Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “In India, by studying the art of healing through plants, I suppose I had also a hazy notion of becoming a physician of wounded souls. But as to who my patients-to-be were, I hadn’t a clue.

  “I was drawn to the religions of the East. I wanted to learn more about the prophets and the teachers from the East like Buddha, Jain’s Mahavira, Guru Nanak of the Sikhs, and even Confucius of China. Some of their beliefs, like the doctrine of karma, are close to what I have heard you say about human deeds and actions as determinants of life on earth. The Buddhist karma is a deed, physical, oral, or mental, containing within it a potential power. Each of our actions results in the good or bad effect and influences our future. A good deed repeated accumulates the good, and its potential power will affect the future as a beneficial influence. Each person has his own karma, his own potentiality for good or evil. Like the chi among the Ibo.

  “Our ancestors tell us that a builder can only build you a house with the building blocks you bring him. You bring him stones? You get a house made of stone. You bring him wood? You get a house made of wood. You bring defective stone, wood, iron, or steel, you get a defective house. The chief difference between your position and the religions I’ve studied concerns belief in the transmigration of souls. If you do beastly deeds in this life, then in your next life you will be born a greedy hyena or an ugly warthog or simply a beast. A person should lead a life of good works to ensure that in his next cycle of being he or she is reborn as a superior being.

  “The Buddhist attitude to property attracted me. A person who chases after fame and wealth and love is like a child who licks honey from the blade of a knife. While tasting the sweetness of honey he risks damaging his tongue. But what fascinated me most was the notion of nirvana. I understand that the word literally means to blow off.’ It is a state of perfect light, a state in which all human defilement and passion have been completely extinguished through practices and meditations based on the right wisdom. Buddha means the enlightened, the one who has found the light.’ And it was not lost on me that Gautama Buddha himself reached this state in his old age, lying between two large trees in a forest.

  “When I returned to Aburlria my spiritual preoccupations yielded to necessity: I had to find a job. There was a time when I thought that maybe a person could do business in a righteous way—you know, without greasing palms—and so remain incorruptible. As it turned out I did not even have the opportunity to find out if that was possible. The rest you know.

  “I’ve come to believe that there is a power outside of us that drives human affairs. It is the power hinted at by the religious when they say that God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. You and I had not chosen to meet when we did. The same power has brought you here. There is a purpose to all this.

  “Nyawlra, please don’t go back to Eldares, back to the corruption. Let’s build a shelter here; listen to what the trees and the animals have to tell us. Long ago, my ancestors, the hunters, believed that the sun was our god because it was the source of fire and light. When we were children and we captured its heat in pieces of glass, we believed we’d captured a bit of its power. Let’s stay here and find out the secrets of the heat of the sun and the light of millions of stars.”

  Nyawlra could not quite believe her ears. She had not expected this response. He was asking her to turn her back on Eldares, Aburlria, the people, so as to become a hermit, one of the children of the new-millennium Buddha in the Aburirian forest, searching for the meaning of life. Without thinking of what she was doing, she removed Kamltl’s hand from her shoulders.

  “Maybe we are different. You are drawn to the ministry of wounded souls, I to the ministry of wounded bodies. I may not know which is the better ministry. But this I know: human beings are free to choose how they use the gifts given to them by God, nature, sun, fate, call it what you like, I mean that transcendent power that you say governs our lives, whether to use it to seek personal salvation or a collective deliverance.”

  It was not a question, but again Kamltl squirmed under its implication.

  “When I look into the distance of time I see only a kind of darkness, a mist, smoke, nothing clear. Nyawlra, I smell tears and blood …”

  “Whose tears and blood?”

  “I don’t really know. I will not ask you and your friends to give up the plans you have for disrupting the rites at the site of Marching to Heaven. However, on my part I don’t feel ready for the task. I still want to hear what the animals, plants, and hills have to tell me. I need to find myself.”

  “For us,” she now said as she stood up, “we see Marching to Heaven as means of turning our earth into hell, and we have chosen to do something about it.”

  She started collecting her things, ready to leave. She did not pack the boxes of matches, the kettle, or the pot.

  Then she suddenly remembered something at the back of her mind that she had not yet voiced.

  “Tell me,” she said, “what happened to the three bags of money? What did you do with them, or rather with the money?”

  “I buried it,” Kamltl said, exhausted.

  “You buried the money?” Nyawlra asked, as if she had not heard the words clearly. You should have given it to us!” she said. “The movement would have made good use of the money against these criminals.”

  “I will tell you where it is. It is all yours. But be forewarned: that money is cursed.”

  “There is no money that is blessed or cursed,” Nyawlra said. “It depends on the uses to which it is put,” she added, and then suddenly paused.

  She recalled that the three bags of money almost took her life the day she returned to the office to collect her handbag and ran into Tajirika’s gun. The three bags had provoked white-ache in Tajirika.

  “Forget the whole thing,” she said. “I don’t even want to know where it is buried. Our movement believes more in the actions that people do than in the money that people give. So let us leave the money bags to red ants and termites. It is time I returned to my lair in the city.”

  “The sun is about to set. Why don’t you stay for the night and leave in the morning so you can cross the prairie by the clear light of day?”

  “No, I will start right away. I have to report to work tomorrow.”

  “I will see you across the prairie,” Kamltl offered.

  “No, no. Let me do the prairie alone. That way I will get to know it better. The wild beasts of the prairie are less cruel than the beastly humans embarking on Marching to Heaven.”

  “But don’t burn your bridges. What is the saying? One may find oneself back to places one had thought that one had left for good. I am now a dweller in the forest. If ever you come back, please leave a piece of your cloth here in the cave or on any rock in the forest and I am confident that I shall find you.”

  “Thank you, but I have no intention of returning to these parts anytime soon. Eldares calls me.”

  They walked in silence to the foot of the hills where the prairie begins. Kamltl watched Nyawlra cross the expanse of the land until she became indistinguishable from the acacia in the distance.

  SECTION III

  I

  Weeks later when Nyawlra was on the most wanted list and the police, under the Ruler’s orders to take her dead or alive, were looking for her all over the country, what most helped was her knowledge of the prairie, and Kamltl’s admonishment not to burn bridges was very much in her mind as she crossed the plains in the dark alone with nothing more than the dress she had worn to work and a handbag.

  She recalled how firmly she had resolved not return to these parts anytime soon and was struck by Kamltl’s prophetic insight. She felt fearful of the darkness but also grateful for the protection it offered against pursuers. The stars above were her best companions, and it was now that she most appreciated the talks she and Kamltl had had about the sun, the moon, and the stars.

  She went to the cave where she had last seen him. There were no signs of human presence. She stood there; she grew
teary-eyed. Not that she regretted what she and the other women had done, although she grudgingly admitted to herself that it was no less provocative than if they had pelted a police station with rocks.

  The moon appeared in the horizon, and though it did not shine as brightly as it had that other time with Kamltl, still its light enabled her to make out her surroundings. She did not want to stay in the cave because it was near the foothills, so she decided to try her luck farther in and wander among the places where she and Kamltl had earlier stayed to see if she might find him.

  The forest seemed transformed, though not many weeks had passed since she had last been there. Then the entire place was enveloped in a magic of love and wild beauty. Now it seemed unbearably perilous. She dreaded encountering a lion, a leopard, or any of the cats she had earlier wished to see. How would she escape from them? She imagined cobras, puff adders, and pythons lurking somewhere in the dark, and with every step she pictured herself being ensnared by a snake or a three-horned chameleon. She did not fail to note the irony of her having carried plastic snakes in her handbag in the past. Now she was in a bush where real snakes resided, and she was terrified. What if I should escape human fangs only to end up in the belly of a puff adder? She imagined her body slowly decomposing in the belly of a viper and she shivered, but when she pictured herself inside the Ruler’s torture machine, she thought the belly of a beast less terrifying.

  There was a crack of a dry bush behind her. She froze. She thought of dashing farther into the bush, but she could not move her feet. She glanced to the left, now to the right, to see if there was a tree nearby to which she could run and climb.

  She heard the sound again and in a split second took flight, unaware that she had screamed. And then she tripped over something. It must be a snake. She tried to crawl away, whimpering, and then collapsed.

  She did not know how long she stayed unconscious. All she now felt was the sudden flooding of her eyes when she came to and found herself in Kamltl’s arms. As the tears of joy streamed down her cheeks, Nyawlra felt rather than saw the question etched in the folds on his forehead.

  “It is all because of the women’s demonstration against Marching to Heaven,” she told him, heaving and crying without restraint.

  2

  How had she slipped through their fingers? people in Eldares were asking, entertaining many versions of what had happened. One rumor had it that more than a thousand policemen had been deployed to seal off the office where she worked, that some were in armored cars with rapid-fire submachine guns trained on all exits, and helicopters like hawks hovered to swoop on the fugitive.

  Some of these gossipmongers even swore that they were there, had seen her with their very eyes, that she was dressed to kill, that those policemen who laid their eyes on her were seized by a desire the likes of which they had never experienced, so powerful that it turned them into drooling fools struggling to stifle their erections.

  Yet according to another rumor, Nyawlra had disguised herself as a man: some said as an old man wrapped in a tattered blanket, and others saw her as a handsome young man, clean-shaven but with a handlebar mustache bushier than the tail of a horse.

  All the rumors, however, agreed that some police had been dispatched to Nyawlra’s workplace with a warrant for her arrest.

  3

  Two of the policemen, with Kaniürü as their informant, sat at separate tables in the Mars Cafe, waiting to pounce on Nyawlra on her way to the offices of Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate. Three in plainclothes were deployed at strategic points around the area. Perched in his accustomed corner, reading or trying to read a newspaper, Kaniürü was so conscious of the weight of the task entrusted to him that it took him a while to realize that he was holding the newspaper upside down.

  The recent drama at the dedication of the site for Marching to Heaven had given Kaniürü the opening he had sought all these years to ingratiate himself properly with the powers that be, and he seized it with alacrity. He placed a direct call to Sikiokuu in the Ruler’s office.

  The minister could not believe the good fortune coming from the other end of the line. He felt a guardian angel had come to his rescue even as he was drowning. He recalled vividly how as they left the scene of the drama the Ruler had called him aside and in an icy tone had asked rhetorically, How could so shameful a scandal have taken place without the ears, eyes, and noses of the State having even an inkling? I shall need a convincing explanation at the next cabinet meeting, the Ruler had warned him in English, and Sikiokuu had been in Aburlrian politics long enough to know that this amounted to a death sentence.

  Days later, Sikiokuu had locked himself in his office, desperately trying to figure things out but all in vain. Unless fate intervened, his days were numbered. And then came the telephone call from Kaniürü. In all the time he had dealt with his numerous informers, none had ever given him information that made him so tremble with relief and anticipation. Sikiokuu could hear the words clearly but kept on asking Kaniürü to repeat them: Am I hearing right? You know some of the women? Oh, you don’t know if she is the leader? Ah, a follower of the movement? Boy, if we catch her, the latest Mercedes is yours. Oh, we’ll put such a squeeze on her that she will shit out everything she knows, he told Kaniürü as he summoned him to his office.

  Sikiokuu would have wanted to be present at the moment of Nyawlra’s arrest, but he feared to be absent should the Ruler call an emergency cabinet meeting concerning the affair. In any event, it would be a little undignified for a cabinet minister to participate in the arrest of a common secretary deluded into anarchy, no doubt, by a cunning lover. After his face-to-face with Kaniürü, Sikiokuu decided that he did not trust the local police of Santamaria with the task of arresting Nyawlra. He would dispatch a special squad from his own office to do the deed, he told Kaniürü.

  He had already formed a standing squad of Superintendent Peter Kahiga, Superintendent Elijah Njoya, and Superintendent Arigaigai Gathere as his eyes on the movement, and he now enlisted three constables to assist them. A.G. was to coordinate the operation not only because he had worked in Santamaria and knew the area well but also because of his legendary chase of djinns across the prairie, resulting in a reputation of relentlessness. A.G. was also to liaise with the informer Kaniürü, whose main task was to point out the criminal.

  A.G. and Kaniürü agreed that the Mars Cafe would be the focal point. Kaniürü was to make sure to be there before the main squad and order a cup of tea. He would be wearing a white shirt and reading a newspaper as identifying markers for the squad.

  The squad was to arrest the woman in secrecy, throw her into a van with a fake license plate, and take the prisoner directly to Sikiokuu. No one else, be he a police officer or cabinet minister, was to know. Sikiokuu did not want to share even the slightest credit with his political enemies like Machokali; he licked his lips at the thought of the dramatic arrest, his first crack at the women who had brought shame to the state in the eyes of the world. The state would now strike back, and he, Sikiokuu, was thankful that fate had chosen him to be the instrument of the Ruler’s revenge.

  4

  Nyawlra would always recall the morning of that Tuesday with trepidation. The Monday and the Friday before had been declared public holidays in honor of the dedication on a Saturday. Tuesday was her first day of work after the drama at Eldares. Later, describing the events of the fateful morning, she talked about how she had woken up at her usual hour in a state of bliss, quickly showered, and set out for the bus stop. The bus to Santamaria had been on time. In the bus Nyawlra was in a zone all her own—she felt like singing to celebrate being a woman. The victorious drama at Eldares was still fresh in her mind. She knew that security forces would be on the lookout for the members of the movement, but she did not feel unduly concerned about her own personal safety. She believed that nobody could possibly connect her with what the women had done. In Aburlria, politics was strictly a masculine affair; men would never think that women could
plan and execute anything like what had happened. Ever since she started working for Tajirika she had covered her tracks well, acting the perfect secretary—a bit priggish, perhaps, which had earned her Tajirika’s respect and that of his circle of friends, who kept their lustful thoughts to themselves. She got off at her usual stop a few blocks after the Santamaria market. She crossed the Ruler’s Avenue and Parrot’s Way and went down Main Street to the offices of Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate. She was very keen on getting to the office to glean gossip from Vinjinia. Vinjinia had not been at the scene on Saturday, but she surely would have picked up a few tidbits from Tajirika.

  Nyawlra knew that he had been at the meeting because a few days before the dedication, Tajirika, according to Vinjinia, had suddenly recovered from his so-called illness, saying that the queues had already served their purpose and swearing that no illness, real or fake, would keep him, the chairman of Marching to Heaven, away from participating in so historic a day.

  She thought of stopping at the Mars Cafe for a cup of coffee before going to the office. Giddy with bliss, Nyawlra never entertained the possibility of encountering Kaniürü. At the thought of the aroma of fresh hot coffee, she did, however, think of Kamltl all alone in the forest, but she quickly shooed the image away. After all, Kamltl had freely chosen to dwell among the fauna and flora, and if he was happy with that, who was she to tell him that he was missing good coffee at the Mars Cafe on a glorious Tuesday morning? She did not envy him, and she most certainly did not miss the frosty morning air of the mountains.

  She was a few blocks from Mars Cafe when she felt somebody touch her right shoulder. She ignored the brush, casually shifting her handbag to her left shoulder and moving on. It happened again and she turned around quickly. It was A.C. Nyawlra started ever so slightly. She had never seen him in daylight other than at her place, and not since the morning that he had come to tell of his promotion. What is he doing in plainclothes in Santamaria so early in the morning? Trying hard not to show surprise, she at first acted as if she could not tell who he was.