Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

They shut their eyes and soon were joyful when they heard the wizard say that he had managed to capture their joint image in the mirror.

“It is a video, a moving picture,” the Wizard of the Crow said excitedly. “I see a silver-haired couple, Sir Clement Clarence Whitehead and Lady Virgin Beatrice Whitehead, holding hands, crossing a road near palace gardens in London, talking about their life in the old colonial days. A pair of authentic colonial aristocracy. They talk of how he was nearly made the governor of Aburfria…”

“Governor, did you say?” Tajirika and Vinjinia asked in unison.

“Sshh! Now you have made the image vanish,” the Wizard of the Crow admonished them.

“Not another word from us,” Vinjinia said.

“Please search it out. Get that image back, especially the bit about being the governor of Aburlria,” Tajirika pleaded.

“All right, it is back, the image is back,” said the Wizard of the Crow, “and, yes, they are still talking about how he almost became the governor of Aburlria and she the first lady of the colony. They recall their palatial house on a hill overlooking the city and their holiday digs at the seaside. Yes, ten servants at the palace and five at the estate by the sea. They recall the expensive lawns, green hedges, the swimming pool, the fleet of cars, so many that they now do not remember all the models, except that they were partial to the Jaguar and Rolls-Royce.

“Two horsemen, actually two policemen, come galloping by, and Sir Clarence and Lady Clarence look at the horses long and critically and shake their heads, thinking of their own thoroughbreds in the colonial stables, and the talk and envy of other settlers. They cross another road. Where are they going? Oh, yes, they are stopping at Harrods, where they used to fly for annual shopping sprees. Now they are window-shopping. I want that silk scarf for Christmas. I want that handbag. They argue a little about this and that and the prices, accusing each other of being extravagant. Their arguments suddenly cease when they remind each other that they have no money with which to pay for the flashy luxury items in the windows of Harrods.

“There! They cross the road again, oblivious to cars that screech to a halt to avoid hitting them. They are now standing beside some garbage cans. What? A homeless couple? No, no, they continue on, still deep in conversation. But would anyone really call this a conversation? They are actually lamenting, crying and cursing all the dirty politics of the sixties, which ended the good old colonial days. They don’t know whether to blame it on the Americans or the Russians or both, but they are definitely cursing all the forces that supplanted the British Empire. Wait. I have lost them. Where have they goner

“Oh, yes, they are back. I see them now kneeling down before the altar in a church, and they are praying to God for the recolonization of Africa and Asia now that communism had been defeated. They cross another road-how many times must these two keep on crossing and recrossing these London roads? And now, oh my God, Sir Clement Clarence Whitehead and Lady Virgin Beatrice Whitehead are definitely heading for an old people’s home, still dreaming about the possible return of their good old days of power and glory in Africa.

“In short,” said the Wizard of the Crow, staring straight at Tajirika and Vinjinia, “your white English destiny is as a homeless ex-colonial couple living solely on the memories of what used to be. Now, how soon would you like to achieve your white destiny?”

“No! No!” Tajirika and Vinjinia shouted, opening their eyes in fright. “Black is beautiful. Give us back our blackness,” they moaned, as if the Wizard of the Crow had already shorn them of it.

When his clients left, the Wizard of the Crow felt relief, only to sink into depression at being all alone. He went to the living room, hoping that Nyawlra was there so that he could unburden himself of his amazement at what had just transpired. Suddenly a stench blasted his nostrils as if to bring him back to reality.

The putrid smell was most intense where the bags of money stood like three guardians of evil stopping him in his tracks. He felt weak, faint, and he held on to a wall. I need fresh air, he said to himself. I have to go outside. And with that resolution he propelled himself forward, struggling for air as if in an asthmatic seizure.

He collapsed just outside the door. Were the three bags of money really possessed of evil? he wondered.

They had taken a few steps in silence toward their Mercedes-Benz when, as if to acquaint himself with his surroundings, Tajirika glanced back and froze, startled. Following close behind them was the woman of the shrine: it was his secretary.

“Nyawlra! What on earth are you doing in these parts? Do you live around here?”

“Don’t tell me that you’re only now making out who she is,” Vin-jinia said. “She has been with us all along.”

“Surely, I’m truly bewitched. I had taken her to be an assistant wizard,” he muttered, trying to laugh off his embarrassment.

“You may laugh all you want,” Vinjinia said as they resumed walking toward the car, “but had it not been for Nyawlra you would still be locked in the house, barking IFl How else would I have known my way around these slums? Count your blessings; God has been generous in granting you a secretary like her. One in a million.”

“Thank you, Nyawlra. I will never forget this,” Tajirika told her. “And even if I did, you can see that you will always have a strong advocate in my house.”

“Count your children, Gacirü and Gaclgua, as her advocates, too,” Vinjinia said. “Now they talk of nothing without mentioning their aunt, the teller of tales of two-mouthed ogres.”

Tajirika felt no need to know what his wife was talking about. He had just gotten to the car and noticed how the side and rearview mirrors had been turned away from the driver’s vision.

“What’s the matter with the mirrors?”

He felt like laughing at the explanation, which only served to confirm that he had been very ill, for he could not remember any of these oddities.

“You’re no doubt an excellent driver,” Tajirika said, as if congratulating Vinjinia. “But now I will take the wheel,” he added, adjusting the mirrors.

Vinjinia sat in the passenger seat, next to him.

Nyawlra tried to make herself as invisible as possible in the backseat. She did not want to get involved in their conversation in case questions arose for which she did not have credible answers. But she need not have worried. Man and wife were absorbed with themselves, talking about what they had just gone through as if they were alone in the car.

“The Waswahili were right,” Tajirika was saying. “Kikulacho kimo nguoni tnwako. My enemies wanted me to become a poor white so that they would take over Marching to Heaven and reap the benefits.”

“But they did not reckon on your being a step or two ahead of them,” said Vinjinia.

“Yes, yes,” agreed Tajirika, now very happy with what had taken place at the shrine, especially his remembering, just before they left, to ask the Wizard of the Crow to thwart the ill intentions of his enemies. It was strange, on looking back, how he had felt, when first seeing the Wizard of the Crow, that he had met him before, in a previous life perhaps? It did not matter.

He and his wife were now agreed that the evil was hidden inside the three bags of money; they felt good about leaving them behind at the sorcerer’s shrine. Even Nyawlra, recalling that Tajirika had nearly shot her dead because of the three bags, was inclined to agree.

“How about some breakfast? Shall we try Mars Cafe?” Tajirika asked as they approached his office in Santamaria. “Or do you know of a nicer place around here?” he added, turning to Nyawlra.