Prologue

Prologue - Tanzania 1994

Mutoni looked down at his wife in concern. She was lying in the thin, tiny bed they had been sharing for the past week, shivering a little.

    He bent down under the shelf hanging over the bed and looked directly at her face.

  Umwali was not beautiful, she never had been (Mutoni hadn’t married her for that) but even he recoiled a little when he saw the little red blotches creeping their way along her right cheek.

   Awkwardly, he manoeuvred himself so he could take a better look. His neck bent at 90 degrees, rammed up against the bottom of the shelf, he could see the rash running down her smooth, dark skin, all the way from her ear, to her collarbones and below the neckline of her shirt. Extricating himself from under the shelf, he knelt down beside Umwali and took a hold of her hand. She opened her eyes blearily and looked at him.

   “What time is it?” she said in hoarse voice, sounding pitifully quiet, even in such a tiny room.

   “It’s twenty minutes to one.”

   “Ok.” She closed her eyes again.

   Mutoni held her hand a little tighter. “Uncle has almost sorted the papers.” He paused for a second, trying to find the right words. “He says we can be in England within the week.”

    Umwali’s eyes opened again. “We can’t go.” She said quietly, staring up at the shelf.

  “We have to.”

  “But we can’t… How can we go? How can we?” Her voice becoming strained and increasingly loud, “How can we go? We left them Mutoni!”

  And now she stared directly at him, her eyes wild and brimming with tears: “We left them! How can we go? We can’t just leave them,” She spluttered and wriggled trying to push herself up from the bed, but was too weak. All the energy left her and she slumped back which immediately induced a coughing fit. This seemed to tip Umwali over the edge and she began to sob. She wept with an expression of excruciating pain on her face �" clasping her hands to her head as if trying to tear it off. “We’ve left them, we can’t go, we have to help them!” she cried before breaking down into a series of delirious sentences along the same lines, interspersed with coughing.

  Mutoni looked at her, not quite knowing what to think. She had never cried before. He knelt down beside her a tried to take her hand but it was too firmly gripped in her hair. Instead, he just sat there, looking at her.

  “You know we have to go.” He said in a calm voice. “Uncle has the papers. We have been granted asylum. It is better that we go �" We must go. There is nothing that can be done for them now.” He looked at Umwali but she had retreated into her own world of guilt and grief.

  Mutoni quietly stood up and walked the few steps to the door. He looked back at Umwali but she was still sobbing. Opening the door, he stepped out, reaching for the packet of cigarettes in his left pocket. The door closed and Umwali was alone.

    After a few minutes, the intensity of her crying began to lessen and her hands fell from her hair. This seemed to be more out of exhaustion than anything else and, slowly, she slipped into a fitful sleep. 

   Once silence prevailed the room, save Umwali’s intermittent coughing, Mutoni opened the door again, softly shutting it so he didn’t have to endure her crying.

  He looked at his wife.

  Since when had she got so weak? Thought Mutoni. She had been such a strong woman. Now she could barely stand on her own two feet without collapsing into tears. She should really be grateful that they had managed to get out at all, it was what was best for them. They were lucky. What’s the use in crying now? It wasn’t going to help anyone; staying would not have done anything save put them in danger and give them a false sense of loyalty towards people who would be happy that they had managed to escape.

  He thought about what was happening in Rwanda, about what he had heard his Uncle’s friend saying the other day and his blood ran cold.

  Yes, it was better that they had got out. There was nothing they could have done. It was better this way. Everyone could still be ok. He could try and get help for them. Yes, it was certainly better this way.

  Even as Mutoni was telling himself this, a little voice in the back of his mind was whispering to him, “Traitor”, “Abandoner”, “Coward.”

  He saw his nephews. He saw them laughing as they tried to tackle him to the ground, imitating the rugby game they had been shown in school.

  He saw his father. Looking down at him, sternly at first and then with a little smile, he still felt the hand ruffling his hair, examining the certificate he had won in maths.

  Finally, he saw Umwali. She was standing in the doorway. Her hair was held high in a twisted bun, a yellow scarf encircling it. She was tapping her foot, arms crossed: “You are cooking dinner tonight; I am your wife, not your housewife.”

  Mutoni looked at his wife now, lying limply on the bed. And suddenly an onslaught of images hit him: his father bleeding out on the ground; his nephews running, screaming; his sister being grabbed and held by evil looking men. Squeezing his eyes tight, he tried to block what he was seeing but even then the shrieks reached him from across the border. The border was blocked now, according to his uncle. There was no escape.

  Clenching his fists, he breathed slowly. There was nothing they could have done. They had had to leave. He and Umwali.

  His stomach twisted, and that little voice said: What about a phone call? You could have called them at least, warned them. You left and they were left, behind, in the dark, scared, dead. You are a coward.

  The worst bit was that knew this was true.

  He dug his nails into his palms, clenching even harder.

  He was just as weak as his wife.

  Mutoni looked at her again, and his anger at her for her weakness dissolved, replaced by his initial concern. The rash was still there. She coughed. He stepped forward; he could swear it had crept higher up her cheek. She coughed again, stirring. Mutoni turned around and breathed. A rash was the least of their troubles at the moment. They were going to England and they were going next week. He was sure in England they could sort out a rash.

  As he left the room for a second time, his wife rolled over arm out stretched. A pained expression adorned her face, perfectly complementing the dark spots crawling over her skin.

  In a week, the rash would be gone. Her cough would have left too. She would be healthy again, if nor cured of her perpetual guilt, and she and Mutoni, all three of them, would be in England.

 

 

Seven months later �" Manchester, England

 

The screams from the room had driven him out. Mutoni couldn’t stand it anymore. Although the standard, vinyl covered chair wasn’t comfy, it was still better than what was inside.

  Mutoni had been sitting in it for about two hours now.

  Why did this have to happen? He thought. It could not have been any less convenient. But then again, said the little voice, which was increasingly irritating Mutoni, when would it ever be convenient? You’ve never wanted to share your wife with anything, let alone a child. He sighed heavily. As always, what the voice said was true.

  He went to get himself a coffee from the vending machine at the end of the corridor and came back, trying to hold the flimsy plastic cup without spilling any of it. Perching carefully on the edge of his seat, he looked towards the door. It was taking too long. Far too long, he thought and his stomach contracted.

  Outside another room next to him, an older lady was trying to restrain two small children who were trying to wriggle off her knee. He stared at them, reality of what was to come hitting him like a train.

  The two squirming children had managed to slip away from their grandmother (or at least he presumed she was their grandmother) and were running up and down the corridor, shrieking with laughter.

  To look on the upside, at least she wasn’t having twins.

  One of the children fell over and started to wail. The other child stopped and looked at him for a moment before continuing to try its best to wreak havoc up and down the corridor.

  Mutoni looked at his watch, only two minutes had ticked by. He sighed heavily and took a sip from his cup of coffee.

  And he had thought things couldn’t get much worse.

  The nearest bin was next to the child, which was still wailing, the woman trying to console him.  He walked quickly to the bin, dropped the cup in and almost ran back to his seat. As he sat down, heavily, he felt the beginnings of a headache starting to throb behind his eyes.

  Rubbing his face with his hands, he wished that this would all be over. In fact, he wished it was all a bad dream, but Mutoni was not going to get his hopes up by thinking that.

  The child was still screaming.

  Is it possible to skip that stage? Mutoni thought, his headache getting worse.

  Don’t worry, it’s only going to be the next 18 years of your life where you’ll have to deal with that, the little voice said, almost laughing at him. You have so much to look forward to: sleepless nights, crying, nappies, more crying, potty training, crying, teaching to walk, crying, sending to  primary school, crying, failing GCSEs, crying, failing A-Levels, crying; your first respite will be when they leave home but even then they will still be needy and drain every single penny from your pocket.

  Mutoni rubbed his face again, trying to block out the voice. He couldn’t.

  Not only that, but Umwali will be dead within the next few years. Maybe she won’t die literally, that’s a bit drastic, but she will become a different person and your marriage will be ruined. The little voice had a huge grin on its face.

  Squeezing his eyes tight, once again Mutoni wished this could be over. He had never been particularly religious but he was praying now.

  The child finally stopped crying and was now running back and forth again, laughing. Maybe he should have paid more attention in church… praying did work.

  He sighed deeply and put his head back against the wall. Closing his eyes, he hoped he would have enough time to fall asleep before the other child fell over.

  The door next to him opened.

  “Mr um… Mutoni, sir,” Mutoni very nearly smiled. Having a Rwandan name was such fun with the English; not having a surname and two first names but only using one first name always complicated things. He couldn’t think why.

  “Yes?” He said, reluctantly opening his eyes.

 The young nurse who stood in front of him hesitated, nervously picking under her nails.

  She was at most twenty-four years old and obviously inexperienced.

  “Um, well, we just wanted to tell you… um, to make you aware that the birth has been having some um… complications.”

  Mutoni’s heart quickened and he immediately sat upright. “Is she ok?”

  The nurse looked a little confused then realisation dawned in her eyes. “Oh no, I mean yes, I mean your wife is fine. I was just saying that, um, your wife has asked for you. I think she wants your, um… your support.”

  By this point Mutoni wasn’t listening. He shoved past the nurse and shouldered the door open into the room.

  Umwali was lying on a bed, sweat dripping down her face. Two nurses were standing at the foot of the bed but they didn’t really register with him.   

  Mutoni walked over to Umwali and she looked up at him, her eyes dull. “Mutoni… please,” she paused, gasping a little, “hold my hand…” she said in Kinyarwanda .

  In that moment, Mutoni was filled with love and fury. The weakness in her voice both disgusted him and made him want to hold her tight.

  He did neither but looked into her drained face, knelt down and took her hand, not saying a word.

  “Thank you,” she said in that pathetic voice before an expression of pure agony set upon her face and she gasped, too tired to scream.

  Mutoni was repulsed by how softly she squeezed his hand.

  A more senior nurse who was standing at the other end of the bed was looking under the blanket over Umwali’s knees. “That’s it, just one more push and then baby will be out.” Although her words were reassuring, the expression on her face was not.

  Umwali gave one final heave and slumped back on to the bed, her eyes closed. Mutoni released her hand and stood up silently. The senior nurse was holding a small slimy thing in her hands that she quickly placed in a blanket supplied by the younger (um) nurse.

  Swaddling it up, she placed it on a scale and took it off again. She whispered something quickly to the third nurse and handed the… thing over. The nurse rapidly began walking across the room towards the door.

  Mutoni didn’t stop her or ask where she was going but, before she left, he did manage to catch a glimpse of the thing in her arms. It was small and dark but that was all he saw.

  Umwali opened her eyes as the door closed and looked around her. “My baby, can I hold my baby?” directing this quietly at the senior nurse, who was filling out a form.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mutoni saw the young nurse shift her feet, looking at the ground.

  “I afraid that baby was a little bit light so has had to go into an incubator. After doctor has had a look, you can go and see baby.”

  Mutoni was irritated by the lack of pronouns she used.

  Umwali closed her eyes once more, too weak to argue or even ask what an incubator was.

  The nurse finished filling out the form and looked at Umwali, “If you want to know, baby was a girl.”

  She nodded slowly and relaxed further into the bed.

  Mutoni stared at her and then left the room.

  Stepping into the corridor, he breathed in the clinical air, desperately wanting a cigarette. He heard the door open and close behind him and turned to see the young nurse.

  “Um, I have been asked to tell you that, the baby, I mean your baby might have a few, um, problems by, Brenda, I mean the matron… um I mean she’s in charge.”

  Mutoni looked blankly at her.

  “Um, can you understand me? Do you want me to speak a bit slower?”

  “I can speak English. I am not an idiot. I am not a monkey.” He said in a thickly accented voice.

  “Um, ok, well, um…” The nurse looked like she wanted to cry. “I just thought that I should warn you. A doctor should be along in a minute.”

  Mutoni stared at her until she left.

  He thought things couldn’t have got any worse; he should never have underestimated the “complications” life could throw at him.

  A minute later, a doctor came for Mutoni. He was ushered into a small office, the blinds were closed and he was shown into a chair. The doctor started speaking at him but Mutoni was in his own world. He began to think of Umwali. Then he began to think of his uncle. Then he started to think about what he had been trying to block for the past seven months.

  His eyes widened and he clenched his hands.

  Every so often, a few words from the doctor pierced the storm in his mind. He kept hearing “complications” through the laughing of his nephews. “Retardation” sang as an overtone to the screams of his sister. “Blindness, blindness, blindness” Kept penetrating this world of grief and horror.

  Yes, the little voice said. There are some “complications”.