Kabanda’s musings: Hood winked

One small group of people who have escaped Datiliva’s vetting of friends of the family based on her criterion of either rich or politically powerful, is a couple who had the liberty to call on us any time of day and help themselves to whatever they wished. The man at first told me he was a Seventh Day Adventist until I gently tapped his shoulder in a poorly lit bar and expressed shock that he drank or guzzled beer, going by the number of empty beer bottles he had downed. He at first told me it was the Devils handwork at play otherwise he could not explain how he had come to the bar. He later said he once in a while drank beer to feel happy, just once in a while. However, later on he told me he had hidden it from his wife for too long and was determined to tell her to clear both his conscience and his partner in marriage. Whatever reason my Dearest gives me of their friendship I will insist there was an element of corruption and nepotism: you see, she went to the same school as the lady and of course the same Church later. I knew the man through their friendship and I did not like the way he looked at my Dearest: something told me he did not want me, he fancied her or both. He appeared to work hard to please us so much I thought his kindness was not “naturally natural”. Last Sunday we got another of those unavoidable friends who think because they are neighbors with you they have a license to know everything about you and to tell you about others irrespective of whether you are interested or not. We were taking our breakfast before we could set off for Church when he entered without knocking. “Have you heard what has happened to your friend?” he asked without the courtesy of asking about our day or wishing us a good one. I was not sure I wanted to enter into any discussion of friends at that time so I asked him if he and his had had a good night to which he answered in the affirmative but still wanted to know if we knew what had happened to our friend. My Dearest absent mindedly asked him who it was as she poured him a cup of Coffee. “Jean d’Armour, for genocide and raping of Tutsi women during the Genocide….” Datiliva shivered violently, let go of the coffeepot pouring its contents all over the place, the visitor and herself included. I moved fast to help my Dearest but she shoved my hand away and said something about all men being the same. I was starting to say that also all women are the same when she told the neighbour to tell us what had happened. The neighbour said Jean d’Armour had been arrested the previous day for butchering children, rape and murder of men and women when he worked as a Sergeant Major in the army of the killers during the Genocide. “Can you imagine he later became a coordinator of Gacaca courts in the part of the Country where he had killed people?” he asked. My Datiliva was mute with shock and only managed to say “it cannot be”. “The man had fooled all people including his wife that he been born and grew up in Mobutu’s Zaire. Can you imagine he denied his parents and relatives and said they were friends which his wife believed...?” “You are a liar you man, that is all lies,” said my Dearest but the man insisted it was the truth. Finally Datiliva remembered and called her friend the subject’s wife who did not answer her call and after several attempts answered the phone but all she could do was to sob and finally muttered that the man had lied to her. Datiliva turned to the neighbour and asked to be told what the man had heard about the subject. When he was done my Dearest grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me as she skirted the sofa and tables on to our bedroom which made me think that she was going to test me for any symptoms and traces of genocidal killings. However, when we reached there she simply knelt down and asked me for forgiveness for having introduced such a killer for a family friend. She said, like her friend and former schoolmate, she had been hoodwinked into believing the man was a decent person. I told her we are all victims of such deceits and we can only learn to stop being surprised but decent and honest people are hard to find. Fortunately, the long arm of the law had caught up with Jean d’Amour. My Dearest was too shaken to even nod her understanding. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com