Running the Rift (22 page)

“T
HEY BEAT ME AGAIN,”
Jean Patrick said. He lay on the grass while Coach rubbed out his legs. “They did exactly to me what I did to that guy from École Technique.”

Coach kneaded Jean Patrick's calves, gently at first, then sinking in deeper. “What did you expect? They read you like a book.”

An electric jolt ripped through him as Coach pressed a tender point. “I expected to win.”

“You'll have another chance in Sweden, at World Championships,” Coach said. “Now you have some idea what you need to learn.”

“I won't make that mistake again.”

“There are plenty of other mistakes to make. Your first lap was spectacular—I couldn't believe it. But if you had paced yourself, you would have given those boys a run for their money. Work on pace and closing speed, and we'll see whose flag flies on the podium next time you meet.”

Jean Patrick wiggled his toes. His cramp relaxed. He watched Gilbert
and Ndizeye, barefoot and stretching on the field. He grinned at Coach, and Coach grinned back.

J
ONATHAN BROKE THROUGH
the mob of reporters and well-wishers and caught Jean Patrick in a hug. “Man, that was unbelievable!” He took Jean Patrick's picture with different lenses, in different poses.

“Even if I didn't win?”

“Who cares? You broke your own record, didn't you? And you made it look easy.”

“Easy?” Jean Patrick snorted. “I thought it would kill me.”

“I want to introduce you to someone while we have a free nanosecond,” Jonathan said, pulling him toward the stands.

Bea stood with a woman reporter on the stairs. She looked up with the same expression of surprised amusement he had fallen in love with when she pulled him into her yard. She extended her braceleted arm. “I had no idea when we met that I was in the presence of such a celebrity.” Jean Patrick enfolded her cool, dry hand in his sweaty, damp palms.

“You know J. P.?” Jonathan gave a pleased chuckle.

“One morning I had to rescue him from schoolchildren.”

It was only when she squeezed his fingers that Jean Patrick realized he still held tightly to her hand. He didn't know what to do. If he pulled away, she would think him rude. If he did not, she might find him ruder. Words stuck to his tongue. “I'm glad to finally meet you and your husband,” was all he could think of to say.

“My husband?” Bea laughed, throaty and full. “Ah yes. My husband who beats me.”

“What's this?” the man said, regarding Jean Patrick curiously. Jean Patrick noticed that his nose was pushed slightly to the left side of his face.

Bea touched Jean Patrick's shoulder. “Let me introduce my father, Niyonzima.”

Niyonzima gripped Jean Patrick's hand, and Jean Patrick was surprised by the strength. “Thank you for making me so young,” Niyonzima said. He brushed Bea's back, and she leaned into his touch. How easily they could be taken for husband and wife. But they were not, and Jean Patrick dared to imagine the smoothness of her skin beneath his fingers.

“You make Rwanda proud,” Niyonzima said. “You will send a message to the world.”

Jean Patrick thought of his father, his face suddenly sharp and clear in his mind. He thought of his family cheering him on in Cyangugu. “I will do my best.”

The Rwandan National Band marched onto the field and broke into “Rwanda Rwacu,” the national anthem. Then the president and his guard joined them. In his sky-blue jacket, Habyarimana looked like a mythical king come down from the heavens.

“I think you're being summoned,” Bea said. She pointed toward the field.

“Why don't you come to the reception?” Jean Patrick smiled and willed her to agree.

“We are not invited to the president's functions,” she said, her expression still playful.

“But you must come for a meal in our home, you and Jonathan,” Niyonzima said.

“That would make me very happy,” Jean Patrick said.

Niyonzima leaned on his arm. “It was a pleasure to meet you. Here comes your coach to steal you away.”

Coach marched up the steps. He did not offer his hand until Niyonzima offered his.

“We were just telling Jean Patrick how much we enjoyed watching him run,” Niyonzima said. “It was truly an honor, and I congratulate both of you.”

Coach clicked his heels in curt salute and guided Jean Patrick down the stairs. Jean Patrick turned to catch a final glimpse of Bea, but the crowd had swallowed her.

J
EAN
P
ATRICK FELT
the thrum of the bass in his body even before the white-coated, white-gloved houseboy swung open the gate at the American ambassador's house. A crew of gardeners bent among rows of flowers. He gazed at the mansion at the end of the walk. Compared to this, the fancy houses of Cyangugu looked like huts.

“Americans need a lot of room,” Coach said. He directed a smile at Jonathan.

“Now wait a minute. Not all of us live in luxury's lap.” Jonathan took off his cap and stuffed it into his back pocket. “That's unfair.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

“Me, I'm ready for a Coca-Cola,” Daniel said. He took two cups from a tray and gave one to Jean Patrick. With the first icy sip, pain drilled a path from Jean Patrick's tooth to his eyes.

Guests milled about, tiny cups held high. A babel of languages swirled in the air. President Habyarimana moved through the crowd, sweat trickling down his cheeks. He shook hands, clapped backs, made jokes. Every so often, he threw an arm around someone's shoulder and posed for a photo. Catching Jean Patrick's eye, he thundered, “Here is our hero …” He paused, open mouthed, and Jean Patrick realized the president had forgotten his name. Pulling a photographer with him, he trapped Jean Patrick and Jonathan beneath his wings and beamed for the camera. “This young man embodies the new Rwanda,” he declared. “A Rwanda where anyone can succeed.” Jean Patrick waited at attention for the rest of the speech, but Habyarimana merely cleared his throat.

Jonathan excused himself to take pictures. The president strode off with his guard. Jean Patrick was left at the mercy of a woman who had fastened onto his wrist.

“So you're our hero,” she said. She had electric-blond hair and wore a pink straw hat. He stepped back to dispel the rising sense of panic her nearness brought. “I didn't see you run—personally I detest sports of any kind—but I hear you are some kind of Rwandan wonder.” She drew his hand to her lips, and he realized she was going to kiss it. “I admire you Africans,” she said. Jean Patrick steeled himself against the warm, damp mouth and bowed as he had seen abazungu do in movies. As she disappeared into the crowd, he wiped his hand across his pants and went to search for Daniel.

He found him with his father, reclined against a tree. Its yellow trumpet blossoms carpeted the grass. “Finally, you can greet my papa. He's been waiting all day. Here is Pascal.”

He was a head taller than Daniel, but with the same wide mouth, the same stocky build. Even in his informal posture, he maintained the
bearing of a soldier. When he smiled, Jean Patrick saw the familiar gap between the two front teeth.

“I feel I've known you since your first day at Gihundwe, from all Daniel's stories.” Pascal embraced Jean Patrick as a father embraces a son.

A waiter offered them a tray of yellow packages. A red
M
or
W
decorated the paper. “These were flown in from Belgium, so let's see what the fuss is about,” Pascal said.

Jean Patrick sniffed carefully. “What is it?”

“It's called McDonald's,” Pascal said. “A kind of hamburger. I hear they're crazy about them in the U.S.”

The woman in the pink hat held hers high. “Oh my God! When was the last time I had one of these?”

Pascal took a bite and shook his head. “I do not understand how Americans think.”

Jean Patrick sampled the unidentifiable meat garnished with sweet red sauce. He didn't see what the fuss was about. “I better learn to enjoy these if I'm going to Atlanta.” He washed the tasteless bread down with Coke.

The first peals of thunder echoed in the distance, competing with the American music that thumped from the speakers. Storm clouds hurried across the sky. The breeze picked up, and Jean Patrick zipped his jacket. A flurry of cups and McDonald's wrappers blew across the yard. Partygoers danced. Jonathan discoed beneath a tree with a woman in a gauzy headscarf whose hair was the color of scorched copper.

The Presidential Guard, somber and stiff, formed a loose circle around the president's entourage. Coach stood at the edge of the circle, head bent in conversation with an officer. Pascal spoke into Jean Patrick's ear. “Now you see the Akazu for yourself.”

Habyarimana snapped his fingers, and a soldier came running. The president's wife spoke to the soldier, and he disappeared again.

“I don't get what you mean.”

Daniel spoke in a low voice. “We call them the little house because it is they who surround Habyarimana—his inner circle—who squeeze the people dry, keep the cogs of government running smoothly and turning in their direction.”

“By any means necessary,” Pascal said. “They keep the money flowing, bribes and funds stolen from NGOs and who knows what other mischief.”

“Which ones are they?”

With his eyes, Daniel indicated a group of men standing near the president's wife. One was the sour-faced man who had nudged Jean Patrick up the stadium steps.

“Not his wife, though, eh?”

Pascal made a sucking sound with his lips. “Madame Agathe is the most powerful of all.” The soldier returned with a microphone, and Madame Agathe pointed. The soldier set up the microphone in front of the president. “Watch out. You are important now. If you misbehave, it is they who decide if you go to prison or if you die.”

“Papa, don't frighten Jean Patrick with your catastrophes.”

The music ended, and the loudspeakers squealed. Coach beckoned Jean Patrick toward him. The sudden tightness in his legs as he broke into a trot told him he had worked as hard as he could. The pleasure of well-earned fatigue filled his body.

With a hand on Jean Patrick's shoulder, Habyarimana began his speech. Jean Patrick quickly lost count of the times the president referred to him as an example of progress. Although he tried to dismiss Pascal's warnings, they kept whispering in his ears. Flashbulbs popped in the darkening afternoon. Thunder rumbled closer. A single raindrop splashed on Jean Patrick's scalp. The president concluded, and a few people clapped without enthusiasm.

A greenish light shimmered in the air, as if it had been wicked up from the lawn. Lightning forked over the hills, and guests jogged toward the gate. The ambassador's wife shook hands and said good-bye. The white-gloved waiters disappeared, replaced by a flock of women in headscarves and pagnes to collect the trash.

“J. P.! One more photo with your coach and the president,” Jonathan shouted. His flushed skin glowed.

“Daniel, Pascal—come be in the picture,” Jean Patrick said.

They gathered together, Jean Patrick between Coach and Habyarimana, Daniel and his father bookends on either side. Behind them, the
tall poinsettia flamed. “Closer, so I can get all of you.” They squeezed in until their bodies touched. Jean Patrick felt heat on either side.

Habyarimana's face glistened. Posing for Jonathan, Jean Patrick shook off Pascal's glum warnings, and his good humor returned. When he was a young boy running through the streets of Cyangugu, how could he have imagined he would be standing here, having his picture snapped with Rwanda's president? But as the shutter clicked, a member of the president's guard caught his eye. Pointedly holding Jean Patrick's gaze, the soldier smiled and drew his thumb across his throat.

“I'
M STAYING IN
Kigali tonight,” Daniel said. He huddled with Jean Patrick in the driveway. They were the last to leave. “Papa will bring me back tomorrow, after church.”

The ambassador's wife had returned to her palace. Pascal came toward them, straightening his jacket as he walked. He looked handsome and smart in his uniform, how Daniel would look in another ten years. “You're lucky to have him,” Jean Patrick said.

Daniel looked at the ground. “Yes, I know.”

Jean Patrick said, “You need to take care of each other.”

“Until death do us part,” Daniel said, smiling.

Rain swept toward them in a dark sheet. Any minute, the sky would rupture. By the open car door, Coach tapped his foot. Pascal drew Jean Patrick and Daniel into a farewell embrace. Aftershave lotion and tobacco whirled in Jean Patrick's nostrils, and he became a little boy, lifted into the air, held against Papa's intoxicating, sweet-smelling cheeks.

Pascal said, “You are blessed with a very special gift; use it wisely and well. Above all, be safe.”

There were many ways to interpret this wish. “I will be safe, and in Sweden I will win,” Jean Patrick said. He jogged to the car. In the ambassador's house, light came to the windows, one after another.

“Let's go,” Coach said. “I want to get back to Butare tonight.”

“Run as if your life depended on it,” Pascal called. “As if all our lives depended on it.”

Lightning struck close by. Thunder followed on its heels. Pascal and
Daniel raced to an army truck and climbed inside. The truck's driver followed Coach's car as it turned onto the street. The gate slammed shut behind them. Simultaneously, the storm cracked the sky open with a deafening roar.

Coach accelerated past a bus. Jean Patrick turned in his seat and watched the truck until rain engulfed everything but the headlights. Pascal's last entreaty had left an uneasy feeling in his chest. It brought back the image of the soldier, thumb to his throat. Jean Patrick shook it off. Hadn't Habyarimana arranged the party to celebrate his achievements? The soldier was a single stupid man, probably angry for having to waste an afternoon. And wasn't Daniel always saying that his papa smelled catastrophe cooking in every harmless puff of smoke?