“Yes and no. Actually, I’ll be teaching geology at your university. I came a month early to travel.” Jonathan scooped peanuts into his mouth. “These are hot,” he said as his face flushed crimson. “By the way, I’ll be teaching in French. Do you think I could practice on you?”
“I’d like that. Maybe you could teach me English.”
The bar was getting crowded. Someone cranked the radio full blast. It was tuned to the new station, RTLM. In the strident tone typical of its anti-Tutsi broadcasts, the DJ shouted, Hutu, listen up! This is Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, FM 106. He spun a Congolese tune. Out of the corner of his eye, Jean Patrick caught the waiter with his hand on the volume, watching him.
Jonathan tapped Jean Patrick’s arm. “Why don’t you have dinner with me? We could have our first lesson tonight.”
“I don’t think it’s possible. My family is expecting me home.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“D’accord.” They shook hands on the deal, and Jonathan returned to his rocks and his book. Jean Patrick sprinted toward the road. He wanted to get away before the waiter had a chance to catch him on the lawn.
JEAN PATRICK ARRIVED at the hotel in polished shoes and freshly pressed pants. Jonathan sat near the bar, studying a menu with complete concentration. He had on sandals and rumpled khaki shorts, an untucked shirt with large, bold flowers. Was this how they dressed in America?
“Come help me order,” Jonathan said. “All I know is brochettes et chips.”
At the next table, a group of businessmen from Zaire shouted and joked in their choppy dialect. They molded balls of ugali with their fingers and scooped up fish and sauce. Men in loud dashikis strutted beside the pool table, fingers blue with chalk, Primus bottles in hand. Above them, fans whirred and hummed.
The restaurant was just a concrete porch with a metal roof and a waist-high brick wall. From beyond the lawn, the Rusizi River murmured. Cicadas sang a high-pitched chorus. The generator’s hum competed with a football game on TV.
A waiter brought two beers, opened them, and poured. “No worries. I could order for us,” Jean Patrick said. He chose brochettes and chips, grilled fish, bananas and peas with rice. As an afterthought, he called the waiter back and asked for ugali.
Silverware appeared, bottles of water. The waiter set the food on the table, and Jean Patrick cut two portions of ugali, spooning one onto Jonathan’s plate.
“Now you will truly be Rwandan. This is ugali, made from cassava flour.” Jean Patrick shaped a ball with his fingers. “You do like this.” He surrounded a piece of fish and pulled it from the bone, then popped fish and ugali into his mouth. The waiters watched from behind the bar.
“Comme ça?” Jonathan copied him. With the first taste, his nose wrinkled. “Needs a little help. It reminds me of Play-Doh, the paste I played with when I was a kid. I ate enough of that to do for a lifetime.” Before Jean Patrick could stop him, he picked up a bottle of pilipili and doused his food.
“Mana yanjye. Do you know what that is?” It was probably impolite to laugh, but Jean Patrick couldn’t help it.
Jonathan grinned. “I love hot peppers.” He smashed the pepper-stained ugali with a fork, put a piece of fish inside, and attempted to eat it with his fingers. Pilipili and sauce ran down his arm. Tears welled in his eyes. The waiters nudged each other and fired off a rapid burst of Kinyarwanda. “What are they saying?”
“They say you’re one crazy muzungu.”
Jonathan nodded. “They’re right.”
In the corner, the nightly news came on TV. More treaty violations by the RPF, more government victories, more vigilant measures required against the Inkotanyi. The scene switched to Habyarimana at a government rally.
Jonathan leaned in toward Jean Patrick. “Isn’t that your president?”
Jean Patrick nodded as Habyarimana talked about the peace treaty he had signed at Arusha. “A meaningless scrap of paper,” the president said.
“He certainly seems popular,” Jonathan said. “Everyone I talk to loves him.” Jean Patrick sucked a scrap of fish from a bone. Jonathan tipped back his glass and swallowed the last of his beer. “Didn’t he just make a deal with the rebels?”
“Yes, he did.” Jean Patrick stared at the drops of condensation on his glass.
“Hopefully your lives can return to normal soon.”
One of the pool players made a fantastic shot to wild cheers. Jean Patrick glanced in their direction. If we are not vigilant, the Inyenzi will enslave the Hutu once more, the news anchor intoned. Normal? Jean Patrick no longer knew what that meant.
“So tell me, J. P., what are you going to study?”
“I want to study math and physics, but they’ve assigned me to engineering. I guess they think pure science is pretty useless.”
Jonathan growled. “Useless? It’s the cornerstone of the natural world. And who’s they? Can’t you study whatever you want?”
Jean Patrick glanced at his watch. If he didn’t leave soon, he’d miss curfew. How could he even begin to explain to this crazy American what life in Rwanda was like?
A Simon Bikindi tune, “Bene Sebahinzi,” played on RTLM. “Turn it up,” a pool player called out, singing along. Remember this evil that should be driven as far away as possible.
“This music really makes you move,” Jonathan said, snapping his fingers to Bikindi’s extolment of the Hutu Ten Commandments.
“It’s a great beat,” Jean Patrick said. “I’m sorry, but I have to go now. Curfew.”
“Did you know,” Jonathan said as he walked Jean Patrick outside, “that Lake Kivu is the highest lake in Africa?” He tapped the concrete with his sandal. “And did you know that Africa is splitting in two beneath our feet?”
Jean Patrick wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “I’m not familiar with the theory,” he said, leaving it at that.
THIRTEEN
ON HIS LAST MORNING in Cyangugu, Jean Patrick awoke with a mountain oriole’s persistent call in his head. The cry had been in his dream as a warning, shouted from a woman’s mouth, and he had been trying urgently to interpret its meaning. Zachary slept beside him, back curved like a turtle’s shell, vertebrae laddered up the center. Jean Patrick ran his hand lightly up the two ridges of muscle. Somehow, while he hadn’t been looking, Zachary had taken the first steps toward manhood. In a month, he would turn thirteen.
“I’m up,” Zachary said. “You can light the lantern if you want.”
“I’m sorry I woke you.” Jean Patrick struck a match. The flame caught Zachary stretching to his full, long height.
“It wasn’t you. Those birds make too much noise.”
Papa’s journal lay beside the bed, open to the page Jean Patrick had been reading when he fell asleep. In this complex world, it is up to us as teachers to shine a light on the darkness of misunderstanding. He closed the journal and placed it on his suitcase. “I’m going for my last run,” he said. To scare off bad luck, he added, “Until I come home again.”
“What about curfew? It won’t be light for a little while.”
“I’ll be careful. The soldiers are too lazy to climb up here.”
“Those Hutu Power guys have been roaming around.”
Jean Patrick rubbed Zachary’s head. “You think they can catch me?” He pulled on his sweatpants, zipped his jacket, and stepped into the brisk air.
A skinny wedge of moon hovered above the trees. The first breath of dawn hung in the air, just enough light to see by. Jean Patrick stepped carefully, feeling the ground with his bare toes. At the crest of the first ridge, he stopped and looked across the landscape—his landscape—one last time. Lake Kivu opened below him like a yawn.
He had come to a clearing when he heard a rustle in the forest litter. Unlike the random scurry of animal feet, it sounded purposeful, human. He dove into the bush. From the same direction, twigs snapped.
“Yampayinka data.”
Jean Patrick heard the whispered exclamation clearly.
He pressed himself to the ground, dislodging a pebble that clattered down the hill. The movement around him stopped. Then, from a close-by clearing, a rifle’s unmistakable cachink. His heart boomed. Level with his eye, the dark shapes of men emerged from the shadow into the clearing.
“There’s no one here,” a voice said. A machete slashed the brush. “Tsst! Hey, One Shot, monkeys scaring you again?” Soft laughter.
Another man joined them. “All clear,” he said.
There was now enough light that Jean Patrick could follow their movements. The men squatted and lit cigarettes, talking easily among themselves. Jean Patrick thought he heard Ugandan accents. A soldier stood and drank from a canteen. He passed it to the man beside him.
“Eh, Captain!” The man spit loudly. “Did you find this in a latrine?”
“If you’re going to insult my coffee, you don’t have to drink it.”
The captain let fly a barrage that was part Kinyarwanda, park Kiswahili, and part Luganda, one of the main languages of Uganda. Jean Patrick inhaled sharply—they must be RPF!
A soldier removed his boot and massaged a sockless foot. He appeared younger than the rest, a boy almost. “I won’t complain,” he said, holding his hand out for the canteen. “Me, I’m very thirsty.”
It was still too dark to distinguish his features, but from somewhere, Jean Patrick knew his voice. There was no trace of accent—he was definitely Rwandan.
The captain gave the boy the canteen. He took a long swallow. “Mama weh! So strong.”
“Like your women, eh, One Shot? Sweet and strong,” the captain said.
One Shot groaned. He unknotted a green cloth from his neck and wrapped it around his foot. Wincing, he pushed the foot back into his boot. “Hey-yey-yey.”
Jean Patrick knew this motion, this expressive sigh, too. It itched at his memory. Lying in the leaf litter, he imagined what it would be like to be RPF, to drink and joke with them, go out on patrol. They rested until light took a firm hold on the forest, Jean Patrick watching from his nest of leaves. Then they shook themselves into motion, and the forest that had coughed them up swallowed them once more. Jean Patrick rose quietly and resumed his run, slowly at first, absorbing what he had witnessed, and then connecting to his speed, his power.
WHEN HE REACHED the fields, Jean Patrick stopped to take off his jacket. The sun had chased the cold from the air; heat lay heavy on the crops. Cassava leaves had begun to droop. He should have been home long ago.
Mukabera hailed him. “So you’re off to school today?” She hilled earth around her squash plants with swift, certain strokes of her hoe.
“After the farewell meal. Are you coming to eat with us?”
“How could I miss it? I’ll bring a package of food to keep up your strength for those Butare girls.” Olivette, roasting potatoes over a crackling fire of twigs, looked up and giggled.
Simon paused from harvesting urubingo. “We should exterminate cockroaches, not help them breed.” He brought down his machete in a smooth arc. A swath of grass shivered and fell.
Mukabera turned on him. “Eh-eh, is this how I brought up my son? Hutu, Tutsi—we all help each other in these hills.”
A neighbor pointed her hoe toward Simon. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just speaking from the wrong side of his mouth. We’re all your friends.”
The women went back to talking and laughing, but the men cutting urubingo stood expressionless, watching each swing of Simon’s machete. Mukabera took a potato from Olivette and peeled it with dirty fingers. She blew on it, then sank her teeth into the meat. Jean Patrick’s Tutsi neighbors worked quietly, as if silence could turn them into trees.
HE LET HIS legs lead him as he careened down the last slope. From the red umushimi flowers came a brilliant blue flash. A purple-breasted sunbird took flight, wings ablaze, long purple tail streaming behind it. Jean Patrick paused to follow its trajectory through the branches.
“A sign of good luck; now your journey will be blessed.” Jean Patrick whirled around. Roger grinned at him. He hugged Jean Patrick so hard it took his breath away.
“N’umwene wanjye! I can’t believe it! Were you up there with those RPF guys? I was searching, but I never saw you.” Jean Patrick held on tight. “More than one year now, I haven’t seen you.”
“I’ve seen you.” Roger rubbed Jean Patrick’s scalp. “More than once.”
“You’re crazy to be here. Your name was on a list of Inkotanyi in Kangura.”
“I know. And Mama’s name, and Uncle’s and Auntie’s.” Roger led him toward the forest. “Everyone but you.”
Jean Patrick wondered if Roger was going to hit him. “The burgomaster offered me a Hutu card. I had to take it. I ran a qualifying time for the Olympics, but the way things are, this card is my only chance to go. As a Tutsi, even though I have the fastest time in Rwanda, the national committee will pick a Hutu over me. They could simply make my A-standard times disappear from their books.” He tripped over his tongue to get the words out. “I’m sorry.”
Roger lifted him into the air and spun him around. “God help me! My brother going to the Olympics, and he says sorry!”
“You’re not angry?”
“Aye! If I were any more proud, I’d burst.” A flock of bats lifted from the trees, sailing on delicate wings, translucent in the sun. Roger shaded his eyes and smiled. Deep lines etched his face. “You do what you must to survive. Who could understand that more than me?”
Jean Patrick felt shamed. What he had imagined of RPF life while hiding in the bush was a child’s dream, nothing to do with the flesh and blood of war. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
Roger shook a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. The brother Jean Patrick remembered did not smoke. “For what?” Blue smoke slithered from his mouth.
No words existed to express Jean Patrick’s regret. “Did you know I leave for university today?”
“I know many things. That is one of them.” Jean Patrick put a hand on Roger’s shoulder. He opened his mouth to speak, but Roger stopped him. “I also know you want to tell me now about Mathilde.”
They embraced once more, and the touch was enough to call back Jean Patrick’s tears. “How did you find out?”
“From Uncle.”
“Eh? You’ve seen him?”
Roger pulled him toward a grove of eucalyptus. “Enough questions! Come. Someone wants to greet you.”
One Shot stepped out from the trees. Of course his voice, his gesture, were familiar: they belonged to Isaka. Jean Patrick ran to him. “I can’t believe it! How did you find my brother?”
“Inkotanyi find each other.” Isaka squeezed Jean Patrick. He was still light and wiry, but the strength of his grip told Jean Patrick he could toss him to the ground like a sack of sorghum.
“At Gihundwe we heard you were killed.”
“Killed!” Isaka spat. “My family are Abasesero. Where we come from, we fight for our land. Since ’fifty-nine, we can’t lose. Everyone knows our reputation.”
Jean Patrick understood then why he had liked Isaka the moment he heard him shout I come from Bisesero on the first day at Gihundwe. Although its heat drove them in different directions, the same fire burned in both of them. He thought of the meet in Butare where he beat the Kigali boys, and in a flash of insight, he realized that he needn’t feel shame for his choices. Isaka and Roger chose to fight with bullets. He had chosen to fight with his legs. As Uncle told him, each time he won, he carried all Tutsi with him. And maybe it wasn’t a matter of choice. Maybe, since birth, Ukubo kw’Imana, the Arm of God, had set them spinning one way or the other.
They remained in the clearing until sweat shone on their faces. They talked about the war, life among the rebels, Jean Patrick’s year at school. On the road below, a colorful stream of walkers and cyclists climbed or descended, a river flowing in two directions. The sun ascended its well-worn arc, Roger and One Shot keeping one eye on its passage.
“We’ll have to leave now,” Roger said. He
lit another cigarette. “Greet Mama and Auntie for me. Tell them I’m safe. Tell Uncle I think of him always.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Olympics.” One Shot shook Jean Patrick’s hand. “Keep strong. I can’t wait until we win this war so I can run for pleasure again. But me, I’ll try for the marathon.”
“Ko Mana! Such a long distance.” Jean Patrick clasped Roger and One Shot to him. “I wish you both the peace of God.”
“There are many, many things to wish for now,” Roger said. He embraced Jean Patrick a final time, then exhaled a stream of smoke and started up the path.
“Wait!” Jean Patrick called. “What’s your nickname?”
Roger crushed the ember from his cigarette and put the butt back in his pocket. “Mistah Cool.” He wiped his brow and took One Shot’s arm. “I wish that you run for us all, Little Brother. For us all.”
Jean Patrick watched One Shot and Roger until they disappeared into the forest and Roger’s shirt became the flash of a turaco’s wings in the thick green growth. What good was a wish? In Rwanda a wish was an overturned bowl that nothing could right or fill as long as the war dragged on.
THERE WAS NO room in the house to walk without stepping on a hand or foot, barely room to sit on the floor with a bowl of igisafuria and eat without jostling an elbow. Mama and Aunt Esther had been in the cookhouse all morning preparing Jean Patrick’s favorite dish, and the pots of peanutty stew disappeared as soon as they reached the table.
“Jean Patrick, I’ve saved the best for you. Look—two chicken legs,” Mama said, putting a steaming bowl in front of him. He sat in the place of honor at the head of the table. Drops of oil gleamed on the stew’s surface. Plump green bananas floated like islands in the reddish sea of sauce. Jean Patrick inhaled the earthy scent.
Every cousin and neighbor had come to see Jean Patrick off. Even some sisters from Ntura Church sat at the table laughing and joking, sucking the last drop of marrow from chicken bones. In his blue Sunday suit, Zachary looked like a prince in their midst. If fate were right or fair, he would have been starting secondary school next week. He wanted to study for the priesthood but had not been awarded a scholarship. Uncle had no money to send him. The twins, too, were finishing primary school, but they were not near the top of the class, and so there was neither money nor hope for them.
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