Wizard of the Crow

The cathedral had also started attracting crowds from the People’s Assembly outside Parliament and the law courts, as well as the media. Kanogori’s sermons, albeit in truncated form, started appearing in the papers.

One Sunday, when the bishop was in the middle of prayer, a bullhorn outside was heard making a strange demand. At first the worshippers ignored the bullhorn’s interruption; they remained on their knees, their eyes shut in prayer. But when the demand was repeated, people opened their eyes as the bishop rushed to conclude what he was saying. Those packed near the windows and outside the door were first to scream. The cathedral was surrounded by armed police. Marksmen had climbed the trees, their guns trained on the compound. The operations officer, Wonderful Tumbo himself, stood atop an armored car; through his bullhorn he ordered everyone to go inside; any who tried to escape would be shot on sight. The entire congregation was to remain inside until Bishop Kanogori delivered the fugitive: the Wizard of the Crow.

Bishop Kanogori asked his followers to be orderly and peaceful. He was sure there had been a misunderstanding and it would all be cleared up once he spoke to the officer in charge. He had no idea what the police were talking about. Who was this Wizard of the Crow? Why would he be in the cathedral? Wonderful Tumbo told Bishop Kanogori that he was not in the mood for evasiveness. The church had to surrender the sorcerer or face the consequences.

The Bishop went back to the altar and asked the congregation if there was a sorcerer among them. Their solemnity broke; they laughed. He called upon all the sorcerers who might be in the congregation to see the error of their ways and repent. Anybody who genuinely repented would no longer be a sorcerer; if they were sorcerers before setting foot inside the church, they no longer were, having been born again in Christ.

And that is what he told Wonderful Tumbo: that the church was God’s abode. Outside was subject to earthly powers. Neither Bishop

Kanogori nor Officer Tumbo would give an inch, and people feared that the standoff would end in bloodshed. The officer had been on the phone with the Ruler. So when he proclaimed his ultimatum, everyone knew that it had the backing of the State House. All Saints had one hour to give up the sorcerer, and after that the police would storm the holy abode.

Then Maritha and Mariko stood up, and there was silence all around. They asked if they could speak to the bishop alone. People thought that Maritha and Mariko were intent on recounting a new episode in their battle with Satan. I thought their battle with the Tempter was over, some whispered among themselves. Even the bishop told them to please hold back their testimony until after the crisis was over. In the meantime, would everybody please close their eyes so that we can ask the good Lord for a peaceful end to the situation?

In the midst of their prayers they heard a cat meow. Upon opening their eyes, they saw a man followed by a cat emerge from a door near the altar at the far back of the cathedral. The man and the cat stopped by the altar where the bishop stood. Maritha and Mariko looked at each other: Why did he come out when we asked him to wait in the back room? Why did he not leave everything to usr

“I am the one they call the Wizard of the Crow, and I don’t want anybody hurt on account of me. I, like other homeless, have sought shelter in the refuge of your basement. I thank you all for that. I brought myself here in peace and I will take myself from here in peace.”

All watched as the man, followed by the cat, walked down the aisle and out of the church. Officer Tumbo himself put handcuffs on him.

11

Sweeper-of-Souls and Soul’s Walking Stick were among the hundreds who had not found a seat inside and so had remained outside, from where they had witnessed the entire drama. The two, now veterans in the war against Satan, knew this to be the same figure that once appeared before them at the city dumpsite and later followed Soul’s Walking Stick from bar to bar. The Devil had once again eluded them. But they would not lose heart, and, with fellow Soldiers of Christ, they broke into their song of defiance, renewing their vows to crush Satan, stepping on the ground in unison so hard that the earth beneath their feet shook, increasing their joy as if they could see their enemy squirming and writhing beneath their united onslaught.

Just then Soul’s Walking Stick saw two green eyes watching from behind the hedge that enclosed the church grounds, and he immediately remembered that the cat that followed closely behind Satan down the aisle had disappeared mysteriously the moment the police had put handcuffs on the body of Satan. It was a revelation. Satan had allowed the police to capture his human shadow while all along he was hidden inside the body of the cat. He added new lyrics to the melody, alerting the others to the eyes that watched them.

When the others understood the import of his gestures, they formed two flanks to encircle Satan, but it was as if the cat read their intentions. It jumped out of its hiding place and ran away, with the ever-determined Soldiers of Christ in pursuit, shouting, Catch him! Catch the coward!

12

“True! Haki ya Mungu!” A.C. would later say, talking of the Sunday, shaking his head in remembrance of what had happened. “I had just gotten to the grounds of All Saints. Wonderful Tumbo seemed delighted with his success, but I was saying to myself, You fool, you think you have arrested the Wizard of the Crow? His other self is free. “But when they threw him in the back of the Land Bover and drove off, I became angry. A faithful servant of the State, I had lost my job and had no way of knowing where they were taking him. I cannot explain the depth of my resentment at no longer being an insider.

Only weeks before I had stood in the State House, a daily witness to the workings of power; now I stood outside the walls of All Saints, powerless.

“I watched the Christians sing with gusto and I wondered why they were so obsessed with Satan when they had just narrowly escaped a bloody Sunday. Where was the outrage at what had just happened? My perplexity turned to amazement when I saw the dancing youth darting after a cat. The crowd watching the songfest seemed equally astonished and started to disperse.

“It was then that I saw my ex-workmates, Njoya and Kahiga, moving away. Apparently they had been part of the crowd of onlookers. I was happy to see them and I hastened toward them. I told them that as soon as I got a tip that the Wizard of the Crow was in the environs of the cathedral, I had gone to look for them, just as we had agreed to do on the day we parted, only to be told that they had already left for the church. I saw them cast quick glances at each other; then they told me that they had actually talked to the wizard in the homeless shelter but he had revealed nothing. What were they now going to do? I asked them, hoping, I must admit, that they would ask me to join them to discuss the extraordinary happenings of the day. They muttered something about everything being iffy and quickly excused themselves, citing other commitments. Their behavior struck me as a little odd, as if they were withholding information from me, and I thought that maybe… had they betrayed the Wizard of the Crow by revealing his whereabouts to his enemies?

“For a few days I wandered from place to place to see if I could somehow catch a glimpse of the Limping Witch, the wizard’s other incarnation. Why? I don’t really know; it wasn’t only about the secret of growing money. Something else drove me. I thought that if I bumped into the Wizard of the Crow in his other form, he might tell me something that would enable me to hear clearly this thing that I felt forming in my heart…”

13

Nyawlra was engrossed in the activities of the People’s Assembly, the brainchild of their movement, when news reached her that the Wizard of the Crow had surrendered to the agents of the regime outside All Saints. She felt as if she had been hit on the head with a club. Since their escape she had not found a safe moment for them to meet, but she had thought that as long as he was in the church basement under the care of Maritha and Mariko, that