Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “I don’t know what it is,” he began quietly, as if talking to himself. “I can’t quite explain it, but the smell was stronger than that of rotting garbage, a rancid belch, or a ripe fart. Sometimes when I am walking the streets I can detect it from among all other scents in the air and often I come across people and buildings that have it about them more often and more strongly than others. But by the same token I also come across people whose fresh smell seems to drive the foulness away. There are times when the foul and the fresh appear to struggle for the right of passage into my nostrils, like evil and good spirits fighting for the domination of the soul. Today it somehow had to do with your going away and the police officer coming here. How shall I put it?

  “You have seen open fields when the sun is shining after the rains. You have seen dewdrops hanging delicately on leaves and petals, like silver beads, before flowing down. Sometimes smoke rises from the ground to the sky, as if sending out an offering to a deity? Watching it, you feel like bathing in the warmth that hints of imminent birth. Nyawlra, when you are around I feel immersed in the freshness of the fields when flowers are in bloom and bees and butterflies flit about gathering nectar to make the honey of life. That was the atmosphere that you had left behind in the house this morning.

  “But then Constable Arigaigai Gathere arrives. The whole house stunk during his entire stay. And even after he left, the heavy stench remained. That is what propelled me into a cleansing frenzy.”

  Still, no matter what he did, the stench would not go away. Maybe a dead rat was rotting somewhere in the house, so he searched under the bed, the chairs, everywhere, turning things over, but to no avail. Tired and frustrated, he sat by the table in the living room. Suddenly he knew the source of the foulness: the police officer’s money. KamltT immediately put all the notes in a plastic bag, put the bag into an empty cocoa can, and closed the lid. He dug a hole outside and buried the can.

  “The smell grew faint but was still in the air,” he told Nyawlra. “But when you entered the house it disappeared altogether, replaced by the fresh scent of flowers.”

  Nyawlra felt like laughing and saying something lighthearted but, seeing how serious Kamltl was, she restrained herself.

  “Just now I don’t feel like I smell of any flower,” Nyawlra said, let alone a fresh one after the rains. But thank you. I love flowers.”

  “The same kind of thing happened yesterday when I entered your office. I inhaled a sweet scent of flowers from where you sat, but when Tajirika emerged from the inner office I scented the stench of …”

  “…a corpse?” Nyawlra suggested.

  “… a rotting heart, soul, but how can one smell a soul? Besides, I sometimes scent the same from buildings, and now the money left here by that police officer. But money and buildings have no souls.”

  “You know,” said Nyawlra, “if you had talked only about Tajirika I would have said, Yes, I see what you mean. For everything about him rots. Did you see his right hand? It is always in a glove. Why? Because that is the hand that once shook the hand of the Ruler and he wants to retain the touch of power. The hand and the glove are never washed. So whatever he touches stinks. I sometimes wonder what his wife, Vinjinia, thinks about the gloved hand. But the rot goes beyond the hand. Money has corrupted his soul completely. You can’t even begin to guess how much he collected today, and all because he was made the chairman of the committee for Marching to Heaven.”

  “What? How?” Kamltl asked. “What is the connection between being appointed a chair of Marching to Heaven and collecting money?”

  Now it was her turn to tell Kamltl the story of her day. She told him everything except her encounter with Kaniürü at the Mars Cafe. She did not want to burden him with worries about being followed. But she did talk, almost triumphantly, about the signboards.

  “We removed the old signboard. If you came tomorrow you could get a job as my assistant.”

  “Work a job at that man’s place? I would rather set up a shop as a witch doctor,” he said flippantly.

  “So what are your plans for tomorrow?” Nyawlra asked.

  “I don’t know. I just want to go back to the wilderness tonight. I stayed because I thought you should know that the police officer came back, and about what happened in your house today.”

  “And the money?”

  “I will bury it in the prairie. The earth shall be my bank.”

  “Or are you planting it?” Nyawlra added; the idea of burying the money seemed absurd to her. “Are you planting it like a farmer plants seeds to secure abundance? Well, all I can say is that when your money tree grows, please come for me at harvest time.” She stood up and said: “But let us first eat something before you begin your journey into the wilderness.”

  Nyawlra cooked ugali. Dipping ugali balls in the broth that Kamrö had made earlier in the day, they ate their last dinner together in near silence, each self-absorbed. They had mixed feelings about their encounter and imminent parting. They felt they had always known each other; at the same time they were complete strangers. Their shared experience of the previous night now appeared as events involving other people in another country far away and long ago. Even though they now teased each other into laughter, they felt a little awkward and slightly embarrassed.

  “And when you leave this place,” Nyawlra asked, breaking the silence between them, “how will your patients know where or how to find you?”

  “Who tells you that I intend to go on with this business of witchcraft?” Kamltl said, almost irritated by the question. He was not a witch doctor. He was a make-believe Wizard of the Crow.

  About to respond, Nyawlra looked at her watch, and she suddenly let out a cry as if she had just remembered an important appointment. She stood, grabbed her handbag, and hurriedly addressed Kamltl:

  “I have to be somewhere. Don’t go to the wilderness tonight. Be my guest one more day. I will be away for a few hours only, but don’t wait up for me. Sleep on the sofa, like last night. Please don’t open the door for anybody. I have no friends or family who visit me here, even in the daytime.”

  She did not wait for him to respond. She just left.

  Who is this woman? Kamrö walked over to the couch, befuddled. Where is she going? Who is she going to meet? But soon he was lost in thoughts and worries about himself.

  He was glad that Nyawlra had offered her couch once more. But what was happening to him? Yesterday morning I was a job hunter. Midday I was a corpse, a piece of garbage about to be buried among other garbage. In the afternoon I was an object of Tajirika’s self-amusement. In the evening I was a beggar among beggars outside the gates of Paradise. Last night I was on the run, pursued by His Mighty’s police force. This morning I was the Wizard of the Crow, divining for one of His Mighty’s police officers. And tonight I am a watchman in the house of a mysterious woman whom I met only yesterday.

  Brooding on all of this, he fell asleep. Nyawlra shook him out of his stupor the following morning and offered him tea and bread for breakfast.

  “You don’t want to tell me that it is already the morning of another day?”

  “Yes, dawn is breaking and bright is the light of a new day,” she sang.

  “When did you come back?” he asked. “I did not hear you open the door.”

  “Early this morning,” she said, and he noted her silence about where she had been and what she had been doing. He chose not to probe further.

  Before they finished breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Nyawlra opened it to reveal Constable Arigaigai Gathere. Kamrö quickly hid. Nyawlra’s face showed fright, which turned to wonder as Constable Arigaigai Gathere fell to his knees and bowed his head.

  “My Lord Wizard of the Crow. I told myself you had to be the first to know. I am so happy and I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “What happened?” Nyawlra inquired, as if she herself was indeed the Wizard of the Crow.

  17

  What happened? These were the words his listeners said whenev
er A.G. came to this point in his story. But A.G. was not to be hurried: it was his narrative and he would tell it his own way, letting events unfold instead of abridging them into a phrase. Stories, like food, lose their flavor if cooked in a hurry.

  “How could you kneel down before another human being like you and me?” someone would ask him.

  “Human? The Wizard of the Crow is more than human: had you been in my position, you would have done the same.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he changed my life,” A.G. would say, and then paused.

  Seeing how attentive they were, A.G. would tell his listeners how on the day after the fulfillment of the oracle foretelling the matatu accident, he reported for duty. He had wanted to reach his place of work before anybody else, certainly before his boss, so as to make up for his lateness the day before. To his surprise he found his superior, Inspector Wonderful Tumbo, anxiously awaiting him. Let’s walk together to my office, Tumbo said, and for a moment A.G. thought he was going to be reprimanded. Did someone yesterday see him going to the witch doctor’s? But his boss’s gait and tone of voice showed no anger. In the office his boss fetched him a chair. Do you know what happened last night? No, A.G. said, thinking that maybe there had been more fatalities.

  As if imparting a secret to an equal, his boss then told him about the protest against the Global Bank mission and the anti—Marching to Heaven leaflets distributed to every door of every home and every office in Eldares and the country. Even inside the Parliament and outside the gates of the State House. Can you believe it? Outside the gates of the State House, under the very noses of the police and the soldiers guarding the palace! The question is, how did the pamphleteers get inside these heavily guarded locations without detection? We have the best trained force in Africa, if not the world. There was not a single report from any of the hundreds of police stations about the elusive intruders. Who were they? Djinns, of course! Do you hear that? Djinns.

  And then, inexplicably, Tumbo bent forward and said in English: Congratulations, my son. Never may you forget your friends. A.G. was perplexed by his tone and manner. Was Inspector Wonderful Tumbo toying with him, or what? A.G. was not kept in the dark for long. Tumbo reminded A.G. that he was the one who had written and faxed the comprehensive report of the night that A.G. chased djinns across Eldares and the prairie. As a result of it, the powers above had become interested in A.G.: he appeared the only human in all Aburlria who had the most recent experience with djinns.

  “In short,” A.G. would tell his listeners, “the report of my extraordinary courage in challenging djinns to a nighttime wrestling match in the prairie had reached the ears of the office of the Buler. An important decision was made and faxed back to my boss that very morning. I was to be transferred to the office of the Buler immediately to work under Minister Silver Sikiokuu. Even Tumbo was given a raise in recognition of his training of police officers willing to risk their lives for the Buler.

  What caused this big and sudden change in my career?” A.G. would ask his listeners, only to answer the question himself. “The Wizard of the Crow.”

  These were words he uttered to Nyawlra when, taking her for the Wizard of the Crow, he knelt before her, his head slightly bowed in humility, and said repeatedly, Thank you. He was so mystifying that Nyawlra was forced to ask, “What more do you want?”

  “Nothing. You see, I am being transferred to the Ruler’s office, but I decided to steal away to let you know how effective your magic has been. They want me to help them catch the dissidents who distributed anti-government leaflets all over the country last night. Believe me, O Wizard of the Crow, I will never forget what you have done for me. Now I must go.”

  A.C. stood up. After a step or two he stopped as if he had suddenly remembered something he should not have forgotten. He looked back at Nyawlra and a hint of a conspiratorial smile lit up his face momentarily.

  “Wizard of the Crow, those dissidents are very cunning. They go about their work in the dark, disguised as djinns, but they will come to know that nobody can fool Arigaigai Gathere. You see, with each leaflet they also left a plastic snake. They must be the same people who ruined the Ruler’s birthday celebration. But if it should happen that they are really djinns disguised as dissidents, then I shall come back to you for a little help in capturing them. I should not have said nothing’ when you asked me what else I wanted. I know that not even djinns can match the power of the Wizard of the Crow. But we shall talk.” A.C. then left to start his new life as a security agent in the office of the Ruler.

  Trembling, Nyawlra leaned against the door frame for support, then went inside, where she stared dumbstruck at Kamltl. Was this all a coincidence?

  “Who are you, really?” she asked him.

  “I should be asking you the same question,” Kamltl responded. “Why are you so frightened? Please, I don’t mean to get into your business, but where were you last night?”

  “I hear you. And you’re right; you deserve an answer. So please don’t go away today,” Nyawlra told Kamltl. “I have to be in the office on time, but when I come back in the evening we’ll talk at length and sort a few things out. As I told you the other night, I am a member of the Movement for the Voice of the People. I was unnerved when the police officer mentioned the leaflets and plastic snakes we distributed last night. At first I didn’t know what he was up to. If you want to rise to the top, you can turn me in to His Royal Mightiness. You will stay, won’t you? It seems you have magical powers,” she added wryly, before dressing and leaving.

  18

  Kamffi was troubled by Arigaigai Gathere’s promotion to work in the Ruler’s office, for it happened so soon after Kamffi’s dabbling in the make-believe. What if his playing at magic had had something to do with it? Did he possess occult powers without knowing? He found himself in a bind.

  He had played at childhood games to elude the police officer. But Constable Arigaigai Gathere, having been promoted, would now be hunting down enemies of the state. Nyawlra had just admitted to being a member of the Movement for the Voice of the People. What would prevent A.G. from persisting in his investigations under the guise of seeking more divinations? Kamltl felt more vulnerable than ever.

  Kamffi wanted to lead a decent life apart from politics. His aversion to political engagement, especially mass movements, was shaped by the experience of his family. His father, once a primary school teacher, had lost his job because of his attempts to unionize teachers in his area. And his grandfather had died in the Aburlrian war of independence. Political struggles had brought his family only misery, and he wanted nothing to do with them. Was it not ironic, then, that the very politics he had so pointedly tried to avoid were now being forced on him by the actions of others? What if A.G. came back, as he had intimated he might, to ask the Wizard of the Crow to use his powers to reveal the secrets of the anti-government movement and its followers? Would he be able to wriggle out of this predicament through another fiction? If only Nyawlra had not told him of her involvement! He feared that his wildest imaginings might contain truth, as in the turns the life of the police officer had taken. Would he find himself unwittingly revealing truths about this woman who had been kind to him? No, Nyawlra and Constable Arigaigai Gathere might later place on him an intolerable burden of choice. He would not sit around waiting for the return of either—he needed to get away from both, and having so decided, he felt better almost immediately.

  In his mind he started singing, I am going… but out of nowhere he heard the combined voices of Nyawlra and Constable Arigaigai Gathere singing different lyrics to the same melody: No, you are not. Their voices seemed so real that he heard himself shouting back, No! You cannot stop me, even as he felt that by shouting back he was being rude to his benefactors. He was no longer the penniless beggar that he was when he first ventured into Nyawlra’s house; he had the money from the police officer. But Kamltl would never have gotten it had Nyawlra not offered him a place to stay.

  He went outsid
e and unearthed the container of his loot. Its stench was that of a rotting corpse. He rushed back inside the house, put the plastic container with the money into his big beggar’s bag, put his jacket on, threw the bag over his shoulder, and strode to the door, intending to vanish in the streets of Eldares.

  There was a man standing outside the door.

  The stranger looked frail, ill, and tired.

  This must be the shrine of the Wizard of the Crow, the man said, and without waiting for confirmation proceeded to unburden himself of his problems. He was suffering, he said, from a big stomachache.

  “I do not want to claim that I am bewitched. I have no money and therefore I cannot go to the hospital. All I want from you are a few roots and leaves to chew to make the pain go away”

  Kamltl tried to deny that he was the Wizard of the Crow, but the words stuck to his tongue. The unexpected twists and turns of his life were becoming ominous. The old man was forcing him down a path he did not want to go.

  “Wait for me here,” he found himself telling the man, after a few cursory questions about his illness.

  He lied; his intent was to run away. Kamltl strode across the prairie not daring to look back for fear of losing his resolve. But once in the heart of the prairie, doubts troubled his peace of mind. What will Nyawlra think when she comes home from work and finds a stranger, a sickly old man, waiting outside her door? Was he like the ass in the proverb who showed gratitude by kicking his benefactor? Nyawlra had given him food and shelter; had in effect saved him from arrest the night at the gates of Paradise. She had guided him out of the crowded streets into the prairie and had shared warmth and hospitality. Now all she would have to show for it was his disappearance without explanation, his way of saying thank you. Then he wondered: How did she know her way so well in the prairie? He tried to find the bush that had saved them during the police chase. He retraced his steps, and after an hour of searching he came upon the place. On the night of their escape, he had failed to notice that the bush was some distance from Santalucia. In the middle of the bush was a ridge divided by a path. Kamltl sat on the rock to sort out the things swirling in his mind.