Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Vinjinia remembered the glove he wore on one hand, which was very strange because even when he ate or went to bed he never took it off.

“Yes,” Vinjinia said, after wondering to what extent she should confide in Nyawlra. “Since the Marching to Heaven craze began, my husband has taken to wearing a glove on his right hand. He never takes it off, and so he never washes the hand.”

“Remove the glove,” Nyawlra suggested.

That night, after making sure that he was asleep, Vinjinia removed the glove from Tajirika’s hand, and it stank so badly that she threw it to the floor. Was the stench attributable to the bewitchment? What if she herself became a victim of the same dark powers? she suddenly thought in fright. She was determined to avoid further contact with the glove or with the hand that wore it. But how could she allow these powers to dictate what she should or should not touch in her own house, including her husband’s hand? She brought her Bible, kept it near, and felt more courageous. She examined the hand. There were small crusts of dirt under the long fingernails. She thought of trimming the nails, washing the hand, and throwing the glove into the garbage bag, but this would have been tantamount to discarding evidence. She picked up the glove from the floor and put it in a drawer.

The following day she told Nyawlra that she was now sure that her husband had been bewitched by the evil placed inside the glove.

“Why in the glove?” Nyawlra asked. “And why did the evil not strike when he first wore it?”

“You have a point there,” Vinjinia said. “The bewitchment must have happened as they shook hands in this very office or slipped in the envelopes with the money. He became ill soon after counting, well, touching the money with the glove.”

“Money? Was there a lot?” Nyawlra asked, not only to keep the conversation alive but also to learn the actual figure.

“You should see how much!” Vinjinia said with pride and fear, looking around to make sure that the police officers guarding the yard were not within hearing distance. “Each of three sacks was full of notes, and no note was worth less than a hundred Burls.”

“Three sacks bulging tight with notes?” Nyawlra asked histrionically.

“So you can see why not everybody might be happy for him,” Vinjinia said. “The evildoers could have been any of those who brought the sacks of money”

“Yes, I see,” Nyawlra said, a little tired of the talk of sorcery. “What you now need is a good witch doctor,” Nyawlra added, in part to shock the good Christian, but it was she, Nyawlra, who was shocked by Vinjinia’s impassivity.

“The only problem,” said Vinjinia in a matter-of-fact tone, “is that I have no idea where to find a witch doctor.”

It was clear that she imagined that Nyawlra would be as clueless as she was, but she was wrong.

An idea struck Nyawlra. Why had she not thought of it earlier? There was, after all, the Wizard of the Crow! She was amused by the thought of Tajirika seeking a cure from the very person he had humiliated.

“As for witch doctors,” Nyawlra said, “I hear there is a new one in town. The Wizard of the Crow!”

“Where is he to be found? I mean, where is his shrine?”

“Santalucia. Southern.”

“Southern Santalucia?” Vinjinia screamed with genuine horror. “You mean the southern slums where the poo… poo… people…” she stammered, a little confused, remembering that Nyawlra lived somewhere in Santalucia.

Vinjinia seemed sincerely appalled by the prospect of visiting a slumyard. But the more she recalled the stench of the glove and Tajirika’s elongated nails encrusted with dirt, the more she realized that she had to control her squeamishness about such places. Her husband’s illness was getting worse. She didn’t see that she had any alternative but to pay the Wizard of the Crow a visit.

“I am a faithful member of All Saints Cathedral, and I know what they would think of me if they suspected or found out that I have had dealings with witch doctors,” she said. “I don’t want to be excommunicated or become like Maritha and Mariko, the subject of weekly tales. But just now there is no place I would not go in search of a cure. Where does one find this Wizard of the Crow? And please, Nyawlra, not a word of this to anybody” Vinjinia pleaded.

What? Tajirika is to come to me to be cured? No, no, I can’t deal with that, Kamltl responded instinctively. The humiliation he had suffered at the hands of this man had scarred him badly, and he feared that the sight of his tormentor would inflame him further.

“I take the trouble to bring my boss to you so you can take his money” Nyawlra reasoned with him, “and all you can say is no? Why else would I lure him here, knowing that the malady is hopeless? All you need do is look at him, shower him with saliva, sputter some mumbo jumbo, send him home, and pocket his money”

He wanted no part of this, Kamltl insisted.

“I will bring him in the dark; there is no danger of his shadow crossing yours,” Nyawlra said, and with that the tension between them broke as they burst out laughing.

It was while laughing that Kamltl suddenly felt possessed of an emotion so powerful that it almost made him tremble. Bevenge. Good luck was bringing his enemy to his door for him to exact the sweetest vengeance. Strange that the prospect of evil had excited him more than the thought of doing good.

Kamltl told Nyawlra nothing of this, for he did not want her to dissuade him from his course of action. Besides, he wanted to enjoy the unfolding of his scheme by himself. He imagined possible encounters with Tajirika, wondering how best to set his plan in motion. Before Tajirika’s arrival, Kamltl would make a billboard, NO CURE TODAY: FOR CURE COME TOMORROW, and plant it nearby. He would then take Tajirika down memory lane by testing him on his English literacy.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth: the words from the Bible had never rung truer for Kamltl.

“All right, let him come,” Kamltl told Nyawlra enigmatically.

Vinjinia drove her black Mercedes-Benz to the Santalucia shopping center where Nyawlra was waiting. They had agreed to meet very early in the morning so as to get to the shrine of the Wizard of the Crow before the arrival of other clients. Although Nyawlra herself had suggested the shopping center, she acted as if she were unfamiliar with this section of Santalucia.

Nyawlra sat in the passenger seat and looked around at Tajirika. She was expecting a sickly-looking person, but the Tajirika she saw did not seem ill at all. His belly had shrunk a little so his dark suit fit him better. He sat in the backseat of the car, its windows shuttered. Sometimes he would cast an eye in her direction, but when Nyawlra tried to meet his gaze it was clear that he was in a world of his own and did not recognize her. So she concentrated on directing Vinjinia to the shrine.

It was then that she noticed that Vinjinia was driving without the aid of rearview and side-view mirrors. When Vinjinia needed to turn, she stuck her neck out her window or sought Nyawlra’s assistance to see if the coast was clear. Nyawlra was about to tell her that the mirrors were not properly adjusted, but the evil glance that Vinjinia cast in her direction froze the words on her lips.

Though she understood, it did not lessen the terror at being in a car in a part of the town the driver hardly knew. Fortunately, the traffic at that hour of the morning was light, though Nyawlra was relieved when they got to her street. She showed Vinjinia where to park, a few houses from her own, and they walked the rest of the way.

On entering the house, they heard the voice of a man they could not see order them to seat the patient in a chair facing a small window in the wall between the waiting room and the inner chamber. Nyawlra and Vinjinia sat close by. For Nyawlra, this business of pretending to be a stranger in her own house tested all her patience and acting skills.