Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Brooding on all of this, he fell asleep. Nyawlra shook him out of his stupor the following morning and offered him tea and bread for breakfast.

“You don’t want to tell me that it is already the morning of another day?”

“Yes, dawn is breaking and bright is the light of a new day,” she sang.

“When did you come back?” he asked. “I did not hear you open the door.”

“Early this morning,” she said, and he noted her silence about where she had been and what she had been doing. He chose not to probe further.

Before they finished breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Nyawlra opened it to reveal Constable Arigaigai Gathere. Kamrö quickly hid. Nyawlra’s face showed fright, which turned to wonder as Constable Arigaigai Gathere fell to his knees and bowed his head.

“My Lord Wizard of the Crow. I told myself you had to be the first to know. I am so happy and I don’t know how to thank you.”

“What happened?” Nyawlra inquired, as if she herself was indeed the Wizard of the Crow.

What happened? These were the words his listeners said whenever A.G. came to this point in his story. But A.G. was not to be hurried: it was his narrative and he would tell it his own way, letting events unfold instead of abridging them into a phrase. Stories, like food, lose their flavor if cooked in a hurry.

“How could you kneel down before another human being like you and me?” someone would ask him.

“Human? The Wizard of the Crow is more than human: had you been in my position, you would have done the same.”

“Why?”

“Because he changed my life,” A.G. would say, and then paused.

Seeing how attentive they were, A.G. would tell his listeners how on the day after the fulfillment of the oracle foretelling the matatu accident, he reported for duty. He had wanted to reach his place of work before anybody else, certainly before his boss, so as to make up for his lateness the day before. To his surprise he found his superior, Inspector Wonderful Tumbo, anxiously awaiting him. Let’s walk together to my office, Tumbo said, and for a moment A.G. thought he was going to be reprimanded. Did someone yesterday see him going to the witch doctor’s? But his boss’s gait and tone of voice showed no anger. In the office his boss fetched him a chair. Do you know what happened last night? No, A.G. said, thinking that maybe there had been more fatalities.

As if imparting a secret to an equal, his boss then told him about the protest against the Global Bank mission and the anti-Marching to Heaven leaflets distributed to every door of every home and every office in Eldares and the country. Even inside the Parliament and outside the gates of the State House. Can you believe it? Outside the gates of the State House, under the very noses of the police and the soldiers guarding the palace! The question is, how did the pamphleteers get inside these heavily guarded locations without detection? We have the best trained force in Africa, if not the world. There was not a single report from any of the hundreds of police stations about the elusive intruders. Who were they? Djinns, of course! Do you hear that? Djinns.

And then, inexplicably, Tumbo bent forward and said in English: Congratulations, my son. Never may you forget your friends. A.G. was perplexed by his tone and manner. Was Inspector Wonderful Tumbo toying with him, or what? A.G. was not kept in the dark for long. Tumbo reminded A.G. that he was the one who had written and faxed the comprehensive report of the night that A.G. chased djinns across Eldares and the prairie. As a result of it, the powers above had become interested in A.G.: he appeared the only human in all Aburlria who had the most recent experience with djinns.

“In short,” A.G. would tell his listeners, “the report of my extraordinary courage in challenging djinns to a nighttime wrestling match in the prairie had reached the ears of the office of the Buler. An important decision was made and faxed back to my boss that very morning. I was to be transferred to the office of the Buler immediately to work under Minister Silver Sikiokuu. Even Tumbo was given a raise in recognition of his training of police officers willing to risk their lives for the Buler.

What caused this big and sudden change in my career?” A.G. would ask his listeners, only to answer the question himself. “The Wizard of the Crow.”

These were words he uttered to Nyawlra when, taking her for the Wizard of the Crow, he knelt before her, his head slightly bowed in humility, and said repeatedly, Thank you. He was so mystifying that Nyawlra was forced to ask, “What more do you want?”

“Nothing. You see, I am being transferred to the Ruler’s office, but I decided to steal away to let you know how effective your magic has been. They want me to help them catch the dissidents who distributed anti-government leaflets all over the country last night. Believe me, O Wizard of the Crow, I will never forget what you have done for me. Now I must go.”

A.C. stood up. After a step or two he stopped as if he had suddenly remembered something he should not have forgotten. He looked back at Nyawlra and a hint of a conspiratorial smile lit up his face momentarily.

“Wizard of the Crow, those dissidents are very cunning. They go about their work in the dark, disguised as djinns, but they will come to know that nobody can fool Arigaigai Gathere. You see, with each leaflet they also left a plastic snake. They must be the same people who ruined the Ruler’s birthday celebration. But if it should happen that they are really djinns disguised as dissidents, then I shall come back to you for a little help in capturing them. I should not have said nothing’ when you asked me what else I wanted. I know that not even djinns can match the power of the Wizard of the Crow. But we shall talk.” A.C. then left to start his new life as a security agent in the office of the Ruler.

Trembling, Nyawlra leaned against the door frame for support, then went inside, where she stared dumbstruck at Kamltl. Was this all a coincidence?

“Who are you, really?” she asked him.

“I should be asking you the same question,” Kamltl responded. “Why are you so frightened? Please, I don’t mean to get into your business, but where were you last night?”

“I hear you. And you’re right; you deserve an answer. So please don’t go away today,” Nyawlra told Kamltl. “I have to be in the office on time, but when I come back in the evening we’ll talk at length and sort a few things out. As I told you the other night, I am a member of the Movement for the Voice of the People. I was unnerved when the police officer mentioned the leaflets and plastic snakes we distributed last night. At first I didn’t know what he was up to. If you want to rise to the top, you can turn me in to His Royal Mightiness. You will stay, won’t you? It seems you have magical powers,” she added wryly, before dressing and leaving.

Kamffi was troubled by Arigaigai Gathere’s promotion to work in the Ruler’s office, for it happened so soon after Kamffi’s dabbling in the make-believe. What if his playing at magic had had something to do with it? Did he possess occult powers without knowing? He found himself in a bind.

He had played at childhood games to elude the police officer. But Constable Arigaigai Gathere, having been promoted, would now be hunting down enemies of the state. Nyawlra had just admitted to being a member of the Movement for the Voice of the People. What would prevent A.G. from persisting in his investigations under the guise of seeking more divinations? Kamltl felt more vulnerable than ever.

Kamffi wanted to lead a decent life apart from politics. His aversion to political engagement, especially mass movements, was shaped by the experience of his family. His father, once a primary school teacher, had lost his job because of his attempts to unionize teachers in his area. And his grandfather had died in the Aburlrian war of independence. Political struggles had brought his family only misery, and he wanted nothing to do with them. Was it not ironic, then, that the very politics he had so pointedly tried to avoid were now being forced on him by the actions of others? What if A.G. came back, as he had intimated he might, to ask the Wizard of the Crow to use his powers to reveal the secrets of the anti-government movement and its followers? Would he be able to wriggle out of this predicament through another fiction? If only Nyawlra had not told him of her involvement! He feared that his wildest imaginings might contain truth, as in the turns the life of the police officer had taken. Would he find himself unwittingly revealing truths about this woman who had been kind to him? No, Nyawlra and Constable Arigaigai Gathere might later place on him an intolerable burden of choice. He would not sit around waiting for the return of either-he needed to get away from both, and having so decided, he felt better almost immediately.