We Need New Names: A Novel

by Noviolet Bulawayo

  I’m going to marry a man from Budapest. He’ll take me away from Paradise, away from the shacks and Heavenway and Fambeki and everything else, Sbho says.

  Ha-ha. You think a man will marry you with your missing teeth? I wouldn’t even marry you myself, Godknows says, shouting over his skinny shoulder. He and Chipo and Stina walk ahead of us. I look at Godknows’s shorts, torn at the back, at his buttocks peeping like strange eyes through the dirty white fabric.

  I’m not talking to you, chapped buttocks! Sbho shouts at Godknows. Besides, my teeth will grow back. Mother says I’ll even be more beautiful too!

  Godknows flings his hand and makes a whatever sign because he has nothing to say to that. Even the stones know that Sbho is pretty, prettier than all of us here, prettier than all the children in Paradise. Sometimes we refuse to play with her if she won’t stop talking like we don’t already know it.

  Well, I don’t care, I’m blazing out of this kaka country myself. Then I’ll make lots of money and come back and get a house in this very Budapest. Or even better, many houses: one in Budapest, one in Los Angeles, one in Paris. Wherever I feel like, Bastard says.

  When we were going to school my teacher Mr. Gono said you need an education to make money, Stina says, stopping to face Bastard. And how will you do that now that we are not going to school anymore? he adds. Stina doesn’t say much, so when he opens his mouth you know it’s important talk.

  I don’t need any kaka school to make money, you goat-teeth, Bastard says.

  He brings his face close to Stina’s like he will bite his nose off. Stina can fight Bastard if he wants, but he only looks at him like he is bored and just eats the rest of his guava. Then he starts to walk, fast, away from us.

  I’m going to America to live with my aunt Fostalina, it won’t be long, you’ll see, I say, raising my voice so they can all hear. I start on a brand-new guava; it’s so sweet I finish it in just three bites. I don’t even bother chewing the seeds.

  America is too far, you midget, Bastard says. I don’t want to go anywhere where I have to go by air. What if you get there and find it’s a kaka place and get stuck and can’t come back? Me, I’m going to Jo’burg, that way when things get bad, I can just get on the road and roll without talking to anybody; you have to be able to return from wherever you go.

  I look at Bastard and think what to say to him. A guava seed is stuck between my gum and my last side tooth and I try to reach for it with my tongue. I finally use my finger; it tastes like earwax.

  Yes, America is far, what if something happens to your plane when you are in it?

  What about the Terrorists? Godknows says, agreeing with Bastard.

  I really think flat-face, peeping-buttocks Godknows is only saying it to please ugly-face Bastard. I begin on a new guava and give Godknows a talking eye.

  I don’t care, I’m going, I say, and walk fast to catch up with Chipo and Stina because I know where the talk will end if Godknows and Bastard gang up on me.

  Well, go, go to that America and work in nursing homes. That’s what your aunt Fostalina is doing as we speak. Right now she is busy cleaning kaka off some wrinkled old man who can’t do anything for himself, you think we’ve never heard the stories? Bastard screams to my back but I just keep walking.

  I’m thinking how if I had proper strength I would turn right around and beat Bastard up for saying that about my aunt Fostalina and my America. I would slap him, butt him on his big forehead, and then slam my fist into his mouth and make him spit his teeth. I would pound his stomach until he vomited all the guavas he had eaten. I would pin him to the ground, jab my knee into his spine, fold his hands behind him, and then pull his head back till he begged for his two-cents life. That is just what I would do, but I walk away instead. I know he is just saying this because he is jealous. Because he has nobody in America. Because Aunt Fostalina is not his aunt. Because he is Bastard and I am Darling.

  By the time we get back to Paradise the guavas are finished and our stomachs are so full we are almost crawling. We stop to defecate in the bush because we have eaten too much. Plus it is best to do so before it gets too dark, otherwise no one will accompany you; it’s scary to go out by yourself at night because you have to pass Heavenway, which is the cemetery, to get to the bush and you might meet a ghost. As we speak, those who know about things say Moses’s father, who died last month, can be seen roaming Paradise some nights, wearing his yellow Barcelona football jersey.

  We all find places, and me, I squat behind a rock. This is the worst part about guavas; because of all those seeds, you get constipated once you eat too much. Nobody says it, but I know we are constipated again, all of us, because nobody is trying to talk, or get up and leave. We just eat a lot of guavas because it’s the only way to kill our hunger, and when it comes to defecating, we get in so much pain it becomes an almost impossible task, like you are trying to give birth to a country.

  We are all squatting like that, in our different places, and I’m beating my thighs with fists to make a cramp go away when somebody screams. It’s not a scream that comes from when you push too hard and a guava seed cuts your anus; it’s one that says Come and see, so I stop pushing, pull up my underwear, and abandon my rock. And there, squatting and screaming, is Chipo. She is also pointing ahead in the bush, and we see it, a tall thing dangling in a tree like a strange fruit. Then we see it’s not a thing but a person. Then we see it’s not just a person but a woman.

  What’s that? somebody whispers. Nobody answers because now we can all see what it is. The thin woman dangles from a green rope that’s attached to a branch high up in the tree. The red sun squeezes through the leaves and gives everything a strange color; it’s almost beautiful, it makes the woman’s light skin glow. But still everything is just scary and I want to run but I don’t want to run alone.

  The woman’s thin arms hang limp at the sides, and her hands and feet point to the ground. Everything straight, like somebody drew her there, a line hanging in the air. The eyes are the scariest part, they are almost too white, and they look like they want to pop out. The mouth is open wide in an O, as if the woman was maybe interrupted in the middle of saying something. She is wearing a yellow dress, and the grass licks the tip of her red shoes. We just stand there staring.

  Let’s run, Stina says, and I get ready to run.

  Can’t you see she’s hanged herself and now she’s dead? Bastard picks up a stone and throws; it hits the woman on the thigh. I think something will happen but then nothing happens; the woman does not move, just her dress. It swings ever so lightly in the breeze like maybe a baby angel is busy playing with it.

  See, I told you she’s dead, Bastard says, in that voice he uses when he is reminding us who is the boss.

  God will punish you for that, Godknows says. Bastard throws another stone and hits the woman on the leg. The woman still does not move; she just dangles there, like a ragged doll. I’m terrified; it’s like she’s looking at me from the corner of her white, popped eye. Looking and waiting for me to do something, I don’t know what.

  God does not live here, fool, Bastard says. He throws another stone; it only grazes the woman’s yellow dress and I am glad he missed.

  I’ll go and tell my mother, Sbho says, her voice sounding like she wants to cry. Stina starts to leave, and Chipo and Sbho and Godknows and myself follow him. Bastard stays behind for a little while, but when I look over my shoulder, I see him right there behind us. I know he can’t stay in the bush by himself with a dead woman, even though he wants to make like he is fearless. We walk, but then Bastard jumps to the front, making us stop.

  Wait, so who wants real bread? he says, tightening the Cornell T-shirt on his head and smiling. I look at the wound on Bastard’s chest, just below his left breast. It’s almost pink, like the inside of a guava.

  Where is it? I say.

  Look, did you notice that woman’s shoes were almost new? If we can get them then we can sell them and buy a loaf, or maybe even one and a hal
f.

  We all turn around and follow Bastard back into the bush, the dizzying smell of Lobels bread all around us now, and then we are rushing, then we are running, then we are running and laughing and laughing and laughing.

  Darling on the Mountain

  Jesus Christ died on this day, which is why I have to be out here washing with cold water like this. I don’t like cold water and I don’t even like washing my whole body unless I have somewhere meaningful to go. After I finish and dress, me and Mother of Bones will head off to her church. She says it’s the least we can do because we are all dirty sinners and we are the ones for whom Jesus Christ gave his life, but what I know is that I myself wasn’t there when it all happened, so how can I be a sinner?

  I don’t like going to church because I don’t really see why I have to sit in the hot sun on that mountain and listen to boring songs and meaningless prayers and strange verses when I could be doing important things with my friends. Plus, last time I went, that crazy Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro shook me and shook me until I vomited pink things. I thought I was going to die a real death. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro was trying to get the spirit inside me out; they say I’m possessed because they say my grandfather isn’t properly buried because the white people killed him during the war for feeding and hiding the terrorists who were trying to get our country back because the white people had stolen it.

  If you’re stealing something it’s better if it’s small and hideable or something you can eat quickly and be done with, like guavas. That way, people can’t see you with the thing to be reminded that you are a shameless thief and that you stole it from them, so I don’t know what the white people were trying to do in the first place, stealing not just a tiny piece but a whole country. Who can ever forget you stole something like that? Nobody knows where my grandfather’s body is, so now the church people say his spirit is inside me and won’t leave until his body’s buried right. The thing is I’ve never really seen or felt the spirit myself to say if it’s true or people are just lying, which is what adults will do sometimes because they are adults.

  Hey, cabbage ears, what are you bathing for? I hear somebody shout.

  Who is it? I shout back, even though I don’t like being called cabbage ears. I have soap all over my face so I can’t really open my eyes.

  We’re going to play Andy-over, what are you bathing for?

  I’m going to church with Mother of Bones, I say, tasting Sunlight soap in my mouth. I start to splash my face with water.

  Don’t you want to play with us? says a different voice, maybe Sbho’s.

  I have to go to church. Don’t you know Jesus died today? I say.

  My father says your church is just kaka, and that your Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro is an idio— I hear Bastard’s voice start.

  You you futsekani leave her alone you bloody mgodoyis get away boSatan beRoma! Mother of Bones spits from inside the shack. I hear giggling, then the stomp-stomp of running feet. I finish splashing my face, open my eyes, and they have disappeared; all I see is a brown dog lying behind MaDumane’s shack, and Annamaria bathing her albino son, Whiteboy, in a dish. When I wave to him he starts to cry, and Annamaria looks at me with a peppered eye and says, Leave my son alone, ugly, can’t you see you’re scaring him?

  Inside the shack, Mother of Bones has already laid out my good yellow dress, which I wouldn’t dare wear if my mother were here; she went to the border to sell things so I have to stay with Mother of Bones until she returns. Sometimes Mother comes back after only a few days, sometimes after a week; sometimes she comes back when I don’t even know when she is coming. Right now Mother of Bones is busy counting her money like she does every morning so I start to do my things quietly, the way I’m expected to. I reach under the bed for the Vaseline.

  Yes be careful with that Vaseline I didn’t say you should drink it khona and I told you not to play with those dirty imbeciles they are a bad influence, Mother of Bones says, and I just pretend she hasn’t spoken. After I finish Vaselining, I get dressed and sit on the edge of the bed and wait; I don’t know why Mother of Bones has to go through her money every day like somebody told her it lays eggs overnight. To make the time go I start counting the faded suns on the bedspread; there’s exactly twelve of them, like the disciples—Simon, Peter, Andrew, I don’t know the rest, maybe if they had better names I’d remember them all.

  After I finish with the suns I look at my father at the other end of the shack: he is dressed in a strange black dress, like a woman, and a silly square hat; there are ropes and things going around his neck and down his dress. He is carrying a paper in one hand, and a fat man in a suit is shaking the other. Mother of Bones says the picture was taken when Father was finishing university, just before I was born. She says that she was in the picture as well but we can’t see her because that fat man got in front of her just when the camera was snapping, like it was maybe his own son who was finishing university. Now Father is in South Africa, working, but he never writes, never sends us money, never nothing. It makes me angry thinking about him so most of the time I just pretend he doesn’t exist; it’s better this way.

  Then there is the long, yellow curtain with beautiful prints of proud peacocks, the feathers spread out like rays. It covers one side of the tin wall; I don’t really see why Mother of Bones has the curtain in the first place since there are no real glass windows. After the curtain comes the calendar; it’s old but Mother of Bones keeps it since it has Jesus Christ on it. He has women’s hair and is smiling shyly, his head tilted a bit to the side; you can tell he really wanted to look nice in the picture. He used to have blue eyes but I painted them brown like mine and everybody’s, to make him normal. Mother of Bones walloped me so much for it though, I couldn’t sit for a whole two days.

  Next to Jesus is my cousin Makhosi carrying me when we were little. Two years ago Makhosi went away to Madante mine to dig for diamonds, when they were first discovered and everybody was flocking there. When Makhosi came back, his hands were like decaying logs. He told us about Madante between bad bouts of raw, painful coughs, how when he was under the earth he forgot everything. He said all he knew inside that mine was the terrible pounding of the hammer around him, sometimes even inside him, like he had swallowed it. After a while, he too went to South Africa, like Father.

  And hidden under the bed, inside the old, tattered Bible that Mother of Bones doesn’t take to church, is a picture of my grandfather. He was killed before I was born, but I knew who he was the moment I laid my eyes on him for the first time; it felt as if I were looking at myself and Makhosi and Father and my uncle Muzi and my other relatives, like my grandfather’s face was a folded fist and all our faces were collected like coins inside it.

  In the hidden picture, Grandfather is speaking, his mouth pursed. There are frown lines on his forehead, and from the way his red eyes are looking deeply at the camera, you would think that he wants to eat it. He has a bone going through his nose and is wearing earrings. Behind him are fields of waist-high maize crops, just endless and endless green. Nobody likes to talk about him, it’s as if he is something that never even happened, but there are times I have caught Mother of Bones muttering, and even though she doesn’t say, I always have a feeling she is muttering to him. She doesn’t know that I know about Grandfather’s picture.

  Why anyone would want me to throw away my suitcase of money is all I want to know and I mean money not bricks no but money, Mother of Bones says. She stays crouched on the floor like a praying mantis, her suitcase at her feet. Her brass bangles clink and clink as her hands go over the bricks of money.

  You know what I don’t understand? Mother of Bones asks. She raises her head and looks at me, but I don’t say anything back because I know she is not even talking to me.

  What I don’t understand is how this very money that I have in lumps cannot buy even a grain of salt I mean that there is what I don’t understand, she says, anger starting to churn in her voice.
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br />   Money is money no matter what this is still money, she says. Now Mother of Bones is patting the money like it is a baby. Like she is trying to put the baby to sleep.

  It’s old money, Mother of Bones, it’s useless now, don’t you even get it? You just have to throw it away or use it to make fire like everybody else. Now they say we’ll start using American money, I say, but to myself so Mother of Bones doesn’t hear.

  And the American money they are talking about just where do they think I’ll get it do they think I can just dig it up huh do they think I will defecate it? Mother of Bones says. When she speaks, her words always come tumbling out, as if she is afraid that if she pauses, something will whisk them away. At first I want to jump up because I think she heard me even though I said it quietly, but she’s not looking at me so I stay put. You can see the pain on her face now, like something inside her is breaking and bleeding.

  Mother of Bones’s face is the color of the shacks, a dirty brown, like it was made to match. There are deep lines on it; when I was little I thought somebody had taken a broken mirror and carved and carved and carved. A white scarf is tied around her head, and bright beads coil like snakes around her neck: purple beads, orange beads, pink beads, blue beads, their colors screaming against the quiet brown of the skin.

  I make sure I walk behind Mother of Bones when we go to church; if I walk in front of her she’ll just be telling me to walk like a woman, which I am not. On her small feet, Mother of Bones wears mismatched shoes, a flat green shoe and a red tennis shoe with a white lace, but that doesn’t mean she’s crazy.

  We pass tiny shack after tiny shack crammed together like hot loaves of bread. I’m not wearing shoes because they are too small now, and the other made-in-China ones that Mother brought me from the border just fell apart, so I walk carefully and make sure to lift my feet to avoid things on the dusty red path: a broken bottle here, a pile of junk over there, a brownish puddle of something here, a disemboweled watermelon there. It’s early in the morning but the sun is already frying the shacks; I feel it over my body, roasting me, like.