Running the Rift (32 page)

For the final eight hundred, he conjured up Bea in her blue shawl (
azurite, beryl, chrysocolla
) her skin (
cinnabar
) gleaming in the room's dim light (
serpentine, olivine, mysterious minerals of the sea
). She hovered in front, his rabbit, exiting turns as he entered. The finish wavered in front of him. He crossed and stopped his watch and then doubled over, nothing left to give. Three-tenths of a second shaved. Now he knew he was clawing his way back. For luck, he touched the knot of Isaka's bandanna at his neck.

When he regained his breath and looked up into the stands, Bea was watching him, as if he had truly called her forth. He waved and trotted toward her. Taking the steps two at a time, he shouted, “I broke my own record in the eight hundred. Could you tell?” Bea covered her face with her hands, and his stomach twisted. “What's wrong?” He took his track pants from the bench and pulled them on. “I thought you'd be happy today. You got your wish.”

“There is no new government. Habyarimana had himself sworn in, and then he left. It was a complete joke.”

Jean Patrick sat beside her. “I thought everything was settled. What
happened?” He recalled Uncle's warning. The heat of exhilaration drained from his body, the sharp chill of afternoon taking its place.

Bea pulled her jacket around her. “Will you eat with us? You don't have to change; no one will care.” The sheen of her tears gave her eyes a hard, polished look, like metal.

“I'm soaking wet. Let me get dry and put on clothes. Pass by my room with me.” He looked out across the field, the road above the track. He saw no one there to watch or judge, so he put his arm around her and led her down the steps. “Shh,” he said. “Shh. It's OK.”

Bea shook her head. “No. Nothing is OK.”

What heat was left in the day had fled. Soon the light would follow it, vanishing behind the hills. “Tell me,” he said.

“None of us believed Habyarimana meant to proceed, so we went with our eyes open. There was a big crowd outside the parliament building, shouting, joking, milling about together. It felt festive. Dadi and I began to get excited. We thought maybe we had been wrong, maybe our dream would come to pass after all.” She paused to wipe her cheek. Her malachite bracelets jangled. “Habyarimana and his convoy came zooming up like Hollywood gangsters, horns blaring, weaving so fast and crazy we all had to jump out of their way. Even UNAMIR troops—they almost ran them over. The Presidential Guard leapt from the trucks, waving their guns and machetes, and swarmed into the crowd. They had on civilian clothes, but no one was fooled.” Bea trembled. Jean Patrick thought it was from cold, but when she turned to him and held his gaze, he saw the anger. “They were the petrol poured on the smoldering fire,” she said. “Of course the mob ignited.”

Jean Patrick knew the face of this force. Frenzy shimmering like chemical vapors, the flash point dangerously low. He had looked it in the eye. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Not seriously, as far as I know. But the crowd attacked the moderate candidates—PSD and the other allied parties—as they tried to enter the building. They couldn't pass. We planned to follow Habyarimana inside, but when we realized what was happening, we stayed in the street to help protect the delegates, because the police did nothing. I heard Dadi yell, and when I looked around, he was on the ground, someone hitting him. Finally some UNAMIR soldiers stepped in and saved him.”

“And until then, UNAMIR did nothing?”

“They protected those few they could, but they did not step in.” Bea stopped to remove a stone from her sandal. “I do not think we can count on them, if it comes to that.”

They had reached Jean Patrick's dorm and stood outside the door. Aside from two women strolling arm in arm on the path to the library, the campus was deserted, everyone still home for vacation. “Come in with me,” Jean Patrick said. “You can close your eyes while I dress.” He opened the door and turned on the light.

Bea paused as if weighing her options in her two hands. For a moment, Jean Patrick thought the balance would tip against him, but then she pulled her jacket tighter and stepped inside. Jean Patrick shut the door behind her.

“What happened then?” he said.

She turned and leaned against the door, forehead pressed to the shabby wood. “We learned Habyarimana had himself sworn in with a fancy ceremony.” She hugged herself. “Along with a gang of Hutu Power thugs whose names mysteriously appeared on the list instead of the true delegates—the moderates.”

Jean Patrick watched Bea's back, her bowed head. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. He took off his clothes and toweled dry. Bea's nearness made him shiver. When he had dressed, he stood beside her.

She faced him, her body pressed against the door, as if without its support she would sink to her knees. Her cheeks shone with tears. “For the first time since my father was in prison, I'm frightened. This country is going to explode. That is what I felt today.” She began to weep, and Jean Patrick raised a hand to her hair. A strand, straight and silky, had come loose from the tie that held it, and he tucked it carefully behind her ear. “God help us,” she said, and she closed her fingers around his.

“You're safe now,” he said. The air trembled, his words moving outward as a ripple moves out from a pebble tossed into the depths of a lake. Outside the window, a night bird whistled. A purplish dusk curled around the last wisps of daylight. They would be walking in darkness. Jean Patrick reached across her and turned out the light. Before opening the door and letting in the evening, he sang to her, “Cyusa,” the song his mother used to
sing to him when he was small and frightened by shadows. It was a lullaby, a mother telling her child to fear nothing because his parents would always watch over him. It was the only thing he could think of to do for Bea.

It was Friday night, the Murakazaneza crowded beyond belief. Jean Patrick and Bea pushed their way inside. “I think Susanne will be easy to spot,” Jean Patrick shouted into Bea's ear, in order to be heard above the onslaught.

Bea leaned into him. “What makes you so sure?” She was already moving toward the cap of blond-white hair at the center table, the focus of all eyes in the restaurant. Not even the football game on TV could compete.

In person, Susanne did not resemble a boy. She was tiny and thin, hair cropped closer than in her photo, flyaway spikes caught in a current of air. “These are my very best friends, J. P. and Bea,” Jonathan announced to anyone who cared to hear. Susanne raised her head, and Jean Patrick looked into two flakes of malachite.

Jonathan called the waiter to the table. “Brochettes et chips? Plantains?”

“Sounds wonderful,” Bea said as she claimed the chair beside Susanne. “It's nice to finally greet you—we hear so much of you.” She kissed Susanne's cheeks Rwandan-style.

Jonathan ordered in a mixture of French, Kinyarwanda, and English. The waiter, who knew him well by now, teased him with a rapid-fire Kinyarwanda response. “And beer. Inshi, inshi Primuses!” Jonathan spread his arms wide to pantomime
many
. The waiter chuckled and disappeared into the kitchen.

Jean Patrick understood Jonathan's fire now, the way love lit him up from the inside.

The waiter returned with food and beer. Susanne's eyes looked glazed. “Excuse me if I seem a bit out of it,” she said. “I've been traveling for two days; it's been a really long and insane journey.” She picked up a stick of gizzards from the plate of brochettes, and Jonathan gasped.

“Probably not the best first choice,” he said as he took them from her fingers.

“Try this instead.” Jean Patrick gave her a goat brochette.

With the tine of her fork she pulled the meat from the stick. “Mmm! What is it?”

Jonathan spoke over Jean Patrick's response. “Beef.”

Bea looked at Susanne and smiled. “How do you find our country?”

Before Jonathan could stop her, Susanne spooned pilipili over her chips. “Wow,” she said, her eyes watering. “Not quite ready for that.” She gulped her beer and turned to Bea. “I love Rwanda. The beautiful landscape, the friendly people. I've never seen so many breathtaking smiles. Although tonight I may need a little coffee to stay awake.” She slumped against Jonathan.

Raising her beer glass, Bea said, “A toast for our New Year's celebration. Uzakubere uw'amata n'ubuki.” She translated for Susanne. “May you have a year of milk and honey.”

Susanne gave Bea a sleepy smile. “How funny! We say that, too—halav oo d'vash—only I think it has to do with the land of Israel instead of the New Year.”

“Ha-rav oo vache.” Jean Patrick tried. He couldn't get his tongue around the sounds. “
Vache
like cow?”

“Oh no—sorry—it's Hebrew.” Susanne giggled.

“To milk and honey—whatever the language,” Jonathan said.

Everyone clinked and drank. Jean Patrick prayed their wish would come true in any language Imana heard.

All through dinner, Susanne and Jonathan swayed into each other like drunks. Jean Patrick envied them their bold and easy touch. If he lived in a place where such things were possible, he would sweep away hesitation, throw an arm across Bea's shoulder, and kiss her in front of the world.

Empty bottles disappeared; full ones took their place. Fresh brochettes arrived to replace the piles of empty sticks. Beneath the table, Jean Patrick sought Bea's sandal. She tapped his toe with her foot. An American movie, muted, flickered in the TV's blue light. Something about a war. A haze of cigarette smoke blurred the evening's edges.

Susanne talked about her NGO, their plans to plant new trees on denuded slopes. She had majored in forestry, minored in French, and when she confessed to having been Jonathan's student, she blushed. She ate a boiled plantain slice with her fingers. “C'est si bon,” she said.

“Biraryoshye cyane,” Jean Patrick taught her.

Susanne would spend two weeks in Gisenyi for training, then work in a small town near Ruhengeri, on the slopes of the Virungas.

“Aren't you afraid?” Bea asked. “That's right next to the DMZ.”

“Should I be?” Susanne's brow furrowed. “The State Department told us it was safe.”

“Of course,” Bea said. Magma flared and then extinguished in her eyes.

“I can't wait to see the mountain gorillas. I was stunned when someone murdered Dian Fossey. And when I think of poachers killing those poor animals—” She broke off the sentence and sighed.

Bea scowled. Jean Patrick could see her boiling up. There are Rwandans in the Virungas, too, she was thinking. Innocent Rwandans are murdered every day.

W
HEN
S
USANNE PASSED
out on Jonathan's shoulder, Jonathan signaled for the bill. Jean Patrick glanced at his watch. Less than half an hour until curfew. What was it like not to scurry into hiding when a certain hour arrived? He could scarcely remember. With Susanne's arrival, he saw his life with new eyes, all its faults and restrictions.

Jonathan had rented a car for the weekend, and he offered Jean Patrick and Bea a ride. Bea had calmed down, her resentment blunted into friendly goodwill. She watched, amused, as Jonathan fumbled with the key. The grating voice of an RTLM journalist came from a radio down the street.
We expect this government to be reasonable and not help the RPF create problems.

Bea maneuvered into the tiny backseat, and her pagne flared open. A red pantaloon leg flashed in the light from the overhead bulb. Jean Patrick ducked in beside her, his bony knees nearly in his chest.

Jonathan drove carefully, Susanne asleep against his shoulder despite the skull-jarring bumps from the road. At the checkpoint, she half awoke and gave the soldier an angelic smile.

“Welcome to Rwanda,” he said with a salute. He returned her smile. His finger brushed hers when he returned the passport.

“Thank you. I may never leave.”

The soldier slid his flashlight beam over Bea and Jean Patrick and then
made a sweeping circle to wave them through. Jonathan thanked him and drove on toward Cyarwa Sumo.

“It helps to have a mnyamerikakazi in the car,” Bea said in Kinyarwanda. “The guy was so crazy for her blond hair, he forgot about us completely.” Jean Patrick grinned. Bea had a human side after all; she was jealous.

Jonathan, brave as soon as he passed through town, sped around corners like a true Rwandan driver. Jean Patrick and Bea slanted one way and then another, like fishermen on a stormy lake. A crescent moon swam through the clouds. Jean Patrick pressed his mouth to Bea's ear. “Do you know what Americans do in backseats?” Bea shook her head. He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

“Eh! Who taught you that?” she whispered back.

Tossed about in the darkness, the engine's drone a song in Jean Patrick's head, they could have been adrift, the bottom so far beneath them they might sink forever and never reach it.