sounds of a dog barking incessantly. Where was Fidèle? Had he made it to Eloise’s house? We crouched through the moments of silence that followed and when the firing began again, I got up and took the girls back out on the streets. I felt safer hearing the sounds ahead because I could pinpoint the location of the danger. The men had disappeared as had Fidèle and the children. I arrived at Eloise’s house where I heard nothing. The gate was open and the dog Max, a large German shepherd greeted me nervously by sniffing me and making circles around me as we made our way to the door. Fidèle must have left the gate open for us, I thought. I pounded on the door and Eloise opened it abruptly. She was a short and plump Belgian woman with healthy red cheeks and short brown hair she wore en bataille, wild and messy.

  “Quick come in. Fidèle and the boys are already here.” I ran inside and heard Eloise calling out for Max the dog before shutting the door again.

  “The dog won’t come in, he’s frantically trying to protect us I think. Pierre is on the phone with the embassy. We still have a line. Thank God! We’ve tried calling many people who seem to have lost their lines.”

  Eloise’s usual calm and pleasant demeanor I knew so well from working in the hospital with her as a nurse had vanished. Her sure hand and her fearless nature had been replaced by the franticness that had infected every single person in the city of Kigali.

  Angélique, who had been holding her tears for so long, finally began to cry. Sylvie followed suit.

  “Here, I’ll take them downstairs into the basement with Fidèle and the boys.” Eloise took my crying girls by the hand. I stood in the middle of the lobby of this beautiful, cool expatriate house. I felt safe here in this haven of European protection. Nothing could happen to us here.

  I heard Pierre’s voice quiet and the sound of the phone being hung up. I waited for Pierre to come to me unable to move. If I could stand here forever in this moment, everything would be OK. Something in Pierre’s eyes unfastened the paralysis that had begun to set in. It was something in the paleness of his blue eyes that told me that this house was not a place of rest. I looked at the lines forming on his forehead when he began speaking to me. I had never noticed the presence of his wrinkles before.

  “The embassy said that ten Belgian soldiers have just been murdered by the Hutu-lead paramilitary group, the Interahamwe. The UN will come and get us soon.” I must have nodded. I said nothing. We’d been stripped of conventionalities. There was no room for anything but survival. I could feel the distance in Pierre’s voice. Something large and ominous stood between us. I tried to size up this invisible beast in my mind. I tried to weigh it. It was unlike anything I’d seen before, except maybe it reminded me of my college days when my teacher had said to me one day, on the last day of classes:

  “You will never be a doctor. Cockroaches should never become doctors.” This was my teacher whom I’d trusted all of the years that had come before this moment. This was a man who had instructed me. And now his true light had leaked out of him.

  Eloise walked in, carrying Mélanie in her arms. She handed her to me.

  “She’s been asking for her mommy
.” Eloise seemed almost calm again. It was as if stepping inside her own house had made her feel secure again. Maybe this house had magic powers. I had always liked working with Eloise at the hospital because she was sure of herself. This confidence had translated into certainty and a respect that never required her to carve out a territory for herself. She was the doctor, she was the woman who saved lives, and she didn’t need to remind us of who we were simply because she knew so well who she was. With the other doctors—especially the men—we, the nurses, spent so much time being humiliated into submission.

  Pierre was rubbing his hands together; and I listened to the sound of his flesh rubbing against itself, like paper being brushed.

  “I am not sure you should stay here.” Pierre said. “It’s not safe for us.” He caught himself. “It’s not safe for you, for anyone, he corrected.” Eloise’s composure was slipping again. I was meeting a new Eloise, a new Pierre. They were both crumbling away from the people I had known before.

  “What are you saying, Pierre?” She asked with fear in her voice. “The Interahamwe just killed ten Belgian soldiers. They’re killing Belgians and they’re after Tutsis. It’s not safe for any of us.” “But why shouldn’t they stay?” Eloise added.

  Pierre looked around the room like a furtive animal. He was in survival mode and nothing would stop him from doing exactly what he needed to do to stay alive. Nothing, not even his wife.

  “I’m just saying, they should go elsewhere.”

  “Like where?”

  Their voices were drifting off into the distance. This was the moment when I began learning about survival. We were all trying to do one thing and one thing only: stay alive. Even if it meant letting go of one another.