Wizard of the Crow

think I am stressing exhaustion? But before anybody could respond, A.G. would answer his own question.

“I don’t know what it was-maybe the bush made me think about the night I chased the Wizard of the Crow in his guise as a beggar or two all the way from Paradise to Santalucia. Just as on that night I felt driven by a force so powerful that I could not stop even if I tried, so too on this night, true, Haki ya Mungu, I felt myself propelled by a power unknown to me. At one point I almost tripped over a ridge. I stopped. Before me was a rock ridge cleft into two, the space between them covered by grass and wild growth.

“All of a sudden I had a funny feeling in my belly for, true, Haki ya Mungu, when I looked all around, I remembered being in the same bush the night I ran after the Wizard of the Crow, and that this was the same ridge over which I had tripped and fallen, losing him, or both of them, or whatever. Later, I would come to learn that my fall had not been accidental, that it had been the work of the wizard. But what is the meaning of the coincidence now? I asked myself. Had the Wizard of the Crow buried the treasure here, guarded by the powers of the netherworld?

“I sat down on the rock and Kahiga, Njoya, and Tajirika followed suit in silence, for, to be very honest, speech had become unbearable, a burden. We were absorbed in our own thoughts, yes, but I heard myself saying to my companions, The Wizard of the Crow is capable of many tricks. I once chased him across the prairie, and I believe that he led me through a place like this… I thought that they would take up the subject, but none seemed interested in what I was saying. In our own isolation, we all were wrestling with the daemons that so possess a person exhausted in mind, body, and spirit that they make him begin to imagine seeing bright stars in daylight…”

Tajirika thought he was seeing things. The leaves of the three bushes in front of him were no ordinary leaves, but, no, he could not believe his eyes, and he tried to cry out to the others. He could not find words to tell them what he was seeing so he just pointed, whispering hoarsely, Look, please look, and tell me if this is not more trickery by the Wizard of the Crow. Tell me if those are not American dollars growing on those bushesr

“None of us could believe what we were hearing. We looked at one another with the same thought: Money growing on trees? Tajirika had gone mad. On closer inspection, we had to agree that those leaves did look like American dollars. Yet we harbored doubts, which disappeared when Tajirika took money from his pocket and, with hands shaking, approached the bushes to compare what he had in his hands with what was there. True, Haki ya Mungu, from where we sat, nobody could tell the difference between the two; if anything, those that grew on the bushes seemed smoother and greener, a little less wrinkled, than the bills from Tajirika’s pocket. Some of the leaves had tiny holes in them and others were frayed at the edges, but Tajirika, our leader, explained that this was the work of worms and other insects who did not understand the value of a dollar.”

Tajirika fell on his knees before the bushes and started sobbing with joy like a death-row inmate whose sentence had been commuted when execution seemed inevitable and imminent.

We are saved! he cried, and the others said Amen in unison.

9

Kaniuru, Machokali, and Sikiokuu sat as if frozen in time, bickering. The Ruler continued to check his watch now and then, oblivious of them. It is said that, in the light of the weirdness of the scene, heads of the police and army eventually came into the hall to see if something was the matter. But, ascertaining that the Ruler was wide awake, they retreated, muttering to themselves, Politicians do love talking, don’t they, marveling at their ability to confer even in silence. Not like us, men of action, they said to themselves, resolving not to disturb them again. Let them talk till the end of time if they so desire.

The telephone rang, and the Ruler picked up the receiver.

“What? What did you say?” the Ruler was asking. His face darkened and his hands shook, sending a tremor through his whole body. The entire State House, the whole country, and the people, feeling the earthquake, recalled the seismatic disturbance during the Ruler’s return from America. On the telephone, unaware of the effect of his shock, the Ruler continued:

“How can that be?… Are you fulling my leg?” he asked in English “Three of them?… Okay, okay, wait a minute…”

He tried to cover the mouthpiece with one hand but, failing, rested it on his prodigious belly and turned to Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniuru, looking at them as if he were seeing them for the first time and asking himself, What are these intruders doing here? Then he remembered that it was their arguments and bickering that had kept him awake:

“Go,” he told them. “I will settle your case another day.” As they stood up to leave, he commanded them to stop exactly where they stood and to listen to him very carefully. Because he did not ever want to hear that any of them had so much as whispered what they had seen or heard during their stay at the State House, he would require them to sign a pledge: I will never reveal whatever 1 have seard or seen in the State House. He would match the degree of forgiveness to the quantity of signed pledges. He then asked some police to lock them up in their different locations within the State House.

They had hardly left the room when the Ruler resumed his telephone conversation: “Are you still there?… Good, now tell me, are you sure about all this? The four of you?…”

10

He gave orders to the army chief to send three armored cars to the prairie as fast as possible to retrieve the dollar trees and the precious soil in which they grew. And they were to return as slowly as a tortoise so as to risk nothing. Emotions welled up inside: he smarted at the recent humiliations he had suffered at its hands; now he was freed of the need for the Global Bank. How happy he would be to look the Global Bank directors in the eye, with all the contempt he could muster, and tell them to shove it. No more memoranda to those impertinent fools. He would simply relish his newfound wealth. May these money-producing trees live forever! Impatient though he was for the arrival of his men from the prairie, he was still glad that he had cautioned against the armored cars rushing back to prevent the possibility of any of the soil falling by the wayside.

When they saw the convoy, armed with all manner of firepower, slowly making its way into Eldares, citizens, fearing a coup d’etat, hid behind closed doors. How happy the Ruler was when, after seven days of anxious waiting, he heard the roll of the convoy on the grounds of the State House! Given his present condition, he could not, of course, go out to meet it but instead ordered the police and army chiefs to see to the immediate delivery of the bounty without the usual security checks.

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.