businessmen nowadays were ready to give him big money based on faith and hope, untold fortune would be his when the Ruler returned with loans galore leading to actual construction. Tajirika’s release from jail was the fly in his ointment. Otherwise his affairs were running smoothly and Kaniuru believed himself to be secure in life and property.
Even Nyawlra would come back to him someday, he thought, because of protective magic and the persuasive power of money. Like most of the other Ruler’s disciples, Kaniuru believed that money could buy just about anything and anybody, and certainly Nyawlra would be neither the first nor the last to change her political views for cash.
The only person who showed no interest in money was Jane Kany-ori. She helped him in all his banking and yet asked for nothing more than the occasional lunch of collard greens and roasted goat meat. In money matters, she was a poster girl for innocence. This used to puzzle Kaniuru at first, but then he worked it out. Surrounded as she was by heaps of money all the time, she had become indifferent to its value, the way a cook loses appetite for a dish he has been sniffing all day. Kaniuru of course liked it that way.
So between the free services of Jane Kanyori and the free protective magic of the Wizard of the Crow, Kaniuru felt safe as he contemplated his maneuvers in the precarious politics of Aburlria.
He did not know how far Sikiokuu had pursued his suggestions about securing the services of the Wizard of the Crow, whether Sikiokuu had sent for the sorcerer or had gone to the shrine in disguise at night. Not that it mattered to Kaniuru. He had done his part. The rest was for Sikiokuu to do and he, Kaniuru, was content not to be too closely involved in all this sorcery and witchcraft. For though it was all right to be close to a sorcerer long enough to secure protective magic, it was not all right to remain too close to him, for one could never know when he might turn against one.
The major task remaining for Kaniuru before the Ruler’s return was to complete the work of the Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania and write down its findings. Tajirika’s confessions provided the basis of the report, and, because it had to conform to Sikiokuu’s plans, he did not lose sleep over the task.
But Tajirika’s release kept gnawing at him. Tajirika might resume the chairmanship with all its powers. So even as he received his stuffed envelopes and banked them safely and wisely with the help of the loyal Jane Kanyori, his mind was always busy trying to figure out how he could trick Tajirika into some foolishness that would compromise him.
He was in the midst of entertaining various scenarios when the telephone rang. It was Sikiokuu, but why was he calling so early?
“Women? What women? They beat up Tajirika?” Kaniuru asked, collapsing in laughter, unable for a minute to utter a coherent phrase. “They sat on him? What were they up to?”
Kaniuru’s peals of laughter turned into a cry of sheer delight when Sikiokuu told him to investigate the gang of women.
10
The rumors that Aburlrian women were up in arms against their husbands, which later spread to all corners of the country, had origins in Kaniuru’s investigations. Despite the fact that he had been instructed to do it secretly, Kaniuru decided that this scandal was precisely what he needed to strip Tajirika of all dignity and manhood. He started by hinting to one or two people that some women had attacked Tajirika, made him lower his trousers, and then lashed his buttocks thoroughly. Rumor took over from there, but to Kaniuru’s disappointment Tajirika’s name did not figure much-any man’s name would do among the many scary stories that were now told of women’s replacing wife beating with husband bashing.
Kaniuru almost became a victim of the success of his own malicious initiative, for he later received urgent instructions to press ahead with the investigation to stem the tide of these rumors. A national gender war posed a serious threat to established family values.
Who are these women? What was the connection between the women of the people’s court, the women dancers, and the Movement for the Voice of the People? For a moment he dwelled on the women dancers who came to grace the opening ceremony of his office.
After the ceremony he had expected them to come back to hold him to his promise to buy them a fleet of buses, but they never did. He was a little disappointed, for he would have liked to tell them a few things. He recalled the women dancers’ intervention on Vinjinia’s behalf. What had they been up to? What was the nature of Vinjinia’s involvement?
Should he summon her to his office or not? But whether he called her to his office or went to see her, Vinjinia was sure to tell the same story she had told her husband. Should he summon Tajirika again? He would no doubt repeat what Vinjinia had recounted. And why would they cooperate with him anyway? Besides, Sikiokuu had told him very clearly that he must take care not to disturb the Tajirikas unduly. After all, Sikiokuu had chosen Kaniuru to conduct the investigation instead of the police because he wanted it done quietly, and he wanted Kaniuru’s report to reach him first before it became an official document. Not that this was anything new. Sikiokuu was always self- serving. But, still, convinced as he was that she was essential to his investigation, Kaniuru had to get at Vinjinia.
He focused on the details of the gang of women who had abused Tajirika. They had ambushed him as he was walking to the Mars Cafe. They had thrown him into a waiting van, blindfolded him, and taken him to an unknown location, all in broad daylight. And immediately Kaniuru was struck by something. He whistled a tune of satisfaction. He would follow in the women’s footsteps, even if it meant not following every one of Sikiokuu’s orders not to importune the Tajirikas.
11
From the day of the rapprochement between husband and wife, Vinjinia had prayed and hoped for a new beginning to their lives. Not that she believed that their relationship would be back to where it should be, but talking was the first step on the road to healing.
She did not ask too much of life. A God-fearing, churchgoing family; a husband uninvolved in politics and civic matters; college-educated kids with secure jobs; a house, a farm, and two cars. This had been their dream when Tajirika and she were teachers in primary school.
As a certified teacher, Vinjinia had been the more secure of the two. Tajirika had been mainly a substitute teacher, his employment depending on women teachers going on maternity leave. They had married and had thought of naming their first child, a girl, Nyawlra, but then they decided against it because Nyawlra meant “work” and they did not want to condemn their child, even symbolically, to the life of a laborer. Instead they called her Ng’endo to symbolize their hopes for a life journey better than theirs as teachers earning a miserable income.
That was in the colonial days, and their life did not change until independence, when racial barriers to bank loans were relaxed and more business opportunities became available to Aburlrian blacks. Tajirika started a new career selling furniture and household goods. He was not a carpenter, but he had the gift of a smooth tongue. He first got orders for various items, then he would engage carpenters, and soon he was the proud owner of quite a big store, with a workshop and salaried carpenters. When they later bought a farm, Vin-jinia gave up teaching to become the full-time manager of home and farm. She often looked back to those days when they would rejoice at every good turn in their fortune: the fulfillment of the prophecy implied in the name Titus Tajirika. Yet the wealthier they became, the greater their dispiritedness as they entered into discords that intensified into domestic violence.
If only the closeness at their recent wonder could be reproduced in their other dealings at home, Vinjinia sighed, but the possibility made her break into one of her favorite lyrics:
