7
It was while seated in their usual place facing the Museum of Arrested Motion that Tajirika, out of nowhere, asked Vinjinia how she had come to be the guest of honor at a women’s ceremonial dance, warning her not to lie because he had seen, with his own eyes, photographs of the occasion. She assumed he meant press photos, although she had not seen any. Without mentioning her visit to the Wizard of the Crow, she described her fruitless search for Tajirika and finally her decision to confront Sikiokuu at the official opening of Kaniuru’s office, where some women dancers whom she had never met forced his hand. But it did not really matter that she had never met them, and all he should know was that but for those dancers he would never have been found alive.
It was Tajirika’s turn, and he too omitted any reference to his encounter with the Wizard of the Crow in prison, his commanding a whole camp with only a bucket of shit, and his bargaining his way to freedom by betraying his friend and benefactor Machokali. Instead, Tajirika described how he defied those who had arrested him and threatened to report their criminal mistreatment of him to the Ruler. It was then that the officials told him that the involvement of his wife with subversive female elements was the real reason they had arrested him, and, to prove it, they showed him photographs of Vin-jinia seated in front of the dancers.
The shock on Vinjinia’s face made Tajirika believe that she knew nothing about the pictures. She did not deny that there were people with cameras there, but she had assumed that they were from the newspapers. And why would newspaper people take the pictures of her and the dancers and erase the images of Sikiokuu and Kan-iuru from the scene, since they were the chief dignitaries at the ceremony?
“There is more to these pictures than meets the eye,” said Vin-jinia, shaking her head from side to side.
Her words stung Tajirika into silence. So that was why Sikiokuu did not want him to talk to Vinjinia about the pictures? So that’s why he had forbidden him to beat her? Now he recalled how Sikiokuu had recently put the phone down while Tajirika was about to seek permission to beat Vinjinia. His anger drove the matter of his abduction into the background.
“Let me get ahold of Minister Sikiokuu, and I will teach him never to toy with me again,” he said at last.
He could not figure out the form the vengeance would take. He even thought of hiring professional assassins to finish off Sikiokuu, but he had no clue as to where to find them. Besides, that was risky and would take time to arrange; he wanted instant vengeance. Tajirika’s failure to settle on a course of action made Sikiokuu’s lies burn even more. Why had he lied to him? To make him cooperate against…
Suddenly Tajirika knew what he would do: he would refuse to conspire against Machokali.
He went to the office to call Sikiokuu.
8
Sikiokuu could tell by the way that Tajirika was breathing on the other end of the line that something had gone terribly wrong. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“What’s the matter?” Sikiokuu repeated.
Tajirika was about to declare that he would no longer cooperate in the matter of Machokali when he remembered that he had already put his signature on a false confession. Sikiokuu clearly held him by the balls and was prepared to squeeze hard to make him comply. Was there no way out of this nightmare?
“And you did not even have the guts to say that you and Kaniuru were the stars of the show?” he said, trying to inject as much bitterness and scorn as he could into his tone.
At first Sikiokuu did not know what Tajirika was talking about.
“Did you beat your wife?” Sikiokuu asked straight out, ignoring the taunts.
Tajirika hesitated, wondering how Sikiokuu knew about what had transpired at home. Had Sikiokuu set up surveillance around his home? Or was Sikiokuu in league with Vinjinia and the women who had humiliated him? That might even explain why they were so concerned with Vinjinia’s safety. And come to think of it, Sikiokuu and those women were the only ones who had ever asked him not to beat his wife.
“Be a man and fight me in the open instead of sending women to do your bidding. I have thrown down the gauntlet. Pick it up, Mr. Minister of lies and cowardice.”
“Women? What women?” Sikiokuu asked.
“But of course you know nothing about them. Of course you didn’t send them to abduct me. Sikiokuu, you are truly amazing. I have caught you red-handed, and all you can do is deny and deny?”
Sikiokuu managed to soothe Tajirika somewhat. He now told Sikiokuu an edited version of what had happened. He diminished his relentless and brutal wife beating to a single blow to the face. And the number of his female assailants changed from ten to twenty-five. The single machete became nine guns.
Sikiokuu felt like laughing but started wondering who these women were. And they even had the nerve to set themselves up as a people’s court? And armed, too?
“Mr. Tajirika, I don’t need to remind you that I had expressly forbidden you to beat your wife. Now you see the consequences. An entirely new situation has arisen, but we shall do our best to handle it. I am now asking you to please proceed with life as if nothing unusual has happened. The government will secretly investigate the matter, and we shall not rest until we get to the bottom of it. I promise you that the investigation will be conducted by a very select few. What kind of a world would this be if men lost the right to discipline their wives? I will make another request of you. Please don’t let on to Vinjinia that you have talked to me about this business. And don’t tell anyone else about what you have had to endure at the hands of women. We don’t want this type of thing to spread through the entire country. I still advise you to declare a moratorium on wife beating until things are back to normal.”
“Thankyou, Mr. Sikiokuu,” Tajirika said, surprised to hear himself mouthing gratitude instead of curses and threats. “It has been said truly that the nature of women is incomprehensible. They are very emotional. Even my wife, I don’t think I will ever be able to trust her again. From now on I will be like your friend the Frenchman Descartes. To tell you the truth, I am beginning to doubt whether I have really seen the things that I have seen with my eyes. Reality and illusion are getting mixed up.”
“Please, Mr. Tajirika.” Sikiokuu lamented that he had ever mentioned the Frenchman to this idiot of a businessman. “You must really forget about the Frenchman. I told you he died many years ago, and that is a fact.”
Fajirika appreciated Sikiokuu’s concern for discretion. He also liked Sikiokuu’s promise that the investigation would be conducted by a select few.
So after their telephone conversation, Tajirika felt much better, and he now walked as sprightly as he did before the women and Sikiokuu and Kaniuru had stripped him of his dignity. Good times were around the corner again, Tajirika felt like singing.
9
Kaniuru did not like Tajirika’s release from jail, much less its being effected without his being consulted in his capacity as the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry. He was not amused by Tajirika’s alliance with Sikiokuu, as it denied him the minister’s undivided support in his bid to fully assume the chairmanship of Marching to Heaven. The key to his uninterrupted flow of personal wealth without personal sweat was the occupancy of the chair. If
