Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (11 page)

Damascene paced around the room and began pleading with my father. “Dad, we have to leave,
please.
We have to get out of here while we still can. We can just walk down the hill, find a boat, cross Lake Kivu, and be safely in Zaire by midnight. But we have to leave now before it’s too late.”

Damascene’s outburst was so sudden and out of character that he startled us all. Knowing my brother, he must have been brooding all evening over what he’d seen during the afternoon, but didn’t want to say anything to us until he’d come up with an escape plan.

“Hold on, Damascene, just settle down a minute,” my father said. “You’re upsetting your mother and sister. Let’s analyze exactly what it is you think you saw and heard today. If you make decisions when you’re panicked or afraid, you’ll make mistakes. Let’s go over everything carefully. Did you actually see this list?”

Damascene was distressed by my father’s doubts, but admitted that he hadn’t seen the list with his own eyes—he’d heard about it from friends. But he was positive the people he’d seen were Interahamwe.

“You see, it’s like I thought,” my father said. “Everyone is on edge, and your nerves are making things seem worse than they are. I’ve seen this situation before. You hear rumors of death squads and stories about death lists, but after a few days you realize it has all been greatly exaggerated. I’m not about to pack up my family and run away from rumors. We are not going to abandon our home and everything we’ve worked for because nervous people have vivid imaginations.”

“But, Dad,” I piped in, “Damascene isn’t the nervous type. He’s smart and isn’t fooled easily. Maybe we should listen to him.”

I was getting worried. If it was true that the Interahamwe had a death list and would start killing people that night, then they could be coming for us at any minute.

“Perhaps we should do as Damascene says,” I urged my father. “Think of all the things we’ve been hearing on the radio. I haven’t taken them seriously, but that might have been a mistake. They say that all Tutsis should be killed. Maybe Damascene is right—maybe we should leave now!”

“No, Immaculée, we shouldn’t leave. Things are getting better with the government, and there will be peace soon. Those people on the radio are crazy; no one is taking them seriously! Don’t worry. Let’s just stay calm and enjoy the holidays. There is no death list, and no one is coming to kill us. I’m older and I know better,” my father said, with a weak smile. “Now, for heaven’s sake, let’s sit down and eat dinner together.”

My father’s assurances temporarily convinced me that all would be fine, and we all gathered around the dining room table to eat. I sensed that Damascene was unmoved by our father’s arguments, although he was putting on a brave front and acting like his old self—singing silly songs, making jokes about people in our village, and teasing Vianney about his girlfriends. But the more he made us laugh, the more certain I was that he was playacting. Behind his beautiful, open smile, my brother was deeply troubled.

I wish I had known that that night was to be our last family supper together. I would have stood up and thanked God for all of them. I would have told everyone sitting around that table how much I loved them and thanked them for loving me. But I didn’t know.

BEFORE WE WENT TO BED, we said evening prayers together as a family, as we’d always done. My mother kissed us goodnight, and my father promised that nothing bad would happen and wished us a peaceful sleep.

As soon as we heard our parents’ bedroom door close, the four of us—Damascene, Vianney, Augustine, and me—assembled in the living room. We talked for at least an hour about the rumors Damascene had heard and the things he’d seen that day. We were worried about my father’s reluctance to take Damascene’s fears seriously.

“I don’t mean any disrespect to your father,” Augustine whispered, “and I know that I’m not supposed to argue with my elders, but I think your dad is wrong. I agree with Damascene—I think staying here is dangerous. If your family’s name
is
on the death list, they will come for you, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them! I don’t think your father is going to change his mind about leaving, so maybe we should leave,
right now,
without your parents.”

Everyone was quiet. I’m sure that we all wanted to run to Lake Kivu and hop into a rowboat, but my brothers and I couldn’t leave our parents without saying good-bye. And we were so accustomed to our father making the decisions in the household that it was natural for us to follow his lead. Besides, we reasoned, it was getting so late that Augustine and Vianney were falling asleep in their chairs. So Damascene and I decided that we should wait until morning and talk to Dad again, and then we all headed to bed.

My bedroom was like my own little chapel. With my Bible and statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on my night table, it was a place where I connected with God and my own spiritual energies. I knelt by my bed and looked at the statues, saying a prayer to God to protect my family from danger.

Also sitting in front of me was a birthday card that I’d bought for Damascene. His 27th birthday was coming up, and I’d been trying for days to write a poem for him that said how much I loved and admired him. Our parents didn’t teach us to openly express our love for one another, but I intended to change that. And who better to start with than Damascene, whom I cherished so dearly and who inspired me more than anyone else in the world?

When we were young, Damascene would scold me if I acted foolishly or spoiled. His words stung and annoyed me, but later, when I’d think over what he said, I’d realize he was right. Even as a child, he had a gift for teaching, and he possessed wisdom beyond his years. As a teenager, I used to pray for God to make me more like him, with his beautiful soul and giving heart. I watched him give his clothes to the poor and spend hours comforting people who were outcast due to sickness, poverty, or madness.

Damascene was a superstar in our village. And as I lay myself down to sleep that night, I thought about how much my brother meant to me. I picked up my pen and added a few lines to the poem on his birthday card. I grinned, imagining how shy and happy he would be when he read the words. With a smile still on my face, I turned out my light and tried to sleep.

My eyes were shut for what only seemed like minutes when the door of my room burst open. I sat up with a start and noticed that it was dawn. I could see Damascene’s terrified face in the gray half-light of my bedroom, and I imagined the worst. “What is it, Damascene? Are the killers here?” I whispered. I could barely hear my own frightened voice.

My brother said nothing. I could hear him trying to catch his breath while he stood in the doorway. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded like it was coming to me from the bottom of a deep well: “Get up, Immaculée—for heaven’s sake, get up. The president is dead!”

“What? What do you mean the president is dead?” I cried out. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The president had promised to bring peace and equality back to Rwanda. How could he be dead?

“I mean President Habyarimana is
dead!
He was killed last night.

His plane was shot out of the sky.”

I thought of what I’d heard on the radio a few days before: “If anything happens to our president, then all Tutsis must be exterminated!”

I jumped out of bed and searched frantically for something to wear. I pulled on a pair of jeans under my long green nightdress and was so flustered that I actually dressed in front of my brother, something I had never done in my life.

“The president has been killed; someone’s killed the president,” I kept mumbling to myself in dazed disbelief. I pushed the curtains away from my bedroom window and looked outside. I’m not sure if it was my imagination, but I saw a sickly yellow haze settling over the village.

“Even the sky is changing,” I said, dropping onto the bed and holding my head in my hands. “Oh, Damascene, we are all going to die. They will come for us now and will kill us for sure.”

My brother sat down and put his arms around me. “Listen to me, Immaculée, we are
not
going to die,” he firmly stated. “We had nothing to do with this. The president was flying back from peace talks in Tanzania, and he was traveling with the president of Burundi. The plane was shot down when it was landing in Kigali . . .
in Kigali!
No one will be blaming us down here.”

Damascene was trying to be brave for me, but he was a poor actor. I know that he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

“Maybe things will improve for us now that he’s dead,” he continued. “So many people were against these peace negotiations and President Habyarimana’s plans for a more moderate government that his death may actually ease the tensions. Don’t be so frightened, Immaculée. Come outside. Everyone is out there listening to the radio.”

He took me by the hand, and we went out into the yard where my parents, Vianney, and Augustine had settled in to listen to the radio. The announcer reported that roadblocks and military checkpoints had been set up all over the capital, minutes after the president’s plane had been blown up. He also said that at least 20 Tutsi families in Kigali had been killed during the night.

I hesitate to use the word
reported
because the man on the radio sounded more like a cheerleader for the killers than a journalist. When he announced that presidential guard soldiers had taken it upon themselves to kill Tutsis to avenge the president’s death, he made the killings sound justified. He made it sound like dragging entire families into the street and murdering them was perfectly reasonable.

Then he read out some of the names of the people that the soldiers had killed so far in Kigali. The fifth name belonged to my Uncle Twaza.

“They’ve killed Twaza?” my mother cried out, quickly covering her eyes with her hands and shaking her head in disbelief. “Why would they kill Twaza? He’s never harmed anyone.”

A painful silence enveloped my family as we realized that we’d missed our opportunity to escape the night before. My father tried again to ease our fears. “Emotions are running very high in the capital. That’s where the killings are because that’s where most of the soldiers are based,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Everything will settle down in a day or two, you’ll see.”

“I think I would like to go home now,” said Augustine, whose family lived in Kigali. We looked at him, knowing that it was far too dangerous to go anywhere. A few minutes later our suspicions were confirmed in a series of radio announcements: “Stay in your homes. It is forbidden to travel. Only military personnel will be allowed in the streets. Do not go outside. Public transportation has been suspended.
Do not leave your homes!
”

“They want us to stay put so they’ll know where to find us. They want us to be sitting ducks!” Damascene exclaimed, eyes widening. “If our names are on their death list, then they’ll know where we live, and they know we will be here.”

It was the morning of April 7, 1994. We didn’t know it yet, but the genocide had begun.

CHAPTER 6

No Going Back

M
om, Dad, Damascene, Vianney, Augustine, and I spent the entire day huddled together in our yard listening to the radio. The broadcasts from outside of Rwanda reported that ordinary Hutu citizens were joining government soldiers and Interahamwe militiamen and killing innocent Tutsi civilians; meanwhile, the local stations were encouraging Hutus to pick up machetes and attack their Tutsi neighbors.

I felt like a lost little girl waiting for my parents to give me instructions. I thought that since they’d survived the many political upheavals and Tutsi massacres since 1959, they must know what to do.

The national radio station continued to warn people to remain in their homes, and like good children, we obeyed. We were too afraid to open our gate to find out was happening on the other side of the fence. We placed ourselves under self-imposed house arrest, worried that stepping beyond our property line could prove fatal.

My family didn’t own a telephone, and even if we had, most of the phone lines in the country were down. We were completely cut off, except for whatever the radio told us. We sat listening to the horrific reports for hours, until I thought I’d go out of my mind. Late in the afternoon, I pulled out my books and began studying for my exams.

“How do you do it, Immaculée?” Damascene asked. “Where do you find the strength to study? Why do you believe that there will even be a school to go back to?”

My brother had helped me shake my own despair only hours earlier, but now he too was hopeless. It was my turn to be strong. “Stop worrying,” I said. “We’ll get through this. If things get bad, we’ll slip across the border. Mom and Dad have been through this before. Have faith.”

The truth was that I had little faith myself—I wasn’t studying to prepare for exams, but to keep my mind off my family’s worries.

The only encouraging news we heard all day was a message from the RPF’s Paul Kagame, who was in charge of the Tutsi rebel soldiers based in Uganda. He promised that if the killing of Tutsis didn’t stop, the rebels would invade Rwanda and fight to the death to protect their fellow Tutsis. It was comforting to hear Kagame say that, but I was saddened that the only “good” news was the threat of all-out war.