A Grain of Wheat

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  She believed in the power of women to influence events, especially where men had failed to act, or seemed indecisive. Many people in old Thabai remembered her now-famous drama at the workers’ strike in 1950. The strike was meant to paralyse the country and make it more difficult for the whiteman to govern. A few men who worked at a big shoe factory near Thabai and in the settled area, grumbled and even said, so the rumours went, that they would not come out on strike. The Party convened a general meeting at Rung’ei. At the height of the proceedings, Wambui suddenly broke through the crowd and led a group of women to the platform. She grabbed the microphone from the speakers. People were interested. Was there any circumcised man who felt water in the stomach at the sight of a whiteman? Women, she said, had brought their Mithuru and Miengu to the platform. Let therefore such men, she jeered, come forward, wear the women’s skirts and aprons and give up their trousers to the women. Men sat rigidly in their seats and tried to laugh with the crowd to hide the inner discomfort. The next day all men stayed away from work.

  Now the women decided to send Mumbi to Mugo. Mumbi the sister of Kihika. They would confront Mugo with sweet insistent youth – youth not to be ignored or denied.

  So Wambui went home to pass on the message to Mumbi. And there she found Mumbi had left her husband. But Wambui sought her out.

  ‘This matter concerns all Thabai,’ she impressed upon the young woman. ‘Forget your troubles in the home and in the heart. Go to Mugo. Tell him this: the women and the children need him.’

  Mumbi had found it difficult to tell her parents why she had left her husband. She had never told her own mother or father about the tension in which she lived: how did you go telling people that your husband had refused to sleep with you? Might they not think he was impotent and spread damaging rumours? Anyway, because they did not know the full story, her parents did not welcome her back with open arms. A parent did not encourage a daughter to disobey her man. Wanjiku had even ridiculed Mumbi’s feeble explanation.

  ‘The women of today surprise me. They cannot take a slap, soft as a feather, or the slightest breath, from a man. In our time, a woman could take blow and blow from her husband without a thought of running back to her parents.’

  ‘Don’t you care about me any more? I cannot stay in his house again. Not after what he said – I cannot, I cannot.’

  ‘Ssh! Don’t you talk like a foolish woman.’

  ‘No, mother, if you don’t want me in this hut, tell me at once, and I with my child will go to Nairobi or anywhere else. Yes, I’ll not go back to that house. I may be a woman, but even a cowardly bitch fights back when cornered against a wall.’

  Wanjiku felt with Mumbi. But hers was a delicate task of mending that which was torn.

  ‘We shall talk about it, my child,’ she said in a softened voice.

  Another thing plagued Mumbi. Even in her grief, she could not forget what General R. had said. Karanja would be killed for his part in Kihika’s death. Should this be done in the name of her brother? Surely enough blood had already been shed: why add more guilt to the land? She woke up in the morning with the problem still unsolved. But luckily for her, Wednesday was a market day in Rung’ei, attended by people from the eight ridges around Thabai. She accidentally met a man going to Githima and quickly made up her mind. She got a piece of paper (she had been taught by her brothers to read and write) and scribbled: Don’t come to the meeting tomorrow. She addressed it to Karanja and gave it to the man. She felt relieved.

  And now Wambui and the women had turned to her for help. At first Mumbi flinched from interfering in matters involving the husband she had left. But as Wambui spoke, a defiant streak in Mumbi grew stronger: she would not let Gikonyo think her lonely and miserable. What if she succeeded where he had failed? The thought thrilled her; she contemplated the mission with satisfaction.

  The thrill sharpened as later in the evening she set out for Mugo’s hut. The day had been dull and misty; the night seemed darker than usual; Mumbi felt like a girl again, braving the dark and the wind and the storm, to meet her lover. What if Mugo should – she left the question and the answer in abeyance. The possibility that Gikonyo might catch her talking with another man nagged her. But she was free, she told herself, prop-words to her fear. Let him find her then, she repeated defiantly. Nevertheless, her steps faltered and her heart beat wildly as she stood outside Mugo’s hut.

  At first blood warmed in her veins, fear was mixed with pleasure when she saw Mugo at the door. But Mugo barred the door awkwardly, as if he expected an explanation. She grew a little apprehensive.

  ‘Are you not inviting me in?’ she said, with a false lighthearted tone.

  ‘Oh, sorry – come in.’ She could not see his face, but there was an unmistakable tremor in his voice. In the light, she noticed the restlessness about Mugo. His proud distance had diminished, his dark eyes had that debauched look one sees in drink-addicts. He sat away from her, carefully, as if he was afraid of her. He was handsome and lonely, she bit her lower lip to steady herself. She looked around the bare hut whose walls were barely lit by the oil-lamp.

  ‘It is a little empty,’ he said brusquely, breaking into her thoughts.

  ‘It is all right for a man. An unmarried person has few needs.’ She laughed uneasily. She was puzzled by his unfriendliness and fear, a violent contrast to the excitement in his eyes yesterday. Yet she allowed irrelevant thoughts to capture her fancy; if he should want me – If he should—

  ‘You know why I have come,’ she asked gropingly, hoping to break his unnerving obduracy.

  ‘I don’t know – unless – unless about what you were saying to me yesterday – what I mean is – I did not know what you wanted—’

  ‘Oh, I wanted you to speak to my husband. He would have listened to you. You see, since he returned from detention, he has never once entered my bed. And he has never said a word about the child. What was in his heart was hidden from me, until yesterday. It was hard, hard, hard….’ She had started in a matter-of-fact tone and ended in a state. She remembered the day Gikonyo returned home from detention. She had wanted to talk to him, to make him understand by a word, a glance, but no words formed in her mind. His appearance seemed to have crushed her into a stupid unfeeling silence. Yet how she had wanted to reach him, then, there, as she stared at the opposite wall, wondering what he would do to her. She checked herself, and there was a sad pause before she recovered and came back to the present. ‘Anyway, that is not important now. I quarrelled with him last night – and returned to my parents.’

  ‘No!’ he said feelingly, in an unguarded moment.

  ‘It’s true. But that is not why I came to see you in the night. The women of Thabai and Rung’ei area sent me to you. They want you at the meeting tomorrow.’

  ‘I cannot,’ he said decisively.

  ‘You must,’ she answered, warming up to the challenge.

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You must – all these people are waiting for you. People want you.’

  ‘But – but – I cannot.’

  ‘They cry for you.’

  ‘Mumbi, Mumbi,’ he cried in a tormented voice.

  ‘You will, Mugo, you will.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I then beg you,’ she said firmly, with new strength and authority. She looked at him in the eyes, now reaching out to him, desiring to open his heart, for a minute, at least, unlock the secrets of his power over men and fate. And she held him balanced at her finger-tips, and suddenly knew her power over him. She would not let him go.

  ‘Do you understand what you ask?’

  ‘Is it the camps?’ she asked, a little relenting.

  ‘No – yes – everything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘It was hard. They beat you in the camps. We heard about it.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes. What happened?’

  ‘Nothing, except that I saw men crawl on the ground, you know, like cripples because their
hands and feet were chained with iron.’ All the time, he spoke in a subdued voice, like a child. ‘Once bottlenecks were hammered into people’s backsides, and the men whimpered like caged animals. That last was at Rira.’ He paused, as if coldly contemplating a scene distant and yet near. Then he leaned forward a little, conspiratorially, and whispered a child’s secret. ‘When I was young, I saw the whiteman, I did not know who he was or where he came from. Now I know that a Mzungu is not a man – always remember that – he is a devil – devil.’ He paused again to gain breath, and resumed his subdued voice. ‘I saw a man whose manhood was broken with pincers. He came out of the screening office and fell down and he cried: to know I will never touch my wife again, Oh God, can I ever look at her in the eyes after this? For me I only looked into an abyss and deep inside I only saw a darkness I could not penetrate.’

  Tears formed on Mumbi’s face. She desired to reach out, to right the wrong, to heal the wounded.

  ‘Then, Mugo,’ she appealed through tears, ‘you must speak tomorrow. Not about my brother, he is dead and buried. His work on earth is done. Speak to the living. Tell them about those whom the war maimed, left naked and scarred: the orphans, the widows. Tell our people what you saw.’

  ‘I saw nothing.’

  ‘Even that, Mugo, anything,’ she said, feeling him slip away. She fought to hold him and saw that he was shaking.

  ‘About myself?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘You want me to do that?’ he asked, raising his voice. The change of voice, like a groan from an animal about to be slaughtered, startled her.

  ‘Yes,’ she assented, fearfully.

  ‘I wanted to live my life. I never wanted to be involved in anything. Then he came into my life, here, a night like this, and pulled me into the stream. So I killed him.’

  ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ he laughed unnaturally. ‘Who murdered your brother?’

  ‘Kihika?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The whiteman.’

  ‘No! I strangled him – I strangled him—’

  ‘It is not true – Wake up, Mugo – Kihika was hanged – listen and stop shaking so – I saw his body hang from a tree.’

  ‘I did it! I did it! Ha! ha! ha! That is what you wanted to know. And I’ll do it again – to you – tonight.’

  She tried to cry out for help, but no voice would leave her throat. He came towards her, emitting demented noises and laughter. She bounded to the door; but he was there before her.

  ‘You cannot – run away. Sit down – Ha! I’ll do it to you—’ He was shaking and his words came out in violent jerks.

  ‘Imagine all your life cannot sleep – so many fingers touching your flesh – eyes always watching you – in dark places – in corners – in the streets – in the fields – sleeping, waking, no rest – ah! Those eyes – cannot you for a minute, one minute, leave a man alone – I mean – let a man eat, drink, work – all of you – Kihika – Gikonyo – the old woman – that general – who sent you here tonight? Who? Aah! Those eyes again – we shall see who is stronger – now—’

  She tried to scream; again no voice would come out. He closed in on her, one hand on her mouth, the other searching her throat. She panted and whimpered horribly. She looked into his eyes. Even later, she could not explain the terror she saw in them. And all of a sudden she ceased struggling and submitted herself to him.

  ‘What is it, Mugo? What is wrong?’ she sobbed.

  *

  Those of you who have visited Thabai or any of the eight ridges around Rung’ei (that is, from Kerarapon to Kihingo) will have heard about Thomas Robson or as he was generally known Tom, the Terror. He was the epitome of those dark days in our history that witnessed his birth as a District Officer in Rung’ei – that is, when the Emergency raged in unabated fury. People said he was mad. They spoke of him with awe, called him Tom or simply ‘he’ as if the mention of his full name would conjure him up in their presence. Driving in a jeep, one Askari or two at the back, a bren-gun at the knees, and a revolver in his khaki trousers partially concealed by his bush jacket, he would suddenly appear at the most unexpected times and places to catch unsuspecting victims. He called them Mau Mau. He put them in his jeep, drove them into the edge of the forest, and asked them to dig their graves. He asked them to kneel down. Sometimes he broke the prayers with a bren-gun. More often with a revolver. But occasionally he would pardon a man even though he were kneeling at the edge of the grave. So that until the last moment the victim would not know what to do; whether to run away and risk a bullet, or wait and see if Tom would change his mind. They said he was everywhere. Rumours spread. One man had seen Tom here; another had seen him there. Some village men saw his jeep in their dreams and screamed. He was a man-eater, walking in the night and day. He was death. He was especially brutal to squatters who were repatriated from the Rift Valley back to Gikuyu-Ini.

  That was in 1954.

  His activities came to a climax in May 1955. One evening, driving from the Rung’ei to District Offices, he saw a lone man walking on the tarmac road. The man shrank close to a hedge by the road. Tom shouted at him. The man came towards the jeep faltering, his knees seemed to be knocking together. Near the jeep, his teeth could be heard chattering and clicking, so that Tom was forced to laugh. ‘Usiogope Mzee,’ he called jovially as if to reassure the man. ‘Tom will not eat you.’ Suddenly the old man straightened himself, whipped something from his pocket, and two quick shots thudded into Tom’s body. Before the frightened policemen could do anything, the man had jumped across the hedge, towards the Indian shops. The policemen shot into the sky. Tom did not die immediately. It is said (he is a legend in the village) that he drove himself to the hospital where he died three hours later without uttering anything coherent except the one word: brutes.

  Within hours the villages were besieged by soldiers; official word went round, later to be headlined by newspapers; a District Officer had been senselessly murdered by Mau Mau thugs.

  On that day – the villagers to this day talk about it – Mugo had as usual gone to his strip of land near Rung’ei Railway Station, revelling in the dreams he loved, dreams which often transported him from the present to the future. He had come to see in them a private message, a prophecy. Had he not already escaped, unscathed, the early operations of the Emergency? Kenya had been in a state of Emergency since 1952. Some people had been taken to detention camps; others had run away to the forest: but this was a drama in a world not his own. He kept alone, feeling a day would come when horns, drums and trumpets would beat together to announce his entrance into the other world. He often heard men talk as they built huts in the new Thabai; but their words did not touch him: what did it matter to him that women were doing men’s work, that children were maturing too early? Had he himself not started fending for himself at an early age? Mugo was among the first to finish their huts within the given time. He had done the work, erecting the hut, thatching the roof, mudding the walls, without help from anybody. The hut was his first big achievement. After moving into it, he resumed his daily life: he looked after the crops, his eyes fixed to the future.

  This day, this Friday evening, he came home from the shamba tired. He carefully placed the jembe and the panga against the wall before opening the door, warming inside at the touch of the padlock. He often fussed over pushing the key into the lock, delaying the final act; the operation gave him pleasure; the hut was an extension of himself, his hopes and dreams. He entered, sat on the bed, and admired the walls (the mud was not yet dry) and the cone-shaped roof, from which bits of grass and fern stuck out. Soon darkness crept into the hut. He lit the oil-lamp, whistling to himself as he did so. He then made a fire and fried a mixture of maize grains and beans over the three hearthstones. This was his only meal of the day. He always boiled maize grains and dry beans in large quantities and then, for days afterwards, fried a little at a time, enough for a meal. After eating, he walked to the door to
make sure it was securely bolted. Again he lingered over the bolt admiringly. He was only twenty-five. He possessed nothing, but the future was in his hands. He stretched flat on the bed: it was always good to lie in bed after a hard day’s shamba. He massaged his stomach, and belched, vaguely satisfied. Outside the hut were curfew laws. Again these laws did not affect Mugo since, even before 1952, he rarely went out. He had trained himself to enter a twilight calm whenever he lay on his back, in bed, or in the shamba. At such moments his heart dialogued with strange voices. And the voices faded into one voice from God calling out, Moses, Moses! And Mugo was ready with his answer: Here am I, Lord.

  It was at this stage in his dream when he heard whistles, shouts, and a patter of feet. The whistling rudely tore the night and Mugo’s thoughts. There was always such whistling whenever the Forest Fighters attacked a village or killed an important person. But there had been a long lull in Thabai; the last time there had been such a hubbub was the week the Rev. Jackson Kigondu and Teacher Muniu were killed. The whistling increased in volume, then it would fade, as if it came and went with the wind. Then it stopped. The village was thrown into a profound silence. As suddenly, the silence was again broken with the fire of guns. There were shouts, and Mugo heard distant screams from women. The gunfire was now nearer the hut and the whistling became urgent, insistent. A man shouted: Robson. Mugo rested in bed on his right elbow, and his heart beat uneasily at the nearness of the fire and shouting. Again the general noise ended. Mugo heard a man moaning and protesting; I was just going home. Truly, I was only going home. When stillness reigned again, Mugo lay back on the bed and sunk into a half-asleep state. Mugo was among the lucky few who knew not the terror of a police search in their huts at night.

  He could not tell how long he was in this state; but he was certainly woken up by a knock at the door. He opened his eyes, startled, and sat up. Who could it be? The knocking was repeated. Mugo moved forward, cautiously, halted, moved forward and again halted. He hit against the lamp. It went out. The sudden darkness alarmed him even more than the tapping of the door. He fumbled for matches around the stones. And at the back of his mind was the urgent question: should he open the door? A third tapping, more continuous, more insistent, made him jump to the door. He stepped aside for the homeguards to enter; at the same time, he resumed his fearful search for matches.