Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong

  “A plastic snake?” he asked, relief embedded in disbelief.

  “Yes,” she said, and laughed again.

  His relief was superseded by anger. Nyawlra sensed this and tried to slink away from his rage. He strode after her as if intent on strangling her or something. In silence, they circled each other, Kamltl trying to catch her, she just managing to slip away. Then suddenly he flew toward her and they fell on the bed. They were tremulous amid the rustling of clothes. Their lips met.

  Kamltl had not been with a woman since that disastrous morning with Wariara. The act had left distaste in him, diminishing his desire. He had not felt deprived during his time of abstinence. But now he knew that something important had been missing in his life. Nyawlra was in a similar position. Her relationship with Kaniürü had soured her on love, and she had not taken up with any other man. Now they felt themselves drawn to each other by a power they could not resist.

  “Slowly and gently, young man,” Nyawlra told him. “Some men rush as if they are late for an appointment. A woman is not a service station.”

  She guided his hands to her nipples, down to her thighs, his touch forcing her to sigh and groan. They were now ready to move to the next step.

  “Put it on now,” Nyawlra told him.

  “What?” he said in a daze.

  “Don’t you have a condom?”

  “Condom? Oh, no!” he said.

  It was as if some red ants had bitten Nyawlra, for she suddenly threw him off, jumped up, and sat on the bed.

  “What have I done wrong?” Kamltl asked, baffled.

  “Wrong? Did I hear you right?” Nyawlra asked, full of fury. “You would enter me without protection?”

  “I have not carried condoms with me for a while. I assumed that you were on the pill or something…”

  “Do you think that pregnancy is the worst that can happen to a woman? Pregnancy is not a malignance. It is only a problem when people are not prepared to shoulder the responsibility of bringing a child into the world. Don’t you know about the virus? Pregnancy is life. The virus means death.”

  “I don’t have the virus!”

  “How do you know? And even if you know about yourself, how do you know that I am not carrying AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, or any other STD?”

  Discomfort had now replaced desire. Kamltl went to take a cold shower to cool his body. Nyawlra waited for him to finish and followed suit. Both clothed once again, Kamltl, in a shirt without buttons, went back to the sitting room, and Nyawlra, in a fresh dress, went to the kitchen.

  Kamltl’s mind drifted to life with Wariara. They had never talked about their sex lives before meeting each other; he was surprised by how little he knew about that aspect of her. Recalling their encounter at the Angel’s Corner earlier in the day, he felt uncomfortable in his own body. What if he had caught a virus from their sole intimate encounter and had been about to pass it on to… no, he did not want to think about his possible carelessness. He was grateful to Nyawlra for having put a halt to things, even more so now that she interrupted his thoughts by offering him some tea.

  “I’m sorry” he told Nyawlra. “I should not have lost it that way. I have never been so drawn to anyone. Usually I prefer to get to know someone better before this kind of thing happens. But something about you makes me feel that we have always known each other. Maybe it has something to do with our shared experiences today. But I want you to know that I am not trying to excuse my behavior.”

  “I am sorry, too. In college I always kept a couple of condoms in my handbag, because even then I believed that people who do not know each other well should protect themselves; because you can never tell who is carrying death into the act of love. When I got married, I stopped; and even after the marriage ended, I continued with the bad habit of not arming myself. But now I should have known better, for nobody knows when she or he might be in a situation where the body overpowers the will. If a person refuses to wear a condom in these days of the deadly virus and he still wants to go the distance, he is my enemy, not my lovemate, and I should not let him touch me. That is why I threw you off, because I thought you were one of those men who think it unmanly to wear condoms.”

  “I can hardly criticize you.”

  They were now relaxed with each other.

  “What was the plastic snake all about?” Kamltl asked in a new key.

  “You really thought that it was alive?”

  “It seemed lifelike, its eyes roving, its tongue flexing. I am terrified of snakes. I hate practical jokes involving snakes.”

  Nyawlra looked hard at his face. No, she and Kamltl were not of the same mind; they had arrived at the gates of Paradise by different routes. All they shared were the beggar’s rags they wore. Nothing more. And yet to her he had a good heart. He had grown up poor; he could be one of her party. Then she recalled that Kaniürü, in spite of his humble background, was now a member of the Ruler’s Youth, protecting the rich against the poor. She checked herself. Kamltl might turn out to be another Kaniürü. Besides, he seemed a loner, the type only drawn by the desires of the spirit.

  “These days, no woman is safe walking the streets alone. I carry the snake to help me get out of dangerous situations.”

  “No, Nyawlra, you are holding something back,” he said.

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked with a bit more passion.

  Kamltl felt pulled in opposite directions: he wanted to know, and he did not; he did not feel that he had the will to endure the weight of knowing and the agony of choice. Was certain indeterminacy not better?

  Nyawlra saw the hesitation in his face and said to herself: This one is scared. She looked at her watch.

  “It is almost dawn. You won’t have to go to the wilderness. Sleep on the couch. I’ll give you a blanket.”

  As she headed toward the bedroom, Kamltl persisted despite his fears.

  “But you did not really answer my question.”

  Nyawlra stopped and turned her head.

  “You know the Movement for the Voice of the People?”

  By instinct, Kamltl quickly looked over his shoulder before answering.

  “I don’t, but you mentioned it. Didn’t the Buler declare it illegal?”

  “Yes,” she said, not sure what to make of his skittishness.

  “What is the story?” Kamltl asked, not too enthusiastically.

  “There are two kinds of saviors: those who want to soothe the souls of the suffering and those who want to heal the sores on the flesh of the suffering. Sometimes I wonder which is right. Sleep well. The couch may not be as comfortable as your leaves of grass, but there is a roof over it,” she said lightly.

  “But what does the movement stand for? Who are its members? Its leaders?”

  “Someday I’ll tell you more,” she said, wondering about his sudden desire for details. She went to the bedroom, from where she now threw him a blanket.

  The guitar from the wall had been disturbed by their play earlier. She adjusted it before climbing into bed.

  Kamltl sighed with relief, but relief from what? He was unable to fall asleep; he kept turning over in his mind the events of the last twenty-four hours. As in a dream, he didn’t know where he was headed, he thought, yawning from fatigue.

  There was banging at the door. Kamltl, who had fallen asleep, was tied to his bed of dreams by a thousand strands of rainbow colors. Who was waking him in his flower garden? Ah, yes, Paradise. A million-star hotel, with a boundless sky as its roof. Oh yes, he thought, a hailstorm must be kissing the gates of Paradise. How soothing. But the knocking at the door persisted, and Kamltl woke up.

  He tiptoed to Nyawlra’s bed and woke her up. They both listened, hoping that the intermittent knocking would cease. It didn’t, and Nyawlra put on a shawl and went to the door.

  She hesitated as she opened it.

  “Don’t be afraid, mother,” the man said, quickly taking something from his pocket and showing it to her. “I have not come to rob you. I am jus
t a plainclothes police officer.”

  “What do you want?” Nyawlra asked gruffly, trying to hide her panic.

  “I beg you, please don’t be angry. I am the police officer who was here last night. Well not here, exactly-I mean, I happened to be in Santalucia last night, and in passing I saw something hanging from the wall. When I went home, well, I thought about it. True, Haki ya Mungu. I tell you, I hardly slept trying to figure things out. So I came to the conclusion, perhaps, then the doubt, how shall I know the house? But I gathered my courage and came here before dawn, and imagine my relief when I found the thing still there. And I said to myself, you are in the right place.”

  Chagrined, Nyawlra remembered the bundle of make-believe witchcraft hanging from the roof outside. How careless of them not to have taken it down! The magic that had sent the police officer away had led him back to the house, though now he seemed unarmed. She became a little defiant within: So what if he has found us? What could he arrest us for? What crime have we committed? Then she recalled that the dictator of Aburlria had decreed that the Movement for the Voice of the People was illegal. She resolved to remain calm and scrutinize the words of the police officer for anything that might be useful.

  “What do you want?” she asked imperiously.

  The police officer winced at her tone. He kept looking over his shoulder as if ready to bolt at the first hint of danger. Yet he seemed determined, almost desperate, to unburden himself of something.

  “My name is Constable Arigaigai Gathere. I have many matters that weigh heavily on me. Please, mother, I want-please-I would like to see you.”

  “Me? You want to see me?” she asked, quite puzzled by all this.

  “Yes, you. No, yes, true! Haki ya Mungu, Wizard. I would like to see you. Sorry, I mean, I need to see the Wizard of the Crow.”

  11

  Later, after his own life had taken twists and turns defying all rational explanation even for him, a trained police officer, Constable Arigaigai Gathere always found himself surrounded by crowds wanting to hear story after story about the Wizard of the Crow. It was then that people started calling him fondly by his initials, A.C., some listeners allowing that they stood for “attorney general of storytelling.” If his storytelling took place in a bar, it was fueled to new heights of imagination by an endless supply of liquor. When the setting was a village, a marketplace, or the crossroads, Constable Arigaigai Gathere felt charged with energy on seeing the rapt faces of the men, women, and children waiting to catch his every word. But whatever the setting, his listeners came away with food of the spirit: resilient hope that no matter how intolerable things seemed, a change for the better was always possible. For if a mere mortal like the Wizard of the Crow could change himself into any form of being, nothing could resist the human will to change.

  “And when I talk of him changing himself into anything,” he would stress, “I am not passing on hearsay. True, Haki ya Mungu. I talk of what I saw with my own eyes.”

  The story they came to hear over and over again was about the night A.G. chased two beggars from the gates of Paradise. At first A.G. used to say that he was with two other police officers, but in the course of the telling and retelling of the story, they disappeared from his narrative.

  “Yes, it all began outside Paradise, where we had been sent to make sure that the visitors from the Global Bank would not be harassed by the crowd of beggars. Early on, the beggars were orderly, but when they started shouting words I would never let pass my mouth, we received orders from on high to silence and disperse them. It was in the evening, I remember. I saw a man in rags look at me with eyes burning brighter than those of a tiger in the dark. I felt his eyes forcing me to follow him as he moved away. I tried to tell him to stop but was dumbstruck. What was even more amazing was that he was not running. True, Haki ya Mungu. The man just strolled swinging a big bag he was carrying; yet no matter how hard I ran after him, the distance between us remained the same.

  “It seemed to me that the man was not alone; there was another walking beside him, guiding him through the dark. How do I explain? Now I see one. Now I see two.

  “When I tried to stop and take stock of the situation, I found that I could not slow down. True, Haki ya Mungu, and eventually I found myself in the prairie. Don’t ask me how I got there-to this day I don’t know. There was moonlight, all right, but clouds would get in the way; it was as if the heavens were conspiring with him to play games of light and shadows with me. He made me run around in circles the whole time. Then I saw him go through some bush and I followed him. It was dark in the thick growth. I tripped over something and fell. It was a rock cleft in two. I got back up and resumed running. Only when I reached the other side of the bush did I realize that I was near Santalucia. Between the edge of the bush and where the houses begin was an empty space, and as the man crossed it I saw that what I had taken to be two was actually one. And yet I could have sworn that I had seen two persons! No sooner had I blinked than the man was gone. As there was no gap in the hedge, I could not tell how he got through.”

  “You mean to tell us that you did not even see him jump over the hedge?” some would ask him.

  “No. I didn’t. True, Haki ya Mungu.”

  “Maybe he turned himself into a hedge,” another would suggest.

  “Yes. You have said it.”

  “And what did you do, quit?”

  “Me, quit? Oh, no. I decided to look for him everywhere.”

  “A.G. You are brave, man! Me? Had I had ten guns in each hand, I still would not have taken another step.”

  “I confess that I don’t lack courage. I looked for a way into Santalucia. Now, you know that Santalucia houses are dense and they all look alike. The streets are narrow. The lighting is poor. Now imagine me. I am holding my gun firmly in my hand. I try this house. I try another. Police. Open the door. People looked at me with fright and dry mouths. Then I said to myself, This isn’t working. I should go from door to door, eavesdrop and peer through cracks in the walls, demand that the owners open up only if I see or hear something suspicious. I put my new plan into action. And then, how shall I tell it? Suddenly I felt a force take ahold of me, turn me around, and compel me to look at it. One glance at the thing hanging from the roof and I knew that I was facing powerful magic. Approaching it, I saw some letters jump from the wall toward me: WARNING! THIS PROPERTY BELONGS TO THE WIZARD WHOSE POWERS CAN BRING DOWN EVEN CROWS FROM THE SKY. TOUCH THIS DOOR AT YOUR PERIL. SGD. WIZARD OF THE CROW. Then the letters retreated into the wall. Foolish me. I was about to touch the thing when I felt hands I could not see lifting me up. They swung me in the air and dropped me to the ground, again and again. Seven times. When I was released, I fled and did not once look back…”

  “And your gun?” somebody would ask. “How come it did not fall?”

  “That, in fact, was an issue that would not let me sleep, for, true! Haki ya Mungu, I lay awake, turning the matter over and over in my mind. I was lifted up and felled seven times, but why did I not sustain even a scratch? A little pain in the butt, maybe, but nothing worse. And how did my gun stay in my hand? Yes, I talked to myself: Constable Arigaigai Gathere, why do you think the man chose you and forced you to follow him to the magic? What was he trying to tell you? For a long time, I had had many problems weighing on me, even more so in the weeks before this fateful encounter. All at once I saw the light. A sign. The whole thing was a sign that pointed to he who could solve my problems.

  “That was why early in the morning I went back to the house of magic. Fortunately the bundle and the writing on the wall were still there. He opened the door for me. And do you know? Listen to this. The man appeared to me in the form of a very beautiful woman. At first he/she asked me questions in a soft voice, then all of a sudden a voice boomed from the back of his/her head.

  “ I am the Wizard of the Crow. Who is that standing in the shadow of my magic? How dare you break my circle of magic? Go, clean those feet first before…’

  “I di
d not wait to hear more. For a second time I fled for my life.”

  12

  Even Nyawlra at first was surprised by the booming voice. But when she saw the police officer wince, stand at attention, salute, and then take to his heels, she recalled what the same police officer had done earlier that night, and doubled with laughter.

  “Has he gone?” Kamltl asked.

  “He sped away like an arrow. How did you think that up so quickly?”

  “I don’t really know. I was buying time for us to work out a common story. But I blundered a little!”

  “How?”

  “I gave him the choice to return or not. I should have told him never to come back, or else, or words to that effect.”

  “The way he took off does not support a person eager to return here anytime soon.”

  Nyawlra went to the kitchen and made tea and scrambled eggs with bread. She put hers to the side to cool while she got ready to go to work. She was eager to hear what Tajirika had to say about the Global Bank dinner party and the gathering of beggars outside the gates of Paradise.

  Nyawlra’s preparations jolted Kamltl out of his fear of the police. His jaws cupped in his hands, he ignored breakfast and brooded about his personal woes. It was as if he had dreamt that he had eaten a homemade meal, slept on a comfortable couch, and woken up to a bountiful breakfast in the company of laughter and warmth, and suddenly the dream had ended. He was engulfed in a simple if brutal reality. It was very early in the morning and he had no clue as to what to do or where to begin his daily search for a job.

  Now ready, Nyawlra went back to the kitchen for her breakfast. Between the kitchen and the living room was a small window through which plates, pans, or cups could be passed from one room to the other. She opened the window and spoke to Kamltl through the opening.