Wizard of the Crow

Following the family conference, electricity to her farm prison was disconnected. Tongues started wagging. People who lived on hills adjoining Rachael’s prison farm and who had always been able to catch glimpses of the house at night despite the high walls started seeing a light moving about in absolute darkness, sometimes outside Rachael’s mansion, at other times inside, and because they could not see who carried it, they concluded that it was really Rachael’s ghost prowling, uttering curses, and the only reason they could not hear the exact words was because of the never-ending song amplified by loudspeakers at the four corners of the woman’s farm for all the world to hear.

I will become more diligent

In removing all evil from my heart

I will repent all my sins

Before my Lord comes back

The light that walked at night and the relentless song made them conclude that Rachael had long been dead and, as revenge, her ghost walked the night, cursing the Ruler and his plans for America…

15

“What will you do?” Kamltl asked Nyawlra after she had finished talking about the drama at Eldares.

“I want to live in the bush with you, at least for a few days.”

“But what if they should follow you here?”

“I fled in the dark. Nobody saw me slip out of Eldares. They don’t even know what I look like.”

“Kaniuru does. You and Kaniuru used to share the same bed, and you might have talked about the hills and forests as political hideouts.”

“When he and I were students at the University of Eldares,” Nyawlra explained, “my friends and I played guitar and talked a lot about neocolonialist politics in Aburlria and Africa. How many times did we go without sleep, analyzing the class structure of our society and the politics and history of Aburlria? Those were the days when the exploits of Yunity Mgeuzi-Bila-Shaka and Luminous Pen-Scream-Revolution, as we sometimes called his name in English, were the topics of the day among us students and youth. Although we did not know them personally, for they were then in exile, we read and talked about whatever they had said or written on revolution. Even the books they said they read, like Gorky’s Mother, became our reading list. Kaniuru was not outspoken on these matters, but he was always around and now and then he would put in a few dissenting words. When he failed in his arguments he would dub us starry-eyed idealists. More often than not he was simply there, a silent listener, a man without opinions. But I don’t remember us talking about forests and mountains and hideouts.”

“A person does not recall everything he or she talked about with a lover or spouse when their hearts were in sync, their eyes set on a shared future. Kaniuru might not even have known that you are a member of the movement, but adding two and two he stumbles on the truth and even if he does not get all the details right he comes close enough to do effective damage.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Go back to Eldares,” Kamltl said without hesitation.

“What?” Nyawlra asked, a little surprised.

“Yes. Back to Eldares.”

“You don’t want me to be here? Not even for a few days?” Nyawlra asked, suspicious of his words and motives.

“It is not a matter of what I want or don’t want. I have a hunch that if they fail to find you in the towns, they will try to search for you in these hills, even if only as a deterrent to others who might think of fleeing to the mountains.”

“Why can’t you just say that you don’t want them to interfere with you?”

He winced at her tone, hurt by the accusation.

“It is not like that,” he said. “I care about your safety.”

“So what do you want me to do? Go and parade myself in the streets of Eldares?”

“The best hiding place is under the nose of the enemy” Kamro said.

“Are you saying that I go and hide in a police post? No way!”

“I am not suggesting that we surrender. I am saying that we hide under their very noses.”

Had she heard him say “we,” or were her ears deceiving her?

“‘We’? Are you coming, too?”

“Yes, Nyawlra, this time you will not leave me behind. I will be at your side wherever you decide to go.”

“I am sorry for my tone and suspicions,” Nyawlra said, “and I am truly moved by what you have just said. But you also know that I would not want you to do something in which you do not believe for my sake.”

“There is nothing for you to be sorry about,” Kamltl said. “Since we parted I have been turning over what you and I talked about. You were right. There is a foulness inundating our society, and if we do not do something about it we shall all drown in it. I confess that I may not be able to deal with the demands and the discipline of your movement. I am not even sure whether I want to become a member. But a fellow traveler in the journey against the evil you are fighting? Yes. I am a seer of the spirit only. I am concerned about the welfare of the heart. But I also know what the scriptures say: The body is the temple of the spirit, or something like that. A healthy spirit needs a healthy body. Many hands, it is said, make heavy work feel light. You and I can work together, you with matters of the body and I with those of the spirit. You women of Eldares have shown the way.”

“What are you talking about?” Nyawlra asked, now laughing. “Which way?”

Kamltl was silent for a while as if pondering the question. Then he responded with something that sounded like lines from a poem:

The way that can be told of is not the eternal way

The name that can be named is not the eternal name

The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth

“Excuse me, what’s that?” Nyawlra asked.

“The lines are taken from The Lao-Tzu or Tao-te Chung, a small book written by a Chinese seer more than five hundred years before Christ was born. Tao. The Way. May you walk in the middle of the way-don’t we have a saying like that?”

“Okay show me the way to go home. When do we set out? Now? Today? Tomorrow or the day after?” Nyawlra said quickly, still attempting to be lighthearted as she exorcised the remnants of the heaviness in her heart.

“Not today. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. We must prepare ourselves.”

“We must do what?”

“Tulia! Tulia kidogo mama! What did you tell me when we last talked in this very place? That I should become a people’s seer. I will start with you, and I want you to trust yourself in my hands. Before I disclose what I think we should do and where we shall hide, I want you to learn what nature and solitude can teach us. Simplicity and balance, the Way. Call it the Forest School of Medicine and Herbol-ogy. I shall offer you such medicine that will make your eyes see what I see. Only then will you be able to say, I used to see as in a mirror darkly but now I see clearly.”

“Did you learn all this in India?” Nyawlra asked a couple of days later, after realizing how much medicine even a tiny bush contained, what he described as nature’s pharmacy.

“Nature is the source of all cures. But we have to be humble and willing to learn from it. I supplemented what I already knew with what I gleaned from my contact with Indian healers of the Western Ghat hills, places like Kottakkal, Ernakulam-siddhar healers especially. A siddhar is a poet, a seer, a soother of souls, and an expert in herbs. It is said that he has the power to come out of his body and enter those of other beings, even animals, and stay there for some time before returning to his own.”

“Imagine what I could do with such power,” Nyawlra said with a laugh. “Just when the agents of the State are about to pounce on me, I just change into a cat with all its nine lives, or a bird, and just float away.”

“This is not a laughing matter,” Kamltl said in a solemn tone, which made her look at him, puzzled.

One night, after making love, they lay on their backs in the yard and communed in silence. Kamltl thought of