Running the Rift (11 page)

“But I've never raced against them. How do they know about me?”

In the waning light, Coach followed their movements. “News of someone like you travels quickly. Trust me—they know.”

T
HE FIRST RUNNERS
Jean Patrick saw in the morning were the Kigali boys. He sat on the bench to watch them warm up while he put on his shoes. His toes pressed against the tops, and he loosened the laces to make a little more room. Crooked Nose tapped his friend's shoulder and pointed in Jean Patrick's direction. Jean Patrick waved, and the boys laughed and turned away.

“Jean Patrick?” The voice behind him made him jump. “It's nice to finally meet you. We've heard a lot of talk.” The Burundi runners held out their hands in greeting. It was the taller boy who spoke. “I'm Gilbert.” Sweat glistened on his nearly bald head.

“And I'm Ndizeye. Come warm up with us.”

Jean Patrick settled into a comfortable jog between them, resisting the urge to test the boys by pushing the pace. They chatted about this and that, and Jean Patrick was surprised to learn how running was encouraged in Burundi—unlike in Rwanda, where you had to fight for every little scrap of recognition. For a moment he imagined leaving his life behind to start fresh in that country. He knew many Tutsi did.

When Jean Patrick returned to the bench, Coach was pacing. “Did you forget what I told you? You just gave away your advantage.” Jean Patrick retied his shoes with singular concentration. “I want you this far from them in the prelims and semis—no more, no less.” Coach held his hands shoulder wide in front of Jean Patrick's face. “Do you hear?”

“What about the Kigali boys?”

“Can you listen for once? The Kigali boys are not worth worrying about.”

Jean Patrick followed Gilbert and Ndizeye with his eyes. Caught in the sun's dazzle, they looked like two swimmers gliding in the lake. “What if they're not near me?”

“Don't vex. They'll be there.”

N
ONE OF THE
Kigali boys were in Jean Patrick's heat for the semi. As the Burundi runners rounded the first turn and came out of their
lanes, they closed at his heels; Coach had been right about that. By the back straight, only the three of them remained in the lead pack.

Jean Patrick had been too wound up to eat, and the trip had left his muscles stiff and cramped. In the prelims, he felt unbalanced—feet slapping, timing slightly off—but now that he ran with Gilbert and Ndizeye, his legs cranked like a perfectly turning gear. They passed the start line together and headed for the final lap, Jean Patrick slowly increasing his lead. The Burundi runners melted into a single shadow behind him. His last acceleration went unanswered.

“I can beat those guys,” Jean Patrick said, sitting down on the bench. “Did you see my last kick? I felt great, like I wasn't even working.” His foot drummed a war beat. “And I ran a personal best by—how much?”

“Half a second.” Coach handed him a bottle of water, his face set in his usual mask. “In the final, I want
you
behind
them.
Breathe down their necks. Make them lose stride. Don't pass before the last two meters. Then turn it loose.” He flashed his smirk-smile. “If you are able.”

“Eh? Coach, I can break them. Let me run free.”

“You're not understanding me. This time, do as I say.” He rubbed out Jean Patrick's calf. “There is more at stake here than you can know.” From Coach's expression, Jean Patrick understood he was not to ask any further questions.

J
EAN
P
ATRICK HAD
lane five for the final, the Burundi runners on either side. Crooked Nose and one other Kigali boy remained, staggered to the outside. Jean Patrick's nervous energy boiled over, and he false-started, committing to motion before the sound of the blocks. Crooked Nose jeered. Taking a deep breath, Jean Patrick walked in a circle, shook out his legs, resumed the set position: body cocked, weight balanced. The starter banged the blocks, and he drove off the line. By the time he rose to his full, upright stride, Gilbert and Ndizeye were halfway through the turn. He sprinted furiously to catch them, but his step was too short or too long or too choppy—he couldn't tell which. He was used to people at his back, not the other way around. His Nikes squeezed his feet until all he felt was the pulse inside his toes.

The pack too far behind to help, Jean Patrick ran alone. He watched
for a labored breath, a missed step. The two Burundi flags floated calm and steady, farther away with every footfall. He dug as deep as he could and then deeper. Four hundred meters to go. From somewhere, he found the strength to keep them in sight. Black dots danced in front of his eyes. The ground lurched beneath him. For an instant he thought he would pass out, but hope kept him surging forward. Never before had he experienced so much suffering. But by infinitesimal gains, he began to reel the Burundians back in.

Coming out of the final turn, he could almost touch the flags. Once more, the thought of victory floated into view. Then the Burundi boys kicked, and he had nothing left to answer. Utterly spent, he leaned across the finish line. He barely had the strength to shake Gilbert and Ndizeye's hands. The crowd roared, but he didn't pay attention. He only wanted to sit down and take off his Nikes, now soaked with blood, and release his toes from prison.

“S
O
G
ILBERT AND
Ndizeye are on Burundi's Olympic team, and until now you don't tell me?” Jean Patrick stood with Coach at the Karibu Café in front of a buffet of endless choices. For the first time since leaving Cyangugu, Jean Patrick felt hungry. He scooped peas and rice, fried plantains, chicken and goat brochettes, onto his plate.

“Some things are better left to surprise.”

“Those guys were a surprise all right.”

“They've been at this game a little longer than you have.” Coach maneuvered to a table by the window and signaled a waiter for drinks. “How is your brother Roger doing? Long time, no news. Does he still play football?”

The unexpected question sent a flutter through Jean Patrick's heart. He tried to center himself, calm the chatter in his mind, so he wouldn't give anything away. “He's in Kenya, working hard. He plays for a club there, but I don't think he has much free time.”

Coach tore the last piece of goat from his brochette and pointed the skewer at Jean Patrick. Jean Patrick started. “You didn't hear your time, did you? You ran off to sulk before I could catch you.”

“I don't need numbers to know how badly I did.” The waiter glided to
the table, opened their drinks, and poured. Jean Patrick watched the foam rise to the top of his Coke. His Olympic dream had burst as easily as these bubbles. That much he realized.

Coach took the watch from his pocket and placed it on the table. Jean Patrick peered at it. He picked it up, shook it, put it down again. “It's broken.”

“What's wrong? Don't like what you see?”

“Something happened. It says one forty-five ninety-seven.” Jean Patrick shook the watch again. “I guess my time's gone. Lucky for me.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it. That's your time—I promise.”

Jean Patrick dropped the watch as if it had shocked him. “Mana yanjye! That's under the A-standard time, isn't it? Does that mean what I think it means?” He barely took in breath, the commotion of the restaurant a blur. Slowly the implication sank in.

“Congratulations. Yes—you ran a qualifying time for the Olympics.”

Jean Patrick touched the watch's face as if it were a talisman. “Still, I let two guys beat me. I came in third.” He sipped his Coke, savoring the cool, bubbly slide down his throat. He felt a buzz, as if he were drinking beer. Next time, he promised himself, he would do whatever it took to come in first.

T
HE HIGH LASTED
all the way out of Kigali. Now past its zenith, the sun turned the Nyabarongo River to slate. Coach braked for a checkpoint and held out his hand for Jean Patrick's papers. His eyes slid over Jean Patrick's body. “Relax.” The line of cars slowed to a crawl. Coach drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. A thick and airless heat descended, fueled by the sun's glare through the windshield. Jean Patrick fanned himself.

At the checkpoint, a family stood nervously beside a cart of produce. The man carried a herder's staff and wore the traditional felt hat of the Tutsi cowherd. The woman carried a baby at her back, only its small, wooly head visible above the brightly patterned cloth. The smaller children scurried after a bleating kid, and a soldier shouted at them. The children cried.

“Why do they have to treat them like that?”

Coach snapped his head around. Jean Patrick wished he could grab the question back and swallow it. “They could have weapons under their vegetables. They could be Inkotanyi.”

Jean Patrick was surprised to hear Coach use this term of respect. Inkotanyi was how the RPF referred to themselves, Roger had explained, the name given to the mwami's warriors.

There was an explosion in the distance—truck tire, mortar round, who knew?—and the man started, overturning his wobbly cart. Tomatoes, cabbages, and onions scattered. Jean Patrick felt the cowherd's shame on his own head. He could have grabbed the soldiers and shaken them. “Coach, I don't think they can be RPF. The mama has a baby on her back.”

“You don't understand these things. These Inkotanyi—they'll strap grenades to a baby.”

Jean Patrick thought of Roger picking up Zachary, holding Baby Pauline to his face and kissing her. Hand grenades on a baby! He didn't know if he would laugh or cry. The soldiers returned the family's papers and whisked them through. The farmer bent forward as if to kiss the soldier's hand.

Coach turned the blade of his smile on Jean Patrick. “It's like football. The game goes much easier when you play for the right team.” The car crept forward. The family scrambled to collect the last of their vegetables. The baby wailed, and a little girl reached inside the bundle to comfort it. Coach flicked his hand as if swatting at a fly. “What can you accomplish when your life is reduced to that?”

Slowly, methodically, Jean Patrick smoothed the fabric of his track pants.
That,
he thought, is who
I
am. The soldier inspected their documents and waved them through, tipping his cap to Coach. As he forced air into his lungs, Jean Patrick wondered if this sharp edge of fear could ever be blunted. He wondered what it would feel like to play for the right team.

“Y
OU HAVE A
strong spirit,” Coach said when the soldiers had vanished into the haze behind them. “How are your feet?”

“I'll have to pop the blisters again.”

“Do you need new shoes? You've earned them. Why didn't you say something?”

Jean Patrick shrugged. It had never occurred to him that new Nikes could be his just for the asking.

“I've talked to the burgomaster. An Olympic runner would be quite a feather in his cap. Tell me—how would you like to be one of the chosen?”

It was as if a book written in strange symbols had become suddenly clear—the photo before they left Gihundwe, the pointed questions and comments: Coach was offering him a Hutu card. He could barely take it in. “But everyone knows I'm Tutsi.”

Coach waved the words away. “It's not so difficult to invent a male Hutu relative somewhere in the past. Do you think it hasn't been done before?” Jean Patrick had heard the stories. “I've accepted a position at National University. No one else in Rwanda can train you to reach your potential, so I want you to follow me there after you graduate. You'll come to train with me on weekends next year, too. A Hutu card would grease all the wheels.”

“I'm going to the Olympics; isn't that enough?”

“Not so fast,” Coach said. “You have to run an A-standard time on a sanctioned track with an approved timing system between January 'ninety-five and the games. And you have to make it past the National Olympic Committee, the sanctioning body of Rwanda. If they choose, they can bypass a Tutsi with an A time to pick one Hutu runner with a B time.”

Jean Patrick sank back against the seat. He had assumed all he had to do was run fast, and he would get to the Olympics.
We can never forget we're Tutsi,
his mother had said. They were climbing again, papyrus and umunyeganyege giving way to pine and eucalyptus. Coach honked at a group of children pulling a calf up the road, and they scurried out of the way. Clouds sailed across Bugesera, the hills stained with shadow. Whirlwinds of dust swirled in the valley. A truckload of boisterous soldiers passed them. Crowded together in the bed, they shouted and sang, rifles raised high.

Coach smiled. “Their team must have won.” For a moment his eyes followed the men. Then he turned to Jean Patrick. “Someday a Hutu card could be even more important than the Olympics.” His smile had disappeared.

Jean Patrick watched an ocher funnel swallow the children and their
calf. The dust had an almost human smell, like sweat and earth fermenting in folds of skin. There was something else, too—a suggestion of iron and rust, like the scent of dried blood that remained as a war wound on Jean Patrick's Nikes.

T
HE DORMITORY WAS
still dark, heavy with the sounds of sleep, when Jean Patrick awoke. He rose quietly and slipped on his new shorts. Mathilde had made them for National Championships, and he hadn't had the heart to tell her he couldn't wear them at an official meet. His muscles felt weak and wobbly, but he had too much shouting in his head. He needed motion to sort things out.

Daniel stirred. “Where are you going, superstar? I heard Coach say to take the day off.”

“My legs hurt if I don't run.” The sky grew light beyond the window. Birds filled the dawn with shrieks and whistles.

“I'll come with you, then, make sure you don't go at some crazy pace.”