Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

“Let me get ahold of Minister Sikiokuu, and I will teach him never to toy with me again,” he said at last.

He could not figure out the form the vengeance would take. He even thought of hiring professional assassins to finish off Sikiokuu, but he had no clue as to where to find them. Besides, that was risky and would take time to arrange; he wanted instant vengeance. Tajirika’s failure to settle on a course of action made Sikiokuu’s lies burn even more. Why had he lied to him? To make him cooperate against…

Suddenly Tajirika knew what he would do: he would refuse to conspire against Machokali.

He went to the office to call Sikiokuu.

Sikiokuu could tell by the way that Tajirika was breathing on the other end of the line that something had gone terribly wrong. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“What’s the matter?” Sikiokuu repeated.

Tajirika was about to declare that he would no longer cooperate in the matter of Machokali when he remembered that he had already put his signature on a false confession. Sikiokuu clearly held him by the balls and was prepared to squeeze hard to make him comply. Was there no way out of this nightmare?

“And you did not even have the guts to say that you and Kaniürü were the stars of the show?” he said, trying to inject as much bitterness and scorn as he could into his tone.

At first Sikiokuu did not know what Tajirika was talking about.

“Did you beat your wife?” Sikiokuu asked straight out, ignoring the taunts.

Tajirika hesitated, wondering how Sikiokuu knew about what had transpired at home. Had Sikiokuu set up surveillance around his home? Or was Sikiokuu in league with Vinjinia and the women who had humiliated him? That might even explain why they were so concerned with Vinjinia’s safety. And come to think of it, Sikiokuu and those women were the only ones who had ever asked him not to beat his wife.

“Be a man and fight me in the open instead of sending women to do your bidding. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Pick it up, Mr. Minister of lies and cowardice.”

“Women? What women?” Sikiokuu asked.

“But of course you know nothing about them. Of course you didn’t send them to abduct me. Sikiokuu, you are truly amazing. I have caught you red-handed, and all you can do is deny and deny?”

“Please hold yourself together,” Sikiokuu said in English, completely perplexed, for in truth he did not know what Tajirika was talking about. “You listen to me. I have no clue as to what you’re talking about. This is the gospel truth. You and I are now working together, remember? I have specifically ordered the police not to harass you. So if anyone has bothered you at your home or your workplace, he is disobeying my orders and will be dealt with accordingly. You are a very important person to this government, Mr. Tajirika. So tell me in short or just take your time: what happened to make you doubt my word?”

Sikiokuu managed to soothe Tajirika somewhat. He now told Sikiokuu an edited version of what had happened. He diminished his relentless and brutal wife beating to a single blow to the face. And the number of his female assailants changed from ten to twenty-five. The single machete became nine guns.

Sikiokuu felt like laughing but started wondering who these women were. And they even had the nerve to set themselves up as a people’s court? And armed, too?

“Mr. Tajirika, I don’t need to remind you that I had expressly forbidden you to beat your wife. Now you see the consequences. An entirely new situation has arisen, but we shall do our best to handle it. I am now asking you to please proceed with life as if nothing unusual has happened. The government will secretly investigate the matter, and we shall not rest until we get to the bottom of it. I promise you that the investigation will be conducted by a very select few. What kind of a world would this be if men lost the right to discipline their wives? I will make another request of you. Please don’t let on to Vinjinia that you have talked to me about this business. And don’t tell anyone else about what you have had to endure at the hands of women. We don’t want this type of thing to spread through the entire country. I still advise you to declare a moratorium on wife beating until things are back to normal.”

“Thankyou, Mr. Sikiokuu,” Tajirika said, surprised to hear himself mouthing gratitude instead of curses and threats. “It has been said truly that the nature of women is incomprehensible. They are very emotional. Even my wife, I don’t think I will ever be able to trust her again. From now on I will be like your friend the Frenchman Descartes. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to doubt whether I have really seen the things that I have seen with my eyes. Reality and illusion are getting mixed up.”

“Please, Mr. Tajirika.” Sikiokuu lamented that he had ever mentioned the Frenchman to this idiot of a businessman. “You must really forget about the Frenchman. I told you he died many years ago, and that is a fact.”

Fajirika appreciated Sikiokuu’s concern for discretion. He also liked Sikiokuu’s promise that the investigation would be conducted by a select few.

So after their telephone conversation, Tajirika felt much better, and he now walked as sprightly as he did before the women and Sikiokuu and Kaniürü had stripped him of his dignity. Good times were around the corner again, Tajirika felt like singing.

Kaniürü did not like Tajirika’s release from jail, much less its being effected without his being consulted in his capacity as the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry. He was not amused by Tajirika’s alliance with Sikiokuu, as it denied him the minister’s undivided support in his bid to fully assume the chairmanship of Marching to Heaven. The key to his uninterrupted flow of personal wealth without personal sweat was the occupancy of the chair. If businessmen nowadays were ready to give him big money based on faith and hope, untold fortune would be his when the Ruler returned with loans galore leading to actual construction. Tajirika’s release from jail was the fly in his ointment. Otherwise his affairs were running smoothly and Kaniürü believed himself to be secure in life and property.

Even Nyawlra would come back to him someday, he thought, because of protective magic and the persuasive power of money. Like most of the other Ruler’s disciples, Kaniürü believed that money could buy just about anything and anybody, and certainly Nyawlra would be neither the first nor the last to change her political views for cash.

The only person who showed no interest in money was Jane Kany-ori. She helped him in all his banking and yet asked for nothing more than the occasional lunch of collard greens and roasted goat meat. In money matters, she was a poster girl for innocence. This used to puzzle Kaniürü at first, but then he worked it out. Surrounded as she was by heaps of money all the time, she had become indifferent to its value, the way a cook loses appetite for a dish he has been sniffing all day. Kaniürü of course liked it that way.

So between the free services of Jane Kanyori and the free protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow, Kaniürü felt safe as he contemplated his maneuvers in the precarious politics of Aburlria.

He did not know how far Sikiokuu had pursued his suggestions about securing the services of the Wizard of the Crow, whether Sikiokuu had sent for the sorcerer or had gone to the shrine in disguise at night. Not that it mattered to Kaniürü. He had done his part. The rest was for Sikiokuu to do and he, Kaniürü, was content not to be too closely involved in all this sorcery and witchcraft. For though it was all right to be close to a sorcerer long enough to secure protective magic, it was not all right to remain too close to him, for one could never know when he might turn against one.