Pigment

By Renee Topper

Winner of the LYRA Award for Mystery / Suspense / Thriller
International Book Awards Finalist in the Fiction: Cross Genre Category

Young American Aliya Scott travels to Tanzania to help children with her condition. There, people without pigment in their skin are called “zeru-zeru,” it means “ghost,” and they are believed to possess magical powers. When Aliya goes missing, her father sets out on a mission to find her. He soon discovers that she was up to more than teaching the alphabet and handing out sunblock. With each step, he learns more about his daughter and a country rooted in ancestry, rich with resources, full of mystery and conflict, and a world of witchdoctors and foreign plundering, with little transparency and less justice. From the shadow of the Mukuyu Tree, he follows her “ghost” to the head of the dragon in Europe. But will he reach Aliya before it is too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Renee Topper
• Release date: Apr 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780997728439

Renee Topper

Renée Topper is a storyteller in all forms. Her debut novel PIGMENT won 2016 LYRA Award for Mystery / Suspense / Thriller and is an International Book Award Winning Finalist in the Fiction: Cross Genre category. She also garners an honorable mention in The Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships 1st Annual International Writers Award. As a writer and producer, she digs deep to find the heart and soul of a tale -- especially those exploring the human condition -- and devise the best means to convey them, then she executes. She is currently story-smithing at StoryMatter.com. You can reach the author via email at [e-mail].

Book preview

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; artine Bellen for 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 from 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.

1

Giraffe

May 7

Heading west on the 10 FWY, Jalil turns his head to Aliya who is all consumed by her texting and that old-school notebook she’s always scribbling in. Her father is moping. They drive in silence but for the chimes of her phone. She looks at him, a stranger, really, more than a father, though she wouldn’t deny her curiosity or her feeling of connection with him.

Aliya turns off her phone and says, That’s it. Nobody’s gonna interrupt my last twenty minutes with you.

He smiles and notices the bracelet she’s wearing, the gold charm of a giraffe dangling from it. You still have that?

This?

I sent that to you for … what, your seventh birthday?

First communion. All the other kids got crosses and chalices. Why’d you send me a giraffe?

Truth?

Aliya nods.

It just fit. That and it might have been all I could find.

Where were you?

Niamey in Niger, working for a French company that had some security concerns.

She looks at it dangling on her wrist. You know about the giraffe? she asks Jalil.

I know they have long necks.

They do put their necks out. They accept challenges with vision and grace.

He looks at her, a little surprised.

She says with a gentle smile, It still fits.

#

At LAX, Jalil helps Aliya with her bags and a couple boxes of supplies her Mama’s church donated for the camp: sunblock, hats and sunglasses. They are rushing. She is late for her flight.

Once they finish at the ticket counter and approach the line for security check, Jalil has to ask, I saw you and Reggie on the computer. Zanzibar?

Aliya shies away.

You didn’t tell your Mama.

Would you? Maybe I’ll go to Zanzibar too.

You and what’s-his-name…

Kennen. He’s picking me up at the airport in Mwanza. We’re just friends.

Does he know that?

Mama will worry enough as it is.

Uhm hmm.

Did you tell your Mama everything?

Did you tell me everything? He has an inkling more about the potential dangers she’s going to face, but not the extent of them and no, she didn’t tell him everything either.

I’ll be fine. As Aliya shuffles to the line on the inside of the rope and Jalil trails along on the outside, they both feel they are too fast approaching the turn where they will part ways. You know, I wish we had more time. I feel like we’re just getting to know each other, Aliya says to him.

Jalil nods.

She finally asks the question that’s been burning inside of her. What made you come back?

What do you mean?

All those years away…Something must have happened for you to come back.

He stares at her, gently touches her cheek. He pushes the bridge of her glasses up the centimeter that they slid down her nose. After a long pause, he says, You’ve really grown into a beautiful woman, Aliya.

See, you’re not telling me everything either.

Your Mama did right by you.

Yes, she did. Then half-jokingly, she says, Who knows how I would have turned out if you stayed around? The line backs up behind her as the space in front of her grows.

I’m gonna say this…and I mean it. She gives him a big warm hug and then continues, I love you, Daddy.

Before he can say anything, she bounds to the security checkpoint, carry-on in tow. Jalil is by the door, watching her, his hands in his pockets. She turns and finds him gazing at her T-shirt on which is boldly printed, Skin Deep. She waves goodbye. Tears swell in his eyes as he holds his hand out high to her.

She goes through the gate and disappears in the crowd. He wishes he were a giraffe so he could still spot her.

2

Deil!

May 9

Aliya switches planes in Kenya for the second leg. This one is smaller, and they’re packed in tight. She settles into her