Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “What went wrong between you and the Wizard of the Crow?” asked Sikiokuu, relieved and curious at the same time.

  “Do you know what it means to share a roof with one who learned sorcery from the dead and regularly talks with the tongues of the dead? Will you swear before a police witness or not?”

  How did a lesson in manners turn out like this, with Tajirika babbling all manner of paranoic foolishness?

  “Okay!” said Sikiokuu to mollify him a little, for indeed the minister had no idea what Tajirika was talking about. Maybe under torture the man had lost his mind. What was he to do with a crazed chairman of Marching to Heaven? How would he explain it all away? He decided to go along with Tajirika’s nutty request, and he shouted for Njoya and Kahiga.

  Thinking that their chief was shouting for help, Njoya and Kahiga rushed in followed by the two other police officers, their weapons drawn.

  “Put your guns down,” Sikiokuu hastened to tell them. “This gentleman and I are old friends. In fact, I needed only two of you, but it is probably better that you all are here because I want all of you to witness what I am now going to say. He must never be put under the same roof as any witch doctor of whatever name. If anyone breaks my rule he will lose his job without notice, period. Besides, this gentleman is not a prisoner. He is in protective custody because he is assisting the government in matters concerning the security of the State. Okay, my friend?” Sikiokuu asked him.

  “It’s okay” said Tajirika, as if a big weight had been taken off his mind, but he still looked dazed, and his voice quavered.

  “Remove the handcuffs,” Sikiokuu instructed Kahiga.

  Tajirika stepped forward, but as he put the pail of shit on the table, the better to extend his hands for the handcuffs to be removed, he suddenly tripped over a chair and fell, splashing the contents of the bucket all over the office. Some of it found its way onto Sikiokuu’s face and clothes; some on Kahiga, Njoya, and the two police officers, and some on the Ruler’s portrait on the table. They thought that Tajirika was enacting what he had been threatening the whole day. Njoya and Kahiga ran back to the anteroom and hid behind the door as a shield against more filth. The two other police officers jumped up and down, screaming, The deadly virus!

  “Shit!” shouted Sikiokuu, shaking his big befouled ears, and as he ran toward an inner chamber he was heard to shout: The idiot deserves to be shot!

  Tajirika heard the words be shot and thought that Sikiokuu had issued an order to that effect.

  On the ground, smeared with his own shit and urine, Tajirika implored: “Don’t shoot me. I beg you, don’t shoot me. I was lying. I don’t have the death virus.”

  The two additional police officers were so relieved by his confession that they felt grateful, helped him to his feet, removed his handcuffs, and took the bucket away.

  As he stood waiting for them to return, Tajirika felt as if a cloud had been lifted from his head, as if he had suddenly woken up from the delirium of a high fever. He also felt a little foolish and unsure of the next move. What should he do? Wipe his face with his soiled shirt? Followed by the two other police officers, Njoya and Kahiga came back, swearing under their breath: Let’s hustle him back to the torture chamber and teach him a lesson. Emerging from the inner chamber, Sikiokuu caught Njoya and Kahiga’s words and warned them to stop the nonsense. He then ordered the two police officers to get soap and water and clean up the mess under the supervision of Njoya and Kahiga.

  “After you finish, go back to the other room and wait for further instructions. And you,” he said, turning to Tajirika, “follow me.”

  But before entering the inner chamber, Sikiokuu suddenly remembered the portrait of the Ruler. He rushed to the table and grabbed it.

  “There is a sink in the bathroom over there,” Sikiokuu told Tajirika, pointing at a door. “Go in there and clean up a bit. I am afraid I don’t have any spare clothes.”

  Even Sikiokuu had not changed into fresh clothes. He had certainly tried to wipe off the mess from his own shirt, but the soiled spots could still be seen. Now he started working on the portrait of the Ruler, trying to clean the spots, but every time he thought he had finished another seemed to emerge as if from inside the portrait, and in the end he gave up and covered it with a towel. Tajirika found him trying to freshen the air in the chamber with perfume, but no amount of perfume could quite remove the stink in the offices of the Ruler.

  “It’s hopeless,” Sikiokuu said, and he kept the bottle of perfume on the table and sat back in a chair. He then pointed to another chair for Tajirika to sit, and once again they faced each other as before in the outer office, but this time there was only the coffee table between them.

  “Mr. Tajirika, what you did today is the same thing as taking hostages, a crime in national and international law. And I must tell you: but for the fact that you were in handcuffs, they would have shot you dead. Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t ever play with fire again, and I really hope to God that the reasons that drove you to hold the armed forces at shit-point are solid enough to withstand the wrath of the State. Tell me everything you came here to tell me. And let me warn you. I don’t want more foolishness from you. No more playing around. First: what happened between you and the Wizard of the Crow? Or should I send for him to tell me his version so that you both can argue about your differences in my neutral presence?”

  18

  Sikiokuu’s mention of the Wizard of the Crow and the possibility of his coming to the office revived the terror that had driven Tajirika to demand that he be brought to Sikiokuu. Would he never escape the wizard completely? Were their fates tied together? Maybe the Wizard of the Crow had already bewitched him beyond recovery with potent brews from India. Tajirika once again imagined death in the human form of the Wizard of the Crow approaching him relentlessly, like clockwork. Death could now be anywhere, even right outside. Tajirika relived the encroaching helplessness that had brought him to seek Sikiokuu’s protection. He now jumped up, went around the table, knelt down, and grabbed the legs of an astonished Sikiokuu in an abject embrace.

  “Please, I beg you. Ask the Wizard of the Crow to release me from the spell of death he put on me last night. Wasn’t that why you sent him to me? His witchcraft is powerful. I knew it from the moment he cured me of my malady. But little did I then know that he gets secret recipes from the dead. If you ask the Wizard of the Crow to remove all the spells of death from me, I promise to do and say whatever it is you want me to do or say. Save me. Rescind the order to kill me. Please.”

  As soon as he recovered from the shock of Tajirika’s embrace, Sikiokuu started sorting things out. So, Tajirika thinks that the sorcerer and I are working together, that I sent the wizard into his cell to cast a deadly spell on him? How could such a thought have occurred to him? Here was a misunderstanding he was not about to clear up, for it served his purposes well. The Wizard of the Crow had become a secret ally who had brought about what torture had failed to do: make Tajirika offer to cooperate.

  “Mr. Tajirika, will you please go back to your seat and tell me what is on your mind?”

  “No, you must first ask him to remove the evil spell.”

  “What did the Wizard of the Crow tell you?”

  “It is not what he said. But it was not hard for me to figure out that you sent him to my cell with orders to kill me. I recalled my conversation with you the other day and how it ended. Were the three words you told me to think about not the same as those whose meaning the Wizard of the Crow had divined when I first went to him with my malady? You followed our conversation by smuggling him into my cell at midnight. Why did you send him in the dark of night if it was not because you wanted him to harm me? Mr. Sikiokuu, I am not a fool. I know exactly what you are really after. You want him to return the malady of words into my body. Thoughts without words are like steam without an outlet. You want me to drown in my own thoughts or else explode under their pressure. And if that fails, he will chop off my thumbs. The Wizard of
the Crow even confessed to me.”

  “Confessed to you? Confessed what?”

  “That he started the queuing mania.”

  “He told you so?”

  “Not directly. But last night he reminded me that the day I went to his shrine was not the first time he and I had met. A while back I had put up a no jobs’ sign at the main entrance to my office building to keep away the many job seekers who swarmed it. So whenever a job seeker ignored the writing on the signboard and strayed into my office, I would routinely ask him to go back outside and read what was on the sign: No Vacancy. But the Wizard of the Crow made me do something I had never done before. He made me walk him to the sign and stand over him as he read it. A day later, I became afflicted with my malady; and then the queuing started at the very spot where the Wizard of the Crow had stood as he read the sign. Can all this be a coincidence?” asked Tajirika, shaking Sikiokuu’s legs as if seeking an answer from them. “What more proof do I need to see that he was the origin of the queuing mania? The question is this: who sent him to my office and why? Or am I supposed to believe that a person with a good and lucrative business in sorcery would just stray into my office and ask for a job he does not need unless driven by other motives? He was clearly sent to try me with afflictions as Satan once did to Job, but unlike Job I had no chance against his wiles. To have given him a job would have been to give him ample opportunity to cast an evil spell on my business. My business would have died slowly, and with the failure of my business I would no longer have been found fit to continue as the chairman of Marching to Heaven. And if I denied him a job, as I did, he would exact vengeance, as he did, first by making me ill and then by starting the queuing mania. Two questions remain: when I met him at his shrine he never gave the slightest hint by tone or gesture of the fact that we had met before, so why did he do so now, after you had put him in my cell? Mr. Minister, if you are not the one who sent him on a mission to start the queuing mania, then who was it? Who else would have a motive for destroying me and undermining my chairmanship of Marching to Heaven?”

  “Mr. Tajirika, what you say is very interesting, except that you are mixing things up a bit. For instance, your thinking that I could have started or sent somebody to start the queues verges on a delirium. Let us examine your story guided by reason. I take it, from what you have told me so far, that you think that the Wizard of the Crow was on a mission, that somebody had sent him to set off the queuing mania. Or, to put it another way, you seem to be saying that somebody deliberately started the queuing thing? Please return to your seat so that we can talk about this clearly.”

  “First things first. Ask him to lift the curse of death from me.”

  During this exchange, Sikiokuu had time and time again tried to push Tajirika away, but every time he did so the latter would tighten his grip on Sikiokuu’s legs. Now he tried again, in vain, and realized that there was no way Tajirika was going to sit back down until he received reassurance of some kind. Sikiokuu decided to try a little performance. He picked up the phone, called the front room where the police were waiting, and asked for Kahiga. When Kahiga walked in and saw the scene he pulled out his pistol, but Sikiokuu winked and gestured to him to put his gun back into the holster. If Kahiga felt like laughing, he kept it to himself; he just stood there waiting for further instructions from his boss.

  “I want you to go to the Wizard of the Crow and find out exactly what he told Tajirika. Tell him that I am not now as angry with Tajirika as I was when I sent the wizard to deal with him in his cell. Accordingly, I now order him to lift all curses and evil spells he may have put on Tajirika. If he does not do so forthwith, shoot the bastard. On the spot. No discussion.”

  Sikiokuu touched his ears and shook them from side to side slightly to signal to Kahiga the farcical nature of the proceeding.

  Outside, Kahiga started chuckling; this Tajirika was a riot, first with his bucket of shit and now kneeling, holding on to Sikiokuu’s legs.

  Tajirika relinquished Sikiokuu’s legs and returned to his seat.

  “Thank you, brave Minister,” said Tajirika.

  “Don’t mention it, as the English say” said Sikiokuu. “But let us return to our story. Now did I hear you say that this sorcerer once came to your office pretending to be looking for work?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Nyawlra, was she still your secretary at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And a few days later, this same Nyawlra took you to the sorcerer’s shrine?”

  “Yes. Nyawlra and my wife, Vinjinia.”

  “Nyawlra and this son of a crow, did they know each other?”

  “No. Nothing suggested that, neither when he came to me in search of work nor when I went to his place in search of a cure.”

  “But you cannot say for sure that they did not know each other?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you never heard Nyawlra mention his name afterward?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you can say with absolute certainty that it was somebody else who had sent the sorcerer to your office to look for work? And as for this somebody, his real interest was to start the queuing mania?”

  “Yes, that’s how it seems to me when I piece things together.”

  Sikiokuu paused as if pondering what Tajirika had said. He felt malicious joy within, but he did not want to show it. Sikiokuu found Tajirika precisely how he had always wanted him to be: a supplicant in search of mercy and forgiveness. There were a few dots, though, that had yet to be connected. What was the connection, if any, between Nyawlra and the Wizard of the Crow? Why would the Wizard of the Crow want to pretend that he was looking for a job? More investigations were necessary. What pleased him most was that Tajirika had agreed finally that the queues had not simply sprung up, that somebody had started them according to a plan. The mastermind had to be rooted out.

  “Mr. Tajirika, listen to me. I am not going to lie to you. You are in a lot of trouble. But I am going to help you. Let’s first agree on the facts. You don’t deny that the queuing started outside your office?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And now you have stated firmly, unequivocally, that it is your belief and even calculation that the whole thing was a plot? And that somebody was behind it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, we know that the somebody is not me. It is not you. We know the somebody was not the Wizard of the Crow, because you do admit that he was only a messenger. What concerns us all is the identity of the mastermind. That’s why the Ruler set up a Commission of Inquiry with Mr. Kaniürü as the chairman. So you see that when you refused to obey the summons, whatever your reason, you were actually disobeying the Ruler. See my point?”

  “Yes. Help me; please do whatever you can to make sure that this matter does not reach the ears of the Ruler.”

  “God helps those who help themselves, and we shall soon find out how far you are prepared to help yourself. For my part, I can make sure that the confessions you make in this office will be sent to the Commission of Inquiry to be made part of its records. It will seem as if you had indeed appeared before that august body freely and willingly, or that you had made a written submission to it. Either way, you will seem to have fully cooperated with the commission; your having defied a legitimate summons, broken the law, and challenged the Ruler’s authority would no longer be the case. In return for that favor, you will promise that you will never mention to anybody that you were arrested or that you spent time in a cell. And all talk of Thomas and Descartes must end.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Sikiokuu. Thank you,” Tajirika said. “Do not worry about those sects. I do not belong to any”

  “Okay! Let’s proceed and see if we can identify the criminal mastermind. You have already said that you think that there is a connection between the wizard’s search for a job and your malady of words. In both cases the Wizard of the Crow was instrumental, so we can assume that the person behind his search for employ
ment and the one behind your affliction are one and the same. Now tell me, did you manage to solve the riddle of the three words? Did you figure out who really infected you with the virus of white-ache?”

  “Any of us could have given another the affliction,” Tajirika said, without realizing that he was repeating part of the conversation he had had with the Wizard of the Crow about the three words. “I’m not the only one who may have suffered from the disease.”

  “In short, what you are saying is that somebody else infected you with the illness?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Forget perhaps. Whom do you suspect? Friends? Maybe your friend Machokali?” Sikiokuu asked, a little irritated at being forced to voice the name.

  “He could have. The trouble, if you followed my argument, is that even you could have done so.”

  “Leave my name out of this, Tajirika! What you are trying to say is that Machokali gave you the virus. Do you still doubt this?”

  “How can I doubt anything? You told me to forget Thomas Descartes.”

  “So you have no doubt that it was Machokali who infected you with the virus?”

  “I am still trying to figure out who else could have given me the germs. The way I now understand it is that the higher we climb in our circle the more vulnerable we become to the virus of white-ache as both carriers and recipients. So you see that even you, Mr. Minister …”

  “Mr. Tajirika, I really thought you were serious about helping, but I see you are still playing games,” Sikiokuu said icily.

  “I am sorry, Mr. Minister, but I mentioned you as an example only. I wanted to say that the only person with whom I socialized and who obviously belongs to a rank higher than mine is Machokali, and it is possible …”