The Year the Gypsies Came by Linzi Glass

Author:Linzi Glass
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141960104
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

Buza

I take the box of kittens down to him at the gates when they are three weeks old. Streak holds on to one side of the box while I hold the other. The kittens are scratching and mewing wildly, but a Sunset Naming Ceremony is important and can’t be left undone.

‘Swear I can pick the one I want first,’ Streak says.

‘First one is yours, but you’d better make sure it’s okay with your mom and dad,’ I tell him.

‘Don’t let Buza give my kitten a name, Em’ly.’

‘He’ll give the other three names, but not yours, I promise.’

‘My own kitten, my own kitten!’ Streak sings loudly all the way down the driveway.

Buza is filling his snuffbox from his pouch, but looks up as we get nearer. He holds one hand out for us to stop, then puts his finger to his lips.

‘Shh,’ he says, and closes his eyes. ‘Let me see now, let me listen and tell you what you have in that box of yours.’ He keeps his eyes closed tight and pretends to be concentrating hard. The kittens are making so much noise that even a person walking in the woods could hear them. Streak and I giggle.

‘Mice,’ Buza says. ‘Little baby mice in the box, no?’

‘Buza, you’re teasing! It’s Duna’s kittens. I’ve brought them for you to give names.’

‘’Cept mine,’ Streak says quickly. I let go of the box, but Streak holds on to it and won’t put it down until he’s sure Buza agrees.

‘You have given your friend a kitten?’ Buza looks at me, and I nod. ‘And we will give it no name. That is fine, that is fine.’ He dusts the snuff specks off his old brown trousers and puts the snuffbox back into his pouch.

Streak and I crouch next to the box.

‘Choose your kitten, Streak,’ I tell him.

Streak looks down into the box and touches each kitten on the head with one finger.

‘This one,’ he says. ‘The one what looks like Duna.’

‘Good, it is settled,’ Buza says. ‘Come let me see them now, put them on my lap one at a time, so I do not need to bend.’

I hand Buza a kitten. He holds its little body, looks at it in the eyes, rolls it softly between his palms onto its back, like a spongy doughnut.

‘This one, this one is umThala. Means Milky Way, the river of white stars in the heavens. See, it is mostly black, with a white stripe across its belly. This is a good name for this kitten.’ He runs his hand across the line of white fur and taps the kitten on the belly before he gives it back to me.

The second kitten moves and squirms so much in his hands, as if it can feel warm hidden sparks from Buza’s skin, that he names it Sina.

‘Sina is a very lively dance in Zulu,’ he tells us. The third kitten he gives the name iBonsi, because of its apricot colours. ‘The name of the sweet wild fruit I ate when I was a boy in Zululand.

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