Then one of the soldiers began a song in Kinyarwanda. Right away other voices responded, accompanied by clapping hands. One man leapt up, brandishing his assault weapon above his head like a lance. It spun around and around with the sky as backdrop. Another began to mimic the courtship display of the crane, arms wide like wings. A third warrior hurled himself vertically up to an incredible height and fell back down, one knee bent and the other leg behind him. He rolled his head several times, imitating a lion threatening his prey. Smiles appeared on the soldiers’ faces. Voices mingled to chant an ancestral song invoking past glories. Boots drummed the rhythm, shaping powerful bass tones. Dancers beat the time by pounding their hands on their battle dress, shaking the Kalashnikovs and RPG launchers. Counter chants moved through the atmosphere while the brown and green spots of the men’s fatigues whirled around in a furious dance.
To bring the application of the torture rule to a perfect end, they cut the victim loose and laid him out on a cement slab that functioned as a butcher’s block. They had to resort to a machete to break the bones and slice the ligaments that were not yet giving way. The people tried not to hear the appalling death rattle coming from the man’s chest as he was dismembered. Then there was nothing but the unbearable sound of blade against stone, cutting small sections of meat. One of the soldiers emptied a large basin full of manioc hulls and brought it to the soldier in charge, who placed the pieces of the chief’s body into it, the grimacing head on top of the pile of meat as at the booth of a particularly perverse butcher. They set the whole thing in front of the crowd so that each person could analyze and contemplate the “rule of steadily accelerated subtraction” implemented in Kivu in the coercive context of an all-out liberalization.
When the hacking was done, horror followed upon horror and all the automatic weapons began to crackle at the same time, causing clouds of cordite to rise into the air. Bodies fell one on top of the other in the narrow trap the confusion produced. Several soldiers set upon a woman to hold her to the ground, one grabbing an arm as in a vise, the other dislocating one of her legs, while a penis penetrated her. Men and children were forced to witness the violation. Most of them were shot with 7.62-caliber guns; others had their heads crushed with clubs or hammers as soon as they had stared the desecrator in the face. One soldier on his knees before the wide-spread legs of a woman brutally drove his dagger into her anus, then raised it in one sharp move to slice through the flexible, hard membrane separating her rectum from her vagina. They needed to cause irreparable, permanent damage, make the blood flow in profusion, and reach a paroxysm of pain. Husbands who saw the rapes and the carnage became impotent for all time. It seemed useful to keep some of them alive so they could bear witness.
Each rebel group had its own technique to mutilate a woman’s genitalia: some pushed a piece of rough wood through the vagina into the belly, which they turned like a key that refuses to obey; others took a close-range shot at it; still others, using barber’s scissors, snipped off all the fleshy protuberances of the sex organ so that the large and small labia and the clitoris were all sliced away. These procedures didn’t always kill, but they did leave the victim physically and psychologically destroyed, doomed to become the prey of swarms of flies, for they were now incontinent for life. Kiro Bizimungu himself preferred the dagger. The resistance of flesh and cartilage led to a greater awareness of the act, which contributed to hardening the hearts of his men. This method rendered them even more impervious, if that were possible, a point they had to reach so as to achieve any job of ethnic cleansing.
In the immense chaos one of the women attracted his attention. Kiro would never know why. Was it her way of fighting back without a single cry, of not giving up until the bitter end? Or maybe it was the effect of the light on her thigh, which his men had laid bare, where one long, extremely taut muscle had taken possession of him like a spell? Impossible to know for sure.
“Bring her to me,” he heard himself say.
After the military operation, he had taken her with him to the scrubland, the sector under his control. Locked into a bedroom, she received him every night. She was there to keep his metabolism stable, to help him lower the level of endorphins that he copiously secreted throughout the day in battle—pushing against each other—until one of them surrendered. Generally, it was Commander Kiro who begged for mercy in a groan coming from the side of his loin as the sperm escaped from his penis in uncontrollable spasms.
Eventually he began to grow attached to her. Didn’t want any other women, hoped to help the woman, Adeïto, emerge from her silence. No matter how much he lambasted her, it got him nowhere. She would cover her face with her forearm and would emit nothing but a stifled breath and a regular rolling of her hips that made him tip over. He wanted to hear her moan, but each time he was brought down by the slippery warm trap where he found relative appeasement. That is how they lived for a while until the peace accords were signed, and some months later his armed group was transferred to the political party and he was assigned to a post in Kinshasa. Kiro Bizimungu had weighed both sides but couldn’t resign himself to be separated from the flesh of the curvaceous Adeïto, and so he brought her with him.
He certainly didn’t want to lose her in Kinshasa, so he assigned permanent bodyguards to her. She was forbidden to go out and could only move when she was carefully escorted. The only place she was allowed to visit was the church. Since her entire family had been decimated, she saw no one, she had no one. Apparently, coming to Kinshasa had not made a dent in her docility. Over time she passed from sexual slave to the status of just slave. Through this baleful connection Kiro had grown more than attached to her. Running after women in this city of lunatics didn’t appeal to him; he mistrusted everything and everyone. His battlefield instinct intact, he still behaved like a quasi-wild animal.
As if to alert the listener, the cello’s bow brushed the strings twice in a row, but then the notes soared like birds set free to mingle with each other, the better to enrapture the audience, the better to snare them in their airborne web. Deep basso sounds that grabbed the belly, strident high notes as disconcerting as the screams of an intensely hysterical woman. Overrunning the concert hall, the sounds blended into a riotous fresco that insidiously succeeded in touching every nerve in Chiara Argento’s body. They were now raw. For over an hour she had been completely submerged in Bach’s music and only came around when the applause broke loose and the bravos burst forth.
As she opened her eyes, Chiara realized there were teardrops on her lashes. She rose, troubled and trembling. Holding her little evening purse, she left her seat. She moved away from the crowd, excusing herself, went down a crowded massive staircase, got her coat from the cloakroom, and found herself back in the coolness of the street. A light drizzle was still falling on New York, but the young woman wasn’t bothered by it. She needed air. Tiny droplets of rain created minuscule patterns on her thick black hair. She pulled the light-colored coat around her slender figure and tried to prolong the headiness of the music as she compared the city’s lights to shimmering tinsel at parties.
Chiara Argento tried not to think about anything. Other than the view she so wanted to be fairylike, she noticed only the gentle hiss of tires on the wet asphalt every time a car passed by and the tapping of her high heels on the sidewalk. Despite the familiar atmosphere, she clearly perceived muffled, distant explosions, which were obviously in her head. Yet, she had treated herself to the evening’s recital to stop them. She needed the disruptive song of the cello. Sounds that intertwined, able to bring a soothing sweetness. Some things cannot go unpunished! she would repeat to herself. She had been working for a few years for the United Nations at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and since the Kivu file was hers to handle, impunity was beginning to nauseate her. She simply couldn’t take it any longer. It made her flesh crawl and there was nothing she could do about it. She had chosen the cello and Bach this evening to mitigate her inner torment.
An empt
y cab passed and she raised her arm. “Park Avenue,” she told the driver.
The car took off and the scenery began to stream past in pastel-colored tracks, punctuated by soft reds, lemon yellows, mellow blues. Through the window the hues caressed Chiara’s aquiline profile, the glow of her gaze occasionally piercing the shadow of the passenger compartment. The cell phone in her bag began to vibrate. She took it out somewhat clumsily.
“Yes,” she said. She listened for a moment without saying anything. “No, not tonight, Celio. All right. Good night to you, too.”
She sank deeper into the soft seat. The streetlamps directed an intermittent, regular lighting into the car. Gradually Chiara found the rhythm again of the music she had just experienced. When she managed to relax, Suite No. 1 of the Prelude gently reentered her mind like drops of rain would to form a brook, a river, the cloudbursts hurtling down the streets and squares of San Giorgio Ionico, her native village in Puglia. Finally she closed her eyes and let herself be carried away by the whirlwinds of the unrestrained Mstislav Rostropovich. Not to think anymore. Not about Kamituga, not about Kivu, not about Congo, if only for the space of a single evening.
1. Extremely crumpled old bills.
2. The seat of the presidency of Rwanda.
3. A prize awarded by Bill Clinton and his foundation, which His Excellency Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, received in 2009 for public service for the effort his country accomplished in the area of export.
4. A wooden motorized bike used as taxi, made by craftsmen.
5. Combatants fighting the Rwandan occupation.
THE WORLD IS YOURS
世界属于你
The faithful had come to the Church of Divine Multiplication of Ndjili in large numbers. They came from all over the city, common folk as well as members of the upper middle class as the dark glasses and large cars parked throughout the neighborhood proved. It was Sunday and everyone was in their best finery. Women wore their most elegant outfits, were draped in their prettiest pagnes, and showed off fashionable hairdos. Men displayed their finest neckties, and the children looked like models in an online sales catalog. As people waited for the service to begin, songs and devotions had already started. With eyes raised, some were chanting out loud, and in the murmur floating over the congregation, brighter voices were heard when the message directed to God was especially important and ran the risk of not reaching him.
Her eyes closed, Adeïto Kalisayi was wrapped up in herself, her lips begging for a peace she would never again find. She was seated in the first row, as usual. The place was huge. The church occupied a former nightclub building, could hold a thousand people, and it was packed. Families were seeking redemption or other, less respectable things, such as piles of money, a new wife, a new husband when the previous one would no longer do. They also asked for remuneration for work done, for the shunting of a professional or sentimental rival, or, more basically, for the president of the republic to be defeated in the next elections.
The Church of Divine Multiplication, legally recognized by its own statutes, was always full. Because of his title, and in a country stricken by shortages of all kinds, the Reverend Jonas Monkaya’s promise of the multiplication of what one might obtain—a thousand Congolese francs, a wife, a cassava mill—represented a most important stake, and he was the demiurge who would know how to attract such blessings through his sermons and his sensational invocations. The Reverend Monkaya held a major trump card: he had once been close to the world of show business. He’d been a wrestler under the name Monk, which he owed to an American musician called Thelonious Monk, whose spitting image he was. They also called him Reverend Monk, because at the time he patronized the ring, decked out in miter and clerical cross, he had been seen blessing his opponents with the sign of the cross before knocking them out.
One fine day the Monk presented himself at a well-known church, where he displayed his gris-gris and fetishes. Before the dumbfounded faithful he publicly confessed that he was dropping wrestling and sorcery to devote himself to God. He had instantly been incorporated into the church and thrust into the deacon’s seat. After spending a year studying the market and learning the ropes, he told himself, “If I can manage to convince women to sleep with me in no time at all, I should certainly be able to sell a bit of artificial heaven to clients who are less jolly than my conquests.” After secretly organizing gala events in Katanga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, he received an impressive grant. In the very heart of Ndjili, Jonas Monkaya then purchased a closed-down nightclub, which he fixed up and opened under its new name, the Church of Divine Multiplication.
But if the man had an indisputable sense of marketing, he had the gift of gab above all, and knew how to give his sales pitch to God. More than one of his faithful followers had profited by his intercession. The guy also knew how to draw the Lord’s attention to himself—by his wardrobe, in the first place. He wore the finest-cut suits with the most celebrated designer labels: Armani, Hugo Boss, and Corneliani were his favorites. To shine before the cheers of his people, he sometimes showed up dressed entirely in Yoshi Yamamoto or in something baroque labeled “Gianni Versace.” His jewelry confirmed it: the thousand lights of his chain bracelet, of his tiepin and the pens attached to the breast pocket of his suit were a direct reflection of God’s glory. Outside, the chrome of a big-engine BMW bought in Dubai and parked next to Mama Reverend’s Porsche Cayenne served the same purpose. But the reverend was closely followed by the divine gaze primarily because he knew how to preach. He had the imagination and the theatrical sense necessary to exalt the hearts of his sheep, who, thirsting for salvation, drank in his words as if from an inexhaustible spring.
Dressed in white and gold satin robes, the choir appeared on the podium. After lining up, they began with Vers toi, Seigneur—Unto You Lord—with musical accompaniment. Instantly the ambiance moved up a notch; part of the hall rose and began to dance and sing, clapping their hands enthusiastically. Many others continued to pray, eyes closed and frowning, focused on whatever need they wanted to be granted. The prayers and praises went on for a long time, interspersed with loud exhortations, and then the pastor appeared the moment the choir began a song even more poignant than an Alicia Keyes love song. Some wept—men and women alike—their palms upward in a sign of relinquishment. Microphone in hand, the Reverend Jonas Monkaya prayed as he strode across the stage like Otis Redding brought to life. Every now and then his voice soared over those of the faithful, imparting a tempo, uniting the multitude under the divine unction. After a while he headed for a lectern placed in the center of the podium. Immediately the volume of the voices dropped. The reverend had just attached the microphone to his stand; the word of God was about to be delivered.
“Halleluiah,” he said.
“Amen!” the hall responded.
“Halleluiah,” he repeated.
“Amen,” the assembly said again.
“My very dear brothers and sisters. God spoke to me last night. He said, ‘Jonas Monkaya!’ and I answered, ‘Here I am, Lord!’ Then he confided this to me: ‘Jonas, my son, I am not pleased. I sent my archangels Gabriel and Michael on an inspection tour. What they reported to me when they came back has me deeply saddened.’ What, then, brothers and sisters, do you think the archangels might have seen when they came here to earth? They realized that some among us had left the Church of Divine Multiplication to head toward ruin.”
The pastor continued more emphatically: “They left the Church of Divine Multiplication to head toward ruin, dear brothers and sisters! That is what the Lord revealed to me last night. ‘Those people left to go where?’ you will ask. They have left to move to that new—how shall I phrase it?—church, known as the Church of Heavenly Abundance, in Masina, that’s where!”
There was a cry of bewilderment.
“Yes, brothers and sisters, some people have deliberately chosen the path to ruin. Where? In Masina. Why? Because they thought they were clever, although they’re nothing but Tintins, inconsist
ent beings who have no soul.1 This can’t go on!”
The pastor hit the lectern with his fist. An anxious buzz floated above the assembly as Jonas Monkaya took control of the situation. Satisfied, he continued: “After I answered, ‘Here I am, Lord!’ God in his great mercy also advised me not to be angry with them but rather to alert those whom the devil will try to persuade to do the same. As the Gospel says, the prodigal son can go back to the fold—insofar as the devil will let him go—the door will always remain open to him. Halleluiah?”
“Amen!” the congregation agreed.
“That is why the Lord has charged me to deliver to you a message of faithfulness. He has commanded, ‘Jonas, zealous servant, teach them the terrible story of Abraham and his nephew Lot.’ Open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 13, verses 8 to 11.”
When the pages stopped rustling, the herder of sheep read, “‘And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere … Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east.’ Amen!”
“Amen!” the congregation agreed.
“By starting and building colonies in the Jordan Valley, Lot thought he had made the right choice; the deal of the century, brothers and sisters. Why? Because he thought he’d seen great abundance. The river freely flowing, the mirage of green pastures, the prospect of crooning days to come. Ibrahim, on the other hand, preferred to have the Lord decide for him. And he left, in the opposite direction from Lot, toward the land of Canaan, Ramallah, Gaza, all of that. The poor nephew, settled in Sodom—air-conditioned villa, artificial swimming pool, marble everywhere—foolishly thought that Ibrahim, moving farther toward the Egyptian border, was going to find only desert, insecurity, and would be forced to dig tunnels to get supplies. He was sorely misguided, my dear friends. Because you all know how the story ended. It ended shamefully, as you know. Sodomites, high on hashish and ecstasy, turned up at Lot’s house by night to take serious care of the two archangels whom the nephew had taken in. I don’t need to tell you that Gabriel and Michael, already doing inspection tours even then and sleeping on the sofa, were not at all amused.
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