Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “Let me remind you that actually I am the one who apprised you of the matter,” Kaniürü said to take credit, but Sikiokuu ignored him.

  “All my preparations to capture the woman were going smoothly until news of your illness in America reached us. When I was told that the Wizard of the Crow was needed there, I said that the apprehension of Nyawlra would have to wait until the return of the Wizard of the Crow. Now here is my problem: the mirrors will arrive shortly, but their interpreter is nowhere to be found.”

  The story prompted the Ruler to worry that if the sorcerer could really read what was hidden from the common eye, what did he know about the country, no, the Ruler being pregnant? And why had he chosen to impart his wisdom to Machokali instead of … he did not even want to complete the thought, for he suddenly felt horrified yet again at being compared to a woman. This sorcerer must be silenced.

  “Where is he? Where is the Wizard of the Crow?” the Ruler asked angrily.

  “I don’t know where he is. Since he went to America … perhaps Machokali might care to …” Sikiokuu said, trying to shift the burden of the sorcerer’s disappearance on Machokali.

  “He is not in America,” said Machokali curtly, signaling that he did not want to get involved in this issue.

  “He is not in Aburlria. And he is not in America. Where is the sorcerer?” the Ruler demanded. “Surely he must be somewhere on this earth?”

  The Ruler suddenly was exhausted by the topic, as it was taking his mind away from more momentous matters. He was now staring straight ahead, entirely preoccupied with what Tajirika might bring him and what he would do to him if he came back empty-handed.

  Machokali, who all along had surmised that there was a connection between Sikiokuu and the Wizard of the Crow, now felt malicious joy at the fact that the Ruler had sent a police squad to unearth the dollars. The angrier the Ruler became with the Wizard of the

  Crow, the angrier he would be with Sikiokuu once the plot between the minister and the sorcerer was exposed.

  “As to where the sorcerer is,” said Machokali, “it does not really matter. For what you have done, Your Mighty Excellency, in sending the three policemen to unearth the buried treasure, is an act of unfathomable wisdom and foresight, for even if no dollars are found, the act will serve to expose the lies of this man and his associates,” Machokali said.

  “Which man? Which lies? The lies told by your friend Tajirika, or the Wizard of the Crow’s?” Kaniürü asked mischievously.

  “Since when did you become a champion of truth?” asked Sikiokuu.

  Childish one-upmanship ensued, each trying to have the last word. It is said that they continued thus for seven days and nights and by then they had lost their voices and spoke in whispers so low that they did not hear one another at all. They made out what the others were speaking only through the motion of the veins on their necks and foreheads and the automatic opening and closing of the lips.

  The Ruler, however, remained as he was, oblivious to their duel with words, his head resting in his right hand, even as he looked now and then at his watch, waiting for a voice from the prairie to tell him the outcome of the hunt for the buried dollars.

  8

  “True, Haki ya Mungu, we also longed for a voice from the prairie,” A.C. would tell his listeners, trying anything to win them over so that they could tell him what he then sought among them.

  Encouraged by their surrender to his words, A.C. would tell how the foursome of he, Kahiga, Njoya, and Tajirika drove to the Santa-maria police station, where they took an unmarked vehicle. They told the police chief, Wonderful Tumbo, that they were going to the prairie to trap Nyawlra, and that if reports reached the station that there were strangers wandering in the wilderness, Tumbo and his men were to ignore them.

  A.G. was excited by the prospect of the adventure as one of the Ruler’s messengers, but he thought that his companions were a bit fearful. Tajirika especially: his face was crestfallen, and he did not speak much to Njoya and Kahiga. In fact the three talked through A.G., and he suspected that this was not the first time that the three had met.

  They drove some distance into the prairie, stopped the car by an acacia bush, and walked toward the interior, Tajirika leading the way and the others following in a file carrying hoes, spades, and pickaxes.

  “We looked like a procession of gold prospectors,” A.G. would whisper to his ardent listeners as if imparting a great secret, “with Tajirika as the leader of the party.”

  Although they were going to dig for dollars, their thoughts were mostly on the Wizard of the Crow, who never ceased to amaze A.G. How many people in Aburlria would bury money gained from the practice of one’s profession, and then disclose the fact and its location to another? A.G., however, was a trifle concerned about the whereabouts of the Wizard of the Crow. Was he in America or Aburlria?

  Njoya and Kahiga were troubled by the whole business and would rather have had nothing to do with it. Since learning that the Wizard of the Crow had not returned from America, they brooded on the threats made by his other; she would no doubt hold them accountable for his disappearance. Not a day went by without their worrying about retribution. Was the mission a setup on her part?

  Tajirika saw a trap. Why would anybody bury money anyway? What if someone had already unearthed and taken it away? What if the whole thing was a sorcerer’s joke? How could he go back to the Ruler empty-handed? It was clear to him, no matter how he looked at it, that the Wizard of the Crow had put him in a terrible fix.

  He had no particular destination. What they were looking for, according to Tajirika, was a bush among countless bushes. The Wizard of the Crow had not described the particulars; he had just talked about a bush in the prairie not too far from Santalucia. Where exactly should their search begin?

  “True, Haki ya Mungu, we stayed in the prairie for I don’t know how long, digging holes in the ground like ants,” A.G. said. “Nobody from Santalucia or anywhere came to question or trouble us in any way. We were fatigued by the routine, searching and digging day and night, endlessly. I took it upon myself to tell the others, Listen to me: even God when he created Heaven and Earth rested on the seventh day, but we have already worked for more than seven days. What are we trying to prove? Only Tajirika demurred; we accused him of opposing rest because he did no work except move from bush to bush, and hearing this he took a pickax and started digging furiously to show us how a man should apply himself. We stood by and watched him dig nonstop like a crazy person, till he collapsed in one hole and we had to drag him out, and I tell you, by then we were so exhausted that we too collapsed beside the body of our leader, falling asleep.”

  They slept for several days. What met their eyes when eventually they woke up were endless anthills, like mounds of earth, scattered all over the prairie. Kahiga and Njoya suggested that Tajirika should call the State House to let the Ruler know that they had been unable to find the bags of dollars. Tajirika fiercely objected and adamantly insisted: “We must continue with digging until we find the money.” Njoya and Kahiga were just as adamant that the digging of holes should be left to archaeologists, prospectors, and miners of precious metals. All visible terrain had been dug up to no avail. They would sooner rob a bank than lift another pickax.

  Tajirika begged them to persist one more day, but really they were weak and had lost all hope. A.G., who had not taken sides in the dispute, now intervened and told them all that he was tired of their endless wrangling, that while he would abide by whatever decision they arrived at, for now he simply wanted some space to himself: he stood up and started walking deeper into the bush.

  Kahiga and Njoya followed him so as not to break the law that bound them to keep an eye on one another. Tajirika ran after them, imploring them not to shun their duty or leave him in the prairie alone. Not that he himself had much energy left.

  When he came to this point in his narrative, A.G. would pause and ask his audience dramatically: Why do you think I am stressing exhaustion? B
ut before anybody could respond, A.G. would answer his own question.

  “I don’t know what it was—maybe the bush made me think about the night I chased the Wizard of the Crow in his guise as a beggar or two all the way from Paradise to Santalucia. Just as on that night I felt driven by a force so powerful that I could not stop even if I tried, so too on this night, true, Haki ya Mungu, I felt myself propelled by a power unknown to me. At one point I almost tripped over a ridge. I stopped. Before me was a rock ridge cleft into two, the space between them covered by grass and wild growth.

  “All of a sudden I had a funny feeling in my belly for, true, Haki ya Mungu, when I looked all around, I remembered being in the same bush the night I ran after the Wizard of the Crow, and that this was the same ridge over which I had tripped and fallen, losing him, or both of them, or whatever. Later, I would come to learn that my fall had not been accidental, that it had been the work of the wizard. But what is the meaning of the coincidence now? I asked myself. Had the Wizard of the Crow buried the treasure here, guarded by the powers of the netherworld?

  “I sat down on the rock and Kahiga, Njoya, and Tajirika followed suit in silence, for, to be very honest, speech had become unbearable, a burden. We were absorbed in our own thoughts, yes, but I heard myself saying to my companions, The Wizard of the Crow is capable of many tricks. I once chased him across the prairie, and I believe that he led me through a place like this … I thought that they would take up the subject, but none seemed interested in what I was saying. In our own isolation, we all were wrestling with the daemons that so possess a person exhausted in mind, body, and spirit that they make him begin to imagine seeing bright stars in daylight …”

  Tajirika thought he was seeing things. The leaves of the three bushes in front of him were no ordinary leaves, but, no, he could not believe his eyes, and he tried to cry out to the others. He could not find words to tell them what he was seeing so he just pointed, whispering hoarsely, Look, please look, and tell me if this is not more trickery by the Wizard of the Crow. Tell me if those are not American dollars growing on those bushesr

  “None of us could believe what we were hearing. We looked at one another with the same thought: Money growing on trees? Tajirika had gone mad. On closer inspection, we had to agree that those leaves did look like American dollars. Yet we harbored doubts, which disappeared when Tajirika took money from his pocket and, with hands shaking, approached the bushes to compare what he had in his hands with what was there. True, Haki ya Mungu, from where we sat, nobody could tell the difference between the two; if anything, those that grew on the bushes seemed smoother and greener, a little less wrinkled, than the bills from Tajirika’s pocket. Some of the leaves had tiny holes in them and others were frayed at the edges, but Tajirika, our leader, explained that this was the work of worms and other insects who did not understand the value of a dollar.”

  Tajirika fell on his knees before the bushes and started sobbing with joy like a death-row inmate whose sentence had been commuted when execution seemed inevitable and imminent.

  We are saved! he cried, and the others said Amen in unison.

  9

  Kaniürü, Machokali, and Sikiokuu sat as if frozen in time, bickering. The Ruler continued to check his watch now and then, oblivious of them. It is said that, in the light of the weirdness of the scene, heads of the police and army eventually came into the hall to see if something was the matter. But, ascertaining that the Ruler was wide awake, they retreated, muttering to themselves, Politicians do love talking, don’t they, marveling at their ability to confer even in silence. Not like us, men of action, they said to themselves, resolving not to disturb them again. Let them talk till the end of time if they so desire.

  The telephone rang, and the Ruler picked up the receiver.

  “What? What did you say?” the Ruler was asking. His face darkened and his hands shook, sending a tremor through his whole body. The entire State House, the whole country, and the people, feeling the earthquake, recalled the seismatic disturbance during the Ruler’s return from America. On the telephone, unaware of the effect of his shock, the Ruler continued:

  “How can that be? … Are you fulling my leg?” he asked in English “Three of them? … Okay, okay, wait a minute …”

  He tried to cover the mouthpiece with one hand but, failing, rested it on his prodigious belly and turned to Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniürü, looking at them as if he were seeing them for the first time and asking himself, What are these intruders doing here? Then he remembered that it was their arguments and bickering that had kept him awake:

  “Go,” he told them. “I will settle your case another day.” As they stood up to leave, he commanded them to stop exactly where they stood and to listen to him very carefully. Because he did not ever want to hear that any of them had so much as whispered what they had seen or heard during their stay at the State House, he would require them to sign a pledge: I will never reveal whatever 1 have seard or seen in the State House. He would match the degree of forgiveness to the quantity of signed pledges. He then asked some police to lock them up in their different locations within the State House.

  They had hardly left the room when the Ruler resumed his telephone conversation: “Are you still there? … Good, now tell me, are you sure about all this? The four of you? …”

  10

  He gave orders to the army chief to send three armored cars to the prairie as fast as possible to retrieve the dollar trees and the precious soil in which they grew. And they were to return as slowly as a tortoise so as to risk nothing. Emotions welled up inside: he smarted at the recent humiliations he had suffered at its hands; now he was freed of the need for the Global Bank. How happy he would be to look the Global Bank directors in the eye, with all the contempt he could muster, and tell them to shove it. No more memoranda to those impertinent fools. He would simply relish his newfound wealth. May these money-producing trees live forever! Impatient though he was for the arrival of his men from the prairie, he was still glad that he had cautioned against the armored cars rushing back to prevent the possibility of any of the soil falling by the wayside.

  When they saw the convoy, armed with all manner of firepower, slowly making its way into Eldares, citizens, fearing a coup d’etat, hid behind closed doors. How happy the Ruler was when, after seven days of anxious waiting, he heard the roll of the convoy on the grounds of the State House! Given his present condition, he could not, of course, go out to meet it but instead ordered the police and army chiefs to see to the immediate delivery of the bounty without the usual security checks.

  11

  It is difficult, even today, to make sense of what happened afterward. Even A.G., despite his gift of words, was taciturn, but people claimed that this was because he, Tajirika, Njoya, and Kahiga had been sworn to secrecy under the penalty of their tongues being cut out for blabbering. But when they would close in on him and beg him to explain with ardent pleas enriched by generous offers of drink, A.G. would tell them to gather around so he could whisper a thing or two. And indeed, true to his word, A.G. would tell this part of the story in a whisper so low that it was hard for some listeners to make out all that he was saying, but they would refrain from interrupting him lest he change his mind and leave the story untold. He spoke loudly only when he paused to swear “True, Haki ya Mungu,” his way of punctuating what might otherwise have seemed too incredible a narrative of magic and greed.

  “We were each told to stand behind each present, wrapped in sisal, and, in turns, untie them under the Ruler’s watchful eyes. Kahiga was first to unwrap his. It took him a while because his hands were shaking uncontrollably. This was not chiefly from fear or fatigue. Kahiga was certain, as was I, that as soon as the Ruler beheld what we had brought him, he would, out of gratitude, raise our salaries or ranks or both.”

  At this point A.G. would whisper even lower, and some frustrated listeners, believing that he had really lost his voice, would get up to leave, allowing that rumors of what he w
ould say would overtake them anyway.

  “People, how shall I put what happened next? If I had not been there and seen it with my own eyes, I myself would not believe it,” A.G. would whisper and then shout, “True, Haki ya Mungul” so suddenly and unexpectedly that he would startle his listeners, stopping even those about to leave dead in their tracks, now convinced that it was better to hear the story from the horse’s own mouth than secondhand.

  “So what happened?” they would ask him, and A.G. would take his time, shaking his head as if still incredulous at what he had seen and heard.

  “You mean after Kahiga unwrapped his parcel?” he would ask to make sure that he understood the question precisely.

  “Yes, yes,” his listeners would say in unison.

  “Kahiga’s jaw fell,” he would say, and then pause to let the image etch itself properly in their memories.

  “Why? Why?”

  “The pestilence. They had the body of a white termite and the head and mandibles of a red ant. How can I describe them? They were as big as locusts. I don’t even know if they were termites, but I may be wrong. There are more than two thousand species, and these could have been one of them or a mutant breed. I’ll just call them pests, white pests.”

  “What are you talking about?” they would ask, wondering if the storyteller had had one beer too many. “All the leaves and all the roots of the bush had been eaten by the pests, leaving nothing but bare twigs.”

  Kahiga and Njoya cried out in unison, What is this?

  Kahiga rushed and turned over the soil, as he recounted, to see if the leaves were buried there, only to find more termites fattened to the size of big worms or caterpillars after feasting on leaves of money for more than seven days. He, like the others, could not say what was more amazing, the size of the termitelike creatures or the fact that the pests had eaten all the money.