The students who had taken on the role of masters of ceremony gave the minister time to speak and, to dissenting whistling from some sections, they explained that this was a People’s Assembly and the minister, like every other citizen, had a right to speak and air his views. Big Ben Mambo was unhappy that mere students were giving him permission to speak, but he reckoned that this was not the time or place to start an argument or be defiant. Big Ben Mambo began by saying that he was there as a messenger from above, and so he was speaking in the name of the Buler, Father of the Nation and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He then thanked the Buler for allowing the assembly to take place on the hallowed grounds of Parliament and the courts. He especially thanked him, on behalf of all those now assembled here, for accepting, in advance, the love and adoration that they all had come here to express on His Mighty s birthday…
“You mean his delivery date?” some people shouted, and started chanting: “Who is responsible for the pregnancy?”
“Please allow me to finish my speech,” Big Ben insisted. “Now, about the pregnancy: you will get to hear all about it from the mouth of the Wizard of the Crow. He will also expose all enemies of the State.”
“The enemies of this State are friends of the people,” others shot back.
“I did not come here to harangue or be harangued,” Big Ben Mambo screamed. “I came here to deliver the Buler’s greetings and best wishes and to ask you to give the Wizard of the Crow a chance to confess fully and to say everything that he has to say without your interrupting him or shouting him down or stoning him just because he is a sorcerer. The days when sorcerers were put in beehives and rolled down a mountain to their deaths in the valley are gone.” Sensing the mounting hostility, Big Ben Mambo fled the microphone and beckoned the Wizard of the Crow to the lectern.
Slowly and deliberately, the Wizard of the Crow rose, asked the leaders of the ceremony if he could speak, and, with their assent, went to the lectern and stood before the microphone.
21
Kamltl did not know how to begin or what to tell the gathering. Again he wished he had had a chance to speak with Nyawlra. But, as that was not meant to be, he was now on his own. A loner by nature, he disliked public speaking, and here was a multitude in rapt attention! He had taken on the identity of the Wizard of the Crow as a cover, a joke, and now he was expected to be true to that identity. He was hardly here of his own volition, and now he had to speak as if he had come willingly! He hated lies and lying, even for private gain, and now he was expected to lie publicly for another’s gain. He had wanted to root his life in truth-even as a diviner he had tried his best to avoid falsehood-and here he was, his life hanging on a false confession!
He took courage in the conviction that he would rather die before the crowd than be disappeared like Machokali.
“You all saw that I walked here surrounded by armed guards to ensure that I don’t stray from the path. So I want to start by saying how much I appreciate my guides and guards.”
There was laughter, which put him more at ease.
“I have been asked to speak about the Ruler’s pregnancy, Nyawlra’s hiding place, Machokali’s disappearance, and the queues. I must speak only the truth. Thereafter, as I have been instructed, I must drive away the daemons possessing you, compelling you to queue and organize. I must cleanse your souls of defiance.’’
Again some people laughed. Others were uneasy. But when he started to confess, the ensuing silence was complete.
He felt his tongue loosen up.
22
The Ruler, who was following everything on television, held his breath in gleeful anticipation of an abject and contrite confession. He was so pleased with himself that he could not help chuckling a little.
Watching their own television screen, Furyk, Clarkwell, and Kaboca now and then kept an eye on their patient, jotting down observations for later review, while the first camera captured the Ruler’s every gesture and bodily motion. The second camera was also busy with medium shots, close-ups, and even a few cutaways, including a few shoulder shots of the Ruler looking at the screen at the Wizard of the Crow before the assembly.
Suddenly they heard the Ruler let out a sharp, anguished cry, his airborne body writhing in pain. The Ruler groaned. Furyk and Clark-well quickly climbed the ladder of Heaven to see what was happening. Had the hour of another mystery birth come upon them?
23
“I will first confess my role in the origin of the rumors that the Ruler is pregnant,” the Wizard of the Crow said. “But why talk as if pregnancy is a malignancy? To be pregnant is to carry a seed of a becoming. Is it of life or death? That’s the question. However, I was not sent here to sing the ethics and philosophy of pregnancy but to explain how I misled you into mistaken beliefs.
“It is all due to a parable that came to me as I waited in a lobby of a New York hotel, trying to figure out the meaning of the wonders I had seen in a flight I had made around Africa and all the lands where dwell black folk, in the form of a bird.”
He told the story of his travels in time and space in search of the sources of black power and a rather long parable of how humans surrendered control of their own lives to a blind deity with a double-barreled name of M &M, or money and market, and how Africa’s independence mutated to dependence. He paused to gauge the effect. Not a sound.
“Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind? How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go? How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one who knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa? I cried.
“I saw this: Around the seventeenth century, Europe impregnated some in Africa with its evil. These pregnancies gave birth to the slave driver of the slave plantation, who mutated into the colonial driver of the colonial plantation, who years later mutated into the neocolonial pilots of the postcolonial plantation. Is he now mutating into a modern driver and pilot of a global plantation? But Africa impregnated its own breed, which made our people sing, Even if you kill our heroes, we women are pregnant with hope of a new lot. Therefore, don’t cry despair at those who sold the heritage; smile also with pride at the achievements of those that struggle to rescue our heritage.
“So I said to myself: Just as today is born of the womb of yesterday, today is pregnant with tomorrow.
“What kind of tomorrow was Aburiria pregnant with? Of unity or murderous divisions? Of cries or laughter? Our tomorrow is determined by what we do today. Our fate is in our hands.
“This thought must have been with me when, in a message to Ma-chokali, I wrote:
“But I had forgotten that in Aburiria the nation and the Buler are one. And that is why I have come here with my armed friends to tell you the truth about my role in the origins of the rumor that the Buler is pregnant.”
No sooner had the import of what he was saying dawned on the assembly than women started ululating as men whistled and cried out: “Tell us more! When will he give birth?”
