Wizard of the Crow

18

Sikiokuu’s mention of the Wizard of the Crow and the possibility of his coming to the office revived the terror that had driven Tajirika to demand that he be brought to Sikiokuu. Would he never escape the wizard completely? Were their fates tied together? Maybe the Wizard of the Crow had already bewitched him beyond recovery with potent brews from India. Tajirika once again imagined death in the human form of the Wizard of the Crow approaching him relentlessly, like clockwork. Death could now be anywhere, even right outside. Tajirika relived the encroaching helplessness that had brought him to seek Sikiokuu’s protection. He now jumped up, went around the table, knelt down, and grabbed the legs of an astonished Sikiokuu in an abject embrace.

“Please, I beg you. Ask the Wizard of the Crow to release me from the spell of death he put on me last night. Wasn’t that why you sent him to me? His witchcraft is powerful. I knew it from the moment he cured me of my malady. But little did I then know that he gets secret recipes from the dead. If you ask the Wizard of the Crow to remove all the spells of death from me, I promise to do and say whatever it is you want me to do or say. Save me. Rescind the order to kill me. Please.”

As soon as he recovered from the shock of Tajirika’s embrace, Sikiokuu started sorting things out. So, Tajirika thinks that the sorcerer and I are working together, that I sent the wizard into his cell to cast a deadly spell on him? How could such a thought have occurred to him? Here was a misunderstanding he was not about to clear up, for it served his purposes well. The Wizard of the Crow had become a secret ally who had brought about what torture had failed to do: make Tajirika offer to cooperate.

“Mr. Tajirika, will you please go back to your seat and tell me what is on your mind?”

“No, you must first ask him to remove the evil spell.”

“What did the Wizard of the Crow tell you?”

“It is not what he said. But it was not hard for me to figure out that you sent him to my cell with orders to kill me. I recalled my conversation with you the other day and how it ended. Were the three words you told me to think about not the same as those whose meaning the Wizard of the Crow had divined when I first went to him with my malady? You followed our conversation by smuggling him into my cell at midnight. Why did you send him in the dark of night if it was not because you wanted him to harm me? Mr. Sikiokuu, I am not a fool. I know exactly what you are really after. You want him to return the malady of words into my body. Thoughts without words are like steam without an outlet. You want me to drown in my own thoughts or else explode under their pressure. And if that fails, he will chop off my thumbs. The Wizard of the Crow even confessed to me.”

“Confessed to you? Confessed what?”

“That he started the queuing mania.”

“He told you so?”

“Not directly. But last night he reminded me that the day I went to his shrine was not the first time he and I had met. A while back I had put up a no jobs’ sign at the main entrance to my office building to keep away the many job seekers who swarmed it. So whenever a job seeker ignored the writing on the signboard and strayed into my office, I would routinely ask him to go back outside and read what was on the sign: No Vacancy. But the Wizard of the Crow made me do something I had never done before. He made me walk him to the sign and stand over him as he read it. A day later, I became afflicted with my malady; and then the queuing started at the very spot where the Wizard of the Crow had stood as he read the sign. Can all this be a coincidence?” asked Tajirika, shaking Sikiokuu’s legs as if seeking an answer from them. “What more proof do I need to see that he was the origin of the queuing mania? The question is this: who sent him to my office and why? Or am I supposed to believe that a person with a good and lucrative business in sorcery would just stray into my office and ask for a job he does not need unless driven by other motives? He was clearly sent to try me with afflictions as Satan once did to Job, but unlike Job I had no chance against his wiles. To have given him a job would have been to give him ample opportunity to cast an evil spell on my business. My business would have died slowly, and with the failure of my business I would no longer have been found fit to continue as the chairman of Marching to Heaven. And if I denied him a job, as I did, he would exact vengeance, as he did, first by making me ill and then by starting the queuing mania. Two questions remain: when I met him at his shrine he never gave the slightest hint by tone or gesture of the fact that we had met before, so why did he do so now, after you had put him in my cell? Mr. Minister, if you are not the one who sent him on a mission to start the queuing mania, then who was it? Who else would have a motive for destroying me and undermining my chairmanship of Marching to Heaven?”

“Mr. Tajirika, what you say is very interesting, except that you are mixing things up a bit. For instance, your thinking that I could have started or sent somebody to start the queues verges on a delirium. Let us examine your story guided by reason. I take it, from what you have told me so far, that you think that the Wizard of the Crow was on a mission, that somebody had sent him to set off the queuing mania. Or, to put it another way, you seem to be saying that somebody deliberately started the queuing thing? Please return to your seat so that we can talk about this clearly.”

“First things first. Ask him to lift the curse of death from me.”

During this exchange, Sikiokuu had time and time again tried to push Tajirika away, but every time he did so the latter would tighten his grip on Sikiokuu’s legs. Now he tried again, in vain, and realized that there was no way Tajirika was going to sit back down until he received reassurance of some kind. Sikiokuu decided to try a little performance. He picked up the phone, called the front room where the police were waiting, and asked for Kahiga. When Kahiga walked in and saw the scene he pulled out his pistol, but Sikiokuu winked and gestured to him to put his gun back into the holster. If Kahiga felt like laughing, he kept it to himself; he just stood there waiting for further instructions from his boss.

“I want you to go to the Wizard of the Crow and find out exactly what he told Tajirika. Tell him that I am not now as angry with Tajirika as I was when I sent the wizard to deal with him in his cell. Accordingly, I now order him to lift all curses and evil spells he may have put on Tajirika. If he does not do so forthwith, shoot the bastard. On the spot. No discussion.”

Sikiokuu touched his ears and shook them from side to side slightly to signal to Kahiga the farcical nature of the proceeding.

Outside, Kahiga started chuckling; this Tajirika was a riot, first with his bucket of shit and now kneeling, holding on to Sikiokuu’s legs.

Tajirika relinquished Sikiokuu’s legs and returned to his seat.

“Thank you, brave Minister,” said Tajirika.

“Don’t mention it, as the English say” said Sikiokuu. “But let us return to our story. Now did I hear you say that this sorcerer once came to your office pretending to be looking for work?”

“Yes.”

“And Nyawlra, was she still your secretary at the time?”

“Yes.”

“And a few days later, this same Nyawlra took you to the sorcerer’s shrine?”

“Yes. Nyawlra and my wife, Vinjinia.”

“Nyawlra and this son of a crow, did they know each other?”

“No. Nothing suggested that, neither when he came to me in search of work nor when I went to his place in search of a cure.”

“But you cannot say for sure that they did not know each other?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you never heard Nyawlra mention his name afterward?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you can say with absolute certainty that it was somebody else who had sent the sorcerer to your office to look for work? And as for this somebody, his real interest was to start the queuing mania?”

“Yes, that’s how it seems to me when I piece things together.”

Sikiokuu paused as if pondering what Tajirika had said. He felt malicious joy within, but he did not want to show it. Sikiokuu found Tajirika precisely how he had always wanted him to be: a supplicant in search of mercy and forgiveness. There were a few dots, though, that had yet to be connected. What was the connection, if any,