Scholastique Mukasonga - Our Lady of the Nile

“I don’t know. Don’t ask me.”

“Yes you do, tell me.”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“You have to. You owe me that.”

“I’m ashamed to tell you, it scares me, now everyone scares me. I realize all human beings hide something terrifying within. Even my boyfriend, I don’t want to see him anymore: he wrote to me saying how proud he was to have acted like a real militant, of having beat up some Tutsi in his college, he’s not sure if he killed any, but he hopes that some will become invalids, with all the blows he gave them. I don’t want to see him anymore. Do you still want to know what they did to Veronica? Well, I’ll tell you, but don’t cry in front of me, you are Mutamuriza, the one who we mustn’t make weep. If you cry, it’ll bring me bad luck.

“So, when the JMR were done with expelling the Tutsi, Gloriosa told them, ‘There’s two missing: I know where one is, but the other must be hiding in the lycée. She must be found, and I want you to do a proper job on her. I want to see her weep every tear in her body. Mutamuriza! They must take us students seriously!’ The militants looked everywhere, they ransacked the entire lycée. You were far away by then, of course. Gloriosa was furious. She flung herself at Modesta, who as usual was following her like she was her dog. She started cursing at her: ‘Dirty bitch, it’s you who warned Virginia, telling her to run away. She was your friend, your true friend, you spied on me for her, I’m going to punish you like the parasite you are. You’ve stuck to me too long to be able to trick me. You clearly are your mother’s daughter. You’ve only handed over half the Inyenzi. Well, I’m going to make sure you’re cleansed of that Tutsi half of yours that betrayed me.’ She called three militants. The men dragged Modesta into a classroom. We heard weeping, pleading, cries, and whimpering. It lasted a long time. Then we saw Modesta dragging herself to chapel, trying to cover up her bloodied body with her tattered uniform. Gloriosa was calling out to all the militants, saying to them: ‘There’s another Inyenzi, a real one, even more dangerous, thinks she’s queen of the Tutsi! I know where she’s taken refuge. Not that far away. At an old white guy’s place. We really can’t let her get away. The white guy’s in cahoots with the Inyenzi. He’s made his coffee plantation their hideout, a base to attack the majority people, he’s recruited young Tutsi, training them like commandos. Meanwhile, he invokes the devil, while his Tutsi Veronica he’s turned into his she-devil, and together they commit abominable acts, just like Queen Kanjogera, who, according to my father, killed four Hutu every morning to work up an appetite. She dances for the devil. We must be rid of these demons. Do it, quickly’.

“Twenty militants left in one of the minibuses, with a Nyaminombe militant acting as their guide. They returned at nightfall. They were really riled up, shouting, ‘We got them! We got them!’ Then they threw themselves upon the bottles of Primus. Gloriosa asked the leader to recount his exploits. He didn’t need to be asked twice. He said that first they overran the villa. There was no one around. They smashed all the furniture. Then they went into the garden — that’s when they saw the devil’s chapel. They entered. Painted on the wall was a whole procession of stark naked Tutsi girls worshipping the great she-devil on the back wall — a real Tutsi wearing a hat with demon’s horns. At her feet was a sort of throne, and on the throne the she-devil’s horned hat. They heard some noise behind the chapel. They ran. The white guy and the Tutsi were trying to hide in the little bamboo wood. The white guy had a rifle but didn’t have time to use it. They all pounced on him and knocked him out. They grabbed Veronica. They took her to the chapel. The leader of the militants said she looked exactly like the she-devil painted on the wall. They undressed her, and forced her with blows from their sticks to dance stark naked before the idol that resembled her, then they tied her to the throne. They put the hat on her head. They spread her legs. I won’t tell you what they did with their sticks, nor how they finished her off. Then they went and set fire to the enclosure that crazy white guy had had built on his estate. They didn’t find the Inyenzi that Fontenaille had recruited, they’d long since fled, but they did slaughter the cows, and burn them too. The leader of the militants brandished the hat with the horns. He was still mad with rage. ‘Here,’ he shrieked, ‘the Inyenzi queen’s crown, the devil’s hat, but it’s all over for her now, she got the punishment she deserved, which will continue in Hell. I regret we didn’t kill all the other girls, but I hope we’ll track them down one day.’

“The following morning, the mayor went with his police officers and the militants to arrest Fontenaille and serve him his expulsion order. They found him hanged in his chapel. They claimed he killed himself. If it was the JMR who killed him, they didn’t brag about it. Killing a white is always a delicate matter for the government. The girls who had listened to the leader of the militants were trembling, some were crying, yet still they had to applaud. ‘You see,’ said Gloriosa, ‘the Tutsi god is Satan!’ Personally, I don’t believe all this devilry business, it’s just more of Gloriosa’s lies. It was horrible what they did to Veronica. Now I’m certain there’s a monster lurking inside every human being: I don’t know who awoke him in Rwanda. But tell me, what was Veronica doing at this Fontenaille’s place? Were they shooting a movie? She’d always loved the movies so much … You must know, Virginia, you were her best friend, everyone knows she hid nothing from you.”

“I don’t know. Don’t say another word, and don’t ask me anything if you don’t want me to cry.”

They remained silent a long time. The track wound endlessly through narrow valleys, climbed hillsides covered with thick banana groves, followed ridges scattered with patches of eucalyptus, plunged back down into more valleys, ascended more slopes … Virginia struggled to squeeze back her tears and blot out the horrific images that assailed her, again and again.

“Immaculée, I owe you my life, but I still don’t understand why you did all that for me. I’m a Tutsi, I wasn’t really a friend of yours …”

“Well, I like a challenge. I think I was more attached to that motorbike which terrorized the streets of Kigali than to my boyfriend; I went to see the gorillas because I loathed Gloriosa; I wanted to save you both, you and Veronica, because the others wanted to kill you, and now I’m going to defy everyone, I’m off to be with the gorillas.”

“You’re going to live with the gorillas!”

“I found out that the white woman who wants to save the gorillas will be recruiting Rwandans to train them as assistants. I have all the qualifications: I’m Rwandan, an intellectual, I think I’m quite good-looking, and my father’s a well-known businessman. I’ll be good publicity for her: she’ll be obliged to take me. But what do you intend to do? You’re not going to abandon your diploma, are you? You know that the army declared that they took power to reestablish order. They want to calm down the same ones they stirred up. In any case, those folk got want they wanted: the Tutsi’s positions. I’ll ask my dad to intervene, if necessary. I understand why he so kindly drove me to Goretti’s at Ruhengeri: it was to inform army headquarters they could count on his money. They can’t refuse him a thing, and when it comes to his daughter, he refuses her nothing.”

“I’m done with that diploma. I’m going home to my parents to bid them goodbye. And I’ll leave for Burundi, Zaire, or Uganda, anywhere, wherever I can cross the border … I no longer want to stay in this country. Rwanda is the land of Death. You remember what they used to tell us in catechism: God roams the world, all day long, but every evening He returns home to Rwanda. Well, while God was traveling, Death took his place, and when He returned, She slammed the door in his face. Death established her reign over our poor Rwanda. She has a plan: she’s determined to see it through to the end. I’ll return when the sunshine of life beams over our Rwanda once more. I hope I’ll see you there again.”