Gloriosa was triumphant. With Father Herménégilde’s militant blessing and steady assistance, she’d proclaimed herself President of the Committee for the Enthronement of Our Authentic Lady of the Nile. They occupied the library, which they’d turned into their headquarters, and which was now out of bounds except with their permission. The telephone, which until then had been reserved for Mother Superior’s office, was now set up in the library. Gloriosa went to class only rarely now. With Father Herménégilde at her side, she would interrupt the other classes without hesitation, to make short speeches, in Kinyarwanda, phrased as slogans heavy with double meaning. She had managed a spectacular reconciliation with Goretti, welcoming her as a committee board member. But Goretti, while approving and encouraging Gloriosa’s activism, had refused the post of vice president Gloriosa offered her, and displayed a cautious reserve in front of the other girls. Mother Superior hardly left her office now, and when she did, pretended not to notice the disorder that reigned in her establishment. When Father Herménégilde came to see her, out of a respect for hierarchy that barely disguised a hint of insolence, to update her on the committee’s activities, Mother Superior merely replied:
“Very well, Father, you know what you’re doing, Rwanda is an independent country, independent … but don’t forget, we’re responsible for a lycée of young women, they’re only young women …”
And then she plunged her nose back into the inventories she’d asked Sister Bursar to provide so she could check them, on the pretext of planning the start of the next school year.
Gloriosa and Father Herménégilde went on a mission to Kigali and Butare for a few days. A giant Mercedes, provided by Gloriosa’s father, came to collect them. Upon their return, they hastily called a meeting of the committee, informed Mother Superior, and announced a general assembly of pupils and teachers in the large study hall. Gloriosa let Father Herménégilde speak first. He revealed that, with the support of the highest echelons of government and the Party, the enthronement of Our New and Authentic Lady of the Nile would be the occasion for a gathering of the elite of the Militant Rwandan Youth, the JMR, who at this very moment were continuing their parents’ glorious social revolution throughout the country. High school and university students would drive up to Nyaminombe in minibuses. Around fifty were expected, students selected from among the best of the militant youth. Tents supplied by the army would be erected on the open land above the spring, for there was clearly no question of housing boys in the lycée, so close to the young women. The ceremony would be both religious and patriotic in nature. He finished his speech in Kinyarwanda, proclaiming that the Rwandan youth would swear an oath to Our Lady of the Nile, who henceforth stood for true Rwandan women. He told them to always remember the centuries of servitude they had endured at the hands of arrogant invaders, to continue to defend the gains of the social revolution, to tirelessly fight those who remained the implacable enemies of the majority people both outside and within Rwanda’s borders. Then Gloriosa, still speaking in Kinyarwanda, added that it wouldn’t be long before the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile followed the example of those brave militants who rose up in schools and in local government to rid the country of the Inyenzi’s accomplices. The girls of the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile, Rwanda’s female elite, would prove worthy of their parents’ courage, and she, Nyiramasuka, would be worthy of her name, of that they could be sure.
Everyone in the hall applauded. Only Monsieur Legrand dared utter a feeble objection:
“But how will we complete the school program, what with this big celebration coming up? Isn’t there a risk of being refused certification and losing a whole year?”
Father Herménégilde answered him with extreme courtesy, saying that the foreign teachers – friends – had nothing to worry about, for none of it concerned them anyway. The lycée of Our Lady of the Nile, which was considered the best in the country, had nothing to fear, and would be crowned with the national certification of its end-of-year exam, just as it was every year.
“It’s coming, Virginia, you do realize that? Don’t think we’ll escape it just because we’re in a lycée for the privileged. On the contrary. We’re their biggest mistake. And they won’t be slow to correct it. Gloriosa has engineered the whole thing: that business of the phantom Inyenzi, the attack on the statue, the Hutu’s new Madonna. It’s all in place. All that’s missing is the JMR gathering. And they won’t come singing hymns to Mary, they’ll come with fat truncheons, with clubs, maybe even machetes, to honor Their Lady of the Nile. I suppose the new girls have properly understood what’s going to happen to us. But if there are any still clinging to their illusions because they can’t get over having been accepted into the lycée for future ministers’ wives, then they must be warned. Discreetly. It’s too dangerous for us all to get together. Imagine the plot: a Tutsi meeting! And when the time comes for us to flee, we’ll each have to go our own way. Some will get caught, but some will manage to escape, I hope.”
“Listen,” said Virginia, “I’m not leaving the lycée without my diploma. Give up so close to the diploma? Never. If you knew how much this means to my mother, the dreams she’s built upon that piece of paper. When I think of all those girls who were just as smart as us, maybe smarter, and were excluded by the famous quota. They had to resign themselves to simply being farmers, poor women farmers, all their lives. It’s partly for them I want to get this diploma, even if it probably won’t be very useful in Rwanda. After all, it’s not the first time we’ve been threatened, it’s our daily burden. Let’s wait to get that diploma, and if we have to leave, I’ll figure out a way.”
“I’m not so sure. You know, they’ve started to hunt Tutsi bureaucrats and students across the whole country. Soon it’ll be the turn of the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile, why would we escape it? The purge will end with a bang at the lycée of the female elite. You know what awaits us. Have you forgotten what we’ve already suffered and what they’re promising every day will happen to us? In 1959, half my family fled to Burundi as refugees. In 1963, three of my uncles were killed, though my father escaped – in Kigali, they didn’t do as much killing as they’d have liked to because of the people from the United Nations – but he was sent to prison with loads of others, he was beaten to a pulp, and when they let him go – because the President wanted to show the whites just how peace loving he was – they made him pay a colossal fine, his taxi and truck were impounded, and to top it all off, they made him sign a document confessing he was a spy and an Inyenzi accomplice. My father’s frightened: that document is still with State Security. Because of that, now they might kill him.”
“If they kill our parents, they’d better kill us too. You know what happened when we took refuge at the mission? There were many orphans, their mothers and fathers had just been massacred. Well, the Prefect came to say there were some Hutu families willing to adopt them, and he used such fancy words in front of the missionaries, like Christian charity and community spirit, that when my father repeats those words, they make him angry and my mother starts to cry. Anyway, they shared out the orphans: boys went to work the fields, and the young women, well, they were very popular, you can imagine why! When, as Gloriosa has promised, the JMR get here – and we know what for – there’ll still be time for us to hide, and try to join our families, then cross over to Burundi.”
“I’ll go to Fontenaille’s, he’ll protect me, he won’t let me fall into the hands of rapists and murderers. I’m his Isis, and anyway, nobody except you knows I go there.”
“Are you really sure? No one followed you there? You didn’t say anything to Modesta? I have doubts about her sometimes: why does she like talking to us Tutsi so much behind her great friend’s back? Because she’s half Tutsi or because she’s spying on us? Why does she complicate her life so much, poor thing?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Perhaps she’s guessed something. She often asks me what I’m up to on Sundays, then laughs and makes allusions to that craz
y old white guy who loves sketching beautiful Tutsi girls so much.”
“Watch out. Even if her mother’s Tutsi, you know what side she’ll always be on.”
“But, Virginia, if we really have to flee, how will we do it? The lycée is the only thing in Nyaminombe. It’s surrounded on all sides. I bet the mayor, his police officers, and the militants are already watching it closely. And when the day comes, they’ll put up roadblocks on the track. Even if you dress as an old peasant woman, it won’t be in a Toyota that you’ll leave Nyaminombe. Don’t count on anyone inside the lycée. Mother Superior’s already shut herself away in her office, so she can’t see anything. The Belgian teachers will keep on teaching, unperturbed. Even though the French teachers have some affection for us, seemingly because of our physique, they’ll obey the instructions from their embassy: no interference, no interference! When the killers fall upon us, some will say: it’s always been like that in Africa, savages killing each other for reasons no one understands; and even if some lock themselves in their rooms to cry, their tears won’t save them. But I have one hope, and that’s Fontenaille. You know he sent my portraits off to Europe, I’m known over there. He keeps saying they’re expecting me. He can’t let me be killed right in front of him without doing anything. Come with me. You’re his Queen Candace too. He must save his goddess and his queen.”
“I won’t be going to hide at your white’s place. It’s odd, but I’m not scared, it’s like I’m sure I’ll get out of it, as if someone, something, had promised me.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know.”
Virginia was counting down the days leading the Tutsi girls toward a destiny she considered inevitable. There was no doubt that the scenario envisaged by Father Herménégilde would play out, step by step. Yet she couldn’t get rid of that certainty deep down inside her that somehow she’d escape it, and this troubled her. Meanwhile, Gloriosa had deemed herself absolute mistress of the lycée, and her sovereignty extended to the refectory. The table upon the stage, from where Sister Gertrude and the monitors would watch over meals, was empty now. Gloriosa declared she no longer wished to open her mouth in front of the Inyenzi. From now on, they would eat after the real Rwandans. They took great pains to leave them the quota of food that the majority people still conceded to the parasites. All the other tables followed her example. Gloriosa also decreed that no one should speak to the Tutsi-Inyenzi anymore, and that they must be prevented from talking among themselves. The true militants would always keep a watchful eye on them, and inform her of any suspicious word or deed. Virginia noticed, however, that Immaculée always managed to be the last one to get up from the table, discreetly leaving a good share of her portion.
Virginia could no longer sleep, nor did she want to. She listened for the slightest sound, anxiously waiting for the creaking gates, the rumbling engines and screeching tires that would announce the killers’ violent arrival, to be followed by furious shouts, screams of protest, hobnailed boots hammering the stairs, the stampeding panic of flight …
Virginia hoped it would occur at night. She thought this would make it easier for her to shake off her pursuers in the lycée corridors, reach the garden by way of the staircase that led down to the kitchen, jump the wall, and run and run toward the mountain … But she had no idea what might happen after that. She couldn’t picture it. But whatever the case, it had to be a moonless night.
Her head was filled with endless scenes of her escape, always the same, but one night she couldn’t stay awake and had a dream that reinforced yet further her vague certainty of being spared that she just couldn’t explain. She saw herself wandering the labyrinth of a vast enclosure, the kind they used to build for the kings of old. Beneath the bundles of bamboo that framed the entrance to a courtyard, stood a man, waiting for her; he was young, and very tall, with features that appeared, to her eyes, faultlessly beautiful. “Don’t you recognize me?” he asked. “Even though you came to see me, don’t you recognize Rubanga, the umwiru?” He handed her a huge pot of milk: “Go carry this to the Queen, she’s waiting for it, she’s waiting for you.” Virginia continued on her way, between the high intertwined fencing, finally emerging in a vast yard where beautiful young women were dancing to the gentle rhythm of a song that reminded her of one of her mother’s favorite lullabies. The Queen stepped out of the large hut, her face hidden by a veil of pearls. Virginia knelt before her, and offered up the pot of milk. The Queen drank with delightful slowness, then handed the pot to one of her retainers and spoke to Virginia: “You have served me well, Mutamuriza, you are my favorite. Here is your reward.” Virginia saw two shepherds leading a pure white heifer toward her. “She’s yours,” said the Queen, “her name is Gatare, remember, Gatare.”
Virginia was suddenly awakened by the creaking gate. It made her jump. The killers? The ringing of the wake-up bell reassured her. This new day was beginning like all the others. Her head was full of the memory of her dream. She took refuge in it, felt herself wrapped in an invisible protective force. She repeated the name of the cow from her dream like an incantation: “Gatare, Gatare.” She would have liked to remain forever in that dream.
The new statue of Our Lady of the Nile arrived in a tarpaulin-covered van. She was immediately surrounded by a crowd of lycée girls. But they were disappointed. The statue was enclosed in a wooden crate, which the lycée hands heaved onto their shoulders, according to Father Herménégilde’s anxious instructions, and carried into the chapel. The chaplain shut himself in with Gloriosa and forbade entry to anyone. They heard the hammering of the lycée hands as they dismantled the crate. “She’s beautiful,” said Gloriosa as she came out of the chapel, “very beautiful, really black, but no one must see her until the lycée’s fit to welcome her, and Monsignor to bless her.” The girls rushed inside the chapel anyway, but all they saw was a shapeless form in front of the altar, wrapped in a huge Rwandan flag.
Virginia looked for Veronica, but in vain. She wasn’t in class, nor did she appear for refectory. The twelfth graders acted as if they hadn’t noticed their classmate’s disappearance. Only Gloriosa remarked – loud enough for Virginia to hear: “Don’t worry, Veronica’s not gone far, I know there are some among us who know where she is. I know too, and from a reliable source,” she added, looking at Modesta. As everyone rushed upstairs to the dormitory, Modesta managed to whisper a few words to Virginia: “Whatever you do, don’t go to that old white guy’s place, find another way out, but above all don’t go there.”
All through the night, Virginia wondered how to warn Veronica. Seeing the statue arrive, Veronica must’ve gone to seek refuge at Fontenaille’s, since that was her only plan. But it was no longer a secret at all, everyone knew her hiding place. Virginia squeezed back tears of rage and anguish so no one could say to her in the morning, laughing: “See, despite your pretty name, we’ve succeeded in drawing a few tears from you.”
Despite the growing chaos that had engulfed the lycée, the teachers still held their classes as usual. The timetables, and the teachers’ presence and punctuality, were the only regulations Mother Superior still managed to enforce, as long as she shut her eyes to the repeated absences of some of the pupils. One day in class, Monsieur Legrand asked for a pupil to go get the exercise books he’d collected for marking, and which he’d left in his pigeonhole in the staff room. Immaculée beat everyone else to it. When she returned, she handed out the exercise books. Upon opening hers, Virginia found a small square of paper. She read: “When the JMR arrive, apparently it’s tomorrow, don’t flee with the others. Try to go up to the dorm, go to my room and wait for me there. Trust me, I’ll explain. Destroy this note, swallow it if you must. Immaculée Mukagatare.”
Virginia read and reread the small piece of paper she held in the palm of her hand. Immaculée’s plan might be ingenious, but should she trust her? Immaculée wasn’t really her friend. Of course she wasn’t part of Gloriosa’s gang. She appeared to laugh at politics, and particularly Gloriosa. Al
l she seemed interested in were her looks. So why take so many risks to save a Tutsi? Hiding in Immaculée’s room meant placing herself entirely in her hands. And what would she do then? But there was Immaculée’s name, her true name, the one her father gave her, Mukagatare. Gatare, was that what her dream meant, Gatare, that which is white, that which is pure? Again, she felt in the grip of some invisible protective force. Yes, she’d follow the plan suggested to her by Immaculée, Mukagatare, what did she have to lose?
When it happened, it was pretty much as Virginia had predicted. Two minibuses sped through the gates and halted right in front of the steps at the main entrance. Young men – extremely young men – got out brandishing huge clubs. Immediately, the Tutsi girls rushed into the corridors in a desperate attempt to flee. The other pupils went in pursuit but were unable to catch them. Virginia spotted an empty classroom. She entered and hid under the teacher’s desk. The horde of pursuers ran past shouting. When she was sure the corridor was deserted, Virginia couldn’t help looking out of the window onto the yard. She saw Gloriosa giving her instructions to the man who seemed to be the leader of the militants. She had no trouble understanding the plan Gloriosa had hatched: the pupils were to hustle their Tutsi classmates into the garden, where the JMR gang and their clubs lay in wait. Virginia opened the door a crack. There was no one in the corridor. She tiptoed down it. In the empty classrooms, the Belgian teachers sat at their desks, clearly seeking the appropriate demeanor in such a situation. The French teachers huddled together, plunged in deep, animated discussion. As if protected by a halo of tranquility, Virginia went up the stairs to the dorm, without meeting anyone, and reached Immaculée’s room. She made sure that in the event of danger, she could hide under the bed. She waited, attentive to the slightest sound. Shouts and screams came from behind the building, from the garden she thought, shuddering. Soon, she heard steps, and threw herself under the bed.
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