by Mike Resnick
“And if you have not looked at books, how did you learn to write?” I demanded.
“From your magic box,” she said. “You never told me not to look at.”
“My magic box?” I said, frowning.
“The box that hums with life and has many colors.”
“You mean my computer?” I asked, surprised.
“Your magic box,” she repeated.
“And it taught you how to read and write?”
“I taught me—but only a little,” she said unhappily. “I am like the shrike in your story—I am not as bright as I thought. Reading and writing are very difficult.”
“I told you that you must not learn to read,” I said, resisting the urge to comment on her remarkable accomplishment, for she had clearly broken the law.
Kamari shook her head.
“You told me I must not look at your books,” she replied stubbornly.
“I told you that women must not read,” I said. “You have disobeyed me. For this you must be punished.” I paused. “You will continue your chores here for three more months, and you must bring me two hares and two rodents, which you must catch yourself. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Now come into my hut with me, that you may understand one thing more.”
She followed me into the hut.
“Computer,” I said. “Activate.”
“Activated,” said the computer's mechanical voice.
“Computer, scan the hut and tell me who is here with me.”
The lens of the computer's sensor glowed briefly.
“The girl, Kamari wa Njoro, is here with you,” replied the computer.
“Will you recognize her if you see her again?”
“Yes.”
“This is a Priority Order,” I said. “Never again may you converse with Kamari wa Njoro verbally or in any known language.”
“Understood and logged,” said the computer.
“Deactivate.” I turned to Kamari. “Do you understand what I have done, Kamari?”
“Yes,” she said, “and it is not fair. I did not disobey you.”
“It is the law that women may not read,” I said, “and you have broken it. You will not break it again. Now go back to your shamba”
She left, head held high, youthful back stiff with defiance, and I went about my duties, instructing the young boys on the decoration of their bodies for their forthcoming circumcision ceremony, casting a counterspell for old Siboki (for he had found hyena dung within his shamba, which is one of the surest signs of a thahu, or curse), instructing Maintenance to make another minor orbital adjustment that would bring cooler weather to the western plains.
By the time I returned to my hut for my afternoon nap, Kamari had come and gone again, and everything was in order.
For the next two months, life in the village went its placid way. The crops were harvested, old Koinnage took another wife and we had a two-day festival with much dancing and pombe drinking to celebrate the event, the short rains arrived on schedule, and three children were born to the village. Even the Eutopian Council, which had complained about our custom of leaving the old and the infirm out for the hyenas, left us completely alone. We found the lair of a family of hyenas and killed three whelps, then slew the mother when she returned. At each full moon I slaughtered a cow—not merely a goat, but a large, fat cow—to thank Ngai for His generosity, for truly He had graced Kirinyaga with abundance.
During this period I rarely saw Kamari. She came in the mornings when I was in the village, casting the bones to bring forth the weather, and she came in the afternoons when I was giving charms to the sick and conversing with the Elders—but I always knew she had been there, for my hut and my boma were immaculate, and I never lacked for water or kindling.
Then, on the afternoon after the second full moon, I returned to my boma after advising Koinnage about how he might best settle an argument over a disputed plot of land, and as I entered my hut I noticed that the computer screen was alive and glowing, covered with strange symbols. When I had taken my degrees in England and America I had learned English and French and Spanish, and of course I knew Kikuyu and Swahili, but these symbols represented no known language, nor, although they used numerals as well as letters and punctuation marks, were they mathematical formulas.
“Computer, I distinctly remember deactivating you this morning,” I said, frowning. “Why does your screen glow with life?”
“Kamari activated me.”
“And she forgot to deactivate you when she left?”
“That is correct.”
“I thought as much,” I said grimly. “Does she activate you every day?”
“Yes.”
“Did I not give you a Priority Order never to communicate with her in any known language?” I said, puzzled.
“You did, Koriba.”
“Can you then explain why you have disobeyed my directive?”
“I have not disobeyed your directive, Koriba,” said the computer. “My programming makes me incapable of disobeying a Priority Order.”
“Then what is this that I see upon your screen?”
“This is the Language of Kamari,” replied the computer. “It is not among the one thousand seven hundred thirty-two languages and dialects in my memory banks, and hence does not fall under the aegis of your directive.”
“Did you create this language?”
“No, Koriba. Kamari created it.”
“Did you assist her in any way?”
“No, Koriba, I did not.”
“Is it a true language?” I asked. “Can you understand it?”
“It is a true language. I can understand it.”
“If she were to ask you a question in the Language of Kamari, could you reply to it?”
“Yes, if the question were simple enough. It is a very limited language.”
“And if that reply required you to translate the answer from a known language to the Language of Kamari, would doing so be contrary to my directive?”
“No, Koriba, it would not.”
“Have you, in fact, answered questions put to you by Kamari?”
“Yes, Koriba, I have,” replied the computer.
“I see,” I said. “Stand by for a new directive.”
“Waiting…”
I lowered my head in thought, contemplating the problem. That Kamari was brilliant and gifted was obvious: she had not only taught herself to read and write, but had actually created a coherent and logical language that the computer could understand and in which it could respond. I had given orders, and without directly disobeying them she had managed to circumvent them. She had no malice within her, and wanted only to learn, which in itself was an admirable goal. All that was on the one hand.
On the other hand was the threat to the social order we had labored so diligently to establish on Kirinyaga. Men and women knew their responsibilities and accepted them happily. Ngai had given the Maasai the spear, and He had given the Wakamba the arrow, and He had given the Europeans the machine and the printing press, but to the Kikuyu He had given the digging stick and the fertile land surrounding the sacred fig tree on the slopes of Kirinyaga.
Once before we had lived in harmony with the land, many long years ago. Then had come the printed word. It turned us first into slaves, and then into Christians, and then into soldiers and factory workers and mechanics and politicians, into everything that the Kikuyu were never meant to be. It had happened before; it could happen again.
We had come to the world of Kirinyaga to create a perfect Kikuyu society, a Kikuyu Utopia. Could one gifted little girl carry within her the seeds of our destruction? I could not be sure, but it was a fact that gifted children grew up. They became Jesus, and Mohammed, and Jomo Kenyatta—but they also became Tippoo Tib, the greatest slaver of all, and Idi Amin, butcher of his own people. Or, more often, they became Friedrich Neitzsche and Karl Marx, brilliant men in their own right, but who influenced less brilliant, les
s capable men. Did I have the right to stand aside and hope that her influence upon our society would be benign when all history suggested that the opposite was more likely to be true?
My decision was painful, but it was not a difficult one.
“Computer,” I said at last, “I have a new Priority Order that supercedes my previous directive. You are no longer allowed to communicate with Kamari under any circumstances whatsoever. Should she activate you, you are to tell her that Koriba has forbidden you to have any contact with her, and you are then to deactivate immediately. Do you understand?”
“Understood and logged.”
“Good,” I said. “Now deactivate.”
When I returned from the village the next morning, I found my water gourds empty, my blanket unfolded, my boma filled with the dung of my goats.
The mundumugu is all-powerful among the Kikuyu, but he is not without compassion. I decided to forgive this childish display of temper, and so I did not visit Kamari's father, nor did I tell the other children to avoid her.
She did not come again in the afternoon. I know, because I waited beside my hut to explain my decision to her. Finally, when twilight came, I sent for the boy, Ndemi, to fill my gourds and clean my boma, and although such chores are woman's work, he did not dare disobey his mundumugu, although his every gesture displayed contempt for the tasks I had set for him.
When two more days had passed with no sign of Kamari, I summoned Njoro, her father.
“Kamari has broken her word to me,” I said when he arrived. “If she does not come to clean my boma this afternoon, I will be forced to place a thahu upon her.”
He looked puzzled. “She says that you have already placed a curse on her, Koriba. I was going to ask you if we should turn her out of our boma!1
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Do not turn her out of your boma.
I have placed no thahu on her yet—but she must come to work this afternoon.”
“I do not know if she is strong enough,” said Njoro. “She has had neither food nor water for three days, and she sits motionless in my wife's hut.” He paused. aSomeone has placed a thahu on her. If it was not you, perhaps you can cast a spell to remove it.”
“She has gone three days without eating or drinking?” I repeated.
He nodded.
“I will see her,” I said, getting to my feet and following him down the winding path to the village. When we reached Njoro's boma he led me to his wife's hut, then called Kamari's worried mother out and stood aside as I entered. Kamari sat at the farthest point from the door, her back propped against a wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms encircling her thin legs.
“fambo, Kamari,” I said.
She stared at me but said nothing.
“Your mother worries for you, and your father tells me that you no longer eat or drink.”
She made no answer.
“You also have not kept your promise to tend my boma.”
Silence.
“Have you forgotten how to speak?” I said.
“Kikuyu women do not speak,” she said bitterly. “They do not think. All they do is bear babies and cook food and gather firewood and till the fields. They do not have to speak or think to do that.”
“Are you that unhappy?”
She did not answer.
“Listen to my words, Kamari,” I said slowly. “I made my decision for the good of Kirinyaga, and I will not recant it. As a Kikuyu woman, you must live the life that has been ordained for you.” I paused. “However, neither the Kikuyu nor the Eutopian Council are without compassion for the individual. Any member of our society may leave if he wishes. According to the charter we signed when we claimed this world, you need only walk to that area known as Haven, and a Maintenance ship will pick you up and transport you to the location of your choice.”
“All I know is Kirinyaga,” she said. “How am I to choose a new home if I am forbidden to learn about other places?”
“I do not know,” I admitted.
“I don't “want to leave Kirinyaga!” she continued. “This is my home. These are my people. I am a Kikuyu girl, not a Maasai girl or a European girl. I will bear my husband's children and till his shamba; I will gather his wood and cook his meals and weave his garments; I will leave my parents' shamba and live with my husband's family I will do all this without complaint, Koriba, if you will just let me learn to read and write!”
“I cannot,” I said sadly.
“But why?'1
“Who is the wisest man you know, Kamari?” I asked.
“The mundumugu is always the wisest man in the village.”
“Then you must trust to my wisdom.”
“But I feel like the pygmy falcon,” she said, her misery reflected in her voice. “He spent his life dreaming of soaring high upon the winds. I dream of seeing words upon the computer screen.”
“You are not like the falcon at all,” I said. “He was prevented from being what he was meant to be. You are prevented from being what you are not meant to be.”
“You are not an evil man, Koriba,” she said solemnly “But you are wrong.”
“If that is so, then I shall have to live with it,” I said.
“But you are asking me to live with it,” she said, “and that is your crime.”
“If you call me a criminal again,” I said sternly, for no one may speak thus to the mundumugu, “I shall surely place a thahu on you.”
“What more can you do?” she said bitterly.
“I can turn you into a hyena, an unclean eater of human flesh who prowls only in the darkness. I can fill your belly with thorns, so that your every movement will be agony. I can—”
“You are just a man,” she said wearily, “and you have already done your worst.”
“I will hear no more of this,” I said. “I order you to eat and drink what your mother brings to you, and I expect to see you at my boma this afternoon.”
I walked out of the hut and told Kamari's mother to bring her banana mash and water, then stopped by old Benima's shamba. Buffalo had stampeded through his fields, destroying his crops, and I sacrificed a goat to remove the thahu that had fallen upon his land.
When I was finished I stopped at Koinnage's boma, where he offered me some freshly brewed pombe and began complaining about Kibo, his newest wife, who kept taking sides with Shumi, his second wife, against Wambu, his senior wife.
“You can always divorce her and return her to her family's shamba? I suggested.
“She cost twenty cows and five goats!” he complained. “Will her family return them?”
“No, they will not.”
“Then I will not send her back.”
“As you wish,” I said with a shrug.
“Besides, she is very strong and very lovely,” he continued. “I just wish she would stop fighting with Wambu.”
“What do they fight about?” I asked.
“They fight about who will fetch the water, and who will mend my garments, and who will repair the thatch on my hut.” He paused. “They even argue about whose hut I should visit at night, as if I had no choice in the matter.”
“Do they ever fight about ideas?” I asked.
“Ideas?” he repeated blankly.
“Such as you might find in books.”
He laughed. “They are women, Koriba. What need have they for ideas?” He paused. “In fact, what need have any of us for them?”
“I do not know,” I said. “I was merely curious.”
“You look disturbed,” he noted.
“It must be thepombe” I said. “I am an old man, and perhaps it is too strong.”
“That is because Kibo will not listen when Wambu tells her how to brew it. I really should send her away”—he looked at Kibo as she carried a load of wood on her strong, young back—”but she is so young and so lovely” Suddenly his gaze went beyond his newest wife to the village. “Ah!” he said. “I see that old Siboki has finally died.”
“How do y
ou know?” I asked.
He pointed to a thin column of smoke. “They are burning his hut.”
I stared off in the direction he indicated. “That is not Siboki's hut,” I said. “His boma is more to the west.”
“Who else is old and infirm and due to die?” asked Koinnage.
And suddenly I knew, as surely as I knew that Ngai sits on His throne atop the holy mountain, that Kamari was dead.
I walked to Njoro's shamba as quickly as I could. When I arrived, Kamari's mother and sister and grandmother were already wailing the death chant, tears streaming down their faces.
“What happened?” I demanded, walking up to Njoro.
“Why do you ask, when it is you who destroyed her?” he replied bitterly.
“I did not destroy her,” I said.
“Did you not threaten to place a thahu on her just this morning?” he persisted. “You did so, and now she is dead, and I have but one daughter to bring the bride-price, and I have had to burn Kamari's hut.”
“Stop worrying about bride-prices and huts and tell me what happened, or you shall learn what it means to be cursed by a mundu-mugul” I snapped.
“She hung herself in her hut with a length of buffalo hide.”
Five women from the neighboring shamba arrived and took up the death chant.
“She hung herself in her hut?” I repeated.
He nodded. “She could at least have hung herself from a tree, so that her hut would not be unclean and I would not have to burn it.”
“Be quiet!” I said, trying to collect my thoughts.
“She was not a bad daughter,” he continued. “Why did you curse her, Koriba?”
“I did not place a thahu upon her,” I said, wondering if I spoke the truth. “I wished only to save her.”
“Who has stronger medicine than you?” he asked fearfully.
“She broke the law of Ngai,” I answered.
“And now Ngai has taken His vengeance!” moaned Njoro fearfully. “Which member of my family will He strike down next?”
“None of you,” I said. “Only Kamari broke the law.”
“I am a poor man,” said Njoro cautiously, “even poorer now than before. How much must I pay you to ask Ngai to receive Kamari's spirit with compassion and forgiveness?”