Wizard of the Crow

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong

  “I understand that all the cells are full,” Njoya said, trying to wriggle out of having to imprison the Wizard of the Crow.

  “Have him share a room with the madman.”

  12

  Tajirika felt humiliated at the manner of his removal from Sikiokuu’s office, but he turned his anger against Machokali and Vinjinia. Why had his friend not allowed him to be part of the delegation to the USA? he asked himself time and again. Machokali had said that he would call him now and then, but since leaving for America Machokali had not done so once. The doubts Sikiokuu had planted in his mind started to fester. Yet he still could not imagine any connection between Machokali and Vinjinia. But the pictures of his Vinjinia and the dancing women had shaken his trust in her. Not that he had much to begin with. Tajirika subscribed to the saying that the word of a woman or a child should be believed only after the hearer had slept on it. Nevertheless, there had been things he would have been prepared to swear that Vinjinia was incapable of, but now he was not so sure.

  The reports of his wife’s misdemeanor, in having women dance for her, were what hurt most. Although he believed that a woman was inherently untrustworthy, he took it that a man’s wife should be a paragon of virtue. A good man was judged by the goodness of his wife, and a good wife was known for her discretion and ability to cover for the failings of her husband. Such was the woman he had married. A woman who did not demand much from life! A woman who had long ago stopped asking him questions about where he spent the night. A woman who seemed completely satisfied with life around the kitchen and in the fields. A woman who never raised any questions about politics. That was the woman he thought he knew. Could she have feigned all that?

  Maybe Sikiokuu and company were right when they hinted that Nyawlra, whom they supposed to be the mother of all hypocrites, had something to do with the new Vinjinia. Indeed, there was no disputing that everything had started going wrong the day he became ill and Vinjinia started going to the office. If he himself had succumbed to Nyawlra’s slickness, why not Vinjinia? He acknowledged as much, yet he had expected her to have the wherewithal to avoid being so deceived as to end up in the company of shameless primitive dancers.

  Wife beating was a privilege if not a right of male power, and now in the cell he had no opportunity to measure his manhood. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he was reduced to imagining slapping his wife around and her screams for mercy and forgiveness. This allowed him to think more soberly about other things that weighed on him.

  Like the matter of Silver Sikiokuu.

  It was clear that the minister was setting an elaborate trap for Ma-chokali and needed Tajirika to pull it off. But what role was he meant to play? Sikiokuu’s call for him to think about “the real meaning” of if, white, and wish still buzzed in his ears. Was the role hidden in those words? And what was the payback? What was the deal? Sikiokuu had been enigmatic about it. Why?

  Sikiokuu was softening him up by having him put back in a cell where a bucket was his toilet. The guards emptied the pail once in three days, and sometimes they would not even keep to the schedule. So there were days when the pail overflowed with shit and urine, the stench becoming his daily and nightly companion. But Sikiokuu was underestimating his will to survive, as well as his business acumen. There was no way that Tajirika was going to accept just any deal without some kind of give-and-take.

  Tajirika did not put too much store in friendship. There was nothing he would not do to save his skin provided the price was right, except take part in anything touching the Buler’s life and power. That would mean certain death. So he was not about to accept that he may have heard others talking about a plot against the Buler.

  How he wished he knew precisely the hour and the day when the Buler and his entourage were returning! Tajirika concluded that he had no alternative but to wait for Sikiokuu to put a deal on the table or for Machokali to return from America, whichever came first.

  Late one night his jailers opened the door to his cell, flung a man inside, and closed the door again. Tajirika kept absolutely still in his corner, listening intensely to the breathing of his fellow prisoner. Unable to bear the silence after a while, Tajirika asked: Who are you?” But the man, whoever he was, did not answer him.

  He is perhaps a killer brought here in secrecy at midnight to do you harm, an inner voice told Tajirika. He broke out in a cold sweat and started shaking. The tension getting the better of him, he started screaming:

  “Don’t kill me. I beg you, don’t kill me. I have committed no crime. Have mercy on me. I have a wife and children. Please don’t spill innocent blood because of money. Whatever they have given you, I promise to double it.”

  “Sshh!” the man responded, but Tajirika was so self-absorbed that he did not hear him.

  “How much money have they given you?” Tajirika asked, and this time paused, anticipating a response.

  “What for?” the man asked.

  “To kill me.”

  “Why should I kill you? I don’t know you. I have never met you.”

  “That’s exactly what I am trying to impress upon you. I am innocent. I have never harmed a soul.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear. I will not kill you,” the man told him.

  “What did you say?”

  “Keep quiet. I will not kill you.”

  “Thank you, my savior. How much do you want?”

  “Why would I want your money?”

  “For sparing my life. For sparing me.”

  “Who told you that I am here to do away with you?”

  “Then who are you? And why have they brought you here?”

  “Listen,” the man said angrily. “I have no idea who you are. I’m not in the mood to chat. Go to sleep and let me do the same,” the man said, and then kept quiet.

  But to Tajirika, the man’s ensuing silence was ominous. He is all pretense. He wants to lull me to sleep, then murder me.

  “Don’t think that you can fool me,” Tajirika said.

  “Why?” the man asked.

  “I know you want me to fall asleep…”

  “Are you nuts?”

  Despite Tajirika’s provocations, the man refused to respond the rest of the night, serving only to confirm Tajirika’s suspicions that Sikiokuu wanted him dead. He did not close his eyes once. Dawn found him staring at the corner where the man lay.

  Neither believed his own eyes.

  “Titus Tajirika!” “Wizard of the Crow!”

  13

  Tajirika was ecstatic at the apparition of someone with the power to get him out of prison. Nothing was beyond the reach of the Wizard of the Crow, who might even have come precisely to relieve Tajirika’s tribulations. Tajirika did not even bother to inquire as to what the Wizard of the Crow was doing or how he came to be there.

  He simply proceded to unburden himself of all that he had suffered since receiving the summons to appear before Kaniürü’s Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania. He told of his arrest, his interrogation by both Njoya and Kahiga, his encounter with Sikiokuu in the minister’s office, and his return to this dark cell. The only thing he could not bring himself to tell was Vinjinia’s shameful betrayal, and especially her posing for pictures with the dancing women.

  “Look at what Sikiokuu has done to me! See that bucket? That is the toilet. When did they last empty it? Seven days ago. Luckily I am not shitting much. Still, as you can see, the bucket is almost full.”

  “All yours?”

  “Yes. No one else has been in this cell since I’ve been here. How dare he do this to me? What should I do about it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You know the saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers? I feel like that grass in the struggle between Sikiokuu and Machokali for power behind the throne. The problem is that Sikiokuu has not been clear about what he really wants me to do.”

  “How much clearer does he have to be, given what you told me he asked you about Machokali?”<
br />
  “He didn’t even mention Machokali by name. He was circumspect, talking to me in riddles about a disciple of the doubting Thomas, a Frenchman named Descartes. Then he told me to go away and think more deeply about my lust for whiteness.”

  “Can’t you see that he just wants you to say in your own words that somebody else infected you with white-ache? But who can you single out and say, This or that one infected me, or, That one is the host of the disease? Is there anyone among those you call your friends who does not suffer from the malady, the white-hot greed behind his self-centeredness? The man was right to ask you to think further about the meaning and implications of what you said. But what do you do after you have brooded?”

  “And that is what I want to know. What should I do?”

  “First, examine yourself.”

  “Of course one must examine oneself to see where one’s interests lie and how to protect them.”

  “I mean, look to your heart; find out why you ended up here.”

  “I did not incarcerate myself.”

  “Who, then, has jailed you?”

  “Let me tell you. Sikiokuu and Kaniürü are my enemies. They want me to die in prison. Why? Because they don’t want me to continue as chairman of Marching to Heaven. They want to make sure that I am not around when Marching to Heaven begins. They want to be the only ones controlling the benefits from the entire project. But you wait. They don’t know who they are dealing with, Mr. Wizard of the Crow. Help me. Please help me to break free from prison and I will never forget you.”

  “From which prison do you want to free yourself?”

  “Mr. Wizard of the Crow, this is a serious matter. How many prisons do you see around here?”

  “Two. One of the mind and one of the body.”

  “Then break the walls of these prisons with your mirror power.”

  “I did not bring a mirror with me.”

  “Oh!” groaned Tajirika in despair.

  “What if we make our own mirror?” the Wizard of the Crow asked suddenly.

  “How?”

  “Our minds. Is there any mirror greater than the mirror of the mind?”

  “Whatever you say” Tajirika said, happy that the Wizard of the Crow was now talking about using a mirror, any mirror, however made.

  “Close your eyes… Paint pictures of Kaniürü and Sikiokuu in your mind.”

  He wants to help me by disabling the power of the two ruffians, Tajirika told himself as he tried with all his might to imagine Sikiokuu and Kaniürü. But the images would not stay still in his mind’s dark mirror.

  “Now I see them, now I don’t,” Tajirika said. “They are in and out of focus.”

  “It does not matter if their images are indistinct,” said the Wizard of the Crow. “Now point at those who are ruining the country. Show me where they are.”

  That’s easy, Tajirika thought, as he stretched his hand and pointed in the distance, but the finger kept on moving around like the images in his mind.

  “Over there,” Tajirika said, still pointing vaguely in front of him.

  “Hold it right there,” said the Wizard of the Crow. “Now open your eyes, and keep on pointing at the corrupt and the greedy.”

  Tajirika did as directed. His heart was bursting with joy at the imminent death of his enemies, greedy, corrupt robbers.

  “Look at your hand carefully. One finger is pointing at your enemies, and the three others are pointing at you.”

  “I don’t quite understand.”

  “What don’t you understand? Do you remember the children’s story about the five fingers who set out to rob someone? Pinky says: Let’s go. Where? To do what? asks the finger next to it. To steal, says the middle finger. What if we are caught? asks the fourth finger. Do you know what the thumb says?”

  “I am not one of you,” Tajirika answered, playing the character of the thumb, ending with laughter.

  “That’s why the fat finger still remains apart from the other four to this day. One thief standing apart from the others and pointing at…”

  Tajirika examined his fist again. It was obvious that the pointing finger and the three others were pointing in definite directions. Where and what was the thumb pointing at? One could not tell. And suddenly he thought he knew what the Wizard of the Crow was driving at.

  “So even children’s stories can teach us a thing or two about the ways of the world?” Tajirika said excitedly. “Mr. Wizard of the Crow, I now know what you have been trying to make me understand: Like these four fingers, the foolish take definite positions. Everyone knows where they stand. I have been too definite in the company I keep. I should maintain at all times the deceptive appearance of the thumb. Mr. Wizard of the Crow, thank you, thank you a thousand times.”

  “No wonder Jesus wept!” said the Wizard of the Crow loudly, as if talking to himself, clearly frustrated.

  “Why do you say that Jesus wept?” Tajirika asked, genuinely puzzled by how the mind of the Wizard of the Crow worked. He was now into the Bible.

  “Because he told them things, and even though they had ears they did not hear. He showed them things, and even though they had eyes they didn’t see.”

  He even uses the Book for his rites. That’s why his magic is so powerful, Tajirika thought to himself. If he puts his mind to it, there is nothing the Wizard of the Crow cannot do for a person like me.

  “And that is why it is said that even God can only help those who help themselves,” said the Wizard of the Crow.

  “Mr. Wizard of the Crow, how do you want me to help myself so that you can help me?” said Tajirika encouragingly.

  “Again, look into your heart. Beview whatever is inside you.”

  “How?”

  This man cares only about himself, thought the Wizard of the Crow. He hears and sees only what he wants. The Wizard of the Crow, Kamltl wa Karimlri, grew angry, very angry.

  He had not forgotten how Tajirika had humiliated him on the premises of Eldares Modern Construction and Beal Estate; he was flooded by the memory at odd times. He had never imagined that a human being could behave toward another with so much evil and malice. Kamltl had long decided not to seek revenge himself, for to do so would erase the difference between him and Tajirika. Don’t argue with a fool, the saying went, for people might not see the difference.

  But now he decided to jog the man’s memory and remind him of their first encounter to see if Tajirika would show some shame. People like these, so self-centered, needed to be told things directly, without ambiguity.

  “Do you want to hear a story?” he asked Tajirika.

  “Yes,” Tajirika said quickly. “I will gladly do so if the stories will help you spring me from this prison.’’

  “I am not so sure about this prison, but if you listen to the story very carefully it might help spring you from a prison bigger than this one made of stone and iron.”

  “I knew it. I knew that that’s why you came. I knew that there is no way you would have allowed me to rot in this prison. So please tell your story, begin it right away, and I promise you that I shall not even allow a cough to interrupt you.”

  14

  Have you ever heard of Mahabharata, Ramayana, or Bhagavad Gitar The three, or shall we say two since the Gita is a chapter in Mahabharata, are the key texts in the religion, culture, history, and philosophy of the Indian peoples. They were written in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, though now, like Latin, Greek, Geez, and Sabean, it is dead.

  Mahabharata tells of a war between the Kurus and the Pandavas, two branches of the same family. Arijuana, the hero of the Pandavas, is an expert archer, reputedly able to shoot an arrow at targets on the moon. But Arijuana and his teacher Drona hear of another archer, Ekalaivan, whose skills surpass those of Arijuana by far. He can shoot seven arrows into the mouth of a dog as soon as it opens its mouth, giving it no chance to bark. Ekalaivan had taught himself those skills but under the shadow of the statue of Drona, which Ekalaivan himself had erected as a source
of inspiration. Still, Ekalaivan claims that Drona is his teacher. Now, the law, dharma, requires a student to give something to his teacher, as a token of gratitude. Although Drona never taught Ekalaivan, he demands his dues. Anything you ask, says Ekalaivan. Then give me your thumb. They cut off Ekalaivan’s thumb. Do you see the humiliation, the cruelty? Drona refuses to teach Ekalaivan, a son of the poor, but when the same, through his own creativity, rises to excellence, Drona disables him so that sons of the rich will have no competition. Arijuana’s superiority is affirmed by Ekalaivan’s forced inferiority.

  Do you think that this is a story of ancient India only? It is the story of our times. A rich man has come into riches through the housing business, buying and selling, developing and selling, overseeing construction and getting paid for it. To be fair, the rich man has been considerate and put up a billboard stating clearly that there are no jobs available. But you know how it is! Need, like love, is blind! A tired bird in flight, they say, will land on anything. So one evening a stranger looking for a job enters the man’s office. Even though it’s the end of the workday, the rich man agrees to interview the stranger. He scrutinizes the documents of the job seeker and asks him many questions. But what do you think the rich man does next? Please follow me, he tells the stranger, so that I can give you a proper interview. The rich man takes the stranger to the gate and asks him to read the billboard to test the stranger’s reading skills and comprehension. Now, before I go on, let me make clear that nobody can blame an employer for not having jobs. But think hard and tell me this: how does one find humor in humiliating the already humiliated? Tell me, Tajirika, why this joy at the cry of misery? How would you feel if someone derived joy from your wandering around this prison cell?

  Why did you do it, Tajirika? How did I wrong you by asking you for a job?

  15

  These revelations hit Tajirika with a force both unexpected and to him, now, seemingly inevitable. He recalled the encounter and knew, even before the Wizard of the Crow had confirmed it, that the stranger and the Wizard of the Crow were one. So that’s why, during the divination and cure of his white-ache, he had felt intimations of a previous encounter? Then, he had dismissed the feeling as a hallucinatory side effect of white-ache. And now it had come to this! Tajirika had never heard of dead languages, and he assumed that the Wizard of the Crow was talking about the languages spoken by the dead. The wizard was in possession of the secrets of dead sorcerers from Africa, India, the world. Faced with the new unknown, he felt terror grip him as never before. For a few minutes he remained frozen in his corner as his mind raced swiftly, feverishly, sinister images giving way to others even more sinister. Still, incredibly, the revelations seemed to throw a light, as he imagined it, on what had been a mystery.