We Need New Names: A Novel

by Noviolet Bulawayo

  He coughs some more and I listen to the awful sound tearing the air. His body folds and rocks with each cough but I don’t even feel for him because I’m thinking, I hate you for this, I hate you for going to that South Africa and coming back sick and all bones, I hate you for making me stop playing with my friends. When the coughing finally ceases he is sweating and breathing like somebody chased him all the way from Budapest and up and down Fambeki, and when he says, Water, in that tattered voice, I make like I don’t even hear him because I’m hating him for making me stop my life like this. In my head I’m thinking, Die. Die now so I can go play with my friends, die now because this is not fair. Die die die. Die.

  Father cannot climb Fambeki since he is sick, so Mother of Bones asks Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro to come and pray for him in the shack. We sit in a corner, me and Mother and Mother of Bones, watching. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro sprinkles Father with holy water and then lights four candles: one red, maybe for the Father; one white, maybe for the Son; one yellow, maybe for the Holy Spirit; and one black, I don’t know for what, maybe for the black majority, which is what the black of our flag stands for. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro is crouching and humming to himself as he does all this, and finally, when he is done, he spreads a white cloth on the floor, kneels on it with a Bible at his side, and thunders.

  At first my eyes are closed just like they are supposed to be when somebody is praying but then I get tired of closing them because Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro just keeps thundering and thundering. To make the time go I count to one hundred and when I finish he is still going on and on. On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on on on on on on on on on on on on on on: I warn you in the name of Jesus, demon—cleanse him, Father—you mighty lion and healer of the sick—I lay myself before you Jehovah Jaira, what-what. I just sit there, biting the insides of my mouth till I taste blood.

  Father’s eyes are open and the look inside them is that of waiting, like waiting for a miracle. I look to the side and Mother of Bones has her eyes closed and is praying fervently, a vein popped on her forehead. Mother’s eyes are open. She doesn’t give me a look that says she will kill me for keeping my eyes open during prayer, so I just stay like that, watching.

  Mother’s eyes are tired and her face is tired; ever since Father came she has been busy doing things for him—watching him and cooking for him and feeding him and changing him and worrying over him. I think of praying for her so that her tiredness goes away but then I remind myself I have decided that praying to God is a waste of time. You pray and pray and pray and nothing changes, like for example I prayed for a real house and good clothes and a bicycle and things for a long, long, time, and none of it has happened, not even one little thing, which is how I know that all this praying for Father is just people playing.

  I’ve thought about it properly, this whole praying thing, I mean really thought about it, and what I think is that maybe people are doing it wrong; that instead of asking God nicely, people should be demanding and questioning and threatening to stop worshipping him. Maybe that way, he would think differently and try to make things right, like he is supposed to; even that verse in the Bible says ask for anything and you shall receive and, I mean, whose words are those?

  After the longest time, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro finally says Amen, and opens his eyes. He wipes his dripping face and head with the back of his sleeve as he tells Mother of Bones that God showed him that my grandfather’s spirit, which has been in me all along, has left. When I hear this I smile; even though I never felt like there was something in me, it had still bothered me to hear Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro say there was to begin with.

  He goes on to tell Mother of Bones that it doesn’t mean the spirit is gone because it has now got into Father and is devouring his blood and body, making him all bony and sick and taking his strength away. In order to avenge the spirit and heal Father, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro says, we need to find two fat white virgin goats to be brought up the mountain for sacrifice, and that Father has to be bathed in the goats’ blood. In addition, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro says he will need five hundred U.S. dollars as payment, and if there are no U.S. dollars, euros will do. When he says this, Mother gets up angry-like and boils out of the shack, slamming the door behind her.

  God also told me that the wife is possessed too, by three demons. One causes her to be unhappy all the time, one is the spirit of the dog, and the last one gives her a bad temper, rendering her a dangerous woman. But for now we have to deal with the husband, seeing how he is the most urgent case, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro says, pointing his stick at Father.

  They are huddling outside the shack when I open the door. Mother has gone to the border to sell and Mother of Bones is on Fambeki praying because she is fasting for Father’s health. She cannot afford the two virgin goats and the five hundred U.S. dollars that Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro said to get and there are no doctors or nurses at the hospital because they are always on strike, so that’s what Mother of Bones must do for now, fast and get on Fambeki and pray and pray and pray even though God will just ignore her.

  It’s your father in there. He has the Sickness, we know, Godknows says.

  It’s no use hiding AIDS, Stina says. When he mentions the Sickness by name, I feel a shortness of breath. I look around to see if there are other people within earshot.

  It’s like hiding a thing with horns in a sack. One day the horns will start boring through the sack and come out in the open for everybody to see, Stina says.

  Where did he get it, South Africa? He wasn’t sick when he left, was he? Godknows says.

  Who told you all this? I say, looking from face to face. In my head I’m thinking just how much I hate him again, but now it’s for a different reason. It’s for putting me in this position where I have to explain to my friends and I don’t know how anymore because I’m tired of all the lying.

  Everybody knows, you ugly, Bastard says. We want to come in and see for ourselves.

  There is nothing to see, I say. There is nobody in here. I realize that I am whispering, like I’m just talking to myself.

  We saw your mother leave and we know your grandmother is on that kaka mountain wasting her time, so why don’t you let us come in and see, Bastard says. He is already opening the door and letting himself in like he lives here. They all pile in, and I follow them like it’s their shack and I’m just visiting.

  We kneel around the bed, around Father, who is perched there like a disappearing king. This is the first time I am coming this close to him without Mother making me. I keep expecting for somebody to laugh at Father’s bones but nobody makes a sound; it is all quiet like we are maybe at church and Jesus just entered and coughed twice. I am careful not to look anyone in the face because I don’t want them to see the shame in my eyes, and I also don’t want to see the laughter in theirs.

  We don’t speak. We just peer in the tired light at the long bundle of bones, at the shrunken head, at the wavy hair, most of it fallen off, at the face that is all points and edges from bones jutting out, the pinkish-reddish lips, the ugly sores, the skin sticking to the bone like somebody ironed it on, the hands and feet like claws. I know then that what really makes a person’s face is the meat; once that melts away, you are left with something nobody can even recognize.

  Bastard picks up the stick-like hand lying there beside Father as if somebody left it behind on the way to play. He cradles it in his like it’s an egg and says, How are you, Mr. Darling’s father? I have never heard Bastard sound like this, all careful and gentle like his words are made of feathers. We all lean forward and watch the thin lips move, the mouth struggling to mumble something and giving up because the words are stunning themselves on the carpet of sores around the inner lips, the tongue so swollen it fills the mouth. We watch him stop struggling to speak and I think about how it would feel to not be able to do a simple
thing like open my mouth and speak, the voice drowning inside me. It’s a terrifying feeling.

  Where do you think he is going to go? Sbho says.

  Can’t you see he is stuck here and he is never getting out? Chipo says.

  I mean when he dies, Sbho says.

  I turn to look at her and she shrugs. I know Father is sick but the thought of him dead and gone-gone scares me. It’s not like he’ll be in South Africa, for example, where it is possible to tell yourself and other people that since that’s where he went then maybe one day he will return. Death is not like that, it is final, like that girl hanging in a tree because as we later found out from the letter in her pockets, she had the Sickness and thought it was better to just get it over with and kill herself. Now she is dead and gone, and Mavava, her mother, will never ever see her again.

  To heaven. My father is going to heaven, I say, even if I don’t really think there is a heaven; I just don’t like the thought of him not going anywhere. I hear myself saying my like he is maybe my favorite thing, like he is mine, like I own him. He is looking like a child, just lying there, unable to do anything, and then I’m wishing I were big and strong so I could scoop him up and rock him in my arms.

  Is that why Mother of Bones is always on that mountain praying? Is she praying for God to let him into heaven? Sbho says.

  I don’t know, maybe, I say.

  Heaven is boring. Didn’t you see, in that picture book back when we used to go to school? It’s just plain and white and there is not even any color and it’s too orderly. Like there will be crazy prefects telling you all the time: Do this, don’t do that, where are your shoes, tuck in your shirt, shhh, God doesn’t like it and will punish you, keep your voice low you’ll wake the angels, go and wash, you are dirty, Bastard says.

  Me, when I die I want to go where there’s lots of food and music and a party that never ends and we’re singing that Jobho song, Godknows says.

  When Godknows starts singing Jobho, Sbho joins in and we listen to them sing it for a while and then we’re all scratching our bodies and singing it because Jobho is a song that leaves you with no choice but to scratch your body the way that sick man Job did in the Bible, lying there scratching his itching wounds when God was busy torturing him just to play with him to see if he had faith. Jobho makes you call out to heaven even though you know God is occupied with better things and will not even look your way. Jobho makes you point your forefinger to the sky and sing at the top of your voice. We itch and we scratch and we point and we itch again and we fill the shack with song.

  Then Stina reaches and takes Father’s hand and starts moving it to the song, and Bastard moves the other hand. I reach out and touch him too because I have never really touched him ever since he came and this is what I must do now because how will it look when everybody is touching him and I’m not? We all look at one another and smile-sing because we are touching him, just touching him all over like he is a beautiful plaything we have just rescued from a rubbish bin in Budapest. He feels like dry wood in my hands, but there is a strange light in his sunken eyes, like he has swallowed the sun.

  Blak Power

  The guava season is getting ready to end so now we prowl Budapest like we’re hunting animals. We carefully comb and comb the streets, eyes trained on the trees so hard our necks could strain. We don’t really talk about it but I know all of us are thinking of the end of the season, when Budapest will have nothing for us anymore, of the long, boring months before the next season starts.

  Maybe we should start hitting inside, Bastard says, speaking real slow and thoughtful-like.

  No. We’re not thugs, Godknows says, and I almost clap for him for talking sense for a change.

  Yes, we’re not those kind of people, Sbho says.

  I tell you, we’re really missing out, Bastard says, his face all screwed up with seriousness.

  We are strolling down Queens and underneath our feet, the road is burning from the sun. It’s when we turn the corner of Mandela that we see the man. We can tell from his uniform that he is a guard. We haven’t seen any guards in Budapest before so at first we are not so sure what to do with him. He beckons us with his black baton stick, and because we are too close to turn around and run we just walk towards him.

  Yes, so what prompts your presence in this territory? the guard says. We’re right there with him but he is busy shouting like we are on Mount Everest. He looks us over with his dirty eyes, and we look him back, not answering, just watching him to see what he is all about.

  I can’t figure out if he is frowning or it’s his general ugliness. He is tall and his navy uniform looks like it’s just been slapped on him. On his left arm is a discolored white patch with a picture of a gun and the word Security embossed in red letters, and on his breast is a ZCC church badge. The trousers barely reach the ankles, and his boots are unpolished. He is wearing a black woolen hat and matching gloves, never mind the heat. Everything about him looks like a joke and we know he is a waste of time—if we weren’t this close we’d probably call him names and laugh and throw stones.

  I command you to immediately turn around and retrace your steps. Extricate yourselves from these premises and retreat to whatever hole you crawled out of. Under no circumstances should I ever lay my eyes on you again, you follow? the guard says, pointing us to the road. He speaks with this tone like he owns things, but we know that even the baton stick in his hands is not his, that if he weren’t on this street he’d be nothing.

  Why are you talking like that, did you go to university? My cousin Freddy went too and can speak high-sounding English as well, Godknows says, but the guard doesn’t even look at him.

  Are your ears malfunctioning? the guard says with a raised voice. Then he bends a bit so his face is level with ours. Be on your way right at this juncture, he says, but we just stand there, unmoving.

  We don’t know you, Bastard says, and spits. That does it, the guard gets all animal-like as if he were a dog and somebody yanked his tail.

  Who accorded you the permission to perform filthy functions on this street? Who? the guard says. He is rapidly jabbing a crooked finger at Bastard now, and then the spit, and then back at Bastard.

  What, you are complaining about just spit? Our friend has vomited on these streets before, Godknows says, pride in his voice. And why didn’t they give you a gun, or a guard dog? What if we were armed and dangerous? Godknows adds.

  I demand that you wipe it off right now, the guard says to Bastard, his face all dead serious.

  Do you even have handcuffs? Godknows says.

  Wipe what? Bastard says.

  Your filth; do you think you can just come here and desecrate the place as you see fit? Do you know I can perform a citizen’s arrest on you right now and ferry your despicable personage to jail? You really wish to see the inside of a cell, don’t you, big head? You are begging for it, huh? You want me to take you there? the guard says. He is walking towards Bastard, motioning with his baton stick all menacing-like as if he is going to use it.

  But how will you take him to jail? Where is your car? Do you have a driver’s license? Godknows says.

  You, you seal your trap, cantankerous idiot, don’t play with me. I can arrest you too, the guard says, half turning to Godknows and making like he will poke him with the stick. He thinks Godknows is making fun of him but Godknows is real.

  So where are the handcuffs and squad car, or are you going to call the police for that part? Where is your roger-over, can I see it? Is it true that they can kill you there, in jail? Godknows says.

  Ah, last week, when Sekuru Tendai was coming to see us, the police stopped him at a roadblock near town, Sbho says.

  Did they put handcuffs on him? Is he in jail now? Did they beat him up? Godknows says.

  No, they begged him for a bribe and then they just let him go, Sbho says.

  You, cease all conversation, right now, both of you, you hear me? Refrain from utilizing your vocal organs unless and until you are addressed
, the guard says to Godknows and Sbho. I giggle quietly. Then the guard turns back to Bastard.

  You believe this to be your father’s street, boy? You see the sign says Mandela and you think he is your father, is that it?

  But the spit has dried up, see, Stina says, pointing to where Bastard’s spit was, and we yell and clap and laugh.

  So you fancy I’m a piece of entertainment, huh? You think I wake up in the morning and don this uniform specifically for your pleasure? You think I have no pressing matters to attend to but your nonsense, huh? the guard says, waving his long arms and baton for emphasis.

  Since when did you even start guarding this place? We’ve never seen you before, Bastard says, looking at his fingernails. These days he is growing them, for what, I don’t know.

  Since your uncultured fathers started terrorizing this neighborhood. It’s your fathers who’ve been coming here, preying on the sweat of decent citizens, isn’t it? Isn’t it? And now you are surveying this place on their behalf, aren’t you? Well, tell you what, let them come and I will reduce them to size. Go and get them right now, you hear me? Go and get them, not tomorrow, not in three hours, but right now, I want them, the guard says. He is sweating on the nose and foaming at the mouth, looking at us from one face to the next like he really believes we have time for him. I am starting to get bored and just want us to get on with guava hunting.

  But really, how much are they paying you? Bastard says. He walks to the gate like it’s his and leans against it.

  Stop that, just stop, you dirty pest, hear me? Don’t you ever—remove yourself, get away, right now! the guard hisses.

  We watch him do a brief trot over to the gate, baton stick raised above his head, all ready to strike. Immediately we start shouting and booing. He unleashes the stick on Bastard, who ducks, runs, and stands at a safe distance. The guard starts to pursue Bastard; he slips and staggers briefly like he is going to fall, but he manages to steady himself. He stands there looking at Bastard, who is just having fun because he loves this kind of thing. You can tell from the guard’s face that he is getting frustrated, that if he could land his hands, his stick, on Bastard right now, he would do him bad.