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 Kaniürü, waiting for me at the gates!” Nyawlra told Kamrö 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.
13
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 to be conjured up out of thin air, but he had trouble convincing the Buler, who kept reminding him that earlier state visits, despite the cold war, had taken no time to arrange—why not now when the war was over? Sikiokuu seized every opportunity to incite the leader in his presumptions.
There was for instance the time when Sikiokuu went to see the Buler to give him a report on the status of the hunt for Nyawlra and what he had learned from Vinjinia and, because he did not have much to report, he adroitly drifted to the subject of state visits, intimating that if it had been he who was in charge he would long ago have secured the requisite invitations. Despite the Buler’s telling him to mind his own business and effect the arrest of enemies of the State like that Nyawlra woman, Sikiokuu was resolute and through persistence managed to persuade the Buler to pounce on the Global Bank open invitation, or better still, make a private visit, and while in the country turn it into a state or an official visit.
When Machokali next conferred with the Buler, he was startled to find himself confronted with this firmly held position. He knew its source and managed a concession of sorts: the Ruler would go to the USA as a tourist and while there his Minister for Foreign Affairs would try to convert his stay into a state or official visit, and if that failed to materialize Machokali would try to secure a meeting between the Ruler of Aburlria and the American president to take place before the one with the chiefs of the Global Bank. Even an hour or two with the president of the United States would send a positive message to the Bank.
Machokali was, however, able to arrange from Aburlria for the Ruler to address the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan, New York; Machokali presented this as a big triumph of diplomacy. New York being also the headquarters of the Global Bank, the Ruler would kill two birds with one stone. He would have face-to-face talks with the directors of the Bank and then have a platform to tell the whole world about Marching to Heaven, the One and Only Superwonder in the Universe.
Still, the task of arranging the private visit fell on Machokali’s shoulders, and it was only after he completed the necessary arrangements and set the date for the leader’s departure that Machokali decided to go to Santamaria to meet with Tajirika to talk about Vinjinia. Machokali also had important information that he wanted to share with Tajirika in person before it came out in the press. Suspecting that Sikiokuu was spying on him, Machokali decided to forgo riding in his official Mercedes-Benz and hailed a taxi instead.
They met at the Mars Cafe for quieter privacy, the M5 having the run of five-star hotels. As it turned out, it was Tajirika who was most desperate to meet; no sooner had Machokali sat down than Tajirika began unburdening himself.
“My friend, I am glad you have come. I am sure that it is me they were after and not Vinjinia. What should I do? I did not know that Nyawlra was a member of this movement. I took her for an ordinary girl in search of work and I hired her. What should I do now to prove that I am still loyal to the Ruler? Here, I brought along something for you to see and edit as necessary. It is a press statement to announce that I am divorcing Vinjinia for consorting with dissidents …”
“Ssshh! Not so fast,” Machokali said, waving the statement away. “Tell me this: was Vinjinia at the ceremony or not?”
“How do I know? She might have been there in disguise.”
“But at the meeting you told me that you spoke to her on the phone?”
“That is true.”
“So how could she have been both at home and at the ceremony?”
“Markus, women are very complicated. Besides, these mobile phones are deceptive,” he added conveniently, forgetting that Vinjinia had refused to own one despite her husband’s entreaty to do so as a mark of being in tune with the times.
“Have you asked the workers or any of your children if she was at home?”
“Yes, and they all say that she was in all day. But how do I know if they are telling the truth? She may have bribed them to cover for her. Never trust a woman! I trusted Nyawira to my son owl”
“As to Nyawlra, later. Does Vinjinia know where the police took her?”
“She says no. She says that after they arrested her they blindfolded her, and after driving her in circles put her in a dark cell with dim light, and it was in this dark chamber that she was interrogated by people she could not see.”
“What did they ask her? I mean, what did they want to know?”
“They demanded that she tell them everything she knew about the Movement for the Voice of the People. There were questions about Nyawlra. How long had she known Nyawlra? How had they met? When did Nyawlra start working for Eldares Modern Construction and Beal Estate? Who actually offered her the job? They also wanted to know if there was a personal relationship between either Nyawlra and me or Nyawlra and you. Had you and Nyawlra ever met in or outside my office? Was she your girlfriend? Questions like that. Vinjinia says that she told them all she knew, which was very little, for she herself had not been a regular at the office, that she started working there only after I was stricken ill … You see now what I told you about women? Was it really necessary for her to bring up my illness?”
“Stop trembling and listen
to me. Hold yourself together like a man. Everybody in the government knows that you were down with the flu. Everybody in Aburlria gets the flu. So that’s nothing to worry about. As for employing Nyawlra, anybody can make a similar mistake. A person may employ a thief, but it does not follow that he is himself a thief. Besides, a thief does not go about the streets shouting: I am a thief. The sins of the employed cannot be visited on the employer. Mark you, Nyawlra is an enemy of the State and if there is anything that you know that can lead to her arrest, tell me. Do you understand? To me first. When I am in the USA, I shall be calling you from time to time to find out what you have uncovered. But if I am nowhere to be found and you do have information on Nyawlra, then I suggest that you take it to the nearest police station, to that friend of yours—what was his name, Wonderful Tumbo? Yes, that would be wonderful. As for your wife, why do you want to divorce her when it appears she has done you no wrong?”
“Oh, thank you. So I am not in danger? You are not angry with me? The Buler is not angry with me?”
“Why would the Buler or I be angry with you?”
“Thank you! Thank you, my Minister!” Tajirika said as if the minister and the Buler were now one and the same.
Machokali was about to tell him to shut up, that he was a minister of the Buler only, but he held back. The more he talked with Tajirika, the more he felt depressed. He had never seen this side of him. No backbone, he thought, and wondered if it was worth telling him all he had wanted to tell him, like suggesting that Tajirika be his watchdog while he was away. He also considered withholding information about impending changes in the structure of the Marching to Heaven Building Committee. Then he thought that it was only fair that he should impart the news himself instead of Tajirika’s reading about it in the papers.
“I want you to listen very carefully. Even among us state ministers there is a fierce struggle for power and influence. Not every other minister loves me. Our birthday cake did not please everybody, not because they hated the idea of Marching to Heaven but because it did not originate with them. Some, and I think you know whom I mean—I don’t want to mention their names—resent the project so intensely that they would do anything to scuttle it. Failing that, they will do anything to put their stamp on the project. Now, I don’t want to beat about the bush. I want to tell you straight out that at long last they have managed to do so. Of course they wanted to push out all my allies, like you, from the Building Committee, but fortunately the Buler in his unfathomable wisdom refused their demands. Nevertheless, there will be a few changes that you should know about. For instance, you will now have a deputy”
“What? He will take over my job?” Tajirika asked, alarmed.
“No, no. You will remain the chairman of Marching to Heaven. Your deputy will only assist you.”
Tajirika looked relieved, as if he had expected news much worse.
“That is not a bad idea, you know,” Tajirika said. “I hold the chair and my deputy holds the pen. My clerk.”
“It will not be exactly like that,” Machokali, who had expected Tajirika to grow furious, tried to explain with a touch of annoyance. “Your deputy will not work for me but for my enemies. He will be the eyes of my enemies in my camp. So I want you to be very careful in what you do or say in his presence. I want you to note down what he does or says and on my return from the USA you will brief me. Of course just now the committee has very little work to do, and so in practice having a deputy means very little. Work will begin only after the Global Bank has released the funds. But if he tells you to do anything with him, or if he asks you to sign any document, don’t do it until I return from the USA, certainly not before you and I have at least talked on the phone.”
From the moment Tajirika realized that he was not on the Buler’s hit list and that he still retained his position as the chairman of Marching to Heaven, all his worries vanished. He wondered why Machokali was getting all worked up about this matter of a deputy. Isn’t a deputy a kind of glorified clerk, doing whatever the chairman wants him to do?
“It would have been better if I had been allowed to choose my clerk, give him a proper job interview, but I suppose it does not matter. Who is my deputy, anyway?” Tajirika asked.
“His name will be announced sometime this week in the official gazette, but I thought I should let you know so it does not come as a surprise. His name is John Kaniürü. Previously he was a senior youthwinger.”
“What, a youthwinger as my deputy?” Tajirika asked, now insulted. “What do these youthwingers know except … except … I don’t even know what they do. But on second thought, even this is okay. He will be my boy, running errands for me …”
“That is not all,” Machokali added, somewhat embarrassed by how naive his ally was proving to be. “There will also be a Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania. The commission will try to find out who started it and where, and how it came to be used against the State.”
“That’s easy—they don’t need a whole commission for that,” Tajirika said, standing up and pointing toward his office. “It all started over there, outside my building. Unfortunately,” he said, sitting down again, “it was when I was ill. But my secretary can tell them everything, for she was there the whole time.” Then he remembered who his secretary was and quickly sidestepped the issue.
“My wife, Vinjinia, was also there, and she can truly testify that the queuing started outside my offices. Why? Are people trying to claim credit?”
“It is not that,” Machokali tried to explain, and then suddenly he felt overwhelmed by the futility of his attempts to convey the gravity of the situation to Tajirika. How did I become involved with a fellow so thick that he has not the slightest sense of the traps in the way? “There is nothing to fear about this Commission of Inquiry. The most important thing is that you speak the truth as you know it. If you just speak the truth, all will end well.”
Tajirika agreed, but in his heart he knew that no commission on earth would make him talk about the money that came his way from those seeking lucrative contracts in the future. Even if it turned out that Vinjinia had spilled the beans, he would strenuously deny it, no matter the consequences.
“And who is the chairman of this Commission of Inquiry?”
“John Kaniürü.”
“The youthwinger?”
“Yes.”
Again, instead of being alarmed by this development, Tajirika quickly lost interest in the commission, his mind racing to the impending visit to the USA. An idea had just struck him. If he, Tajirika, were to join the delegation bound for the USA, he surely would have time and opportunity to talk directly with the Ruler. At the very least, he would be nearer to the source of power instead of wasting his time here with useless commissions and deputies, without work to do. He cleared his throat.
“Let me ask you, Mr. Minister, as the chairman of Marching to
Heaven, should I not be part of this delegation to the USA? And now that I have a deputy, it is not as if the chair will be left empty or become cold. My deputy Kaniürü will keep it warm till we come back from America.’’
“Oh, no! I want you to stay behind as my eyes and my ears.” Machokali said quickly and emphatically what he had been trying to hint at all along, but he did not want to dwell on it because doubts had crept in about the character of his friend. “I have to go back to my office. The Ruler might call at any time, and I do not want to see any newspaper headlines reporting that the Minister for Foreign Affairs is missing,” he said, trying to end their conversation on a light note.
Months later, in a torture chamber, swearing his innocence in the name of his ancestors, his children, God, anything that might give him temporary respite from needles in his fingers and cigarette burns on his body, Tajirika kept telling the police interrogators the same thing over and over again: “That was my last conversation with Machokali. I swear to God.”
Tajirika would break into tears and plead with his torturers: “I beg you to leave me alone. We said
farewell to each other at the Mars Cafe, and I never saw him or talked to him again on the phone before they left for the USA. To speak the truth, I resented the fact that I was not included in the delegation and so I did not even bother to know the day and the hour they were going to leave.”
14
It is said that time heals, but for the Ruler time seemed to deepen the pain. Even with his imminent departure for the USA, he still squirmed with horror at the thought of what the women had done to him. He could not understand why they had taken up Rachael’s cause and, although he would never whisper it to anybody, that was what really hurt. They had intruded in his private business, something that no one had ever done before. Male authority at home was absolute, and this was the one belief shared by despots and democrats alike, colonialists and anticolonialists, men and women and leaders of all established faiths. How dare these women question that which was so clearly ordained in Heaven and on Earth? The most miserable beggar in Aburlria was now more secure as the king of his home than he as the husband of his home and country. How and when did they get to Rachael? he would ask himself time and again. His nerves tingled at a suspicion that kept on haunting him: had one of his beloved sons acted as the go-between for Rachael and the women? But which of the four sons would dare so heinous an act of filial disobedience and male betrayal? He recalled their faces and contemplated each in turn: now that of Rueben Kucera, now that of Samwel Moya, now that of Dickens Soi, now that of Richard Runyenje. But these faces only teased him into greater doubt.