by Renee Topper
She sits with the minister in the living room. He gets up to make them more tea, telling her to sit. She does –- a very rare thing. She watches him move his large hands full of grace but still clumsy with the good china. He wants to bury Aliya. He wants her to have peace and lay her daughter to rest. Tamika wants to wake up from this nightmare. How does that work without a body?
Outside, Reggie is running back from playing ball with his friend Kyle up the street. As he gets closer, he sees the news vans parked out front, and slows his pace, the speed, the smile and child go away. Once inside, he moves to bound up the stairs, but the somber feeling of the living room and the minister’s hat on the rack hault him. His deep raspy voice resonates throughout the first floor as he comes back to the living room from the kitchen, and places the tea tray down with a rattle. Poor Reggie wants to play, wants his mamma to stop acting like she’s a zombie, wants to punch the kids at school who used to taunt him for having an albino sister, but who now look guilty and quiet. He listens to the adults from the hall stairwell.
The minister describes how there wouldn’t be a casket, but they’d have a poster-size portrait of her with, perhaps, some of her belongings that signified her in this life. He mentions having been at similar services in New York some years ago, after the World Trade Center incident on 9/11. A firefighter friend, a secretary and a janitor were all members of his parish in Brooklyn then. No bodies, no remains, just rubble. No DNA proof, they were just gone. “Services like this are important. They help people say goodbye, to make peace, to mourn, to move on.” Tamika hears him. She isn’t ready. It’s like he can read her thoughts, “No one is ever ready for something like this. But Aliya would want you to move to peace. It’s for her too, not just us.”
Another one of the news reporter vans pulls up. She straightens her back to see out the window, through the sheers. Those need a good washing. Aliya helped her hem and hang those last year. That was a better day, it was a creative break from the kids taunting her at school. If only today’s circumstances were as simply met.
Reggie is in the anger stage of his grieving. He got there the day the news came in and there he’s stayed, going off, shouting, as if everyone is an enemy. He’s angry at the world. He stamps into the room and stands there. He was going to scream, let out some more rage, but instead he stops and just stands there, looking at them. The room is frozen. Minister and Mama look at him, her teacup stayed halfway to her lips. He looks at the minister. She puts down her teacup to say something but nothing comes out of her mouth. Her poor other baby is so angry. He’s hurting through all of this and she isn’t able to console him, in any way. He wont let her hold him, touch him or scold him. His shell is thickening before her very eyes. He glares the angry eyes of injustice, the run off of his tear ducts and nose, his chest rises from the short breathes of exasperation. He throws his ball and glove down on the floor and stomps up the stairs.
They don’t move, can’t even take a sip of tea to wash down the thick moment they just had. Their eyes look to the loud foot stomps overhead. That’s Aliya’s room, Mama thinks. What’s he doing in there? She almost gets up when the sound of his steps moves out of the room and she can see him bounding down the stairs with the framed picture of Aliya. He sits next to the Minister and gives it to him. He wants Aliya at peace with the angels. He loved her. “Well this is a fine picture of your sister. Very fine.” The Minister looks at Tamika for some approval. She nods yes, in the moment, for her baby boy.
“Reggie, may we use this for the service?” he asks.
Reggie nods and gets up from the sofa before Tamika’s hand can reach his shoulder. Before he walks out he doesn’t ask, but tells, “I’m having dinner at Kyle’s.” He goes out of the house and up the street to his friend’s, to his world away, where he can escape this, on some level, for a little while. Tamika watches through the sheets, making sure those reporters leave her little man alone.
The moment she nodded, she felt the pain of letting go of her baby girl...and it feels all wrong. “I understand everything you are saying. I do. I see how important this is for everyone in order to heal and move on. I also understand that I’m in shock. My baby girl, a bigger part of my life is gone. But, there is no body. There are no remains. What if she is still alive somewhere and I give up on her? I don’t see how that would do anyone good.”
“Do you believe she is still alive?”
Tamika looks at him. She doesn’t know. She wants to know. But she doesn’t. She sees the unrest of that, the stagnation, but it’s the way it is for now. She hopes, if she is alive, Jalil will find her and bring her home.
37
Fever
July 24 (later) - 31
The thirst, the heat, the demon’s flesh in hand, Jalil falls ill and passes out along the riverbed’s edge. He sweats and thrashes in and out of consciousness. The fever grips him and feeds him only otherworldly visions and glimpses of reality.
He sees Fahuma, then blackness.
He stirs and sees a blurry Rhadi trying to stand his ground as Delila scolds him from Jalil’s bedside. “How could you bring him here around the children! How could you let him get in this condition to begin with!”
Blackness.
Jalil can’t tell real life from dreaming, “Aren’t they all the same anyway?” he murmurs aloud, three days later, as Delila wipes his brow with a cool cloth. In his delirium, he blurts out inconsistent words and phrases. He sees his daughter wave goodbye to him at the airport. He calls to her, “Aliya!”...
”For real, Tamika? We’re having a baby?” A young Tamika’s smiling face as she delivers the news, while holding a pregnancy test.
“Show me your hands!” “Please, show me your hands…” to the man on the road in Teheran.
The fragile hands of Aliya as a baby in his arms.
The fragile hands of the toddler in Teheran.
The toddler hand unattached in Bui Bui’s hut.
Blackness.
#
Day seven. Jalil stirs from fever-sleep. Delila coaxes him: “Welcome back, Jalil. You almost left us.”
“I feel like I went somewhere.” He says parched.
“You must rest, heal more...”
Jalil, obviously feeling better, stubborn, “There isn’t time. I must go to the precinct in Mwanza.”
Delila asks him “Why?”
“I’ve gotta get some answers from the Hunter.” He answers, half-mumbled. He exercises his jaw, it’s stiff, un-used for some time.
She gives him water to help his parched breath. He takes it, chokes a little, which clues him in to how long it’s been. “I’ve gotta get some answers from the Hunter.”
Rhadi hears voices and comes in from outside.
Delila responds, “But he’s not in the jail.”
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
She doesn’t want to answer him, knowing he’ll go, and he still needs to heal.
Rhadi tells him “He was released.”
“What! What about the trial?” He sits up but the stiffness in his legs keeps him on the mat.
Delila tells him what he already figured, “You were out a long time...You almost didn’t come back to us.”
Rhadi, “The trial was unjust. A farce. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.”
“Where is he?” Jalil implores.
Rhadi tells him, “He’s at home with his family.”
Jalil starts to sit up more. “Take me.”
“Tomorrow.” Delila stays him, “Have one more night’s rest.”
Rhadi chimes in, “Delila is right. It’s better to meet him in the light of day.”
Jalil tries again to rise from Aliya’s mat, but barely has strength to push off the floor and instead he falls back. Delila is right. He submits. He remembers, “The vial...I had a glass jar with bone in it...”
“I buried it outside the gate. Fahuma said to. No dark charms allowed near these babies. Look what happened to you!” Delila tells him how it is.<
br />
Jalil, “But it’s Aliya.”
“Whatever is in that vial, is not Aliya.” Not unless that Bui Bui turned her into a raven before crushing her bones. They are bird bones.” Delila explains.
“Something else…” he’s referring to Bui Bui’s arm.
“That’s all that was with you.”
He thinks to himelf that Fahuma must have taken this too. Jalil passes out at the news about the bird bone, relieved. Aliya could still be alive. A father’s dream. He dismissed the Hunter’s confession as quickly as the courts did with Delila’s assessment of the vial. He has no proof that she is dead or alive.
#
In the morning Jalil wakes. Rhadi is out by his car, waiting for him. Delila watches him from the doorway. She thinks he’s going on a fool’s errand. He should stay and rest. She knows best. She turns and goes back to the children’s needs, not wasting her time watching them drive off. He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, she knows. But she has grown to care for him and she can’t deny how good he looked before he said goodbye last time...more trouble for her from America. She shakes her head, but doesn’t turn to look at them. She moves another step toward the children and her focus is fully on them.
#
Hunting the Hunter. Hunter becomes the hunted and he’s not hard to scope out. Rhadi has been keeping tabs on him while Jalil was sick. Jalil is even impressed by Rhadi’s efforts. It’s clear they are now partners on this kindred mission. They are piecing together the bigger picture. They have the pursuit of justice in common. They are allies in the quest. But more than this, they are men in love and men in mourning, missing the most beautiful person in either of their lives.
Rhadi drives them on the raw dirt roads to the Hunter’s village. There’s no point in camouflaging their arrival. People can’t always sense incomers with the way nature alerts with birds flying, trees bending, the wind stealing scents off strangers and streaking them in the air, especially those of angry men.
The Hunter is sitting on his threshold, neighbors and family gather as Rhadi and Jalil approach. Rhadi initiates with a big friendly smile and greeting. The Hunter isn’t sure, so cautiously nods and says hello. Hunter, his real name is Effion, recognizes Jalil and moves back, saying that he doesn’t want any trouble, that he doesn’t have anything to say. The authorities released him. He needs to feed his family. They should leave him and his family alone.
When he says the bit about feeding his family; he points to three of his children, aged roughly between 4-10. Jalil double takes them, their condition. They’re extremely malnourished. For the first time Jalil realizes that this Hunter, this is no evil demon, in the faces of his family, he is human. He may have only been involved to try to save his children from starvation. The Hunter is also too thin. He was a fisherman, but there are no fish, even the perch that remain in the lake are too big to catch and fit in his uncle’s boat. They’ve eaten nothing but fish head soup for as long as memory serves. Jalil interrupts Rhadi’s last attempt to sway the Hunter for information. Jalil’s voice is deep and calm, and breaks the escalating tone in their voices. Jalil recognizes the terror, the beaten by life look in his eyes. He’d seen it enough in war. The trauma. The defeat. The look of a man, not proud of what he’s done, but having done his duty. It’s not what he expected. He thought he’d find more Luamkes, more witchdoctors, but this sad man is something else. Jalil says the man’s given name, “Effion,” aloud. Jalil’s calm voice stops the Hunter from walking away. He looks to Rhadi to continue translating for him, “Tell him I understand. He was doing what he had to for his children. Tell him that is all I’m trying to do for my child. Tell him. Tell him we are the same.”
Rhadi translates. Man to Man. Father to Father. Human to human bridged by translation. Effion looks at Jalil, raising his lowered eyes to meet Jalil’s. Jalil, “I just want to know where she is.”
Effion looks to Rhadi, “I don’t know.”
Rhadi presses him, “You must tell us.”
Jalil stops Rhadi with the wave of his hand and, “I believe him. We must find her another way.”
Jalil is gentle as he goes to embrace the man, to let him know all is forgiven and ease his burden. Effion softens with remorse. To everyone’s surprise, Jalil puts him in a chokehold. The man can’t breath. The villagers are angry and scream at him. His eldest child pushes on Jalil from behind and the younger ones throw rocks at him, but he is unflinching.
Jalil, teeth clenched, “Tell him Bui Bui is dead. Tell him to say what happened to Aliya, at the hut.” Rhadi does. But he doesn’t’ answer. “Tell him or all his family will be cursed and suffer horrible deaths. Tell him!” Rhadi complies, recognizing the measure of cruelness in this tactic. Jalil never ceases to surprise him. The Hunter gasps, wanting to speak, fear in his eyes. Rhadi isn’t sure if Jalil will let up. Jalil threatens the children. Would he follow through and harm them? Rhadi wonders. The American speaks witchcraft after all.
Effion breaks, “She was there. She wasn’t like the other zeru-zeru.” He uses the word as if it were legal, with disdain for those ghostly creatures. “Bui Bui hired us. We were eight in all. We had to hunt her down and bring her to him. She was with an Irish man, we killed so there would be no witnesses. Bui Bui knew she was a virgin and had a big buyer for her. Our commander trusted me not to rape her and told me to bring her to Bui Bui and keep her there, separate from the other zeru-zeru. He said he would pay me a bonus, but they never paid me.”
Rhadi, “Who was the buyer?”
“I don’t know, a powerful man in government, a magistrate for some foreigner.”
Rhadi “What did he look like?”
Hunter, “I never saw him. But Bui Bui said he had eyes of blue ice.”
This family should be fattening up on meat and sporting new shoes, but Effion was picked up by the authorities before he was paid and Bui Bui reneged and didn’t pay him the blood money after all. Jalil releases him at Rhadi’s translation. He reaches in his wallet and gives him a wad of cash. “Feed your family. Don’t kill any more or hunt any more zeru-zeru or I will curse you.” The Hunter looks at the money. His children embrace him, tears cover his face.
Jalil walks to the car, a little wobbly, having used almost all the strength he had, still recouping from his illness and the adrenalin he just dealt out. Rhadi follows. Jalil gets in the driver seat. Rhadi tosses him the keys. “You’re feeling better.” Jalil turns the car around and drives out the way they came in. He adds, “You shouldn’t have given them that money. It only reinforces that they will make money off of hunting albinos. Black magic isn’t cut and dry and he still got paid.” Jalil floors the accelerator, knowing Rhadi’s right. But he hopes Effion will not hunt any more for fear of his “curse.”
38
Doomed
July 21
Aliya stirs, her head throbs at the slightest first motion. The bruise smarts fresh from the bandits. She opens her eyes. She is on the ground, the floor of a hut. Some kind of incense or something is burning at the small fire to her right. The hut is barren but for some native witchcraft chachkies hung around the room. She moves her hand to comfort and quiet the pain in her skull, but her hands are tied.
There is another smell, like blood, she strains to look at her body –- has she been violated? Her dress is torn, but there is no blood on her. Her leg muscles throb, but she is covered in some ointment. She struggles to free herself from the tight ties around her limbs. She hears footsteps near the entrance; a gruff yet weasel-like voice starts talking to another voice, an authoritative educated tone, both male. She recognizes one of the hunters, the smallest of her captors, as he pulls back the curtain. The two other men look in. The flap drops and they discuss their terms. Aliya can’t hear what they are saying. The words that come through might as well be Japanese.
There is panicked breathing coming from the dark shadowy corner behind and above her head. She can’t turn her head far enough with the restraints to see who is there. She speaks softly �
�Nani yupo?” Who is there? The breathing stops. “Tafadhali niambie ambopo sisi ni. Nini kinatokea?” Please, tell me where we are. What is happening? She tries again in French. A blaring light floods in as the flap of cloth over the entrance is abruptly moved back. The light blinds her. The male force enters and beats the person in the corner till she whimpers and pleads.
Aliya begs too “Please stop! Stop hurting her!” in English. The woman is quiet. Aliya can’t tell if she is conscious or not. The figure stands over her then. The cloth undulates in the breeze, letting in bits of light to let her glimpse him, a Witch Doctor, her worst fear. She wonders why she wasn’t raped, why she still has all her limbs, why she still breathes. He stuffs a rag in her mouth, his long dirty fingernails lightly scraping her face as he does so. He opens the flap and calls in the man and directs him to the corner behind Aliya. The man stops at Aliya, wanting her instead. Bui Bui points a wicked looking talisman with a bird claw at the tip at him, and directs him with the forceful wave of the claw that rattles as he moves it.
The educated sounding man goes into the shadows.
Aliya is terrified, the young woman moans in pain and cries. She can’t see what is happening to her, but she knows it is unwanted, wrong and that this woman is suffering. Her tears spill with those of the unseen woman in the shadows.
Fearing for the woman, fearing for herself, she fights the restraints by kicking her legs hard, but is only cutting and bruising herself. Bui Bui sits on her stomach to further restrain her, watching his customer take his remedy for the HIV, while he palms the money he’d given him in his hand. Aliya wants to vomit from his weight on her, from all of this, but she can’t get enough air to breath let alone retch. She has never felt so alone or helpless, doomed.