Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (13 page)

Dad was sweating, and his eyes were wide and wild. He began running toward the killers by himself, holding his spear high in the air. My mother flew after him, her long blue dress flapping behind her. She grabbed hold of his shirttail and dug her heels into the earth. He kept running, dragging her behind him as she screamed out his name: “Stop, Leonard! Stop! You can’t fight them alone. Please, please,
please
let someone else go. There are so many young men here. Let
them
fight,” she begged.

Everyone was staring at her, but she didn’t care. She saw her husband of 28 years—a man she loved above all others—running toward certain death, and she was going to do everything in her power to stop him.

Dad ran out of breath and was unable to drag Mom behind him any farther. He stopped and tried to catch his breath while his wife clung to his shirt. “What is wrong with you?” she shrieked at the younger Tutsis in the crowd. “How can you let your elders fight your battles for you? How can you let my husband get killed for you? Be men—get up and fight!”

People stared at her but made no move to help because they were all terrified. My mother turned to my father, wrapped her arms around him, and pleaded, “Don’t go, Leonard, please!”

“Listen to me, Rose.” Dad gripped her by the shoulders. “It is my duty to be here for these people right now. If that means fighting, then I will fight. I have to do what I feel is right. Now stop panicking and go help the young mothers with their children. I’ll be back.”

By the time my parents finished arguing, the killers had left. I suppose that as they got closer, they got a better sense of just how many Tutsis were actually at our house. Even with guns and grenades, 100 against 10,000 were not good odds. But the odds would not be in our favor for long.

AFTER MY PARENTS’ SKIRMISH IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE, Damascene came to see me. His eyes were bloodshot and his voice was strained. “The killers ran away this time, Immaculée, but they’ll come back. And when they do, there will be too many of them to chase away with sticks and stones. If they catch you, they will rape you first, then kill you. You have to leave. Go stay with Pastor Murinzi . . . I’m sure he’ll hide you until this is over.”

“No, Damascene. I won’t go if it means leaving the family behind. I’ll only go if we all go together. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that you could be killed while I was hiding somewhere.”

Damascene looked at me with tears in his eyes. He went and got our father and they came to talk to me together. “Your brother is right, Immaculée,” Dad said. “You’re a young woman, and it’s too dangerous for you here. Go to Pastor Murinzi’s house, and in a few days when the troubles are over, I will come and get you myself.”

I didn’t believe that he’d come and get me because, in my heart, I didn’t believe that he was going to survive. So I replied, “But I’d rather stay here with you.”

“No. You’re going into hiding, and that’s final.” My father ended any further argument.

“What about Mom? She should come with me.”

“I’ve already asked her, but she won’t leave your brothers. You’d better take Augustine with you, too—I don’t know what I’d say to his parents if anything happened to him while he was staying with us.”

Within the hour, Augustine and I were on our way to Pastor Murinzi’s house. All I had with me were the clothes on my back, the rosary my father had given to me, and my government-issued identity card that said I was Tutsi.

My father followed behind us for a short distance. As he turned to go back, he shouted, “Remember, Immaculée, I will come get you myself!”

It was the last thing he ever said to me.

IT WAS A FIVE-MILE HIKE DOWN A NARROW DIRT ROAD to the pastor’s house, and we walked quickly. Augustine was a Hutu, but he looked like a Tutsi, and we were worried that we’d run into the killers along the way. About a mile from the pastor’s house, we did. There was a mob of at least 100 Hutus coming toward us, carrying spears, knives, and machetes.

“I wish I was a bird and could fly away home to Kigali right now,” Augustine whispered as they got closer. My heart pounded against my chest.

Some of the men were banging their machetes together, making a sickening clang. Others dragged their blades along the road, and orange sparks spit up whenever the steel hit a stone. I kept my eyes fixed on the road, but I could see the shadows cast by their weapons.

I wondered if someone was going to stick a spear into my back, and what kind of hole it would make in my flesh. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain . . . but God was watching over us.

“Immaculée, what are you doing out here?”

I opened my eyes and saw Kageyo, a Hutu, but also a good friend of my father’s. He was carrying a very big spear, but there was kindness in his eyes.

The Hutus were all around us, and Kageyo yelled at them, “Don’t harm these children! They’re friends of mine, so no one dare touch them.”

The Hutus looked very angry but passed us by.

“Don’t worry, children, we will bring the peace back,” Kageyo said, and left with the others.

Augustine and I ran as fast as our feet would carry us, and we didn’t stop until we were standing in front of the pastor’s house.

“We’re safe now,” I said.

How I wish I had been right.

CHAPTER 7

The Pastor’s House

A
ugustine and I were fighting for breath when we arrived at Pastor Murinzi’s house. I was exhausted from the last few anguished days, and my head was swimming after running at full speed from the killers. When I saw the pastor staring at us from his doorway, I could barely speak. “There were men . . . with spears . . . they were going to . . . ” I gasped.

Pastor Murinzi stood on his porch, framed by the enormous front door of his big brick home. I’d always thought that his European-style house seemed out of place in a village that had so many huts and tin shacks—it had many bedrooms, a big living and dining room, and bathrooms with real indoor plumbing. And the front yard overflowed with flowers, which were protected from the summer sun by a huge shade tree.

The pastor greeted us warmly. I shook his hand, still struggling to catch my breath.

“It’s good to see you again, Immaculée,” he said with a smile. “It’s been too long.”

I’d been good friends with the youngest of the pastor’s ten children since childhood and had visited his house many times. He’d had many business dealings with my father over the years, so I’d seen him at our home as well. Plus, he was also an uncle of my boyfriend, John, so he was far from being a stranger. I suddenly remembered my aunt once telling me that the pastor, who was a Protestant, resented the good works my father did, along with Dad’s prominent standing in the community. But he was always polite to me, and I’d always been courteous and respectful to him, so I decided to focus on that.

“My father told me to come here, Pastor Murinzi,” I finally said, still gripping his hand. “He said that he’ll come for me as soon as things get better. He promised that he’d come for me himself.”

The pastor said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes:
Your father
will never come back for you. You’ll never see him again.

I pushed the pastor’s look from my mind because if I started thinking about harm coming to my family, I’d break down completely. I introduced him to Augustine before he ushered us into his living room, where several guests were talking to each other. It may have been my imagination, but I thought that the conversation paused when we walked into the room.

The first person I saw was Buhoro, my teacher from primary school. Although he’d humiliated me during ethnic roll call, I hadn’t held a grudge. I was so happy and relieved to see someone I knew that I went straight over to him. I gave him a big smile and put my hand out for him to shake.

He looked down at my hand and then up into my eyes before clicking his tongue in disgust and turning his back on me. I was devastated. I’d never been treated so rudely or with such hostile disrespect, and this from a teacher I’d known since grade school! Everyone in the room witnessed what happened. His body language was unmistakable, screaming,
Don’t touch me, you piece of Tutsi dirt!

I looked around, expecting one of the other adults to come to my defense and chastise Buhoro for his behavior. But no one paid any attention—not even the pastor, who was standing right in front of us. Augustine was the only one to act: He walked up to Buhoro and refused to shake hands with
him;
instead, he came and stood by my side.

I’d known for a long time that Buhoro was a Hutu, but it was only now that I realized he was an extremist Hutu who had always hated Tutsis.
Extremist
. . . how I hated that word. Once again Buhoro made me feel ashamed of what God had made me—a Tutsi. I was so embarrassed and humiliated that I had to force myself to greet the other guests before retreating from the room in shame.

I was so relieved when I found Janet, my best friend since primary school, sitting in the dining room chatting with another girl. I rushed over and cried, “Janet! Oh, I’m so happy to see you. It’s been so horrible for me these past few days; the world has gone crazy. People are being murdered all over the village, and we’ve been treated like dogs. . . . Thank God you’re here! It’s so good to see a friendly face.”

I threw my arms around her, hugging her as tightly as I could, but her body stiffened. When I pulled back and looked into her face, it wasn’t friendly at all—in fact, her eyes refused to meet mine.

She’s in shock,
I thought, suddenly concerned for her well-being.
What’s wrong with me? I haven’t even asked her how she is!

“Aren’t you feeling well, Janet? I haven’t been sleeping either, but now we’ve found each other. My father told me to stay with Pastor Murinzi, but I’m not comfortable here. It’s so lucky you’re visiting! I’ll come home with you, and we can keep each other company until things are back to normal.”

Janet bent down, grabbed her purse, and stood up. “I don’t know what you can be thinking, Immaculée,” she said, still not looking at me. “I’m certainly not going to hide you, and neither will my father. We don’t hide Tutsis in our home.”

“But . . . Janet?”

She turned to the other girl and said, “I’m leaving,” and then walked out of the house and never looked back.

I staggered into the hall and leaned against the wall. How could my dearest friend turn against me? We’d loved each other like sisters once—how could she be so cruel now? How was it possible for a heart to harden so quickly?

Augustine came up to me with Lechim, who was Pastor Murinzi’s youngest son and the closest male friend I’d ever had. We’d known each other since primary school, and because he was great pals with Damascene, he was always hanging around our house. He’d joined our group of friends on outings and picnics over the years, and we’d developed crushes on each other. He even gave me my first kiss just before my 20th birthday, a kiss that was the beginning and end of our romance because we agreed not to tamper with our wonderful friendship. And now, because of that friendship, I was in a big house with a kind hand on my shoulder instead of in the fields being hunted by machete-carrying killers.

“Come on, Immaculée, don’t be upset. Everyone is behaving strangely today,” Lechim said sweetly, patting me tenderly. “Come on, I’ll take you to my sister’s room, and Augustine can stay in the boys’ room. The girls will be good to you, Immaculée.”

I was so happy that Lechim had found me, and I knew his sister Dusenge very well. Like him, she was a kind, good soul. I think that we might have gotten along so well because their mother, Elena, who had died a few years earlier, was Tutsi. Lechim and Dusenge were considered Hutu because that’s what their father was—but because of their mom, they understood what it meant to be Tutsi in Rwanda.

As we were walking to the room, Augustine began crying. “I want to go home. I want to see my mother, my father, and my sister. I want to leave here and go to Kigali.”

“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. “Don’t get like this. Be strong. You can’t go anywhere right now—it’s much too dangerous out there. Let’s be grateful that we’re safe. Besides, even if you look Tutsi, you
are
a Hutu and have your identity card to prove it. No one will harm you.”

“No, Immaculée, you’re wrong. I heard people whispering in the living room that I’m a member of the Tutsi rebel army. They think I’m spying on them for the RPF! My identity card doesn’t mean a thing; they’ll say it’s a fake. Nobody around here knows who I am. They’re going to kill me . . . I know they’re going to kill me!” My young friend was so shaken up that tears ran down his cheeks and his hands trembled.

“Don’t panic, Augustine. As long as we’re together we can look out for each other and we’ll be okay.”

I don’t know where I got the strength to say such things, since I was terrified and completely unsure if we’d survive. But I had to have faith that God would help us; otherwise, why would we endure all the suffering, anguish, and betrayal?