Running the Rift (40 page)

DEATH BECOMES HUNGRY
Urupfu rurarya ntiruhaga.
Death eats and is never full.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Jean Patrick would leave for Cyangugu to spend the day with his family. In the darkest hour of night, Roger would come with his friends. They would walk silently to the lake beneath a sky heavy with clouds, no moon to guide them. They would embrace. Uncle would refuse to abandon his land, Auntie would refuse to abandon her husband. Jean Patrick and Roger would try to persuade them, and then, with everyone else in the boat, Uncle would ask Jean Patrick one last time to go. No, he would tell him. Although it struck a blow to his heart to defy the man who had been his father, to say good-bye to his family, he couldn't let go of his dream. He knew that in the end, Emmanuel would understand.

Whenever he shut his eyes, the scene came to him, so close he could put his arms around each member of his family, feel the pressure of their embrace, their warm breath on his skin. But it was the last moment that bothered him, the moment after he told Uncle he would not go. In his mind, he saw Uncle's foot inside the boat. Which way would he turn? Was there a chance he would step in with his other foot, take Auntie's hand, and guide her in as well? Or would they turn back, walk up the path, hand in hand?

Each time he tried to think of something else, there it was again, calling him. He could not tear himself away to return here, to Butare, to this moment of the life he called his own. He might as well have stuck to Roger's original plan so he could live the scene in reality instead of this torture of wait and imagine, imagine and wait.

From the dinner table, Jean Patrick watched the Cup of Nations game out of the corner of his eye. At least football could distract him from his mental twists and turns. Michel Bassolé, his favorite player, had just scored his second goal of the night for Côte d'Ivoire. The game was tied again.
Jean Patrick wanted the Francophones to win. So far, it had been a very exciting game.

This was supposed to be a celebration, an introduction for Jonathan and Susanne to Easter Rwandan-style, but Jean Patrick couldn't keep his mind in the present. Before dinner, when they sat together and watched the game, not even Bea's thigh against his leg could anchor him. When Ineza called them to eat, he had not wanted to move.

Jonathan and Niyonzima were discussing politics. Habyarimana had gone to Dar es Salaam to sign the final peace accord with the RPF. At this moment, he was flying home.

“This will be the turning point, don't you think?” Jonathan said. “The opposing sides sat down and came to an agreement. Habyarimana has stood up to the extremists and decided to compromise.” No one answered, and Jonathan fidgeted with his fork. “I mean, this time, the door is open for peace, isn't it? Even the president of Burundi was at the table,” he said.

Once more, Jean Patrick allowed himself to believe. If Jonathan's wish came true, Roger's plan would be called off, and Tutsi could begin to live in peace again with their Hutu neighbors. Maybe there would be an announcement on TV tonight, after the president landed.

Bea shook her head. “How many times have we thought this, only to have our hopes trampled beneath the feet of a rioting mob?”

Jean Patrick returned his attention to the television. Enough was enough. All he wanted right now was to replace confusion with the all-absorbing pursuit of a world-class game. Claire cleared the dishes and brought fruit, coffee, and tea. Jean Patrick was tired from his afternoon run—twelve kilometers at a steady pace, out and back to the National Museum, then eight times around the track. The two glasses of wine had gone to his head, and his eyes kept closing. The Cup of Nations went into extra time, and he was just about to suggest they watch the rest of the game when the screen went blank.

“What's this?” Niyonzima asked. The power had not gone off. He pushed himself up on his cane and went into the living room. He pounded the TV set, turned it off and on, off and on. The screen flashed—it clearly had current—but the picture did not return.

The set could not have gone dead at a more inconvenient moment. “Is it broken?” Jean Patrick asked.

Bea turned on the radio. Classical music played. “That's odd,” she said. She switched from Radio Rwanda to RTLM. The usual diatribe burst through the speakers. Then the classical piece came on the television, too, but the screen stayed blank.

“No,” Bea said. “It isn't broken. I believe something has happened in Kigali.”

T
HE
I
NYENZI
-I
NKOTANYI HAVE
killed our beloved president. Now they want to kill you. Hutu, we ask that you do patrols, as you are used to doing. Remember how to use your usual tools. Defend yourselves. Clear the brush, search the houses and the marshes, put up barriers so that nothing can escape.

These were the words that spewed from RTLM as dawn approached, a grisly shift of color out of the mist of night. The announcements had come the previous evening. First, that the president's plane had crashed on approach to the runway, and then that it had been shot down and there were no survivors. For the first time in Rwanda, the radio did not go off at ten o'clock, and everyone had remained in the living room all night, listening. It hadn't taken long to blame the RPF, UNIMAR, all Tutsi. By ten o'clock came the curfew declaration. Anyone found violating the order would be killed.

“How convenient that makes it,” Niyonzima said grimly. “Just kick down the doors and start shooting.” Jean Patrick knew he was thinking of his friends and colleagues.

Despite the edict to stay off the streets, Jonathan and Susanne had made their way home at midnight, terrified for Amos's safety. He was due back that evening from vacation, and they had been calling and calling the house, but there was no answer. They phoned when they got home to say he was safe, asleep in his hut, and they didn't have the heart to wake him. Since then, they'd been phoning every hour to ask if there was anything they could do. In the midst of the maelstrom, such tiny miracles: connections still worked, and the power was still on.

Now the TV was on, sound mute, and there, in front of Jean Patrick,
was a scene he could not have conjured up in the wildest and most terrible regions of his imagination. On road after road, at roadblock after roadblock, some no more than tree limbs or cases of beer, Interahamwe and their cohorts killed methodically, mechanically. Machetes and spears, staffs and clubs, a rhythmic rise and fall as if pounding sacks of grain. Cars and trucks abandoned, smashed, burning. Bodies stacked by the side of the road, limbs splayed, dark stains spreading beneath them. Streets a scatter of clothing and belongings.

The incantations on RTLM buzzed in Jean Patrick's brain.
Here are the names of RPF traitors. You must act very fast! Force them out!

“We should leave right now,” Ineza said. For the first time, Jean Patrick saw terror in her eyes.

Niyonzima leaned both hands on his cane and rose stiffly from his chair to comfort her. It was an impossible wish, of course. They had no car, and Niyonzima could barely walk. “We're safe here,” he said. “We have our Tutsi préfet to protect us. We know him well enough; he has shared our food, our hospitality. He will never stand for this madness.” Ineza patted his hand, but Jean Patrick saw no conviction in her gesture.

Day broke colorless and wet, rain a dirty bandage fraying from the clouds. Niyonzima looked up with glazed eyes. “Is there someone I can phone in Cyangugu?”

Uwimana, of course. But Jean Patrick had never had reason to know his number. Coach would know, but he was gone. No one was at school, with Easter. Thoughts came one numbed word at a time. Today was Thursday. He was supposed to be in Cyangugu. Roger's friends were supposed to take his family to safety. Too late, too late. Without hope, Jean Patrick could only pray that Roger's plan would come to pass without him.

“No,” Jean Patrick said. “There is no one.”

Ineza pointed at the television and then she fainted. Bea screamed and collected her into her lap. On the screen, a group of shirtless men were poised above a pregnant woman, a machete blade at her naked belly.

Claire had just come in from the cookhouse. “We are all dead now,” she said. She knelt beside Bea and put a hand to Ineza's forehead. “Niyonzima—muzehe—I am asking. Please turn this thing off so your wife can come back to the living with a few seconds of peace.”

T
IME DRIFTED SIDEWAYS
. They orbited the television like moths drawn to an intoxicating, deadly flame. As many times as Jean Patrick turned away, his eyes came back to the wreckage. Ineza sat beside him, wrapped in a shawl. Her untouched cup of tea cooled on the table. Rain slammed the window. How long would this go on? Jean Patrick paced, sat, paced again. Every muscle in his body screamed until finally he leapt up.

“I have a Hutu card at school. I'm going to fetch it. I need to get to Cyangugu.”

“Mon pauvre,” Ineza said. “Once you leave the safety of Butare, how far do you think you will get before someone catches you? With your long fingers and skinny legs, who in a crazed mob will think you Hutu? Did you not hear? At roadblocks, they are inspecting fingers, forcing people to roll up their pants and show their calves.”

“Mama is right,” Bea said, slipping inside Ineza's shawl with her. “Your Hutu card will buy you nothing.”

Jean Patrick felt a jolt of fear pass between them. The realization came to him like a snap of the fingers: with her high forehead, her thin artist's hands and golden skin, her Hutu card would be just as useless; her blood would mix with his in the street.

It rained all morning. Water pooled in the garden, the sky waxen, no way to tell the hour. From the top of the wall, glass teeth gnashed at the mist. Sometime in the early afternoon, a lively traditional tune interrupted the rant on RTLM. At the end of the song, the announcer came back.
The traitor prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, is not working anymore. She has been killed
.
We know our enemies, and we will seek them out.
The Rwandan Army had also captured ten Belgian soldiers who had been assigned to protect her, the announcer bragged. They were taken to the army camp, where they were beaten to death.
UNAMIR will soon flee in terror
,
its tail between its legs, and then the rest of the whites will follow. Soon no one will remain to judge us. We will carry out our work with their blessing.

Soon after came more announcements of executions: candidates for the presidency of the transitional government, leaders of opposition parties, the president of the Constitutional Court, who would have sworn the new president in.

“God help us,” Ineza said. “We have descended into hell.” She wept openly. Jean Patrick was ashamed because he found no tears to shed.

B
Y LATE AFTERNOON
, there were boastful reports of killings in Gisenyi. In Byangabo, Busogo, Gikongoro. In Kivumu, Murambi, Mudende, and Ruhuha.

“My God. Beyond Butare, no safe or sane place remains in this country,” Bea said.

And then came reports of killings in Cyangugu. Jean Patrick listened to the names with his head in his hands until the need to move drove him from his chair. The absence of his family from the lists did little to console him. He escaped into the rain, ran laps around the garden until he was soaked to his core, but he could not run fast enough to leave his guilt behind. He came in, stood shivering and trembling by the fire.

Bea came to stand beside him, and he took her in his arms. “My brother Roger,” he began. “He is not working in Kenya. He is RPF.”

Bea nodded and took a breath, but Jean Patrick put a finger to her lips before she could speak.

“I know you well enough to have read the suspicion in your mind about my story,” he said. And then he told her of his last meeting with his brother, about the plan to flee. “If only I had not been so selfish, had not begged for an extra day. If I had listened more closely, believed more urgently what he told me. I should have been there on Wednesday to persuade Uncle eye to eye. If I had been, I would know now that our family was safe. I would have seen it for myself.”
If, if, if.
An endless, pointless march of
if
s.

Bea held his hands to her cheek. “You cannot blame yourself. None of us could have predicted
this,
” she said.

Niyonzima was busy phoning journalists and friends in Europe. Someone had to send soldiers; someone would rescue them from this madness. He tried to telephone Kigali but could not get through. Most likely, none of his friends were left to answer. Jonathan phoned to say he was in constant touch with the U.S. Embassy, and it was only a matter of time. The world would not stand by. He phoned again later to say he was still trying, promising that he would not leave, would not abandon them, no matter what.

“You must eat,” Claire said. She brought dishes of food and set them on the table.

“Thank you,” Bea said. She hugged Claire, rocked her. “You save us.”

Ineza rose to draw the curtains as night drew its curtain over day. RTLM was a hiss in the background, a force too strong to resist.
RPF ibyitso were found hiding in the home of a Tutsi businessman. Now they are being grilled right there. Now they are burning.

Jean Patrick pressed his hands to his ears. “I shouldn't stay here. I'm putting all of you in danger. I will go to the church or some other place of refuge. I know all the hidden routes.”

“Don't be foolish,” Niyonzima said. “Do you think with my politics I am any less a dead man than you?” He wobbled to his feet. “Eh—let me stop this talk. Claire has been kind enough to cook for us. Let us eat.” His hand reached to silence the radio, but the announcer's message stopped him.