Secret Lives and Other Stories

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

Nobody went to the small dense wood below our school. The boys had got it into their heads that the wood was haunted. A woman, it was said, was long ago beaten by her husband so much that she ran away, and when she came to the bush, she died immediately.

  What drove me there? I suppose I was feeling rather lonely. Anyway, it was during a lunch break when all the other boys had gone home that I found my way through the dense trees and bush and soon came to a large, clear, open place in the very heart of the small forest. There, sitting down all by himself, was Mangara. At first he was startled and annoyed at my intrusion. He glared at me. I stared back at him and so we remained, complete silence between us, till I broke it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He did not answer at once. He looked at me and frowned a little as if he were weighing the question. I was irritated and was going to ask him again, when I saw him open his mouth.

  ‘I am looking for the Black Bird.’

  ‘Black Bird?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, almost in a whisper, and still he looked past me. I turned my head to see what he was staring at. I saw nothing. I was puzzled. I thought his behaviour queer and immediately remembered that morning about a month earlier when I had gone to school and met him at the cemetery.

  ‘I saw you at the graves.’

  ‘Oh, did you!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Black Bird again.’

  I laughed. He laughed. Then he became serious again. I thought all this was a schoolboy’s fancy.

  ‘Have you found it?’

  ‘No!’

  I never gave it another thought. But a gradual friendship began to grow from our encounter.

  We went through school together. He never mentioned the Black Bird again. He was a clever chap. Though he did not seem to put much effort in his work, when the final exams came, he had done very well and was one of the few boys who went to college. Our ways separated. I found a job with the T. & H. Trading Company at Limuru.

  As a medical student he did very well. Everyone, including the lecturers, had great hopes for him.

  ‘But what’s wrong with him?’ his fellow student once asked me as we were having tea at a café in Nairobi.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He is always preoccupied with something. So strange … withdrawn, shall I say? And the way he looks at things … You might, er, think …’

  It was while at college that he met Wamaitha, a girl teacher from Gicororo village. He became very much attached to her. I occasionally met him, and he would talk to me about her. He wanted to marry her. In those years his loneliness seemed to desert him and he looked near what might be called happiness. There was something hopelessly strange, almost tragic in his childlike anticipation of happiness and union with this girl. I met them together once or twice. She was tall and slim with shiny black hair that was always neatly done. She was religious, at least she seemed so to me, and even when she walked, she brimmed with holiness. She was beautiful. Her beauty was not really of the physical kind, but rather came from right inside her and shone all over her.

  One vacation preceding his final term at college, he unexpectedly turned up at our home. I stared at him with disbelief. The haunted look was back in his eyes. He was now old and weary. The brimful happiness had gone. I feared that Wamaitha had left him. But I thought it wise not to allude to the subject.

  There was a small room in our house which I loved, and we used to sit there having our meal, or reading or chatting. One evening, soon after we had eaten, we sat round the table, as was our custom. The lantern was possessed of a devil and burnt excitedly. Nothing passed between us. I was reading a book – I cannot remember the title. I was not even concentrating. Mangara was more withdrawn than ever.

  ‘You have not heard of the Black Bird.’ I almost jumped. I remembered him as a boy in school. Our encounter in the ‘haunted’ wood came back to my mind.

  ‘The Bird you were looking for at school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on! You are not serious.’

  ‘I have never been more serious in my life.’ He stopped. I wanted to laugh but the tone in which he said this completely forbade me. And then, sighing as if he had held his breath for a long time, he said, ‘Oh, I have been haunted all my life.’ He then looked at me and continued.

  ‘You are not superstitious. I know you say you are not. Then you’ll think it strange that a medical student should be. But I tell you it is not superstition. It is – do you ever think of the past?’

  ‘H’mmm. Not very much.’

  ‘You do not, for instance, think that the past can run after you and hunt you to death, in vengeance?’

  ‘How?’ I was puzzled. And afraid.

  ‘Let me put it this way. Do you believe that something that happened long ago to your grandfather or father could affect you?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Ah, in every sense … Your father was cursed. Can that curse pass on to you?’

  ‘The sins of fathers being visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation … eh?’

  ‘That is it, precisely.’

  ‘Why, no! It is preposterous!’

  He sighed. Then, talking to himself, he said, ‘Oh, I do not blame you. But now I know that Wamaitha won’t understand.’ I was startled. It was the most pathetic tone I had ever heard from anybody.

  ‘It was a Sunday evening,’ he began abruptly. ‘I was on my way home from a distant relative whom we called “Grandmother”. I was then young. The moonlight lured me to wander aimlessly over the Ridge and so it was late in the evening when I finally reached home. My mother was there. My two brothers were playing on a bed that was near the fireplace. They all looked happy. Father was not present. That was rather unusual as my father was not in the habit of being out late. Even when he went to the religious gatherings where he sometimes conducted prayers, he usually came home early. So, after a time, we all began to be anxious.

  ‘I had just finished my food when there was a thunderous bang on the door. In a moment a ghostly dark form stood at the door. This dark form was my father. His usually neat and well-kept hair was dishevelled. His eyes were bloodshot. He stood there at the door for a moment without speaking, as if surveying the scene before him. Then he collapsed in a heap on the dusty floor.

  ‘We all screamed in terror because we thought he was dead.

  ‘Actually he was not dead. When Mother sprinkled cold water on his head, we saw him slowly open his eyes. He seemed surprised to see us all around him. The terror took possession of his being so that he trembled a lot. He whispered something and the only words I could catch were “the Black Bird”! Nothing more. He slept again and did not wake till the next day.

  ‘That was the first time for me to hear of the Black Bird.

  ‘My father did not long survive the shock and died a month or so later. There was a lot of talk about his sudden death, for my father had been a very successful man, well-known for his religious fervour and honesty.

  ‘He was followed to the grave by my two brothers who died of pneumonia. And so I was left with Mother. We sold all we had and ran away from Kiambu. We came to live in Gathigi-ini. It was then that my mother told me the whole story as far as she knew it – I mean the story of the Black Bird.’

  Mangara paused and drew a breath.

  ‘You see, the whole thing goes back to Murang’a. That was our original home district. We owned a lot of land there. My grandfather was the first of the young converts to the Christian faith brought by the white man. The new converts were full of zeal; they came to believe that what was in their people was evil. Every custom was a sin. Every belief held by the people was called superstition, the work of the devil. Our God was called the Prince of Darkness. My grandfather and the others like him considered themselves soldiers specially chosen by the Christian God to rescue a lost tribe from eternal damnation. Nothing could harm them. Christ was on their side; and so they went through the hills, treading on the sacred place
s and throwing away the meat that had been sacrificed to Ngai under the Mugumo. Soldiers of Christ fighting with Satan!

  ‘Now, there was an old Mundu Mugo who had won much respect from all the people in the land. He could cure many diseases and he fought with Arogi and other evil men. It was said that he could even see into the future. His magic was very powerful and he used it for the good of all the people, especially in times of drought and war. To this man my grandfather came. With great zeal, he destroyed the old man’s things and burnt them all to ashes. After that he began to preach to him. The old man had not at first believed what he saw. Then in a terrifying voice, he told my grandfather that he would live to pay for this outrage. The old man disappeared from the land.

  ‘Years later he came back. As a Black Bird. My grandfather died and was followed by his children and wife. Except my father. And they all said before they died that they had been visited by a Black Bird. My father fled from Murang’a and came to Kiambu. As you know, the Bird followed him.’

  Again Mangara paused. Then in a tired voice that made me look up, he said, ‘My mother died soon after we came to Gathigi-ini. She too had seen the Black Bird. I thought hard; why should my father and my mother have died for a sin they never committed? Why? Why? I then vowed that I would for ever be on the look-out for the Bird. I have prayed and yearned to come to grips with it. But all in vain. You may not believe it, but to me, even then, the Bird was real. All through school I looked for it. Then I went to college.

  ‘I met Wamaitha. I forgot about the Bird. And all this time I have been thinking of how to get on in the world so that I might marry her. And, fool that I was, I thought I was becoming successful. For it was success, success that I was after now. Perhaps I thought this would rest my soul … and the thought of the Bird never crossed my mind, or if it did, I tried to fight it away by diving with greater vigour into my studies.’

  He paused. He put his two hands across his head and leaned back against the chair. He stared across, past me. Then he said:

  ‘I have now met the Black Bird.’

  I stood up and looked fearfully round the room. The fluttering shadows on the walls were the incarnation of evil. I sat down again and felt ashamed.

  ‘It was last week. You know I did not come here directly. On Sunday I went for a walk with Wamaitha. I had never been happier in my life. For the first time, I seemed to have escaped from my past. I was a new man in a new world inhabited by Wamaitha and myself. We joked and laughed. Dusk was coming. We sat on a hill and played like little children. Wamaitha left me for a while and I lay on my side looking at nowhere in particular.

  ‘The Bird was staring at me. I cannot describe the effect this apparition had on me. I felt nothing. I could not even shout. I just looked on, a little surprised at myself. Here I was, face to face with the Bird that I had always prayed to meet, and yet I could do nothing. The Bird was black; a blackness like soot … perhaps intensified by the dusk … But its eyes were large and … and … looked like a man’s eyes … they were red … eh … no, NO. It was gone, and I had not moved.’

  Mangara was greatly shaken by the recollection. I also trembled in spite of myself. I rushed to the door and frantically shot in the bolt. Then I went to the window and closed it, pulling the curtains to shut out the ominous darkness. Then I came back.

  ‘Did you tell Wamaitha?’

  ‘No! I did not. I told her I was not well. She could see me trembling. She thought I had caught a cold … How can I drag her into it all? In any case, she won’t believe my story. Even you …’

  I hastened to protest. But in my heart, perhaps to fight away the weakness I had displayed, I thought it a shame that he, a medical student and a man brought up in the European religion and ideas, should believe in such nonsense.

  ‘I know you don’t. Had it been somebody else telling me this, I wouldn’t believe him either …’

  Later in the night, as we were going to bed, he called me and said:

  ‘You know, my grandfather should have gone for cleaning under the sacred tree. My mother said something of the sort before she died.’

  That night I found it hard to sleep.

  Mangara went back to college for his final term. I did not hear from him. I had now a better place in the Company and they sent me to Tanganyika to be in charge of their depot. I was flattered, for I was the first African to hold such a post in the Company.

  I was in Tanganyika for six months before I returned home for a short visit. Limuru had not changed much. A new site for building a trading centre had been measured out but the old Indian Bazaar was still there. I went through the Bazaar and came to the small path that would take me home. It was there that I met Wamaitha. She had changed. She was thin and tall and her face wore a haggard look. The dress she wore had not been washed for a week. Strange. Where was her bright, holy look? Where was Mangara?

  ‘How is it with you?’ I said as I shook her thin hand.

  ‘I’m well.’

  ‘How is Mangara?’ I cheerfully asked.

  She stared at me. I stared back. My question seemed to have hurt her.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Dead!’

  ‘He failed his exam. So, people say, he committed suicide … Oh! Oh! Why could he not trust me? I would have loved him all the same …’

  She cried freely, as if the death was still fresh in her mind. I did not know what to think. How could he have failed the exam?

  A week later I went to see Dr K., also a graduate of that college, because I had a pain in my chest and was coughing a lot. The change of climate, I suppose. We talked a lot. The talk drifted to Mangara’s death.

  ‘People say he committed suicide because he failed. I don’t believe it. That man was strange. He was bright, though. None of us could measure against him. But in the last term he neglected all study. He grew thinner day by day. In the evening he would be seen round the college chapel. He seemed to have no life. But during the exam his eyes were strangely bright as if he was seeing something beautiful and exciting … When the results came, he had failed. He learnt about the results here. I was with him. I tell you he was not in the least shocked. It was as if he had known this all along. A week later he was found dead under the sacred tree. His eyes wore a strange look of peace, you know, as if he had accomplished a difficult task. The look you sometimes see in the revivalists.’

  When I got home I went to bed straight away. But for a long time I only stared into space, unable to decide whether to put out the light or not.

  THE MARTYR

  When Mr and Mrs Garstone were murdered in their home by unknown gangsters, there was a lot of talk about it. It was all on the front pages of the daily papers and figured importantly in the Radio Newsreel. Perhaps this was so because they were the first European settlers to be killed in the increased wave of violence that had spread all over the country. The violence was said to have political motives. And wherever you went, in the market places, in the Indian bazaars, in a remote African duka, you were bound to hear something about the murder. There were a variety of accounts and interpretations.

  Nowhere was the matter more thoroughly discussed than in a remote, lonely house built on a hill, which belonged, quite appropriately, to Mrs Hill. Her husband, an old veteran settler of the pioneering period, had died the previous year after an attack of malaria while on a visit to Uganda. Her only son and daughter were now getting their education at ‘Home’ – home being another name for England. Being one of the earliest settlers and owning a lot of land with big tea plantations sprawling right across the country, she was much respected by the others if not liked by all.

  For some did not like what they considered her too ‘liberal’ attitude to the ‘natives’. When Mrs Smiles and Mrs Hardy came into her house two days later to discuss the murder, they wore a look of sad triumph – sad because Europeans (not just Mr and Mrs Garstone) had been killed, and of triumph
, because the essential depravity and ingratitude of the natives had been demonstrated beyond all doubt. No longer could Mrs Hill maintain that natives could be civilized if only they were handled in the right manner.

  Mrs Smiles was a lean, middle-aged woman whose tough, determined nose and tight lips reminded one so vividly of a missionary. In a sense she was. Convinced that she and her kind formed an oasis of civilization in a wild country of savage people, she considered it almost her calling to keep on reminding the natives and anyone else of the fact, by her gait, talk and general bearing.

  Mrs Hardy was of Boer descent and had early migrated into the country from South Africa. Having no opinions of her own about anything, she mostly found herself agreeing with any views that most approximated those of her husband and her race. For instance, on this day she found herself in agreement with whatever Mrs Smiles said. Mrs Hill stuck to her guns and maintained, as indeed she had always done, that the natives were obedient at heart and all you needed was to treat them kindly.

  ‘That’s all they need. Treat them kindly. They will take kindly to you. Look at my “boys”. They all love me. They would do anything I ask them to!’ That was her philosophy and it was shared by quite a number of the liberal, progressive type. Mrs Hill had done some liberal things for her ‘boys’. Not only had she built some brick quarters (brick, mind you) but had also put up a school for the children. It did not matter if the school had not enough teachers or if the children learnt only half a day and worked in the plantations for the other half; it was more than most other settlers had the courage to do!

  ‘It is horrible. Oh, a horrible act,’ declared Mrs Smiles rather vehemently. Mrs Hardy agreed. Mrs Hill remained neutral.

  ‘How could they do it? We’ve brought ’em civilization. We’ve stopped slavery and tribal wars. Were they not all leading savage miserable lives?’ Mrs Smiles spoke with all her powers of oratory. Then she concluded with a sad shake of the head: ‘But I’ve always said they’ll never be civilized, simply can’t take it.’

  ‘We should show tolerance,’ suggested Mrs Hill. Her tone spoke more of the missionary than Mrs Smiles’s looks.