we had paid so much

excerpt from we need new names by noviolet bulawayo

how hard it was to get to america -- harder than crawling through the anus of a needle. for the visas and passports, we begged, despaired, lied, groveled, promised, charmed, bribed -- anything to get us out of the country. for his passport and travel, tshaka zulu sold all of his father's cows, against the old man's wishes. perserverance had to take his sister netsai out of school. nqo worked the fields of botswana for nine months. nozipho, like primrose and sicelokuhle and maidei, slept with that fat black pig banyile khoza from the passport office. girls flat on their back, banyile between their legs, america on their minds.

to send us off properly, our elders spilled tobacco on the dry earth to summon the spirits of the ancestors for our protection. unlike in years long gone, the spirits did not come dancing from the land beneath. they crawled. they stalled. they were hungry. they wanted blood and meat and millet beer, they wanted sacrifices, they wanted gifts. and, save for a few grains of tobacco, we had nothing to give, absolutely nothing. and so the spirts just gazed at us with eyes milked dry of care. between themselves they whispered: how will these ones ever be whole in that 'melika, as far away from the graves of the ancestors as it is?

do people not like in fear in 'melika, fear of evil?

do they not say it is like a grave in that 'melika, that going there is like burying yourself because your people may never see you again?

is not 'melika also that wretched place where they took looted black sons and daughters those many, many years ago?

we heard all this but we let it enter in one ear and leave through the other, pretended we did not hear. we would not be moved, we would not listen; we were going to america. in the footsteps of those looted black sons and daughters, we were going, yes, we were going. and when we got to america we took our dreams, looked at them tenderly as if they were newly born children, and put them away; we would not be pursuing them. we would never be the things we had wanted to be: doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers. no school for us, even though our visas were school visas. we knew we did not have the money for school to begin with, but we had applied for school visas because that was the only way out.

instead of going to school, we worked. our social security cards said valid for work only with ins authorization, but we gritted our teeth and broke the law and worked; what else could we do? what could we have done? what could anybody have done? 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.

when they debated what to do with illegals, we stopped breathing, stopped laughing, stopped everything, and listened. we heard: exporting america, broken borders, war on the middle class, invasion, deportation, illegals, illegals. we bit our tongues till we tasted blood, sat tensely on one butt cheek, afraid to sit on both because how can you sit properly when you don't know about your tomorrow?

and because we were illegal and afraid to be discovered, we mostly kept to ourselves, stuck to our kind and shied away from those who were not like us. we did not know what they would think of us, what they would do about us. we did not want their wrath, we did not want their curiosity, we did not want any attention. we did not meet stares and we avoided gazes. we hid our real names, gave false ones when asked. we built mountains between us and them, we dug rivers, we planted thorns -- we had paid so much to be in america and we did not want to lose it all.

when they talked about employers checking on workers, our hearts sank. we recalled the tatters of our country left behind, barely held together by american dollars, by monies from other countries, and our blood went cold. and when at work they asked for our papers, we scurried like startled hens and flocked to unwanted jobs, where we met the others, many others. others with names like myths, names like puzzles, names we had never heard before: virgilio, balamugunthan, faheem, abdulrahman, aziz, baako, dae-hyun, ousmane, kimatsu. when it was hard to say the many strange names, we called them by their countries.

so how on earth do you do this, sri lanka?

mexico, are you coming or what?

is it really true you sold a kidney to come to america, india?
guys, just give tshaka zulu a break, the guy is old, i'm just saying.
we know you despise this job, sudan, but deal with it, man.
come, ethiopia, move, move, move; israel, kazakhstan, niger, brothers, let's go!

the others spoke languages we did not know, worshipped different gods, ate what we would not dare touch. but like us, they had left their homelands behind. they flipped open their wallets to show us faded photographs of mothers whose faces bore the same creases of worry as our very own mothers, siblings bleak-eyed with dreams unfulfilled like those of our own, fathers forlorn and defeated like ours. we had never seen their countries but we knew about everything in those pictures; we were not altogether strangers. . .

that is how time went. it flew and we did not see it flying. we did not got back home to visit because we did not have the papers for our return, and so we just stayed, knowing that if we went we would not be able to reenter america. 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.

and then our own children were born. we held their american birth certificates tight. we did not name our children after our parents, after ourselves; we feared if we did they would not be able to say their own names, that their friends and teachers would not know how to call them. we gave them names that would make them belong in america, names that did not mean anything to us: aaron, josh, dana, corey, jack, kathleen. when our children were born, we did not bury their umbilical cords under the earth to bind them to the land because we had no land to call ours. we did not hold their heads over smoking herbs to make them strong, did not tie fetishes around their waists to protect them from evil spirits, did not brew beer and spill tobacco on the earth to announce their arrivals to the ancestors, instead, we smiled.

and when our parents reminded us over the phone that it had been a long, long time, and that they were getting old and needed to see us, needed to meet their grandchildren, we said, we are coming, mama, siyabuya baba; we are coming, gogo, tirikuuya sekuru. we did not want to tell them we still had no papers. and when they grew restless and cursed america for being the greedy monster that swallowed their children, swallowed the sons and daughters of other lands and refused to spit them out, we said, we are coming very soon, we are coming next year. and next year came and we said, next year. when next year came we said, next year for sure. and when next year for sure came we said, next year for real. and when next year for real came we said, we are coming, you'll see, just wait. and our parents waited and they saw, saw that we did not come.

they died waiting, clutching in their dried hands pictures of us leaning against the lady liberty, graves of lost sons and daughters in their hearts, old eyes glued to the sky for fulamatshinaz to bring forth lost sons and daughters. we could not attend their funerals because we still had no papers, and so we mourned from afar. we shut ourselves up and turned on the music so we did not raise alarm, writhed on the floor and wailed and wailed and wailed.