Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

The corpse was in a somewhat threadbare suit. Was there money in the pocket? At the thought, all fears about touching the body disappeared and the three searched frantically but found nothing. No money. They noticed that the corpse still clutched a bag on which it partially lay. It had to contain something important for its owner to cling to it so tenaciously through his death throes. The three read one another’s minds and unceremoniously they quickly turned the body over and searched the bag. They were so sure that the bag was full of money that they became very angry at the corpse when they found it held nothing but rags; one of them started cursing the corpse as if it were alive. You stupid liar. I am sure these rags are your real clothes and the suit you have on is stolen property. Have you no shame, stealing other people’s clothes? And you did not even have the good sense to steal a suit less worn out; at least we could have taken that.

They were about to go when they suddenly realized that their fingerprints were all over the body. They could not leave the corpse there and decided to bury the evidence of their involvement. Dead men do not speak, especially if they and their bags are buried in a rubbish dump. So many were dying of hunger or illness, not to mention the ones in despair who took their own lives, that the police would have no reason to search for yet another corpse amid the stench.

Maybe I should let them bury my body, he told himself, or rather his bird self: What use am I in Aburlria? The body is a prison for the soul. Why shouldn’t I cut off the chains that now tie me to it, let the body and the soul say good-bye to each other? That way my soul shall be free to roam across land and all over this sky. Yes, to go wherever it wishes without the endless restraining demands of the body: I am thirsty, I want water to drink; I am hungry, I want food to eat; I am naked, I need some clothes; I am out in the rain, I need some shelter; I am ill, I must find a doctor. I must catch a bus but I have no money. I must pay school fees, taxes… isn’t it simpler to let everything go?

But when he saw the men actually lift him, or rather his body, and throw it onto the pile of rubbish in the back of the lorry headed for the dump, he heard a voice from within cry out that the body was the temple of God and the soul had no right to cut loose its connection to the world before it had completed its sojourn on earth. I am human, I am a human being, a soul, and not a piece of garbage, no matter how poor and ragged I look, and I deserve respect, he heard himself say time and again as he descended to and repossessed his body.

The stench, which hit his nostrils, was so strong that it made him sneeze even as he tried to sit up. He started removing garbage from his face. About to get into the passenger side of the lorry, two of the men heard the sneeze. They each stood fixed to the ground. The driver also froze, his hands on the door, one leg on the rung and the other still on the ground. What was that? he asked. But his men did not answer. Having gone to peer at the body risen from the dead, they just ran away. The driver also fled the lorry after his friends, beseeching them not to leave him to the mercy of the Devil. But the word Devil only served to spur them on; the three were now screaming out Satan! in different pitches. Not until they saw a group of young men and women with crosses and a banner on which was written the words SOLDIERS OF CHRIST did they stop to compose themselves and ask for help…

The three garbage collectors were trembling as they told their tale of how they had found a dead body and were about to bury it in the dumpsite when it came to life, or rather rose from the dead, and started chasing them around the vehicle, trying to ensnare them, all the while threatening to put them into the huge bag he carried and take them home to his evil angels in Devil Land. And was that not the site of the everlasting fire, the garbage collectors asked, and the Soldiers of Christ said yes. The collectors could not recall how they managed to escape from the Devil’s grasp, but when they saw their chance, they seized it and fled.

It was a story of sadness and terror and relief-oh, what a narrow escape-and even before they were done with the tale one of them was saying that there would be no more garbage collection for him; all three agreed that they would never again touch a body, no matter how dead it appeared to be. The dead were truly deadly.

“Don’t worry” the Soldiers of Christ told them, nodding their heads knowingly to show that they were well aware of all the wiles of Satan. “It was Jesus calling on you to leave these earthly brooms behind and become cleaners of the hearts of men,” they assured them as they now broke into a hymn.

The Lord told the fishermen to follow him

And leave their fishing nets behind

He told them he would take them to Heaven…

The hymn and the singing made the Soldiers of Christ feel courage course through their veins, and a couple started weeping with bravery, eager to go to war immediately.

The garbage collectors said thank you and they allowed that they now felt safe being, as they were, in the company of believers; but when asked to take the soldiers to the scene of their recent woe and narrow escape, they at first refused and agreed to do so only when they were told that they could hide behind the banner and that the soldiers would guard them with crosses on every side. The Devil lives in terror of the cross, the soldiers assured them. Didn’t he stop chasing them the moment he saw them heading toward the cross? And they sang, At the cross, at the cross where I found the Lord…

And so behind the safety of the banner and the cross, the three men were able to point to a lone figure walking toward the center of the city. They were able to confirm that it was the Devil himself because they recognized the bag he carried. And now they said very firmly that they would not take another step in the direction of the Devil. They hurried to get back into their truck before Satan changed his mind and came back to collect them.

With their crosses and Bibles held out in front the way Bishop Tireless had done at All Saints, the Soldiers of Christ followed the figure from a safe distance, for as they said they must not be fools who tread even where angels fear to tread. They must keep in mind that Satan had been a leading angel before he was banished from Heaven for plotting a rebellion against God. A being who had almost pulled off a palace coup against God was not to be taken lightly. But they kept their eyes on him, for with Jesus leading them they were bound to succeed in containing the Devil. As one of them pointed out, Satan had succeeded in misleading so many angels to join him in his coup attempt because Jesus Christ was then not born.

What happened next, however, only went to confirm their fears about the devilish wiles of the figure before them. Even today the Soldiers of Christ swear that they never once took their eyes off him, but still they cannot explain how the figure disappeared right in front of their watchful eyes. All they know is that when they reached the street they, too, had seen the figure enter, they met so many people with similar bags that they could not tell who was whom among the hundreds pushing and shoving one another for the right of way. The Devil had vanished.

And then they remembered the tribulations of Maritha and Mariko and the same thought chilled their hearts: what if Satan had played his devilish tricks on them to pin them down in the central streets of the city while he went to Santalucia to snare Maritha and Mariko and pluck out their souls, leaving their bodies empty shells on the roadside or by some dumpsiter