Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

Sweeper-of-Souls, one of the three garbage collectors to whom Satan had once revealed himself, now rose a few ranks in the sect of the brave.

As they had found no blemish on their God-given bodies, their scars having turned into stars, Maritha and Mariko did not return to the shrine of the Wizard of the Crow for a cure. Neither did they see the need to convert the Wizard of the Crow to Christianity. The whole experience had taught them that there were things on earth that defied understanding and it was better to let them be. God indeed works in mysterious ways to perform His wonders, and who were they to question God’s mysteries?

Yes! Like the mystery of the young woman with a kanga wrap around her head and shoulders who one evening appeared at their doorstep unannounced to claim that she had come to convey the best wishes of the Wizard of the Crow and make sure that the couple was well. She followed this initial visit with others. Most times she seemed hurried and would not stay for long. But there were times she would hang around and engage them in conversation. Now she did not pretend that she was merely passing by as a well-wisher for anyone else; she did not even mention the Wizard of the Crow. She came, she said, to glean wisdom from their experience. She never pried into their private lives. They never asked her where she came from or where she went. For them her coming and going was an act of God.

They liked the kanga lady. They liked her words. They enjoyed the peace that followed their victory over Satan.

However, and despite the near unanimous agreement that theirs was a great victory, there were a few skeptics who scrutinized each and every thing, comparing and contrasting this and that, picking holes here and there, and they would shake their heads and say: Hmmm, isn’t it rather strange that the victory of Maritha and Mariko over Satan came only a few months after the return of the Wizard of the Crow? Still, nobody had heard the couple say anything about the Wizard of the Crow, and nobody claimed any longer to have seen them anywhere near the shrine before or after the victory.

Except once. But that was several years later, and even then it was not Maritha and Mariko who were seen near the shrine but rather the Wizard of the Crow who was seen near their house, running for dear life, hounded by the Ruler’s police, and it was on recalling this dastardly hunt for a human being that people would pause and say: Do you see? There are elements of truth in the rumors we used to hear. Why else would the Wizard of the Crow have chosen to bypass all the other homes to seek help from Maritha and Mariko when it was clear by then that all in Santalucia would have felt honored to help him escape the bloodhounds led by Kaniürü?

The name John Kaniürü started attracting attention in the country from the day a radio announcement said that he had been appointed deputy chairman of Marching to Heaven. Kaniürü, who? People asked. What a name, others commented. Kaniürü sent the press several pictures of himself, but controversy erupted when two people initially claimed the name. Both won. Both retained the name. Your works alone will tell who really owns the name, the judge told them. Unable to decide whose picture to carry, the newspapers ended up with a pictureless story.

A few weeks later people heard, again through the radio, that Kaniürü had been asked to serve as the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania. The same Kaniürü? people would ask. Once again Kaniürü sent several photos of himself in different poses and sizes, but the newspapers once again carried the story without an accompanying picture. Kaniürü was so angry that he personally telephoned the various editors: why had they not used any of his pictures? They owed him no explanation, they told him. Kaniürü was bitter, he saw these editors as his enemies, and he felt frustrated because there was nothing he could do about what he then saw as a vast conspiracy of envy.

He quit his job as a teacher at Eldares Polytechnic, dismissing the teaching profession as pure misery. Then he bought a new MercedesBenz, paid for it in cash, and engaged a uniformed chauffeur. The dramatic change in his lifestyle following the dual appointment confirmed people’s suspicions of his role in the Nyawlra affair, especially after they learned that she had once been his wife.

To impress the university professors who had worked with him as youthwingers but denigrated him as merely a lecturer at the Polytechnic, Kaniürü would spring on them at their homes or offices, telling them that he was only passing by, that he would not stay long, but as he left he made a point of asking if there was anybody who wanted a lift to town, assuring them that there was ample room in his Mercedes-Benz, one of the latest models. Knowing the power he now wielded, they would look at him with envious admiration, call him Big Man, and ask him where they might meet up with him again to renew their friendship and bring him a little token. We teachers should stick together, they would tell him. I am not a teacher, he corrected them, and they would quickly apologize for their gaff. He enjoyed these moments when those who used to think that they were more important than he groveled before him to buy favors.

An idea struck him. Why not take his enjoyment to a higher level? Why not pay a visit to Nyawlra’s father, Matthew Wangahü, the man who thought he, Kaniürü, was too poor for the hand of his daughter? Maybe Nyawlra was hiding there. Why not kill two birds with one stoner

“On to Wangahü’s,” he said, stroking his Mercedes, talking to it as if it were a horse.

When Wangahü saw a sleek automobile stop outside his house with what he took to be a cabinet minister inside, he rushed to meet him. The chauffeur came out and opened the back door and saluted. Wangahü almost collapsed when he saw Kaniürü emerge, but, well schooled in decorum, he did not display undue surprise. He invited his visitor into the living room and called out for his wife, Boithi, to come and greet him. And remember that one does not ask a hungry person for news, he told her after she had rubbed her hands in her apron and shook the visitor’s. She returned to the kitchen and ordered the house help to prepare a chicken dish.

“Congratulations on your recent appointments,” Wangahü told Kaniürü. “Our people say that hard work always pays. I was even thinking of coming to see you in your new role as the deputy chairman of Marching to Heaven, but you have beaten me to it, and I am glad. Just because you and Nyawlra don’t get on does not mean you and I shouldn’t. You are an in-law, and in this house you will always be treated like an in-law. Now, what I was thinking is simple and straightforward. If and when the Global Bank releases funds for Marching to Heaven, you and I should put our heads together on a contract to supply timber. You and I can become partners. A kind of father and son partnership, eh? What do you think of that?”

Kaniürü, who had expected hostility, was surprised by this reception. The man who spoke so smoothly now was the same who had refused to let him marry his daughter, going so far as to disown her for defying him and associating with a beggar, as Wangahü had called him then, but he did not let that get in the way of his appreciation of the moment. He enjoyed being in the living room from which he was once barred and hearing Wangahü talk to him politely, even as an equal. Still, Kaniürü did not like Wangahü saying that he was thinking of seeing Kaniürü only after the Global Bank money had arrived. Didn’t the old man realize that many, some wealthier than he, had already started calling on Kaniürü in his capacity as the deputy chair to make themselves known? Each would be sure to leave a “calling envelope” behind. Did the old man have the slightest clue as to how he had acquired his Mercedes-Benz?