The Flower Plantation

by Nora Anne Brown

  A stillness in my butterfly farm drew my eye to it. And there, crouching beside it, I found, for the second time, my Charaxes acræoides dead.

  It was then I remembered an entire section in African Butterflies about pinning and setting, which I'd read and wanted to try. It felt like the only thing to do. Since we hadn't set it free I would immortalize it instead.

  At the dining-room table I laid out all the materials that I had in my collection kit. I placed the spreading board in front of me and held the butterfly by its thorax so as not to damage its wings. Very gently I pierced a pin through it. I put it in the middle of the spreading board and turned the cog to hold it tight. When the groove was the same width as its body, I stopped turning and pushed the pin into the cork base.

  It was secure on the board, its wings spread open.

  I moved a forewing upwards, then positioned a pin at the top and repeated the process on the opposite side. Once the forewings were in place, I began work on the hindwings. I then moved the antennae into place and pinned those too. Finally, I put two small slips of paper over its wings. The butterfly was now fully prepared. I sat back and admired my work. It was strangely satisfying seeing it laid out in perfect symmetry. All that remained was for me to leave it to dry for twenty-four hours.

  But as hard as I tried, I couldn't wait that long, and after dinner I took the small frame from the kit and laid it down, like a coffin, next to the spreading board.

  One by one I removed every pin, except the one through its thorax, and carefully transferred the butterfly into the collection frame. I wrote out a small card with its name, place and date of death.

  Charaxes acræoides

  Rwanda 6th

  April 1994

  I was admiring my butterfly, considering how to show and tell Beni, when a scream from the kitchen made me leave what I was doing and run to see what was happening.

  I found Fabrice in the corner of the kitchen, his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide with shock, trembling and staring at the radio.

  “What is it, Fabrice?” asked Mother, who had come running too.

  Fabrice didn't reply.

  “Fabrice?”

  “Eh, Madame,” he said eventually, in a very quiet voice. “The President is dead.”

  At eight thirty that evening, the President's plane was shot down above the airport in Kigali. For the rest of the night, we sat in the dim light of the kitchen listening to the radio. With Fabrice's help, Mother was able to understand that the plane had been struck by two missiles. No one on board had survived. We sat so mesmerized by the radio that we failed to notice the passing of time. It was only when Fabrice said he must head back to his family that Mother and I realized Father hadn't returned home.

  25

  APRIL 1994

  The following day nobody came to work. No baskets were made, no bouquets were tied or taken to Kigali by bus. No pans banged in the kitchen, no scritch-scratch of a broom. I missed the sound of Joseph's boot slapping against his calves.

  Most of the day, Mother wandered about the house saying: “I can't believe it, I really can't” – and she'd stare out the window for minutes at a time. I assumed she was waiting for Father – but he never came. Father would be safe in Kigali, I reassured myself, staring at my butterfly in its frame with the pin through its chest.

  After seeing or hearing nobody all day, I was surprised when Joseph knocked on the back door for his six-o'clock shift.

  “Very bad, Madame,” he said, when Mother asked him what he knew. Joseph was unable to say more in his broken English, but it was clear by his haunted expression that the news from outside was not good.

  He went to his lookout, lit the fire and hunkered down in the rain.

  In the morning I woke not to the sound of the cockerel or Joseph's slapping boots, but to a noise I hadn't heard before: a jeering and banging from the road. I opened my curtains a peep to see a crowd of teenage boys at the bottom of the garden, shouting and screaming and shaking their fists. They waved clubs and machetes and held bottles of beer.

  I ran to Mother's bedroom. She wasn't there. Mother, Mother, I shouted within myself, racing through the house. I found her in the back lobby.

  “Stay here, Arthur,” she said, doing up her coat. “Lock the door behind me. Do you understand?”

  I did as she said and took Romeo to the lounge. We watched from the window.

  “What do you want?” yelled Mother at the crowd of boys. Sweat began to seep from my brow. I was terrified that something would happen to her and I'd be left entirely on my own. Where was Joseph when we needed him? Why wasn't he helping Mother?

  The boys were looking for someone – accusing Mother of hiding people.

  “Joseph! Thomas!” they yelled.

  “Joseph and Thomas aren't here,” said Mother – and I wondered if that was true. Had Joseph gone early? I hadn't heard him leave.

  Losing patience with Mother, the boys pushed past her and charged towards the house. There was nothing she could do. With their clubs they smashed the glass of the front door. I crawled under the dining-room table and huddled in a ball. Boys my age, with whom I should have gone to school, whom I often passed on the road, spread like shrapnel round the house.

  “Get out!” screamed Mother. From under the tablecloth I watched her grab them by their faded T-shirts and push them towards the door.

  From the bedrooms came the thud of beds being overturned, wardrobes wrecked, cupboards thrown open and their contents tossed on the floor. I heard Father's desk being tipped up, his papers scattered. From my hiding place I watched the two remaining boys search behind the sofa, pull the shelves from the walls and kick books around the room.

  “Eh, Sammy,” came a voice, which I recognized immediately.

  Zach, with his bloodshot eyes, was staring directly at the table. Sammy stood a step behind.

  “Mzungu…” he said. It sounded as if he was trying to tease me out. “Mzungu…”

  I was too big to go unnoticed. I could stay where I was and let them knock the table over or I could crawl out on my hands and knees. I chose the latter and stood up. I was surprised to find myself as tall as Zach, maybe taller.

  “Joseph. Thomas,” he grunted at me. “Où?”

  Even if I'd known where they were, I wasn't going to show them. It was then I remembered playing hide-and-seek with Beni. If Joseph and Thomas were on the plantation, then it would be extremely hard to find them in the flower fields. I went to the back of the house, unlocked the door and pointed out back. The two boys took off, Zach's machete held high, howling like jackals, soon followed by the others.

  With the house quiet I went to my room. There I found my butterfly farm upside down, the contents scattered about the floor. And the glass of my newly framed butterfly was smashed.

  I sat on my bed and took it all in.

  When I was ready, I swept up the mess and the broken glass and found, in the corner of my room, my book. It had been tossed aside, its pages crumpled – a handful of them completely torn out.

  I knelt down. Smoothed the pages. Closed it and held it tight all morning.

  Mother and I spent the afternoon trying to bring the house back to normal and listening anxiously to the radio. I managed to find the English station with the faraway voice, so that Mother could understand too. It was announced that anarchy now reigned in Kigali. There was that word again. I looked it up.

  Anarchy /ˈænəkɪ/ n. a situation in which there is no organization and control, especially in society.

  I thought only of Father. Was he at work or had he found a safe place to stay? Mother continued to glance at the telephone. It never rang.

  We sat by the fire and listened to the news that cabinet ministers had been kidnapped, the Prime Minister killed and ten Belgian peacekeepers murdered. Nuns, journalists, the well-spoken, people who owned cars – anyone who might be Tutsi or a Tutsi sympathizer – were being slaughtered in the streets. We listened and understood, but couldn't imagine the ho
rror.

  Hutu extremists were spreading across the country, rounding up young men and filling them with hate towards the Tutsis. The poor and the homeless joined the interahamwe – “those who attack together”. They were slaughtering Tutsis as freely as animals and holding feasts to celebrate their work.

  As the sun set that Friday evening, I realized Romeo wasn't in the house. I went to the back door, clapped my hands and waited: he didn't come. Taking the torch, I headed out to the yard, shining light into every corner. He wasn't there. I opened the gate to the vegetable garden and picked my way over the rutted ground.

  The light from my torch revealed the rhubarb, artichoke and cabbage plants, but there was no sign of Romeo. When I reached halfway down the path I heard a disturbance near the cutting shed, but a snuffling sound distracted me. I threw a beam of light over the cabbages and found Romeo standing in the middle of the patch, gnawing on something. As I got closer, I trod on a rubber boot, strewn aside. I examined it under the light, then shone the torch from side to side. Something beneath me crunched. The torch revealed a hand. And there, cast aside like a loose, green cabbage, was Joseph's head. His eyes were wide, his gappy teeth knocked out, his jaw gaping: it was as if he was frozen in a silent scream. Romeo was lapping an open gash on his neck. I stumbled out of the cabbage patch unable to catch a breath.

  * * *

  In the morning I was mumbling: words tried to break out of me. I didn't feel the need to fight them – they didn't gag me: they sat silently at the back of my mouth.

  The images of the night before came flooding back: the sight of Joseph's face, his flesh; the sound of Romeo lapping up his blood. But still I waited for him to walk through the garden – his boots slapping. A dull, all-consuming ache filled my chest when I realized he'd never come, when I realized I'd never hear that sound again.

  In the living room Mother was on the couch, staring into nothing. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before: she hadn't been to bed. She asked me to sit beside her for a while. I didn't mind. I didn't feel like eating my bananas and toast anyway.

  “Arthur,” she said in a voice almost devoid of life. “I need you to be brave.” I thought of my name – which meant courage – and allowed her to hold my hand. “Thomas is dead too.”

  Mother didn't go into details, but I found out from listening to the few mourners who were able to come that he was found in the cutting shed, his long limbs thrown into buckets like cut flowers. Sitting with Mother on the couch I wished for the humdrum of Saturday chores, of peeling potatoes and scrubbing floors.

  Though it felt as though time had stopped, the hours slipped by. The radio said that a new government had been formed, that UN soldiers in their blue helmets were watching people being slaughtered without firing their guns, and that French and Belgian troops had arrived to evacuate their nationals. None of this made sense. I longed for Father to come home and explain it all to me. But he didn't.

  Around lunchtime Fabrice arrived.

  “Madame,” he said. “I need your help.”

  “Anything,” said Mother.

  “It is Celeste. She is not safe. You hide her?”

  “Of course. Bring her and her family straight away.”

  “Eh Madame, no safe to walk. Gangs everywhere. They will kill.”

  “But I can't drive,” said Mother, looking at her ankle, which she had twisted badly while chasing the teenage intruders.

  Fabrice cast his eyes over me.

  “Arthur,” Mother said. “Do you think you could drive us there? It's only a short distance, and they wouldn't attack our car.”

  I knew I could. I ran to the back door and grabbed the keys. Mother limped behind with Fabrice.

  In the truck I put down the clutch and turned the key. The engine shattered the silence. I put it into gear, pressed the gas and lifted the clutch just as Mother had taught me to do. Off we went – Fabrice, Mother and me – down the drive and onto the road.

  The shops had been abandoned: the doors kicked in and stock looted. The yellow-eyed ladies were not there any more. The bar on the corner was surrounded by men listening to the radio. When we passed, they whooped and jeered and brandished clubs in the air.

  The school was empty, its door wide open, the school-teacher nowhere to be seen; the President's picture hung graffitied on the wall; the map of Rwanda was torn on the ground.

  At Fabrice's house there was no sign of Beni. The goats were gone, the neat rows of potatoes pulled up and the machete that once glimmered in the sun was missing.

  “What about your family?” asked Mother.

  “They are safe, Madame. Do not worry.”

  I wondered where they were, but trusted Beni was fine.

  “Ici, Arthur,” said Fabrice, just a little way past his house and before the church. “This is it.”

  “Round the back,” said Mother. “Out of sight.”

  I drove the pickup between Celeste's shack and the neighbouring one into the field behind.

  “Keep engine running,” said Fabrice, jumping out and going into the house.

  Mother bit her fingernails and glanced all around.

  “Hurry, hurry,” she said to no one, constantly checking the mirrors.

  It couldn't have been more than a minute that Fabrice was gone, but it felt like an hour. The relief when he reappeared with Celeste, leaning on her fimbo, and her husband and family was immense.

  Fabrice pulled out the tarpaulin from the back of the truck and instructed them to lie on the metal floor. One by one they lay down as neat and compact as matchsticks in a box. Fabrice covered them up, then casually sat on top of them as if they were sacks of tea. He banged his fist on the cab of the pickup: his instruction for me to go.

  The ruts and potholes I hadn't noticed on the way to Celeste's now seemed the size of craters. I felt every bounce and bump as if I too were lying flat in the back covered in plastic.

  As we approached the bar, the crowd of men broke into the road and waved us down.

  “Don't stop, Arthur,” said Mother. “Keep going. If we stop they'll search the back.”

  Doing as Mother said I took a deep breath and put my foot down. We charged through the men, kicking up dust and scattering them like skittles.

  “Well done!” cried Mother when we were through and clear. I felt a little proud. “Well done, you!” she cheered.

  I took the pickup round the back. Before I'd stopped, Fabrice was out and removing the tarpaulin. Celeste's family hauled themselves up and ran towards the house. Celeste hobbled behind as quickly as she could, her flipflops slapping. Once inside, Mother opened the hatch to the attic and stowed all twelve of them away.

  It wasn't long until the crowd of men from the bar caught up with us. They searched the outbuildings and fields, then gathered in the yard. Fabrice went out to talk to them. Mother and I watched from the kitchen.

  Fabrice shook his head and pointed in the direction of Celeste's house, causing the men to push him.

  “You are Hutu,” said their leader, shoving him with the butt of a club. I wanted Fabrice to shove him back. “But you are a Tutsi lover. Show us the Tutsi and her family.”

  “She has no family,” replied Fabrice. “You ask Madame.”

  The leader of the gang came to the back door with Fabrice. Mother opened it.

  “Madame,” said Fabrice. “Celeste, she has family?”

  Mother shook her head and said to the man, who I realized was the schoolteacher: “Celeste never married” – and shut the door.

  We returned to our lookout at the window and watched the men gather in a huddle. After a while the schoolteacher approached Fabrice and said: “Show us this woman, or we kill your family – your Tutsi-loving family.”

  I wanted Fabrice to show them Celeste and her family so that nothing would happen to Beni. But then I felt terrible when I pictured Celeste lying dead like Joseph or Thomas, with her head chopped off or her limbs in buckets.

  “Show us,” they said, beating F
abrice with clubs and threatening to send word for his family to be killed. I could hardly watch.

  After several blows Fabrice lifted his head and walked to the door. He came in, went to the loft and returned with Celeste. They went out to the yard.

  “I prove to you,” said Fabrice to the leader, “I am no Tutsi lover.”

  Fabrice took the schoolteacher's club, raised it up and brought it down on Celeste's back. Crack. Celeste fell to the ground. Thud. Mother screamed. I froze. I watched Fabrice take a machete from another man and swing it into Celeste's side as if simply clearing corn.

  Celeste lay lifeless, blood seeping into her T-shirt. Colour deserted her face like a butterfly fading from cyanide. I watched her slip away.

  “This man has a Tutsi wife,” shouted one of the men from the crowd, seeming not to notice Celeste.

  I panicked. I knew it was true. Fabrice was married to a Tutsi: Beni's family tree said so.

  “Is this true?” asked the schoolteacher.

  Fabrice nodded.

  The schoolteacher pressed his face right up against Fabrice's and said: “If you are not a Tutsi lover, then you will kill your family too.”

  Fabrice answered him immediately: “Go to my house. Bring my family here and I will kill them.”

  I couldn't believe my ears.

  The men ran off, jumping over Celeste's body as though she was nothing more than a sack of rice. Fabrice came to the back door, took Mother by the hand and led her to Celeste. I followed. Bending down beside her, Fabrice shook her gently. Celeste released a groan.

  “My God,” said Mother. “She's alive?”

  Fabrice helped her to her feet and said, “Those men see what they want to see.”

  “You wounded her to save her life?”

  “Yes, Madame,” he said and took Celeste's weight, helping her into the house.

  With Celeste on the sofa, Fabrice asked to talk to Mother in the kitchen. I was left to wrap a sheet tight round Celeste's side and make her comfortable. “Thank you, Arthur,” she said, looking at me warmly, managing the faintest gummy grin. “Good boy.” I sat beside her and watched her drift into sleep.