Petals of Blood

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  ‘As for me, it’s a game . . . of money . . . You eat or you are eaten . . . And now I can go anywhere . . . even to their most expensive clubs . . . they are proud to be seen with me . . . even for one night . . . and they pay for it . . . I have had to be hard . . . It is the only way . . . the only way . . . Look at Abdulla . . . reduced to a fruit seller . . . oranges . . . sheepskins . . . No, I will never return to the herd of victims . . . Never . . . Never . . .’

  She ended on a kind of savage screaming tone, as if she was answering doubts inside her. Karega sensed the doubt and now looked at her more intently. There was a hardness on her face that he could not now penetrate. He felt the needle-sharp ruthless truth of her statement: you eat or you are eaten. Had he not seen this since he was forced out of school? Had he not himself lived this truth in Mombasa, Nairobi, on the tea and coffee plantations? On the wheat and sugar estates and in the sugar mills? This was the society they were building: this was the society they had been building since Independence, a society in which a black few, allied to other interests from Europe, would continue the colonial game of robbing others of their sweat, denying them the right to grow to full flowers in air and sunlight.

  And suddenly it was not her that he was looking at, seeing, but countless other faces in many other places all over the republic. You eat or you are eaten. You fatten on another, or you are fattened upon. Why? Why? Something in him revolted against this: deep inside, he could not accept the ruthless logic of her position and statement. Either. Or. Either. Or. In a world of beasts of prey and those preyed upon, you either preyed or you remained a victim. But there were some, the many in fact, who could not, who would never acquire the fangs and the claws with which to prey. Yet what was the alternative to the truth she had uttered?

  ‘No, no,’ he found himself saying. ‘There is another way: there must be other ways.’ And suddenly in that moment, remembering in a flash all the places he had been to, he was clear about the force for which he had been searching, the force that would change things and create the basis of a new order.

  ‘In this world?’ she asked, half contemptuously.

  ‘Must we have this world? Is there only one world? Then we must create another world, a new earth,’ he burst out, addressing himself to all the countless faces he had seen and worked with from Kilindini through Central to Western Region.

  ‘H’m! Another world!’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes. Another world. A new world,’ he reiterated.

  ‘We must go!’ Munira suddenly shouted, standing up, He reached for the door and rushed outside, as if driven by a demon.

  Karega stood up, walked to the door, and then hesitated and looked back at Wanja.

  She had not risen or raised her head. She remained sitting in one place, truly queen of them all under the electric light; her head was bowed slightly and it was as if, under the bluish light of her creation, the wealth she had so accumulated weighed on her heavily, as if the jewelled, rubied cord around her neck was now pulling her and her very shadow to the ground, so that she would not rise to say goodbye, or to shut the door.

  Karega went out. He could not find Munira outside but he walked determinedly toward the town centre, the heart of New Ilmorog, where light and smoke and the roar of a distant machine announced that a night shift of workers continued the relay to keep the factory roaring its pride and power over Ilmorog.

  In his own place, Munira fell down on the bed and repeated: Another world, a new world. Could it really be true? Was it possible?

  Chapter Twelve

  1 ~ ‘And what does this rather . . . eeh . . . poetic business mean, Mr Munira?’

  Munira leaned over the table to see what the officer was pointing at, what it was that he had picked out of all the things Munira had scribbled. Munira was relieved that after almost nine days of isolation they were now face to face.

  ‘Oh, a new earth, another world?’ Munira queried in his turn, sitting back on the hard bench, eyeing the officer with immense pity at the earthly film of ignorance that covered his face, making it seem hard and totally removed from what Munira saw as the overriding need for the acceptance of sins and salvation through grace.

  ‘Yes,’ the officer said, the aloof, tolerant boredom in his eyes. ‘What did it mean to you that night?’

  Munira thought a while. He momentarily relived that scene two years back in Wanja’s blue-lit sitting-room on the night of Karega’s sudden return: he felt as if the jewelled, miniskirted body seeming so far away, so lonesome, and yet to him now carrying the power of satanic evil, would raise the head and pierce into his weakness, his fragile defence. It’s me, it’s me, oh Lord, he heard an inner voice calling, and he felt more secure and able to face the police officer. It was now his tenth day in the remand prison. He had been expecting this second visit with some dread, true, but at times feverishly looking forward to it, to his release from bondage, and yet when the time came for a second encounter he was surprised, wanted to put off the final confrontation to another day. After the usual breakfast of porridge in enamelled tin cups, he saw that instead of locking him back inside the cell or else letting him loose in the exercise yard as had been the established pattern, the policeman was taking him straight to the bare desk and walls that they called the office. Munira protested that he had not completed the document but this protest was faintly voiced because he was rather tired of the whole business. Inspector Godfrey had ignored his demurs, and had gone ahead with questions, perfunctorily turning over the pages of his prison notes.

  ‘This . . . eeh . . . this new world . . . what was it? You keep on referring to it . . .’

  Munira tried. It had always seemed clear to himself except when he tried to communicate the vision to somebody else. And now, with mounting despair, he realized how difficult the task before him was: how was it possible to impress on a man administering the corrupt laws of a corrupt world, the overwhelming need and necessity for higher laws, pure, eternal, absolute, unchanging? How was it that even the wisest in the kingdom of this world could not see what was open even to a child? The tune that had altered his life and outlook vibrated at the nerve centre of his spiritual being:

  Tukiacha dhambi, Mfalme mwema

  Hata tukifa, Tutawala tena

  Halleluya, Halleluya

  Hata tukifa, Tutawala tena.

  He wanted to sing it loud, but instead he found himself talking calmly about his new-found land.

  ‘It was not a sudden thing, you understand. It was that the words coming out of his mouth, amidst that perfumed squalor, and this after five years of exile and wandering, were strangely disquieting. Out of the mouth of babes, saith the Lord. And uttered after that story, after the tortured self-revelation of a sinful woman. I believe now that the word of God is revealed to us not in a context of our choosing. I had heard those selfsame words from Ironmonger, from my mother, from my wife, but they had never really rung a bell. A new earth. Another world. I kept on turning them over in my heart and mind. I couldn’t thereafter drink Theng’eta in peace. My body thirsted for it out of a five-year habit, but my heart was not there. At the bottom of Wanja’s story and experience was an injustice that did not make sense. I knew her story now and yet . . . yet . . . Teaching became even more tedious. How could I continue teaching them how to fit into a world I was beginning to reject, a world that was fundamentally illogical and evil? How could I explain this: that Ironmonger was replaced by Cambridge Fraudsham, that Fraudsham was replaced by Chui, that Chui owned a factory in Ilmorog, that he was one of Wanja’s lovers, that he sold beer, with a slogan that I had first invented? How . . . how . . . how could it be that Wanja had run away from Kimeria only to fall more fatally into his arms? He too was now her lover. And Mzigo . . . and Karega . . . and the breaking up of the Ilmorog that I knew? Nothing made sense. Abdulla had fought for independence . . . he was now selling oranges and sheepskins to tourists and drinking Theng’eta to forget the forced demolition of his shop. Yes. Nothing made sense. Education. Work
. My life. Accidents. I was an accident. I was a mistake, doomed to a spectator’s role outside a window from a high building. I started going to church. The New Ilmorog Anglican Church was built with donations from Christians in Kenya, and from churches abroad, and it was an impressive affair, only a few yards away from the ashes of the once proud homestead of Mwathi wa Mugo, now, as you can see, an archaeological museum. Rev. Jerrod Brown was the head and the spiritual shepherd of this New Anglican parish community in Ilmorog. There were many cars outside: all the makes from all over the world. I would listen to him preach from prepared texts, admonishing people about drinking, too many divorces, too fast driving, the need to give to the church, and other sins of omission and commission. Nothing had changed from the content of the prayers except that for the ‘King’ they now put ‘President’. Once I wanted to go and announce to him: I am so and so, son of so and so, whom you once turned away from your house hungry. Now I am not hungry for earthly food, I am burning in a hell of molten fire – help me. But remembering my experience in his house in Blue Hills, I thought he might be equally mean with his spiritual diet. I continued going to church. I was weighed down by a sense of guilt, as if I had contributed to Wanja’s degradation and the evil of the world, and I felt a tremendous need for forgiveness. Once I even wrote to my wife. I said that I was beginning to see that her way was indeed the right way. Walk your way all the way, I had ended it, and then suddenly tore it up. I would occasionally join Abdulla where he was selling oranges and sheepskins and mushrooms to passers-by on the Trans-Africa Road and tourists. Maimed. Wanja had once said that we were all like Abdulla but instead of our limbs it was our souls that were maimed.

  ‘It was at this time we heard the terrible news: the lawyer had been murdered. He had been taken from a big hotel and taken a mile or so from the Blue Hills and he was shot and left for the hyenas to eat. For the first time in a long while Karega, Wanja, Abdulla and Njuguna met. We had not planned it: it just happened that we all strolled to Njuguna’s iron-roofed house. His wife gave us milk and nobody touched it. We talked about everything else but the murder of the lawyer. Except Njuguna. The words seemed to just escape his lips: ‘And it was on the same pass where we once trod on our way to the city.’

  ‘Nobody answered him. How, I kept asking myself, how could they murder a man who was only a help to the poor? He had contributed to every Harambee effort in the land: he had wealth, but he did try to share it out without regard to class, religion and tribe. How? Why? We all dispersed to our different hovels and I asked myself: How could I let this mistake continue, standing outside the gate of things, and I a teacher? I was on the verge of a decision. And that Sunday I did not go to church. I suddenly hated the very sound of Jerrod’s voice, his sermons and his prayers. I walked from my house toward Ilmorog ridge, ready to end the accident by another accident. The game could not continue. And then suddenly I saw the group. They were dressed in white kanzus and they were drumming. They were surrounded by curious children, a few women and men. I stopped to listen. She was now preaching and her voice cut into me: We have all sinned and come short of the glory of the Lord. I could not believe my eyes: it was Lillian, transformed Lillian leading a group of men and women in prayers and sermons and speaking in tongues. She talked of a new earth, another world, that knew not classes and clans, that levelled the poor and the wealthy, once they accepted the eternal law of God. Not churches; not learning; not positions; not good works: just acceptance, in faith, and behold: a new earth and a new heaven. I trembled. It was too simple. Yet, yet what else could be true, could make sense? We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. She spoke with all the power of many voices gone, of many voices to come, of a world to be. Only accept: only accept: my heart beat with her voice and the authority of joy behind it. Not learning, not wealth, not good works, only accept. The law. The eternal law. Will you now accept this new life with Christ? It was as if the question was directed at me: It was as if she could read my heart. How strange that Lillian should have crossed my path at that very day, that particular hour. I looked at her, at her eyes, her transformation and I asked myself: whence from this power in her who only the other day was using the same religion as part of the amorous game? In that second, everything was revealed to me. And I truly beheld a new earth, now that Christ was my personal saviour. He would level mountains and valleys and would wrestle Satan to the ground and conquer the evil that is this world. New life with Christ in Christ. I accepted the law. My knees trembled. I humbled myself to the ground and cried: “I accept, I accept.” I felt tears of gratitude and joy. My years of agony and doubt and pursuit of earthly pleasures were over . . .’

  There was a quiet but firm conviction in Munira’s voice that somehow carried Inspector Godfrey. It had made him listen without the usual boredom that had characterized his investigative relationship with Munira. Behind the boredom was of course a questioning, calculating mind sifting words, storing phrases and looks and gestures, also looking for a line, a key, a thread, a connection, an image that would help tie everything together. He now sighed back into his chair and the boredom returned:

  ‘Interesting – very interesting. And yet, Mr Munira, I believe you were always to be seen either with Karega or Wanja or Abdulla . . . I thought that you – please excuse my curiosity – but you being no longer of this evil world would . . . eeh . . . well . . . abandon it and keep the company of the holy . . . Lillian, for instance.’

  ‘You don’t understand. It is enjoined upon us to bring others to see the light. I wanted each one of them to discover this new world . . .’

  ‘Mr Munira . . . isn’t it true . . . and again excuse me if I am a little mixed up . . . isn’t it true that Karega also used to talk to the workers about a new world?’

  ‘That was it,’ Munira said excitedly. ‘You are following, you are beginning to see. I wanted to save him . . . I wanted to save him first from it—!’

  Inspector Godfrey suddenly clutched at the sides of the table and interrupted almost hoarsely:

  ‘It . . . what . . . what do you mean?’

  ‘His dreams . . . his devil’s dreams and illusions . . . save him from committing the unforgivable sin . . .’

  ‘What sin? Please, Mr Munira, don’t talk in parables! What scheme? What sin? Please tell me . . . and be quick about it.’

  The officer’s lower lip was trembling. He was like a hound on a hot scent. Munira looked at him, at his bloodshot eyes, and said:

  ‘Why, of pride. Of thinking that he and his workers could change the evil . . . could change this world . . .’

  The officer let out his breath and suddenly looked exhausted. He had lost the scent and he felt like kicking the holy fanatic of a teacher outside the office.

  ‘Did he say how he intended to change the world, apart from inciting strikes, go-slow, work to rule and all that communist nonsense?’

  ‘It is his pride I am talking about. His pride in even contemplating that one man unaided by God through Christ could change himself, could change the world, could improve on it.’

  ‘I now understand your “IT”. But this I believe was only at first . . . what other evil were you going to save him from?’

  ‘Her!’

  ‘Whom?’

  ‘Wanja.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He had started seeing her secretly. I am sure of it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘About a week before the fire. They were meeting at her old hut. But Abdulla—’

  The officer was on his feet again. His lips were trembling. He stared at Munira.

  ‘Are you sure, very sure?’

  ‘Yes. I saw them. I saw them,’ he said quietly, as a doubt darted through his mind. Suppose, he thought, and he was about to add something when the officer suddenly stood up and rushed to the door. He had picked up the scent and this time he was determined not to lose it. Munira shouted at him.

&nb
sp; ‘Stop . . . wait . . . I’ve not finished.’

  The officer looked back over his shoulder and waited, on legs ready to spring on in the chase. Munira approached.

  ‘What have you done to him? What have you done with Karega?’

  ‘Stupid fool,’ hissed the officer and shouted an order. ‘. . . Take him back . . . I’ll be seeing him later.’ And he hurried on toward the other cells.

  2 ~ To Karega the morning of his arrest, ten days earlier, was still doubly bitter because he had just listened to the six o’clock news bulletin only to hear that because of the tense situation in Ilmorog after the killing of Kimeria, Chui and Mzigo, the planned strike was banned. They always take the side of the employers, he reflected in anger. I knew they would seize on the excuse of the arson to ban the strike and aim yet another blow at the fledgling workers’ movement.

  He was in a cell all by himself for a whole day and night. He wondered what fake charges they would bring against him. He had only been arrested once: that time that he and Munira and Abdulla had led a ‘donkey’ delegation to the city. Then they were saved from prison by the lawyer. Such a long time ago, he thought. And the lawyer had been killed. He had not quite been able to understand the lawyer: he genuinely loved people: he could see and even analyse what had happened in a way that few others could do: yet . . . he seemed at the same time fascinated by property and the social power and authority that this gave him. ‘You see,’ he had once explained to Karega, ‘they can’t fault me on education or on professional qualifications. They can’t fault me on involvement in the struggle. I had as a boy taken the batuni oath and used to be a go-between for the fighting units. I would dress as a Boy Scout so I could go to places unmolested. They can’t fault me on property. They can’t say I am a Kaggia.’ He had laughed at the pun. ‘So I can speak fearlessly for the poor and for land and property reforms – put a ceiling on what a person can accumulate . . . one man, one kiosk, that kind of thing. One shamba, one man, that kind of thing. One job, one man, and so on.’ His brutal death had shocked Karega as it had shaken the whole land. Such a fine stock . . . with all his faults, he represented the finest and most courageous in a line of courageous and selfless individuals from among the propertied men and women of Kenya; from some of the feudal mbari lords at the turn of the century who, despite bribes of beads and calico and the lure of white-protected power, would not side with the hordes of colonial invaders but died fighting with the people, to others in the thirties and fifties who, despite education and property, refused to betray the people for a few favours from the British. Oh, a long time ago, he thought again as he recalled how the lawyer had effected their release from the Central Police Station and from the law court. Those scenes now appeared as faint outlines of distant landscapes in another country. Even in himself he could not recognize the dreamer who once could talk endlessly about Africa’s past glories, Africa’s great feudal cultures, as if it was enough to have this knowledge to cure one day’s pang of hunger, to quench an hour’s thirst or to clothe a naked child. After all, the British merchant magnates and their missionary soothsayers once colonized and humiliated China by making the Chinese buy and drink opium and clubbed them when they refused to import the poison, even while the British scholars sang of China’s great feudal cultures and stole the evidence in gold and art and parchments and took them to London. Egypt too. India too. Syria, Iraq . . . God was born in Palestine even . . . and all this knowledge never once deterred the European merchant warlords. And China was saved, not by singers and poets telling of great past cultures, but by the creative struggle of the workers for a better day today. No, it was not a people’s past glories only, but also the glory of their present strife and struggles to right the wrongs that bring tears to the many and laughter only to a few. The Ilmorog whose past achievements had moved him so after listening to Nyakinyua was not there any more. Within only ten years – how time galloped, he thought – Ilmorog peasants had been displaced from the land: some had joined the army of workers, others were semi-workers with one foot in a plot of land and one foot in a factory, while others became petty traders in hovels and shanties they did not even own, along the Trans-Africa Road, or criminals and prostitutes who with their stolen guns and over-used cunts eked a precarious living from each and everybody – workers, peasants, factory owners, blacks, whites – indiscriminately. There were a few who tried their hands at making sufurias, karais, water tins, chicken-feeding troughs; shoemakers, carpenters; but how long would they last, seeing that they were being driven out of their trades by more organized big-scale production of the same stuff? The herdsmen had suffered a similar fate: some had died; others had been driven even further out into drier parts away from the newly enclosed game-parks for tourists, and yet others had become hired labourers on wheatfields or on farms belonging to wealthier peasants. And behind it all, as a monument to the changes, was the Trans-Africa Road and the two-storeyed building of the African Economic Bank Ltd.