Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (18 page)

It was past noon, and I’d been praying the rosary since dawn for God to give His love and forgiveness to all the sinners in the world. But try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to pray for the killers. That was a problem for me because I knew that God expected us to pray for
everyone,
and more than anything, I wanted God on my side.

As a compromise, I prayed the rosary multiple times, as intensely as I could, every day. Working through all those Hail Marys and Our Fathers took 12 or 13 hours—and whenever I reached the part of the Lord’s Prayer that calls us to “forgive those who trespass against us,” I tried not to think of the killers, because I knew that I couldn’t forgive them.

During that second search, the killers’ racket reached the edge of my prayers like an angry voice waking me from a dream. Then I heard four or five loud bangs next to my head, and they had my full attention. I realized that they were right there in the pastor’s bedroom! They were rummaging through his belongings, ripping things from the wall, lifting up the bed, and overturning chairs.

“Look in that!” one of them yelled. “Now look under here. Move that chest!
Search everything!
”

I covered my mouth with my hands, fearing that they’d hear me breathing. They were only inches from my head . . . they were in front of the wardrobe—
the wardrobe!
I thanked God again for it, but my heart still thumped against my chest.

I could hear them
laughing.
They were having fun while going about killing people! I cursed them, wishing that they’d burn in hell.

The wardrobe banged against the door. I covered my ears and prayed:
God, please. You put the wardrobe there . . . now keep it there! Don’t let them move it. Save us, Lord!

My scalp was burning, and the ugly whispering slithered in my head again:
Why are you calling on God? Don’t you have as much hatred
in your heart as the killers do? Aren’t you as guilty of hatred as they are? You’ve wished them dead; in fact, you wished that you could kill them
yourself! You even prayed that God would make them suffer and make
them burn in hell.

I could hear the killers on the other side of the door, and entreated,
God, make them go away . . . save us from—

Don’t call on God, Immaculée,
the voice broke in.
He knows that
you’re a liar. You lie every time you pray to Him to say that you love Him. Didn’t God create us all in His image? How can you love God but hate so
many of His creations?

My thoughts were paralyzed. I knew that the demon in my head was right—I
was
lying to God every time I prayed to Him. I was so overwhelmed with hatred for the people responsible for the genocide that I had a hard time breathing.

At least 40 or 50 men were in the pastor’s bedroom by this time, and they were shouting and jeering. They sounded drunk and mean, and their chanting was more vicious than usual: “Kill the Tutsis big and small . . . kill them one and kill them all.
Kill them!
”

I began praying, asking God to keep them away from the wardrobe and out of the house altogether.

Beneath the raucous singing, the dark voice taunted me:
It’s no
use . . . don’t call on God. Who do you think sent the killers here for you? He did! Nothing can save you. God doesn’t save liars.

I began to pray for the killers and then stopped. I desperately wanted God’s protection, but I believed in my heart that they deserved to die. I couldn’t pretend that they hadn’t slaughtered and raped thousands of people—I couldn’t ignore the awful, evil things that they’d done to so many innocent souls.

Why do You expect the impossible from me?
I asked God.
How can
I forgive people who are trying to kill me, people who may have already slaughtered my family and friends? It isn’t logical for me to forgive these
killers. Let me pray for their victims instead, for those who’ve been raped
and murdered and mutilated. Let me pray for the orphans and widows
. . . let me pray for justice. God, I will ask You to punish those wicked men,
but I cannot forgive them—I just can’t.

Finally, I heard the killers leaving. First they left the bedroom, then the house, and soon they were walking away down the road, their singing fading in the distance.

I resumed my prayers. I thanked God for saving us and for giving me the idea to put the wardrobe in front of the bathroom door.
That was so smart of You, God. You are very smart,
I said mentally, and thanked Him again. I wondered where the killers were off to, then I started praying for my friends and family:
Please look over my mother,
God; she worries so much about us. Watch over my father; he can be so
stubborn. . . .

It was no use—my prayers felt hollow. A war had started in my soul, and I could no longer pray to a God of love with a heart full of hatred.

I tried again, praying for Him to forgive the killers, but deep down I couldn’t believe that they deserved it at all. It tormented me . . . I tried to pray for them myself, but I felt like I was praying for the devil.
Please open my heart, Lord, and show me how to forgive. I’m not strong
enough to squash my hatred—they’ve wronged us all so much . . . my
hatred is so heavy that it could crush me. Touch my heart, Lord, and show
me how to forgive.

I struggled with the dilemma for hours on end. I prayed late into the night, all through the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. I prayed all week, scarcely taking food or water. I couldn’t remember when or for how long I’d slept, and was only vaguely aware of time passing.

ONE NIGHT I HEARD SCREAMING NOT FAR FROM THE HOUSE, and then a baby crying. The killers must have slain the mother and left her infant to die in the road. The child wailed all night; by morning, its cries were feeble and sporadic, and by nightfall, it was silent. I heard dogs snarling nearby and shivered as I thought about how that baby’s life had ended. I prayed for God to receive the child’s innocent soul, and then asked Him,
How can
I forgive people who would do such a thing to an infant?

I heard His answer as clearly as if we’d been sitting in the same room chatting:
You are all my children . . . and the baby is with Me now.

It was such a simple sentence, but it was the answer to the prayers I’d been lost in for days.

The killers were like children. Yes, they were barbaric creatures who would have to be punished severely for their actions, but they were still children. They were cruel, vicious, and dangerous, as kids sometimes can be, but nevertheless, they were children. They saw, but didn’t understand the terrible harm they’d inflicted. They’d blindly hurt others without thinking, they’d hurt their Tutsi brothers and sisters, they’d hurt God—and they didn’t understand how badly they were hurting themselves. Their minds had been infected with the evil that had spread across the country, but their
souls
weren’t evil. Despite their atrocities, they were children of God, and I could forgive a child, although it would not be easy . . . especially when that child was trying to kill me.

In God’s eyes, the killers were part of His family, deserving of love and forgiveness. I knew that I couldn’t ask God to love me if I were unwilling to love His children. At that moment, I prayed for the killers, for their sins to be forgiven. I prayed that God would lead them to recognize the horrific error of their ways before their life on Earth ended—before they were called to account for their mortal sins.

I held on to my father’s rosary and asked God to help me, and again I heard His voice:
Forgive them; they know not what they do.

I took a crucial step toward forgiving the killers that day. My anger was draining from me—I’d opened my heart to God, and He’d touched it with His infinite love. For the first time, I pitied the killers. I asked God to forgive their sins and turn their souls toward His beautiful light.

That night I prayed with a clear conscience and a clean heart. For the first time since I entered the bathroom, I slept in peace.

CHAPTER 12

No Friends to Turn To

I
found a place in the bathroom to call my own: a small corner of my heart. I retreated there as soon as I awoke, and stayed there until I slept. It was my sacred garden, where I spoke with God, meditated on His words, and nurtured my spiritual self.

When I meditated, I touched the source of my faith and strengthened the core of my soul. While horror swirled around me, I found refuge in a world that became more welcoming and wonderful with each visit. Even as my body shriveled, my soul was nourished through my deepening relationship with God.

I entered my special space through prayer; once inside, I prayed nonstop, using my rosary as an anchor to focus my thoughts and energies on God. The rosary beads helped me concentrate on the gospels and keep the words of God alive in my mind. I prayed in silence, but always mouthed the words to convince myself that I was really saying them . . . otherwise, doubt would creep in and the negative energy would come calling.

I spent hours contemplating the meaning of a single word, such as
forgiveness, faith,
or
hope.
I spent days with the word
surrender,
and I came to understand what it meant to surrender one’s self to a Higher Power. I gave myself over completely to God. When I wasn’t praying, I felt that I was no longer living in His light, and the world of the bathroom was too bleak to endure.

Toward the end of our first month in hiding, Pastor Murinzi came to us late one night with a plate of scraps. He’d acted with compassion when he took us in, but that seemed to be waning. On this night, his face was set in a scowl instead of its usual expression of concern and pity. “Your father was a very bad Tutsi!” he snapped at me.

“What? What do you mean?” I was taken completely off guard, not so much by the attack on my father as by the fact that the pastor referred to Dad in the past tense. I refused to acknowledge the possibility that any member of my family could be dead. “My father is a good
man,
Pastor—maybe the best man I ever met!”

“No, Immaculée, he was a bad Tutsi
and
a bad man . . . he was helping the RPF rebels plan a civil war.” He looked at the other ladies, pointed at me, and said, “If they catch you and kill you, it will be because of Immaculée. The killers are hunting for her because of her father’s activities.” He was glaring at me, and I could feel the eyes of the other women on me.

“They found 600 guns in your house,” he continued, turning back to me. “They also found grenades and a death list of Hutu names. That’s the reason you Tutsis are being hunted and killed. If Hutus hadn’t acted first, we’d be the ones being killed by Tutsis now!”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. The poisoned lies that the extremist Hutus were spreading had robbed Pastor Murinzi of his reason. He’d been friends with my father for years and knew that he’d dedicated himself to improving the lives of the poor and less fortunate. Dad had built schools and chapels for Tutsis, Hutus, and Twas alike, so how could the pastor accuse him of hiding weapons or plotting murder? Hadn’t my father even urged the desperate Tutsi refugees at our house not to kill Hutus, even if the Hutus were trying to kill them?

Pastor Murinzi told me that he’d gotten his information from the authorities. Unfortunately, like so many other Rwandans, he blindly believed what he was told by people in power.

My spirits plummeted. I felt certain that no one would spread such blatant lies against my father . . . not unless they’d killed him first. Making him out to be a dangerous man was obviously how they planned to justify his murder. But I couldn’t think about that. I refused to entertain the idea of anyone in my family being dead—not now. I wasn’t strong enough yet.

I was so angry with the pastor that I wanted to scream, but how could I do anything? He was all that stood between us and death. We were completely dependent upon his charity—even if he wasn’t being very charitable at the moment. We could tell that he no longer saw us as his neighbors who were in danger and in need of help. Now he viewed us the way the killers did: as nonhumans, cockroaches that were destined to be exterminated before the war was over.

My anger boiled inside me as Pastor Murinzi abused my father’s good name. I couldn’t control my temper—my father had suffered enough indignities! I raised my voice for the first time since he’d locked us away in the bathroom: “If my father had so many guns, why didn’t he pass them out to the thousands of Tutsis who came to us looking for protection? If my father had so many weapons, why didn’t he stop the killers when they burned our house to the ground? If he’d planned to kill Hutus, he would have killed them before they drove his family into hiding and destroyed his life! Tell me, Pastor, why didn’t he use the guns to protect his wife and daughter from killers and rapists?”