Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (15 page)

He couldn’t look me in the eye—we both knew that sending Vianney and Augustine away now would almost certainly mean delivering them to their deaths.

“Oh, no, Pastor Murinzi, please! You can’t—”

He held his finger to his lips, ending the conversation. “They have to go, Immaculée. When I come to get you in a few hours, you will take them to the door and let them out. Be careful that no one sees you.”

As the pastor left the room, I cursed him under my breath. How could he act like a saint by protecting us, then turn around and push my brother and Augustine into the arms of killers?

I didn’t want to scorn the man who was saving us, but I couldn’t help myself—I suspected the worst. In other killing sprees, some Hutu men had hidden Tutsi women while turning away Tutsi men. It was said that they hid Tutsi women because of their beauty, planning to claim them as their own after their menfolk were murdered. It was yet another way that Tutsis, especially Tutsi women, were brutalized. I began to think that the pastor had ulterior motives in taking in six women.

WE TRIED TO SLEEP THAT NIGHT, but it was difficult to rest when we had no clue as to what lay ahead. Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined Vianney and Augustine walking out of the house and into a frenzy of swinging machetes and screaming madmen. The boys were so young—only 20 and 18, respectively—how could I let them go out on their own? It would be a betrayal for me to let them leave.

I decided to go with them, but then changed my mind . . . and changed it again and again. How could I protect them if we were attacked? I might even slow them down. More attention would be drawn to them if they were with a woman, and that would get us all killed.

And then Damascene’s parting words rang in my ears: “Don’t leave this place, no matter what.”

I groaned quietly, but it was loud enough to alarm the others.

“Don’t worry, your brother is a grown man, not a little boy,” said Therese, one of the ladies hiding with me, who’d been watching me toss and turn for an hour. “They’re strong young men—they can take care of themselves. If you go with them, you’ll bring the rapists to you. Let them go—it’s the best thing. Trust me; I’m a mother. It’s better for you to stay with us.”

I thought that she was probably right, but it didn’t make things any easier. I worried that if Vianney left, I might never see
anyone
in my family again.

Two hours before dawn, the pastor slipped into the room and woke us with a stern whisper. “Get up, let’s go! Come on, hurry!” He looked at me and said, “Say good-bye to your brother, and then come right back.”

Walking into that room and waking up Vianney and Augustine was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Tears poured down my face like rain—thank God the darkness hid the shame, sorrow, and unmistakable fear in my eyes.

I placed my hand on Vianney’s back and woke him gently, speaking softly and slowly to control my sobbing. “Wake up . . . it’s morning. The pastor says . . . we can’t all stay . . . the men . . . you have to go . . . don’t worry . . . you’ll meet Daddy . . . he’ll tell you what to do.”

I felt wretched, as though my heart was being squeezed.

Vianney and Augustine jumped from the bed. “What? Go where, Immaculée? We can’t go anywhere without Damascene. What will happen to him if we leave without him?” my little brother said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

His words tore at me. He was thinking of our brother’s safety while I was sending him into danger. I felt like a mother throwing her baby to a pack of wolves. “Damascene will be okay,” I said, trying to make my voice sound steady. “He is somewhere safe. Come on, we have to go.”

I hustled the boys down the dark hall to the front door. I hugged Vianney as hard as I could and kissed him again and again. “Be strong, Vianney. We will meet again soon.”

They walked out the door and were swallowed by the darkness.

CHAPTER 9

Into the Bathroom

I
closed the door behind Vianney and Augustine and joined the other Tutsi women.

Pastor Murinzi carried a flashlight and led us down the dark hallway to his bedroom. Our eyes followed the beam of light along the walls until it landed on a door that I assumed opened to the yard.

“This is where you’ll stay,” he said, swinging the door open to reveal our new home: a small bathroom about four feet long and three feet wide. The light shimmered as it bounced off the white enamel tiles on the bottom half of the walls. There was a shower stall at one end and a toilet at the other—the room wasn’t big enough for a sink. And there was a small air vent/window near the ceiling that was covered with a piece of red cloth, which somehow made the room feel even smaller.

I couldn’t imagine how all six of us could possibly fit in this space, but the pastor herded us through the door and packed us in tight. “While you’re in here, you must be absolutely quiet, and I mean
silent,
” he said. “If you make any noise, you will die. If they hear you, they will find you, and then they will kill you. No one must know that you’re here, not even my children. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Pastor,” we mumbled in unison.

“And don’t flush the toilet or use the shower.” He shone his light along the wall above the toilet. “There’s another bathroom on the other side of that wall, which uses the same plumbing. So if you absolutely must flush, wait until you hear someone using the other bathroom, then do so at
exactly
the same time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Pastor.”

The flashlight clicked off, and his last words were spoken in the dark. “I think that they’re going to keep killing for another week, maybe less. If you’re careful, you might live through this. I’d hate for the killers to get you . . . I know what they would do.”

He shut the door and left us standing in blackness, our bodies pressing against one another. The musky heat of our breath, sweat, and skin mingled together and made us feel faint.

We tried to sit, but there wasn’t enough room for all of us to move at the same time. The four tallest had to push our backs against the wall and slide to the tile floor, then pull the smaller girls down on top of us. It was past 3 A.M. and we were all wide-awake, yet we didn’t dare speak. We sat as best we could, listening to the crickets outside and to our own labored breathing.

I prayed silently, asking God to protect Vianney and Augustine and keep my parents and Damascene safe. I thanked Him for delivering us to the bathroom—I truly believed that God had guided Pastor Murinzi to bring us here, and for the first time in days, I felt safe. If
I
hadn’t noticed the bathroom we were currently in after so many visits to the house, no one else would.

I asked God to bless Pastor Murinzi for risking his own safety to help us . . . but then I winced at the prayer. A flush of anger burned my cheeks as I remembered how he’d sent my brother and our friend into the night. I prayed that God would eventually help me forgive the pastor.

The moon emerged from behind a cloud, and a thin streak of pale light slipped through a crack in the red curtain, providing enough illumination for me to make out the faces of my companions. Sitting beside me was Athanasia, a pretty, dark-skinned 14-year-old with big beautiful eyes that caught the moonlight. Sitting on top of her was 12-year-old Beata, still wearing her school uniform, who looked lost and very frightened. I pulled her onto my lap, cradling her in my arms until she closed her eyes.

Across from me was Therese, who, at 55, was the eldest of the group. She wore a colorful, traditional Rwandan wrap-dress popular with married women. She looked more worried than any of us, probably because she only had two of her six children—Claire and Sanda—with her. Claire was very light-skinned, and even though she was my age, she was nervous and withdrawn and wouldn’t make eye contact. Her little sister Sanda was only seven, and the youngest of the group. She was cute, sweet, and surprisingly calm. She never once cried or looked frightened, even when the rest of us were trembling—I think she must have been in shock the entire time we were in that bathroom.

The pastor’s repeated warnings to be quiet had burned into us. We sat in an uncomfortable heap, too afraid to adjust our positions or to even breathe too heavily. We waited for the gray light of dawn to fill the room, then carefully pried ourselves apart to take turns standing and stretching. A two- or three-minute break was all we allowed ourselves before resuming our awkward positions on the floor.

When morning broke, the birds in the pastor’s shade tree began singing. I was jealous of them, thinking,
How lucky you are to have
been born birds and have freedom—after all, look at what we humans
are doing to ourselves.

WE WERE SO EXHAUSTED, HUNGRY, CRAMPED, AND HOT that our first day in the bathroom passed in a painful haze. It was impossible to sleep—if I dozed off, I was immediately awoken by a leg cramp or someone’s elbow knocking against my ribs.

In the early evening, we heard Pastor Murinzi talking to someone outside. “No, no, no,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—I’m a good Hutu, and I’d never hide Tutsis. There are no Tutsis here . . . they left last night.”

We stared at each other with our eyes wide open. We were terrified.

“I don’t want any trouble with the government,” the pastor continued. “You people know me, and you should protect this house . . . those Tutsi rebels might attack me for being such a good Hutu.”

Whoever the pastor was talking to left, and we relaxed. Pastor Murinzi had just lied to save us—I felt assured that he wouldn’t hand us over to the killers. He had little choice now, because if he turned us in, the killers would know that he’d hidden us. They’d call him a moderate, a traitor to his tribe, and would kill him as surely as they’d kill us.

I breathed easier and hugged young Beata, who was lying across my lap. I remembered how my mother sometimes held me in her lap when I was young and frightened. The memory of Mom saddened me—this was the first time in my life that I didn’t know the whereabouts of my parents or brothers. I slipped into a half sleep and dreamed of Vianney, Augustine, and Damascene knocking on the pastor’s gate, while behind them, our house was burning. I saw my parents sitting on Dad’s motorcycle, and my mother asking, “What will happen to my boys?”

While I was dreaming, Pastor Murinzi opened the door, and without saying a word, shoved a plate of cold potatoes and beans into the room. It was late, maybe 11 P.M., and none of us had had anything to eat or drink for nearly two days.

We attacked the plate, grabbing the food with our dirty fingers and stuffing it into our mouths.

When the pastor returned five minutes later with forks, we’d already devoured every bit of food. He stared at the plate, and then looked at us with pity. A moment later he tossed a very thin mattress into the room. “You’ve traveled down a long road. Now try to get some rest,” he said, and closed the door.

WHEN WE AWOKE THE NEXT DAY, WE TOOK TURNS stretching our aching muscles. Moving even an inch was a major production because we couldn’t talk to one another. We quickly worked out forms of sign language that would become our silent shorthand for the remainder of our stay in the bathroom.

I grimaced at the pain in my cramped legs, thinking that I’d have quite a tale of hardship to tell after the war. “Listen to what I had to endure,” I’d boast to my friends. “I spent an entire day and night trapped in a tiny bathroom with five strangers. What a hero I am!”

No sooner had I begun my little fantasy than I was jolted back to reality by images of my family: my parents fleeing our burning house, Damascene slipping sadly away, and Vianney and Augustine wandering in the open with nowhere to hide. Thank God that Aimable was safely away from Rwanda in another country! But what about the thousands of displaced Tutsis who had sought refuge at our house? What had become of them? Had they found shelter, or were they lying somewhere bleeding to death? I felt silly and selfish for indulging in my self-pity when thousands were undoubtedly suffering far more.