limp body in a hug. “Monique, your friend will be fine.”
I can hear a mob coming, but my parents are more interested in Hélène. Papa climbs onto a chair, then onto the table. He opens the hatch of the parlor ceiling and asks Maman to relay Hélène to him.
“Remember, we’ve too many up there,” Maman says. “When I came down, you had five in there . . . and I put two more in just hours ago. The ceiling will collapse.”
They take Hélène into my room, and Maman pulls open the hatch. A cloud of fine dust explodes from the ceiling. They shove Hélène’s body in.
Now I understand—they are hiding people in our ceiling. Maman was in the ceiling last night. She tricked me. Nobody is telling me the truth today. Tomorrow I must remind them that lying is a sin.
AS THE MOB CLOSES in on our house, chanting, the ceiling people begin to pray. I recognize their voices as those of our Tutsi neighbors and fellow parishioners. They’re silent as Papa opens the front door to the crowd, which is bigger than last night’s and pushes into our home like floodwater. These people look tired, yet they sing on like drunks. Their weapons and hands and shoes and clothes are covered with blood, their palms slimy. Our house smells suddenly like an abattoir. I see the man who attacked me; his yellow trousers are now reddish brown. He stares at me; I hold on to Papa, who is hanging his head.
Maman runs into her bedroom. Four men are restraining Tonton André, who still wants to kill us all. I run to Maman and sit with her on the bed. Soon, the mob enters the room too, bringing Papa. They give Papa a big machete. He begins to tremble, his eyes blinking. A man tears me away from Maman and pushes me toward Jean, who’s in the corner. Papa is standing before Maman, his fingers on the knife’s handle.
“My people,” he mumbles, “let another do it. Please.”
“No, you do it, traitor!” Tonton André shouts, struggling with those holding him. “You were with us when I killed Annette yesterday. My pregnant wife. You can’t keep yours. Where did you disappear to when we came last night? You love your family more than I loved mine? Yes?”
“If we kill your wife for you,” the Wizard says, “we must kill you. And your children too.” He thuds his stick. “Otherwise, after cleansing our land of Tutsi nuisance, your children will come after us. We must remain one. Nothing shall dilute our blood. Not God. Not marriage.”
Tonton André shouts, “Shenge, how many Tutsis has Papa hidden—”
“My husband, be a man,” Maman interrupts, looking down.
“Shenge, answer!” someone yells. The crowd of Hutus murmur and become impatient. “Wowe, subiza.”
“My husband, you promised me.”
Papa lands the machete on Maman’s head. Her voice chokes and she falls off the bed and onto her back on the wooden floor. It’s like a dream. The knife tumbles out of Papa’s hand. His eyes are closed, his face calm, though he’s shaking.
Maman straightens out on the floor as if she were yawning. Her feet kick, and her chest rises and locks as if she were holding her breath. There’s blood everywhere—on everybody around her. It flows into Maman’s eyes. She looks at us through the blood. She sees Papa become a wizard, sees his people telling him bad things. The blood overflows her eyelids, and Maman is weeping red tears. My bladder softens and pee flows down my legs toward the blood. The blood overpowers it, bathing my feet. Papa opens his eyes slowly. His breaths are long and slow. He bends down and closes Maman’s eyes with trembling hands.
“If you let any Tutsi live,” they tell him, “you’re dead.” And then they begin to leave, some patting him on the back. Tonton André is calm now, stroking his goatee. He tugs at Papa’s sleeve. Papa covers Maman with a white bedspread and then goes off with the mob, without looking at me or Jean. Maman’s ring and money disappear with them.
I cry with the ceiling people until my voice cracks and my tongue dries up. No one can ever call me Shenge again. I want to sit with Maman forever, and I want to run away at the same time. Sometimes I think she’s sleeping and hugging Hélène under the bedspread and the blood is Hélène’s. I don’t want to wake them up. My mind is no longer mine; it’s