Tombstones and Banana Trees (9 page)

BOOK: Tombstones and Banana Trees
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After we had finished speaking they sang a song, “Tukutendereza Yesu.” It was an old revival song that I am sure Mugyenzi would have known. I still sing it today:

Glory, glory to my Savior,

Glory, glory to the Lamb.

Oh! His precious blood has saved me,

Glory, glory to the Lamb.

I felt so confident, so good. To know that things were put right, that
I
had been put right—it was a dizzying, beautiful feeling. To sit among people who were kind and warm and full of love, and to hear them sing because of what we had just told them, to feel them hold us, to hear their prayers. It was as if I had been born into a different world.

Over the next three years, my five sisters became followers of Jesus. Our house transformed from a place of sorrow and witchcraft to a home cell, a church where day after day people would meet to pray. We went from being the cautionary tale of the surrounding area to being a light that shone bright with the love and healing power of Jesus. I praise God for that transforming power and still marvel at it today.

Forgiveness holds power that, I believe, we have barely begun to understand. The change in my life—as well as my mother's and sisters' lives—was dramatic and astounding, and it all came from God's forgiveness, from the cross, from the empty tomb, from the realization of sin and the desire to surrender to God. We can spend so much time and money talking and reading about the key to transformation—a diet, a makeover, a series of simple steps to turn life around—yet in truth it is found in the most famous death in all history. And while it is open and accessible to us all, none of us can fathom the mystery it contains.

That much was clear in the weeks and years to come. But there was more to be done right then. As well as confessing all to my mother and repeating the same with the preacher and Deborah, I knew I needed to present myself to each of the nineteen people I had intended to kill. It took me more than three years to see all of them. I began during the two weeks I was at home, visiting five people.

The first was one of my relatives. He lived close to our home, and within one or two days of my returning home, the lay preacher as well as others—including my mother—led me to his home. They spoke first.

“You must have heard the news about this boy.”

Everyone had heard about me. I was the first teenager in the village to become a born-again Christian, and that was news in itself. This was the sort of thing reserved for uneducated people who never left the village. Even though I had been poor, the fact that I had managed to get to high school put me in a slightly different social grouping. I was not supposed to “find God” and change my life. I was supposed to complete school and feel superior to the uneducated masses.

I did not feel superior as I stood in front of my relative and his wife, looking at the dirt on the floor of their compound, wondering how this was going to be anything other than a disaster. It had been many years since I had been to this home, and my absence was the clearest sign that there was great hatred between us.

We stood, but he sat. His breathing was heavy, his eyes fixed on me. If my presence alone was enough to ignite his anger like this, what would happen when I started to confess my desire to put a bullet through his heart?

Deborah explained why we were here. She said that I wanted to put things right between us, to repair the damage that had been done. To do that, I had some things to say.

This was my cue to speak. What do you say to a man you wanted to kill? How do you start? I was mute for some seconds, unable to find even the first word. I looked at his wife, and his children, too, who were sitting quietly by the wall. How would they react to what I was about to say? His breathing was even sharper now, his eyes fueled by even more anger. What was he angry about? Did he know already what I was about to say? Was there some part of all of this that I was missing?

Eventually I spoke. I started with what I knew to be true.

“I want to tell you that yesterday I gave my life to Jesus Christ. One of the things that Jesus did in my life was to forgive me. I was angry and bitter about what happened to my sister, and Jesus forgave me. I was angry with you. People told me you were one of the ringleaders in that plot to kill her.”

It was as if a switch had been flipped. His sharp breathing was no longer audible, and his eyes were pulled down from my own to the floor. I had accused him of a crime, and his reaction told me that I was right. Years—even days before—I would have rejoiced in this moment. The way I had planned it was similar: I would be standing; he would be seated. I would accuse him, and he would be flooded with guilt and shock. Then I would line up my gun, fire, and leave.

But that was before the choir and the bus and Mugyenzi and the flood of forgiveness from Jesus. Instead of basking in feelings of revenge, I knew I needed to submit to him. To this killer.

I spoke again.

“I had registered in the army so that I could kill you. But Jesus Christ arrested me, and I forgave you. I have come to tell you that I forgive you, and I have come to ask you to forgive me for being angry and bitter with you. I have never been here in your home since Peninah's death. I saw you as an enemy. I want to be your friend and relative again.”

He was silent. Then, faint at first but growing stronger with every snatched breath, the weeping began. I do not know from whom it started, but it spread like a stream overwhelming a child's dam. It soaked into all of us there, him included.

Next to me was my mother, who was weeping more than the others. Perhaps she was remembering all the pain from the past. Incidents that I held in only a child's snatched recollection were far clearer for her, and the terror that must have propelled her out from Rwanda—the slaughter of her family by men with machetes held high—was just a fable to me. She had more pain than I had. Little wonder that her tears were heavier.

Within thirty minutes of our arriving at his house we had left. After I had confessed and asked for his forgiveness—and as the weeping was replaced with singing by some—his wife disappeared into the house and brought out some tea to drink and peanuts to eat. The significance of this act was enormous. It did not lie in the food or drink itself but in the act of hospitality. He did not say that he forgave me, but his wife's actions made a far bigger impression. I know that from the look of shock on his face as soon as she emerged with the heavy tray loaded with these symbols of unity.

Somebody prayed after we drank and ate, and then we left. That was all there was to it. It did not feel revolutionary, but I did know as I walked back to our home that I felt better. God had been with us, and the power of death was weaker. I had no idea that tea and peanuts held so much power.

Chapter Nine

Jesus Wept

It is only when you wake that you realize that what you considered to be normal within your dream was in fact quite unlike anything else in life. So it was with my first confession to one of my former targets: It was only as I walked away that I realized quite how terrified I had been. Eating together had been a practical act of restoration between us, and it was something we had not done for over five years. It meant they finally accepted us. This was wonderful, though I was still terrified.

The fear did not disappear quickly. It was there on Sunday as well, when I stood up at the front of the congregation at Kakiri-Kakiri Church of Uganda. This was the same church where I had hidden from the jigger hunters, the place where my faith had received its first morsels of nourishment and where my academic ability had been called out of its slumber. And here I was, standing in front of all these people who knew me, about to make myself vulnerable as a young man who had become a breeding ground for hatred, violence, immorality, and murder.

I decided not to mention any of the names of people I had wanted to kill but told the congregation about how Jesus had arrested me and breathed new life into me. I finished by saying, “Anyone here who I have had conflict with, I want you to know that I forgive you unconditionally. And I ask that you forgive me, too.”

My stomach knotted as I stood and looked out at the people. Some were sitting on low benches; others were standing or leaning against the mud walls. Yet the nervous feeling I had then was nothing compared with what I felt about the next confession I would have to make. As I left the church I knew whom I must speak with. I might not have liked the idea, but I knew it was the next step to take on this journey.

In fact the man I visited next had no involvement in Peninah's murder. Our history was long, and I had wanted him dead for one hundred different reasons, all stored up within me over years of hatred and contempt. And then there had been an incident with a goat. Some years before—around the time when I was raging and drinking and fighting my internal civil war throughout the year after Peninah's death—I had killed his goat, albeit not intentionally. I had thrown a stone at it, and it had died. He was a bad man with a reputation for violence, and so at the time I had denied any involvement with the goat, and the police had arrested and beaten someone else as a result. But I think he always knew I was guilty.

God had reminded me of this incident and told me I needed to confess. I had avoided this man's house for years—as I had avoided other houses as well. There had been an enmity between our families that was toxic, and so it was important for me to go and sort this out.

I felt God say that this was something I should do alone, so I did. The man was drunk when I arrived at his home. I think this only increased his sense of surprise when he looked up and saw me. Sitting around the fire with him were his wife and his mother, and all three of them remained silent as I approached.

By now this was the fifth time I was going to tell my story, but I felt lost for words. I was stuck again. How should I start? I was not anticipating him being drunk, although on reflection there was nothing surprising about it. But it increased the fear. He was not a big man, but his yellowed eyes could flash with violence at the slightest provocation. I had seen him beat his children mercilessly, and within his reach were any number of weapons—a long stick, a machete, a log in the fire. Would he use any of these on me?

“My son,” said his mother. She was old. Time and harsh conditions had not favored her beauty, but her words were the most beautiful you can ever hear: “I hear you have accepted Jesus as your Savior.”

From that I told them everything. I told them about the way I had behaved, about the man I was becoming, and then about the choir and realization that without Jesus—and without forgiveness—I would be finished. And I told them about the goat. I told them I did not mean to do it, but it was I who had killed it. I told them that I thought about it every time I saw goats and that I was sorry and ready to pay any consequences.

The man looked at the fire. What was going on? Would he pull that stick out from his side and beat me? Would he tell me I would have to pay? Would he exact revenge in some other way?

It must have taken five minutes for the silence to be broken. It was his mother who broke it, singing a song about the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment: “Faith has made you well. Do not fear.”

The man spoke up. “I knew you were the one who killed this goat. I knew it was you. And I was so angry.”

He allowed the silence to return. He said nothing again, but this time there was no singing to fill the gaps. I could do nothing but wait.

Eventually he continued. “After five years that anger has died down. If God has forgiven you, who am I not to do the same?”

He was not a Christian at all, and he never even went along to church. To hear him talk of God with respect was surprising, but that feeling only increased as he confessed to me that he had also done things wrong. “Many things,” he said. “Worse than killing a goat. Pray for us that we might be forgiven.” So I did.

After a short prayer it was time to go. It was getting late, and it was already dark. The fire provided enough light for us in the compound, but beyond the fence it was going to be hard to see. I stood up to go.

“You cannot go alone,” he said. “Let me escort you.”

What could I say? I had no option other than to agree, and as soon as we left the compound it was clear he wanted me to walk in front while he followed behind. The path that wound across the valley was narrow, cut into the forest with just enough room for only one person to walk along at any time. These were the routes along which people carried their water or their matoke, arteries that were designed for commerce, not community.

He did not keep much distance between us. I could not feel him behind me, but I knew he was only one or two paces back. With every step I was convinced he was going to hit me, and my mind flooded with memories of the stories people told about this man—how his rage was such that he had even killed his own stepfather. My neck was exposed, and I feared that somewhere along the way he would reach into the darkness and pull out some weapon or other hidden for such a time as this. For two miles we walked in total silence. I had never felt such fear.

Eventually we both reached my home. When I knocked on the door, my mother opened up to see me and my companion standing just off behind me to the side.

She was shocked.

The man spoke up. “We have sorted ourselves out. You and my wife need to sort things out. And my mother.”

And that was it. My mother agreed, and he disappeared. I was sighing with the sweetest relief at his first words—“We have sorted ourselves out”—and I knew he would not harm me now. Later my mother went and made her peace, and over the years the man and I developed a good friendship. I helped his daughter when she got married, and his son helped me build a home. Years later I helped lead his mother to Christ.

I saw others in those first two weeks as well. Gradually it did begin to get a little easier to start the confessions, but as my confidence grew so did the sense that there was one confession that stood out above all the others. This one had the very real potential to change everything in my life for the worse. Yet I knew that, after two weeks at home, it was time to go back to school.

I decided that as I returned to school I would have to take with me everything I had stolen from it. I had dinner plates, textbooks, clothes from other students. There was even a sickle that I had stolen from the headmaster's garden one day while I was working there. I had denied it so vehemently at the time, but now I was about to present him with overwhelming evidence that I had tricked him and treated him like a fool ever since I had arrived there.

All the headmaster knew was that I had run away two weeks ago. My return itself would be an issue, and I made straight for his office when I arrived. On his desk I placed the three boxes with the stolen items spilling out of them.

I told him what had happened—about the bus trip, the conversion, and the changes that were starting. This was easy. What followed next was not. I confessed to my part in the riot, to my drinking, my womanizing, my stealing, my lying, my violence, my hatred, my treating him like a fool. As I spoke he looked through the items on his desk: spoons, cups, plates. He saw the sickle and looked up at me. He did the same when he saw one of his son's footballs that had gone missing from the garden—both things I had denied all knowledge of in the past.

“Are you aware that if a thief is caught they are expelled?”

“Yes.”

“Then go to the dormitory, and I will meet with the governors. Wait there until I send for you.”

I walked down the hill to my dormitory. It had been just two weeks since I had left there, but I was immediately struck by how alien it felt. My mattress held the low, unrelenting smell of stale urine and vomit. How could I have lived like this? How could I have considered this any sort of life worth pursuing? I was alone in the dormitory—a room with one small window and eight other mattresses on the floor. So many times I had come in here looking to fight, only to end up collapsed and incontinent on my heap of old straw in the corner. I had been an animal. I wanted nothing more to do with that life, and if the governors decided that my crimes should be given even a fraction of the punishments they deserved, I would never be able to return.
This might well be the last time I lie here,
I thought.

What would I do? I had hoped that education might be my way out, that it might lead me into the army and then into the shoes of a killer. But now that I had been born again, I saw that education need not necessarily lead me to kill. If I could complete school, then I might be able to teach or become a minister. I might be able to do more for God and others. I might be able to do more than I had ever hoped. But that sort of talk was pointless. I was sure I was going to be expelled. I deserved nothing less.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by the sound of the school drum. It was only ever beaten if there was an emergency or if the headmaster desperately wanted everyone to gather. There was always danger in the air when the drum was beaten; either someone was going, some big man from the government was on his way, or something else was wrong. I am not sure I thought it was anything to do with me when the rhythm started up.

The school compound was set up so that there was an area where we could all gather in front of the school offices. There was a platform upon which the headmaster and visitors would stand and in front of which we could gather. The school site was set on the side of a hill, and the land had been terraced all the way down to make the best use of it. Down beneath the top level with the offices and meeting area were the classrooms. One more terrace down was the library, then below that the dormitories. As I climbed up, running up the hill with students pouring out of classrooms, I became lost in the crowd. As I approached the top I could see the platform; on it were all the boxes I had left in the headmaster's office.

We had a motto in school and it came into my mind at that point, blocking out all other thoughts:
The suspected thief is killed
. I knew it was over for me. All the violence I had handed out was about to come back to me.

The headmaster waited for the students to assemble, and then he spoke. He looked directly at me.

“Zinomuhangi, come here.”

It was the name my father had given me, the one that meant “they have a creator.” I would have preferred it if he had called me by the other name my father had given me—Barisigara (“the one who will stay”), but that was hoping for too much from the man whose trust and kindness I had treated with such contempt.

“We have called you because we have a very urgent matter. We have arrested a thief who has been stealing from all of us. Open these boxes, Zinomuhangi.”

The rest of the school had no idea that I was the accused; they just thought I was helping. I carefully laid out every item on the platform. With each piece I handled I saw the evidence against me mounting. I knew my guilt already, but as each item passed from box to hand to platform, I was reminded again of my sins. Why had I stolen so much? Why had I been so greedy, so wrong? Why had I lived like this?

The rest of the boys started whistling. They started calling out, “Where is the bird? Where is the bird?” It was the word we always used to describe a thief, and they shouted nonstop …
a bird, a bird, a bird.

They could not be stopped.

The only thing I had on my side was the gang. They were all there. Perhaps they would help me. But what could they do? They knew nothing other than the violence I had embraced so fully before all of this.

Once all the items were on the platform, the headmaster looked at me. He said nothing. The shouts from the crowd died down as they, too, followed his gaze. It was my turn to speak.

I told them everything. I did not start with the events of two weeks before but went all the way back to my childhood. I told them about my father, about the abuse at the hands of my sister, about my uncle and the machete and the humiliations in front of the whole village. I told them about Peninah and wanting to kill myself and about the waterfall and Aidah Mary. I told them about the list, the gang, and the army. And I told them about the items I had taken out of the box—how I had stolen them all. I stood there in front of eight hundred students and told them everything. I declared that I was leaving the gang as of that moment. I denounced fighting, drinking, and treating girls so badly.

My words built up to a crescendo as I was my own prosecution. This was not a debate but a trial—a trial without defense. I had no defense; I had nothing to say to try to play down the pain I had caused or the wrong I had done. I exhaled my final words.

BOOK: Tombstones and Banana Trees
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