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“We are here.”
Phillippe looked relieved and happy as he uttered these words, and I saw him do something I couldn’t recall seeing for over a month. I saw Phillippe smile. As he smiled, I perceived him as much younger than I had before, and I realised that he couldn’t be much older than me. When he smiled, he looked like he was younger than 20.
I had grown quite fond of my captor who had beaten me repeatedly in the last month. I am not sure if this was Stockholm syndrome or because Phillippe, as bad as he was, was still better than the murderous thugs in the Interahamwe militia.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This is the Nyakasanza residence of Mbwana Kapombe, the mining tycoon.” Phillippe replied.
“I don’t understand. Why are we here?” I asked.
Phillippe’s breathing got louder, and I saw how his pupils dilated. This was his tell-tale sign that he would soon turn to violence. I froze and scolded myself. Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? Phillippe calmed down. He forced a smile and replied.
“Mr Kapombe had a vision that he would find a suitable bride for his teenage son in the Gatsibo region of Rwanda. He sent me to find that bride, but then the civil war broke out. When I found you, I knew you were the one.”
“Are you that son?” I asked.
Phillippe laughed and replied: “If I were that son, I wouldn’t leave my palace to visit hell on earth. No, Samantha, I am a poor Hutu man who works for Mr Kapombe. In any case, our journey is over. Let’s enter the mansion so I can get paid and you can find yourself a new home.”
“But what if I don’t want to marry his son?” I objected.
Phillippe stopped laughing. He gave me an ice-cold stare and spoke. “You will do as I say. As long as I deliver you to Mr Kapombe and get paid, I don’t care what happens next. Yet, I will kill you if you give them any reason to not accept you into their household. Do we have an understanding?”
I nodded and didn’t dare to say anything.
Phillippe muttered some curses, dragged me to the intercom, and called. As the intercom answered, Phillippe spoke:
“Halo. Ni Davide. Nilimleta msichana Bw Kapombe aliyeombwa.”
Although I knew very little Swahili, I shivered when I realised that Phillippe wasn’t his real name. Yet, I didn’t want to press the issue or ask about the phone call.
The gate opened and two bodyguards and a maid came to greet us. After conversing with Phillippe in Swahili for a while, the maid approached me and spoke in English.
“Welcome to Mr Kapombe’s mansion, Samantha. I am Mansa and I’ll be your caretaker. Mr Kapombe is out of town, but he will be so glad to hear that the promised girl has arrived.”
I smiled at Mansa, faked some enthusiasm, and replied. “I am happy to be here. I can’t wait to meet Mr Kapombe’s son.”
––––––––
HEARING THIS, MANSA looked puzzled, but eventually, she shrugged it off and replied: “Oh yes. Mr Kapombe’s son is out of town with his father but I am sure they’ll return when they find out about your arrival. Now come with me. You need to bathe after your long trip and then I’ll feed you our best foods to nurse you back to health.”
“Thank you,” I said and I followed Mansa as she led me to the bathroom and poured me a hot bath with bath foam.
I felt a sharp pain as my cauterized wound touched the hot water, but after a while, I relaxed. I felt excited by the prospect of a new life in wealth, far away from the horrors I had experienced. I closed my eyes and tried to picture my handsome future prince, but there was a foreboding feeling that I couldn’t get out of my mind. I shook it off, and I focused on scrubbing the dirt off my body until the water was black from the dirt that my body had collected during over a month on the road.
***
AS I FINISHED MY BATH, I put on the clean clothes that Mansa had left for me. It felt amazing to wear clean clothes for the first time in over a month. I thought about whether I should call for Mansa, but my curiosity took over and I left the bathroom and set out to look for her. I walked around in the mansion, and I was amazed at the luxury and the modern facility in the building. As I look back, Mbwana Kapombe’s mansion wasn’t that impressive, but I came from abject poverty, so I had a different perspective at the time.
As I came to an open door, I heard a conversation between Phillippe and Mansa. They were not aware of my presence, and they argued in my native language Kinyarwanda. I stopped behind the door to eavesdrop.
Phillippe:
- Stop saying that the girl is damaged. I want full payment for bringing her here.
Mansa:
- She has a large fresh wound on her right arm. How can I know that the rest of her body is of satisfactory standard for my master?
Phillippe:
- The girl is a virgin. I killed two men in Rwanda to make sure of it. She is the daughter of Mutara Nyamwasa, she is the girl your master hired me to fetch. Mr Kapombe can attest to it when he gets here.
Mansa:
- If that’s the case, why can’t you wait for my master to return?
Phillippe:
- Your master is very ill, and for all we know he might already be dead. This job was meant to be easy, but then the bloody civil war happened, which made it very difficult. I want my USD$50,000. I have other places to go.
Mansa:
- Okay. But if the girl won’t be enough to cure our master, we are coming after you.
Phillippe:
- Well, she wouldn’t be able to cure him. I already told your master that his idea wouldn’t work, but he insisted on me getting him a virgin.
Mansa:
- Okay. Your money is in this bag. I need to look after the girl now.
Hearing this, I hurried back to the bathroom as I didn’t want to let Mansa know that I had been eavesdropping on her conversation.
***
TIME PASSED AND I GRADUALLY felt more at home in the Kapombe Mansion. Mansa was a strict and distant caretaker, but at least she provided me with good food, clean clothes, and plenty of literature to still my thirst for knowledge. My main concern was loneliness, but my family was gone no matter what. Besides, from watching the television news, I knew that rape and disease were very prevalent in the United Nations-sponsored refugee camps in Tanzania.
I often speculated about the existence of Kapombe’s mysterious son, who I was meant to marry. While the thought of forced marriage didn’t appeal to me, it wasn’t unheard of, and considering what I had been through, the thought didn’t scare me. What did scare me was the realisation that Mbwana Kapombe didn’t have a son. I came to this conclusion from checking a few of the photo albums he had in his bookcase. His son wasn’t in any of the photos. It seemed unlikely that he would never include his son in his photographs since he had hired Phillippe to travel to Rwanda and kidnap a bride for his son.
I often recalled the conversation I had overheard between Phillippe and Mansa. Knowing that Phillippe had travelled to Rwanda to kidnap me changed everything. Our encounter wasn’t by chance. Phillippe had travelled to my village to kidnap me, and he would have done so even if the genocide didn’t take place. This changed my opinion about him. After I found out about this, I hated him for what he did to me. Although there was one man I would always hate the most, Patrick Bagosora.
Sometimes I speculated about the prophecy. What could it entail, and how would it affect my life? My gut-feeling told me that the prophecy wouldn’t be good for me, but I wanted logic to govern my decision. If Mbwana hadn’t sent Phillippe to kidnap me, I would be dead by now. The least I could do was to stay until Mbwana Kapombe arrived and thank him for saving me. Besides, my option to escape the mansion wasn’t enticing. I could either decide to await my fate here in a golden cage, or I could await my destiny in the filthy and dangerous refugee camp. I chose to stay, which I thought was right at the time, but oh boy was I wrong...