Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

The Wizard of the Crow felt his spirits sink but tried not to allow panic into his voice or demeanor. He would neither antagonize the minister nor beg for freedom. He even started to see his predicament in a positive light. The longer he stayed in prison, the longer Sikiokuu would stay away from the shrine, Nyawlra’s hiding place. Sikiokuu may break a thousand mirrors, but whatever mirror he would bring would tell a story that ended in the same truth: Nyawlra among the people. It was only right that she should disappear among those over whom lay Sikiokuu’s shadow.

Sikiokuu’s shadow? An idea suddenly formed in his mind.

“We reap what we sow,” said the Wizard of the Crow. “You broke the mirror to deny the vision of yourself. Bring me a mirror your shadow has not contaminated.”

What are we to do? Njoya and Kahiga asked themselves after they had locked up the Wizard of the Crow. They were upset. They had failed to keep their promise to return him to the witch the night before. How would they explain the new turn of events to her? A woman’s witchcraft was more potent and deadly than a man’s, they believed.

They decided to arrange for the Wizard of the Crow to talk to her on the phone. This might mollify her. It would show that Njoya and Kahiga were not in agreement with Sikiokuu. By secretly listening to the conversation, they might decipher what the woman intended to do with them.

So early the next day, they gave the wizard a mobile phone and told him that they were doing him a favor by allowing him to explain to his mate what had happened. They even offered to leave the room to give them some privacy.

Hardly taken in by their kindness, the wizard sensed a trap, but he decided that any contact with Nyawlra was better than none. At the very least it would let her know that he was still alive.

“The ones who came for me are the ones who, on their own authority, have made this call possible, and they are so considerate as to leave me alone to talk to you and tell you I am well,” the Wizard of the Crow started. He and Nyawlra were used to speaking circumspectly, and her response let the Wizard of the Crow know that she had the gist of everything he told her.

“I am glad that you are helping the government, but I am not happy that they have kept you for yet another night. Those who took you from here must return you here. Should they bring you back with even a single hair missing, they will suffer the full extent of my wrath. My anger is hotter than the hottest zone in hell. Aburlria will tremble with troubles as yet unseen. Let them not forget the broken pieces of calabash.”

Soon after this some cleaners appeared in the cell. At first the wizard did not pay much attention to them, but soon he could not ignore the bizarreness of their undertaking: they were closely inspecting the floor, picking up barely visible debris, and putting it in a tiny plastic bag.

“What are you up to?” he ventured to ask.

“Who are you? We have been ordered to collect all strands of hair that may have fallen from your head for safekeeping.”

The Wizard of the Crow felt like laughing but didn’t even try.

Sikiokuu did not take the challenge to come up with a mirror uncon-taminated by his shadow lightly, so desperate was he to catch Nyawlra before the Ruler’s return. At first he thought it an easy matter, just order a fresh mirror from an Aburlrian factory. But a native mirror was likely to be contaminated by other local intrusive shadows. Only from abroad could he get a pure mirror.

Not wanting to put all his eggs in one basket, Sikiokuu ordered mirrors from Japan, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, and the USA.

But no sooner had he solved this problem than Njoya and Kahiga walked into his office to complicate his life.

As faithful servants of the State and loyal lieutenants to Sikiokuu, Njoya and Kahiga felt duty bound to acquaint him with the intelligence they had gathered on the phone without disclosing how the information had come to them. They mostly wanted to convey the seriousness of what Sikiokuu had done.

“It is our duty to let you know of any threats to the security of the State,” Kahiga started, “and we now fear that Aburlria is facing anger untold.”

“Aburlria may come to tremble with troubles as yet unknown,” Njoya added.

“What kind of troubles?”

“Unimaginable,” Kahiga said.

“Brought about by what or whom?” Sikiokuu asked, recalling his own indiscretions of the night.

“The Wizard of the Crow,” Njoya added.

“The result of jailing him,” said Kahiga.

“He might lose some of his hair,” warned Njoya.

“Or some of his nails,” Kahiga added.

“Or fall and sprain his ankles,” Njoya said.

“He might suffer a bellyache from the food we feed prisoners,” Kahiga said.

“He might be scarred by beatings.”

“His bones might ache from the prison bed that’s as hard as rock,” Kahiga said.

“He might disappear the way the enemies of the State disappear in Aburlria,” said Njoya.

“Then those of us who have had anything to do with his disappearance will vanish from the face of the earth.”

“Like dinosaurs,” stressed Njoya.

“Or implode, break into pieces like a broken mirror…”

“Shut up!” Sikiokuu shouted at his lieutenants. “Go away, misery. Do you think that the Wizard of the Crow is God’s twin brother?”

Njoya and Kahiga were Sikiokuu’s most faithful lieutenants in the power struggles, and their dissension over this matter affected him like an ache from one’s bodily organs. He recalled the mirror he had shattered. The two men were not in the room when he stomped the mirror, so how did they come to dangle before him the image of broken pieces? Had the wizard transmitted to them, through his sorcery, the words they were saying? Was this the beginning of the breaking up of his social and bodily organs? He was overcome with fear.

Tossing and turning at midnight, Sikiokuu would hear a voice saying, almost mockingly, The Wizard of the Crow will break you into pieces, and, shaken, he would sit up instantly and wipe the sweat from his brow. He could not go on like this. He must get a hold of himself. Then he came to a resolution. The sorcerer’s life was in his hands. There was no way the sorcerer could strike vengeance from Hell. Yes, it had come to this: it was the wizard or him. He had to rid himself of this sorcerer, but not before forcing him to assist in capturing his prize: Nyawlra. The irony tickled his more malicious side: that in enabling Nyawlra’s capture the Wizard of the Crow would be ensuring his own ticket to Hell. Sikiokuu felt a kind of peace as he contemplated a secure future without threats from the Wizard of the Crow.

With the resolution, he had achieved clarity of mind, he thought, and early the next morning he went to the office, expecting important news about the Ruler’s arrival date. There was a time when he did not look forward to the return of the delegation, for it meant Machokali’s triumph. But now, sure of Tajirika’s confessions and the certainty of the wizard’s inevitable descent into Hell, he felt no unease. He was even looking forward to it. He found no faxes so he opened the computer. But before he had cleared his e-mail, the telephone rang.

It was Tajirika. Why was he calling so early? A good omen? As they exchanged greetings and the reasons for the early call, Sikiokuu opened an e-mail message and started reading it silently. What?

What’s the meaning of this? he said loudly and put the receiver down, completely unaware of Tajirika on the other end of the line. The message was disturbingly clear. All preparations to receive the Ruler were to be kept on hold. The Ruler was not feeling well.