Devil on the Cross

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  “It was evening, soon after darkness had fallen. The tongue of the glassless tin lamp was waving like a red flag in the wind, making our two shadows play on the walls of the man’s square room.

  “The old man told me first of a peasant farmer who used to carry an ogre on his back. The ogre had sunk his long nails into the neck and shoulders of the peasant. The peasant was the one who went to the fields to get food, the one who went into the valleys to fetch water, the one who went to the forest to get firewood and the one who did the cooking. The ogre’s job was to eat and thereafter to sleep soundly on the back of the peasant. As the peasant became progressively thinner and more depressed at heart, the ogre prospered and flourished, to the extent of being inspired to sing hymns that exhorted the peasant to endure his lot on Earth with fortitude, for he would later find his rest in Heaven. One day, the peasant went to a diviner. The diviner told him that the only solution was for the peasant to boil some oil and to pour it on to the nails of the ogre when he was fast asleep. The peasant said: ‘What if I should burn my neck and shoulders?’ The diviner said: ‘Nothing good was ever born of perfect conditions. Go home.’ The peasant was saved from certain death only when he did what he had been advised to do by the diviner.

  “The second story was about a girl, an ebony beauty with an appealing gap between her teeth. She was named Nyanjirũ Kanyarari for three reasons: she was black; she was truly beautiful; and she had rejected the hand of all the young men in her country. But when Nyanjirũ saw a young man from a foreign country one day, she immediately claimed that he was the one for whom she had been waiting. She followed him. And do you know what? The young foreigner was a man-eating ogre. He tore off Nyanjirũ’s limbs one by one and ate them.

  “The third story was the one that left an indelible mark in my heart. How am I going to tell it to you? I wish I could even approach his manner of telling it, the way he raised and lowered his voice, for instance. But no, I can’t even try. The kind of education bequeathed to us by the whites has clipped the wings of our abilities, leaving us limping like wounded birds. Let me tell you briefly the story that the old man from Bahati told me, so that you can see where the knot I talked about comes in.

  “He started off with several proverbs. I can’t remember them all. But they were all about avarice and conceit. He told me that though it is said that the fart of a rich man has no smell, and that a rich man will cultivate even a forbidden, sacred shrine, still every man ought to know that he who used to dance can now only watch while others do it, and he who used to jump over the stream can now only wade through it. To possess much encourages conceit; to possess little, thought. Too much greed may well prompt one to sell oneself cheaply. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘go after property. But never show God your nakedness, and never despise the people. The voice of the people is the voice of God.’ Why do I say these things?

  “A long, long time ago there lived an old man called Nding’ũri. Nding’ũri did not own much property. But he had a soul that was richly endowed. He was much respected because of his courage whenever enemies attacked his village, and because of the wisdom of his heart and tongue. He preserved the culture of his nation and observed all the proper rituals. Many a time he would sacrifice a goat and pour a little beer on to the ground for the good spirits, asking them to deliver him from evils that might have been caused by his own failings or brought into the homestead through the ill-will of wicked spirits. He was not a lazy man, and he was able to provide enough food to eat and clothes to wear for himself and for his family. What he did not suffer from was greedy desire for other people’s herds or land belonging to his clan or to other clans. His lack of greed, added to his famed generosity, prevented him from amassing the kind of wealth that made some elders wear rings on their fingers and leave the tilling of the fields and the grazing of herds to slaves, servants, laborers, peasants and their wives and children, while they themselves feasted daily off honey beer. Hands make a man: this was what Nding’ũri believed.

  “But one day, a strange pestilence attacked the village. The pestilence destroyed all Nding’ũri’s possessions and struck at his goat in its special pen. What could Nding’ũri do now? He asked himself: Why, when I have always sacrificed goats to the good spirits and brewed beer for them, have they now turned against me? Never again will I sacrifice to them.

  “Early one morning, before dawn broke, Nding’ũri went to a certain cave where the evil spirits dwelled. At the entrance to the cave he was met by a spirit in the shape of an ogre. He had long hair, the color of moleskin, and the hair fell on to his shoulders like a girl’s. He had two mouths, one on his forehead and the other at the back of his head. The one at the back of his head was covered by his long hair, and it was visible only when the wind blew the hair aside. The bad spirit asked him: ‘Why have you come to my cave with empty hands? Does a man take an empty basket to market if he is planning to barter his wares? Have you been abandoned by the spirits to whom you have always sacrificed? Do you think that we ourselves don’t like sacrifices and some beer to wash down the meat?’ Nding’ũri replied that it was poverty that had brought him there. The generosity of a poor man remains locked in the heart. The bad spirit laughed slyly and said: ‘But have I not heard that you possess a rich soul? Nothing good is ever born of perfect conditions. I will give you riches. But you must give me your soul, and you must never again sacrifice to the good spirits, for good and evil have never been friends.’ Nding’ũri asked himself: What is a soul? Just a whispering voice. He told the bad spirit: ‘Take my soul.’ The bad spirit said to him: ‘I have taken possession of it. Go away now. Go home and observe these conditions. First, never tell anybody that you are a man without a soul. Second, when you reach home, seize the child you love most, pierce one of the veins in his neck, drink up all his blood until his body is completely dry, cook the body, eat the flesh. Nding’ũri, I have turned you into an eater of human flesh and a drinker of human blood.’ Nding’ũri said: ‘What! How can that be? Am I to destroy the beauty of my own children?’ The bad spirit told him: ‘Have you already forgotten that you no longer have a soul? That you have sold it for property? Listen: from today onwards you’ll never be able to see the beauty of children, or of women, or of any other human being. You’ll be able to see only the beauty of property. Go now, go home. Devour other people’s shadows. That’s the task I have given you until the day I come to fetch you!’

  “From that day on, Nding’ũri began to fart property, to shit property, to sneeze property, to scratch property, to laugh property, to think property, to dream property, to talk property, to sweat property, to piss property. Property would fly from other people’s hands to land in Nding’ũri’s palms. People started wondering: How is it that our property slips through our fingers into the hands of Nding’ũri? Furthermore, he was now wearing iron rings on his fingers, which prevented him from working himself.

  “Nding’ũri’s character and behavior altered. He became mean. He became cruel. He was always involved in lawsuits as he grabbed other people’s land, extending the boundaries of his own property further and further. He had no friends. His meanness protruded like the shoots of a sweet potato. When people were dying from famine, that was when Nding’ũri was happiest because at such times people would dispose of their property as readily as they would give away broken pots.

  “People in his village started asking themselves: Where has his kindly tongue gone? What is that thing he eats alone in the middle of the night, like a witch? When he sees another man’s property, his mouth waters: when he acquires his own, his mouth quickly dries up. See now how his shadow grows bigger and bigger, while ours become smaller and smaller. Could it be that his shadow is swallowing our shadows, making us fall dead, one by one?

  “A delegation of elders, Nding’ũri’s age-mates, was sent to him to remind him that no one digs a deep hole in the yard of the village, for his own children might fall into it. They told him: ‘Nding’ũri,
son of Kahahami, listen to the voice of the people. You have no wax in your ears—or if you have, take a splinter of wood and remove it.

  “‘The voice of the village is the voice of the Ridge, and it is the voice of the country, and it is the voice of the nation, and it is the voice of the people. Nding’ũri, the voice of the people is the voice of God. We come to bring you this message: avoid the ways of the witches and murderers. Allow yourself to be dazzled by the splendor of property, and you will be dazzled only by the splendor of the evil spirit. But in the glory of your nation you’ll see the face of God. Happy is the man who willingly defends the shadow of his nation, for he will never die; his name shall live forever in the hearts of the people. But he who sells the shadow of his nation is damned, for his name shall forever be cursed by generations to come, and when he dies he will become an evil spirit.’

  “Nding’ũri just laughed, and he asked them: ‘What’s a village? What’s a nation? What’s a people? Go away and tell all this to someone else. Why are you unable to take care of yourselves and your shadows? Why are you so lazy that you can’t even bend down to remove a jigger from your legs? Go on talking until it rains or the heavens fall—your words will only be carried away by the wind. See, now, all my affairs are in perfect order. My fart never smells. Why? Let me tell you. Because property is the great creator and the great judge. Property turns disobedience into obedience, evil into good, ugliness into beauty, hate into love, cowardice into bravery, vice into virtue. Property changes bow legs into legs that are fought over by the beauties of the land. Property sweetens evil smells, banishes rot. The wound of a rich man never produces pus. The fart of a rich man never smells. Go back to your homes. Go back to your shacks, which you have the audacity to call houses; return to your strips of land, which you have the audacity to call farms. If you are unable to do that, come back here and work as wage laborers in my many fields. There is nothing you can do to me, Nding’ũri, son of Kahahami, because I have no soul!’

  “When they heard that, the elders of the village were greatly alarmed, and they looked askance at one another: ‘So we have been harboring a witch in our village? We have been sheltering a louse in our bodies? This one will drink up all the blood of all the people until there is no more blood left in the land.’ And then and there they seized him, and wrapped him up with dry banana leaves, and burned him and his house.

  “From that day the village was rid of evil, and the shadows of the people grew healthy again. Many hands can lift the heaviest of loads!”

  Gatuĩria paused again.

  The Matatũ Matata Matamu was still waddling along the road. By now it had left the road to Nakuru and had turned off on to the TransAfrica Highway, which passed through Rũũwa-inĩ and Ilmorog. There was total silence in the car, each person wrapped in his own thoughts about the story, anxious to find out where Gatuĩria’s knot fitted. Gatuĩria went on with his story.

  “It was after I was told that story that I had a new thought and found a new theme around which I could now weave a new song. But was it really new, or was it the same one that I had always searched for? What I wanted to do now was to tell the same story in music. For what could beat the story I had been told by the old man from Bahati? What story could have a finer theme or teach a more important lesson than the tale of a man exchanging his soul for earthly riches? I wanted to compare Nding’ũri wa Kahahami with the Judas of Jewish literature, who sold the peace of his soul for thirty pieces of silver.

  “I wanted the setting for the music to be a certain village before the advent of British imperialism in Kenya. I thought I would start by telling of the origins of the village. I wanted one group of voices and instruments to represent the pastoral migrations of peoples before the feudal era. Another group of voices would represent the different ways in which the village produced and distributed its wealth. I wanted one set of voices to represent pastoralists, another the peasants, another the workers in metal and so on. Then I would introduce other movements of voices and instruments to symbolize famine, diseases, poverty and the beginnings of feudal rule. Then I would introduce the story of Nding’ũri, son of Kahahami.

  “I started composing the music, a great fire burning inside me. . . . But after a few lines I felt the flames die, and the ashes of the work were left without even the tiniest spark.

  “‘Why? Why?’ I cried, without knowing to whom I was appealing.

  “In my heart I did not quite believe in the existence of ogres, spirits or creatures from any world but this. And then one night I heard a small voice whispering to me the real reasons for the death of the fire: ‘How can you compose music when you do not believe in the existence of the subject of your composition?’

  “Belief . . . belief . . . where could I acquire belief? Belief is not for sale in a market. In my heart I reasoned this way: In the past, before imperialism, we had a system of age-groups, of extended families, of sub-clans and clans. In those days we had many types of people’s organization. We had Ujamaa wa Mwafrika, for example—in English, African socialism. Where, then, did the eaters of men and the killers of men come from? My heart began to beat. Spirits, evil or good, do not exist. Creatures from other worlds do not exist. Kenya, our country, has no killers or eaters of men, people who drink blood and kidnap the shadows of other men. These days there is no drinking of human blood or eating of human flesh. . . . Spirits and ogres and creatures from other worlds, all those vanished a long time ago. . . . You who wish to compose music in praise of your country, look for roots and themes in true stories!

  “And that’s the state I’ve been in since then, restless, a thousand and one questions jostling inside me. . . .

  “Our people, you can imagine how astonished I was yesterday when I went to my pigeonhole at the university where my letters are kept and found . . . oh, how can I tell you about it? Am I going to pretend that I didn’t shake like a reed in the wind? Even now as I sit in this matatũ, I can’t quite believe the evidence of my eyes. . . .”

  Wangarĩ interrupted, burning with a desire to know what it was that Gatuĩria had seen. “What extraordinary thing did you see that makes you forget what you are saying and keep pausing like the chameleon which once was sent by God to the people but never delivered the message it carried because it hesitated so long?”

  “There in my pigeonhole,” Gatuĩria hurried on with his story, “I found a card inviting me to a Devil’s feast in Ilmorog tomorrow. On the card were the following words.” Gatuĩria took out a card from his coat pocket and read out:

  The Devil’s Feast!

  Come and See for Yourself—

  A Devil-Sponsored Competition

  To Choose Seven Experts in Theft and Robbery.

  Plenty of Prizes!

  Try Your Luck.

  Competition to Choose the Seven Cleverest

  Thieves and Robbers in Ilmorog.

  Prizes Galore!

  Hell’s Angels Band in Attendance!

  Signed: Satan

  The King of Hell

  c/o Thieves’ and Robbers’ Den

  Ilmorog Golden Heights

  Warĩĩnga shrieked and fell against Mũturi. Mwaũra turned his head quickly. The car started to lurch across the road.

  “Stop the car! Who has got a light?” Mũturi shouted.

  “What is it? What is it?” Wangarĩ asked, but nobody answered her.

  “I haven’t got a torch!” Mwaũra said, stopping the matatũ on the side of the TransAfrica Highway.

  “I’ve got some matches,” Gatuĩria said.

  “Give us a light! Strike a match!” Mũturi told him, and then they all fell silent, as if they were standing by the side of a grave.

  7

  Cars coming from and going to Ilmorog passed each other on the road, momentarily lighting up the plains of the Rift Valley. But the darkness that closed in behind the lights seemed denser than ever. The man with t
he dark glasses sat in his corner without stirring. Mwaũra was still in his seat. The other three bent over Warĩĩnga.

  The flame of a match would briefly light up Warĩĩnga’s face, then it would flicker and die, and Gatuĩria would strike another. But when they saw Warĩĩnga open her eyes, and they found that she was still breathing and that her heart was still beating, they started talking, voicing their different opinions.

  “I think this woman is ill,” Mũturi said. “Probably malaria or pneumonia.”

  “Her heart is beating very fast,” Gatuĩria said.

  “It could be the woman’s disease,” Mwaũra said. “Would you believe it? One woman recently gave birth in this very matatũ.”

  “Why don’t you lift her out of the car for a breath of fresh air?” Wangarĩ suggested quickly, as if she wanted to put an end to Mwaũra’s story.

  Then Warĩĩnga spoke in a faint voice, as if her tongue had been on a long journey.

  “Sorry, but I suddenly felt very dizzy,” Warĩĩnga told them. “Let’s now go, please. Let’s get out of this place.”

  They resumed their seats. Mwaũra tried to start the car. It would not start. Mũturi, Wangarĩ, Gatuĩria and the man in dark glasses got out and pushed. The engine roared into life. They climbed into the car, and they drove on a little way, the passengers silent.

  Wangarĩ reverted to the subject of Warĩĩnga’s dizziness. “Was it the discussion we were having that brought on the illness?”

  “It had something to do with it. . . . Yes, it was the talk . . .,” Warĩĩnga replied.

  “The subject scared you?” Mũturi asked.

  “Yes . . . and . . . no,” Warĩĩnga said, doubtfully.

  “Don’t worry,” Wangarĩ said, “those things no longer exist—ogres, killers and eaters of men, bad and good spirits, the Devil with seven horns. All those are mere inventions, which are meant to frighten disobedient children into mending their ways and encourage the obedient ones to follow the straight and narrow path.”