In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills

by Jennifer Haupt

  RACHEL WALKS ACROSS THE YARD to the farmhouse, mesmerized by clusters of bright pinpoints of light emerging in the dark blue sky. The phone call with Mick is heavy in her limbs, weighing her down. Ray, I’m not like you… Funny, she had thought she was his family.

  Lying in the grass, staring up at the hazy arc of the Milky Way, some one hundred thousand light-years away, there’s the sense that she has been here before. The sky seems to tilt just a little.

  She is on a blanket next to her father’s lawn chair, making a wish on the North Star, wishing he would break out of his sad trance and show her the crocodile’s tail and lion’s paw twinkling above. She is staring up at the Day-Glo galaxy that canopies Serena’s crib, on the night Mick implied that the second miscarriage was her fault and she knew their marriage was broken, quite possibly beyond repair. It all feels like the same supermassive black hole of grief.

  The memory of Serena’s tiny elbow or heel jabs at Rachel’s ribs; she caresses her stomach. She doesn’t want to move on. She’ll always cherish those few short months when her baby turned somersaults in her womb, settled to the vibrating hum of Billie Holiday, and seemingly couldn’t get enough of Balducci’s cannolis and lukewarm chamomile tea. Nobody can take those moments away from her. It’s the place where she will always love Serena, always miss her, always be her mother just as a part of her will always be Henry Shepherd’s daughter.

  Back in her room, the photos on the corkboard propped up on the desk under the window are bathed in starlight, bright and glossy but too dim to make out the images. She looks out the window, images of the past few days flashing before her: Felix Kensamara clicking his fingers like a camera, matches falling to the ground, the insistence in Maura’s voice as she invited her for tea.

  Branches from the jacaranda tree that obscure the moon form a web of shadows over a corner of the corkboard, like a photo-negative of the dreamcatcher she stashed in the closet still looms there, over her father’s life. Maura’s merely protecting her family. She has no reason to help you, to tell you the truth. What nightmares is Lillian keeping from her? Before going back home, she needs to find out more, not just the happy stories about picnics and the time a baboon chased her father into the river. She needs to find the real Henry Shepherd. The truth is, he’s still part of her too. For better or worse, he is her family.

  TWENTY-SIX

  RACHEL DISMOUNTS NADINE’S GREEN HUFFY, and pushes it up the steep hillside leading out of Mubaro. The women and children working in the fields stop as she passes by, regarding her as a curiosity. The women stare, perhaps offer a nod but rarely smile, shush their young ones who point and giggle. She has become used to this, being an outsider, over the past month. The whispers of mzunga, the way the soldiers in town sometimes follow her for a few blocks or ask where she’s staying. Mostly, as Tucker says, people are merely inquisitive about a white woman travelling alone, maybe even looking out for her. Their curiosity no longer unnerves her. But today, she courts any slight smile of reassurance, greedily stockpiles every hint of soothing vanilla and eucalyptus in the air. Near the top of the hill, she turns onto a gravel path, walking quickly, churning up a crunch-and-scrape below her feet that might scour away Lillian’s warning that Maura doesn’t have her best interest at heart.

  A commotion in a nearby tree pulls up chill-bumps on her arms. Within seconds, a troop of baboons is assembled along the roadside, some snacking on green coffee beans and leaves as if settling in for a matinee. More likely, sussing out if she has any real food or means of defending herself before moving closer. She buys a little time to hop onto the Huffy by chanting the first song that comes to mind, loud enough to be a bit threatening but not so loud that the baboons go on the offensive. Funny, this Kinyarwanda Christmas carol that Nadine has patiently taught her over the past few days sounds far less foreign than the Destiny’s Child and Usher that Naddie cranks up on her computer.

  At the end of the road, there’s a clearing with about a dozen identical brick houses. Each yard has a fire pit and some sparse landscaping, a fruit tree or two, and low beds of flowers lining a walkway. Rachel thinks of the neighborhood where she grew up in Jacksonville: tract houses dotting cookie-cutter yards, pipe metal playgrounds in the back. This is Mubaro’s version of a suburban subdivision. Madame Kensamara is husking a basket of corn on the front porch, waiting for her.

  “I’m so happy you came,” the stout woman says, getting up with some effort. “Murakaza, neza. Welcome.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, Madame Kensamara.” Rachel bows and places a closed hand over her heart.

  “Call me Maura.” The older woman returns the sign of respect, and then motions toward the front door. “I invite you into my home as a friend. Yes?”

  “Yes, of course,” Rachel says. They have, in fact, become friendly during her routine morning visits to the bakery, Maura fixing her an espresso or sometimes a pot of tea. It’s possible that she invited her here to figure out a way to end the trouble between Nadine and her sons. Maybe Lillian’s wrong. Maybe they all want the same thing.

  The house is surprisingly sparse: a single sunlit room decorated with brightly striped cushions on the cement floor against one wall and a batik curtain that probably walls off a sleeping area. Maura pulls out a chair at a metal table in the tiny alcove that serves as the kitchen. “It’s just me here now…” Her voice trails off into a sigh as she sits.

  Rachel follows her gaze to the photos taped to the wall: two young boys in blue shorts and white button-down shirts, probably school uniforms, on a soccer field. A young mother cradles an infant in her arms. An attractive man with nearly black skin, the same thick features as Felix, sits at this table and lifts a glass of red wine in a toast. The entire family dressed in their Sunday best, arms around each other on the front porch of this house. It’s hard to believe the ordinary-looking husband and father masterminded the massacre at the church, and enlisted his two young sons.

  “You have a beautiful family,” Rachel says, afraid Maura might be able to read her thoughts.

  “Rahim was a good man.”

  Rachel keeps her eyes on the photos.

  “A good father,” Maura says fiercely. She stands and reaches to wipe some dust off a photo frame. Rachel can’t help but stare at the scar on her forearm as the sleeve of her shirt inches upward.

  Maura lifts her sleeve to reveal thick, purple-black rivulets that bubble under her skin. “I was lucky to keep this arm. The Tutsi soldiers held it to the fire in the yard, asking where to find my husband. Rahim heard my screams from the coffee field. He sacrificed his life for me.”

  “During the genocide?”

  “After he was released from jail. Two years ago.”

  “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  Maura blows out a puff of air and rolls down her sleeve. “My husband was murdered. One son put in jail and the other living in Uganda with my brother’s family, afraid to move back home.”

  Rachel opens her mouth and Maura holds up a finger to stop her. “Rahim was guilty, I know this. But the Tutsi army has killed, too. Tens of thousands of Hutus—some guilty, some not. This hatred between brothers with the same great-grandfathers goes back hundreds of years, even before Europeans came and put the Tutsis in charge because they looked most like them. We were slaves to the Tutsis, not allowed to own land although Hutus were the majority. Did you know this?”

  “No.” Rachel’s gaze drops to the table. Stupid, so stupid. How could she possibly understand the history of these tribes, the built up hatred? Lillian’s right: she shouldn’t have come here.

  “Aiya, my manners,” Maura says. “I invited you here for tea.”

  “It’s okay, really. I should—”

  “No, sit, sit. I go to heat water over the fire in the yard. American tea, no sweet milk, like in my shop.”

  Rachel’s eyes dart from the open door, her escape route, to the photos of Maura’s family that pin her to the chair. What the hell was she thinking? She would come here
and chat with Maura about her sons bullying Nadine, as if they’re schoolkids trading insults at recess? Jesus, they are still kids. Felix laughing, pretending to snap her photo with his fingers. A few mornings ago, Christian was in the bakery dithering over a chocolate croissant or cinnamon beignet like it was the most important decision of his day. Just one, Maura lovingly scolded. Six years ago, these boys were soldiers.

  And then there’s Nadine, who hums softly to herself and makes up stories for Rose, pretending their mothers are sister-angels who watch over them. They take the form of stealthy panthers at night and the ever-present yellow finches with their black-painted warrior faces during the day. Naddie makes wishes on flower petals scattered into the wind, skips with the contagious abandon of a young girl. Rachel clenches her fist. How does her inshuti forget for even a few moments all she’s been through?

  The photos on the walls seem to slant downward, casting admonishing stares, as if she has been caught in voyeuristic revelry, peeking into a forbidden window and witnessing the intimate, private moments back when this home held a family. She stands to leave and then freezes, overcome with a shame that stings her eyes.

  “You are leaving?” Maura is at the open door, a teapot in her hands. Overlaid on her face lined with sorrow is the loving gaze, faded with years of sunlight, of the young mother in the photo peering down at the baby cradled her arms.

  Rachel shakes her head slightly but doesn’t speak, doesn’t sit.

  Maura looks past her to the photos and whispers something, or maybe it’s just the heavy hiss of a sigh that Rachel hears. She goes to take the clay pot, her hand touching Maura’s arm, the one with the scars. Maura is simply another woman—a wife, a mother—who has experienced unfathomable loss. Is that why she invited her here? Did Maura simply think that a woman travelling across the world to find her father would understand her own loss, her own pain? “I want to understand,” Rachel says. She sits down again. “Please.”

  Maura sips tea, slowly, as if it’s medicinal. “We are told not to talk about the genocide or the wars before that,” she says. “The past has no place in today’s Rwanda, our new president tells us. We can be fined for speaking of these things in public.”

  Rachel nods. That’s why Maura wouldn’t talk to her in the bakery with the soldiers posted on street corners within view.

  “We are told to start over,” the older woman continues. “But then, I am told my sons will both go on trial again at a community gacaca in January. Christian has quit a good job at a factory in Kampala to come home again. Felix was released from jail only weeks ago, and speaks of leaving in the night to join the Hutu army in Congo. I may never see him again. How can we start over?”

  Rachel bites the inside of her lower lip. What they did… How could Maura possibly think it was okay? Then again, how could she sit here and even pretend to understand?

  “Come.” Maura leads Rachel into the backyard, to a wooden outhouse. She opens the door and stares into the dark shack, seemingly unaware of the stench. “My two nieces, Adanna and Eshe, hid here for several weeks. I made beds of blankets among the coffee bushes where they slept at night. They were five and seven. Still babies.”

  The smell of human waste is rancid and potent; it’s part of the story. Rachel can’t turn away. Out of the corner of her eye she sees wispy shadows glide into the grove of low bushes. There’s the scratchy sound of something or someone scrambling through the brambles to find safety. She takes a step toward the bushes and then stops. Of course, that’s not possible. It’s just the gathering clouds churning up mist from the ground, the wind rattling branches.

  “My sister was Hutu, her husband Tutsi,” Maura continues. “They were desperate to save their girls. I knew to hide them well, for all of our sakes.”

  “They were safe here?” Rachel asks, the woozy answer forming in her gut.

  Maura shuts the door. “Rahim and two other soldiers came home for lunch one day, unexpectedly. He did it quickly, one shot to the back of each girl’s head, before the others…” She reaches out a cupped hand, as if to offer Rachel something or catch a handful of dew. “That night we buried the girls in the bushes, wrapped in blankets that had kept them warm while they slept. Never before had I seen my husband’s tears, although I knew all along they were there.”

  Rachel studies the landscape of Maura’s palm: dark valley-like creases; mounds of skin, ashen and rough like the Virungas. She tries to imagine the thickening moisture in the air forming rivulets in the bowl of this craggy hand, softening it. She flashes on Tucker, looking over the valley of lakes where God had laid low for ninety days. Searching.

  “What your husband did was, in a way, kind,” she says. Horrific, yet somehow loving. She wants to see this story the way Maura does. She braces hands on knees, her legs suddenly unsteady, unable to shake loose the image of a terrified girl with Nadine’s features whose beloved uncle is aiming a gun at her head.

  Maura drops her cupped hand. She turns to walk back toward the house. Rachel follows unsteadily, eyes on the ground. The light rain beads up on the cracked earth, just as on her bare arms, forming an icy slickness even though the air is dense and warm. Her hair is damp, T-shirt and jeans sticking like Saran Wrap. “The choices you had to make. Your husband…” she says. Even her words are thick and difficult to maneuver. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Many, like Rahim and my boys, did not have the luxury of choice.” Maura turns to Rachel. “Your father was at the church by choice.”

  “To rescue Nadine.”

  “He came with his camera.”

  “He always had a camera around his neck. Tucker and Lillian, that’s what they said.”

  “Did they say how he knew to come to the church? My husband sent Christian to get the American with the camera.”

  Rachel wipes the slickness from her face, but it only seems to smear. She bites her lower lip, but the questions come anyway. “Why would Rahim do that?” Why would her father go?

  “The government ordered my husband and others to document the Interahamwe victories over the Tutsis,” Maura says. “I know it sounds terrible now but every day, for months before the mass killings began, on the radio and in the newspapers, we were told this war against our neighbors was necessary. Justified.”

  Rachel’s head is buzzing, nearly deafening, like the flies hovering around the pit toilet. Her eyes dart to the bike on the front porch; maybe she can make a run for it, escape Maura’s words. People being chopped into pieces. Children raped. Her father snapping photos he could sell. Children like Nadine.

  “I have to go…the rain.” Rachel stumbles toward the porch. Nadine. Her father helped, he rescued her. It’s this thought that keeps her feet moving even though her legs are heavy, her jeans wet and stiff.

  “It is not so easy to judge the ones you love,” Maura calls after her. “This is what you need to understand, to remind Lillian and Nadine. My husband and my boys did what was needed to survive. Henry Shepherd made a profit from the suffering. Who will accuse him in court? Who will lock him away in prison?”

  RACHEL RACES DOWNHILL ON NADINE’S bike, trying to outrun the gray clouds swirling above, trying to outrun Maura’s words. Your father was there by choice. Taking photos for Rahim.

  Did he really think he’d sell photos to magazines, like the glossy images of gorillas and orchids that Lillian showed her? How could this be the same man who felt sorry for the animals trapped in cages at the zoo? The same man whose proudest achievement was the weekend he spent in Atlanta, the images he captured of Reverend King and Lillian prominently displayed on his office wall.

  The sky opens up with sharp droplets that pelt Rachel’s back and arms. She stands on the pedals and leans into the wind to catch more speed, to dry her tears before they fully form. This wasn’t the same man, the father she came here to find. It’s this place. The genocide. The injustice and brutality chipped away at your father. He drank a lot. He was depressed. Jesus, Lillian tried to warn her; he changed. That’s wh
y she stopped visiting him in London, why she wouldn’t chase after him. That’s why she didn’t want her to come here in the first place.

  Rachel pedals faster. Lillian knew the version of Henry Shepherd she longed to find had ceased to exist. Why the hell did Tucker trick her into coming? Was he flat-out lying about her father rescuing Nadine at the church or just clueless?

  Nearly down the hill, Rachel hears the low growl of a truck pulling up beside her, the driver commanding her to stop. Her brakes are no match for the rain-slicked road but she’s more afraid of disobeying what could be a soldier’s orders than falling. She jackknifes the bike into the grassy ditch, landing hard on her side. “Shit,” she mutters, pushing the bike aside, rubbing her shoulder. A door creaks open and slams, and then someone is standing over her.

  “Jambo, Rachel Shepherd,” a familiar voice says. She looks up to see Christian Kensamara, rain plastering a black T-shirt to his thin frame. The driver revs the engine, impatient for whatever’s going to take place.

  “Tell me, why are you out alone so close to night?” Christian asks.

  “Visiting a friend,” Rachel replies, trying to mimic calm. Did Maura tell them she had been at their home? “Look, I just want to get back to Kwizera before dark.”

  The driver rolls down the window and yells sharply in Kinyarwanda. Definitely an order. It takes Rachel a minute to recognize Felix without his red-trimmed aviator sunglasses, squinting through the rain. Christian mumbles a response, and then to Rachel, “It’s not safe here,” he says, holding out his hand. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  She considers his hand and gets up on her own, pain shooting through her shoulder. Felix cusses in English as he heaves his body out of the truck. He pushes past his brother to grab Rachel’s backpack from the ground and dumps out the contents: a notebook and pens, a few postcards, a half-full bottle of water, Chapstick. Nothing she can’t replace. He rifles through her wallet, takes forty dollars, and tosses the Visa card and some stray receipts into the ditch. He studies the plastic accordion of a dozen photos: her mom on the beach, her and Mick atop the Empire State Building, the sonogram of Serena. What possible value could these be to him?