Bernard Valcourt is a Canadian, Quebecois to be precise, who has landed up in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, ostensibly to set up a national TV station. One of the drivers for the project is the urgent need to inform the population how to protect themselves and others from the AIDS epidemic sweeping the country. But the Government do not want to broadcast bad news, publicise their failings, so the job has stalled.
So Valcourt spends his day writing articles for foreign journals, but worldwide interest is minimal, not only in AIDS but also the growing tension and violence between the Hutu and Tutsi people who share the country in a powder keg mix. The Tutsi have post-colonial position and wealth, but the Hutu outnumber them greatly. There is history between them, and history will out.
But on a Sunday in Kigali, sat around the pool at the once plush Mille-Collines hotel, the great and the good congregate in well-guarded luxury. Mainly white – UN officials, economic advisors, bankers, ex-pat Belgians, diplomats who have drawn the short straw – but also those natives who hold government posts or contracts.
However, even in this civilized company, tension bubbles as high-up Hutus abuse any Tutsi staff with impunity. Among the staff is Gentille, a Hutu by birth and identity card but a Tutsi by her crossbred attractive appearance. Valcourt, decades her senior, is smitten. Gentille reciprocates, but is it love or an exit strategy, wonders Valcourt.
What follows is a heady mix of romance and terrorism, tenderness and torture, where sex is a murder weapon and mutilation a political statement. Valcourt, protected by his skin and journalist pass sees it all unfold. The country is physically beautiful and beguiling, but hate, corruption, and history lead the people tear each other apart, and soon there are more rivers of blood than water.
Told with restraint
and resigned fatalism, this is a story all too real that should be read, even
if it needs a strong stomach.
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