What star led me up such a steep, gully-filled path? I had no idea that it would take me past Berthe’s house and then on to Claudine’s at the top of the hill. A lucky star, that much is for sure, because it was by purest good fortune that I made the acquaintance of Berthe Mwanankabandi and Claudine Kayitesi in that remote setting up there in the bush. They were twenty years old; a childhood friendship united them. The machetes had killed their families. Since then, they had taught themselves how to farm their plots. A pack of children crowded their courtyards: orphans from around the area whom a humanitarian organization had placed in their care. Berthe had also given birth to two babies “born on the sly.” Claudine raised her little five-year-old daughter, born in Congo during her abduction.
It was always a pleasure to chat with them during my stays. In the beginning, however, although they never appeared hostile, they took no interest in what might become of their words. They indulged in conversation because they couldn’t imagine the writing of a book and still less the intention behind it. Their curiosity awoke little by little, each in its own way. Always hospitable, they became warmhearted; diligent in the beginning, they strove to be more detailed in their accounts. The impulsive and more distrustful Berthe often responded brusquely. Claudine seemed more fatalistic, ironic, with her occasionally caustic remarks, even if she was no less desperate than Berthe. They sought a way to get more involved. They began to think about what the questions and answers taught them about themselves.
One afternoon, Berthe came to tell me: “Sometimes sleep draws me back into the marshes. I see all those people again, their blood-soaked bodies stretched out in the sludge. I see my parents in dreams, my little sisters and acquaintances. I see the living, who resemble the dead. Everything seems normal and calm. It’s good. I’m with those who sleep as gently as the dead. When I wake up, a terrible anguish, or sorrow, is there to greet me, as if I had visited the house of the dead.”
Fate separated the two women. Berthe moved into a house with her sister in Ntarama’s mudugudu at the bottom of the road. One evening, she said: “Deep down, I succumb to a kind of hatred, a fear. Having a husband, living happily as a family—I just don’t see it … For an orphan survivor, choosing the right husband is a torment. If he has no problems and doesn’t understand you, it’s no good; if he understands you but has too many problems himself, it’s no better … I have suffered through too much to risk living with a husband who can’t console me when I’m inconsolable. I prefer the anxieties of a woman alone, and giving birth on the sly, obviously, because no woman can give that up.”
She is restless, undertakes various projects, which she abandons just as quickly. When the drought-hardened earth wears her down, she drops her tools and takes the bus for Kigali to look for odd jobs as a nurse’s aide or salesperson.
Claudine moved farther, three kilometers away, to the Kanzenze mudugudu, where she and her new husband, Damascène Bizima, could be nearer to his plot of land. She described their wedding as follows: “It was a grand affair. The choristers opened the ceremony dressed in their decorated pagnes. I wore the three traditional dresses and my husband hid his hands in elegant white gloves. The church provided its courtyard and tablecloths. Three vans brought the wedding party, along with Fanta sodas, sorghum wine, and cases of Primus, of course. Our fete lasted three unbelievable days.”
Her life follows the rhythms of farming, the routines of her very happy family, and the calendar of church events, with which she stays enthusiastically busy. Not so long ago, however, she made an admission as she talked to me about her life: “Yes, calm has settled in. I have beautiful children, a relatively fertile field, and a nice husband to support me. A few years ago, after the killings, when you met me for the first time, I was a simple girl with stray children all around me. I had nothing except drudgery and bad thoughts. Since then, my husband has turned me into a family lady—I never could have imagined. In the mornings, courage takes me by the hand. Life offers me its smiles and I owe it my thanks for not having abandoned me in the marshes. But still, for me, the chance to become someone has passed. All the questions you ask me—you won’t ever hear answers from the real Claudine, because I’ve pretty much lost my love of myself. I’ve known the filth of animals, I’ve seen the ferocity of the hyena and worse still—because animals are never as vile as that. I was called an insect. I was forced by a brutal man. I was taken away, out there, to a place about which nothing can be said. But the worst is still there walking in front of me. My heart will always hold suspicions. It knows all too well that destiny can break its promises.”
Claudine was sixteen years old at the time of the killings, just a year younger than her daughter Nadine is now.