Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Before he had finished the thought he remembered that to mention, imagine, dream, think, or talk about the death of the Ruler was high treason, punishable by death. His face twitched at the horror of what he had just said and its implications for his future.

  The Wizard of the Crow noted all that and pretended to be in a trance, completely unaware of what had been spoken. Sikiokuu stole a glance at the Wizard of the Crow to see if he had heard his last words, and he was not sure what to think when he found the wizard still bent over the mirror. He waited for the sorcerer himself to say a word or turn his head, but the wizard remained in his trance, transfixed by the mirror. Now Sikiokuu got off his knees and sat back in his chair.

  “Mr. Wizard of the Crow! Mr. Wizard of the Crow!” Sikiokuu called out, as if trying to wake up somebody who was deep in slumber.

  The Wizard of the Crow woke up with a start.

  “Sshh. Don’t talk. The shadow of the woman came back, and I am trying to follow it. There she is. In a marketplace. In a church. In a mosque. In a temple. Stop there. Woman, stop,” he shouted, holding the mirror firmly in both hands. “Ah, the shadow has disappeared, once again covered by your own. I am sorry,” he said, taking his eyes from the mirror and looking straight at Sikiokuu. “Now, what were you saying? I asked you a question and I am still waiting for an answer, or don’t you want to answer me?”

  “You mean you didn’t hear what I said?”

  “What?”

  “No, no,” Sikiokuu said as if he had been talking to himself, unable to believe what had just happened to him.

  “Wait a minute,” said the Wizard of the Crow, staring at Sikiokuu. “Why do you look so glum? Congratulations, Mr. Minister.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you forgotten so soon? You are now free to say what’s on your mind. Your malady of words has been cured.”

  Sikiokuu felt a big weight off his mind, but still he was troubled. “What did I say when my words started to flow freely?” he asked the Wizard of the Crow. He thereby would know exactly what the wizard had heard and, should the wizard repeat his treason, Sikiokuu was prepared to accuse him of the unspeakable. But the Wizard of the Crow saw the trap and avoided it.

  “I was distracted by the sudden appearance of the image of that woman. I thought she would stop so that I could study her properly, you know, find out her contacts and coordinates. But now it does not matter what you may or may not have said in response to my questions. What is important is that you’re cured. But what am I to do now that we’ve arrived at this impasse: your all-obstructing shadow?”

  “No, there must be more to this than meets the eye,” Sikiokuu said as if thinking aloud.

  “Is that so?”

  Sikiokuu stood up and again walked about the office, deep in thought. How was he to know for certain that this sorcerer had not heard what he said so indiscreetly? How could he be certain that the mirror had not retained traces of his treason? He wanted to ask the Wizard of the Crow directly whether he had heard the specific words. But Sikiokuu would have to repeat them and thus commit the treasonable offense twice. And suppose the Wizard of the Crow had not heard the words? Would he not then be putting him in the know? An idea took shape, and he stopped walking about.

  He turned the lights in the room back on, returned to his seat, and looked directly at the Wizard of the Crow.

  “My dear wizard,” Sikiokuu said in an even tone, “I know you have done your best. You did cure me, after all, and I thank you for it …”

  The Wizard of the Crow was elated. He would soon be rejoining Nyawlra. He had so much to tell her.

  “Can I please have the mirror?” Sikiokuu continued.

  The Wizard of the Crow gladly gave him the mirror. Sikiokuu immediately threw it to the floor and started stomping it, his ears flapping rhythmically. By the time he finished, the mirror shattered into tiny bits, he was panting like a hippo, his nose sweating like a dog’s. Believed that he had rendered it impossible for even the cleverest of sorcerers to access his treacherous musings that may have been captured by the mirror, Sikiokuu relaxed in his chair and looked at the still perplexed Wizard of the Crow. He now spoke as if he were recounting the most ordinary of things to an intimate.

  “Now that that’s done and the mirror is no more, let’s turn to you. Mr. Wizard of the Crow, I have seen for myself that your fame is not based in fiction. You have power, in fact more power than even you realize, and it should be put in the service of the nation. Imagine your power in the service of the State, with the police able to locate the hideouts of criminals, and defense forces, the enemy’s positions, merely by looking at a mirror! You and I must work together and make sure Nyawlra, the criminal, is apprehended. Understand, I will not let you go until then. Nyawlra must be in our hands before the return of the Buler.”

  The Wizard of the Crow felt his spirits sink but tried not to allow panic into his voice or demeanor. He would neither antagonize the minister nor beg for freedom. He even started to see his predicament in a positive light. The longer he stayed in prison, the longer Sikiokuu would stay away from the shrine, Nyawlra’s hiding place. Sikiokuu may break a thousand mirrors, but whatever mirror he would bring would tell a story that ended in the same truth: Nyawlra among the people. It was only right that she should disappear among those over whom lay Sikiokuu’s shadow.

  Sikiokuu’s shadow? An idea suddenly formed in his mind.

  “We reap what we sow,” said the Wizard of the Crow. “You broke the mirror to deny the vision of yourself. Bring me a mirror your shadow has not contaminated.”

  21

  What are we to do? Njoya and Kahiga asked themselves after they had locked up the Wizard of the Crow. They were upset. They had failed to keep their promise to return him to the witch the night before. How would they explain the new turn of events to her? A woman’s witchcraft was more potent and deadly than a man’s, they believed.

  They decided to arrange for the Wizard of the Crow to talk to her on the phone. This might mollify her. It would show that Njoya and Kahiga were not in agreement with Sikiokuu. By secretly listening to the conversation, they might decipher what the woman intended to do with them.

  So early the next day, they gave the wizard a mobile phone and told him that they were doing him a favor by allowing him to explain to his mate what had happened. They even offered to leave the room to give them some privacy.

  Hardly taken in by their kindness, the wizard sensed a trap, but he decided that any contact with Nyawlra was better than none. At the very least it would let her know that he was still alive.

  “The ones who came for me are the ones who, on their own authority, have made this call possible, and they are so considerate as to leave me alone to talk to you and tell you I am well,” the Wizard of the Crow started. He and Nyawlra were used to speaking circumspectly, and her response let the Wizard of the Crow know that she had the gist of everything he told her.

  “I am glad that you are helping the government, but I am not happy that they have kept you for yet another night. Those who took you from here must return you here. Should they bring you back with even a single hair missing, they will suffer the full extent of my wrath. My anger is hotter than the hottest zone in hell. Aburlria will tremble with troubles as yet unseen. Let them not forget the broken pieces of calabash.”

  Soon after this some cleaners appeared in the cell. At first the wizard did not pay much attention to them, but soon he could not ignore the bizarreness of their undertaking: they were closely inspecting the floor, picking up barely visible debris, and putting it in a tiny plastic bag.

  “What are you up to?” he ventured to ask.

  “Who are you? We have been ordered to collect all strands of hair that may have fallen from your head for safekeeping.”

  The Wizard of the Crow felt like laughing but didn’t even try.

  22

  Sikiokuu did not take the challenge to come up with a mirror uncon-taminated by his shadow lightly, so desperat
e was he to catch Nyawlra before the Ruler’s return. At first he thought it an easy matter, just order a fresh mirror from an Aburlrian factory. But a native mirror was likely to be contaminated by other local intrusive shadows. Only from abroad could he get a pure mirror.

  Not wanting to put all his eggs in one basket, Sikiokuu ordered mirrors from Japan, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, and the USA.

  But no sooner had he solved this problem than Njoya and Kahiga walked into his office to complicate his life.

  23

  As faithful servants of the State and loyal lieutenants to Sikiokuu, Njoya and Kahiga felt duty bound to acquaint him with the intelligence they had gathered on the phone without disclosing how the information had come to them. They mostly wanted to convey the seriousness of what Sikiokuu had done.

  “It is our duty to let you know of any threats to the security of the State,” Kahiga started, “and we now fear that Aburlria is facing anger untold.”

  “Aburlria may come to tremble with troubles as yet unknown,” Njoya added.

  “What kind of troubles?”

  “Unimaginable,” Kahiga said.

  “Brought about by what or whom?” Sikiokuu asked, recalling his own indiscretions of the night.

  “The Wizard of the Crow,” Njoya added.

  “The result of jailing him,” said Kahiga.

  “He might lose some of his hair,” warned Njoya.

  “Or some of his nails,” Kahiga added.

  “Or fall and sprain his ankles,” Njoya said.

  “He might suffer a bellyache from the food we feed prisoners,” Kahiga said.

  “He might be scarred by beatings.”

  “His bones might ache from the prison bed that’s as hard as rock,” Kahiga said.

  “He might disappear the way the enemies of the State disappear in Aburlria,” said Njoya.

  “Then those of us who have had anything to do with his disappearance will vanish from the face of the earth.”

  “Like dinosaurs,” stressed Njoya.

  “Or implode, break into pieces like a broken mirror …”

  “Shut up!” Sikiokuu shouted at his lieutenants. “Go away, misery. Do you think that the Wizard of the Crow is God’s twin brother?”

  24

  Njoya and Kahiga were Sikiokuu’s most faithful lieutenants in the power struggles, and their dissension over this matter affected him like an ache from one’s bodily organs. He recalled the mirror he had shattered. The two men were not in the room when he stomped the mirror, so how did they come to dangle before him the image of broken pieces? Had the wizard transmitted to them, through his sorcery, the words they were saying? Was this the beginning of the breaking up of his social and bodily organs? He was overcome with fear.

  Tossing and turning at midnight, Sikiokuu would hear a voice saying, almost mockingly, The Wizard of the Crow will break you into pieces, and, shaken, he would sit up instantly and wipe the sweat from his brow. He could not go on like this. He must get a hold of himself. Then he came to a resolution. The sorcerer’s life was in his hands. There was no way the sorcerer could strike vengeance from Hell. Yes, it had come to this: it was the wizard or him. He had to rid himself of this sorcerer, but not before forcing him to assist in capturing his prize: Nyawlra. The irony tickled his more malicious side: that in enabling Nyawlra’s capture the Wizard of the Crow would be ensuring his own ticket to Hell. Sikiokuu felt a kind of peace as he contemplated a secure future without threats from the Wizard of the Crow.

  With the resolution, he had achieved clarity of mind, he thought, and early the next morning he went to the office, expecting important news about the Ruler’s arrival date. There was a time when he did not look forward to the return of the delegation, for it meant Machokali’s triumph. But now, sure of Tajirika’s confessions and the certainty of the wizard’s inevitable descent into Hell, he felt no unease. He was even looking forward to it. He found no faxes so he opened the computer. But before he had cleared his e-mail, the telephone rang.

  It was Tajirika. Why was he calling so early? A good omen? As they exchanged greetings and the reasons for the early call, Sikiokuu opened an e-mail message and started reading it silently. What?

  What’s the meaning of this? he said loudly and put the receiver down, completely unaware of Tajirika on the other end of the line. The message was disturbingly clear. All preparations to receive the Ruler were to be kept on hold. The Ruler was not feeling well.

  The sender was Machokali. Sikiokuu was sick to his stomach. Was the Ruler dying? What if the Ruler were to anoint Machokali as his legitimate successor? The thought was too horrible to contemplate, and in his own mind Sikiokuu started planning to seize power.

  He thought he had better read the full text of the message carefully to see what might be hidden between the lines. He was dumbstruck. For there, in the main body of the e-mail, was the name Wizard of the Crow. He could not believe what his eyes were reading.

  Sikiokuu was to send for the Wizard of the Crow, issue him a diplomatic passport, help him secure a visa, and put him on the next available plane to New York.

  He felt paralyzed. His lieutenants, Kahiga and Njoya, had forewarned him of troubles unimaginable. He recalled his resolution. He sat back in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and tugged at his earlobes meditatively.

  SECTION III

  1

  After going home, Tajirika acted like a person cured of one malady only to become victim of another even deadlier one. He had an irresistible yearning to beat his wife. Every night he dreamed of it, woke up in the morning with the thought of it, and spent the whole day nursing every little hurt into a provocation that would justify it. Still, nothing in Vinjinia’s words and actions warranted a beating.

  Tajirika was surprised to find that Vinjinia had run all his businesses efficiently. She had kept good records. If anything, under her stewardship, the businesses had actually grown and had attracted new clients and orders. All in all, she had come through as if she had been a businesswoman all her life. Instead of making Tajirika happy, this faultless performance served to increase the doubts he already had about her. Where had this new Vinjinia been hiding before this? To catch her in a lie, he tried every ruse, springing questions on her at random, but she would answer them all simply and clearly.

  “Okay, you can now resume your place in the kitchen,” he told her without a word of thanks.

  She had run the home as efficiently. And in her accounts of her social ins and outs he saw no inconsistencies. Left alone to his thoughts, Tajirika concluded that all was a show; Vinjinia’s supposed competence and wifely rectitude were nothing but hypocrisy. Was this not the picture she had always presented to him before his abduction? The face of a person without too many questions about this or that? The face of loyal silence? But a woman who, while presenting him with the wifely ideal, had still found time and energy to consort with shameful dancers? And yet not once during all the years of wedded bliss and procreation had she once mentioned them. If anything, she had expressed only contempt toward tradition and ritual performance. How, then, had she come to know these women to the extent of being photographed together in public? When did she start keeping their company? Where and when did she find the time to meet with them? At what time of day or night?

  Tajirika’s doubts and questions only added to that irresistible urge to rain blows on Vinjinia’s back, and all that restrained him was Sikiokuu’s temporary ban on wife beating. Lacking the means to quench his thirst for blood, Tajirika became increasingly frustrated, sullen and silent most of the time. He did not want to talk about his experience in prison for fear of fueling his anger toward his wife, leading to forbidden consequences. He sought safety in muteness.

  His brutal, unrelenting silence was hurtful to Vinjinia, denied as she was an opportunity to share with him her trials, tribulations, and partial triumph over the twin evils of Kaniürü and Sikiokuu. She longed to tell him how she had looked for him everywhere, in police precinct
s, hospitals, mortuaries, and how she had received help from the Wizard of the Crow and some mysterious women dancers whom she had met neither before nor after. The complete breakdown in communication frustrated her even more than the anger she still felt at discovering his readiness to denounce her, in an unfinished press statement that she came across after her release from prison.

  When Vinjinia received the call from the police that Tajirika had been released, she had felt unalloyed joy, not because her anger had subsided but because she saw his return home as an opportunity for them to repair their lives. She had expected him to be pleased with her success in running his business despite her lack of experience. She had thought that, at least, money would talk. But even a sizable bank account was unable to unlock the man’s heart. She went all out to please him but found it impossible to unburden his soul. Why? Why this silence?

  One morning she made him a special breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and sausages. Without looking at her, Tajirika stretched his hands to take the tray but failed, and the tray fell to the ground, creating an unsightly mess. Vinjinia could no longer keep her mouth shut.

  “How have I wronged you, Titus? What have I done to you to make you so bloated with anger? And when you open your mouth it is only to ask questions that have no legs or arms. What did they do to you in prison? How did they manage to turn you into a dumb creature?”

  If Tajirika had so much as spoken a word he would have beaten Vinjinia mercilessly, but recalling his contract with Sikiokuu, he summoned all his inner strength not to strike her. He ran out of the house to the garage, got into his car, and drove to the office. He was aflame with anger. He had never heard Vinjinia speak to him so brazenly. Her outburst, however, did finally reveal her hidden self. This Vinjinia was the one who had met secretly with the women dancers. Oh, yes, at last! He felt that if he did not beat her today, his body would break into pieces. He had to speak to Sikiokuu. He reached for the telephone.