A Grain of Wheat

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  ‘You – you have come back!’ she said, her face contorted by a half-frozen smile into something not of this world.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his body aflame with a desire to escape, which he again suppressed.

  ‘I knew you would come, I knew you would come to fetch me home,’ she seemed grotesque in her happiness. She attempted to rise and staggered back into her seat. Slowly she rose again.

  ‘All these years I’ve waited for you – I knew they had not really killed you – These people, do you know they didn’t believe me when I told them, when I tell them I have seen you?’

  She walked towards him. But Mugo was not listening to her wild muttering. For suddenly her face had changed. Mugo looked straight into the eyes of his aunt. A new rage moved him. Life was only a constant repetition of what happened yesterday and the day before. Only this time she would not escape. He would stop that oblique smile, that contemptuous glint in the eyes. But before he could move, the woman staggered back into her seat. The smile still lingered on her face. She did not move or make the slightest stir. And suddenly he knew: the only person who had ever claimed him was dead. He buried his face in his hands and stood thus for a few seconds.

  Later, he shut the door behind him and went into the drizzling rain. He did not continue with his earlier plans. Instead, he walked back to his hut. In the hut, he lit the oil-lamp and sat on the bed. He did not remove his wet clothes. He stared at the wall, opposite. There was nothing on the walls: no visions of blood, no galloping footsteps behind him, no detention camps, and Mumbi seemed a vague thing in a remote past. Occasionally he tapped the bed frame, almost irritably. Water dripped from his hair, down to his face and neck in broken lines; water dripped from his coat, again in broken lines, down his legs and on to the ground. A drop was caught in his right eyelashes and the light from the lamp was split into many tiny lashes. Then the drop entered his eye, melted inside, and ran down his face like a tear.

  He did not rub the eye, or do anything.

  There was a knock at the door. Mugo did not answer it.

  The door opened and General R., followed by Lt Koina, came in.

  ‘I am ready,’ Mugo said, and stood up, without looking at his visitors.

  ‘The trial will be held tonight,’ General R. pronounced, gravely. ‘Wambui will be the judge. Koina and I will be the only elders present at the hearing.’

  Mugo said nothing.

  ‘Your deeds alone will condemn you,’ General R. continued without anger or apparent bitterness. ‘You— No one will ever escape from his own actions.’

  General R. and Lt Koina led him out of the hut.

  Warui, Wambui

  Warui gazed out, avoiding the dull vacancy in Wambui’s eyes.

  ‘It has been going on for two days, this drizzle,’ he commented, prompted to say something by the unease he felt in Wambui’s hut. He sat, huddled near the door, with hands and feet buried under the blanket; his neck, ringed with wrinkles, and his grey head, were the only uncovered parts of his body. Wambui crouched, opposite him, her vacant eyes now and then resting on Warui before straying to the mist, and the rain, outside.

  ‘Such drizzling can go on for many days,’ she said with a dull voice. They both relapsed into silence, making a picture of bereaved children for whom life has suddenly lost warmth, colour, and excitement. There was no fire in the hearth. Bits of potato peelings, maize-husks and grass lay strewn on the floor as if the hut had not been lived in for a day or two. Under different circumstances, this would have surprised Warui or any visitor, because Wambui’s hut was one of the tidiest in the village. She swept the floor at least twice a day and cleaned utensils immediately after use. In the hut every utensil, every piece of equipment had its own place in various racks built against the walls. As for the mud walls, they were smeared with white ochre she bought from Weru, and she often checked to see that every crack was immediately filled and worn-out areas restored. ‘A man has nowhere else but where he lays his head,’ was the cryptic rejoinder to the many compliments on her tidiness. Warui had not seen her since the day of the big sacrifice. For the last two days people in Thabai had more or less kept to themselves, avoiding, by general consent, public discussions on the events of Uhuru day. There were things that puzzled Warui, questions for which, in vain, he sought answers in the heart. Failing, he had come to see Wambui. Yet they now conversed, as if they did not know what the other was talking about, as if they were both ashamed of certain subjects in one another’s presence.

  ‘Perhaps it is this cold that killed her,’ he tried again.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old woman.’

  ‘Ye-es!’ she said, irrelevantly, and sighed. ‘We all forgot her on that day. We should not have left her alone. She was old. Loneliness killed her.’

  ‘Why on that day, I keep on asking myself. She used to live alone, or is that not so?’

  ‘Then, life was around her. The smoke and the noise of children. On that day, all of us went to the meeting. All of us. There was no smoke anywhere, and there were no cries or laughter of children in the streets. The village was empty.’ She spoke as if building up a case in an argument.

  ‘But why on that day?’ Warui persisted in his doubt. He, too, seemed engaged in an argument, in the heart.

  ‘She was lonely, can’t you hear? Her son came for her. Gitogo fetched her home on that day,’ she finished with impatient irritation.

  ‘Yes. Things started changing in our village the day she started seeing visions of the dead.’

  Wambui looked at him. This time she did not say anthing.

  ‘And that day,’ Warui went on, ‘that day! First Gikonyo breaks his arm.’ He stopped unexpectedly and turned to Wambui. She was looking at the showers outside, indifferent to his words, to the questions in his heart. Looking in the same direction, he saw Mumbi suddenly emerge from the mist, a few yards from the door. Mumbi came into the hut, her feet wet, bespattered with mud. Water dripped down the sack with which she covered her head and back. She removed the sack, and shook it a little, before hanging it on a rack. Wambui gave her a seat near the door.

  ‘It’s cold,’ Mumbi said, holding herself together, making a hissing sound as she sucked in air through her closed teeth. ‘I am not in luck today. My mother is just making a fire at home, so I run away to this place because you always have a ready fire. See what I find.’

  ‘Did you go to the hospital today?’ Wambui inquired.

  ‘Yes, I was there with my mother-in-law. I go there every day.’

  ‘How is the arm?’

  ‘It is not badly broken, only cracked. He will be out soon.’

  ‘Something went wrong …’ Warui started again, slowly following his own thoughts. ‘Everybody gone. And a minute before, the field was covered with so many people, like in the days of Harry, you know, at the procession. Then in the twitching of an eyelid, all gone. The field was so empty. Only four (or were we five?) left. We slaughtered the rams – and prayed for our village. But it was like warm water in the mouth of a thirsty man. It was not what I had waited for, these many years.’

  ‘You say that, and it was the same with me, with everybody. I’d never once suspected that he … that Mugo had done it.’ With effort Wambui had mentioned the one name she and Warui had been avoiding. Mumbi did not say anything for a while.

  ‘He has not been found,’ Mumbi at last said in a changed voice.

  ‘Nobody has seen him since that day,’ Warui answered, as if Mumbi had asked a question.

  ‘Maybe he has bolted himself inside the hut,’ Wambui said.

  ‘I went there last night. The door was not locked, or bolted from the inside. I found nobody in.’

  ‘Perhaps he has left the village,’ Warui observed.

  ‘Or maybe he was in the latrine when you went in.’

  ‘But I went back to the hut this morning before I went to the hospital.’

  A small breeze blew rain-showers into their faces. Wambui rubbed the water from her
face with the back of her hand. Warui bent his head and rubbed his face against the blanket. Mumbi tilted backwards as if to move back her seat, and did nothing. They all retained their places near the door.

  ‘Perhaps I could have saved him. Perhaps I could if I had gone into the hut that night,’ Mumbi lamented.

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Wambui asked quickly, and turned her eyes away from Mumbi.

  ‘Mugo.’

  ‘There was nothing to save,’ Wambui said slowly. ‘Hear me? Nobody could have saved him … because … there was nothing to save.’

  ‘But you did not see his face, Wambui, you did not see him,’ Mumbi said in a heated voice. Then she lowered it and continued. ‘I mean the night before the meeting. When you sent me to see him – his face changed as with pain in the heart – I mean – his face was different as he told me about—’

  ‘What?’ Wambui and Warui asked together. This news seemed to have captured their interest.

  ‘About Kihika, my brother.’

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Yes. He told me.’

  ‘Maybe you should have told us this before the meeting,’ Wambui said accusingly, and lost interest in the news.

  ‘I did not want anything to happen. I never knew that he would later come to the meeting.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Warui agreed and resumed his thoughts in a puzzled, almost disappointed voice. ‘I was deceived by his eyes. But I ask myself: Why did he do all that in the trench and in detention?’

  Mumbi was the first to recover from this mood of introspection. She said:

  ‘I must go now. I’m sure the fire is ready at home. Perhaps we should not worry too much about the meeting … or … about Mugo. We have got to live.’

  ‘Yes, we have the village to build,’ Warui agreed.

  ‘And the market tomorrow, and the fields to dig and cultivate ready for the next season,’ observed Wambui, her eyes trying to see beyond the drizzle and the mist.

  ‘And children to look after,’ finished Mumbi as she stood up and took her rain-sack ready to leave. Then suddenly she turned round and looked at the two old people, as at aged wisdom which could tell youth the secrets of life and happiness.

  ‘Did any of you see General R. on the night of the meeting?’

  Wambui looked up at her with startled fear in her eyes. Warui was the first to answer without turning his eyes from the rain.

  ‘I have not seen him since he spoke at the meeting.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Wambui also said in a tone that rejected all responsibility in face of possible police inquiries.

  Mumbi went out. Soon Warui followed her out, still muttering to himself: ‘Something went wrong. I was deceived by his eyes, those eyes. Maybe because I am old. I am losing my sight.’

  Wambui sat on and watched the drizzle and the grey mist for a few minutes. Darkness was creeping into the hut. Wambui was lost in a solid consciousness of a terrible anti-climax to her activities in the fight for freedom. Perhaps we should not have tried him, she muttered. Then she shook herself, trying to bring her thoughts to the present. I must light the fire. First I must sweep the room. How dirt can so quickly collect in a clean hut! But she did not rise to do anything.

  Harambee

  Wamumu was Gikonyo’s last detention camp. He was kept there for a year. The detainees in this camp worked on a new irrigation scheme on the Mweya plains in Embu. They were converting the dry plains into rice-growing fields. As he dug canals, Gikonyo often looked across the flat plains and saw the Mbere and Nyambeni hills that cut Embu from Ukambani. He knew the land beyond belonged to Wakamba. Yet Gikonyo always imagined home and Mumbi as lying behind these hills.

  One clear morning he saw Kerinyaga; its snow-capped tops just touching the sky in the distant horizon moved him to tears. Not that he had a particular feeling for landscape. But the sight of the legendary mountain, its head thrust into the mist, somehow softened him in that way.

  This experience now stood fresh in Gikonyo as he convalesced in Timoro hospital. The medicine-smell in the hospital reminded him of the marshy-decay along the Tana river. It was at Mweya, on the same day, that he again seriously thought of carving a stool from wood, a wedding gift to Mumbi. The idea gradually took concrete shape as he worked in the sun amidst the river-decay and the muddy earth. He would carve the stool from a Muiri stem, a hardwood that grew around Kerinyaga, and Nyandarwa hills. The seat would rest on three legs curved into three grim-faced figures, sweating under a weight. On the seat he would bead a pattern, representing a river and a canal. A jembe or a spade would lie beside the canal. For days afterwards, Gikonyo thought about the carving. The men’s faces kept on changing; he altered the position of their shoulders, their hands or heads. How could he work a river in beads? Shouldn’t he replace a jembe with a panga? He puzzled over little details and this kept his mind and heart away from the physical drudgery. He hoped to work on the stool as soon as he left detention.

  Lying in hospital, Gikonyo was again possessed by a desire to carve the stool. He had been in Timoro for four days. For the last three days he thought of Mugo and the confession. Could he, Gikonyo, gather such courage to tell people about the steps on the pavement? At night he went over his life and his experiences in the seven detention camps. What precisely had all these years brought him? At every thought, he was pricked with guilt. Courage had failed him, he had confessed the oath in spite of vows to the contrary. What difference was there between him and Karanja or Mugo or those who had openly betrayed people and worked with the whiteman to save themselves? Mugo had the courage to face his guilt and lose everything. Gikonyo shuddered at the thought of losing everything. Every morning Mumbi and Wangari brought him food. At first he tried not to speak to Mumbi; he even found it painful to look at her. But after Mugo’s confession, he found himself trying to puzzle out Mumbi’s thoughts and feelings. What lay hidden behind her face? What did she think of Mugo and the confession? He increasingly longed to speak to her about Mugo and then about his own life in detention. What would she say about the steps that haunted him? Another thought also crept into his mind. He had never seen himself as father to Mumbi’s children. Now it crossed his mind: what would his child by Mumbi look like?

  It was on the fifth day that he recalled Mweya and his desire to carve a stool. He stirred in the hospital bed, careful not to lie on the plastered arm. At first it was a small flicker, the sort he used to feel at the sight of wood. Then, as he thought about it, he became more and more excited and his hands itched to touch wood and a chisel. He would carve the stool now, after the hospital, before he resumed his business, or in-between the business hours. He worked the motif in detail. He changed the figures. He would now carve a thin man, with hard lines on the face, shoulders and head bent, supporting the weight. His right hand would stretch to link with that of a woman, also with hard lines on the face. The third figure would be that of a child on whose head or shoulders the other two hands of the man and woman would meet. Into that image would he work the beads on the seat? A field needing clearance and cultivation? A jembe? A bean flower? He would settle this when the time came.

  On the sixth day, Mumbi did not appear at the hospital. Gikonyo was hurt, and also surprised to find how much he had looked forward to the visit. All day he remained restless and wondered what had happened to her. Had she stopped coming altogether? Had she reacted against his obdurate silence? He anxiously waited for the dawn, the following morning. If she did not—

  But she came, alone. Normally she and Wangari visited him together.

  ‘You did not come yesterday,’ he told her, accusingly. Mumbi sat on the bed and took her time before answering.

  ‘The child was ill,’ she said simply.

  ‘What – what is wrong with – him?’

  ‘Just a cold – or ‘flu.’

  ‘Did you take he – him to the dispensary?’

  ‘Yes!’ she said almost curtly. Gikonyo tried not to look at her. Mumbi appeared impatient and wanted
to go.

  ‘When do you leave hospital?’ she asked.

  ‘In two days’ time.’ Now he turned to her and just caught her eyes. She was not looking at him. He was surprised to find that tiredness in her eyes. How long had she been like this? What had happened to her over the last few days?’

  ‘I am going now,’ she said. ‘I may not come tomorrow – or the next day.’ She started to put things in the bag determinedly. He wanted to say: don’t go. But he suddenly said: ‘Let us talk about the child.’

  Mumbi, already on her feet, was surprised by these words. She sat down again and looked at him.

  ‘In here, at the hospital?’ she asked, without any excitement.

  ‘Now, yes.’

  ‘No, not today,’ she said, almost impatiently, as if she was now really aware of her independence. Gikonyo was surprised by the new firmness in her voice.

  ‘All right. When I leave the hospital,’ he said, and after an awkward pause, added: ‘Will you go back to the house, light the fire, and see things don’t decay?’

  She considered this for a while, her head turned aside. Then she looked at him, directly, in the eyes.

  ‘No, Gikonyo. People try to rub out things, but they cannot. Things are not so easy. What has passed between us is too much to be passed over in a sentence. We need to talk, to open our hearts to one another, examine them, and then together plan the future we want. But now, I must go, for the child is ill.’

  ‘Will you – will you come tomorrow?’ he asked, unable to hide his anxiety and fear. He knew, at once, that in future he would reckon with her feelings, her thoughts, her desires – a new Mumbi. Again she considered his question for a little while.