Left to Tell: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

After seven weeks in the bathroom, the women are all frighteningly thin. They haven’t washed or changed clothes since their arrival and have thus developed an awful infestation of body lice. Nonetheless, Immaculée feels “beautiful” through her connection with God. She gets sick twice while in the bathroom, but both times has complete trust that after everything, God will not let her die from a simple illness. 

One day, Pastor Murinzi excitedly tells the women that the United Nations is considering sending peacekeeping troops back to Rwanda, which might put a stop to the genocide. The pastor explains that because most of the RPF soldiers grew up in Uganda, they speak English, and that even those who know French refuse to speak it. Suddenly, God puts an idea in Immaculée’s mind. She realizes that the RPF are going to win the war, that she will meet many English-speaking people after the genocide ends, and has a “premonition” that she will work at the United Nations. The next day, she asks Pastor Murinzi for a French-English dictionary and any other books he has in English. She says that if she learns English she will be able to tell everyone how brave he was after the genocide ends.

Flattered, Pastor Murinzi brings Immaculée the dictionary and the only two English books he has, and she immediately gets to work. At the end of her first day of study, she proudly mouths the first sentence she has learned how to say: “I am Immaculée.” As she keeps studying, she focuses on the words that will be most important in helping to tell her story: “escape, hiding, war, prayer, job, and God.” Discovering a section of the dictionary dedicated to grammar is like receiving “manna from heaven.” After Immaculée has read the books Pastor Murinzi gave her countless times, she borrows pen and paper and begins writing a letter to the kind, honest UN soldier she imagines saving them.

In June, Immaculée is reunited with the man she dated for two years in university, John. They’d fallen out when John called off their engagement party at the last minute, but she’d always imagined that they would ultimately remain together. During her time in the bathroom, she had kept him in her prayers, hoping he was safe from the killings. John arrives along with much of Pastor Murinzi’s extended family, who have evacuated their homes in Kigali after the RPF arrived in the city. Immaculée is thrilled to hear John’s voice through the bathroom window. 

Late that night, John comes to see Immaculée in the bathroom and the two of them embrace tightly. John is shocked by how thin Immaculée has become, and he says that he has been praying that nobody had raped or killed her, before adding: “here you are, alive and unraped!” Immaculée feels awkward. John does not seem like the same person she knew before the genocide. Over time, she begins to resent his freedom and comfort, as well as the lack of care and respect he is showing her. She reads 1 Corinthians 13:4, reminding herself that “love is patient and kind,” and this assures her that her relationship with John is not the one she truly wants. He doesn’t make an effort with her, and when she confronts him about it he replies that there are “no other men looking at you.” At this moment, Immaculée knows their love is gone.