The forest seemed transformed, though not many weeks had passed since she had last been there. Then the entire place was enveloped in a magic of love and wild beauty. Now it seemed unbearably perilous. She dreaded encountering a lion, a leopard, or any of the cats she had earlier wished to see. How would she escape from them? She imagined cobras, puff adders, and pythons lurking somewhere in the dark, and with every step she pictured herself being ensnared by a snake or a three-horned chameleon. She did not fail to note the irony of her having carried plastic snakes in her handbag in the past. Now she was in a bush where real snakes resided, and she was terrified. What if I should escape human fangs only to end up in the belly of a puff adder? She imagined her body slowly decomposing in the belly of a viper and she shivered, but when she pictured herself inside the Ruler’s torture machine, she thought the belly of a beast less terrifying.
There was a crack of a dry bush behind her. She froze. She thought of dashing farther into the bush, but she could not move her feet. She glanced to the left, now to the right, to see if there was a tree nearby to which she could run and climb.
She heard the sound again and in a split second took flight, unaware that she had screamed. And then she tripped over something. It must be a snake. She tried to crawl away, whimpering, and then collapsed.
She did not know how long she stayed unconscious. All she now felt was the sudden flooding of her eyes when she came to and found herself in Kamltl’s arms. As the tears of joy streamed down her cheeks, Nyawlra felt rather than saw the question etched in the folds on his forehead.
“It is all because of the women’s demonstration against Marching to Heaven,” she told him, heaving and crying without restraint.
2
How had she slipped through their fingers? people in Eldares were asking, entertaining many versions of what had happened. One rumor had it that more than a thousand policemen had been deployed to seal off the office where she worked, that some were in armored cars with rapid-fire submachine guns trained on all exits, and helicopters like hawks hovered to swoop on the fugitive.
Some of these gossipmongers even swore that they were there, had seen her with their very eyes, that she was dressed to kill, that those policemen who laid their eyes on her were seized by a desire the likes of which they had never experienced, so powerful that it turned them into drooling fools struggling to stifle their erections.
Yet according to another rumor, Nyawlra had disguised herself as a man: some said as an old man wrapped in a tattered blanket, and others saw her as a handsome young man, clean-shaven but with a handlebar mustache bushier than the tail of a horse.
All the rumors, however, agreed that some police had been dispatched to Nyawlra’s workplace with a warrant for her arrest.
3
Two of the policemen, with Kaniuru as their informant, sat at separate tables in the Mars Cafe, waiting to pounce on Nyawlra on her way to the offices of Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate. Three in plainclothes were deployed at strategic points around the area. Perched in his accustomed corner, reading or trying to read a newspaper, Kaniuru was so conscious of the weight of the task entrusted to him that it took him a while to realize that he was holding the newspaper upside down.
The recent drama at the dedication of the site for Marching to Heaven had given Kaniuru the opening he had sought all these years to ingratiate himself properly with the powers that be, and he seized it with alacrity. He placed a direct call to Sikiokuu in the Ruler’s office.
The minister could not believe the good fortune coming from the other end of the line. He felt a guardian angel had come to his rescue even as he was drowning. He recalled vividly how as they left the scene of the drama the Ruler had called him aside and in an icy tone had asked rhetorically, How could so shameful a scandal have taken place without the ears, eyes, and noses of the State having even an inkling? I shall need a convincing explanation at the next cabinet meeting, the Ruler had warned him in English, and Sikiokuu had been in Aburlrian politics long enough to know that this amounted to a death sentence.
Days later, Sikiokuu had locked himself in his office, desperately trying to figure things out but all in vain. Unless fate intervened, his days were numbered. And then came the telephone call from Kaniuru. In all the time he had dealt with his numerous informers, none had ever given him information that made him so tremble with relief and anticipation. Sikiokuu could hear the words clearly but kept on asking Kaniuru to repeat them: Am I hearing right? You know some of the women? Oh, you don’t know if she is the leader? Ah, a follower of the movement? Boy, if we catch her, the latest Mercedes is yours. Oh, we’ll put such a squeeze on her that she will shit out everything she knows, he told Kaniuru as he summoned him to his office.
Sikiokuu would have wanted to be present at the moment of Nyawlra’s arrest, but he feared to be absent should the Ruler call an emergency cabinet meeting concerning the affair. In any event, it would be a little undignified for a cabinet minister to participate in the arrest of a common secretary deluded into anarchy, no doubt, by a cunning lover. After his face-to-face with Kaniuru, Sikiokuu decided that he did not trust the local police of Santamaria with the task of arresting Nyawlra. He would dispatch a special squad from his own office to do the deed, he told Kaniuru.
He had already formed a standing squad of Superintendent Peter Kahiga, Superintendent Elijah Njoya, and Superintendent Arigaigai Gathere as his eyes on the movement, and he now enlisted three constables to assist them. A.G. was to coordinate the operation not only because he had worked in Santamaria and knew the area well but also because of his legendary chase of djinns across the prairie, resulting in a reputation of relentlessness. A.G. was also to liaise with the informer Kaniuru, whose main task was to point out the criminal.
A.G. and Kaniuru agreed that the Mars Cafe would be the focal point. Kaniuru was to make sure to be there before the main squad and order a cup of tea. He would be wearing a white shirt and reading a newspaper as identifying markers for the squad.
The squad was to arrest the woman in secrecy, throw her into a van with a fake license plate, and take the prisoner directly to Sikiokuu. No one else, be he a police officer or cabinet minister, was to know. Sikiokuu did not want to share even the slightest credit with his political enemies like Machokali; he licked his lips at the thought of the dramatic arrest, his first crack at the women who had brought shame to the state in the eyes of the world. The state would now strike back, and he, Sikiokuu, was thankful that fate had chosen him to be the instrument of the Ruler’s revenge.
4
Nyawlra would always recall the morning of that Tuesday with trepidation. The Monday and the Friday before had been declared public holidays in honor of the dedication on a Saturday. Tuesday was her first day of work after the drama at Eldares. Later, describing the events of the fateful morning, she talked about how she had woken up at her usual hour in a state of bliss, quickly showered, and set out for the bus stop. The bus to Santamaria had been on time. In the bus Nyawlra was in a zone all her own-she felt like singing to celebrate being a woman. The victorious drama at Eldares was still fresh in her mind. She knew that security forces would be on the lookout for the members of the movement, but she did not feel unduly concerned about her own personal safety. She believed that nobody could possibly connect her with what the women had done. In Aburlria, politics was strictly a masculine affair; men would never think that women could plan and execute anything like what had happened. Ever since she started working for Tajirika she had covered her tracks well, acting the perfect secretary-a bit priggish, perhaps, which had earned her Tajirika’s respect and that of his circle of friends, who kept their lustful thoughts to themselves. She got off at her usual stop a few blocks after the Santamaria market. She crossed the Ruler’s Avenue
