Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “Is your heart telling you that?’

  “Yes!’

  “ Why? What makes you so sure it’s the truth?’

  “Because the heart never lies. You see, I am a workaholic. When I am on traffic duty, for instance, I hand out more tickets than any other cop. I am particularly hard on matatus. I ask myself, Why is it that I have not been promoted? And I always hear the same whisper: There is a person whose shadow crosses yours.’

  “ The person whose shadow crosses yours, do you know him?’

  “Oh, no. Such people work in the dark. He could be anybody, my neighbor or one of my workmates. Or, for that matter, any of the matatu drivers to whom I have issued tickets.’

  “ What do you want from me?’

  “My heart was beating loudly. I had not realized how bitter I had been toward my enemy, whoever he is. But that aside, he will now know that I am none other than Constable Arigaigai Gathere. Never again will he harm my career or anybody else’s as he has all these years. Look for him everywhere. Ferret him out. Bemove him from the face of the earth,’ I said with gleeful expectation.

  “ To kill a man—you know that is a hard thing to do?’

  “Not for us, the Buler’s police officers,’ I told him. Any life that threatens the Buler’s power is nothing to us, nothing at all.’

  “He paused.

  “ You know, it may be easy for the Ruler’s police officers to kill the body, but not the spirit.’ His voice was still enriched with softness to soothe even the most turbulent of souls.

  “You have spoken the truth,’ I told the Wizard of the Crow, because if I knew who my enemy was it would be easy for me to blow him to pieces, but as I don’t know who he is, he torments me whether I am awake or asleep. So I ask myself: How is it that somebody can always be on my mind and in my heart and yet I cannot say who he is? Now you have made me understand. It is because he comes in the form of an evil spirit. Yes, it is not easy to kill spirits. Believe me, Wizard of the Crow, I have been to every witch doctor in and around these towns and villages, and to each I have given the same riddle. I have enemies I don’t have—who are they? And none has been able to ease my torment within so that I can sleep soundly’

  “ What makes you believe that I am capable of what others have failed to do?’

  “I know your power,’ I told him bluntly. Last night, when I set eyes on the bundle of magic hanging from the roof, I felt my legs rooted to the ground. I said to myself, Here is the wizard for me. You have already proven me right in thinking so. You are the only one to solve the riddle of the enemies I know I have and don’t have. For the first time, I know who my enemies are. They masquerade as evil spirits. Not that I needed proof. You who can make birds lose the power of their wings, yes, you who can bring down even crows and hawks from the sky, how can a mere mortal resist your power, as a spirit or not? Wizard of the Crow, your very name is proof of the powers you possess.’

  “Do you have a mirror?’ he asked me.

  “‘No.’

  “ You don’t carry a mirror?’

  “‘No.’

  “How do you look at yourself?’

  “I am clean in my ways. I never look in the mirror too often.’

  “ How do you know if you hardly ever look at yourself?’

  “I just know.’

  “ You told me that sometimes you are on traffic duty?’

  “Yes.’

  “ Have you ever stopped a driver in a vehicle with no mirrors?’

  “ No mirrors? How can he drive without mirrors? A driver of a vehicle without mirrors is a menace to his own life and that of others. Even a broken mirror poses danger.’

  “You said that there are shadows crossing yours.’

  “‘Yes.’

  “We need mirrors to see our shadows. We need mirrors to see other people’s shadows crossing ours. You can rent mine for two thousand, two hundred and fifty Burls,’ he told me.

  “I didn’t have much money on me then, so I told him that I would come back in the afternoon.

  “Back at home, I put on my uniform and reported for duty. I was late. My boss, Wonderful Tumbo, was very angry with me. I saluted and called him Effendi, and I told him—you who are listening to my tale, when I say that I have no idea how the next words came into my mouth, believe me—I said straightaway that I had spent the entire night chasing some people who had gone to Paradise to ruin the Global Bank mission. I told him that I was sure those creatures were not ordinary mortals but djinns. I knew this to be so because even when I tried to stop myself I could not. They forced me all the way to the prairie surrounding Eldares, where they hoped I would lose my way. And let me tell you, Effendi, they were not running and yet I could not catch up with them. I tried to shoot them but my gun would not fire. And I said to myself: I will wrestle with them until daybreak. I knew from the bottom of my heart that the two djinns meant no good to the health of the Buler and it was my loyal duty to thwart their plans even at the risk of my own life. As my story of the night before unfolded I saw the face of my boss change from anger to concern and alarm, and then to fear. But it was respectful fear, as if, having heard how I had locked horns with dangerous djinns in the dark, he saw me in a new light or maybe thought that some of their powers had rubbed off on me. He did not ask any more questions, and instead of rebuking me he told me to run along and that he would report my extraordinary ordeal to his superiors.

  “I got on my motorcycle and went to the road. I targeted big carriers because most of them carried contraband and would rather pay bribes in thousands rather than have their goods inspected. To a police officer they were a blessing, unless bad luck crossed your path and you harassed a carrier belonging to the big men including the biggest of all: even if they were packed to the max with illegal goods, by stopping such a carrier you might end up losing your job. One had to be careful soliciting grease for one’s palms until one was sure of the carrier’s real owner. But I was good at sensing when to be zealous and when not to be. By one o’clock I had more than two thousand, two hundred and fifty Burls in my pocket. Cash. True! Haki ya Mungu! By one o’clock my pockets were bulging with banknotes.

  “For the third time, I was back at the premises of the Wizard of the Crow. The door again opened by itself. But as I was about to enter I heard the voice say that I must not defile the sacred grounds with my uniform, badge, and gun.

  “Again I returned home. Do you hear that? The Wizard of the Crow made me return to my place four times that day; this was what finally convinced me of his powers. Have you ever heard of a witch doctor with an eye for that kind of detail? I put on my civilian clothes and in no time I was back. What do we say? Deeds define needs, and the promptness with which I executed his commands and wishes must have convinced him of my desperate need for a cure against the ill designs of my invisible enemies.

  “He told me to put the money on the table, which I did promptly.

  “Listen very carefully’ he told me in the same soothing voice. Close your eyes and then empty your head of all thoughts: in the shadows of your mind, a picture will form, and when it forms I will capture it in the mirror the way fax machines and computers copy images and transmit them invisibly. Once the image is a captive in my mirror, I will take a sharp knife and scratch it, and from that moment on your enemy will vanish forever.’

  “I covered my face with my hands, shut my eyes tight, and waited. And indeed, after a few seconds, somewhere in the darkness of my mind an outline of an image was forming, but I could not tell whose it was because it kept changing shape and location. Still I shouted, Yes! I can see an image, but it is slippery’

  “Your enemies are very cunning, very slippery, but there! Hold it there!’ he ordered me. Whatever it is, try with all the power of your mind to hold it still! And don’t let it go. There. Like that.’

  “The sound of his knife scratching the mirror made my teeth hurt, as if they were being scratched. All at once I saw the vague image in my mind explode into a thousand
stars disappearing into the edge of the darkness in my mind.

  “His image, is it still there?’ he asked.

  “No,’ I answered. It’s gone. Stars disappearing in the dark.’

  “That’s it,’ he said.

  “I opened my eyes and felt a strange sensation. True, Haki ya Mungul This person who is now telling you the story, this person you now see in front of you, this person who answers to the name Constable Arigaigai Gathere, this man felt tears, but they were not tears of sorrow but of joy at having the burden of many years lifted from my heart and from my life abruptly.

  “Go home now,’ he told me in a gentle voice, and all you have to do is find out if there has been a road accident involving matatus. If not today then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then the next day. Your enemy is most likely one of the fatally injured. From today on, never molest a beggar, a diviner, a healer, a wizard, or a witch. If you ever do any harm to the helpless, this magic will turn against you. Everything that you have, including peace of mind, will be taken away. Go now. Your actions will be the mirror of your soul. Look into the mirror, always.’

  “I hesitated. He asked me if I had anything else on my mind. Yes, there was something else pressing. Although I had seen a mental outline of an image, I still could not tell who my enemy was even if I were to meet him in the street. I asked the wizard: Can you tell me the name of my enemy, the one whose image you scratched?’

  “No,’ he said. I don’t want you to go sleepless at night obsessing about his disappearance. Your own actions are a better mirror of your life than the actions of all your enemies put together. That is why I told you to watch what you do to others instead of always thinking about what others do to you.’

  “So you see? That’s why I have said that the man is human yet more than human. He removes all burdens from the heart. I say that because I used to trust my actions completely—I have told you that I am a workaholic—and yet he was asking me to look at my own actions. Maybe the enemy was hidden within my actions. Had I known that, I would have discovered my enemies much earlier and I could have spared myself a lot of torment. I again returned to my place of work having changed into a police uniform. I now had no worries in the world. I was whistling and walking jauntily and I had a how are you’ ready on my lips for whomever I met, including my boss, Wonderful Tumbo.

  “Instead of going back to the road again, I went straight to police headquarters. Why lie to you? Even though I now had no fear in the world, I wanted to know if the first prediction had occurred. Were there any reports of accidents involving matatus? Given the state of our roads—even the few that used to have tarmac at independence were nothing but potholes—I would have been surprised if there had been no accidents, but one could not be sure, fate being so tricky.”

  At that point, A.G. would pause as if to consider the murderous roads. His listeners would call out, A.G., go on with your story. My throat is dry, he would say, but once his listeners replenished his glass he felt a resurgence of energy and resumed his narrative.

  He would then tell how he got to police HQ and asked for the DOB—daily occurrence book. His heart raced: What if the potholes had not claimed their daily sacrifice? What if no matatu was involved in an accident? But he was anxious for nothing; when he saw what he saw he let out an involuntary squeal. In only the previous hour, no fewer than ten matatus had been involved in accidents all over Aburlria, three in Eldares alone. One of these accidents was a head-on collision with a police vehicle, killing fifteen people including three policemen.

  His initial shock was quickly replaced by an irresistible desire to know whether his enemy had been among the fatally wounded: he started flipping through the pages of the DOB like one possessed. His fellow policemen looked askance at him. But A.G. did not notice the looks on their faces. He was entirely absorbed in the DOB.

  He needed the names of the fatally wounded, but the information was scant. Then he remembered that he knew neither the name nor physical characteristics of his enemy. What was important, as the Wizard of the Crow had said, was that his enemy, whoever he was, had been scratched out of existence and must be among the fifteen corpses.

  So the divine prediction had come true. His enemy was no more. He now waited to see whether his life would take a different course. Forward, of course, never backward, his heart sang …

  16

  What struck Nyawlra when she got home was the tidiness of the house. Kamltl had dusted away all the cobwebs, washed the floor and the walls, cleaned the entire kitchen, and made up the bed with fresh sheets. He had also washed, dried, and ironed the old ones. She was ecstatic after her ordeal at work and at the Mars Cafe. Now she felt embraced by warmth and neatness.

  Kamltl had even made a broth of tomatoes and spinach, and all that remained to complete the supper was ugali. In all the months she had lived with Kaniürü, he had never done as much. Even when both had arrived home at the same time after working all day, Kaniürü would always sit down and expect Nyawlra to cook, serve him, and wash the dishes.

  “I will give you a new name,” Nyawlra told Kamltl as she put her handbag on the table and pulled up a chair. “Henceforth you are the Sorcerer of Cleanliness.”

  “Just call me Kamltl son of Karlmlri. Tea?”

  “I will not say no,” Nyawlra chirped happily.

  Kamltl went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the gas grill. Nyawlra stood up and leaned against the door frame leading to the kitchen and watched him go about his work.

  “I will now be the talk of the whole region,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Letting a guest cook for the host?”

  “What did Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania say? A guest for two days …” Kamltl started.

  ‘“… On the third you pick up a hoe, “ Nyawlra completed it. “It is not Nyerere’s saying. It is a common Swahili proverb.”

  The water in the pot reached a boil. Kamltl went to the cupboard to look for tea leaves, but Nyawlra beat him to it.

  “I am being lazy. Let me do this,” she said, taking out a packet.

  “No, I will make the tea,” Kamltl said, and grabbed the packet from her hands. He scooped some tea leaves with a spoon, but as he was about to put them in the water he paused and asked, “How do you like your tea? The English or Aburlrian way?”

  “The Aburlrian tea, brewed in milk, please.”

  Kamltl put the tea leaves into the boiling water and then added milk, boiling the brew some more. Minding the pot, he said: “Did you know that our way of making tea is not original to us but comes from India?”

  “I thought they had borrowed the method from black Aburlrians.”

  “No, it’s the other way around. Tea, anyway, originally comes from India, China, and Japan. The English were initiated into tea drinking by India, probably in Madras, the first capital in colonial India. But tea making differs from country to country. In Japan they have very elaborate tea ceremonies.”

  “Been to China and Japan also?”

  “No, my knowledge is secondhand. Letters, mainly, from a friend in Japan at Kyoto University. Went there the same time that I went to Madras. He now lives in Shikoku, the island of eighty-eight temples. So, really only in India can I say I saw some practices firsthand, especially in Madras. Some friends once drove me from Hyderabad to Warangal. We stopped at several roadside tea shops, and I can tell you that the similarities …”

  “Hey! Watch out, the tea will boil over,” Nyawlra shouted, stepping toward the grill, but Kamltl beat her to it and switched off the gas.

  “I cannot fully trust a man in the kitchen,” Nyawlra said as they sat by the table to drink their tea. “This tastes good.”

  She complimented him on his talent for housekeeping, and they laughed about it. Then Kamltl grew serious.

  “Do you want to know the truth? I was really trying to clear the stench left in the house by that police officer.”

  “Constable Arigaigai Gathere? He came back?” she asked, and she now s
at back, all ears to the tale. “Was he so in need of witchcraft?”

  “To tell you the truth, even I did not expect him to come back,” Kamltl said. “He returned just as I was about to leave the house to look for work. I saw him from a distance and went back inside, leaving the door open. I quickly decided that this kitchen would be my shrine and the living room his waiting room. We would talk through the small window between the shrine and the waiting room.”

  Kamltl narrated the whole saga including the warning to Constable Arigaigai Gathere never to molest beggars and diviners.

  “What if his situation does not change?”

  “His situation started changing even before he left here.”

  “How?”

  “His self-imposed burden of endless suspicion had been lifted.”

  “What if he does not get a promotion?”

  “Then he will come back here.”

  “For his money?”

  “No, to bring more money to find out why the initial divinations did not work. The question is whether I myself can go on with this business.”

  “Why not? All you need are a few seashells, dry bones, Sodom apples, a sackcloth, and a stool and you are all set. Or better still, why not form your own NGO?”

  “NGO? Of witchcraft?”

  “Yes. And soothsaying. Magic healing. You’ll become a consultant for everything to do with magic,” Nyawlra went on, laughing at her own suggestions.

  “A consulting wizard? Maybe I could even have a visiting card: Wizard of the Crow. Divining powers. Specialist in soothsaying, healing, and magic cleansing, “ Kamltl said in the same mood. Yes, everything and anything to do with magic. I cannot think of a business as profitable with so little investment. But the smell!” he added with a discernible change of tone in his voice.

  “Smell? What smell are you talking about? Oh, yes, you said you had tidied up to remove the smell of the police officer. Surely it could not have been worse than the stench of uncollected garbage in our streets,” Nyawlra said.