We Need New Names

by NoViolet Bulawayo

She is not mute-mute; it’s just that when her stomach started showing, she stopped talking.

It’s a boy. The first baby is supposed to be a boy.

Then if a man put it in there, why doesn’t he take it out?

Budapest we stop. This place is not like Paradise, it’s like being in a different country altogether. A nice country where people who are not like us live. But then you don’t see anything to show there are real people living here; even the air itself is empty: no delicious food cooking, no odors, no sounds. Just nothing.

I keep expecting the clean streets to spit and tell us to go back where we came from.

We all look at the woman’s feet peeking underneath her long skirt. They are clean and pretty feet, like a baby’s. She is wiggling her toes, purple from nail polish. I don’t remember my own feet ever looking like that; maybe when I was born.

We have never ever seen anyone throw food away, even if it’s a thing. Chipo looks like she wants to run after it and pick it up.

How old are you? the woman asks Chipo, looking at her stomach like she has never seen anybody pregnant. She is eleven, Godknows replies for Chipo. We are ten, me and her, like twinses, Godknows says, meaning him and me. And Bastard is eleven and Sbho is nine, and Stina we don’t know because he has no birth certificate.

Thank you, I just came off the Jesus diet, she says, sounding very pleased. I look at her like What is there to thank? I’m also thinking, What is a Jesus diet, and do you mean the real Jesus, like God’s child?

if I lived in Budapest I would wash my whole body every day and comb my hair nicely to show I was a real person living in a real place. With her hair all wild like that, and standing on the other side of the gate with its lock and bars, the woman looks like a caged animal.

We don’t answer because we’re not used to adults asking us anything;

The woman points at me, nods, and tells me to say cheeeeeese and I say it mostly because she is smiling like she knows me really well, like she even knows my mother.

Then Bastard stops at the corner of Victoria and starts shouting insults at the woman, and I remember the thing, and that she threw it away without even asking us if we wanted it, and I begin shouting also, and everyone else joins in. We shout and we shout and we shout; we want to eat the thing she was eating, we want to hear our voices soar, we want our hunger to go away.

I’m not really worried about that because when that time comes, I’ll not even be here; I’ll be living in America with Aunt Fostalina, eating real food and doing better things than stealing.

One day I will live here, in a house just like that, Sbho says,

Sbho’s voice sounds like she is not playing, like she knows what she is talking about.

Bastard is bigger and stronger, plus he is a boy. He has beaten Sbho before, and myself, and Chipo and Godknows as well; he has beaten us all except Stina.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God does not live here, fool, Bastard says.

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 half.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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:

When we pass the people standing in line outside Vodloza’s shack, Mother of Bones only waves; here she cannot shout because it’s a healer’s place. A few of the people wave back unsurely, like they don’t even want to, looking worn out from sickness or troubles. They are waiting for Vodloza to divine with their ancestors because that’s his job.

We’re demonstrating tomorrow, on Main Street, come and walk for change! Be the future! Messenger shouts after us. We can hear them whistling and chanting about change, and in no time we hear the children’s voices chanting as well. I turn to look and I see everybody has abandoned Andy-over and is now running after Bornfree and Messenger. Fists above their heads. Running and jumping and chanting, the word change in the air like it’s something you can grab and put in your mouth and sink your teeth into.

I don’t go to school anymore because all the teachers left to teach over in South Africa and Botswana and Namibia and them, where there’s better money, but I haven’t forgotten the things I learned.

All of them are on their feet now, singing and shuffling and swaying, singing and shuffling and swaying, like maybe they have caught the spirit, but if they have, then it skipped me. The spirit always skips me.

Paradise is all tin and stretches out in the sun like a wet sheepskin nailed on the ground to dry; the shacks are the muddy color of dirty puddles after the rains. The shacks themselves are terrible but from up here, they seem much better, almost beautiful even, it’s like I’m looking at a painting.

it becomes dizzying just listening until at last Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro says, I command the devil to shut up in the name of Jesus. When the Mikoro lady is silenced I bring my head to my armpit and giggle because she was making like God told her she is Celine Dion.

I think of what I would say if I were to stand up right now, among the confessors, but then I realize I have no sins.

We are listening to Simangele confessing about how last week she succumbed to the devil and went to seek Vodloza’s help because she doesn’t know what to do anymore about her jealous cousin. She says the cousin is also a witch who keeps sending her tokoloshes because she wants her dead so that she can then take over Simangele’s husband, Lovemore.

The devil is a woman in a purple dress that’s riding up her thighs and revealing smooth flawless skin like maybe she is an angel. A group of men are carrying her, struggling to get her to the top. I have never seen the woman before, or any of the men, but I think she is just so pretty even Sbho doesn’t compare. She has long shiny hair that isn’t really hers but it still looks good, nice skin, white teeth, and it seems like she eats well. Her breasts are the only thing that’s wrong with her body—nobody needs breasts that are each the size of ugly baby’s head. You can see the woman’s white knickers with the red kisses; they are really pretty knickers and they don’t even have a single hole in them. The Evangelists and Prophet are already screaming prayers even before they’ve heard what is wrong. They pounce on the woman and pin her down. She is kicking and twitching like a fish in the sand; she obviously doesn’t want them to hold her down like that and she’s screaming for them to stop. I’m worried about her dress and knickers, about her skin getting scratched, about all that dirt they are getting on her. The men who brought the woman are standing to the side, watching.

Then Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro raises both his hands for everyone to be quiet. He points his stick at the pretty woman and commands the demon inside her to get the hell out in the name of Jesus, his exact words, and in his most loudest voice.

Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro prays for the woman like that, pinning her down and calling to Jesus and screaming Bible verses. He places his hands on her stomach, on her thighs, then he puts his hands on her thing and starts rubbing and praying hard for it, like there’s something wrong with it. His face is alight, glowing. The pretty woman just looks like a rag now, the prettiness gone, her strength gone.

He did that, that’s what he did, Chipo says, shaking my arm like she wants to break it off. This is the first time in a long time that Chipo is talking, like maybe she has received the Holy Spirit or something.

He did that, my grandfather, I was coming from playing Find bin Laden and my grandmother was not there and my grandfather was there and he got on me and pinned me down like that and he clamped a hand over my mouth and was heavy like a mountain, Chipo says, words coming out all at once like she is Mother of Bones. I watch her and she has this look I have never seen before, this look of pain. I want to laugh that her voice is back, but her face confuses me and I can also see she wants me to say something, something maybe important, so I say, Do you want to go and steal guavas?

Around the construction site the men speak in shouts. It’s like listening to nonsense, to people praying in tongues; it’s Chinese, it’s our languages, it’s English mixed with things, it’s the machine noise. Because the men don’t really understand one another, hands and tools often rise in the air to help the language. When we approach the black men shoveling earth into wheelbarrows, some of them pause to watch us. They look like they’ve been playing in dirt all their lives—it’s all over their bodies, their clothes, their hair. They don’t look the way adults always try to look, making like they are in charge, so we pity them a little bit.

We are booing and yelling when we walk out of Shanghai. If it weren’t for the noisy machines, the Chinese would hear us telling them to leave our country and go and build wherever they come from, that we don’t need their kaka mall, that they are not even our friends. We are still yelling when we pass the black men but then the one with the muscles steps out to meet us like the Chinese made him a prefect and blocks our way with his giant body. He doesn’t say a single word but we can tell from his face that this one can pinch a rock and make it wince so we shut up there and then and leave Shanghai in silence.

Okay, it’s like this. China is a red devil looking for people to eat so it can grow fat and strong. Now we have to decide if it actually breaks into people’s homes or just ambushes them in the forest, Godknows says. That doesn’t even make sense. Why does it need to grow fat and strong if it’s a devil? Isn’t it all that already? I say.

everybody wants to be certain countries, like everybody wants to be the U.S.A. and Britain and Canada and Australia and Switzerland and France and Italy and Sweden and Germany and Russia and Greece and them. These are the country-countries. If you lose the fight, then you just have to settle for countries like Dubai and South Africa and Botswana and Tanzania and them. They are not country-countries, but at least life is better than here. Nobody wants to be rags of countries like Congo, like Somalia, like Iraq, like Sudan, like Haiti, like Sri Lanka, and not even this one we live in—who wants to be a terrible place of hunger and things falling apart?