Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Suddenly he heard a knock at the door. He jumped up and hesitated before opening the door. It was one of the Ruler’s security men. Had the Ruler’s condition worsened? Or… Or… worse than that?

“I wanted to see you alone,” said Arigaigai Gathere, alias A.G.

“What’s the matter?” Machokali asked him after he had gestured for his visitor to take a seat.

“I really don’t know where or how to start, but I want to begin by begging you not to take lightly what an underling like me… Do you know the story of Elephant and the thorn?”

“Please spare me the wisdom of folktales,” Machokali said, forcing himself to laugh as if he had been joking, but in his heart he was burning with anxiety, for another thought had crept into his mind: had Sikiokuu seized power?

“Let me tell you the story all the same. Elephant felt something sharp in his foot, and when he removed it and saw that it was a tiny thorn, he was very angry. How can such a tiny thing prevent a big animal like me from walking? He pushed the thorn back into his foot and walked on, stamping the ground with defiance. The infection that later developed in the foot killed Elephant. Hence the saying ‘Never look down upon the small.’ True! Haki ya Mungu! I, too, ask you, Don’t despise the messenger, however lowly, or take lightly the message, however strange.”

“Say whatever you have come to say,” Machokali said.

“I know of a man who can handle this illness.”

“A doctor more qualified than Professor Furyk?”

“Well, he is not a doctor in the ordinary sense. He’s a sorcerer.”

“A sorcerer?”

“Well, a diviner.”

A diviner? A sorcerer? In New York?”

“In Aburlria. His name is the Wizard of the Crow.”

“True! Haki ya Mungu,” A.G. would say when he later narrated what happened during that fateful visit to the USA. “Right from the time it first struck, I knew that it was no ordinary illness. I also knew that there was only one person who could wrestle it to the ground. But I did not want to volunteer my knowledge. Who would believe my claims that the Wizard of the Crow could succeed where the masters of science from the West had failed? So I held back the information to give the ministers time to see what their Western doctors could do. The ministers had more education than I, but you all know, don’t you, that too much education can make men blind to what’s around them. “But when I heard that the Ruler had started to hallucinate, uttering words that nobody could tell the meaning of, I said to myself, That’s it. I will speak out or forever hold my peace. It was clear to me that whites were at the root of this illness. Do you know how white people hate it when a black man comes up with an original idea? And what could be more original than our Ruler’s vision of Marching to Heaven? These whites! Wherever they are, whoever they are, they all stink of racism. I had made up my mind, and the only thing remaining for me to figure out was how I would speak to these ministers in a manner that would bring them around to my view of the problem.

“There were three ways of going about it: tell my idea to all the ministers at once; speak to Machokali alone, for he had emerged as their leader; or write a note to the Ruler and deliver it to him in secrecy. True! Haki ya Mungu! I was prepared to talk to the Ruler and remind him that I was the same man who once confronted djinns outside the gates of Paradise and chased them across the Eldares prairie in the dark of midnight without fear.

“Well, I didn’t think it a good idea to tell them as a group, because, being in the presence of these white doctors, the ministers would almost certainly dismiss it as superstition and pretend that they did not believe in such things. And I didn’t know how I could find myself in only the Ruler’s company. So I decided to confide in Machokali, though I was hesitant. You might say that my decision became final only when I heard him tell us that he was going to try to talk to the Ruler. I followed him and waited for him outside the Ruler’s room.

“His face told me that he had not met with success, and this emboldened me to follow him. When I uttered the words the Wizard of the Crow,’ I saw doubts and faith struggle inside the man. How do you know that he has the power to heal? he asked. I told him the story of the night of the beggars at Paradise, but of course I did not tell him all the details. I did not tell him that the protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow had effected my promotion from an ordinary constable to an honored place in the Ruler’s office and now as a member of the delegation to America. Soon I saw his desire to believe quell doubt, but he told me that he could not make a decision on this by himself, that he had to mention this to the Ruler and, if that failed, then discuss the matter with the other ministers.

“I thought that Machokali would get up immediately and go to the Ruler, but he seemed distracted. Imagine my surprise when the minister asked me to accompany him. True! Haki ya Mungu! This request was entirely unexpected, but I took it as an honor. Imagine the most senior minister in the government asking me to accompany him to the Ruler! When we got there, I saluted the Ruler and the minister bowed. But instead of his doing the talking or the writing, Machokali simply pointed at me, clearly not wanting to be a messenger for sorcery. Well, I took out my pen and wrote down my name on a piece of paper just to remind the Ruler that it was me, A.G., or, as he once called me playfully, the Conqueror of Djinns. Then I wrote down what I had already told the minister: that I knew of a sorcerer who could heal him. I saw from the sudden light in his eyes that the Ruler was not averse to my suggestion; he looked at the minister and nodded his head as if to say that he was in total agreement with the idea.

“Machokali’s face brightened, and outside the room he put his arm around my shoulder as if we were the closest of mates. This matter of sorcery is entirely between us, he told me, for if the New York media were to know that the Ruler was sending for sorcerers from Aburlria, they would flock here and camp out at the hotel. Even Professor Din Furyk and Dr. Clement C. Clarkwell were not to know anything about this new development. As for the other ministers, he would tell them only after the sorcerer had arrived.

“I was with him when he e-mailed Sikiokuu to say that the Ruler wanted the minister to send the Wizard of the Crow to New York, USA. When Sikiokuu replied with the wizard’s travel plans, Ma-chokali told me that he and I would go meet the sorcerer at the international airport.

“Now, I had thought that, with so prompt a response from Aburlria, Machokali would be all over himself with joy in anticipation of the wizard’s arrival. But he did not look happy. Something still worried him.

“What I most fear,’ he told me candidly, is that the sorcerer will arrive at the airport dressed in a garb of uncured leather, a necklace of sharp animal bones around his neck, a gourd of stinking oil and green leaves in his hand, amulets on his wrists, and bangles around the ankles of his bare feet. These people here are very sensitive to the importation of agricultural products for fear of dangerous viruses. What if customs officials stop him? What if Immigration mistakes his powders for drugs, and the sorcerer then discloses that he is here at the Ruler’s request? The Ruler could meet the fate of that Latin American head of state imprisoned for life in an American jail for drug offenses!’ Worried that a scandal might erupt around the sorcerer’s visit, he now wished that he had specified that the wizard be dressed decently and his paraphernalia be shipped in a diplomatic bag!