Pigment (18 page)
July 25
A man blindfolds her, but she can smell the cigarettes and foul cologne on him and the sour breath of the other man as they put her in the back of a truck and drive on the dirty roads to the airport.
They move her in daylight. She feels the heat beating down on her through the window into the stale dirty vehicle. She is tied tight in exposing her skin to the sun. It burns. She recalls testing the sun not two days ago while riding with Kennen. This exposure she has no control over. But she wants it to mar her perfect milky skin to make her undesirable to her captors.
Later, at night, they force water down her throat, but it smells like chemicals and she tries to fight them and spits it out, but they force more on her. She counts the hours the drive is taking but there are so many turns that the drugs and her head injury give over and she passes out. Also, the Witch Doctor had drained a lot of her blood and offered no nourishment to restore her. Her mind spins. You can’t feed a ghost. But how then can you rape one, like the woman in the hut? Maybe because she’s not a ghost after all.
Aliya next wakes on a plane with no idea how long she’s been out, how long she’s been in the air, or where they took off or where they are going.
As with all major international trade conventions, from the World Cup to Saba Saba, while there are some positive things that come with them, there are some really horrific things that come with them too. The prostitution and sexploitation of children did not stay away from Saba Saba. And now Aliya is among the count of women and children stolen and smuggled out across the border, nameless, numberless, a statistic among the taken. But, unlike some she knows, she is missed and feels for her Mother, having to wonder and wait. She wishes her father had been around more, that she could have learned more survival skills from him. Even without his training, her instincts are good and she has been keeping her wits about her at least during moments the drugs would give sway, making mental notes and watching for any opportunity to learn more to escape.
She’s kept separate from the other girls. But she can hear their whispers and their cries in the dark, in the stench of the cargo belly of the plane that usually exports fine, hand woven rugs, baskets, fabrics; all that Aliya remembered seeing at the bazaar in Dar. Now they export the most precious cargo. Someone wants her alive, someone wants her out of Tanzania.
She wonders to whom her captors have traded her. It’s clear she’s to remain untouched. They’re saving her for something or someone. Perhaps punishment for something she did awaits her. Maybe from the protest? It’s all a misunderstanding she’ll straighten out when she speaks to the person in charge. But what if she never makes it to meet that person. Who could be behind this?
“I came to do good. I came to help my people and now I am just as Delila said I would be, someone who needed taking care of, more of a burden than a help. I wonder what she’s thinking now, what they all are thinking. I broke some rules but I don’t deserve this. No one deserves this.” She says to the universe, unable to speak allowed.
As well as taking her blood, the Witch Doctor hacked her hair off with a dull blade before handing her over. He took all he could that would grow back and not diminish her value to the buyer. He could still sell vials of blood, potions and trinkets of her hair to believers, and even non-believers who feared him. The open wounds on her head hurt and the small bump from old man Carter’s cane is exposed for the first time and the new cut on it stings.
The plane touches down on a smooth airstrip. The air is cool and damp. It reminds her of the weather in New York City that Fall she was there looking at colleges. The breeze has the same frozen whip at the end of it that nips before it moans away. She wishes she had the hat she bought on the street covering her bare head.
The blindfold shifted in flight and she can see that it is night. A white hand removes her gag and pours more spiked water in her mouth. She spits it out despite her thirst. She kicks, and screams, clocking one of them in the jaw with her heel. They force it down her throat. The gag is put back in her mouth as her body relaxes and she is carried from the plane and put into the trunk of a car. She thinks about the others who were on the plane. What will happen to them? The two men are speaking German…she passes out.
#
Dizzy and weak, Aliya senses the chill of death in the room with her as she opens her eyes. She has no glasses, no sense of time or place. She has been bathed and dressed in a lacey white wedding gown, but doesn’t remember how or by whom. There is a veil over her head, over a wig, seemingly to hide her shaved head and the wounds.
It’s cold. There are no windows, and there’s a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. It looks like an old military bunker or something like that. The walls are solid cold and they feel like they are a few feet thick. It smells like a mix of mold, gunpowder and sweat. There is one door locked from the outside that has a narrow crevice that is blocked by a sliver of wood...a peephole.
She looks down at the harlot red painted on her toenails, the jewelry on her wrists covering the cuts and bruises where the ropes had bound her since her capture. She removes the veil and wig from her head. Her hair has grown a centimeter. How long has she been here? She wonders, disturbed. She rubs the lipstick off her lips then she uses her teeth to cut the pearls off her wrist. The jewels bounce onto the floor and roll with the slant to the drain in the floor at the center of the room. The drain funnels to a steel metal grate. The deep-set slit in the door slides open -- a response to the sound of the pearls hitting the concrete. She races to the door, a look of attack in her eyes, not the hoped for look of terror that her captor desires. Some light from behind her reaches into the shadows of the sightline and reveals a masculine piercing blue eye...moist and wide like that of an addict getting fix.
This enrages her. She tears off a piece of the fabric of the dress and stuffs it in the eye slot. She leans back against the wall next to the hole so he can’t see her. The man pulls the piece of fabric through the hole on the other side. The piercing eye looks disappointed, then angry. She hears his heavy breathing through the door.
Günther unlocks the door, lifts the latch and opens it. He steps into the room, his right hand in sporty white kid gloves and holding a Maasai full tank bowie fixed blade hunting knife – another trinket from his recent trip to South Africa.
Aliya steps toward him, away from the wall, her balance is shaky from all she’s been through, with all she now faces. She tries to steady herself as he steps toward her.
August 3 (later)
Jalil parks the car an inconspicuous distance up the street in a covered corner outside of the estate. He climbs the five-foot high stone wall and jumps on to the property. He maneuvers through a wooded area and then the shrubs around the field where the chopper is parked. The building is an old castle with arching stone walls that cut the low misty clouds that roll overhead.
Jalil slips inside a side door off the yard into an office. The mahogany walls and built-in shelves are enlivened with an exotic collection of items from obscure places National Geographic hasn’t yet captured.
There is a dramatic long-horned mask on the mantel over the fireplace, handcrafted by one of the Bobo people of Burkina Faso, painted and rubbed with white clay and with the round eyes of shining river stones, for good fortune, near the mounted lion head positioned in an eternal roar above the desk. To its right is another mask with a wide shocked expression, bleached wood, its hair is made of straw and the feathers of a rare white kiwi chick that was stolen from a New Zealand wildlife center two years ago. Tokens of Günther’s recent trips, he steps back quietly, studying them.
Through this whole quest, Jalil is seeing more beyond the physical matter of fact. And he needs to. He thinks, “Power seekers travel the world’s darkest crevices to seek out more power.” And why wouldn’t this guy go and take from Africa, where homo sapiens originated, where the vibrations must run deep to the core, the shortest distance to source energy. This room is dark with bold energy. If Aliya were in this room, she’d be able to sense the vibration, the darkness, in a more visceral way than her father.
He sits on the leather-backed chair, to gain some insight and point of view. The chair is extraordinarily comfortable and his posture relaxes into the firm cushioning as he studies the ivory Rhino tusk head on the north wall. He rests his hand on the soft armrests, so soft he strokes them. He looks more closely at the leather. It’s a greyish skin -- natural color, not tanned. Not human, but close. The legs and feet are of a silver hair skin,...a silver backed gorilla. But there is something that draws him in deeper as he studies the chair...a tightly woven throw over the back made of the reddish hair of albino humans. Jalil strokes the texture. “Sick inbred” he mutters, clenching his teeth. The strands are slightly different groupings, from different heads.
He opens the obscenely big mahogany desk. None of the drawers are locked. It is meticulously organized. Nothing within is unessential for office-work, paper, pens, paperclips, files and so forth. He opens the last drawer on the lower right hand side. Therein lies an antique leather bound photo album. He places it on the desk and opens it. There is picture after picture, in chronological order, of Drakes performing sacrificial ceremonies of rare and exotic animals. Over time, the sacrifices become bigger, more albino. Then finally there are human albino sacrifices. The empty pages at the back of this linear book denote that there is more to come. He closes the album and takes further note of the leather binding, which he now realizes is made of human skin.
He observes the room, at all the ritualistic items before him. All of these trinkets are an affirmation and each was used in a ceremony or was part of a sacrifice. Overcome with a wave of emotion, Jalil knows he’s in the right place. He must go deeper into the house. He reaches to open the door from the office into the rest of the house. He’s about to turn the knob when he hears breathing low on the other side of the door, then scratching. It’s one of Herr Drakes prize German Shepherds, a descendant of the Nazi SS dogs that would sniff out Jews and gays and Catholics and all the non-aryans in WWII. An elegant animal retooled and abused for the most wretched excuses of men. The dog barks, summoning more four-legged creatures and drawing the attention of his owner.
Jalil moves away from the door. He turns to go out the door he came in, but Herr Drake is standing there with two more shepherds and an antique glöck loosely pointed at him. Jalil considers going through the closed door, but not knowing what is on the other side of the door and with the gun pointed at him, he stays put. “Herr Drake.”
“You’re the man who saved the Irish woman.”
Jalil doesn’t affirm or deny.
“What are you doing here?” he asks in his slithery way.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“I know who you are Mr. Scott. No need for being obtuse.”
“What do you know, besides my name?”
“Before I bring someone into my fold, I vet them, fully. You’ve known Rolf Teigen for many years.”
“Yes, Rolf.”
“Unfortunate what became of him.”
Claude rushes to the doorway from the yard, ready to protect Drake. “It’s okay, Claude. Get the bird going, I’m going out of town. The police are on their way here. I won’t be bothered with what they found in my car. Take my bags.” Claude looks at Jalil and hesitates, unsure of Jalil. Günther waves him on, “It’s okay. Mr. Scott won’t be detaining me.” Claude follows orders and takes the bags outside the door.
Günther goes to the photo album on his desk. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.” He picks up the album and holds it close. Two of his shepherds shadow him, while the third keeps Jalil at bay. “Rolf didn’t understand what was really at stake or what was really happening. He didn’t know how things had progressed in Burundi. He was right about one thing though. If the refugees are sent back to Burundi, they would be killed.”
Jalil calls out the connection as he realizes it, “Drake must have been supporting Nkurunziz’s party. You were the ones arming the children and sending them to DCR for military training. It was you who enabled the coup attempt. You are arming the children… You think you can control them…”
“Armed sheep. Burundi doesn’t have any resources I want, but Tanzania has plenty I want. I’ll build armies and invade from there. But you’re mistaken if you think I’m the only “investor” in the evolution of this part of the world.”
“Evolution? You mean genocide.”
Günther is unscathed, “Life is all one’s perspective.” He checks his Gruebel Forsey watch, an artsy $1M variety and determines he must move things along. He makes a proposition, “Perhaps, you are a better gambler than you’re old friend, Rolf. He wagered your daughter for over 140,000 Burundian refugees. He lost.” Günther lavishes in getting to divulge this truth to the person who it hurts most to hear it. “You were betrayed by such an old friend.”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Affirmation, Rolf was sorry for betting with the devil. The setting sun shines in through the window and reflects off of Günther’s cufflink on his right arm. To Jalil’s wonder, it is shaped like the head of a dragon. Next to the dragon is a drop of blood on the crisp white shirtsleeve.
Günther follows Jalil’s stare to the spot on his sleeve. “Yes.” He puts saliva on his thumb with his dog hand and rubs the blood, but it smears instead of comes off. “I just wield it how I feel it.” He smirks. While not a confession, it is stated as such. This man is so proud of himself. The sounds of the chopper engine and propeller starting to whirr draw their attention. “This is all a wonderful experiment, quite invigorating to watch and quite lucrative. Alas, I don’t have time to sit here and wax with you, Mr. Scott. And you need to make your choice.”
“What choice is that?”
“You must choose between going into the depths of this house and finding the source of this stain on my shirt you are fixated with -- Perhaps it is even your daughter’s blood. Perhaps she is alive with mere moments left. -- or you can spend that same time trying to detain me. You don’t have time for both?”
Jalil thinks of the two best ways to kill him out of the thirty he’s considered since Günther entered the room. But none are guaranteed with the dogs. He wants to rip his head off his body. But he’s right, there isn’t really a choice. There are too many unknowns.
“Hahaha,” Günther chuckles. “You are delightfully predictable.” I’d shoot you but it is more entertaining to let you muck about.” He gets up from the chair, picks up his skin album and walks out of the room backwards, holding the gun at Jalil. Günther boards the chopper, with his prized dogs as Jalil turns and runs deeper into the house.
#
“Aliya!” Jalil screams as he runs through the countless rooms. He sees another drop of blood on the floor in the corridor. He follows it to the cellar and on through a few rooms to a narrow dark and dusty hallway. There are fresh footprints in the dust on the concrete floor.
He is at the door with the peephole. He peers into the darkness. He unlatches the door and pushes it wide. There is a light switch on the outside of the door. He flicks it on.
There is blood all over the room. The blows had come swift and hard, rendering her too weak to fight for most of the vicious cuts. Now, she lay on the concrete floor lifeless, the light in her eyes having dimmed while staring at her blood flow around the felled pearls at the drain grate. There she is, his Aliya, without skin.
Jalil collapses to his knees, landing in the pool of his daughter’s blood, into the river of sadness, dragged into the depths of horror and defeat. Blood on his hands, blood on his body, blood staining his soul. Fresh blood. If only he’d come sooner. He takes off his jacket and wraps it around her body so he can hold her body, still warm. He cradles what’s left of his daughter, but she is dead and part of him is too.
He said the police were coming. Jalil wraps her up in plastic bags and a blanket and carries her out at the back of the property as the police are knocking on the front door. He has to flee or be arrested. He has to take her body, so he can bury her.
#
Jalil is at Kivuli, standing in a deep grave he dug, he places Aliya’s body with her facing east, then, with Rhadi’s help, he pours cement on top of her remains. Delila stands at ground level, singing.
Those mukuyu limbs reach far, across oceans, smuggled onto the shores and inlands that have dark enough alleys with black markets eager to trade colorless flesh, blood and bones of those with the skin without melanin, without the otherwise would be resulting pigment.
#
The Boy looks around to be sure that he is along, takes the charred arm of Bui Bui that he took when he found Jalil near the river. He blanches it in a white powder and hangs it from a tree in a remote section of the woods. He sits and watches it dangle.
