11
It is difficult, even today, to make sense of what happened afterward. Even A.G., despite his gift of words, was taciturn, but people claimed that this was because he, Tajirika, Njoya, and Kahiga had been sworn to secrecy under the penalty of their tongues being cut out for blabbering. But when they would close in on him and beg him to explain with ardent pleas enriched by generous offers of drink, A.G. would tell them to gather around so he could whisper a thing or two. And indeed, true to his word, A.G. would tell this part of the story in a whisper so low that it was hard for some listeners to make out all that he was saying, but they would refrain from interrupting him lest he change his mind and leave the story untold. He spoke loudly only when he paused to swear “True, Haki ya Mungu,” his way of punctuating what might otherwise have seemed too incredible a narrative of magic and greed.
“We were each told to stand behind each present, wrapped in sisal, and, in turns, untie them under the Ruler’s watchful eyes. Kahiga was first to unwrap his. It took him a while because his hands were shaking uncontrollably. This was not chiefly from fear or fatigue. Kahiga was certain, as was I, that as soon as the Ruler beheld what we had brought him, he would, out of gratitude, raise our salaries or ranks or both.”
At this point A.G. would whisper even lower, and some frustrated listeners, believing that he had really lost his voice, would get up to leave, allowing that rumors of what he would say would overtake them anyway.
“People, how shall I put what happened next? If I had not been there and seen it with my own eyes, I myself would not believe it,” A.G. would whisper and then shout, “True, Haki ya Mungul” so suddenly and unexpectedly that he would startle his listeners, stopping even those about to leave dead in their tracks, now convinced that it was better to hear the story from the horse’s own mouth than secondhand.
“So what happened?” they would ask him, and A.G. would take his time, shaking his head as if still incredulous at what he had seen and heard.
“You mean after Kahiga unwrapped his parcel?” he would ask to make sure that he understood the question precisely.
“Yes, yes,” his listeners would say in unison.
“Kahiga’s jaw fell,” he would say, and then pause to let the image etch itself properly in their memories.
“Why? Why?”
“The pestilence. They had the body of a white termite and the head and mandibles of a red ant. How can I describe them? They were as big as locusts. I don’t even know if they were termites, but I may be wrong. There are more than two thousand species, and these could have been one of them or a mutant breed. I’ll just call them pests, white pests.”
“What are you talking about?” they would ask, wondering if the storyteller had had one beer too many. “All the leaves and all the roots of the bush had been eaten by the pests, leaving nothing but bare twigs.”
Kahiga and Njoya cried out in unison, What is this?
Kahiga rushed and turned over the soil, as he recounted, to see if the leaves were buried there, only to find more termites fattened to the size of big worms or caterpillars after feasting on leaves of money for more than seven days. He, like the others, could not say what was more amazing, the size of the termitelike creatures or the fact that the pests had eaten all the money.
The Ruler did not utter a word but pointed to the next parcel and its guardian.
It was Njoya’s turn. Here, too, the termites had eaten all the leaves as well as the bark, leaving the plant completely denuded.
And now came A.G. s turn.
“The termites had not been as thorough with mine; they were still devouring the few remaining leaves before our very eyes. I quickly brushed the pests away; they fell to the floor, leaving shreds of money dangling as if to mock me. Now I can say that the protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow had served me well, for, judging by the look in the Ruler’s eyes, none of us would be breathing today but for those remnants of leaves. True! Haki ya Mungu, I believe they saved us from his wrath, for they had enough green left on them to show that there may have been a time when they had the fuller greenness of a natural dollar.”
Tajirika, heretofore dumbstruck and immobile, now ran to try to put the shreds together and back on the bush, provoking the first word from the Ruler.
Stop! he yelled.
The Ruler stared at the scene, brooding on the fate of we mortal sinners. Frozen with anger, he pondered how best to express his wrath.
Tajirika felt all of his joints drained of strength, as did Njoya and Kahiga, who concluded that the retribution promised by the deputy wizard they had encountered was about to be visited on them.
Kahiga decided to deflect the blame.
“We two had suggested that we pick the leaves right away” he told the Ruler and, pointing at Tajirika, continued, “But this man overruled us and insisted that we pull out the bushes by the roots together with the soil. Your Mighty Excellency, it is a well-known fact that these pests build their termitaries in the prairie.”
“And so this fiasco would have been avoided,” said Njoya, “if we had picked the money and left the stems and the roots in the prairie.”
“Beware of this man, O Mighty Excellency. He is very bad, and his head is full of dangerous trickery,” Kahiga added with a hint of passion.
“He once held a whole police camp hostage with a bucket of shit and urine,” added Njoya in agreement.
“Is that true?” the Ruler asked Tajirika.
Tajirika did not answer immediately, unsure as he was whether the Ruler was asking him about the bucket of shit or the manner in which the treasure had been uprooted.
“I don’t know what these two are accusing me of. I was simply carrying out your orders,” Tajirika said.
“My orders? To hold hostage an armed police camp with only shit and urine?”
“Oh, no, not that,” Tajirika said, now aware where things were headed. “Your Mighty Excellency, some things are difficult to explain.”
“I did not ask you to explain anything. I asked you whether these allegations concerning the police camp are true. Was it the first act of a coup attempt?”
“A coup against you? Never. I would kill myself first. Go back to my ancestors.”
“I will turn you into an ancestor. A spirit, if you don’t explain.”
These two policemen must really hate me, Tajirika said to himself. I’m sure I shall not leave this place alive. But instead of despairing, he bolstered his sagging spirits by recalling the saying that even an animal about to be slaughtered tries to kick those leading it to the slaughterhouse.
“Your Mighty Excellency, as I told you the other day, it was all Sikiokuu’s fault. He had me arrested for nothing whatsoever. He then tried to convert me to a religious sect that believes in St. Thomas and Descartes, one of his French disciples. When I refused, he locked me up and put the Wizard of the Crow in the same cell at midnight, the witching hour. What could I do, Your Mighty Excellency, but seize the only means left to fashion my escape? Believe me, Your Lordship, this Wizard of the Crow is no pushover—he is capable of anything. He has been the bane of my life, always after me. He started the queuing mania. He made me contract that strange malady of words, and why? So that I would go to him for a cure. And he, like Satan of old, first lured my wife. He deceived my gullible woman into handing over the bags of money under the pretext that he would set things right. But what does he do with the bags? He plants them in the prairie, then comes to my cell under the cover of darkness to tell me where to find them. Now, after seeing what these pests have done, I wonder whether they were termites after all. I wish we had hearkened to the words of A.C. when he tried to tell us about the night he chased the Wizard of the Crow across the same prairie. If we had, we might have figured out that the Wizard of the Crow had already bewitched the place. We would have known that all was not well even when it looked well.”
“There, Tajirika has said well,” A.C. interrupted, happy at the implicit praise and Tajirika’s acknowledgment of his thwarted attempt to narrate the story of the famous chase.
A.G. loved telling the story of the night he chased two beggars who, on jumping over a cleft rock in the prairie, turned out to be one person. He knew that the Ruler knew about his chasing the djinns of the prairie, but not from the horse’s own mouth. How blessed he would be if the Ruler were now his audience? Here was his opportunity. He cleared his throat, ready to tell the story.
“True, Haki ya Mungu,” A.G. began, “a force I cannot explain from whence it came was propelling me, but when we reached the ridge, the force subsided and suddenly stopped. It was then that I recalled the night that the Wizard of the Crow had split himself into two powerful djinns. Your Mighty Highness, I am not a Muslim, but, True! Haki ya Mungu, if you read the Holy Quran, you can see that djinns are …”
“Yes, there is no doubt that the Wizard of the Crow belongs to a family of djinns,” interrupted Kahiga, a little envious that A.C. had taken center stage.
“A dangerous spirit. And that’s why we had warned Sikiokuu not to lock up the sorcerer,” Njoya added.
“But instead of heeding our warning, he ordered us to put him in the same cell with Tajirika,” Kahiga continued.
“So you two have seen the sorcerer with your own eyes?” the Ruler asked, as if he had forgotten that the police officers had been selected to be part of the expedition because of their previous connection with the wizard. But to Kahiga, it seemed as if they had succeeded in distracting the Ruler from the issue of the money trees and the termites, and, really, Kahiga did not mind that at all.
“Actually, my partner here and I were the ones who went to get him from his shrine,” said Kahiga.
“But it was Sikiokuu who sent us,” added Njoya.
“So that the sorcerer would help us ferret out Nyawlra.”
“The mistake he made was locking him up for no good reason instead of being simply persuasive,” Njoya said.
“And mark you, we had told him quite strongly that such action against the wizard could bring harm to the country,” added Kahiga.
“But he responded by saying that the Wizard of the Crow was not a deity” Njoya said accusingly.
“And he dismissed us from his presence, saying that when he needed our advice on matters of sorcery, he would call us,” added Njoya.
“So when we heard about your illness …”
“We knew right away that the Wizard of the Crow …”
“Had something to do with it …”
“We were happy to take him to the airport for the flight to America …”
“But we became very apprehensive when we heard that he had returned to Aburlria without anybody seeing him …”
“It is now clear, Your Mighty Excellency,” Tajirika jumped into the conversation, not to be left out, “that it is the Wizard of the Crow who produced these white termites. Yes, the Wizard of the Crow is the one who sent these pests. Have you ever seen termites this size, Your Mighty Excellency?”
“Did you say sent them?” A.C. asked rhetorically. “He is capable of turning himself into a termite and multiplying. For, as I was saying before Kahiga interrupted me, the night I chased the Wizard of the Crow from Paradise across the prairie … Shall I start from the beginning, Your Mighty Excellency?”
He stopped abruptly and looked to see what had caught the attention of the Ruler. It was not only the Ruler. All eyes had turned to the floor. Some termites were crawling all over the carpet; others were climbing up the walls; yet others slid through thresholds leading to the other rooms.
Where had all these termites sprung from? The Ruler frowned, but Tajirika, Kahiga, Njoya, and A.C. could not tell what his frown portended, and they glanced at one another with the same fear. Would he jail them? Would he simply dismiss them from their jobs on the police force? Or would he exact his vengeance only on Tajirika? They assumed the worst as they waited for him to rage.
But none anticipated anything remotely resembling the Ruler’s reaction. It was the tone of his voice that first caught them unaware. He spoke like an elder talking to his children about matters he himself had experienced. He was soothing as he told them not to worry about what had happened and actually commended them for doing their best, considering the treacherous, cunning mind they had been up against. They should have no fear, he told them, for the cunning fellow would never outsmart the Ruler. He told them to remain seated and be patient, that he wanted a couple of ministers to join them as he, their Ruler, announced what was to be done about the dangerous mind.
But he enjoined them not to so much as whisper about the money trees or the termites. This was now a state secret.
“Do you hear me?” he asked, now looking at A.G., Kahiga, and Njoya in turn. “You must never even dream about plants that produce natural dollars or any other currency, or I will turn your dream into a nightmare.”
What’s going on? they wondered, baffled by the unexpected reaction.
“I will now send for the ministers …” the Ruler said, and he was about to instruct his minions when he suddenly remembered that Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniürü were still sequestered in separate rooms to write down their pledges. He had forgotten all about them during the period of waiting for the treasure from the prairie.
Now he sent the three police officers to fetch them. The Ruler and Tajirika were left alone.