20 March 1988
Jean didn’t know Kigali well. He was visiting only because his brother Emmanuel had moved there. Currently his brother was staying with their uncle Paul Bikolamana, and so visiting was a reason to visit his brother and his uncle both. Jean was also quite young. He wasn’t sure if he was going to continue living in Gisagora, where he was born; or Butare, which was the biggest city of Butare district; or if he would also consider having a life in Kigali like his brother. The place where his uncle and his brother were living wasn’t that much better than anything he knew from his village, just more cluttered together and with more trash about. It was basically two rooms separated from each other by a tin wall. His uncle did all of his cooking from a small gas heater and washed the dishes outside of the house where some of the other neighbours loitered. And Emmanuel was busy with his new work at the hospital. In those few days, Jean felt like he barely got to see his brother, which felt like a small betrayal, considering the time and effort he had taken to make the trip.
Still, Jean learned something in those days during which he spent in Kigali. He saw a lot of shanty houses up and down the hills. He was approached by several women who smiled at him nicely but wanted money to spend time with him. He saw a lot of people begging on the main roads connecting the towns to each other. It was raining a lot, and the wetness from the roof of the shanty house dripped all over the furniture.
Jean didn’t feel comfortable. He was missing village life too much.
Kigali was a city. There were opportunities there, and that wasn’t hard to imagine. He probably would have a chance to become someone far wealthier and more successful there than if he stayed at home.
But after three days, his mind was set. Jean couldn’t live away from his family. He thanked his brother and uncle for their time, but the decision in his mind was resolute. He was going to stay in Gisagora and build his family there, and he would leave it up to his future children to decide, depending on whether or not they wanted to imagine another destiny for their offspring.
16 November 2024
It is a bright day, and all of them are out at an eatery in the posh district of Kiyovu in Kigali. This means Father, his younger brother Jean, their older brother Felix, their three wives, and their mother, the great dame of the Bikolamana family from Gisagora in Huye District, Rwanda. The restaurant Father chooses is something random he found off of the internet. It’s one of those upscale restaurants not so far from his home, a high-end place where people sit outside and not inside. The restaurant faces out onto the street which is full of greenery and shrubbed lanes. The porch is decorated with pots and bushes growing on the side. The city market and the exhibition aren’t far, and if Father’s family is in the mood for tourism, he can take them around.
Primarily, Jean and Felix have come to see their mother.
« Mama, try to swallow please. Mama, comme ça. »
Jean apes how a little boy is fed. He makes his mouth as wide as possible and tries to push the soup into his mother’s mouth. Father cannot help but smile at the gesture. No matter how badly their mother’s health has deteriorated, Jean has never given up hope. He puts so much effort in when he pushes her wheelchair, or when he speaks at her, or when he feeds her. Everything is slow, everything is methodical, everything is with love.
Nyogokuru Bikolamana’s face remains the same, however—slanted, her mouth drooping and drooling. The food goes in, and Jean has to force it shut with a gentle push of his hands so that it doesn’t come out.
Felix is busy drinking his third Skol Lager and pushing his hand up and down his wife like he’s a teenager trying to score, and yet he interrupts all this to look at Father and say: « She’s gotten so dumb since she has come to Kigali. »
« Felix, be quiet » his wife, Chantal, says. « You should not speak about your mother in such a way »
Felix is drunk, so he thinks that whatever he said needs to be spoken clearer and louder.
« I said, she has lost it all since she has come to Kigali. Her mind and her body both. I expected that much. This is what happens when we spend six months relying on you. »
Father looks down at the table. Over the many years, has come to learn that he has to ignore his older brother. Otherwise there will be fighting, there will be tension, there will be fists thrown and bones broken and tears from the young ones shed. He looks out at the waiter, making a face. It’s been twenty minutes, and only his mother’s meal has come. The waiter and him make eye contact, and Father thinks he’s showing acknowledgement of the delay, but then the waiter goes back to checking the legs of one of the tables, which seems broken. Father heaves a huge sigh and wonders who he should make eye contact with next.
He certainly doesn’t want to look at his brother, who is still going on and on about him.
« Emmanuel knows nothing. He never did. Rien… rien chose… »
Felix stumbles for a second, for his French, unlike his two brothers’, is a lot less fluent, and it shows. He takes a second to probably wonder if he should continue insulting Father in Kinyarwanda, his language of arrogance, but he is drunk, and there are people around.
« C’est que… this Emmanuel… he is a doctor, and so he thinks… he thinks nothing… he left us all. And he left our mother without a brain and a body to use… why is he her favourite? Why does she always ask about him? »
Father pinches his lips upwards, unsure if he should feel good that he can understand the trail of gibberish coming from his brother’s mouth. He looks around to see if anyone else has heard him. Certainly, Chantal is paying attention and trying to calm him, but Jean is more focused on his mother. Jean’s wife, Diane, is on a phone call, and Father’s own wife, Rose, is in her own world, mouthing some prayer from the Bible, the lines she likes to recite before a meal starts.
Father wishes he has someone to talk to, or something to eat it. It’s a bizarre feeling, being surrounded by people, close relatives even, and feeling like one is all alone at the table.
11 August 2012
It was the first time Felix was coming to the capital in a long time, and he could not believe it. Where there had once been settlement houses, there were now tall buildings, full of see-through windows like the kinds he saw in the pictures of other countries. The roads were getting more even. There were some that didn’t have a single pothole. And while plenty of shacks and shanty houses still hung on the hills that formed much of Kigali, the area that Emmanuel lived in was full of big cottages and greenery.
It was nothing like their village. It was nothing like Rwanda.
Coming into this city, Felix almost felt intimidated. Almost was the key word. He was in a twegerane crammed with twenty other passengers—this was a vehicle meant for ten. He was sitting, but one of the men had come with his coop of chickens, and so there were hens clucking at him through the cages. The loud upbeat music in Kinyarwanda and the bumping of the wheels as the twegerane curved up and down the roads kept Felix alert and awake. Being from a village, he wasn’t used to so much noise and stimulation.
He should have drunk a little bit before coming.
He could have also brought his mother or his brother or his wife or any of his children, but he hadn’t told any of them why he was coming. He was feeling some bumps in a strange part of his legs, and he was running a fever. The fever he could explain away as any illness, but the bumps were not normal, and he wondered if he had gotten them from that night he had spent with that sixteen-year-old who lived in the hut on the other side of them, that girl who was the granddaughter of a good friend of his mother’s. He had been drunk when he did it. He was drunk most of the time when he found himself hard down there and tempted by all the young flesh. And they wanted it, too. They were curious at that age, not knowing any better.
Felix wondered what Chantal was doing. He imagined her in the arms of Pascal-Louis, the twentysomething cassava farmer with huge biceps. The rickety twegerane was rolling along, and Felix could feel the blood pumping into his fists. His heart was beating fast, his blood was seething. People were yelling loudly in the Twegerane anyways. He should have intruded into their talkings, yelled at them, given himself a reason to get into a fight.
But one of the chickens in the cage was staring at him, and it broke his concentration.
He got off of the twegerane, and his brother picked him up. His brother had one of those fancy European cars, and the AC was on full blast. It wasn’t even that hot. He was putting it on just to annoy Felix, to make the goosebumps on his arms perk up. His sister-in-law Rose greeted them when they got home with a huge meal of many different meats and dishes. None of it was food they ate at the village. Felix had trouble recognising them and didn’t like the taste. He felt like they were serving him these things to remind him of what couldn’t be found back home.
Then Felix asked his brother for privacy, and they went into another room and talked. Felix showed Emmanuel the bumps, and Emmanuel laughed.
« My brother, that is just urticaria. It is nothing important at all. »
Felix did not like the way Emmanuel had laughed. Something about it made Felix feel like he had said something stupid, or that he had spent all this time and energy to come to see his brother for a nonsensical reason. He did not like that Emmanuel used words he did not understand. Felix had not gone to school and didn’t know what urticaria was. Emmanuel could have been more considerate and explained it nicely.
Instead, Emmanual started to speak about other subjects.
« You should stop drinking so much alcohol. It is not healthy for you. And what it is that you are doing that makes you so worried about bumps in this place or that? Is there something you are doing that Chantal does not know about? »
Felix felt the anger frothing inside of his throat. He said:
« You are my little brother. You can’t tell me what to do. »
Emmanuel said: « You have come to visit me for medical advice… I am telling you what is for your best. »
« You can’t say anything to me. You know nothing about what you’re talking about. You’re a betrayer to our family. You have never stood by our side for when it counts. »
Emmanuel tapped his feet. Then he sighed. « Felix, you have come here not to see me. You are using me for free medical care. You inherited the farm from our father and don’t share any of the assets with us. You are no better than I am when it comes to our family. You only interact with us when you see fit. »
Felix stood up and shoved his brother. It was the only way he could react in that moment. It was the only thing that made sense. He started shouting, but he didn’t understand what he was saying. He was thinking about the time when he had held his father’s hand while he was dying, and how sad that had made him feel. He was thinking about the nights his mother had cried herself to sleep, missing Emmanuel and yet never saying a thing to him. He was thinking about all of the children he had and how much money they cost. He was thinking about the things that angered or saddened him or that split his body into thousands of other smaller indecipherable emotions at once.
The problem was it was all coming at the same time, and it made Felix want to break things.
Suddenly, Rose was in the room. She was holding a pan in her hand like a weapon. Still staggering from his shove, Emmanuel hid himself behind his wife like a coward.
He actually had genuine fear in his eyes.
Felix dismissed himself. He found another twegerante heading back to his village and left without saying a single thing. While he stood crunched against two other men, he made a promise to himself. He was never going to talk to his brother again. He had nothing but hate and anger towards his brother. His brother was right in some ways—he was using his brother so that he could feel like he was getting something from the little his brother gave them.
And he was going to continue to drink. He was going to drink no matter who hated him for doing it.
He got to the village, found the little bar to the side of the convenience store, and used whatever savings he had and got wasted. He knew Chantal was going to yell at him the next day, but despite that he drank.
He was going to spend the rest of the night with the other drunkards of the village. And whatever came after, he was going to forget about it.
16 November 2024
The food comes, and Father is grateful. He can stuff his mouth and avoid the people around him until he is forced to answer their questions. He has ordered a hamburger, the steak well done and the salad on the side. The cheese is well melted and covering the entire thing in the American style. Father is about to dig in, but Felix interrupts him.
« Look at my brother. He is eating the most foreign thing from the menu. »
Father looks at the hamburger, puzzles over it for a moment, then decides to bite into the savoury, moist patty. The coating of the cheese melts warmly in his mouth. He hasn’t tasted cheese this good in a while as he rarely orders cheese in the first place. He feels satisfied with his decision—the burger is worth the price he will spend on it.
Nonetheless, his brother keeps throwing insults around.
« Where is the umutsima? Where is the isombe? There’s nothing on this menu I can understand. Chantal, you order me something I can eat. »
Chantal retorts:
« I already ordered something a half hour ago. »
Still, his brother complains.
« Where is the umutsima? Where is the isombe? I want some food I can understand… »
Father is getting bored of his older brother. He takes a moment to peer at the other guests. Jean and their mother are in their own little world. Jean is reciting some lines from a song in Kinyarwanda that their mother used to sing to them when they were young. Father remembers those moments and feels sad. When Nyogokuru Bikolamana was living in the village, she still had a good amount of her motor skills. This is the first time Jean is seeing them fully gone, and he hasn’t gotten used to it.
In the meantime, his older brother is saying:
« Emmanuel can’t do anything right. He doesn’t know anything about what we want. He is useless. »
Father knows he took on this task to take his mother to his home in the city. He thought he knew best when he did it. Kigali has become one of the best cities in Africa, and the medical care is unparalleled. The villages of Rwanda are still incredibly poor. To be in such environments bereft of modern standards of medicine at Nyogokuru Bikolamana’s age is practically a death sentence. So, Father brought her home, made sure she was seeing good doctors and nurses every week, and gave her as much attention as he could.
But still the attention he could afford wasn’t enough.
His older brother is still talking.
« Such an idiot… Emmanuel… Emmanuel… »
And now Father has had enough.
« If you think I am idiot, you pay the bill. »
It’s not just that he has said it but the tone with which he has said it. The anger in his voice draws the attention of everyone at the table who were previously not even paying attention.
« Pay the bill? Pay the bill! » Felix is now shouting so loudly that even the staff are looking on. « You invite us from the village. You take us to an expensive restaurant. And you want us to pay the bill? You are crazy! Crazy! This amount will be more than my week’s earnings. »
« It will be more than enough payment for all the medical visits you took from me. »
« Medical visits? » Chantal is now asking. She turns to face her husband, also raising her voice. « What are these medical visits? »
Now Felix is clutching the table on one side, and the plates and sheets look like they are about to fall off. Then he rushes over to Father’s side, pointing and shouting madly.
« You are nothing! Nobody! »
He is so angry or drunk, or both at the same time, that he wobbles, unable to maintain his balance. He pushes Father, causing Father to almost fall from his chair. Father regains his balance and pushes his older brother back. They are now locked in each other’s arms. Father is so caught off guard by the aggression that he can’t even hear what Felix is shouting. All he knows are the words coming out of his own mouth.
« All you want to do is make me feel guilty! Make me feel guilty! But everything I did was for family! Family! I did none of it for myself. I did it for you. I did it for her. I did it for my son. And I did it! I’m the reason why this family has survived. »
Father can feel his hands hurting. He can feel that he must be bleeding or bruising, though he doesn’t know where or how. But he expects Felix to really beat him up like he did when they were young boys. He expects Felix to pull out even nastier words. He expects Felix to break him. As Felix’s fists rain down, Father knows now is the time to share it all.
« You don’t like it, but I did everything for you all, and you don’t take the time to appreciate it! You never will! You’re used to taking things from me, hitting me, and beating me around, and you’re used to me being quiet. Emmanuel is so shy. Emmanuel is so easy. But Emmanuel is here, and Emmanuel is rich, and Emmanuel is thriving. You will never accept it because you cannot. You will always be like that because you are selfish and corrupt… »
« Arr… arr… arrête »
So says an extremely feeble voice, a voice so feeble that it demands far more attention than what Felix and Father are saying and doing to each other. The entire table turns to face a person who was being ignored up until now. It is Nyogokuru Bikolamana. She is pointing upwards like she tends to do, but this time her finger is directed at the two boys. And there is a direction in the gaze in her eyes, in her posture.
Tears are forming in the corners of Nyogokuru Bikolamana’s eyes.
She says:
« A… arr… arrête… stop fighting… stop fighting… »
7 April 1994
When the Interahamwe came to their village, Mercy Bikolamana would have been barely able to explain a single fact about Juvénal Habyarimana, let alone the fact that he had been assassinated yesterday. And yet not a single soldier asked a thing when they came spearing down the villagers, cutting down anyone who fled with their machetes. Mercy Bikolamana was out in her field, alone, harvesting the cassava. None of her children were around, and she was grateful every day that that was the case. But there were so many men who came at her, and they saw her not only as a Tutsi.
They saw her as a good-looking woman.
The men took their turns holding her down. They tore off her purple dress but kept on her headscarf. A confused passerby came their way, and the men who were free cut his neck with their machete and let his blood stream all over the mud. Mercy saw some boys coming in their direction and shouted for them to get away.
But they were bludgeoned to death.
As the men from the Interahamwe took their turns on her one by one, Mercy Bikolamana kept her gaze away. She was convinced she was going to be killed after they were done. Probably they would have had there not been armed men from the neighbouring village coming their way. In the years after, there would be nothing like the pain and horror and sadness that would continue to haunt her. But in that very moment, she only had one pressing thought.
Where is Emmanuel? And is he safe?
