Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong

  “And what does Kaniürü do now?” he asked her.

  “I believe he is still a teacher at the Ruler’s Polytechnic. But you won’t believe this. I hear he recently became a member of the Ruler’s glorious youthwing that the Ruler talked about in his famous television address to the nation, following the incident of the snakes at the park, in an effort to attract the youth away from the propaganda of the Movement for the Voice of the People.”

  “A new Aburlria, indeed,” Kamltl commented. “Even a college teacher a youthwinger!”

  They were silent for a while.

  “And how did you end up in the streets, begging?” Kamltl asked, wondering whether she shared his desperation. Or did the divorce from Kaniürü and the separation from her father have anything to do with it? “I would never have imagined meeting a university woman begging in the streets!”

  “Weren’t you just talking about a new Aburlria? If fifty-year-old university professors are becoming the Ruler’s youthwingers, why can’t university graduates become beggars?”

  “I didn’t mean university graduates in general, but women graduates. Like you, for instance.”

  “Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?” Nyawlra asked rather sharply. “Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood} Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions’? Mariam Ba of Senegal, So Long a Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.”

  “I am not much of a reader of fiction,” Kamltl said. “Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.”

  “Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?” Nyawlra pressed. “Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things’? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines’? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!”

  “I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,” Kamltl said, trying to redeem himself. “Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads… Not that I read everything, but…”

  “I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,” Nyawlra said. “The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women?”

  “To be very frank,” Kamltl said, trying to steer the talk away from the subject of women writers, “the books that most fascinate me are those about Egypt and Ethiopia, the entire area of the Nile, the Red Sea, and the coastline. I have a theory that the coastline of the Indian Ocean was once a cultural highway with constant migrations and exchange. There are hardly any women who write about that. I will start reading books by women writers. Perhaps you can recommend some. But you did not answer my question. What were you doing in beggars’ clothes at the Ruler’s Square?”

  “What about you?” Nyawlra asked. “What were you doing there?”

  Before Kamltl could answer, she was laughing again, as if a new thought had seized her.

  “What is it?” Kamltl asked. Was her laughter at the expense of his ignorance about women writers?

  “It occurred to me as you were talking about Egypt and Ethiopia… how did you become so knowledgeable about witchcraft and magic potions?” she managed to say in between bouts of laughter.

  At the mention of his foray into magic, and remembering the look on the police officer’s face, Kamltl, too, broke into hysterics.

  9

  “When we were children we used to play witchcraft. We would stick a wooden spike through a bundle of leaves, a dead frog or lizard, and one or two Sodom apples and then plant the spike in a path. From a safe distance we kept an eye on it, and what excited us most was to see adults, grown men and women, avoiding any contact with the bundle. Some would even take a step or two back, then give it a wide berth. Nobody dared touch it; there were times when the bundle remained in place, Lord knows, for days.

  “Just outside the village was a big orchard of plums, pears, mangoes, oranges, tangerines, and lemons, and whenever we passed anywhere near this garden of Eden, the landowner would set his dogs on us children so that we would not steal his fruit. Some of the children did actually find a way of climbing over the fence; they would come back with their pockets bulging with fruit. Still, we did not like his chasing us with dogs on a public path, and we hated even more that he took us all to be thieves deserving of punishment whether we had stolen anything or not. One day we decided to test our witch power on our tormenter. We prepared the magic bundle in the same way but made it more potent. To the dead frogs and Sodom apples and leaves we added dead chameleons and planted the wood spike in a corner of the orchard where passersby could see it.

  “Well, it did work, a bit too well for our comfort. The farmer was so terrified that he hired the services of a witch doctor to undo the power of the evil no doubt planted in his land by envious rivals. His countermeasure did not help, for people were now afraid of getting caught between two contending magics. Word spread so that wholesale buyers and retailers from other areas refused to touch the man’s fruit.

  “He was saved from ruin by an Indian buyer who said that African magic was no match for Indian magic and bought the fruits at the price of damaged goods. He claimed that he was going to spend more money getting the fruits cleansed with potent potions imported directly from India.

  “At first we the magic workers were happy about our success and thought that we were cleverer than the adults and all the professional witch doctors because we had fooled them all. But, thinking that our parents, who also hated the landlord, would be happy, we let them in on our triumphs. The thrashing we got removed all thoughts of our ever dabbling in witchcraft again, until tonight.”

  “Why did they beat you, for indulging in witchcraft or for using it to ruin the landlord?”

  “Probably both; how dare children do that to an adult and a neighbor at that, but I think more for playing at witchcraft. Who knows? Even innocent deeds by babes might excite dangerous spirits from the netherworld to come and haunt the living. Whatever the case, we should have known that our parents were unlikely to say to us, Thank you for your ambition to become witch doctors.”

  “But thank you for your magic tonight. It saved us,” Nyawlra said. “Now tell me this,” she added in a slightly more serious vein. “When did you join the band of beggars? I had not seen you in the group before.”

  Kamltl gobbled another mouthful of ugali.

  “Where shall I begin?” he asked as a means of clearing the way for his story. “I come from KTambugi. My parents were not rich, so paying for my schooling was a burden. They had to sell off their chickens, goats, and eventually their land, thus leaving us with nothing for a rainy day. When I finished college, I thought my time had come to show my gratitude. Aburlria thought otherwise. I have been a pest to my friends-this one for a place to spend the night, another for something to put in my belly. Borrowing here and there for bus fare.”

  “And Bahati? You told me you lived in Bahati!” she asked.

  “I am sorry-I lied, or rather I misled you. I was playing with the word’s dual meaning, suggesting a place to you, which it is. But it was really that I live wherever luck and chance guide me. Then one day I told myself, I must no longer burden my friends. I will follow in the footsteps of John the Baptist and make my bed in the wilderness. And like the homeless I would seek my sustenance in the garbage dump. At first it felt good that I no longer humiliated myself before my friends; but still, even my self-debasement was hard on the soul. If you lose self-esteem, what are you left with?

  “The question nagged me, and then one day I decided that my life must take another direction, a different direction, the way
of a Buddhist monk. So it was that I decided on two uniforms: that of the job seeker by day and that of the beggar by night. Tonight was my first night as a beggar, and see where it got me…”

  Kamltl stopped abruptly. He felt that Nyawlra was not really listening to him, and he was right. He looked at her and her eyes said it all, even as she voiced her disbelief.

  “You mean you were there to beg for real?” she asked.

  “Why weren’t you?” Kamltl responded, puzzled.

  “You mean… you are not… not one of us?”

  “How do you mean, one of you? What were you doing outside Paradise in the rags of a beggar?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, really. We oppose the Buler’s birthday cake and the Global Bank mission of putting us in a permanent debt trap. We must all oppose this business of Marching to Heaven.”

  “By pretending to be poor and beggars?” Kamltl asked, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “What is the connection between doing politics and donning rags? Do you think that begging is theater?”

  “A theater of politics,” she shot back. “The water I drink, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the bed I sleep on, are all determined by politics, good or bad. Politics is about power and how it is used. Politics involves choosing sides in the struggle for power. So on which side are you?”

  “Must one always be on this or that side? I believe in humanity, divine, indivisible. We all need to look deeply in our hearts and the humanity in us will be revealed in all its glory. Then greed and the drive to humiliate others will come to a halt.”

  “And this glorious humanity you wax so poetic about, what turns it against itself? Original sin?”

  “Listen. I am not a priest. I am not a politician. The tribulations of this world are too much for me and my will.”

  “So why did you choose to stand outside the gates of Paradise when there were so many other seven-star hotels around?”

  He did not respond immediately. Images of what had happened all day flashed across his mind. Tell it all to her, a stranger? No, not everything.

  “I did not choose to be there,” he now told her. “I just found myself there. I was blinded with anger and hunger. I went where they led me. What happens in life is fate. Fate falls like rain from Heaven above, and like rain it does not fall on all equally. Fortune, good and bad, comes from God.”

  Nyawlra interrupted him with a hymn:

  In the Christian Heaven we shall meet

  We shall meet in the Christian Heaven

  She laughed a little. Kamltl looked at her: this woman was chameleonlike. One moment she was a faithful secretary, then a player in the politics of poverty, and even a singing religious fanatic.

  “Are you religious?” she asked him.

  “Why?”

  “Because you said that the good and the bad come to us ready-made from Heaven above. Did you, when in India, convert to some religion that believes that the poor and the wealthy are born so? That their fate is predetermined? Then what would be the point of one looking into one’s heart for humanity revealed in all its glory? What if what one sees is tainted? What if the taint is fated?”

  “I don’t know,” Kamltl said vaguely.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Nyawlra pressed him. “How can you be religious and not know, or not know what religion you subscribe to?”

  “Because… because… I don’t know. Sometimes I feel overcome by unanswerable questions. Who created the universe? The lives in the bodies that die-where do they go? Or is life an illusion? Maya, as the Indian Shankara would teach. Sometimes at night, alone in the wilderness, lying on my back, looking at the stars and the vast universe, I feel lifted out… I mean, I hear voices telling me, Kamrö, why do you burden yourself with so much worry? See how big the universe is? What are you in the face of its immensity and eternity? No, I would not say that I am religious, but I believe in something greater than us. And you?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Animal of the Earth?” Nyawlra asked him suddenly. “Surely you’ve heard the rumor that the Ruler of Aburlria is a Devil worshipper and that he does so in the name of the Animal of the Earth?”

  Kamltl sensed rather than knew clearly what she was talking about, but it was enough to raise in him new suspicions. Could this woman be a member of the dreaded Ruler’s M5? And would that not explain why she had impersonated a beggar? Was he the victim of a new plot? Had she been trying to compromise him? If so, she was good at it. Her talk and kindness had already softened him. For although they did not see eye to eye on all the issues, their disagreements had so far not degenerated into anger or hatred. They talked as if they had grown up together, knowing each other in times of sorrow and happiness. Kamrö was so at ease in her presence that he felt as if he could reveal his innermost thoughts and experiences. But weren’t the agents of the State renowned for seducing their victims into lowering their guards, and then pouncing on them? Kamrö became wary of Nyawlra and withdrew into himself.

  “What do you mean by Animal of the Earth?”

  “That which crawls on its belly?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “The one that deceived Adam and Eve?” Nyawlra continued as she rose and went to her own beggar’s bag and bent over it. Kamltl was quite sure that he saw her take something out, which she now held behind her as she stood facing him.

  “Close your eyes,” she said, smiling.

  Kamltl pretended to cover his eyes with the palms of his hands while peeking through the gaps between his fingers.

  “Look now!” Nyawlra told him, dangling what she had been holding a few inches from his face. Kamltl jumped from his seat.

  “A snake!” he cried, bolting for the door.

  But Nyawlra beat him to it.

  “No, I will not let you go,” she said, brandishing the fork-tongued snake at him. “It is a viper. Very dangerous,” she whispered menacingly.

  10

  When growing up Kamltl used to hear stories of women who lived in the big waters who would sometimes appear alongside unsuspecting male swimmers and accompany them to the edges of the sea. Their faces were very beautiful, their swimming tops hung delicately over the tips of their pointed breasts, and their narrow waists seemed to be inviting the onlooker to embrace them.

  Standing on the shore, one could often spot them in the middle of the sea, astride the crests of the waves, splashing water on every side, racing one another to an unknown destination. Sometimes they would whistle the softest of tunes in the ears of male swimmers, and not many such men, especially when alone, could resist the power of the wordless songs. There were frightening stories of some who had followed these water-women all the way to their lairs under the sea, only to discover that the women had no feet, or rather that their lower body comprised a fishtail with scales big enough to cut a person into a thousand pieces. A few were lucky and escaped, but there were many others who were lost forever, victims of the alluring power of the female riders of the sea.

  There were other stories of other women who had the power to change themselves into whatever form they chose, gazelles, antelopes, but mostly cats. Many a young man had gone for a walk at twilight holding hands with the woman of his dreams, waiting for darkness to fall to satisfy his desire, only to find himself staring at the glowing eyes of a cat.

  Was Nyawlra one of these women of his childhood fears? Different images of her flashed across his mind. In the office, she is a secretary, on the roadside, a comforter. In the evening, she is a beggar among beggars. Later, in the prairie, she effortlessly outruns him and three police officers. Now she was blocking his escape, dangling a fork-tongued snake in front of him? Come to think of it, when telling stories, she had constantly been changing her voice in her mimicking of various characters. The number of times she had changed her name hinted at something! Had she not walked away from a car accident unscathed? And the bit about the donkey braying at the clinic… there was something about her that did not add up.


  A mixture of fear, frustration, and curiosity rooted him. He had always been terrified of snakes; the mention of them made his body quiver. She had said this one was poisonous. A bite on the nose or the eye would surely mean his end. What a day! What a night! The day had seen him narrowly escape burial in a dumpsite, but the night would see his life end with a snakebite! He feared what would transpire next. Would she change into an antelope, a gazelle of the prairie, or a cat? Or the mermaid that she was? She seemed indeed human, but with these women one could not be sure. What was a water-woman doing on land, anyway? He looked at her eyes and light danced in them. No, she was trying to hypnotize him, to distract his eyes from the snake.

  His eyes focused on the snake, he started moving backward, slowly, the water-woman following him step by step and in rhythm as in a choreographed dance. Even when he entered her bedroom, Kamrö did not see the bed in the middle, riveted as he was by the impending danger. Her mission, his death by snakebite, accomplished, she would turn into a bird and fly away to trap some other unsuspecting male or return to the sea to tell her water-sisters about her wicked triumph.

  Kamrö felt defiant. Even a bull in a slaughterhouse resists to the last; he refused to be a helpless victim. He pounced on Nyawlra.

  They wrestled on the floor as Kamrö reached for the hand that held the snake to pin it down. Nyawlra was too quick for him; she slipped his grip and grabbed his shirt as he tugged at her dress. Soon they were both half naked, pausing to stare at each other with mutual fascination. Kamltl had never seen a neck so long, so beautiful. Her eyes still shone brightly, like those of a cat at night. He looked for the snake on the ground, only to see it lying inert.

  “Oh, that! It is a plastic snake,” she said chuckling.

  Kamltl did not grasp the import of her words; he was transfixed on Nyawlra, her long gazelle neck, her shapely breasts so full, her nipples, the color of blackberry, so erect, the light in her eyes animating her. It was only after a second or two that the meaning of what she had said dawned on him.