Serafim
THE DECISION WAS MADE in an instant. A visit from Fatima’s friend Graça De Melo and her only daughter, Celestina, forced us to leave.
It was Christmas Eve. Fatima sat at the kitchen table across from Graça. Her daughter sat on the long bench against the wall. The table was covered with small dishes of treats: dates, lupino beans, figs, cashews, and small dishes of salted fish and berries.
When I served them tea, Senhora De Melo’s body turned away. I stood close by, ready to fill their cups. They would not look at me.
“There is no other way to say this, but there is much talk in the city,” Senhora De Melo said.
“There always is.” Fatima smiled. “I have been here long enough to weather a monsoon or two, remember.”
“They say…”
Celestina rose from the bench. “What my mother is trying to say.” She kept crumpling a handkerchief, passing it from one hand to the other. “There are many people, shop owners, and others from rural areas, who are looking for people like her.”
“Like Pó?”
“Surely you have heard, Fatima.”
“What do they want from Pó?”
“She is an…”
I can still see Fatima’s eyebrows far up her forehead, so high they brushed her head wrap. “She is a child of God. People will do almost anything to change their fortunes. They visit their healers and ask them for spells and charms.”
“What does that have to do with Pó?” Fatima asked.
Celestina said, “There are some who believe albinos bring good luck, even wealth.”
I had caught whispers amongst customers, had heard a group of soldiers shout the word from across the street, but had never attached the word to me—albino. I hadn’t known what to call myself. I remember repeating the word in my head, to get used to the sound of it.
“There are many out there, and their numbers are growing, who believe albino medicine is lucky.” Senhora De Melo spat the words like watermelon seeds.
“You think I have not heard all these stories before?” Fatima kept twisting a corner of her sari. “I have heard there are many albinos in the Lake District. They kill them, butcher them. They believe that if you bury the limbs of an albino at the entrance of a gold mine, that mine will produce great wealth. Or if you tie an albino’s hair into your nets you’ll always catch a fish. The hands and skin are for luck in business. I know. I am a businesswoman. But these are silly stories.” The end of her sari was now a ball in her fist.
I tried to pretend that I could not feel their eyes on me.
“I thought you might help,” Celestina said.
“What is it you want?”
“Senhora Fatima,” Celestina began. “Please. I have been married for five years, and for those years my husband waits patiently, but I cannot hold a child to term. I have seen every doctor and I have gone outside of the city. There are men that the natives trust and believe. I was— We were hoping that Pó might be willing to offer us some of her hair.”
I reached up to cover my head. All the women turned to me now.
“You are one of my dearest friends, Fatima. All I ask is a bit of its hair and—”
“It! Her name is Pó,” Fatima said, getting up from the table. “And you are not welcome here.”
The door closed behind them.
Fatima lit a cigarette, sat quietly in her chair looking out her window. “We must get you out of here,” she finally said, covering my hand with hers.
“I do not want to leave. Where will I go?” The idea of being pushed away again made it hard for me to swallow.
“We’ll go to the mountain that God set upon the earth for his animals and his children,” she said, sounding like her priest.
We. I would not be alone.
I press Stop. I remove my earbuds and begin to jot down my notes. I scan the restaurant. It is still too early for people to gather. A few men sit at a table playing cards, smoking. A young woman sits alone, sipping on a drink, one long leg crossed over the other. She catches me looking at her and smiles. I look down to write.
NOTES: Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016. Restaurante Kanimambo
— Seemed preoccupied. Not looking well. Ophelia staying out all night. Pó fears for the girl’s safety.
— Clear signs Pó is growing frailer each day. Her mind wanders or she forgets, not quite sure. Struggles to get up from bed. Speech often slurred or turns to an inaudible whisper.
— Steps/breathing have slowed. Looks tired—exhausted. Actually left her room to check up on children’s schooling downstairs. Admitted she hasn’t done that in quite a while.
— A growing urgency for her to finish her story. Seems she is compelled to do so, even when she feels unwell. I must admit feeling anxious—selfish on my part—for her to tell me everything she has gone through.
— Brought her some lotion. Not sure it will help to soothe pain from lesions around neck and shoulders. Skin CANCER likely. What stage? Spread to lymph nodes? [most likely] Red/purple patches ulcerating. Very self-conscious. Covers up. I look away.
— Clear that educating albino children very important to her. She sees this as key to successful futures—learning to navigate their world with confidence. Education = survival. Perhaps why recording her story is imperative; something to leave behind.
— Continues to Also believes play is important—social integration. Was an outsider herself and doesn’t want these children to be confronted with same barriers.
— Caught! Conflicting ideas, though. Essentially TRAPPED—Wants them to connect to a bigger world but fears for their well-being. Concerned they will be taken and killed. VERY REAL concern in current political climate.
— In Tanzania, some 75 PWAs were reported killed between 2000 and 2016. There are MORE since many cases go unreported, i.e., Fathers and mothers often urged to get rid of their infant, afraid their child with supernatural powers will bring misfortune to the family.
— Amnesty International: Albino body parts bring wealth, power or sexual conquest, and that having sex with a person living with albinism cures HIV and AIDS. Attackers sell albino body parts to witch doctors healers for thousands of dollars.
— Threats to albinos’ lives are compounded by exclusion, stigmatization. Some are denied the basic right to an education and health.
— Time is a concern. May not have long. Pó’s story will go unfinished?
I sense someone hovering over my shoulder. I lower my pencil, thinking my order of spicy prawns has arrived.
“Are you alone?” A quick scan and the table where the young woman had been sitting is empty. I look over my shoulder to see her standing close, her head bent toward me.
“I am,” I say, covering my notes with my forearms—a gut instinct.
“Would you like company?” Before she hears my reply, she slinks into the chair. “Rosalia,” she says. Her synthetic hair is straight and long, pulled back from her face. Her eyelids are an unreal blue, like peacock feathers, the backdrop to fake eyelashes that resemble large spiders.
“Serafim,” I say, raking my fingers through my hair. My tongue feels thick in my mouth. I look around the room in search of another beer from the server. I hear a low hum. The ceiling fans have been turned on. The wobbling lessens as the blades gain speed, the air lifting Rosalia’s hair from behind her ears, blowing strands across her face. Some hair sticks to her lipstick. She brushes it aside.
“I’ve seen you here before,” she says, in a voice belonging to someone who has smoked all her life. “Are you a professor?” She places a cigarette in her mouth and lets it sit there. I reach for my lighter and light it, light one for myself.
“Something like that. I’m a journalist.”
“I like stories.” She smiles, and her teeth are marbled in yellow. She closes her lips quickly. When she crosses her legs, her dress rides high up her thigh. Her flip-flops slap up against her heel, tapping air, her toes clenched. “I’ve seen you going in and out of your hotel. You alone?” She grabs her drink and presses the cold glass to her collarbone, rolls it up her neck. She closes her eyes. A bead of water runs down her neck.
“Yes,” I say.
“You don’t have to be.”
I think how easy and comfortable it would be to take her back to my hotel room, to feel her skin against mine.
I’m about to respond when the waiter lowers my plate to the table—piri piri prawns on a bed of rice. Before the flies can land, and without invitation, Rosalia picks up a prawn with her fingers and tears its head from its body. Looking directly at me, she sucks the juice from the prawn’s head.
“I’m used to being alone,” I say as she pinches the legs of the prawn and takes apart its shell. I nudge the plate closer to her. “Please, help yourself.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Rosalia looks like she has all the answers.
“Perhaps,” I say. Pó has been worried about Ophelia. Beira is not a safe place to stay out all night, especially for someone with albinism. Now it’s my turn to lean in and whisper. “I don’t know this place very well.” Her foot has stopped tapping. “Can you help me?”
“It’s what I do best,” she says.
“Good. Then perhaps you’ve seen a young albino girl here on the streets at night.”
Rosalia drops her prawn onto the plate.
“Ophelia,” I say.
“Odette,” she replies, lifting the napkin to her lips.
“No, I’m asking about a girl who goes by Ophelia. Do you know her?”
“On the streets she calls herself Odette. Keeps things separate, safe. She’s a pretty little thing,” she adds, and drops the crumpled napkin.
“So you know her?”
“What I know is it’s not safe for her out here,” she says. Both her feet are now on the floor. She presses down on the tabletop, about to get up.
I reach into my pocket and slip a couple of thousand meticais—thirty U.S. dollars—into her hand, more than she would have expected if I’d engaged with her in my room. “Watch over her,” I say. She looks at me in a very different way now. “You know where I’m staying.”