Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Vinjinia felt a mixture of dread and amazement.

“So what are we going to do about it?” she asked the wizard.

“I do not charge for divining ills, but the cure may require one to dig deep in one’s pockets.”

“How much will it cost to get these thoughts unstuck?”

“How much is his life worth?” asked the Wizard of the Crow, who, as Kamltl, had decided that though he would not seek vengeance he would certainly relieve Tajirika of the three bags of bribe money.

“There is nothing I would not give to free him from what is killing him inside. Wizard of the Crow! Smoke out his enemies! Pursue them to the very gates of Hell.”

“Well, it is up to you to decide what you want to do. The bewitching is in the very money he has received. Bring the three bags of Burl notes here so that we can find out where the evil is hidden. Go home and think about it. Come back tomorrow or any day you want. Then we can talk about my fee for releasing your husband’s wishes.”

The authenticity of the wizard convinced Vinjinia, but his putting into words what she herself had been thinking, that the evil resided in the bags of money, made her believe in his powers even more.

She wanted Tajirika healed that very morning, she told him. She promised to return with the three money bags and more to cover whatever fee he might charge for rooting out the evil.

The Wizard of the Crow told her to take her patient with her and hurry back before other clients arrived. Or, better still, they should leave the young maiden behind to keep their places warm. He was a first come, first served wizard.

“Where were we?”

Vinjinia suddenly applied brakes and the car skidded to the side of the road. Fortunately, no other cars were near them. She could not believe her ears. Was this her husband talking? She dared not turn her face.

“What did you say?” Vinjinia asked, just to make sure that she had heard right.

“I am asking you-where were we?” Tajirika asked again, like a person coming out of a deep sleep.

When she glanced at him over her shoulder, his face did not tell her much. The voice was decidedly his before the ifs.

“So you are well again? Praise the Lord,” she said, not trying to hide her joy. “We have been to the shrine of the Wizard of the Crow!” she added, as if they had visited a family doctor.

“What? The shrine of a sorcerer?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

Vinjinia decided not to hide anything from him and told him that he had been seriously ill since the night he brought home three bags of Burls. The illness had perplexed ordinary physicians and she, Vinjinia, was now glad that she had brought him to the healer’s shrine because even before the Wizard of the Crow had done his business, Tajirika was already on the mend, talking for the first time in a long while.

“Who has been spreading rumors that I am ill?” Tajirika said, interrupting her. “If I have been ill, then know that now I am quite well, thank you.”

“But we have to go back,” Vinjinia said.

“For what?” he asked with mounting irritation.

“To bring him the three bags of money. The evil is in the bags.”

Tajirika felt like climbing over the front seat and giving Vinjinia a few slaps to the face.

“This is why I have always said that African women are gullible. You would actually let a sorcerer ensnare you with his tales? I cannot believe that you, a grown-up, the mother of my children, a churchgoer, were about to take three big bags of my money to a sorcerer!”

“You decide what you want to do. All I wanted was for you to get well, even if it meant my visiting places that I would not ordinarily go. All I wanted was for you to be well enough to go back to work as before. Think of the thousands of Burls you have lost since becoming ill!”

“So you thought you would add to the loss by giving my money to a witch doctor?”

“I don’t deserve your insults. If you feel fine, then let’s not go back to the shrine. We don’t owe him anything. He has not administered his cure.”

As soon as they got home, Tajirika insisted on being shown where Vinjinia had kept the three bags of money. She pointed to the strong room and left feeling wearied by his lack of interest in what had happened to him and chafed by his lack of gratitude.

He opened the bags one by one just to make sure that all the bills were there. After sewing the sacks shut, he lifted them in turn, as if weighing them, before placing them side by side. He then kneeled before the one in the middle and stretched out his arms as if gathering them to himself, forming a cross with his body. Then he tried to close his eyes as if in prayer, but they would not close. He tried to say something. Nothing would come out. He tried to force words out. Then suddenly the coughing came back, and the ifs and if only ‘s.

Vinjinia rushed to where he was kneeling. That did it. The Wizard of the Crow was the only person who could exorcise the evil, and after the exorcism no force on earth could make her bring the bewitched bags of money back into her house.

Kamltl did as he had done earlier, placed a mirror at the window, and once again Tajirika was drawn to it as a moth to light and started scratching himself. This time Vinjinia, who kept mum about what had occurred at home, the temporary recovery and sudden relapse, did not try to hold him back. Kamrö then removed the mirror, and Tajirika’s eyes and his own were locked in a stare. Tajirika’s seemed to beg for the return of the mirror.

“I will let you see the mirror,” the Wizard of the Crow told him gently, softly, and clearly, as if dangling the prospect of candy, “but you and I must first have a talk. If I put the mirror back, do you promise to try to force out the words stuck within you? Will you let me help you complete your thoughts?”

Tajirika nodded impatiently as if he was ready to do anything just to see the mirror once more. When the Wizard of the Crow put the mirror back, Tajirika resumed scratching himself while muttering ifs.

The voice of the Wizard of the Crow now seemed to issue from inside the mirror:

“Vomit the words, the good and the bad!”

“If…” Tajirika said, and paused.

“Now,” urged the Wizard of the Crow.

“My…” Tajirika added, and then got stuck.

“More.”

“Skin…”

“Keep going.”

“Were not…”

“Good, good…”

“Black.”

Tajirika paused as if to take breath before climbing another mountain. From inside the mirror came the same commanding voice.

“Complete the thought. The good and the bad. Complete the thought!”

“If only…”

“Yes!”

“My skin…”

“Don’t stop now!”

“Were… white… like a… white man’s… skin…” Tajirika said, enunciating each word like one learning how to read.

“There! You have voiced the treacherous thought!” the Wizard of the Crow said in congratulation, removing the mirror from the window.

Tajirika no longer lusted for the mirror. His face shone as it had not done for weeks. He looked at the Wizard of the Crow with awe.

“Now I want you to voice your thoughts without the aid of the mirror,” the Wizard of the Crow told him.

“If… my… skin… were… not… black! Oh, if only my skin were white!” Tajirika said in the triumphant tone of a child who for the first time has read a complete sentence without stumbling. A burden had been lifted from his heart, and as he finished voicing his secret desire he turned his head away from the window and, with a sigh of relief, glanced at his wife, his face beaming with an all-embracing gratitude, like that of a person who has just confessed his sins and given himself over to Jesus as his personal savior.