A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

by Gil Courtemanche

  The sergeant kept drinking imperturbably. Perhaps maniacs had cut up the bodies. He asked Valcourt if he wished to lodge a complaint and took a yellowed form out of a drawer.

  “You were at the roadblock when we passed it last night. You were in charge of what went on and you were the one checking identities.”

  The sergeant poured himself another glass of beer, picked up a pencil and sharpened it slowly with a hunting knife. He licked the point and with a smirk, almost laughing out loud, began.

  “Name, address, profession, nationality and civil status, please.”

  Valcourt stood up without another word.

  “Goodbye, Monsieur Bernard Valcourt, of room 312, Hôtel des Mille-Collines, journalist, expatriate Canadian and protector of the Tutsi hooker Gentille Sibomana. Goodbye, I have taken careful note of your complaint and will forward it to the prosecutor at the earliest opportunity.”

  Unable to contain himself any longer, the sergeant now guffawed. Wasn’t he funny, this little White walking around with his hooker, talking about justice and rights and all those things preventing the Hutus, to whom the country belonged, from governing these Tutsi foreigners from faraway Ethiopia as they pleased.

  On the door of the little dried-mud house someone had scrawled in red, “Death to the cockroaches.” A small child was crying. On a mat covering the red earth floor lay the headless bodies of Cyprien’s two boys in a huge pool of blood, on which hundreds of mosquitoes and other insects were feeding. The girl had been spared, a typical practice with the Hutu extremists. When they did not kill the boys, they would cut off their feet so they could not become soldiers when they were older. The girls could always be raped and give pleasure a few years later.

  At the orphanage, which was run by Belgian nuns and sponsored by the president’s wife, Madame Agathe, they were received coldly. The mother superior informed them that hers was an establishment of excellent reputation on which hundreds of future Belgian parents were depending for the adoption of children that were sound in body and mind. These good, charitable people were investing a great deal of money, and their requirements, rightly, were substantial. The little girl sleeping in Gentille’s arms did not appear to have the necessary endowments. If her parents were killed at a roadblock it was no doubt because they were doing something wrong. “And when there’s something criminal in the parents, there’s often some in the children.” Besides, this child could have AIDS. No one would want to pay to adopt her and the orphanage could not pursue its charitable and essential work without the income derived from adoption.

  Valcourt never raised his voice when he was angry.

  “If I understand correctly, you and Madame la Présidente specialize in the export of fresh young flesh. You are trying to reduce Rwanda’s trade deficit by selling babies. How are the profits split between La Présidente and you? Perhaps you have a price list, depending on whether it’s a boy or a girl. Do skinny Tutsis sell for less than sturdy Hutus? And do the prices vary according to the children’s ages, the colour of their eyes and their social class? ”

  Valcourt and Gentille went back to the hotel with Cyprien and Georgina’s little girl, having decided to keep her themselves for the moment, buying diapers and baby food on the way.

  Raphaël was already sitting by the pool. Valcourt told him what had happened.

  “Valcourt, sometimes your naivety astonishes me. You showed up at La Présidente’s orphanage with the little girl of parents killed at a roadblock. You didn’t know the good sisters are more into international trade than charity? ”

  Valcourt had heard talk of it of course, but once again he hadn’t wanted to believe the worst.

  “And all Cyprien’s neighbours, all his friends and relatives are terrified today, because here, killers talk. In the bars in the morning they talk about their exploits of the night before. It’s their way of sowing terror in people’s minds. Listen to me, Valcourt, I’m talking about people I know. I’m talking about my own neighbours, who burned down my house, and buddies I play football with every Sunday, who’ll kill me when the section head says it’s Raphaël’s turn. I know them because, in a way, I’m just like them.”

  “You’ve got nothing in common with that bunch.”

  “On the contrary. We’re all Rwandans, all prisoners of the same twisted history that has made us paranoid and schizophrenic at the same time. And like them I was born filled with hate and prejudice. D’you understand? What I’m saying is, if the Tutsis controlled the army here the way they do in Burundi, we’d kill them all, those Hutus. And I’d be right up there. Then I’d go and confess. Buy me a beer. I’m broke.”

  Valcourt ordered two big bottles of Primus.

  “Take this killing of Cyprien and his wife. In each of their wounds, in the killing of the boys, in the way it was done and the weapons used, there are messages. Each atrocity is a symbol and an example. It’s supposed to serve as a model for the future. You’ve seen a small rehearsal for a genocide. But today they’ve killed Cypriens at roadblocks everywhere in the country. Are you doing anything to stop that? ”

  Valcourt had no words, no argument to advance in reply. Everything his friend had said was true except for one thing. Valcourt’s powerlessness did not make him an accomplice; his presence here did not indicate his approval or even his indifference. Much as he might like to be a general, he was only a solitary onlooker, and he could act only as such, a man alone.

  Before leaving, he said to the Tutsi Raphaël, “Gentille is Hutu, Raphaël. You talk, you denounce, but like all those guys who want to kill you, you decide her origin and her future by the colour of her skin and how slim she is. You’re right, the Whites have started a kind of Nazism here. You’re indignant about any kind of discrimination, but they’ve succeeded so well that even you turn Hutus into Tutsis just because of narrow noses. When the apocalypse comes, as you rightly say it will, and you’re holding a machete only to defend yourself, a short, squat man will walk toward you. He’ll tell you he’s lost his papers. And it will be true. But you won’t believe him because the man will be short and squat. And thinking to defend or avenge your own, with a clear conscience and sure of your patriotism and democratic ideals, you’ll kill a Tutsi who’s unfortunately been born with the body of a Hutu. Raphaël, Gentille is a Hutu, but the same night you kill that Tutsi with a Hutu’s body, you’ll save Gentille because her body looks like yours. You’re rationalizing just the way they do. It’s a prison, that kind of thinking, and death too.”

  At the office of the assistant chief prosecutor—who didn’t wish to meet with him—Valcourt’s denunciation and request for an inquiry had been carefully registered by underlings. To show him clearly with what scorn they regarded this false accusation against the forces of order of a sovereign state by a foreigner who was merely tolerated in the country, they assigned his case to the lowest deputy prosecutor. The young man was suffocating in his too-tight suit, and his hard collar made the veins of his neck bulge. He was sweating profusely. In his buttonhole he was wearing the insignia of the president’s party. He questioned Valcourt aggressively, as if he were a criminal. Like a hyena, viciously. Valcourt replied patiently and politely to the most ridiculous questions, never once pointing out contradictions or objecting to veiled insults or perfidious allusions. With these people it was best to bend like a reed.

  “You have already made us waste our time over that story of the prostitute whose body was supposed to have disappeared. Why should we take you seriously this time?”

  “Monsieur, I saw the dead bodies, the wounds, the two murdered children. That ought to be cause enough to open an inquiry.”

  “Do you drink a lot, Monsieur Valcourt? Or like many aid workers, do you smoke a little hashish perhaps?”

  “I like beer, but I only smoke Marlboros.”

  With each question, he wondered why he was wasting his time trying to obey the rules of the game when he was only bringing trouble on himself.

  Before leaving the hotel, Genti
lle had admired his bravery and he had told her, “I’m not brave, not a bit. I’m actually rather yellow by nature. But I can’t behave any other way. I don’t even feel I’m doing my duty. I act by reflex, because that’s the way one ought to in a civilized society. I’m like a child who follows a book of rules. You excuse yourself when you bump someone by mistake, you say thank you and goodbye to the shopkeeper, you open the door for women, you help the blind across the street, you say hello before ordering a beer, you get up on the bus and give your seat to an old lady, you vote even if you don’t like any of the candidates, and when you witness a crime you go to the police so the crime will be solved and in due course justice will be done. No, my darling, I’m not brave, I’m just trying to do things right, and here, that’s not easy.”

  “You accuse the police sergeant of complicity in the murder of two adult persons and two children,” the deputy prosecutor resumed. “You are aware of the gravity of these accusations, especially since they originate with an expatriate working for the progress of the Rwandan state and who is paid by the republic?”

  Yes, indeed, Valcourt was perfectly aware of it.

  “We have here a report from the same police sergeant who declares that he was attacked by a gang of RPF rebels and that during the fighting he lost two patriots. A Hutu traitor was guiding these rebels, who are not Rwandans, you know, but Ugandans claiming to be Tutsis in exile. This person, a tobacco vendor in the marketplace, was called Cyprien. Are we speaking of the same individual? His wife attempted to come to her husband’s defence and she also was killed during the skirmish. These are the facts as they have been reported to us. Do you still wish to lay a complaint and contest the version of all the patriots manning the roadblock? ”

  “There has to be a choice, Monsieur Deputy Prosecutor. The officer spoke to me of unidentified vehicles and to you of a murderous attack by the RPF. Tell me, Monsieur Deputy, where did you do your law studies?”

  “In Canada, Monsieur Valcourt, in your own city of Montreal, on a scholarship from the Canadian government. I lived near Lafontaine Park. Perhaps you know it? ”

  Valcourt had been born at 3211 Mentana Street, very near the big park. Suddenly, all he could think of was getting some sleep. But he insisted that his complaint not be set aside. And yes, he would go and testify before the court and remained ready to serve justice, “if ever justice exists here as it does in the vicinity of Lafontaine Park, Monsieur Deputy.”

  “Are you not afraid of the consequences, Monsieur Valcourt? I mean, afraid that what you are doing could be interpreted in various ways by the authorities?”

  Valcourt raised his hand slowly as if in a sign of peace, indicating that he’d had enough, he was going, this play-acting was wearing him out. Of course, he thought as he stood on the steps a moment later, looking at the marketplace where Cyprien was no longer selling his tobacco, of course he was afraid of the consequences of his denunciations. But every step, every act, he realized fully, imprisoned him, prevented him from turning back. How could he hold his tongue and just look on? And then, a little girl was asleep with Gentille in his room. If her loneliness was not to kill her, someone, someday, would have to find a way to tell her how her parents died, tell her about the killers and the senseless hatred driving them.

  He couldn’t see anyone but himself and Gentille doing this for her. An article, an in-depth report might perhaps stir public opinion and influence his government which in turn would talk about it to another, he told himself as he passed the Kigali Night, into which exuberant French paras were trooping noisily. But what a fool I am! he thought. It takes ten thousand dead Africans to furrow the brow of even one left-leaning White. Even ten thousand’s not enough. And they aren’t noble deaths, either—they make humanity blush. The media don’t show dead bodies cut up by men and shredded by vultures and wild dogs. They show the pitiful victims of drought, swollen little bellies, eyes bigger than TV screens, the tragic children of famine and the elements—that’s what moves people. Then committees get set up and humanitarian souls get busy and mobilize. Contributions flow. Encouraged by their parents, rich kids break open their piggy banks. Governments, feeling a warm wind of popular solidarity blowing, push and shove at the humanitarian aid wicket. But when it’s men like us killing other men like us, and doing it brutally with whatever’s handy, people cover their faces. And when they’re expendable men, like these in this country …

  Valcourt didn’t really know why he was going once again to pester the Canadian general. He had no hope of being able to influence the course of things, but insisted on seeing him anyway.

  The general listened politely, sometimes scribbling a few words on a yellow notepad. Valcourt was telling him nothing, or almost nothing, that he did not know. He had already asked the UN for permission to intervene and seize the deposits of arms that the extremists were planning to distribute among the populace. Another Canadian general and UN functionary had turned him down.

  Valcourt said he did not understand why the general needed approval and more soldiers in order to intervene—his commission stated that he should ensure the protection of the civilian population of the capital. A few dozen Belgian paras could dispense with all the roadblocks in the city in a single night. And he knew there were killings every day and every night in Kigali. And they weren’t isolated incidents, not any more. They couldn’t be shrugged off as the work of a few extremists. Even the police were now into extortion.

  “Yes, if I interpreted my commission proactively, I’d have enough evidence to intervene, but the commission wasn’t entrusted to me alone. I’m a soldier who refers the matter to his superiors when in doubt. Politically, Monsieur, things are not simple. I would like to protect civilians, but I do not want to risk losing soldiers, even one, without written authorization. I am not here to save Rwandans, I am here to ensure respect of the Arusha accord. As for the police, I work in complete cooperation with Colonel Théoneste, the chief of police. He is a man of his word, a professional, and he swears to me that he punishes outbursts and misconduct.”

  There it was. In UN eyes, the massacre of Cyprien and his wife and children was mere “misconduct.”

  “And if the great cleansing of Tutsis and their supporters that the extremist radio and publications are calling for began, what would you do?”

  “Nothing, Monsieur, nothing. I don’t have the necessary number of troops to intervene. They will not give them to me. We will protect the United Nations buildings and personnel and perhaps the expatriates, if that doesn’t place the lives of our soldiers in danger. For the rest, that’s a problem between Rwandans.”

  “You know there’ll be massacres.”

  “There have already been in Bugesera. They’re talking about thousands dead.”

  “And you do nothing.”

  The general seemed out of patience. He had done his duty. He had sent several informants to the site, who had confirmed the rumours and gathered eyewitness reports. He repeated that he had sent this information to New York, and that his superiors had asked him to continue to monitor the situation and warn them if ever these outbursts came to endanger the lives of members of the various UN organizations at work in the country. He was preparing a plan of evacuation for the multilateral force and expatriates, and he thanked Valcourt for coming but could not give him any more time.

  On his way back to the hotel, Valcourt ran into Raphaël and told him, “Forget the Blue Berets, they won’t lift a finger. You guys are on your own.”

  And he explained. The general had done everything to justify his present passivity and future impotence. Had asked another of his own kind, a public servant, for permission he did not need and knew would be refused. Had written reports asking for more troops, knowing that no country wanted to send more troops to Rwanda, but knowing also, which was more serious, that with the several thousand soldiers he already had he could neutralize the extremists of the presidential guard and their principal accomplices in a few hours. Like the general, Valco
urt had watched the Rwandan army’s manoeuvres and exercises and had barely managed to keep himself from laughing out loud and offending his hosts as well as the French military instructors, who looked the other way while their pupils floundered like Boy Scouts on their first outing in the woods. A few hundred professional soldiers could take control of the capital in a matter of hours. The UN didn’t need reinforcements, just a bold leader on the spot. All the Western military experts knew it, and in particular the UN general himself.

  “Raphaël, I can’t do any more. It’s all too enormous. I’ve tried, what little I could. First it was the television station, you remember. I thought I’d be giving democracy a boost with that. Then I thought I could fight AIDS by making a film. There’s still no TV station and I probably won’t get to finish the film. I still have Gentille and the child. I can save maybe two people.”

  Although more and more profoundly convinced of his own helplessness, Valcourt wrote a long article on the murder of his friends, on the looming genocide and the studied composure of the commander of the United Nations force. He sent it off to a dozen publications with which he maintained contact, most of them in Canada. Only a small Catholic weekly in Belgium accepted it for publication. He was not much surprised. In 1983, like hundreds of other journalists, he had received press releases from humanitarian groups working in Ethiopia. They were predicting an unprecedented famine, which could kill a million people. The print and electronic media and UN agencies had all received the same press releases and detailed reports of rainfall statistics, climatic forecasts, grain reserve figures, soil humidity indices, and seed shortages after the year-long drought. Like all the others, Valcourt had paid little attention to these cries of alarm. Only after seeing skeletal children collapsing in the dirt roads before the cameras of the BBC did he go to Ethiopia, just in time to film the famine’s triumph.

  Valcourt felt like someone aboard one of those monstrous amusement park rides that inspire terror and exhilaration, both the fear of dying and an immeasurable rush of life, the one emotion impossible to separate from the other. In this room, only days ago, Méthode had lain dying. Today, a little girl was laughing to see the shadow pictures Gentille was making on the wall with her fingers. Tonight, a few hundred metres away, other little girls would lose their parents amid the whistle of machetes and the thudding of masus. All of this seemed linked and inevitable, written into the order of life here.