Wizard of the Crow (78 page)

Tajirika also rejoiced, sure that his wiliness had placed Kaniürü in a situation from which he could not extricate himself.

And suddenly it all dawned on Kaniürü: Those businessmen had been paying Tajirika in dollars all along? Why had they not done so with him? Tajirika had not been the fool he had taken him to be. Still, Kaniürü thought quickly on his feet. Without seeming flustered in any way, he replied to the Ruler:

“There were some who wanted to pay in dollars. But Sikiokuu and I refused their offer. By accepting foreign currency we would have broken all the rules and regulations of the Central Bank concerning foreign exchange for nothing but self-gratification, and I am not very good with that kind of thing. Personally, I wanted something on the record that I could defend, even if I was found to have done wrong. I want to be judged on my record. I myself grew angry when I heard some of them talk as if they looked down on the Burl; one even said,
Bunni bure.
I am not the kind of person who can stand idly by while people say nasty things about our national currency. My friend and benefactor, Sikiokuu, was even more furious with them for their lack of patriotism. In short, we refused to be bribed in dollars.”

“Your Excellency,” interjected Sikiokuu, “I pray you to please believe me when I say that no such conversation about Burls and dollars ever took place between me and this scoundrel.”

The Ruler registered very little of what Sikiokuu had said. His
mind was still preoccupied with the three sacks of dollars, for, to him, a bag of dollars was more valuable than all the Burls in Aburlria. He, too, thought the national currency worthless, its value always changing like a chameleon. He now saw Tajirika in a new light: here was a bright mind that knew how to make a dollar out of thin air. Kaniürü and Sikiokuu seemed to him foolish for insisting on being paid in Burls.

“Mr. Tajirika,” he said, turning toward Tajirika, “Kaniürü has told us what he did with his Burls. What did you do with your three bags of dollars?”

All eyes turned to Tajirika.

“I am talking to you, Tajirika,” the Buler repeated. “Are you hard of hearing? What did you do with the three sacks of dollars? With whom did you share the money?” he added, glancing at Machokali.

The tables are turning against me, Tajirika thought to himself. Why did I lie about having dollars?

It was too late to change his story. He would have to live with the untruth, no matter its consequences. From now on, he swore to himself, he would stick to what he knew best: bending the truth as opposed to telling downright lies.

“I left the three bags of dollars with the Wizard of the Crow,” Tajirika said.

The Buler broke into mirthless laughter. Sikiokuu felt life returning. Kaniürü’s nose twitched. Machokali looked at his friend with pity. Couldn’t he come up with a better explanation?

“What?” asked the Buler.

“I left the whole lot with the Wizard of the Crow.”

“I don’t understand. Did you owe him money?”

“It was his fee for curing me.” Tajirika told of his own malady of words. “I was so happy to regain my voice that I did not worry about the fee. At that moment, my giving away the money was no big deal: there was more to be had where that first lot had come from.”

“What did the wizard do with the money?” the Ruler, Machokali, and Sikiokuu asked in unison.

“Three big bags of dollars! Wow!” Kaniürü added, not to be left out.

“When we were locked up in the same prison cell, he told me that he had buried it,” Tajirika said.

They all laughed, as if in agreement that now Tajirika had gone too far with his lies.

“No doubt he failed to tell you where he planted it?” Sikiokuu said sarcastically.

“As a matter of fact,” said Tajirika to the astonishment of all, “he did.”

They quickly looked at one another before turning to Tajirika with the one unspoken question.

“He buried the money in the prairie behind Santalucia.”

“And of course you never went to look for it,” said Kaniürü.

“No,” said Tajirika promptly, “because I assumed the sorcerer was lying to me. And honestly, I did not want to have anything to do with it, and I never will—it’s cursed. Let it remain buried—that is, if he was telling me the truth. And if it does not exist, again, let it be. The Wizard of the Crow is the only one who can enlighten us about the fate of the dollars.”

The Ruler seemed oblivious to Tajirika’s plea. He was obsessed with only one thing: these men had been caught with their own hands deep in the till. Bank records showed that Sikiokuu had pocketed millions, but here he was, busy denying it in the face of a preponderance of evidence. And here was Tajirika with his childish lies. Tajirika was protecting his accomplices, Machokali, perhaps, among others. The only one who had been fairly honest and straightforward was Kaniürü. What do the others believe? That I am a fool? I will show them that this Ruler has still got a trick or two up his sleeve.

“We are not going to decide just yet who is telling the truth and who is not,” the Ruler told them, looking from Sikiokuu to Machokali. “I want you two to give me three of your most trusted police officers or even youthwingers from among those who have had some contact with this Wizard of the Crow and have been courageous in facing him.”

“Peter Kahiga and Elijah Njoya,” said Sikiokuu immediately. “They don’t lie like some people I know, and, most important, they know how to keep their mouths shut.”

“I recommend A.G.,” said Machokali.

“Yes, and A.G.,” Sikiokuu agreed.

“Tajirika. I want you to know that I hate lies being told to me more than anything else. It is better to speak the truth to me, like Kaniürü here, and plead for mercy after than to resort to lies. But I will give you one more chance to redeem yourself. A second chance. A last chance. You have already said that you want nothing to do with the buried treasure. So show Kahiga, Njoya, and A.G. where it is—they will do the unearthing. You are to supervise the digging to keep the police officers honest. But let me warn you! If the dollars are not found, make sure to jump into the hole and beg to be buried in it. Do you understand? I am not to be trifled with.”

Bitterly regretting the moment he had lied about dollars and weak in the knees, Tajirika stood up and staggered toward the door, a broken soul, sure that the task he had been given amounted to a death sentence.

Even Machokali, Sikiokuu, and Kaniürü felt they had just witnessed a death sentence. Tajirika would never be seen alive again, and this made them feel grateful that their own lives had been spared. Kaniürü congratulated himself on his art of lying, which he attributed to his clever head so unlike Tajirika’s. That man was a numskull whose lies screamed to be seen as lies.

Machokali and Sikiokuu thought the same. Both knew that Kaniürü had also lied, but he at least had managed a reasonable cover-up.

Yet their joy was tempered by the fear that they might find themselves strung up by the end of the day. In the silence following Tajirika’s departure under the escort of armed policemen, each was busy figuring out how to save his own skin at the expense of the other two.

The Buler again broke the silence.

“Mr. Sikiokuu,” he called out, “you know, don’t you, that a good
shepherd knows a hyena when he sees one, even if it is in sheep’s clothing?”

“Yes, Your Mighty Excellency,” Sikiokuu answered quickly, even as he assumed that the Ruler was about to expose Kaniürü. “May the Ruler be praised for his great inborn wisdom,” added Sikiokuu.

“It comes directly from God,” Kaniürü opined.

“But it also springs from his own efforts,” Sikiokuu said, resenting Kaniürü’s attempt to join his song of praise. “He has mastered all the book learning.”

“He is the true dispenser of knowledge,” said Kaniürü, “the teacher of teachers, the number one teacher. The Ruler is the source of all the knowledge in the world.”

“That’s enough,” the Ruler said, pretending to be angry with their excess. “It is not good to praise a person in his presence; it might embarrass him.”

“I, too, share that sentiment, Your Mighty Excellency,” said Sikiokuu. “Oh, you should hear me when I am not in your presence, for that’s when I feel most free to sing your gifts.”

“I, too, praise you all the time, wherever I am,” Machokali said, not to be outdone.

“Deep in my heart,” Kaniürü said, “I know no calling higher than that of singing your praises at all times because of what you have done and continue to do for us. One day I overheard my own heart saying,
If God and the Ruler were standing together side by side and their hats were blown off their heads at the same time, I would pick up the one that belongs to the Ruler first,
and without realizing it I had said loudly:
Alleluia, may my Lord and Master be praised for ever and ever, Amen.”

“I am going to ban this business of people putting me on a pedestal with God,” said the Ruler, with disingenuous firmness.

“You would turn every person into a lawbreaker, because that is one law that people cannot possibly obey” said Sikiokuu.

“And I am glad that you have come to the point, Mr. Sikiokuu,” said the Ruler, “for, as you know, some people have decided to break my laws, and I am determined to crush them. You are a good shepherd, Mr. Sikiokuu, and as we wait for Tajirika to come back with a report on his fieldwork, why don’t you tell us what you have done to bring that woman Nyawlra to justice?”

Sikiokuu had hoped that by now the Ruler was distracted from the case of Nyawlra, so shocking were the detailed reports on the origins of the queuing mania and treason.

“Oh, that woman?” he asked, clearing his throat. “She will soon be in our hands. I am waiting for some things before I pounce on her.”

“What things?”

“Mirrors and their handler.”

“Their handler?”

“Yes, their handler. Call him their interpreter. I ordered mirrors from Japan, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, and the USA,” Sikiokuu said with enthusiasm, as if the Ruler knew all about his scheme. “The best mirrors for the matter at hand, as they are not contaminated with my own shadows.”

“Sikiokuu, are you okay?”
asked the Ruler in English. “I mean, in the head?”

“I am fine. I feel great. The handler is the link between the mirror and Nyawlra.”

“And who is he, this handler?”

“The Wizard of the Crow.”

“The Wizard of the Crow?” he asked.

“The man can look into a mirror and see many things beyond the ken of common eyes.”

These revelations made the Ruler wince, like a person who starts walking confidently along a path he believes to be clear of all obstacles only to suddenly step on a thorn. Sikiokuu’s passionate avowal of the wizard’s abilities rattled him. But he tried his best not to show it, leaning back and closing his eyes. For a second or so he found himself back in a New York hotel room where, as in a dream, he seemed to see a human shadow asking him to look closely at a mirror on the wall.

Sikiokuu had no idea that his words had hit the Ruler hard. He had hoped that the process of tracking down Nyawlra would distract the Ruler from the failure to arrest her. So he continued to chatter enthusiastically about the wizard’s powers.

“I believe the man has the gift of second sight and can see into the hearts of men,” Sikiokuu added.

“Where did you find this sorcerer?” the Ruler asked, his eyes still closed.

“Right here. In Eldares, Aburlria.”

“When?” the Ruler asked, straightening up, opening his eyes and fixing them on Sikiokuu.

“Before he went to America,” said Sikiokuu. “I first heard of the sorcerer’s gifts from people who claimed that he could read mirrors like books.”

“Let me remind you that actually I am the one who apprised you of the matter,” Kaniürü said to take credit, but Sikiokuu ignored him.

“All my preparations to capture the woman were going smoothly until news of your illness in America reached us. When I was told that the Wizard of the Crow was needed there, I said that the apprehension of Nyawlra would have to wait until the return of the Wizard of the Crow. Now here is my problem: the mirrors will arrive shortly, but their interpreter is nowhere to be found.”

The story prompted the Ruler to worry that if the sorcerer could really read what was hidden from the common eye, what did he know about the country, no, the Ruler being pregnant? And why had he chosen to impart his wisdom to Machokali instead of … he did not even want to complete the thought, for he suddenly felt horrified yet again at being compared to a woman. This sorcerer must be silenced.

“Where is he? Where is the Wizard of the Crow?” the Ruler asked angrily.

“I don’t know where he is. Since he went to America … perhaps Machokali might care to …” Sikiokuu said, trying to shift the burden of the sorcerer’s disappearance on Machokali.

“He is not in America,” said Machokali curtly, signaling that he did not want to get involved in this issue.

“He is not in Aburlria. And he is not in America. Where is the sorcerer?” the Ruler demanded. “Surely he must be somewhere on this earth?”

The Ruler suddenly was exhausted by the topic, as it was taking his mind away from more momentous matters. He was now staring straight ahead, entirely preoccupied with what Tajirika might bring him and what he would do to him if he came back empty-handed.

Machokali, who all along had surmised that there was a connection between Sikiokuu and the Wizard of the Crow, now felt malicious joy at the fact that the Ruler had sent a police squad to unearth the dollars. The angrier the Ruler became with the Wizard of the

Crow, the angrier he would be with Sikiokuu once the plot between the minister and the sorcerer was exposed.

“As to where the sorcerer is,” said Machokali, “it does not really matter. For what you have done, Your Mighty Excellency, in sending the three policemen to unearth the buried treasure, is an act of unfathomable wisdom and foresight, for even if no dollars are found, the act will serve to expose the lies of this man and his associates,” Machokali said.