After Before

by Jemma Wayne

  She smelled disinfectant and polish. Faceless computer screens winked at her. Rows of desks spilling their insides circled around and around, spinning her until she was dizzy and sick. Yellow stickers clung to her body like peeling skin. She sat down at a desk, back at her desk, Before.

  “Hutus, stand up,” the teacher called. Thirty children stood, proudly, awaited the ticking of their names, the confirmation. They wore shorts or cotton dresses, their hair neat, their dark limbs gleaming with tiny droplets of sweat in the room that had no fans or air conditioning.

  “Tutsis, stand.” This time there was a pause. Then hissing and laughter. Then slow, hesitant movements upwards and Emily, slinking down. Names called, ticked, noted. Then hers. “Emilienne.” More firmly, “Emilienne.” Reluctantly Emily raised her hand. “Stand up Emilienne. Why do you not stand?”

  “I don’t want to stand with them.”

  “You must stand with your tribe.”

  “I don’t want to be in that tribe. I want to be in Hutus.”

  “You cannot be. You are Tutsi.”

  “Why? What is Tutsi?”

  Sniggers, laughter, jibes: big nose, lanky, parasite, cockroach.

  “Ask your parents,” said the teacher, raising a hand to quiet the class. “But now you must stand.”

  She was eleven. She knew of course what a Tutsi was, but she didn’t feel she deserved it. It was true, her family was not so poor as many Rwandans; they had a house with three rooms, her father had a job that paid better than tending the land like most of the village, but they weren’t rich. She certainly wasn’t rich. And she wasn’t tall. She wasn’t any of the things Tutsi was supposed to mean so why should she be called that name? Why should she be laughed at? Why should she be bullied and abused and told she wouldn’t get a place at university, not even to bother, that she would never become a doctor, that she would never amount to anything.

  Only Jean resisted joining in the jeering. She and Jean had been in the same class since she was five, he a year older, repeating the year. She had noticed him at once because his eyes danced with strange, brilliant colour - not brown like the rest of them, but half green and half grey. Ever since their first lesson together, in which the new female teacher had singled Emily out for asking too many questions and for the rest of the day made her stand at the front of the class, where to her mortification she had stuttered a sentence and once cried, Jean had stuck up for her against the other, less curious girls who thought her questions and tree-climbing and dirty knees made her not one of them. In return she had helped him with his homework, and mouthed him the answers to questions when the teacher put him on the spot in class. And they had become firm friends. Now, his green-grey eyes darted up at her apologetically from his desk, but he said nothing. She stood while he remained sitting.

  “It is just what you are,” her mother told her that night.

  “But is there something wrong with being a Tutsi?”

  “No,” her mother softened. “It is only what you were born. It does not mean you are any different from them. We are all Rwandans. You are just as good Emilienne. Better. Now say your rosary.”

  “Can’t I speak to God tomorrow?”

  “Every day Emilienne. Every day. You betray God with such reluctance.” Her mother made a clicking sound at the back of her throat as she always did when she was considering an idea. “You must not betray Him. Betrayal is the worst thing. It is a poison that seeps into everything, it grows and it spreads, it lives inside you, it controls you. Forgiveness is the only way to cleanse it and God will of course always forgive you if you are truly, truly sorry, but better not to betray Him in the first place. You will need Him on your side.”

  “Why will I need Him?”

  There was no reply to this. Only a hard rug filled with grass to pray upon, sore knees, stiff legs, boredom, fear of being hit if the boredom showed, questions, God never answering back.

  Somehow later, she was younger again, seven. Her brothers chased her through a graveyard full of bushes and thick undergrowth at the back of their house. The grass was coarse and scratched at her bare legs. The air prickled with the smell of a hot, dry June. “Emmy!” her brothers called. “Emmy! Emmy! We’re coming!” She ran wildly, the thrill of them finding her rising in a delicious bubble through her chest, making her pant ferociously, her breath too loud, a giveaway. Cassien pounced on her. “I have her!” he yelled, and three more brothers ran jubilantly towards them, Cassien trapping her on the ground and tickling her until there was no breath left at all. Now she was theirs. And so she had to consent to their game: she was to be the judge, they the daring acrobats swinging from trees. She’d wanted to play it all along.

  Mama scowled at the dirt when they arrived home and sent the boys back outside again, curtly but with a half amused almost-smile. Emily was allowed into the house and helped her mother peel sweet potatoes and boil rice and be in charge. Her mother talked little, even when Emily tried her hardest to pry her open, but she loved these moments with her, these unlikely gestures of tenderness as they passed vegetables to one another. She loved the way that her mother listened to her incessant prattle: about climbing trees, and what game Cassien had promised her later, and long division, and how she and Jean were partners in Geography. And Emily loved how her mother smiled carefully, clicking her throat in encouragement as Emily lay out her childish hopes. Later, when her father arrived home, his face heavy with exhaustion, she would run into his arms and despite his fatigue he would hold her above him, his princess, and she would feel like one. Then, when her feet were safely returned to the ground he would go into the bedroom and remove the blue shirt he wore to work at the hotel, and put on his glasses, somehow replenishing himself behind them, and then it would be his turn to talk, sitting at the table while she and her mother sat nearby on the floor, passing vegetables, and now both woman and girl wore that same careful, inconsolable smile.

  Suddenly a sunny day, maybe before or soon after. She was still young enough to have a gap in the front of her mouth where teeth had fallen out and not yet been replaced. A day out. A trip to Kigali. They were visiting Uncle Amani, their father’s brother who though now widowed had married a Hutu, could speak French, was a brilliant scientist, and had secured a coveted job doing research for the government, despite the tiny amount of research being done in Rwanda and his obvious disadvantage in being a Tutsi. These were the facts often recalled to Emily and her brothers, and to their neighbours, and anyone else who would listen. Uncle Amani had no children but made up for it by remembering how to play kweti and introducing them to new gadgets he sometimes picked up from the Westerners he met.

  The latest was a pack of cards with pictures of all sorts of cars on them, none of which Emily had ever seen in Kigali, and certainly not at home. She and her brothers were unable to understand the English type that accompanied each picture, but they recognised the numbers and Uncle Amani explained that it was a game in which these numbers were traded. They invented a set of rules and played ferociously while the adults talked about politics, and old times, and people they had once known. Emily couldn’t help gazing intermittently up at them. Their faces flushed as they talked with a rare, untroubled animation, as though they were young again and didn’t realise how raucous and ill-behaved they looked.

  When Emily lost the last of her cards and had to sit out of the game, she didn’t mind her brothers’ teasing. She sat silently on the floor and observed her parents. Her usually strict, no-nonsense mother sipped a coke through a straw, made unfamiliar coy flutters with her eyelashes, chatted enthusiastically, and told jokes that made Papa – ordinarily so tired, so headstrong and serious – wipe his eyes from laughter and squeeze Mama’s hand, lying on top of the table for all to see. If Emily watched them closely enough, it was almost possible to snatch a glimpse of another time, and slip into their dreams.

  In the afternoon, they walked through the busy town. Emily marvelled at the abundance of cars and people, and when they stopp
ed, Uncle Amani bought them all a paper-wrapped cone of deeply fried frites, covered in a rich, buttery yellow mayonnaise that tasted like heaven. It was unusual for them to eat food in the street, but Emily gulped hers down even faster than Cassien, greedily scraping off even the slight mayonnaise crust that had built up around the edges and crunching it between her teeth. As soon as she had finished however, she regretted her haste and looked longingly at her brothers who had eaten more slowly. She should have saved some of her own. She should have taken home at least a couple of cold frites for Jean who had been ill recently, absent from school, and had lost weight. Every time she saw him he looked sad and listless, the usual playfulness somehow missing. He could do with tasting something as irresistible as the gooey mayonnaise whose flavour still lingered on her tongue. She had no money of her own and could not ask Uncle for more, not unless she wanted to be reprimanded by both of her parents in front of the bustling throng. But if only she could bring Jean something to cheer him up. A memento from Kigali. Then Emily spotted her opportunity. A colourful crowd began to file past them in the street and the men at the front were giving out flags: yellow, red and green. Jean liked green. His eyes were half green. He would like such a flag. Emily stepped forward to take one.

  It was the only time that Gahiji ever shouted at her in earnest, or used the full force of his 15-year-old frame. Her hand hurt for whole minutes after.

  Once more it was Before. Time kept jumping. They were outside their grandmother’s house just a few hundred metres from their own. Emily circled Cassien as the rest of her brothers had instructed. The three of them were lying on the ground. She held a stick and chased Cassien with it, he grinning roguishly and scampering always a few feet ahead of her, deferring the end of the game; he was the last one.

  “Come on,” Simeon groaned from the floor. “Let her catch you now. Then we’ll start again.”

  “Can I be ‘it’ this time?” Cassien replied.

  “Fine.”

  Cassien slowed and let Emily reach him. In glee she raised her stick and chopped at the back of his legs. Dramatically he fell to his knees.

  “Now his head!” Gahiji cheered from his spot on the ground, slightly tilting his own head, like a bird, the way he always did when he was thinking or giving orders to his younger siblings, or creating a fantasy for them to believe.

  Emily chopped lightly at his neck and Cassien rolled to the floor. She put her bare foot on top of him and stood jubilant, the conqueror. All five of them giggled. Then from the doorway of the house, a roar brought them to sudden attention.

  “Stop it! Stop it this instant!” their grandmother bellowed. “Come here. What are you doing?”

  Humbly, eyes cast down, they trudged towards her, guilty they knew, but not of what.

  “What were you doing?” she repeated.

  “We were playing,” Emily offered slowly.

  “What were you playing?”

  “We were playing machete.”

  Before Emily could blink her grandmother had raised her hand and slapped her, once, sharply. “You should know better,” she glowered at the boys and lifted her hand again for them, furious but allowing them to run. “Never again,” she told Emily who stood frozen and not understanding, holding her stinging cheek.

  It was the embarrassment of the incident however that struck sharpest. When finally she felt that she could turn away from her grandmother, Emily looked up to find that Jean had appeared on the roadside. He averted his half-green eyes quickly and pretended to concentrate hard on the shapes he was making with his foot in the dust, but Emily knew he had witnessed her humiliation and the wrongdoing before it. It wasn’t until many years later that she learned exactly what had made their behaviour such a sin, such an unwelcome reminder to her grandmother of unending Rwandan history. It was also not for years to come that she understood why she had been so ashamed to see Jean.

  “Go away Jean. Stop spying. Don’t you have better things to do?” she had shouted at him at the time in her mortification. She hadn’t spoken to him afterwards for three whole days until he apologised for his accidental intrusion by showing her a small, imperfect circle at the bottom of his back that he had never dared reveal to anyone and which was inexplicably pure white.

  Emily turned. Cassien and Gahiji were next to her. Gahiji had grown again, was tall now but thin, in many ways still a boy. It was his idea. He, the oldest, was always daring and they always doing his bidding. She and Cassien climbed the tree silently and threw mangoes down. “Higher,” Cassien urged her, grinning impishly as usual, “Don’t worry, Gahiji will catch you.” Gahiji caught the stolen fruit in his T-shirt and peered through the lower branches, keeping guard. Their actions were laced with drama, but their breathing was steady.

  “Take some bananas too, there is a very good tree three houses down,” Ernest declared abruptly from behind them. Ernest: their neighbour, the owner of the tree. “I should tell your father about this.” They froze.

  “Come on, come down. Emilienne, what are you doing up a tree? Shouldn’t you be playing something more respectable with your girlfriends? I heard you were a smart one Emilienne, what is this? Cassien, I see you too. Get down. Come here. Gahiji, this is your doing, no?”

  They shimmied down and stood heads bent before him, staring at the dry ground. Ernest watched them for a while, clicking his teeth. Then, “Thank you,” he said, retrieving his mangoes from Gahiji’s T-shirt. “These needed picking.” Half-smiles began to creep across their faces and Ernest laughed sonorously, a deep-barrelled laugh that sounded as though it lived in the very bottom of his stomach and always tickled Emily. It made her think of long evenings sitting on the veranda with him and her parents and their other neighbours, or inside by the fireplace if it was raining, playing kweti with the children, listening to the adults talk. There was always a good feeling when Ernest was there, and often a piece of fruit or something else sweet; his laugh seemed to sweeten them all. “Now, one each, and one for your mother,” he declared tossing them each a mango, the extra one going to Emily’s charge. “And next time, ask.”

  They nodded their apologies and turned, running. “And thank your mother for the salt!” Ernest yelled after them.

  Emily giggled and received Cassien’s grin, but she didn’t follow him home. Instead she gave the extra mango to Jean who had grown that summer and was now the tallest boy in their class. His height had somehow given him a swagger and a wink that the other girls swooned at, but made Emily laugh when he tried them out on her. She still remembered the time he had fallen out of the tree in front of their house, and the time he had cried when Cassien, who was bigger than him then, had made him stay in goal for an entire game of football, and the day a few years earlier when he was still smaller than her and she had pinned him down in front of her brothers and made him laugh so hard that he started choking.

  Emily wished they were still friends like that and had arm wrestles through which she could feel the heat of his lanky arms, and he join her brothers, almost as one of them, and was part of their games; but he’d started looking at her strangely lately, swaggering and winking, and now she felt uncomfortable under his lingering gaze. A green-grey gaze unlike any other. At school the week before he’d asked her, in front of a whole group of girls, if he could walk her home. Jean always walked her home. It was on those walks that the two of them and Cassien devised riddles they later tried out on Gahiji who tilted his head like a bird, and generously waited at least half a minute before solving them. But Jean had never asked to accompany her. And when he did this time everyone had started whooping and making kissing noises and embarrassing her so that for some reason she’d refused, and he hadn’t spoken to her since.

  The mango was a peace offering. He winked at her as she smuggled it into his hands and despite the strange, new, green-grey intensity, they laughed together and talked in familiar, animated tones until their fingers brushed and they fell unnervingly quiet again, and didn’t move until Jean’s mother call
ed for him to come in, and sent Emily away.

  She slept on her mother’s chest. It rose and fell like water splashing the riverbank: gentle, reliable, lashing softly at the last pulls of the day. Her mother smelled of rice and coconuts. Her hands were coarse but tender. They played with Emily’s hair. Occasionally they settled over her eyes, guarding her rest. Through the gaps in her fingers Emily could see the light fading, white and yellow flowers waving quietly from outside, her father smiling over the top of the thick book he’d promised to help her read when he was finished. Emily closed her eyes and sang to herself - a tune she and Cassien had made up, a tease-filled anthem to be sung obnoxiously when games between them were won. She practised it, looped it, smiled. Then something drummed against her temple, something loud and cold. Was it raining? Emily brushed her hand against the offending intrusion. It came back wet, and crimson.

  She sat up. She was cold. She was alone. Her nose was bleeding. Her pillow was saturated in red.

  Chapter

  Eight

  The reds were colliding. Not blending and complimenting each other as she’d planned, but crashing in and out of space like blood spattering, competing to make a mess of her creation. Lynn laid down her paintbrush and glanced at the clock. Vera would be arriving in 20 minutes. The thought of this in itself was irritating, demeaning. She had only agreed to it - why? Not because Luke had been so pleased at the solution. Lynn smiled as she realised the truth: it was malicious, unkind, powerful. It was the opportunity to visit her own poor choices on somebody else. Vera, the career woman, who could have had both, had forsaken her career already. For her.

  Lynn cast one last stroke across the surreal canvas. It was better than the last and she would have liked to continue, but she did not wish to be caught so exposed. It would take at least 15 minutes for her to clean out the palette, and lock the door and make her way upstairs to change out of her painting clothes. It had been the only joy for Lynn of the past weeks - allowing herself to paint more often. At first, after Philip, it was a cathartic remedy she limited like medicine. She squeezed it carefully onto the palette.