KAINO70 The Crossing

The Characters · Mwenze

The man who keeps seventeen names alive.

Fifty-three, from Lubumbashi in the Congo, now in Montreal. He wakes before dawn and recites the names of seventeen dead villagers - it takes three minutes, and it is the only prayer he has left. He drinks water, not coffee, because coffee tastes of prisons. This is the man who wishes he could press a memory into your mind and make you carry it forever.

  • Age 53
  • Lubumbashi, DR Congo
  • Montreal

The witness who remembers

Mwenze, who carries a village no one else recalls

Mwenze is 53, from Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now in Montreal. He doesn’t read for pleasure - he reads to survive: maps, bus schedules, the fine print on asylum forms, the faces of the people he passes. Information is the only luxury he permits himself. He walks the frozen streets at night because he’s spent decades walking, and the empty spaces are where he’s learned to be.

He carries a small leather pouch of dried herbs his wife gave him before he fled, and he’s never opened it to check. The power he wishes for is to make people remember - seventeen names, one village, that’s all he wants kept alive.

Studio portrait of a Black man in his early fifties with short dark hair graying at the temples and weathered skin, wearing a dark unbuttoned collared shirt, looking directly at the camera with a solemn patient expression.
Mwenze

Ten things about Mwenze the city walks past

The file is clean. The man isn’t. Ten small rituals that make him real - and the one he’ll never let go.

  1. 01

    How he starts the day

    He wakes before dawn and sits with his eyes closed, reciting the names of the seventeen villagers. It takes him three minutes. It’s the only prayer he has left.

  2. 02

    The one thing he won’t drink

    He drinks nothing. For years, he couldn’t afford it. Now the taste of coffee brings back the prisons where guards would throw him a cup if he answered quickly enough. He prefers water, plain, in a glass.

  3. 03

    The meal he’s afraid to make

    Fufu - cassava dough rolled into balls, dipped in soup. His wife made it on Sundays. He hasn’t eaten it in twenty years. He’s afraid of what he’d remember.

  4. 04

    What he reads when no one’s around

    He doesn’t read for pleasure. He reads to survive: maps, bus schedules, the fine print on asylum forms, the faces of the people he passes. Information is the only luxury he permits himself.

  5. 05

    The power he wishes for

    To make people remember. To press a thought into someone’s mind and know they’d carry it forever. Seventeen names. One village. That’s all he wants remembered.

  6. 06

    What he does when he can’t sleep

    He walks. He’s spent decades walking - through camps, across borders, along the frozen streets of Montreal. The city at night is quiet. He’s learned to find the empty spaces.

  7. 07

    What he carries

    A small leather pouch with a few dried herbs inside. His wife gave it to him before he fled. He doesn’t know what they are. He’s never opened it to check.

  8. 08

    The habit he can’t break

    Following men in expensive coats. It’s automatic - a reflex from years of watching. He catches himself doing it on the street, in the metro, in grocery stores.

  9. 09

    The sound that calms him

    The wind through trees. In the camps, there were no trees. Now he goes to the park at night just to hear the branches move. It sounds like a life that goes on without him.

  10. 10

    The name he’d give a pet

    Kintu. The first man in the old stories. The one from whom all people came. He wouldn’t name a dog that - too much weight - but if he had a bird, something that flew, that’s what he’d call it.

Souvenirs

Three moments that travel with him. A mineral extraction, a village ceremony, a promise knelt in the dirt. Things he carries from one language to another.

  • A man smiles at a mining site, wearing a hard hat and high-vis vest, the landscape scarred by open-pit mining in the background.
    At the mine.
  • Village residents perform a traditional ritual in the dust, women in bright headwraps and men in tunics, moving in a ceremonial pattern.
    Village ritual.
  • A man kneels in the dirt to propose to a woman, her hand covering his, the village behind them, both smiling through tears.
    A promise kept.

Seventeen names. One village. That’s all he wants remembered.

THE CROSSING · character note

Voices from the cold

The sonic portrait of every soul in the story. Mwenze’s score is the one he plays when the city goes quiet - five songs about what was taken and what must be named.

  1. 01Strange FruitBillie Holiday
  2. 02SinnermanNina Simone
  3. 03The Times They Are A-Changin’Bob Dylan
  4. 04Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrikaTraditional
  5. 05HallelujahJeff Buckley
Listen on Spotify

THE CROSSING · Act I trailer