excerpt from someone else's novel

I am Hope. You can call me Hope. Hope is my name for all the registrations. But I also have my birth name and my small name for the village. There is also my tribal name and the name I will have when I will say my new faith at my marriage. The secret birth name is from my mother to fool the evil spirit who is envious of the beauty of a child. It is in the language of women from the time we had queens. It means “To die in the quiet of the storm”. “Hope” is what my mother and father wanted to give me, as a gift, and is their feeling for me. I am writing this for Mister Jack. It is a gift to him. I write on the paper my father bought me.

My nickname is “Storyteller”. It was mine as a small girl. My sister, Chastity, was given the name “Mangoes” but that was when she went to school. She is my twin. I had that name too. When she was small Chastity was “Knife”. She was then thin and bony like me. When I marry I will have the name of a wife of the Prophet and Redeemer and so will Chastity.

Chastity is my holy twin. She is gifted to me by fate. She is my dearest womb friend. I will be forever true to her. Because she is so much to me I can write her story for the world to see her true character despite all her temptations and all the gossip. I hope my story can be a poem, a song, a movie. It will be like the novels read by Mister Jack about family and love. This will show all how we women are and how we suffer. We suffer more than Oliver Twist or King Lear or Madame Heathcliffe or our great nation and Governor suffer which things we learn of in school. I will show that Chastity is a clever tall girl and proud. She is the tree of fruit of her father and grandfather, of her mother and grandmother.

I am writing this novel book also for my teacher Mister Jack. It is his present. He said to write a holiday story so I would not forget. By doing so I know shall praise him. His language is pure as the purest of tongues and his skin is as soft as this paper. He knows all the foreigners but he is their tallest and smartest. Some are as pigs but he is as a king. He is visited by new vehicles. He will return to his land of green hills and strong music and the best markets. He should take this with him to his country. It is a land of constant water where many get rich as my mother’s brother’s wife’s cousin on the other side of my family. I long to see it. Although some say she is a witch. My mother says she is a doctor.

I want him to know of our ways and to love us and I want to show him he has taught me well. Also he must know how we are, for none of us is what we seem. Mister Jack teaches me Methodology about teaching aids for lessons, theatre arts and English. He teaches us the sentence. It is like a magic. He is fixing our school. We all love him. He is our master and lord. Our duty is to please him. He has explained to us how to teach the making of a novel book and about journals. He has taught us about plays and writing in the voices of others. He says my sister and I are remarkable and smart. When I told him after that class that I will go to the hostel and write a novel book he marvelled. He said it is not what he intended but more. But, why not? Our lives are like the great stories. It is then what I am doing on this the very paper my father bought me.

The first man to call Chastity friend, ally and pal was John. She gave him her permission. He said that he loved her and that her eyes killed. He told her that the hair on her smooth body magnets all boys around her. She was cream and butter. Chastity did not heed him on this type of word. She knew it was hard to know what boys mean and she would not be confused. She sang her own song to herself that God would send her suitor and she would hope in God.

Piccolo and John would walk to the primary school with Chastity and me. We were still small enough to have to carry our sitting stones on our heads and our piece of sugar canes in a hidden plastic. Piccolo would call my sister lovely and his ally too. But John would say that she was not Piccolo’s wife, or even practice wife and that Piccolo should go away or he would give him a heavy blow. Men are as jealous as women.

My sister told them that they should shut their marathon talk. They were wasting their time as only God knows her true suitor. Piccolo always had money in his pocket from his father’s coat. He said that if Chastity would befriend him he would give her the money.

Chastity said that she was finished with small, silly boys since a long time in her heart. She danced on the road and sang that she did not care for those who need her love. The head of Piccolo was down in shame. John laughed at him. Piccolo was a soft and funny boy. He died with a fever.

John then said to Chastity that she had a bad behaviour. He said to Piccolo that he should forgive Chastity because she was young. But later I know he agreed with Piccolo for a plan to share her. This was even before our breasts and menses had arrived. John is now in the customs.

John asked me what kind of girl my sister is to refuse to befriend a good looking boy like Piccolo. Later I know that the boys went to the bush doctor with Piccolo’s money to get medicine to rub on Chastity’s body to make her follow them. On the way to the doctor the toe of John hit on a stone and began to bleed. He said to his friend Piccolo not to look and that the blood was like water on a mountain. Piccolo said to his friend that this is a great pity and is the result of beauty which is a magic. There are terrible things the result of beauty.