Free Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga Page A

Virginia, “the third one there, that’s me! And the one just in front of her is Emmanuella, who was in her final year a couple of years ago. And there’s Brigitte, who’s in tenth grade. It’s like he’s painted every Tutsi in the lycée.”
    “Well, I’m not there.”
    “You’re not in the procession because you’re the chosen one. Turn around and you’ll see,” said Monsieur de Fontenaille.
    There on the back wall, the face of the Great Goddess was indeed that of Veronica. Only the eyes were strangely large.
    “You see,” said Monsieur de Fontenaille, “last Sunday, I had ample time to observe you closely. Then I corrected the face ofthe goddess so it really looks like yours. Now you can no longer deny it: you are Isis.”
    “I am no such thing. I don’t like you making fun of me. And it’s dangerous to mock the spirits of the dead. The abazimu might turn on you, and their vengeance is often cruel.”
    “Don’t be upset. Soon you’ll understand. Follow me, the tour’s not over yet.”
    They exited the temple and climbed up to the ridge. A few long-horned cows were grazing on the slope, watched by young herders. On a nearby hill lay the enclosure where the cattle returned every evening. The dome of the main hut, with its artistically plaited tuft, rose above the encircling corral of shrubs. “See,” said Monsieur de Fontenaille, “if the Tutsi were to disappear, I would at least save their cows, the inyambo . Perhaps it was a bull like that one there, a sacred bull, who led them as far as here.” At the summit, in the midst of a thicket of old trees, like a slice of forest, stood a pyramid, taller and more tapering than the one erected by the Belgians at the source of the Nile. “That’s where I made excavations,” he explained. “The elders said it was the grave of a queen, Queen Nyiramavugo. So I ordered a dig and we found a skeleton, pearls, pottery, and copper bracelets. I’m no archaeologist. I didn’t want the Queen’s remains ending up in a museum, behind glass. So I had them fill in the trench and build this pyramid on top of it. Queen Nyiramavugo has a sepulcher befitting a Candace queen. Come here, Virginia, since from now on you, too, are queen, Queen Candace. Make whole the chainof time once again. Now everything is in place. The temple, the pyramid, the sacred bull. And I’ve rediscovered Isis and Candace, as beautiful as the day the world was formed. The ending will be as the beginning. That is the secret. Isis has returned to the spring. I have the secret, the secret, the se …”
    Monsieur de Fontenaille seemed to be having great difficulty containing the exaltation that overwhelmed him, his hands shook, his throat was tight. To calm down, he went and sat on a rock a little way away, and spent a long while contemplating the rolling mountains that seemed to soar to infinity beneath the clouds.
    “I don’t think he even sees the same landscape as we do,” said Veronica. “He probably fills it with goddesses, Candace queens, and black pharaohs. It’s like a movie playing in his head, but now he wants flesh-and-blood actresses, and that’s us.”
    “The Tutsi have already acted in white men’s B movies, or in their craziness, you should say, and we suffered for it. I don’t want to play Queen What’s-Her-Name. I want to get back to the lycée. Come on, let’s tell him to drive us back.”
    As the young women drew near, Monsieur de Fontenaille seemed to awaken from a deep sleep.
    “The rain’s coming,” said Veronica. “It’s late, you have to drive us back to the path.”
    “I’ll take you. Don’t worry, no one will see you. But next Sunday, I’ll be waiting for you. It’ll be the big day. Much better than the pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Nile.”
    It was Immaculée who found Veronica splayed at the bottom of the dormitory stairs.
    “Help! Help! Veronica’s dead, she fell, she’s not moving.”
    The lycée girls had just sat down at the refectory