Raul Bimenyimana

New Year's Eve

It was late at night, the last night of the year 1996, and Keza had fallen asleep on the couch. She had been arguing with her mother an hour before, insisting that the new year would find her awake. Her face was now pressed onto the couch and part of her left leg dangled on the edge. Nadine kept an eye on her because she occasionally turned in her sleep, and slowly knitted Keza’s ripped violet shirt while listening to Albert translate the day’s news to her. He was crouched over the East African Standard he had bought earlier that morning for twenty shillings. A protruding vein snaked its way at the corner of his forehead, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled to the elbows. He mouthed the English words to himself; then, he would straighten his neck and interpret their meaning in Kirundi as best as he could.

This had become a ritual in their home and had begun as one of the other methods Albert had developed to improve his English. He had also befriended their neighbor Kirui for the main purpose of their English-only conversations, would follow the different English programs broadcasted by BBC World Service, and had bought second-hand English children’s books as well as a second-hand Compact Oxford English Dictionary.

Nadine—with some pride, had noticed that he now consulted the dictionary less often. A few nights ago when they had invited Kirui for supper; he had also made remarks about her husband being a fast learner. Albert had rejected the praise. He said that he had already known some English words when they still lived in Bujumbura. As he spoke Nadine recognized the casualness that covered up the false modesty he often feigned when he wanted to receive more compliments, more compliments that she gave or withheld depending on whether she thought he deserved them and remained silent. Kirui, however, had continued to explain the difficulties of a new language, the discipline and hard work required, and the slim chances of success, while Albert repudiated each point.

A photograph of a crowd surrounding a woman who had collapsed and died near Wakulima market was on the front page of the newspaper. Some of the people were looking at the camera, others at the dead woman, and a policeman, who was supposedly meant to keep the very settled-looking onlookers away, was at the end. Nadine asked to see the photograph and squinted as Albert held the newspaper up for her.

He continued to translate other bits of the front page. About opposition leaders, Matiba and Raila calling for national unity, and MP Kirwa apologizing to President Moi. Then they started discussing the urge people had of reconciling and of avoiding taking conflicts with them into a new year. Albert said it was a year just like any, and Nadine said that the possibility of starting afresh is always nice to have.

“What difference does it make?” Albert said.

“A different mindset,” Nadine said.

“Why wait until the end of the year?”

“Why not?”

Albert laughed and returned to translating the rest of the news, leafing casually through the papers. Moi had appointed the first woman D.C.; two robbers had carjacked a priest and hit two armed policemen; nationwide celebrations of the K.C.P.E. results, and hurriedly reached the regional news section which was the section they waited for each day. There was news of two Rwandan officials being prosecuted for their roles in the genocide, and news of Kabila’s advancements in Western Zaire. Nothing about Burundi.

To cast off the disappointment, Albert continued to the sports section. But just as he was reading to himself and as Nadine brought the extra string to her teeth to cut it, there was an explosion.

They stared at each other; their eyes, wide and alert, confirmed that they had both heard the same thing. Some seconds passed and they heard another explosion, and soon heard screams too. They both stood up. Albert moved the wooden table to the door and switched off the light. Nadine carried Keza from the couch, and the three of them stretched out on the floor. Keza had woken up and, without needing to be told, kept quiet.

It was difficult to tell where the explosions came from. Nadine at first thought they were from the north, but changed her mind and thought they came from the west. Though her eyes were closed, she soon sensed movement and opened them. She saw that Albert, who was closest to the windows, had craned his neck and was staring at the curtains.

The laugh caught her by surprise. A soft self-mocking laugh that grew louder and more reckless by the moment. A new fear was unfolding itself onto the previous one, and she held Keza, who was in the middle, closer to her. He got up, still laughing, and Nadine tried to reach out to him and missed.

Albert parted the black curtains. A mushroom pattern of green was cutting through the dark sky. It advanced towards them, and Nadine held her breath. It looked like it was coming towards them to crush them in its splendor. But the green spurts quickly dissolved into the darkness of the night. Another bang sounded, and red jets followed, spreading. Albert switched the light on.

Keza got up and joined her father by the window. They both stared outside and realized that their neighbors had gathered below. Keza then turned to Nadine and looked at her with the small diamond pattern of the seat stamped on her left cheek. 

“I can see Caro outside maman. Can we go out too?”

“Yes. Let’s go down,” Albert said.

“Go ahead. I'm coming,” Nadine said.

After the door closed and their steps had receded, Nadine remembered that Keza hadn’t worn her sweater. She remained on the floor and stared at the colors still lighting the sky, the explosions sounding fainter than they had moments before. 

Before, she had only seen the displays on pretty cards with the words "Bonne Année!" or “Félicitations!” above them, and on television. But she had never expected them to sound so loud, or like gunshots or detonated grenades. Then she thought of the dam, how the colors would look reflected on it, and whether it was too dark to see. She couldn’t bring herself to get up and see for herself.

Albert had kept the view of the dam as a surprise when he first showed them the house. Nadine and Keza were astonished by the gray high-rise buildings that made up their new neighbourhood and were even more surprised that they would be living on the top-most floor of their five-storeyed block. There were no tall residential buildings in Bujumbura. Nadine climbed the steps slowly and gripped the rail with her right hand. Keza meanwhile had skipped a series of two steps, while her father held her left hand. She shouted and laughed each time they reached the final step and Albert swung her off the ground. Nadine stood still and stared when she finally saw it. A rectangular mass of shimmers and ripples. She could see acacia trees at the opposite end, a small spot in the middle of floating green that Albert later told her was called hyacinth, and a sailing boat in the waters, its white main sail flapping in the wind.

“It’s called Nairobi Dam,” Albert said behind her, pronouncing the last English word carefully. “The place opposite to us is Langata.”

Keza, who had been exploring the house, enjoying the echoes her shouts made, joined them. They stood watching for a while. 

“Sometimes people, mostly tourists, hire a boat like that one or another one with a guide that takes them around the dam,” Albert said. “Then some of them go to a place called Carnivore where they make all sorts of meat. Buffalo, antelope, crocodile.”

“Crocodile?” Keza said.

“Yes. We will go there one day and I’ll tell them to make one special just for you.”

“But I don’t want a crocodile.”

“And then after you eat it, it will start growing in your stomach and getting big and tickling you to get out. Just like this.”

Keza giggled and Albert chased her around the empty rooms. Nadine watched the waters and thought how it must have reminded Albert of Tanganyika when he first saw it, just as it reminded her of it while she stood there. In the following months, she returned to that view, and when she stared at the dam and breathed, she could keep the memories that threatened the present, and for which she wore herself out with constant work as a distraction, at bay. So that the events that had happened seemed remote and relegated to the younger version of herself that, she felt, was no longer her.

There was another loud bang. It was the loudest, and the display, which was a dazzling white, spread the furthest. Cheers rang below, and the sky took its dark form again. It was clear that it had been the final display and that she ought to get up before Albert and Keza returned. 

She still couldn’t bring herself to stand up. She thought to herself that, if she got up at that moment, the earlier incident when they thought the displays had been gunshots would be treated as something to laugh at, like a scene from a comedy. One that they could talk and joke about, amongst themselves and with company. She saw how the unknown fireworks and their sounds; the screams they had heard, that had actually been celebratory; their fright and their reactions because of it, and the climactic point of realization, would all be compressed and molded into an anecdote. An anecdote they would serve to their guests together with the prepared meals in the good reserved-for-guests plates and glasses. Taking shape with time, she would correct Albert’s inaccuracies as he told the tale to the guests, and add the details that he forgot as she had always done. But each moment spent on the floor threatened to destroy this, and if she were to be found on the same spot they had left her, she thought, what had happened would slip into that category of things unspoken, never referred to, and forgotten—or pretended to be at least.

“You find ways to keep your spirit from chafing.” That’s what the Rwandan lady had told her mother when she was a child in the mid-70s and they still lived in Jabe, and she had remembered those words because then she couldn’t understand how spirit could chafe. Most features of the Rwandan lady’s face had been darkened with time and had forgotten her name, but she could remember the shiny black hair always combed into a puff when she visited and that she had fled Kigali in 1960. Nadine recalled how she had stared in wonder as the lady would eat everything her mother had served her. The marrow was sucked, the fragile chicken bones were crushed, the last of the soup supped, and nothing went to waste on her plate. 

One day as her mother had been discreetly packing the cassava flour, rice and dried fish that the lady would be taking, Nadine had been left at the table with her. Their conversations had always begun with greetings and ended with farewells, the lady's talk with her mother and her silence while they spoke merging the ends. Nadine had been staring at her as she ate—not even her mother’s warnings and threats after the lady would leave managed to put a stop to the habit and was fascinated that she was eating the fish’s head which Nadine had always found revolting. She had poked an eye out of the socket with the spoon and handed it to her laughing while Nadine recoiled. 

“You can’t eat this?” She asked. “You know you’ll get clever in school if you eat fish head.”

Nadine shook her head and hoped her mother would return soon. She spurned the spoon in her direction as though that would change her mind.

“Don’t be so sure of what you can or can’t do. Not just yet anyway,” she said as she put the eye in her mouth, chewing slowly and watching Nadine the entire time.

She heard their steps before she heard their voices. Synchronized adult steps that moved slowly. She had been waiting for Albert’s distinct step and if it wasn’t for Kirui’s hushed voice saying something that she couldn’t hear to Albert, she wouldn’t have known it was them. They were at the door, and she sat up. Just as the door handle squeaked and Albert told Keza to wish Kirui a good night, and she heard Keza’s sleep-laden voice doing so, she stood up. She stepped over the sprawled newspaper, picked up Keza’s shirt, and cut the dangling string with her teeth. She turned to look at the dark brooding spot that was the dam as she heard the door close shut and the lock turn.

Raul Bimenyimana is a Burundian writer living in Nairobi. His work has previously been published in Popula, The Kalahari Review, and Brittle Paper.