Running the Rift; A Novel

Also by Naomi Benaron Love Letters from a Fat Man Running the Rift A NOVEL NAOMI BENARON ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2012 FOR MATHILDE MUKANTABANA AND ALEXANDRE KIMENYI, WHOSE SPARK LIGHTS THESE PAGES. AND FOR ALL THE SURVIVORS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE WHO LENT ME THEIR VOICES; AND FOR THOSE WHO DID NOT SURVIVE, BUT WHOSE VOICES WHISPER TO ME STILL. A genocide is a poisonous bush that grows not from two or three roots, but from a whole tangle that has moldered underground without anyone noticing. —Claudine, genocide survivor, from Life Laid Bare, by Jean Hatzfeld Contents Book One One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Book Two Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-one Twenty-two Twenty-three Book Three Twenty-four Twenty-five Twenty-six Twenty-seven Book Four Twenty-eight Twenty-nine Book Five Thirty Thirty-one Thirty-two Acknowledgments BOOK ONE EJO HASHIZE (YESTERDAY) Izina ni ryo muntu. The name is the very man named. 1984 ONE JEAN PATRICK WAS ALREADY AWAKE, listening to the storm, when Papa opened the door and stood by the side of the bed. Rain hissed at the windows and roared against the corrugated roof, and Jean Patrick huddled closer to his brother Roger for warmth. He remembered then that Papa was going to a conference in Kigali. He said it was a very important meeting; educators from all across Rwanda would be there. “I’m leaving now,” Papa whispered, his voice barely louder than the rain. “Uwimana will be here soon to pick me up.” If even Headmaster was going, Jean Patrick thought, the conference must be top level. The lantern flame glinted on Papa’s glasses and on a triangle of white shirt; the storm must have knocked the power out, as usual. “You boys will have to check the pen carefully after you bring the cattle in. Make sure no earth has washed away in the rain.” He tucked the blanket around their shoulders. “And Roger—you’ll have to check Jean Patrick’s lessons. I don’t want any mistakes from either of you.” Turning his head from the light, Jean Patrick puckered his face. He didn’t need Roger to check his homework; even Papa had to look hard to find an error. “I’ll be back tomorrow night,” Papa said. Jean Patrick leaned on his elbows and watched his father walk into the hallway on a beam of yellow light. His footsteps echoed on the concrete. “Be safe, Dadi,” he said. “May Imana bless your journey.” Gashogoro, the rainy season of November and December, often turned the roads leading from Cyangugu into muddy swamps. On the path, Jean Patrick sometimes sank in mud to his ankles. All day the rain continued. Streams swelled and tumbled toward Lake Kivu. Rivers of red clay washed down from the hills, and by the time Jean Patrick came home from school, mud had stained his pant legs the color of rust. After he finished his homework, Jean Patrick brought out his toy truck and steered it back and forth in the front room. His father had made the imodoka from coat hangers, scraps of wood and metal, and brightly colored bits of plastic. Roger had a new watch, a gift from a muzungu missionary. He kept setting and resetting the alarm, beeping it in Jean Patrick’s ear. The bell for the end of classes rang at Gihundwe, their father’s school, and the students’ voices bounced between the buildings, a river of sound muffled by the rain. Jean Patrick imagined the day he would leave primary school behind and be one of them, adding his uproar to the rest. Sometimes the anticipation bordered on fever, a feeling that slowed the passage of time down to the very tick of the clock. “We better get the cattle,” Roger said. “If we wait for the storm to end, we will be here, waiting, when Dadi comes home.” They put on their raincoats and rubber boots and took their switches from the side of the house. “Let’s race,” Jean Patrick said, taking off before Roger had a chance to respond. The competition between Jean Patrick and Roger began this year, when Roger started playing football on the weekends with a small club called Inzuki—the Bees. He ran whenever he could to keep in top shape, and often he took Jean Patrick with him. He had taught Jean Patrick how to run backward, how to pump his arms and have a good strong kick behind him. Since they lived at the school, Papa kept the cattle with a cousin of Mama’s who lived near. Jean Patrick ran, keeping to the side of the road where the mud was not so churned. Each day, he’d tried to make it a little farther before Roger caught him, but today was impossible. No matter what line he chose, the road swallowed his boots. Roger passed him before the red bricks of Gihundwe’s walls were lost to the mist. From a distance, Jean Patrick spotted the wide arc of horns on the inyambo steer, their father’s favorite. In the blur of rain, the horns dipped and turned above the small herd like the arms of an Intore dancer. The steer looked up, blinking his liquid black eyes, as they approached. Jean Patrick placed a hand on the steer’s back and felt the wet quiver of his hide. Led by the inyambo steer, the herd shuffled into motion toward the rickety collection of poles that marked the pen. R OGER MADE IT to the gate at Gihundwe a good ten steps in front of Jean Patrick. He stopped and took off his watch. “Look—it took us twenty-seven minutes and thirty-five seconds there and back. I timed it.” Jean Patrick gasped for air. Mud clung to his clothes, his boots, his hands. “You lie. No watch can time us. Let me have it.” He took the watch, and there was the time in bold numbers, just as Roger had claimed. The smells of stewing meat, peppery and rich, came from the charcoal stove in the cookhouse. Jean Patrick and Roger stripped off their boots and raincoats and went inside. In the kitchen, a snappy soukous tune by Pepe Kalle played on the radio. Jean Patrick’s little sister did some kwassa kwassa steps with Zachary in her arms. His legs dangled to her knees. “Eh-eh, Jacqueline. You dance sweet,” Jean Patrick teased. Jacqueline spun around. “Aye! What happened to you? Did you drown?” She pointed to the dirty water that pooled by Jean Patrick and Roger’s feet. Roger took Zachary from Jacqueline, and the three of them danced. Jean Patrick swung his hips the way he had seen on the videos. He was still swinging them when he heard the knock at the door, quiet at first and then louder, and still when he opened the door to two policemen. Mama ran into the room, Baby Clemence bundled at her back. “We’re so sorry to bring you this news,” they said. MAMA BROUGHT THEM TEA, her back straight and tall. Clemence began to whimper, and Mama picked her up to comfort her. Zachary played with the truck on the floor as if the only difference between this afternoon and any other was that men had come to visit. There were six of them traveling together, the policemen said, all headmasters and préfets. The urubaho was out of control—they always were—going too fast down the mountain with a load far too heavy for such a flimsy truck. It swerved around the corner on the wrong side and crashed head-on into the car. Two people dead from Gihundwe—Jean Patrick’s father and the préfet de discipline. Two others dead and two badly injured. It was a miracle anyone survived, and the urubaho driver with barely a scratch, obviously drunk. He hit a boy on a bicycle, too; the sack of potatoes he carried on the handlebars scattered across the road. The bicycle was found, but not the boy, the cliffs too steep and dangerous to search in the rain. The policemen clucked their tongues. It was always the best of the country—Rwanda’s future—that died like this. The body was in the hospital at Gitarama. With their permission, the headmaster from Gihundwe would bring him home. Mama stopped her gentle rocking. “Uwimana wasn’t in the car?” It was one of those strange occurrences, the policemen said, that revealed Ikiganza cy’Imana, the Hand of God. At the last possible minute, there had been an emergency at school, and Headmaster had stayed behind. “Uwimana asked us to fetch his wife from the Centre de Santé as soon as she finishes with her patients.” “Angelique,” Mama said. The name came out as a long, trembled sigh. “Yes—I will be glad to see her.” The policemen rose. “We knew your husband—a good, good man. Thank you for the tea.” After they left, Mama stared so hard out the window that Jean Patrick looked to see if someone stood there in the storm. He half believed that if he closed his eyes hard enough, he could blink the afternoon away, look up, and find Dadi there, returned from his trip, pockets full of cookies as they always were. Mama knelt by him. “Don’t worry. Uncle Emmanuel will be a father to you now.” “I hate Uncle Emmanuel,” Jean Patrick said. “He’s stupid, and he always stinks of fish.” The sting of Mama’s slap made his eyes water. “Be respectful of my brother. He’s your elder.” Jean Patrick couldn’t hold it back any longer. He wailed. Mama drew him close. “We have to be strong,” she said. “Think of your namesake, Nkuba. You must be as brave as the God of Thunder.” The door opened, and Angelique came in, still in her white doctor’s coat. Mama collapsed into her arms. BY MIDNIGHT, THE RAIN had stopped, the moon a blurred eye behind the clouds. Neighbors and family had been arriving since early evening with food and drink. Students and teachers from Gihundwe crowded into the tiny house. The night watchman drank tea inside the door. The table was set up in the front room, covered with the tablecloth reserved for holidays. There were plates of ugali and stews with bits of meat and fish to dip it in, bowls of isombe, green bananas and red beans, fried plantains, boiled sweet potatoes and cassava. There were peas and haricots verts sautéed with tomatoes, bottles of Primus beer and Uncle Emmanuel’s home-brewed urwagwa. Angelique had not stopped cooking, bringing Mama tea, wiping everyone’s eyes. The power was off. Candles flickered; lanterns tossed shadows at the walls. Jean Patrick and Roger sat on the floor with Jacqueline, feeding Clemence bits of stew wrapped in sticky balls of ugali. A wedge of light beckoned Jean Patrick from Papa’s study, and he went inside. The lantern on the desk turned the oiled wood into a pliable skin. Papa’s books surrounded him and comforted him. Books on physics, mathematics, the philosophies of teaching. Papa must have been writing in his journal; his pen lay across the leather-bound book. The cap rested beside a half-full cup of tea as if at any moment he would enter the room, pull out his chair, and pick up the pen once more. Jean Patrick put the cup to his lips and drank. The sudden sweetness made him shiver. Flecks of tea leaf remained on his lip, and he licked them, tasting the last thing his father had tasted. The house groaned and settled in the night. Mama joined him. She held a tray of urwagwa, and the banana beer’s sweet, yeasty tang tickled his nostrils. “Are you tired? You can go to bed if you want.” He shook his head. He thought of his father sitting in his chair on Friday evenings, drinking urwagwa and eating peanuts. He could almost reach out and touch the glitter of salt on Papa’s lips. “He must have been writing his talk for the meeting,” Mama said, stroking the journal’s skin. Jean Patrick read. Everything in the universe has a mathematical expression: the balance of a chemical reaction, the Fibonacci sequence of a leaf, an encounter between two human beings. It is important—the sentence ended there. Jean Patrick envisioned a noise in the bush, his father putting down the pen and peering through the window. It seemed at that moment as if not only his father’s words but the whole world had stopped just like that: midsentence. THE MEN WERE still drinking, some sharing bottles of urwagwa through a common straw, the women still replenishing empty bowls, when Uwimana came with the coffin. A procession of Papa’s family from Ruhengeri followed. Dawn, ash colored, came through the door behind them. “Chère Jurida,” Uwimana said. He held Mama’s hand. “Whatever you need, you can ask me. You know François was my closest friend.” A line of people formed to say good-bye. Mama sat by the coffin, her family and Papa’s family beside her. The women keened. “Are you going up?” Roger pressed close to Jean Patrick. “Are you?” Neither of them moved. “We can go together,” Jean Patrick said. Papa was dressed in an unfamiliar suit. Dark bruises discolored his face, and the angles his body made seemed wrong. Jean Patrick could not reach out to touch him. “That’s not your dadi anymore. Your dadi’s in heaven,” a small voice said. Jean Patrick looked down to see Mathilde, Uncle’s daughter, beside him. She wedged her hand in his. “When my sister died, Mama told me that. I was scared before she said it. I came for Christmas—do you remember? You read me a book.” Of course Jean Patrick remembered. Since she was small, Mathilde had had a hunger for books and loved to listen to stories. When Uncle’s family came to visit, she would rush to Papa’s study, dragging Jean Patrick by the hand. She would point to a tall book of folk stories on the bookshelf. “Nkuba, read me the one about your son, Mirabyo, when he finds Miseke, the Dawn Girl.” It was always this same one. Even before Jean Patrick could read the complicated text, he knew the story well enough to recite it. “Some day, like Miseke,” he would say, “you will laugh, and pearls will spill from your mouth. Then your umukunzi, your sweetheart, will know he has found his one love.” Each time he said this, Mathilde released a peal of laughter. “You see?” Jean Patrick would say, pointing to her lips. “Pearls! Just like your Rwandan name, Kamabera.” And Mathilde would laugh again. “You have to tell your papa you love him,” she whispered now, “so he’ll be happy in heaven.” She stood on tiptoes and peered inside the coffin. Jean Patrick looked at Roger, and together they approached the coffin. They knelt down to recite Papa’s favorite words from Ecclesiastes. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom—” Jean Patrick stopped. If he spoke the word grave, tears would stain his Sunday shirt. UWIMANA CANCELED CLASSES on the day of the funeral, and all the teachers and students from Gihundwe escorted the coffin to the church. Cars packed with people wound through the streets, followed by crowds on foot. Children ran on the paths in a cold, drizzling rain. Mud splattered their legs and shorts. A brown kite swooped from a branch; its sharp cry hung in the mist. Jean Patrick wondered if Papa’s soul had wings, too, like the paintings of angels in church. Mist rose from Lake Kivu. Fishermen emerged and disappeared in a gray space that belonged to neither water nor sky. Long-horned cattle grazed in the green hills. As the procession passed, farmers watched from their fields. Some signed the cross; others stretched out a hand in farewell. Instead of the chapel at Gihundwe, where Jean Patrick’s family worshipped every Sunday, they went to Nkaka Church. The harmonies of the choir and the steady beat of drums poured through the open doors. All the pews and chairs were filled. Behind them, people stood shoulder to shoulder. Above the coffin, the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood onto her open robe. The whiteness of the Virgin’s skin, her wounded heart, the reverberating drums and clapping, combined to fill Jean Patrick with terror. He shut his eyes and tumbled back in time until he arrived at the moment when he had lain warm inside his bed and wished his father a safe journey. He undid the wish and told his father instead not to go. 1985 TWO UWIMANA HAD PROMISED that Jean Patrick’s family could stay on at the boarding school until a new préfet was found, but every day Jean Patrick waited for a man in a pressed suit to walk up the path and claim the house from them. In his dreams he heard the new préfet say, I am taking your father’s job. Get out of my house. It was the first clear afternoon since Itumba, the long rainy season, had begun, and sunlight pooled on the floor where Jean Patrick gathered with his brothers and sisters to enjoy the warmth. Zachary pushed the wire truck across the floor. Jacqueline sat in a swath of sun, spooning sorghum porridge into Clemence’s mouth. Clemence tried to catch a wavering tail of light on the floor. She giggled, and porridge ran down her chin. Jean Patrick hid behind a chair. As Zachary went past, he roared like a lion and pounced, waving his hands like paws. At that moment, the window exploded in a spray of glass. Jean Patrick thought it was something he had done until he saw the rock by Zachary’s feet. Clemence screamed, and Jacqueline hugged her close. Jean Patrick grabbed Zachary and pushed him away from the window. A second window splintered; the rock would have caught Jean Patrick’s head if he hadn’t ducked. “Tutsi snakes!” The shouts were as close as the door. Laughter followed. A rock thudded against the house. Mama burst in, running barefoot across the broken glass, and scooped Clemence into her arms. “Next time we’ll kill you!” The laughter trailed off. A wild noise filled Jean Patrick’s head, and at first he didn’t realize it came from his own throat. He burst through the door as the boys disappeared into the bush. He heaved a rock at their backs, grabbed a walking stick that leaned against the wall, and ran after them. Sprinting furiously, the stick clutched in his hand, he followed the fading sounds of their movement. Stones stabbed his bare feet. At the top of a rise, he shaded his eyes to scan the vegetation below. Nothing stirred. If he saw the boys, he knew he could catch them. If he caught them, he swore he would kill them. The land poured in rolling folds of terraced plots toward Lake Kivu. Banana groves dotted the bush, leaves shining with moisture. Sweet potato vines, lush and green from the rains, claimed every spare scrap of earth. Jean Patrick picked up stones and threw them, one after another. The women in the fields looked up from weeding and hilling to rest on their hoes. “Eh-eh,” they teased. “Who are you fighting? Ghosts?” He pretended not to hear. His legs burned from his effort, and he pressed his hands to his thighs to keep them from shaking. When he caught his breath, he picked up his stick and tore down the path toward home in case the boys had doubled back to attack again. Several times he lost his way on goat trails that petered out in a web of new, thick growth. A red sunset smoldered in the clouds over the lake, and the day’s warmth fled. He hadn’t realized how far he’d run; he’d have to hurry to beat the fast-approaching dark. The brush stretched before him, the silence broken only by the calls of tinkerbirds in the trees. Who-who? Jean Patrick couldn’t tell them. Taking off at a dead run, he crashed headlong into Roger. “Hey, big man! What do you think you’re doing?” Roger held him firmly by the shoulders. “These guys—they threw rocks—” “Mama told me. She said you chased after them like a crazy man. Reason why I came to find you.” “I didn’t see their faces, but they weren’t from Gihundwe. They had dirty rags for clothes.” Jean Patrick spat. “Abaturage—country bumpkins.” Roger blew out his breath. “You ran fast. I saw you from a long way off, but I couldn’t catch you. What did you think one skinny boy could do against a gang of thugs, eh?” Jean Patrick shrugged. “I didn’t think. I just ran.” “Superhero, eh?” Roger tapped Jean Patrick’s shins. They were scratched and bleeding, his bare feet spotted with blood. “You should take better care of your special gift. You won’t get another one,” Roger said. In the waning light, Jean Patrick couldn’t see his face to tell if he was joking. THE SUN HAD disappeared by the time Jean Patrick and Roger returned. Jacqueline was sweeping glass from the rugs. Papa’s office door was open, and Mama stood by the desk, packing papers and books. Jacqueline held out a hand to warn him, but Jean Patrick hurried across the room. A shard of glass burrowed into his foot. “We’ll have to leave now,” Mama said. She had a look of fear on her face that Jean Patrick could not recall ever having seen. “Why? This is our home.” He sat on a chair to dig at the glass in his foot. Events were happening too fast. Jean Patrick could not keep up in his mind. Mama knelt beside him. “Let me.” She cradled his foot in her hands. “We live here by Uwimana’s grace. What if someone comes to burn down the house?” “But Mama, it’s only kids. We can’t fear them.” Mama shook her head. “There are things you don’t understand. Each time I believe this country has changed, I find out nothing changes. I’m glad your dadi didn’t live to see this.” Jean Patrick didn’t know what she meant. “If Papa was alive,” he said, “this would never have happened.” “There.” A sliver of glass glistened on Mama’s finger. “I’m saving Papa’s books for you. When you’re a teacher, you will have them.” “I can’t be a teacher now.” “Who told you that? Your father was.” “Dadi can’t help me anymore.” Mama picked up Papa’s journal and held it out to Jean Patrick. Since Papa’s death, it had remained open, as he had left it. “Take it.” She removed the pen and closed the book. Jean Patrick took the journal and pen and went outside. Opening to a random page, he tried to read what was written, but it was too dark. What he needed from his father was a clue, something to help him fit the fractured pieces of the afternoon together. Before his first day in primary school, Jean Patrick had not known what Tutsi meant. When the teacher said, “All Tutsi stand,” Jean Patrick did not know that he was to rise from his seat and be counted and say his name. Roger had to pull him up and explain. That night, Jean Patrick said to his father, “Dadi, I am Tutsi.” His father regarded him strangely and then laughed. From that day forward, Jean Patrick carried the word inside him, but it was only now, after the windows and rocks, after the insults, that this memory rose to the surface. The first stars blinked sleepily from the sky’s dark face. The generator at Gihundwe intoned its malarial lament. If Jean Patrick had powers like his namesake, Nkuba, he could have breathed life into the inert pages, sensed the leather skin stretch and grow into a man’s shape, felt once more his father’s strong, beating heart. Instead he dug the pen into his flesh until blood marked his palm. François, he wrote, his father’s Christian name. THREE “WE’LL BE LIKE BEGGARS,” Roger had said, and even though Mama pinched him for it, Jean Patrick thought he might be right. Now the final week of school had come, and he wished he could drag his feet in the dirt, slow time down to a crawl so that they wouldn’t have to move to Uncle Emmanuel’s when classes ended. Some days he had to force himself to care that he was at the top of his class, bringing home papers to show Mama with hardly any red marks at all. Roger was waiting for him beneath the broad brim of an acacia tree behind the house. They bent to take off their shoes. A drift of yellow pollen swirled to the ground. Jean Patrick rubbed at a yellow spot on his school shorts. “Mama would kill us if she saw us going barefoot to school.” “She would talk so that cows leave their calves,” Roger said. “But she should get used to it when we move to Uncle’s.” “Don’t talk like that,” Jean Patrick said, and he pushed his brother. “You don’t know.” He started out toward school at a steady jog, a shoe in each hand. There were five more days of school, six more until he found out whether Roger’s complaints came true. That was the day they would pack up their belongings and close the door of the house for the last time. Come September, who would sleep in his and Roger’s room? Who would write at Papa’s desk? “We have to hurry,” Roger said, patting Jean Patrick’s bottom with his shoe. “Sister said she had a surprise for us today, remember?” Jean Patrick looked over his shoulder. Since the boys had broken the windows, he watched out for them. Sometimes he thought he caught sight of them disappearing into the brush, vanishing in a curl of cook smoke. It was silly, of course; unless they wore the same rags, he probably wouldn’t know them if they walked up and shook his hand. THE SURPRISE WAS that a famous runner was coming to speak to the class. Not just any runner—an Olympian. After Sister made the announcement, Jean Patrick could not keep his mind on the path of his studies. For the past few weeks, he hadn’t thought anything could lift up his spirits. Not Papa’s books, not the igisafuria and fried potatoes with milk that Mama cooked for him, not the songs Jacqueline played full force on the radio. But Sister had managed to succeed where all else had failed. All morning long, his mind traveled back to the runner. His eyes wore out a spot on the window where he searched for the speck that would turn into the runner’s fancy auto. Finally, just as he finished his sums, he saw a shape materialize from a swirl of dust. The car was not fancy; it was a Toyota no different from a hundred other Toyotas on the roads. A man thin as papyrus unfolded his legs into the yard, stood up, and stretched. Jean Patrick had expected a big man, but the runner stood not much taller than Roger. Jean Patrick wondered if he was umutwa, one of the pygmy people who sold milk and butter in clay pots to families that didn’t keep cows. The momentary disappointment vanished as he watched the runner move, flowing rather than walking from one place to the next, as if his muscles were made of water. He wore sunglasses. His shirt snapped in the breeze, zebras and lions racing across the shiny fabric. “Muraho neza!” the man said to the class. “I’m Telesphore Dusabe, a marathon runner representing Rwanda in the Olympics. I am blessed to be here in Cyangugu to talk to you today.” Jean Patrick asked him to write his name on the board, and he copied it into his notebook, framed by two stars on either side. Telesphore spoke about running barefoot up and down Rwanda’s hills. “We call our country the land of a thousand hills,” he said, his face lit from the inside as if by a flame, “and I believe I have conquered every one.” He talked about the lure of the Olympics and a feeling like flying that sometimes filled his body when he ran. Jean Patrick raised his hand. “Did you say sometimes?” he wanted to know. “What about the rest of the time?” “Smart boy,” Telesphore said, and he chuckled. “I will tell you a secret. Sometimes it is all I can do to go from one footstep to the next, but for each such moment, I make myself remember how it feels to win.” Jean Patrick felt the man’s eyes on his face alone, and his body tingled. How it feels to win, he repeated in his head. He wrote the words in his book of sums. “We’re going to have a race,” Sister said, taking two thick pieces of cardboard bound with tape from behind her desk. She slit the tape and held up a poster of Telesphore breaking the finish-line ribbon at some official meet. “And the winner will have our runner to watch over him.” She smiled. “Or her.” Telesphore lined up the students in the dusty schoolyard behind a starting line he drew with a stick. “According to age, youngest first,” he said. That put Jean Patrick two rows from the back and Roger in the back. Telesphore brought two wooden blocks from his bag. “This is how we start a race,” he said. “Now take your marks.” Jean Patrick wanted the poster. He wanted it more than he had wanted anything in a while. He heard the sound of the blocks clacking together, and for the second time that day, some small balance tipped inside him. When he stretched out his legs and sprinted toward the far end of the fence, passing one student and then another, the earth his bare feet touched was not the same red clay as before Telesphore began his talk. When he reached the far end of the fence three steps in front of Roger to claim first place, he understood that the earth would never feel the same again. “Look at that lean! A natural!” Telesphore shouted. He pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead and pulled Jean Patrick closer. “What is your name?” “Jean Patrick Nkuba.” The runner squinted into the sun, and a field of wrinkles mapped his eyes. “No wonder, then. Do you know who you are named for?” “The god who brings the thunder,” Jean Patrick said. “Yes—Nkuba, Lord of Heaven, the Swift One.” Telesphore touched Jean Patrick below the left eye. “I see it there: the hunger. Someday you will need to run as much as you need to breathe.” Sister brought the poster and gave it to Telesphore. Balancing poster and cardboard on his knee, he wrote with a flourish, To our next Olympic hero, Jean Patrick Nkuba. He signed his name, Telesphore Dusabe, in a large, scrolling hand. Jean Patrick took the poster and looked out toward the hills. The storms of Itumba were behind them now, the days sparkling and polished by the rains into a brilliant blue. In the steeply terraced fields, women harvested beans and sorghum. The berries bowed the stalks, decorating the lush landscape with necklaces of red beads. Soon the rains would dry up completely, and Iki, the long dry season, would warm the young plants cultivated during the rains, coax them to grow tall and strong. Now it was four more days until Jean Patrick’s time in the house at Gihundwe would come to an end, but he would not think about that. Instead he looked at the runner’s face and felt his words as truth—a prophesy. FOUR THE LAST THING JEAN PATRICK did was to roll up his poster of Telesphore Dusabe, wrap it in two layers of paper, and tie it with string. He looked around the bare room. All traces of his family’s life had been swept away like the dirt Mama cleared with her broom. Outside, bees hummed in the acacia. Mama had picked the last ripe tomatoes and beans, a few chili peppers, from her garden, and it was the time to sow a new crop of beans and squash. It had always been Jean Patrick’s job to help his mother, but for the first time he could remember, they had not knelt in the earth to plant. Like the house, the garden looked bare—already forgotten. Jean Patrick hefted his knapsack and tucked the family’s radio under his arm. He followed Mama through the door and closed it behind him. Jacqueline, Zachary, and a few students from Gihundwe were helping Uwimana and Angelique pack the family belongings into his truck. Uwimana took Mama’s hands in his. “I wish I could change your mind, Jurida,” he said. “The house will be empty until the start of school.” Clemence, bound in a cloth at Mama’s back, made kissing sounds in her sleep. Mama shook her head. “I can’t look at those windows without hearing glass break. My brother’s home is our home now.” “François believed Hutu or Tutsi made no difference anymore. His students loved him, and his dreams gave us hope. We must hold on to that hope in spite of what happened,” Uwimana said. “For my husband’s sake and yours, I will try to keep it alive.” Angelique took Mama in her arms and then hugged Jean Patrick, Jacqueline, and Zachary. “Gihundwe will seem so empty without your voices to fill the days,” she said. “We’ll come visit,” Jacqueline said. Jean Patrick saw her bite her lip and knew she was not far from tears. Angelique knelt beside Jean Patrick and lifted his chin with her finger. “You will come back for secondary school,” she said. “This will be your home again; you must believe in that.” “Come, Jean Patrick.” Uwimana opened the truck door. “Sit next to me.” “I need to help Roger with the cattle,” Jean Patrick said. He took the radio’s plug and held it to his ear. “Jacqueline—they’re playing your favorite song.” He made clowning faces and mimicked Pepe Kalle until they both laughed. “How will you make the radio play at Uncle’s? By Imana’s electric power?” Jacqueline said. Jean Patrick wiggled the dials and sang a few words at top volume. “Maybe Uncle will get electricity soon.” He wedged radio and knapsack between two mattresses in the bed of the truck. Then he gave his poster of Telesphore to his mother and said good-bye before he, too, found himself close to tears. He stood until the truck became a speck in the red swirl of dust. When even the speck had disappeared, he broke into a run down the road, where life paraded on as if nothing had changed. Men strained up the hill, sacks of sorghum and potatoes draped over bicycle handlebars or stacked in rickety wooden carts. Children herded goats fastened with bits of string, lugged jerricans filled with water, trotted with rafts of freshly gathered firewood on their heads. Women chatted on the way to and from the market, basins filled with fruits and vegetables balanced like fancy hats. Jean Patrick had not gone far when a student from Gihundwe hailed him. “We heard you were leaving,” he said. “So sorry.” “I’ll be back once I pass my exams. I’ll be a student here,” Jean Patrick said, echoing Angelique’s words. He shook the boy’s outstretched hand and sprinted away, charging the hill until his chest was on fire and spots danced in front of his eyes. HE FOUND ROGER in the shade of a banana grove. The cattle lolled beside the trees, tearing off mouthfuls of young urubingo. The inyambo steer stood apart from the rest as if he knew he was descended from the cattle of kings. His arc of horns supported a corner of sky, and his oxblood hide glowed in the sun. On his head were two white patches like countries on a map. He sported a beaded necklace—blue and white like an Intore dancer’s—and bells tinkled when he shook his head. When Jean Patrick was small, Papa used to hold his tiny hand steady while the steer licked sugar off it with his hot, rough tongue. Roger looked behind him, toward Gihundwe, his face lost in shadow beneath the brim of Papa’s felt hat. How many Sundays Jean Patrick and Roger had watched as their father put on his hat, took his traditional carved staff from its place by the door, and said, “Tugende, my sons. Let’s go for a walk.” As if reading Jean Patrick’s thoughts, Roger touched the hat’s brim. “Everything is finished now. We’ll be nothing but poor fishermen, running around dirty and eating with our fingers like the rest of Uncle’s children.” Jean Patrick patted the steer’s dusty rump. “We’ll still go to school. Papa always said that, and Mama promised. Anyway, Uncle Emmanuel isn’t poor. Look at all his boats.” “Eh—stupid! Who’ll pay for our school? Uncle has his own children to worry about.” “I’m not stupid,” Jean Patrick said. “You already have your scholarship for Kigali, and I’ll go to Gihundwe. After, I’ll go to college in America. I’ll get a scholarship to run. Everyone does it there.” Telling the boy on the path he would be back at Gihundwe, Jean Patrick had doubted himself, but when he heard Roger challenge him, Angelique’s words lodged in his heart as a prize he was determined to claim, whatever the price. He crouched on the grass the way Telesphore had shown the class. “Come on. I think today I will beat you,” he said. “You think so?” Roger said. “See that tree at the top of this hill? I’ll give you a head start.” “I don’t need a head start,” Jean Patrick said, springing up the trail. He kept his tempo fast, his kick high, the way Roger had told him. The familiar burn settled into his lungs, and he pushed harder toward the ridgetop. He felt Roger at his back. Just to the tree, he told himself. I need to beat him to the tree. He gritted his teeth and dug in deep, but Roger drew even before the last rise and kept pace easily beside him. At the tree, Roger tackled him. “You can’t beat me yet. You’re close—I had to work hard—but it will be a while before you take the wreath from me.” “You’re talking foolishness. I already beat you once—the day Telesphore had us race.” Roger sucked his teeth. “Number one, you started two rows in front of me. Number two, that was too short to count.” “Let’s keep running. Maybe I will do it now.” “Aye-yay! I don’t want you to collapse.” Roger cuffed Jean Patrick’s head and then helped him to his feet. Jean Patrick heard the tinkle of the inyambo steer’s bells behind them. He turned to see the steer trotting in front of the small herd, regal as a king. “Go easy,” Roger said. “We don’t want to lose our herd.” Jean Patrick and Roger let gravity take them down the backside of the trail. In the distance, the dark eye of Lake Kivu winked. BY THE TIME they reached Gashirabwoba, where Uncle lived, Jean Patrick’s legs felt like stones. They stopped on a ridge above Uncle’s urugo. Below the compound, two eucalyptus trees marked the path, towering above the rest of the forest. It was afternoon already, the heat lazy around them. Bees hummed in the hives that perched in the high branches. “We’re here. Let’s go down and greet them,” Roger said. Two cypress trees formed a gateway in a fence of dried sorghum and maize stalks. A cassava patch spilled down the slope. Beneath a lean-to, a pirogue rested on two halves of a fifty-gallon drum. Fishnets hung between branches like strange, mossy growths. Sheets of corrugated metal, propped against a shed, threw back the sunlight. The main house, shaded by a large jacaranda, was a sprawling collection of mud and brick, as if the rooms had sprouted like extra arms and legs from a central body. Since the last time Jean Patrick had visited, the front door and the window frames had been painted a bright blue. A procession of children ran from the house, led by Uncle’s little twins, Clémentine and Clarisse, in matching dresses. Mathilde burst through the door and charged after them, cradling Jean Patrick’s radio in the crook of her arm. “I’ve been waiting for you!” she said, and she held the radio aloft. “How can we play some tunes, eh? I want to hear that morning music, Indirimbo za buracyeye, they play.” She shook Roger’s hand formally but threw her free arm around Jean Patrick. A girl in a ragged skirt approached, and Mathilde yanked her forward. “This is my friend Olivette. She lives just there.” She pointed to a ridge where a woman and boy descended. The woman balanced a large basket on her head. “That’s Olivette’s mama and her brother Simon coming just now. Mama says put the cattle in the pen until they get used to it here.” The children surrounded Jean Patrick and Roger as they herded the cattle through the gate. They chattered and wiped at runny noses with their sleeves. Aunt Esther came from the garden. “Welcome,” she said. “You’re home now.” She wore a new-looking pagne decorated with colorful fish. Around her close-cropped hair she had tied a scarf with glittery threads that caught the light. Jean Patrick wondered if she had put on her good clothes for the occasion of their arrival. Between her feet, a red puppy, more bones than flesh, chased invisible prey. Jean Patrick tried to pet it, but it scurried away. “Don’t worry,” Auntie said. “She’ll be following you around soon enough.” Olivette’s mother came into the yard. “Ego ko Mana!” she said. “Look at these skinny boys!” She set her basket on the ground. Inside, Jean Patrick saw brilliant blue eggs, a small pale pumpkin, and a giant papaya. She embraced Roger and Jean Patrick. “I’ve brought some food to fatten you up.” Cupping her hands to her mouth, she called after her son. “Simon! Come and meet these boys properly, eh? Don’t act like the muturage you are.” Simon scowled and pushed himself up from the tree where he had been leaning. His hand in Jean Patrick’s felt cold and limp, like one of Uncle’s fish. “Mukabera,” Aunt Esther said, “these are smart schoolboys—no husband for your daughter here.” She kissed Mukabera’s cheeks—right side, left side, right again. Mukabera laughed, showing a mouth full of large teeth stained brown from chewing sugarcane. She bent down to Jean Patrick. “Have you ever seen a blue duck egg before?” Jean Patrick shook his head and took it from her extended hand. “When you need to be strong, come see Mukabera, and I’ll cook one for you,” she said, and she pinched his shoulder. “Now you need to rest, and I need to get back to my fields.” She placed the basket in Jean Patrick’s arms and strode up the hill. Simon set off after her. He said something under his breath that Jean Patrick didn’t catch. STANDING OUTSIDE THE DOORWAY of Uncle’s house, Jean Patrick felt woozy from the odor of the kerosene lanterns. Dusk painted the lake aubergine; mist blurred the horizon. Enormous bats glided between the trees. The air held an unfamiliar, wild smell, and he missed his home, bright and cheerful with electric light. Uncle Emmanuel sat in the yard in a plastic chair. He was mending a net, a bottle of urwagwa by his side. The needle wove in and out like a darting insect. He sang a song, and when he forgot the words, he looked toward the lake, hummed and smiled. His rubber-booted foot kept time. He took a sip of his banana beer. “I made a new pirogue,” he said. “Now that I have you and Roger to help me, we can catch more fish.” Roger gave Jean Patrick a look. Jean Patrick stared at the ground. “We’ll lash two pirogues together and drag the nets between them,” Uncle said. “And I’m fixing up a house for you. See that corrugated metal? That’s the roof.” “Aye, Emmanuel, so much money—you didn’t have to,” Mama said. Tears turned her eyes bright. Jean Patrick couldn’t understand why such a dusty shack made her proud. Mathilde called to Jean Patrick from the house. In her hands was Papa’s folktale book. “Will you read me the one about Rutegaminsi and the mole?” He settled beside her on the couch. “Ko Mana! You always want to know about love. But you’re a big girl now. Can’t you read it for yourself?” Her mouth tried out the letters. “It’s hard. “I’m only first year.” Roger looked up again from his homework. “Do you like school?” “A lot. But when I get older I might not be able to go.” “Why?” With a snap that made Jean Patrick blink, Roger closed his book. “Papa said Tutsi have to be first in the class and maybe even then they won’t get in.” Roger frowned. “That’s not true. Anyone can—Hutu or Tutsi. You just have to pay, that’s all. Our papa said that.” Uncle Emmanuel set down his net and stepped inside. “Is that what he taught you? You think Hutu and Tutsi are the same in Rwanda?” “Papa was the préfet in charge of teachers at Gihundwe,” Roger said. “He told us President Habyarimana wants equality.” “How old are you, Jean Patrick?” Uncle Emmanuel asked. “Almost ten.” “And you, Roger?” “Twelve. Thirteen next month. And I got into secondary school even though I’m Tutsi.” Jean Patrick winced as their mother crossed the room. “Be respectful in your uncle’s home.” She slapped Roger hard above his ear. Uncle Emmanuel held up a hand as if silencing an audience before a speech. “So. Do you boys know about the last massacre?” He glared at Mama. “What massacre?” “Nineteen seventy-three, the year Habyarimana overthrew Kayibanda. All over the country, Hutu rose up to murder Tutsi. They burned down our house, killed your grandparents and your uncle, our youngest brother.” He turned to Jean Patrick. “You were named for him. No one told you?” Jean Patrick knew the shocked expression on Roger’s face mirrored his own. Whenever they had asked about their grandparents, Mama had said, “When you’re older, you’ll know.” Suddenly the month’s events fell into place: her terror when the boys smashed the window, the hastily packed boxes, the puzzling comments about changing and staying the same. Mama stepped in front of Emmanuel. “Why are you frightening them? The past is the past; leave it be.” “It’s dangerous to sleepwalk, Jurida. You’ve come back to Gashirabwoba now. Here, we live up to our village name: Fear Nothing. You don’t need to keep secrets anymore.” He swept his arm across the hillside. “Do you think it won’t happen again?” “It can’t,” Mama said. “Habyarimana won’t allow it.” “Look what happened to you—on school grounds.” Zachary careened across the room with his wire imodoka, Clémentine and Clarisse close at his heels. Uncle watched him and shook his head. “The hate runs too deep. Sooner or later the government will find it convenient to let it boil to the surface again.” He held out a closed fist to Jean Patrick and Roger. “Here is our president’s hand. Do you know where the Tutsi are?” Uncurling his fingers, he jabbed at his upturned palm. “Right here where Habyarimana wants us. To him, we’re nothing but inyenzi.” Roger tapped the invisible bug. “But Uncle, a cockroach can’t be crushed.” The light disappeared, taking the lake with it. Uncle left to fish with his neighbor, Fulgence. Jean Patrick walked out into the grass to look for the dog. The forest came alive with the animals’ night songs, their musky scents. Emmanuel’s words crashed through his head. He wondered how old his unknown uncle had been when he died. As old as he was now? As old as Roger? How strange that Mama had named him for his uncle yet never mentioned him. Jean Patrick envisioned boys sneaking through the bush, hurling torches instead of rocks. He had to blink his eyes to clear the image. Whistling after dark was bad luck—country people said it called evil spirits—so he made hissing sounds and called out, “Puppy!” The red puppy barked at him from a scooped-out patch of earth. Jean Patrick pulled the fried sardine he had saved from his pocket and held it out. The puppy sniffed the air and crawled forward. Before the fish hit the ground, it was firmly in her jaws. He moved to stroke her head, but once more she skittered away. AT FIRST LIGHT, Jean Patrick creaked open the door of the shack that was to be his and Roger’s home. Mouse droppings and insect shells speckled the floor. He picked up an old broom from the corner and swatted at spiderwebs. Twigs from the broom rained down on him. “That’s for girls to do. Let me help you.” Mathilde stood behind him, the red dog by her feet. The puppy slunk closer, but when Jean Patrick crouched to pet her, she jumped back. “What’s her name?” Mathilde giggled. “Dogs don’t have names.” She took a bite from the piece of boiled cassava she held in her hand. “This one will. I’m going to call her Pili, like pilipili.” Mathilde burst into a fit of laughter. “She’s not a hot pepper; she’s a dog.” “But I gave her fish with pilipili, and she loved it.” Mathilde broke off a piece of cassava. “Here. Some for you and some for Pili. If you feed her this, she’ll like you.” He reached too quickly, and the dog scooted away across the yard. “Don’t worry. She’ll come back.” Mathilde ducked through the low doorway. “When Dadi fixes this up, it will be fancy. Luxury hotel.” She wiped her hands on her skirt. Her skin had a golden color, and her hair crowned her high forehead with a feathery, red-dusted cap. “I’m going to study here, too,” she said. “Dadi can build you and Roger desks.” “I don’t think he wants us here. He got so mad at us last night.” “Eh! Do you have eyes in your head? It’s all he’s talked about since we knew you were coming.” She leaned closer. “Every night when he goes fishing, he says it’s to pay for your roof. He says corrugated metal costs like gold.” “He did that just for us?” Jean Patrick suddenly felt mean for all his negative thoughts. “Dadi says we are finally going to have brothers. He calls you his sons.” She touched his finger. “So now you have to call me Sister—promise?” “I promise.” Jean Patrick passed his hand across her hair. It was as soft as feathers. 1987 FIVE WHEN JEAN PATRICK’S FATHER WAS ALIVE, the path to secondary school had seemed easy. If you did well, you succeeded. After all, Roger had done well, and now he was in school in Kigali. Mama and Auntie had made a big celebration for him the day he left, everyone from the hillside coming to talk and eat. Jean Patrick could have burst from pride for his brother, but watching Roger’s face in the bus window, his waving hand getting smaller and smaller, he had wanted only to run after him, to catch hold of his arm and beg him not to go. Jean Patrick remembered that first night in Gashirabwoba, when Roger had boldly contradicted Uncle’s views. He hated to admit it, but Uncle had been right. With the quotas for Tutsi, he would have to come in first in his class to get a financial award. If he didn’t, there would be no secondary school for him. Now that he had taken both the national exam and the exam at Gihundwe, staying up nights, studying until his chin dropped to his chest, his future was in Imana’s hands. All he could do was wait. And wait some more. It was always on his mind, the first of August, the date they would start announcing exam results. That morning, he awoke early, moving carefully to keep from waking Zachary, who slept beside him now that Roger was gone. He felt in the darkness for the lantern. His hand brushed Pili’s fur, and he cupped her warm, wet muzzle. Lantern in hand, he walked out into a stillness as dark as the bottom of Lake Kivu. Now that it was school vacation, Jean Patrick spent his days fishing with Uncle. Fulgence and a few cousins were working for him, so Uncle could stay home nights while his crew fished. Just before daybreak, Uncle and Jean Patrick paddled their pirogues out to help with the last loads of sardines and take them to market. Then the two of them checked their lines and trolled for tilapia. Jean Patrick was strong enough now to keep the canoe steady in the fast-moving current that flowed from Lake Kivu into the Rusizi River and on to Burundi. There were three large capitaine fish waiting for them when Jean Patrick and Uncle reached the green plastic bottles that marked their lines. They lashed their pirogues together, and Jean Patrick held them steady in the swiftly flowing water. “God is good,” Uncle Emmanuel said. He slid the hook from the first fish’s mouth and wound the line on its spindle. A kingfisher, harassed by pied crows, darted across the water and disappeared into the trees. Uncle hauled in the other two fish and dropped them into the bilge. “If the fishing stays like this, we can buy a motorboat by Christmas.” “I should hear about school soon,” Jean Patrick said. “Maybe even today.” He thought of the shops and cabarets where radios blasted from sunrise to sundown. Exam results were announced on Radio Rwanda, but his radio, with its useless plug, remained silent on his shelf, and Uncle’s transistor had broken last month and had not been replaced. Unless he was lucky, hearing his name by chance on the street, Jean Patrick would have to wait to see the results posted in town. Uncle stripped to his shorts, dove into the current, and came up grinning. “Did you say something about school?” He disappeared, resurfacing with a rusted axle. Dropping the prize into the bilge, he said, “That’s worth a few hundred francs.” He went under again and brought up a bent rim. “Sorry. You were speaking to me. What was it?” “It’s not important, Uncle,” Jean Patrick said. IN THE AFTERNOON, when Jean Patrick came home, there was a large box on the table. “Open it,” Mama said. She slid her iron over a pair of trousers, and the scent of Omo soap rose from the fabric. She added charcoal to the iron with a tong. The inside glowed, a field of tiny suns. With so little money for all of them, Mama spent mornings cleaning houses, washing and ironing for the rich people by the lake. Afternoons, she pressed the families’ clothes with an old-fashioned iron, no magic switch to keep the bottom hot. Inside the box was a transistor radio the color of a lemon. Carefully, Jean Patrick lifted it out and set it on the table. “I want to hear your name announced when you win a scholarship,” Mama said, as if success were already written in the sky. Jean Patrick turned on the radio and twisted the dial until Radio Rwanda crackled through the speakers. He felt his father’s presence close beside him. Ntawiha icyo Imana itamuhaye, Papa whispered. Nobody can give himself what Imana has not given him. “There’s something else,” Mama said. “Didn’t you see?” Behind the box was a package tied with string. Unwrapping it, Jean Patrick found a pair of new shoes and a note in Uncle’s careful hand. Me, I am certain your news will be good. You have made me very proud. He held them to the light and saw his face reflected back at him. ON THE SECOND Wednesday of August, Jean Patrick opened his eyes with the thought firmly in his head: Today the results will be announced. He threw on his clothes and went straight to the house. Only spits and crackles came from the radio when he turned it on. “What did you expect?” Mama looked up from stirring hot milk and sugar into a thermos of tea. “Not even Imana can give Radio Rwanda life before the appointed hour,” she said. ALL DAY FISHING, Jean Patrick could not keep still. He dropped hooks into the bilge and spilled his tea. Paddling home, he sprang into the water too early and sank to his neck. “Eh! What’s the hurry?” Uncle dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Go, then. I’ll take care of the boats.” No announcements floated from the town radios into Jean Patrick’s ear, but when he saw Uwimana’s truck parked at the bottom of the path, his heart jumped. He knew it wasn’t right to ask Imana for help, but he couldn’t stop himself, over and over, until he came through the door. Inside, Aunt Esther, Mama, and Uwimana were dancing, the radio so loud the speakers buzzed. Clemence twirled Baby Pauline, Auntie’s new daughter. There was a plate piled with cookies on the table, the same kind that filled Papa’s pockets on special occasions. Zachary and the twins stuffed them into their mouths. “Congratulations,” Uwimana shouted. He danced over to Jean Patrick and grasped his hands. “First place! Your science score was in the top three percent in the country. Math: fifth percentile. Welcome to Gihundwe.” Jean Patrick was afraid if he moved the wrong way or blinked too many times, the news would hop back into Uwimana’s mouth. “First place,” he repeated. “Are you sure?” Mama and Uwimana laughed. “I heard it with my own ears,” Mama said. She had to shout to be heard above Papa Wemba’s raucous tune. Jean Patrick fell into a chair and let out his breath as if he had been holding it for weeks. “What’s this?” Uncle Emmanuel stood by the door, pulling off his rubber boots. “First place!” Aunt Esther sang, pulling Jean Patrick up for a dance. Emmanuel leapt like an Intore dancer. “What did I tell you, eh? I knew you earned those shoes. You make every Tutsi proud.” “Papa is smiling today,” Mama said. “And there’s more good news.” Powdered sugar drifted onto Uwimana’s suit jacket. “The new préfet de discipline is starting a track team. I told him about you, and it turns out he’s a big fan of your brother’s. He used to watch him play football on weekends with the Inzuki.” “Did you know Roger’s the best player in his school? He’s in Kigali, playing for a club.” “Of course I know. Your family is like our own.” It was true. Uwimana and Angelique had been a constant presence, bringing books and clothing, coming for tea. How often had Uwimana stooped in his baggy suit to play with Zachary and Clemence? How often had Angelique come to the house after her work, still dressed in her doctor’s white coat, to bring medicine and take care of them? Jacqueline and Mathilde danced through the door, hips swaying. Mathilde threw up her hands, first fingers pointing at the ceiling. “Wabaye uwa mbere! You’re number one!” Jacqueline kissed Jean Patrick’s cheeks. “A neighbor boy came running out to the fields to tell us.” “Me, I never doubted it,” Mathilde said. She took Jean Patrick by the wrists and spun him around. “My brother is the smartest boy in all Rwanda,” she sang. Then suddenly she stopped, and tears tumbled down her cheeks. “Why are you crying?” Jean Patrick wiped her tears with his palm. “I don’t want you to go away.” “Little Sister, I never will. I’ll be just there, down the hill.” Uwimana clasped Jean Patrick in his strong embrace. “Welcome back,” he said. JEAN PATRICK TOOK Papa’s journal from his shelf and sat on his bed. He let the book fall open where it would, as if Papa himself had chosen the entry. Although he could pick out themes, this particular page, like many, was filled with scientific terms and formulas Jean Patrick couldn’t comprehend. Soon he would begin to decipher them. The thought filled his heart with pride. He turned to the final entry. Once again, he imagined the scrape of Papa’s chair, saw him search the darkness outside the window for the source of the noise that had interrupted his thoughts. He saw him rest the pen on the page, the pen he would never pick up again. “I did it, Papa,” he said. He listened for a whisper, a rustle of leaves. Only silence responded. He closed his eyes and inhaled the journal’s smell of musty paper, the same scent he remembered from when his father held him. Beside the journal was a powdered-milk tin where Jean Patrick kept Roger’s old watch. The day Jean Patrick had finally beaten him running, the watch had been his prize. Jean Patrick thought Roger would be mad, but instead he clapped him on the back. “Here,” Roger had said, fastening the watch on Jean Patrick’s wrist. “You’ve earned it.” The strap was frayed, the face scratched, but it still kept track of his progress. Thirty seconds to the cypress trees, three minutes to the rock shaped like a bird, eighteen minutes to school—all his times recorded on the back pages of his notebook. Tonight, he thought, I’ll write Roger and tell him the news. He zeroed the timer and put on a warmer shirt. Right now, he was going out to break his own record. JEAN PATRICK SPRINTED as hard as he could up the ridge. Halfway, he had to stop, hands on his knees, lungs emptied. A reddish haze hung in the air and coated the brush. A blue turaco exploded into flight, its beak a flare of red and yellow. A bell tinkled in the clearing. It was Papa’s inyambo steer, watching him with sleepy eyes, a clump of grass between his teeth. The beast dipped his head, horns radiant in the sun. Jean Patrick jogged to him and stroked the quivering skin. With a flash of understanding that took his breath, he saw that his father lived in all that surrounded him, and that every breath of wind contained his father’s blessing. SIX