NINETEEN YEARS OLD
Son of Fulgence Bunani, Hutu prisoner
If my papa hadn’t been imprisoned, I would have stayed in school. Today I’d be seeking my fortune somewhere other than on the river. That’s the truth. My papa’s fault has had a somewhat harmful effect on my character ever since I was a child. I don’t pay attention to what I’m going to do. I’m never satisfied, and I lack conviction. I tend to change my mind. They say that I’m careless about things. That comes from all the work when I was young. First the war damaged my childhood goodwill. Didn’t it force me to reflect on things more than a child born into a prosperous home? No, it hindered my intelligence. A comfortable life leads to exciting thoughts.
Without the killings, I’d be walking with the steps of a young man settled into a desirable job. I’d have married. I have a fourteen-month-old child named Kelia. Her mama’s name is Olive; she lives in a mudugudu. She put the child in my hands because there was no chance of marriage. Her older brother demanded a dowry I couldn’t pay. Then we quarreled about a fertile patch of land near the marshes he wanted to take for himself. He kept on about it for three months. In the end, the girl took her brother’s side. If Papa hadn’t returned to Rilima, she’d have decided in my favor. I don’t regret it, because since then she has changed husbands three times, without even getting any land. But still.
I’ll be careful the second time: I’ll take up with a sensible girl who won’t leave me with another baby on my hands. I’m going to look for a girl somewhere far from Kiganwa. When the betrothed live side by side, they can expect neither surprises nor novelty, only squabbles about land. One shouldn’t be born, grow up, farm, and then get married in the same place. It’s a dead harvest; you gain nothing new. I’d like to leave the Bugesera to start a new life without a past—in the Mutara, for example, where vast virgin pastures await the energy of new arrivals. I spoke to Papa about it in Rilima, without insisting too much. If he’s released soon, I’ll marry soon. If his time drags on, then obviously I’ll have to be patient. Having a papa in prison would derail the negotiations between the families; it would disrupt the ceremonies. There’s no use adding something unseemly to people’s suspicions.
At school, I didn’t sit at the front of the class like my brother, Jean-Damascène. I wasn’t a dimwit, though. I was never reprimanded, I was never threatened in class. The teachers watched out for quarrels, even after our return from Congo. Outside class, it was a big thing, as I said. My goal? I longed to join the civil service, to wear the attire of a dignified civil servant, or to set up my own business as a craftsman. Anyway, the goal was to give up farming like a lot of Tutsi children have. It’s understandable that things now favor the children of survivors. How so? They receive direct aid from the FARG, which pays the minervals at well-known schools. They go to boarding schools without even coming back to the hill on weekends. That’s essential, because it’s on the school bench that one learns to give up the hoe. Farm kids can’t participate in the country’s development like city children can—they’re stranded on the unforgiving land. It’s even worse if the parcel is supposed to be split up among siblings according to the new laws of inheritance that keep pouring down. Do I think about it a lot? About bad luck? Obviously, if Papa hadn’t made mistakes in the marshes, I’d have my place on the school bench with my schoolmates. But I don’t think that I’m paying my papa’s debt to society. I’m paying for the misfortunes of society, which have wrecked my chances. I’m not the only one. Many children from the wrong ethnicity are penalized when their papas linger in prison.
Obviously, hearing about Papa’s misdeeds makes me very unhappy. The killers’ wickedness is beyond imagining. Honestly, those men cutting enough to break their own arms—who can explain it? Is it something a person my age can even understand? It’s too much for us to accept such evil. Even still, I can’t condemn my papa, since no one had an idle hand in the killings.
* * *
I LOVE MY PAPA. He gave me life. Every morning, I pray to God to come to his aid. If you see a young man in good health in front of you today, it’s thanks to him. His strength courses in my veins. I don’t want for food. He has watched over me despite the distance between us. I visit him once a month. Before it was on foot through the bush, but now I ride the bicycle he left. At Rilima, I present myself at the prison commissary to deposit some of the money I make from selling urwagwa, or fish. It’s for Papa’s canteen. We exchange superficial bits of news. He asks me about the parcel, he gives me advice for staking out the fields, he offers comforting words. No complaints about his sorry fate. He’s friendly. He loves his children. A papa’s attention makes up for everything they lack in life.
He’s a strong man, neither tall nor short in stature, who has a taste for beans, of course, served with bananas, without wasting meat. He’s upright, and he speaks well with the neighbors. There’s never a quarrel except with a neighbor woman by the name of Émilienne, when she stakes out the parcel on the sly, or when she drives her livestock through our sorghum. He holds no grudge against anyone. He looks through our notebooks to make sure that we are taking notes in class, and he checks the report cards at the end of the semester. Never mind that he isn’t the fervent deacon he once was; he prays like everybody else. He likes selling urwagwa in his cabaret, and he knows how to make the land grow. If he hadn’t suffered the misfortune of prison, really, I’d say we would have had a comfortable life and plentiful crops.
Ernestine’s murder—I don’t have all the right information to talk to you about it. My ears are closed to the neighbors’ gossip. The only explanations that I’m waiting for are from my papa. What explanations do I hope that he’ll give me? I don’t know. A child doesn’t want to hear everything from his papa. In 2010, the authorities summoned him to the gaçaça court, and he testified to his misdeeds, like they asked. The last day was a Sunday—he was lazing at home because he was racked with pain from his swollen feet. At nightfall, the court sentenced him to life in prison. It was the colleagues from his gang getting revenge. Why him if no one saw with their own eyes the killers slicing open Ernestine’s belly? I can’t get over that. I don’t want to chase down rumors at the cabaret. If they pardon my papa, I’ll ask him to take a moment to talk about what happened in the Ntarama church. I’ll ask him questions without blame, because he has been punished enough.
My mama doesn’t condemn my papa when she laments her solitude. Otherwise, you wouldn’t see her astride the bicycle on her way to Rilima to visit him. She’s a strong woman who gets on very well in farming. She’s neither too skinny nor too heavy. Nevertheless, she suffers from stomachaches that curb her appetite for the usual food. She doesn’t complain. She pays attention to her children and has replaced the mother of my little girl. The neighbors are full of appreciation for her because she’s helpful. She’s quick to lose her temper if someone provokes her, but it doesn’t last for more than a brief moment. She just as quickly gives in with kind words. She doesn’t get angry at her husband, like I said, never says a word about his mistakes. She loves him sincerely. She isn’t the least neglectful, like other prisoners’ wives who have given birth. Her courage hasn’t left her; she’s resilient even when the rains are late.
We don’t quarrel. On the parcel, though, I’ve noticed that something is wrong. She sometimes drops the hoe, but not for a rest or a drink of water. She stands there motionless, thinking silently. The sun beats down on her face—she doesn’t care. I can see that her thoughts have drifted to Rilima; they have carried away the worries of a woman abandoned by her prisoner husband. It’s painful to watch. There really has been a decline because she has had to endure everything alone. She doesn’t cry, she isn’t motivated like before. She’s waiting for God’s mercy.
* * *
VINCENT AND JANVIER, Ernestine’s brothers, I can’t even go near, although we have known each other since childhood. Deep down, we don’t want to acknowledge one another anymore. There’s nothing to say—only the awkwardness of close neighbors. We aren’t moved by friendship or memories of childhood games. If we happen to meet in a cabaret, one of us immediately leaves. In any case, I avoid talking about the genocide with children from the other ethnicity. Mentioning this dreadful past, even indirectly, puts you in an awkward position. Hutu and Tutsi children learn about the killings in completely different ways. If a Tutsi child is informed by his papa that his mama or grandmama was cut by a certain Hutu, that Hutu is never going to admit to his child that he cut the Tutsi woman. After twenty years, does anyone dare tell their children everything? Shame hangs over those who risk confiding in the wrong ethnicity, even if ethnicities have been abolished. When the wrongdoers confessed to the truth of wielding machetes, those were merely the confessions they gave in public at the gaçaças. They’re wary of personal details.
I have Tutsi friends. We met on the school bench. Their families live in the mudugudu in Kiganwa. We talk a lot, we joke about soccer players who mess up their shots, we share shocking news we dig up on the internet. We discuss our concerns about farming when the rains are late. We avoid the genocide. We zigzag. Young people don’t allow themselves to be affected by grumbling words, because if they did, their passions would compel them to fight. That would be the end of it. A small number opt for revenge because of their parents’ misfortunes. They bury themselves in their resentment. It would be risky if a president were murdered again. On the other hand, many young people approve of the reconciliation policy. The atmosphere among young people doesn’t breed hate like before. Hate has taken a step back. Things will start to sort themselves out.
I love Africa. It’s a blessed continent, in my opinion. We don’t encounter the world’s racism here. Some nights, I listen to the agitated news from around the world on the radio. Here, I’m not afraid, though I keep on my guard. I’m glad of our fertile land for agriculture. I appreciate the climate when it doesn’t play dirty tricks. In Kigali, new multistory buildings and SUVs are appearing every day. Twenty years from now, electricity and asphalt roads will stretch into the hills. Farmers will sell their land to go clear the bush in Tanzania. Not all the farmers will leave. In the distant hills, you’ll still see people like us working the land with our hoes.
* * *
BESIDES THAT, I’m pleased with my health. I plug away working. I earn a bit. The Akagera River is where I put my zeal. After his release from prison in 2003, my papa bought me a share in the fishing cooperative. A paternal cousin taught me the complex techniques for the nets and basket traps. Fishing is unpredictable. You waste a week without catching a big-caliber fish, and you’re frustrated until the day comes when luck finds you and you haul in a fifteen-kilo carp. When you come away with nothing worthwhile, you’re thrilled to get back to the parcel to harvest food. When you make a catch, you thank the river, which wears you out less than the land. I also look after the banana plantation, as I said. The urwagwa business doesn’t disappoint. When you’re short on one side, you draw from the other—it makes for a more balanced life.
The bloody catastrophe is in the past. Time heals. I like my hill in Kiganwa because I’m used to living here. We farm a fertile plot, an intensive banana plantation, and a plentiful river flows nearby. The food is good. But the climate plays so many tricks on farmers that they are no longer able to gauge the right time for seeding. In the past, they knew when the rain clouds were coming and going. Now rainfall is fickle, sometimes it skips a season. Three years ago, I managed to plant tomatoes. They paid off. Since then, drought has burned through two harvests. The meager rainfall means twice the number of trips for water. If you work unproductive land, you get annoyed and all you can think about is leaving.
Twenty years from now, I can see myself as the owner of a small business, with a motorcycle and a cow in the pen. The retail business is great. If you’re frugal, the profits allow you to accumulate wealth. You don’t waste time, you move ahead without the worries of farming. You become a businessman. Where will I go? Not to Kigali, which I don’t know well enough to make a go of it. Expensive cities are dispiriting. I’ll open a shop in the center of Nyarunazi for a start. Then I’ll move to Nyamata or to Bicumbi, where my mother’s family lives. They are close-knit like traditional families used to be. Would I move far away to forget everything? Has it crossed my mind? No, if you are born in a country, you have to accept its past. Here, though, I feel trapped by loneliness. Being a farmer separates you from others; being a prisoner’s son separates you even more. I get bored, I struggle. I stumble and see that my life is wrecked to a certain extent. Basically, I don’t wake up untroubled.