HUTU FARMER
Mother of Idelphonse and Jean-Damascène
I am glad to go to the market when I have chicken or bananas to sell. Wednesdays are better because goods sell fast and we deal for higher prices. I meet old friends. As a woman without her husband, I can’t enter the cabaret for a Primus. We have a nice chat outside. What I make at the market I bring to Rilima the next day.
Visits are once or twice a month. My son takes me on his bicycle, or I rent a bike-taxi for the day. The ride lasts four hours. When I arrive, I buy things for my husband at the prison commissary, especially sugar, fritters, and milk. Then I squeeze in line. When Fulgence comes out, we exchange news. We talk about the worries of the parcel, which are never in short supply. That lasts five minutes.
The children’s education suffers because of Fulgence’s imprisonment. I struggle as well. Their papa’s authority is sorely missed, because children don’t respect a woman as much as a man. The boys always see themselves as stronger, even at a young age. They only fear their papa. My eldest son, Idelphonse, has become rebellious. We quarrel; we don’t understand each another. He no longer helps me hoe or sow the land. He goes off fishing in the evenings. If he traps a ten-kilo fish, he gets eight to ten thousand and drinks it all away. He buys himself Primus—he leaves nothing for his family, and he doesn’t think about his child.
The small house next door to ours? His little brother and I are building it with our own two hands. Idelphonse hasn’t picked up a single brick; he looks on and couldn’t care less. Since Fulgence returned to prison, Idelphonse has taken to drinking. He suddenly thought that he was the boss, that everything belonged to him, that he should be issuing orders. I don’t talk about it with Fulgence, so as not to make his situation worse. A son who lacks respect for his mother—Fulgence would bristle with anger. I keep quiet, but I feel responsible for the children. I try to show myself humble with the eldest son. I suffer in silence and I compensate with prayer. The two boys don’t quarrel; they avoid each other. Jean-Damascène stays to rest at home while the oldest hangs around in the cabarets. They don’t take the time to talk to each other. Each has his own way of thinking.
Sometimes Jean-Damascène says that he regrets not going back to school. He is fond of studying. That’s the truth. He thinks that diplomas alone can ease his worries. He sees his salvation slipping away. But he still gladly lends me a hand with all the work. He follows me down to the parcel in the mornings, hoe in hand. He takes part in the house chores without a fuss. He buys sorghum to distill the urwagwa. He sells the drink to the neighbors and shares the money.
* * *
IT BOTHERED ME that Fulgence had a hand in the killings. When we came back from Congo, the dirty looks followed me on the roads of Nyarunazi and sometimes all the way to Nyamata. What else can I say? Does a wife speak against her husband? I don’t know exactly how he got his machete mixed up in the expeditions, since the wives were supposed to keep quiet at home. He followed his peers with good cheer, everyone knows it, and they put him in prison for seven years. I have never heard the boys grumble about their papa. They learned that he wasn’t the only one to get his blade wet. They didn’t ask me how serious the suspicions were. But Idelphonse knew the details. Everyone talked about it. On our hill, only the dead avoided prison. When the men weren’t hurling accusations at one another at the cabaret, they went in for mockery instead. The wives jabbered. The children picked up on the rumors, and they shared their thoughts on the sly. Idelphonse, despite his young age, brought home plenty of gossip from the cabaret. He never failed to tell Jean-Damascène. Myself, to try to reassure them, I told them, “Walk straight ahead and don’t listen to the hateful words. Be brave. You children, you can visit your papa at the penitentiary. He hasn’t been killed, his health is strong, he has advice to give. That’s extraordinary luck that not all children have.”
Fulgence admitted his misdeeds like so many others, and the judge sentenced him harshly. Twelve years in prison is a big thing. Then he received the presidential pardon. After his release in January 2003, he brought the children together and explained the consequences of the war. How the flames were fanned, the way people killed one another, why so many Tutsis perished in the papyrus without proper burials. Why the Hutus had to race to escape to Congo.
But certain truths are harmful in our situation. Words must be doubly cautious for children’s ears. When you reveal too many details to a child who goes on to repeat them, they can turn into very serious accusations. An adolescent understands why secrets must be kept. A little child has no idea; he is liable to start talking about unimaginable crimes. It’s scary. Me, I told them about the poverty in the camps, the plastic-sheet tents we lived in, how Idelphonse was born in a completely unhealthy place. Fear tested the children. They prayed for those things never to happen again. Little by little, our anxieties left us. Fulgence and I cleared the land. We brought a boy and a girl into the world. It was twice the joy. Misfortune began to forget us. We expanded the parcel to the wet edge of the marsh and took up raising livestock, like the Tutsis. The urwagwa business prospered. We stopped thinking about the past.
Then the gaçaça courts came. We trembled like everyone else. Fulgence wanted the judges to see that he was cooperative. His voice never grumbled. He answered questions straightforwardly, he repeated his confessions and added details, and he admitted his offense. Those who heard him appeared satisfied. Fulgence came away from the tree of judgment without being charged. No one hurled insults, no one jeered. No one imagined that Ernestine’s little brother would come to speak about his sister.
Do I believe Fulgence capable of the horrible crimes committed against Ernestine? The wife in me answers no. Blood used to give him such a fright that he couldn’t cut a goat without his hands trembling. So, to slice open the lady’s belly with his blade—would he even have tried? As I told you, if he had become a butcher like the others at the Nyamata church, I would have noticed that night in our bedroom.
Children don’t doubt like adults—they take what they hear. They can accept it. I don’t know where their certainty lies. In Kiganwa, everyone rushed to judgment. The children were rattled—a new calamity had swept down upon them. They didn’t ask questions, except for the little girl. She is only six years old but already the smartest. She is at the top of the class all by herself. She gets terribly angry with her schoolmates if they make fun of her papa. Every night in her dreams she sees him leaving prison; she talks in her sleep. She asks sophisticated questions. The children were beginning to discuss things aloud when they learned that the man called Emmanuel, the colleague who testified against their papa, had fled to Uganda. They were shocked. How can you trust an accuser who hides? They are angry that Fulgence wasn’t heard by the judges, that the other men from the group argued among themselves. They suspect that there were jealousies at work and unfair interpretations. Me, I say encouraging words, I promise them a positive outcome. What do I tell them? “If Fulgence was involved like they say, let his punishment serve as an example, but then they have to provide us with legitimate proof in exchange.” It calms them down a bit.
Thanks to God, the children pray fervently for his release. Even the oldest one, who has taken to the bottle, isn’t too distracted to pray. Misfortune has made them more faithful believers.