Scholastique Mukasonga - Our Lady of the Nile

“The Tutsi have already acted in white men’s B movies, or in their craziness, you should say, and we suffered for it. I don’t want to play Queen What’s-Her-Name. I want to get back to the lycée. Come on, let’s tell him to drive us back.”

As the young women drew near, Monsieur de Fontenaille seemed to awaken from a deep sleep.

“The rain’s coming,” said Veronica. “It’s late, you have to drive us back to the path.”

“I’ll take you. Don’t worry, no one will see you. But next Sunday, I’ll be waiting for you. It’ll be the big day. Much better than the pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Nile.”

It was Immaculée who found Veronica splayed at the bottom of the dormitory stairs.

“Help! Help! Veronica’s dead, she fell, she’s not moving.”

The lycée girls had just sat down at the refectory tables, but they rushed over to the staircase. Virginia got there first and leaned over Veronica.

“Nonsense. She’s not dead, she’s not dead, she fainted, she fell down the stairs and banged her head on a step.”

“Must’ve had one too many,” said Gloriosa. “She must’ve gone to Leonidas’s bar. She’s scared of nothing, that girl. Shameless. The boys bought her a few drinks, and she didn’t say no.”

“Maybe she’s been poisoned,” said Immaculée. “There are way too many jealous girls in this place.”

Sister Gertrude, who doubled as a nurse, fought her way through the throng of girls.

“Move back, give her some air. Help me carry her to the infirmary.”

Sister Gertrude took Veronica’s shoulders and Virginia lifted her legs, shoving a suddenly helpful Gloriosa out of the way: “Don’t you dare touch her!”

They laid Veronica on the metal bed in the infirmary. Virginia wanted to stay and watch over her friend, but Sister Gertrude asked her to leave and shut the door. A small group of girls waited outside for the Sister’s diagnosis. Sister Gertrude eventually opened the door and declared:

“It’s nothing, just a bout of malaria, I’ll deal with it. She mustn’t be disturbed, there’s nothing more for you to do here.”

Sleep eluded Virginia. What had happened to Veronica? What had that madman de Fontenaille done to her? Virginia didn’t dare imagine. The whites here thought they could do anything — they were white. Virginia reproached herself for refusing to accompany her friend. The two of them would have defended themselves; she had her little knife and would have convinced Veronica to flee before it was too late. As soon as the wake-up bell sounded, while the others washed and the Sisters attended morning Mass, Virginia slipped off to the infirmary. Veronica was sitting on the bed, her face deep in a large bowl. As soon as she saw her friend, she put the bowl down on the bedside table: “You see,” she said. “Sister Gertrude’s been taking good care of me, she gave me some milk.”

“What happened to you? Tell me before Sister gets back.”

“It’s tricky, like waking from a bad dream, a nightmare. I don’t know if what I’m about to tell you actually happened. The whites are worse than our poisoners. So I went to the meeting place, at the rock. The jeep was waiting for me, but it wasn’t Fontenaille at the wheel. It was a young guy, a Tutsi obviously, probably one of those he calls his ingabo . In the living room was that servant with the gold braid, holding his tray of orange juice. He told me to drink it. The juice tasted funny. Fontenaille entered, draped in a white cloth with one shoulder bare.

“ ‘Your friend didn’t come?’

“ ‘No, she’s sick.’

“ ‘Too bad, that’s her loss, she won’t discover her Truth.’

“I can’t recall what happened to me next. It was like I had no more free will, like I no longer belonged to myself. There was something, someone, in me, stronger than me. I saw myself in the temple. I was like the painted women on the wall. I don’t know who undressed me. My breasts were bare and I was wrapped in see-through gold fabric. But I felt no shame. It was like a dream you can’t wake from, and I saw myself in this dream. Around me, the fresco warriors had stepped off the wall. They didn’t really look like intore . All they wore were these cropped shorts, and they carried lances and large cowhide shields. I’ve no idea whether their hair had been straightened, or whether they were wearing wigs. Now I think they were the warriors Fontenaille was talking about. I felt like I was in a movie. Fontenaille made me sit on the throne and placed the hat with the large horns on my head. I saw him as if through a fog, sweeping his arms about and speaking incomprehensible words like the priest at Mass. I can’t remember what occurred after that. I lost consciousness. Maybe I fell from the throne. I don’t remember anything. When I came to my senses, I was in the jeep. It was the young servant who was driving. I was wearing my uniform again — someone must have put it on me. He dropped me very close to the lycée, telling me, ‘Try to walk in without drawing attention. Take care of yourself, and not a word to anyone. But have a good look in your bra, there’s bound to be something in there for you.’ I managed to make my way upstairs. Inside my bra I found ten thousand-franc notes. I hid them in my suitcase. But as I came back down, everything started to spin, and I fell.”

“And he didn’t do anything to you?”

“No, he didn’t touch me. He’s not like the other whites, who only want to fling you into bed. What he wants is to play out his crazy notions. I’m his Isis.”

“Why did he drug you, then?”

“I don’t know. He was afraid I would refuse to play along, that I’d make fun of him. He wanted everything to happen exactly as he had dreamed, so he made me drink his potion, but he overdid it, he’s a bad poisoner. There are limits to my curiosity, after all, do you think I’d have agreed to go along with his ridiculous game without his potion? There was a letter with the banknotes. He said that he was sorry he had to make me drink his potion, and for not trusting me, but he had no choice: there was no room for failure. He hopes I’ll understand and that I’ll still come back and see him. I’m the only one who can play goddess. He’s invited me to stay at his place during the long vacation. He’ll pay my fees, even for me to go to Europe. He’s prepared to spend a lot of money on this …”

“And you believe his promises?”

“Can you imagine if they were true?”

“You’re as crazy as he is. You’ll end up believing you’re the goddess. You know what happened to us Tutsi when some agreed to play the role the whites assigned to us. My grandmother told me how when the whites arrived, they thought we were dressed like savages. They sold glass beads, loads of pearls, and tons of white cloth to the women, the chiefs’ wives. They showed them how to wear it all and how to fix their hair. They turned them into the Ethiopians, the Egyptians they’d come all this way to seek. Now they had their proof. They dressed them to fit their own delusions.”

Once again she was woken up by that same bad dream. Her schoolmates were furious; they made fun of her, for she let out a cry loud enough to wake them, too. It happened much too often. They were going to complain to the dorm monitor.

Modesta was no longer sure whether it had really been a nightmare. She looked at the sheets. Then, still in bed, she lifted her nightdress and felt between her thighs. No, there was nothing. It was just a bad dream that had plagued her ever since she became a woman. Perhaps it was a curse or an evil spell that someone had cast on her, someone she didn’t know, a hidden enemy, maybe a person very close to her, one of her schoolmates. Or else it came from farther away, from back home, a jealous neighbor; she had no idea, perhaps she never would.