Canada, which maybe I’ll see one day. Because I’m alive and the children are alive and because right now things are good for us. D’you want more reasons?”
Valcourt shook his head. Gentille was right.
“Monsieur Valcourt,” Cyprien began, “I’m going to tell you what always gives you such a long, serious face. I’m going to be very straight with you because you know everything about me. You’ve got everything out of my head with your questions. You even know my sickness better than me, and you explain it to me. Yes, as you say, we’re close friends. Funny way to be close friends— you know when I put on a condom and when I don’t, and I don’t even know how old you are. But that doesn’t matter. What I want to say is, you get us thinking. We feel from your eyes what you see in your head. You see dead bodies, skeletons, and on top of that you want us to talk like we’re dying. I’ll start doing that a few seconds before I die, but until then I’m going to live and fuck and have a good time. You’re the one who talks like a dying man, like every word you say is going to be your last. You mustn’t take it wrong, but that’s what I think and I’m saying it. Monsieur Valcourt, have another Primus, have a good time with us, then go back to the hotel, eat, fuck the beautiful Gentille, and go to sleep snoring like a cat. And leave us to die peacefully alive. There, my friend, that’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.”
Valcourt received the lesson like a boxer taking a devastating punch. He was KO’d.
But Cyprien wanted to confide something else to him. With an indication to Gentille that she should go and join Georgina and the children in the house, he spread his arms to embrace all of Kigali. To the left lay the city centre, with the hotel overlooking it from the highest hill; on the right was the Ruhengeri highway; and opposite, on the other hill, the iron market, which was shrinking to make room for coffin-makers. Slightly farther to the right was the red-toned, almost medieval mass of the prison. Then Cyprien explained. His cousin had told him that the president had set up a training camp in a college in Ruhengeri, and the brothers of the Christian colleges had not protested. Hundreds of young fanatics like those who had been playing with machetes in the marketplace were being trained there. Every day along that highway—he pointed—army trucks filled with militiamen were arriving in Kigali. They were being billeted in different neighbourhoods with party sympathizers, and at night were throwing up roadblocks and checking the identity of anyone passing. They were roaming the streets with papers, filling them with marks after asking whether the houses were Tutsi or Hutu. Sometimes, a bit drunk or stoned on hash which the soldiers doled out to them, they lopped arms or legs off a few stray Tutsis. Recently, in his own neighbourhood, someone had been setting fire to Tutsi houses. The arsonists came from elsewhere, no one knew them, but they never mistook their targets. At “the bar under the bed” 9 nestled in the spot where the road turns and climbs toward the city, Cécile, whom Cyprien liked to fondle on his way home from the market, had shown him lists left by a militiaman who had wanted to fuck but had no money. The names had come from the section head, Madame Odile, a hysterical woman who beat her children when they played with Tutsis. The list held 332 names. Almost all Tutsis. The rest were Hutu members of opposition parties. This is what Cyprien wanted to tell Valcourt. And something else too.
Another cousin, a member of the president’s party, was working as a guard at the prison.
“We’ve begun the work at the prison,” this cousin had confided to Cyprien. “It’s important work for the survival of Rwanda, which is threatened by the cockroaches. We’re eliminating them as soon as they arrive.”
But there was a lot more still to come. The militiamen were
Valcourt shook his head. Gentille was right.
“Monsieur Valcourt,” Cyprien began, “I’m going to tell you what always gives you such a long, serious face. I’m going to be very straight with you because you know everything about me. You’ve got everything out of my head with your questions. You even know my sickness better than me, and you explain it to me. Yes, as you say, we’re close friends. Funny way to be close friends— you know when I put on a condom and when I don’t, and I don’t even know how old you are. But that doesn’t matter. What I want to say is, you get us thinking. We feel from your eyes what you see in your head. You see dead bodies, skeletons, and on top of that you want us to talk like we’re dying. I’ll start doing that a few seconds before I die, but until then I’m going to live and fuck and have a good time. You’re the one who talks like a dying man, like every word you say is going to be your last. You mustn’t take it wrong, but that’s what I think and I’m saying it. Monsieur Valcourt, have another Primus, have a good time with us, then go back to the hotel, eat, fuck the beautiful Gentille, and go to sleep snoring like a cat. And leave us to die peacefully alive. There, my friend, that’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.”
Valcourt received the lesson like a boxer taking a devastating punch. He was KO’d.
But Cyprien wanted to confide something else to him. With an indication to Gentille that she should go and join Georgina and the children in the house, he spread his arms to embrace all of Kigali. To the left lay the city centre, with the hotel overlooking it from the highest hill; on the right was the Ruhengeri highway; and opposite, on the other hill, the iron market, which was shrinking to make room for coffin-makers. Slightly farther to the right was the red-toned, almost medieval mass of the prison. Then Cyprien explained. His cousin had told him that the president had set up a training camp in a college in Ruhengeri, and the brothers of the Christian colleges had not protested. Hundreds of young fanatics like those who had been playing with machetes in the marketplace were being trained there. Every day along that highway—he pointed—army trucks filled with militiamen were arriving in Kigali. They were being billeted in different neighbourhoods with party sympathizers, and at night were throwing up roadblocks and checking the identity of anyone passing. They were roaming the streets with papers, filling them with marks after asking whether the houses were Tutsi or Hutu. Sometimes, a bit drunk or stoned on hash which the soldiers doled out to them, they lopped arms or legs off a few stray Tutsis. Recently, in his own neighbourhood, someone had been setting fire to Tutsi houses. The arsonists came from elsewhere, no one knew them, but they never mistook their targets. At “the bar under the bed” 9 nestled in the spot where the road turns and climbs toward the city, Cécile, whom Cyprien liked to fondle on his way home from the market, had shown him lists left by a militiaman who had wanted to fuck but had no money. The names had come from the section head, Madame Odile, a hysterical woman who beat her children when they played with Tutsis. The list held 332 names. Almost all Tutsis. The rest were Hutu members of opposition parties. This is what Cyprien wanted to tell Valcourt. And something else too.
Another cousin, a member of the president’s party, was working as a guard at the prison.
“We’ve begun the work at the prison,” this cousin had confided to Cyprien. “It’s important work for the survival of Rwanda, which is threatened by the cockroaches. We’re eliminating them as soon as they arrive.”
But there was a lot more still to come. The militiamen were
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