Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

What happened when the Ruler, accompanied by Luminous Karamu-Mbu, went to visit Rachael that night is much disputed. The guard with the key to the gate at the entrance to the compound was nowhere to be seen. There are those who say that the Ruler squeezed through a narrow opening between the wall and the gate and, given his new slim body, this posed no problem. He crawled on his belly the rest of the way to catch Rachael unaware before she could wipe her tears away. When finally he reached the house, he peered through a window, and it was then that Rachael, still wearing the dress she wore the night they had quarreled over his predilections for young girls, and thinking that she had seen a long-necked something with a tiny head and a forked tongue, threw the lantern at the thing. The paraffin poured out, the house caught fire, and, seeing this, the Ruler and Luminous Karamu-Mbu ran back the way they came.

Other accounts say no, it was not quite like that, the guard had been disappeared, and when the Ruler went to the house Rachael had come to the door and told him, I know it is you, and instead of crying she laughed in his face, and because she had not laughed for a long time her ribs shook with the laughter and collapsed from within, and Rachael disintegrated into a heap of dry bones. The lantern fell on the heap of bones, caught fire, and the flames from the fire of her immolation ignited the rest of the house, spreading to the plantation. A ball of fire detached itself from the rest and pursued the fleeing Ruler and his faithful biographer all the way back to the gates of the State House.

The memory of the ball of fire in relentless pursuit gave him insomnia, and to induce sleep the Ruler had his loyal biographer, Luminous Karamu-Mbu, read him a chapter from the book he was writing. The biography was not complete, a work in progress, the biographer would say, but the Ruler told him to read from the copious notes he had taken. Every night a chapter was read, and this made the Ruler revisit the scenes of his past challenges, battles, and triumphs, a strange sensation, almost as if he were living his life twice or thrice over again. There were sections that the Ruler wanted read over and over again, often telling him what to take out and what to add. One night he told Luminous Karamu-Mbu to read the section that dealt with his most recent triumph, and the biographer faithfully read how blasts of thunder like stealthy missiles had fired from each of his seven orifices and then exploded in turns; he had described in detail how the second blast of thunder had launched the foreign doctors sky high and how he, Luminous Karamu-Mbu, bravely hung on till he, too, was launched, a human missile, into the sky, by the fifth or sixth blast of thunder, and so had no details of the seventh but… The Ruler did not listen to the end, for his mind was occupied with the sudden realization that the loyal biographer knew too much, that if he could write and record what happened so openly, so vividly, and so graphically, an account that completely contradicted the official version of the Ruler’s and his generals’ heroics as they struggled with bombs exploding, what could he inadvertently say about the story of Rachael and the plantation fire? This man had no imagination to sugarcoat reality and make it more palatable. How did I engage such a foolr

Whatever the case, Luminous Karamu-Mbu, the ex-Communist born again as a loyal biographer, was never seen again, with rumors later claiming that the man had been crushed under the weight of his huge pen and notebook.

There are some who say that the seeds of the biographer’s SID came from the official hostess, because, even though the two had abandoned communism, the war they waged against each other during their revolutionary days had left incurable scars. After the smog disaster, Yunique McKenzie was asked to move her office to the State House, and she said she would never do so as long as Luminous Karamu-Mbu was a regular at the palace. It was noted that it was soon after the biographer’s disappearance that Dr. Yunique Immaculate McKenzie, PhD, ONH, moved her offices to the State House and the Ruler engaged the services of one Morton Stanley, a white royalist from London, to write an unexpurgated, independent, and objective biography of the Ruler through the Ruler’s eyes, with material generously provided by the Ruler and his handlers.

The eradication of Rachael may not have met his quest for challenges worthy of his new powers, but still he counted it as successful, especially after he saw that it was not followed by remonstration from his children or angry demonstrations from women.

The crowning moment of his undiluted successes came when his ministers Tajirika and Kaniürü returned from America with tangible results:

The Minister of Defense and war hero John Kaniürü signed an agreement for loans to enable Aburiria to buy arms from the West, and the Minister of Finance and business hero Titus Tajirika signed agreements with several oil companies to explore oil and natural gas at the coast and mining companies to prospect for gold, diamonds, and other precious metals in northern Aburiria.

But the most salient part of this success story was that the Global Ministry of Finance and the Global Bank had agreed to release the previously frozen funds now that the plans for Marching to Heaven had been abandoned, replaced by Baby D.

“You have done well,” the Buler told the two ministers.

“The power is yours, my Lord,” Tajirika exclaimed.

“And the glory” said Kaniürü.

“Long Live Baby D,” they said in unison but accidentally, for each had hoped to have the last word in sycophancy.

One evening Kaniürü was watching a porno video when he got a call from security about a guest at the gate. Who is that calling at this inopportune moment?

It was Jane Kanyori. He quickly glanced at the video. A woman was now on top of the hero, guiding his hands over her nipples, and Kaniürü realized that much time had passed since he last relieved himself on real flesh and blood. Kanyori never needed too much coaxing. Not that he was overexcited about her. These times were different from those of Marching to Heaven and money laundering, and after their romp in bed tonight he would call off their relationship.

A glance at the huge suitcase she dragged behind her and he assumed that she was bringing him gifts, but, really, did she have to do this? Denying herself to give him all? Her generosity would make parting difficult, but it would not deter him from letting her know that this was going to be their last night together.

She dragged the suitcase all the way to the bedroom, but when he heard her say that he was to send a chauffeur in the morning to bring home the remaining luggage, Kaniürü smelled something not right.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said, standing at the entrance to his bedroom.

“In the living room,” said Kanyori. “We should talk about it as two good businesspeople. I hate the word businessman for it assumes that women do not do business.”

“What do you want?” Kaniürü asked her after they sat down on the settee in the living room.

“I have come to realize that you are not the churchy type, with their ostentatious wedding ceremonies.”

“Did somebody tell you that I was planning a wedding ceremony?”

“John, I know you are shy, the type of male who finds it hard to say truly what is in his heart. So I made it easy for you. Oh, John, do you know what I did? Shall I marry him? I asked myself, responding to the question locked up inside of you. I wrote down YES and NO on two separate pieces of paper, put them in a bowl, shook it, shut my eyes, then picked one. YES! What about the day? I did the same with the days of the week, each one on a separate piece of paper. I could not argue against the hand of fate. I thought it best to move in right away so that early tomorrow morning, as decreed by fate, we can go for a civil ceremony at the district commissioner’s.”