Pigment (19 page)
August 5
Our genetic fault lies in the line of ancestry. And whose fault is it? This is a human condition, a human imposed value on the missing melanin that plagues some of us, makes some of us weaker and fearful and yet marks us as potent with magic and power, the lure, the lore of our curse.
Limbs reach far...across oceans.
Mama, Reggie and Mike are at my funeral, one of the hardest kinds of services, where there is no body to mourn, no flesh to bury. The Church Choir swings its fans and sings “How I Got Over,” raising it up just like in the songs on the old records of Mahalia Jackson my Mama’s Mama used to play. Mama has Reggie and Mike. They will get over.
This isn’t what I had in mind. It wasn’t my intention. I wanted to live a long full life. I wanted my small branch on the Mukuyu tree, to grow long and thick with babies and generations stemming from my blood. I am part of the River Niger now. Your tears. Your child.
It is a brilliant sunset that bleeds into the sky and I feel as if I’ve helped paint something beautiful. The Mukuyu tree binds us with its strength and shadows. Elder is there in his spot, looking out onto the worlds of past, present and beyond.
I sit next to him. He seems to know that I am here. He turns to look at me, and graces the air where my face would be with his wrinkled hand as if he can feel me. We turn and look at the road to see Jalil approach.
He nods at the Elder. Their mouths don’t move, but they speak acknowledgement with their eyes. Jalil takes the charm of the giraffe from his palm and hangs it on the tree where a limb had been cut down to a knob. He lays his hand on the branch the knob stems from and watches it glisten in the fading sunlight.
The sky is full of heavy grey clouds, weighing so low they touch the ground in the distance. There is a gentle breeze that caresses and milks them. The sprinkles come first and then the rain.
#
At Kivuli, Delila is playing with some of the children in the yard. They are happy, full of life and for a moment seeming to forget the hunters and nightmares that plague them. Jalil is with them. The children encircle him, as he looks at Delila. With a warm smile she steps into the circle and embraces him. Bashima is smiling at him too…at both of them together, my green frames sliding fast on her little nose.
The Wildebeest migrate over the Mara River. I go home with them like I promised Reggie, but to a deeper home.
“The truth must be told and justice served.” That’s what the note I’m holding in my hand says. That’s all it says, but it is accompanied by vast and assorted papers that suggest Günther Drake and Drake Enterprises had hands in numerous heinous dealings and crimes. The postmark is two weeks after that day in the garage. He must have had someone lined up to post it for him.
He was so standoffish when I met him, dismissive even. Why didn’t he talk to me while I was standing right in front of him? Oh bother, there’s no accounting for a stranger’s behavior on the day he dies in the trunk of a car. Poor dear... Sure I’d have offered less than pity for him were it not for Jalil’s kind words. Who can say what takes us down such a dark path? I’ve never seen such evil first hand. Sure, we had harms done to us in the family history. But I’ll not go into the past. Now is the time to focus here where there is potential for truth and justice, even though the odds are steep.
Now here I sit at my desk in Dublin holding a candid picture of Kennen and Aliya, this man from the belly of the dragon sent me. There’s nothing in this brown envelope on his murder, but there’s loads on the dealings that were going on behind closed doors. There are photocopies of contracts for fishing and mining exportation deals with contradictory public statements. The messaging to the public conveyed how good and profitable these deals would be for them, but that’s not at all what happened. It will take some time to go through these, but at first viewing there’s not enough here to slay the dragon. And I want to slay him. I promise you that. As ill conceived as these deals are, and with as much harm as they’ve inflicted upon the local populace, they don’t appear to break any laws.
It’s not about revenge. It’s about justice. That’s what I told Jalil last night. He came out of nowhere. Sure I almost put a bullet in him. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a little uneasy since Germany, and rightfully so. I don’t want to wind up in someone’s trunk. My Da’s rifle isn’t far from hand, especially when someone is casting a shadow near the window after nine pm on a Tuesday. Can you imagine him coming here? Possibly leading the dragon to my front stoop! He says he covered his tracks but I’ve got my eyes wide open and my gun loaded. I’d had a mind to shoot him in the toe to teach him a lesson. But, when I saw the sadness in his eyes, I knew his search for Aliya had ended. I put the kettle on and we sat through the night. He didn’t tell me everything. He came close a couple times. What that devil did to that girl was clearly unspeakable. He told me he wanted to cut out Gunther’s heart out and eat it. That’s where the part about revenge vs. justice came in. But he was mostly talking about how he regretted missing Aliya’s childhood and all the years she should have had, they should have had.
Bless the child. She had passion for justice, the strong will of her father and, according to Jalil, the heart of her mother. Hers and my brother’s murders brought worlds together. The injustice of each of their circumstances... I post the picture of them on my bulletin board. They look so happy playing around that tree. What I see in these pages and spreadsheets before me, these implications against the dragon, I see the bigger battle before me. My Kennen is only the smallest piece of this wrong, yet, still no peace for his daughter, my brother, and our common enemy is free.
Jalil left this morning before tea. He didn’t say where he was going, but at least now I have a means to reach him, in case of an emergency. This package is such a case.
Ren
ée Topper is
a storyteller, a writer, an editor, a curator. She digs deep to find the heart and soul of a tale, and devise the best means to convey them, then she executes.
She’s worked on Wall Street, Main Street, in the occasional dungeon and helicopter, depending on the story matter; even did time as a director of development for comedy feature films and as a speechwriter and marcom exec for a moonwalking astronaut and others. A few stage plays and shorts produced, awards won, her feature film FiveThirteen screened at Cannes in 2014. She is currently story-smithing at Story Matter.
You can reach the author through
[email protected]
At Story Matter we strive to tell and share stories that have social substance and that are reflective of the human condition.
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Email
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if you are interested in learning more about the plight of people who have albinism in Africa and how to help.
Sunset Blues
Source
[i]
“Malaika.” The original text and the translation by
Rupert Moser
originally into German.
