The River Between

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Were these Christians not now preaching against all that which was good and beautiful in the tribe? Circumcision was the central rite in the Gikuyu way of life. Who had ever heard of a girl that was not circumcised? Who would ever pay cows and goats for such a girl? Certainly it would never be his son. Waiyaki would never betray the tribe.

  In his own family, Chege had little to fear. His daughters were circumcised and all of them were well married. And Waiyaki, who had now been in Siriana for many years, was unlikely to be contaminated by the new cult. He was equipping himself to come and fight for the tribe. But sometimes Chege had qualms about his son. Would he ever fail the tribe? Would he ever fail the prophecy? At such times he experienced a sensation of defeat, of despair. Then his son would come for holidays, and Chege, though he did not say much to him, could see that all was well.

  He persevered. He knew that age was now fast telling on him and that he had not many days to live and he came to pin his whole faith on the young man. It was as if his life, his heart, was being carried by Waiyaki and he feared the boy might stumble.

  In this Chege did not see it as a contradiction that he, the embodiment of the true Gikuyu, should have sent his son to the very missionary center whose existence he had always opposed. But what did it matter? He had warned the people. They had refused to take up arms. It might even be too late now to take up arms. Luckily, there were other ways of beating the white man. For the prophecy still held good. In its fulfillment lay the hope of the people. He had learned a lesson and he taught it to his son. It is good to be wise in the affairs of the white man.

  And so Chege waited and hoped. He watched Waiyaki, his progress and his behavior. He lived in the son. If the prophecy had not been fulfilled in him, well, there was the son. What was the difference? A savior shall come from the hills. Good. Waiyaki was the last in the line of that great seer who had prophesied of a black messiah from the hills. The boy was doing well at Siriana. He had early gone through the second birth. And this season he would be initiated into manhood. This would help him to absorb the white man’s wisdom more quickly and help the tribe. And this was what he wanted; to see Waiyaki become a man before he himself died; then he could be sure that the work he had begun—no, the work begun a long time ago by Mugo—would not perish. You could more readily trust a man than a kihii, an uncircumcised boy.

  • • •

  The sacrifices went hand in hand with preparations for the coming circumcision. Everywhere candidates for the initiation were gathering. They went from house to house, singing and dancing the ritual songs, the same that had been sung from the old times, when Demi were on the land.

  Waiyaki was one of the candidates. He was now a young man with strong, straight limbs. He did not like the dances very much, mainly because he could not do them as well as his fellow candidates, who had been practicing them for years. After all, it was soon after his second birth that he had gone to Siriana, and he had lived there for all those years, although he normally came home during the holidays. Waiyaki was often surprised at his father, who in some ways seemed to defy age. His voice, however, thin and tremulous, betrayed him. Waiyaki often remembered why he was sent to Siriana. But with years the dream had grown less vivid and less real. He saw it mainly as an illusion, an old man’s dream. Yet he worked hard in school. He was now in the senior class in Siriana Secondary School and he was able to meet boys from all over Kenya.

  Waiyaki’s absence from the hills had kept him out of touch with those things that most mattered to the tribe. Besides, however much he resisted it, he could not help gathering and absorbing ideas and notions that prevented him from responding spontaneously to these dances and celebrations. But he knew that he had to go through the initiation. And he did not like to disappoint his father. For Waiyaki knew that the old man would die in that dream of the future which had probably been a real, essential part of his life. Not that Waiyaki disliked the idea of circumcision. On the contrary, he looked forward to it. It was his boy’s ambition to test his courage at the ceremony. In fact, he considered Livingstone, for all his learning and holiness, a little dense in attacking a custom whose real significance in the tribe he did not understand and probably never would understand.

  • • •

  Above the beating of drums and jingles, shouts rose from hill to hill to keep awake those who might want to go to sleep. Tonight was the eve of the initiation day; it would see the biggest of all dances.

  Waiyaki’s mind was unsettled. He could remember nothing that had so shaken him since that famous journey to the sacred grove. But that was now a dream. This thing was real, was in everybody’s mouth. All the time Waiyaki kept on wondering “Why should she do it?” And he felt a desire to speak with her, to hear it from her own mouth. Muthoni’s revolt had rung from hill to hill as if the news were passed by the wind and the drums. Her name was whispered from hearth to hearth. Waiyaki had seen her the day before in a house where she had gone for a dance. But then he had not believed it, when one of the candidates had pinched him on the back and pointed to a young girl, jumping and swinging her hips from side to side in the midst of a group of dancing women.

  “That is Muthoni.”

  “Which Muthoni?”

  “Joshua’s daughter, of course.”

  “Joshua’s daughter! Joshua’s daughter.”

  The thing seemed incredible. He had known Muthoni when she was small. He could remember the day he and Kinuthia and Kamau had made Muthoni scream with terror when they had ambushed her at Honia. Waiyaki had felt pleasure which had later turned to shame. It was no bravery frightening away girls, he had thought. Later his mother had beaten him after discovering that he had taken part. Fortunately the matter was hushed up between the women and Chege and Joshua never came to know about it.

  And now here she was. Waiyaki had seen Joshua a number of times, both in Makuyu and at Siriana. He had heard of his strictness in matters concerning religion, which meant all matters concerning life. How could she have come here? Perhaps she had run away. Lots of girls had done it. At least that is what he had been told by boys who had come from “the beyond,” where missions had long been established. The same night Waiyaki had sought out Kinuthia. Kinuthia too was a candidate for initiation.

  “You surprise me,” Kinuthia had laughed at him. “Haven’t you heard that she has run away?”

  The idea that she had actually run away, actually rebelled against authority, somehow shocked him. He himself would not have dared to disobey Chege. At least he could not see himself doing so.

  So tonight Waiyaki knew that Muthoni had actually run away. Her aunt, living in Kameno, was going to take charge of her. In some villages people could not believe this. They said that Joshua had a hand in it, probably to appease the angry gods of the outraged hills. Was it not known that Joshua took beer secretly? Strangely, nobody had ever seen him drinking. But they said they knew.

  The dance was being held at an open-air place in Kameno. Whistles, horns, broken tins and anything else that was handy were taken and beaten to the rhythm of the song and dance. Everybody went into a frenzy of excitement. Old and young, women and children, all were there losing themselves in the magic motion of the dance. Men shrieked and shouted and jumped into the air as they went round in a circle. For them, this was the moment. This was the time. Women, stripped to the waist, with their thin breasts flapping on their chests, went round and round the big fire, swinging their hips and contorting their bodies in all sorts of provocative ways, but always keeping the rhythm.

  They were free. Age and youth had become reconciled for this one night. And you could sing about anything and talk of the hidden parts of men and women without feeling that you had violated the otherwise strong social code that governed people’s relationships, especially the relationship between young and old, man and woman.

  Waiyaki still felt uneasy. Something inside him prevented him from losing himself in this f
renzy. Was it because of Muthoni? He wondered what Livingstone would say now if he found him or if he saw the chaos created by locked emotions let loose. And the words spoken! Even Waiyaki was slightly embarrassed by this talk of forbidden things. Perhaps this was so because the mention of forbidden things at any other time was a social taboo. Of course, Waiyaki knew that nothing bad would happen in spite of the talk. It was actually a taboo to go with a woman on such an occasion.

  And then Muthoni appeared on the scene. The singing increased in volume and excitement. And she was a wonder. Where had she learned this? Waiyaki wondered as he watched from the side. She danced, sang; describing love; telling of relationships between a woman and a man; scenes and words of loving-making. The missionaries in Siriana would certainly have condemned her to eternal hell. Waiyaki gazed at her. Something slightly stirred in him. In the yellow light she appeared beautiful and happy, a strange kind of elation.

  Somebody pulled him into the circle. It was Kinuthia. “Dance!” the girls shouted, pulling him along the circle and repeating some of the hip motions for him. At first that thing inside him kept him aloof, preventing him from fully joining the stream. Although his body moved and his mouth responded to the words, his soul did not fully participate. Then, from a corner, he heard his name. They were singing for him, some praising him and others making jibes at him. The name was taken up by the drummers and the soloists.

  The frenzy and shrieks were up again. And suddenly he felt as if a hand soft and strong had held his soul and whipped it off. It was so strange that he felt his emotions and desires temporarily arrested in a single timeless moment; then release. Waiyaki was nothing. He was free. He forgot everything. He wanted only this thing now, this mad intoxication of ecstasy and pleasure. Quick waves of motion flashed through his flesh, through his being.

  He was given a horn. He blew it madly. He jumped and swung his hips and did all sorts of marvels with his body. The others tried to follow him. Muthoni’s secret was out. You did not have to learn. No. You just gave yourself to the dream in the rhythm. Within a few seconds he found himself face to face with Muthoni. Both had been thrown into the center.

  And she seemed to hold him still. Not with hands. Not with anything visible. It was something inside her. What was it? He could not divine what it was. Perhaps her laughter. He thought there was magic in it because it rang into his heart, arousing things he had never felt before. And what was shining in her eyes? Was there a streak of sadness in them? For a time Waiyaki was afraid and looked round. His mother was watching them. He turned to Muthoni. The magic was not there any more; it had gone. In the next moment Waiyaki found himself wandering alone, blindly away from the crowd, wrestling with a hollowness inside his stomach. He felt hurt. He had laid himself naked, exposed himself for all the eyes to see.

  He ran into her in the darkened fringe of the trees. She stood there and the only communication between them was quiet breathing, as if each had his own devil to wrestle with.

  “You are a rebel,” he said, almost unconsciously.

  “Yes—I am,” Muthoni answered defiantly.

  “Why did you do it, Muthoni?” he asked with bitterness.

  “Do what?”

  Waiyaki felt foolish. The words had just formed and he had meant to speak to her gently, coaxing the story out of her. And now he relented. He stammered with confusion.

  “I—I mean—eh—eh—running—going away from your father.” She did not answer at once. There was silence between them. They could not see each other in the darkness but they felt each other’s presence by their breathing. Then she spoke, in a clear voice but slightly vibrant with sadness.

  “No one will understand. I say I am a Christian and my father and mother have followed the new faith. I have not run away from that. But I also want to be initiated into the ways of the tribe. How can I possibly remain as I am now? I knew that my father would not let me and so I came.” Her voice seemed to change. Yet she was speaking in the same tone. Waiyaki, however, felt as if she had forgotten him, as if she was telling her story to the darkness. “I want to be a woman. Father and Mother are circumcised. But why are they stopping me, why do they deny me this? How could I be outside the tribe, when all the girls born with me at the same time have left me?”

  Muthoni’s words seemed to be opening a new world to Waiyaki. Yet he could not see it clearly. He was being carried by her voice as it vibrated.

  “I want to be a woman made beautiful in the tribe: a husband for my bed; children to play around the hearth.” It was a dream in which he was being carried, forgetting himself and the place where he stood. He remembered such another dream, long ago. But this was of a different nature, stirring violent and contradictory forces in him: “Yes—I want to be a woman made beautiful in the manner of the tribe. . . .”

  And she moved away in the dream with the dream and the darkness. Waiyaki remained where he was standing, feeling slightly dizzy and numb. Gradually he woke from his numbness. He was troubled. He walked back to the crowd. But he now knew that they would not catch him again for he was apart from it all. That night a feeling that he lacked something, that he yearned for something beyond him, came in low waves of sadness that would not let him sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There was mist everywhere. It covered Kameno, Makuyu and the other ridges in its thin white grayness. It was chilling, chilling the skin. But Honia river flowed on as if defying the mist. The water, however, was cold.

  To Waiyaki, bathing so early in the morning, the water seemed to cut his skin like a sharp knife. He shivered a little as he sat, naked, near the banks of the river. The cold water had gone through the skin, numbing the muscles. His arms, bent at the elbow, rested on the knees. The palms were folded tightly into a fist, so that the knuckles of the fingers appeared like little swellings. The thumbs passed between the first and second fingers and pointed upward. His penis had shrunk in size and, as Waiyaki looked at it, he wondered if it really belonged to him. Waiyaki was not alone. All along the banks the other initiates sat, waiting for the “surgeon.”

  All his life Waiyaki had waited for this day, for this very opportunity to reveal his courage like a man. This had been the secret ambition of his youth. Yet, now that the time had come, he felt afraid. He did not, however, show it. He just stared into space, fear giving him courage. His eyes never moved. He was actually seeing nothing. The knife produced a thin sharp pain as it cut through the flesh. The surgeon had done his work. Blood trickled freely on to the ground, sinking into the soil. Henceforth a religious bond linked Waiyaki to the earth, as if his blood was an offering. Around him women were shouting and praising him. The son of Chege had proved himself. Such praises were lavished only on the brave.

  Waiyaki sat still after the surgeon had left him. He was now covered with a white sheet. All was well. Yet the pain came and shook him to the roots. What was Muthoni feeling, he wondered. He thought that if he had been in her position he would never have brought himself into such pain. Immediately he hated himself for holding such sentiments. He was of the tribe. He had to endure its ways and be inside the secrets of the hills.

  His childhood days came and fleeted by. Many things clouded his mind; his early adventure; the years at school. He thought of Livingstone. What would he now think if he found Waiyaki sitting there facing the river, holding his penis with blood dripping on to his fingers, falling to the ground, while a white calico sheet covered him? Waiyaki wanted to laugh at the monstrous idea of Livingstone standing and watching all . . . a-a-a- . . . the numbness was wearing away . . . the skin alive again . . . pain . . . Waiyaki could not move. The pain was eating through him. That was the gate to the mystery of the hills. And that day when Chege took him to the sacred grove appeared vividly for a second. Then the experience lost its clear edges . . . most . . . strange how that old man defied time . . . had Waiyaki understood him? Something always held Chege aloof from everything around him. Livingst
one in his way was like Chege . . . standing for the other side . . . no . . . confusing the two . . . the pain again, biting like ants eating into the flesh . . . oh . . . two strong waves . . . his mind was wandering. Steel yourself, Waiyaki. Keep still. . . .

  A shout and cry mixing with suppressed groans of pain! Women were shouting and singing their bravery. All was over. The new generation had proved itself. Without a single blemish.

  The hospital was a small shed a little distance from the village. The floor was hard with bumps. A thin covering of grass and banana leaves was their bed. After two days Waiyaki’s wound had swollen so much that he began to doubt if he would ever be well again. Perhaps he would lose his manhood. He shuddered. The other initiates were like him. And whenever the attendants came to treat them, a few initiates screamed with pain as soon as the swollen part was pressed. Food was plentiful but who had any taste for it? They were forced to eat with teasing threats that their “thing” would be cut. A more serious threat was that a woman might be brought into the shed and one of the attendants would make love to her in their presence. The initiates were horrified and the attendants laughed. Everybody knew how painful the whole thing would be at the slightest provocation of that kind.

  The only relief was when the attendants told them stories of men and the inner secrets. At first such stories were intolerable to Waiyaki, especially as he had to listen to them. It was part of their education. But after a few days, when his wound became better, he found that he could listen to the stories with relish and enjoyment. He had a lot to learn.