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Pigment

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PIGMENT

PIGMENT

The Limbs of the Mukuyu Tree

 

RENÉE TOPPER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PIGMENT The Limbs of the Mukuyu Tree

Copyright ©
2016 Renée Topper

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9977284-0-8

 

Published by 
Story Matter 2016 

1425 N Cherokee Ave, #93712

Los Angeles, CA 90028

United States of America

www.StoryMatter.com

Los Angeles, California, United States of America

 

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

 

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. 

 

Cover Art by: Iram Shahzadi

For my Mother

for bearing me and bearing with me,

for holding me and helping me grow,

for teaching me to love all colors,

including those I cannot see.

August 3

 

“Veilcom, Herr Teigenn.” the security guard reaches out from the depths and holds the door for him.

“Gutten tag.” Rolf disappears into the bowels of this monstrosity of a building.

Fiona moves to follow him, but the guard shuts her out.  She is left at the gates, staring up into the shiny intricate eyes etched in gold, metal all the way from Tanzania. That’s what that trial was about -- the local water supply was poisoned from all the mining -- it was a push for justice, a fight for the thirsty, still thirsty.

She steps back but stands tall, sizing up the ridiculous height of this monolithic black building. The gotham-style architecture, the deliberate flared nostrils carved into the cladding, she sees that she is now face-to-face with the dragon. If Herr Teigen had his way, she would go.  But she’s staying. He knows more about what happened to Kennen and the American Albino Aliya, and she is determined to find out what, especially now.

The morning sun moves quickly, stranding her in the cold shadow. But she remains, unmoved, like the Irish women on Peace Bridge in Belfast, who stood in silent vigil for the mothers and children at Tuam. Her feet take deeper root in the pavement, despite the cold and the tormenting heavy gusts that blow on her each time the door opens. Were someone to light a match, she’d surely be roasted in the fiery breath.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue:  Color Me

1              Giraffe                                          May 7

2              Deil!                                          May 9

3               Jalil                                          July 13

4              In Her Footsteps              July 13

5              News                                                        July 14

6              Rolf                                                        July 15

7              Mukuyu                                          May 10

8              Kuchuna                                          May 10-11

9              She Knew                                          July 15

10              Luamke                                          July 15

11              Akida                                          July 15

12              Rhadi                                          July 15

13              Camp Kivuli                            July 16

14              Malaika                                          May 12

15              Lucidity                                          July 27

16              Dar es Salaam                            July 5

17              Sea Cliff Hotel              July 5-6

18              Saba Sita                                          July 6

19              Precious Commodity              July 17

20              Saba Saba                                          July 7

21              Fugitives                                          July 7-8

22              Skin Deep                                          July 17

23              Body                                                        July 17

24              Burning                                          July 8

25              Elder                                          July 17

26              White Magic                            July 18

27              Fiona                                          July 18

28              Fahamu                                          July 19

29              Dead River                            July 19

30              Captured                                           July 20

31              Birth Rite                            July 21

32              Old Friends                            July 21

33              Deliverance                            July 21-22

34              Bui Bui                                          July 24

35              Missing Remains              July 24

36              No Body                                          July 24

37              Fever                                          July 24-31

38              Doomed                                          July 21

39              Otherworldly                            August 1

40              The Dragon                            August 3

41              Close Call                            August 3

42              Lost & Found                            August 3

43              Cargo Hold                            July 25

44              Roots                                          August 3

45              Home                                           August 5

Epilogue

About the Author

About Story Matter

Coming Soon

Acknowledgements

 

With the contributions, support and inspiration of the following outlet and people, this book happened:

 

BBC for publishing the inciting news article in 2009;

Martine Bellen with her keen editing skills and asking the right question; Peter Quinn for his example, guidance, grace & joy; Richard Tayson for his invaluable insight and counsel; and Mom, Dad, Juanita Topper, Cathy Gesell and Vanessa Hoy for their brave, generous eagle eyes and their encouragement; my family for being my source, resource and sanctuary, and with special homage to my ancestors.

 

Introduction

In South Africa, people who are born albino, without pigment melanin in their skin, are at risk because they are different. Their alabaster skin contrasts with the black color of the majority’s skin, so they stand out. Their poor eyesight and sensitivity to the sun leave them less equipped for day-to-day life in rural areas and so they are weaker in this sense. These things burden them not only with prejudice form others but also with fear for their lives. 

Further, there is a strong belief that people born with albinism are not people at all. They are ghosts with magic in their bodies and there are people who propagate and profit from this misnomer, people who hunt, dismember, even murder these children and get away with it.

The killings are a recent atrocity, not some ancient activity as one might think. The first reports are only from 2005. The following is a fictional story, inspired by true events with an inquisitive eye to what could possibly cause this to happen in a democratic society.

 

Prologue: Color Me

 

One day, I think I was about four, Mama found me in my room coloring. I wasn’t coloring the pictures in my coloring book, not the walls or even my dolls. I was coloring me. Miss Suzie, my kindergarten teacher, had given me the multicultural Crayola pack of markers -- apricot, burnt sienna, mahogany, peach, sepia, tan, black and white for blending. When Mama saw me, I must have looked like I was in the Rainbow Tribe all wrapped up in one child or I don’t know what. The expression on her face when she walked in my bedroom...I’d never seen that look before, such confusion -- her eyes wide, her jaw loose, and then she started half-laughing, half-crying. Mama never raised her voice -- not once in my life -- but her tone, soft and calm on the surface, had a powerful undertow that would grab me by the foot and pull me down, down to the root.

“Aliya Scott, what are you doing?”

I pretended not to hear her and continued coloring, using the mahogany more than the others. I had just finished a spot on my newly blackened arm when Daddy stepped in the room behind her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, the way he would when he wanted to calm her. This time it didn’t work. She was too tense. When he saw what she was upset about -- when he saw
me
-- his hands fell to his sides like lead. He turned and left. I mean he
really
left, and without a word. I could hear the ignition whirr of that old Ford truck parked out front, and then its engine growl all the way down the street.

Mama heard it too. She grabbed me quickly by the arm and next thing I knew, she had stripped me naked and the tub was filled with water. She picked me up and put me in it like she used to, before I was big enough to get in myself.              She squeezed the soapy water out of the washcloth, and it came down like rain, into the pool around me, and its droplets smeared brown on my birth skin. In her soft voice, she said, “Aliya, honey, God made you the color you are.”

“But, Mama, I want to be chocolate like you and Daddy.”

Mama’s hand plunged into the water and grabbed the cloth in one hand and my fake brown arm in the other and scrubbed it clean. “You can play all you want, but you’ve got to love yourself for who you are.”

Some of the colors started washing off right away -- the lighter ones of apricot and tan were the first to go -- then the dark colors. The soapsuds turned murky beige and the water muddy.  A ring formed around the edge of the tub at the waterline. My skin never looked so raw.

“If there’s one thing being black has taught this family since we were brought here in chains, it’s that.”

“But I’m not black, Mama.”

She released the cloth, and it sunk into the dark pool. She gently put her soft wet fingers under my chin and brought my face to hers, so we were eye-to-eye. “You are beautiful the color you are.”

“But I don’t have any color. That’s what the kids say.”

She scrubbed hard, as if she could reach the kids voices in my head and scrub them away too.  But no one could get them out.  She poured water over my head and washed me clean.

 

I didn’t see Daddy again for six months. Mama said he shipped out late the next night for another tour. I don’t think he said goodbye.

Despite the coloring me incident, Mama let me keep the markers. She could see I was trying to understand being different in the world and that playing with colors was helping more than it was hurting. I loved mixing them... I don’t have pigment; pigment is color. I have to call what I do have something else. But there isn’t a word for it that I want to use.              

#

“Here come that white child,” old man Carter scolded from his stoop three doors down the block. “How she get so white?” He would ask the air. He was angry at me. I felt like he hated me. I didn’t understand why. Still don’t.

For years, I didn’t pay him any mind. Then one day, I did a bold thing. Must have been the spring air or the Bubbaliscious I had gotten from the corner store. I stopped and turned to face him straight on. “I’m translucent, nigga! You can’t touch this!” My sass surprised both of us. We froze for a moment. Then I turned and swaggered on my way. I hadn’t taken four steps before he got himself up out of his old rickety chair. He leaned on the railing with one hand and raised his cane in the air at me. Oh, he would have come after me, if his legs would have carried him.  Then he let loose and threw that cane all the way across the yard at me.  Hit me in the back of my head. It didn’t hurt my head as much as my pride. I ran home so fast. He scared me. I scared myself. Who did I think I was...some white child? Albino was worse than white in my black neighborhood. And because I wasn’t black, I wasn’t allowed to say “nigga.”

Now, I understand fear is a chance for someone to take advantage and try to dominate, for someone to get under your skin -- no matter what color it is, or isn’t -- and to draw blood.

Mama knew about the scar on my head. Woman can’t braid her child’s hair without noticing a gash like that. I’d told her I fell on my head doing a cartwheel. I never told her about what happened with old man Carter; I don’t think she ever found out either. None of the neighbors would have told her.  They treated her differently too. After all, she’d given birth to something they didn’t understand. They treated her like she did something awful to deserve me. Some even thought she slept with a white man or was raped by one. Imagine hearing talk like that about your Mama, talk that people didn’t even bother to whisper. Even I blamed her, before I knew better. And I blamed myself for Daddy leaving.

Our mothers bleed to bring us into this world, and then their hearts beat to endure us, if we are lucky.

It was hard for me to find friends as a child. At first, kids wouldn’t care about the way I looked, but by the first grade they’d sensed their parents’ fear and they’d move away from me. When Mama wasn’t working, she’d play with me. We’d read and do crafts and sew.  We’d make all kinds of things like potholders, clothes and curtains. She taught me to put my energy into things that were creative and useful. Mama has the gift of embracing the wonder and beauty in everything. I think that’s the greatest gift she ever gave me, beyond my life. She was my best friend.

Mama used to say I was the color of souls. I was thinking of ghosts. I didn’t know how right she was until about fifteen years later.

BOOK: Pigment
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