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One String Guitar

Page 11

by Mona de Vessel


  Chapter 9 – Francine

  As we made our way inside the church, I could see Sophie and her children walking briskly, as if she were trying to win a prize. What could we win in this altered house of the Lord? I kept the children in front of me, at all times. I needed to see them, to know that they still existed, that I could still protect them. This was a holy place. But were we safe?

  A man grabbed me. I jumped. I did not want anyone to ever touch me again. He let go of my arm.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t have to pay to get in. Sometimes, they make people pay,” he said simply. I could smell death on him. I could smell it everywhere around me. He stood huddled in the corner, his arm wrapped in a soiled bandage watching me as I walked away with the children towards the crowded pews.

  There were people everywhere; some were jammed in the pews, or sitting on the concrete floor, while others were standing. Children made their way around crowds of people. Some even played, forgetting for a moment that their lives were teetering on an invisible edge. I searched for a place where we could finally rest. My eyes caught an open spot on the side of the pews, where I sat on the ground with the children. I tugged gently at Alice in front of me and indicating to her where I had decided to settle. She followed me. I liked the idea of being hidden from sight of people entering the church. I didn’t know who could—or would—make their way inside during the day.

  Searching for food to feed my children became my first fixation. This place of worship would become a place of obsession, a place where I would carry out my life’s mission: to save my remaining children, even at the price of my own life.

  I overheard a woman and her two children, young adolescents talking around us.

  “He has food in the supplies store. I heard there is more food in there than anyone could ever eat.” Nearby, another boy with a swollen eye leaned over and said:

  “It’s been two days since the last distribution of biscuits, so maybe we’ll get some tomorrow.” Before I had a chance to ask them a question, a man entered the church and voices rose all around us. At first, I thought that the man making his way to the front of the church by the altar was a militia soldier and I wanted to scream. I grabbed hold of the children and held them tightly in front of me. But the man walked over to the pulpit and began to conduct mass.

  “That’s Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka,” Alice whispered. “I know him.” I looked at the man standing at the pulpit as he held his arms opened wide. He was wearing a bulletproof jacket and when I leaned forward to see him clearly, I saw that he had a pistol attached to his waist.

  “Let us pray.” I bowed my head in silence and gave myself over to the Lord. I was glad to see that masses were still conducted in the church. Silently, I prayed for all of us here, and for the priest guiding us home. Father Wenceslas’ voice rose around us, as people stirred nervously. Some were praying while others simply stood listening to his words.

  “This is a day to rejoice.” His words filled the church with a trailing echo.

  “It is a day to rejoice for we are all still living.”

  A knot formed in my throat as I watched these people standing around me, seemingly bored or unwilling to pray. Obviously, there was not one pious soul between these walls. How could they stand and watch this man of the cloth and not give themselves over to prayer?

  “But we must look into our hearts and see the truth. Those of you who are Tutsis are standing before God for judgment. You are all accomplices of the Rwandan Patriotic Front army or RPF and are responsible for the violence taking place outside of these walls. You Tutsi traitors need to come forward and make yourselves known, so that this country can be free of cockroaches.”

  Father Wenceslas’ words hit me. I thought of Yellow Shirt and his breath on me. I thought of his blows to my body. I looked around for a sign that maybe I had misheard, but people seemed accustomed to this speech. Some were shifting anxiously; others looked down in shame. I saw a handful of Hutus standing on the sides of the church nodding their heads in agreement. Suddenly I understood why they locked the church doors at night. We were prisoners here. We were held here during the day by the fear of the killings, by the memory of the Interahamwe militia traveling the city with their machetes, and we were held captive at night by the confinement of these gates. I wanted to run, but I knew there was nowhere for me to go. Alice turned around and looked at me. She had tears in her eyes. And for the first time since I had first laid my eyes on her, I realized that she, too, had lost so much already.

  Father Wenceslas was a still a young man. In fact, everyone who knew him called him the young one because he liked to use that expression to refer to himself in his sermons. He was a healthy man, with a large, well-fed body. I did not recognize the signs of a priest in this man. He had long ago given up the habit of wearing a stiff flak jacket at all times.

  After the sermon, he left and retired to his sitting room adjoining the church. Voices rumbled. People were whispering about what had just happened. We could not speak freely because there were Hutus from Gisozi around us. These were men who had run away from their province to escape the RPF forces that were fighting for the protection of the Tutsis. There were enemies among us in this church. I reached over and tapped the shoulder of the boy with the puffy eye who had whispered earlier about the biscuits. He had a tall forehead that made him look intelligent and two narrow eyes that closed in on the grief around us.

  “What did you say about biscuits?” I asked him.

  “Father Wenceslas gives us biscuits every two or three days. But no water. You have to pay for water. If you’re a woman, you have a better chance to get it.” He looked away, as if he had seen something on me that made him wince.

  “But there is a lot of food in the supplies store. It’s just that Wenceslas won’t give any to the Tutsis.” He looked up again and starred at my arm. “That looks pretty bad. There is a man who walks around sewing people up. I think he’s a doctor. You might want to try to find him soon.” The boy was right. My hands had gone numb at the wrist. I knew this meant I would lose the use of my limb completely.

  Devota and Sophie began tugging at Alice’s sleeve.

  “Mama, I’m hungry. I’m hungry, mama.” I felt shame move through me as I remembered that I had asked her for food and she had given it to me. I wondered if she now regretted her generosity. I looked around us and could see the different pockets of people around us. There were many wounded among the hundreds of people sitting and lying on the ground. Many were men; some were small children who lay quietly in the torpor of starvation.

  I knew that if we were going to survive, I would have to develop a plan, a strategy that would make me indispensable to those who controlled these walls. The children and I stayed close in silence as others around us wept, whispered, cried and waited. I only remember drifting off into sleep, fitful and shallow like the small streams that formed during the rainy season.

  The next day, I woke up at dawn and welcomed the arrival of morning. I liked to wake before the opening of the doors because I could prepare for the day ahead. With the beginning of this new day came a sense of the unknown. I never knew what or who would make its way past the doors. As each morning and night stretched, the stench of our bodies grew worse with the increasing places where people had grown sick or children had relieved themselves in corners without anyone seeing them.

  Christian was asleep next to me on the ground in the pew. I watched him, my little man. The only man of this family left standing. His face reminded me of his father’s. The way his forehead curved like a half moon at the base of his hairline. I watched his breathing body. Watching my remaining children breathe was the only pleasure I had left on this earth. If I could, I would make them invisible from the world. I would contain them in a bubble; I would wrap them in a veil away from the dangers and the hatred that lurked all around us.

  Angélique woke up first. She stirred, opened her eyes and sat up quietly next to me on the pew. She didn’t speak, did
n’t smile. She simply looked at me with such sadness, I almost gasped. I should have worried about her then, but I didn’t. She was alive and this was a blessing. How could I worry about the way she was living? The way we were all living? This was not a luxury we could have afforded then. Our mission each day was to stay alive. Stay alive and witness another opening of the church doors. But quietly, I knew that I hadn’t heard Angélique’s voice since the day we hid in Pierre and Eloise’s house. Secretly, I knew that my daughter had stopped talking altogether. Planted in the middle of our battle to survive, I could not worry about details like Angélique’s silence. My children were breathing and this was all that mattered in that moment.

  The doors of the church opened shortly before eight. I know because I wanted to go to the Caritas office behind the church and ask the mother superior for some food but the doors were still closed. Alice had told me that she’d stood outside of the convent doors with Devota and Sophie and received bread the day before we arrived. I told Christian to watch out for his sisters and our friend Alice and her children. He nodded seriously like a little man, the way his father used to nod when asked to do something around the house. When I saw Fidèle in Christian’s face, I looked away quickly. Outside, in the courtyard, more refugees were waiting to enter the church. I tried not to look at the misery around me. I tried not to see the lines of women waiting to enter with their children. Women like me, women like Alice. I did not want to see any more suffering. I thought about how many of us were here already. I thought about how many people could this good house of the Lord contain? Would there come a point when we would have to turn people away?

  When I arrived, the mother superior was already outside the Caritas office handing out some food to a line of refugees. I stood in line and waited for my turn. I thought about Abbé Wenceslas and tried to understand how he could keep food to himself when he had enough to feed all of us. I remembered the young boy’s eyes when he alluded to women getting water from Wenceslas in exchange for sexual favors.

  The mother superior was a serious woman with gentle eyes and a pragmatic spirit. She divided the food in even quantities to be handed out daily and when that portion was gone; she would go back up and return to the confines of her office, no matter how many people were still standing in line. That day, I was among the lucky ones, I was fourth in line and I knew that I would get my turn on this day. I watched the man standing in front of me. His time on this earth had almost run out, and for a moment, I envied him. I envied his life secured behind him, his years trailing behind him in memories that could not be taken away from him. Later, I’d learn that the past was all I had, all I had to carry me forward. I watched the old man inching forward as he leaned on a cane in his right hand, shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t take my eyes away from his hair, the color of the sky right before heavy rains. He turned to face me. His eyes looked almost blue, with the clouding around his pupils. He didn’t have to speak. We stood in silence, he and I looking into each other’s eyes and we both knew that our lives, his and mine, and everyone else’s in these church walls had been altered forever.

  When my turn came, the mother superior went to scoop rice for me and my children but I had no can or bowl to contain it. She smiled.

  “Hold out your hands, tomorrow you will come back with a can,” she said to me.

  Within days, I had found a routine within the chaos. I always woke the children at dawn, no matter what happened. I didn’t want us to be caught by the dangers of the opening doors. In the afternoons, I forced myself to walk around the inside of the church in search of the man with the needle.

  I met Jean de Dieu on the third day after I arrived. I spent two nights like the first and on the third day, I knew I needed a man to protect me. He had a good face. That’s why I chose him. I say I chose even though he saw me first. In my village we always say that even if the man asks the woman to marry him, it is the woman who makes the real choice.

  I chose him on account of his eyes. Something in them said he had never killed before. I was making my way around the church, watching people sleeping in the corners, playing cards on overturned boxes, women nursing their babies when I heard him.

  “Bonjour,” he said, smiling. I hadn’t seen a real smile in so long it almost scared me. Reminded me of the smiles on the soldiers’ faces when they were drunk, when they laughed after they came back from the killings. Only Jean de Dieu’s smile was different. There was no laughter in his eyes, just a quiet peace. Like he was tired and he’d just found a place to rest. I think that’s what brought us together. Our need for a place to rest, a quiet human place to put our hearts down.

  “Bonjour,” I answered simply. He had his eyes on me and I remembered my vow to find a man for protection.

  “You need to let me help you with that arm. It looks bad. Let me see.” He moved so close to me so quickly, I took two steps back, instinctively.”

  “I won’t hurt you.” He said extending his hand toward me. Like a furtive animal in need of human food, I let him approach me again.

  “You might lose the arm,” he said finally after examining the deep gauge.

  “I know. I’m a nurse.”

  “Well, then you also know that this is infected. Yes?”

  I nodded.

  “You may not care about yourself, you may not even want to live anymore but if you want to help your children through this, you’re going to have to let me help you.” I knew he was right.

  That night, he came to find me in the middle of the church where I was staying with the children. He had brought his medical kit with him. It was barely that, a few limited supplies he must have stolen or traded somewhere.

  “I know, this isn’t much, but it helps me get some people through.” He lit a lighter and heated a surgical needle. The glow of the flame lit the small space around us and then darkness returned.

  “The problem is there is no light around here and I’ll have to see if I can sew you up in spite of the infection.”

  “Here, take this.” He said to me handing me a pill. “It’s an antibiotic. I’ll come back with more. I wish I had something to give you for the pain, but that’s something you’re going to have to endure.”

  “I don’t care about pain,” I told him. I saw the strange gateway of his gaze that had suddenly opened in front of me. I knew he understood.

  “I lost my wife,” he paused, “and my children also.” We said nothing while he unwrapped my arm completely. Even in the darkness I could see the white of the bone exposed by the open wound. Unfazed, Jean de Dieu went on with our conversation.

  “Tonight, the moon is almost full. If you come with me to that far corner, the light will help us with the procedure.” Noticing my glance towards my sleeping children, he said, “They will be fine. They are sleeping. There is no use in waking them for this.” He said again calmly. I was drawn to his even-keeled energy. How tranquil he was in the midst of all the chaos around us. We made our way through the mass of sleeping bodies to the far corner of the church where a small ray of moonlight was filtering through the window above.

  “I used to have a family too. Now they’re gone.” He said looking down at the ground. For a moment I thought he was looking at the wound or my arm but instead he was looking away. That’s when I knew that we both carried shame.

  “You still have a chance with this arm,” he said piercing my skin with the needle. I could feel the sharp pain cutting through me, only a barrier in my chest kept me from crying out.

  “The infection is the worse part but I think I can get you more pills for it. I will come back with them tomorrow. The bottom line is, you will have to choose to live.” When he said this, Jean de Dieu held my hand in his and I could see the glow of the moon above reflected in the moisture in his eyes. “It all comes down to a choice in the end.” I held my breath when he said this. I knew that what he was saying was true. If I didn’t choose to live for my children, they would never survive.

  The next day, I saw Jean de
Dieu sitting on an overturned box, talking to people who answered him in a low voice. I walked up to the group, but their voices stopped as soon as I approached them. Jean de Dieu looked up at me cooly as if we had never spoken before.

  “Do you want to help?” He asked inviting me to join their meeting. I had no idea what I wanted except maybe to be a part of a movement that connected us all to survival.

  I nodded and sat down on the ground next to them. I learned that the meetings were held daily to identify and post people with skills around the church. That day, I became a part of the cleaning crew. A group of us were assigned to clean out death and sickness in the dark corners of the church. The biggest problems we had, aside from finding a steady source of food, was getting rid of the dead bodies and finding ways to help the wounded. Berthe, a corpulent woman in her fifties was assigned to the medical crew. She had been a nurse at the hospital in Kigali and for a moment, I wondered if she knew Eloise. Where was Eloise now? Drinking tea on a cool, rainy afternoon in Brussels, musing about the horrors in Africa? Where were all of the whites who had left us just days ago?

  I thought about Jean de Dieu’s face, his features. What is he? Could he be one of them? Jean de Dieu was in charge of organizing crews of people to take care of others. When I first saw him, I wondered whether he was a Hutu in the way people moved around him like they were avoiding a wide hole in the road. Everyone listened but most seemed to fear him.

  I liked to be around Berthe. I found comfort in the way she moved with grace in her plump body. I imagined that her dimpled hands could save us all from the death we could all smell around us.

 

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