One String Guitar

by Mona de Vessel

  “Who is he?” I asked Berthe as we were making our way around the church in search of the wounded.

  “A Hutu who protested against the Hutu militia movement. Now they’re trying to kill him. The first person who wants him dead is Father Wenceslas.” We stopped by a man moaning in the corner, holding his abdomen. His hands were covered in blood. He had been visibly cut by a machete. The fresh, pink hole in his flesh oozed out with blood as he writhed on the ground. Berthe glanced at me briefly and nodded goodbye before leaning down to assist the man.

  My job that first day on the crew was to walk around, count and locate the dead. In one hour, I counted 52 people. At first, it was their faces that I noticed: the infant still in his mother’s arms as she rocked him crying, the little boy who had hemorrhaged from a machete wound next to his little sister, the grandmother who had not survived the absence of water and the strain of seeing her whole family get slaughtered in front of her. It was their faces and the sadness that floated around these bodies that I first noticed, but quickly the humanity of each one vanished leaving only corpses, masses of decaying flesh that needed to be removed from the church walls for the survival of the living.

  That night, Jean de Dieu returned to me with a handful of pills in his hands. He seemed softer and kinder than the man I had seen earlier with the others.

  “These should carry you for a few days. I will try to find more.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, as I slipped the pills in my pocket. I understood these were the key to my survival, to my children’s protection.

  On the seventh day, the church doors opened and I saw the killers again for the first time since the night Fidèle was murdered. They came into the church, a group of them like a pack of wild dogs. Their clothes were stained in blood. I slid inside one of the pews with the children and left Alice sitting nearby on the ground with her children. I thought that if I acted more like a churchgoer than a refugee, I’d have a better chance of surviving.

  Everything happened so quickly. I remember seeing Father Wenceslas walking alongside with the militia, talking and smiling seemingly undisturbed by the chaos around him. The men came to the front of the church and began calling out names.

  “Alphonse Ngendahimana” they said incessantly. They walked up and down the center of the aisle looking into each pew. “Alphonse Ngendahimana.”

  I felt safer knowing they were looking for a man. All of the men around me had a look of terror on their faces as they starred at the ground.

  “We have killed your wife,” one of them said, “and now we will kill you.” One of the killers walked by our pew and stopped in front of Alice. I held my breath. I could see her, still crouching on the ground with her children, trying to hide in every way she could. The man stopped and then turned and suddenly his eyes were on me. There is a saying my grandmother used to say: “When you stare at a man’s back, you’re calling the devil out of his shoes.” I’d been starring at him and now his gaze had found mine. I looked down at the ground and waited for the moment to pass. I could still remember his machete dangling by the side of his body. In the front of the church, I heard them again, calling out “Alphonse Ngendahimana.” When I looked up again, the killer had continued making his way to the front of the church.

  “We will be back for the rest of you. All of you inyenzi will die soon. All of you!” And they were gone again.

  Later that afternoon, whispers traveled through the church about the death of two women who had been killed in a house nearby. Later, when I made my way to the Caritas office for food, I saw their bodies, thrown out on the street, like old sacks of rice. That night, I heard the howling of wild dogs fighting for the dead of the city, and I knew the killers would return.

  Chapter 10 – Francine

  Every week, Father Wenceslas walked the length of the pews, his flak jacket tightly secured around his chest, as he selected girls to make his own. When he got to my pew, just inches away from me, he nodded in my direction and one of his men who always walked with him around the church, pulled me from the pew.

  “Get in line!” he barked, as I stood in line with a series of other young women and girls. Jean de Dieu who happened to be nearby when this happened went up to Father Wenceslas and began speaking to him in a hushed tone. I could not discern what the men were saying to each other, but I knew that Father Wenceslas was not pleased with what Jean de Dieu was saying. When the two men were done talking, Father Wenceslas barked a new order.

  “Let her go!”

  And just like that, Father Wenceslas’ guard pulled me out of the line and shoved me back into my pew next to my children. I don’t know how Jean de Dieu managed to convince Father Wenceslas from sparring me but I knew I would have to pay for this temporary reprieve later.

  We spent the morning collectively waiting for fate to turn on its head. Everyone in the church knew the killers were coming back. By noon, the sun was searing and I stepped out into the courtyard to look at the sky. I could begin to smell the stench of the dead women’s bodies left to rot on the streets from yesterday’s killings. I saw their corpses drying out in the sun, and I thought about my own flesh and my own bones and what fragile vessels we all were.

  Alice began to crack on the fatal day of the killers’ return to the church. I watched her as she sat with the children in the darkest corner of the church. She was holding Devota and Sophie in her arms and rocking them back and forth. The children looked like oversized infants in her arms. Alice, like all of us was shrinking every day; we were all getting a little smaller with each moment. I knelt by her side and tried to comfort her but she ignored me. She was whispering a song to her children while rocking them.

  “Alice? Listen to me! You can’t give up! This is not the time to give up.” When I try to think back on that day, all I remember is Alice’s kindness when she gave me the bread on the morning I arrived from the streets of Kigali with the children.

  Everything happened quickly that morning. I try to remember every detail. Sylvie, Christian and Angélique were sitting in the corner of the church with Alice and her children when I returned from the courtyard. I try to remember Sylvie but every time I try to bring forth her little face, she slips into the darkness of that day. Sylvie was my oldest daughter. She fell in the cracks between her siblings. Older than Mélanie, Angélique, and Christian younger than Michel, she was never noticed. I know this now. I know this in my heart, and no matter how I try, I can never undo the past.

  They walked into the church when the sun was still high in the sky. I remember the sound of our collective fear when they walked in. A low hush, a whisper of swallowed terror as we each tried to find strength to face what we already knew. I saw him among them. He was standing there in the middle of a group of men. It was him I noticed first. His eyes. The way he scanned the room like a predator. The way he let his machete dangle at the edge of his fingers. When I saw him in the distance, I quickly closed my eyes and prayed that Yellow Shirt’s eyes would not find mine. And in that moment of communion with the Lord, I prayed our lives would be sparred.

  “Everybody stand!” The oldest among them ordered from the front of the church. Alice remained knotted in her corner holding onto her children. I grabbed hold of my own and whispered to Alice to stand.

  “Get up! You must get up Alice!” I tried to grab hold of her hand but she was holding on tightly to Sophie on the ground. Devota looked up. I could see that she wanted to get up; she could sense the danger around her but she did not want to abandon her mother and sister. Hundreds of people around me were pulling themselves off the ground. The old, the sick, the ailing, all were pulled up from the ground of this holy house.

  Wenceslas stood among them. He did not speak. He just scanned the breadth of his congregation, admiring his flock. Among the pack of men gathered at the front of the church, I noticed a boy, he couldn’t have been older than twelve. He was still a child, but in his eyes, I saw something raw and ancient, something wild and dark gnawing away at him.
Just as I watched him, he brandished his machete up in the air triumphantly and smiled. In the hatred in his eyes, I saw pleasure. The oldest pulled out a list from his pocket and began reading names out loud.

  “Viateur Ruzindana, Antoine Kabaragasa, Olivier Bazimaziki, Jose Bikindi, Jean-Aimé Gatabazi, Victor Higaniro, Fredéric Kanzayire, Emmanuel Karugarama, Augustin Gafaranga, Albert Mutaga, Albert Bugingo, Diogene Sekalimbwa”…the list went on and on. No one moved. Not one person stepped forward. But the man with the list continued to read the names out loud as his friends walked around every corner of the church. This roll call was part of the torture the killers had organized for us. They knew that no one would step forward to be killed, but most of them knew the faces of the people they were calling. They knew their faces, they knew their names and they were going to pull them out of the crowd to kill them. This strategy was a way to show the living, the people who would be spared that one day they would be next.

  Alice began to shake next to me. I could see her body rattling like an old tooth, getting ready to fall. I wanted to calm her down. I wanted to keep her quiet but I was afraid to move because I did not want to be seen. The militia soldiers liked to travel at random through the church. No corner was spared from being covered by roaming eyes. I knew that they would come our way at some point—it was only a matter of time. If we were to survive, Alice would have to be quiet. The young boy of twelve was harassing a man at the front of the church. He was gesturing with his machete to step out of the pews but the man was arguing with him.

  “I am not Olivier Bazimaziki. My name is Jean. My name is Jean.”

  The boy was getting angry now. I could see that he was getting ready to snap and I closed my eyes and began to pray in silence. Next to me, I heard Alice whimpering in the corner. They had come for a man the day before and now she was convinced that they had come for her instead. In the silence of my prayer, I asked the good Lord to give Alice courage and the strength to be quiet.

  While I prayed, the killers had lined up a handful of men they had pulled at random from the crowds at the front of the church. The man who had argued with the militia boy was among them. When I closed my eyes again, they were all taken away to the courtyard.

  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name… ten shots sounded outside. Alice began to cry. Two men pulled away from a group at the front and made their way in her direction. Michel and Sylvie were hiding behind me. Angélique stood by my side quietly staring off into space. I held her hand as it rested loosely in mine. When I looked up at the men approaching, I saw that one of them was Yellow Shirt. I looked down at the ground. I wondered where Jean de Dieu was. I wanted him to come out magically and save me. I wanted someone to save me.

  “What is your name?” I did not know who they were addressing. I could smell them, alcohol and the sharp metallic smell of blood. I looked up and saw his eyes on me for the first time since that night. He briefly glanced at me and looked down at Alice and repeated his question:

  “What is your name?” Her whimpering had stopped, but the children were now both crying. My children were quiet. I could feel them behind me, pressing their little bodies against mine. I could feel Angélique’s hand in mine.

  “Marie. My name is Marie Kayiranga.” This seemed to satisfy Yellow Shirt because now his eyes returned to me; he studied my face for a long time. I remembered the way he had torn into me; the way he had shot Fidèle at close range, like a dog.

  “And yours? What’s yours?” I looked down at the ground because I could not bear his gaze. When I looked up to answer, I knew that he did not recognized me.

  “Josée Mukamana.” I took the name of my neighbor I’d heard on the radio as one of the dead on the first night we had fled.

  Yellow Shirt did not like weakness. He did not like people who loved. He had shot Fidèle when the children had run to him. Remembering this, I let go of Angélique’s hand next to mine. Caught in the memory, I let go of her hand and I knew that I had made a mistake. I knew that this simple gesture would break my daughter. This man, Yellow Shirt, the same man who had taken the life of my husband, the same man who’d killed something off in my womb, would then take the last remaining semblance of safety from my daughter that day. I knew in that instant that Angélique had just lost a piece of herself. I felt her standing there next to me, vanishing. I thought of the words of my mother when she told me that there were two things she could always predict. One was the first sign of rain, and the second was the fields that would never yield life again. My mother could always feel when a field was dead; they were like “holes” she said making a circle with her fingers. This is how my daughter Angélique felt that morning standing next to me, like a field that would never produce life ever again.

  The killers rattled off a second roll call. They pulled more men out of the crowd at random and tied them to each other by their shirts.

  “This will keep them in a straight line,” one of the militia announced. The others laughed. The boy with the bloody machete brandished his weapon in the air again.

  “Oh yeah? This is what I use to keep them in a straight line!” More laughter.

  The boy was their mascot; they were proud of him. Wenceslas laughed with the militia but he never spoke a word. He followed them like a hungry dog on a crowded street, and, when they stopped and pulled men out, he simply watched and said nothing. In the crowd, I saw Joseph, the young man from the cleaning crew. I tried to stare at Joseph for as long as I could. I tried to press his face into my memory forever. Someone should remember the dead, I thought. Someone should remember us. And before I had a chance to pray for him, he was taken outside with the others and shot. Today, when I think of Joseph, it isn’t his face I remember but his laugh. The way he laughed at Jean de Dieu when he said that whoever didn’t finish his assigned work by the end of the day would have to beat him at poker that night to get away from having a heavier workload. I remember his laugh, and I remember his dignity when he was taken away to be killed.

  The call lasted until four o’clock that afternoon. We stood in the hot church watching our men get carried outside to be killed. They left as quickly as they came, and when they did, I heard the cries of wailing women released into the afternoon air like songs of the damned.

  The men stayed long enough next to us to see that they had won. They did not need to kill us to show us that they were the strong and we were the weak.

  When they left, I looked down at Angélique and saw that she was crying in silence. I took her in my arms and held her closely, but her body was stiff.

  That night, Jean de Dieu came to me. I saw that something had changed in the way he looked at me. There was something new in his eyes, something fearless and loose, and for a moment, I wondered if he was the same man I had met a few days before.

  “Come with me outside. You need to see this.” I left the children with Alice and told her I would return shortly. Outside the sun was still hot and fierce and when I looked away from the sky again, I saw them there, piled up like rocks in a quarry. The bodies of 120 boys and men were tossed one on top of the other slowly rotting in the heat. I felt my body curl onto itself; my stomach turned and I leaned forward and vomited bile and saliva.

  “We need to bury them. Tonight, I will go to Wenceslas in his office and speak to him about permission to bury the bodies. Something twisted inside of me when he said this. The confidence with which he said: “I will go to Wenceslas.” Like they were dogs from the same pack. Jean de Dieu did not notice my eyes on him, the way I was dissecting him.

  “Tonight, we will have a meeting at the back of the church and we will talk about burying the bodies.” As I listened to his voice, I wondered if the man I had chosen as my protector was not one of the killers.

  Chapter 11 – Francine

  The mind can be easily tricked into believing what it wants. I wanted Jean de Dieu to be a man of protection and quickly, I forgot the strangeness in his eyes and the camaraderie he seemed to share with Wencesl
as.

  The first night after the killings, Jean de Dieu and I began to sleep near each other. We said nothing about the killings, nothing about his absence during the roll call. And I tried to forget what I saw in his eyes when he showed me the bodies in the courtyard. We helped each other around the church. He was in charge of the dead, I was in charge of the living; we worked for hours in silence. For two days, Jean de Dieu buried bodies around the church with the help of six men. By nightfall, I would come to meet him in the courtyard before the closing of the doors to see the pile of bodies that still needed to be buried. No matter how hard Jean de Dieu and the men were working, the dead never seemed to diminish.

  I almost liked working with Jean de Dieu like this, with his shadow by my side. The children were calmer now that I had a man around to protect us. Alice still sat in the corners of the church, unwilling to move for hours on end. Every night, I’d bring her a little cup full of rice for her and the children, forcing her to hold on.

  For days, I was afraid Jean de Dieu would force me to be his “wife,” that he would force himself on me. But his presence made me believe the killers would stay away from me now. The only physical contact I shared with Jean de Dieu was his touch when he cleaned out my wound and changed my makeshift bandage created with the clothes of the dead boiled in the dispensary. My arm was healing slowly. The deep gouge was closing on itself like a knot in the trunk of a tree.

  I didn’t see Father Wenceslas for three days, and on the third day, after the killings, he came to the front of the church and led mass. I’d begun hating these moments of worship. I’d close my eyes and pray silently in my head, hoping the dark forces around us could not see me. In his homily, Father Wenceslas told us to “pray that the Lord would forgive the inyenzi for bringing so much misery onto themselves.”

  After mass, I was getting ready to go to the Caritas office when I saw Wenceslas pulling Jean de Dieu aside by the front of the church. The two looked in the direction of the church doors and Wenceslas pointed to the courtyard and the two men shook hands and then they were gone. I wanted to talk to someone, I needed a voice other than madness to reason my way out. I knew that Alice had slipped away into a place darker than my own and with her absence I had lost a friend altogether. Who were my allies? I looked at the children beside me. They were ghosts, silent and still, beings of light that hovered around me in this hell. I needed to find the plump woman Berthe. Suddenly, Sylvie tugged at my sleeve.