We Need New Names: A Novel

by Noviolet Bulawayo

  And, oh, she took such awesome pictures. You should have seen those faces! she says, and I look at her smiling face tilted upward now, catching the brilliant light, and I can see from it how the children’s faces must have looked. They were smiling like she is smiling now. Then I’m seeing myself in this woman’s face, back there when we were in Paradise when the NGO people were taking our pictures.

  Just lovely, you know, she says. Now we are looking at each other and smiling even wider, like we’ve become friends for real, here in this restroom with the cream tiles and bright-bright lights and orange chair.

  Oh, and listen to this, while she was there she also went and took pictures of Table Mountain and Robben Island. Oh. My. God. Table Mountain is sooooo amazing. Just beautiful. I’m telling you, I saw those pictures and told myself I simply have to visit. I have never seen anything like it. Maybe next year, Christopher and I will go on our wedding anniversary. Oops, speaking of which, I better get my butt up there, she says, and she gets up and starts toward the door, opens it, and disappears like she was never there.

  When I get back upstairs people are standing in a circle, listening to Tshaka Zulu sing a traditional song. Even though his body is all wrinkled with age, he looks beautiful and fierce in a knee-length skirt made of colorful animal skins. Around his neck is a necklace of sharpened bones, and hoop earrings dangle from his ears. On his head is a hat made of animal fur. He wears matching armbands around his thin arms. In one hand is a long white shield scattered with little black spots.

  I stand next to TK, who is filming the performance with his BlackBerry, maybe so he can share it on Facebook. Around us, other people are doing the same, it’s all phones and cameras. Tshaka Zulu has the large booming voice that reminds me of Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro, it’s like he is singing to someone lost on the highway when the bride is just seated right before him, smiling like this is the best song ever. When the song finishes everybody applauds, and Tshaka Zulu beams with pride. It is his thing to perform at weddings and wherever people from our country are holding events, and looking at him at it you would never think there was something wrong with him, that he was really a patient at Shadybrook.

  I am hungry but I don’t eat that much food when it’s eating time because even after so much practice I still haven’t properly learned how to eat with a fork and knife. I always spill my food all over the place, and the meat slips around when I cut it, and I feel like people are watching me, laughing secretly. This is why I get so self-conscious when I eat in public; most times, like now, I’ll just pretend I’m not hungry. I’m practicing, though; the only reason it’s slow going is that in the house I just eat with my hands, like how you’re supposed to eat.

  Aunt Fostalina is beside me, eating a salad, and Uncle Kojo and TK have their plates piled high like they’ve been starving all their lives. Uncle Kojo has moved over to the next table to sit with this other man from his country. Uncle Kojo and the man are not exactly matching but their flowing, colorful, embroidered outfits are almost similar and it makes them look interesting, sitting together like that. Earlier, this other guy stopped by their table and asked to take a picture. I keep watching Uncle Kojo; whenever he is with someone from his country, everything about him is different—his laugh, his talk, his eating—it’s like something cuts him open to reveal this other person I don’t even know.

  Later, Dumi comes over to our table; he is holding in his arms a pretty little boy with flowing hair. I smile a real smile at the boy but he just stares back. He clutches a white ball with spiky rubber thingies. Dumi is tall and looks like he goes to the gym; he is not very handsome, but he is better-looking than Uncle Kojo. I wish he didn’t have his dreadlocks, though, they don’t suit him.

  I’m remembering what Aunt Fostalina said about them dating, so I’m watching to see if there’s anything interesting in the way they interact. I listen to them talk about the regular things—When was the last time you saw so-and-so? What kind of work are you doing now?—and about how things are back home, our old president who doesn’t want to die so we can get a new leader at last. Dumi’s deep voice is a little rugged, like it walked all the way to America and is now worn out from the effort.

  He doesn’t tell Aunt Fostalina she looks good, like I’ve heard other people do; he tells her she looks like sunrise. You look like sunrise, Fee, that’s what Dumi says, in our language. I have never heard anyone call Aunt Fostalina Fee before. She smiles, and I stare at her because of the way she smiles. Like she is hearing music and she is dancing to it on the inside.

  They stay silent for a while, as if they have no more words, as if both our language and English are not enough for them. The silence starts to make me feel awkward so in the end, not knowing what to do, I pick up a fork with my right hand, knife with my left, and brave my plate. I cut a piece of meat. It doesn’t dance around, which gives me courage, so I cut another, and another, hoping to kill time. The silence doesn’t go away; it’s like they are using it to talk. At the other end of the hall, the bride hasn’t moved; she is talking to a bridesmaid and a tall man in a yellow shirt.

  Uncle Kojo looks over at our table. He has a drumstick in his hand, and when he sees the bridegroom, he nods, raises the drumstick the way you raise a glass to say cheers. Dumi nods back. The boy starts chewing the spike things on the ball.

  Hi, cutie, what’s your name? Aunt Fostalina says to the little boy, breaking the long silence. The boy giggles, covers his eyes with one hand.

  He is shy. His name is Mandla, Dumi says. I am wondering how come an American boy has a name like Mandla, but it’s not my conversation and nobody has spoken to me so I stay out of it. I concentrate on my meat; it tastes good, so I eat piece after piece.

  Ah, I see, Aunt Fostalina says. It’s a nice name.

  He is Stephanie’s son, Dumi says, like he hears my thoughts. He looks in the direction of the wedding table, at his wife. But I passed along my father’s name, Dumi says; he kisses Mandla on the nose, ruffles his hair. I wonder how a white person’s hair feels to the touch; I’ve never touched any before, since up to now I still haven’t made any white friends like that. It probably feels silky, like the beard of a maize cob.

  But Mandla doesn’t like his hair played with because he shakes his head and says, in a high voice, Don’t! I am surprised he can talk because he’s been quiet all this time. He squirms like a wet fish in Dumi’s arms, wanting to be let down. Once on his feet, he throws his ball at Aunt Fostalina’s plate and laughs. I pause, my knife in midair. Aunt Fostalina doesn’t say anything, but I know she is not pleased.

  No, Mandla, stop, don’t do that, Dumi says. He apologizes to Aunt Fostalina, leans forward to fish for the ball, dreadlocks falling over his face. Mandla is watching him, eating his hands now. When Dumi finishes wiping the ball with a paper towel, Mandla holds his tiny hands out.

  Not now, sonny, I told you you can’t throw the ball. We’ll play later, at home, okay? At home, Dumi says, looking at Mandla with a serious parent face, but you can just see that Mandla is used to getting what he wants.

  Give me my ball, he says, with this strange strength in his voice. When he scrunches his face up and starts to cry, Dumi looks at Aunt Fostalina, frustrated-like. She shrugs.

  Okay, but no throwing, okay? There’s people, Dumi says.

  When Mandla gets the ball, he throws it and it hits an old lady in a pink dress on the breast. I stop breathing, but the old lady just smiles like nothing’s happened, picks up the ball from her lap, and holds it out to Mandla.

  Isn’t he a sweetheart? she says to Dumi with an old lady’s pointless smile, and Dumi smiles back. Mandla snatches the ball, walks back to our table. He is obviously enjoying himself. When he looks at me I give him a serious eye that says, You are just too much and you need to stop that nonsense before something happens. But I know, from Mandla’s grin, that he doesn’t even get it, that they have not taught him anything about reading eyes.

  Here, now you can give me the ball,
Dumi says. He is bending down to be level with Mandla, his hands cupped. Mandla takes a few steps back, shakes his head.

  Do you want Dad to pick you up? Dumi says.

  No! You’re not my daddy! Mandla screams, his voice shrill now. I wipe my mouth with a paper towel. A few people turn their heads to look, but then they go on with their talk and eating. Mandla stands there looking at Dumi, as if daring him to do something. Dumi only shakes his head; I can tell from his face that he is embarrassed and doesn’t really know what to do anymore.

  He had too much candy earlier, he says, his voice explaining-like, and I want to laugh because what has candy really got to do with a spoiled kid?

  That’s when Mandla throws the ball at me, and by the time I see it, it has already hit my right eye, one of the spike thingies jabbing the inside. The pain is something else. Before I know it, I have forgotten that I’m at a wedding, in a hall full of people, forgotten that I’m in America. Just before Aunt Fostalina sharply tells me to sit down, I grab the little brat, go pha-pha-pha with three quick slaps, and rap his head with my knuckles, twice.

  It’s only when I sit back down and look around that I realize what I have done. The white people have already gasped, and a shocked voice has already said, Oh my God. Heads have been shaken and eyes have widened in disbelief. A few hands have already flown over mouths, and the silence has already descended. It stays in the air like a stain, until this booming voice, which I quickly recognize as Tshaka Zulu’s, shouts from near the door, where he is seated:

  Do not to fear. This is just how we handle unruly children in our culture, it’s nothing, you must relax, please, he says with a laugh. Nobody laughs with him; there is this hot fire of silence. If looks could burn, I would be on the floor lying in a pile of ashes. I can just tell that I have done something that is not done, something taboo. I know that I will never forget those faces, and I know, looking at them, that I will never hit a kid again, no matter how bad he is.

  Dumi is carrying Mandla off, and now that he knows he is the center of attention, he is screaming like he will get paid for it. The mother is looking from the wedding table, wiggling her mountain and craning her neck to see what is wrong with her son. I’m grateful to her fatness because I’m thinking if it wasn’t for that, she would have maybe gotten up and rushed over. I pick up the knife and make like I’m just focusing on my plate.

  Is he going to be okay? a boy’s voice yells after Dumi, and I want to give him a look but I dare not turn around. I am relieved when Dumi carries Mandla out through the door that leads to the restrooms. When his screams eventually die down people go back to their eating, but I can tell they are still disturbed. To my left, an old man keeps giving me this severe stare like I’ve eaten his cake. The children who had been running around now sit by their mothers like they have seen a terrorist.

  Don’t do it again, I always tell you, you are in America now, Aunt Fostalina says, without a sign of irritation in her voice, and I am relieved. If the bride had been beautiful, then Aunt Fostalina would have been in one of her moods; if she were in one of her moods, then I would be worse off than Mandla, worse off than an injured deer. I nod, put the knife back on my plate, and reach for a glass of Coke, which doesn’t even taste real.

  Angel

  So I tell Aunt Fostalina that I want to go home and visit just for a little while, to see how my friends and Mother and Mother of Bones and people and things are. At first there is silence, like Aunt Fostalina didn’t even hear me speak. We’re sitting in the living room and I’m drinking a Capri Sun from a straw. Aunt Fostalina is on the couch, looking at pictures of women wearing nice Victoria’s Secret underwear. Surrounding her are stacks of magazines, and there are stacks on the glass coffee table in front of her, more stacks by her feet.

  I finish my Capri Sun, reach onto the shelf behind me, and get a guava. I look at it like I’ve never seen a guava before, then hold it under my nose.The smell hits me where it matters, and I feel like my heart and insides are being gently pried open. I shake my head, rub the guava in both hands, take a bite, and laugh.

  We’ll see if you’ll still be laughing when you get constipated, Aunt Fostalina says, turning a page. I just keep chewing; how can she understand that each time I take a bite, I leave the house, Kalamazoo, and Michigan, leave the country altogether and find myself back in my Paradise, in Budapest?

  Last week, Messenger came to America seeking asylum and brought me a surprise package. Because I got it just a few days before my birthday, I held off opening it. It was wrapped in kaka wrapping, and I giggled when I finally cut the black string with a scissors, peeled off the clear plastic and then the layers and layers of a Chinese magazine. Bringing fresh foods and stuff from home is not allowed; if the border people find them, they throw them away, so I was just glad my guavas survived. Even before I finished unwrapping, the smell of guava was all over, delicious and dizzying. I closed my eyes and inhaled like I hadn’t breathed in ages.

  I had lost contact with Bastard, Stina, Godknows, Chipo, and Sbho for a long while, even though when I left I’d promised to always stay in touch.

  I’ll write, there’s plenty of paper and pens there so I’ll be writing every time, I remember saying, just before Aunt Fostalina and I got on that car on Mzilikazi.

  Promise? Chipo said.

  Yes, I promise, I said.

  Cross your heart, Sbho said.

  Cross my heart and hope to die, I said.

  What if you don’t write? Godknows said.

  Why wouldn’t I write? I said.

  Because you’ll have found some pretty white friends and forgotten us, he said.

  I’ll have some pretty white friends but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget you, I said.

  Out of sight out of mind, Stina said.

  That’s kaka, you know I’ll never forget you, I said.

  We’ll see, Bastard said, with this look like he knew something I didn’t. When I was in the car and pulling off I kissed my hand and waved like I’d seen an NGO lady do one time and shouted, I’ll write, always, always, always!

  In the beginning, during the first few of months of my arrival, I did write. In those letters I told them about America, the kinds of things I was eating, the clothes I wore, the music I was listening to, the celebrities and stuff. But I was careful to leave out some things as well, like how the weather was the worst because there was almost always something wrong with it, either too hot or too cold, the hurricanes and stuff. That the house we lived in wasn’t even like the ones we’d seen on TV when we were little, how it wasn’t made of bricks but planks, a house made of planks in America, and how when it rained those planks got mold and smelled.

  I didn’t tell them how in the summer nights there sometimes was the bang-bang-bang of gunshots in the neighborhood and I had to stay indoors, afraid to go out, and how one time a woman a few houses from ours drowned her children in a bathtub, all four of them, how there were poor people who lived on the streets, holding up signs to beg for money. I left out these things, and a lot more, because they embarrassed me, because they made America not feel like My America, the one I had always dreamed of back in Paradise.

  With time I stopped writing altogether. I just started putting it off, telling myself I’d write tomorrow, next week, in a couple of weeks, I’d write in a month, I’d write soon, and that was it, before I knew it I’d lost touch. But it didn’t mean I’d forgotten about them; I missed them, missed them very much, and there were these times when I’d be doing something and get this terrible feeling of guilt for not keeping in touch. I also missed Budapest, missed Fambeki, missed Paradise, missed Mother and Mother of Bones and MotherLove, all those people, even Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro, with his craziness, I missed them all. And when I got the guavas the gang sent with Messenger, these years later, it felt good knowing they remembered me as well.

  Aunt Fostalina, I say, trying to get her attention, but her head stays glued to the magazine. These days the magazines have replac
ed working out because Aunt Fostalina doesn’t have the energy since she is so busy with her two jobs, one at the hospital and one at the nursing home. The reason she is working hard like this is so she can finish paying for the house she just bought for Mother and Mother of Bones in Budapest. I’ve seen the pictures; it’s a nice big house with a pool, just like the other houses we used to hit for guavas. The house is even nicer than this one we live in here in America, which I find strange because when I was at home I heard that everything in America was better.

  Every once in a while Aunt Fostalina glances up from her magazine at the TV, at that woman whose pretty face looks like something is wrong with it, talking about how to lose ten pounds in ten days and telling people to call now and change their lives.

  I’ll just go maybe for two weeks and then I’ll come back, I say, even though Aunt Fostalina is still ignoring me.

  Darling, it’s not time yet. When that time comes, you’ll go, she finally says, and flips another page.

  But you said once that when I turned fourtee—

  Child, it’s not like your father is Obama and he has the Air Force One; home costs money. Besides, you came on a visitor’s visa, and that’s expired; you get out, you kiss this America bye-bye, Aunt Fostalina says.

  But why can’t I come back? I can just renew my visa, I say.

  Darling, leave me alone, do I look like the Immigration to you? she says. She is speaking in our language now, which means the conversation is over. When Aunt Fostalina switches languages like that, you know whatever was being talked about is finished.

  Now the TV screen has split into two, and there’s two pictures of the woman, a before one, when she was bigger and looked like a real person, and an after one, where she is thin and looks like a beautiful thing.

  Give me that phone, then go to my room and bring me my blue purse; I need to order this push-up, Aunt Fostalina says.