Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Furyks reaction was entirely unexpected.

“You are a fraud,” he said, wagging a finger at the Wizard of the Crow. “You are claiming success based on my work. I discovered the illness and even gave it a name. I challenge you in the name of science to a race for the cure for self-induced expansion. But I warn you. The patient is mine and I will patent the patient, the name of the illness, and any cure.”

*The sound he had been hearing was korwo, which means if.

“I don’t know what drove me to challenge him that way” Furyk wrote in his diary, “but I suppose I did not want him to think that his methods, whatever they were, could outdo science. Admittedly, in its way, what he did was quite extraordinary. In a matter of hours he had untied a knot that tested our skills to the limit. Had I not been present to see and hear for myself, I would never have believed it. Still, I was convinced that whatever he had done to avert the hypertrophy of the body and make the Ruler talk was somehow a development of the work that Clarkwell and I had already done. It would have been good to have conferred with him privately to find out the details of his treatment, but he, like those gifted in the arts of conjuring, was not as voluble off the stage as we would have hoped. But he had yet to find a definitive cure for SfE, and f resolved to do whatever 1 could to solve its mystery before he did.

“The first priority was to register the patent on the patient himself, and on our discovery of the unique phenomena to which we had given the name of self-induced expansion (SIE). That way anything the sorcerer might come up with, if anything, would fall within the intellectual property rights of our new company, which we named Clem & Din. Although we encountered a hitch in patenting the patient, or even his body, because the name Ruler was too general and it would have meant that we had patent rights on all the bodies of all the rulers of the globe, we were satisfied with rights to the discovery of SIE.

“I would now use all the latest gains in the human genome, cloning, and stem cell research to come up with a cure. Science versus sorcery. The battle between me and the Wizard of the Crow was shaping up as one between darkness and light; I felt connected to a long line of Christian soldiers all the way back to the Holy Crusades.”

The Wizard of the Crow did not immediately respond to the challenge. What he now wanted was a little rest and to give the Ruler time to confer with his ministers before resuming what he knew was going to be a difficult case. He really needed the sleep. Coming from isolation in the prison cell in Eldares to an audience with the Ruler in a New York hotel had been a jolt, and his mind and body needed to adjust. A nap would release whatever tension he carried within, and this would enable him to cope with additional pressure.

He lay on his back and while staring at the ceiling felt weightless, ready to succumb to sleep. But questions persisted. This affliction that had visited the body of the Ruler had defied his divining skills. How was he to prescribe a cure without first divining the cause of the malady? He felt as if the illness was mocking him, which reminded him of Furyks challenge. What nerve this Furyk has to think that he can know everything about an African after only the most minimal of contact? I will take up the challenge, he heard himself saying, addressing both the illness and Din Furyk. Where do I begin the race?

And then, to his amazement, he heard a voice. Nyawlra’s? The voice became more distinct: Go back in time. Arise and go to all the crossroads, all the marketplaces and temple sites, all the dwelling places of black people the world over, and find out the sources of their power. There you will find the cure for SIE.

He wanted to obey, but he could hardly move his legs or any other part of the body. The spirit is willing, all right, he sighed in resignation, but the body is in the way. The voice would not let him go, and it was now singing to him.

Wake up, brother spirit

Wake up, sister spirit

If you let sleep rule over you

Blessings will pass you by

The song sounded more like a lullaby than an appeal, and he would have sunk to slumber except that this time the voice had a Nyawlra shape, and she stretched out her hands to him from above. He felt his whole self lighten and he saw himself rise, rise and float, reaching beyond the grasp for Nyawlra. He had left his body behind, and now a bird, he was flying freely in the open sky…

He woke up in flight, laughing, recalling his travels from the pyramids of Egypt to the plains of the Serengeti and Great Zimbabwe; Benin to Bahia and on through the Caribbean to the skyscrapers of New York, alighting everywhere to glean wisdom. The form in which he had traveled had been so real that he automatically touched his mouth: to his relief, his lips were not a beak, and his arms not feathery wings, and the clothes on him were the same as he had on when he first lay on the bed to rest.

How long have I slept? he wondered. Just then a familiar smell hit his nostrils, the stench wafting from the sick chamber, prompting him to return to the task that had brought him to America. He would go back to the sick chamber to see if the Buler had voided all the words from within. He would see him alone and ask him a few questions. He felt rested; the sooner he found a cure or a safe way of extrieating himself from the whole mess, the sooner he would return to Aburlria and to Nyawlra.

He met three men, white, brown, and black, with identical briefcases, coming out of the sick chamber. The white was cursing: Oh, damn, we are already late! Late? The Wizard of the Crow asked himself. Had the Ruler of Aburlria died?

It is said that when his ministers and the entire entourage entered the Ruler’s sick chamber, he did not greet them with the usual preliminaries: how are you, where have you been, thanks for coming, or thank God I am now feeling better. He simply started talking as if resuming the interrupted luncheon. Even the letter delivered by the messenger of the Global Courier Services, Manhattan, was in his hands, exactly the way he held it the day Machokali handed it to him, and he kept on waving it as a prop, evidence and talisman.

“Yes, if my skin was white, would the directors of the Global Bank have insulted me as they have in this letter?” he asked the ministers, who roared back a resounding NOOO!

To say that the ministers were astounded is to understate their various expressions of relief and disbelief. The Ruler was panting as if he had not gotten used to the burden of speech, though his body showed not the slightest sign of deflating. But at least it no longer seemed on the verge of bursting. So his words, whatever their sense, were most welcome to their ears.

“I have thought a great deal about the letter, and I have decided that we have to take up the challenge and come up with arguments that can and will make the governors of the Global Bank change their minds.”

Even though they had many unanswered questions, they all gave him a thunderous ovation. This time, he told them, he would not write a paper; he would press the case in person, through oral arguments. He asked Machokali to draft a quick note inviting the governors of the Global Bank to a meeting in the hotel the following day, to hear additional facts and arguments in support of the funding for Marching to Heaven. Give the note to the same messenger who was here a few minutes ago, the Ruler told him, confusing the Wizard of the Crow with the messenger from the Global Courier Services.

Machokali went out and came back in the room to report that though he found the messenger already gone, he had personally faxed the note and followed it up with a telephone conversation, and he was now proud to announce that the wishes of the Ruler had borne fruit, that though the directors regretted that they would not be able to make it the next day or the following, they had assured Machokali that representatives would be sent within seven days for a hearing. Machokali waved the faxed confirmation in celebration of the concession won from the bankers.