Wizard of the Crow

tnateke.”

“My friend,” Kaniuru said affably, “I have one life like you and everybody else in Aburlria. The difference between my life and the lives of others is that mine is completely dedicated to the Ruler and there is no way I would ever tell a lie before him. Believe me, my very body would denounce me.”

“This man is lying through his teeth,” cried Sikiokuu in sheer frustration.

“Young man,” said the Ruler, “do you know that what you are saying is very serious? Do you have any evidence to back up your claims?”

“Your Mighty Excellency, I don’t understand why Sikiokuu is denying any knowledge of the envelopes and their contents. I can assure you that it is neither Sikiokuu nor I who solicited the gifts from these businessmen. This has absolutely nothing to do with bribery or corruption,” he emphasized in English.

“Yes, but I have had nothing to do with it,” said Sikiokuu.

“That’s true,” agreed Kaniuru, “but it is because I handled everything.”

“Where is the evidence?” the Ruler intervened. “I want evidence, not endless arguments.”

“May I approach?” Kaniuru asked the Ruler as if he, Kaniuru, were a lawyer asking permission to go near a judge’s bench.

Without waiting for an answer Kaniuru took a bundle of canceled checks and handed them over to the Ruler, showing that, every day for several months, Kaniuru had written checks payable to Silver Sikiokuu. All had a seemingly valid bank stamp showing that they had been cashed or deposited in Sikiokuu’s accounts.

What Kaniuru did not disclose was that his friend at the bank, Jane Kanyori, had set up a bogus account in Sikiokuu’s name to facilitate Kaniuru’s supposed deposits. Neither did he disclose that Jane Kanyori had given him a bank card in the name of Sikiokuu, enabling Kaniuru to withdraw the money he had deposited in Sikiokuu’s account and redeposit the money in his own at other banks. Everything according to the book. Kaniuru was an artist, and his calligraphic skills became useful in forging Sikiokuu’s signature.

“If my share of twenty-five percent is ever needed for any of our Lord’s self-help programs, I will part with it anytime,” Kaniuru declared, and returned to his chair next to Sikiokuu.

For once in his life Sikiokuu was at a complete loss for words. His mouth remained open, unable to deny, protest, or affirm his innocence. But his head was busy trying to figure out, without success, how and when he had wronged Kaniuru. Instead, what came to the fore were his own generous deeds on his friend’s behalf.

“Your Mighty Excellency, there is more to this than meets all of our eyes,” Sikiokuu finally said in a teary voice. “Please, I beg you to let me look into the whole matter and bring to light what is hidden in the dark.”

“There is a shorter and easier way of verifying this,” said the Ruler. “I will demand your bank statements.”

He gave the order and in a few minutes had the information he sought from the National Bank of Commerce and Industry. The records supported everything that Kaniuru had claimed.

In abject frustration, completely helpless, unable to expose Kaniuru’s lies, Sikiokuu, close to tears, just stared ahead.

The Ruler seethed inside. So much money made from Marching to Heaven, his own project, and not one cent had come his wayr Sikiokuu and even Kaniuru, a mere youthwinger, had already banked millions.

But suddenly he remembered something Tajirika had said earlier.

Substance was in the details. He quickly picked up the canceled checks and bank records and scrutinized them again.

Sikiokuu prayed with all his heart that the Ruler would find a discrepancy, something, however tiny, that would undo the harm done by Kaniuru.

“Let me ask you,” the Ruler said, waving some of the checks toward Kaniuru. “Here I see only records of Aburlrian money”

“Yes, my Lord,” Kaniuru said. “It’s all Burls.”

“Where are the dollars?” the Ruler asked.

“Dollars?” asked Kaniuru, puzzled.

“Yes, dollars. American hundred-dollar bills. Three sacks each five feet by two in one afternoon. Like Tajirika before you. Or did your visitors not look down upon the value of the Burl? They didn’t say, Bunni bur et”

“Got you, sucker!” Sikiokuu said to himself, rejoicing. “The cunning fellow has been caught red-handed.”

Tajirika also rejoiced, sure that his wiliness had placed Kaniuru in a situation from which he could not extricate himself.

And suddenly it all dawned on Kaniuru: Those businessmen had been paying Tajirika in dollars all along? Why had they not done so with him? Tajirika had not been the fool he had taken him to be. Still, Kaniuru thought quickly on his feet. Without seeming flustered in any way, he replied to the Ruler:

“There were some who wanted to pay in dollars. But Sikiokuu and I refused their offer. By accepting foreign currency we would have broken all the rules and regulations of the Central Bank concerning foreign exchange for nothing but self-gratification, and I am not very good with that kind of thing. Personally, I wanted something on the record that I could defend, even if I was found to have done wrong. I want to be judged on my record. I myself grew angry when I heard some of them talk as if they looked down on the Burl; one even said, Bunni bure. I am not the kind of person who can stand idly by while people say nasty things about our national currency. My friend and benefactor, Sikiokuu, was even more furious with them for their lack of patriotism. In short, we refused to be bribed in dollars.”

“Your Excellency,” interjected Sikiokuu, “I pray you to please believe me when I say that no such conversation about Burls and dollars ever took place between me and this scoundrel.”

The Ruler registered very little of what Sikiokuu had said. His mind was still preoccupied with the three sacks of dollars, for, to him, a bag of dollars was more valuable than all the Burls in Aburlria. He, too, thought the national currency worthless, its value always changing like a chameleon. He now saw Tajirika in a new light: here was a bright mind that knew how to make a dollar out of thin air. Kaniuru and Sikiokuu seemed to him foolish for insisting on being paid in Burls.

“Mr. Tajirika,” he said, turning toward Tajirika, “Kaniuru has told us what he did with his Burls. What did you do with your three bags of dollars?”

All eyes turned to Tajirika.

6

“I am talking to you, Tajirika,” the Buler repeated. “Are you hard of hearing? What did you do with the three sacks of dollars? With whom did you share the money?” he added, glancing at Machokali.

The tables are turning against me, Tajirika thought to himself. Why did I lie about having dollars?

It was too late to change his story. He would have to live with the untruth, no matter its consequences. From now on, he swore to himself, he would stick to what he knew best: bending the truth as opposed to telling downright lies.

“I left the three bags of dollars with the Wizard of the Crow,” Tajirika said.

The Buler broke into mirthless laughter. Sikiokuu felt life returning. Kaniuru’s nose twitched. Machokali looked at his friend with pity. Couldn’t he come up with a better explanation?

“What?” asked the Buler.

“I left the whole lot with the Wizard of the Crow.”

“I don’t understand. Did you owe him money?”

“It was his fee for curing me.” Tajirika told of his own malady of words. “I was so happy to regain my voice that I did not worry about the fee. At that moment, my giving away the money was no big deal: there was more to be had where that first lot had come from.”

“What did the wizard do with the money?” the Ruler, Machokali, and Sikiokuu asked in unison.

“Three big bags of dollars! Wow!” Kaniuru added, not to be left out.

“When we were locked up in the same prison cell, he told me that he had buried it,” Tajirika said.