After everybody comes the two men with the BBC caps. One is looking at everything through a thing, and the other is busy taking pictures. Bornfree’s mother, MaDube, is wearing a dress the color of blood even though when people die, you are supposed to wear black, not red, not any other color. Black is for the dead, red is for danger. She is writhing and roaring like an injured lion. She is in pain; you can see and hear for yourself that this is proper pain. Pain-pain. Other women are holding on to MaDube like they heard the lion will leap skyward and rip the sun into bloody chunks.
The mourners stop and form a circle. The coffin has been set just by the grave. It’s hard to see with all the bodies so I climb to the topmost branches. When I step on a branch and it crackles, Stina looks at me and frowns, a finger on his lips. I frown back to tell him to leave me alone, nobody will see us with all these leaves, or hear us with all the noise.
A tall man with big hair stands at the head of the grave and begins to speak. The mourners hush, but still you can hear that there is something underneath the silence. Like anger. The man shouts, and his voice rises like smoke, past us, towards God. The man speaks about country and runoff and heroes and democracy and murder and freedom and human rights and what-what. The sound of it maddens the mourners; it’s as if they’ve just been insulted. The BBC man clicks and clicks away at his camera like he is possessed.
Now the mourners are restless and cannot hold themselves. They murmur and nod their heads. They shout, they stomp the ground. They toyi-toyi. They dance, feet beating hard on the earth like they want to tear it up. Then Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro raises his Bible and starts saying holy things. The mourners quiet. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro reads a verse and says a prayer and he calls Bornfree Moses who was trying to lead his people to Canaan. He says more holy things and keeps going and going until I begin to wonder if he doesn’t get tired of talking to a god who doesn’t even do anything to show that he is a god.
In the days immediately following the voting, Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro and the Holy Chariot people kept vigil on Fambeki, praying for change and encouraging everyone to come up the mountain and pray for the country. They were awesome to see, and when they were in full form, their noise lit Fambeki like a burning bush, songs and chants and sermons and prayers rising to the heavens before tumbling down the mountain like rocks and mauling whoever happened to pass by. And when afterwards no change came, the voices of the worshippers folded like a butterfly’s wings, and the worshippers trickled down Fambeki like broken bones and dragged themselves away, but now they are back like God didn’t even ignore them that time.
Now the mourners are restless, and they begin to shuffle and mumble, so Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro finishes his talk, maybe because he is afraid of the people’s anger. Then the burial begins. By the time the men carefully lower Bornfree’s coffin into the grave, the lion that is MaDube has become a raging bull. Blinded by the maddening red of its dress, the bull bellows, They murdered my son! They murdered my only son! Bornfree, my son! Who will bury me now that you are gone! The bull bellows and bellows, struggling against its captors and trying to charge after the coffin. I look at Bastard and see he has tears in his eyes, which surprises me. When he sees I’m looking at him he frowns and turns his face away.
The mourners throw their handfuls of soil, and shovels hurriedly scoop earth into the grave. This part is done quickly, maybe so the raging bull does not escape and get in there and turn into a worm burrowing deep and refusing to come out; I have seen some people want to jump inside a grave or do plain strange things. Once the earth is formed into a neat mound, and after they put a sign with Bornfree’s name to mark the grave, MaDube sinks to the ground on her knees as if in prayer. Now that she has calmed down, they let go of her. She sits on her haunches and begins to pat the grave with her bare hands, like she is a little girl making mud cakes. Then the mourners start singing a funeral song:
Tshiya lumhlaba, lentozawo,
thabath’ isphambano ulandele,
ngcono ngiz’ hambele mina ngalindlela,
tshiya lumhlaba, lentozawo—
Right at the point the song says lentozawo, the bull leaps into the air and bolts right across the graveyard. MaDube runs, all the while screaming for her son. Sbho starts to laugh and Bastard says, Shut your kaka mouth, can’t you see this is a funeral? People start shouting for MaDube to stop and come back. They yell her name, but she just keeps running, heels almost licking the back of her head. MaDube runs.
After all the people leave, some going after MaDube and some just leaving because there is nothing else to do, we get down from our tree. We can see the prints of MaDube’s hands on Bornfree’s grave, from where she was patting the earth—a dozen furrowed palms neatly lined together to make a nice pattern. The sign on Bornfree’s grave says BORNFREE LIZWE TAPERA, 1983–2008, RIP OUR HERO. DIED FOR CHANGE.
What happens when somebody dies? Godknows says.
We don’t know, we’ve never died. Who are you asking? Sbho says.
Yes. Go and ask your mother, Bastard says.
When people die because they are killed they become ghosts and roam the earth because they are not resting in peace, Stina says. We turn to look at him; he is standing there and not taking his eyes off the grave, like it’s his.
Well, maybe if Bornfree is a ghost then he will find all those people who killed him and burn them. I hear ghosts can drop red-hot coal and burn things, Godknows says.
My grandfather was killed before we were born. Maybe he is a ghost— I start, but big-head Bastard interrupts me and says, I am Bornfree. Kill me!
At first we just stand there, looking at the grave like we want it to give us the how to instructions for a game about the dead since we’ve never played one before. Then Godknows starts making hooting and groaning sounds and we know he is becoming the lorry that brought the armed men who came for Bornfree. He gets louder and louder, and we move. We quickly pick up our knobkerries and machetes and knives and axes and get in the lorry. Stina takes off his What Would Jesus Do? T-shirt and waves it because it’s now the flag of the country, and we point to it with our weapons and sing the president’s name.
Godknows is a terrific car; he groans and hoots and churns dust until he parks for us to get out, then he changes and becomes one of us. He takes off his Arsenal T-shirt and waves the flag of the country in the air. By now we are laughing and chanting and singing war songs and waving our weapons. We are proper drunk with verve; we are animals wanting blood.
But first, we dance. We lift our weapons above our heads and sing and chant and whistle. We jump high, stomp the ground, and raise dust. We swing our bodies like they are things, maul the air with our weapons. Our faces are contorted now; we look at each other and we have become fierce and really ugly men. Stina’s mouth is open so wide I can see the pink of his throat. He waves his ax and makes chomping motions with his dog teeth and I laugh.
After the dancing we pounce on Bastard, who is now Bornfree. We scream into his face while we clobber him.
Who are you working for?
Sellout!
Who is paying you? America and Britain?
Why don’t you scream for America and Britain to help you now?
Friend of the colonists!
Selling the country to whites!
You think you can just vote for whoever you want?
Vote right now, we want to see, sellout!
You want Change, today we’ll show you Change!
Here’s your democracy, your human rights, eat it, eat eat eat!
Then Godknows swings a hammer, making a straight line in the air. It hits Bornfree at the back of the head and I hear the sound of something breaking. Sbho swings an ax and hooks him at the side, above the ear. Next, a machete catches Bornfree in the face, splits him from the eye to the chin. Then we are just all on him. Thrashing beating pounding clobbering. Axes to the head, kicks to the ribs, legs, knobkerries whacking all over. With all our
weapons clamoring for one person like that, it looks like we are hitting a grain of sand; there are just so many weapons they crash into one another. But we only laugh and keep hitting. Hitting hitting hitting. In all this, Bornfree doesn’t even make a sound.
There is blood everywhere, so much blood, just blood. Then we stop the beating and somebody says, Get up and go. Get up. But Bornfree cannot stand. He crawls on the ground, slowly, slooooooowly, like a fat, poisoned cockroach.
How do you like the taste of change now?
Come on, get up. You need to get up and vote!
How will you see change when you’re just lying there not doing anything?
We jeer and laugh and go back to clobbering.
Chipo, who couldn’t climb up the tree with us, has become Bornfree’s mother, MaDube. She is off to the side, rolling on the earth. Sbho runs to hold her but MaDube thrashes about like a fish out of water, like a possessed snake, screaming and screaming. Screaming screaming screaming.
Let me go! Let me go and rescue my son! Why isn’t anybody rescuing my son! Why are you all standing there watching! You assholes, why are you just standing there and letting this happen! MaDube screams at the graves, which are also the people of Paradise who are standing there doing nothing.
Please, MaDube, please don’t do this, do you want them to kill you? Sbho has become a kind woman with a soothing-like voice.
Let me go! Let me go! Better they kill me than kill my son. Better they—
And then, right there, a fountain of blood shoots in the air like an arrow and sprays all over. MaDube’s hands fly to her chest and she faints.
But the pounding doesn’t stop. We chant and sing louder and loudest. We stomp the ground and raise more dust. Bornfree is half naked now and looking like a ragged, bloodied thing and not a person. He still doesn’t make a sound, like he is trying to be Jesus, but I don’t think Jesus himself would do it like this because there is even that verse in the Bible that says “Jesus wept.”
The people of Paradise too don’t make any sounds. There is this big black silence, like they are watching something holy. 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 finally, finally, we just stop. We are tired. Our voices are hoarse. Our faces are drained. Our weapons dangle at our sides, all bloodied. Our clothes are bloodied. The flag of our country is bloodied.
They killed him, somebody whispers. Jesus, he has died death.
We pack ourselves in the lorry, and Godknows drives off, hooting and groaning.
What kind of game is that? we hear somebody say behind us. We turn around to see the two BBC men have returned. They are watching us with their things, standing there among the graves. The camera clicks a few times, taking our pictures. Then the tall one with hair all over and a jungle on his face asks again, What kind of game were you just playing? and Bastard puts his shirt on and says, Can’t you see this is for real?
How They Left
Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land, just look at them leaving in droves. Those with nothing are crossing borders. Those with strength are crossing borders. Those with ambitions are crossing borders. Those with hopes are crossing borders. Those with loss are crossing borders. Those in pain are crossing borders. Moving, running, emigrating, going, deserting, walking, quitting, flying, fleeing—to all over, to countries near and far, to countries unheard of, to countries whose names they cannot pronounce. They are leaving in droves.
When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter like birds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands.
Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same.
Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing they will have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortably lest they be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampened whispers because they must not let their voices drown those of the owners of the land, knowing they will have to walk on their toes because they must not leave footprints on the new earth lest they be mistaken for those who want to claim the land as theirs. Look at them leaving in droves, arm in arm with loss and lost, look at them leaving in droves.
Destroyedmichygen
If you come here where I am standing and look outside the window, you will not see any men seated under a blooming jacaranda playing draughts. Bastard and Stina and Godknows and Chipo and Sbho will not be calling me off to Budapest. You will not even hear a vendor singing her wares, and you will not see anyone playing country-game or chasing after flying ants. Some things happen only in my country, and this here is not my country; I don’t know whose it is. That fat boy, TK, who is also supposed to be my cousin even though I have never seen him before, says, This is America, yo, you won’t see none of that African shit up in this motherfucker.
What you will see if you come here where I am standing is the snow. Snow on the leafless trees, snow on the cars, snow on the roads, snow on the yards, snow on the roofs—snow, just snow covering everything like sand. It is as white as clean teeth and is also very, very cold. It is a greedy monster too, the snow, because just look how it has swallowed everything; where is the ground now? Where are the flowers? The grass? The stones? The leaves? The ants? The litter? Where are they? As for the coldness, I have never seen it like this. I mean, coldness that makes like it wants to kill you, like it’s telling you, with its snow, that you should go back to where you came from.
In the sitting room, Aunt Fostalina is busy walking and walking and walking. It is very strange how she just walks in one place. Maybe if it were not for all this snow lying all over, she would be walking outside, like how a person is supposed to do. MaDube used to walk like this too, just walk and walk and walk, not really going anywhere in particular. That was because MaDube suffered from madness after they killed her son, Bornfree, but I don’t really know about Aunt Fostalina here, like what her issue is.
When she walks, she whips her arms front to back like a mjingo and counts at the same time. Three-four-five-six, and walk, and walk. Uncle Kojo, TK’s father, who is like Aunt Fostalina’s husband but not really her husband because I don’t think they are married-married, comes in from work and says, Fostalina, the Lions and the Giants still actually on, no? Uncle Kojo’s voice sounds like something in his mouth is running after the words and making them scatter with fright. But Aunt Fostalina does not reply; she has to keep up with the women on TV—four-five-six, and walk, and walk.
This is me in the picture, wearing the pink shirt; I was still living in my country then. Aunt Fostalina took the picture when she came for me. For memories, one day all you’ll have are these pictures, that’s what she said. This is Bastard and this is Godknows and this is Chipo and this is Stina and this passing by is Godknows’s sister S’bahle. I don’t know where Sbho was when we took the picture. This is Aunt Fostalina and Mother in this picture, they are twins. Aunt Fostalina is pretty but I think Mother is a lot prettier; if she had been born here she would have m
aybe become a model or something. What I’ve seen, though, is that some of the models aren’t really beautiful so I don’t even know what they are doing on TV; I look at them walking on the runway and think, If you were born in my country you’d just be ordinary, your runway would be the border, where you’d just be selling things like my mother.
When I was leaving, Mother wouldn’t let go of my hand I thought she was going to rip it off. Mother of Bones looked at me with kindness, which was the first time she ever looked at me like that, and said, I don’t know I really don’t know child this could be the last time I see you I don’t know I’ll still be here when you return but what kind of life is this when you are all born to scatter to foreign lands in droves what will the country become a ruin? she said. I didn’t say anything because even though it was a question, Mother of Bones was talking to herself as usual.
A few days before I left, Mother took me to Vodloza, who made me smoke from a gourd, and I sneezed and sneezed and he smiled and said, The ancestors are your angels, they will bear you to America. Then he spilled tobacco on the earth and said to someone I could not see: Open the way for your wandering calf, you, Vusamazulu, pave the skies, summon your fathers, Mpabanga and Nqabayezwe and Mahlathini, and draw your mighty spears to clear the paths and protect the child from dark spirits on her journey. Deliver her well to that strange land where you and those before you never dreamed of setting foot.
Finally he tied a bone attached to a rainbow-colored string around my waist and said, This is your weapon, it will fight off all evil in that America, never ever take it off, you hear? But then when I got to America the airport dog barked and barked and sniffed me, and the woman in the uniform took me aside and waved the stick around me and the stick made a nting-nting sound and the woman said, Are you carrying any weapons? and I nodded and showed my weapon from Vodloza, and Aunt Fostalina said, What is this crap? and she took it off and threw it in a bin. Now I have no weapon to fight evil with in America.
We Need New Names: A Novel Page 11
