Read Online Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron - Free Book Online Page B

he still had not seen her.
    â€œWhere’s Mama?” he asked, apprehension returning.
    â€œShe went to work. None of us wanted her to go, but what could we do?” Auntie said. “Uwimana, come eat with us. So late, and we are just now sitting down.”
    â€œI would love nothing more, but I have a school full of hotheads to attend to. I told Jean Patrick to stay home and rest.”
    With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Jean Patrick recalled his missed race. “The burgomaster! What will happen now?”
    â€œHe won’t run away. Not when he can hear the jingle of gold coins in his pocket,” Uwimana said.
    â€œN OW YOU SEE I’m right,” Uncle told Jean Patrick after breakfast. “Habyarimana is no change. Buhoro, buhoro, little by little, the Hutu will pick us off until we have all disappeared.”
    â€œPapa taught me to believe in Habyarimana,” Jean Patrick said without conviction. “Those RPF shouldn’t stir up trouble.”
    â€œListen to you! Like Radio Rwanda. Habyarimana is no different than Kayibanda, the first murderer to lead this country. If you ask me, nothing has changed since the Hutu rose up against the mwami and drove him out. That’s when they started killing us, and they haven’t stopped. The RPF are
our
people. Their families did not leave by choice; they fled for their lives. They’re not
stirring up trouble,
Jean Patrick. They just want to come home.”
    The familiar discomfort stirred in Jean Patrick’s chest. Who was right, Uncle or Papa? The question tired him more every day. He struggled to his feet and put on Papa’s felt hat. It was only now, after the start of the war, after the insults and name-calling had started, that he began to understand that a felt hat and a herder’s staff branded a man as Tutsi, a keeper of cattle, despised by the Hutu tenders of the fields.
    â€œI’m going to look for Mama.” Jean Patrick took his crutches and closed the door on Uncle’s protests.
    J EAN P ATRICK FOUND her on the road above the lake, a basin of fruit on her head. He waved, and she hurried toward him.
    â€œMana yanjye—what happened to you?”
    â€œHutu Power broke my foot. I’ll be OK.”
    â€œI can see it hurts—let’s rest a minute.” They sat together on a log and shared a mango.
    Jean Patrick looked out at the lake, its rippled surface. “Why did you never tell us about your parents?”
    Mama’s eyes shone with the same coppery flecks as Mathilde’s. “Your father thought the troubles were over for the Tutsi when Habyarimana seized power. Habyarimana promised the Tutsi equality. He said there would be no more killing, and we believed him. The past was the past, Papa said—why frighten the children?”
    â€œAnd what do you think?”
    â€œPapa loved you so much. He just wanted to protect you.”
    They sat and watched the fishermen, tiny flakes of pepper floating in the soup of the lake. A peaceful silence took over Jean Patrick’s mind. He was worn out from thinking, tipping the balance back and forth, one side winning and then the other. The tumult was too much.
    Mama refastened her scarf and placed the ingata on her head. Even this small thing made of twigs to cushion a load was a crown when she wore it. “Are you ready to go, my son?”
    â€œYes. I think I can walk now.”
    She balanced the basin on top of the ingata, and they started up the slope. A breeze chased purple clouds across the sky, a hint of rain swelling their bellies.
    â€œWhat about Papa’s parents? Did the Hutu kill them, too?”
    â€œ
The Hutu.
You sound like your uncle now. Not every muhutu is a killer. Your grandmother died of cancer. Grief killed your grandfather two months after.”
    â€œDo you agree with Papa? Is the killing in the past?”
    Mama let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. When talk heats up Hutu