Running the Rift (23 page)

T
O COOL DOWN,
Jean Patrick jogged through campus. It was a chance to strengthen his legs with a few extra intervals on the stairs. Since the race in Kigali, many people recognized him, and he spent this last portion of his run returning greetings. “Mr. Olympics!” they called out. He believed he had earned this name as much as Roger had earned Mistah Cool and Isaka earned One Shot. But he was also looking for Bea. He had not stopped looking for her since she opened her gate to call him inside.

He spotted her talking to Jonathan in a patch of sun, hugging an armload of books. Behind her, the flowers on the flame trees earned their name. Her right foot jutted out as if she were on the verge of motion, and she spoke to Jonathan in rapid English. A crushed orange-red blossom stuck to the sole of her sandal.

“J. P.! You remember Bea, don't you?” As if he could forget. “Did you know she's going to be the next president of Rwanda?”

“It would not surprise me.” Jean Patrick smiled and extended his hand. Suddenly conscious of his chipped tooth, he covered his mouth.

Bea laughed. “You are very famous now; I see your picture all over the papers.” She took his hand, and her books tumbled to the ground.

“So sorry. My fault.” He bent to collect them, each title another piece of the puzzle that was Bea. Like Coach's books, most concerned government and history, but there was also a sketchbook, flung open to an intricate drawing of flowers. She bent to help. He could have reached over and touched her emerald-tinged eyelid.

“We're going for a coffee at the Ibis,” Jonathan said. “Why don't you join us?”

“Yes, you must.” Bea rose and straightened her pagne. Her cheek would fit perfectly, he imagined, in the hollow of his breastbone.

B
EA WAS A
second-year student, studying journalism and history. She had wished to be an artist like her mother, but art, like physics, was useless. Instead she would follow in her father's footsteps. “There's nothing wrong with that,” she said. “Journalism is also in my blood.”

She told Jean Patrick all this after Jonathan left, while she sipped a second cup of tea. She collected crumbs from the pastry they had shared and sucked them from her finger.

“You speak English like a native,” he said. “How did you learn?”

“I spent nine years in London. We left Rwanda when I was four, to be with my father while he got his PhD. Later I went back for secondary school.” Her hands on the table gave off a tingly heat. “I'm rusty—when you don't speak a language, you lose it so quickly—so I'm grateful to practice with Jonathan.”

Now it made sense the way she walked through the world, the way she took life on her own terms and defied anyone to stop her. “Why did you come back?”

“At first I never wanted to. Great Britain felt like home.” She added milk to her tea and stirred. “Everything so convenient. Hot water and electric light on demand, an inside stove you turn on with a button, clean buses and trains to take you everywhere. And no one on an English bus hits you on the head with a leaky sack of sorghum or pushes you off a seat with a filthy suitcase.”

“I think I would get very fat.” The waiter brought a fresh thermos of tea. Too much caffeine usually left Jean Patrick on edge, aware of his rapidly beating heart, but this morning he found the jolt pleasurably intense.

“When we first came home, I didn't know how to be African. My feet were soft, and I couldn't stand to go barefoot. But by the time I left for boarding school, I was Rwandan again. They nearly had to drag me to the plane.”

Jean Patrick thought of the last day of Mathilde's life: the soldier pushing Aunt Esther, the rifle aimed at his heart. He thought of the soldier with the Presidential Guard who drew his thumb across his throat. “Some days I could get on a plane and never glance back.” But there was also the lake, its bottomless blue eye. There was Uncle, standing in his pirogue as
graceful as a stork to slap his pole and summon fish to the surface. “Other days I look around and feel only love for my country.”

“Imana yiriwa ahandi igataha i Rwanda,”
Bea quoted.

“True. God spends the day everywhere, but comes home to sleep in Rwanda.” Sun streamed through the window, striping the tablecloth. Jean Patrick took off his jacket. “I don't think I could ever leave my family, and of course now I am representing Rwanda at Worlds.”

“Did you grow up in Cyangugu?”

Jean Patrick momentarily lost himself in the light of Bea's eyes. He had to haul himself back. “Yes. My father was préfet des maîtres at Gihundwe.”

“Is he still there?”

“No.” He did a quick calculation and was shocked. “He's been dead nearly nine years.”

“I'm sorry.” Her gaze drifted to the door and back. “Cyangugu was one of my favorite places when I was small. We used to visit the lake during vacation, or go to Nyungwe Forest. I used to pick flowers and hide them under my dress. When my parents weren't looking, I threw them to the monkeys so they would have something to eat besides my arm. For some reason, they terrified me.”

Jean Patrick couldn't imagine Bea terrified of anything.

“Did you live in one of those beautiful houses by Lake Kivu?” she asked.

How could he tell her that his mother cleaned floors and did laundry in those houses? “No,” he said. “We live some distance away.” He hoped she wouldn't guess that only country people lived there, scratching an existence from the earth and the lake. Many would never read a book. Some could barely scratch a few words in a letter.

A beggar came and squatted outside the café, his empty sleeve pinned at the elbow. Two police officers shooed him away, then came inside and sat at a nearby table. One nodded to Bea, and Jean Patrick thought he saw her spine straighten.

“Mwaramutse,” the officer said. He offered her his hand. A row of braids and stripes adorned his uniform. “I see you 're acquainted with Butare's new celebrity.” He smiled, revealing a mouth full of gold-rimmed teeth.

“I had the good fortune to watch him race in Kigali,” Bea said.

“Perhaps I could see you next week.” The man's eyes flicked over Jean Patrick's T-shirt. “If you aren't too busy.”

Bea graced him with a smile that could have coaxed honey from a stone. “Next week I have exams. Perhaps after, when I've finished.”

He lit a cigarette and extinguished the match in the pastry plate. A ribbon of smoke rose from the burned sugar. “It's nice to greet you here,” he said, touching the brim of his cap to Bea. “Félicitations,” he said to Jean Patrick, and then he turned on his heels.

Bea leaned across the table. “He uses the most awful aftershave,” she whispered. Jean Patrick hid his smile. She gathered her books. “Let's go.”

Bea marched so fast down the hill that Jean Patrick jogged to keep up. “How was your reception?” she asked. She hugged her books tightly, and her face was pinched.

“It was great. A big celebration: music, dancing, Coca-Cola. I even tasted MacDonard's.”

“What?”

“MacDonard's. Some hamburger from U.S. It tastes like shoes.”

“Ha!
McDonald's!
” For an instant, her bad mood lifted. “My God—where did they find those?”

“They flew them in from Belgium. Just for my reception.” He waited for a response. When he got none, he said to fill the space, “President Habyarimana was so nice to me.”

Bea's nostrils flared. “That's great.” She would not look at him.

Jean Patrick stopped her. “What did I say wrong?”

She glanced around. “Do you mind if we keep walking?” Jean Patrick fell into step beside her as she picked up her pace again. “Habyarimana had my father arrested on November twelfth, 1990, a month after the RPF invasion,” Bea said. “I was in boarding school. My auntie came to get me.”

Jean Patrick felt as if he had set out for a stroll on a calm morning and headed into a storm. “Why did they arrest him?” He studied a little boy playing with a discarded tire.

“You can look at me,” Bea said. “I'm not Queen Nyavirezi. I won't turn into a lioness and eat you. He was imprisoned for speaking—and writing—his mind.” She touched Jean Patrick's elbow. “Don't look so
shocked. Even we Hutu suffer Habyarimana's wrath. By my father's calculations, over ten thousand people—Hutu and Tutsi—were put in prison in late 1990, early 'ninety-one, and our president was not
nice
to any of them.” Her voice shook. “My father spoke out because he loves Rwanda enough to die for her, and Habyarimana nearly made him prove it.”

“Please.” He started to wipe a tear from her cheek but thought better of it. “I'm sorry I caused you to think of these things.”

“It's me who should be sorry.” She touched a finger beneath her eye. The smudge her mascara left looked like ink. “What a gloomy subject to get started on. So. Tell me more about your fete.”

There seemed nothing more to tell. What—or whom—did he love enough to die for? He needed to run, to win. He thought he would be willing to die for that. “Bea,” he began, “I'm sorry for what happened to your papa. I don't know what else to say except I thank God he didn't die.”

Bea said, “So do I. Every day.”

When they reached campus, Bea stood on her toes, and for one giddy moment Jean Patrick thought she was going to kiss him. Instead she spoke into his ear. “Be careful, Mr. Olympics. I'll see you on Saturday night.” Her sandals
tap-tapped
the brick pathway as she hurried away.

T
HAT NIGHT
, J
EAN
Patrick awoke with the policeman's face so close, so real, he reached out to push it away. In the morning, he had two exams. In the afternoon, a hard workout. Shivering, he pulled the covers around him, closed his eyes, and tried to summon sleep. Dampness seeped from the sheets into his bones. A girl like Bea can marry anyone, he thought. A nice Hutu man, a doctor or a judge. What would she want with a Tutsi fisherman? The question troubled his mind.

But the next day, when his last exam was finished, he walked into town with his food money. In the first shop he entered, a store for tourists, he found her a gift. It was on a high shelf, between the clay pots and straw baskets: a pirogue carved from some soft, golden wood. When the shopkeeper lifted it down for him, Jean Patrick inhaled the musty tang of home. Inside the boat were two fishermen made from tightly woven imiseke, the reeds still smelling of the swampy earth they came from. They reminded him of the dog Mathilde had made him. They bent to their
strokes with miniature oars, the delicate curves of their backs in perfect symmetry. Tiny fish made from shells flashed in the bilge. There
is
value to my life, he almost said aloud as he watched the merchant wrap his prize in pages torn from an old and yellowed issue of
Kangura.

J
EAN
P
ATRICK AWOKE
in a panic, daylight bright in his eyes. He bolted upright, then fell back against his pillow to keep his head from spinning. Instantly he regretted the late night, the third Primus he had shared with Daniel. Eyes half-shut, he sat up slowly, rubbed his temples, and searched for his running shoes.

The voice of RTLM pushed through the wall from the adjacent room.
Burundi first. That's where our eyes are looking now
.
The dog eaters have mutilated—
the rest of the sentence lost in static. Jean Patrick sucked his teeth. People loved this new radio station too much; he heard it day and night in students' rooms, as background at the cabarets and shops, traveling on guys' shoulders as they strutted about. Just after seven in the morning, and already the announcer was hard at it, heating up heads.

“Daniel, it's time to get up.” Daniel pulled the covers over his head and turned to the wall. Jean Patrick yanked the covers down. “Don't make dead man's face at
me,
huh. I'm going. See you in class.” He stood by their small desk and forced down a piece of bread, a few sips of water. Daniel's pillow slammed into the wall beside him as he opened the door.

It had not yet rained, but the morning threatened, the sky a dirty rag ready to be wrung out. A cold wind strummed the dark wires of the clouds. Jean Patrick pulled his collar close and started out at a slow jog. At his back, he heard the broadside of RTLM.
Even when the dog eaters are few, they discredit the whole family. Bahutu—be vigilant against them.
The voice kept pace behind him. Jean Patrick whirled around. He recognized the boy with the boom box, one or two others in the group. From time to time they greeted him on his morning runs. Sensing trouble, he nodded to them and picked up the pace.

“There goes a dog eater now,” the boy with the boom box said.

Jean Patrick pushed harder, and the group fell back. His head throbbed; he wanted only to return to his room, crawl into bed, disappear beneath the blanket. A rock skittered by his feet, and then another.

On the main road, he forced himself to start his pickups and lunges. His lungs burned strangely, as if he had inhaled a toxic substance. Maybe today he would stop at the hut where the old guard lived and join him for a cup of hot, sweet tea. He neared the turnoff to the arboretum fields, and his breathing felt tighter. He couldn't puzzle it out, but then, turning onto the dirt road, he immediately understood. What he had taken for a cloud was a column of smoke, and it rose from the ridge where the guardhouse stood. A flower of orange flames bloomed at its center, where the old man's hut should have been.

Jean Patrick sprinted toward the ridge. His eyes watered, and his throat stung. A thick gray-blue haze rose from the earth. Usually by this hour, the women were hard at work, their ruckus carrying to his ears, but today he heard only the goats on the slopes, their high-pitched bleats and the tinkle of their bells piercing a preternatural quiet.