Our Lady of the Nile (14 page)

Virginia was a little anxious when she said good-bye to her aunt before leaving to go see Clotilde. But Skolastika let none of her disappointment show, and even gave her a handful of
igisukari
bananas – the sweetest of sweet things – for Clotilde and
her baby. Virginia put the bananas in her bag and set off to her friend’s house. However, just after she’d passed the little grove of reforested eucalyptus, she switched direction and, after several long detours, reached a steep path leading down to the swamp. Halfway down it was Rugaju the pagan’s house. Scruffy kids were playing in the yard, running about and squabbling. As soon as they saw Virginia enter the yard, they froze in astonishment.

Virginia motioned to the tallest kid, who looked about ten.

“Come here, I’ve got something to tell you.”

The boy hesitated, then shoved his brothers and sisters out of the way and walked over to Virginia.

“What’s your name?”

“Kabwa.”

“Hey, Kabwa, do you know Rubanga? Do you know where he lives?”

“Rubanga, the witch doctor? Sure, I know Rubanga. I’ve been to his place a few times with my dad. No one but my dad goes to see that old jabberer. Folks say he’s crazy, they also say he’s a poisoner.”

“I want you to take me to Rubanga.”

“You, the student, take you to Rubanga! You must have someone to poison!”

“There’s no one I want to poison. I want to ask him something. To do with the lycée.”

“The lycée? They do some strange stuff at the white school!”

“I’ll give you some doughnuts if you take me.”

“Doughnuts?”

“And a Fanta.”

“An orange Fanta?”

“An orange Fanta and doughnuts.”

“If you really give me an orange Fanta, I’ll take you to Rubanga’s place.”

“The orange Fanta and the doughnuts are in my bag. As soon as I see Rubanga’s place, they’re yours. But then you leave and you don’t say anything to anyone. Did they ever tell you the story about the evil stepmother and the kid who’s not hers that she put to sleep in the mortar? I’ll ask Rubanga to cast a spell on you; if you tell, you’ll end up like that kid in the mortar: you’ll stop growing and you’ll never get a beard.”

“I won’t say anything, not even to my father, but show me the orange Fanta, I want to make sure you’re not lying.”

Virginia opened her bag and showed him the Fanta and the doughnuts.

“Follow me,” said Kabwa.

Virginia and her guide got back on the path that ran steeply down to the swamp. She covered her head with her wraparound, for fear of being recognized, but few women ventured into the valley during the rainy months, and what’s more, the narrow path petered out at the end of the swamp, an area that was enclosed by the steep hills and that hadn’t been cultivated yet.

Kabwa pointed at a gap in the thick papyrus sedge.

“Careful you don’t stray either left or right,” Kabwa said. “You’ll get stuck in the mud, and don’t count on me to drag you out, I’m not strong enough. And if you spot the hippopotamus, just give way, it’s his trail but don’t be scared.” Kabwa chuckled. “He only comes out of his pool at night.”

They pushed on beneath the canopy of diaphanous papyrus plumes. Virginia tried not to pay any mind to the continual gurgling that rose from the murky water of the swamp, or to the slimy convulsions of the black mud.

“We’re here,” said Kabwa.

The papyrus sedge thinned out, revealing a rocky islet, as if its thorny bushes had decided to wander off into the middle of the swamp.

“Look,” said Kabwa, pointing to a hut atop the little rise, “that’s Rubanga’s place. Now I’ve brought you where you wanted to go, give me what you promised me.”

Virginia handed him the Fanta and the doughnuts, then Kabwa sped off and disappeared through the breach in the papyrus sedge.

When Virginia drew near the hut, she saw a little old man reclining on a tattered mat. He was wrapped in a brownish blanket and wore a woolly hat with a fat red pom-pom. A wooden peg clipped his nostrils together.

Virginia advanced slowly, giving little coughs to signal her arrival. The old man didn’t seem to register her presence.

“Rubanga,” she said softly, “Rubanga, I’ve come to say hello.”

Rubanga raised his head and took a long look at her.

“You’ve come to say hello, a beautiful young lady like you! Now, let me look at you, it’s been so long since such a beautiful young lady as yourself came to see me. Sit down in front of me, so the sun shines on your face.”

Virginia squatted down on her heels.

“There, now I can see your face. Do you want some tobacco, like me? I’ve stuffed my nose full of it, see. In the old days, great ladies liked to stuff their noses with tobacco.”

“No, Rubanga, these days, young women don’t take snuff. Here, I’ve brought you this,” she said, handing him the bottle of Primus and the piece of plaited tobacco wrapped in banana bark.

“You came all this way, to the farthest reaches of the marsh, to bring me a bottle of Primus! You’re not my daughter. What’s your name? What do you want from me?”

“My name is Virginia, my real name is Mutamuriza. I’m at the lycée. I know that you know a lot about the olden times. That’s what everyone in Gaseke says. I’ve come to hear about the queens from long ago. What happened to them when they died? I know that you know about that.”

“One must never say that the Queen is dead. Never. Don’t ever say that again, it could bring you misfortune. And you want to know what happened to them?”

“Tell me. I need to know.”

Rubanga turned away, unclipped his nose peg, and pressing
each nostril with his index finger, snorted out a brownish stream. He wiped his teary eyes with the back of his hand, cleared his throat, spat forcefully, folded his legs, and took his head in his emaciated hands. His thin, quavering voice grew stronger as he spoke.

“Don’t ask me. It’s a secret. An
ibanga
. A secret of the kings. And I am one of the guardians of the kings’ secrets. I am an
umwiru
. You know my name, my name carries the secret. I don’t know all the kings’ secrets. I only know those given me to safeguard. The
abiru
don’t give away their secrets. In my family, we never revealed the secrets entrusted to our memory by the King. I know of some who sold their secrets to the whites. The whites wrote the secrets down. They even made a book out of them, so I gather. But what do the whites understand of our secrets? It will bring them misfortune. There’s even a Rwandan
umupadri
who tried to pass himself off as an
umwiru
. He also wrote the secrets down. It brought us misfortune. In olden days, the King would have had him killed. His
batwa
would have poked out his eyes and ripped out his tongue before throwing him into the Nyabarongo. Well, me, I’ve kept the secret the King entrusted me with. Now folks make fun of me. The
abapadri
say I’m a sorcerer. The mayor’s thrown me in prison more than once. I don’t know why. They say I’m crazy. But my memory hasn’t forgotten a word of what the King entrusted to my family. For an
umwiru
, forgetting means death. The King
sometimes summoned all the
abiru
to court. He gave them cows, and jugs of mead. All the court grandees honored them. But the great
abiru
, those who know every single secret – there were four of them, the eldest was Munanira – tested their memory. It was like the national exam people go on about today. Misfortune would fall upon he who forgot anything. All it took was the slightest hesitation, the slightest omission, and he would be dismissed, sent home for the shame he’d brought on himself and his kin.

“There are no kings left now, the great
abiru
are dead, they were either killed or went into exile. So I tell my secrets to the red blooms of the flame tree. I check carefully that no one can hear me apart from the red flowers of the tree, the blood of Ryangombe, the Master of Spirits. But children often follow me, they hide and listen to what I am reciting, and when I discover them and chase them away, they scatter, crying out: ‘
Umusazi! Umusazi!
He’s crazy! he’s crazy!’ And if they tell their mother what they’ve heard and seen, she’ll say: ‘You’re not to breathe a word of what you’ve seen, don’t tell a soul what you’ve heard, nobody, neither your neighbor, nor your teacher, nor the
umupadri
. Don’t speak of it. Forget what you’ve heard and seen. Never mention it.’ Now tell me, why did you come to see me? Want me to reveal my secrets to you, too? Do you want to sell them to the Bazungu? Or put them in a book? A lovely young lady like yourself, do you want to draw misfortune upon you?”

“I won’t reveal your secrets. If you tell me, I’ll keep them to
myself, locked in my memory, I won’t share them with anyone. The reason I’ve come is, well, I think I’ve been sent to you by a Queen, a Queen from long ago.”

“A Queen from long ago? You’ve seen her
umuzimu
?”

“Maybe. Let me tell you. I went to a white man’s place with my friend. He’s really crazy. He believes we Tutsi are Egyptians and that we came from Egypt. You know all that stuff the whites invented about the Tutsi. He discovered a Queen’s tomb on his estate. He dug up her bones, but didn’t hand them over to the museum. He erected a monument on top of them. He explained to us that’s what the black queens called Candace did. He wanted me to be Queen Candace for him. He showed us some photos. I’ve no idea what you’re supposed to do with a queen’s bones. I’ve heard tell that a python watched over her in those olden days. I didn’t see any python, but I did see the Queen. I saw her in my dreams. Not very clearly. Like a cloud. A strip of cloud that frays as it catches the mountain slope, sun sparkling through it from time to time. A shining cloud, but I know it’s the Queen. Sometimes, through that mask of droplets of light, I make out her face. I think she’s asking me to do something for her. She won’t leave me be. You, who know the secrets of the kings, tell me what I must do.”

“Where do you come from?”

“I’m staying with my paternal aunt, Mukandori.”

“I know your aunt. I know your family. You have a good lineage. It’s mine, also. So that’s why I’ll tell you what I can tell you. But
don’t say anything to anyone, do you hear me? Make sure your aunt, who wears a rosary hung around her neck and is always up at the mission, doesn’t know you’ve been here. Don’t tell those whites who want to know everything but who understand nothing. I want to help you and the
umuzimu
, especially the Queen’s
umuzimu
. I think the white man woke the
umuzimu
from its deep sleep. And when you wake Spirits from the peaceful slumber of their death, they’re furious. They can change into a leopard, or a lion, that’s what folk believed in the olden times.

“I went to a Queen’s funeral once, a very long time ago. We weren’t supposed to say the Queen was dead. We said: ‘She’s drunk the mead.’ I was young. I went with my father. ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘Everything you see me do today will fall upon you to do one day. Then I’ll pass the secret on to you, the secret the King entrusted to our family for safekeeping. You too will pass it on to one of your sons.’ My father was wrong: I never followed in his footsteps. My sons attended the whites’ school. They’re ashamed of their father. The secret will disappear with me. Now you, you’re young, you’ve come all this way, so I’ll tell you how a Queen was accompanied to her final resting place, listen carefully, and I think you’ll find what you’re after.

“To start with, the Queen’s body was left to dry. The
abiru
lit a fire beneath her deathbed. They turned her over so she’d dry out all through. They’d wrapped her in cloth made from fig tree. Now my father was a great
umwiru
. He’d brought a cow for the Queen.
He’d given me a large milk pot to carry, an
igicuba
, which had been carved especially and had never had any milk in it. My father milked the cow to give milk to the Queen. Here’s where you’ve got to pay attention. There was a woman with us. A young virgin. She wasn’t an
umwiru
. There are no women
umwiru
. She was one of the queen’s Retainers. She was chosen because she was the Queen’s favorite retainer, her
inkundwakazi
. I gave her the big pot full of milk. She went to take it to the Queen. It was for the Queen’s
umuzimu
. Did you listen properly? She was a young virgin, the Queen’s favorite retainer, the one chosen to take her the milk. Then we went to the place the spells had designated as the Queen’s resting place. The journey took four days. Every evening, we were welcomed at a lodge built especially to host the Queen and all the
abiru
. There were aplenty of jugs of beer, sorghum, bananas, and mead waiting for us. Once we left, the inn was destroyed. At the Queen’s resting place, we built a hut and an enclosure. A hut for the Queen, a hut for us, the
abiru
. My father’s only task was to milk the cow, mine to hand the milk pot to the retainer, and the retainer’s to carry it to the Queen’s bed. We spent four months with her. We received beer and provisions in abundance. Four months later, an envoy arrived from the king to announce the end of mourning. We departed. We left the Queen’s dwelling standing, so it would collapse of its own accord. The fig trees in the enclosure would grow into tall trees. They would soon become like a small forest: the Queen’s
kigabiro
. No one must set foot inside! And there was also a tall tree, a flame tree, though it
hadn’t been planted by us. It was already very high. I think it was because of that tree that the
abiru
had decided to lay the Queen in that place. The flame tree is covered in flowers during the dry season: it’s the only tree among them all that agreed to receive Ryangombe after the buffalo gored him, those red flowers are his blood. The Queen’s spirit did not linger in the tomb, by her bones, those red blossoms received the queen’s
umuzimu
. Curses upon anyone who takes his ax to that tree!

“I can’t tell you what happened to the Queen’s retainer. I don’t know. Perhaps she remained with the Queen, close by. Don’t ask me.