Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (33 page)

When I lifted my head, I noticed that the moon was already up. I heard the soldiers laughing and playing music, so I went outside. Sarah and I smiled at each other, and then I smiled at everyone there. The soldiers were having a party, and they were surprised to see me join them looking so happy. They danced all night, as Sarah and I watched and cheered them on.

THE NEXT DAY I ASKED THE CAPTAIN IF HE’D TAKE ME BACK to the village so that I could properly lay my mother and brother to rest. He was concerned about my reaction the day before and asked if I were strong enough. I assured him that I was, and he provided me with the same military escort to the village.

On the way, we stopped to see my aunts Jeanne and Esperance, who were living close to my old house. I hadn’t seen them since they’d left the French camp. Neither had fully recovered from their ordeal and probably never would, but at least they were in much better condition now. We had an emotional roadside reunion, but I kept my heart in check to prepare for the solemn duty ahead. I told them to find anyone who wanted to say good-bye to Mom and Damascene and meet me at my old home.

Most of the Tutsi genocide survivors in my village turned out, and a few Hutu chums joined us as well. One old family friend, Kayitare, brought two coffins with him; someone else brought a shovel and a Bible; and we all went together to recover the remains. First we dug for Damascene; some neighbors crowded around me to block my view, gently pushing me back to protect me from seeing what was left of him.

I shoved past them. “He’s my brother—I
have
to see him,” I insisted. I don’t think I could ever have accepted that Damascene was really dead if I couldn’t see his body with my own eyes. Then I heard the shovel scrape against bone, and I saw him . . . I saw his rib cage. The first thing I noticed was that he had no clothes on, and I remembered how they’d tried to strip him of his dignity before executing him.

“Don’t look,” Esperance said. But I had to—I saw his rib cage but nothing else. They’d chopped him up—his arms, his head. . . .
Oh,
God, my sweet Damascene, what did they do to you?
I let out a kind of animal whimper.

Someone bent down to the grave, then stood up and turned to me, holding my brother’s skull in his hand. The jawbone was protruding, and then I saw the teeth . . . I recognized the teeth. All that remained of his beautiful smile was right there, staring up at me in a twisted, grotesque grin.

“Oh no . . . oh, Damascene . . . oh, blessed Mary, Mother of God!” The earth rushed up at me, my head hit a stone, and then there was only blackness.

I hadn’t expected to faint, but when my mind at long last acknowledged my brother’s death, it felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the world. My relatives and neighbors revived me and lifted me to my feet, and we put Damascene’s remains into a coffin and took it with us to find Mom. This time they insisted that I not look at the body, saying it was too decomposed and would be too upsetting. I acquiesced because I’d reached the limit of my pain. No matter how much I steeled my heart, the sight of my mother like that would have been too much for my loving eyes to bear. I agreed to bury her remains without seeing them. Instead, I’d remember her as she’d been in life . . . as she would forever stay in my heart and in my dreams.

As someone pounded nails into the lid of my mother’s coffin, I looked at the faces of my friends and relatives—shattered faces reflecting shattered lives. There was my cousin, who’d been forced to watch her three boys slaughtered in front of her; my once-iron-willed Uncle Paul, who was now reduced to a shadow of his former self by the deaths of his beloved wife and seven children; and my aunts, whose husbands were dead and whose children were ill beyond recovery.

We all shared in the misery that had descended upon the village, but I knew that the people gathered around me had lost much more than I had. They’d lost their faith—and in doing so, they’d also lost hope. I stared at the coffins of my mother and Damascene and thought of my father and Vianney, whose bodies I would never recover . . . and I thanked God. I may have lost everything, but I’d kept my faith, and it made me strong. It also comforted me and let me know that life still held purpose.

“Where shall we put them? Where shall we bury them?” Uncle Paul asked, sobbing as he ran his hands along the crude pine caskets.

“Home,” I said. “We’ll take them home and lay them to rest.”

We carried the bodies of my mother and brother into the ruins of our home and dug a large grave in the center of one of the rooms where laughter and love had once echoed. There were no priests left in the village, so we performed the burial rites ourselves. We sang some of my mother’s favorite hymns and prayed many prayers. I asked God to hold my family close to Him and watch over their beautiful souls in heaven . . . and then I said good-bye.

“It’s time to go home, Sarah—time to go back to Kigali,” I whispered to my sweet friend, my adopted sister who had taken me in and given me a new family.

Soon we were in the clouds again, flying high above my village, high above the sorrows that had stained our lives . . . so high that I felt I could touch the face of God.

CHAPTER 24

Forgiving the Living

I
knew that my family was at peace, but that didn’t ease the pain of missing them. And I couldn’t shake the crippling sorrow that seized my heart whenever I envisioned how they’d been killed. Every night I prayed to be released from my private agony, from the nightmares that haunted my sleep and troubled my days. It took a while, but as always, God answered my prayers. This time, He did so by sending me a dream unlike any I’ve ever had.

I was in a helicopter flying over my family’s house, but I was trapped in a dark cloud. I could see Mom, Dad, Damascene, and Vianney high above me, standing in the sky and bathed in a warm, white light that radiated tranquility. The light intensified and spread across the sky until it engulfed the dark cloud hiding me. And suddenly, I was with my family again. The dream was so real that I reached out and felt the warmth of their skin, the gentleness of their touch. I was so happy that I danced in the air.

Damascene was wearing a crisp white shirt and blue trousers. He looked at me with a joyful glow and gave me his brilliant smile. My mother, father, and Vianney stood behind him, holding hands and beaming at me. “Hey, Immaculée, it’s good to see that we can still make you happy,” my beautiful brother said. “You’ve been gloomy far too long and must stop all this crying. Look at the wonderful place we’re in . . . can you see how happy we are? If you continue to believe that we’re suffering, you’ll force us to return to the pain we’ve left behind. I know how much you miss us, but do you really want us to come back and suffer?”

“No, no, Damascene!” I cried out, as tears of joy poured from my eyes. “Don’t come back here! Wait for me there, and I will come join you all. When God is done with me in this life, I will come to you.”

“We’ll be here waiting, dear sister. Now heal your heart. You must love, and you must forgive those who have trespassed against us.”

My family slowly receded into the sky until they disappeared into the heavens. I was still hovering over my house, but I was no longer in a dark cloud . . . and no longer in a helicopter. I was flying like a bird above my village, above the pastor’s house and the French camp, above all the forests and rivers and waterfalls of my beautiful country—I was soaring above Rwanda.

I felt so liberated from grief and gravity that I began to sing for joy. I sang from my heart, the words tumbling happily from my mouth. The song was “Mwami Shimirwa,” which in Kinyarwanda means “Thank You, God, for love that is beyond our understanding.”

My singing woke the entire house, since it was the middle of the night. Sarah’s mom came running into my room, worried that I’d fallen ill and was delirious with fever.

From that night onward, my tears began to dry and my pain eased. I never again agonized over the fate of my family. I accepted that I would always mourn and miss them, but I’d never spend another moment worrying about the misery they’d endured. By sending me that dream, God had shown me that my family was in a place beyond suffering.

He’d also shown me that I had to make another trip to my village.

A FEW WEEKS LATER COLONEL GUEYE GAVE ME ANOTHER lift home, but this time we drove cross-country. The landscape of my youth no longer saddened me; rather, I was heartened by the warm memories stirred by the sights and sounds around me. I wandered with friends through my mother’s banana plantation and my father’s mountainside coffee crops. I told my aunts that if they weren’t afraid of going outside, they could harvest the crops to support themselves.

Aunt Jeanne told me not to worry about her being afraid: She was getting a gun and would learn how to shoot. “Next time I’ll be ready,” she said.

Next time,
I thought with a heavy sigh.

I went to my old house to visit my mom and Damascene. I knelt by their graves and told them all that had happened since I’d last seen them. I told them about my job at the UN and what I planned to do in the future. I missed seeing their faces and hearing their voices, and I wept. But this time, my tears were a release, not a sorrow.

And then it was time to do what I’d come to do.

I ARRIVED AT THE PRISON LATE IN THE AFTERNOON and was greeted by Semana, the new burgomaster of Kibuye. Semana had been a teacher before the genocide, as well as a colleague and good friend of my dad’s—he was like an uncle to me. Four of his six children had been killed in the slaughter, and I told him he must have faith that his little ones were with God.

“I can see how much the world has changed; the children now comfort the parents,” he replied sadly.

As burgomaster, Semana was a powerful politician in charge of arresting and detaining the killers who had terrorized our area. He’d interrogated hundreds of Interahamwe and knew better than anyone which killers had murdered whom.

And he knew why I’d come to see him. “Do you want to meet the leader of the gang that killed your mother and Damascene?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

I watched through Semana’s office window as he crossed a courtyard to the prison cell and then returned, shoving a disheveled, limping old man in front of him. I jumped up with a start as they approached, recognizing the man instantly. His name was Felicien, and he was a successful Hutu businessman whose children I’d played with in primary school. He’d been a tall, handsome man who always wore expensive suits and had impeccable manners. I shivered, remembering that it had been his voice I’d heard calling out my name when the killers searched for me at the pastor’s. Felicien had hunted me.

Semana pushed Felicien into the office, and he stumbled onto his knees. When he looked up from the floor and saw that I was the one who was waiting for him, the color drained from his face. He quickly shifted his gaze and stared at the floor.

“Stand up, killer!” Semana shouted. “Stand up and explain to this girl why her family is dead. Explain to her why you murdered her mother and butchered her brother. Get up, I said! Get up and tell her!” Semana screamed even louder, but the battered man remained hunched and kneeling, too embarrassed to stand and face me.

His dirty clothing hung from his emaciated frame in tatters. His skin was sallow, bruised, and broken; and his eyes were filmed and crusted. His once handsome face was hidden beneath a filthy, matted beard; and his bare feet were covered in open, running sores.

I wept at the sight of his suffering. Felicien had let the devil enter his heart, and the evil had ruined his life like a cancer in his soul. He was now the victim of his victims, destined to live in torment and regret. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man.

“He looted your parents’ home and robbed your family’s plantation, Immaculée. We found your dad’s farm machinery at his house, didn’t we?” Semana yelled at Felicien. “After he killed Rose and Damascene, he kept looking for you . . . he wanted you dead so he could take over your property. Didn’t you, pig?” Semana shouted again.

I flinched, letting out an involuntary gasp. Semana looked at me, stunned by my reaction and confused by the tears streaming down my face. He grabbed Felicien by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. “What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculée?”

Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I’d come to say.

“I forgive you.”

My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien’s shoulders before Semana pushed him out the door and into the courtyard. Two soldiers yanked Felicien up by his armpits and dragged him back toward his cell. When Semana returned, he was furious.

“What was that all about, Immaculée? That was the man who murdered your family. I brought him to you to question . . . to spit on if you wanted to. But you forgave him! How could you do that? Why did you forgive him?”