So why are they separate places?
They were not separate in the beginning.
Just in the beginning?
We call it that, but there was no time to measure then. Paradise and life were the same thing. They were held together by a strong rope that would never rot. People lived their lives in an unending paradise. There was neither birth nor death, just an unending humanity. There was always good rain and crops never failed. There was always enough to eat.
So how did it change? Why is it that life now is far from anything that might even be linked with the name ‘paradise’? Why is it that time pushes paradise itself ever further from the clutches of the living? Why is it that we must now all undergo the torture of standing here and watching our life’s only goal receding ever further from us?
It is because of the hyena.
Correct, Munyasya! Correct! Go on, tell me what happened and even you will begin to understand.
Well the hyena gnawed at the rope that bound life and paradise together. That was the first evil act committed since the start of all creation, and through it evil triumphed. The rope broke and thus cut the path that joined the two worlds. Life was then forever severed from paradise.
Why was the rope not joined? Why did we not just tie the ends together and repair the path?
It was not possible. Paradise began to drift away from us. While we stood still and watched, paradise drifted away from us like a cloud.
Ah yes, the beginning of time. With every new day, our life’s goal drifts further from us...
And still we sit here in the present doing nothing!
Munyasya, the very fact that we are here shows that we are doing as much as we can.
As much as we can? You are surely more of a fool than I am, Nzoka. What in heaven is the difference between sitting under a tree in Migwani waiting for the next bus and sitting in the shade of Kitui’s Post Office waiting for the next car?
Impatient, as ever, my son.
I am not your son and never was...
But you were - and still are - my ward.
And I have grown old to become your prison.
You will soon see that I have served my time. But we are forgetting our lesson in history! Come on, Munyasya, tell me the rest of the story.
There’s no more to tell. The hyena cut the rope and here we are. Imprisoned by the lives we lead, without a hope and unable to recognise one if it hit us in the face.
No more to tell? You are not as wise as you think, my son. Do you think the hyena alone bears the sin?
Of course not.
Why?
Because it is said that men stood and watched as it chewed. They knew what it was doing. It was a conspiracy by those in paradise to keep it all for themselves. They believed that if they gave the hyena a juicy joint of meat, it would cut the rope for them and they would be the sole inhabitants of the comfortable place they had made for themselves.
A good plan?
No. A very poor one.
Why?
Because God sees all.
And what did God make of what he saw?
Obviously he blamed everyone who took part in the scheme. All living things shared the blame as he saw it. He banished them all to this world and invented time as their trial. Every living thing was granted its own time to prove its individual innocence, to show God that it took no part in the original sin, or on the other hand to admit what it did and then to atone for that sin and thereby to show itself worthy of paradise.
You have remembered well, my son, but that is still not the full story. Life is not simply one test. It is a series of trials that must be lived through. Each separate step must be attempted before the next may be approached, each in its own place and time; never the next without the last completed. With each step the path grows steeper until the final leap to the top of the hill. There a man can rest, proud of his success and achievement. While he takes a breath he watches over his still striving kin, lends a helping hand or word of advice whenever he sees fit. It is his duty to help them, for if he does not, and one of them should fall by the wayside, the failure will hinder even himself. He will then have to drag the dead weight of shared evil along with him forever because the bonds that tie his family together are made of the same rope that once bound worlds. Only hyenas, lying and cheating people, can break these bonds and can be disowned by a family. But let us not pass final judgment before we have heard your case, Munyasya. Speak. Speak now.
You cannot be my judge, Nzoka. Only life can judge me. You should beware of misusing what you think is your power. You should not judge others, lest they judge you.
Then let us see what your life has to say. If it has been the witness, then let us hear it. Now don’t try to avoid any of my questions, my son. That would only make your case worse.
Nzoka, if I tell lies then it is merely you who are lying to yourself.
I have warned you not to play with me, my son. Now, let’s make a start. Step one. Birth.
I had no problem crossing that bridge.
I should hope not. Those who fail here are clearly not even worthy of trial. Only the totally evil spirit is denied even a chance to show itself in life. So we can both be thankful that you passed that first test.
You mean that you are thankful, Nzoka. What you are admitting is that you would be too lazy to carry such a burden of responsibility. It would have been a handicap for you to bear and you never were one to be the first to volunteer when there was a job to be done.
If you go on like this, I’ll not even give you a last chance to redeem yourself!
And what would you do, my wise old Nzoka? Kill me? Remember that if you should do that you will also be killing yourself and then you would share my fate, my guilt.
We are discussing you, Munyasya, not me. Let us both recall how you took life’s second step and made the transition into manhood.
I stepped proudly forward as do all young men.
But I think you went no further... You never married, Munyasya, my son, did you?
I was rejected!
My son, every man is rejected at least once, but not every man refuses to walk because he falls down at the first attempt...
I wanted to marry. Dearly I longed for a wife. But the opportunity never came my way again.
So you sat under a tree at a crossroads waiting for women, but none came? Opportunities do not come your way in life, my son. They must be sought out. If a man wants a wife, he goes out looking for one. And when he finds a woman who can keep him happy and bear his children, he makes her father an offer. Then, if it is accepted, he has his wife, but if not he looks elsewhere. He doesn’t just give up! Now you have always had money. You have always been rich enough to afford a fine dowry. You could almost have taken your pick from all the women in Migwani, even the prettiest, most voluptuous young girls. But you were never seen here. Why did you not come home to your own village, Munyasya, and talk to the fathers of these girls? I know they were there. Throughout my years, I have always enjoyed spending the early part of the morning sitting by the old town dam where the young girls go to wash. Even when you get to my age, Munyasya, the curve of a buttock, the shake of a breast and that oh so sweet shape of the thigh, all of these still taste very sweet indeed... But not, it seems for you in your life, my son? Why did you never come home to marry?
If I had met a woman I loved I would certainly have married her...
Loved? How do you expect to know whether or not you love the woman before you have married her? Love is about caring for one another, about families and progress through life. The joys of such things can only be felt after marriage, never before.
But paying dowries, treating women like goats or cattle being sold at market, it is wrong. I would never have stooped to those depths.
Wrong? Who says it is wrong?
I do.
>
No, not you, my son. It is the white man who says these things. It is he who is speaking through your mouth. It is the lies of the white God that you are speaking. A man who tries to remember two things forgets one, and you have forgotten the truths you were taught as a child. Are you trying to say that what was correct for your father and his father before him is not good enough for you? In denying your own culture, Munyasya, your very identity, you are denying respect to those who reared you. And do you not see that what you have done has not only condemned you, but has also hindered your ancestors? They share your sins now. Your father was never a strong man and the added burden of your mistakes means that even after you are dead, he will find his journey very difficult, and made even more difficult by your mistakes. You will still be holding him back all the time. But anyway, spilt water can’t be picked up.
Nothing I have done was ever meant to hurt him, or anyone else, for that matter.
But you have hurt him, and continue to do so.
I did only what was right.
You did what someone else told you to do, not what was right. What is right is what you know to be right and what was good enough for your father was surely good enough for you. Don’t you see? You are now an old man and close - very close indeed - to your own death. Ever since you met these Europeans, you have thought only of yourself and never of your responsibilities to others. You have always known that it was your duty in life to marry and have children to preserve your name and with it the family line, itself. Think of all the poor souls waiting to be given their chance to prove themselves in life! By your actions, five, ten, maybe twenty of them will never get that chance. By your actions, your very kin, such as your own father, mother and even myself are still punished in death. There will be no family ties to steady you as you approach your own death to ensure that you arrive at the top of life’s climb with the promise of support from below should you fall or stumble. There will be no one to mourn your death, to hold you at the top while you rest and regain your strength. For people like you the top of the hill may as well be the bottom, for even if you should get there, you will surely fall back whence you came. And I have told you already that the way is steep, and that once you have started to fall, only the bottom of the climb will stop you if you have no help. You need strength to ride the crest of the hill and that can only come from sleep and rest. For you there will be none.
I’m tired. I’m tired of all this, Nzoka. Every day, every night, you never stop...
You’re always tired, especially when you are made to see the fate you surely cannot escape. For once, today, I will not allow you to sleep.
Why? So that you can just go on mocking me for longer than usual? Slap me like a naughty child, the way you always used to do?
No, Munyasya, just to teach you, like the stupid one you were. So the first two steps in your life were well taken, but the next two, your marriage and then the rebirth of your line are completely missing. What I can tell you, however, is that without those two, the final step is now so large that you have no chance at all of reaching the top of the hill. It would be too far, even for a giant’s stride, let alone the poor shuffling of old decrepit Munyasya.
Then why should either of us worry about my trial, if I am so clearly guilty even before it starts?
Because your position may be difficult, my son, but it is surely not yet lost.
But you have said all along that for me death will be an end and not a new beginning...
It is not what I say which will determine your fate, Munyasya, but life, itself, when it finally releases you. And your life is not yet over. While there is life there is always a chance.
So I am to take a wife and have a family here today? If anything would kill me in my present state... A stick might bend when it’s young, but when old it merely snaps.
Don’t play with me, child! At your age you would need a donkey to do the work for you!
So what is it that I can do which will so help such a lost cause as mine?
My plan is not simple, but when you have heard it, I am sure you will agree that it will work. It makes good sense, and so I am confident that it can achieve for your name enough respect of the right kind to replace that which would have come from your family, if there had ever been one. There is hope for you yet, my son.
Without a wife? Without a family tree branching from my body?
You cannot undo any of the wrongs of your life, Munyasya. You will have to cope with those forever. But with one final, momentous achievement, you might just possibly be able to atone for them.
But what is it that a bag of bones like me can do?
You can save others from the same fate as yourself, my son. Ah, I can see now that you are really confused. Think, Munyasya, if you yourself can turn others from evil and set them on the right path, you could restore a chance in life for more souls than you could ever have released through the labour of your pathetic little penis.
So I am to become a preacher in my old age? And I suppose that while Munyasya’s mouth moves, Nzoka will speak?
I cannot help you, my son. What must be done must be your doing and your doing alone.
Then why are you trying to help me?
Advice is all I offer. I can make no promises, but at least listen to what I have to say and then you can judge for yourself whether the plan makes sense.
Even if I were to say no, you would still make me listen...
My plan cannot work without your cooperation and agreement, Munyasya...
Tell me to stand and I will stand. Tell me to walk and I will walk. Tell me to say yes and I will say yes, Nzoka. Just tell me what you want me to do.
First of all let me explain. Think of the beginning of our world. Try to imagine yourself witnessing that very moment when our world broke away from paradise. Before you is a great rope, binding together our two worlds, but the hyena has already been at work and his crime is almost done. You can see the vile creature gnawing at the rope and there remain only a few strands to continue to bind you to everything you could ever wish for in your immortality. You know that if those strands break you will lose everything and that you will be punished for your part in the crime.
But I would have had no part in it!
Oh yes you would, my son. Men are not stupid and they can only harvest what they plant. If they stand idly by while so great a crime is committed, they are as guilty as the animal, itself. They are all responsible, because each and every one of them is capable of guarding the bond to ensure its safety against attack. Thus everyone shares the guilt because no one tried to prevent the crime from happening in the first place. So Munyasya, you, the hunter...
Hunter? I am a soldier.
Hunter, soldier - there is no difference. You the hunter are there. You know what is happening, you can see it clearly, but the job is not yet complete. Can you do anything to stop it, or are you totally powerless?
I could shoot the animal.
Exactly! You are learning well, my son. You could raise your bow and shoot...
Bow? A gun would be better.
It makes no difference. But tell me, would you shoot at the head to stop the teeth from gnawing, at the body to stand the best chance of a hit, or at the legs to make the beast fall, or where?
You clearly were never a hunter, Nzoka. Despite all your claims to be the upholder of tradition, you really seem to know very little of the life you claim to defend. You would miss the head and one leg broken leaves three with which to stand.
So where do you shoot, Munyasya?
At the body! It is the biggest target. You might even hit the heart if you are lucky.
And if not?
The beast would be wounded. It would be able to move only very slowly, if at all. I could then rush forward and finish it off with another shot through the head from close range.
Exactly! This is workin
g perfectly.
But it’s not helping me.
It is, my son. Now listen carefully. Have I not told you that the loose strands, which were once twisted to form that rope, are now used in life as a family’s guide rope on the climb through life?
So the ties within a family between its members can only be broken by evil acts.
Exactly. But now suppose that there are hyenas prowling here also and that they are gnawing at these family ties trying to break them. If you could shoot the animals, would you try?
Of course. Calm down, Nzoka! You’re jumping around so much you’re making my stomach rumble!
You should have another drink. All my talking is making you thirsty.
When do we start shooting the hyenas?
It seems I may have made you see, but not yet think.
What has all of this got to do with me, Nzoka?
It is your last chance, my son. Nothing more than your last chance. But don’t judge it until you have heard everything. Now I have drawn a picture for you to see. Look at that picture and think while I explain what it means.
We are agreed that our only path to heaven is along the family line?
Yes.
We are agreed that our family line is all but broken, that no more threads bind us together?
Yes, but I have not seen hyenas in this area for over twenty years.
But you have, Munyasya, you have indeed seen them. What above all else has persuaded you to turn against the truths both I and your own father taught you?
You have answered that for me many times already - the white man’s teaching.
All of his teaching? Did learning how to fight in his army contradict your father’s words?
No. It was the teaching of the white man’s God.
Precisely. And have you ever spoken with this God?
Of course not. How can a man possibly speak to God?
Then how did you learn?
I was taught by priests.
And what they taught you has gnawed at the strands of the rope that binds you to your family. Over the years it has been weakened until today there remains but a single weak and fraying fibre to be broken. These are our hyenas. The priests.
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