Devil on the Cross

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  It has been said that sweetness has a mouth and a stomach of its own—and a poisonous bite. One morning, on her way to school, just before she reached the residence of the African Sisters, Warĩĩnga felt dizzy. She sat down, and she started vomiting. When the dizziness had passed, Warĩĩnga continued on her way to school, thinking that she had an upset stomach. But day after day Warĩĩnga felt increasingly sick and dizzy, and she was often sick. A month passed, and she missed her period. It sometimes happens like that, she consoled herself. Another month, and she missed it a second time.

  Panic seized Warĩĩnga. Warĩĩnga had heard of many girls who had become pregnant, but she had never dreamed that it could happen to her. Now she had no doubt. What she had always thought could never happen to her had now happened.

  What’s done cannot be undone, Warĩĩnga told herself. In any case, the ground on which she stood was firm and solid. Her Rich Old Man had always assured her that he would marry her according to custom, that he could even divorce his wife and marry his new young wife with a proper church ceremony. So she was sure that he would not show any surprise at the news of her present condition. In any case, to be pregnant before marriage had now become the modern thing. Looking around, Warĩĩnga could see that many girls slipped on wedding rings at the altar when they were eight or even nine months pregnant. There were some who were married today only to bear a child tomorrow. Warĩĩnga had heard of one girl who had given birth in a church. Another had given birth on her way to church, keeping the bridegroom and the priest waiting at the church door in vain. Oh, Warĩĩnga was not afraid for herself. Faith in a loved one removes all fears.

  One Saturday evening, in a Naivasha hotel, Warĩĩnga told him everything. The Rich Old Man started like one who has been bitten on the bottom by a scorpion, but he quickly composed himself, and he did not moan or voice any complaints that night. Warĩĩnga thought that all was well. During the night she dreamed that she had been freed from the chains of schools and teachers and exams to float forever on the tides of pleasure, to paddle in the shallows of the new Kenya, enjoying a life of uninterrupted indulgence, without the repressive prospect of school tomorrow.

  It was in the morning that the Rich Old Man read Warĩĩnga a lesson she would never forget. He asked her why she had not taken care of herself, like other girls. What had prevented her from taking pills, having a coil fixed inside her, or being injected? And why had she not revealed her state the month she discovered that she was pregnant? It was clearly because Warĩĩnga was not quite sure who was responsible.

  “How could you possibly have conceived so soon if I were the only man who went with you? Go away and look for the young man who has got you into trouble, and tell him to marry you or to take you to the forest or somewhere else for an abortion. I thought all along that I was going with a clean schoolgirl, a girl without too many problems, a girl I would have loved to marry, so that she could be balm for my old bones. But instead I picked on Kareendi Ready-to-Yield, did I?”

  Warĩĩnga did not know whether to weep or scream or protest. She remained silent, like someone who had been struck dumb or bewitched into preserving eternal silence by powerful medicines bought from the famous Kamĩrĩ, the witch doctor. She saw the world suddenly turn hostile.

  The brilliant light she had seen was no longer there. She saw the road that she had previously thought of as wide and very beautiful now suddenly become narrow, covered with thorns. The path that she had thought would lead her to Heaven now led her to a hell on Earth. So the seas of pleasure had all along been seas of fire? So the carpet of flowers on which she had trodden had actually been a carpet of thorns? So her wings had not really been wings but chains of steel?

  Warĩĩnga could not tell how they eventually got back to Nakuru. She could not remember getting out of the Mercedes Benz, the grave of her youth, her integrity and her virginity. She did not even see the Rich Old Man rev the engine and reverse the four-wheeled tomb back toward his estates in Ngorika.

  Warĩĩnga watched her future disappear with eyes that saw nothing. She was utterly alone; thorns tore at the heels, the soles and the toes of the legs of her heart, which were taking her to a hell of her own choosing.

  But had she really chosen the hell, or had the hell been forced on her? Warĩĩnga asked herself, as she stood there at the bus stop, letting her eyes wander over Nakuru railway station, the road to Eldoret, the Amigos Bar, Kenyatta Avenue, the shops, not knowing where she should go now. She walked slowly across the bus station, went through the Nakuru municipal market, entered the Njoro Hotel, sat down alone at a small table in the far corner and ordered tea to drink while she tried to pull herself together. My God, where shall I turn now? she asked herself over and over again.

  She knew that she could not turn to her aunt, or her uncle, or her cousins, or her teachers, or her schoolmates for help.

  Warĩĩnga had no relatives or friends whom she could expect to appear suddenly and say, “Warĩĩnga, I have come to help you.”

  She did not drink the tea. She paid for it, left it there on the table and went out.

  On arriving home in Section 58, she went straight to bed. She tried to say her beads, but she could not. She tried to cry, but no tears would come.

  In those days of anxiety, Warĩĩnga found no one to offer her consolation, no one to say: “Be calm, my child. Let me show you the way out of your present troubles.” On the contrary, her anguish was made more painful by the fact that at home she would strain herself in order not to show any sign of sorrow or self-pity. Only when she was alone in bed at night did Warĩĩnga have an opportunity to let her tears flow, often asking herself: Oh, what can I do to get rid of this burden of pregnancy? Warĩĩnga had no one from whom she could discover the answers to her many questions.

  At school Warĩĩnga tried to seek the advice of the other girls. But she did it indirectly, approaching the subject with apparent detachment, as if it were not she who was carrying the burden. But the stories she heard—like the case of a girl who went mad after drinking a mixture of tea, quinine, aspirin and several other drugs—made her blood run cold, and her burden become heavier than ever.

  Warĩĩnga had no friend or relative who could lighten the load for her.

  So Warĩĩnga struggled on alone, contemplating this expedient and that one, turning over this and that solution in her mind, comparing countless alternatives, trying to work out how she could vanish from the face of the Earth, never to be seen again at school, or in Nakuru, or in Kenya.

  One day she thought of visiting Dr. Patel, famous throughout Nakuru for the many illegal abortions he had performed.

  It was a Saturday morning. She took what little money she had managed to save out of her presents from her Rich Old Man, and lied to her aunt that she was going to borrow books from one of the teachers in her school.

  She took to the road, alone with her secret. She passed through the yard of the grass huts and joined Ladhies Road, but instead of crossing over to Ngala Avenue and on to Nakuru Day Secondary, she turned toward the center of town. And now in the place of the dreams that used to fill her soul on the way to school, she felt only bitterness well up: the dreams of a girl in her virgin youth could blossom quickly, and then, just as quickly, droop and fall to the ground like flowers in a dry season.

  She walked along Kenyatta Avenue, toward the Post Office and the Stag’s Head. At the Kenya Commercial Bank, Warĩĩnga stopped and looked about her. Then she turned left and hurried past people and buildings without once looking behind her. But when she got to the Mount Kenya Bookshop, she entered, pretended to browse through the books and then went outside again. Warĩĩnga stood outside the Bookshop for a moment to make sure that nobody who knew her would see her enter Dr. Patel’s clinic. She felt as if the whole of Nakuru could guess at her intentions. Her heart was beating loudly, like the repeated hoots of an owl.

  Warĩĩnga strode determinedly toward the doctor’s c
linic. But as she was about to set foot inside the door, she glanced down the road and saw a woman, a neighbor from Section 58, coming out of a tailoring school nearby. Warĩĩnga felt her whole body burn with shame, as if she had been caught in the act of stealing. She fled.

  On another Saturday, at about four in the afternoon, Warĩĩnga thought of seeking help from a girl who had been her schoolmate at both Baharini primary school and Nakuru Day. The girl had left school after Form Two and had gone to Nakuru General Hospital to train as a nurse.

  Warĩĩnga went to the Annex and luckily found the girl in her room, alone. They chatted about this and that—schools, and teachers, and students, and exams—Warĩĩnga trying to find an opportunity to pour out her problems. But just as she was about to say what was on her mind, Warĩĩnga felt a lump in her throat, and she was unable to tell her secret. Instead, she asked the girl about the Medical School, and pretended that she was also thinking of training as a nurse at the hospital. After talking for a while Warĩĩnga and the girl walked together toward the State House on the Nakuru–Nairobi road.

  When Warĩĩnga saw the girl turn back to the hospital, she suddenly felt the strength leave her legs. She wanted to shout at the girl, to beg her not to leave her on the road alone.

  She walked along the road toward Nairobi like someone who had taken hard liquor or bhang. She was not in full possession of her faculties. She was not aware of the cars that were heading toward Nairobi or Nakuru. She did not even notice that darkness had fallen and that the street lights were on. She simply walked, without knowing quite where she was going. At one point she just missed hitting her head against a tree.

  It was the near-accident that alerted her to the fact that she had reached the turning to Bahati. She thought of taking the road to Bahati, then she skirted the hedge around Nakuru High School. She decided that she would go up the road toward Menengai Crater and throw herself into the huge hollow below, like the Indian who once drove into the cavern and died.

  As a child, Warĩĩnga had heard that the Crater was often visited by spirits, who would shave the whole forest and bush with razor blades early in the morning and set fire to the surrounding grass and the trees once a year. When the Indian threw himself into the Crater, the legend was that he had been pulled into the hollow by the spirits after he had caught them shaving the trees and playing about in the grass and on the treetops.

  Warĩĩnga longed for someone, even a spirit, to seize her and bear her away from Nakuru and from the Earth.

  And then Warĩĩnga remembered that Nakuru High School had a swimming pool. Warĩĩnga decided that instead of going all the way to the Crater alone at night, she would end her miseries in the pool. She entered the school compound and followed the path around the buildings. Through the windows she caught sight of students reading books under electric lights, and when she recalled her present condition, she felt pain burn her heart and body. She walked faster, praying that she would not meet any students or teachers.

  During the colonial days, Nakuru High School was reserved for European children only. But after Independence, it was turned into an expensive national school. It was a mixed boarding school. In the evening all the students had to go to class for prep.

  Those were the students whom Warĩĩnga saw through the windows, their heads bent over their books. Warĩĩnga left the path that led toward the boys’ dormitories and took the one to the swimming pool. She did not meet anybody loitering in the compound. She thought that God had heard her prayers.

  When she reached the classrooms at the far end of the compound, she took a turning to the swimming pool. It was quite dark because the light from the nearest classrooms did not reach that far. Warĩĩnga was about to enter the swimming pool area when, from nowhere, she suddenly heard a man’s voice: “What are you doing here? Why are you not in your classroom?”

  Warĩĩnga started and looked about her, thinking that the spirits from Menengai Crater had come down from the mountains for her. So the spirits really existed? Then she discovered that the voice was that of the school watchman, who was half-hidden by a small hedge and had obviously taken Warĩĩnga for one of the students. Warĩĩnga lied.

  “I am a visitor here at the school. Mr. Kamau is my brother. I am staying with him this week. And I’m just taking an evening stroll to pass the time.”

  “Oh, I see,” the watchman said, and walked on into the swimming pool area.

  Warĩĩnga suspected that the watchman did not believe her story. She stood there a few seconds, then she turned back to the main path, and walked down toward the road to Nairobi.

  Was she fated to walk forever along thorn-covered avenues? Was she destined to carry a heavy load in her heart forever? Warĩĩnga asked herself these and many other questions as she walked toward Section 58. So even committing suicide was hard? What could a human being call his own in this world if he could not end his life when he felt that it was too much of a burden? Warĩĩnga reached the railway crossing still turning over these questions in her mind.

  And then Warĩĩnga remembered the man whom she and her cousins had found on the rails, completely crushed by a train. She recalled that the man’s identity had been completely obliterated. His name was hidden forever, and it was as if he had never been born. Warĩĩnga felt that a death like that, which would ensure that no one would ever guess who she had been, was the most suitable for her. She resolved that come what may, the next day she would offer her body to a train.

  She would wait for a train on that very crossing and would throw herself in front of its iron wheels, to be wiped off the face of the Earth as if she had never been born or never visited the Earth. For the first time Warĩĩnga was able to say her beads. With all her heart she pleaded with the Virgin Mary: Virgin Mary, hear now my prayer. Mark my soul with the wounds of Jesus. Amen.

  For the first time since she had caught leprosy from the Rich Old Man from Ngorika, Warĩĩnga felt a kind of peace return to her. She even tried to whisper to herself a hymn that she used to sing when she was happy, only now she sang in sorrow.

  Peace, peace in my heart.

  I pray for peace in my heart

  At the time of Thy Resurrection,

  Peace, peace in my heart.

  I pray for peace in my heart

  In the name of Thy Resurrection.

  Warĩĩnga was not really after the resurrection of the body or soul. All she wanted was that her name should be wiped off the face of the Earth. All she wanted was to vanish as if she had never been born. All she prayed for was for the Angel of Death to come for her and to remove her name from the ledgers of Heaven and Earth:

  You who feed the hungry,

  You who relieve the tired,

  You who cool the thirsty,

  Take me across the River of Death.

  The following day was a Sunday. Her aunt asked Warĩĩnga if she wanted to go to morning mass. Warĩĩnga declined. Her aunt and all her cousins left for the Church of the Holy Rosary. Warĩĩnga remained at home to cook. But she cooked nothing. She took a bath, and she did her hair nicely, like somebody who was preparing for a long journey.

  At about half-past ten, Warĩĩnga went to the railway crossing. She glanced around her and saw that there was no one anywhere near. But a few minutes later, the watchman at Nakuru High passed by on his way to Section 58. Their eyes met. The watchman made as if to stop and talk to Warĩĩnga. Then he seemed to change his mind and crossed the lines to the other side, Warĩĩnga silently mocking him: You won’t hold me back again. . . . There’s nothing you can now do to prevent me from doing whatever I want to do. . . .

  And suddenly the train appeared, heading toward Nairobi. Warĩĩnga thought it was chanting the song that, as a child, she used to believe it sang:

  Going-to-Uganda!

  Going-to-Uganda!

  Going-to-Uganda!

  And her heart beat in time to the song of
the train:

  Going-to-Uganda!

  Going-to-Uganda!

  Going-to-Uganda!

  And still the train came on, belching steam, breathing blood and death, saying farewell, on her behalf, to all the people of Nakuru.

  Going. . . .

  Going. . . .

  Going. . . .

  Warĩĩnga stepped forward on to the rails. She shut her eyes. She started counting . . . one . . . two . . . three. . . .

  Go. . . .

  Go. . . .

  Go. . . .

  . . . four . . . five. . . . Virgin Mary, have mercy upon me. . . .

  The train is still coming on. Its rumble is shaking the rails from their sleepers. Its roar is making Warĩĩnga’s heart and body quake. Its thunder is causing the ground to tremble as the train bears Death toward Warĩĩnga. . . .

  Go!

  Go!

  Go!

  . . . eight . . . nine . . . Virgin Mary . . . Go-go-go . . . ten . . . take me now. . . .

  And suddenly Warĩĩnga felt herself pulled off the rails by a man’s hands and thrown on to the side of the track. She fainted.

  And the train rushed past her toward Nairobi, but its whistling sounded in the sky above Nakuru, as if it were angrily demanding to know how Warĩĩnga had escaped its crushing wheels.

  Warĩĩnga did not know who had saved her from a death she had so longed for. She could not even tell how she eventually reached Section 58. When she opened her eyes, Warĩĩnga found herself in bed, her aunt at her side, looking at her with eyes full of infinite pity.