Ngũgĩ Thiong - Wizard of the Crow

“A psychiatric disorder, something like that, is that correct?”

“I don’t know much about the names of illnesses. But I think that a diviner could be called a psychiatrist of sorts.”

“Mr. Tajirika, let’s not worry about names. Whatever its name, your heart condition must have been very serious for you to boycott your office soon after becoming chairman of Marching to Heaven. Unless…?”

“What?”

“It was a ploy, a diplomatic illness,’ or what in our line of work we call an alibi. You draw the plan and you leave the execution to others. Is that not what you told me that bosses do?”

“What do you mean?” asked Tajirika, a little confused.

“Supposing, and we are just supposing, that Tajirika wants an illegal assembly of workers, the riffraff of our society, say potential rioters, to queue outside his office, might he not want to absent himself and leave everything to the trusted interpreter of his wishes? You see, should he be called before a commission of inquiry he would say I was not there’ and produce his alibi, a hotel bill or a hospital admission slip or a doctor’s letter. You know the story of the thumb and four fingers? They used to be together, all five, a kind of brotherhood of the fingers. Then one day Thumb proposes, Let’s go. Where? the others ask. To Mr. Ndego’s bank, says Thumb. To do what? the others ask. To rob the owner, to rob the bank, Thumb says. What if we are caught? they ask. Hey! I will not be there, Thumb says, and up to this day Thumb remains his innocent self, apart from the other four, who remain bound together by their crime.”

Tajirika wanted to pick holes in the story. In the traditional, it is the little finger that comes up with the idea of theft and there is no mention of a bank. Njoya had also mixed up the story of the thumb with a very different one in which a mother, avoiding a direct answer to her child’s question as to where she is going, talks vaguely about a visit to a fictional Ndego’s home for a meal consisting of one bean only. But Tajirika did not. He was angry and terror-stricken at the drift of Njoya’s inquiry and tone, which smoothly implied treason and death.

“I don’t like what you are insinuating. I am a loyalist. To be very frank, I was taken to the shrine of the diviner without my knowledge. I was that ill. And I missed work not just one day but several days, more than a week. Why should I risk my life’s work and property for the sake of starting a queue of riffraff and job seekers? A job-seeking queue is not exactly a beauty pageant.”

“You claim that you were away from your workplace for days, even weeks. Did you close the office?”

“No.”

“Who ran the office in your absence?”

“The secretary. I mean, she was the only one there who…”

“By the secretary you still mean Nyawlra?”

“Yes… but my wife, Vinjinia, later went there and was in charge. Completely in charge. What did I tell you? She is not a village woman. She is highly educated. She has…”

“So Nyawlra and Vinjinia were the ones present when the queuing mania started? Is that what you are saying?”

“Yes!”

“So only those two can give eyewitness testimony as to what occurred?”

“You have spoken.”

“What?”

“Only those two can give a proper account because they were there. All I know is hearsay.”

“When did you go back to work?”

“After the convocation at the site for Marching to Heaven.”

“The one held at Eldares Park?”

“You have spoken.”

“Spare me the Jesus speak. What are you implying, Mr. Tajirika? That I’m Pontius Pilate to your Jesus Christ?”

“No, no, no. There is no way I would even dream of such a thing. I am human. I am a sinner.”

“Then confess your sins!”

“What do you want me to confess?”

“I was not there when you sinned.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Answer my questions fully and simply. The day you say you resumed work, was that the same day you got cured?”

“By that time I was already cured. A couple of weeks before, in fact. I had been resting at home, not doing much of anything.”

“Mr. Tajirika, you confuse me even more. Please clear this up for me. Are you telling me that between the day you learned that you had been appointed chairman of Marching to Heaven and the day of the dedication of the site, you never once went back to your office to see for yourself how things were?”

“I did go there once, on the morning that I left the doctor’s…”

“You mean the witch doctor’s shrine?”

“Yes, the diviner’s haven. To be very frank, that was also when I beheld the queues for the first time and, believe me, Officer, it was an overwhelming sight. A frightening sight. The queues were all over Santamaria. My own offices were almost under siege. I slipped in through the back door, a special entrance.”

“Let me see if I am getting this right. On that day, you were not ill?”

“I have told you that I had just then come from the doctor.”

“The witch doctor?”

“The diviner.”

“Let’s not quibble over a word. What I want to know is this. You were then completely free of your illness?”

“I assure you that I was completely cured. I never felt better in my life.”

“So now, Mr. Tajirika, why did you then stop going to the office even after you were cured? Or did your heart troubles start up again at the sight of all those queues?”

“You said I should speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

“And the truth shall make you free. Is that not what the Bible says?”

“But you said that I was not in custody.”

“It is just a way of talking. Tell the truth and shame the Devil.”

“You see, after I had managed to sneak into my office, I telephoned Machokali.”

“The minister?”

“There is only one Machokali in the country, and he is my friend.”

“I just want to make sure. We policemen are like doctors. Modern doctors, not your witch doctors or diviners as you call them. A good modern doctor makes sure that he knows all the facts about a malady. For only then can he prescribe the correct drug. We police detectives are truth diggers, and we like to base our case on facts. So do I take it that when you mention Machokali, you are talking about Machokali, the one and only Minister for Foreign Affairs in the government of the Buler of Aburlria?”

“That’s right. I was calling him to ask him whether he could arrange for armed forces to come and disperse the crowd.”

“That’s strange. Had the minister ever told you that he had powers to call on the army to do this or that?”

“I thought that as a minister he would know whom to contact.”

“Tell me, Mr. Tajirika, had the minister ever told you that he knew of any person or groups of persons other than the Buler who thought that they had the power to authorize actions by the army?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Nothing of the sort. But what he told me made me look at the queues in a very different light.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me that those queues were very important.”

“Important?”

“Yes, because the queues served to show that the people fully supported the Marching to Heaven project. The queues were demonstrations of support.”

“Go on. What else?”

“As a matter of fact, it was the minister who advised me not to go back to work, that I should stay at home as if I were still ill…”

“Pretend that you were ill? But why?”

“So that the queuers would not disperse after their job-hunting needs were settled one way or another. As long as they waited for me, they had some hope and hope would keep the queues alive.”