In Nyamata, the friendliest cabaret is not a cabaret: it’s Marie-Louise’s shop. Prudence (the name written on the front wall of the establishment) sits across from the marketplace and next to a real cabaret, La Fraternité, which—in spite of the pleasant atmosphere of its bowered patio, its exotic frescoes, its starry sky—is as deserted as the other cafés in town. Marie-Louise’s cramped little shop, on the other hand, its faded green walls lighted in the evening by a single neon bulb, is always packed with customers.
At the back of the room hang lengths of magnificent Rwandan cloth in a palette of blues, as well as some gaily colored Congolese fabrics. Piled upon the shelves are thermoses, purses, underwear, bags of rice, notebooks, padlocks.… A tall glass case displays ballpoint pens, batteries, shampoos. A refrigerator hums against a wall. In the slow hours of the afternoon, the proprietress may be found sitting outside on a bench, gazing idly at the square; in the evening, behind her counter, she favors a comfortable armchair. Marie-Louise has a kind face. She dresses with traditional Rwandan elegance, and speaks in a sweet, languid voice.
Just inside the shop door are a couch, a bench, and some stools clustered around a low table. From the noon break until late into the night, people stop by for a drink. A group of local intellectuals meets here, as well as the veterans of Kayumba, plus shopkeepers and regular customers from the main street. Most faithful of all are those stalwarts who would never let a day go by without dropping in: Innocent, of course; Sylvère and Gonzalve, two school principals; Benoît, a stockbreeder, in boots and cowboy hat; André, the deputy public prosecutor, a discreet man with a dry, sarcastic wit; Tite, former star of the big soccer team that made it to the first division, now a coach; not forgetting Jean, a tireless chauffeur and Marie-Louise’s good right arm; and the priceless Englebert who, if he did not exist, would simply have to be invented. A young man from a prominent family (of royal blood, he sometimes announces over his third beer), a polyglot and erudite high-ranking civil servant when sober, Englebert fled the massacres in the capital and hid in the marshes of Nyamata. Since then, nothing and no one can persuade him to return to the city and his office. He spends half his time living like a hermit in a hovel lost in the woods. When he’s not helping edit little projects in return for a Primus, he divides the rest of his time between Marie-Louise’s shop (on lucky days) and the urwagwa dives, desperately seeking an ever-receding past, quoting Shakespeare and Baudelaire, playing—and rather drolly—the role of class clown or village idiot.
Marie-Louise knows everyone’s “usual”: lukewarm Primus for Innocent, chilled Amstel for Sylvère, a tall Mutzig for Dominique, a short one for Benoît.… She brings fresh bottles while simultaneously waiting on the housewives at her counter and coddling a child with no pocket money. Sipping her Coca-Cola, she joins in the discussions: in her shop, people review the latest local gossip and radio newscasts, and there is lots of joking around. As beer follows beer, customers begin telling stories about the genocide, recalling memories of memories, laughing about some triumph or disaster. This complicity, the often edgy humor, and the impressive mutual tolerance everyone observes create an atmosphere the regulars have come to depend on. Marie-Louise’s shop is also a place where people can leave messages, and share a glass in mourning or to celebrate a baptism.
Why at Marie-Louise’s and not at La Fraternité? Or in the always deserted but lovely garden of L’Intzinsi, or the Podium, all formerly so popular? The first reason springs from an early reaction right after the genocide, when the town seemed like something devastated by a hurricane. Survivors were coping with destitution, while those returning from exile in Burundi, unable to get their bearings, were wary of this depopulated and traumatized place. As for the Hutus coming home from Congo, they no longer dared come into town for fear of reprisals or denunciations, and kept to themselves up on their hills. The cabarets remained silent, the empty terraces proclaiming all too clearly the absence of the missing and the imprisoned. Nyamata’s drinkers preferred instinctively to gather in stores, beverage warehouses, workshops, in more intimate, less haunted spaces, where beer costs a little less, too. Many thus found themselves at the shop run by Marie-Louise, whose late husband had been the most prosperous shipper in the region.
That first impulse became a habit. L’Intzinsi and the bar in the cultural center, once favored by extremists, have been dropped, despite new owners. The Podium has not reopened. Neither Le Club nor La Fraternité can “ambience” anymore. Only the dreary bistros on little side streets, offering tart banana beer at quite modest prices, have won back a faithful clientele.
The second reason for the success of Marie-Louise’s shop is of course the tact and kindness of the “boss-lady”: her perpetual smile, her affection for her guests, and her discretion when she wipes the slate clean for the most down-and-out of her customers, sends a drowsy drinker home, or nips an argument in the bud with a witty remark. As Innocent deftly puts it, not enough superlatives survived the genocide to describe the good nature of Marie-Louise, whom no one would now dare betray for a different cabaret.