15

These revelations hit Tajirika with a force both unexpected and to him, now, seemingly inevitable. He recalled the encounter and knew, even before the Wizard of the Crow had confirmed it, that the stranger and the Wizard of the Crow were one. So that’s why, during the divination and cure of his white-ache, he had felt intimations of a previous encounter? Then, he had dismissed the feeling as a hallucinatory side effect of white-ache. And now it had come to this! Tajirika had never heard of dead languages, and he assumed that the Wizard of the Crow was talking about the languages spoken by the dead. The wizard was in possession of the secrets of dead sorcerers from Africa, India, the world. Faced with the new unknown, he felt terror grip him as never before. For a few minutes he remained frozen in his corner as his mind raced swiftly, feverishly, sinister images giving way to others even more sinister. Still, incredibly, the revelations seemed to throw a light, as he imagined it, on what had been a mystery.

This wizard must be the source of all his troubles! He must have put a spell on the ground outside his office, sparking the queuing mania. The queues had started only a day or two after he had driven this job seeker from the premises of Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate. He had tied Tajirika’s tongue. He had put a spell on Vinjinia and NyawTra and turned them against him. He had not even been looking for a job but for an occasion to practice malice born of envy and I, an innocent, fell into his trap and gave him a reason to seek vengeance. He even stole my money.

“I gave you three bags of money” Tajirika said, hoping this would mollify him and blunt the edges of his fury.

“Your kind of money smells evil. You can have it back. I buried it in the prairie,” said the Wizard of the Crow, and to Tajirika’s incredulous consternation, he described the burial spot.

Had he been sent now, once again, by Tajirika’s enemies? Brought to his cell at the midnight hour to entrap him with stories and lie about burying money in the ground? He could think of only one enemy with the clout and opportunity.

Sikiokuu’s words haunted him: “Think very hard about…” His last words, and what happens next? The Wizard of the Crow mysteriously turns up in the cell. It was the wizard who had first diagnosed his wish to be white. The wizard had now been sent by Sikiokuu to do away with him once and for all. Sikiokuu had been toying with Tajirika, had even foretold, in his shady way, what would happen. Surely the wizard would start by cutting his fingers off. He probably would have killed me last night, except for my being awake.

Death in human form was walking toward him in slow motion while he remained frozen in a corner, unable to move or do anything about it. Then and there, Tajirika decided that, come what may, he would not spend another night under the same roof with the murderous presence of this India-educated sorcerer who had already cast evil around his offices and home, making problems upon problems rain down on him like hailstones.

Though his strategy was to escape death, his tactic was to keep the Wizard of the Crow engaged in conversation while Tajirika figured a way out.

The clarity of the strategy and the tactics calmed him a little so that, despite the commotion of thoughts and images within, the words that now came out did not betray fear or anxiety.

“I did not mean any harm. I assure you, the test was truly a little joke among men. In fact, I had expected that you would join me in laughter. I wanted to make the weight of not getting a job more bearable.”

“Don’t you think you should think twice about that kind of humor? Such humor can bring about death.”

Death? He has come out in his true colors. Witchcraft and statecraft have joined hands against me. What a powerful combination! This wizard has talked with the dead for a thousand years. He has read all the manuals of sorcery from ancient India and Greece to the present. Whether I am in or out of jail, there is no escaping the all-seeing eye, the all-pervasive power of the Wizard of the Crow. I am badly cornered.

His situation was hopeless. He was depressed. But then a ray of sunshine: since the Wizard of the Crow could indeed see whatever he wanted to see from wherever he was, why did Sikiokuu bother to send him to the prison? All the Wizard of the Crow needed to do was capture Tajirika’s shadow in his mirror, scratch the shadow, and Tajirika would be gone. Sikiokuu does not want me to die just yet, Tajirika told himself, hope rising. Sikiokuu desperately wants to land a deal with me. He wants me alive, but of course if I refuse to do what he wants or am unable to deliver … But why should I refuse to do what he wants when I don’t even know what it is that he wants?

Tajirika thought he had indeed seen the light: it was safer for him to be in the hands of Sikiokuu than under the continuous gaze of the Wizard of the Crow. Sikiokuu was more his type; they shared a common language of deceit and evasion. He, Tajirika, would bow, kneel, crawl, do anything to gain mercy from Sikiokuu. All in all, it was easier to deceive Sikiokuu than the Wizard of the Crow. Tajirika would weave tales and shift the blame for the origins of the queuing mania elsewhere. Why not blame his wife? Yes, he would blame it all on scheming Vinjinia. How clever, he thought, feeling really good about himself. This way he would shoot down three birds with one arrow: exact vengeance on Vinjinia for posing with the women dancers, no doubt having a good time while he had disappeared; save himself from the doom portended by the Wizard of the Crow; and, most important, avoid loss of thumbs and death.

Soon, whatever doubts he may have had about being in danger from Sikiokuu vanished. The Wizard of the Crow posed the most immediate threat to his mind and body, and the only person who could save him was Sikiokuu. Tajirika could not afford to wait for night. He had to flee the power of witchcraft immediately and seek protection from the State. But what was he to do without provoking the ire of his wily nemesis? There was nothing he could do, he felt, and he sat there in despair, waiting for death. He regretted his inability to give Vinjinia a thorough beating, but in so doing, he remembered her churchgoing and prayers and started murmuring prayers for deliverance from death. His prayers were answered almost immediately, but in ways that even he could not have expected or imagined.

Just then, two wardens who normally came to collect the bucket of shit and urine, and who had not done so for seven days, suddenly opened the door. Tajirika acted with a reckless instinct of self-preservation. Before the wardens could get to the bucket, Tajirika had sprung from his corner and grabbed it. He threatened to pour seven days of shit and urine onto the two wardens if they even so much as moved. They stood transfixed as Tajirika wobbled and stood between them and the door.

The Wizard of the Crow, too, was taken by surprise and assumed that Tajirika had become unhinged. Indeed, during the conversations, Tajirika had seemed to make no sense at all. The weeks of isolation and torture have taken their toll, he thought. But when Tajirika began to speak and the Wizard of the Crow realized what was going on, he felt like laughing but did not, the better to remain a detached spectator of the proceedings.

“Listen to me,” Tajirika was telling the prison wardens. “Get me away from this witch doctor. Take me to Silver Sikiokuu, the Minister of State in the Buler’s Office. Slap handcuffs on me. Or give them to me and I’ll do it myself to show you that I am not trying to escape from lawful custody. If you fail to do what I am telling you, or if I see any sign of resistance from any of you, I am going to pour the entire contents of this bucket onto your heads. For the last three days I have been shitting and urinating blood. I am suffering from that virus of death.”

At the mention of the devastating virus, the two wardens smelled their own death in the air and commenced their supplications. They assured Tajirika that they had absolutely no grudge against him, that they completely understood him and sympathized with his plight, for they, for their part, would never dream of sleeping under the same roof as a witch doctor. So you see, you and we are on the same side in this and we shall take you wherever you want to go. They threw handcuffs at him and he clapped them onto his own wrists. They asked him to let them take the bucket, but he refused. It was his own shit, his weapon, he said, to the relief of the wardens, happy to be spared contact with his death-infected shit, but also to their greater anxiety, for now they were at the mercy of this crazy prisoner. Now in their company, he told them to make sure to lock the door firmly behind them. He did not want the Wizard of the Crow to escape.

The Wizard of the Crow had looked on the madness with a mixture of pity and sadness. At the same time, he felt like laughing: his revelations had compelled Tajirika to carry his own shit, for the time being, at least.

Outside, Tajirika ordered the men to lead the way and warned them once again not to do anything foolish, following closely behind with the bucket of his own shit dangling between his legs.

The news quickly spread throughout the camp. The entire squad of the guards rose in arms. Police reinforcements arrived at the scene. But the wardens who were no more than a step from Tajirika kept on shouting: Leave him alone. He has it. He is in handcuffs. Don’t provoke him. His shit carries death.

Thus they marched, guns cocked all around, until they reached the office of the chief of the Eldares Remand Prison. The chief, the armed guards, and the police reinforcements were all scared of the prisoner rumored to carry death. They knew that he was handcuffed so there was no pressure on them to take any action that might make the situation worse. When asked what he wanted, Tajirika remained consistent in his one demand: he must be taken to Sikiokuu.

The camp chief called Sikiokuu: There is a prisoner here who has virtually taken over the camp with a bucket of shit. He demands to see you. What should we do with him?

Wizard of the Crow
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