I was born among seven brothers and two sisters. Papa was cut down on the first day, but we never learned where. My brothers were killed not long afterward. Mama and my little sisters and I managed to flee into the marshes. We lasted a month beneath the papyrus fronds, almost without seeing or hearing anything of the world anymore.
During the day, we lay stretched in the mud with the snakes and mosquitoes to hide from the attacks of the interahamwe. At night we wandered among abandoned houses to find something to eat in the farming plots. Because we lived only on what we found, there were many bouts of diarrhea, but luckily the usual diseases, malaria or rain fevers, seemed willing to spare us for once. We knew nothing anymore about life, except that the Tutsis had been massacred throughout the country and that we ourselves would soon die.
We usually hid in small groups. One day the interahamwe unearthed Mama beneath the papyrus. She stood up; she offered them money to kill her with a single machete blow. They stripped her to take the money knotted up in her pagne. They chopped both her arms off first, then her legs. Mama was murmuring, “Saint Cécile, Saint Cécile,” but she didn’t beg for mercy.
Thinking about this makes me sad. But it grieves me whether I remember it in my thoughts or out loud, that’s why I don’t mind telling you about it.
My two little sisters saw everything because they were lying beside her. They were struck too: Vanessa on the ankles, Marie-Claire on the head. The killers did not cut them completely to pieces. Perhaps because they were in a hurry, perhaps they did it on purpose, as with Mama. I myself only heard the noises and screams, because I was concealed in a hole nearby. When the interahamwe had gone, I came out and gave Mama a taste of water.
The first evening she could still speak. She told me, “Jeannette, I am leaving without hope, because I think you will follow me.” She was suffering greatly from the cuttings, but she kept saying that we would all die, and that grieved her even more. I did not dare spend the night with her. I first had to take care of my little sisters, who were badly hurt but not dying. The next day, it was not possible to stay with her either, since we had to hide. That was the rule in the marshes: anyone who was seriously cut had to be abandoned, for safety’s sake.
Mama lay in agony for three days before dying at last. On the second day, she could only whisper, “Goodbye, children,” and ask for water, but she still could not let go. I wasn’t able to stay by her for long because of the interahamwe attacks. I saw that it was all over for her. I also understood that for some people, bereft of everything, for whom suffering had become the last companion, death must really have been too long a task, and so useless. On the third day, she could no longer swallow, only moan a few little words, and look around. She never closed her eyes again. Her name was Agnès Nyirabuguzi. In Kinyarwanda, Nyirabuguzi means “Mother of many.”
Now I often dream about her in a vivid scene deep in the marsh. I gaze at Mama’s face, I listen to her words, I give her something to drink but the water won’t go down her throat anymore and flows away from her lips. Then the hunters return to the attack: I stand up, I start to run, but when I get back to the marsh and ask people about Mama, no one knows her as my mama anymore. That’s when I wake up.
On the last day of the genocide, when the liberators called to us from the edges of the marsh, some of us refused to budge from under the papyrus, thinking this must be a new trick by the interahamwe. Afterward, in the evening, we were assembled on the soccer field in Nyamata. Those who were strong enough went off to rummage through houses for decent clothing. Even though we could at last eat proper food with salt, we showed no rejoicing, for our thoughts were with those whom we had left behind out there. We felt as we had in the marshes, save that no one was chasing us anymore. The danger of death was gone, but had left us still beaten down by life.
My little sisters’ wounds were infected, so we sought shelter. The girls spent three weeks with the lady doctors before we could set out for home, where we found our house in ruins. In the bush, we met up with Chantal Mukashema and her young cousin Jean-de-Dieu Murengerani, called Walli. We gathered in an uncle’s house that had been looted, left with no roof, no bed, not even a scrap of cloth. There, our lives began again.
Now, we grow crops on our land. We prepare meals, laughing when we can, to bring the children closer to cheerfulness. But we don’t celebrate birthdays anymore, because that pains us so, and it costs too much money. We’ve never quarreled with one another, not even once by accident, because we can’t see why or how we would. Sometimes we sing ourselves songs from school. The two little girls have gone back to class. As for Jean-de-Dieu, he’s too thoughtful ever since he was hacked on the head with a machete. He likes just to sit, chin in hand, without counting the hours. One day Chantal went off to marry someone named François, but we visit one another. Me, I don’t see myself marrying, because of my little sisters and other obstacles. I come up against too many hesitations all around me. Actually, I don’t feel that comfortable with life. I cannot think beyond the present anymore.
Last year, Uncle’s house was falling apart. We were moved to Kanazi, into this sturdy home of bricks and sheet metal,5 with a table, some chairs, and platform beds with drawers. Here, I am less troubled by my gloomy thoughts. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, I farm our plots or those of neighbors who give me food or a few small coins. Wednesdays and Saturdays I go to the market in Nyamata, to sew on a Butterfly machine. A girl, Angélique, made a place for me next to her. I sew little repairs for passing customers, I get by with that. I regret not being able to learn the sewing profession properly, so as to give up farming.
The children have swept much misery from their minds, but they still have scars and headaches and thought-aches. When they suffer overmuch, we take the time to look back on those unhappy days. The two girls have the most to say, because with Mama, they saw it all. They often talk about the same scene and forget the rest.
Our memory changes with time. We forget details, we confuse dates, we mix up attacks, we make mistakes with names, we even disagree about how this or that man or woman and other acquaintances died. But we remember all the fearsome moments we personally lived through as if they had happened just last year. Time passes, but we keep our lists of specific memories and speak of them together when things are going badly; these memories become ever more truthful, yet we hardly know how to arrange them in the right order anymore.
When I find myself alone out in the field, I’m inclined at times to think back on such things too sadly. Then I set down my hoe and go to chat with some neighbors. We sing, we share some juice, and that does me good. On Sundays I attend church, I sing and pray. I think that Satan chose the Hutus to commit all those horrors simply because they were stronger and more numerous, and thus could spread more evil in just a few short months. When I hear on the radio about these African wars, I worry terribly. I think Satan takes advantage of God’s all too long absences from Africa to multiply these great slaughters. I only hope that the souls of all Africans who have endured those calamities are welcomed with the proper grace.
The story of the Hutus and Tutsis is like that of Cain and Abel, brothers who cannot abide each other anymore because of mere nothings. But I do not believe the Tutsis resemble the Jews, even though both peoples were caught up in genocides. The Tutsis have never been a people chosen to hear the voice of God, the way the Hebrews were in pagan days. The Tutsis are not a people punished for the death of Jesus Christ. They are simply a people come to misfortune on the hills because of their noble bearing.
Out in the marsh, Vanessa looked a long moment into the eyes of Mama’s murderers. Two years later, she recognized the face of one of those criminals, coming calmly back from Congo with his bundle of belongings. It was a lanky boy from Kayumba, he even had years of good schooling, our pastor’s eldest son. He is doing time now in the penitentiary at Rilima, near Lake Kidogo.
Those inmates are an anguishing problem. If we imprison all the hatred of the slaughterers, it can never dry up in the open air. But if we let it seep back into the banana groves, the killings will begin again. I have seen women hurl themselves into the river, clutching children in their arms, to spare them the blood. Women above all, because women and children had to face more torment than the men. I know that if God does not Himself catch up with their killers to rebuke them, they will always want to do it again. I put my trust in Him because I cannot bear that anguish.
I know, myself, that when you have seen your mama cut so wickedly, and suffer so slowly, you become forever less trusting toward people, and not just the interahamwe. I mean that someone who has seen atrocious suffering for so long can never again live among others as before, because this person will remain on guard, suspicious of people, even if they have done nothing. I am saying that Mama’s death brought me the most sorrow, but that her overlong agony did me the most damage, and that now this can never be fixed.
I also know, for the future, that a man can become unspeakably vicious in no time. I do not believe in the end of genocides. I do not believe those who say that we have seen the worst of atrocities for the last time. When a genocide has been committed, another one can come, no matter when, no matter where, in Rwanda or anyplace, if the root cause is still there and still unknown.