You vaguely recall a refugee camp located on the side of a hill. In the distance medivac helicopters make roundtrips. The camp is bursting with stretchers. High-energy biscuits are handed out to the survivors. You sleep on a mattress with a plastic draw sheet. When you wake up your first reflex is to look for your suitcase. Finding it calms your nerves, there it was, lying flat on a straight chair. You remember nuns in the halls talking in a whisper, with a strange accent. One of them, Sister Elvira, who was the oldest, came early in the morning to bless you on the forehead ‘Mwaramutse. Amakuru?’ (Hello, how are you doing?)
You didn’t open your eyes, didn’t want to exchange looks with anyone. The other nuns came by at all hours of the day, waiting for the right moment to talk to you. You heard their comments, understood everything that went on behind the curtain that blocked the view but not the sound. You didn’t want to talk anymore, and your silence disarmed the medical team. The temporary orphanage was responsible for taking care of the victims of genocide, primarily women and children. You spent a week in the center, and they didn’t hear the sound of your voice until the fifth day, after a night of shivering and sweating. Your heart rate had accelerated, in a jumble you mentioned the name of your parents, your village, a main place of the massacre. Only one thing could calm you, the proximity of that suitcase you hung onto with all your strength. The suitcase had the virtue of having seen everything, heard everything, lived everything.
At daybreak after this long restless night, Sister Elvira came to ask you questions. Subsequently, you understood that they helped to gauge the degree of your trauma. She took notes, waited patiently when you were slow to answer, and made you slow down when the answers were too muddled. She wanted to know whether you had seen your parents dead or been present at their death. Had you witnessed a murder or an attack? Had you come face to face with a man with a machete or a bludgeon? The piece of paper with your testimony was folded in two, then carefully placed inside her wide sleeves. She asked you to join the children who were playing in the area set up especially for them. You did but with your suitcase in tow, like a younger brother you were encouraging to follow you. These were children without a family, children like you who had been in close contact with the horror of adults before once more being treated like children. One of them swiped the suitcase and ran to the opposite corner of the courtyard as if he’d made a goal on a soccer field; the suitcase was passed from hand to hand under your stunned gaze. Your screams, your revolt only bolstered their sleight-of-hand, their winks, and complicit acceleration of their game. A nun’s sudden whistle put an end to the torture. You found it back in the middle of the courtyard beneath the sun at its zenith. All the others had already gone back for the noonday meal. You no longer had any appetite.
The racket in the survivors’ refectory made you tense. A creaking sound drew your attention to something in the covered courtyard, you saw your grandmother in a rocking chair, smiling. The noise of plates and utensils covered the sound of your feet, the vision vanished when you’d hardly taken the first step. You didn’t move anymore, remained motionless for a long time, suitcase in hand like an eternal voyager, one shoulder lower than the other, left leg slightly bent. It was Sister Elvira who got you to take a step forward, then another. She placed your suitcase in the locker room and settled you down at a table. You often zoned out. The other kids had found their fondness for play again, as if they were diving back into childhood after living through the horror. You, you couldn’t manage that, locked inside yourself you had lost the use of speech. Sister Elvira had succeeded in getting you to talk, with extreme gentleness squeezing out the little information you could provide about yourself. She’d managed it by stroking your suitcase each morning before she’d speak to you. This repeated gesture had established a kind of complicity between you. Her hand flat on the leather was like a hand placed on the shoulder of a traveling companion. It brought it to life like a fully separate human being. Then Sister Elvira would put her hand on yours and murmur a blessing, sealing it with the sign of the cross.
You stayed in the refugee camp for a week, in transit between two lives. Every day new arrivals came trampling the soil of the camp: filthy, scrawny, half-dead. The image of skins cut up, burned, gashed with wounds followed you in your sleep. Your nocturnal anguish would wake you up at regular intervals. Your eyes would seek the suitcase. It was there, always in its place, its two straps and the handle in the center like the features of a face haggard with fatigue. Others would wake up during the night as well, stay in their bed with wide-open eyes, accepting the evil, the loss, the violence. At dusk the children’s joy and energy would disappear, the thick black night would get into their skin, make their heart beat a little bit faster. Their cries, their sobs haunted the night. Some would sleepwalk, while the nuns wondered whether they should respond or not to these awakened sleepers. The first rays of sunshine at dawn would plunge them into a deep sleep as if the bourgeoning light reassured them, soothed them.
For a long time you were afraid of the night, with the belief rooted inside you that in the dark you are more fragile and more vulnerable.
‘At night death prowls around and visits the living. You can rise and follow the dead on a simple misunderstanding. With the first ray of sunshine, they vanish into thin air. For many years I’ve been afraid of the night. Sleeping in my suitcase kept them at a distance.’
Suzanne had jotted down that sentence of Arsène’s. He’d been talking too long. Suzanne thanked him and stood up, too. Their ‘see you soon’ on the sidewalk was hasty, they each went in an opposite direction, eyes unseeing, as if they couldn’t yet emerge from their deep thoughts.
Suzanne checks the windows of the apartment from the sidewalk. The shutters are closed. The place is empty, left in a state of neglect since the move. She would like to see it just one more time before it changes hands but it’s impossible for her to get into the building. Suddenly the door opens, reveals a small busily chatting group, a man holding a file shakes the hands of a young couple. He waits on the threshold of the carriage entrance. The name of a well-known real estate agency covers the manila folder.
There’s no doubt in Suzanne’s mind that this man has been showing the apartment, which is now for sale. Without a moment’s hesitation, she goes over to him, holds out her right hand and introduces herself. Disconcerted, the agent who was waiting for an older couple looks at his watch and, somewhat tentatively, shakes Suzanne’s hand. Ten minutes should be enough to get a sense of it, the agent precedes her and begins to describe the building. Suzanne pretends to be new to the place that saw her grow up. She concurs with every statement he makes, follows him quietly. In the elevator to the third floor they remain silent. They cross the few square meters of the landing. The agent is looking for the right key to open the right lock, insisting on the exceptional character of the property they’ll be seeing: ‘One of the finest in its category,’ he explains as he pushes the door. Suzanne goes in, the apartment is empty, dust everywhere, you’d think a ghost ship that in a few weeks has lost all its welcoming appeal. At a brisk pace the agent goes from one room to another, emphasizes the ‘exceptional’ pedigree of the place, the ‘hardwood floor, moldings, hearth’ and the height of the ceiling that is ‘exceptional’ as well. Suzanne follows him, forced to put up with his long-windedness and the jagged sound of his shoes on the old parquet. He ends the visit in the smallest bedroom, Suzanne’s childhood room. He loses track of his visit, gets lost in the maze of doors and hallways.
‘We’re in front of the bathroom door, it seems to me.’
‘No, it’s a long hallway that goes to the toilet.’
The bewildered agent turns the knob, opens the door, and realizes that Suzanne is right.
‘How did you know?’
‘These apartments all look alike, you know, they have the same floorplan. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.’
The rest of the visit moved along more rapidly, more carelessly. On the doorste
p, Suzanne thanked him and shook his hand. After a last look that seemed to say: Thank you for this final journey! she turned her back to him and hurried down the stairs.
That day Suzanne bid farewell to her childhood, farewell to her father, farewell to her past. Coming back would no longer make any sense, the apartment held no mystery anymore. The pilgrimage had put a full stop to her personal quest. Seeing it back again more than once had allowed her to find her deep roots. Before that she felt she merely existed on the surface of the earth, on the surface of herself.
In the morning you have trouble waking up and finding your teenage life again. You drift between two horizons. During these short moments, you no longer know who you are, where you come from, where you’re going. Sometimes it seems to you that each morning you’re coming back to life after having been dead during the night. At night you find your country again, Rwanda, the darkness of the suitcase that sheltered you from your fears. The night would sink its teeth in you, regurgitating you at dawn. What reassures you is the light; you tell yourself that in broad daylight your parents are surely watching you from up high, keeping a close eye on you, protecting you. At night they cannot do that.
It’s time to get up, wash, and get dressed. You wet your face and subdue your frizzy hair. Your mother calls you insistently from the other end of the hallway making sure you’ll have something to eat before you leave. Then it’s just a few meters on the Parisian sidewalk to reach your school, the same school where your adoptive mother teaches history and geography.
You never leave together. You’ve been independent for a very long time, much earlier than the others. Nothing can scare you any more, you who were so small when you were roaming around in that hostile landscape. Yes, one thing does frighten you, terrifies you even, and that’s narrating. It’s possible that these events deeply buried in your memory may have never existed, sometimes you tell yourself it’s a legend running across your childhood. But it’s a doubt that rapidly dissolves when you remember your grandmother sitting in her chair, your brothers and sisters incessantly running around the house. You also remember your father who said nothing but saw everything, your mother who talked too much and never saw anything. Closing your eyes calms the sorrow but doesn’t make the wound disappear. Since you’ve been telling your story you suffer less, or differently. You’ve removed the weight of the secret from the harm done. By sharing your secret, you have lightened the burden you were carrying all by yourself for so many years. As you leave the building you follow the same way back. Walking with steady steps without even raising your head brings back old memories, but the commotion around you brings you back to reality. Here your feet do not get stuck in the soil and the distant horizon is invisible.
You traveled for three days and two nights. When you left the camp Sister Elvira kissed your forehead and put her hand on your shoulder. She talked to you, but you don’t remember anymore what she talked about. Her eyes were in yours. You were lined up two by two. You were the only one carrying a piece of luggage. One of the straps was ripped, your hands were holding the leather edges together. You went for miles and miles in an old bus, slept the whole night through, sleep chopped up by an uneven road. You had the feeling that the tires were constantly skidding on the rim of a ravine, so you resisted these onslaughts of sleep, convinced the road would be kinder if you were awake. There were six of you: the oldest boy was thirteen and the youngest, a girl, was five. You slept shoulder to shoulder, but nobody spoke to anyone. You were voiceless.
A stop at an old gymnasium where European volunteers distributed a few provisions with forced smiles. There you were, waiting, not saying a word, looking at each other like animals.
The wait and the boredom were torturous. Sleeping without being tired wore you out. You were looking at each other, your eyes expressing uncertainty. A young Belgian woman squatted down beside you, they were waiting for a plane to get full authorization for landing. No reaction, no expression on any of your faces, your eyes unblinking. You didn’t know what lot awaited you, you were subjected to their will.
The departure took place in the middle of the night, you remember nothing; as if that crossing had escaped from time. You still stared at one another with the same doggedness as if to comfort yourselves with the idea that, first of all, you were safe and that a better future awaited you.
It was your first baptism by the sky. You left the earth and the dust. One of the youngest survivors had a nervous laughing fit, so many new sensations at take-off. You said farewell to your own people as you climbed in altitude. Then the same sleep overpowered you all, children and adults. A muffled roar masked the loud beating of your hearts, the motor was making its way through the continent’s dark night. You felt the humid darkness through the window. This new atmosphere seemed to foreshadow your future lives. The quiet conversations of the adults traveling with you mingled with the whispering of the children, who were imagining both the best and the worst. There were six of you children, you felt a bit like a family and yet, a few weeks later, you would all be separated.
Then you slept again and again because staying awake would force you to think.
You woke up at daybreak as the light flooded the cabin almost blindingly. The suitcase at your feet was even colder than the night before, the leather had changed color, texture, you hardly recognized it anymore. They handed out food, you swallowed it without hesitation, then they brought you colored markers. For a while the colored patches made you forget the ravaged villages, defaced by human horror; apples in the foliage, bodies strewn across the countryside, the circles of dwellings, freshly turned-over furrows of mass graves. Very soon the markers had run out of ink, dried out by the air and by the dogged insistence of your hands pushing down on the paper. The strokes were vague, the hatching too heavy, you went outside the lines as if you’d forgotten how to color.
Your only memory of the time after that was the cold. It lashed your face, froze your blood. You had arrived in a land without light, the sky unlike your sky at home. You kept examining it as if it had changed. The food tasted differently; the water, too, it was an old water without any flavor. The air you were breathing smelled of nothing, neutral and flat, like the ground you were walking on.
Your suitcase was still by your side, you never let go of it. All the adults were trying to get you to dispose of it. But then you’d show unmistakable signs of hostility, defending tooth and nail the one thing that belonged only to you. That evening you spat and rubbed the leather’s surface to remind it of your enduring bond.
Your chaperones were no longer surprised to see it by your side, morning, noon, and night, always in the same place, on your right as if it were preceding you, leading the way to alert you to possible dangers. The others had taken to stroking it as a good-luck charm, the littlest girl would hold it close like a stuffed animal. Its unraveled straps made it even more endearing. It bore the traces of exile just like all of you did, just more visibly so. The journey had pulled it out of shape, making it flabby and limp.
Upon arrival on the European continent, none of you had any memory any longer, your recollections seemed to have gotten lost in the darkness of tunnels whose maze you yourselves were not aware of. The suitcase reminded you of where you came from, how you’d wandered through the hills, your hunger and thirst. It reminded you of your soil, the same soil that now covered the bodies of your family. You were the sole surviving Tutsi of your village. In a soft voice, carefully choosing each of her words, Axelle, one of the Belgian volunteers, explained to you that it had been totally decimated, its Tutsi inhabitants exterminated in less than an hour. No one would be looking for you anymore. They all lay at about a hundred meters from the village in a furrow, a gash in the earth like a scar beneath the open sky.
The first time you saw them was in a playroom where the toys were arranged by theme: puzzles, games, Lego trays, blocks, and so on. Halloween decorations were suspended in the corners of the room, all sorts of half-smiling, half-grimacing pumpki
ns. It was the first meeting with the couple that wanted to adopt you.
Axelle was watching you from the doorway. They both sat down on child-sized chairs and tried to get to know you. You paid no attention to them, absorbed in the building of a model. They were watching your fingers, impressed by your power of concentration. The husband couldn’t keep himself from intruding, here and there inserting key pieces of the fire station. Axelle was observing them with a smile on her lips. They came back several times without wanting anything from you, no hello, no goodbye. They’d bring models for children twelve years or older, which were sometimes complicated, but you liked the challenge. Axelle asked you to show them whatever you’d finished. You did, always suppressing a slight smile. You didn’t want to say anything, and they fully understood. They didn’t ask you for anything.
What is certain is that you were happy to know they’d be coming but you did your best not to show any of that. Your meetings became more frequent, once a week, then twice. They were always calm, never forcing an exchange. Your encounters were silent and that’s what made you win them over. Sometimes Axelle would interrupt the silence, talk with them for a while, while your eyes stayed riveted on the models.
They placed candies on the table, but you didn’t look at them. Taking any of it would mean you were accepting something from them, and for now you weren’t ready. Axelle fully understood and told you:
‘Take your time, nobody is forcing you. Things will work out or they won’t.’
You acquiesced, reassured that you had no obligation toward them. And then one day a strange and indescribable thing occurred. It was raining hard, a torrent of water that rid the city of its dust. At your play table, you were building your eleventh model. They were there, next to you, on chairs that were too small for them, watching the colored blocks pile up methodically. Suddenly, your adoptive mother stroked your neck; you felt the moment as a shock. Her hand stayed on your skin for just a few seconds and yet the warmth of that hand remained with you still. That day you had a ‘magical thought’: it was your grandmother who’d laid her hand on you. You took it as a first sign, your grandmother was letting you know from up high that she approved of their presence, that she liked them. You said nothing, did nothing, but for the first time in a very long time, you felt good.
For A Long Time, Afraid Of The Night Page 7
