Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

When they arrived at Sikiokuu’s, Njoya and Kahiga shielded their captive from public view, taking him through the back door.

Sikiokuu motioned to Njoya and Kahiga to leave and join two other police guards in the outer room. Tajirika and Sikiokuu stood there sizing each other up.

What Sikiokuu saw in Tajirika was the look of a trapped, wounded animal. So dangerous was Tajirika’s look that Sikiokuu searched high and low to offer him a way out. He tried humor to ease the tension.

“Hut, sasa, story zako? Ni nini tnakalau wanakubringiya kinaa? Nt haart wanakuitia?” Sikiokuu asked in Sheng.

“I don’t much care for your outdated Sheng,” Tajirika snapped angrily, thinking that Sikiokuu was taking him lightly. “You and I are no longer children. I am not here to play Fathe and Mathe.”

“I was just welcoming you, Mr. Tajirika,” Sikiokuu responded quickly, somewhat disappointed that his Sheng had been rebuffed. “What’s gone wrong between you and these policemen?” Sikiokuu asked, as if he himself had nothing to do with it.

“Nothing,” Tajirika pressed on. “I want to talk man to man.”

“Okay! But first let’s uncuff you, and please put that bucket down. Let my men take it out. It is stinking up the whole building.”

Why should I trust you with my shit?”

“My word is my bond.”

“Swear in the presence of one or two of your police officers that no matter the outcome of our talks, you will never again put me in the same cell with the Wizard of the Crow.”

“Only that?” Sikiokuu asked, completely taken aback by the request.

“For now!” said Tajirika. “The rest is between you and me.”

Despite his anger at the sorcerer’s intransigence, Sikiokuu had not planned on keeping him in jail for more than a day. As soon as the Wizard of the Crow used his sorcery to locate Nyawlra, Sikiokuu planned to release him. In fact, Sikiokuu had thought that if he kept the two together for one night, Tajirika’s scary stories of torture would terrorize the Wizard of the Crow and soften him up before their meeting the following day. A lesson in manners.

“What went wrong between you and the Wizard of the Crow?” asked Sikiokuu, relieved and curious at the same time.

“Do you know what it means to share a roof with one who learned sorcery from the dead and regularly talks with the tongues of the dead? Will you swear before a police witness or not?”

How did a lesson in manners turn out like this, with Tajirika babbling all manner of paranoic foolishness?

“Okay!” said Sikiokuu to mollify him a little, for indeed the minister had no idea what Tajirika was talking about. Maybe under torture the man had lost his mind. What was he to do with a crazed chairman of Marching to Heaven? How would he explain it all away? He decided to go along with Tajirika’s nutty request, and he shouted for Njoya and Kahiga.

Thinking that their chief was shouting for help, Njoya and Kahiga rushed in followed by the two other police officers, their weapons drawn.

“Put your guns down,” Sikiokuu hastened to tell them. “This gentleman and I are old friends. In fact, I needed only two of you, but it is probably better that you all are here because I want all of you to witness what I am now going to say. He must never be put under the same roof as any witch doctor of whatever name. If anyone breaks my rule he will lose his job without notice, period. Besides, this gentleman is not a prisoner. He is in protective custody because he is assisting the government in matters concerning the security of the State. Okay, my friend?” Sikiokuu asked him.

“It’s okay” said Tajirika, as if a big weight had been taken off his mind, but he still looked dazed, and his voice quavered.

“Remove the handcuffs,” Sikiokuu instructed Kahiga.

Tajirika stepped forward, but as he put the pail of shit on the table, the better to extend his hands for the handcuffs to be removed, he suddenly tripped over a chair and fell, splashing the contents of the bucket all over the office. Some of it found its way onto Sikiokuu’s face and clothes; some on Kahiga, Njoya, and the two police officers, and some on the Ruler’s portrait on the table. They thought that Tajirika was enacting what he had been threatening the whole day. Njoya and Kahiga ran back to the anteroom and hid behind the door as a shield against more filth. The two other police officers jumped up and down, screaming, The deadly virus!

“Shit!” shouted Sikiokuu, shaking his big befouled ears, and as he ran toward an inner chamber he was heard to shout: The idiot deserves to be shot!

Tajirika heard the words be shot and thought that Sikiokuu had issued an order to that effect.

On the ground, smeared with his own shit and urine, Tajirika implored: “Don’t shoot me. I beg you, don’t shoot me. I was lying. I don’t have the death virus.”

The two additional police officers were so relieved by his confession that they felt grateful, helped him to his feet, removed his handcuffs, and took the bucket away.

As he stood waiting for them to return, Tajirika felt as if a cloud had been lifted from his head, as if he had suddenly woken up from the delirium of a high fever. He also felt a little foolish and unsure of the next move. What should he do? Wipe his face with his soiled shirt? Followed by the two other police officers, Njoya and Kahiga came back, swearing under their breath: Let’s hustle him back to the torture chamber and teach him a lesson. Emerging from the inner chamber, Sikiokuu caught Njoya and Kahiga’s words and warned them to stop the nonsense. He then ordered the two police officers to get soap and water and clean up the mess under the supervision of Njoya and Kahiga.

“After you finish, go back to the other room and wait for further instructions. And you,” he said, turning to Tajirika, “follow me.”

But before entering the inner chamber, Sikiokuu suddenly remembered the portrait of the Ruler. He rushed to the table and grabbed it.

“There is a sink in the bathroom over there,” Sikiokuu told Tajirika, pointing at a door. “Go in there and clean up a bit. I am afraid I don’t have any spare clothes.”

Even Sikiokuu had not changed into fresh clothes. He had certainly tried to wipe off the mess from his own shirt, but the soiled spots could still be seen. Now he started working on the portrait of the Ruler, trying to clean the spots, but every time he thought he had finished another seemed to emerge as if from inside the portrait, and in the end he gave up and covered it with a towel. Tajirika found him trying to freshen the air in the chamber with perfume, but no amount of perfume could quite remove the stink in the offices of the Ruler.

“It’s hopeless,” Sikiokuu said, and he kept the bottle of perfume on the table and sat back in a chair. He then pointed to another chair for Tajirika to sit, and once again they faced each other as before in the outer office, but this time there was only the coffee table between them.

“Mr. Tajirika, what you did today is the same thing as taking hostages, a crime in national and international law. And I must tell you: but for the fact that you were in handcuffs, they would have shot you dead. Let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t ever play with fire again, and I really hope to God that the reasons that drove you to hold the armed forces at shit-point are solid enough to withstand the wrath of the State. Tell me everything you came here to tell me. And let me warn you. I don’t want more foolishness from you. No more playing around. First: what happened between you and the Wizard of the Crow? Or should I send for him to tell me his version so that you both can argue about your differences in my neutral presence?”