Truth, by Omission

by Daniel Beamish

  The inside is furnished adequately, and this is really not a concern of mine anyhow. It’s certainly far nicer than the detention-center room in Newark.

  “Here are my numbers.” Bart hands me a typed-out page. “I’ve included some other information that you might need. I’ve had some food brought in, but you might like to go to the market.” He hands me some money. “Here are some euros to get you by until your wife arrives.”

  I lift my leg a bit and point down to my ankle.

  “We’ll see if we can get that off soon. In the meantime, you’re still pretty free to go where you like. You just can’t leave the country.”

  The first thing I do after Bartholomeus leaves is try the phone, finally reaching Anna, waking her a little after midnight Denver time.

  “Are you okay? Where are you?” she asks without even saying hello.

  “I’m fine. But I was worried about you.”

  “I’ll be on the flight tonight.”

  I’ve only been away from her for five days now, but it seems like much longer. In fact, my life before all of this blew up seems like it was ages ago. I wonder if incarcerated time always passes so slowly. Attempting to organize these thoughts, I count on my fingers from the day the Denver police showed up in my office until now. Not even two weeks, but so much has happened. It all seems impossible, surreal. Two weeks ago I had not the slightest inkling that my life would ever take a turn like this.

  I badly want to make my way to the airport and see Anna as soon as she gets off the plane, but with the monitor I’m wearing I’d just cause a commotion with the authorities. Instead, I wait in the isolation of my apartment for Bart’s car to arrive with her. The desperation and loneliness that had built up in me since we parted only a few days ago is overwhelming, and I find myself fidgeting and shaking, peeking out the curtains every few minutes. When she finally steps through the doorway, dispelling my lingering thoughts that perhaps she would abandon me, I wrap myself around her not wanting to ever let her go. Anna truly is the center of my universe.

  As he promised, Bartholomeus arrives the next day at our little apartment, but he doesn’t have much news for us. He tells us that he applied to have my ankle monitor removed, but the request was declined by the presiding magistrate, ruling that it did not constitute unreasonable confinement especially since my case met both tests of Belgian law for such monitoring: the probable indication of guilt of a serious crime and the special circumstances of the case.

  “What are these special circumstances?” Anna asks.

  “Mrs. Fraser—”

  “Call me Anna, please.”

  “Anna,” Bart continues, “it’s impossible to underestimate the national sentiment that is likely to surface when this becomes public. There are heavy political implications here in Belgium that could be related to your husband’s trial.”

  “Political implications? How can politics be involved in this?” Anna asks.

  “Perhaps I should explain some of the history to put this in context for you.” Bart motions toward the chairs, and we all take a seat. “Belgium has long prided itself on its neutrality. We held off picking sides during the Second World War until we were overrun by Germany. We’ve always considered ourselves one of the world’s great peacekeeping nations.”

  “Alfred has told me about the Belgian peacekeepers that were murdered in Rwanda,” Anna says. She is curious. She’s a lawyer and wants as much information as possible.

  “Yes, April 7, 1994. The date is etched in Belgian history. Extremely brutal murders,” Bart continues. “And our government was frustrated at the lack of UN support. The country was outraged. The government ordered a withdrawal of the remaining peacekeepers, but before they even got out of the country the four Belgian nuns at Notre Dame de la Paix were murdered. It was in an equally savage manner and resulted in the sisters becoming a lightning rod of national indignation. They became known as Le Quatre Soeurs de la Paix, ‘the Four Sisters of Peace.’”

  “And no one was ever charged with those murders?” Anna asks.

  “Not the nuns’ murders,” Bart says. “But one man, a former Rwandan Army major, was convicted here in Belgium in 2007 of the ten peacekeeper murders.”

  I was confused by this and stopped Bart. “I thought the trials were in Tanzania? I know that the United Nations set up the war crimes tribunal there. Why a conviction here?”

  “You’re right, Alfred. When those trials in Tanzania didn’t convict anyone for our peacekeepers’ murders, Belgium sought extradition of this one known participant. In fact, that case went all the way to our Council of State, your Supreme Court equivalent, to establish that we had the right to convict for crimes against our citizens on foreign soil. That’s the basis for being able to extradite you.”

  Anna has been listening intently. “So, Bart, no one has ever been convicted for the deaths of the nuns?”

  “That’s right, Anna. Only one conviction for the ten peacekeepers, and none for the Four Sisters of Peace. It’s a national sore point that has festered in this country for more than twenty years.” Bart sits up straighter in his chair and takes a deep breath. “So, you can see how once it gets around that the prosecutors have a suspect, there will probably be a tide of public revenge stirred up.”

  He pauses, giving us time to let this sink in.

  “Bart.” Anna picks up the conversation again. “You said that Alfred’s case has political implications. How is that?”

  Bart fills us in on the current state of political affairs in the country: the ruling political party in Belgium is currently clinging to power in a minority government situation in the Parliament. The prime minister and his cabinet know that a public trial at this time could pull the country together in a common cause that would go a long way toward getting them reelected.

  “It’s only a matter of time until this explodes in the press,” Bart says. “It’ll be impossible to stop that happening, and it’s going to make it a real uphill battle for us.”

  Anna nods, thinking for a moment, and then asks about next steps. I just listen, taking it all in.

  “We’ll have a discovery hearing next week with the judge,” he says. “That’s when we’ll get to see all the evidence they have gathered so far. Until then there’s not much we can do.”

  Bart picks up his briefcase and stands. “We’ll reassess right after that and begin to plan for a defense,” he says, as we show him to the door.

  The elation I was feeling from having Anna back at my side for the past twenty-four hours begins to quickly evaporate. We try to divert our attention until next week’s hearing by getting out and seeing Brussels, acting like tourists. It’s not lost on us that these are the exact days we were supposed to be spending together in Saint Martin, on our once-again-delayed honeymoon.

  “Well, Alfred, we do have something of Saint Martin here in Brussels,” Anna says.

  “Not the weather, that’s for sure.” The sun has not come out for even a minute in the week since we arrived in Belgium. It’s been cloudy and rainy and foggy the entire time, and even though the temperature is a little above freezing, the constant dampness makes it feel much colder. There’s a penetrating achiness that stiffens my joints and makes me physically hurt all over.

  “No, it’s not Saint Martin’s weather, that’s for sure,” she says. “I was thinking of the combination of Dutch and French.”

  Anna, always the optimist, forever looking to the bright side. That was one of the things we were looking forward to in selecting Saint Martin, the variety of two languages. And we have those same languages right here in Belgium. The country is pretty evenly split between Dutch and French speakers, with most people in the greater Brussels area fully fluent in both, even if French is more commonly heard. German is a third official language of the country, but we don’t encounter much of it. Almost everyone in Brussels, especially anyone under forty, als
o speaks English with fluency, but Anna and I speak French, enjoying the opportunity to converse in the language that we’ve hardly used since leaving Paris.

  We impel ourselves to be out and about during the day, sightseeing to occupy our minds and walking to make sure that we are getting some exercise. The evenings are spent inside our little apartment where I pass hour after hour on my laptop voraciously soaking up any information I can find on the Belgian involvement in my birth country of Rwanda. I also take in as much news as I can about the current state of affairs in Belgium, reading several news sites and sources thoroughly.

  It’s while doing my nightly news search on the eve of my first hearing in front of the judicial inquiry that I come across a small article on the Reuters European service, Media Seek Admittance to Four Sisters’ Inquiry. This is the first real proof I have seen that the media do in fact know something of what is going on with my case here in Belgium and that they do have a solid interest in it. The article states that several media outlets have banded together to petition the judicial inquiry to allow them access to the hearings. Under normal circumstances this would not be done, but it is not unheard of, especially in cases of significant national concern. The article goes on to give a brief background, stating, Sources have confirmed that Azikiwe Olyontombo, an American physician and former Rwandan national, has been extradited recently from the USA to Belgium where he is facing charges in the murders of the Four Sisters of Peace.

  “Bart warned us it would come,” Anna says when I show her the story.

  “I’d just hoped it wouldn’t come for a while longer,” I say.

  Sure enough, it arrives the next morning. After being delivered by the car Bart sent for us, he greets us anxiously at the courthouse. “I’m afraid the media is onto this already. I don’t think that it is worth any effort for us to oppose their request to be present in the courtroom. It’s most likely that they’ll be successful anyhow. We could try, but we’re probably just delaying the inevitable and maybe even hurting our position by looking more guilty in the eyes of the public.”

  I look to Anna for her guidance. “I can’t disagree with you, Bart,” she says. “Let’s just get on with it.”

  Our hearing begins in a small room with Bart, Anna, and me, as well as several court officials, the presiding magistrate, Dieudonné Gelineau, and a single lawyer representing the media outlets. After giving leave to the media lawyer to present his argument first, Judge Gelineau promptly grants the request without even consulting either me or my lawyer and swiftly adjourns the proceedings for thirty minutes to allow time to find a larger room.

  Once summoned to the new room we enter to find it packed with journalists. It’s too full, and the judge promises that a larger room will be found for the next time. Neither Anna nor I, in spite of Bart having tried to prep us for the high level of interest that would be coming in the case, could ever have imagined this much attention. Even Bart admits that he is shocked at the numbers that have shown up for the first day of the inquiry.

  The formal proceedings begin with me being offered the choice of which official language I would like the hearing to be conducted in. They also offer me a translator. Bart has already explained to me that during a judicial inquiry the judge will be addressing me directly, unlike the custom in the United States where lawyers do all the speaking for their clients. Bart’s role is strictly to advise and object on legal procedure only. I tell the judge that French will be fine and that I am fluent in it.

  The whole proceeding seems rather informal. The court attendants present the framework of evidence that they have compiled in complete detail, submitting documentation and identifying it with numbers as copies are physically piled first on the table and then on the floor when space runs out. Great detail is presented about the four nuns, Sister Marie, Sister Geraldine, Sister Brigit, and Mother Katherine, and their backgrounds and work at Notre Dame de la Paix mission school. When their smiling photos are held up I instantly recognize them, and then when the crime scene photos of their bloodied and mutilated bodies are shown I have to turn away. I can’t bear to see them looking like this, and many more memories flood back into my mind of other similar atrocities that I have witnessed. I hang my head low, looking away from the photos. Both Anna and Bart lean into me at the same time.

  “Alfred,” Bart whispers, “sit up. Your body language is incriminating.”

  I try to do as he instructs, but I can’t look at the photos and I remain turned away until they move on to the next evidence.

  “Several items were recovered by the investigative team which the government sent to the site,” one of the officials says. “Included are these contents of a footlocker in the dorm room belonging to, according to school records, Azikiwe Olyontombo.”

  One at a time, from a box in front of him, he begins to lift out the few possessions I owned and left behind at the school when I fled. I had fully intended to go back to the school within a few months and retrieve my belongings, but I never made it. I ended up staying at the Nkwenda refugee camp for four years, long forgetting those few possessions at Notre Dame de la Paix.

  Each item is contained in a sealed clear plastic bag: a few clothes, a few toiletries, several notebooks with my name on them, and two textbooks with my name on the paper covers I made for them. I gasp, along with the rest of the courtroom, as the last item is ceremonially withdrawn from the box and reverently displayed for everyone to see.

  The court attendant pauses, as if for dramatic effect, before continuing a little more loudly and clearly than he was previously speaking. “The inscription on the handle here is marked Azi O and the fingerprints lifted from the handle back in 1994 match those that the Rwandan army had on file for Azikiwe Olyontombo. The army maintained copies of his prints from the time they first arrested him and placed him in the school in 1990. These same prints have recently been matched to the man living in Denver, Colorado, under the alias of Alfred Olyontombo.” There is another audible gasp in the courtroom. “In addition,” the court attendant says, “the blood on the knife blade has been identified by DNA as matching the blood of all four victims.” Murmured conversation fills the room.

  I’m perplexed at seeing my old knife there, Kakengo’s ivory-handled knife, the one I used to kill him and which Idi had given me as a reward. I can see from here the inscription of my name that I had carved out in the handle over several nights by the campfire. It is the same knife that I also used to kill the priest, Savard. But how did it get in my locker?

  The court attendant lingers with the knife in the bag, making sure that everyone, Judge Gelineau, us, and especially the news reporters, all have adequate time to contemplate the condemning evidence he holds.

  Next, he lifts a small stack of ledger-like books. “These are the log books recovered from the administration files of Notre Dame de la Paix. They show that Azikiwe Olyontombo was a student at the school from early in 1990 until the murders on April 12, 1994. Birth dates shown in the records indicate he was sixteen years of age at the time.” These, he places alongside all the other evidence. “And this,” he says, picking up an old file folder, “is a report from the Rwandan army giving details of how Azikiwe Olyontombo was arrested after a shootout between the army and a rebel group in northern Rwanda in early 1990. This rebel group was responsible for the murders and rapes of many villagers in the northern mountains of Rwanda. And it can be seen from these reports that at the time of his arrest he bragged to the soldiers of his role in those murders.”

  I can’t help it, I bury my face in my hands, regretting those moments which I can clearly recall. The pit of my stomach feels hollow and I think that I might throw up. I did indeed brag when they captured me, and I was party to many murders. I may not be guilty of killing the four sisters, but I am certainly guilty of the deaths of others.

  I’m so lost in my regrets that I don’t even hear that Judge Gelineau has called a ninety-minute recess for lu
nch. And I don’t feel Anna’s arm wrapped across my shoulders until Bart puts a hand on the back of my head and says gently, “Alfred, let’s go.” My legs are unsteady as I stand, and I look around noticing, for the first time, that the courtroom is completely empty. Anna and Bart each take an arm and escort me to a small room down the hall.

  Coffee and sandwiches are laid out, but I am not the least bit hungry. I find a chair and sit quietly. Anna, who was the consummate professional in the courtroom, sits beside me and begins to cry.

  Leaning in, I pathetically attempt to console her. “I’m so sorry, Anna. So sorry.”

  Bart squats down directly in front of Anna and takes her firmly by the shoulders. “Anna, nothing is proven yet. We have to review everything. We’ll put together a defense. You know how this works.”

  Anna looks him in the eye. “I know, I know. I just had to get this out.” Wiping away the tears, she sits up straight and takes a few deep breaths.

  “No.” I clench my jaw, shake my head, and look back and forth from Anna to Bart. “No, I will confess.”

  “I’m not going to ask you if you did it or not, but I have to advise you against a confession, Alfred,” Bart says sternly.

  “No. I’m not going to put Anna through any more of this. I might not be guilty of these murders, but you heard that I have already confessed to other murders—even bragged about them. Every reporter in that courtroom thinks I’m guilty. The judge thinks I’m guilty. You probably think I’m guilty, too. No. I deserve punishment. Anna doesn’t deserve any more of this.”

  “Stop it!” she screams. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  I stop talking and just shake my head side to side.

  Bart steps in. “We all need a few minutes. Let’s not decide anything yet. Let’s see what happens this afternoon. We’ll sleep on it and talk about it again tomorrow.”

  We all try to compose ourselves quietly and say very little before returning to the packed courtroom for the afternoon session. A video monitor has been set up at the front of the room, and a technician is fiddling with the equipment as we enter. I can feel the penetrating stare of every eye in the room.