by Uwem Akpan
“Maman, Jean is lonely in the bedroom,” I say.
“I hope he sleeps the whole day,” she says, without looking at me.
“Won’t ghosts steal him?”
“He’ll get used to them. Go get yourself some food, Monique.”
“Oya, Maman, I don’t want to eat.”
“Then go and shower.”
“Alone? I don’t want to shower.”
She touches my nightie. “You need to shower.”
“Maman, when wizards pee . . .”
“Don’t tell me now.” She looks at Papa. “She needs a shower.”
Hearing this, I raise my nightie to show Maman my swollen thigh, but she slaps it down, saying, “You’ll get a new pair of underpants. Your face will be beautiful again.”
I return my attention to the pictures. I scratch at Tonton André’s face with my nails to erase him from our family. But the glass saves him.
Maman isn’t looking at the photos anymore; her eyes are closed, as if in prayer. I pick up a brass letter opener and begin to scratch the glass over my tonton’s face. The sound distracts Papa from the window and he gives me a bad look. I stop.
“Why did you come down—come back?” he says to Maman, searching my face to see whether I’ve understood the question.
I haven’t.
He turns back to Maman. “Woman, why? Return to where you were last night. Please. Leave.”
“Whatever you do,” she says, “do not let my daughter know.”
“She should!” he says, then recoils from the force in his own voice.
My parents are hiding something from me. Maman is very stubborn about it. Their sentences enter my ears as randomly as a toss of the dice on our Ludo board. Papa looks guilty, like a child who can’t keep a secret.
“I can’t bear it,” he says. “I can’t.”
“If Monique knew where I was last night,” Maman argues, “your family would’ve forced it out of her and shed blood.”
As they talk, invisible people are breathing everywhere—at least twenty ghosts are in the air around us. When Maman speaks, the ghosts let out groans of agreement, but my parents don’t seem to hear them.
Papa shakes his head. “I mean, you should never have come back. I could have convinced them . . .”
“We needed to be with the children.”
I don’t understand why Maman is saying she wants to be with me when she won’t even look my way. I see dirty water dripping down the white wall beside me. It is coming from the ceiling. At first, it comes down in two thin lines. Then the lines widen and swell into one. Then two more lines come down, in spurts, like little spiders gliding down on threads from a branch of the mango tree in our yard. I touch the liquid with the tip of my finger. Blood.
“Ghost! Ghost!” I scream, diving toward Papa.
“It’s not blood,” he says.
“You are lying! It’s blood! It’s blood!”
Papa tries to get between me and the wall, but I get in front of him and hug him. I cling to his body, climbing up until my hands are around his neck and my legs wrapped around his waist. He tries to muffle my shouts with his hands, but I wriggle and twist until he bows under my weight, and we nearly topple over. He staggers and regains his balance, then he releases his breath, and his stiff body softens. He puts his arms around me and carries me to the sofa. He holds my face to his heart, hiding me from the blood. I stop shouting. Maman is grinding her teeth, and there is a stubborn look on her face—maybe the Wizard has fixed her too.
My body continues to tremble, no matter how hard Papa holds me. I tell him about last night, and he consoles me, telling me not to cry. Tears fill his eyes too, then pour down onto me, warm and fast. I’ve never seen him cry before. Now he can’t stop, like me. He’s telling me he will always love me, putting my head on his shoulder, stroking my braided hair. Once again, I’m Papa’s Shenge.
“They’re good ghosts,” he sobs, kissing my forehead. “Good people who died.”
“Papa, I tricked the Wizard.”
“Don’t think of last night.”
He gives me a piggyback ride to the bathroom. He takes off my nightie and tosses it into the trash, then turns on the tap to run the bath. In the walls, the pipes whistle and sigh, but today it feels as if I were hearing blood flowing through the strange veins of ghosts. The heat of the bath sends mist through the room, and Papa moves within it, still sobbing and wiping his tears with the sleeve of his shirt.
When he cleans my face, his hands smell like raw eggs. I reach out and switch on the light; his dirty hands seem to shock him. He washes them in the sink. We’re sweating in the heat and the steam. But when I try to pull back the window blinds, he stops me. In the mirror, my mouth looks as if I’d been dropped on it. I can’t brush my teeth. With warm water and iodine from the closet, he cleanses my lip.
He leaves me to wash myself, tells me that I should not be afraid; he’ll be right outside the door. After the bath, he goes with me to my room, and I dress in a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt.
Back in the parlor, we sit together, away from the blood wall, my head on his shoulder. I’m hungry. He offers to make me food, but I say no, because I can’t move my mouth to eat.
“Look, we cannot run away from this,” Maman says.
Papa shrugs. “But I cannot do it. How do I do it?”
They’re talking about secret things again.
“You can,” she says. “Yesterday, you did it to Annette.”
“I should never have gone to André’s place yesterday. Big mistake.”
“We owe André our cooperation. He’s a madman now.”
Papa goes to the window and looks out. “I think we should run to those UN soldiers by the street corner.”
“Ndabyanze! No way! If your brother doesn’t get what he wants when he returns, he will hurt all of us.”
“The soldiers are our only hope.”
“They? Hopeless.”
“No.”
“My husband, whatever you decide, let our children live, OK?”
“Maman, are we going to die?” I ask.
“No, no, my dear,” Maman says. “You’re not going to die. Uzabaho. You will live.”
OUTSIDE, THE MIDMORNING SUN is now very bright, and, though the blinds are still drawn, I can see my parents’ clothes clearly now. Papa’s light-brown jeans are covered with dark stains. Maman is very dirty, her dress covered with dust, as if she’d been wrestling on the ground all night. She smells of sweat. I knew that it was a bad idea for her to go out last night; she never goes out at night. She tells me that there are many bad women who do, because Rwanda is getting poorer and poorer.
“Maman, Maman!” Jean shrieks suddenly. He must be having a nightmare. She shakes her head guiltily but doesn’t go to him, as if she’d lost her right to be our mother. I go with Papa into our bedroom, and Jean climbs all over him, but wails for Maman. A muffled sneeze breaks the silence again. A ghost is gasping for air, as if it was being stifled. We hold on to Papa, who has brought holy water into the bedroom with him.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” Papa says, looking around and sprinkling the holy water, as if he has come to console the ghosts, not us. Together we listen to the ghost’s raspy breathing. The breaths come further and further apart. They stop. Papa and the other ghosts start to sigh, as if the ailing one had died a second death. There are tears in Papa’s eyes, and his mouth is moving without words. He is commanding ghosts, like the Wizard, but without a stick.
Someone begins to pound on our front door. Papa quickly hands Jean to me. “Don’t open the door!” he hisses to Maman, in the parlor, then turns to me. “And don’t take your brother out there!” He stays with us, but his mind is in the parlor, where we can hear Maman pushing aside the table, opening the front door, and whispering to people. We hear chairs and tables being moved. Then there’s a grating sound. On the roof, I can hear big birds flapping their wings for takeoff. Then quiet. The people must have left, and Maman is alone ag
ain in the parlor.
Somebody wails in a house down the road. Jean begins to cry. I pat him on the back and sing for him in a whisper. He’s licking his lips, because he wants food. Papa takes us into the parlor and offers Jean the remains of the oatmeal. He chews the cold chunks hungrily. “Young man, I told you to eat the whole thing in the morning,” Papa says. “You children are a burden to us!” He gives me bread slices and milk from the fridge. I soak the slices and swallow them without chewing.
A mob is chanting in the distance; it sounds like it’s making its way toward our house. Papa goes to the window. Another voice begins to wail. A third voice, a fourth, a fifth, a child’s—it sounds like my friend Hélène. Before I can say anything, Papa says, “Shenge, forget about that Twa girl.”
Hélène and I sit next to each other at school. She’s the brightest in our class, and during recess we jump rope together in the schoolyard. She’s petite and hairy, with a flat forehead like a monkey’s. Most of the Twa people are like that. They’re few in our country. My parents say that they’re peaceful and that when the world talks about our country they’re never mentioned.
Hélène is an orphan, because the Wizard fixed her parents last year. Mademoiselle Angeline said that he cursed them with AIDS by throwing his gris-gris over their roof. Now Papa is paying Hélène’s school fees. We’re also in the same catechism class, and Papa has promised to throw a joint party for our First Holy Communion. Last year, Hélène took first prize in community service in our class—organized by Le Père Mertens. I came in second. We fetched the most buckets of water for old people in the neighborhood. He said if you’re Hutu you should fetch for the Tutsis or the Twa. If you’re Tutsi, you do it for the Hutus or the Twa. If you’re Twa, you serve the other two. Being both Tutsi and Hutu, I fetched for everybody with my small bucket.
“We can’t take her in,” Papa says, and shrugs. “And how does this crisis concern the Twa?”
Suddenly, Maman yanks the table away from the door again and unlocks it. But she doesn’t open the door, just leans on it. More choked cries crack the day like a whip. There are gunshots in the distance. Papa approaches Maman, his hands shaking. He locks the door and takes her back to her seat. He pushes the table back against the door.
Maman stands up suddenly and pulls out the biggest roll of money I’ve ever seen, from inside her dress. The notes are squeezed and damp, as if she had been holding on to them all night. “This should help for a while,” she says, offering the roll to Papa. “I hope the banks will reopen soon.” He doesn’t touch the money. “For our children, then,” she says, placing the money on the table.
I tell Papa, “We must give the money to Tonton André to pay him back.”
“Ego imana y’Urwanda!” Maman swears, cutting me off. “My daughter, shut up. Do you want to die?”
Her lips quake as if she had malaria. Papa pulls his ID from his back pocket and considers the details with disgust. He gets Maman’s card out of his pocket too. Joining the two together, he tears them into large pieces, then into tiny pieces, like confetti. He puts the scraps on the table and goes back to his security post at the window. Then he comes back and gathers them up, but he can’t repair the damage. He puts the pieces into his pocket.
EVENING IS FALLING. MAMAN walks stiffly across the room and kneels by the altar. Papa speaks to her, but she doesn’t reply. He touches her and she begins to sob.
“By this, your Shenge’s crucifix,” Maman says, getting up, “promise me you won’t betray the people who’ve run to us for safety.”
He nods. “I promise . . . ndakwijeje.”
Slowly, Maman removes the gold ring from her finger and holds it out for Papa.
“Sell this and take care of yourself and the children.”
Papa backs away, his eyes closed. When he opens them, they’re clouded, like a rainy day. Maman comes over to me and places the money in my hands and puts the ring on top of it.
“Don’t go away, Maman. Papa loves you.”
“I know, Monique, I know.”
“Is it because you went out last night?”
“No, no, I did not go out last night!” she says. I leave everything on the altar, kneel in front of Papa, and beg him with all my love to forgive her even though she’s lying. He turns away. I go back to the sofa. “Your papa is a good man,” Maman says, hugging me.
I push Jean against her, but she avoids his eyes. I think of Le Père Mertens. I plead with Maman to wait for him to return from Belgium to reconcile them. “If you confess to Le Père Mertens,” I say, “Jesus shall forgive you.”
There’s a light knock on the door. Maman sits up, pushing Jean off like a scorpion. Someone is crying softly outside our door. Maman walks past Papa to push aside the table and open the door. It’s Hélène. She’s sprawled on our doorstep. Maman quickly carries her inside, and Papa locks the door.
Hélène is soaked in blood and has been crawling through the dust. Her right foot is dangling on strings, like a shoe tied to the clothesline by its lace. Papa binds her foot with a towel, but the blood soaks through. I hold her hand, which is cold and sticky.
“You’ll be OK, Hélène,” I tell her. She faints.
“No, Saint Jude Thadée, no!” Maman exclaims, gathering Hélène’s limp body in a hug. “Monique, your friend will be fine.”
I can hear a mob coming, but my parents are more interested in Hélène. Papa climbs onto a chair, then onto the table. He opens the hatch of the parlor ceiling and asks Maman to relay Hélène to him.
“Remember, we’ve too many up there,” Maman says. “When I came down, you had five in there . . . and I put two more in just hours ago. The ceiling will collapse.”
They take Hélène into my room, and Maman pulls open the hatch. A cloud of fine dust explodes from the ceiling. They shove Hélène’s body in.
Now I understand—they are hiding people in our ceiling. Maman was in the ceiling last night. She tricked me. Nobody is telling me the truth today. Tomorrow I must remind them that lying is a sin.
AS THE MOB CLOSES in on our house, chanting, the ceiling people begin to pray. I recognize their voices as those of our Tutsi neighbors and fellow parishioners. They’re silent as Papa opens the front door to the crowd, which is bigger than last night’s and pushes into our home like floodwater. These people look tired, yet they sing on like drunks. Their weapons and hands and shoes and clothes are covered with blood, their palms slimy. Our house smells suddenly like an abattoir. I see the man who attacked me; his yellow trousers are now reddish brown. He stares at me; I hold on to Papa, who is hanging his head.
Maman runs into her bedroom. Four men are restraining Tonton André, who still wants to kill us all. I run to Maman and sit with her on the bed. Soon, the mob enters the room too, bringing Papa. They give Papa a big machete. He begins to tremble, his eyes blinking. A man tears me away from Maman and pushes me toward Jean, who’s in the corner. Papa is standing before Maman, his fingers on the knife’s handle.
“My people,” he mumbles, “let another do it. Please.”
“No, you do it, traitor!” Tonton André shouts, struggling with those holding him. “You were with us when I killed Annette yesterday. My pregnant wife. You can’t keep yours. Where did you disappear to when we came last night? You love your family more than I loved mine? Yes?”
“If we kill your wife for you,” the Wizard says, “we must kill you. And your children too.” He thuds his stick. “Otherwise, after cleansing our land of Tutsi nuisance, your children will come after us. We must remain one. Nothing shall dilute our blood. Not God. Not marriage.”
Tonton André shouts, “Shenge, how many Tutsis has Papa hidden—”
“My husband, be a man,” Maman interrupts, looking down.
“Shenge, answer!” someone yells. The crowd of Hutus murmur and become impatient. “Wowe, subiza.”
“My husband, you promised me.”
Papa lands the machete on Maman’s head. Her voice chokes and she falls off the
bed and onto her back on the wooden floor. It’s like a dream. The knife tumbles out of Papa’s hand. His eyes are closed, his face calm, though he’s shaking.
Maman straightens out on the floor as if she were yawning. Her feet kick, and her chest rises and locks as if she were holding her breath. There’s blood everywhere—on everybody around her. It flows into Maman’s eyes. She looks at us through the blood. She sees Papa become a wizard, sees his people telling him bad things. The blood overflows her eyelids, and Maman is weeping red tears. My bladder softens and pee flows down my legs toward the blood. The blood overpowers it, bathing my feet. Papa opens his eyes slowly. His breaths are long and slow. He bends down and closes Maman’s eyes with trembling hands.
“If you let any Tutsi live,” they tell him, “you’re dead.” And then they begin to leave, some patting him on the back. Tonton André is calm now, stroking his goatee. He tugs at Papa’s sleeve. Papa covers Maman with a white bedspread and then goes off with the mob, without looking at me or Jean. Maman’s ring and money disappear with them.
I cry with the ceiling people until my voice cracks and my tongue dries up. No one can ever call me Shenge again. I want to sit with Maman forever, and I want to run away at the same time. Sometimes I think she’s sleeping and hugging Hélène under the bedspread and the blood is Hélène’s. I don’t want to wake them up. My mind is no longer mine; it’s doing things on its own. It begins to run backward, and I see the blood flowing back into Maman. I see her rising suddenly, as suddenly as she fell. I see Papa’s knife lifting from her hair. She’s saying, “Me promised you.”
“Yes, Maman,” I say. “You promised me!”
Jean is startled by my shout. He stamps around in the blood as if he were playing in mud.
I begin to think of Maman as one of the people in the ceiling. It’s not safe for her to come down yet. She’s lying up there quietly, holding on to the rafters, just as she must have been last night when the man in the yellow trousers attacked me. She’s waiting for the right time to cry with me. I think that Tonton André is hiding Tantine Annette in his ceiling and fooling everyone into believing that he killed her. I see her lying, faceup, on a wooden beam, with her mountain belly, the way I lie on the lowest branch of our mango tree and try to count the fruit. Soon, Tonton André will bring her down gently. She’ll give birth, and my uncle will cover her mouth with Belgian kisses.
