An African Rebound

by Dan Doyle

  “Okay!”

  “Now, I’m going to leave two balls. Please take good care of ‘em. Work on these drills and have fun! I’ll see you all next Thursday morning right here. Okay?”

  “Okay!”

  Watching from behind her shelter, Consolaté Tangishaka was struck by the goodwill of the white man, obviously the leader of this group of visitors. It was clear to her that Leonard, and the other boys, were enjoying themselves.

  As a young girl, Consolaté’s grandfather had warned her about the sinful ways of the white man—especially with Tutsi women. Yet this leader’s gentle but firm manner had nearly hypnotized his new pupils. Somehow, she was certain that he was not corrupt in the way her grandfather had described men of his color.

  In the last fifteen years, Consolaté had lost her father, her husband, and two sons to the brutal violence. Leonard was her last born—the most kind, intelligent, wonderful son a mother could ever hope for. His physical development had spawned great interest among the tribal warriors. Before long, they would attempt to recruit him for their deadly battles. And while Consolaté had done her best to protect Leonard from this seemingly inevitable fate, only an act of God would spare her son from following in the bloody wake of his male kin.

  Each morning and evening, Consolaté had prayed for such a miracle. Now, shrouded by the cover of the brush, she dared to wonder if God had answered her many appeals.

  Before heading home, Leonard Tangishaka and his friends followed their normal routine after playing football or, in this case, the new game they’d just learned. They walked through the woods toward a spring-fed nyanza, where they would cool their sweat-lathered bodies. Along the way, Leonard found himself adrift in his thoughts, pondering the many impli-cations of the last ninety minutes—the most extraordinary experience of his young life.

  From the time, several years ago, when he realized God had equipped him with exceptional physical gifts, he’d assumed he’d use these gifts to follow his father and brothers into the unceasing war with the Hutus. Yet, unlike his dead brothers and father, and many of his friends, he silently looked on this inevitable service as an unwelcome demand—not a calling.

  His mother’s non-violent views, compounded by the deaths in her life, had caused her last-born son to see, clearly, what most other Tutsi males his age did not see: The violence was nothing more than a waste of lives. But Leonard knew that he could not discuss this heretical view with anyone but Consolaté.

  “The Tutsi warlords will not hear of such talk; they might kill you,” she warned her son in a hushed tone.

  And so, on the walk through the woods, while his friends spoke animatedly about the fun they’d just had learning this new game, Leonard focused on something the white man had said to him. Translated into Kirundi by Mathias, Leonard took it to mean: “If you practice this game, it might give you the chance to travel to many places, including, perhaps, America.”

  The thought was so thrilling that he stopped, put his hands on his knees, bent over, and closed his eyes. America. America. He simply could not bring an image into focus.

  Leonard’s knowledge of other countries was mostly limited to Rwanda, the country not far from Kayanza that had been in conflict with Burundi for as long as he could remember. And because he knew few facts, he used his imagination to make up the rest of the world. He heard the Tutsi warriors speak of foreign places like South Africa, Tanzania, and Zaire. And lately, the place called America, where this white man came from, had been mentioned to him on occasion.

  “You look like an American,” some older wise people would say, admiring his powerful physique and implying that such strength was typical among boys and men in this faraway land.

  And then there were the two missionaries, a husband and wife who referred to themselves as African Americans and who had come from America to spread the Word of God. They had visited the Kayanza region just after the deaths of Leonard’s father and two brothers. Their message of faith and love had brought comfort to Consolaté and Leonard. Their message of non-violence had reinforced Consolaté’s view of the futility of war. The missionaries had also provided other gifts: They had taught mother and son to read French and left behind several French books, as well as an American magazine called Time.

  While unable to read English, the pictures in the American magazine had sparked Leonard’s curiosity about this faraway land that somehow now seemed closer because of today’s visitors.

  Would this new game, which he found so enjoyable, become an important part of his life—perhaps even offering him the chance to travel to the places of his dreams? More immediately, would it provide him with the means to avoid his dreaded obligation to kwica—to kill?

  While Leonard realized that his opponents in war would be the same people—the Hutus—who had murdered his brothers and father, he also knew that these people were responding to centuries of cruel acts inflicted on them by his own tribe. He knew this because his mother, his brave and honest mother, had told him so.

  Responding to the shouts of his friends, Leonard joined them for a swim, then headed to his home, a mud-floor hut on the side of a large hill that overlooked a valley full of eucalyptus trees. His mother was not home yet, but awaiting his arrival was Charlé Tinyabokwe, the most fearsome of Kayanza’s Tutsi warriors.

  Leonard had deep but unspoken contempt for Charlé. Since his father’s murder, Charlé had used his power promiscuously, taking liberties with Leonard’s beloved mother and other Tutsi widows of war. For Consolaté’s part, she knew that if she did not accede to Charlé’s demands for sex, his abuse might extend to a violent act on her only remaining son. She knew this because another widow had rebuffed Charlé, and her son had suffered the consequences—a terrible beating that left the boy blind in one eye.

  Because she feared for her son’s safety, Consolaté had relented, praying silently to Jesus for forgiveness during each unwanted gusambana, all the while harboring a fervent hope that a Hutu bullet might soon find Charlé’s evil heart.

  Charlé’s sullen expression made it clear to Leonard that today’s visit had nothing to do with his sexual desires.

  After silently watching Leonard and his friends head off to swim, Consolaté decided to remain for a while in her shelter behind the trees. She had to make a decision, one that only those in the grip of the violent Tutsi warlords could understand. If she allowed her son to join the brigade of butchers, as she thought of them, Leonard would either be killed or forced to discard his Christian instincts and become a killer himself.

  The alternative was one she was not certain would work. And if it did, it would surely have serious consequences for her.

  When Consolaté had peeked from behind the cluster of trees, watching this white man enlighten and excite her son, she felt certain this man must surely be some type of godsend. His good-natured approach was unlike the intimidating tactics the Tutsi warriors used on young boys of Leonard’s age. They would force foolish tests of machismo, telling them that successful completion would mean their passage to manhood. For her son and other young soldiers, she also knew that the final rite would be to kill a Hutu. By some tangled twist of reasoning, these men—cowards dressed up as war-riors—convinced themselves that this type of act was a sure route to heroism.

  As for her late husband and his role in this violence, she often reflected on the early years of their marriage, a time of transient peace in Burundi. Evariste was a good provider and, unlike many other Tutsi warriors, showed reasonable interest in his offspring. But Evariste was also the son of Olivier, among the most fearsome Tutsi warlords of his time. When the Hutu-Tutsi fighting spilled over into Burundi, Evariste, as his father’s son, felt it was his duty—and the duty of his sons—to fight off the Hutu uprising. He was called upon to be head warlord.

  During the conflict, in his brief forays home, Consolaté noticed a distinct change in her husband. No doubt because of the horrors he faced each day, Evariste grew detached from his wife. The change also in
cluded his near indifference to Leonard, who was too young to enter the battle.

  Over a period of eight genocidal months, Evariste and Consolaté’s two older sons, Didace and Simon, were killed.

  Now a bereft widow, she was fair game for the new head warlord, Charlé, who had always envied her late husband for being on the martial side of a fearsome ancestral line. She dreaded this man’s carnal ways as much as his cruelty. Because of his insatiable lust, it was, she feared, only a matter of time before he contracted the deadly virus that had killed so many of her generation. She also knew that Charlé’s envy of her late husband was shared by several other warlords, who joined him in treating Leonard with disdain, frequently chastising the boy for not joining in the war.

  By contrast, this white man Consolaté had just observed took a far different approach with her son. He was firm, but kind. And while she knew nothing of the peculiar activity he was teaching her son, she could readily see that he had great knowledge of this game. It was also apparent that he enjoyed instructing Leonard and that her son took to the game quickly.

  Consolaté still harbored a deep fear of white men, leery of their supposed treachery and loose morals. Yet she realized that those who spread these tales included not only her own father and grandfather, but other Tutsi warlords, who were hardly examples of chivalry themselves.

  Of all the boys in the region, Consolaté also knew that Leonard was the prize for the Tutsi civilian army. He had his father’s height and his grandfather’s strength—the most perfect physical specimen anyone in the Kayanza region had ever seen. And now it would be time for others to take advantage of her son’s God-given gifts. The warriors Consolaté had come to loathe would soon take her son and place him in the cauldron of this senseless war.

  She could not allow this to happen. But Consolaté’s alternatives were few—and unappealing. She and her son might steal off in the middle of the night and head over the border into Rwanda, perhaps finding temporary sanctuary in a refugee camp. But from all that she had heard, the refugee camps were full of the virus she dreaded and run by the same type of men who made her life so wretched.

  The other possibility was one she’d pondered from her brush-covered stakeout. She heard the white man tell the boys that, although he lived many hours away in the capital city, he would return on this day next week. When the white man and his companions had left the grounds and Leonard and his friends headed off to swim, Consolaté followed the advice of the missionaries and asked God for His Divine Guidance.

  After a short period, she felt reasonably certain she’d found His answer within herself. Next week, when the white man returned to Kayanza, Consolaté would approach him. She would need the old Tutsi who accompanied the white man to be present to translate her urgent request. She would also need to make sure this meeting was conducted out of sight of Charlé and the other warriors.

  Please, she would say, please take my son back to Bujumbura with you.

  She would explain the alternatives and hope—pray— that this man was as kind and as interested in her son as he appeared to be.

  What Consolaté would not explain to him is that once Leonard was gone and Charlé learned of his absence, his reaction would be harsh. He might even kill her.

  Still somewhat uncertain of the blessedness of this plan, Consolaté headed home. As she approached her hut, she heard Charlé’s threatening voice chastising her son for not joining in the in-tumbara—the war.

  God’s message was clear.

  28

  Just past midnight, Corporal Roberts dropped Jim off at his apartment. The long ride home had been tiring. The group made one last late-afternoon stop where four players turned up. But the coach was in high spirits. In answer to his concern about time, Mathias told Jim that the boys would have an intuitive concept of minutes and hours.

  “They’ll be there next week at the time you set, Coach.”

  It was far too early to judge Leonard Tangishaka as a basketball player, yet Jim was impressed enough by his extraordinary physical gifts to compare the athlete to another young phenom he had encountered many years earlier.

  In the summer just before his senior year at St. Thomas College, Jim had been invited to play for a college all-star team at Kutsher’s Resort in the Catskills, a summer haven for exceptional players. When he arrived, word was already buzzing about a teenaged giant working as a bellhop, one of several high school basketball stars chosen for the coveted Kutsher’s assignment. The job allowed the young standout plenty of free time to sharpen his already considerable skills against top-flight competition. While Jim had heard about him from a number of basketball enthusiasts, he’d never seen the boy play.

  The Kutsher’s College All-Star Team had two days of workouts before their game against a group of NBA players, and they invited the hot prospect to scrimmage. At sixteen, and already 6’11”, he had point-guard agility, which later, in his storied NBA career, would give way to Herculean strength.

  On a steamy June night, at that remote Catskill location, in front of no more than twenty-five onlookers, the sixteen-year-old dominated a highly acclaimed college all-star group in a forty-minute scrimmage. After the scrimmage, Jim, his coaching instincts already developing, passed up a visit to the local tavern with the other college stars. Instead, he stayed at the court with the prodigy, working with him on inside moves until well past midnight. Later on, he lay awake in his cabin, certain he had just worked with a player destined to change the course of the game.

  Leonard Tangishaka was clearly a different case, the grand sum of his basketball experience the ninety minutes spent with Jim. Yet at fourteen, not only was he an inch or two taller than the slightly older American had been, but in the relatively brief workout, he seemed even more agile, more graceful, more athletic than the future NBA superstar had seemed those many years ago.

  Jim kept reminding himself to be realistic about whatever basketball exploits might lay in the young man’s future. He also knew that Leonard’s improvement would require that he eventually leave Kayanza to benefit from regular coaching and good competition. On the ride home, he asked Mathias about the possibility of such a move.

  “From what I could gather in a brief conversation with two of the other boys,” Mathias began, “Leonard’s father and two brothers were killed. By the way, I have a vague recollection of a man I think was his grandfather. Olivier was his name, and he was a mammoth man. But back to the boy, even though it is likely that his mother wants to keep him out of the war, I am sure that the Tutsi warlords in Kayanza have big plans for young Leonard Tangishaka. I’m also sure that those plans do not include basketball.”

  He added, “Jim, in other words, it will be a real struggle— and perhaps a dangerous one.”

  Yet despite impediments that seemed nearly insurmountable, Jim felt as if he were back at Kutsher’s. He remembered the sleepless night following the workout, when he decided that coaching would definitely be in his future.

  The difference now was that if the Burundian boy decided to devote his energies to basketball, it would most likely be Jim Keating who would spend long hours molding Leonard Tangishaka’s skills, rather than that one-time interlude with a young Wilton Norman Chamberlain.

  When he awoke, Jim Keating’s first thought was the same one that had occupied his mind before he finally fell into a restless sleep: Leonard Tangishaka must move to Bujumbura in order to develop his basketball skills.

  Moments later, Jim got a phone call from an ally.

  “Jim, I was up half the night thinking about Leonard,” said Bill Foster. “I’ve never seen anyone like him—ever. I talked with Cynthia first thing this morning. Told her that we must find a way to develop the kid’s ability—that we’ve got to move him to Bujumbura.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She agreed, but wants to meet with you to discuss the details. If he does move here, she wants to make sure we don’t cause a lot of problems for the boy, or his mother. Okay if Robbie comes o
ver to get you?”

  “Just need to shave. Give me twenty minutes.”

  When Jim arrived at the ambassador’s residence, the enthusiastic diplomat and her husband had coffee, banana bread, and fresh cut melon waiting for him.

  “Jim,” said Ambassador Foster, “I’ve never seen Bill more excited about a player. And that includes, and I never thought I’d say this, the first time he saw Oscar play when The Big O was but a seventh grader. . . . So tell me, Coach, is Leonard Tangishaka that good?”

  Jim related the story of a callow Wilt Chamberlain at Kutsher’s. “Ambassador, you can’t measure a kid’s heart or desire, but Leonard’s athleticism is unbelievable. In fact, and I’m obviously not talking about him as a basketball player yet, but as an athlete, he’s at Wilt’s level—maybe even more gifted than Wilt at that age!”

  Jim hesitated, shaking his head slightly.

  “With proper training, I’m betting he might well put Burundi on the international basketball map.”

  “Then let’s talk about how we can best help this young man,” said the ambassador. “I’m certain the Tutsi warlords in that region have designs on the boy. We’ll have to be careful about that; we don’t want to cause a violent reaction.”

  The ambassador paused for a moment to gather her thoughts.

  “But . . . I think the first thing we need to worry about is the mother’s reaction. Bill, you mentioned this morning that it’s just the boy and his mother, that the father and brothers have been killed?”

  “That’s what Mathias heard,” Bill confirmed.

  “Well,” said the ambassador, “speaking as a mother, and taking into account all that I’ve heard in the last several months from Tutsi women sick of the bloodshed, I’m guess-ing that Leonard’s mother would be receptive to anything that would keep her son out of the war.”