Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (27 page)

The French soldiers continually apologized for the deplorable conditions we were forced to live under, which made me laugh. Compared to where we’d come from, we were living a life of total comfort. For starters, we could fetch water from a stream and wash ourselves and our clothes with soap!

We slept outside, which the French also thought was a major hardship, but I welcomed it. Even though I often woke up covered in dirt and twigs and aching from lying on rocks and stones, I loved falling asleep staring at the stars—it was like seeing the face of God at the end of the day.

We weren’t allowed to cook, which didn’t really matter because there was no fresh food. The soldiers fed us packaged cheese and crackers, tins of powdered milk, and canned fruit. It was a limited diet, but I slowly began filling out a bit and stopped adding notches to my belt.

The French said that their job was to protect us, and they did it well—I never once felt threatened by the killers while I was at the camp. However, Hutus did often gather along the outer perimeter, peering between the armored cars to catch a glimpse of us. They stared at us like we were zoo animals . . . sole survivors of a species hunted to the brink of extinction.

“They look at you like you’re animals, but
they
are the animals,” the captain of the troops said to me one morning shortly after my arrival. When he learned that I was fluent in French, we had a long conversation. I told him my story, and he seemed very sympathetic. He knew what Tutsis had been through in Rwanda and about our history and ethnic conflicts.

“Between you and me, I don’t know how the president of my country can live with himself,” he said. “France has blood on its hands, since we trained a lot of these Hutus how to kill.”

This was the first time I’d heard a foreigner accept blame for what had happened in Rwanda, and it did my soul good. I often despaired listening to the pastor’s radio, realizing that the world knew what was happening to us but chose to ignore it.

“Thank you for being so understanding,” I replied. “The people who are doing this are very bad.”

“Bad?
Bad!
Immaculée, they’re evil. They’re monsters! I want you to know that you’re safe. As long as I’m in charge here, no harm will come to you,” he said, patting the gun holstered on his hip. “I’ll do more than protect you—I’ll give you some justice. Again, this is just between you and me, but if you want revenge, it’s yours for the asking. Give me the names of the Hutus who were searching for you, or the ones who killed your parents and brothers, and I’ll have them killed for you.”

His offer shocked me. It’s what I’d wished for during my early days in the bathroom, when the pastor told us about the atrocities being committed against us. I’d wished for weapons—for guns and cannons to kill the Hutus—because I wanted vengeance so badly. But that was before I’d opened my heart to God’s forgiveness and made my peace with the killers.

The captain offered me the perfect revenge: trained and well-armed soldiers who would kill at my command. All I had to do was whisper a name and I could avenge my family . . . and the families of the thousands of corpses rotting in the street. His offer came from his heart, but I could hear the devil in his voice. He was tempting me with promises of murder, when all I wanted was peace. I slipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around my father’s rosary. “Thank you for offering to—”

“I’ll kill any Hutu you want me to!” He was so eager to kill that he didn’t let me finish my sentence. “If there’s a Hutu you know about in this camp, tell me and I’ll shoot them myself. I hate them all.”

“Well, Hutus aren’t evil, Captain, it’s just these killers. They’ve been tricked by the devil . . . they’ve wandered away from God and—”

“Immaculée, Hutus
are
evil,” he cut in again. “What they’ve done is evil. Don’t tell me that this is God’s will or the work of the devil—it’s the work of the Hutus, and they’ll pay for it. If you change your mind, let me know. I don’t offer to kill for just anyone, you know.”

I prayed that God would touch the captain’s heart with His forgiveness, and I prayed again for the killers to put down their machetes and beg for God’s mercy. The captain’s anger made me think that the cycle of hatred and mistrust in Rwanda would not easily be broken. There would certainly be even more bitterness after the killing stopped, bitterness that could easily erupt into more violence. Only God’s Divine forgiveness could stop that from happening now. I could see that whatever path God put me on, helping others to forgive would be a big part of my life’s work.

The next day the captain proved good to his word—he really did hate Hutus. A bleeding man wandered into camp claiming to be a genocide survivor wounded while fighting with the Tutsi rebels, but the captain didn’t believe him. The soldiers forced the man to his knees, pressing their guns to his head while they interrogated him. They asked him if he was a member of the Interahamwe, which at first he denied. But after more questioning, he broke down and confessed. The captain nodded to his soldiers, they dragged him away, and we never saw him again. One of the soldiers later told me that the man admitted to being an Interahamwe spy.

“Don’t worry about him—he won’t be bothering anyone ever again,” he said.

I CARED FOR MY AUNTS AND NIECES AS BEST I COULD, ensuring that they had enough food, bringing them medicine from the soldiers, and tending to their wounds—I even made sure to sleep close to them in case they became frightened in the night. But I didn’t spend as much time with them as one might think. I was happy that they were alive and safe, but they couldn’t replace the family I’d lost. I felt that I had to start a new life.

It was even difficult for me to associate with the ladies I’d been in the bathroom with. We lived in opposite corners of the camp, and while we’d smile at each other, we rarely spoke. Although we’d been in such close quarters for so long, we didn’t really know each other. All our communication had been through hand signals and lip reading, and it had almost always conveyed fear, terror, and desperation. Maybe we would have become friends if we’d been able to talk in the bathroom, but as it was, seeing each other in the camp brought back too many painful memories.

Anyway, there was plenty of opportunity to make new acquaintances. New groups of Tutsi survivors arrived every day, most of whom were confused and disoriented and spoke only Kinyarwanda. Because I was bilingual, the captain asked me to register all incoming refugees, and I was happy to help. I recorded their names and ages, and reported their injuries and medical needs to the French soldiers. I also wrote down their personal stories and a history of what they’d been though. Through this process, I heard many horrific tales, but made some lasting friendships.

One new pal was Florence, a young woman about my age with a sweet, innocent smile. She was very pretty, despite the deep scar running down her face from being chopped between the eyes with a machete. I jotted down her story, which, sadly, was as common as it was gruesome.

Florence was from a small town not far from my village. When the genocide began, her family and 300 of her neighbors sought asylum at their local chapel, thinking that the killers would respect the sanctity of the church. But finding Tutsis jammed together in one room only made it easier for the killers, who simply walked between the pews swinging their blades.

“We had no weapons, no way to defend ourselves,” Florence said, her big, kind eyes filling with tears. “There was some screaming and begging, but most of us just sat there waiting for our turn to be slaughtered. It was like we thought that we deserved to be murdered—that it was all perfectly natural. They reached me, and all I can remember is the machete coming down toward my face. Then I woke up in the truck.”

Florence’s wound was deep, but not lethal—yet the killers had tossed her into the back of a big truck with the rest of the corpses. When she woke up, she discovered that she was on top of her parents’ bodies, and her sister was on top of
her.

“My sister had a spear still stuck in her chest . . . she was almost dead but still making gurgling noises. I tried to reach out to her, but one of the killers riding in the truck saw me move and started sticking me with his spear. He stuck me here, here, and here,” she said, pointing to her chest, stomach, and thighs. “I didn’t flinch when he stabbed me; instead, I asked God to take my pain and save my life. The killer must have thought that I was dead because I was bleeding so much.”

The truck then stopped at the edge of a cliff high above the Akanyaru River, a favorite spot of the Interahamwe for dumping corpses.

“They threw all the bodies over the cliff and into the river,” Florence continued. “I remember them grabbing me by my feet and swinging me into the air, and I heard the sound of the water rushing in the distance, but I don’t remember falling. I woke up in the mud by the riverbank the next morning. My parents and sister were lying there, too, but they were all dead. I looked up at the cliff and couldn’t imagine how I survived—it was at least a 200-foot drop. I can only believe that God spared me for something.”

Florence lay by the riverbank for a day before she could get up and walk away. She stumbled to the nearest house where some kind Hutus took her in, dressed her wounds, and hid her. “Even though they saved my life,” she continued, “their son left the house every morning, met with the Interahamwe, and kept killing Tutsis in my town until there were none left to kill. Nothing makes sense to me anymore, Immaculée. Why do you think I lived and my parents and sister didn’t?”

“God has spared you for a reason,” I answered. “I’m writing down your story, and someday someone will read it and know what happened. You’re like me—you’ve been left to tell.”

I DID A LOT OF TRANSLATING BETWEEN THE REFUGEES and our French hosts; consequently, I got to know quite a few of the soldiers. One of them, Pierre, took a special interest in me. He was assigned to patrol the inner circle of the camp during the day, but at night he’d pass the time chatting with me as I sat watching the stars.

Pierre was a very nice young man who was a few years younger than I was, and he was polite, empathetic, and a good listener. I told him what had happened to my family and our village, and he told me about his parents, his life in France, and the girlfriend he’d broken up with before coming to Rwanda. When he asked if I had a boyfriend, I told him about John and the empty-hearted way we’d left things.

I felt very comfortable around Pierre, and I enjoyed his company. Talking to him could get my mind off my daily reality, at least temporarily. As the days went by, Pierre began finding excuses to be near me: He’d bring me food, escort me to the stream to fetch water, and drop by with books for me to read. His friends kidded him about it, but I didn’t mind. Having a close friend who wasn’t directly suffering from the genocide was a relief, and telling him my hopes and dreams made me feel human again.

One day Pierre’s friend Paul told me that the young soldier was smitten with me, which made me laugh. I hadn’t changed my clothes or had a proper shower in more than three months.

“No, Pierre talks about you all the time,” Paul assured me. “He says that despite everything you’ve been through, your heart is open and you have a great sense of humor.”

“The way you guys are joking with me about this, I
have
to have a sense of humor,” I said. But I soon came to realize that Paul wasn’t kidding—Pierre did have a crush on me.

I was flattered, but not interested. I’d just lost my family, and I wasn’t sure if I’d live to see the end of the war. I’d also given up on romance after John had let me down so badly. Even so, Pierre made me wonder if my broken heart could ever love another person again.

When he came calling that night, asking me to go for a walk, I resolved to tell him not to waste his affection on me. But he began speaking with such conviction and passion that I was caught off guard.

“You’ve become so much more to me than a friend, Immaculée,” he earnestly told me. “You’re a very special person. I know that with all the death, pain, and violence around us, this is the last thing you want to hear, but I think I love you. I want to be with you.” Even though I was expecting him to say something along those lines, I was still surprised by how genuine he sounded.

“Pierre,” I replied softly, “my heart is full of sorrow, and right now there’s only room in there for God. I can’t think of falling in love . . . and I can’t lose focus on the struggles ahead. I have to take care of myself.”

He took my hand. “But I mean what I say . . . I love you and will take care of you. I want to be with you, and I don’t want to lose you.”

I was a little overwhelmed by his intensity, but I felt that we’d been brought together by circumstance, not by God. He had let me know that John was not the man He had meant for me, and now He was letting me know that neither was Pierre. It just didn’t feel right—and I knew that when I was ready, God would bring love to me. And when He did, there would be no doubts or misgivings.

“No, Pierre . . . no. Right now my heart belongs more to the dead than to the living—I haven’t even begun to mourn yet. Your friendship means so much to me, and I want to keep it. So please, let’s just be friends.”

“I see,” he said sadly. “If I can’t have your heart, then I’ll let you go. I’ll say good-bye, and . . . goodnight, sweetheart.” He bent toward me and surprised me by kissing me on the mouth. I closed my eyes, and for the brief moment that his lips touched mine, I felt the warmth of the kiss lift my pain and sadness. Pierre walked away to join the other soldiers, leaving me with a resigned smile on my face. I’d put my trust in God, which was the only thing to do.

I DESPERATELY WANTED TO TALK TO MY BROTHER AIMABLE and let him know that I was alive, but there was no mail service and the phones weren’t working—and it’s not as if I had a number for him or money to pay for the call. Aimable was 3,000 miles away studying in Senegal, and I prayed that he’d stayed there. If he’d come back to Rwanda, he was sure to be dead like the rest of my family. So the war would have to end before I’d be able to reach him.