“Christian!” I grabbed hold of my boy; I grabbed hold of the stillness in his limbs and rocked him like I’d seen mothers rocking their babies in stillness.
Nothing prepares a mother for the death of her children. Nothing that has ever been written, nothing that has ever been said can carry a woman during that moment.
I carried Christian back to my other children. Somehow, it made sense to bring them all together. We needed to be joined again one last time. Michel ran to me as I carried Christian back and placed him on the ground. In that moment, when Michel understood that he would never hear his brother’s voice again, he remained very quiet and very still. The girls did not scream or cry or say a word. They simply stood stoically, like little statues. But when I placed Christian down in the corner of the church, where I had wanted him to be all along, Sylvie burst into tears, letting the damn of her grief finally break. Angélique simply looked at Christian and placed her hand gently on his small body. Christian seemed so small now that he was gone. My heart burst remembering the shock and the fear in his eyes the day before when I shook him and yelled at him about disappearing earlier. Now he was gone for good.
We gathered the bodies out in the courtyard and counted them for burial: 39. I did not want to bury my son in this land of evil, but I prayed that we would bury him quickly, and not let him rot in the sun like the bodies I’d seen only days ago.
In the afternoon, Jean de Dieu appeared again with two of the men I’d seen the night before in our hideaway. I watched him digging and opening up the earth with the bluntness of each blow of the shovel. He said nothing to me when he saw Christian’s body among the others. He simply looked at me with the same kind of matter of fact simplicity as Wenceslas the night before when he told me I could do nothing for my children. He had been right. In the end, this man of the cloth, this man of darkness had spoken the truth.
By dusk, 23 bodies had found the earth, leaving the others waiting for morning. Among them was my boy, Christian.
Berthe came to find me right at the closing of the doors. I had not seen her since the night before, when she seemed to vanish. Her eyes were as sad as they had been the night before.
“Francine. You must come with me. I have something to show you.” Our days in the church had stripped us of the formalities of human interaction. “Hellos and goodbyes” were luxuries of the living, luxuries of humanity that had no place here. I followed Berthe to the northern corner of the church where many of the wounded had been placed for easier care. I wanted to ask her about the night before. I wanted to tell her that I knew she had been a prisoner of privilege, just like me. But I knew that neither of us would say a word, as we were gagged by our shame of having survived.
“They’ve been calling for you since I found them.” Berthe said pointing to Devota and Sophie sitting closely together on the ground. Instantly, I knew what this meant. I knew that Alice was dead.
“Sophie, Devota.” I said kneeling by their side. I had no words for them. I had lost language now that Christian was gone. They wrapped their small arms around my neck and held on tightly, as if without my hold, they would drift away into raging waters. I held them in silence. And when I turned around, I saw that Berthe was gone. In one moment, I had lost a child and gained two others. The world was spinning out of orbit. This was all a grand comedy, a joke of sorts and I was its object.
In the morning, we continued the burial of the others. Wenceslas never came to conduct mass, and for this I was grateful. Instead, we conducted makeshift burials with collective prayers that rose above the stench of the bodies. We each prayed for the dead. We prayed for each other and ourselves. We prayed, not for protection, but for dignity, for swift blows, a quick death, a decent burial, and the ability to erase all that we knew.
Two weeks went by without any killings inside the church walls.
On the fifteenth day after burying my son, I woke up with heaviness in my breasts and nausea tugging at my stomach. I thought of Yellow Shirt and his stink. In the darkness of the church, before the doors were opened, I stood quickly to find a place to vomit. Now I understood how easy it was for people to soil the church. I understood how children could relieve themselves in corners, how the sick could bleed anywhere, how pregnant women like myself could vomit in dark corners.
I had been pregnant five times in my life and recognizing the signs of life in my body was something I knew without fail. I could feel the weight of my breasts, the openness of all of my senses, the heaviness in my limbs. That morning, only hours before the opening of the doors, I knew I was carrying life inside of me.
The smell of the church I had previously accepted was now making me sick. Mornings were the worse, the time before the opening of the doors when the air was thick with its rancid smell of sweat and feces, the smell of tears and fear.
**
I met a new arrival named Rose on the fifteenth day. The moment they opened the doors, I saw her. I was struck by her beauty, by the chiseled lines of her cheeks, by the path of her jaw, the almond of her eyes. Beauty was rare among these walls. I knew she was new in the way she scanned the church. Her drawn face riddled with fear and exhaustion. Something in the way she moved made me want to help her. Maybe it was because Alice had gone and I had lost a friend, maybe it was because I saw myself in the way Rose shielded her two young boys, with her arms as she entered the church. I could feel her anguish as she tried to protect her children with her body.
“Do you need food?” I asked her. She nodded in gratitude. I took her to the Caritas office where we stood in line to receive a ration of food.
“I come from St. Paul’s church,” she said. The militia raided the church two days ago and killed 60 people in one night.” Without knowing the details, I knew her story by heart. I was well versed in the sounds of machete against bone. I was an expert in recognizing the reek of fear in the air. I knew the way the drive to abandon hope, except for the push to protect our children who were left. As we stood in line, I saw that Rose’s clothing was torn in places and that she had been spattered with blood. I averted my eyes.
“The Tutsi army, the RPF came to rescue people from being massacred at St. Paul’s church. I was hiding outside with a group of others when they came. People inside were so scared they wouldn’t trust the RPF who was trying to help them and they never opened the door to safety. I ran with the others when I had the chance and came here.”
I wanted to tell Rose that this place wasn’t much safer. That I had lost my son. I wanted to tell her that Wenceslas would be the most dangerous one of them all, that her beauty would not serve her here. But I said nothing.
“The army took us to Sainte Famille. They said it would be safer for us here.”
Rose seemed to understand my silence and she held her children closer as we made our way through the food line. Killing a survivor’s hope, her drive to wake, to feed herself, to pray, is worse than killing her body. I could not find the courage to warn Rose about this place she was calling a sanctuary.
At night, I had dreams of Yellow Shirt, the same man who had taken the life of my husband, the same man whose child I was carrying in my womb. In my dream, he was standing in the half-light of the checkpoint, wearing nothing but a machete in his hands. The blade dangled on the edge of his fingers, casting shadows against the roughness of the cement floor. I was watching him in the corner of the checkpoint. I was alone. The children had been taken away. I knew this, in the weight of their absence. In the way my longing for them took up space at the center of my chest. I was not afraid to see him. I was not afraid to be seen, for I had lost everything and the blood in my body was the only thing left to spill. The way the shifting light made the shadows dance around us. Was it the moon or the half-glow of a lantern? I did not know. I heard the rustling in the distance. Wind, brushing up against the desolate grass on the edge of the city. Red soil rose and flew like magic dust. I could smell him. The stench of his breath, whisky and something coarser, the transformation of flesh a
gainst earth, the return of the body to its source. Decay. I could smell him now. His face eaten by shadows, I persisted in my discernment. My eyes slid along the surface of his body, like a hand on the slimy flesh of a tilapia. His skin was flaccid. I knew this because I had touched it. I remembered the touch of my fingers on his flesh. In the dream, I remembered this. The lines forming along the angles of his body where the flesh meets the bone. It was cold and wet around us. I could smell the rains past the stench of his flesh. April rains are violent, and soon the red of the earth would surely rise and we would all be swallowed.
Chapter 12 – Francine
Rose’s beauty gave her the dignity and the hope for survival we had all already lost somehow. I’d lost that hope on the day my husband died. I’d lost it on the day Mélanie disappeared in the distance, leaving only a blurred image of her tiny body in my memory. I’d lost it on the night I held Christian’s lifeless body in my arms and rocked him in stillness. But Rose believed. And it was her faith that kept me by her side.
I was not the only one who saw Rose’s beauty. Everyone could see it, everyone including Father Wenceslas. On the third day after she arrived, Rose and I were dozing with the children in the afternoon when I woke up abruptly sensing danger by our side. I looked up and saw him standing there. His flak jacket tightly securing his heart. He stood at our feet stared at us in silence. I knew what he wanted in the moment he arrived. I knew it in the way he held his body like a predator trying to avoid scaring his prey. I knew it in the way of his silence. I sat up and Rose opened her eyes when she felt me move next to her.
“Hello Father Wenceslas,” she said rubbing her eyes. Wenceslas smiled, eerily and walked away again. I imagined his impatience in wanting to collect the prize of Rose’s intact innocence.
I felt sick. I did not know if it was the nausea of the pregnancy or the fear, but I just had enough time to lunge forward away from Rose and the children and vomit on the dirty cement floor of the church.
That night, Wenceslas conducted mass. I knew that his need to hide behind the shield of the Lord only meant more trouble was on the way. I scanned the church in search of Jean de Dieu. I wanted to know where he stood during mass; I’d lied to myself believing that knowing his whereabouts would tell me something about his character.
“My brothers and my sisters.” Rose sat up out of respect for the holy words spoken. I wanted to warn her, I wanted to tell her about the presence of evil among the walls of this false house of the Lord, but I did not want to kill the faith she still visibly carried within. Also, I secretly knew that I depended on Rose’s hope for my own survival.
“Let us pray together my brothers and sisters.” Wenceslas closed his eyes. Rose began to pray solemnly with him.
“Let us pray for all of those who died needlessly last night. Let us pray for the souls of the traitors, for the soul of the cockroaches who tried to raid St. Paul’s church last night, causing people to die.”
Rose looked at me in disbelief. I could see her trying to make sense of what she was hearing. She looked at me with a look of terror. I remained quiet. Rose had been at St. Paul’s. She’d seen the militia raid the church time and time again, the way we’d been raided here. She had hid outside with her children when the RFP Tutsi army tried to rescue people inside the church. The truth had just been rewritten by Wenceslas.
“As you know, many of you will be evacuated from the church by the UN forces UNAMIR. They have told me they will come and gather the men and women of honest worth. Honest worth, my brothers and sisters. Who among you can say in all sincerity that you bear that name? I know and many of you know that there are many traitors among us. There are many cockroaches among the living trying to pry away the life force from the rest of us. We cannot let this happen. This is why I ask for your help. I ask that you look not only inside your own heart, but inside the heart of your neighbor to see who among us deserves to live. Who among us deserves to bear the label of honest worth. Let us pray my brothers and sisters. Let us pray to find the courage to find the traitors among us.”
We sat in silence as people pretended to pray. And in the silence of the church offset by coughs, cries and shifting bodies, I saw that Rose’s eyes were filling with tears.
“I ask that you put your name on one of two lists. There is the list of those who would like to go to the Tutsi RPF zone, the zone controlled by inyenzis—the cockroaches of this nation. And those of you who are upstanding citizens and are willing to be evacuated to the Hutu military-controlled zone in the west. I have volunteers who will come around and take your names to put it on the list of your choice.” When he said volunteers. I searched again for any sign that Jean de Dieu might be nearby but saw none.
“Let us pray my brothers and sisters. Let us pray that we can bring out the evil among us and cleanse the walls of this church.”
That afternoon, Wenceslas asked people who could write to raise their hands. I hid in the corner with Rose and the children and tried to make myself as invisible as I could. The three men who raised their hands came by and asked everyone in the church which list we wanted to be placed on. I knew this to be a trap. No matter what we did, Wenceslas would select the names he wanted for evacuation and place them on the list of his choice. If we chose the Tutsi-controlled RPF zone, we would pay the price of being openly against the militia. If we chose the government-controlled zone, we would be killed upon arrival. I watched as the men made their way around the church. I pulled Rose by the sleeve.
“Get up!” I told her. “We must get to the back of the church to talk before they get to us.”
People nearby heard me and wanted to know what I had to say. A man with his head bandaged looked at me inquiringly. I ignored him and pulled Rose with me and the children to the back of the church.
“This is a trap.” I finally said when we found a small open space among the wounded in the back. I knew that if people overheard us here, they would be too weak to do anything about it. “But you have a chance to make it.” I said to Rose.
“What do you mean?” I knew this was happening too fast for her and I had no time to soften the blow.
“He wants you, and this will save your life.” Rose looked at me incredulously. I could see her brain, her body, and finally her spirit process the information slowly. The poison of my words slowly sank in like lead landing at the bottom of a pristine lake.
“There are rooms nearby where he takes the girls he chooses. If you agree to be one of them, you can survive. Your children can survive.”
“But what does this have to do with the list?” The men were making their way towards the back with their pen and paper. We did not have much time left before they’d reach us and we’d have to announce our choice. I only had seconds to explain the strategy of survival to Rose before it was too late.
“Don’t you see? If you put your name on the RPF zone list you will be killed by the militia when they come back again. The UN may not arrive for days.”
“Yes, but if I get evacuated to the government zone, I will be killed. We would all be killed there.” I looked at Rose, I looked at her eyes, the way they had managed to change in such a short span of time. I scanned her face for a sign of the hope that I’d sough out in her earlier but I could not see it anywhere.
“If you give yourself to him, it doesn’t matter where you put your name, you will be saved.” Finally the words had sunk in and I watched Rose as we both waited for the news to settle.
“What about you?” she finally asked me when she had made up her mind.
“I have other ways.” When I said this, I did not know which one I hoped more: to be right in my assertion or to be wrong and free of my dependency on Jean de Dieu.
A man with a long thin scar on his nose came to us. “Which one will it be?” He asked us, his hand shaking from all of the writing.
“Government.” We both answered.
“But you are both Tutsis. No?” the man asked us his hand suspended in the air like a shaking
leaf in the wind.
“Government,” I repeated with determination. As I watched the man write down all of our names on the government side, I prayed that I had not just given Rose, her children and mine a death sentence. As for me, I had already been condemned.
Chapter 13 – Francine
That night, Rose and I found a place to sleep with our precious offsprings huddled between us. I fell into a strange sleep with my mind alert and my body still. I thought I could hear the night sounds of the church. I thought I knew all that happened around me. But I woke at dawn to find Rose gone and Jean de Dieu in her place. He was sleeping when I opened my eyes. I wanted to scream. I wanted to call out Rose’s name in the darkness. But I knew I would scare the children and only draw attention to the place where I knew Rose had gone.
That morning, like clockwork, the doors of the church opened and the militia walked in searching for bodies. Some people had prayed all night for the UN to arrive and save them. I knew that the presence of the killers in the church had saved my life. If the UN had arrived on that morning to carry out everyone’s choices, Rose, the children and I would have all been sent to our death in the government zone, as we had requested. Now, I needed to see if my strategy of survival had worked. I had not planned on having Rose be absent when the killers would come.
The air was electric. When the militia came in, a current moved through the thousands of us scattered around the church. Hundreds of whispers and gasps, hundreds of prayers filled the air at once creating a strong unrecognizable sigh. Jean de Dieu took me by the hand and began pulling me away from the children. I could not leave them alone here in the presence of killers. Rose’s children were still young, tiny boys of three and four. I thought their innocence and purity could almost make them invisible in the madness of this place, like two lost angels in the middle of a battleground. José was the younger; his hands were the size of Christian’s hands just a couple of years earlier. And when I thought this, I realized that Christian would never grow again. My memory of the size of his hands would remain static, even if I lived to be one hundred.
One String Guitar Page 14
