Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (25 page)

“God has spared me. How is it
you
are alive?”

“God has spared
me.
”

“It’s good to see you!”

“It’s good to see
you!
”

I wanted to laugh and cry at the ridiculous course of our conversation, and at how wonderful it was to be talking out loud to a friend again. Jean Paul was a good pal of my brothers’.

“Hello, Jean Baptiste, I’m glad so see you, too,” I said to Jean Paul’s brother, who was still sitting down. Jean Baptiste didn’t respond—and I could see why when I knelt down to shake his hand. There was a ragged, inch-wide scar across his neck that disappeared beneath his shirt. It hadn’t healed completely, so it was an angry, whitish-red color that stood out in painful contrast to his dark skin. He also had deep cuts on his head, one of which was so deep that I wondered how he’d managed to survive the blow.

“He’s not saying much right now . . . too sad,” Jean Paul said quietly.

Although Jean Paul himself was extremely sorrowful, we sat down and exchanged stories. I told him where I’d been and described my time at the pastor’s. And he told me that the genocide had died down a bit in the north since Kigali had fallen, but it was still very bad in Kibuye province, where we were.

“Kigali has fallen?” I asked, shocked and delighted.

“Yes, but there’s still plenty of killing,” he replied. “In fact, around here it’s even worse than before. The worse the war goes for them, the more vicious they become. They’re getting frustrated, too—they’ve slaughtered so many Tutsis already that they’re having a hard time finding more of us to murder.”

I was surprised to see that Jean Paul and his brother were at this camp because I’d always thought they were Hutu. They were very dark-skinned; fairly short; and had flat, broad noses—the typical European idea of what a Hutu should look like. It didn’t make much sense anymore, as generations of intermarriage had made that concept archaic and deeply prejudicial. But Jean Paul explained that their Hutu looks were part of the reason they were able to stay alive. “That . . . and the kindness of a murderer,” he said, before sharing what had happened to his family.

“The killers came a week after the president’s plane was shot down. I was visiting my friend Laurent, a Hutu who lived a few houses away, when I heard them arrive at my parents’ home. I saw about 300 killers—mostly neighbors and old family friends. They broke through the front door and chopped up everybody: all my brothers, my four sisters, my mom, and my dad. They killed everyone . . . at least they thought they had. Jean Baptiste was still alive, but he was bleeding to death.

“I dragged him for miles through the bushes to a hospital where the doctors wouldn’t know us. Then Laurent hid us until the French arrived, but it was awful. He saved us by hiding us, but it was agony to be alive. Laurent would wake us to say good morning every day, then go out and spend hours hunting Tutsis with the people who killed my family. When he’d come back in the evening and make supper, I’d see flecks of blood on his hands and clothes, which he just couldn’t wash off. Our lives were in his hands, so we couldn’t say anything. I don’t understand how people can do good and evil at the same time.”

“The genocide is happening in people’s hearts, Jean Paul,” I said. “The killers are good people, but right now evil has a hold on their hearts.”

I told Jean Paul that I would pray for his family. Then I realized that he probably knew what had happened to my parents and brothers, since he’d been in the area throughout the genocide. The question was: Did I
want
to know what had happened to them? Was I strong enough to take it? If I knew for certain that they were dead, there would be no going back to my old self, my old life.

I decided that it was better to face the truth. I’d have to pretend that I already knew my family was dead, otherwise Jean Paul would try to spare my feelings and tell me nothing. I’d have to trick him into telling me what I needed to know. I reached into my pocket for my father’s red and white rosary and asked God to give me strength.

“So, Jean Paul, about my father . . . I know they killed him, I just don’t know where. I was wondering if you might know any details.”

“Oh yeah, I know everything. Laurent was there and saw it all. They killed your father in Kibuye town.”

His words pierced my heart like a spear. I pushed my fists into my eyes and turned my face to hide my tears.

“Your dad was killed a day or two after my parents were murdered,” Jean Paul went on. “I think it was on April 14th. He’d gone to the government office to ask the prefect to send food to the stadium because there were thousands of refugees there who hadn’t eaten for days. That was a big mistake.”

Oh, Daddy! Why did you have to be so sweet . . . and how could you
have been so stupid?
The prefect of Kibuye was like the governor, and he’d been close to my father. But other extremist Hutus who were Dad’s friends had betrayed him, so I couldn’t understand why he continued to trust them. But I knew that he would have sacrificed his life trying to feed starving people—for him, there would have been no other choice. My eyes were burning and my stomach ached as Jean Paul continued.

“Laurent told me that the prefect called your father a fool and had his soldiers drag him outside. They shot him on the steps of the government office and left his body in the street.”

“I see . . . thanks for telling me all this, Jean Paul. It helps,” I said, using all my energy to steady my voice. I thanked God for the darkness hiding my face. “And what about my mom? I know she was killed, too, but I don’t know how—”

“Oh, Rose?” he broke in. “She was one of the first in the area to die. She was murdered a few days before your father. I think Laurent may have been one of the killers because he knew all the details. Anyway, she was hiding in the yard of your grandmother’s neighbor. Someone was being killed nearby, and your mom heard the screaming and thought that it was your brother. She went running into the road shouting, ‘Don’t kill my child! Don’t kill my Damascene!’

“It wasn’t Damascene, but as soon as the killers saw your mom, they went after her. They told her that if she gave them money, they’d leave her alone. She agreed and went to borrow some from her friend Murenge. But Murenge ordered her to leave her alone: ‘Get away from my house—we don’t help cockroaches here!’ Murenge told the killers to take your mother into the street to kill her because she didn’t want them messing up her yard. They dragged your poor mom to the side of the road and chopped her to death. Some neighbors buried her, though. She was one of the few who got buried . . . soon there were too many bodies and no one left to dig graves.”

Every word he told me was torture, but I was a prisoner to the information. I pushed him to tell me more. “Did you happen to hear about my little brother, Vianney?” I asked, feeling a stab of guilt as I remembered how I’d sent my baby brother away from the pastor’s house in the middle of the night.

“Vianney was killed at the Kibuye stadium with his friend Augustine. There were thousands of people there—and they were all annihilated. First the killers shot them with machine guns, and then they threw grenades at them. I don’t think anybody survived.”

My hands were shaking, and I was having a hard time getting air into my lungs. I calmed myself as best I could and tried to ask about Damascene, but I couldn’t bring myself to say his name. I clung to the hope that he was alive and waiting for me somewhere. Finally, I said, “My brother Aimable is in Senegal and doesn’t know any of this . . . I don’t even have an address where I could send him a letter . . . ”

“You should ask Damascene’s friend Bonn. I know he has all of Damascene’s papers and things . . . or at least he used to.”

“Why is that?” I asked, my heart racing.

“Oh, because he was hiding your brother, and when Damascene left to go to Zaire, he left all his stuff with Bonn. But he might have gotten rid of his things by now—I heard he went mad after your brother was killed.”

The words struck me like a bullet.
Please . . . no . . . not Damascene,
too!

I didn’t want to know any more. I stood up, staggered a few feet away, and collapsed. I pressed my face into the earth—I wanted to lie on the cold, cold ground and sleep with the rest of my family. I wanted to hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. I had so many tears to cry, and I sobbed into the dirt. Jean Paul was at my side, trying to comfort me. He wiped the dirt from my face and gently rubbed my neck, but I pushed his hand away.

“Please let me deal with this. I have to learn to be on my own now, Jean Paul. No one in this world can comfort me now . . . leave me alone for a while.” He walked away to the other side of the camp, taking his silent brother with him.

I lay on my back, looked at heaven, and cried. I cried until I had no more tears. I thought about what Jesus had promised me in my dream and began talking to him. “You told me they would all be dead when I left the bathroom, and you were right,” I said. “They
are
all dead. Everything I loved in this world has been taken away. I’m putting my life in your hands, Jesus . . . keep your promise and take care of me. I will keep
my
promise—I will be your faithful daughter.”

I closed my eyes and pictured the faces of my family, and I prayed that God would keep them close and warm.

THE METALLIC WHINING OF A TRUCK’S GRINDING GEARS STARTLED ME. A couple hours before dawn, twin beams of light cut through the camp, illuminating the other ladies in an incandescent halo as they stood by the gate with Jean Paul and Jean Baptiste.

The truck sputtered to a stop by the fence. It was a big military transport truck covered with a camouflage-colored canvas tarpaulin. The French soldiers told us to climb in the back and keep quiet.

“There are Hutu roadblocks everywhere,” one of them warned.

We reached the first block about a mile from camp, and I could hear the killers’ voices on the other side of the canvas. It was all too familiar, except this time we had armed bodyguards. Even so, there were a couple hundred killers and only a handful of soldiers.

“What do you have in the back of the truck?” one of the killers asked.

“We’re delivering food and clean water to the Hutu refugees coming down from Kigali,” the driver replied.

“Good man! Those Tutsi snakes are killing us in Kigali . . . you can pass, go ahead.”

The driver shifted gears, and the truck lurched ahead—we were on our way again. I admired the clever answer the driver had given to get us through the roadblock. Tens of thousands of Hutus from Kigali were running south since the capital had fallen to the Tutsi rebels. Unfortunately, most of the refugees were coming to our province of Kibuye, either to resettle or to try to get to Lake Kivu so that they could cross to Zaire. There were many scared Hutu families trying to escape the fighting, but there were also plenty of new Interahamwe killers in the area as well.

At the next roadblock, the killers waved us through right away. “The French are our people . . . go ahead, let them go!” said one of them. It was the same at the next five roadblocks.

The truck rolled through the night and toward a new day—I wished that it would keep right on rolling into a new
country.
My soul wanted to fly away from Rwanda to another world. I believed that God was planning a new life for me; I just didn’t know when or where it would begin. When the truck reached the base camp 30 minutes later, I was keenly disappointed—yes, we were free, but we were still in the middle of Rwanda, still in the middle of the horror.

THE FIRST THING I SAW WHEN I CLIMBED DOWN FROM THE TRUCK was a dilapidated schoolhouse. I noticed that the wooden sign tacked above the door had the word
Rwimpili
scrawled across it, and I realized that we’d come to the school where my mother had her first teaching job.

Sorrow welled up in me, and I had to step away from the others and have a quick talk with God: “Lord, I don’t know why You brought me here. I know I will have to mourn my family, but right now I can’t . . . please give me the strength I need to survive, and I’ll grieve later.”

A few minutes later I felt strong enough to walk into the schoolhouse and smile. I remembered my mom’s fondness for the run-down, one-room, dirt-floored classroom. “The important thing is what we learn at this school, not the way it looks,” she’d say.

Dawn was breaking, and the morning sun filled the schoolhouse, giving me my first look at my fellow survivors. There were about 20 other Tutsis milling about, and suddenly I could see how blessed the ladies and I had been to have stayed in the pastor’s bathroom. The other refugees looked far worse off than we did: The poor souls had been living in the open forest for the past three months, sleeping in holes and eating nothing but leaves and grass.

The sun became so bright that I had to shield my eyes, and in the shadow of my fingers, I saw a familiar face. “Esperance!” I cried out. It was my mom’s sister, but she didn’t seem to hear me.

“Esperance! Don’t you know me? It’s Immaculée! Thank God someone survived!” I said, hugging her tightly.

She returned my embrace with a feeble squeeze, staring at me vacantly for a long while before speaking. I was worried that perhaps her mind had gone. “It’s okay,” she said weakly. “I’m happy you’re alive. Come see your other aunt.” She shuffled listlessly across the schoolyard to where her sister Jeanne and three of my female cousins, all young teenagers, were sitting on the ground.

I stopped about ten yards away and looked at the wretched scene in front of me in disbelief: Their faces were swollen from insect bites; their lips were cracked and bleeding; and their bodies were covered with open sores, blisters, and cuts that must have been infected for weeks. I could smell the sickness from where I stood.

Aunt Jeanne, a teacher, had been a fastidious dresser, and so obsessed with cleanliness that she used to insist that visitors at her house wash their hands before greeting her children. Now she sat in the dirt with her kids, like a group of primitives, their clothing so threadbare I could see their buttocks hanging out.