From Murambi: The Book of Bones

Abstract

from Murambi:The Book of Bones Boubacar Boris Diop (bio) Translated from French by Fiona McLaughlin During ninety days in 1994, members of the Hutu majority in Rwanda murdered 800,000 members of the country's Tutsi minority, in one of the swiftest and most brutal genocides of the twentieth century. In Boubacar Boris Diop's novel Murambi: The Book of Bones, "the time, place, and mood of the genocide are created through a concert of voices," Eileen Julien writes in the book's foreword, and readers hear "the thoughts of fictive victims and killers who lived through those terrifying and horrific days." The following is a chapter from the book. f.s. We called him Tonton Antoine. For as far back as I can remember, I always saw him at the house. He was my father's best friend. Actually his only friend, I think. Already, when I was a little girl, I had the feeling that he wasn't like anyone else we knew. He didn't laugh very much, but he loved doing magic tricks with cards. Projecting the shadows of his fingers against a wall, he could also create tortoises or dragonflies. As soon as I saw him arrive, I would rush out to meet him. He would lift me up on his shoulders and run around our place singing, "Marina has an airplane, Tonton Antoine is little Marina's airplane!" I was, I think, one of the few people who could cheer him up. A few days after the events, he came to the house a first time. He and my father talked for a long time in low voices. We knew that he was in charge of several barricades in Kibuye. Nonetheless, he had a sweet face, if a little bit sad, just as I'd known him from my earliest childhood. When he left, my father seemed to be very preoccupied. "Does he know that we're hiding those little ones here?" asked my mother, worried. "No, but he says I should take up my machete like all the other men." "Ah?" "I refused. I can't do that." My mother said nothing. After a while he cried out again: "Yes, I refused!" Two days passed. Tonton Antoine came back. He and my father locked themselves away again in the living room. For the first time in my life I heard Tonton Antoine shout. [End Page 65] After this second meeting, my father started to change. He talked to himself, wandering from one room to another: "Ah! I can't agree to do it, those people have never done anything to me! It's savagery!" The next instant he would say that he had to protect us. If he didn't do anything, the Interahamwe were going to come and kill everyone in the house. The third day, not being able to stand it anymore, he took up his machete. My mother and I wanted to keep him from going out. Then he screamed, "Don't you watch the television? It's like all wars—you kill people and then it's over!" He went to the barricades. They tell us that he handles his machete like a maniac over there. However, when he's back at the house, he goes straight to the little ones' hiding place, he gives them treats and plays with them. Then he retires to his bedroom. Mother and I don't disturb him. When he leaves very early the next morning, we pretend we're asleep. [End Page 66] Boubacar Boris Diop Boubacar Boris Diop was born in Dakar, Senegal, and is a Francophone author of novels, plays, and essays. He was awarded the Senegalese Republic Grand Prize for Les Tambours de la mémoire and the Prix Tropiques for The Knight and His Shadow. His Doomi Golo was the first novel to be translated from Wolof into English. The Zimbabwe International Book Fair listed it as one of the hundred best African books of the twentieth century. In 2022 he was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for Murambi: The Book of Bones. Fiona Mc Laughlin Fiona Mc Laughlin is associate professor of African languages...