I went down to the reception area to meet Lieutenant Mageza. I was surprised instead to see a very short man wearing the insignia of a colonel on his shoulder and assorted colorful medals on his chest. I recognized him as a high-ranking police officer named Ntiwiragabo.
“What is the situation here?” he asked.
“I have been asked to evacuate the hotel, ” I told him.
“The plan has been changed and this is why I’m here, ” he said.
I knew then that one of my phone calls had worked. This colonel had been sent over to help me. I told him that the order had been given by a lieutenant and that it was a very bad order that could have terrible repercussions for the Rwandan government. There would be killing outside that would shock the conscience of the world community.
The short colonel nodded, with an unfocused look in his eyes, and said that he would take care of the situation. I found out later that he had been sent over by the chief of the police, General Ndindiliyimana. His rank carried the day. The militia and the soldiers were immediately dispersed and the evacuation order was called off. The lieutenant, who I later learned was the nephew of a top génocidaire, had stolen away.
I thanked the colonel profusely.
“Sir, you have saved lives today, ” I told him.
“I am only doing my job, ” he told me curtly, and walked away.
I knew this peace was fragile, and so I decided to switch from ass kissing to bluster. What I was about to try was a serious risk, but I saw it as the only way to insure that an invasion could be prevented for at least the next few days. I paced around for a few minutes, took a deep breath, and then telephoned the Diplomates Hotel and asked for Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, one of the leaders of the genocide, who was staying in Room 205.
“Colonel, ” I said in my most officious voice, “I am sorry to disturb you. I have received an order from the Ministry of Defense to close down the Mille Collines, and as the general manager of all Sabena properties in Rwanda, I must therefore also close the Diplomates.”
I could practically hear his veins bulging on the other end of the phone.
“Who has given such orders?!” he screamed at me.
“I do not know; they were relayed through a lieutenant. He said his name was Mageza.”
“If you try to close this hotel, we will break down the doors to get back inside.”
“If you want, you can do that, but it is my duty and obligation to close down all the Sabena hotels in Rwanda, ” I told him. “I didn’t want to take you by surprise. I only want you to have enough time to pack your things.”
He was silent for a minute.
“Well, that order has now changed.”
This is what I was waiting to hear. But I decided to press my advantage even further. Sometimes, when you have a man temporarily on the ropes, it is better to secure all the concessions you can. I tried to forget I was talking to a man who could have squashed me like a bug. We had known each other slightly before the genocide, but we had little in common, and there was no pretense of either of us doing any favors. I think he must have been afraid of the French. I felt very much like a small boy whacking a vicious dog with a stick-and getting away with it.
“Colonel, we can come to a compromise, ” I told him, as if I was the one who had the power to dictate terms. “I will not close the Diplomates. But I need water over here. Can you please send us back the water truck you took away from the Mille Collines?”
“Yes, yes, ” he said impatiently.
“There is another thing, ” I told him. “There are a group of people staying in the manager’s house of the Diplomates. They are valuable employees. We need them over here. Can you please see that they arrive at the Mille Collines safely?”
I think this was the first he knew that there even was a manager’s cottage, let alone that a group of my neighbors had been staying there this whole time, right under the noses of the génocidaires. They had been kept fed by a courageous bellboy.
Bagosora didn’t waste any more time. “Yes, fine, good-bye, ” he said, and hung up.
Within the hour a red Toyota pickup pulled up to the Mille Collines. Inside were the neighbors I had not seen since the day their lives were purchased with francs from the hotel safe. A truck also arrived to refill our swimming pool and we had fresh water to drink for the first time in weeks. It was courtesy of one of the vilest proponents of genocide that Central Africa has ever seen. Somewhere I could hear my father laughing.
NINE
ONE OF THE MOST HONEST CONVERSATIONS I had during the genocide happened near the end of it.
General Augustin Bizimungu, the Army chief of staff, came to see me in my room. It was one of the few times in those few months that I didn’t need anything from him. Neither did he want anything from me. And we drank and talked for several hours.
He looked awful. There were folds of darkened skin hanging under his eyes. He seemed to have aged twenty years since the time before the killing started. We talked about the rebel army advancing from the east. They had been making slow but steady progress toward Kigali aiming to link up with their detachment dug in at the parliament building. RPF leader Paul Kagame had fewer troops but while in exile he had instilled an impressive level of discipline and commitment into his army. Not for nothing was the international press calling him “the Napoleon of Africa.”
There was now some talk of a swap between the warring armies: The rebels would release the Hutu refugees in Amahoro Stadium if the Rwandan Army would let the people inside the hotel go over to the rebel side. These discussions filled me with hope, but they also terrified me. Getting free from the constant threat of slaughter seemed like a kind of heaven, but to label the hotel as a rebel prize seemed incredibly dangerous. I was afraid it would only boost our attractiveness as a target for the doped-up militias, who were a law unto themselves and followed the orders of the Army only when they felt like it. Bizimungu slumped in his chair as we talked, his drink barely touched beside him.
“Listen, general, ” I finally said. “You are now the leader of a bunch of killers and looters and rapists. Are you sure you can win?”
His reply astonished me.
“Paul, I am a soldier, ” he said. “We lost this war a long time ago.”
Perhaps he had an inkling of what would be in store for him: a human rights tribunal and lifetime imprisonment in a jail cell. Or perhaps he had grown tired of all the murders around him. I am not certain what he was thinking then, but I saw that he could no longer hide the aura of defeat around him and his soldiers. I also knew that we were drawing near to the end of the war.
The restoration of a sane world was something I had dreamed about. I would likely die in the transition from chaos back to order, but at least it would all be over.
On May 3, the United Nations attempted to evacuate the Hotel Mille Collines.
The Army and the rebels had struck a deaclass="underline" A few dozen refugees from the stadium would be swapped for an equal number of refugees from the hotel. They would be taken to the airport and whisked out of the country.