95 pages • 3 hours read
Immaculée IlibagizaLeft to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “A Gathering of Orphans”
Another month passes, and not once do Immaculée or the other women leave the bathroom. The women keep informed of goings-on by the radio in the pastor’s bedroom. The propagandist national radio’s reports make it clear that the situation is dire and getting worse: “The announcers told Hutus everywhere that it was their duty to kill Tutsis on sight, no questions asked” (103).
With anti-Tutsi violence continuing to escalate, Pastor Murinzi becomes increasingly concerned about sheltering Tutsis. The pastor also reveals what his intentions are for the women when the war ends: Since he does not want to risk getting in trouble with the Rwandan government, he does not want anyone to know that it was him that kept the women safe, so he plans to send them “to live on a remote island 50 miles away in the middle of Lake Kivu to become wives of Abashi tribesmen” (106). The Abashi are “a primitive tribe who lived deep in the forest […] Rwandan parents scared unruly children into behaving by threatening to send them to live with the Abashi—it was like being sent to live with the bogeyman” (106). The women are shocked, but they must go along with the pastor’s plan, at least for the time being, because they have no other choice.
Of Pastor Murinzi’s ten children, only the two youngest—his son Lechim and his daughter Dusenge—live with him in the house and therefore risk finding out about the Tutsi women hidden in the bathroom. After weeks of trying to keep this a secret, Pastor Murinzi tells Lechim and Dusenge about them: “The pastor told us that he was bringing them [Lechim and Dusenge] to see us, and when he opened the door, all I saw in his children’s eyes was pity and compassion” (108). After so many traumas, Immaculée is deeply moved by their compassion and kindness.
In mid-May, the pastor flings open the bathroom door in the middle of the night and shoves two other Tutsi women into the already crowded bathroom: “We were happy to see two other living, breathing Tutsis, but we couldn’t find a place for them to sit” (108). The women, Malaba and Solange, describe how they were able to survive this long: After being ejected by the Hutus that were protecting them, they made their way from the northern part of Rwanda to the pastor’s house in the south. The way there was treacherous, as only Malaba has a fake Hutu identity card and “having no identity card was as bad as having a Tutsi one…which was a death sentence” (109). To avoid having to show identification, Malaba and Solange would scream Hutu extremist rallying cries at every Interwahame checkpoint along the way. This successfully keeps them from being killed. With the new additions, the bathroom is very crowded, and Immaculée has trouble falling asleep. When she finally does, she has an “intense dream” in which she is visited by Jesus, and he tells her that everyone she loves is likely dead but because he is with her, she will never be alone. The next day, Immaculée overhears voices outside the bathroom window describing the brutal murder of a villager with a master’s degree, and Immaculée knows it must be Damascene, as very few young men in their village hold advanced degrees. She is heartbroken and weeps uncontrollably.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Gift of Tongues”
After seven weeks confined to the bathroom, Immaculée and the other women have become “frighteningly gaunt—our bones pushed into our flesh, and our skin sagged. Sitting on the hard floor became increasingly uncomfortable as our muscle and fat disappeared, leaving us with no padding on our bottoms” (133). Immaculée’s health deteriorates, as well, and she first experiences a 105-degree fever and then a “nasty urinary-tract infection, which was one of the most painful experiences” she has ever endured (113). Immaculée believes that her miraculous recovery, without medicine or even baseline living conditions, can be chalked up only to the power of prayer.
Pastor Murinzi one day reports that the UN may be sending peacekeeping troops to help control the situation throughout Rwanda. However, he has also heard that the Tutsis in the RPF are against UN intervention because they want to keep the war going. At this comment, Immaculée suddenly has a flash of an idea: She must learn English, which is the favored language of the RPF, since they rejected their colonialist French roots. Immaculée’s desire to learn English is part of a larger premonition: “At that moment, I was absolutely convinced that the RPF would win the war. This meant that I would meet English-speaking people after the genocide and would have to tell them what happened to us” (115). Immaculée asks the pastor if he might lend her a French-English dictionary. The pastor is surprised at her request, but he grants her the dictionary, alongside a number of other English-language books. Immaculée, as she had always done before, immerses herself in her study of the English language. Her studies give her hope in the future, that there is “life” waiting for her “on the other side of the genocide” (118).
In early June, Immaculée’s college boyfriend, John, comes to Pastor Murinzi’s house to stay, traveling from Kigali with the pastor’s extended family. He and Immaculée have lost touch since the war began, but they had talked about getting married (despite him being a Hutu and her a Tutsi), and so she wonders if he still loves her. When the pastor brings John to the bathroom, his first reaction to seeing Immaculée is to comment on how emaciated she looks. Immaculée is taken aback that a comment on her physical appearance is his first reaction. In the days that follow, John acts as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening—as if his girlfriend is not confined to a bathroom upstairs, where she has been for over a month. Immaculée is disturbed to hear him going freely about his life, laughing, joking, and playing basketball, while all around him slaughter is going on. Immaculée decides that she is grateful to God for keeping John safe, though she is not in love with him anymore.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Unlikely Saviors”
In mid-June, Immaculée receives some good news: The French will be sending troops to Rwanda to provide aid and assistance, though it is unclear what form that aid will take at this point. Operation Turquoise is the name of the French operation, and the French’s intentions are soon clarified: The radio reports that they are in Rwanda to create “safe havens” for Tutsis. Pastor Murinzi is mistrustful of the French when Immaculée says she would like to try to go to one of these safe havens. The pastor thinks it is a front—that when the Tutsis get there, they will slaughter them. Still, Immaculée is insistent, and so the pastor finally relents and agrees to try to find the French camp on behalf of the Tutsis women.
The pastor is concerned that confinement in the bathroom for three months is damaging the women’s brains, so he arranges for a movie night late one evening. Under a cover of darkness, he sneaks them out of the bathroom and to his living room where the women watch a movie. The flickering blue light so late at night catches the attention of one of the pastor’s houseboys: “Hoping for a reward, he [the houseboy] reported what he’d seen to a group of killers [Interahamwe] and told them that he’d long suspected Pastor Murinzi was hiding Tutsis somewhere in the house” (127). The next morning, the pastor reports all this to the women and tells them to pray because the Interahamwe are on their way to search the house once again.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Keeping the Faith”
The Interahamwe search the pastor’s house even more fervently this time, now that they have cause to believe that there are Tutsis hidden somewhere. The killers call out to Immaculée by name—they are aware that she is alive. Immaculée struggles to remain calm: “I tried to call on God, but all I could hear was the negative voice blaring in my mind…along with the vicious, sadistic chants of the killers echoing through the house. Clothes soaked in sweat, I fumbled with my faith” (129). Immaculée becomes so frightened that she faints, at which point she has an intense dream that she is visited by Jesus, which causes Immaculée to feel totally at peace. Jesus tells her, in the dream, that if she believes in him, he will save her from the Interahamwe. He places a “giant cross of brilliant white light” that stretches from one end of the bathroom door to the other (131). When Immaculée awakens, she can still see the cross, and confidently she tells the women not to worry, that they are safe. The other women look at her like she is deranged, but ultimately, somehow, the Interwahame leave the house without ever discovering the secret bathroom.
That evening, the pastor reports that he has found the French soldiers in their village, and he will deliver the women to them sometime between two and three o’clock in the morning. The women are overjoyed, but then the pastor relays some bad news: The Interwahame are planning another inspection of the house very soon, though it is unclear exactly when they will arrive. The pastor instructs the women to pray that the inspection occurs after the women have been delivered to the French.
At two in the morning, the pastor comes to collect the women, who are still wearing the clothes they have been wearing for the last three months: “We looked like the living dead” (133). Before leaving, the pastor rounds the women up in his bedroom and presents them to his ten children:
The pastor told his children to take a good look at us. “There but for the grace of God, go any one of you,” he reminded them. “If you have a chance to help unfortunates like these ladies in times of trouble, make sure you do it—even if it means putting your own life at risk. This is how God wants us to live” (134).
With that, the women make their way out of the pastor’s house.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
As the genocide rages on, it is apparent that, due to the government’s backing of the ethnic cleansing, the Interwahame has unprecedented ability to carry out this genocide. Over the radio, a government official instructs the Rwandan citizens to take action against their Tutsi neighbors:
You must not let your guard down! These Tutsi snakes are hiding in the grass and bushes […] So make sure that you have your machete ready to chop the snakes in half. Better yet, take your gun and shoot them! If you don’t have a gun, the government will bring you one. If you’re working your field and spot a Tutsi woman in the bushes breast-feeding her baby, don’t waste a golden opportunity: Pick up your gun, shoot her, and return to work, knowing that you did your duty. But don’t forget to kill the baby—the child of a snake is a snake, so kill it, too! (103).
Murder is no longer an activity prohibited by law, and in fact, even the explicit killing of infants and children is encouraged by the powers that be.
With every inspection of Pastor Murinzi’s house, Immaculée and the women are sent spiraling into the kind of anxiety that accompanies a near-death experience—they are aware that they are inches away from death and the slightest noise could give their secret location away. During this time, Immaculée’s faith is strengthened. The pinnacle example of Immaculée’s faith happens in Chapter 16, when she hallucinates a “giant cross” of bright white light that protects the women from the Interwahame just outside the door (131). Throughout the book, Immaculée credits her belief in God with being what keeps her safe and sane throughout this incredible trauma.
