A Grain of Wheat

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  ‘Can I see the DO?’ he asked, attempting to walk past them dwelling on the vision within.

  ‘What do you want?’ One of the policemen pulled him back by the shoulder.

  ‘I – I want to see him alone,’ he said, surprised.

  ‘With a jembe and a panga? Ha! ha! ha!’

  ‘I say what do you want here.’

  ‘I cannot – not to you.’

  The two policemen laughed and jeered at Mugo’s answers. They took his panga and jembe and threw them on the ground.

  ‘Can’t! Can’t! Do you hear that? Hey, farmer, what do you want?’

  ‘I must – it is – it is important.’ Fear started creeping into him. They searched him all over, roughly pushing him about.

  ‘He ought to remove his clothes.’

  ‘Such a tall man – his thing is probably as long as a donkey’s penis.’

  ‘How do you manage women? eh?’

  ‘Women? You are joking. Even a fat prostitute would run away at the sight.’

  ‘Maybe he does it with sheep – or cows. Some people do, you know. At night. Ha! Ha!’

  ‘Ha! ha! Or with old women – bribe them, or force them. Ha! ha! ha!’

  ‘Ha! ha! ha!’

  John Thompson, the District Officer, came out and shouted at them to stop the laughter. They told him about Mugo, and he told them to let him in. Mugo was almost short of breath as he bounded into the office; grateful to the whiteman who had rescued him from shame and humiliation. And now that he was in, he did not know how to begin. It was the first time he had ever confronted a whiteman at such close quarters. He fixed his eyes on the opposite wall determined, if possible, not to look at the whiteman’s face.

  ‘What do you want?’ The voice startled Mugo.

  ‘Kihika – I came to see you about him.’

  Thompson sat up in his chair at the mention of that name. Then he stood up, his hands reaching for the edge of the table, as if for support. He peered at Mugo. The two men were almost the same height. Mugo resolutely refused to meet the other man’s eyes. The whiteman sat down again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I know—’ he gulped down saliva. Panic seized him. He feared the voice would fail him.

  ‘I know,’ he said quietly, ‘I know where Kihika can be found, tonight.’

  And now the hatred he had felt towards Kihika rose fresh in him. He trembled with a victorious rage as he blurted out the story that had tormented him for a week. For a time he experienced a pure, delicious joy at his own daring, at what he suddenly saw as a great act of moral courage. Indeed, for him, at that moment, there was a kind of purity in the act; he stood beyond good and evil; he enjoyed the power and authority of his own knowledge: did he not hold the fate of a man’s life in his head? His heart – his cup – was full to overflowing. Tears of relief stood on the edge of his eyes. For a week he had wrestled with demons, alone, in an endless nightmare. This confession was his first contact with another man. He felt deep gratitude to the whiteman, a patient listener, who had lifted his burden from Mugo’s heart, who had extricated him from the nightmare. He even dared to look at the whiteman, the new-found friend. A smile spread over Mugo’s face. The smile, however, froze into a grin that appeared like scorn, when he met the whiteman’s inscrutable face and searching eyes.

  The DO again stood up. He walked round the table to where Mugo stood. He held Mugo by the chin and tilted his face backwards. Then quite unexpectedly he shot saliva into the dark face. Mugo moved back a step and lifted his left hand to rub off the saliva. But the whiteman reached Mugo’s face first and slapped him hard, once.

  ‘Many people have already given us false information concerning this terrorist. Hear? Because they want the reward. We shall keep you here, and if you are not telling the truth, we shall hang you there, outside. Do you hear?’

  Mugo was back in his nightmare. The table, the white face, the ceiling, the walls moved round and round. Then everything stopped abruptly. He tried to steady himself. Suddenly the ground where he stood gave way. He was falling down. He thrust his arms into the air. The bottom was so far away he could see only darkness. But he knew that there were stones jutting out, sharp, at the floor. He was nothing. Tears could not help him. With a choked cry, his body smashed on to the broken stones and jutting rock, at the whiteman’s feet. The shock of discovery was so deep it numbed him. He felt no pain, and saw no blood.

  ‘Do you hear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say Effendi.’

  ‘Yes—’

  The word stuck, blocked the throat. His open mouth let out inarticulate noises. Foam had collected at the corners of his mouth. He stared at the whiteman, a watery glint in the eyes, without seeing him. Then the table, the chair, the DO, the white-washed walls – the earth – started spinning, faster and faster again. He held on to the table to still himself. He did not want the money. He did not want to know what he had done.

  Verily, verily I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

  St John 12:24

  (verse underlined in black in Kihika’s Bible)

  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.

  Revelation 21:1

  Fourteen

  Kenya regained her Uhuru from the British on 12 December 1963. A minute before midnight, lights were put out at the Nairobi stadium so that people from all over the country and the world who had gathered there for the midnight ceremony were swallowed by the darkness. In the dark, the Union Jack was quickly lowered. When next the lights came on the new Kenya flag was flying and fluttering, and waving, in the air. The Police band played the new National Anthem and the crowd cheered continuously when they saw the flag was black, and red and green. The cheering sounded like one intense cracking of many trees, falling on the thick mud in the stadium.

  In our village and despite the drizzling rain, men and women and children, it seemed, had emptied themselves into the streets where they sang and danced in the mud. Because it was dark, they put oil-lamps at the doorsteps to light the streets. As usual, on such occasions, some young men walked in gangs, carrying torches, lurked and whispered in dark corners and the fringes, really looking for love-mates among the crowd. Mothers warned their daughters to take care not to be raped in the dark. The girls danced in the middle, thrusting out their buttocks provokingly, knowing that the men in corners watched them. Everybody waited for something to happen. This ‘waiting’ and the uncertainty that went with it – like a woman torn between fear and joy during birth-motions – was a taut cord beneath the screams and the shouts and the laughter. People moved from street to street singing. They praised Jomo and Kaggia and Oginga. They recalled Waiyaki, who even before 1900 had challenged the white people who had come to Dagoreti in the wake of Lugard. They remembered heroes from our village, too. They created words to describe the deeds of Kihika in the forest, deeds matched only by those of Mugo in the trench and detention camps. They mixed Christmas hymns with songs and dances only performed during initiation rites when boys and girls are circumcised into responsibility as men and women. And underneath it all was the chord that followed us from street to street. Somewhere, a woman suggested we go and sing to Mugo, the hermit, at his hut. The cry was taken up by the crowd, who, even before the decision was taken, had already started tearing through the drizzle and the dark to Mugo’s hut. For more than an hour Mugo’s hut was taken prisoner. His name was on everybody’s lips. We wove new legends around his name and imagined deeds. We hoped that Mugo would come out and join us, but he did not open the door to our knocks. When the hour of midnight came, people broke into one long ululation. Then the women cried out the five Ngemi to welcome a son at birth or at circumcision. These they sang for Kihika and Mugo, the two heroes of deliverance, from our village. Soon after this, we all dispersed to our various huts to wait for the morning, when the Uhuru Celebrations would reall
y begin.

  Later in the night, the drizzle changed into a heavy downpour. Lightning, followed by thunder, would for a second or two red-white-light our huts, even though it only came through the cracks in the walls. The wind increased with the rain. A moaning sound, together with a continuous booming which went on all night, came from swaying and breaking trees and hedges as the wind and the rain beat the leaves and the branches. Some decaying thatched roofs freely let in rain, so that pools collected on the floor. To avoid being drenched, people kept on shifting their beds from spot to spot, only to be followed by a new leakage.

  The wind and the rain were so strong that some trees were uprooted whole, while others broke by the stems, or lost their branches.

  This we saw the following morning as we went into a field near Rung’ei, where the sports and dances to celebrate Uhuru were to take place. Crops on the valley slopes were badly damaged. Running water had grooved trenches that now zig-zagged all along the sloping fields. Uprooted potato and bean crops lay everywhere on the valley floor. The leaves of the maize plants still standing were lacerated into numerous shreds.

  The morning itself was so dull we feared the day would not break into life. But the rain had stopped. The air was soft and fresh, and an intimate warmth oozed from the pregnant earth to our hearts.

  The field had been chosen by the Party’s Uhuru Committee because it was the most central to all the ridges around. The field sloped dangerously towards the Rung’ei shops; the white-chalked athletic tracks rose in sharp bumps and fell into holes and shallow ditches.

  First came the school sports and races. Children had turned out smart in their green, blue, or brown uniforms. Each school had its own group of supporters and all was noise and cheering as the children ran and fell and rose again to continue the race. There were two youth bands who, armed with bugles and drums, entertained people in between the races, with victory and military tunes. The bands belonged to the youth-wing of the Party. The school sports and races were followed by traditional dances. Uncircumcised boys and girls delighted the crowd with vigorous Muthuo; they had painted their faces with chalk and red-ochre and tied jingles to their knees; younger men and women did Mucung’wa: older women, in Mithuru, Miengu and layers of beads, danced Ndumo. All that morning, Gikonyo ran from place to place, from group to group, seeing that things ran smoothly. This was his day, he gloried in it, and wanted to make it a resounding success.

  The crowd of spectators was not so large as Gikonyo had anticipated. And, contrary to what might be expected on an Uhuru day, a gloom hung over the morning session, that is, over the sports and dances.

  But suddenly towards the end of the morning session, something happened that seemed to break the gloom. A three-mile race – twelve laps round the field – was announced. Old and young, women and children could all take part in the event. This spontaneous arrangement (the race had not been on the programme) revived and heated the gathering. Everywhere people shouted and argued, exhorting one another to enter the race. Whenever a woman came forward, she was greeted with appreciative laughter and clapping. The biggest clap was occasioned by Warui, when the old man, blankets and all, came forward for the race. Mumbi, who sat next to Wambui, wept with laughter as Warui jingled across the field to the starting point. Children strutted up and down, around the aged participants.

  ‘Let us join the race,’ Mwaura said to Karanja.

  ‘My bones are stiff,’ Karanja protested, shifting his eyes from Mumbi to the motley runners.

  ‘Come, man. You were once a great long-distance runner. Remember those days at Manguo?’

  ‘Are you taking part?’

  ‘Yes – against you,’ Mwaura said, and pulled Karanja by the hand.

  Karanja’s sudden appearance startled Gikonyo who, to avoid looking at Karanja, moved to where Warui stood and talked to him animatedly. Karanja was also hesitant; it had not occurred to him that Gikonyo might take part in the race. Then contempt for the carpenter filled his heart; he would not give up the race, he resolved, remembering their old race to the train. The unfinished drama was going to be re-enacted in front of Mumbi, and only a few yards from the same railway station. Perhaps this time he would win the race and Mumbi together. Why else had she written that note, he reasoned with anxious optimism, as he bent down to unlace his shoes. Mwaura was talking to General R. and Lt Koina and seemed to be emphasizing a point with his right forefinger. The competitors, quite a small crowd consisting of women and men and schoolchildren, were now alerted. The whole field was suddenly hushed a second before the whistle went. Then a tumult of shouting from the spectators accompanied the pandemonium of the starting point. The runners trod on one another. A boy fell to the ground and miraculously escaped unhurt from the trampling feet.

  Warui dropped out almost immediately. He went and sat next to Wambui and Mumbi.

  ‘You? I’ll never trust your strength again,’ Mumbi teased him. ‘You have shamed all your faithful women.’

  ‘Let the children play,’ he said, and slowly shook his head. ‘In our time, we ran for miles and miles after our cattle stolen by the Masai. And it was no play, I tell you.’

  Before the end of the first lap, many runners had followed Warui’s example and dropped out. Only one woman completed the third lap. It was at the end of the fourth round when many people had opted out of the race, that Mumbi suddenly noticed Karanja’s presence. Her clapping abruptly stopped; her excitement slumped back to memories of yesterday. The sight of Karanja and Gikonyo on the same field embarrassed her so that she now wished she had stayed at home with her parents. Why had Karanja come, anyway, despite her warning note? Or did he not receive the message? Seeing General R. in the race, she was reminded of what the General had said two days before this. The irony of his words now struck her with her fuller knowledge of the situation. Circumstances had changed since she wrote that note. Then she had not known that the man who had actually betrayed Kihika was now the village hero. How could she tell this to anybody? Could she bear to bring more misery to Mugo, whose eyes and face seemed so distorted with pain? She recalled his fingers on her mouth, the others awkwardly feeling her throat. Then the terrible vacuum in his eyes. Suddenly at her question, he had removed his hands from her body. He knelt before her, a broken, submissive penitent.

  ‘Mumbi!’ He gulped. He half-stretched his hands, limp, then unexpectedly hid his face in them. All these abrupt changes in mood and gesture deprived her of words. Despite her fear, she laid a trembling hand on his shoulders.

  ‘Listen, Mugo! I saw my brother die. The District Officer was there and the policemen.’

  ‘You have eyes and ears. Don’t you know who betrayed your brother?’

  ‘Karanja! You were there. General R. told us.’

  ‘No!’

  She recoiled from him. In his hollow cry, in his look, she knew.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Me – yes – me.’

  He had not looked at her. His voice had touched her, begged her. But she could not help her loathing and her trembling. She moved to the door, away from the immobile figure of the village hero. She had no words. No feelings. Nothing. Mechanically but quickly she had opened the door. A dark night. Seemed she walked and ran simultaneously. The darkness. Not even the silhouettes of houses and things. Rain drizzling. And the voices of men and women who sang Uhuru songs reaching her in the drizzle seemed to come from another village, far away.

  In the morning she told Wambui: ‘Mugo does not want to take part in these ceremonies: can’t we leave him alone?’ The knowledge she carried inside her involved her in a new dilemma; either Karanja or Mugo. But she did not want anybody to die or come to harm because of her brother. She wished she could talk to Gikonyo, who might find a way out. Why had Karanja ignored her note, she wondered again. Suddenly she grew vexed with herself: what did she care about him, who had ruined her life?

  ‘What is the matter?’ Wambui asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Mumbi replied quickly, and started clappi
ng, wildly.

  As he ran, Gikonyo tried to hold on to other things; the half-familiar faces in the crowd; the new Rung’ei shops further down; the settled area across. Would Uhuru bring the land into African hands? And would that make a difference to the small man in the village? He heard a train rumbling at Rung’ei station. He thought of his father in the Rift Valley provinces. Was he still alive? What did he look like? He traversed the wide field of his childhood, early manhood, romance with Mumbi; Kihika, the Emergency, the detention camps, the stones on the pavement, the return home to betrayal passed through his mind in rapid succession. How Mumbi had dominated his life. Her very absence had almost unarmed him and made him break down. He angrily jerked his head, compelling himself to concentrate on the present race. He and Karanja were rivals again. But rivals for what? For whom were they competing? Karanja is only mocking me, he thought. He seethed with hatred as he panted and mopped sweat away from his forehead. He ran on, the desire to win inflamed him. He maintained his place close behind Karanja. His aim was to keep a certain pace, reserving his energy for the last lap or so, when he would dash forward, trusting his muscles would obey his will.

  Mwaura was leading in the seventh lap. A few yards behind him followed Karanja, then General R., Gikonyo, Lt Koina and three other men, in that order. Most of the other competitors had dropped out. Around the field, spectators stood and cheered now this man, now that. Carry on, carry on, they shouted. Long-distance races had always been popular at Thabai. People despised short distances, regarding them as children’s races. Even those who had private grief against Karanja, the former government chief and leader of the homeguards, now lost their bitter feelings in the excitement of the moment. They cheered him on.

  And Karanja was remembering a scene, long ago, at the Railway Station, when he stood there fighting his knowledge that Gikonyo and Mumbi were left behind, alone. How he had yearned for the woman! Lord, how the guitar had moaned for Mumbi in the forest! If only he had not been hesitant, waiting upon tomorrow, he might have won her. Later when he proposed to her, she refused him – with a smile. And that refusal irrevocably bound him to her. He waited for his chance. When Gikonyo was taken to detention, Karanja suddenly knew he would never let himself be taken away from Mumbi. He sold the Movement and Oath secrets, the price of remaining near Mumbi. Thereafter the wheel of things drove him into greater and greater reliance on the whiteman. That reliance gave him power – power to save, to imprison, to kill. Men cowered before him; he despised and also feared them. Women offered their naked bodies to him; even some of the most respectable came to him by night. But Mumbi, his Mumbi, would not yield, and he could never bring himself to force her. Ironically, as he thought later, as he thought now, she only lay under him when he stood on the brink of defeat. He had felt a momentary pang of intense victory which, seconds later, after the act, melted into utter isolation and humiliation. He had taken advantage of her. For this, so he thought, she despised him. He could not face her – not after that shoe which caught him in the face and provoked blinding tears. He had always wanted Mumbi to come to him, freely, because he was important to her, irresistible. And now he was running for her. Had she not herself given him a second chance? Her note had rescued him from terrible despair. The Thompsons had gone, the whiteman would go. As long as the Thompsons were there, Karanja believed that white power would never really go. Perhaps it was because Thompson was the first whiteman Karanja had seen and met? For Thompson, the DO, appeared to people at Thabai, before the Emergency, the symbol of the whiteman’s government and supremacy. White power had given Karanja a fearful security – now this security, already shaken at the foundation, had crumbled to pieces. He walked in dark corridors. He could not see the sun. And then the letter had come. It warned him not to attend the ceremonies today. Why? Mwaura had already asked him and, in his despair, he had refused to attend. Her letter made him think again, throughout the night. And every moment had sharpened his curiosity to see Mumbi. Thabai was, after all, his village: who dared say Karanja could not go home? Somewhere, in a corner of his heart, Karanja trusted his physical power over Mumbi. Had she not, after all, mothered his child? He did not take her warning seriously. It was a woman’s way of doing things. And this view was confirmed when he and Mwaura arrived in Rung’ei, where he learnt that Mumbi had left her husband. Her message had gone sharp into his heart. All my life, I’ve run for her, he reflected bitterly. But only for a moment, though. He must not let such reflections deflect him from present victory. This was his last race. If he got Mumbi, his life would be complete. Uhuru and its threats would not, nothing would ever touch him, ill. So now he increased his pace. He must catch Mwaura at the tenth round. He must shake off Gikonyo, who stuck like a tick so close to his heels.