Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  6

  Neither Tajirika nor Vinjinia could have dreamt that out of the tears of sorrow could come such intense screams of joy. But the scream that next issued from Vinjinia’s mouth was not joy or sorrow, and for a few seconds she could not utter a word. Tajirika looked to see what she was pointing at. The sight made him tense up also: a flock of birds was frozen in flight above the lake. Some yards into the pool, a dog, barking at the birds, suddenly froze before their very eyes.

  Tajirika and Vinjinia took to their heels and did not once look back until they reached the house. The valley floor used to shake as if hollow below. What had brought the waters to the surface? What of the arrested motion of beings r

  They came back the following day, hoping the whole thing had vanished. It had not, and now, in addition to the birds, were bees and butterflies also in frozen flight. On the surface, ducks and chickens, including a cock trying to mount a hen, were all frozen in motion. So also two antelopes, one in the air and the other about to jump.

  They gave up trying to unravel the mystery. When Gacirü and Gaclgua came for holidays, Tajirika and Vinjinia forbid them to go anywhere near the valley or talk about it, reinforcing the ban with stories of daemons that lured children into a pool in the valley and swallowed them. But Gacirü and Gaclgua whispered the stories to their friends, and eventually the stories reached the ears of parents, who sternly warned their children to avoid the area.

  Parents added their bits to the scary lore: The pool became a lake that turned any living thing that touched its surface or flew over it into stone. Even looking in its direction or looking at it, others added, could turn somebody into stone, which made people walk with their eyes facing away from its supposed location. Silence about the lake ensued.

  But Tajirika and Vinjinia were attracted to the lake like a moth to the light. They found a spot from where they could see it, especially in the evenings, because when light fell on the motionless objects the things would change colors dramatically, depending on the intensity and angle of the sun.

  Tajirika and Vinjinia named the scene Museum of Arrested Motion.

  7

  It was while seated in their usual place facing the Museum of Arrested Motion that Tajirika, out of nowhere, asked Vinjinia how she had come to be the guest of honor at a women’s ceremonial dance, warning her not to lie because he had seen, with his own eyes, photographs of the occasion. She assumed he meant press photos, although she had not seen any. Without mentioning her visit to the Wizard of the Crow, she described her fruitless search for Tajirika and finally her decision to confront Sikiokuu at the official opening of Kaniürü’s office, where some women dancers whom she had never met forced his hand. But it did not really matter that she had never met them, and all he should know was that but for those dancers he would never have been found alive.

  It was Tajirika’s turn, and he too omitted any reference to his encounter with the Wizard of the Crow in prison, his commanding a whole camp with only a bucket of shit, and his bargaining his way to freedom by betraying his friend and benefactor Machokali. Instead, Tajirika described how he defied those who had arrested him and threatened to report their criminal mistreatment of him to the Ruler. It was then that the officials told him that the involvement of his wife with subversive female elements was the real reason they had arrested him, and, to prove it, they showed him photographs of Vin-jinia seated in front of the dancers.

  The shock on Vinjinia’s face made Tajirika believe that she knew nothing about the pictures. She did not deny that there were people with cameras there, but she had assumed that they were from the newspapers. And why would newspaper people take the pictures of her and the dancers and erase the images of Sikiokuu and Kan-iürü from the scene, since they were the chief dignitaries at the ceremony?

  “There is more to these pictures than meets the eye,” said Vin-jinia, shaking her head from side to side.

  Her words stung Tajirika into silence. So that was why Sikiokuu did not want him to talk to Vinjinia about the pictures? So that’s why he had forbidden him to beat her? Now he recalled how Sikiokuu had recently put the phone down while Tajirika was about to seek permission to beat Vinjinia. His anger drove the matter of his abduction into the background.

  “Let me get ahold of Minister Sikiokuu, and I will teach him never to toy with me again,” he said at last.

  He could not figure out the form the vengeance would take. He even thought of hiring professional assassins to finish off Sikiokuu, but he had no clue as to where to find them. Besides, that was risky and would take time to arrange; he wanted instant vengeance. Tajirika’s failure to settle on a course of action made Sikiokuu’s lies burn even more. Why had he lied to him? To make him cooperate against …

  Suddenly Tajirika knew what he would do: he would refuse to conspire against Machokali.

  He went to the office to call Sikiokuu.

  8

  Sikiokuu could tell by the way that Tajirika was breathing on the other end of the line that something had gone terribly wrong. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “What’s the matter?” Sikiokuu repeated.

  Tajirika was about to declare that he would no longer cooperate in the matter of Machokali when he remembered that he had already put his signature on a false confession. Sikiokuu clearly held him by the balls and was prepared to squeeze hard to make him comply. Was there no way out of this nightmare?

  “And you did not even have the guts to say that you and Kaniürü were the stars of the show?” he said, trying to inject as much bitterness and scorn as he could into his tone.

  At first Sikiokuu did not know what Tajirika was talking about.

  “Did you beat your wife?” Sikiokuu asked straight out, ignoring the taunts.

  Tajirika hesitated, wondering how Sikiokuu knew about what had transpired at home. Had Sikiokuu set up surveillance around his home? Or was Sikiokuu in league with Vinjinia and the women who had humiliated him? That might even explain why they were so concerned with Vinjinia’s safety. And come to think of it, Sikiokuu and those women were the only ones who had ever asked him not to beat his wife.

  “Be a man and fight me in the open instead of sending women to do your bidding. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Pick it up, Mr. Minister of lies and cowardice.”

  “Women? What women?” Sikiokuu asked.

  “But of course you know nothing about them. Of course you didn’t send them to abduct me. Sikiokuu, you are truly amazing. I have caught you red-handed, and all you can do is deny and deny?”

  “Please hold yourself together,” Sikiokuu said in English, completely perplexed, for in truth he did not know what Tajirika was talking about. “You listen to me. I have no clue as to what you’re talking about. This is the gospel truth. You and I are now working together, remember? I have specifically ordered the police not to harass you. So if anyone has bothered you at your home or your workplace, he is disobeying my orders and will be dealt with accordingly. You are a very important person to this government, Mr. Tajirika. So tell me in short or just take your time: what happened to make you doubt my word?”

  Sikiokuu managed to soothe Tajirika somewhat. He now told Sikiokuu an edited version of what had happened. He diminished his relentless and brutal wife beating to a single blow to the face. And the number of his female assailants changed from ten to twenty-five. The single machete became nine guns.

  Sikiokuu felt like laughing but started wondering who these women were. And they even had the nerve to set themselves up as a people’s court? And armed, too?

  “Mr. Tajirika, I don’t need to remind you that I had expressly forbidden you to beat your wife. Now you see the consequences. An entirely new situation has arisen, but we shall do our best to handle it. I am now asking you to please proceed with life as if nothing unusual has happened. The government will secretly investigate the matter, and we shall not rest until we get to the bottom of it. I promise you that the investigation will be conducted by a very select few. Wh
at kind of a world would this be if men lost the right to discipline their wives? I will make another request of you. Please don’t let on to Vinjinia that you have talked to me about this business. And don’t tell anyone else about what you have had to endure at the hands of women. We don’t want this type of thing to spread through the entire country. I still advise you to declare a moratorium on wife beating until things are back to normal.”

  “Thankyou, Mr. Sikiokuu,” Tajirika said, surprised to hear himself mouthing gratitude instead of curses and threats. “It has been said truly that the nature of women is incomprehensible. They are very emotional. Even my wife, I don’t think I will ever be able to trust her again. From now on I will be like your friend the Frenchman Descartes. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to doubt whether I have really seen the things that I have seen with my eyes. Reality and illusion are getting mixed up.”

  “Please, Mr. Tajirika.” Sikiokuu lamented that he had ever mentioned the Frenchman to this idiot of a businessman. “You must really forget about the Frenchman. I told you he died many years ago, and that is a fact.”

  Fajirika appreciated Sikiokuu’s concern for discretion. He also liked Sikiokuu’s promise that the investigation would be conducted by a select few.

  So after their telephone conversation, Tajirika felt much better, and he now walked as sprightly as he did before the women and Sikiokuu and Kaniürü had stripped him of his dignity. Good times were around the corner again, Tajirika felt like singing.

  9

  Kaniürü did not like Tajirika’s release from jail, much less its being effected without his being consulted in his capacity as the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry. He was not amused by Tajirika’s alliance with Sikiokuu, as it denied him the minister’s undivided support in his bid to fully assume the chairmanship of Marching to Heaven. The key to his uninterrupted flow of personal wealth without personal sweat was the occupancy of the chair. If businessmen nowadays were ready to give him big money based on faith and hope, untold fortune would be his when the Ruler returned with loans galore leading to actual construction. Tajirika’s release from jail was the fly in his ointment. Otherwise his affairs were running smoothly and Kaniürü believed himself to be secure in life and property.

  Even Nyawlra would come back to him someday, he thought, because of protective magic and the persuasive power of money. Like most of the other Ruler’s disciples, Kaniürü believed that money could buy just about anything and anybody, and certainly Nyawlra would be neither the first nor the last to change her political views for cash.

  The only person who showed no interest in money was Jane Kany-ori. She helped him in all his banking and yet asked for nothing more than the occasional lunch of collard greens and roasted goat meat. In money matters, she was a poster girl for innocence. This used to puzzle Kaniürü at first, but then he worked it out. Surrounded as she was by heaps of money all the time, she had become indifferent to its value, the way a cook loses appetite for a dish he has been sniffing all day. Kaniürü of course liked it that way.

  So between the free services of Jane Kanyori and the free protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow, Kaniürü felt safe as he contemplated his maneuvers in the precarious politics of Aburlria.

  He did not know how far Sikiokuu had pursued his suggestions about securing the services of the Wizard of the Crow, whether Sikiokuu had sent for the sorcerer or had gone to the shrine in disguise at night. Not that it mattered to Kaniürü. He had done his part. The rest was for Sikiokuu to do and he, Kaniürü, was content not to be too closely involved in all this sorcery and witchcraft. For though it was all right to be close to a sorcerer long enough to secure protective magic, it was not all right to remain too close to him, for one could never know when he might turn against one.

  The major task remaining for Kaniürü before the Ruler’s return was to complete the work of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania and write down its findings. Tajirika’s confessions provided the basis of the report, and, because it had to conform to Sikiokuu’s plans, he did not lose sleep over the task.

  But Tajirika’s release kept gnawing at him. Tajirika might resume the chairmanship with all its powers. So even as he received his stuffed envelopes and banked them safely and wisely with the help of the loyal Jane Kanyori, his mind was always busy trying to figure out how he could trick Tajirika into some foolishness that would compromise him.

  He was in the midst of entertaining various scenarios when the telephone rang. It was Sikiokuu, but why was he calling so early?

  “Women? What women? They beat up Tajirika?” Kaniürü asked, collapsing in laughter, unable for a minute to utter a coherent phrase. “They sat on him? What were they up to?”

  Kaniürü’s peals of laughter turned into a cry of sheer delight when Sikiokuu told him to investigate the gang of women.

  10

  The rumors that Aburlrian women were up in arms against their husbands, which later spread to all corners of the country, had origins in Kaniürü’s investigations. Despite the fact that he had been instructed to do it secretly, Kaniürü decided that this scandal was precisely what he needed to strip Tajirika of all dignity and manhood. He started by hinting to one or two people that some women had attacked Tajirika, made him lower his trousers, and then lashed his buttocks thoroughly. Rumor took over from there, but to Kaniürü’s disappointment Tajirika’s name did not figure much—any man’s name would do among the many scary stories that were now told of women’s replacing wife beating with husband bashing.

  Kaniürü almost became a victim of the success of his own malicious initiative, for he later received urgent instructions to press ahead with the investigation to stem the tide of these rumors. A national gender war posed a serious threat to established family values.

  Who are these women? What was the connection between the women of the people’s court, the women dancers, and the Movement for the Voice of the People? For a moment he dwelled on the women dancers who came to grace the opening ceremony of his office.

  After the ceremony he had expected them to come back to hold him to his promise to buy them a fleet of buses, but they never did. He was a little disappointed, for he would have liked to tell them a few things. He recalled the women dancers’ intervention on Vinjinia’s behalf. What had they been up to? What was the nature of Vinjinia’s involvement?

  Should he summon her to his office or not? But whether he called her to his office or went to see her, Vinjinia was sure to tell the same story she had told her husband. Should he summon Tajirika again? He would no doubt repeat what Vinjinia had recounted. And why would they cooperate with him anyway? Besides, Sikiokuu had told him very clearly that he must take care not to disturb the Tajirikas unduly. After all, Sikiokuu had chosen Kaniürü to conduct the investigation instead of the police because he wanted it done quietly, and he wanted Kaniürü’s report to reach him first before it became an official document. Not that this was anything new. Sikiokuu was always self-serving. But, still, convinced as he was that she was essential to his investigation, Kaniürü had to get at Vinjinia.

  He focused on the details of the gang of women who had abused Tajirika. They had ambushed him as he was walking to the Mars Cafe. They had thrown him into a waiting van, blindfolded him, and taken him to an unknown location, all in broad daylight. And immediately Kaniürü was struck by something. He whistled a tune of satisfaction. He would follow in the women’s footsteps, even if it meant not following every one of Sikiokuu’s orders not to importune the Tajirikas.

  11

  From the day of the rapprochement between husband and wife, Vinjinia had prayed and hoped for a new beginning to their lives. Not that she believed that their relationship would be back to where it should be, but talking was the first step on the road to healing.

  She did not ask too much of life. A God-fearing, churchgoing family; a husband uninvolved in politics and civic matters; college-educated kids with secure jobs; a house, a farm, and two cars. Thi
s had been their dream when Tajirika and she were teachers in primary school.

  As a certified teacher, Vinjinia had been the more secure of the two. Tajirika had been mainly a substitute teacher, his employment depending on women teachers going on maternity leave. They had married and had thought of naming their first child, a girl, Nyawlra, but then they decided against it because Nyawlra meant “work” and they did not want to condemn their child, even symbolically, to the life of a laborer. Instead they called her Ng’endo to symbolize their hopes for a life journey better than theirs as teachers earning a miserable income.

  That was in the colonial days, and their life did not change until independence, when racial barriers to bank loans were relaxed and more business opportunities became available to Aburlrian blacks. Tajirika started a new career selling furniture and household goods. He was not a carpenter, but he had the gift of a smooth tongue. He first got orders for various items, then he would engage carpenters, and soon he was the proud owner of quite a big store, with a workshop and salaried carpenters. When they later bought a farm, Vin-jinia gave up teaching to become the full-time manager of home and farm. She often looked back to those days when they would rejoice at every good turn in their fortune: the fulfillment of the prophecy implied in the name Titus Tajirika. Yet the wealthier they became, the greater their dispiritedness as they entered into discords that intensified into domestic violence.

  If only the closeness at their recent wonder could be reproduced in their other dealings at home, Vinjinia sighed, but the possibility made her break into one of her favorite lyrics:

  After darkness came light

  That shone on all things

  My heart waits patiently

  For love to rule my life

  She was in the fields outside her house, picking green corn for dinner, and she now continued in song all the way to the gates of her yard.