The River Between

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  And Joshua’s followers gathered. They talked and sang praises to God. Muthoni was an evil spirit sent to try the faithful. It was now clear to all that nothing but evil could come out of adherence to tribal customs. Joshua, their leader, was inspired. He now preached with vigor and a strange holiness danced in his eyes. He had been to Siriana and explained the situation to Livingstone. Livingstone had understood. Now Joshua came with a new message. Circumcision was wholly evil. Thenceforth nobody would ever be a member of Christ’s Church if he was so much as found connected in any way with circumcision rites. The fire in Joshua gave new strength and hope to his followers. The white men in Siriana and other places were behind them. And with them all—God.

  • • •

  Waiyaki did not go back to Siriana. His father was very ill and he could not leave him alone. Waiyaki watched his father with fear. He could not visualize a home without him. What would he do? What would the hills do? He cast his mind back and saw the father he had always seen, yet had not really known. What kept Chege always aloof even when he stood near you? Was it his concern for the tribe? Was that the old man’s dream to which he clung day by day, every hour of his life? Waiyaki remembered that day in his childhood. That was the closest he had come to understanding his father. It was as if Chege had laid his soul bare for a second to the young boy. He had never again lain so exposed. It was strange that Waiyaki should now recall the event so vividly, especially as it had for a long time been fading in his mind, losing its clear edges.

  Had the missionary come to widen the split between Makuyu and Kameno? He saw the two ridges glaring at one another menacingly. Were they going to fight it out between themselves, the missionary encouraging his followers?

  What surprised Waiyaki were the unprecedented feelings of hatred roused by Muthoni’s death. Yet the event by itself looked small. Perhaps it was one of those things in history which, though seemingly small, have far-reaching consequences. Girls had been initiated before. But even the one or two who had died never aroused such ill-will between the people.

  Waiyaki saw greater splits coming. He knew that the strictness now adopted by Livingstone would alienate even those who had taken to the new ways. Some would not entirely abandon their customs as now advocated by Joshua.

  He did not wait long for the split. It came from the most unexpected direction. Kabonyi, the great friend of Joshua, was the first to break away. He was followed by many others. Joshua remained loyal. He gathered the remnants together and they comforted each other like the disciples of old. Waiyaki’s heart sank with heaviness because of this unrest. Where was his place in all this? He felt a stranger, a stranger to his land.

  • • •

  One day Waiyaki was returning home from a distant hill. He had gone there to meet a friend and get a shrub which had been recommended for his father. Chege would never hear of eating the white man’s medicine after what happened to Muthoni. It was while he was there that he heard the news. The children of those who defied the laws of the Church and continued with their tribal customs would have to leave Siriana. And no child of a pagan would again be allowed into school unless the child was a refugee. Even then the child would have to renounce circumcision. Waiyaki knew that to be the end of him. He had hoped he would finish his final year, for he loved learning. He came home with a downcast face. He felt unwell and wanted to go to his hut and stay there by himself.

  When he came home, he found his mother standing outside. She was weeping. Waiyaki was surprised and immediately forgot his own thoughts. He had never seen his mother’s tears.

  “What is it, Mother?”

  She burst into fresh sobs. “What is it?” he asked again with fear. Just then he saw a group of elders come out of his father’s hut. He threw the shrub away bitterly and ran toward the hut, hoping against hope that he would see him alive, even if for a second.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Drip! Drip! All along the edge of the corrugated-iron roof. Drip! Drip! All in a line, large determined drops of rain fell on the ground as if they were competing. They made little holes—little basins, scoop-like. Drip! That fat one was transparent and clear. Down it fell into the small basin its sisters had patiently helped to make. It struck the pool of water in the hole and muddy water jumped up, forming an impatient cone-shaped pillar. And all along the ground the cones jumped up, up like soldiers marking time. The grass outside, which for a long time had been scorched and sickly, was now beginning to wake up refreshed. And the rain came down in a fury, the straying thin showers forming a misty cloudiness so you could hardly see a few yards away. The jumping cones were doing it faster and faster. Soon the dripping stopped and was replaced by jets of water from the roof. They carried on the race.

  As Waiyaki stood at the door of his office, his left foot on the lower strut and supporting himself with his hands held firmly against the side frames, he watched the slanting raindrops meditatively. The barrack-like mud-walled building, made of poles and thatch, could vaguely be seen through the misty rain, standing as it had done for about three years now. This was all the school: his office plus the building which was divided into four classrooms. Waiyaki knew only too well what was happening inside. The rotting grass thatch was no deterrent to rain. Numerous pools of water must have already formed on the floor. This was the price the education-thirsty children had to pay. Probably they were all huddled together in groups, shivering maybe in a dry corner. The lucky ones had something to cover their heads with.

  Inside the office, his fellow teachers, Kamau and Kinuthia, were arguing over something. Both were sitting on the podo-table as was their custom. They came there because the office was also the staffroom. Whenever they had a meeting, a talk, an argument, or sometimes a quarrel, they came here. They talked politics, religion, women, anything. On the floor at the two corners nearest the door were two heaps of miscellaneous objects. The office was also the storeroom. The school equipment was stored there. It was almost hopeless to try and keep things in proper order for any length of time.

  The rain poured on. Waiyaki watched, thinking confusedly about the school and the country of the sleeping lions. The country could now no longer be called isolated. Since the alienation of all the land in the hills and ridges around Siriana to white settlers, the country of the sleeping lions was like any other part of Gikuyu country. As his father had once told him, the arm of the white man was long. The conquest of the hills was well under way. Some people were already working on the alienated lands to get money for paying taxes.

  “It is bad. It is bad,” Kinuthia was saying. “I say the white man should go, go back to wherever he came from and leave us to till our land in peace.” The rest was drowned by the falling rain. It was as if Kinuthia were commenting on the thoughts passing through Waiyaki’s mind.

  Kinuthia was normally calm. But when he had an argument, his slow-moving eyes would change and dance with excitement. Then he would speak, waving his arms in the air. A short man with powerfully built shoulders and a determined little chin, he had a way of forcing his point home more by the vehemence of his voice than by cool logic. The political discussions held in the office were a sign of what was happening all over the ridges. There was indeed a growing need to do something. This feeling had been strengthened by this most recent alienation of land near Siriana forcing many people to move from places they had lived in for ages, while others had to live on the same land, working for their new masters.

  The break with Siriana made the situation worse and inflamed the people the more. They felt the bite of injustice. Some felt the ridges had slept for too long. Chege’s warnings were now recalled and people wished they had responded to the call in the very early days. Small organizations sprouted in the hills. Waiyaki always found himself involved. Already they had come to see him as a leader and they instinctively turned to him for small things. But Waiyaki was always worried by thoughts of the ever-widening gulf between Joshua’s followers an
d the breakaway elements.

  Waiyaki’s heart warmed toward Kinuthia. But he could never feel the same warmth for Kamau. Kamau, the son of Kabonyi, once Joshua’s follower and now the leading man among those who had broken ties with Siriana, was thin and tall. But probably he was not as tall as many people had expected when he was a boy. His eyes, however, retained the same strained look. Waiyaki never liked the way Kamau looked at him with his small, sunken eyes, their white flecked brown. They gave him that appearance of cunning that Waiyaki detested. Kamau did not like him either. A young man who rises to leadership is always a target of jealousy for his equals, for those older than himself and for those who think they could have been better leaders. Kamau was a neat man with his hair always close-cropped. But there seemed to be something uncanny, something almost inhuman in his neatness—

  The rain came down with greater vigor.

  The heated argument still went on and Waiyaki contemplated the rain and the country, the edges of his thoughts becoming blurred.

  “Suppose your father—”

  “We are not talking about my father,” Kamau interrupted. Waiyaki turned his head slightly and detected a frown on Kinuthia’s face. There was a tense atmosphere in the room. Then suddenly Kinuthia laughed. He was joined by Kamau. Long ago these two had fought on the question of fathers.

  “You should be patient, Kamau,” Waiyaki put in. He too was joining in the laughter. Kinuthia resumed almost at once.

  “Of course I mean your father as an example—for example, you see.

  “I shall take my father, for example, if you like. He is the head of the family. Suppose another man, Karanja or Njuguna for example, comes in and we offer him hospitality. Suppose after a time he deposes my father and makes himself the head of the family with a right to control our property. Do you think he has any moral right to it? Do you, Waiyaki? And do you think I am bound by any consideration to obey him? And if conditions become intolerable, it lies with me to rebel, not only against him but also against all that is harsh, unfair and unjust. Take Siriana Mission for example, the men of God came peacefully. They were given a place. Now see what has happened. They have invited their brothers to come and take all the land. Our country is invaded. This Government Post behind Makuyu is a plague in our midst. And this hut-tax . . .”

  He was exhausted. He looked around defiantly and yet sorrowfully. Then he began to breathe hard. He was becoming excited again. He waved his hands in the air and then gave a thud on the table. He let his eyes roll around as if he were speaking at a big political rally. Waiyaki had never seen Kinuthia like this before. And why should they, who had been educated at Siriana, be so vehement against it? It was just like his father, who had sent him to the Mission to which he had all his life objected. Perhaps life was a contradiction. Waiyaki felt something stir in him as he listened to Kinuthia. Perhaps Kinuthia was speaking for the sleeping hills, for the whole of Gikuyu country. Then he suppressed the feeling and thought of the new drive in education. Perhaps this was the answer to a people’s longings and hopes. For a moment he became lost in his contemplation of education and the plans he had in mind. . . .

  “Come, Waiyaki. Tell us about this new Kiama.”

  It was Kamau who asked. Waiyaki lost his vision but he still watched the rain. This rain was a blessing; and the famine which people had feared would come if the drought had continued would now be averted. From the scoops flowed little narrow streams that ran through the grass. They mingled and flowed on to join the main stream, like a small river, like Honia. Or like a flood. Only this one would end and Honia river would forever flow.

  And the small river went down making a small murmuring sound, talking to itself, or to the ground. “Noah’s flood,” Waiyaki thought.

  Kinuthia spoke.

  “Yes. I think such a Kiama, to preserve the purity of our tribal customs and our way of life, should be formed now.”

  Waiyaki had heard about this Kiama. He knew the drive came from Kabonyi. Waiyaki feared they would give him a place in the leadership of this Kiama, which was meant to embrace all the ridges. He did not feel enthusiastic about it. He wanted to concentrate on education. Perhaps the teaching of Livingstone, that education was of value and his boys should not concern themselves with what the government was doing or politics, had found a place in Waiyaki’s heart.

  It rained on, the downpour almost slashing the sun-scorched grass. What was it? And still it rained, with the little streams gathering and joining together. He saw what they were doing—

  Carrying away the soil.

  Corroding, eating away the earth.

  Stealing the land.

  And that was the cry, the cry on every ridge. Perhaps the sleeping lions would sleep no more, for they were all crying, crying for the soil. The earth was important to the tribe. That was why Kinuthia and others like him feared the encroachment of the white man. They feared what had happened in Kiambu, Nyeri and Muranga. The new settlers and Siriana wore the same face. And Waiyaki was thinking, was Mugo wa Kibiro right? One day the white man would go. And for a time Waiyaki remembered his father and that prophecy.

  Suddenly he became angry, not with the white man or Kinuthia. He was angry with the rain. The rain carried away the soil, not only here but everywhere. That was why land, in some parts, was becoming poor. For a time, he felt like fighting with the rain. The racing drops of water had turned to filth and mud. He subsided. He now felt like laughing heartily. Even here in this natural happening, he could see a contradiction. The rain had to touch the soil. That touch could be a blessing or a curse. Waiyaki was a man of strong emotional moods.

  The rain stopped. The little streams continued carrying away the soil. Now it was time to break up; the whole afternoon had been wasted. There was no way out; it had always to be like this. He would speak with the elders and see what could be done about the roof.

  “I think we had better let the children go,” Waiyaki told the others. “Kamau, will you tell them to bring jembes and spades tomorrow? We might think of mudding the building now that it has rained and there is plenty of water.”

  The building certainly needed this. Even from where he stood, he could see big gaping holes along its ragged sides.

  The bell, a piece of iron hanging outside by a string, was struck. A few minutes later cries and shouts of children could be heard everywhere. School was over for the day.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Marioshoni, as Waiyaki’s school was called, was well known in the country. Already it had a history. It was the first people’s own school to be built since the break with Siriana. It had been Waiyaki’s idea and even now he could not understand fully how his idea had borne fruit so quickly. He saw it as something beyond himself, something ordained by fate. Event had followed event in quick succession, quickening the rhythm of life in the hills. There had been the harvest; then Muthoni’s death; the tightening of Siriana’s Mission laws to the extent of not admitting to the school those who were the children of darkness, whose parents had not renounced the whole concept of circumcision. Waiyaki could still remember the excitement and the tension created along the ridges by these events.

  His father’s death had almost numbed him. He could not tell why, but Chege’s death, though not unexpected, came as a shock to him. It seemed unfair that Chege should have died at that particular time. He should have lived longer. And Waiyaki had gone on like a man drugged, not knowing what to think or do. He had all of a sudden become a grown man. He was now on his own. It was while he was in this mood that the idea of schools had come to him. But what could he do, he being so young? And what had happened meant that he would never go back to Siriana. His time to work and serve the people had come.

  In starting self-help in education, Waiyaki had seen it as a kind of mission. It was a vision which he followed with hope and passion. He traveled from ridge to ridge, all over the country of the sleeping lions. He found a willin
g people. Yes, the ridges were beginning to awake. The trees, the birds and the paths he trod, all knew him, knew a man destined to serve his country.

  But here was not the only place where this sort of thing was happening. This new spirit simultaneously surged all over the Gikuyu country, from Kerinyaga to Kabete.

  Schools grew up like mushrooms. Often a school was nothing more than a shed hurriedly thatched with grass. And there they stood, symbols of people’s thirst for the white man’s secret magic and power. Few wanted to live the white man’s way, but all wanted this thing, this magic. This work of building together was a tribute to the tribe’s way of cooperation. It was a determination to have something of their own making, fired by their own imagination.

  But it was more than this. Circumcision was an important ritual to the tribe. It kept people together, bound the tribe. It was at the core of the social structure, and a something that gave meaning to a man’s life. End the custom and the spiritual basis of the tribe’s cohesion and integration would be no more. The cry was up. Gikuyu Karinga. Keep the tribe pure. Tutikwenda Irigu. It was a soul’s cry, a soul’s wish.

  The schools were soon overflowing with children, hungry for this thing. A class held many children crammed together, while their teachers, any who could be grabbed from Siriana, sat in front and the expectant little eyes looked up to them, wanting to drink in this learning. And mothers and fathers waited, expecting their children to come home full of learning and wisdom. Parents would feel proud, very proud, when a son came in the evening with a tear-washed face.