TUTSI FARMER
Nadine’s mother
As a child, I made my way to school in bare feet. All the little ones went shoeless to church on Sunday mornings. Today, they wear shoes from an early age, but they walk without parents. Their parents have either been cut or punished, or they conceal their trauma in the dark corner of a courtyard, or they never leave the bottle in the cabaret. Drought sometimes so cracks the earth that it drives women to Kigali alone. You remember Berthe. Whenever the rain runs short, she rushes off to the city, leaving her children in the mudugudu. She offers her services in hospital wards or shops in search of a little money for food. Nowadays, it’s very lucky for a child to grow up with two actual parents—two people who have their health and freedom.
There are vagrant children wandering about who fear no one. You see them smoking cannabis at the edge of the bush. They sometimes stand in the middle of the road with their cigarette. You make a remark, and they clear off without taking the trouble to run. You can see that nothing frightens them. They have known the wickedness of adults since preschool; they have grown up in their elders’ lies. They dare to say whatever they like, and they don’t care if they do something wrong. What’s the use of distinguishing between good and evil when you have been given evil from the time you were born.
We parents are getting older, and we are weighed down by dreadful memories. We accept the unacceptable, we feign reconciliation. As I told you, we cannot abandon our nature forever. One doesn’t live merely on the health benefits of beans. We long to experience something before we die. Fate has camped out at our door and we have gotten used to it. But a lot of children stumble.
I spent my childhood in farming. My parents made a good life from their field. Since they were born Tutsi, they raised handsome cows and goats for the healthy milk. I took care of my brothers and sisters. The courtyard chores were mine, which lessened my mama’s burdens. She devoted herself to the hoe. I lent a hand with weeding, and I used a long staff to watch over the animals with other children my age. Our eyes lit up when we saw the herds. Seeing the big-horned animals peacefully eating in the bush stirred our Tutsi pride. The elders intervened in quarrels under the acacia trees. It was good. We could grow up feeling safe. Our papa’s and mama’s kind help shouldered us up. Those you call “uncles” and “aunts” kept watch.
I received a basic education. My parents took me in hand, and the neighbors, like everywhere in Africa, stepped in to set me right whenever it was needed. The teachers told us what to do. It was carefree, except, of course, for the ethnic fears. Then everything changed; you know why. Now, many children lack a mother’s arms in which they can forget their worries. They don’t heed advice. They prefer to fend for themselves as they have learned to do alone. If the papa did wrong, if he served a long sentence, it’s difficult for a child to understand the meaning of respect. If the parents are dead or traumatized, family authority slips away. Around here, neighbors are powerless, and the priests and teachers simply swallow the government’s instructions.
We are living through a fairly chaotic century. Technology kindles greed and encourages one to lie. With the internet, television, and sex videos, nothing is hidden from the children anymore. That’s true for all the children in the world. It’s riskier, though, for children without parents. They don’t know where to find a shoulder to rest their troubled heads. They are never disciplined by an adult’s stern voice, and nothing stops them from throwing themselves onto the internet. They go out looking for any kind of entertainment to escape their dark thoughts. They turn to video-game zombies and monsters to keep them company.
* * *
IT’S NO SECRET that Nadine is more difficult than I was. She would be even worse if she hadn’t chosen the path of the church. I started to talk to her about the genocide when she was thirteen. Until then, she didn’t know what had occurred. At least, that’s what I thought. She didn’t ask a single question. I decided not to upset her. I didn’t want to go up to her and say, “There was a genocide. Here’s how it happened to our family.” I waited patiently for her questions to come. She started to ask me why I didn’t have a papa or mama. What had they done to disappear? She had probably already talked about it with her schoolmates.
My answers didn’t zigzag. I told her step by step how her grandparents had been killed, like so many others. Why all the Tutsis had been hunted like prey by their Hutu neighbors. We talked about ethnicity, about age-old quarrels and bitter resentments. We chatted about the genocide. From that moment on, she showed herself eager for information when we gathered in the evenings. She became restless during the Week of Mourning. Then she asked me about my life during the genocide. I told her about the bleak events in the swamps. I didn’t shy from my unpleasant life, although I didn’t divulge all the secrets. We continue our chats about that past existence if a question comes up.
For example, Nadine wants to know everything about my parents: What their life was like at home, their favorite jokes, if they teased each other for fun, if they knew Rwandan stories and songs. What clothing they wore to church or to ceremonies. What they preferred to eat besides beans. If the ladies also had a taste for the bottle. If they had polished manners, if they were very slender and tall. The kinds of question that restore the family in her imagination. We went to the Rugarama hill to see the old family house. We visited the Ntarama memorial, the place where my parents departed this world.
One day, she asked me about her birth. I was expecting it. She was curious about Congo. She wondered about the landscape. She suddenly wanted to know all the details about her blood papa. I explained to her that she had been conceived by an interahamwe. I avoided admitting that I had been forced. Too much sorrow would have been risky. Does she know the whole truth? She has probably heard the gossip from the lips of wicked neighbors. She wouldn’t dare tell me, though. We mention this biological papa without going into details. But not often. Sometimes she makes do with sensible questions, other times she asks surprising ones. They bring her down. Sometimes she asks them two or three times, as if she were looking for a new answer. She seems troubled. Certain thoughts disrupt her at school when they are too overwhelming. I support her, I comfort her. Exposing the truth would only add anguish to her sadness. Describing to her how brutally she was conceived—that wouldn’t clarify her understanding of things. As the mama, I have no choice but to live with what has been ruined deep within me, but most important, I have to protect her from this misfortune. I simply explain to her how I have grown accustomed to my strange fate.
She’s lucky that her faith helps her. No, I wasn’t the one who drew her to the church. Nadine would be going to church even if she’d had the gentle life of a young girl brought into the world normally, even if she’d been prancing around among loving grandparents. God guides her. He steadies her when she stumbles on her path. She joins the kindly believers to pray. The songs distract her from sorrow. Faith keeps her from wasting too much time thinking about harmful things. She is sincere.
Modern times push children to be precocious. As I said, at twelve years old they search through things on the internet that we learned about only after marriage. On the hills, it’s even more terrible than elsewhere. Young people fled their childhood to protect themselves from the wickedness of adults. They felt terror when they listened to the stories. They trembled hearing the rumors. Fear has abandoned them. They no longer feel in danger—they ply their machetes in the banana groves without giving it a second thought. Yet they have been affected all the same. They’re hiding out. Their hearts whisper for revenge for the mistreatment of their parents. It’s inevitable in the two ethnicities. But these young people can’t express it. Too many disapproving looks force them to keep quiet. They shelter things even from their closest friends. Have I noticed the same in Nadine? No, that’s her secret.
It is always possible that she likes a Hutu boy, without mentioning him to me, and that one of these days she is going to bring him home, with his white gloves, to meet me. If he is a good Christian, I will entrust them to the hands of God. And what if the suitor doesn’t believe in God? Can you even imagine?