Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  Now, in response to the call on him to divulge state secrets, he had a few to share with the nation. He was giving amnesty to all political inmates, including those under house arrest. He was doing this because some had already confessed and repented their sins. Sikiokuu, for instance, had confessed in writing that, wearing robes of a religion of doubt, he had contacted fanatical followers of the Frenchman by the name of Descartes with evil intentions against the government. The only ones that the Ruler would never set free were those convicted of crimes of thought, mostly followers of the Movement for the Voice of the People. They were unrepentant. He challenged Parliament to come up with a comprehensive anticorruption bill, as in his view there was no corruption worse than that of the mind.

  The MPs were about to give him another standing ovation but he waved them off, for he was about to reveal corruption in high places. The new Aburiria could not afford to sweep its own dirt under the rug. It must show itself and the world that it was ready to bring to the light of day all the bones in its closet. He would also address economic chaos and sabotage. A helicopter had crashed in the hills near Eldares after a relentless chase by “our well-trained airborne police.” The helicopter was full of counterfeit money. The pilot had not yet been found. He could not say much more about the matter, as it was still under investigation.

  The police were trying to ascertain the connection between the helicopter, counterfeit money, and a recent spate of bank robberies themselves strange because the robbers seemed less interested in paper money than in papers about money. They often broke safes where bank papers were kept or into computers, and left safes containing money and jewelry untouched. Well, two of these odd robbers were caught in a Mwathirika bank, putting counterfeit money into the safe. From these captives the police learned that the mastermind had intended economic chaos through the unregulated supply of money and bribes to abort the birth of Baby D. The Ruler wanted to say loud and clear that in his government, and in his country, there was no hiding place for the corrupt, be they the top officers of his security forces or the highest-ranked ministers in his government. Bring out the saboteurs, he bellowed.

  Two men, shackled, each with a sackful of freshly minted notes, were dragged into the chamber.

  A.G. felt as if his eyes would pop out. Kahiga and Njoya were being put on display.

  “These are the sinners,” the Ruler hissed, pointing at them with his club as they trembled, their chains clanking. “And, even worse, these were two of my top security men! They were recently dismissed from their jobs for letting themselves be guided by witchcraft in their work. And what do they do next? Turn to bank robbery. Economic sabotage. Let me say this to all the corrupt in the land: come forward, confess, and repent before it is too late. These two will now be put under lock and key, and, believe me, by the time I finish with them, they will have told me all I need to know about those with ill intent against the newborn Baby D.”

  5

  A.G., who had not waited for the end of the ceremony, caught up with the rest of the Ruler’s address in the newspapers the following day. New ministers to nurture Baby D were announced. Two women were appointed to Parliament and made Assistant Ministers for Women’s and Children’s Affairs. The Ruler promised to rely on his two pillars of wisdom in his furtherance of the needs of Baby D. One of them was Tajirika, erstwhile governor of the Central Bank, who was now back as a member of Parliament and Minister of Finance. The other was John Kaniürü, the ex—youth leader, now the

  Minister for Defense, Youth, and Culture. The Ruler was quoted as praising a paper Kaniürü had once written, the result of a highly successful series of youth seminars in which he had argued that the youth must be deployed to fight the enemies within to complement the work of the security forces, and that culture should be used to cleanse the minds of the young of all rebelliousness. The Ruler, when he first read the paper, had been very impressed by Kaniürü’s originality, and the phrase originality of thought was what he now used in announcing the appointment of Kaniürü to his new position, with a mandate to oversee the integration of youth, culture, and the military.

  Among the heroes honored to mark the new birth was the Late Dr. Wilfred Kaboca, shot dead in defense of the health of the nation, now posthumously inducted into the company of the Golden Order of Loyal Devotion (GOLD).

  The paper carried a smaller heading: BIG BEN BECOMES CAESAR: MINISTER COMBINES THE GLORY OF IMPERIAL LONDON AND ANCIENT ROME. The courage he displayed during the so-called People’s Assembly had earned him honorary membership in the armed forces, backdated to months before the assembly. My dream has come true, Minister Big Ben Mambo was quoted as screaming unabashedly. In order that he may always remember the day, he added a new name, becoming Julius Caesar Big Ben Mambo, Minister of Information and Honorary Officer of the Armed Forces of the Free Republic of Aburlria.

  A boxed item under the heading ARTIST MASTERS THE ART OF WAR showed a picture of Kaniürü. It was thanks to him that Aburlria was finally rid of the menace of Nyawlra, alias the Limping Witch, and her cohort the Wizard of the Crow. Although not yet identified, their bodies were believed to be decomposing somewhere. Kaniürü had sustained a bullet wound to his left leg while battling these forces of evil and through his bravery had saved the country much turmoil. He became a decorated war hero. Asked where he learned strategy and tactics, Kaniürü told reporters that it was instinct but that he had thoroughly studied Carl Von Clausewitz’s On War and Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War.

  A.G. felt strength leave him: so the Wizard of the Crow was deadr

  6

  The Ruler was both surprised and pleased at how smoothly everything had worked out, and he wondered why he had ever been afraid of the words multiparty democracy. It was the bad advice from Machokali and Sikiokuu, he decided, for it was only after he had rid himself of both that his relations to the world, Aburlria, and himself began to prosper. But the Ruler’s Political Theory, actually written by the late Machokali but now bearing the Ruler’s name with a preface that the whole theory was written in the period when he was absent from public view, had provided the vision. According to this theory, what was important in any given country was not the quantity of political parties but the character of the person who personified the head, heart, arms, and legs of the state. There are no moral limits to the means that a ruler can use, from lies to lives, bribes to blows, in order to ensure that his state is stable and his power secure. But if he could keep the state stable through sacrificing truth rather than lives, bending rather than breaking the law, sealing the lips of the outspoken with endless trickeries rather than tearing them with barbed-wire and hot wax, if he could buy peace through a grand deception rather than a vast display of armored vehicles in the streets, which often gave his enemies material for propaganda, it would be the sweetest of victories. The theory also called on a ruler to do the unexpected, whether good or bad, in order to catch friend and foe unaware. The third tenet was what he called the principle of giving without giving. Take away ten, make a firm stand on not giving any back, then, under pressure, relent and give back one, and the result is all-around applause, of victory from foe and congratulations from friend. So far he had closely followed the tenets of the theory, with amazing results. The most pleasing was the favorable reception of his performance in the West, including countries that had previously denied him state visits. He was congratulated for his bold and courageous steps, some editorial writers going so far as to call him a democratic visionary whose balance of pragmatism and ideology had caught his foes with their pants down.

  Only Ambassador Gabriel Gemstone had seemed a bit frosty in his communication to his government. The Aburlrian leader had taken a step in the right direction, he said, but it was only just that: a step. Though a forward stride when perceived through African eyes, the step had serious hazards, and he could not in good conscience advise the West to embrace the reforms until the Ruler clarified this business of being the head of all the political parties.


  No longer underestimating Gemstone, the Ruler quickly responded, without of course referring to the ambassador directly. In an official clarification of his remarks when introducing Baby D, he said that he would not intrude in the day-to-day operations of the parties; he would leave that to their chosen leaders. He would assume leadership of only the party that won general elections. The de facto leader of the winning party would automatically become vice president, solving the problem of succession in the event of the unexpected. With this clarification, the Ruler’s reforms received cautious acceptance from Gabriel Gemstone, which opened many doors.

  The Global Ministry of Finance and the Global Bank issued a joint statement congratulating the Ruler for abandoning—actually, the word they used was jettisoning—useless schemes like Marching to Heaven; accepting in advance each and every condition the two institutions would attach to their loans; and bringing technocrats, war heroes, and proven businessmen into his cabinet. But most significant was their agreement to enter into negotiations with the new government to release frozen loans and aid packages. Kaniürü and Tajirika were invited to Washington to discuss the defense and economic policy needs of a democratic Aburlria.

  All was going as well as the Ruler could have imagined. Though he had his decision and theories to thank for this goodness, he also appreciated Kaniürü’s role.

  7

  Several days after the Ruler’s birthday, Kaniürü had come to see him with a puzzling request. He wanted forgiveness. For what? Kaniürü confessed to having killed the Limping Witch and the scheming wizard, adding that the Limping Witch was none other than Nyawlra. The Ruler was so moved by his devotion that he embraced him. Thereafter, for several weeks Kaniürü could do no wrong, and when the Ruler decided to announce the birth of multiparty democracy, Kaniürü was his closest confidant. It was Kaniürü who had come up with the brilliant idea for the graphics of Baby D and the performance of its unveiling.

  When the Ruler pondered the implications of Kaniürü’s act of valor, he was even more elated than at first. Nyawlra was more useful dead than alive in more ways than just the removal of a threat. He would trumpet her fate as an example to presumptuous women who dare assume male prerogatives.

  His initial feelings about the elimination of the Wizard of the Crow were more ambiguous. The sorcerer had turned out to be useful after all. The claims of the Ruler’s pregnancy that he had started had allowed the Ruler to turn the tables on his detractors. But still, the ordeal!

  8

  Even now, in his residence, at the table, in bed, the Ruler shuddered on recalling the day and hour of the explosions. His intention had been to direct the open-air performance outside the grounds of the Parliament buildings and law courts so as to thwart the efforts of the so-called People’s Assembly. He was eager to win what was shaping up as a battle of wills between him and the Wizard of the Crow, and, despite the pain he was suffering, he had sensed victory. One way or another, the Wizard of the Crow would yield, and the Ruler had decided to dispatch him to the next world only after the wizard had conferred on him his occult powers. But then he felt the ballooning of his body and the contractions intensifying: he had managed to authorize only one helicopter to take to the sky and disburse Burl bills before the mobile phone had fallen from his hands. He was possessed by unbearable pain and about to explode. Before his descent into blankness, he felt as if his being was on the verge of bursting through the orifices of his body. When he later emerged from unconsciousness, he found himself mired in the darkness of his filth, still slowly escaping through the roof, blasted by the force of his corruption.

  His only casualty was a forked tongue. Otherwise, and despite being exhausted, he felt tall and powerful as he lay there overwhelmed by his contribution to universal darkness.

  He remained in a hypnotic state for twenty-eight hours, until his generals emerged from their hiding places, insisting that they had been busy investigating the source of the bombing. He knew they were lying but it did not matter: their explanations later became the unified story of the heroics of the Ruler and his generals as they battled terrorist bombs.

  But he never forgot their reaction, and when later he had a meeting with Tajirika, one of his most trusted counselors, he reminded him of the advice the counselor had once tried to give about having a super-eye over the military.

  “What did you mean?” he now asked.

  “An eye to keep an eye on all the other eyes,” answered Tajirika, as if he had thought the whole thing through. “And on the chiefs of the armed forces,” he added. “Somebody who, while keeping a friendly contact with the military, would actually be checking on their contacts, conducts, and movements.”

  “Do you have somebody in mind?”

  Tajirika had always wanted an ally in the inner circles of power, and he suggested his friend Wonderful Tumbo.

  “The officer who trained that other officer who fought with djinns?”

  “Yes, A.G., who unfortunately later succumbed to sorcery and lost his job,” Tajirika said. “But Wonderful Tumbo had done wonders with him!”

  It resulted in Tumbo’s immediate promotion from a chief of a police post to an officer installed in the State House as the Ruler’s General Liaison Officer.

  They talked about the disappearance of Nyawlra and the Wizard of the Crow. Tajirika looked at his thumbs and realized almost suddenly that the sorcerer who had dogged his life since he had first come to his offices at Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate, pretending to look for a job, would no longer shadow his life. His powers to ever do Tajirika harm, even a simple harm like withdrawing the protective magic he had once given him, had gone forever.

  “You have conquered the Wizard of the Crow. You have triumphed over our enemies,” Tajirika told the Ruler, tears of personal gratitude threatening to spill.

  For seven nights and days the Ruler thought about Tajirika’s words, for they echoed vague thoughts in his mind, and then it dawned on him ever so clearly why everything had been going so smoothly.

  On the day of the autoexplosion he had not only conquered the bodily form of the Wizard of the Crow but had also incorporated his occult powers into himself. With the wizard and the Limping Witch out of the way, he was the sorcerer supreme, able to manipulate Aburlria, the West, the Global Ministry of Finance, the Global Bank, democracy, the living and the dead—the whole lot. He was now the number one sorcerer in all of Aburlria.

  9

  But he had nothing else to conquer, he moaned. No more adversaries to overcome. After sending his two beloved ministers, Kaniürü and Tajirika, to America for talks with the Global Ministry of Finance, the Global Bank, and the American government, the Ruler retreated to his private chambers at the State House, where he wept freely, agonizing over his dilemma. Even when the official hostess tried to calm him down the Ruler could not be consoled; he fumed for want of challenges from worthy adversaries.

  One night his grief reminded him of tears he had hoped to see but had not seen. His wife, Rachael, had resisted his attempts to break her and had yet to beg for mercy and forgiveness. His grief at the lack of challenge now became a rage at the thought of a woman defying him and getting away with it. He called the guard permanently stationed at the entrance to Rachael’s seven-acre plantation and engaged him in idle conversation. He learned, what had been the subject of rumors for months, that late at night when people should be snoring in their beds, Rachael could be seen roaming about the yard or the house, bearing a light, a lantern, perhaps, like a ghost. To the plantation we go, he called out to his loyal biographer late one night. He wanted this moment recorded to become a centerpiece of the official biography.

  What happened when the Ruler, accompanied by Luminous Karamu-Mbu, went to visit Rachael that night is much disputed. The guard with the key to the gate at the entrance to the compound was nowhere to be seen. There are those who say that the Ruler squeezed through a narrow opening between the wall and the gate and, given his new slim body, this posed no proble
m. He crawled on his belly the rest of the way to catch Rachael unaware before she could wipe her tears away. When finally he reached the house, he peered through a window, and it was then that Rachael, still wearing the dress she wore the night they had quarreled over his predilections for young girls, and thinking that she had seen a long-necked something with a tiny head and a forked tongue, threw the lantern at the thing. The paraffin poured out, the house caught fire, and, seeing this, the Ruler and Luminous Karamu-Mbu ran back the way they came.

  Other accounts say no, it was not quite like that, the guard had been disappeared, and when the Ruler went to the house Rachael had come to the door and told him, I know it is you, and instead of crying she laughed in his face, and because she had not laughed for a long time her ribs shook with the laughter and collapsed from within, and Rachael disintegrated into a heap of dry bones. The lantern fell on the heap of bones, caught fire, and the flames from the fire of her immolation ignited the rest of the house, spreading to the plantation. A ball of fire detached itself from the rest and pursued the fleeing Ruler and his faithful biographer all the way back to the gates of the State House.

  The memory of the ball of fire in relentless pursuit gave him insomnia, and to induce sleep the Ruler had his loyal biographer, Luminous Karamu-Mbu, read him a chapter from the book he was writing. The biography was not complete, a work in progress, the biographer would say, but the Ruler told him to read from the copious notes he had taken. Every night a chapter was read, and this made the Ruler revisit the scenes of his past challenges, battles, and triumphs, a strange sensation, almost as if he were living his life twice or thrice over again. There were sections that the Ruler wanted read over and over again, often telling him what to take out and what to add. One night he told Luminous Karamu-Mbu to read the section that dealt with his most recent triumph, and the biographer faithfully read how blasts of thunder like stealthy missiles had fired from each of his seven orifices and then exploded in turns; he had described in detail how the second blast of thunder had launched the foreign doctors sky high and how he, Luminous Karamu-Mbu, bravely hung on till he, too, was launched, a human missile, into the sky, by the fifth or sixth blast of thunder, and so had no details of the seventh but … The Ruler did not listen to the end, for his mind was occupied with the sudden realization that the loyal biographer knew too much, that if he could write and record what happened so openly, so vividly, and so graphically, an account that completely contradicted the official version of the Ruler’s and his generals’ heroics as they struggled with bombs exploding, what could he inadvertently say about the story of Rachael and the plantation fire? This man had no imagination to sugarcoat reality and make it more palatable. How did I engage such a foolr