The Girl Who Smiled Beads: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

On the way to the Mozambique border, Clemantine sees a father drinking soda with his daughter. She wishes she was on a trip with her parents, but she no longer imagines that she’ll reunite with them in Kigali. Everything has changed, including her own body. Claire, who is five months pregnant, sits up front by the driver, tired of Clemantine’s whining. Clemantine sits in the back with Mariette. Clemantine is happy that they will be passing through Zaire; Zaire was the only place that felt like home in the three years since they left Rwanda.

However, Kazimia is destroyed when they arrive. Rob’s family huddles in their house and eats sweet potato leaves. The electricity has been cut off and most of the water pumps are dry. It is too dangerous to fish in the lake, and no one is allowed to leave their homes after five p.m. Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a battlefield of violence: dead people lie in the streets and bombs go off everywhere. When there is an explosion, the family crawls under the beds. When one of the kids cries and asks if they will die, his sister says God is sending angels. Clemantine doesn’t believe in angels.

One day, Mama Nepele sends Clemantine, Dina, Mwasiti and the other kids to fetch water. They walk 20 minutes, each carrying two 20-liter containers. When they arrive, a guard has closed the pump. They walk an hour over a hill to a large house with running water. A guard, who is building a stone house, demands boulders in exchange for water. They comb the shore for large rocks. Mwasiti ties a huge one to her dress; she is now 13 and very proud. The guard fills their jugs, and they start home, carrying the jugs on their heads. The sun sets and Clemantine is afraid; after dark, no one is safe. She has overheard the older women say that all young girls will be raped eventually.

A white priest lives next door to Rob’s family in Kazimia. People line up at his door, screaming and crying, hoping he’ll chase away the evil. Mama Nepele wakes early and waits in line at the mill, trying to beat the rush. When the rest wake up, they join her. Clemantine wants to leave her body; she hates it for having needs.

Back home after waiting in line, the family spends the day under the bed. Claire’s belly is huge, and when she falls asleep, she has nightmares about people turning into animals. She remembers when, a few months earlier, rebels broke in and nailed a crocodile skin to the wall. Clemantine watches military trucks go by, filled with little boys and girls with guns. The family pushes the beds to the middle of the room, but Clemantine still feels like she’s on an island surrounded by violence. Everyone shakes with fear, but no one cries.

Clemantine gets sick with malaria and malnutrition. She can’t eat and is too weak to walk. Mama Nepele ties Clemantine’s skinny 10-year-old body to her back and takes her to the hospital. The war is everywhere and has no logic or meaning. At the hospital, doctors pray over Clemantine, but they have no medicine. Back at home, Mama Nepele lays Clemantine under the trees and reads the Bible, sending her off to her death. Everyone believes Clemantine will die. Clemantine feels that her sickness was her way of mourning her old life.

Clemantine recovers quickly, and then the family leaves for Uvira. But Uvira is no better than Kazimia. Mama Nepele sends the kids over the hill to look for sweet potato leaves, but the vines have been stripped bare. Clemantine starts dreaming that everyone around her is asleep and she has to wake them up so they can hear God. She starts praying in churches and dressing like a nun. However, she soon starts to doubt her faith. Priests tell refugees that they are sinners and refugee camps are hell. They instruct refugees to pray to end their punishment. But Clemantine doesn’t think she and the refugees are sinners; they are being killed by hateful men. She sees no reason why they are being punished.

In August, Claire goes to the hospital and gives birth to Freddy. The nurses are cruel and rebuke her for getting pregnant and for screaming from the pain of giving birth. Five hours after Freddy is born, the hospital is burned.  Claire walks Freddy home wrapped in a hospital sheet.

One day, there is shooting that lasts for days. Mama Nepele sneaks out for water and mixes it with sugar to give to Claire. The next day, she begs the neighbors for a banana to give Claire so that her milk won’t dry up. Everyone prays that Freddy won’t cry. The adults whisper about fleeing, but they don’t know where to go. All they can do is pray for tomorrow and make dark jokes about who will watch who while they use the bathroom outside. When the shooting stops, they hear boots and men laughing.

On days with no shooting, the adults still don’t let the children outside; they don’t want them to be corrupted by the evil men. The Congolese army (the enemy) is filled with orphans Clemantine’s age who were promised food and shelter by the soldiers. Clemantine doesn’t know who is evil—the starving orphans or the soldiers who offer them comfort. If she was offered release from her misery, she’d take it too.

Clemantine’s family doesn’t talk about normal things; they talk about bombs and machine guns. Mama Dina wakes in the morning and prays for the kids to be saved. Clemantine has seen destruction so many times, but this is the first time she is aware of the cruel and terrible people who are causing it. Life is shattering and everyone is in pain, and no one tries to trace it back to its source.

Clemantine starts having a recurring dream. She is on a big boat in the middle of the ocean. She has Mariette, and everyone on board is happy. Suddenly, the electricity goes off and everyone around her falls asleep. Clemantine runs around trying to find the captain. Then a voice whispers to her to get her backpack. Inside the backpack she finds a Bible. The Bible grows into a bigger Bible. Then, suddenly, the ship starts sinking. Clemantine finds Claire and tries to wake her. The letters start peeling off the pages of the Bible. But then the lights come back on, the ship steadies, and everyone wakes up. None of the passengers have any idea what happened.