Broken Memory (6 page)

The next day Emma went through the necessary formalities to get the document that proved that she really was the daughter of Pacifique, a young Tutsi woman murdered during the genocide at the age of twenty-two.

After that she found out how to get to her house. She went alone and had no trouble finding it. It lay in ruins below the main road on a hill overlooking the valley.

Emma had escaped right after her mother's murderers left. She didn't know whether the killers had returned to destroy the house and finish their work, or whether looters had come by later. Whatever had happened, they had gone at it with a vengeance. And time had done the rest. Ten years had passed.

She walked down toward the ruin. She was both dreading and hoping to uncover her buried memories. Had she really once been four years old and living here with her beloved mother?

She looked at the rubble, circled the trees, scanned the horizon, the hills. Then she ran her hands over the stones and took off her sandals so she could walk in the grass in her bare feet.

Her eyes, her hands, the soles of her feet — would they be able to remember?

She walked around for a long time before she dared to turn her attention to the inside of the crumbling house, though she knew she would not find her mother's body there. After the genocide the dead had been gathered and taken to an official memorial to the victims.

Emma tried to concentrate, but she couldn't think straight.

Coming here had been a mistake. This place was so familiar and yet completely strange at the same time. She couldn't get hold of it, couldn't get hold of her past. She couldn't find the courage to walk into the ruins. She was too afraid of stirring up the old nightmares.

But before she gave up and left, she tried one last time, casting her eyes over the rocks piled inside the entrance to the house.

She suddenly noticed a piece of blue plastic inside the roofless walls. She hesitated for a moment, then carefully placed one foot on the rubble and tugged on the tarpaulin.

It wouldn't budge. It was bigger than it looked.

Finally throwing caution to the wind, Emma crouched down and frantically started to clear away earth and stones until she managed to lift up the old plastic. Underneath was a small pile of books weathered by the damp.

The girl sat down, stared at the old books, then timidly brushed her finger over the faded covers. Her heart raced. All this had belonged to her mother…

Feeling bolder, she grabbed a book that was larger than the others, the soft cover bending between her fingers.

Her slender brown hands turned the illustrated pages, and suddenly, she was there. Holding her breath, Emma raised her eyes and, for the first time in ten years, she saw her mother bending over her, her eyes filled with an unanswered question.

When she came to her senses, her cheeks were covered with tears. In each hand she was holding a piece of the big book, which had fallen apart under the pressure. She glanced at the pages scattered on the ground, then at the ones she was clutching in her hands.

That's when she noticed the photograph pinned under her right thumb. The paper had yellowed, the edges were frayed. Emma saw the questioning eyes of her mother and smiled back weakly.

Her search was over.

Exhausted, she lay down on the ground. She had finally managed to rebuild the walls of the ruined house where she had been born, and where her mother had died. The murderers had failed to crush her memory.

“Mama,” she murmured. “Mama,” she repeated more loudly, laughing and crying at the same time.

Emma was still lying in the middle of the rubble when night fell — so suddenly, it was as if someone had turned off the light. She turned onto her side and fell fast asleep, her damp cheek glued to the faded photo.

That journey changed Emma,
and under the watchful gaze of her mother she continued to grow stronger.
When she returned to Mukecuru's, she enrolled in school, and after spending
several years studying beside much younger classmates, she became a
teacher.

Today she is twenty-four
years old. She lives in her parents' house, which has been rebuilt to look
exactly the way it used to. She was able to find her mother's remains in the
memorial dedicated to the genocide victims and had her buried in the garden
overlooking the valley. She devotes all her energy to her work, but whenever
she can, she spends long hours near the gravesite.

She is now at peace with her
past, and she looks to the future with confidence.

Ndoli has continued to see
the old man. Things are getting better now that he understands that he was
not responsible for the deaths of his relatives, and that he should not feel
guilty for surviving them.

But every year Emma spends
the first two weeks of April with him, on the anniversary of the genocide — a
time when the country remembers and the young man is once again racked by
nightmares.

Mukecuru died after Emma
received her diploma, knowing that the young woman would now be able to
manage without her.

The old man continued to
work with the child survivors of 1994. Now he sees many children orphaned by
AIDS. He encourages some of them to go to school, as he did with Ndoli and
Emma.

He also spends a great deal
of time testifying about the genocide, to build a bridge between the victims
of this unspeakable tragedy and the rest of the world, and to help the
survivors find their way back into the human community.

This book is a work of
fiction. The people and places described in it are inspired by the real
Rwanda as I experienced it, but they are imaginary.

But the historical context
is absolutely real.

Rwanda is a small country in
central Africa. Its 10.3 million inhabitants are divided into three groups:
Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Before the 1994 genocide, Hutus made up 91.1 percent of
the population and Tutsis 8.4 percent. Today the census does not identify
people by these groups.

Between 1899 and 1950,
Rwanda was colonized by the Germans, then the Belgians.

Traditionally, to be Hutu or
Tutsi was similar to having a social status linked to an activity such as
agriculture or raising livestock. The colonizers solidified these societal
groups by associating them with ethnic groups and issuing identity cards,
thus increasing tension between the populations. They began by favoring the
Tutsis, who were at the top of the social scale. Then, with the coming of
decolonization, they facilitated the taking of power by the majority Hutus.

In 1961, a Hutu government
was elected and declared themselves opposed to “Tutsi domination.” As the
government rapidly slid into dictatorship, it began to practice anti-Tutsi
discrimination and commit large-scale massacres. Subsequent governments
continued to commit the same crimes, making violence against the Tutsis
commonplace for four decades. In 1994 the conditions were in place to carry
out the worst crime of all — the genocide of the Tutsis.

The extermination of the
Tutsis, which involved close to a million deaths, began the night of April
6, 1994, after the assassination of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana.
The massacres were aimed primarily at the Tutsis, but also at Hutus who were
opposed to the government in power. They were committed by the Rwandan army
and by militias, with the complicity of the local authorities and certain
members of the Catholic church. Villagers killed their neighbors, encouraged
by the official media promoting hatred against the Tutsis. It was the rebels
— sons and grandsons of the Tutsis who had been exiled from Rwanda since the
1950s, who brought an end to the genocide in July 1994 by defeating the
Rwandan army.

As for the international
community, it did not intervene to prevent or stop the genocide. An
operation led by the French army was put in place at the end of June 1994,
but it continues to be the subject of heated controversy. The gray areas
that remain revolve around the role and intentions of France toward Rwanda,
before and during the genocide.

Rwanda continues to rebuild,
but the tensions between the populations have not disappeared. Inspired by
traditional village tribunals, gacaca (ga-cha-cha) courts have been set up.
Though not perfect, they have allowed more than a million cases involving
crimes committed by men, women and children during the genocide to move
through the justice system. The perpetrators of the most serious crimes have
been referred to Rwanda's regular justice system, and the organizers of the
genocide appear before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda set up
by the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania.

This book would not have seen the light of day without the cooperation of all those who agreed to respond to my questions, tell me about their lives, explain their work, guide me, talk to me about everything and nothing…

A big thanks to the young Rwandan genocide survivors who shared their stories and to those who allowed me to meet with them, especially Gasana Ndoba; to the professionals who spoke to me about the trauma suffered by child survivors and their difficult search for identity, Célestin Sebuhoro and Jean Damascène Ndayambaje in particular; to all those who, in Brussels, Kigali and Paris, shared their knowledge and explained their views about Rwanda; to Jacqueline Uwimana and Gaspard Kalinganire for their warm welcome, our long discussions and sharing with me on a daily basis.

Special thanks to Pierre Vincke and Janouk Bélanger from RCN Justice et Démocratie, for their excellent contacts.

A former journalist,
ÉlLISABETH COMBRES
has worked as a reporter in France, Latin America and
Africa. She began writing for young people after working as editor-in-chief
for the magazine
Mikado
. She is the author of several children's non-fiction titles,
including
Mondes Rebelles Junior
, winner of the Prix Sorcières in 2002. In 2004 she collected
the accounts of adolescent survivors, psychologists and humanitarian aid
workers to use as the basis for this book, her first novel. Originally
published in French,
Broken Memory
was selected for the Prix NRP (Nouvelle Revue Pédagogique)
and the Prix des lycéens allemands. Élisabeth lives in Grenoble,
France.

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