4
As I arrive home after my first day at school I am tired. More tired than I have felt before in my whole life, I think. But I am not sure that it is just the seven-mile walk that has made me this tired. I think it is also the worry and the fear with which my day began. My head aches, but not with lessons – I found them interesting and not too difficult, as I have always done. But doing those lessons under the terrible gaze of Claudius Kagina, my teacher – the one without a neck and with a wide head – this I feel is what has exhausted me.
Mummy is much brighter than she was this morning as I drag my heavy feet into our yard. She throws down the machete she is using to chop the firewood and pats the rock next to her for me to sit. Her face is light, it has an orange warmth to it, as if her shiny skin is a mirror for the red earth glowing in the evening light. I take a bit longer to get to the rock than I really need to, just so Mum will understand how tired I am. But I cannot help a smile bursting through my sour face because I cannot wait to tell her all about my day and I know she cannot wait to hear about it too – it was all I could think about since Jeanette and I parted as we reached Kibungo.
‘My baby, growing up and going to the big school! How was your first day?’ she says, squeezing me hard.
‘It was good, Mummy, really good.’
And while I tell her about all the new English words I learnt and my agriculture class I forget my aching head until she says,
‘And how are your teachers? Are they nice?’
Then I look up at my mum, but I feel I have to shut my eyes the moment they rest on her face, as if I have just looked into the setting sun – the pain behind my eyes returns.
‘Well…?’
‘Mum.’
‘What is it?’
‘Are you a Tutsi?’
The scrape of metal along the ground makes me look back to her. It is the sound of the sharp machete as she moves it out of the way so that she can gather up the pieces of wood safely.
‘What happened at school? What have they said to you?’ she says, looking serious, as she was this morning.
I feel disappointed with myself for sending Mum so quickly back into this mood, so I reach for some wood too and try and forget that I ever asked her the question. But she is not about to forget.
‘Clementine. Did someone upset you today at school?’
‘No, Mummy. Why should you being a Tutsi upset me?’
‘That is not what I asked, darling. Who told you I was a Tutsi?’
‘No one, but my teacher made all the Hutus in the class stand up, and then all the Twas and then all the Tutsis, and I did not know what I was. I did not know what to do, Mummy!’
I suddenly feel like crying, especially because Mum looks so concerned as I tell her what Claudius Kagina made us do.
‘And when did you stand up, Clem. Did you stand…?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘when he asked all the Hutus to stand.’
Mum looks relieved now. She places the wood at my feet and rubs my arms slowly and firmly, as if she is kneading dough. It is a strange feeling. It is like she is trying to make sure I really am there in front of her and not a ghost, but at least I do not feel like crying any more. I want to tell her that I stood when all the Tutsis stood too, but I am so glad that she is smiling again that I do not want to do anything to change it.
‘I stood because Jeanette stood and because I have heard people say that Dad has Hutu blood.’
‘That is right, darling, that is good. Very good.’
‘But I have heard people say that you are a Tutsi. And I am like you, aren’t I?’
Mum stops the rubbing, but does not let me go. ‘Your father is a Hutu and I am a Tutsi. But it means nothing really…just that I come from a family of cattle herders and your father from a family of field workers.’
And a cow – perhaps one of ours – from somewhere beyond our house makes a great ‘Moo!’ just then, as if to tell me that Mum is right. She bends her head to gather the wood again, but I do not move. My arms are still stuck to my sides where Mum has pressed them – there is something I still need to know. Mum senses this and looks up. Now her eyes are questioning and I feel her face is a mirror again.
I say, ‘Sarah said in the schoolyard that Tutsis are more beautiful than Hutus. That they are taller and slimmer. That they have lighter skin. And Hutus are shorter and darker and have wide noses…’
Mum grabs my hand and leads me quickly round to the kitchen. She drops the wood into the fireplace and leads me inside to her bedroom. On top of the chest of drawers is a little mirror, which she takes, sitting me down on her big mattress.
‘Too dark,’ she clucks, looking into the glass, and grabs me again, leading me back out to the yard quickly, as if time is running out.
‘Look, Clementine!’ she says, holding the mirror in front of my face. ‘Look at yourself. Are you light-skinned?’
‘…No.’ I am darker than Jeanette anyway.
‘Are you tall?’
‘…No.’ I was always one of the shortest at school.
‘And your nose. How is it? Is it wide, like mine?’
I am excited and sad all at once. My nose is thin, it is a Tutsi nose, a beautiful nose. But for the first time I realize that my mum has a wide nose. Not like mine. She is tall and slim, but her nose is like Claudius Kagina’s – and he is the ugliest man I have ever met! But Mum is beautiful. Everyone says so. I think so. This is getting confusing.
‘But you are a Tutsi, Mummy. Your nose should be thin.’
She holds the mirror like a plate in her hand and drums her fingers on it. ‘If what Sarah says is true then my nose should be thin, but it is not. I do not think it is my imagination. This is my nose. I can feel it.’ She stops the drumming and uses her finger to squash her nose instead. She makes both her eyes look towards it – her cartoon face makes me laugh. She laughs too. ‘Many, many years ago, perhaps it was easy to tell a Tutsi and a Hutu apart by their looks alone. But many Hutus have married Tutsis and given birth to beautiful children, with wide or thin noses. We are not so different anyway. We speak the same language, sing the same songs, go to church and worship the same God. Your father is Hutu, so you stand with the Hutus at roll call. But you, my baby, you are lucky; for you have the best of both worlds – you are both Hutu and Tutsi, outside and inside.’ She presses her hand to my heart and I think she is a doctor listening with that metal disc, listening for my double heartbeat – the Tutsi and the Hutu beat. And I do feel lucky. With my Hutu skin and Tutsi nose, I feel powerful and beautiful all at once. ‘Now you must help me cook quickly before your brother and Daddy come.’
‘What are you staring at, Clem?’ says Pio.
I look down at my plate and fill my mouth with more of the isombe that Mum and I have cooked. I love isombe, because it has eggplant in
