Minutes of Glory

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  The college was a new world. Small but larger. Fuller. New men. New and strange ideas. And with the other students they discussed the alluring fruits of this world. The white man is going. Jobs. Jobs. Life. He still remembered the secret vow. He would always stand or fall by his people.

  In his third year he met Ruth. Or rather he fell in love. He had met her at college dances and socials. But the moment she allowed him to walk her to her hall of residence, he knew he would never be happy without her. Aah, Ruth. She could dress. And knew her colours. It was she who popularized straightened hair and wigs at college. You have landed a true Negress even without going to America, the other boys used to say. And their obvious envy increased his pride and pleasure. That’s why he could not resist a college wedding. She wanted it. It was good. He was so proud of her as she leaned against him for the benefit of the cameras. Suddenly he wished his parents were present. To share this moment. Their son and Ruth.

  Should he not have invited them? he asked himself afterwards. Ruth’s parents had come. She had not told him. It was meant as a joke, a wedding surprise for him. Maybe it was as well. Ruth’s parents were, well, rich. Doubts lingered. Perhaps he ought to have waited and married a girl who knew the village and its ways. But could he find a girl who would meet his intellectual and social requirements? He was being foolish. He loved this girl. Oh my Negress. She was an African. Suppose he had gone to England or America and married a white woman. Therein was real betrayal. All the same he felt he should have invited his parents and vowed not to be so negligent in future. In any case when they saw the bride he would bring home on top of his brilliant academic record! He felt better. He told her about the village and his secret vows. I hope you will be happy in the village. Don’t be silly. Of course I shall. You know my father and mother are illiterate. Come, come. Stop fretting. As if I was not an African myself. You don’t know how I hate cities. I want to be a daughter of the soil. Ruth came from one of the rich families that had early embraced Christianity and exploited the commercial possibilities of the new world. She had grown up in the city and the ways of the country were a bit strange to her. But her words reassured him. He felt better and loved her all the more.

  His return to the village was a triumphal entry. People again flowed to his father’s compound to see him. She looks like a white woman, people whispered in admiration. Look at her hair. Her nails. Stockings. His aged father, with a dirty blanket across his left shoulder, fixed his eyes on him. Father, this is my wife. His mother wept with joy. For weeks after the couple was all the talk of the area. She is so proud. Ssh. Do you not know that she too has all the wisdom of the white man, just like our son?

  A small, three-roomed house had been built for them. He became a teacher. Ruth worked in the big city. They lived happily.

  For a time.

  She started to fret. Life in a mud hut without electricity, without music, was suffocating. The constant fight against dirt and mud was wearying. She resented the many villagers who daily came to the house and stayed late. She could not have the privacy she so needed, especially with her daily journeys to the city and back. And the many relatives who flocked daily with this or that problem. Money. She broke down and wept. I wish you would ask them all to go. I am so tired. Oh, Ruth, you know I can’t, it’s against custom. Custom! Custom! And she became restless. And because he loved her and loved the village, he was hurt, and became unhappy. Let’s go and live in the town, we can get a house at the newly integrated residential area, I’ll pay the rent. They went. He too was getting tired of the village and the daily demands.

  She kept her money. He kept his. He gave up teaching. The amount of money he would get as a teacher even in the city would be too small to meet the new demands of an integrated neighbourhood, as they preferred to call the area. An oil company was the answer. He worked in the Sales Department. His salary was fatter. But he soon found that a town was not a village and the new salary was not as big as he had imagined. To economize, he gradually discontinued support for his countless relatives. Even this was not enough. He had joined a new tribe and certain standards were expected of him and other members. He bought a Mercedes 220S. He also bought a Mini Morris – a shopping basket for his wife. This was the fashion among those who had newly arrived and wanted to make a mark. There were the house gadgets to buy and maintain if he was to merit the respect of his new tribesmen. And of course the parties. He joined the Civil Servants Club, formerly exclusively white.

  His wife spent her money mostly on food and clothes. She would not trust him with any of it because she feared he might spend it on the troublesome relatives. But he had to keep up with the others. Could he shame her in front of the other wives? The glory of their days at college came back. He was grateful and stopped even the four visits to his parents because he had no money and she would not go with him. And because his salary was now too small – house rent, a Mercedes Benz and the shopping basket, all to be paid for – he began to ‘borrow’ the company’s money that came his way. Of course I shall return it, he told himself. Still he learnt to play with the company’s cheques. When at last he was caught, the amount he had consumed was more than he could pay.

  Waruhiu left one street and quickly crossed to the next. Though he hated the locations, it was easier to hide there, in the crowd until darkness came. He did not want to meet any of his tribesmen while his body exuded the stench. At night he would take a bus which would take him to the only place he would get welcome. He loved Ruth. She loved him. Her love would wash away the stench – even the shame. After all, had he not done those things for her? As for his village, he would not show his face there. How could he look all those people in the eyes? As he waited for the bus, the last scene in the courtroom came back.

  The case had attracted much attention. The village priest and people from his home had come. The press with their cameras. First offender. Six months with a warning to all educated to set an example. This was a new Kenya. As he was led out of the crowded courtroom, he saw tears on his mother’s face. Many of the villagers had grave, averted faces. Hand-cuffed hour of shame. He put on a brave, haughty front. But within, he wept. His one consolation was that Ruth was not in the court. He would have died to see her pain and public shame.

  The bus came. And the darkness. He looked forward to seeing Ruth. Had she changed much? She was a tall slim woman, not beautiful, but she had grace and power. He would take her in his arms, breaking her fragrant grace on his broad breast. Perhaps the stench would go. That was all he now wanted. He was sure she would understand. In bed, she had always been able to still his doubts and he always discovered faith in the power of renewed love. Ruth. He would not seek work in this city. He would go to one of the neighbouring countries. He would begin all over. He now knew wisdom. He would live faithfully by her side. He had failed the village. He had failed his mother and father. He would never fail Ruth. Never.

  He came out of the bus. He knew this place. The smell of roses and bougainvillea. The fresh, crisp air. The wide spaces between houses. What a difference from the locations. Here, he was the only person with strong stench. But he already felt purified as he walked to his house and Ruth. He could not bear the mounting excitement.

  Near the door, and he heard a new voice, a deep round voice. He felt utter despair. So his wife had moved! How was he to find her new house.

  He gathered courage and knocked at the door. At least he would try to find out if she had left her new address. He stepped aside, into the shadows. The sound of high-heeled shoes; how that sound would have pleased him; the turning of the key; how he would have danced with joy. A woman stood there. For a moment he lost his voice. His legs were heavy. Desire suddenly seized him. Ruth, he whispered. It’s me. Oh, she groaned. Ruth, he whispered again, don’t be afraid, he continued emerging from the shadows, arms wide open to receive her. Don’t, don’t, she cried, after an awkward silence, and moved a step back. But it’s me, he now pleaded. Go away, she sobbed, I don’t know you, I don
’t. Please – he hesitated. Then came a hard gritty voice he had never heard in her: I’ll call the police, if you don’t clear off my premises: and she shut the door in his face.

  He was numb all over. The stench from his body was too much even for his nostrils. All around him people drunkenly drove past. Music and forced laughter and high-pitched voices – laughter so familiar, reached him with a vengeance. Suddenly he started laughing, a hoarse ugly laughter. He laughed as he walked away; he laughed until his ribs pained; and the music and high-pitched voices still issued from the houses in this very cosmopolitan suburban estate, to compete with laughter that had turned to tears of self-hatred and bitterness.

  PART IV

  Shadows and Priests

  WITHOUT A SHADOW OF DOUBT: MY FIRST LESSON IN ART AND FILM

  Njinjũ, my younger brother, claimed he could catch his own shadow. Older by a year, I was not about to admit that I was any less able. A rivalry of sorts grew into a sibling race to be the first to achieve the feat. With the grim but eager determination of bounty hunters, we set out to capture our shadows. They proved very cunning. They would run away from us but annoyingly kept the same speed as we did, accelerating when we did, slowing down when we did, and stopping when we did.

  We decided to run away from them. The same pattern ensued. They followed us, doing whatever we did, literally at the same time and speed that we did it. Let us carry a load on our heads, in our hands, on our backs, or push the rim of a bicycle wheel, our shadows would come up with an exact replica. On moonlit nights they were there, walking behind us, in front of us, beside us, mocking our failure to turn them into captives.

  We escaped them only when it became dark – initially a matter of pride at our doing – but as soon as we sat by the fireside, they were back. Alas, it was not we who had escaped them but rather they who had hidden in the darkness only to reappear suddenly and dramatically at storytelling time. They played on the walls, on our faces, and, depending on the flames, they would actually dance. Sometimes they would multiply themselves and continue mocking us in moves and waves that seemed choreographed to achieve maximum mockery.

  Their disappearance in the darkness, however, gave us an idea on how to get rid of them. Under a big tree or thicket, the bush shadow swallowed ours; but as soon as we moved out, ours were back with us. Not sure who had tricked who, we did not feel genuine triumph at the temporary success. We decided to study shadows. You cannot deal with an adversary you don’t know. We set about it with the meticulous care of research scientists.

  Trees, cows, goats, cats, frogs, insects, even wood and stones had shadows. Cars and airplanes too. Everything carried a shadow. People’s faces had little shadows under their eyes or ears, or shades that simply crossed their faces depending on how and where they sat and looked relative to the source of the light. There were a few discernible differences. While the shadow of a vehicle ran beside it, the one from an airplane in the sky ran on the earth. Same for birds; the body flew in the sky, the shadow ran on the ground, but so swiftly that we did not even think of attempting to catch them. At the opposite end were the shadows of plants and stones. Unlike those of flying objects, which seemed able to detach themselves from the objects in the sky, those that belonged to plants did not move away, although they lengthened or shortened, depending on the time of day.

  We changed tactics, or rather, our attitudes. Instead of capturing or escaping them, we found uses for shadows. We marked the passing of time by the length of our shadows. In the mornings they were long on the ground. After noon, they lengthened again, almost in the opposite direction. They were at their shortest at noontime. Rain and clouds ruined it for us; otherwise, when the sun shone evenly throughout the day, we were nearly always accurate about the time of day. We even made appointments accordingly. Let’s meet when the shadow is shortest. That meant noon. Let’s meet before or after the big shadow has swallowed all the other shadows. Really, we did not miss the fact that we had no watch on our wrists or clocks in our house. Amazingly, we carried divisions of time, day and night even, in our shadows.

  It was not only telling the time and its divisions. When it was very hot we sat under the shade of trees and it felt cool and good. When my mother roasted some potatoes in open fields we preferred to eat under the shade of Mbariki plants. We soon realized other aspects of the shadow, the artistic. Storytelling was more profound and more enjoyable against the background of the playfulness of the shadows. Shadows created a magic softness around us.

  Sometimes we made our shadows wrestle with each other, obviously in imitation of our own wrestling. We tried other games with shadows. We turned our calico sheets, our sole items of clothing, into some sort of curtain by tying them between two poles against a light. One of us would stand stark naked behind the curtain, make faces, try many poses and postures, while the other, again stark naked, sat in front of the curtain and enjoyed the antics of the other that came across as shadows. We would change places, and continue the show.

  But there was a less soft side to shadows, we soon realized. One day my brother and I met a man on a bike. He wore glasses with aluminium rims. He had decorated his bike with aluminium-lined mirrors and gadgets that made strange noises against the wind. My mother was alarmed when we reported our encounter. The next time we sighted him, she said, we should run into the shade of the nearest bush and make sure our shadows were fully covered by those of the bush.

  We soon learned he was the most feared figure in the region because of his command of the shadows of humans. The man was employed in a nearby shoe factory but, on the side, he worked as a consulting magic worker, and, for a fee, he could capture a client’s enemy by trapping his shadow and then scratching it with a knife. Wherever the evildoer resided, he would bleed to death – that is, if he did not give up himself or give up his evil ways. Some even claimed that the captive shadow in the mirror would bleed blood. My mother did not think we were evildoers but she could not rule out an accident or sheer malice on his part.

  This confirmed what we already knew: there was, indeed, something to shadows. But we also wondered and argued about this, the ontology of the shadow. Was the shadow in the mirror or under the water the same as the ones that followed us? No, no, they could not be the same, I argued. The ones in the mirror looked exactly like our faces; the shadows that followed us were not an exact replica. The same for the ones under clear water. My brother said they were really the same: water and mirrors were their real home. When we didn’t see them in the dark it was because they had jumped inside their mirror and water residency. We did not see eye to eye over this, but we agreed we should try out the magic ourselves. Instead of trapping them in a mirror, we would go at the shadows directly. We borrowed a knife, but we did not want to stab a human shadow, least of all ours – not even those of animals because, really, we did not want anybody or any animal to die. Shadows of insects proved impossible to stab: they moved too fast for our hands. But we reckoned that those of plants and trees were fair game: their shadows were stationary and, really, plants did not feel pain, although we had heard some trees scream as they fell after adults cut them down with axes. To a mix of disappointment and also relief, no amount of stabbing would make the shadows or the plants bleed. Well, trees and plants differed from humans and animals: they did not have blood to bleed.

  But that was not the end of our sibling arguments over shadows. We disagreed on the color of human shadows. Noting that ours were always black, my brother asserted, with absolute certainty, that it was simply because we were black. Black shadows were for black people; white shadows for white people; brown, for brown people. The shadows imitated us in everything; why not in the color of the skin? When I pointed out that shadows from plants were also dark, he said it was because they were plants. Human shadows were different: after all, plant shadows were stationary. We could only settle the dispute by checking with humans.

  There were no whites in our village; they lived on the other side of the railway-line, h
idden behind big houses in big plantations, and inside automobiles. Our best hope was with Indians. They may not have been as white as the whites from Europe, but we could draw logical conclusions from any difference we detected between African and Indian shadows.

  So one day we set out to the Indian shopping centre, two miles from our village. In keeping with the solemnity of our mission, we had our single calico-wear washed properly and dried the night before. Thus, we dressed in our clean best. We did not whisper the intent of our journey of exploration to our parents or any other of our siblings. Although I took a different view of the matter, I was not averse to my brother being right; a white shadow would be something to behold, and it was with great curiosity and anticipation that we looked at our first Indian encounters: children outside the shops. Their shadows behaved in the same way that ours did: the avatars followed and ran away but never completely detached themselves from the body of the Indian original. And they were black. Maybe it was because they were shadows of children? But it turned out to be the same with the Indian adults. Dark shadows. But whites, real whites? Real white shadows?

  And then good luck fell upon us. A white couple drove past in a car. A rare sight, this. We mingled with the Indian children who surrounded the vehicle to see the couple come out. The children commented on their clothes, shoes, and jewellery, their gait: they were real Europeans with sun helmets to shield themselves from the sun. The couple walked out with stiff dignity, almost brushing aside the anthropological gaze from the other but occasionally acknowledging it with attempts to deflect it by throwing some coins some distance away. They briefly watched the children run after the treasure, but a few would not take part in the scramble, almost as if these rejected the attempts to turn them into the object of gaze.