I’m two different people according to the Registrar of Births. My birth was registered twice. Both records state Mother’s Name as Totela Ponga aged eighteen, my date of birth as August 16, 1969 and my birth weight as an eye-popping ten pounds seven ounces. That’s where the similarities end however. On the birth certificate my Grandma Ponga obtained from the Registrar of Births Unknown has been entered against Father’s Name, and my name is stated as Natasha Ponga. My other birth certificate, delivered in a sealed envelope to my tata two nights after I was born, has Father’s Name entered as Joseph Sakavungo and my name as Pezo Sakavungo.
From my razor-sharp eavesdropping skills, I know that when Grandma Ponga found out that Tata had bought a second birth certificate, she grabbed her late husband’s mututila and chartered a Zamcab to Tata’s office in town. She couldn’t use the mututila because the gunpowder was caked solid and she had no idea how to load it. So, Grandma Ponga says, ‘I used my hands. I grabbed his ujeni in my fist and twisted it like I was closing a tap. Tight. To stop it leaking bad seed all over the place.’
But for all the ujeni-squeezing, name-calling and threats that bounced between Tata and Grandma Ponga over whom I belonged to and what my rightful name was, I’m known neither as Pezo nor Natasha. Everyone calls me Pumpkin. Firstly, because I was a fat, chubby-cheeked baby. And, secondly, because when Ma was pregnant with me, no matter how much pumpkin she ate, she just couldn’t get enough.
That I adopted Tata’s surname didn’t stop Grandma Ponga triumphantly telling the story of what she did to him that day – though as I grew old enough to understand she would always lower her voice or look around to make sure that I wasn’t about before she began. But with all her wisdom, she made a mistake; she misjudged my level of intuition. For, from the very first time I heard Grandma Ponga tell the story, with me strapped to her with a chitenge – my cheek squashed against her sticky, pulsating back – I knew. Even though I was too young to understand, I knew. I knew that I was bad seed.