Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  The Ruler did not utter a word but pointed to the next parcel and its guardian.

  It was Njoya’s turn. Here, too, the termites had eaten all the leaves as well as the bark, leaving the plant completely denuded.

  And now came A.G. s turn.

  “The termites had not been as thorough with mine; they were still devouring the few remaining leaves before our very eyes. I quickly brushed the pests away; they fell to the floor, leaving shreds of money dangling as if to mock me. Now I can say that the protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow had served me well, for, judging by the look in the Ruler’s eyes, none of us would be breathing today but for those remnants of leaves. True! Haki ya Mungu, I believe they saved us from his wrath, for they had enough green left on them to show that there may have been a time when they had the fuller greenness of a natural dollar.”

  Tajirika, heretofore dumbstruck and immobile, now ran to try to put the shreds together and back on the bush, provoking the first word from the Ruler.

  Stop! he yelled.

  The Ruler stared at the scene, brooding on the fate of we mortal sinners. Frozen with anger, he pondered how best to express his wrath.

  Tajirika felt all of his joints drained of strength, as did Njoya and Kahiga, who concluded that the retribution promised by the deputy wizard they had encountered was about to be visited on them.

  Kahiga decided to deflect the blame.

  “We two had suggested that we pick the leaves right away” he told the Ruler and, pointing at Tajirika, continued, “But this man overruled us and insisted that we pull out the bushes by the roots together with the soil. Your Mighty Excellency, it is a well-known fact that these pests build their termitaries in the prairie.”

  “And so this fiasco would have been avoided,” said Njoya, “if we had picked the money and left the stems and the roots in the prairie.”

  “Beware of this man, O Mighty Excellency. He is very bad, and his head is full of dangerous trickery,” Kahiga added with a hint of passion.

  “He once held a whole police camp hostage with a bucket of shit and urine,” added Njoya in agreement.

  “Is that true?” the Ruler asked Tajirika.

  Tajirika did not answer immediately, unsure as he was whether the Ruler was asking him about the bucket of shit or the manner in which the treasure had been uprooted.

  “I don’t know what these two are accusing me of. I was simply carrying out your orders,” Tajirika said.

  “My orders? To hold hostage an armed police camp with only shit and urine?”

  “Oh, no, not that,” Tajirika said, now aware where things were headed. “Your Mighty Excellency, some things are difficult to explain.”

  “I did not ask you to explain anything. I asked you whether these allegations concerning the police camp are true. Was it the first act of a coup attempt?”

  “A coup against you? Never. I would kill myself first. Go back to my ancestors.”

  “I will turn you into an ancestor. A spirit, if you don’t explain.”

  These two policemen must really hate me, Tajirika said to himself. I’m sure I shall not leave this place alive. But instead of despairing, he bolstered his sagging spirits by recalling the saying that even an animal about to be slaughtered tries to kick those leading it to the slaughterhouse.

  “Your Mighty Excellency, as I told you the other day, it was all Sikiokuu’s fault. He had me arrested for nothing whatsoever. He then tried to convert me to a religious sect that believes in St. Thomas and Descartes, one of his French disciples. When I refused, he locked me up and put the Wizard of the Crow in the same cell at midnight, the witching hour. What could I do, Your Mighty Excellency, but seize the only means left to fashion my escape? Believe me, Your Lordship, this Wizard of the Crow is no pushover—he is capable of anything. He has been the bane of my life, always after me. He started the queuing mania. He made me contract that strange malady of words, and why? So that I would go to him for a cure. And he, like Satan of old, first lured my wife. He deceived my gullible woman into handing over the bags of money under the pretext that he would set things right. But what does he do with the bags? He plants them in the prairie, then comes to my cell under the cover of darkness to tell me where to find them. Now, after seeing what these pests have done, I wonder whether they were termites after all. I wish we had hearkened to the words of A.C. when he tried to tell us about the night he chased the Wizard of the Crow across the same prairie. If we had, we might have figured out that the Wizard of the Crow had already bewitched the place. We would have known that all was not well even when it looked well.”

  “There, Tajirika has said well,” A.C. interrupted, happy at the implicit praise and Tajirika’s acknowledgment of his thwarted attempt to narrate the story of the famous chase.

  A.G. loved telling the story of the night he chased two beggars who, on jumping over a cleft rock in the prairie, turned out to be one person. He knew that the Ruler knew about his chasing the djinns of the prairie, but not from the horse’s own mouth. How blessed he would be if the Ruler were now his audience? Here was his opportunity. He cleared his throat, ready to tell the story.

  “True, Haki ya Mungu,” A.G. began, “a force I cannot explain from whence it came was propelling me, but when we reached the ridge, the force subsided and suddenly stopped. It was then that I recalled the night that the Wizard of the Crow had split himself into two powerful djinns. Your Mighty Highness, I am not a Muslim, but, True! Haki ya Mungu, if you read the Holy Quran, you can see that djinns are …”

  “Yes, there is no doubt that the Wizard of the Crow belongs to a family of djinns,” interrupted Kahiga, a little envious that A.C. had taken center stage.

  “A dangerous spirit. And that’s why we had warned Sikiokuu not to lock up the sorcerer,” Njoya added.

  “But instead of heeding our warning, he ordered us to put him in the same cell with Tajirika,” Kahiga continued.

  “So you two have seen the sorcerer with your own eyes?” the Ruler asked, as if he had forgotten that the police officers had been selected to be part of the expedition because of their previous connection with the wizard. But to Kahiga, it seemed as if they had succeeded in distracting the Ruler from the issue of the money trees and the termites, and, really, Kahiga did not mind that at all.

  “Actually, my partner here and I were the ones who went to get him from his shrine,” said Kahiga.

  “But it was Sikiokuu who sent us,” added Njoya.

  “So that the sorcerer would help us ferret out Nyawlra.”

  “The mistake he made was locking him up for no good reason instead of being simply persuasive,” Njoya said.

  “And mark you, we had told him quite strongly that such action against the wizard could bring harm to the country,” added Kahiga.

  “But he responded by saying that the Wizard of the Crow was not a deity” Njoya said accusingly.

  “And he dismissed us from his presence, saying that when he needed our advice on matters of sorcery, he would call us,” added Njoya.

  “So when we heard about your illness …”

  “We knew right away that the Wizard of the Crow …”

  “Had something to do with it …”

  “We were happy to take him to the airport for the flight to America …”

  “But we became very apprehensive when we heard that he had returned to Aburlria without anybody seeing him …”

  “It is now clear, Your Mighty Excellency,” Tajirika jumped into the conversation, not to be left out, “that it is the Wizard of the Crow who produced these white termites. Yes, the Wizard of the Crow is the one who sent these pests. Have you ever seen termites this size, Your Mighty Excellency?”

  “Did you say sent them?” A.C. asked rhetorically. “He is capable of turning himself into a termite and multiplying. For, as I was saying before Kahiga interrupted me, the night I chased the Wizard of the Crow from Paradise across the prairie … Shall I start from the beginning, Your Mighty Excellency?�
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  He stopped abruptly and looked to see what had caught the attention of the Ruler. It was not only the Ruler. All eyes had turned to the floor. Some termites were crawling all over the carpet; others were climbing up the walls; yet others slid through thresholds leading to the other rooms.

  Where had all these termites sprung from? The Ruler frowned, but Tajirika, Kahiga, Njoya, and A.C. could not tell what his frown portended, and they glanced at one another with the same fear. Would he jail them? Would he simply dismiss them from their jobs on the police force? Or would he exact his vengeance only on Tajirika? They assumed the worst as they waited for him to rage.

  But none anticipated anything remotely resembling the Ruler’s reaction. It was the tone of his voice that first caught them unaware. He spoke like an elder talking to his children about matters he himself had experienced. He was soothing as he told them not to worry about what had happened and actually commended them for doing their best, considering the treacherous, cunning mind they had been up against. They should have no fear, he told them, for the cunning fellow would never outsmart the Ruler. He told them to remain seated and be patient, that he wanted a couple of ministers to join them as he, their Ruler, announced what was to be done about the dangerous mind.

  But he enjoined them not to so much as whisper about the money trees or the termites. This was now a state secret.

  “Do you hear me?” he asked, now looking at A.G., Kahiga, and Njoya in turn. “You must never even dream about plants that produce natural dollars or any other currency, or I will turn your dream into a nightmare.”

  What’s going on? they wondered, baffled by the unexpected reaction.

  “I will now send for the ministers …” the Ruler said, and he was about to instruct his minions when he suddenly remembered that Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniürü were still sequestered in separate rooms to write down their pledges. He had forgotten all about them during the period of waiting for the treasure from the prairie.

  Now he sent the three police officers to fetch them. The Ruler and Tajirika were left alone.

  12

  “I have reviewed many things in my mind,” the Ruler started as soon as Machokali, Kaniürü, and Sikiokuu were brought before him, “and I now know the identity of the real enemy of the country. But in order for me to wage an effective fight against this enemy, there are a few things I want to straighten out. Sikiokuu?”

  “Your Mighty Excellency?”

  “When I summoned you here, what did I tell you? That when I was in America I was informed that there are people going around the country preaching the virtues of queuing in my name. I was also told about women beating up their menfolk in accordance with the judgment of some sort of people’s court. So far you have said nothing about these matters. You told me that you stationed M5S all over the country. So are there other men, apart from Tajirika, who have been tried and beaten up by this female people’s court?”

  Sikiokuu did not know if the Ruler knew something that he did not know. So he was not sure what was most prudent to say: yes or no. He tried to evade the question.

  “Your Mighty Excellency, if you have read the two reports that—”

  “They say nothing about the matters at hand,” the Ruler said curtly.

  “Our Mighty Excellency, there are many security issues that require only your ears and mine,” said Sikiokuu, tugging at his ear-lobes. “There are some among us here who cannot be trusted with any secrets,” he added, his eyes darting at Kaniürü.

  “Like whom?”

  “Let me speak frankly. Like Kaniürü.”

  “But you trusted him enough to recommend him to me as chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Origins of the Queuing Mania?”

  “Yes, Your Mighty Excellency, but—”

  “And you trusted him well enough to order him to look into the people’s court?”

  “Yes, Your Mighty Excellency, but—”

  “And you trust his report sufficiently to ask me whether I had read it?”

  “Yes, no, but—”

  “But what?” scoffed the Ruler as he turned his eyes to the others. “I want to expand the Directorate of Security Services, DSS, currently led by the Minister of State in the Office of the Ruler, Silver Sikiokuu, and create within it a subdepartment, or a special unit, in charge of Youth and Women Affairs. Many a government in the world has been brought to ruin because it had been lax and allowed students, youth, and women to say and do whatever without proper guidance and supervision. The sole responsibility of the unit I am now creating is to oversee the activities of these segments of the population. John Kaniürü, stand up. You have proven that you can be trusted to organize youth and be tough with women, even the wives of the rich and the powerful. Effective today, you are Head of Research Regarding Youth and Women’s Conformity with National Ideals. Your main task is to continue to investigate and combat any manifestations of the queuing mania and to investigate and put an end to this domestic violence against men. ASS Kahiga will assist you in organizing an effective system of surveillance.”

  Kaniürü pranced about in joy and disbelief. Kahiga did not know whether to follow Kaniürü’s example and jump up and down, elated, or risk seeming ungrateful by remaining seated. For a second or two Peter Kahiga was unable to figure out what he had actually heard. He had been referred to as ASS, whereas before today he had only one S. Now two and an A to boot. Should he ask the Ruler to clarify his honorific? His uncertainty disappeared with the Ruler’s next words.

  “I want the leaders of rebellious youth and women to be crushed like ants, and I don’t think this should pose a problem to Assistant Senior Superintendent Peter Kahiga.”

  Kahiga felt his heart skip a beat. The other wizard had yet to seek retribution. For now he was safe and felt joy in his heart. He now rose and ran a lap of victory around the room. The Ruler gestured for Kaniürü and Kahiga to resume their positions, and he told them that the State House was not an athletic field, that they should remember that they were in Aburlria, that if they wanted to be runners they should emigrate to Kenya or Ethiopia.

  “May I say a word,” Sikiokuu said, stung by the promotion of this traitor. “You asked me about queues and the queuing mania. Since you banned the mania, queues have not come back. I am confident when I say that the queues are practically gone. In addition, I have already lined up people to report to me should there be a resurgence of the mania anywhere in Aburlria,” he added, hoping that further inquiry into the queuing mania would be denied as a mandate to the proposed unit.

  “So if I hear that the queuing mania has resurfaced, I will have heard lies?” asked the Ruler.

  “Well, not lies, but misinformation,” said Sikiokuu. “I can say that whoever were to tell you this would not be in possession of all the facts, and he should have checked with me. Some people will say anything to get promoted,” he added, glancing at Kaniürü, who he assumed had lied yet again.

  As the Ruler still resented the way the Global Bankers had condescended to him as if they knew more about his own country than he did, he did not mind hearing Sikiokuu’s reassurance, though his suspicions about the motives of the Global Bank in urging him to return home increased.

  “You have done well to contain the queuing mania,” said the Ruler, “but this does not mean that we should become any less vigilant. What do the English say? The price of internal vigilance is freedom.”

  “Thank you, Your Mighty Excellency, for your faith in my abilities,” said Sikiokuu, though he was sure that the Ruler had jumbled the words of the English proverb.

  “Yes, Sikiokuu, and here is one more test for you,” said the Ruler. “I want you to come up with a repayment plan for the money you have made so far on Marching to Heaven,” he said curtly. “And another thing: before I went to the USA, I instructed you to comb the land, leaving no stone unturned, to find that woman Nyawlra. I have been back for several weeks, and no one has come to tell me she is in custody. If you thought that I was going
to relieve you of this duty, think again. Put aside your envy of other people’s abilities and deliver her to me. I will make it easier for you. ASS Njoya will assist you. Here is the deal. If you bring me the woman, I may even forgive the money you owe me.”

  The Ruler is truly gifted with the carrot and the stick, Sikiokuu said to himself, grateful that he had not been fired from his ministry and had retained one of his loyalists, Njoya. But still, he smarted at the thought that Kaniürü had been promoted and given a subdivision to head. Sikiokuu foresaw nothing but conflict.

  “Your Mighty Excellency, I would like a clarification of the chain of command. To whom will Kaniürü be reporting?”

  “Kaniürü’s unit is part of your ministry, so he will be reporting to you most of the time and me, sometimes, as I see fit. Is that clear enough?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sikiokuu said, although he could see that his hands were now tied.

  “What did I tell you?” the Ruler asked them before answering his own question. “I know who the real enemy of the country is.” He paused and stared at each of their faces, finally resting his eyes on Machokali. “And I will tell him this,” he said, wagging a finger at Machokali as if to identify the culprit, “wherever he is, he might think he is very cunning, but …”

  Anger silenced the Ruler for a few seconds, as if all the pain he felt, all the troubles he had been through, all the humiliations he had endured, were flooding his brain.

  It was not clear to Machokali where the Ruler was headed. At first he was happy about Kaniürü’s rise because it meant Sikiokuu’s demotion. But now with that wagging finger directed at him … ?

  “Any questions?” the Ruler asked, to buy time to compose himself.

  Kaniürü stood up. He cast an eye of triumph first at Sikiokuu, then at Machokali, and finally at Tajirika, and he was even more joyous to see Tajirika cowering with fear of the unknown that awaited him. Kaniürü seized this moment to ask to be made full chairman of Marching to Heaven.