Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

“We are descended in part from hunters who dwelled in the forest, mostly, and came to know it well. Nearly all were healers. There was not an illness against which nature did not provide the necessary juices of life. Not only were they healers, but some had the gift of seeing things hidden from ordinary eyes. Some could even fly like birds. Consider your grandfather, Kamltl wa RTenjeku, from whom you take your name! He sometimes found himself atop a mountain impossible for humans to climb or floating in the middle of a lake though he did not know how to swim. I never fleshed out his story because I did not want you to follow in his footsteps. We sacrificed, sent you off to school, to prevent that from happening. But today you have taught me a great lesson. Or, you have reminded me of something no one should ever forget: that the will of God will always triumph over human willfulness.”

How did my grandfather die? Kamltl wanted to know. In the past he had been put off with vague answers like he died of old age or in an accident or of an illness. Now his father was direct: his grandfather, Kamltl wa RTenjeku, had been a holy seer, a spiritual leader working with forces fighting the British in the war of independence. “He lived with the fighters in the mountains, teaching them how to be at peace with one another, settling conflicts, leading units into battle, and cleansing them of evil after their engagement with the enemy. He knew every path, every plant, every living thing. No one knew the ways of the forest better than your grandfather. The British shot him dead one day, but his body was never found. Some maintain that he is still alive and that his spirit hovers over Aburiria, ensuring that the truth of our past endeavors shall never be forgotten. So you see, human will cannot change God’s design,” his father repeated.

How come his own father had not become a seer? KamTtT asked.

“My son,” his father said, “a seer is chosen by powers beyond us.”

“And how does one know that one is chosen?”

“With us, seers are born holding a seashell; and my son, you were born gripping a shell in your little fist.”

This pronouncement was followed by silence between them, each lost in his own private thoughts about what had just been said. Kamltl then asked his father that if it was true that he was born a chosen one, why was he not told? Why was he not allowed to yield to his grandfather’s calling?

“The blessing comes with a price; I did not want my only child to bear the burden unless he was ready and willing…”

“What is the price?”

“You cannot use the gift to acquire earthly riches beyond the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and the house in which you live. Clothes, food, shelter, that is all.”

“And what if such a person should gather riches?”

“Anything could happen. A seer might wake up to find himself in a land unknown, far away from his possessions, relatives, and friends, wandering alone among strangers, a prophet in exile. Or he might wake up to find his home on fire. The true ones suffer that they may know what true suffering is. They go through want so they may know what true want is. A seer lives in self-denial in the service of others. I had hoped to remove this burden from your shoulders so that you could live your life like everybody else. But as you can see all my efforts came to naught. God’s will triumphs.”

“But what greater wealth could I possess than a healthy body and a soul cleansed of evil?” Kamltl gently remonstrated with his father.

It was then that Nüngari, his mother, walked in and just caught the last words, and chided Kamltl affectionately.

“There is no wealth greater than a home of one’s own. A home is husband, wife, and children. Or am I to be a grandmother only when I’m buried?”

“Mother, must I remind you that my flame rejected me?” Kamrö jokingly responded.

“Who is this flame that you never brought home to light a mother’s heart?”

“Margaret Wariara. Shall we make a deal? How about you go to Wariara’s place and plead with her,” Kamltl added, and laughed.

His parents grew eerily quiet.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Don’t you know?”

“What?”

“Margaret Wariara came back home all dried up, drained of energy. She breathed her last, watched by the whole village.”

That night Kamltl hardly slept, for different images of Wariara kept intruding into his mind. So when on the following day a young man he went to school with came over and asked him to join him for a walk through the village, Kamltl accepted immediately. A walk through the village, a walk through rural peace, a walk to evoke the happy images of his childhood, would wipe away those of pain and loss. They started reminiscing over old times, recalling the names of so-and-so, all their mates in primary and secondary schools. But the walk only deepened his sorrow. Whichever name he mentioned, his friend simply pointed to a grave. Men and women of his own age, simply gone. Just like that. In the end, he stopped asking about anybody, for the answers lay in the many old and fresh graves lined around the village, victims of the same deadly virus.

“It is no longer an urban thing,” Kamltl told Nyawlra after he came back to Eldares. “It’s terrible when the old have to bury the young. But it is more terrible when neither the old nor the young are there to bury each other.”

During the week that Kamltl spent in Klambugi, Nyawlra found being the sole Wizard of the Crow at the shrine trying. There were so many clients with so many problems of body, mind, and heart that she hardly had time to read the newspaper. She swore that she would never again allow Kamltl to go off for as long as he had. A day, maybe, but a whole two weeks, no!

One day she noticed a client in the waiting room reading the Eldares Times and she could not resist glancing at the headlines. She stopped in her tracks; she felt as if her heart had stopped beating. She rubbed her eyes to see more clearly, but there was nothing wrong with her vision.

The picture that stared back at her was of her father standing next to Sikiokuu; the headline screamed A FATHER TO HIS DAUGHTER: COME BACK HOME OR ELSE… She thought of asking the client to let her borrow the paper but decided against it. Suppose it was a setup? She behaved as if she had noticed nothing but later sent a helper for a copy of her own.

The story, as she read it, was merely an elaboration of the headline, but it tore into her being nonetheless. Her father was appealing to her to come out of hiding, surrender, and thereby earn his gratitude and blessings.

“If you don’t give yourself up within one week, I say publicly to the whole world, I will no longer call you my daughter, for I am loyal to God in Heaven and the Ruler here on earth.”

Although Nyawlra did not always see eye to eye with her father, she loved and revered him deeply, and this prospective public divorce was painful and humiliating. How many times would he deny her, she asked herself, recalling his response to her expression of love for Kaniürü. Yet his judgment of Kaniürü’s character and intentions had proven correct. Might he not have a point now? she agonized. Would she end up regretting her involvement in the politics of change the way she regretted her liaison with Kaniürü? That her mother was nowhere in the picture or the story made her feel that there was more to this than it appeared.

Things became clearer as she read on. Sikiokuu was quoted as saying that the government would leave no stone unturned in its effort to capture Nyawlra and the leadership of the Movement for the Voice of the People. He described them as reptilian, symbolized by their calling card, the plastic snake. They would be ground to dust.