Jean Patrick was already awake, listening to the storm, when Papa opened the door and stood by the side of the bed. Rain hissed at the windows and roared against the corrugated roof, and Jean Patrick huddled closer to his brother Roger for warmth. He remembered then that Papa was going to a conference in Kigali. He said it was a very important meeting; educators from all across Rwanda would be there.
"I'm leaving now," Papa whispered, his voice barely louder than the rain. "Uwimana will be here soon to pick me up." If even Headmaster was going, Jean Patrick thought, the conference must be top level.
The lantern flame glinted on Papa's glasses and on a triangle of white shirt; the storm must have knocked the power out, as usual. "You boys will have to check the pen carefully after you bring the cattle in. Make sure no earth has washed away in the rain." He tucked the blanket around their shoulders. "And Roger - you'll have to check Jean Patrick's lessons. I don't want any mistakes from either of you."
Turning his head from the light, Jean Patrick puckered his face. He didn't need Roger to check his homework; even Papa had to look hard to find an error.
"I'll be back tomorrow night," Papa said.
Jean Patrick leaned on his elbows and watched his father walk into the hallway on a beam of yellow light. His footsteps echoed on the concrete. "Be safe, Dadi," he said. "May Imana bless your journey." Gashogoro, the rainy season of November and December, often turned the roads leading from Cyangugu into muddy swamps. On the path, Jean Patrick sometimes sank in mud to his ankles.
All day the rain continued. Streams swelled and tumbled toward Lake Kivu. Rivers of red clay washed down from the hills, and by the time Jean Patrick came home from school, mud had stained his pant legs the color of rust. After he finished his homework, Jean Patrick brought out his toy truck and steered it back and forth in the front room. His father had made the imodoka from coat hangers, scraps of wood and metal, and brightly colored bits of plastic.
Roger had a new watch, a gift from a muzungu missionary. He kept setting and resetting the alarm, beeping it in Jean Patrick's ear. The bell for the end of classes rang at Gihundwe, their father's school, and the students' voices bounced between the buildings, a river of sound muffled by the rain. Jean Patrick imagined the day he would leave primary school behind and be one of them, adding his uproar to the rest. Sometimes the anticipation bordered on fever, a feeling that slowed the passage of time down to the very tick of the clock.
"We better get the cattle," Roger said. "If we wait for the storm to end, we will be here, waiting, when Dadi comes home."
They put on their raincoats and rubber boots and took their switches from the side of the house. "Let's race," Jean Patrick said, taking off before Roger had a chance to respond.
The competition between Jean Patrick and Roger began this year, when Roger started playing football on the weekends with a small club called Inzuki - the Bees. He ran whenever he could to keep in top shape, and often he took Jean Patrick with him. He had taught Jean Patrick how to run backward, how to pump his arms and have a good strong kick behind him.
Since they lived at the school, Papa kept the cattle with a cousin of Mama's who lived near. Jean Patrick ran, keeping to the side of the road where the mud was not so churned. Each day, he'd tried to make it a little farther before Roger caught him, but today was impossible. No matter what line he chose, the road swallowed his boots. Roger passed him before the red bricks of Gihundwe's walls were lost to the mist.
From a distance, Jean Patrick spotted the wide arc of horns on the inyambo steer, their father's favorite. In the blur of rain, the horns dipped and turned above the small herd like the arms of an Intore dancer. The steer looked up, blinking his liquid black eyes, as they approached. Jean Patrick placed a hand on the steer's back and felt the wet quiver of his hide.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
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