Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

“Beware of this man, O Mighty Excellency. He is very bad, and his head is full of dangerous trickery,” Kahiga added with a hint of passion.

“He once held a whole police camp hostage with a bucket of shit and urine,” added Njoya in agreement.

“Is that true?” the Ruler asked Tajirika.

Tajirika did not answer immediately, unsure as he was whether the Ruler was asking him about the bucket of shit or the manner in which the treasure had been uprooted.

“I don’t know what these two are accusing me of. I was simply carrying out your orders,” Tajirika said.

“My orders? To hold hostage an armed police camp with only shit and urine?”

“Oh, no, not that,” Tajirika said, now aware where things were headed. “Your Mighty Excellency, some things are difficult to explain.”

“I did not ask you to explain anything. I asked you whether these allegations concerning the police camp are true. Was it the first act of a coup attempt?”

“A coup against you? Never. I would kill myself first. Go back to my ancestors.”

“I will turn you into an ancestor. A spirit, if you don’t explain.”

These two policemen must really hate me, Tajirika said to himself. I’m sure I shall not leave this place alive. But instead of despairing, he bolstered his sagging spirits by recalling the saying that even an animal about to be slaughtered tries to kick those leading it to the slaughterhouse.

“Your Mighty Excellency, as I told you the other day, it was all Sikiokuu’s fault. He had me arrested for nothing whatsoever. He then tried to convert me to a religious sect that believes in St. Thomas and Descartes, one of his French disciples. When I refused, he locked me up and put the Wizard of the Crow in the same cell at midnight, the witching hour. What could I do, Your Mighty Excellency, but seize the only means left to fashion my escape? Believe me, Your Lordship, this Wizard of the Crow is no pushover-he is capable of anything. He has been the bane of my life, always after me. He started the queuing mania. He made me contract that strange malady of words, and why? So that I would go to him for a cure. And he, like Satan of old, first lured my wife. He deceived my gullible woman into handing over the bags of money under the pretext that he would set things right. But what does he do with the bags? He plants them in the prairie, then comes to my cell under the cover of darkness to tell me where to find them. Now, after seeing what these pests have done, I wonder whether they were termites after all. I wish we had hearkened to the words of A.C. when he tried to tell us about the night he chased the Wizard of the Crow across the same prairie. If we had, we might have figured out that the Wizard of the Crow had already bewitched the place. We would have known that all was not well even when it looked well.”

“There, Tajirika has said well,” A.C. interrupted, happy at the implicit praise and Tajirika’s acknowledgment of his thwarted attempt to narrate the story of the famous chase.

A.G. loved telling the story of the night he chased two beggars who, on jumping over a cleft rock in the prairie, turned out to be one person. He knew that the Ruler knew about his chasing the djinns of the prairie, but not from the horse’s own mouth. How blessed he would be if the Ruler were now his audience? Here was his opportunity. He cleared his throat, ready to tell the story.

“True, Haki ya Mungu,” A.G. began, “a force I cannot explain from whence it came was propelling me, but when we reached the ridge, the force subsided and suddenly stopped. It was then that I recalled the night that the Wizard of the Crow had split himself into two powerful djinns. Your Mighty Highness, I am not a Muslim, but, True! Haki ya Mungu, if you read the Holy Quran, you can see that djinns are…”

“Yes, there is no doubt that the Wizard of the Crow belongs to a family of djinns,” interrupted Kahiga, a little envious that A.C. had taken center stage.

“A dangerous spirit. And that’s why we had warned Sikiokuu not to lock up the sorcerer,” Njoya added.

“But instead of heeding our warning, he ordered us to put him in the same cell with Tajirika,” Kahiga continued.

“So you two have seen the sorcerer with your own eyes?” the Ruler asked, as if he had forgotten that the police officers had been selected to be part of the expedition because of their previous connection with the wizard. But to Kahiga, it seemed as if they had succeeded in distracting the Ruler from the issue of the money trees and the termites, and, really, Kahiga did not mind that at all.

“Actually, my partner here and I were the ones who went to get him from his shrine,” said Kahiga.

“But it was Sikiokuu who sent us,” added Njoya.

“So that the sorcerer would help us ferret out Nyawlra.”

“The mistake he made was locking him up for no good reason instead of being simply persuasive,” Njoya said.

“And mark you, we had told him quite strongly that such action against the wizard could bring harm to the country,” added Kahiga.

“But he responded by saying that the Wizard of the Crow was not a deity” Njoya said accusingly.

“And he dismissed us from his presence, saying that when he needed our advice on matters of sorcery, he would call us,” added Njoya.

“So when we heard about your illness…”

“We knew right away that the Wizard of the Crow…”

“Had something to do with it…”

“We were happy to take him to the airport for the flight to America…”

“But we became very apprehensive when we heard that he had returned to Aburlria without anybody seeing him…”

“It is now clear, Your Mighty Excellency,” Tajirika jumped into the conversation, not to be left out, “that it is the Wizard of the Crow who produced these white termites. Yes, the Wizard of the Crow is the one who sent these pests. Have you ever seen termites this size, Your Mighty Excellency?”

“Did you say sent them?” A.C. asked rhetorically. “He is capable of turning himself into a termite and multiplying. For, as I was saying before Kahiga interrupted me, the night I chased the Wizard of the Crow from Paradise across the prairie… Shall I start from the beginning, Your Mighty Excellency?”

He stopped abruptly and looked to see what had caught the attention of the Ruler. It was not only the Ruler. All eyes had turned to the floor. Some termites were crawling all over the carpet; others were climbing up the walls; yet others slid through thresholds leading to the other rooms.

Where had all these termites sprung from? The Ruler frowned, but Tajirika, Kahiga, Njoya, and A.C. could not tell what his frown portended, and they glanced at one another with the same fear. Would he jail them? Would he simply dismiss them from their jobs on the police force? Or would he exact his vengeance only on Tajirika? They assumed the worst as they waited for him to rage.

But none anticipated anything remotely resembling the Ruler’s reaction. It was the tone of his voice that first caught them unaware. He spoke like an elder talking to his children about matters he himself had experienced. He was soothing as he told them not to worry about what had happened and actually commended them for doing their best, considering the treacherous, cunning mind they had been up against. They should have no fear, he told them, for the cunning fellow would never outsmart the Ruler. He told them to remain seated and be patient, that he wanted a couple of ministers to join them as he, their Ruler, announced what was to be done about the dangerous mind.

But he enjoined them not to so much as whisper about the money trees or the termites. This was now a state secret.

“Do you hear me?” he asked, now looking at A.G., Kahiga, and Njoya in turn. “You must never even dream about plants that produce natural dollars or any other currency, or I will turn your dream into a nightmare.”