Wizard of the Crow

The police chief ran to the Ruler to ask for permission to fire in the air. Rloody fool, the Ruler said, that will make this crowd riot, and what will you then do? Kill them before these cameras? The microphone was live and their remarks were heard, but people who did not know what was really happening assumed that they were talking about the twenty-one-gun salutes planned for guests from the Global Bank.

Soon the parading women had disappeared from the arena and were indistinguishable amid the seated multitude. For a few seconds those on the platform thought they had witnessed an elaborate conjuring trick.

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Even the Ruler thought his own eyes had deceived him. Where had all the dancers of shame gone? He stood up to explain away the illusion and calm any nerves that may have been rattled by the women and the police chief. He tried to be glib, reminding people that they were after all in black Africa, and what they had seen and heard or thought they had seen and heard was black humor from an ancient Aburlrian ritual. But before elaborating on the ritual and its significance, he glanced at his guests to see how they were taking his attempt at humor only to see them all staring at something. He was back in his seat through an involuntary act of sheer amazement. Would this nightmare never endr

The platform on which he and the guests sat had begun to sink slowly, as if a power from within the bowels of the earth were pulling it down. A liquid oozed from the platform, slowly forming a muddy pool. Had the platform been erected on a bogr

The foreign diplomats and Bankers were among the first to flee. The Buler and his ministers stood up, trying to maintain dignity. Machokali, in response to a gesture from the Buler, grabbed the microphone to announce that the ceremony was officially over. When Machokali next looked around the Buler and the other ministers were nowhere to be seen. The muddy pool had grown bigger, and his shoes were now half sunk in the darkish mess. The smell was that of a mixture of urine and shit, but he could not tell for sure what the substance was. He ran toward his car, no longer caring what was happening around him, and he spotted the Buler and other ministers beating a hasty retreat in their own cars.

Some tellers of the story claim that they did see the Buler and the ministers sink in the bog and police officers pull them out to safety. Others dispute this, insisting that the platform sank after the dignitaries had fled. This they had seen with their own eyes, so they asserted. But all versions agreed that there was indeed a mysterious foul- smelling pool.

“I myself did not see the pool, but something must have happened to make His Mightiness run away like that,” Nyawlra told Kamltl. “I can only assume that the sewage system installed by the colonial administration and never since maintained or repaired had run amok.

“But at the moment of our triumph our thoughts were not on whether or not there had been a pool or even its implications; we simply basked in the afterglow of having made it clear that not every Aburlrian was happy with incurring more debt to finance Marching to Heaven or being ruled by a heartless despot. You do not have to look too deeply into it to know that a man who could so imprison his own wife in her home is a beast in human form! Rachael’s fate speaks volumes: if a woman who had been at the mountaintop of power and visibility could be made to disappear, be silenced forever while alive, what about the ordinary woman worker and peasant? The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress. You imprison a woman and you have imprisoned a nation, we sang in a song of celebration.

“When I went home that night I felt as if I had sprouted wings. All the sleepless nights, all the days spent running here and there, had been worth it. Driven away by Women Power, we had said,” Nyawlra told Kamltl, her eyes still flashing with pride at the memory of the women’s courage and their well-earned victory. “And that night I kept on repeating the words. Women Power did it.”

The Ruler shut himself inside the State House for seven days, seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds, completely inaccessible to all, before calling the cabinet meeting that decided that he would seek refuge in state visits to the West.

An immediate ban was imposed on queues involving more than five persons. No matter the time or place or business, it was illegal for more than five people to stand in line, whether entering a church or mosque or riding a bus or meeting in an office. If there were more than five people at a bus stop they could form several lines each of five people but not one continuous line. Queues were a Marxist invention, according to the Ruler, having nothing to do with African culture, which is characterized by the spirit of spontaneity. Mass disorganization-pushing and shoving-was to be the order of the day.

But the ban only served to fuel the many stories about the day already circulating in the country, and it created many jokes about the fiasco. The site had been dedicated and blessed with piss, some argued back. The regime was almost swallowed whole by a bog, others would add, laughing so hard their ribs hurt, noting that all subsequent attempts to fill it with sand and stones came to naught. They said that the liquid would rise and reform above the sand and the stones. The City Council went into damage control: they hired a company to plant flowers all around the pool and another to pour perfume into the pool, but no matter what the companies did, the flowers would not grow and the perfume could not drive the stench away, and the City Council was finally forced to hire the same two companies, owned by Soi, Runyenje, Moya, and Kucera, to plant and maintain plastic flowers and trees all around while also regularly pouring perfume into the pool.

Who were these women? was the question most frequent on people’s lips. The question, whether asked by those who had been absent or by those who claimed to have been present, was only the rhetorical commencement to more storytelling. Those absent would recycle what they had heard from others. Those who were present talked with the authority of eyewitnesses. They said that as they themselves left the field they saw that among the litter, empty cans and bottles, were many plastic snakes, and by now everybody knew that those plastic reptiles were the signature of the Movement for the Voice of the People. You mean the women were part of the movement? some would ask. What do you think, the others would say, and continue to narrate how disciplined the women had seemed and how they had miraculously melted into the crowd after they had asked the Ruler to lick their shitholes. It was their day; it was their triumph. Women? They may be silent, but, like silent streams, you can never tell their depth.

“In the first two or three nights I could hardly sleep,” Nyawlra told Kamltl. “My mind was crowded with all that had happened. I was walking on clouds: what had been accomplished by the movement, against so many odds, excited me. Even when I was about to report for duty at the Eldares Modern Construction and Real Estate, I was still in bliss. But imagine my shock at finding A.C. and his group of M5, including Kaniuru, waiting for me at the gates!” Nyawlra told Kamro for a moment, reliving the terror she felt after Arigaigai Gathere stopped her in the streets and by chance dropped the news of the ambush. “Fortunately, or should I say through the magic of being mistaken for the Wizard of the Crow, my captors went home empty-handed.”

Nyawlra had not known then about the arrest of Vinjinia and, like many others not in the know, she learned about it only long after Vinjinia had been released in accordance with the decision of the Ruler at the same cabinet session that came up with the idea of a series of state visits to Europe and America.

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Machokali left the cabinet session haunted by a desire to know what Sikiokuu’s men had asked Vinjinia, and a get-together with his friend Tajirika was the best way to satisfy his curiosity without attracting much attention from his enemies. Unfortunately he and Tajirika were unable to meet when they were supposed to because Machokali soon became preoccupied with soliciting state visits. As the real purpose for such visits was a meeting with the directors of the Global Bank to finalize details for loans for Marching to Heaven, the USA visit was the most important, but additional visits to England, Germany, France, and Scandinavia would add glamour and dignity to the business at hand. But Machokali was having difficulty in securing invitations from those countries.

All the ambassadors had more or less the same response. A state visit had to be mutually acceptable; even then it would take time to work out all the details. Machokali knew that a successful state visit was not something