Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

He tried to cover the mouthpiece with one hand but, failing, rested it on his prodigious belly and turned to Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniürü, looking at them as if he were seeing them for the first time and asking himself, What are these intruders doing here? Then he remembered that it was their arguments and bickering that had kept him awake:

“Go,” he told them. “I will settle your case another day.” As they stood up to leave, he commanded them to stop exactly where they stood and to listen to him very carefully. Because he did not ever want to hear that any of them had so much as whispered what they had seen or heard during their stay at the State House, he would require them to sign a pledge: I will never reveal whatever 1 have seard or seen in the State House. He would match the degree of forgiveness to the quantity of signed pledges. He then asked some police to lock them up in their different locations within the State House.

They had hardly left the room when the Ruler resumed his telephone conversation: “Are you still there?… Good, now tell me, are you sure about all this? The four of you?…”

He gave orders to the army chief to send three armored cars to the prairie as fast as possible to retrieve the dollar trees and the precious soil in which they grew. And they were to return as slowly as a tortoise so as to risk nothing. Emotions welled up inside: he smarted at the recent humiliations he had suffered at its hands; now he was freed of the need for the Global Bank. How happy he would be to look the Global Bank directors in the eye, with all the contempt he could muster, and tell them to shove it. No more memoranda to those impertinent fools. He would simply relish his newfound wealth. May these money-producing trees live forever! Impatient though he was for the arrival of his men from the prairie, he was still glad that he had cautioned against the armored cars rushing back to prevent the possibility of any of the soil falling by the wayside.

When they saw the convoy, armed with all manner of firepower, slowly making its way into Eldares, citizens, fearing a coup d’etat, hid behind closed doors. How happy the Ruler was when, after seven days of anxious waiting, he heard the roll of the convoy on the grounds of the State House! Given his present condition, he could not, of course, go out to meet it but instead ordered the police and army chiefs to see to the immediate delivery of the bounty without the usual security checks.

It is difficult, even today, to make sense of what happened afterward. Even A.G., despite his gift of words, was taciturn, but people claimed that this was because he, Tajirika, Njoya, and Kahiga had been sworn to secrecy under the penalty of their tongues being cut out for blabbering. But when they would close in on him and beg him to explain with ardent pleas enriched by generous offers of drink, A.G. would tell them to gather around so he could whisper a thing or two. And indeed, true to his word, A.G. would tell this part of the story in a whisper so low that it was hard for some listeners to make out all that he was saying, but they would refrain from interrupting him lest he change his mind and leave the story untold. He spoke loudly only when he paused to swear “True, Haki ya Mungu,” his way of punctuating what might otherwise have seemed too incredible a narrative of magic and greed.

“We were each told to stand behind each present, wrapped in sisal, and, in turns, untie them under the Ruler’s watchful eyes. Kahiga was first to unwrap his. It took him a while because his hands were shaking uncontrollably. This was not chiefly from fear or fatigue. Kahiga was certain, as was I, that as soon as the Ruler beheld what we had brought him, he would, out of gratitude, raise our salaries or ranks or both.”

At this point A.G. would whisper even lower, and some frustrated listeners, believing that he had really lost his voice, would get up to leave, allowing that rumors of what he would say would overtake them anyway.

“People, how shall I put what happened next? If I had not been there and seen it with my own eyes, I myself would not believe it,” A.G. would whisper and then shout, “True, Haki ya Mungul” so suddenly and unexpectedly that he would startle his listeners, stopping even those about to leave dead in their tracks, now convinced that it was better to hear the story from the horse’s own mouth than secondhand.

“So what happened?” they would ask him, and A.G. would take his time, shaking his head as if still incredulous at what he had seen and heard.

“You mean after Kahiga unwrapped his parcel?” he would ask to make sure that he understood the question precisely.

“Yes, yes,” his listeners would say in unison.

“Kahiga’s jaw fell,” he would say, and then pause to let the image etch itself properly in their memories.

“Why? Why?”

“The pestilence. They had the body of a white termite and the head and mandibles of a red ant. How can I describe them? They were as big as locusts. I don’t even know if they were termites, but I may be wrong. There are more than two thousand species, and these could have been one of them or a mutant breed. I’ll just call them pests, white pests.”

“What are you talking about?” they would ask, wondering if the storyteller had had one beer too many. “All the leaves and all the roots of the bush had been eaten by the pests, leaving nothing but bare twigs.”

Kahiga and Njoya cried out in unison, What is this?

Kahiga rushed and turned over the soil, as he recounted, to see if the leaves were buried there, only to find more termites fattened to the size of big worms or caterpillars after feasting on leaves of money for more than seven days. He, like the others, could not say what was more amazing, the size of the termitelike creatures or the fact that the pests had eaten all the money.

The Ruler did not utter a word but pointed to the next parcel and its guardian.

It was Njoya’s turn. Here, too, the termites had eaten all the leaves as well as the bark, leaving the plant completely denuded.

And now came A.G. s turn.

“The termites had not been as thorough with mine; they were still devouring the few remaining leaves before our very eyes. I quickly brushed the pests away; they fell to the floor, leaving shreds of money dangling as if to mock me. Now I can say that the protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow had served me well, for, judging by the look in the Ruler’s eyes, none of us would be breathing today but for those remnants of leaves. True! Haki ya Mungu, I believe they saved us from his wrath, for they had enough green left on them to show that there may have been a time when they had the fuller greenness of a natural dollar.”

Tajirika, heretofore dumbstruck and immobile, now ran to try to put the shreds together and back on the bush, provoking the first word from the Ruler.

Stop! he yelled.

The Ruler stared at the scene, brooding on the fate of we mortal sinners. Frozen with anger, he pondered how best to express his wrath.

Tajirika felt all of his joints drained of strength, as did Njoya and Kahiga, who concluded that the retribution promised by the deputy wizard they had encountered was about to be visited on them.

Kahiga decided to deflect the blame.

“We two had suggested that we pick the leaves right away” he told the Ruler and, pointing at Tajirika, continued, “But this man overruled us and insisted that we pull out the bushes by the roots together with the soil. Your Mighty Excellency, it is a well-known fact that these pests build their termitaries in the prairie.”

“And so this fiasco would have been avoided,” said Njoya, “if we had picked the money and left the stems and the roots in the prairie.”