Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

The major task remaining for Kaniürü before the Ruler’s return was to complete the work of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania and write down its findings. Tajirika’s confessions provided the basis of the report, and, because it had to conform to Sikiokuu’s plans, he did not lose sleep over the task.

But Tajirika’s release kept gnawing at him. Tajirika might resume the chairmanship with all its powers. So even as he received his stuffed envelopes and banked them safely and wisely with the help of the loyal Jane Kanyori, his mind was always busy trying to figure out how he could trick Tajirika into some foolishness that would compromise him.

He was in the midst of entertaining various scenarios when the telephone rang. It was Sikiokuu, but why was he calling so early?

“Women? What women? They beat up Tajirika?” Kaniürü asked, collapsing in laughter, unable for a minute to utter a coherent phrase. “They sat on him? What were they up to?”

Kaniürü’s peals of laughter turned into a cry of sheer delight when Sikiokuu told him to investigate the gang of women.

The rumors that Aburlrian women were up in arms against their husbands, which later spread to all corners of the country, had origins in Kaniürü’s investigations. Despite the fact that he had been instructed to do it secretly, Kaniürü decided that this scandal was precisely what he needed to strip Tajirika of all dignity and manhood. He started by hinting to one or two people that some women had attacked Tajirika, made him lower his trousers, and then lashed his buttocks thoroughly. Rumor took over from there, but to Kaniürü’s disappointment Tajirika’s name did not figure much-any man’s name would do among the many scary stories that were now told of women’s replacing wife beating with husband bashing.

Kaniürü almost became a victim of the success of his own malicious initiative, for he later received urgent instructions to press ahead with the investigation to stem the tide of these rumors. A national gender war posed a serious threat to established family values.

Who are these women? What was the connection between the women of the people’s court, the women dancers, and the Movement for the Voice of the People? For a moment he dwelled on the women dancers who came to grace the opening ceremony of his office.

After the ceremony he had expected them to come back to hold him to his promise to buy them a fleet of buses, but they never did. He was a little disappointed, for he would have liked to tell them a few things. He recalled the women dancers’ intervention on Vinjinia’s behalf. What had they been up to? What was the nature of Vinjinia’s involvement?

Should he summon her to his office or not? But whether he called her to his office or went to see her, Vinjinia was sure to tell the same story she had told her husband. Should he summon Tajirika again? He would no doubt repeat what Vinjinia had recounted. And why would they cooperate with him anyway? Besides, Sikiokuu had told him very clearly that he must take care not to disturb the Tajirikas unduly. After all, Sikiokuu had chosen Kaniürü to conduct the investigation instead of the police because he wanted it done quietly, and he wanted Kaniürü’s report to reach him first before it became an official document. Not that this was anything new. Sikiokuu was always self-serving. But, still, convinced as he was that she was essential to his investigation, Kaniürü had to get at Vinjinia.

He focused on the details of the gang of women who had abused Tajirika. They had ambushed him as he was walking to the Mars Cafe. They had thrown him into a waiting van, blindfolded him, and taken him to an unknown location, all in broad daylight. And immediately Kaniürü was struck by something. He whistled a tune of satisfaction. He would follow in the women’s footsteps, even if it meant not following every one of Sikiokuu’s orders not to importune the Tajirikas.

From the day of the rapprochement between husband and wife, Vinjinia had prayed and hoped for a new beginning to their lives. Not that she believed that their relationship would be back to where it should be, but talking was the first step on the road to healing.

She did not ask too much of life. A God-fearing, churchgoing family; a husband uninvolved in politics and civic matters; college-educated kids with secure jobs; a house, a farm, and two cars. This had been their dream when Tajirika and she were teachers in primary school.

As a certified teacher, Vinjinia had been the more secure of the two. Tajirika had been mainly a substitute teacher, his employment depending on women teachers going on maternity leave. They had married and had thought of naming their first child, a girl, Nyawlra, but then they decided against it because Nyawlra meant “work” and they did not want to condemn their child, even symbolically, to the life of a laborer. Instead they called her Ng’endo to symbolize their hopes for a life journey better than theirs as teachers earning a miserable income.

That was in the colonial days, and their life did not change until independence, when racial barriers to bank loans were relaxed and more business opportunities became available to Aburlrian blacks. Tajirika started a new career selling furniture and household goods. He was not a carpenter, but he had the gift of a smooth tongue. He first got orders for various items, then he would engage carpenters, and soon he was the proud owner of quite a big store, with a workshop and salaried carpenters. When they later bought a farm, Vin-jinia gave up teaching to become the full-time manager of home and farm. She often looked back to those days when they would rejoice at every good turn in their fortune: the fulfillment of the prophecy implied in the name Titus Tajirika. Yet the wealthier they became, the greater their dispiritedness as they entered into discords that intensified into domestic violence.

If only the closeness at their recent wonder could be reproduced in their other dealings at home, Vinjinia sighed, but the possibility made her break into one of her favorite lyrics:

After darkness came light

That shone on all things

My heart waits patiently

For love to rule my life

She was in the fields outside her house, picking green corn for dinner, and she now continued in song all the way to the gates of her yard.

It was evening after sunset and everything felt peaceful, when she was suddenly grabbed by people she had not seen approach and was dragged into a vehicle that drove off immediately. The whole thing happened so swiftly that she did not have the time to scream. She did not even realize that she had dropped the sisal bag in which she had gathered the green corn.

She found herself seated between two men stinking of alcohol. It was dark in the back of the vehicle, and she could not tell how many people were in it. Like Tajirika, at first she thought that these were ordinary criminals who had kidnapped her in the expectation of a ransom. But suppose her husband refused to pay the ransom? Or had plotted all this as vengeance?

There were many stories of spousal murder in Aburfria: husbands arranging their wives’ deaths and then shedding crocodile tears while claiming to be hunting down the killer; wives incinerating their husbands at home while making sure that they themselves sustained superficial burns as proof that they had narrowly escaped the fire. Had Tajirika gotten into his head to hire thugs to silence her forever? Maybe this whole thing was a dream, a nightmare, and when she woke up everything would be back to normal? But it was not a dream, and Vinjinia was now horrified at the thought that she was about to be raped. Where are you taking me? she asked in a tremulous voice.