We Need New Names

by NoViolet Bulawayo

The men who brought her are happy, especially the tall one who makes like he is the husband, the church people are happy, Mother of Bones is happy, but I am sad the pretty woman is just lying there under Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro like Jesus after they clobbered him and nailed him on the cross.

I feel like it’s my country now because my aunt Fostalina lives there, in Destroyedmichygen.

They don’t care that we are embarrassed by our dirt and torn clothing, that we would prefer they didn’t do it; they just take the pictures anyway, take and take.

We

are careful not to touch the NGO people, though, because we can see that even though they are giving us things, they do not want to touch us or for us to touch them.

But you have to be an old, old man to become president, Stina says.

You are all wrong. Better a white thief do that to you than your own black brother.

Gradually, the children gave up and ceased asking questions and just appeared empty, almost, like their childhood had fled and left only the bones of its shadow behind.

but then the women, who knew all the ways of weeping and all there was to know about falling apart, would not be deceived; they gently rose from the hearths, beat dust off their skirts, and planted themselves like rocks in front of their men and children and shacks, and only then did all appear almost tolerable.

Just like a white man! He has the testicles to tell a black man to listen in his own country.

By now everybody is looking at me like I’m something and as for me I’m just proud that I’m finally talking to a white person, which I haven’t ever done in my life. Not like this.

But we can see, in the eyes of the adults, the rage. It is quiet but it is there. Still, what is rage when it is kept in like a heart, like blood, when you do not do anything with it, when you do not use it to hit, or even yell? Such rage is nothing, it does not count. It is just a big, terrible dog with no teeth.

And then the problem with those who speak only English is this: they don’t know how to listen; they are busy looking at your falling instead of paying attention to what you are saying.

And when we were full we carried our dense bodies with the dignity of elephants—if only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours.

And because we were breaking the law, we dropped our heads in shame; we had never broken any laws before. We dropped our heads because we were no longer people; we were now illegals.

We stayed, like prisoners, only we chose to be prisoners and we loved our prison; it was not a bad prison. And when things only got worse in our country, we pulled our shackles even tighter and said, We are not leaving America, no, we are not leaving.

If it’s your country, you have to love it to live in it and not leave it. You have to fight for it no matter what, to make it right. Tell me, do you abandon your house because it’s burning or do you find water to put out the fire? And if you leave it burning, do you expect the flames to turn into water and put themselves out?