Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Rain come down

  I’ll offer you a sacrifice

  Of a bull and another

  With bells around the neck

  Making beautiful sounds

  Mwalimu Karimlri, as his father was popularly known, and his mother, Nüngari, had grayed well. Kamltl was glad to find them in good health. They were happy to see him and jokingly chastised him for staying away so long without a word about how he was doing in Eldares. He told them of the many years he had spent on the road, looking for work: they laughed, observing that primary school education of their day must then be superior to even the higher learning of today, because, back then, with an elementary school certificate, one could get a job as teacher, nurse, agricultural instructor, or veterinary assistant and one did not have to walk the roads for three years to get it. He told them that he was going to buy them a piece of land and build a modern stone house for them to show his appreciation for their many sacrifices on his behalf. As pleased as they were to hear this, they reminded him that his happiness was paramount, that they were used to the village plot on which they lived and were accustomed to working on other people’s farms for pay. Life was not hard, they assured him. What we earn is enough for the two of us, but we would not mind sleeping on a nice bed in a modern stone house and owning a plot of land with a cow or two for milk.

  Later, one evening when Kamltl and his father were sitting at the veranda, Mwalimu Karlmlri inquired about his son’s occupation. You talked to us about buying us a piece of land and putting up a modern house, his father said. Where would the money come from? And I did not hear you talk about a job. Or are you into some illegal venturer You know very well that I would not touch even a cent born of crooked ways.

  Kamltl hesitated, wondering what and how to tell him about his new profession as the Wizard of the Crow. His father had eyes that pierced a person’s heart; he could spot a lie a mile away.

  He decided not to trim the truth and told him that he had set up a business venture under the name Wizard of the Crow. Kamltl, who expected his father’s rebuke, was surprised to see him laugh. He laughed so hard, Kamltl later told Nyawlra, that tears flowed down his cheeks.

  “And what is it you do as Wizard of the Crow?” his father asked him between bouts of laughter. “Sorcery? You know that I cannot touch any money from sorcery. Before the whites came with their own forms of punishment, sorcerers, when caught, were burned alive. So what services does the Wizard of the Crow perform?” the old man asked again.

  “I don’t kill people, if that is what you are thinking. Let’s just say that I punish evil itself, not the evil ones. I am a healer. I heal wounded bodies and troubled souls. I see things that are hidden from many. I did not choose divination; it chose me.” He briefly explained to his father how the shrine came about.

  As Kamltl recounted his story, his father became increasingly solemn. Then Kamltl saw him stand up abruptly and excuse himself, and after a while he came back, more serene.

  “Listen to me, my son,” his father began. “Human will cannot will away God’s will. Maybe you are asking yourself why I became solemn after almost drowning myself in laughter. At first I thought that you were just joking, so I greeted your words with laughter. But the more you talked, the more I realized that you meant what you said, and I started looking at myself with a questioning eye. I remembered that you once asked me about our family’s story. I don’t quite recall why you wanted to know. At the time I only hinted at the strange past and fortunes of our clan. Let me tell you. The Mit! clan used to be mighty. But over the years it has been scattered by slave raids, colonial ventures, and world wars. In our house we have always desired peace, but what we have gotten are woes of war. What might we have been had we not been scattered to the four corners of the wind? But the water that has spilled cannot be scooped.

  “We are descended in part from hunters who dwelled in the forest, mostly, and came to know it well. Nearly all were healers. There was not an illness against which nature did not provide the necessary juices of life. Not only were they healers, but some had the gift of seeing things hidden from ordinary eyes. Some could even fly like birds. Consider your grandfather, Kamltl wa RTenjeku, from whom you take your name! He sometimes found himself atop a mountain impossible for humans to climb or floating in the middle of a lake though he did not know how to swim. I never fleshed out his story because I did not want you to follow in his footsteps. We sacrificed, sent you off to school, to prevent that from happening. But today you have taught me a great lesson. Or, you have reminded me of something no one should ever forget: that the will of God will always triumph over human willfulness.”

  How did my grandfather die? Kamltl wanted to know. In the past he had been put off with vague answers like he died of old age or in an accident or of an illness. Now his father was direct: his grandfather, Kamltl wa RTenjeku, had been a holy seer, a spiritual leader working with forces fighting the British in the war of independence. “He lived with the fighters in the mountains, teaching them how to be at peace with one another, settling conflicts, leading units into battle, and cleansing them of evil after their engagement with the enemy. He knew every path, every plant, every living thing. No one knew the ways of the forest better than your grandfather. The British shot him dead one day, but his body was never found. Some maintain that he is still alive and that his spirit hovers over Aburiria, ensuring that the truth of our past endeavors shall never be forgotten. So you see, human will cannot change God’s design,” his father repeated.

  How come his own father had not become a seer? KamTtT asked.

  “My son,” his father said, “a seer is chosen by powers beyond us.”

  “And how does one know that one is chosen?”

  “With us, seers are born holding a seashell; and my son, you were born gripping a shell in your little fist.”

  This pronouncement was followed by silence between them, each lost in his own private thoughts about what had just been said. Kamltl then asked his father that if it was true that he was born a chosen one, why was he not told? Why was he not allowed to yield to his grandfather’s calling?

  “The blessing comes with a price; I did not want my only child to bear the burden unless he was ready and willing …”

  “What is the price?”

  “You cannot use the gift to acquire earthly riches beyond the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and the house in which you live. Clothes, food, shelter, that is all.”

  “And what if such a person should gather riches?”

  “Anything could happen. A seer might wake up to find himself in a land unknown, far away from his possessions, relatives, and friends, wandering alone among strangers, a prophet in exile. Or he might wake up to find his home on fire. The true ones suffer that they may know what true suffering is. They go through want so they may know what true want is. A seer lives in self-denial in the service of others. I had hoped to remove this burden from your shoulders so that you could live your life like everybody else. But as you can see all my efforts came to naught. God’s will triumphs.”

  “But what greater wealth could I possess than a healthy body and a soul cleansed of evil?” Kamltl gently remonstrated with his father.

  It was then that Nüngari, his mother, walked in and just caught the last words, and chided Kamltl affectionately.

  “There is no wealth greater than a home of one’s own. A home is husband, wife, and children. Or am I to be a grandmother only when I’m buried?”

  “Mother, must I remind you that my flame rejected me?” Kamrö jokingly responded.

  “Who is this flame that you never brought home to light a mother’s heart?”

  “Margaret Wariara. Shall we make a deal? How about you go to Wariara’s place and plead with her,” Kamltl added, and laughed.

  His parents grew eerily quiet.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “What?”

  “Margaret Wariara came back
home all dried up, drained of energy. She breathed her last, watched by the whole village.”

  That night Kamltl hardly slept, for different images of Wariara kept intruding into his mind. So when on the following day a young man he went to school with came over and asked him to join him for a walk through the village, Kamltl accepted immediately. A walk through the village, a walk through rural peace, a walk to evoke the happy images of his childhood, would wipe away those of pain and loss. They started reminiscing over old times, recalling the names of so-and-so, all their mates in primary and secondary schools. But the walk only deepened his sorrow. Whichever name he mentioned, his friend simply pointed to a grave. Men and women of his own age, simply gone. Just like that. In the end, he stopped asking about anybody, for the answers lay in the many old and fresh graves lined around the village, victims of the same deadly virus.

  “It is no longer an urban thing,” Kamltl told Nyawlra after he came back to Eldares. “It’s terrible when the old have to bury the young. But it is more terrible when neither the old nor the young are there to bury each other.”

  9

  During the week that Kamltl spent in Klambugi, Nyawlra found being the sole Wizard of the Crow at the shrine trying. There were so many clients with so many problems of body, mind, and heart that she hardly had time to read the newspaper. She swore that she would never again allow Kamltl to go off for as long as he had. A day, maybe, but a whole two weeks, no!

  One day she noticed a client in the waiting room reading the Eldares Times and she could not resist glancing at the headlines. She stopped in her tracks; she felt as if her heart had stopped beating. She rubbed her eyes to see more clearly, but there was nothing wrong with her vision.

  The picture that stared back at her was of her father standing next to Sikiokuu; the headline screamed A FATHER TO HIS DAUGHTER: COME BACK HOME OR ELSE … She thought of asking the client to let her borrow the paper but decided against it. Suppose it was a setup? She behaved as if she had noticed nothing but later sent a helper for a copy of her own.

  The story, as she read it, was merely an elaboration of the headline, but it tore into her being nonetheless. Her father was appealing to her to come out of hiding, surrender, and thereby earn his gratitude and blessings.

  “If you don’t give yourself up within one week, I say publicly to the whole world, I will no longer call you my daughter, for I am loyal to God in Heaven and the Ruler here on earth.”

  Although Nyawlra did not always see eye to eye with her father, she loved and revered him deeply, and this prospective public divorce was painful and humiliating. How many times would he deny her, she asked herself, recalling his response to her expression of love for Kaniürü. Yet his judgment of Kaniürü’s character and intentions had proven correct. Might he not have a point now? she agonized. Would she end up regretting her involvement in the politics of change the way she regretted her liaison with Kaniürü? That her mother was nowhere in the picture or the story made her feel that there was more to this than it appeared.

  Things became clearer as she read on. Sikiokuu was quoted as saying that the government would leave no stone unturned in its effort to capture Nyawlra and the leadership of the Movement for the Voice of the People. He described them as reptilian, symbolized by their calling card, the plastic snake. They would be ground to dust.

  When and how did her father come to join Sikiokuu? Nyawlra began to wonder. She could not quite believe that her father would leave his businesses to come all the way to Sikiokuu’s offices simply to denounce her. Matthew Wangahü might believe in the status quo, but he, like the rest of his class, took pride in having made it on his own and not by availing himself of public funds—stealing from the people, as it were. He would never have stooped to deny his daughter in public unless he was under considerable pressure.

  In another column she read, Sikiokuu was quoted as having an invitation from Mr. Kaniürü to officially open the offices of the deputy chairman of Marching to Heaven and those of the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania. The dates and plans for the opening ceremonies would be announced later. Kaniürü’s picture was not published, but even so he had been quoted in his dual capacity, appealing to all residents of Santamaria and Santalucia, especially singers and dancers, to be ready to welcome Minister Silver Sikiokuu. He, too, had called upon Nyawlra to come forward and give peace of mind to her beloved, including her aged parents. He proclaimed that she would also be of use to the Commission of Inquiry.

  Nyawlra began to see things for what they were. Kaniürü’s prose-cutorial zeal was evident. From the moment she had heard of Kaniürü’s appointment as the chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry, she knew that he was capable of using his new powers to terrorize families, but little did she suspect that her family would be an early casualty.

  The irony of the situation struck her. Even as Kamltl, her new love, was away visiting his parents, Kaniürü, her old love, had dragged her own father to town to deny her. The only saving grace was that her mother had absented herself, and Nyawlra felt tears of gratitude well up inside her.

  Suddenly she became angry and defiant and she heard herself talking loudly to an invisible presence. No matter what you do, Kaniürü, I will never appear before your Commission of Inquiry.

  10

  When Tajirika received a summons to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania, he was furious upon seeing Kaniürü’s signature on it. Wasn’t he his deputy, actually his clerk, regardless of his being chairman of the Commission of Inquiry? Priorities had to be observed, after all. How would he show Kaniürü that he, Tajirika, was his boss and in the process teach him a lesson in humility and obeisance to his superiors? He thought of tearing the summons into pieces, putting them back into the same envelope, and writing on top Return to Sender.

  Another idea intruded. Why not write his deputy a letter summoning him to Tajirika’s office to discuss his role as deputy and impress upon him the importance of Marching to Heaven? He imagined the scene. As soon as Kaniürü entered the office he, Tajirika, would show him the summons or better still tear it to pieces and fling them at the clerks face. Kaniürü would quake in terror; Tajirika would smile, walk up to him, and slap him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture of forgiveness: a joke between a deputy and his chief, he would assure the trembling fellow, and the matter would end there. Then he realized that he had no official letterhead or seal attesting to his new position. Only the Minister for Foreign Affairs or the Ruler himself had the power of issuance, and they were still in America. So who had approved Kaniürü ‘s stationery? The upstart may have acted on his own. What should I do? See Sikiokuu and expose the fellow?

  It was a day or two after this, before he had even settled on a course of action, that he read about Sikiokuu’s plan to inaugurate the offices of the Commission of Inquiry and the deputy of Marching to Heaven. A little fear crept into his certainty. Sikiokuu was now in charge of the country, and as the Waswahili say, Paka akienda panya hutawala. Might he not be devoured by the rat that now ruled in the absence of the cat? But then he quickly dismissed those fears. There was nothing Sikiokuu could do to the chairman of Marching to Heaven, for that would be tantamount to interfering with a special envoy of the Ruler. Still, concerning Kaniürü, he decided on a different course of action.

  He would visit the office of his deputy but not on the date specified by the summons, and then only to tell him that he had come for a quick get-to-know-you between boss and deputy.

  So the day of the summons came and passed. Tajirika thought to put off his visit for another week. But on waking up the following morning he changed his mind and decided it was better to go there that very day and rein in his deputy right away.

  Late in the afternoon Tajirika asked his chauffeur to take him to the street where Kaniürü ‘s offices were located. In the car, Tajirika tried to form the words that would affirm his authority and silence his upstart employee, but his anxiety prevented
him from doing so. Even after he told the chauffeur to park the car on Rais Avenue and wait, he had yet to formulate his reprimand. He strode across the road. The gate opened into a huge enclosed yard. At the end of the yard was a two-story building where there were two sets of offices with its own main entrance. Above one was the inscription OFFICES OF THE GOVERNMENT COMMISSION ON THE QUEUING MANIA and above the other, OFFICES OF THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF MARCHING TO HEAVEN. Tajirika’s eyes were transfixed on the second sign. The word deputy was written in such tiny letters that it was almost invisible, certainly difficult to make out unless a reader stood very close. By contrast the word chairman was in big letters and in color so as to be easily read from afar.

  Tajirika’s first reaction was to blame himself: why had he not thought of setting up a separate office for the chairman of Marching to Heaven? He was consumed by envy, anger, and frustration: why had Kaniürü minimized the word deputy except to dupe readers into thinking that the occupant was the real chairman?

  He then took in the people waiting in the yard. They stood in groups of five to conform to the new decrees regarding the length of queues in public places. His anger deepened. Some of them were those who used to come to his office bearing envelopes of introduction. So the traffic of favor buyers had been redirected from his place to the offices of his deputy? So that was why he, Tajirika, no longer received calls seeking his acquaintance? So that’s why the flow of envelopes into his offices at Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate had dried up? So it was Kaniürü who had diverted his river of fortune?

  Tajirika would have liked nothing better at that moment than to strangle Kaniürü. There was no point in his going inside. Might Kaniürü not be impertinent enough to imagine Tajirika as another envelope-bearing supplicant? No, he could not afford the possible humiliation of having to explain himself. Returning to the car, he was beside himself; he could not even speak to his driver and simply gestured him to drive back to the office.