Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

And now, boomed the voice of Minister Machokali, here are the women.

The women, Nyawlra now among them, walked in pairs into the arena from every direction, dressed no different from the crowd. Nothing in fact stood out except their disciplined formations and dignified entrance. They were silent, somber, as if in a funeral procession. In response, the crowd, too, grew silent, watching the seemingly endless queues of women with awe. When those at the head of the separate formations reached the part of the arena nearest the platform, they crossed, turned around, and moved toward the seated crowd, where they sat seemingly only to rise and continue their procession. It was difficult, after a few seconds, to tell whether those who were now marching were the same as before. From the platform it appeared as if the formations had no beginning and no end, or rather it was one movement with the end and the beginning being the multitude. Their continuous movement remained extremely disciplined. The Ruler was touched by this display of support expressed with such solemnity; he raised his fly whisk and waved it as a sign of respect for and appreciation of their devotion to Marching to Heaven.

And then the fly whisk fell and his heart sunk; he became agitated, as did everybody else on the platform. The women had suddenly stopped moving. They stood absolutely still, facing the platform, their fingers pointing at the Ruler, and with one voice they shouted: Set Rachael free! Set Rachael free! Their chant was deafening, and those on the platform seemed dazed by their audacity.

“And then, just as planned,” Nyawlra told Kamltl, “all of us in the arena suddenly faced the people, our backs turned to the platform. All together we lifted our skirts and exposed our butts to those on the platform, and squatted as if about to shit en masse in the arena. Those of us in the crowd started swearing: MARCHING TO HEAVEN IS A PILE OF SHIT! MARCHING TO HEAVEN IS A MOUNTAIN OF SHIT! And the crowd took this up. There were two or three women who forgot that this was only a simulation of what our female ancestors used to do as a last resort when they had reached a point where they could no longer take shit from a despot; they urinated and farted loudly. Maybe need or fear overcame them, or both.”

Some foreign diplomats laughed out loud, thinking that this was a humorous native dance, but when they saw that state officials and ministers were not laughing, they restrained themselves and assumed that, pornographic as the act might have seemed, it was actually a solemn native dance.

The Ruler was of course solemn because he did not know what to do: walk away or stay. The police raised their guns, waiting for the order to fire, but even they were not sure at whom or where they should start shooting.

Machokali felt like crying. Why oh why had he asked the women to perform? Why had he not stopped it at schoolchildren and official youth? He knew as well as anybody that no entertainment of state dignitaries such as these would be deemed authentic without a performance by women. Still, in hindsight, a sin of omission on his part would have been preferable to this heinous and disgusting scandal enacted under his very nose.

Although he was not so foolish as to openly show it, Sikiokuu was one of the very few on the State’s side who felt genuine mirth. Anything that brought ruin to his rival’s schemes was always a joy to him. The only thing that nagged him was his having suggested that the Ruler mingle with the women, but he quickly dismissed this concern because fortunately the Ruler had not acted on his initial recommendation, thanks to his rival’s interference. Still, he hated to think of his fate had the women squatted to shit with the Ruler and foreign diplomats mingling among them.

The police chief ran to the Ruler to ask for permission to fire in the air. Rloody fool, the Ruler said, that will make this crowd riot, and what will you then do? Kill them before these cameras? The microphone was live and their remarks were heard, but people who did not know what was really happening assumed that they were talking about the twenty-one-gun salutes planned for guests from the Global Bank.

Soon the parading women had disappeared from the arena and were indistinguishable amid the seated multitude. For a few seconds those on the platform thought they had witnessed an elaborate conjuring trick.

Even the Ruler thought his own eyes had deceived him. Where had all the dancers of shame gone? He stood up to explain away the illusion and calm any nerves that may have been rattled by the women and the police chief. He tried to be glib, reminding people that they were after all in black Africa, and what they had seen and heard or thought they had seen and heard was black humor from an ancient Aburlrian ritual. But before elaborating on the ritual and its significance, he glanced at his guests to see how they were taking his attempt at humor only to see them all staring at something. He was back in his seat through an involuntary act of sheer amazement. Would this nightmare never endr

The platform on which he and the guests sat had begun to sink slowly, as if a power from within the bowels of the earth were pulling it down. A liquid oozed from the platform, slowly forming a muddy pool. Had the platform been erected on a bogr

The foreign diplomats and Bankers were among the first to flee. The Buler and his ministers stood up, trying to maintain dignity. Machokali, in response to a gesture from the Buler, grabbed the microphone to announce that the ceremony was officially over. When Machokali next looked around the Buler and the other ministers were nowhere to be seen. The muddy pool had grown bigger, and his shoes were now half sunk in the darkish mess. The smell was that of a mixture of urine and shit, but he could not tell for sure what the substance was. He ran toward his car, no longer caring what was happening around him, and he spotted the Buler and other ministers beating a hasty retreat in their own cars.

Some tellers of the story claim that they did see the Buler and the ministers sink in the bog and police officers pull them out to safety. Others dispute this, insisting that the platform sank after the dignitaries had fled. This they had seen with their own eyes, so they asserted. But all versions agreed that there was indeed a mysterious foul-smelling pool.

“I myself did not see the pool, but something must have happened to make His Mightiness run away like that,” Nyawlra told Kamltl. “I can only assume that the sewage system installed by the colonial administration and never since maintained or repaired had run amok.

“But at the moment of our triumph our thoughts were not on whether or not there had been a pool or even its implications; we simply basked in the afterglow of having made it clear that not every Aburlrian was happy with incurring more debt to finance Marching to Heaven or being ruled by a heartless despot. You do not have to look too deeply into it to know that a man who could so imprison his own wife in her home is a beast in human form! Rachael’s fate speaks volumes: if a woman who had been at the mountaintop of power and visibility could be made to disappear, be silenced forever while alive, what about the ordinary woman worker and peasant? The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress. You imprison a woman and you have imprisoned a nation, we sang in a song of celebration.

“When I went home that night I felt as if I had sprouted wings. All the sleepless nights, all the days spent running here and there, had been worth it. Driven away by Women Power, we had said,” Nyawlra told Kamltl, her eyes still flashing with pride at the memory of the women’s courage and their well-earned victory. “And that night I kept on repeating the words. Women Power did it.”