Running the Rift (35 page)

F
ROM A DISTANCE
, Jean Patrick saw that the door to his room was open and that Bea sat on his bed, Daniel in a chair facing her. He sprinted the remaining steps.

“Félicien Gatabazi is dead. Assassinated last night in Kigali,” Bea said as Jean Patrick entered the room. He sat down heavily beside her. She did not look up. “He called us as he was dying. We had a late dinner, and we were lingering at the table, discussing this and that, when the phone rang.”

As if it were happening right now, right here, he saw Félicien Gatabazi at Bea's table, his squinted eyes, one swollen shut, face bruised, arm in a makeshift sling. He had looked at Jean Patrick and predicted his own death. And then he had smiled.

“There's going to be a huge demonstration,” Bea said. “Many students are going to march. I came to ask if you will join us.”

Daniel jumped up. “Let's go! Let another voice besides Interahamwe be heard in this town.”

Jean Patrick retrieved Isaka's bandanna from his drawer and fastened it around his neck. Coach's stone expression came back to him. Never before had he so brazenly defied him. “I'm ready,” he said. “Let's go.”

O
N THE ROAD
to town, there was barely room to walk. A wall of demonstrators spanned the asphalt and spread out onto the grass. On the hillsides, small groups of spectators sporting caps of Habyarimana's MRND and other antimoderate parties shouted insults and threats and waved anti-PSD signs.

The protest was a river of color crested by raised fists. Jean Patrick was buoyed along by the powerful tide. “Félicien can be proud,” he said. “So many Hutu and Tutsi marching together to remember him.” A small political fire sparked in his belly.

Two women Jean Patrick recognized from school carried a hand-painted banner:
WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE
. Bea raised a fist into the air, her eyes candescent. A lightning bolt struck Jean Patrick's heart. For the first time since the riot in Kigali, hope returned, blunting memory the way a stream blunts a rock's sharp edges with its steady flow. Maybe in death, Félicien Gatabazi had achieved what he had struggled so hard for in life. Maybe now they could learn to walk in peace and unity,
AMAHORO N'UBUMWE,
as one banner demanded.

“Look,” Daniel said. A group of boys in RPF T-shirts marched toward them from l'avenue de la Cathédrale. “In Kigali, they'd be torn apart for that.”

“Probably in Cyangugu, too.” Jean Patrick touched a finger to Isaka's scarf and scanned the marchers, the buildings, the trees, his eyes turning every shadow into Roger.

Bea brushed against him. “Who are you looking for?”

“No one. Just watching.”

“Well, I hope you find this No One. You are searching hard.”

J
EAN
P
ATRICK WALKED
hand in hand with Daniel and Bea on the path. She had invited them for dinner so they could watch the coverage of the demonstrations on TV. They were keyed up from the march, charged with its giddy energy.

Ineza opened the gate. “The news is not good,” she said. Like wet fingers touched to a candle's wick, her tone extinguished the flame of Jean Patrick's wishes. She kissed them in turn. “Come in.”

The TV flickered, the nightly news barely discernible from the static.
The audio hissed and crackled. “Kigali has erupted,” she said, “violence spilling onto every street.”

“What happened?” Life appeared to drain from Bea's body, bone by bone. She sat on the couch and stared dully at the screen.

Ineza took her hand. “In retaliation for Gatabazi's murder, someone here in Butare lynched Martin Bucyana, leader of one of the extremist anti-PSD parties. Revenge for his death came swiftly. Interahamwe blocked the roads and set half of Kigali on fire. They've taken over.”

Jean Patrick slumped down in a chair. The horizontal on the TV was out of control. What appeared to be scenes of burning tires and buildings in flames scrolled between black lines.

Ineza said, “I'm so angry. On RTLM they are screaming that Gatabazi was icyitso and deserved to die.”

Bea snorted. “What did you expect? At any rate, if you're not angry now, you are either stupid or crazy.” She got up and turned on the lights, and Jean Patrick realized they had been sitting in darkness.

Daniel squeezed beside Jean Patrick on the chair. “The peace process is dead,” he said. “Murdered along with Gatabazi.”

Bea shot back, “It was never alive.” She looked up suddenly. “Where's Dadi? He isn't back yet?”

Worry on her face, Ineza glanced at the door. “He should be here soon.”

Bea brought beer and Fanta from the cookhouse. “He shouldn't have gone; he was half-dead from exhaustion. After Félicien called, Dadi was on the phone half the night, and he left for Kigali with the dawn, to help with arrangements for the funeral.” Defiance lit her face. “We will fill an entire football stadium. We will not let the extremists have the last word.”

A program of Rwandan dance came on the television. With every sound of a car, Ineza went to the window. “Don't worry, Mama,” Bea said. “He's lost track of time, as usual.”

“W
E'LL HAVE TO
eat without him, or Jean Patrick and Daniel will never get back before curfew,” Ineza said. It was nearly eight, and Niyonzima had not returned.

A car honked outside. Claire set down the food she had just brought
and scurried to the gate to let the visitor in. Ineza and Bea exchanged glances. “I'll go to the door,” Bea said.

“There's been an accident.” The voice came, disembodied, from the hall. Jean Patrick had heard the voice before. Where? The man stepped from the shadow. It was the policeman who had spoken with Bea at the Ibis.

“I'm sorry to bring you this news.” Butter could have dripped from his mouth. “Your husband was found near Murambi. He had gone off the road. He had been drinking.” A flash of surprise metamorphosed into a smile when he noticed Jean Patrick. He gave a mock bow and said, “Good evening, Mr….” He raised his eyebrows.

“Nkuba. Jean Patrick Nkuba.”

Shakily, Ineza rose from her seat. “Is my husband alive?”

“Madam, I wish I could tell you. I was only instructed to take you to the hospital.”

Bea put an arm around her mother. “Be strong,” she said, her face stony. Turning to the policeman, she added, “My father drinks only at home. He had no plans to go to Murambi.”

The officer slid his glance over her. “Ah, but that is where we found him.”

Ineza collected her shawl and purse and slipped on her sandals. “You must stay and eat,” she said to Jean Patrick and Daniel. Her back straight and regal, she took the arm Bea offered and followed the policeman out the front door.

The car rattled down the road. After a time, the sound melted into the night's hum and click. “It wasn't an accident,” Daniel said.

“I know.” Jean Patrick had had enough of secrets. Gatabazi had been murdered. They didn't know if Niyonzima was dead or alive. Now, it was up to him and Daniel to carry the truth forward. No matter what Bea thought, Jean Patrick knew he could trust Jonathan. Down to the smallest cell in his heart, he knew it. “I think we should tell Jonathan,” he said.

“Right now?”

“Right now.” Jean Patrick put on his jacket and his shoes. He pounced on this small promise. Jonathan would find a voice to shout into America's listening ear.

The trademark spot of tongue showed between Daniel's teeth. “I'm with you.”

A
T LEAST
N
IYONZIMA WAS ALIVE;
they had that to be thankful for. Leg shattered, unable to move, he had lain against the car door where he was thrown and made his peace. But just as he had abandoned all hope, out of nowhere the police arrived to rescue him. At the hospital, he asked about his car, and they told him not to worry, they would see to having it towed. When no car appeared, Jonathan drove Bea and Jean Patrick to find it, but they could not. Several times they drove far past Gikongoro, searching the ravines and bushes. Jean Patrick asked the workers in the fields. No one had seen it. The earth, it seemed, had swallowed Niyonzima's vehicle. When they inquired at the station, the officer at the desk shrugged his shoulders and launched into a complaint about the lawlessness of the countryside.

Of course it had not been an accident. Opening his office door on the day of Gatabazi's death, Niyonzima found a letter slipped beneath it. The sender promised details on the secret arming of Interahamwe and asked Niyonzima to meet him at a restaurant near Murambi. He claimed to be a friend of a close colleague. “It was a novice's mistake not to verify the details,” Niyonzima said. “But the colleague was away, and the bait, too delicious.” A truck forced him off the road. It had happened so quickly; he had recognized neither vehicle nor occupants.

As the days passed, Jonathan called and wrote letters to the police chief suggesting an investigation. When his attempts went unanswered, he requested an interview with the burgomaster. He was received politely, given tea, promised results with a smile as sweet as the icing that glazed the cakes he was offered. “The man was drunk,” the burgomaster said, wiping crumbs from his hands. “He could not tell us what happened or where he lost control of his car.”

“You are asking a lion to investigate a calf killing,” Niyonzima said when Jonathan told him of his failures.

“I always get the same smile,” Jonathan said. “I call it the make-the-muzungu-go-away smile.” Seeing Jonathan's exasperated expression, Jean Patrick felt his own hope fade.

Hope rose again when Jonathan wrote a formal complaint to the U.S. Embassy, but weeks later, he was still waiting for a response. Jonathan's voice simply rose into the mist with the rest of their voices. The ear of America remained deaf.

After a week in the hospital, Niyonzima came home. He was healing, putting on weight and muscle. On mornings when Jean Patrick could escape from Coach's watchful eye, he joined Niyonzima when he finished his workout. Together they walked up and down the lane, each time a bit farther, a bit faster. “Soon, even with your crutches you'll beat me,” Jean Patrick joked.

“Ha!
That which does not kill us makes us stronger,
” Niyonzima said. “Do you know the saying?” Ashamed, Jean Patrick shook his head. “It's Nietzsche, a German philosopher. I repeated it every day I was in prison.”

“I have seen his book on Coach's shelf.” The words were no sooner out of Jean Patrick's mouth than he wished he could snatch them back out of the air.

“Of course,” Niyonzima said. Jean Patrick could taste the bitterness in his smile.

E
ASTER CAME EARLY
that year: April 3, now only three days away. Jean Patrick stretched out on his bed. He was trying to study, but his mind traveled here and there. The milk and honey they had all wished for at the start of the year seemed as far away as the moon. Letters from Mama sighed with bad news. For the crime of being Tutsi, classmates had chased Clemence until her feet bled. Hutu Power toughs jumped Zachary on a morning walk near his school.
Luckily,
Mama wrote,
he has legs like yours to run.

Jean Patrick returned to his geology book, a chapter on stress and strain in rocks. If stress was applied too quickly, he read, the strain could not
be supported, and the rock snapped. This was how faults formed. But when the same stress was applied buhoro, buhoro, little by little, the rock adjusted. Folds formed instead of faults. “Like toothpaste squeezed from a tube,” Jonathan told the class.

And if pressure kept increasing in Rwanda, what would happen then? Would they break or bend? Disgusted, Jean Patrick set the book aside. I will die in the wreckage of all this confusion, he thought.

Commotion erupted outside the door, and Daniel burst through, dancing and whooping. He took off his jacket and shook out the rain. “Classes are over! Papers finished!”

“Aye! Couldn't you do that outside?” Jean Patrick shoved Daniel out and wiped the floor with a dirty shirt.

“Let me in, huh?” Daniel kicked off his shoes and hurled himself on top of Jean Patrick, who was still on hands and knees, mopping. They rolled across the floor, wrestling.

“No more slaughtered cows on your essays?”

“Just a few drops of blood.” Daniel jumped up and wiggled his hips like a rock 'n' roll singer.

The bass from a radio vibrated the walls. In the small square of space between the beds, Daniel twirled and swayed to the beat. Jean Patrick joined in.

“When are you leaving for Cyangugu?” Daniel asked.

“Saturday morning, after practice. Coach wants to destroy me one last time before I go. He's been too cross. Maybe he needs a wife to take his mind off his troubles.”

Daniel howled. “Wah! Can you picture it?” He jabbed his elbow into Jean Patrick. “Anyway, I found out he had one.”

“Eh-eh! Never.”

“She ran away to Tanzania because she didn't want to be second wife, behind the army.”

“I think he's still married to the army, the way he acts.”

Daniel took two candies from his pocket. He gave one to Jean Patrick and popped the other in his mouth. These were red, a sweet burst of cinnamon and spice on the tongue.

“From your muzungu sweetheart?”

“I am in love!” Daniel grinned, openmouthed, showing off the candy on his tongue. “Let's get some food. I could devour a cow by myself.”

A
N ONSLAUGHT OF
noise hit them when they walked through the cafeteria door, students shouting and pushing, every seat taken, students sharing the tiny chairs. After they got their dinner, Jean Patrick and Daniel waited by the front. Daniel attacked his chips with his fingers, dragging them through a pile of mayonnaise sauce on his plate.

“Tsst! Tsst! Share our seats.” The call came from a table in the corner where two girls stood and waved. Jean Patrick recognized them from the protest, the ones who carried the banner that said
WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE
. Daniel and Jean Patrick squeezed into one chair, the girls into the other.