Speak Rwanda by Julian R. Pierce

Author:Julian R. Pierce
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466884793
Publisher: Picador

PACIFIQUE NTAWINIGA

I WAS PLAYING behind a shed when the whistles began blowing. I looked around and saw men in the yard running with clubs. They hit my mother when she got up and she fell over. They hit my brother when he started to run. They caught and hit my sister too. Then they cut off the heads. I got out the back door of the rugo and ran into the bush past the kraal and stayed there a long time until my heart stopped going so fast and they were gone. All curled up, I didn’t want to go back to the yard, but I did to make sure. When I saw it I heard a sound and wondered where it came from until I knew it came from me. I fell to my knees and crawled over to my mother’s head. I lifted it, but it felt so heavy I dropped it. I heard the sound again. Then I went to my sister and lifted her head and put it near the pool of blood where her neck was. This was as much as I could do. I heard the sound again, louder. Then I got up but almost fell. If I fell then I would never get up again so I ran as fast as I could.

I ran out of the rugo, then ran back in the house. I was looking for something, but couldn’t remember what. Then I did. It was a Tutsi warrior, as tall as a hand, that my father carved from wood. He made it for me. Looking around, I couldn’t find it. So then I ran out of the rugo again and ran until I fell from being tired. I was lying on the ground beside the road when a truck came by with men in it, waving bottles. I heard a couple of thuds near my feet. Someone from the truck was shooting bullets at me. I heard laughter from the truck get smaller and then go away. I got up and began walking and walked a long time, putting down one foot and then the other and saying to myself, “Mother used to sing to me, now she has no head, Mother used to sing to me, now she has no head.” I felt dizzy. I was talking out loud. I was yelling. I was calling the names of my sisters. I wanted my mother, and my father was gone forever. When people came along the road, I ran into the ditch and into woods or fields. They were looking for me to kill me too.

I walked until the darkness came, then longer. When I couldn’t walk anymore, I went into a field and slept. But in the night I woke up and looked at the round, white moon that looked like a head staring down at me. I couldn’t see the eyes but they were watching me. I felt my body get cold. I was shaking and shaking and couldn’t stop.

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