Our Lady of the Nile (7 page)

“ ‘Hey, don’t be scared, I wish you no harm. And, anyway, I recognize you, I know who you are. You stood out from the other girls at the pilgrimage. I’ve done portraits of you. Come, I really must show them to you.’

“I’m so out of breath I can’t run any more, and the jeep stops beside me.

“ ‘Yes’, says Monsieur de Fontenaille. ‘Yes, it’s definitely you, the one I spotted, the one I’ve been looking for, the one I need. And it is She who has sent you.’

“He looks at me intently, as if fascinated by my face. I lower my eyes of course, but I sense that my curiosity will get the better of my fear.

“ ‘What do you want with me?’

“ ‘Nothing bad, quite the opposite. My intentions are all good, I swear. I won’t touch you, I promise. Trust me. Hop in, I’ll take you to see my house. Once we get there, you’ll see yourself as you were meant to be. The temple has awaited its goddess for such a long time.’

“ ‘Awaited its goddess?’

“ ‘You’ll see for yourself.’

“My curiosity won over, just as I’d feared.

“ ‘Okay, but you have to take me back to the lycée by six. And no one must see us.’

“ ‘I’ll take you back, discreetly.’

“Slope after slope, the jeep climbed then hurtled down, I don’t know how many times, as it jolted, squealed, and spluttered. A hell of a noise. Fontenaille laughed, watching me all the while. It seemed like the vehicle was driving itself. At last, we reached a dirt path and passed beneath an arch, a bit like on Rwanda Day, but this one was made of iron. I had time to read the sign that said
FONTENAILLE ESTATE
, and above the inscription, I thought I glimpsed another smaller sign with some sort of Holy Virgin wearing a hat with cattle horns painted on it, like the one Fontenaille showed me later inside his villa. We drove between rows of
ill-maintained coffee bushes, then past a series of identical small brick dwellings that appeared to be abandoned. We stopped in front of the large house.

“ ‘Come on,’ Fontenaille says, ‘I’ll give you a tour of the estate and show you what could be yours.’

“I was still a little scared, and I still didn’t understand what he was saying, or what he wanted, but it was too late to back out and I was really eager to know what it all meant. Whatever happens, I thought, I could always find a way to get out of there …

“We crossed the
barza
and entered the large living room, where a servant rushed up to us with glasses of orange juice. He wore a white uniform with gold epaulettes. Fontenaille didn’t take his eyes off me as I drank my glass of orangeade. Myself, I looked at the antelope horns, the elephant tusks, and the zebra pelt hanging on the wall.

“ ‘Please, ignore all that bric-a-brac, the animal hides, I put them up for people who no longer visit me. These are all beasts I wish I hadn’t killed. Now follow me.’

“We took a long corridor that led to a garden. Behind the bamboo groves, there was a small lake overgrown with papyrus sedge and, farther back, a sort of chapel, but not like one of those missionary churches. It was a rectangular building with columns all around. As I got closer, I saw that the columns were sculpted: they looked like papyrus sedge. Inside, the walls were covered with paintings: on one side there were cows with huge
inyambo
horns,
and warriors like our
intore
dancers, with an imposing figure in the foreground that must’ve been the King, with a crown of pearls like Mwami Musinga wore. On the other side was a procession of women, young black women who resembled the queens of old. It looked like they were walking behind each other, their faces in profile. They all wore the same tight dresses, bare-breasted; the dresses were transparent, and in the folds you could see the curves of their stomachs, and their legs. On their heads they had these wigs that didn’t look like hair, more like birds. On the back wall was a kind of large Holy Virgin, black as Our Lady of the Nile, dressed like the women on the wall, but painted full face and wearing a hat similar to the one I’d seen at the entrance to the estate: two cow horns and a disc shining bright as sunlight. I felt as if the Lady were looking at me with her big black eyes, like a living person. In front of her, on a dais, was an armchair with a very high back, and gilded like the one the Bishop sits on in the cathedral. On the seat lay the strange hat.

“ ‘Look closely,’ said Monsieur de Fontenaille. ‘Do you recognize her? Do you recognize yourself?’

“I didn’t know how to reply.

“ ‘Look closely,’ he said again. ‘It’s the Lady of the Nile, the real one. Don’t you think you look like her?’

“ ‘So what? She’s black like me. But apart from that? I’m Veronica, I’m not the Virgin Mary.’

“ ‘No, you’re not the Virgin Mary, and neither is She. And if you
are worthy, I would like to reveal her true name to you, which is also your own.’

“ ‘My real name, the one my father gave me, is Tumurinde. You know what it means: “Protect Her.” ’

“ ‘You can count on me to fulfill your father’s wishes: you’re so precious to me. But there’s another name I know that is earmarked for you, that awaits you. I’ll explain everything if you come back and see me.’

“I still understood nothing of what he was saying, but I was increasingly curious to know what it all meant, and I answered him before I had time to think:

“ ‘ I’ll return next Sunday, but with a friend. I’m not coming back on my own.’

“ ‘If your friend looks like you, then you can bring her, but only if she looks like you. There’s a place for her, too.’

“ ‘I’ll bring her. But it’s late – you need to take me back to the lycée, and without anyone seeing us!’

“ ‘My old jeep’s not too fond of dirt roads.’

“He dropped me off behind the guest bungalow, just before six, and sped away.”

“What a strange story,” said Virginia. “That white guy is really crazy. Who are you going to take with you?”

“You, of course. You’ll come to the white guy’s place with me next Sunday. We’ll play goddess. You’ll see, it’s like being in a movie.”

“Don’t you think it’s risky? You know what whites do with girls they lure back to their places. Whites think they can get away with anything out here, that they can do everything that’s forbidden back home.”

“Not at all, you’ve nothing to fear. Fontenaille is just a crazy old guy. But he kept his word, didn’t lay a finger on me. I’m telling you, he thinks I’m a goddess. It’ll be the same with you. You know what whites say about the Tutsi. I looked it up in the library. His chapel, in the garden, it reminded me of something. I searched through some books on ancient history, and his chapel isn’t Roman, or Greek: it’s Egyptian, from the time of the Pharaohs, the time of Moses. Those columns and paintings are just like what I saw in the book. He’s crazy, he had an Egyptian temple built for himself in the garden. And the painted woman with cow horns on her head, I saw her in the book too, she’s a goddess: Isis, or Cleopatra, like I saw in a movie.”

“So, he’s a pagan! I didn’t think there were any left among white folk. What does he want to do with us in his temple?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wants to sketch our portrait, or photograph us, or film us. Maybe he wants to worship us. It’s funny, don’t you think?”

“You’re as crazy as he is!”

“During the long vacation, whenever I have a little money, I go to the French Cultural Center to watch movies. I’ve always wished it were me in the movie, that I were an actress. So we’re
going to play goddesses at old whitey’s place. It’ll be just like in the movies.”

“I’m coming with you, to protect you. I’ll hide a little knife under my skirt to defend us. You never know.”

The jeep was waiting behind the great Rutare rock. As soon as he saw the girls, Monsieur de Fontenaille greeted them with a grand wave of his bush hat. Veronica noticed that his shaven head shone like the glittering lake at the foot of the mountains. Then a cloud shrouded the sun, the lake stopped shimmering, and Monsieur de Fontenaille put his khaki hat back on.

“I’ve brought a friend,” Veronica said, “just like I told you. This is Virginia.”

Monsieur de Fontenaille scrutinized her for a long while.

“Hello, Virginia,” he said at last. “Welcome. I shall call you Candace, Queen Candace.”

Virginia had to restrain herself from bursting into laughter.

“I’m called Virginia, but my real name is Mutamuriza. Call me Candace if you like. The whites have always given us the names they wanted. Virginia, after all, is not one my father chose either.”

“Let me explain. Candace isn’t a white name, it’s a queen’s name, a black queen’s name, the Queen of the Nile. And you Tutsi are her sons and daughters. Come on, hop in.”

The jeep shot off, kicking up a shower of grass and mud, then zigzagged between the rocks, following an invisible track.
Veronica and Virginia clung to each other to avoid being thrown from the vehicle. They soon passed under the metal arch marking the entrance to the estate, snaked between the rambling coffee bushes and the row of identical maisonettes. “This was where my workers lived,” Monsieur de Fontenaille explained, “back in the days when I thought coffee would make me rich. I was an imbecile but a good boss all the same. Now I house my herders, my warriors, and my
ingabo
in them. You’ll see soon enough.” The jeep stopped in front of the steps leading into the large villa.

They entered the living room, with its trophies, and were greeted by a military salute from the servant in white livery and golden epaulettes. Monsieur de Fontenaille motioned to the girls to sit down in the rattan armchairs, and the uniformed fellow placed glasses of orangeade on the coffee table, along with a tray of sweets.

Monsieur de Fontenaille sat opposite his guests on a sort of bamboo sofa draped with tattered leopard skins. He remained silent for quite a stretch, his head buried in his hands. Finally, his fingers slid down along his face, revealing eyes that shone with such brilliant intensity that Virginia hastened to check she still had the little knife beneath her skirt, while Veronica discreetly signaled to her that they should be prepared to flee. But Monsieur de Fontenaille didn’t fling himself at them; instead, he began to speak.

He spoke for ages. At times, his voice trembled with emotion,
at others it grew deep; sometimes it was no more than a whisper, before suddenly booming out again. He talked on and on about the great secret he would share with them, a secret that concerned them, the secret of the Tutsi. He explained that during their long exodus, the Tutsi had lost their Memory. They retained their cattle, their noble bearing, and their daughters’ beauty, but they had lost their Memory. They no longer knew where they came from, or who they were. But he, Fontenaille, knew where the Tutsi came from, and who they were. How he came to know was a long story, the story of his life. It was his destiny, and he wasn’t ashamed to say so.

Back in Europe, he had wanted to be a painter, but nobody bought his paintings, and his noble family – he sniggered as he pronounced the word – had long since lost all their money. So he set off for Africa to seek his fortune. He acquired some land, up here in the mountains, where nobody wanted to settle: a large estate where he could grow arabica coffee. He became a plantation owner, a colonist. He grew rich. He enjoyed going on safari in Kenya and Tanganyika. He kept an open house, and despite the impossible roads, guests coming up from the capital made sure not to miss a single one of his receptions, under any circumstances. They would gather in the large living room to drink a lot and talk a lot: the latest gossip from the capital, the animals they’d killed, coffee prices, the unfathomable stupidity of their servants, the natives one could never entirely enlighten,
the girls accompanying the guests, or those their host obligingly provided – beautiful girls, Tutsi mainly. “My models,” as Fontenaille explained, for he liked to sketch, painting herders leaning on their long sticks, lyre-horned cattle, young women balancing pointy baskets or jugs on their heads, pretty girls with their hair piled high and held in place by diadems of glass beads. He collected the portraits of those girls who agreed to enter the villa. Their faces fascinated him.

It was the tales told about the Tutsi that convinced him. That they weren’t Negroes: one only had to look at their noses, and the reddish gleam of their skin. But where did they come from? The mystery of the Tutsi ate away at him. He’d gone and questioned the old bearded missionaries. He’d read everything there was to read on the subject. Nobody agreed on anything. One said the Tutsi came from Ethiopia, another that they were black Jews of some kind, or emigrant Copts from Alexandria, perhaps Romans who’d gotten lost, maybe cousins of the Fula or the Maasai, Sumerian survivors of Babylon, some even said they’d come all the way from Tibet, true Aryans. Fontenaille swore to himself that he’d find out the truth.

When the Hutu kicked out the head Mwami of Rwanda and began to massacre the Tutsi, with the help of the Belgians and the missionaries, he understood how urgent it was that he fulfill the promise he’d made to himself. It would now be his life’s mission. The Tutsi would disappear, of that he was certain. Here they
would eventually be exterminated, while those who had gone into exile would ensure their own people’s decline through interbreeding. All that could be saved was the legend, the legend that was the truth. So he neglected his friends and abandoned the plantation. He learned to decipher hieroglyphs. He attempted to study Coptic and Ge’ez. He tried to speak Kinyarwanda with his servant. But he was clearly no scholar, or anthropologist, or ethnologist. All those books, all those studies, led nowhere. For he was an artist, intuition and inspiration were his only guides, and they took him much further than all these scholars with their erudition. So he decided to continue his research in the field, in Sudan and in Egypt. There he saw the goddess’s temple before it was swallowed by the desert, and he saw the pyramids of the black pharaohs, the steles of the Candace queens by the Nile. That’s where he found the proof he sought. Those faces carved in stone were the same as those he had sketched. All his doubts were gone. It was like an epiphany. The empire of the black pharaohs, that was exactly where the Tutsi came from. Chased off by Christianity, by Islam, by desert barbarians, they undertook the long trek to the source of the Nile, which they believed to be the land of the Gods who, by virtue of the river, bestowed plenty. They had kept their cows, their sacred bulls, and their noble bearing, their daughters had kept their beauty. But they had lost their Memory.