Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Din Furyk tells of how he asked for blood samples to be taken to find out whether the patient exhibited symptoms of hyperthyroid-ism, nephrotic syndrome, polycystic kidney disease, or some form of Cushing’s syndrome brought about by cortisal hormones in the blood, or any disorders associated with obesity known to science. He was also concerned about the possibility of steroid-induced obesity, despite Dr. Wilfred Kaboca’s assurances that the Ruler had never taken any steroids, that Viagra was the only drug for which he had shown an insatiable appetite.

  Furyk then describes his attempts to get a sense of the Ruler’s medical history from his entourage of ministers and security folk. “No one was able to shed any light on the matter. When I asked them a question, such as When did the illness strike?’ or When did you first notice signs of the illness?’ they would look in the direction of the Ruler, then at one another, and would say that they did not know. Africans, or shall I say black people, in general, are strange.”

  At this point the professor digresses to discuss the African character. The diary is full of phrases like “faces that cannot be easily read,” “a face like a mask,” and “the ministers could not look me in the eye; they had a shiftiness suggesting mendacity.” The Ruler’s own personal physician is also questioned, and he is described as being no different from the ministers, volunteering bits of information grudgingly and only when he was outside the hearing of others.

  The only person praised in the diary is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Machokali, who spoke without an accent and was direct in his manner. He was presumed to have been educated in the West. “A rare mind, this, quite exceptional. Could easily have been a product of Harvard or another Ivy League school.”

  “Because they were all hopeless,” Professor Furyk writes, “I thought it better simply to wait for the results from the lab.

  “Imagine my shock when they showed that everything about him was functioning normally! How was this possible? Why this continued self-induced expansion of the body? His belly was as taut as a drum, and whenever I tapped it a sound issued from the mouth. Crr, or was it coral or crawl or cruel”? I took Dr. Clarkwell and Dr. Kaboca outside for a conference. What could the Ruler be signifying by coral or crawl or cruel? Dr. Kaboca’s response was strange: he was a physician of the body, not a decipherer of words; it was better to ask the ministers because they were politicians and politicians are known for their words.

  “I confronted the ministers. All turned their eyes to Machokali.”

  5

  Machokali himself flinched inwardly. It was bad enough to have this case, of a body spluttering meaningless words, on his hands. Now he had to deal with accusatory looks: You arranged this visit; get us out of this predicament. How did he, a highly educated individual with a BS in economics from the University of Aburlria, an MA in political science from Michigan University, and a PhD in the psychology of power from Uppsala University in Sweden, find himself in this mess?

  He needed to buy time. So he said at the meeting that he needed to go back to the Ruler to elicit more words that might help him to interpret the three words. As soon as he got new information, he would convene another meeting.

  So with a boldness he did not feel, Machokali marched into the Ruler’s room and said only, “How are you!” The Ruler stared blankly past him as if he had not seen him or heard his greetings. So Machokali backtracked, and as soon as he was outside the room he darted to his own room, locked himself inside, and knelt down to pray for divine intervention.

  Suddenly he heard a knock at the door. He jumped up and hesitated before opening the door. It was one of the Ruler’s security men. Had the Ruler’s condition worsened? Or … Or … worse than that?

  “I wanted to see you alone,” said Arigaigai Gathere, alias A.G.

  “What’s the matter?” Machokali asked him after he had gestured for his visitor to take a seat.

  “I really don’t know where or how to start, but I want to begin by begging you not to take lightly what an underling like me … Do you know the story of Elephant and the thorn?”

  “Please spare me the wisdom of folktales,” Machokali said, forcing himself to laugh as if he had been joking, but in his heart he was burning with anxiety, for another thought had crept into his mind: had Sikiokuu seized power?

  “Let me tell you the story all the same. Elephant felt something sharp in his foot, and when he removed it and saw that it was a tiny thorn, he was very angry. How can such a tiny thing prevent a big animal like me from walking? He pushed the thorn back into his foot and walked on, stamping the ground with defiance. The infection that later developed in the foot killed Elephant. Hence the saying ‘Never look down upon the small.’ True! Haki ya Mungu! I, too, ask you, Don’t despise the messenger, however lowly, or take lightly the message, however strange.”

  “Say whatever you have come to say,” Machokali said.

  “I know of a man who can handle this illness.”

  “A doctor more qualified than Professor Furyk?”

  “Well, he is not a doctor in the ordinary sense. He’s a sorcerer.”

  “A sorcerer?”

  “Well, a diviner.”

  A diviner? A sorcerer? In New York?”

  “In Aburlria. His name is the Wizard of the Crow.”

  6

  “True! Haki ya Mungu,” A.G. would say when he later narrated what happened during that fateful visit to the USA. “Right from the time it first struck, I knew that it was no ordinary illness. I also knew that there was only one person who could wrestle it to the ground. But I did not want to volunteer my knowledge. Who would believe my claims that the Wizard of the Crow could succeed where the masters of science from the West had failed? So I held back the information to give the ministers time to see what their Western doctors could do. The ministers had more education than I, but you all know, don’t you, that too much education can make men blind to what’s around them. “But when I heard that the Ruler had started to hallucinate, uttering words that nobody could tell the meaning of, I said to myself, That’s it. I will speak out or forever hold my peace. It was clear to me that whites were at the root of this illness. Do you know how white people hate it when a black man comes up with an original idea? And what could be more original than our Ruler’s vision of Marching to Heaven? These whites! Wherever they are, whoever they are, they all stink of racism. I had made up my mind, and the only thing remaining for me to figure out was how I would speak to these ministers in a manner that would bring them around to my view of the problem.

  “There were three ways of going about it: tell my idea to all the ministers at once; speak to Machokali alone, for he had emerged as their leader; or write a note to the Ruler and deliver it to him in secrecy. True! Haki ya Mungu! I was prepared to talk to the Ruler and remind him that I was the same man who once confronted djinns outside the gates of Paradise and chased them across the Eldares prairie in the dark of midnight without fear.

  “Well, I didn’t think it a good idea to tell them as a group, because, being in the presence of these white doctors, the ministers would almost certainly dismiss it as superstition and pretend that they did not believe in such things. And I didn’t know how I could find myself in only the Ruler’s company. So I decided to confide in Machokali, though I was hesitant. You might say that my decision became final only when I heard him tell us that he was going to try to talk to the Ruler. I followed him and waited for him outside the Ruler’s room.

  “His face told me that he had not met with success, and this emboldened me to follow him. When I uttered the words the Wizard of the Crow,’ I saw doubts and faith struggle inside the man. How do you know that he has the power to heal? he asked. I told him the story of the night of the beggars at Paradise, but of course I did not tell him all the details. I did not tell him that the protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow had effected my promotion from an ordinary constable to an honored place in the Ruler’s office and now as a member of the delegation to America. Soon I
saw his desire to believe quell doubt, but he told me that he could not make a decision on this by himself, that he had to mention this to the Ruler and, if that failed, then discuss the matter with the other ministers.

  “I thought that Machokali would get up immediately and go to the Ruler, but he seemed distracted. Imagine my surprise when the minister asked me to accompany him. True! Haki ya Mungu! This request was entirely unexpected, but I took it as an honor. Imagine the most senior minister in the government asking me to accompany him to the Ruler! When we got there, I saluted the Ruler and the minister bowed. But instead of his doing the talking or the writing, Machokali simply pointed at me, clearly not wanting to be a messenger for sorcery. Well, I took out my pen and wrote down my name on a piece of paper just to remind the Ruler that it was me, A.G., or, as he once called me playfully, the Conqueror of Djinns. Then I wrote down what I had already told the minister: that I knew of a sorcerer who could heal him. I saw from the sudden light in his eyes that the Ruler was not averse to my suggestion; he looked at the minister and nodded his head as if to say that he was in total agreement with the idea.

  “Machokali’s face brightened, and outside the room he put his arm around my shoulder as if we were the closest of mates. This matter of sorcery is entirely between us, he told me, for if the New York media were to know that the Ruler was sending for sorcerers from Aburlria, they would flock here and camp out at the hotel. Even Professor Din Furyk and Dr. Clement C. Clarkwell were not to know anything about this new development. As for the other ministers, he would tell them only after the sorcerer had arrived.

  “I was with him when he e-mailed Sikiokuu to say that the Ruler wanted the minister to send the Wizard of the Crow to New York, USA. When Sikiokuu replied with the wizard’s travel plans, Ma-chokali told me that he and I would go meet the sorcerer at the international airport.

  “Now, I had thought that, with so prompt a response from Aburlria, Machokali would be all over himself with joy in anticipation of the wizard’s arrival. But he did not look happy. Something still worried him.

  “What I most fear,’ he told me candidly, is that the sorcerer will arrive at the airport dressed in a garb of uncured leather, a necklace of sharp animal bones around his neck, a gourd of stinking oil and green leaves in his hand, amulets on his wrists, and bangles around the ankles of his bare feet. These people here are very sensitive to the importation of agricultural products for fear of dangerous viruses. What if customs officials stop him? What if Immigration mistakes his powders for drugs, and the sorcerer then discloses that he is here at the Ruler’s request? The Ruler could meet the fate of that Latin American head of state imprisoned for life in an American jail for drug offenses!’ Worried that a scandal might erupt around the sorcerer’s visit, he now wished that he had specified that the wizard be dressed decently and his paraphernalia be shipped in a diplomatic bag!

  “Well, I could not help laughing at the minister’s words and worries.

  “The Wizard of the Crow is a modern sorcerer,’ I told him. He dresses in suits. Besides, he uses only a mirror for his divinations.’

  “True! Haki ya Mungu! Minister Machokali’s jaw fell and his eyes almost popped out at my description of the Wizard of the Crow and his divine mirror.”

  7

  Machokali did not much believe in witchcraft and divination. But a bird exhausted in flight lands on the nearest anything, and for him the Wizard of the Crow was now that anything. If the Buler’s health was to improve, it would not matter what he, Machokali, believed or did not. What now most preoccupied him were the measures to take to prevent news of the sorcerer’s presence from leaking beyond the inner council of ministers and the security officers. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Machokali was responsible for projecting a favorable image of his country, and he would not now want to make the Buler and Aburlria laughing stocks in the eyes of the world, particularly in the corridors of the United Nations. He could imagine the snickering that would greet him wherever he went: How are your Buler and his sorcerer getting along?

  Machokali was relieved at the airport when he saw the Wizard of the Crow in a dark suit, a briefcase in hand, looking every inch a businessman like any other in New York.

  They did not speak much on the way to the hotel, where Machokali whisked him straight up to the Buler’s floors without registering the newly arrived guest. There was to be no record of the sorcerer’s visit.

  “Do you need anything?” Machokali asked him as soon as he had been shown his room. “Take a bath, change, and then let’s go to the Buler. Or how about a bite of something first?”

  Instead of answering, the Wizard of the Crow looked now at the minister, and then at A.C., as if puzzled as to who was whom.

  “Is either of you in a position to tell me what the Buler wants to see me about?”

  “Excuse me, my sirs,” said A.G. in Kiswahili quickly, sensing the tension, somehow trying to address them both as equals. “We did not do what the English call an introduction, or, in Kiswahili, making people know one another. This here is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. and Dr. Machokali.”

  The words, my sirs, irritated Machokali, and he cast a fierce glance at A.G., as if to warn him that he, the minister, was the only sir here.

  “Didn’t Minister Sikiokuu tell you what this is about?” Machokali asked.

  “Only that the Ruler had sent for me.”

  Machokali did not go into details about the Ruler’s illness but told the wizard that he was to use all the powers he was reputed to possess to heal the chief. He was to return to Aburlria the following morning. It was that simple.

  “I am a little jet-lagged,” the Wizard of the Crow told Machokali firmly. “Let me get some rest so that my head can work clearly.”

  Jet-lagged? What would a sorcerer know about jet lag? Machokali did not voice his curiosity but stressed the need for speed.

  A.G. again sensed tension between the two sirs, and he hastened to whisper in Machokali’s ear. Let’s do what he wants. We don’t want to make him angry.

  Machokali was not happy with the sorcerer’s attitude. He was equally unhappy with A.G.’s fear and humility. Yet he felt he had no choice but to accede to the sorcerer’s request. In the event of the sorcerer’s failure, he did not want it said that he was somehow responsible.

  “Let us meet tomorrow, then,” Machokali said.

  8

  That very evening, Machokali called all the ministers to his room. Dr. Luminous Karamu-Mbu, the official biographer, or TOB, as he was known sometimes, wanted to attend but he was barred because he was not a member of the cabinet. A special exception had been made for Dr. Wilfred Kaboca and the security men only because of their expertise in matters under review.

  Karamu-Mbu was not the most popular of fellows. He was a man of few words and even fewer friends. The size of his pen was intimidating, and nobody was quite sure what it was that he wrote in the equally huge notebook. Everybody was a little scared of his nearness to the throne and avoided him as much as possible. Normally TOB was too busy recording the tiniest details of the Ruler’s existence to miss company. But since the Ruler had fallen ill, TOB had written the same thing over and over. Today the Ruler remained ill and speechless. Today the Ruler remained bedridden and speechless. Today ditto. TOB did not know what to do with all the time on his hands, so his exclusion from the meeting was especially disconcerting. He retired to his room to arrange in proper and readable order the notes he had taken since the delegation arrived in America.

  Machokali did not know quite how to break his news but decided that plunging into the matter was the best policy. Still, he wanted to go about it gingerly so as not to offend the ministers’ egos. He began not with the sorcerer’s arrival but with a brief account of how it came to be that this sorcerer was in New York and how the Ruler himself had nodded in agreement. He stopped to assess the impact of his words. There was no snickering, to Machokali’s surprise; a few even admitted that they had heard of the Wizar
d of the Crow, had been thinking along the same lines, and had kept their views to themselves only because they had wanted to give science a chance. Even Dr. Wilfred Kaboca did not express any doubts.

  “So when will he come to New York?” they all wanted to know.

  Machokali broke the news. They looked at one another, stupefied. But soon they recovered from the shock and curiosity took over. What did he look like? Was he young or old? How was he dressed? They agreed, after much discussion, that they should not show too much eagerness to meet the wizard, that they should simply cast quick glances in his direction in order not to give him the notion that he was in the same ranks with ministers. They also resolved not to tell the wizard about the white doctors and not to tell Drs. Furyk and Clarkwell about the wizard. Were the Ruler’s health to improve, what did it matter if Harvard science took the credit?

  9

  Early the next day Machokali called on the Wizard of the Crow. The sorcerer, who was fiddling with his tie in front of a mirror, gestured to Machokali to sit and continued fumbling. But the minister just stood and looked on.

  “You slept well?” Machokali began in an attempt at small talk.

  The more Machokali encountered the Wizard of the Crow, the more he had his doubts. How did such a youth become so adept at healing?

  “I am told that you diagnose and heal by means of a mirror?”

  “It depends on the illness and the mirror. Mirrors can be thick or thin, convex or concave: every illness calls for a mirror appropriate to the challenge it poses. It takes time for me to interpret the images in the mirror. I must also speak to everyone who has had any contact with a patient. You and all the ministers, for example …”

  What if Sikiokuu had hired this man to implicate Machokali or the other ministers in a conspiracy to harm the Ruler?