Our Lady of the Nile (13 page)

Ambassador Balimba requested his transfer and got it fast. He was posted as part of the Zairian delegation to the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa. Frida’s father gave up his diplomatic career and threw himself into business. They say he’ll do very well at it …

“That’s enough,” Gloriosa said. “I think we’ve shed enough tears for Frida. We shall mention it no more, either between ourselves or to others. It’s time we remembered who we are and where we are. We are at the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile, which trains Rwanda’s female elite. We’re the ones who’ve been chosen to spearhead women’s advancement. Let us be worthy of the trust placed in us by the majority people.”

“Gloriosa,” said Immaculée, “do you think it’s already time for you to give us one of your politician-type speeches? Like we were at a rally? Women’s advancement, well let’s talk about that! The reason most of us are here is for our family’s advancement,
not for our own future but for that of the clan. We were already fine merchandise, since nearly all of us are daughters of rich and powerful people, daughters of parents who know how to trade us for the highest price, and a diploma will inflate our worth even more. I know that a lot of girls here enjoy this game – it’s the only game in town, after all – and it’s even the source of their pride. But I no longer want to be a part of this marketplace.”

“Just listen to her,” jeered Gloriosa, “she’s talking like a white girl in the movies, or in those books the French teacher makes us read. Where would you be, Immaculée, without your father and his money? Do you think a woman can survive in Rwanda without her family, first her father’s then her husband’s? You’ve just come from the gorillas. I suggest you go back there.”

“Ah, good advice,” said Immaculée. “Perhaps I will.”

Once the week of mourning was over, Frida’s name was tacitly banned by everyone at the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile. Yet it still tormented the seniors, like one of those shameful words you know without recalling where you got it from nor who taught you it, but which you hear yourself saying without having wanted to. If one of the girls made a slip of the tongue and said the forbidden name, all the other girls turned away, pretended they hadn’t heard anything, and began to talk really loudly to cover up, to erase with their pointless chatter, the interminable echo of those two syllables inside their heads. For there was now a shameful
secret lying coiled deep within the lycée, and deep within each of the girls, too; remorse in search of a culprit; a sin that could never be purged since it would never be owned. The image must be rejected at all costs: Frida, like that black mirror in which each girl could read her own fate.

The Queen’s Umuzimu

Leoncia couldn’t wait for Virginia to return home for Easter break. Virginia had always been her mother’s favorite child. After all, they had named her Mutamuriza, “Don’t Make Her Cry.” And now that Virginia was at the lycée – a student! as Leoncia constantly reminded everyone – she was her only pride and joy. Already, she pictured herself accompanying her freshly arrived daughter in her school uniform from enclosure to enclosure greeting everyone who lived on the hill. It would be her glory day! Dressed in her finest wraparound, Leoncia would gauge with either a critical or a satisfied eye just how much respect each neighbor showed her
daughter, who would soon return with her diploma, that prestigious Humanities diploma that was awarded so parsimoniously, particularly to girls, and especially Tutsi girls. Even the head of the local Party committee, who always found new ways to harass and humiliate the only Tutsi family on the hill, felt obliged to receive them and to express his congratulations and encouragement, the fulsomeness of which did little to hide the fact he was only doing so out of obligation. Leoncia felt reassured: Virginia was a student, and when you’re a student, so she believed, it’s as if you’re no longer Hutu or Tutsi, but have taken on another “ethnicity”: what the Belgians used to refer to as civilized. Virginia would soon be a primary school teacher, maybe even at the nearby mission school, since that’s where Father Jerome had first noticed how intelligent she was. He eventually convinced Leoncia that Virginia (her eldest daughter! She to whom her brothers and sisters owed their arrival, their
uburiza
, She who opened their mother’s belly for them, She who had to be a little mother for her brothers and sisters) had another future than that of tilling the land alongside them. “A brilliant future,” he kept saying, “brilliant!” To persuade Leoncia, he suggested that Virginia could even become a nun with the Benebikira Sisters, not as a cook but as a teacher of course, and later progress to Mother Superior and then Mother General, why not. Leoncia preferred to see her daughter find a good husband, a civil servant obviously, with his own Toyota so he could run a trading business. Already, she was calculating
Virginia’s dowry. Not just cows. Also cash to build a brick house, the kind whites live in, with a door and padlocks, and a sheet-metal roof she’d see shining in the sun from far off as she worked her field. And they’d no longer sleep on straw, but on mattresses she’d buy from Gahigi at the market; even the children would have their mattresses, one for the three boys, another for the two girls. And she’d have her own parlor to receive family, friends, and neighbors. Especially the neighbors. They’d sit on folding chairs, not mats. And taking pride of place on the table would be the large shiny golden thermos, always full of tea (three liters!) and always hot, awaiting the arrival of Sunday visitors, who would sip the still-warm tea and chatter to each other as they left. “How lucky Leoncia is to have a daughter who has done advanced studies, she’s got a big thermos!”

It rains in March. And in April, it rains even more. Let it rain! Let it rain! The grain lofts will be full and children’s tummies bulging. During her two-week vacation, Virginia became the “little mother” again, a position that was hers by right of being the eldest. She looked after her brothers and sisters, and carried her mother’s newborn on her back. Leoncia was on vacation too. In the evening, the little ones peppered her with questions, and Virginia regaled them with tales of the wonders of the lycée of Our Lady of the Nile. But it was out in the field that Leoncia truly appreciated her daughter. No, the whites’ lycée hadn’t changed her. She
was the first, before sunrise, to hitch up her wraparound and step barefoot into the mud to wield her hoe. She knew how to track the parasites by making her way between the stems of maize, around which the beanstalks attempted to twine themselves, without crushing the younger shoots sown in December. She could tell the young sorghum from the threatening weeds, which she ripped out, leaping between the mounds of earth covering the sweet potatoes. “Now, that’s my daughter!” said Leoncia, “May her name bring her good fortune: Mutamuriza, ‘Don’t Make Her Cry.’ ”

It was while pulling up the beans that Virginia told her mother she’d go visit Skolastika, her paternal aunt, the next day.

“Of course you must visit your aunt,” said Leoncia. “Why didn’t I tell you before? Skolastika’s not my sister, she’s your father’s sister, you’re both descended from Nyogosenge. You’ve got to stay in your aunt’s good books, that’s what I’ve always said. Curses upon us should she get in a tiff! A paternal aunt is like a threatening storm. If she were to curse you, what would become of us? Skolastika has always brought you good luck, she’ll do the same for your diploma. But you can’t visit your aunt empty handed. What would she think of me? Or your father! Take the hoes, we’ll go make some sorghum beer for Skolastika.”

The whole day was spent making the sorghum beer without which Virginia couldn’t visit her aunt. Leoncia was concerned. They were all out of
amamera
, the black sorghum used to make
beer, and
umusemburo
, yeast, and had to ask their neighbors. Some didn’t have any, others clearly didn’t want to give them any. Whatever the outcome, each visit required long exchanges of courtesies. Leoncia tried not to show her impatience. Finally, old Mukanyonga agreed to give them just enough to brew a tiny jugful, following a never-ending monologue about how hard up she was and how tough times were. It doesn’t take long to prepare sorghum beer if you’ve got
amamera
and
umusemburo
, but they had to find a calabash to use as a container, and they needed one with an elegantly curved neck, and gracefully rounded, and they had to pick out one of Leoncia’s finely woven baskets to put it in (with a pointy lid), which they decorated with a garland of banana leaves. Then they wrapped the precious gift in a hand towel Virginia had brought back from the lycée, and put it in a little bag.

The pickup stopped at the Gaseke market. Virginia, who, thanks to her school uniform, had managed to sit next to the driver, waited for the enormous woman whose hot, flabby, flesh had squashed her at every bend to extract herself, whining all the while and wiping away the sweat. The passengers at the back had already jumped out and retrieved their luggage: rolled-up mattresses bound with sisal string, sheet metal, a pair of goats, jerricans full of banana beer or petrol. Boys came running from the row of stalls bunched along one side of the muddy market
square to unload drums of palm oil and bags of cement that the Pakistani merchant had been impatiently expecting.

Virginia walked into the store, bought a bottle of Primus, then spent a long time haggling at the market with an old grouch over a piece of tobacco, which he cut from a long, plaited spiral. Finally, she made a beeline for the women sitting on their frayed mats selling golden-brown doughnuts from bowls decorated with red flowers. She bought three of them, watched by a row of kids who sat cross-legged opposite the trader, for as long as the market was open, their eyes bright with craving for these inaccessible delights. Virginia walked down the road that led to the hill where her aunt lived.

The narrow path followed the ridge, above the slope of cultivated terraces that ran down to marshland planted with maize. All the hills, as far as the eye could see, were similarly terraced, and dotted with low houses, some round, some rectangular, their roofs mostly thatched, a few tiled. Many were hidden beneath thick banana groves, their presence betrayed only by the bluish plumes of smoke that stretched out lazily above the large lustrous leaves. Coffee bushes, planted in neat rows, already hung heavy with their bunches of red berries. A few tufts of papyrus sedge managed to thrive in the swampy hollows, while four black-crowned cranes strutted with carefree elegance, oblivious to the women working their fields.

On the peak of the highest hill stood the impressive buildings of the mission. The church’s crenellated tower reminded Virginia of a picture in her history book: the fortress in Europe where noble knights once lived, according to Sister Lydwine’s oft-repeated lesson.

The sun was about to dip beyond the hills when Virginia glimpsed her auntie’s house at the end of the path. Skolastika, who must have recognized her niece’s silhouette from far off, immediately left her field, gathered in her basket the sweet potatoes she’d just unearthed for the evening meal, raced uphill, and prepared to welcome her guest at the entrance to the enclosure before Virginia could get there. Skolastika barely had time to rip up a handful of grass with which to brush the dried earth from her legs and feet, before smoothing down the wraparound she’d hoisted above her calves to work the field. Virginia had removed the basket from the bag and balanced it on her head, as custom demands. “Welcome, Virginia,” said Skolastika. “I knew you were coming, I was informed of it. Last night, the fire began to crackle, sparks dancing above the flames. It was a sign I would receive a visit. So then I spoke the words one must utter at such a moment. ‘
Arakaza yizaniye impamba
, may my guest not arrive empty handed!’ But I knew very well it was you who was coming. I am Nyogosenge, your paternal aunt. Leoncia had to let you come.”

She bade Virginia enter the yard and the pair of them walked
up to the house. Skolastika stood at the threshold, and Virginia gracefully bent forward so her aunt could take the basket with both hands, then go and put it down, slowly and carefully, on the shelf behind the door, before it took its place of honor between the churns and the milk pails.

Now it was time for the welcome greetings. Skolastika and Virginia shared a long and close embrace, patting each other while the aunt whispered the long litany of wishes in her niece’s ear: “
Girumugabo
, may you find a husband!
Girabana benshi
, and bear many children!
Girinka
, may you have cows aplenty!
Gira amashyo
, a plentiful herd!
Ramba, ramba
, long life!
Gira amahoro
, may peace be with you!
Kaze neza
, you are welcome here!”

Skolastika and Virginia entered the house together, and Skolastika opened Virginia’s basket, took out the calabash, selected two straws from their quiver-shaped case and handed them both to Virginia. The two women squatted down opposite each other, and Skolastika placed the gourd between them. They each sucked up a mouthful of beer, and Skolastika gave a deep and appreciative sigh that expressed her contentment.

The first day of Virginia’s stay at her aunt’s was, of course, a series of triumphal visits to the neighbors. That night, Skolastika recounted to all the assembled family every single mark of respect her lycée niece had received, even from Rugaju, the pagan, indeed Skolastika made the most of Rugaju’s words to suggest he get his children christened – at least the boys – so they could attend
school like everyone else. Skolastika’s husband questioned Virginia at length about her studies: he’d spent two years at the local seminary and proudly showed her the three books on arithmetic, grammar, and conjugations he kept safely stored away as testimony to his advanced studies. Skolastika didn’t seem to appreciate her husband’s interest in her niece. At bedtime, after much beating around the bush and exaggerated expressions of deference, apology, and respect, Virginia finally told her aunt that she wouldn’t be going to the mission the next day as planned. She had to go see Clotilde, her childhood friend, with whom she’d played, danced, and skipped rope with whenever she visited Skolastika. She’d heard that Clotilde had gotten married and just had a child. She’d promised to visit her as soon as she arrived. Skolastika was somewhat shocked at the bold manner in which Virginia addressed her paternal aunt, but she chose not to show her irritation. Virginia was a student, after all, her teachers at the lycée were white, and there were some things you just couldn’t understand about people who always lived among whites. “Very well,” said Skolastika, “go and see Clotilde, and you’ll come with me to the mission the day after tomorrow. Father Fulgence wants to see you.”