Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

“Maybe we are different. You are drawn to the ministry of wounded souls, I to the ministry of wounded bodies. I may not know which is the better ministry. But this I know: human beings are free to choose how they use the gifts given to them by God, nature, sun, fate, call it what you like, I mean that transcendent power that you say governs our lives, whether to use it to seek personal salvation or a collective deliverance.”

It was not a question, but again Kamltl squirmed under its implication.

“When I look into the distance of time I see only a kind of darkness, a mist, smoke, nothing clear. Nyawlra, I smell tears and blood…”

“Whose tears and blood?”

“I don’t really know. I will not ask you and your friends to give up the plans you have for disrupting the rites at the site of Marching to Heaven. However, on my part I don’t feel ready for the task. I still want to hear what the animals, plants, and hills have to tell me. I need to find myself.”

“For us,” she now said as she stood up, “we see Marching to Heaven as means of turning our earth into hell, and we have chosen to do something about it.”

She started collecting her things, ready to leave. She did not pack the boxes of matches, the kettle, or the pot.

Then she suddenly remembered something at the back of her mind that she had not yet voiced.

“Tell me,” she said, “what happened to the three bags of money? What did you do with them, or rather with the money?”

“I buried it,” Kamltl said, exhausted.

“You buried the money?” Nyawlra asked, as if she had not heard the words clearly. You should have given it to us!” she said. “The movement would have made good use of the money against these criminals.”

“I will tell you where it is. It is all yours. But be forewarned: that money is cursed.”

“There is no money that is blessed or cursed,” Nyawlra said. “It depends on the uses to which it is put,” she added, and then suddenly paused.

She recalled that the three bags of money almost took her life the day she returned to the office to collect her handbag and ran into Tajirika’s gun. The three bags had provoked white-ache in Tajirika.

“Forget the whole thing,” she said. “I don’t even want to know where it is buried. Our movement believes more in the actions that people do than in the money that people give. So let us leave the money bags to red ants and termites. It is time I returned to my lair in the city.”

“The sun is about to set. Why don’t you stay for the night and leave in the morning so you can cross the prairie by the clear light of day?”

“No, I will start right away. I have to report to work tomorrow.”

“I will see you across the prairie,” Kamltl offered.

“No, no. Let me do the prairie alone. That way I will get to know it better. The wild beasts of the prairie are less cruel than the beastly humans embarking on Marching to Heaven.”

“But don’t burn your bridges. What is the saying? One may find oneself back to places one had thought that one had left for good. I am now a dweller in the forest. If ever you come back, please leave a piece of your cloth here in the cave or on any rock in the forest and I am confident that I shall find you.”

“Thank you, but I have no intention of returning to these parts anytime soon. Eldares calls me.”

They walked in silence to the foot of the hills where the prairie begins. Kamltl watched Nyawlra cross the expanse of the land until she became indistinguishable from the acacia in the distance.

Weeks later when Nyawlra was on the most wanted list and the police, under the Ruler’s orders to take her dead or alive, were looking for her all over the country, what most helped was her knowledge of the prairie, and Kamltl’s admonishment not to burn bridges was very much in her mind as she crossed the plains in the dark alone with nothing more than the dress she had worn to work and a handbag.

She recalled how firmly she had resolved not return to these parts anytime soon and was struck by Kamltl’s prophetic insight. She felt fearful of the darkness but also grateful for the protection it offered against pursuers. The stars above were her best companions, and it was now that she most appreciated the talks she and Kamltl had had about the sun, the moon, and the stars.

She went to the cave where she had last seen him. There were no signs of human presence. She stood there; she grew teary-eyed. Not that she regretted what she and the other women had done, although she grudgingly admitted to herself that it was no less provocative than if they had pelted a police station with rocks.

The moon appeared in the horizon, and though it did not shine as brightly as it had that other time with Kamltl, still its light enabled her to make out her surroundings. She did not want to stay in the cave because it was near the foothills, so she decided to try her luck farther in and wander among the places where she and Kamltl had earlier stayed to see if she might find him.

The forest seemed transformed, though not many weeks had passed since she had last been there. Then the entire place was enveloped in a magic of love and wild beauty. Now it seemed unbearably perilous. She dreaded encountering a lion, a leopard, or any of the cats she had earlier wished to see. How would she escape from them? She imagined cobras, puff adders, and pythons lurking somewhere in the dark, and with every step she pictured herself being ensnared by a snake or a three-horned chameleon. She did not fail to note the irony of her having carried plastic snakes in her handbag in the past. Now she was in a bush where real snakes resided, and she was terrified. What if I should escape human fangs only to end up in the belly of a puff adder? She imagined her body slowly decomposing in the belly of a viper and she shivered, but when she pictured herself inside the Ruler’s torture machine, she thought the belly of a beast less terrifying.

There was a crack of a dry bush behind her. She froze. She thought of dashing farther into the bush, but she could not move her feet. She glanced to the left, now to the right, to see if there was a tree nearby to which she could run and climb.

She heard the sound again and in a split second took flight, unaware that she had screamed. And then she tripped over something. It must be a snake. She tried to crawl away, whimpering, and then collapsed.

She did not know how long she stayed unconscious. All she now felt was the sudden flooding of her eyes when she came to and found herself in Kamltl’s arms. As the tears of joy streamed down her cheeks, Nyawlra felt rather than saw the question etched in the folds on his forehead.

“It is all because of the women’s demonstration against Marching to Heaven,” she told him, heaving and crying without restraint.

How had she slipped through their fingers? people in Eldares were asking, entertaining many versions of what had happened. One rumor had it that more than a thousand policemen had been deployed to seal off the office where she worked, that some were in armored cars with rapid-fire submachine guns trained on all exits, and helicopters like hawks hovered to swoop on the fugitive.

Some of these gossipmongers even swore that they were there, had seen her with their very eyes, that she was dressed to kill, that those policemen who laid their eyes on her were seized by a desire the likes of which they had never experienced, so powerful that it turned them into drooling fools struggling to stifle their erections.

Yet according to another rumor, Nyawlra had disguised herself as a man: some said as an old man wrapped in a tattered blanket, and others saw her as a handsome young man, clean-shaven but with a handlebar mustache bushier than the tail of a horse.