“Whoa, J. P.!” Jonathan shouted. “Run as one, right?” They had made a pact.
Far removed from the few at the front who cared about placing, it seemed so strange: no tight pack jockeying for position, no serious race faces. A jubilant tumult of noise instead of silence broken only by the slap-slap of eight pairs of shoes. So Jean Patrick had settled into an easy pace beside Jonathan and let the festive air of his fellow runners infect him. And after the initial blow of finishing midpack in his age group, he let that go as well.
It was a lot easier than it had been to watch that first Olympics, his physical and emotional wounds so close to the skin’s surface. He had wedged himself between Jonathan and Susanne, squeezing the edge of the couch so tightly that he could barely uncurl his fingers when the eight-hundred final was finished. Although Gilbert hadn’t qualified, a Kenyan came in third, and Jean Patrick was genuinely happy to see an African medal.
The next picture was of Kweli, taken shortly after Jonathan and Susanne arrived home. She was in midstride, running through tall grass. Suddenly, Jean Patrick was supplicant by the side of the bed, cold sweat trickling from his armpits.
He was back in Jonathan’s office, face pressed to the window, watching Bea on the grass with the puppy, then seeing her shirtless in the window’s light, shadows tattooed across her breasts. With a vividness so sharp it cut, he tasted her salt on his tongue, felt the warmth of being inside her.
And then gone. He repacked the album, drew himself up, and wiped his face with the edge of his sweatshirt, dried his clammy fingers. Beside the suitcase was a small white box. Inside the box was a gold cross, and its resemblance to the first was uncanny—the delicate plaited chain was nearly identical. The thought of putting this gift into her hand terrified him. Maybe she believed God had abandoned her. Maybe she had abandoned Him.
ON THE PLANE, Jean Patrick opened his eyes and let them adjust to the darkened cabin. He could not say if he had slept. Beyond the window, running lights pierced the dark. The engines droned, a comforting hum in his head. He turned on the overhead light and checked his watch; in five hours’ time he would see her.
Once more, he took the letters and the card out of his knapsack. He had read them so many times he was afraid they would disintegrate in his fingers. With each reading, he pulled the lines apart and put them back together again. Still, he couldn’t find the hidden ones that whispered, I have my health and there is no one else. Of course the first was most important, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking for both. He felt like someone bargaining at the market. But if—God forbid—he could have only the second, he would seize the chance. He would cup each moment he had with her in his palms, a precious gift.
It seemed unlikely that no one else had claimed her. In his moments of doubt, he cursed himself for his spontaneous travel plans. More than once he had held the phone in his hand to cancel his reservations. But even if Bea turned out to be an impossible dream, it was time to stand on the earth where his family had lived and hear for himself the stories of the bones. He had just needed this one push to see him through his fear.
He had written Bea that he would be going to Cyangugu, but he had not asked her to accompany him. He did not want to leave her in the uncomfortable position of refusing. When he had requested the name of a Kigali hotel so he could make a reservation, she told him she would take care of it. She had not offered to open her home to him. He put the letters back in his bag and pressed the pair of socks to ensure that the cross still nestled inside them. In the end, he had to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other.
He maneuvered into the aisle to stretch his legs. Slowly he made circles with his foot: clockwise first, then counterclockwise. Sitting for long periods of time made him feel like an old man, his ankle perpetually stiff and prone to swelling. After what the doctors had told him, he was thankful he could run at all. If he had found a doctor immediately, the damage might have been repaired, they said. A chance he could have healed completely and even competed again. If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley car, Susanne liked to say. Jean Patrick rubbed out his Achilles tendon and headed for the back of the plane. He wondered if Bea would notice right away the slight favoring of his right leg.
In the galley, a stewardess loaded a cart with drinks, and Jean Patrick asked her for a water. He took the bottle and held it to his cheek a moment, letting the cold sink in. The electric jolt when he drank made him wince. Two weeks ago, he had bitten into a bagel and broken off a fresh fragment from his chipped tooth. He had meant to get the tooth fixed, had been meaning to get it capped for years, but the high-pitched whine of the dentist’s drill left him breathless and faint, the sound too close to the whistles. There was always a reason to put it off. At least this way, Bea would recognize him when he smiled.
IT WAS MORNING when Jean Patrick awoke, the lustrous African light penetrating his eyelids. Clean clothes tucked under his arm, he headed for the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth. The seatbelt sign was on when he emerged, and he squeezed back into his seat. He took deep breaths and tried to relax into the first dizzying moments of descent.
Beneath the wing, a verdant landscape tilted. Soon his country would take shape from the blurred geology. Terraced hillsides would rise to his sight. At this time of year, the green was intense enough to damage him. He wondered what remained of Cyangugu. He wondered if children still waded into the waters to wash, if women brought basins of clothes to launder, if fishermen still sang the old songs when they returned from fishing. Jean Patrick brought his seat to the full upright position and prepared himself for landing. Lake Kivu gleamed beneath him—windswept, bejeweled. His longing for his family left a cavernous space inside him. He had heard that during the genocide, the bodies in the lake were so thick you could have walked across them to Zaire.
JEAN PATRICK CLEARED customs and stared through the glass at the crowded lobby below. After the third sweep, he panicked: Bea was not there. I never should have come, he thought. He shouldered his knapsack, waited for his suitcase, and then walked to the tourist information booth. His ankle hurt, and his head felt packed with cotton. He made a mental plan for an immediate journey home.
“Nkuba Jean Patrick, you said?”
Jean Patrick nodded, too shaky to speak another word. “Let me see if there is a message for you.”
The woman behind the window shuffled sleepily through a sheaf of papers. “You are to wait by the door. Your friend has been delayed because of an accident.” Quickly she gave him a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry,” she added. “She was not involved.”
He pushed through the bustle of travelers and luggage and stood in the long line to change money. His foot jiggled as he waited impatiently for his turn. I’ve become American, he thought, always in a hurry.
He had pocketed the colorful bills and was threading his way through the crowd when he heard the voice. “Mana yanjye! Nkuba, you haven’t changed one bit. Even the sneakers are the same.”
The bright timbre of words crashed through the years of lost time. He gripped the handle of his bag to steady himself. Then he turned around to greet Bea.
She was a flash of morning color: a cream-yellow pagne with red roses, a billowy orange blouse, gold sandals, thin strapped and glittery. The neck of her blouse was high, so he could not see if she wore a necklace. Her hair was straight, an ear-length bob, and her trademark gold hoop earrings swung with her step. She was thinner—yes—but she did not look unhealthy. In truth, she looked radiant, if possible more beautiful than he remembered. If possible, as if every instant of time since he had last seen her had merely glanced off the coppery shield of her skin.
“ARE YOU EXHAUSTED?” Bea opened the trunk of her tiny car—a Toyota, Jean Patrick noticed—and he put his bag inside.
Since his landing, the weather had turned; an anemic sun poked through a sky messy with charcoal clouds. The airport was high on a hill. Kigali unraveled, a multicolored skein, below them.
“How could I be?” he said. “I am looking at you.”
“Soon you can have a sleep, but I wanted to welcome you properly first, and I am not much of a cook. That gift I did not inherit from my mother.” Bea unlocked the car door, and he climbed inside, into the lap of her perfume. “Would you mind if I take you for lunch?” she said. “The place is not much to look at, but each time I go, I am reminded of the Murakazaneza.”
At the mention of the restaurant where they had eaten together, Jean Patrick felt a yearning stir. Gingerly he put a toe into the river of the past. “I would like that,” he said. “Nothing in Boston comes close.” As if searching for a wallet or a piece of gum, he put his hand into his knapsack and found the pair of socks. With the tip of his finger, he felt the square corner of the box that contained the cross.
THE RESTAURANT WAS noisy, packed with a lunchtime crowd. Their table was small, covered with a shabby white cloth, and the plates of brochettes and chips, isombe, green bananas, and beans took up most of the space. Jean Patrick inhaled the rich aromas and sank back against the chair. He did not know what to do with his long legs, his hands, his power of speech.
Bea spooned isombe onto their plates, and Jean Patrick closed his eyes with the first taste. His childhood floated before him in all its olfactory richness. He had bought the packets of dried cassava leaves in the States and tried to fix it for himself, but it wasn’t the same. Even at the homes of his Rwandan friends who were excellent cooks, some important taste was always missing. “Biraryoshye cyane,” he said. It’s so good. He watched her expression carefully, but his exploration into shared memory went unanswered. He could not crack the mask of her face.
Over lunch, Jean Patrick told Bea a little of his life in Boston, his studies, his desire to go on for a PhD. She spoke of her work with the women, her plans to further her education as well. All around them was the sound of silverware clacking, plates and pots banging, a constant surge and ebb of conversation. Jean Patrick felt as if they were two ships navigating the waters of Antarctica, icebergs looming beneath them.
When she had finished, Bea folded her paper napkin and set it beside her empty plate. “I’m so glad for this chance to eat with you again,” she said, “since our last meal together was interrupted.”
Jean Patrick had been drinking water when she spoke up; he could barely swallow it. Where could he begin? “Yes,” he said. “I believe it was.” He set down the glass, and the ice clinked loudly against the side.
“I booked you a room in a hotel near my apartment. It’s a nice place and not very dear.”
Jean Patrick nodded. His skin went cold and then hot.
“I am happy to take you there if you want, but you are welcome in my home.” Bea took a deep breath before continuing. “I have an extra bedroom, but my cousin and her daughter have been living with me while my cousin attends university. They’ve gone to stay with friends, but the bed is small.” She smiled. “I think your feet will be in the air at the far end of it.”
“Knowing you were in the next room, I would make my bed on cold ground, rock was my pillow, too,” Jean Patrick said, quoting the Bob Marley song to keep the mood light.
They got up from the table, and their arms brushed. Bea did not take hers away. Outside, in a corner behind a shop, he pulled her close and held her, and she, too, held him. The sound of a radio from a passing car, loud and intrusive, made him jump. But it was not RTLM, and no one leapt from the shadows to kill him.
Jean Patrick stood at the window of Bea’s apartment and looked out onto the Kigali night. Lights blinked like dirty stars against the black horizon. Hôtel des Mille Collines rose like a beacon of promise out of the ghost of war, windows bright. Car horns honked, tires clunked over potholed streets. Much of the rubble had been cleared; everywhere there was scaffolding and construction as a new city, fresh and scrubbed clean, without history, was birthed from the annihilation of the old.
In the room where Bea had led him to rest, he had felt like a giant bumbling around among the pieces of miniature furniture: a little desk neat with pens, crayons, and paper; a matching chair; a small dresser on which a collection of perfumes, pomades, and creams were aligned, the only evidence of a grown woman in the room. The child’s drawings were tacked on the walls, and Jean Patrick wondered at her age; they were bold with color and possessed a sophisticated sense of design. Remembering Ineza’s paintings, he smiled; the cousin must be on her side of the family. Like a true artist, the little girl had signed her work: Gabby.
He had slept a bit, fitfully, in the cramped bed, and he wondered how a mother and child could sleep there together night after night. When he woke, he had taken the box with the cross from his socks and put it in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. He fingered it now as he stood and from a distance watched the people of Rwanda go about the business of living.
Bea came and stood beside him, not quite touching, although her heat touched his. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Aye! Lunch has not yet moved from my stomach. Are you?”
Bea shook her head. “Shall I make you tea? Juice?”
“I don’t need anything,” Jean Patrick said. “I brought you a present.”
He placed the box in her hand. She was still wearing her high-necked blouse, and when Jean Patrick moved to touch the collar and expose her skin, she recoiled. “What’s wrong?” He felt her tremble, a slight movement of the air between them. “What is it?”
Bea took his hands and moved them down to his side. Then slowly she undid the top buttons of her blouse. Stepping from the shadow into the light, she pulled the collar down and tipped her chin slightly upward. Jean Patrick saw it then, the dark keloid like a smile across her throat. It left him without breath.
“Come. I will tell my story first,” she said. “And then you will know if you still want to tell me yours.” She led him to the couch, and he sank into the shabby fabric. He held on to her hands so he would not give in to the urge to press his own hands to his ears.
“The soldiers and Interahamwe had just burst through the front door when I ran inside,” she said. “Mama and Dadi were already dead, lying on the floor in their last embrace. Selfishly I regret that I did not get to say good-bye, but I’m glad because in their moment of death, they thought that I had escaped with you, that I had a chance for life. What I will tell you next I remember little of, although lately it comes back of its own accord like bits and pieces of shrapnel rising to the skin’s surface. Most of this story comes from Claire, who rescued me and nursed me back to life when I was past dead.”
Bea paused to drink some water. Out of the corner of his eye, Jean Patrick caught the glass bird she had written of in her letter. It twirled a slow dance on its tether. The silence in the room hummed in his ear.
“I was wild. I ran back outside, into the yard. I suppose I had decided to run after you; I don’t know. The Interahamwe caught me and tore off my clothes.”
Jean Patrick’s hand had come up without his mind’s knowing it. He would have spoken then, begged her to stop, but she put a finger to his lips.
“A police officer came after them and fired a shot in the air. It was someone I knew. He said he wanted me for himself, so he sent the rest of the men to search for you while he had his way.” She smiled then, merely a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth. “Claire said I fought like a lioness. She said I grabbed his machete and nearly succeeded in killing him. That was when he cut me.”
“My Bea.” Jean Patrick took her hands and kissed them. “I can imagine how you fought.” He stroked her hair, and she collapsed against his shoulder. “This policeman,” Jean Patrick said, “did I know him?”
Bea sat up. “What does it matter? He is probably dead now. I am past hating him; I feel nothing.”
She didn’t have to answer. Jean Patrick could see the man’s gold-capped teeth, watch him put out his cigarette in the crumbs of their pastry at the Ibis, hear him tell Bea that Niyonzima had been in an accident. Had he materialized a
t this moment in the room, Jean Patrick could have killed him with his own two hands.
“Before the Interahamwe left, they poured petrol inside the house and started a fire. By some miracle, I lived. Claire was hiding in the shadows. They had told her to go, but she didn’t. She bundled her children in blankets under her bed so they would not hear, and then she waited. The instant the men went on to do their business elsewhere, she dragged me to the cookhouse and put poultices on my wounds to stop the bleeding. Then she put me in a wagon like a sack of sorghum, covered me with clothes and sacking, and she and her two children pushed me to her sister’s house. I remained there until the war’s end, hidden in the grain room. Had her sister’s husband found out, he would have killed the three of us. Every morning, I heard him leave to do his work, his killing.”
“Mana yanjye, that tiny woman dragged you in the night? Through those wild mobs fueled on urwagwa?”
“She risked her life for me, and I owe her mine. She coaxed me back more than once from the arms of death. It was she who gave me the courage to continue, to step out into the air and seek the living.”
“What happened to her?”
“She came to the UK with me, she and the children. My aunt—my mother’s sister—found the money for all of us somehow. She is studying to be a nurse.”
“And you, Bea.” Jean Patrick floundered about to come up with the words, only a few to string together, but he could not.
“That is the second miracle,” she said, jumping in to save him, “if AIDS is what you mean. I have been tested and retested. I escaped unscathed.” There was that smile again, barely more than an illusion of the light. “As unscathed as one can be.”
Running the Rift Page 37