ADALBERT: I often have the same dream: I see the fields, the eucalyptus along the roads, the banana trees in front of my house. I dream longingly of green plantations I have not seen again since the genocide. I dream of my home in Kibungo, of the forests, the banana groves, and the river there, and the coolness in the shade, without anyone to crowd or aggravate me.
But as to daydreams or persistent memories, what comes to mind are only those from the first days, when it was still new for me to kill Tutsis. The other memories, the daily expeditions that followed, have been worn away by habit.
FULGENCE: You do not forget anything that happened during the killings. The details are truly there when you want to dip into them. Still, certain colleagues tend to remember the grim and unfortunate moments, while others recall the good times, like the comfort and abundance. Me, I don’t rid myself of the serious memories; I regret misjudging events and I regret the people who were killed. I thought wrong, I went wrong, I did wrong. An evil is spoiling my life, and my days are steeped in misery.
Those dead people and those acts of killing do not invade my dreams, however; in any case, they leave me with no horrible images when I wake up. Night is never a scolding thing, except when I wake in darkness. I can feel shivery then. I don’t know why—whether it is from the pain of a bad bed or the idea of my prison future.
IGNACE: I think time will allow me to leave the difficult memories behind in Rilima, when I get to leave. I will fold the bad thoughts up inside the prison uniform. I think I will go home with my memory in fine shape, to pick up life again in good spirits.
But the memory of the mine shaft where the Tutsis were smoked alive, that one will never leave me. I can feel it well hidden behind my mind. It will eat at me on the hill. And that is a big thing. It is going to stalk me with no warning, since I live not far from the mines.
I had not foreseen that this memory would work at me so viciously. I believe it is because of the smell of the burns—I believe it is unnatural for men to kill men with fire.
ALPHONSE: In my dreams I revisit scenes of bloody hunting and looting. Sometimes, though, it is actually me who gets the machete blow and wakes up shaking. He wants to cut me and bleed me out. I try to see who is striking me, but my fear hides the face of the man who wishes me harm. I do not know if he is Hutu or Tutsi, a neighbor or an inkotanyi. I would like to know if he is a victim, to ask pardon of his family and hope for peace of mind that way, but the sleeping man refuses.
My wife said that I would have a drunkard’s regrets, that I drank so much and killed so much that I would never know either who or how many they were. Me, it is first of all that man I would like to know about. He’s the one to whom I must propose an offer of peace.
That dream torments me—but not often. On the contrary, it’s mostly this wretched prison life that cuts into my sleep.
I believe we are all the same at night. Our own misfortunes take over our nightmares more easily than the misfortunes of others. Our sufferings as prisoners push other people’s hardships out
of the way, both day and night, I see no mystery in that. I think my sleep will recover a normal restfulness when I regain my liberty and the life I used to have.
JEAN-BAPTISTE: I often dream I am walking in freedom on the road to Ntarama. I go along, among the familiar trees. I feel refreshed and at ease, and I am content. I wake up full of nostalgia on my pallet.
Other nights dreaming tips into calamity. I see again the people I killed with my own hand. When that happens, every awful detail of blood and terror comes back: the mud, the heat of the chase, the colleagues … Only the cries are missing. These are silent killings, which seem slow but are as dreadful as before. My dreams in prison are of various kinds, sometimes somber, sometimes calm; perhaps they flow from the various situations of my life here, whether I am sick or in good health. Who can tell if they will change when I get out? My hope is they’ll forget about me.
All the prisoners live unhappily since the genocide. Many complain about their fate, but not to the point of turning to a deadly remedy. I know of no one driven by remorse or nightmares to extreme measures. I know of no case of suicide in prison during my seven years here. There are a dozen cases of people eating filth, tearing their clothes, writhing on the ground, or screaming in waking dreams—but raving enough to take their own lives, never.
PIO: Night sometimes takes me back to the soccer field, where nostalgia is waiting for me. I dream I am meeting other players on the team, those who are dead and those who are scattered. I played with the number nine on my back—I was a striker, with a lot of speed and a hard shot. When I wake up, I still think for a
moment that the game will go on … After I leave prison, I hope we’ll get soccer going again among those who are still alive, to draw closer together. The rest of my dreams slide easily from memory, and they no longer bother me.
Memories are more wrenching than dreams. In Rilima, there are some who pretend not to remember anything because they fear punishment—here below or up above. They relate details of life after or even before the killings, but never during, or they just mention things of no account.
They cheat, they cheat with themselves trying to win that game. They are playacting a kind of madness. They forget their misfortunes and find it convenient to fool themselves that way. But I’ve met no one sincerely crazy enough to have truly forgotten that he killed.
In the Tutsi camp it must be quite different. I do not know about their situation, but I think this madness might well exist in those who escaped the killings. Those who shared life with a number of the dead … I mean those who watched numerous raids while awaiting their turns, who expected to fall bathed in blood into the last darkness—their reason might crumble. Insanity comes more from experiencing evil, and the suffering it brings, than from inflicting them.
I don’t forget the terrible things I did. I do forget names, days, situations; I try to forget painful moments so as to hold on to peaceful ones. But there’s no hope of success in the long run, regarding the hunts in the marshes … I have a feeling that remorse is determined not to assuage my memory.
JOSEPH-DÉSIRÉ: I don’t dream about anything in particular, not the massacres, not the camps in Congo. I mean, none of my dreams ever get repeated. Sleep leaves hardly any room for visiting my past.
My death sentence—I think about that every day, of course. The subject comes up daily among us, since all the condemned prisoners are crowded into the same block. In spite of everything, the sentence never jumps out at me in dreams, though, and neither does fear, which lies in wait for me only when I wake up.
My sleep and those who visit it have hardly changed in Rilima. I still dream of unknown things, of things I can imagine without going near them, such as things I want. For example, after your visits, perhaps I will dream I am traveling to France, to Paris, where I have never been.
PANCRACE: In prison, malaria and cholera have taken a heavy toll. Fear of vengeance has killed. The miserable life here and the fights have killed, but regrets—never. Life proves too vigorous against regrets and the like.
Someone who killed too much in the marshes tends to abandon his bloodstained memories among the corpses he left behind. He wants only to remember the little he did in the marshes that everyone saw and that he cannot deny without being called a liar. He hides the rest. He mislays remorse that is too damaging. His memory serves his own interest, it zigzags to guide him through the risks of punishment.
CLÉMENTINE: “Me, I see that the survivors and the killers do not remember the same way at all.
“If the killers agree to speak up, they are able to tell the truth in every detail about what they did. They have kept a more normal memory of what happened on their hill. Their memory doesn’t bump up against anything they’ve lived, it doesn’t feel overwhelmed by horrible events. It is never mired in confusion. The killers keep their memories in clear water. But they share these memories only among themselves, because they are risky.
“The survivors do not get along so well with their memories, which zigzag constantly with the truth, because of fear or the humiliation of what happened to them. Survivors feel they are to blame in a different way. They feel more to blame in a certain sense for a transgression that will always be beyond them. For them, the dead are near, even touching them. Survivors must get together in little groups to add up and compare their memories, taking careful steps, making no mistakes. Then afterward they will recall the dire events without fear of ambush.
“Survivors seek tranquillity in one part of memory. The killers look for it in another part. Killers and survivors share neither sadness nor fear. They do not ask for the same kind of help from falsehood. I think they will never be able to share an important part of the truth.”
ÉLIE: When I dream of those times, it is my wife who appears, and the field, and the house, but almost never the killed people. Except for the social worker, of course, because she was the first one I struck down. Basically my dreams try to slip past those moments of killing.
In memories, on the other hand, it is a big deal: those moments track me and often catch up with me.
I know colleagues who hope to escape their crimes by forgetting them. Some prisoners here in Rilima claim that by trying hard not to remember, you can manage to forget. I don’t think so, not where I am concerned, in any case. A memory of killing gets by, it adapts to lies, it comes and goes, but it does not wash out.
No prisoner has paid for his remorse with his life. Not one has even tried or faked that to win a little pity. In prison, death has come with the epidemics, and with the infernal misery of the place, but never with feelings of shame and suchlike.
IGNACE: It is just as damaging to tell the truth to the justice system, to the population, or to yourself.
Even in your heart of hearts, it is riskier to remember than to forget. Therefore I try to keep quiet with myself. The time will come to hear the truth about these things surpassing ordinary crimes.
In prison, some are waiting for a change in their situation to start up again. They see themselves as too crushed at present to show any regrets. They say that after all they have lost, it’s not worth it, that they have walked too long in one direction, machete in hand, to go back—where nothing good awaits them. They say that memories only bring troubles. The only way they see themselves winning is by succeeding the next time, and for good.
ADALBERT: I knew my misdeeds would come to light when I returned from Congo. But I chose to bring my offenses back to my local penitentiary rather than to hide them in the Congo jungle, with no acquaintances to share them. I don’t know if my repentance will be accepted, if I will be spared. But penitence is like death: you must bring it back home to your hill.
GASPARD, A SURVIVOR: “If killers come to church to pray to God on their knees, to show us their remorse, I cannot pray either with them or against them. Real regrets are said eye to eye, not to statues of God. The accommodation of killers is not my concern.”
ÉLIE: In prison and on the hills, everyone is obviously sorry. But most of the killers are sorry they didn’t finish the job. They accuse themselves of negligence rather than wickedness. Those who keep saying that they weren’t there during the fatal moments,
that they don’t remember a thing, that they lost their machetes and tripe like that, they are bowing down with the hope of evading punishment—while waiting to start all over again. Repentance may wear many faces. But it is worthless if it is not the right kind.
LÉOPORD: Some try to show remorse but tremble before the truth. They sneak around it, because of too many conflicting interests, and wind up flung backward.
It was in a camp in Congo that I first felt my heart ache. I prayed, hoping to find relief, but in vain. After prayers or hymns, shame waited for me, without fail. So I began being sorry out loud, paying no attention to the mockery spewing from my comrades’ mouths. In prison I told my whole truth. It came out freely. Ever since then, whenever someone asks me for it, it flows the same way.
Aside from this vile prison life, I have felt calm since I spoke up. I’m waiting peacefully to go home to my land. I do not fear any problem returning to work in the fields beside the neighbors on the hill. On the contrary, I am impatient for my next life.
MARIE-CHANTAL: “The culprit and the victim will ask forgetfulness for a little protection. It won’t be for the same reason. And they will not be asking for it together. But they will appeal to the very same forgetfulness.”