Running the Rift (6 page)

“Now, four hundred meters: once around the track.” Coach pointed at Jean Patrick. “You.”

“Me?” Jean Patrick waited for praise.

“Yes—you. Do you know what
pace
means?” Jean Patrick opened his mouth to respond, but no answer came to him. The squint or smile passed from Coach's face. “I didn't think so.”

Halfway around the track, Jean Patrick's chest tightened and strength left his legs. The feeling came out of nowhere, and it took all his will to keep him moving forward. Isaka passed him. Then another boy and then another, then Daniel, the chubby one, went by him with his lazy trot. Jean Patrick tried to respond, but a cramp brought him to his knees.

Daniel stopped and held out a hand to help him up.

The coach blew his whistle. “Leave him. Never stop in the middle of an interval. And you—I don't care if you have to crawl, but get back on that track and finish.”

Jean Patrick struggled to his feet. Driven half by pride and half by a desire to punch both Coach and Daniel, he limped across the line.

S
QUEEZED AGAINST THE
tailgate in the back of the school truck, Jean Patrick stared out at the traffic and wished he could disappear. The boys' chatter burned his ears. Daniel squatted beside him on the wheel well. “Hey. I'm sorry if I got you in trouble.”

Jean Patrick shrugged. A packed green bus honked and passed them. Painted in blue on the rear was the saying
IMANA IKINGA UKUBOKO.
God shields us from danger. A chicken scurried out of the way, squawking a saying of its own.

The truck pulled into Gihundwe. “I'm next to you in the dorm,” Daniel said, his tongue peeking from between his teeth. “I saw you put your things away—so neat. My papa's in the army, so you'd think I'd be orderly, but sorry—I am not. I have three sisters, and my sloppiness drives them crazy. Maybe we'll have to draw a line between your bed and mine to keep my sloppiness away from your good order.”

In spite of himself, Jean Patrick laughed. “Maybe we'll put up a fence,” he said, jumping down from the truck. Still rattled by his failure, he did not pay attention and landed with one foot in a rut. His ankle gave, and he stumbled.

A firm hand held him up. “Are you all right?” Coach's grip tightened on Jean Patrick's arm.

“I'm OK, Coach. I'm sorry about what happened on the track.”

“I've made that mistake myself. It humbles you.” From Coach's look, Jean Patrick saw there was nothing accidental about the choice of words. “What did you say your name was?”

“Jean Patrick Nkuba.”

The coach took the toothpick from his mouth and grinned. “Of course! Roger's brother. He's a good footballer. Why don't you play football? Running has no future in Rwanda. You have to go to Kenya or Tanzania for that.”

“I want to run in the Olympics.” The words slipped out. After his performance, they seemed silly, but Coach didn't laugh. The sun slid below a ridge of clouds. In his wet clothes, Jean Patrick felt the evening breeze go right through him.

“You're shaking. You should towel off and put on dry clothes.”

Jean Patrick started back toward the dorm, but Coach stopped him. “You're good,” he said. “I can see that. You have a lot of heart. But you also have a lot to learn.
Pace:
I want you to say that word in your sleep.”

The muscles in Coach's jaw tensed and relaxed rhythmically. That's a smile that could cut you in two, Jean Patrick thought, as easily as wish you good morning or good afternoon.

J
EAN
P
ATRICK TUCKED HIS IDENTITY CARD
into the pocket of his running shorts and zipped his thin jacket. When Mathilde began the tradition four years ago of sewing these pocketed shorts, she could not have foreseen how handy the design would become. She could not have predicted the checkpoints, the soldiers and policemen with their hands out demanding indangamuntu—identity papers—and harassing anyone with a high forehead and narrow features, anyone tall and skinny, what people thought of as Tutsi.

“Are you ready?” Jean Patrick whispered.

“Two seconds, eh?” Daniel said. “Let me sleep two seconds more.”

Jean Patrick poked at the lump of blanket and sheet. “Two seconds more and we won't get back before someone is up and catches us.”

Behind the chapel, they squeezed through the gap in the wall and started off down the path. It was just over a kilometer to the start of the hilly forest trail; by now, they knew the pace they kept, and they knew the ground well enough to run in darkness. Only the occasional crack of a branch, the rustle of a small animal through the undergrowth, broke the silence. They kept an easy tempo, Jean Patrick shaking out his fingers, tapping into the signals from legs and lungs. He felt good. At the trailhead, they stopped to recuperate before the start of their intervals.

“Are you going to take it easy, my friend?” Daniel put a hand on Jean Patrick's shoulder. “You'll need to save some energy for later.”

“I'll be all right. I'll catch you on the way back. Don't forget to run.”

“Be mindful,” Daniel called after him. “My papa says soldiers everywhere have orders to arrest anyone they consider suspicious.”

Jean Patrick did not need to be reminded. He zeroed his watch and took
off. There was no moon, but he knew every rut and root by heart. Letting the sound and rhythm of his footfalls fill his head, he tried to push out all thoughts of his current troubles. Today the burgomaster was coming to Kamarampaka Stadium to watch him race. If he won, he hoped such an important person could help him with his Olympic dream. Perhaps keep open one of the doors that were closing for all Tutsi.

It seemed impossible that life could change so quickly. Since that day the previous year when the priest had come running into the classroom to announce that rebel soldiers had attacked Rwanda, his papa's dreams of unity had vanished as rapidly as mist in morning sun. The rebels, mostly Tutsi refugees who had fled to Uganda, called themselves the RPF, Rwandan Patriotic Front. Uncle said this was just the excuse the government had been looking for to stir up anti-Tutsi venom, and despite what his father had taught him, Jean Patrick had to agree.

Overnight, all Tutsi became ibyitso—accomplices. President Habyarimana declared war and announced reprisals. Accusations on Radio Rwanda blared from every shop and cabaret. Two of Auntie's cousins were arrested, and one day, policemen came to Uncle's house and accused him of helping the RPF. They searched in every corner, left clothes and cooking utensils and torn-open sacks from the larder strewn about the floor.

At Gihundwe, students who yesterday had been their friends looked at Jean Patrick and the other Tutsi as if they had suddenly transformed into devils. Word of Tutsi massacres filtered down through radio trottoir, sidewalk radio, the news that traveled on the streets.

“What did I tell you?” Daniel had said. “My papa knows what he's talking about.” With every letter, Daniel had some dire warning to pass along to Jean Patrick.

Jean Patrick sucked his teeth in disgust. “Sidewalk gossip can't be trusted.” But since that time, he had kept his eyes on the gangs of ragged boys who roamed the marketplace in town.

Jean Patrick picked up his pace. Dead sprint to the banana grove, slow to the cassava field. After the third interval, he unzipped his jacket. After the fourth, he turned back to run the course in reverse, his jacket fastened about his waist. First light turned the sky lavender. The exhilaration of speed, of plucking the taut string of his capability, coursed through his
body. He caught Daniel on the last hard effort. “You are supposed to be running, not walking so,” he said.

“I am running. It just seems like walking to you.”

They would have to push to make it back in time. It was a little game they played, courting the risk of discovery. Jean Patrick gave Daniel a playful spank. “Put in some effort, OK?”

The gate was in sight. Jean Patrick's pulse drummed in his ears. He stretched out his legs as they slowed to an easy jog. The campus remained quiet, nestled in the wing of sleep.

I
F IT WEREN'T
for the cold, Jean Patrick would have been dozing by second period. By third period, the chill was no longer enough. The motion of his chin hitting his chest startled him awake. He shook his head and took off the outer of his two sweaters. If he wanted to keep his scholarship, he needed to pay attention. In two hours' time, he needed to win a race.

The last thing he remembered was answering Father Paul's question about the classification system for tilapia. He had mixed up the genus and the species. Every day, Jean Patrick recited his lessons while he ran around the track. At night, he studied until he couldn't focus, and then he fell into a sleep that felt like drowning. Coach had been right; it would be better to play football like Roger. A football player had a chance to succeed in Rwanda.

With Roger, Uncle's political seeds had taken root. He was at university now, in Ruhengeri, and he hoped to be a journalist. In his spare time, he wrote for a student opposition newspaper. When he came home to visit, he always brought a copy of
Kanguka
for Uncle to read. Emmanuel read the newspaper cover to cover. “I like the name of this paper—Wake Up,” he said. “That's what you need to do, Jean Patrick. Open your eyes. See what's going on.” But when Emmanuel mentioned politics, all Jean Patrick wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep.

His father had always said that Hutu and Tutsi were one people living together in one country. After Jean Patrick first uttered the words
I am Tutsi,
Papa had asked, “What does that mean? Can you tell me how we are different?”

Jean Patrick could not. Some Hutu had coffee-and-cream complexions, long, delicate fingers, and sculpted features, and some Tutsi were short and round-faced, with black-coffee skin. If he just saw Roger on the street, with his broad, muscular body and shorter stature, could he say? They had been mixed up together for so many years; two of Papa's sisters had married Hutu men. Did their husbands love them less because of the ethnie written on their indangamuntu?

It was not until rocks shattered his windows, the word
Tutsi
crashing through the glass, that the two were torn apart in Jean Patrick's mind. Since the start of the war, ethnicity grew around him like an extra layer of skin. No matter how he tried, he could not shed it.

“Be proud,” Uncle said. “Your heritage is the heritage of the mwamis, the Tutsi kings. If it weren't for the Belgians and their meddling, we might still be ruled by the mwami today.” But pride didn't protect Jean Patrick from glares in the dining hall, on the paths, in class. When he had been home the month before for Christmas, he had overheard Zachary asking Imana why he hadn't been born Hutu.

Jean Patrick shifted his weight on the hard bench and tried to focus on the diagram Father Paul had drawn on the board. Somehow the class had left the animal kingdom behind and entered the world of plant taxonomy. Glancing at his watch, Jean Patrick traveled forward in his mind to his race. He felt the fire in his lungs, saw the finish line approaching, the burgomaster standing to cheer him. A chill that came partly from fear, partly from excitement, made the hairs on his arms stand on end. He was still caught in the moment when a barrage of fists pounding on the classroom door jerked his attention back to the present. The door flew open, and a group of boys swarmed in.

“Mana yanjye!” Daniel whispered, pulling on Jean Patrick's sleeve. “It's starting.”

“What craziness are you talking now?”

“Are you blind? They're coming to kill Tutsi.” Daniel squeezed Jean Patrick's arm so tightly he nearly cried out.

There were five of them. They walked down the rows shouting and kicking the benches. Fumes of banana beer rippled in their wake.

“Sit down, Father,” one of them said. “We're taking over the lesson.”

Father Paul sat and opened his book.

Three of the boys wore the red, yellow, and green pajamas of a new group called Hutu Power. Jean Patrick had seen them hanging around the cabarets, walking through town with machetes and clubs. The one who spoke wore a boubou of the same colors over his pants. The shirt, flowing almost to his knees, looked sewn from a Rwandan flag and fitted him so loosely he swam inside it. A hat with a button bearing Habyarimana's picture sat crookedly on his head. When the light caught his face, Jean Patrick saw the zigzag scar that slashed his cheek, and he remembered his name: Albert. Mama once bought a charcoal iron from him at the market where he sold used appliances with his father. Uncle almost made her take it back because he didn't trust him.

Albert sat on the edge of the priest's desk and clapped his hands above his head. “Inyenzi, stand up!” No one moved. “What? No Tutsi cockroaches in this class?”

The air sagged with the weight of the question.
Be proud,
Uncle Emmanuel whispered in Jean Patrick's ear. Roger's fingers pressed at his back. He stood.

“Are you stupid?” Daniel hissed. “Sit down.”

Jean Patrick stepped clear of the bench in case he had to run or fight. “Yego. I'm Tutsi.”

“We're Tutsi, too,” Noel and Isaka said. They stood and held their joined hands high.

Jean Marie hunched in his seat. He leaned over his notebook and pretended to write until the pencil fell from his fingers. The thugs circled the rows of desks, two of them stopping in front of Noel and Isaka. A third yanked a tall, skinny boy from his chair. “Hey, Inyenzi—stand up! What are you afraid of?”

“Leave that guy alone—he's Hutu,” a classmate said.

“Sorry, man.” The Hutu Power boy laughed wildly, showing rotten gray nubs for teeth. He let his captive go and walked drunkenly over to Noel and Isaka. “So you're proud cockroaches?” He twisted Noel's arm behind his back and shoved him facedown onto the desk. Jean Patrick heard a crack. Noel struggled to raise his head. Blood dripped from his nose.