They went on talking to each other, hopping from one thing to another. Kamltl continued to stroke the cat while trying to glean what he could from their conversation.
They talked of their volunteer services at All Saints.
“If we can feed doves, surely we can do the same for a homeless beggar such as this one?” Maritha said to Mariko.
“Yes, the basement is cozy, and the homeless know that they are on holy ground, where they must share and learn to live in peace.”
This strange talk, he realized, was directed at him; they would take care of him.
And that was how he became a dweller in the basement of All Saints. For the first few days his only company was the cat, which came at night to snuggle against him after being gone all day. Morning and evening, Maritha and Mariko would bring him food and make sure that all was well. On the rare occasion when Maritha or Mariko came alone, he or she would impart information by talking loudly and seemingly distractedly.
“There is a lot to do in this church. I will wipe the pews this morning, but still I must return in the evening. And my birds? They have a language of their own. And to think people don’t believe me when I say that a dove has sent me a message that humans should take courage; that no night is so long as not to end in dawn!”
On another occasion: “Oh, I don’t know how this drama outside the grounds of Parliament and the courts will end. Thousands of people descending on the place from all over the country! Why do they keep on pestering the Ruler about his pregnancy? Don’t they know that though men can plant, they can’t produce?”
At times he had to restrain himself from laughing at their antics. Mostly he thought about the Limping Witch, her unique elegance of mind and body, and whenever he recalled how she had also fooled him with her limping legs and twisted face, he felt his spirits rise even more in joyful appreciation of her resourceful daring. He was aflame with the desire to touch Nyawlra, hear her talk, see her laugh, or just be in her presence. Yet, his euphoria aside, he would often brood on the dangers to which she was now exposed, which made him become fearful, sad, and anxious.
And then one night two other homeless came to the basement. It was good to have company besides the cat, hitherto his sole companion. But when in the morning he woke up to find the newcomers stealing glances at him, he felt a coldness in his tummy. It was Njoya and Kahiga. The officers had successfully tracked him down to this place, and now there was no escaping them. Kamltl decided that his best defense and offense lay in silence.
“Don’t worry” Njoya hastened to tell him. “We know that you are the Wizard of the Crow, but we shall not let this out to anybody, not even to this man and woman. Let them continue their taking you for a homeless. We two are now the real homeless, but we shall continue to pretend that you are one of us.”
He learned of their dismissal and indeed from their ceaseless chatter he gleaned enough to help him fill up the empty spaces of his knowledge of what had been going on in the country.
But what do they really want? wondered the Wizard of the Crow again, but he did not have long to wait. What they wanted to tell him was for his ears alone, and even as they said so they had already started approaching.
The cat meowed and left the basement, and its departure seemed like a signal for the next act. With Kahiga crouching over his left ear and Njoya his right, they intensified their whispering.
The Wizard of the Crow was puzzled, for though they spoke in earnest, what they said did not make sense. Did he hear right that the money he had buried in the prairie had given birth to three dollar-producing plants, later eaten by an army of strange-looking termites, allegedly sent by him to the State House?
“You did a good thing to send the termites,” they told him. “The Ruler has not a grain of gratitude in him.”
They became a nuisance. If he moved a step back, they moved with him, and if he turned they did the same, each clinging to his chosen ear.
It was a Sunday morning, and with the cathedral seething with worshippers, the hymns and prayers above incongruously interacted with the ceaseless whispering around his ears.
And then suddenly came an even more jarring note: the sound of a bullhorn.
“We know the sound of that bullhorn,” added Kahiga. “Please, tell us the secret,” he pleaded urgently.
“You can surely save our families with just a few words,” added Njoya.
“Please tell us the secret of growing money,” they urged him in unison.
At long last it was out. So all of them, the Ruler, Tajirika, and these two, were after the secret of money growing on trees? But that thought was now superceded by the more immediate worry of what they said about the bullhorn.
Just then the cat meowed again, twice. It had come back to him. And then he saw Maritha and Mariko at the far end of the basement beckoning him to follow.
All at once he made a decision. In the past he had escaped from many a tight situation because of words. His words. But now he had trapped himself inside a wordless silence. Who was he, without a voice?
“Leave me alone,” the Wizard of the Crow suddenly said, just to get Njoya and Kahiga away from his ears and also prevent them from following him farther.
The startled pair moved back a step but when it suddenly dawned on them that the Wizard of the Crow had actually spoken, they rushed back to his side and set their ears close to his mouth. He did not disappoint them.
“It is unnatural for money to give birth to money” he said irritably. “Banks alone know the secret of money producing money. They hide the secret in ledger books and computer screens. I am now going for the word of God,” he said in a tone of finality, and began to move.
Njoya and Kahiga brimmed over with joy. Was that why Tajirika had started Mwathirika Ltd.?
“Here!” shouted Njoya as he and Kahiga ran after him.
“We promised your assistant, remember?” said Kahiga, pulling a small plastic bag out of his pocket. “In our joy, we almost forgot.”
“Your fallen hair,” said Njoya, as he and Kahiga headed for the exit.
10
In those days church and mosque attendance had gone up considerably, mainly because many religious centers preached and prayed for the banishment of Satan, who had come to stand for all that was wrong with the country. Some religious leaders had strongly defended the right of free assembly and had become heroes of the new democratic surge.
No religious center attracted more people of so many persuasions as All Saints Cathedral. Orthodox and non- Orthodox, Christian and non-Christian, all made their way to the place. Debates about the origins of the cathedral’s popularity still rage to this day.
Some said it stemmed from when Maritha and Mariko told weekly stories of their strange desires and their battles with Satan, pointing out that many of those who first came to the cathedral to hear of the couple’s temptations had joined the church even after the pair had stopped baring their hearts.
Others asserted that the church’s rise started long before the confessions of Maritha and Mariko, tracing its beginnings to the Sunday when Bishop Kanogori chased away the daemons that the Ruler, riding a donkey in imitation of Christ, had brought into the building.
Yet others insisted that one did not have to go beyond the personality of Bishop Kanogori himself. His reputation for voicing in the light of day the many concerns whispered at night had spread so wide and far that some even believed that he spoke with God. Many went there just to hear his interpretations of the Bible. One of his most popular was his rendering of the Sermon on the Mount, and when he declaimed, in a slightly tremulous voice, that the poor shall inherit the Earth, sighs of agreement could clearly be heard all over the place.
It is said that the Ruler did not like his outspokenness, and so when some thugs raided his house one evening and roughed him up, everybody in Aburlria assumed the State House was responsible. The thugs had warned him to keep his mouth shut or else.
But Bishop Kanogori did not; instead, he begged his congregation to pray for his attackers so that they might emerge from darkness into light. His church would always be open to receive them. This declaration was met with disbelief and uncertainty. It was one thing to forgive those who have sinned against us; another to welcome them into the building.
