Wizard of the Crow

“As if on dry land…”

“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me here, she said.”

“She sounded confused.”

“Take me to Nyawlra…”

“For she knows everything about ogres…”

“There was a time you used to tell her stories about ogres.”

“And she was sobbing.”

“Keep still, you are now out of danger.”

“She tried to talk through her sobs…”

“I don’t know, she said, for since Mother and Father became big in government they have become strangers to the home and to us children… and so when I saw him… and she stopped and there was fear in her eyes.”

“Especially when she saw Vinjinia approach.”

“Vinjinia was shaking all over.”

“Now Vinjinia embraced Gaciru, who was still clinging to me, and Gaclgua was trying to embrace both mother and sister as if gathering his family.”

“And Vinjinia was telling her, Don’t worry, it’s all right, it’s all right, I am still your loving mummy…”

“Don’t take me to Father. I saw what he now looks like. I hid in the house until he left and then ran out…”

“Sssshhhh! Vinjinia said, trying to quiet her. We are going to talk…”

“We assured the girl that we would take her request to the storyteller.”

“And that we would keep an eye on her.”

“And on Sundays she should come to church.”

“God lives. God rules.”

“And He would look after her day and night.”

“We left them there, clinging to one another.”

“We went away singing.”

“Because laughter had conquered tears.”

Maritha and Mariko started singing about the amazing quality of the cross, where joy followed sorrow, as if they were alone in the house, and it appeared that they had forgotten that Nyawlra was there. She stood up to leave, for she did not know how to take all of this. Were they speaking in parables?

“What? Are you leaving without hearing the rest?” Maritha asked.

Nyawlra sat down again.

“We were long past the gate when a car stopped beside us,” Maritha started.

“It was Vinjinia,” said Mariko.

“Get in. I should at least take you to the bus stop, she told us.”

“Well, God works in mysterious ways.”

“His wonders to perform.”

“Because we had just been wondering how we would get home,” they said in unison.

“As she drove she said thank you and then added: I am asking you a favor,” Maritha explained.

“What you have seen is not for public confession in church or anywhere,” Mariko continued.

“I told her, We confess only our own sins, not other people’s.”

And to share joy and laughter is not a sin.”

“She gave us another thank-you, and then…”

“She told us to go and tell the one who had sent us…”

“That she harbored no ill will in her heart, but… And she did not go beyond this, or rather, she did not finish what she wanted to say. She seemed about to break into tears.”

“Like somebody who has lost her way and knows that she has lost it but does not know how to find it again.”

At the bus stop, she found her voice again.”

“Tell her who sent you that she is not to send more messages. Oh, there was a time in my life when I thought I understood, however vaguely, the language of the dove, and I even thought that I could see as in a mirror darkly but see all the same. Today I no longer understand the language of doves. I no longer see my face in the mirror. Yes, tell her we are not ogres. It is a case of white-ache with a cure that has gone wrong, and the Wizard of the Crow is dead. Does she not read the papers? It is better for her and everybody if she remains with the dead.”

3

It was in his hotel in New York during his first visit as the Minister of Finance that Tajirika had happened to read an issue of the Billionaire, a magazine about the richest men and corporations in the world; almost all the men white Americans, and almost all the corporations based in America. He started musing about the fate of nations. America, a former colony, was still rising, while Britain, its colonizer, was rolling downward toward Third World misery. And suddenly, out of nowhere, the answer to a problem that had always bothered him about his white-ache came to him. The cure the Wizard of the Crow had prescribed had been in response to Tajirika’s desire to become a white Englishman, moreover an ex-colonial type. The white American male was the desirable ideal. Yes. He should have aspired to be a white American male. But alas, it was now too late to do anything about it. The Wizard of the Crow had been shot dead by Kaniuru and his effigy buried; and as far as Tajirika was concerned that was the end of the matter. No more ifs and ifness for him, especially now with his dramatic rise from jailbird to gold digger to governor to minister and who knows what else awaited himr

And then one day at a New York street corner somebody handed him a leaflet, and when he later looked at it he saw that it was an advertisement for a clinic specializing in genetic engineering, cloning, transplants, and plastic surgery. The ad claimed that the company, Genetica Inc., grew all the body parts in its own laboratory and that its very highly trained staff could change anybody into any identity of their desire, quickly and efficiently, without any side effects.

He read the ad over and over and started to tremble. His white-ache, which had been in remission, came back with a force that almost swept him off the ground.

This time around, Tajirika did not hide his secret desire and what he intended to do about it from Vinjinia. Vinjinia agreed that Tajirika could become an American white if he so wanted, but she, Vinjinia, would stay black and settle for a mixed marriage. But she insisted on a quid pro quo, a face- and breast-lift for herself, to which he readily agreed. So while Kaniuru, the then Minister of Defense, was secretly buying pornographic videos on Forty- second Street, Tajirika and Vin-jinia were secretly visiting the Genetica clinic. By the time Tajirika went home with the rest of the delegation, he was the recipient of a white right arm as the first stage in his transformation, obliging him to wear a glove, but that was okay.

Tajirika and Vinjinia were soon back in New York, and after one week Vinjinia was the happy recipient of a more youthful face and firmer breasts and Tajirika had added a white left leg to his one-white-armed body. Half white, half black, he always wore pants and long-sleeved shirts, and of course a glove on the right hand. When people commented on the glove he explained that it was his way of commemorating the first time his minister’s hand had shaken the Ruler’s.

Then tragedy struck. Tajirika was making preparations to return to America for the other body parts to complete his transformation when he read in a newspaper that the clinic had been closed because it was not licensed. He also read, to his dismay, that the company, Genetica Inc., was bankrupt and under police investigation. The feds were considering releasing the names and records of clients, the better to uncover the criminal elements and foreign spies involved in the disreputable company. So despite his incomplete state and loss of money to boot, Tajirika dared not complain, remaining a man in transition, with a white left leg and a white right arm. Luckily for him Vinjinia was privy to his predicament, and together they resolved to keep this between husband and wife until such time as they could find a licensed lab with the appropriate genetic technology to complete the transformation. He never swam in public, and even at home he had to be careful in case the workers and unexpected guests caught