Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Afterward, when things around him had begun to crumble, Machokali would ask himself time and again why he had not obeyed his inner voice telling him to leave the matter of that note alone and go back to his seat once he saw that the Ruler did not remember a thing about the Wizard of the Crow. But too much fear fuels misery, and the thought that his political enemies might be plotting against him made him ignore his better instincts as he handed the note to the Ruler. The Ruler read the four lines and turned the page over, as Machokali had done. Finally he raised his eyes.

“Who wrote this?” the Ruler asked in a cold and even tone.

“The Wizard of the Crow,” Machokali said.

The Ruler leaned back and closed his eyes as if trying to recall a dream forgotten or a distant memory.

“I don’t know if I am dreaming or not, but when I close my eyes I seem to see or hear a person answering to that name. It is as if he and I are talking, or, rather, he is talking to me. But no. How is that possible?”

“Your Mighty Excellency, you are not dreaming,” Machokali hastened to say, hoping to channel the Ruler’s suppressed anger toward the Wizard of the Crow. “There was indeed somebody like the one you now think you saw.”

Machokali reminded the Ruler how his words had gotten stuck in his larynx, and how even Professor Din Furyk and Dr. Clement C. Clarkwell had failed to come up with a satisfactory cure, and how the Wizard of the Crow had managed to restore the power of speech to him.

“He was sent to us to deal with this, eh, this, I mean, this problem of your expansion, but now…”

“Where is he?” the Ruler interrupted.

“I don’t know. Maybe he returned to those who sent him,” said Machokali, trying to distance himself from the Wizard of the Crow.

Who sent him?” the Ruler asked, his eyes still closed.

“Sikiokuu.”

‘Sikiokuu? Did he not have his hands full with my assignments in Aburlria? How did he know to send me a sorcerer? How did he know of my malady?”

Machokali hesitated. The Ruler opened his eyes and fixed them on Machokali.

Why do I have a vague recollection of you yourself asking me about the Wizard of the Crow? Asking me if he could come to America?”

“It was not really my idea. Anything to do with sorcery and divination, I try to keep a…”

Whose idea was it?” the Ruler snapped.

A.C. Arigaigai Gathere.”

“Gathere who?”

“The one who once wrestled with djinns until the break of day”

“I thought he only pursued the djinns, not wrestled with them?”

“Yes, he pursued them across the prairie. There is something odd and strange about that policeman.”

And since when did you appoint A.G. your assistant minister?”

“Your Mighty Excellency, you know very well that I would not and could not even dare to dream of taking it upon myself to…!”

“Is that why he came to tell me about the sorcerer of the crow when all the others were busy packing their things?”

“Your Excellency, I did not even know that A.G. had come to see you. What did I tell you? That policeman…” Machokali was hoping that the subject of A.G. and his strange ways would supersede the note, but his hope was quickly dashed.

“Read this note very carefully,” the Ruler told him, handing him back the piece of paper.

Was the Ruler being sarcastic, Machokali wondered, or was he merely luring him into the range of the club? He could not very well say no and walk away. Machokali took two steps forward, reached for the note, and instinctively stepped back, acting as if he were looking for better lighting to read.

No matter how hard he looked at it, how often he turned it over, Machokali did not see anything beyond what he knew to be there. When Machokali lifted his eyes, he was startled to see in the eyes of the Ruler a light so intense that for a moment Machokali feared the worst.

“Your Mighty Excellency, I must confess that before coming to see you I had already read these words to see if they implied any hidden messages. But I failed to see what the Wizard of the Crow was trying to say, and that is why I brought you the note.”

“Read it again and tell me what you think is not so very clear about the meaning of those words.”

Machokali pretended to reread it silently, but in truth by now he knew each and every word by heart.

“I did not ask you to read it silently to yourself,” the Ruler said. “Read it aloud and firmly like a man. Substitute the word Ruler for the country, as I am the Country.”

Machokali cleared his throat. He started reading the note. “I have no pass. Take care of yourself. The Ruler is… ” Machokali stopped abruptly, like a person who finds himself on the edge of a precipice.

“Go on. Read it,” the Ruler told him impatiently. “Finish and tell me what’s so unclear about the meaning.”

“The Ruler is pregnant. What he will give birth to, nobody knows.”

What’s not clear? Tell me!” His Mighty Excellency said with mounting anger.

“Oh, no,” Machokali said when the full meaning and implications of the words struck him. “I swear that if ever… that man…”

“Machokali,” the Ruler again interrupted him, as if he did not much care to hear what Machokali was swearing to. Machokali was now unnerved by what he detected as a slight change in the voice of the Ruler. It sounded broken, more teary than icy. “You are a very highly educated man-is that not so, Markus?”

“Yes, Your Holy and Mighty Excellency.”

“You know the history of the world.”

“I would not make such a claim, but, yes, I would not say that I am totally ignorant.”

“In all the books that you have read, have you ever come across the case of a pregnant ruler?”

“A pregnant ruler? No! Unless he is a woman… Definitely not.”

“Can’t you see what he is saying? That this self-induced expansion is a pregnancy of sorts?”

The Ruler started laughing, and Machokali wondered whether he should join in to show that he too got the joke, whatever it may have been. There are times when silence is golden but this was not one of them, for Machokali took the occasion to ingratiate himself with the Ruler and prolong the laughter by boldly saying:

“Congratulations! You are making history. It is a good thing that I arranged for the Wizard of the Crow to come to America. I even personally went to meet him at the airport. I think we should call a press conference and announce this to the world.”

The ensuing silence dampened his enthusiasm and made Machokali realize immediately that he had just made a profound blunder. He started searching for words to extricate himself even as he slowly retreated, step by step.

“You? You! Even you?” said the Ruler, wagging a finger at him, blind with rage. “So you were in cahoots with the sorcerer? You took it upon yourselves to insult me, in my face, just because I am hobbled? You call me a woman?”

He tried to raise himself to jump all over Machokali but could not. He tried to grab his ceremonial club to hurl it at the big eyes of Machokali, but he could not reach it. Machokali stopped walking backward when he saw that the Ruler could not reach him with his club, but he kept eyeing it on the floor. Shielding oneself against a blow was prudence, not cowardice. He chose to do so with words.

“I was extending congratulations solely on account of your quickness in seeing through the chicanery of this fellow who calls himself the Wizard of the Crow. I said that I did a good thing to make arrangements for his coming to America because had he not come for you to see through him, he might have lived to a ripe old age, deceiving millions with his slanderous lies about your being pregnant.”