NoViolet Bulawayo
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
NoViolet Bulawayo is a US based Zimbabwean
writer.
writer.
Red, a Short Story by NoViolet Bulawayo
The thin, barefoot man with the head the shape of a hammer halts before the robot, chin lightly tilted up.
His long fingers squeeze the neck of a white plastic bag pressed closely against the thigh. Around him a
horde of people and traffic are stopping as well, a small part of Johannesburg surrendering to a brief
stillness on Third Avenue. In the air is a tangle of sounds and smells: horns, voices, laughter, stench, the
smell of sweat, perfume, the squelching of wheels—chaos festooning the young day and milking it dry
of freshness.
But the small man pays Johannesburg no mind; he stands as still as the dead, his hammer carefully
poised at the robot. The first thing he notices about the red of the robot is that it is rather unusual—it is
a rich, terrible red, so red Shepherd imagines the head of the robot sizzles, imagines holding his
girlfriend’s latest letter to it, imagines the letter bursting into flames, leaving behind the charred smell of
a lover’s anguish.
Shepherd is so engrossed he is almost dazed when the robot changes to green, and he is pushed, finds
himself swept up in the tide of bodies, a dry petal carried in the wind. He hurries across Third Avenue
and cuts through the city mall, his naked feet battering the pavements. He barely glances at the inviting
shop windows, at the eating places just opening for the day and belching mouth watering aromas, at the
tall buildings, even taller than the ones he saw in his dreams before crossing the long Limpopo, nothing
but a broken rosary in his pocket, his hunger and his girl’s prayers and his unborn child the only things
urging him on against the muddy tide.
Shepherd walks away from the city mall and makes a turn at the corner of a giant brick building. He
glances up before turning, his eyes resting briefly on the poster about halfway up. He disappears behind
the corner but promptly reappears, walking backward this time, and looks up at the giant red egg that
fills the poster. His brows have come together in a frown, and his eyes are narrowed. One hand rests on
a bonny hip, the other swings the plastic bag to and fro. Shepherd passes this street, this building,
everyday on his way to work, and this thing, this poster he is looking at, must be new. And the color of
the egg—a deep, dangerous red, like the egg will explode. What kind of hen lays a red egg? Whoever
heard of a red egg? Why would anyone paint an egg red?
“The men put it up not too long,” a small voice says in answer to Shepherd’s thoughts. He looks down
to see a dirty street child, dressed only in black shorts and a red beaded necklace. The child stands
before Shepherd and looks up at him as if contemplating climbing a tree. At first Shepherd cannot tell if
the child is a boy or girl, but finally assumes, from the child’s boldness, that it is a boy.
“I was there, I saw them put it up", the boy presses. There is a hint of pride in his voice, as if by his
witnessing, he had somehow contributed to the poster.
“I even touched the long ladder," the boy adds. He wears his begging bowl on his head like a hat. He
looks away, down the street, perhaps waiting for Shepherd to finish taking in the poster, for the egg to
hatch. “There were three of them. One was short, one had glasses, the other one had no teeth, and they
all wore AIDS T-shirts. Red is for AIDS. I know what a condom is. Do you have AIDS? What are you
carrying inside your bag?” the boy asks, pointing a short finger at Shepherd’s bag.
Shepherd sits under the egg, lowering himself ever so carefully onto the pavement like his behind is
made of glass. He untwists the neck of the bag and fishes out a pair of black leather shoes. The child
draws closer and eyes Shepherd with suspicion. Shepherd notices, for the first time, the child’s
unexpected beauty, and he is so surprised he stops prying the one shoe open and looks closely at the
child’s face. It is so beautiful Shepherd forgets he is looking, pictures himself doing something filling,
like drinking a cool cup of water. He decides, from the child’s beauty, that it is a girl after all. He
proceeds to put the shoes on, with difficulty, for his feet are swollen. He had found the shoes
abandoned, or perhaps forgotten, he does not know which, outside a building earlier that morning.
“Those shoes will not fit, they are small,” the girl observes, her voice suddenly weighted with sympathy.
Shepherd jerks his head up, startled, expecting to see a tall, heavy woman with a face full of concern
and lines of kindness around the corners of her mouth. “You stole them, did you steal them?” the girl
says, sounding like a child again. She laughs with a ring so sharp it could puncture a tin. “You are not
from here, I can tell. You are from another country. Why did you leave your country? Why does your
head look like a hammer?”
“Go. Get away from me you little animal!” Shepherds cusses the girl. When she remains standing he
picks up the shoe that has refused his foot and throws it at her. He misses. The girl walks away—she
does not run, simply walks like she has just remembered she has to be somewhere else. She has
balanced the bowl on her head now, both hands pressing it down. Something about her posture fills
Shepherd with pity and so he calls her back. The child turns on her heel and hurries to him like she
knew all along the call was coming. She stands at Shepherd’s feet with her begging bowl extended, like
she knows again this is the reason she has been called back. Shepherd digs into his pockets and his hand
comes out with a fistful of coins. He drops them into the girl’s plate.
The child does not say thank you, but smiles an unexpected flash of white. Shepherd finds himself
smiling as well, because the child is smiling, because this is the first time in a long time he is seeing a
smile like this. What he is used to is laughter; hard laughter, sarcastic laughter, angry laughter, hollow
laughter, fleeting laughter, dry laughter, and now and then, when he can manage, a whore’s laughter,
sweet and heartbreaking. But nothing like this smile that makes him think of the sun rising behind his
mother’s old house in New Lobengula and squeezing through the broad paw-paw leaves.
The girl has ambled close now, like a puppy expecting a bone. Perhaps she thinks there is more.
Shepherd reaches out and touches the girl’s kinky head, and he knows, from the calmness that seeps up
his hand and spreads up his arm then all inside him, and from the stunning ache in his heart, that this is
not just touching a street child’s head on 5th Avenue in the morning, that this is something More. He
looks at his hand resting on the child’s head, the black skin hardened, the nails broken and dirty with
specks of brown and black underneath, the fingertips calloused, the scar right above the knuckles where
he cut himself in a fight in jail, the dead watch on his thin wrist. He lets the hand remain on the child’s
head, not knowing whether to pat or caress, to hold or to stroke; he does not know anything.
“Christopher. Christopher. Christopher.” Shepherd is suddenly aware of himself saying the name of his
son over and over like a desperate prayer; it was just a few months shy of his son’s birth that he
crossed the border. Now Shepherd blinks away hot tears, but when they insist on streaming down his
face he lets them flow. He bends down and picks the bewildered child up, imagining she is his son. In
Shepherd’s arms, the girl struggles and kicks and begs to be let down. Her bowl falls and dances madly
on the hard concrete, the coins scattering in all directions, but Shepherd holds on to her, holds tight like
a parent who knows all the names for loss.
On 12th Avenue people slow down to stare, but Shepherd does not see them. He is blind with tears,
eyes choking with grief. He grips the girl tighter and rocks her tenderly like he would his own child.
Shepherd rocks and rocks and rocks until he feels the girl relax in his arms. When she looks up at him
with drowsy eyes he begins to sing a lullaby. His voice is like sunrise in the morning; it is full and golden
and warms whoever it touches and so in no time, more people have gathered around him and the child.
They stare and listen open-mouthed, with faces that say they have heard many beautiful songs before,
but never a voice like this, a voice that cuts open their chests and steals their hearts on 5th Avenue at 8:
38 in the morning.
A woman in a white blouse, black beret and pink skirt, bends, a hint of red panties showing through the
thin fabric of her skirt, and drops coins into the child’s bowl. More people follow suit, and in no time
the bowl is brimming with coins. When Shepherd stops singing the crowd walks away because the man
with the head the shape of a hammer and the golden voice has no more songs. But Shepherd does not
put the child down. Christopher is all inside his head now, and Shepherd is explaining and apologizing,
trying to make him understand why he left. “Christopher, you must realize my son that I had to leave the
country, things were falling apart, I had no job, I had nothing. Please understand—”
But the girl wants to be let down. She kicks and lashes anew. “You’re crazy, I’m not your son put me
down you madman, putmedown putmedown putmedown!” she screams. She is vicious now. Wild now.
She bites Shepherd on the inside of the arm and he quickly releases her, stunned by the unexpectedness
of sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, by the depth of the pain. The girl picks up her plate and walks
away, a confused look on her face. Shepherd watches her retreating form, and when it disappears
behind a corner he looks at his arm. There are puncture wounds where the girl’s teeth bit, and then the
bleeding, the deep, terrible red.
The thin, barefoot man with the head the shape of a hammer halts before the robot, chin lightly tilted up.
His long fingers squeeze the neck of a white plastic bag pressed closely against the thigh. Around him a
horde of people and traffic are stopping as well, a small part of Johannesburg surrendering to a brief
stillness on Third Avenue. In the air is a tangle of sounds and smells: horns, voices, laughter, stench, the
smell of sweat, perfume, the squelching of wheels—chaos festooning the young day and milking it dry
of freshness.
But the small man pays Johannesburg no mind; he stands as still as the dead, his hammer carefully
poised at the robot. The first thing he notices about the red of the robot is that it is rather unusual—it is
a rich, terrible red, so red Shepherd imagines the head of the robot sizzles, imagines holding his
girlfriend’s latest letter to it, imagines the letter bursting into flames, leaving behind the charred smell of
a lover’s anguish.
Shepherd is so engrossed he is almost dazed when the robot changes to green, and he is pushed, finds
himself swept up in the tide of bodies, a dry petal carried in the wind. He hurries across Third Avenue
and cuts through the city mall, his naked feet battering the pavements. He barely glances at the inviting
shop windows, at the eating places just opening for the day and belching mouth watering aromas, at the
tall buildings, even taller than the ones he saw in his dreams before crossing the long Limpopo, nothing
but a broken rosary in his pocket, his hunger and his girl’s prayers and his unborn child the only things
urging him on against the muddy tide.
Shepherd walks away from the city mall and makes a turn at the corner of a giant brick building. He
glances up before turning, his eyes resting briefly on the poster about halfway up. He disappears behind
the corner but promptly reappears, walking backward this time, and looks up at the giant red egg that
fills the poster. His brows have come together in a frown, and his eyes are narrowed. One hand rests on
a bonny hip, the other swings the plastic bag to and fro. Shepherd passes this street, this building,
everyday on his way to work, and this thing, this poster he is looking at, must be new. And the color of
the egg—a deep, dangerous red, like the egg will explode. What kind of hen lays a red egg? Whoever
heard of a red egg? Why would anyone paint an egg red?
“The men put it up not too long,” a small voice says in answer to Shepherd’s thoughts. He looks down
to see a dirty street child, dressed only in black shorts and a red beaded necklace. The child stands
before Shepherd and looks up at him as if contemplating climbing a tree. At first Shepherd cannot tell if
the child is a boy or girl, but finally assumes, from the child’s boldness, that it is a boy.
“I was there, I saw them put it up", the boy presses. There is a hint of pride in his voice, as if by his
witnessing, he had somehow contributed to the poster.
“I even touched the long ladder," the boy adds. He wears his begging bowl on his head like a hat. He
looks away, down the street, perhaps waiting for Shepherd to finish taking in the poster, for the egg to
hatch. “There were three of them. One was short, one had glasses, the other one had no teeth, and they
all wore AIDS T-shirts. Red is for AIDS. I know what a condom is. Do you have AIDS? What are you
carrying inside your bag?” the boy asks, pointing a short finger at Shepherd’s bag.
Shepherd sits under the egg, lowering himself ever so carefully onto the pavement like his behind is
made of glass. He untwists the neck of the bag and fishes out a pair of black leather shoes. The child
draws closer and eyes Shepherd with suspicion. Shepherd notices, for the first time, the child’s
unexpected beauty, and he is so surprised he stops prying the one shoe open and looks closely at the
child’s face. It is so beautiful Shepherd forgets he is looking, pictures himself doing something filling,
like drinking a cool cup of water. He decides, from the child’s beauty, that it is a girl after all. He
proceeds to put the shoes on, with difficulty, for his feet are swollen. He had found the shoes
abandoned, or perhaps forgotten, he does not know which, outside a building earlier that morning.
“Those shoes will not fit, they are small,” the girl observes, her voice suddenly weighted with sympathy.
Shepherd jerks his head up, startled, expecting to see a tall, heavy woman with a face full of concern
and lines of kindness around the corners of her mouth. “You stole them, did you steal them?” the girl
says, sounding like a child again. She laughs with a ring so sharp it could puncture a tin. “You are not
from here, I can tell. You are from another country. Why did you leave your country? Why does your
head look like a hammer?”
“Go. Get away from me you little animal!” Shepherds cusses the girl. When she remains standing he
picks up the shoe that has refused his foot and throws it at her. He misses. The girl walks away—she
does not run, simply walks like she has just remembered she has to be somewhere else. She has
balanced the bowl on her head now, both hands pressing it down. Something about her posture fills
Shepherd with pity and so he calls her back. The child turns on her heel and hurries to him like she
knew all along the call was coming. She stands at Shepherd’s feet with her begging bowl extended, like
she knows again this is the reason she has been called back. Shepherd digs into his pockets and his hand
comes out with a fistful of coins. He drops them into the girl’s plate.
The child does not say thank you, but smiles an unexpected flash of white. Shepherd finds himself
smiling as well, because the child is smiling, because this is the first time in a long time he is seeing a
smile like this. What he is used to is laughter; hard laughter, sarcastic laughter, angry laughter, hollow
laughter, fleeting laughter, dry laughter, and now and then, when he can manage, a whore’s laughter,
sweet and heartbreaking. But nothing like this smile that makes him think of the sun rising behind his
mother’s old house in New Lobengula and squeezing through the broad paw-paw leaves.
The girl has ambled close now, like a puppy expecting a bone. Perhaps she thinks there is more.
Shepherd reaches out and touches the girl’s kinky head, and he knows, from the calmness that seeps up
his hand and spreads up his arm then all inside him, and from the stunning ache in his heart, that this is
not just touching a street child’s head on 5th Avenue in the morning, that this is something More. He
looks at his hand resting on the child’s head, the black skin hardened, the nails broken and dirty with
specks of brown and black underneath, the fingertips calloused, the scar right above the knuckles where
he cut himself in a fight in jail, the dead watch on his thin wrist. He lets the hand remain on the child’s
head, not knowing whether to pat or caress, to hold or to stroke; he does not know anything.
“Christopher. Christopher. Christopher.” Shepherd is suddenly aware of himself saying the name of his
son over and over like a desperate prayer; it was just a few months shy of his son’s birth that he
crossed the border. Now Shepherd blinks away hot tears, but when they insist on streaming down his
face he lets them flow. He bends down and picks the bewildered child up, imagining she is his son. In
Shepherd’s arms, the girl struggles and kicks and begs to be let down. Her bowl falls and dances madly
on the hard concrete, the coins scattering in all directions, but Shepherd holds on to her, holds tight like
a parent who knows all the names for loss.
On 12th Avenue people slow down to stare, but Shepherd does not see them. He is blind with tears,
eyes choking with grief. He grips the girl tighter and rocks her tenderly like he would his own child.
Shepherd rocks and rocks and rocks until he feels the girl relax in his arms. When she looks up at him
with drowsy eyes he begins to sing a lullaby. His voice is like sunrise in the morning; it is full and golden
and warms whoever it touches and so in no time, more people have gathered around him and the child.
They stare and listen open-mouthed, with faces that say they have heard many beautiful songs before,
but never a voice like this, a voice that cuts open their chests and steals their hearts on 5th Avenue at 8:
38 in the morning.
A woman in a white blouse, black beret and pink skirt, bends, a hint of red panties showing through the
thin fabric of her skirt, and drops coins into the child’s bowl. More people follow suit, and in no time
the bowl is brimming with coins. When Shepherd stops singing the crowd walks away because the man
with the head the shape of a hammer and the golden voice has no more songs. But Shepherd does not
put the child down. Christopher is all inside his head now, and Shepherd is explaining and apologizing,
trying to make him understand why he left. “Christopher, you must realize my son that I had to leave the
country, things were falling apart, I had no job, I had nothing. Please understand—”
But the girl wants to be let down. She kicks and lashes anew. “You’re crazy, I’m not your son put me
down you madman, putmedown putmedown putmedown!” she screams. She is vicious now. Wild now.
She bites Shepherd on the inside of the arm and he quickly releases her, stunned by the unexpectedness
of sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, by the depth of the pain. The girl picks up her plate and walks
away, a confused look on her face. Shepherd watches her retreating form, and when it disappears
behind a corner he looks at his arm. There are puncture wounds where the girl’s teeth bit, and then the
bleeding, the deep, terrible red.