The River Between

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Waiyaki felt bitter that the elders for whom he had struggled should turn against him so.

  “And how do the people take it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I think not all the people have heard. When did they do this to you?”

  Waiyaki felt a sharp pain at the last question. He felt as if Kinuthia was one of the conspirators.

  “To me? They cannot remove me from the job. It is not their responsibility. It is only the schools’ committee who can do it. I really know nothing about this.”

  Then he described to Kinuthia the events of the night he had been called to Makuyu.

  “Perhaps I was wrong to let anger and passion get the better of me. The girl does not even love me.”

  “This is all Kabonyi’s doing. He hates you. Oh, you don’t know how. Look, Waiyaki, I think something is happening tonight. Kamau hinted something about going to Joshua’s household tonight. I don’t know, but the young men might do something bad. They think it is Nyambura who has corrupted you.”

  “Wait! What do they want to do?”

  “I don’t know. But I think it might be something rough. And they will not stop at that. They may come to you. For they say you have broken the oath. You have given away the secrets. So you must flee the land. Fly to Nairobi. I tell you again: Kabonyi is after you and he will get you. He has a new influence with the elders. They cannot resist his power. The man has no roots anywhere and he talks of an ancient prophecy about a savior. He is that savior, he says. . . .”

  Waiyaki rose. He remembered that Chege had told him that it was only Kabonyi who knew of the ancient prophecy. Perhaps that was why Kabonyi hated him. But now he knew there was no time to lose. His mind was made up. He had to go and warn Joshua.

  “Thank you, Kinuthia. But I must go.”

  “Where?”

  “To Makuyu. I must warn Joshua. Violence must not break out among the people. Oh, not now.”

  “No, Teacher.”

  “I must go.”

  “But you cannot. They will have an excuse to try you as a traitor if they get to know of this.”

  “Kinuthia.”

  “Yes?”

  “You remember you and I have grown up together.”

  “Yes.” Kinuthia could remember more than Waiyaki could guess.

  “Then do not stop me.” Waiyaki’s voice was calm. “Do not think that I am not grateful. I value your concern so much. You are the only man I can now trust. But we cannot allow this to happen to Joshua through the madness of one person. Maybe I have not done all that I should have done for the tribe. I do not want to bring you into this. Don’t come with me. If you stay here I’ll come back and we shall talk. I will tell you of my plans.”

  Kinuthia did not argue. He could detect a firmness behind the calmness of Waiyaki. Yet he could still see that there was an agitation in the eyes of the Teacher. He let Waiyaki go. But he did not remain in the hut. He too went out and followed the Teacher up to Honia river.

  Waiyaki climbed up the slopes, hoping fearfully that he might be in time to warn them. He tried to run up the ridge toward Joshua’s house. He had never been there before. Even from afar, he could hear them singing.

  Maikarite thi Utuku

  Ariithi a Mburi

  Murekio wa Ngai niokire

  Nake akimera o uu.

  While shepherds watched their flocks by night

  All seated on the ground

  The angel of the Lord came down

  And glory shone around.

  Indeed, Christmas was near. The Christians were keeping their watch by night like those shepherds of old.

  When Waiyaki entered, breathless, everyone stopped and looked at him. To them he was a strange apparition. For a few minutes there was silence as Waiyaki tried to recover his breath. But he now felt foolish. What had he come to warn them against? What was he to tell these men of Joshua who sat around the table singing to heaven, waiting for a Christ?

  “I am sorry for interrupting your meeting . . . but . . . but I think you are in danger. They may want to do something to you, tonight or another day.”

  “Who?” several voices asked.

  “Kabonyi and his men. The Kiama. I don’t know what you can do but—”

  “Do not tell us what we can do,” Joshua roared. He stood up and glared at Waiyaki. “This is all lies.” The two men faced each other for the first time. The others watched, fascinated, fearing, wondering. “Go! Go! Out of my house! So you would come back to entice the only daughter that is left to me. I have never forgotten what you did to Muthoni.”

  It was the first time that Joshua had publicly mentioned her death.

  Waiyaki felt hurt, as if this rejection of his well-meant warning had suddenly brought home to him the depth of the barrier between him and Joshua. Perhaps nothing would ever remove it. In that moment, too, he understood why Nyambura had refused him. Yet he felt himself ridiculed and humiliated before these people, before the girl he loved. He had seen Nyambura sitting beside Miriamu.

  “Ni wega. I have done my duty. I was only trying to save you from danger.” His voice carried a slight tremor.

  “Save yourself first. Save yourself from the Wrath to come. What do you, who have always worked against the people of God, want in my house?”

  Waiyaki suddenly turned his back on them and opened the door to go out. The light from the house shone on him—a lone figure facing the darkness outside.

  As Kamau and his four men, lurking in the outer darkness, saw him, they gasped with fear and unbelief. Kamau did not know that Waiyaki had gone so far in his betrayal of the people, and he became convinced that Waiyaki was the greatest enemy to the tribe. He could not now go to capture Nyambura as the Kiama had ordered them. No. He would go back and report this to the Kiama. This was no longer a personal battle, but a war between the tribe and Waiyaki.

  • • •

  Nyambura had seen Waiyaki’s entrance. She read sorrow and agitation in his face. Her heart jumped with excitement. There stood her man. There stood Waiyaki, the Teacher, her black Messiah, sent from heaven after Muthoni’s death to come and rescue her from disintegration. And she knew the man loved her. She had heard it from his own lips. Since then she had thought about him day and night. It did not matter if her father forbade her standing with him. Joshua could control her body, but he could not control her heart. And so, day by day, she walked with him, touching him and holding him to herself in her own way. She lived in a dream. She was always with Waiyaki. Yet sometimes the separation pained her. It hurt her and at times made her cry. For she too yearned for him and wanted him to be near her all the time. She cried: “Waiyaki, you are mine. Come back to me.” But he did not come. Her duty to her parents stood between him and her. A religion of love and forgiveness stood between them. No! It could never be a religion of love. Never, never. The religion of love was in the heart. The other was Joshua’s own religion, which ran counter to her spirit and violated love. If the faith of Joshua and Livingstone came to separate, why, it was not good. If it came to stand between a father and his daughter so that her death did not move him, then it was inhuman. She wanted the other. The other that held together, the other that united. The voice that long ago said “Come unto me all we that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” soothed her and she wanted to hear it again and again, as she lay near the Honia river and listened to the throb which echoed the secret beating of her heart. And she remembered:

  The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den. They shall not hurt nor destro
y in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

  That was her religion. That was what she now wanted for her tribe. It was the faith that would give life and peace to all. So she clung to this now as she prayed that Waiyaki would come back to her.

  He came. Not when she expected him. But she was ready for him and she was glad. She, however, feared for him. Maybe that was why her heart jumped. That was why something strange settled in her bowels, giving her both pain and pleasure.

  She looked at the two men standing face to face. She saw her Waiyaki being humiliated. Her obedience to her father fought with her love for Waiyaki. And at last, when he turned his back, rejected, she stood up. Her voice was clear and almost commanding.

  “Teacher!” Waiyaki stopped.

  “Come back!”

  Waiyaki obeyed. Yet it was all like a dream. Even Joshua was shocked to silence. To think that she had actually called him the “Teacher.”

  “The teacher is not telling a lie.”

  “You! You! How can you know that, little rebel?”

  “I know. Last week Kamau wanted me to marry him. I refused. He said he would compel me or do something worse. He said I was in his power and he was the only person who could save—”

  Joshua fumed with fury. He would not let her finish. And Waiyaki was still in a dream. But still he was hurt and a burning anger was urging him to go out. Outside he heard a faint noise. At first it had seemed distant but now he could hear some words—Teacher . . . traitor. . . . A heavy dejection came over Waiyaki. He knew now that he was not wanted by them in spite of all he had done for the hills. And the words of his father came back to him. But they rejected Mugo, his thin boy’s voice had queried. Let them do what they like. A time will come when they shall cry for a savior.

  Had the time come? Was Kabonyi the savior they were crying for? And what would Kabonyi do? He would only destroy what Waiyaki had built. But no. He could not. Surely there was a soul, a heart where at least what Waiyaki had done had taken root. And the teachers who were coming! They would carry on the work. The voices singing death became louder and louder. He thought they were coming toward Joshua’s house. He went back to the hut to make one more desperate appeal.

  “Be careful. They may be coming here.”

  “Go, go out from here. Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  Joshua was fierce. He hated the young man with the hatred which a man of God has toward Satan. There was another murmur in the room. Then silence reigned as Nyambura walked across toward Waiyaki while all the eyes watched her. Waiyaki and Joshua must have both been struck by her grace and mature youthfulness. She held Waiyaki’s hand and said what no other girl at that time would have dared to say, what she herself could not have done a few days before.

  “You are brave and I love you.”

  Joshua woke up from his stupor. He would never have thought that this meek, quiet and obedient daughter could be capable of such an action. He rushed toward her and was about to lay his hands on her when he realized that this was another temptation brought to him by Satan. Christ in him must triumph at this hour of trial. Waiyaki and Nyambura were standing near the door.

  “For me and my house we will serve the Lord,” Joshua declared, pointing at Nyambura with the forefinger of his right hand. “You are not my daughter. Yet let me warn you,” he continued, his voice changing from one of fiery anger to one of calm sorrow, “you will come to an untimely end. Go!”

  As if in a dream, Waiyaki and Nyambura went out. Miriamu was weeping and saying, “Don’t let her go. Don’t,” while the others remained silent, wondering what curse had befallen Joshua’s house.

  Darkness still blanketed the land. Above the stars had gone out except for one or two. Nyambura had never rebelled before; not with deliberation. This was her first act of rebellion and she now knew that she was beyond the grasp of Joshua. The call of the inner voice that urged her on, the call of the land beyond Joshua’s confining hand, was too strong.

  “Please, Nyambura. Go back to your father,” Waiyaki pleaded as soon as they had gone a few yards from the house and they were swallowed by the darkness. But she would not. And the voices that denounced him as a traitor rang through the darkness. Waiyaki remembered what Kinuthia had told him. And then it came—at first a small urge, but then it became stronger and stronger so that there was a real struggle in Waiyaki’s soul. The insistent voice inside him told him to run and go to Nairobi. You have now the object of your heart’s desire, and they have rejected you. Run! Run to Nairobi and live there happily with Nyambura. And why not? Had he not brought light to the hills, awakening the sleeping lions so that now they could shout “Traitor”? Then he felt ashamed of himself. He could not run away. His father’s words again glowed before him: “. . . salvation shall come from the hills. A man must rise and save the people in their hour of need. He shall show them the way; he shall lead them. . . .”

  Waiyaki and Nyambura now stood on a piece of raised ground overlooking Honia Valley. They were near Kabonyi’s house and that was where the voices came from. He felt frightened and his resolution not to run away wavered. He turned to the girl beside him and in a subdued voice said, “Death awaits you there.”

  She took his hand and pressed it slightly. Waiyaki’s blood warmed and he felt as if he would be carried away by the waves of desire and emotion that shook his whole being.

  “Oh, Teacher. I have always loved you. I’ll go where you go. Don’t leave me now.”

  Waiyaki held her against his breast. Then they slowly descended the Makuyu ridge till they came to their sacred ground.

  “Let’s sit down,” he whispered. They lay on the grass and the Honia river went on with its throb. Waiyaki and Nyambura did not hear it, for a stronger throb, heartrending, was sweeping away their bodies. Their souls joined into one stillness; so still that their breathing seemed to belong to another world, apart from them.

  When they rose to go a new strength had come to Waiyaki. Even Kinuthia, who had gone back to wait for him in the hut, was surprised more at the brightness on their faces than at the fact of their being together. Indeed Waiyaki felt his yearning soul soothed by the healing presence of this girl. Yet he knew that he would be forced to make a choice, a choice between the girl and the tribe. Tonight he felt he had something to say to the people. But he did not know what. He wanted a rest; time to make a silent inquiry into his heart. His father’s image came back to him vividly. He remembered that journey into the sacred grove. And he said loudly, “I shall go there tomorrow.”

  “Where?” Kinuthia asked.

  Waiyaki was shaken into the present by that question. He felt he could not explain his journey even to Kinuthia. Yet just now he felt his father’s presence everywhere in the room, in the darkness outside. This feeling was as real to him as the presence of Nyambura, who had fallen asleep on his bed. She was very exhausted but she felt at peace.

  “To the hill south of Kameno. To the sacred grove.”

  “To the sacred grove?”

  “Yes, it is a long story.” And now he told Kinuthia about it all, the journey with his father, the ancient prophecy and his bewilderment at its meaning. And Kinuthia sat mouth open; a new veneration for Waiyaki grew upon him. It was as if Waiyaki was a revelation, a thing not of this earth.

  “Look here, Kinuthia,” Waiyaki said after a long silence. “Do something for me. Tomorrow I must speak to the people just before the sunset. Call a meeting at Honia river on the initiation ground. It is flat there. Get some people to help you spread the news. On every hill. I’ll fight it out with Kabonyi in the open. For, Kinuthia, I cannot run away. New thoughts are coming into my mind. Things I might have done and said. Oh, there are so many things I did not know. I had not seen that the new awareness wanted expression at a political level. Education for an oppressed people is not all. But I must think. I must be alo
ne.”

  Still they talked far into the night and Kinuthia listened to Waiyaki’s plans and felt himself inspired to new efforts and transported to new heights.

  “I will never leave you!” he cried. “Whatever the others do, I will be with you all the way.”

  “Thank you, Kinuthia. Let us wait until tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He felt a dull pain inside his heart. He was weary. The country was below him again, but it did not have so much power over him as when he had stood there, a child, with his father. The sun was up and he could not see Kerinyaga. And the sacred grove seemed to be no more than ordinary bush clustering around the fig tree. But there was something strange about the tree. It was still huge and there was a firmness about it that would forever defy time; that indeed seemed to scorn changing weather. And Waiyaki wondered how many people before him had stood there, where he now was, how many had indeed come to pay homage to this tree, the symbol of a people’s faith in a mysterious power ruling the universe and the destinies of men.

  And now he felt that mystery gradually enveloping him. But for him now the mystery was that of darkness clouding his heart. That was where in his loneliness he struggled with strange forces, forces that seemed to be destroying him. He wondered why he had come here. He wondered what answers he had hoped to find to the unformulated questions in his mind. Even Nyambura had faded from the reality around him and was no longer a consolation. For the reality around him, around his heart, was one of despair because he was aware that he was fighting against forces that he himself did not understand; forces that he had felt in the air all over the country. And he was afraid. Perhaps he was running away from what he did not understand because he feared. What had he awakened in the hills? And he remembered Kinuthia telling him: Your name will be your ruin.

  Waiyaki stared at the country below him as if he were seeing nothing. Below the calm of the hills were strange stirrings.

  What had brought all this trouble? Waiyaki blamed himself. He felt that things had really begun to go wrong from the time of the great meeting, the time when they all declared him the Teacher. Since then the rifts between the various factions had widened and the attempt by the Kiama to burn people’s houses and their threat to Joshua and his followers were all an expression of that widened gulf. Perhaps he should not have resigned from the Kiama, he told himself over and over again. What if he had made his stand clear at that meeting? That was now a lost opportunity and he had to reckon with the present. Still he wondered if he had not betrayed the tribe; the tribe he had meant to unite; the tribe he had wanted to save; the people he had wanted to educate, giving them all the benefits of the white man’s coming.