“What do you mean by Animal of the Earth?”
“That which crawls on its belly?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“The one that deceived Adam and Eve?” Nyawlra continued as she rose and went to her own beggar’s bag and bent over it. Kamltl was quite sure that he saw her take something out, which she now held behind her as she stood facing him.
“Close your eyes,” she said, smiling.
Kamltl pretended to cover his eyes with the palms of his hands while peeking through the gaps between his fingers.
“Look now!” Nyawlra told him, dangling what she had been holding a few inches from his face. Kamltl jumped from his seat.
“A snake!” he cried, bolting for the door.
But Nyawlra beat him to it.
“No, I will not let you go,” she said, brandishing the fork-tongued snake at him. “It is a viper. Very dangerous,” she whispered menacingly.
10
When growing up Kamltl used to hear stories of women who lived in the big waters who would sometimes appear alongside unsuspecting male swimmers and accompany them to the edges of the sea. Their faces were very beautiful, their swimming tops hung delicately over the tips of their pointed breasts, and their narrow waists seemed to be inviting the onlooker to embrace them.
Standing on the shore, one could often spot them in the middle of the sea, astride the crests of the waves, splashing water on every side, racing one another to an unknown destination. Sometimes they would whistle the softest of tunes in the ears of male swimmers, and not many such men, especially when alone, could resist the power of the wordless songs. There were frightening stories of some who had followed these water-women all the way to their lairs under the sea, only to discover that the women had no feet, or rather that their lower body comprised a fishtail with scales big enough to cut a person into a thousand pieces. A few were lucky and escaped, but there were many others who were lost forever, victims of the alluring power of the female riders of the sea.
There were other stories of other women who had the power to change themselves into whatever form they chose, gazelles, antelopes, but mostly cats. Many a young man had gone for a walk at twilight holding hands with the woman of his dreams, waiting for darkness to fall to satisfy his desire, only to find himself staring at the glowing eyes of a cat.
Was Nyawlra one of these women of his childhood fears? Different images of her flashed across his mind. In the office, she is a secretary, on the roadside, a comforter. In the evening, she is a beggar among beggars. Later, in the prairie, she effortlessly outruns him and three police officers. Now she was blocking his escape, dangling a fork-tongued snake in front of him? Come to think of it, when telling stories, she had constantly been changing her voice in her mimicking of various characters. The number of times she had changed her name hinted at something! Had she not walked away from a car accident unscathed? And the bit about the donkey braying at the clinic … there was something about her that did not add up.
A mixture of fear, frustration, and curiosity rooted him. He had always been terrified of snakes; the mention of them made his body quiver. She had said this one was poisonous. A bite on the nose or the eye would surely mean his end. What a day! What a night! The day had seen him narrowly escape burial in a dumpsite, but the night would see his life end with a snakebite! He feared what would transpire next. Would she change into an antelope, a gazelle of the prairie, or a cat? Or the mermaid that she was? She seemed indeed human, but with these women one could not be sure. What was a water-woman doing on land, anyway? He looked at her eyes and light danced in them. No, she was trying to hypnotize him, to distract his eyes from the snake.
His eyes focused on the snake, he started moving backward, slowly, the water-woman following him step by step and in rhythm as in a choreographed dance. Even when he entered her bedroom, Kamrö did not see the bed in the middle, riveted as he was by the impending danger. Her mission, his death by snakebite, accomplished, she would turn into a bird and fly away to trap some other unsuspecting male or return to the sea to tell her water-sisters about her wicked triumph.
Kamrö felt defiant. Even a bull in a slaughterhouse resists to the last; he refused to be a helpless victim. He pounced on Nyawlra.
They wrestled on the floor as Kamrö reached for the hand that held the snake to pin it down. Nyawlra was too quick for him; she slipped his grip and grabbed his shirt as he tugged at her dress. Soon they were both half naked, pausing to stare at each other with mutual fascination. Kamltl had never seen a neck so long, so beautiful. Her eyes still shone brightly, like those of a cat at night. He looked for the snake on the ground, only to see it lying inert.
“Oh, that! It is a plastic snake,” she said chuckling.
Kamltl did not grasp the import of her words; he was transfixed on Nyawlra, her long gazelle neck, her shapely breasts so full, her nipples, the color of blackberry, so erect, the light in her eyes animating her. It was only after a second or two that the meaning of what she had said dawned on him.
“A plastic snake?” he asked, relief embedded in disbelief.
“Yes,” she said, and laughed again.
His relief was superseded by anger. Nyawlra sensed this and tried to slink away from his rage. He strode after her as if intent on strangling her or something. In silence, they circled each other, Kamltl trying to catch her, she just managing to slip away. Then suddenly he flew toward her and they fell on the bed. They were tremulous amid the rustling of clothes. Their lips met.
Kamltl had not been with a woman since that disastrous morning with Wariara. The act had left distaste in him, diminishing his desire. He had not felt deprived during his time of abstinence. But now he knew that something important had been missing in his life. Nyawlra was in a similar position. Her relationship with Kaniürü had soured her on love, and she had not taken up with any other man. Now they felt themselves drawn to each other by a power they could not resist.
“Slowly and gently, young man,” Nyawlra told him. “Some men rush as if they are late for an appointment. A woman is not a service station.”
She guided his hands to her nipples, down to her thighs, his touch forcing her to sigh and groan. They were now ready to move to the next step.
“Put it on now,” Nyawlra told him.
“What?” he said in a daze.
“Don’t you have a condom?”
“Condom? Oh, no!” he said.
It was as if some red ants had bitten Nyawlra, for she suddenly threw him off, jumped up, and sat on the bed.
“What have I done wrong?” Kamltl asked, baffled.
“Wrong? Did I hear you right?” Nyawlra asked, full of fury. “You would enter me without protection?”
“I have not carried condoms with me for a while. I assumed that you were on the pill or something …”
“Do you think that pregnancy is the worst that can happen to a woman? Pregnancy is not a malignance. It is only a problem when people are not prepared to shoulder the responsibility of bringing a child into the world. Don’t you know about the virus? Pregnancy is life. The virus means death.”
“I don’t have the virus!”
“How do you know? And even if you know about yourself, how do you know that I am not carrying AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, or any other STD?”
Discomfort had now replaced desire. Kamltl went to take a cold shower to cool his body. Nyawlra waited for him to finish and followed suit. Both clothed once again, Kamltl, in a shirt without buttons, went back to the sitting room, and Nyawlra, in a fresh dress, went to the kitchen.
Kamltl’s mind drifted to life with Wariara. They had never talked about their sex lives before meeting each other; he was surprised by how little he knew about that aspect of her. Recalling their encounter at the Angel’s Corner earlier in the day, he felt uncomfortable in his own body. What if he had caught a virus from their sole intimate encounter and had been about to pass it on to … no, he did not want to think
about his possible carelessness. He was grateful to Nyawlra for having put a halt to things, even more so now that she interrupted his thoughts by offering him some tea.
“I’m sorry” he told Nyawlra. “I should not have lost it that way. I have never been so drawn to anyone. Usually I prefer to get to know someone better before this kind of thing happens. But something about you makes me feel that we have always known each other. Maybe it has something to do with our shared experiences today. But I want you to know that I am not trying to excuse my behavior.”
“I am sorry, too. In college I always kept a couple of condoms in my handbag, because even then I believed that people who do not know each other well should protect themselves; because you can never tell who is carrying death into the act of love. When I got married, I stopped; and even after the marriage ended, I continued with the bad habit of not arming myself. But now I should have known better, for nobody knows when she or he might be in a situation where the body overpowers the will. If a person refuses to wear a condom in these days of the deadly virus and he still wants to go the distance, he is my enemy, not my lovemate, and I should not let him touch me. That is why I threw you off, because I thought you were one of those men who think it unmanly to wear condoms.”
“I can hardly criticize you.”
They were now relaxed with each other.
“What was the plastic snake all about?” Kamltl asked in a new key.
“You really thought that it was alive?”
“It seemed lifelike, its eyes roving, its tongue flexing. I am terrified of snakes. I hate practical jokes involving snakes.”
Nyawlra looked hard at his face. No, she and Kamltl were not of the same mind; they had arrived at the gates of Paradise by different routes. All they shared were the beggar’s rags they wore. Nothing more. And yet to her he had a good heart. He had grown up poor; he could be one of her party. Then she recalled that Kaniürü, in spite of his humble background, was now a member of the Ruler’s Youth, protecting the rich against the poor. She checked herself. Kamltl might turn out to be another Kaniürü. Besides, he seemed a loner, the type only drawn by the desires of the spirit.
“These days, no woman is safe walking the streets alone. I carry the snake to help me get out of dangerous situations.”
“No, Nyawlra, you are holding something back,” he said.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked with a bit more passion.
Kamltl felt pulled in opposite directions: he wanted to know, and he did not; he did not feel that he had the will to endure the weight of knowing and the agony of choice. Was certain indeterminacy not better?
Nyawlra saw the hesitation in his face and said to herself: This one is scared. She looked at her watch.
“It is almost dawn. You won’t have to go to the wilderness. Sleep on the couch. I’ll give you a blanket.”
As she headed toward the bedroom, Kamltl persisted despite his fears.
“But you did not really answer my question.”
Nyawlra stopped and turned her head.
“You know the Movement for the Voice of the People?”
By instinct, Kamltl quickly looked over his shoulder before answering.
“I don’t, but you mentioned it. Didn’t the Buler declare it illegal?”
“Yes,” she said, not sure what to make of his skittishness.
“What is the story?” Kamltl asked, not too enthusiastically.
“There are two kinds of saviors: those who want to soothe the souls of the suffering and those who want to heal the sores on the flesh of the suffering. Sometimes I wonder which is right. Sleep well. The couch may not be as comfortable as your leaves of grass, but there is a roof over it,” she said lightly.
“But what does the movement stand for? Who are its members? Its leaders?”
“Someday I’ll tell you more,” she said, wondering about his sudden desire for details. She went to the bedroom, from where she now threw him a blanket.
The guitar from the wall had been disturbed by their play earlier. She adjusted it before climbing into bed.
Kamltl sighed with relief, but relief from what? He was unable to fall asleep; he kept turning over in his mind the events of the last twenty-four hours. As in a dream, he didn’t know where he was headed, he thought, yawning from fatigue.
There was banging at the door. Kamltl, who had fallen asleep, was tied to his bed of dreams by a thousand strands of rainbow colors. Who was waking him in his flower garden? Ah, yes, Paradise. A million-star hotel, with a boundless sky as its roof. Oh yes, he thought, a hailstorm must be kissing the gates of Paradise. How soothing. But the knocking at the door persisted, and Kamltl woke up.
He tiptoed to Nyawlra’s bed and woke her up. They both listened, hoping that the intermittent knocking would cease. It didn’t, and Nyawlra put on a shawl and went to the door.
She hesitated as she opened it.
“Don’t be afraid, mother,” the man said, quickly taking something from his pocket and showing it to her. “I have not come to rob you. I am just a plainclothes police officer.”
“What do you want?” Nyawlra asked gruffly, trying to hide her panic.
“I beg you, please don’t be angry. I am the police officer who was here last night. Well not here, exactly—I mean, I happened to be in Santalucia last night, and in passing I saw something hanging from the wall. When I went home, well, I thought about it. True, Haki ya Mungu. I tell you, I hardly slept trying to figure things out. So I came to the conclusion, perhaps, then the doubt, how shall I know the house? But I gathered my courage and came here before dawn, and imagine my relief when I found the thing still there. And I said to myself, you are in the right place.”
Chagrined, Nyawlra remembered the bundle of make-believe witchcraft hanging from the roof outside. How careless of them not to have taken it down! The magic that had sent the police officer away had led him back to the house, though now he seemed unarmed. She became a little defiant within: So what if he has found us? What could he arrest us for? What crime have we committed? Then she recalled that the dictator of Aburlria had decreed that the Movement for the Voice of the People was illegal. She resolved to remain calm and scrutinize the words of the police officer for anything that might be useful.
“What do you want?” she asked imperiously.
The police officer winced at her tone. He kept looking over his shoulder as if ready to bolt at the first hint of danger. Yet he seemed determined, almost desperate, to unburden himself of something.
“My name is Constable Arigaigai Gathere. I have many matters that weigh heavily on me. Please, mother, I want—please—I would like to see you.”
“Me? You want to see me?” she asked, quite puzzled by all this.
“Yes, you. No, yes, true! Haki ya Mungu, Wizard. I would like to see you. Sorry, I mean, I need to see the Wizard of the Crow.”
11
Later, after his own life had taken twists and turns defying all rational explanation even for him, a trained police officer, Constable Arigaigai Gathere always found himself surrounded by crowds wanting to hear story after story about the Wizard of the Crow. It was then that people started calling him fondly by his initials, A.C., some listeners allowing that they stood for “attorney general of storytelling.” If his storytelling took place in a bar, it was fueled to new heights of imagination by an endless supply of liquor. When the setting was a village, a marketplace, or the crossroads, Constable Arigaigai Gathere felt charged with energy on seeing the rapt faces of the men, women, and children waiting to catch his every word. But whatever the setting, his listeners came away with food of the spirit: resilient hope that no matter how intolerable things seemed, a change for the better was always possible. For if a mere mortal like the Wizard of the Crow could change himself into any form of being, nothing could resist the human will to change.
“And when I talk of him changing himself into anything,” he would stress, “I am not passing on hearsay. True, Haki ya Mungu. I
talk of what I saw with my own eyes.”
The story they came to hear over and over again was about the night A.G. chased two beggars from the gates of Paradise. At first A.G. used to say that he was with two other police officers, but in the course of the telling and retelling of the story, they disappeared from his narrative.
“Yes, it all began outside Paradise, where we had been sent to make sure that the visitors from the Global Bank would not be harassed by the crowd of beggars. Early on, the beggars were orderly, but when they started shouting words I would never let pass my mouth, we received orders from on high to silence and disperse them. It was in the evening, I remember. I saw a man in rags look at me with eyes burning brighter than those of a tiger in the dark. I felt his eyes forcing me to follow him as he moved away. I tried to tell him to stop but was dumbstruck. What was even more amazing was that he was not running. True, Haki ya Mungu. The man just strolled swinging a big bag he was carrying; yet no matter how hard I ran after him, the distance between us remained the same.
“It seemed to me that the man was not alone; there was another walking beside him, guiding him through the dark. How do I explain? Now I see one. Now I see two.
“When I tried to stop and take stock of the situation, I found that I could not slow down. True, Haki ya Mungu, and eventually I found myself in the prairie. Don’t ask me how I got there—to this day I don’t know. There was moonlight, all right, but clouds would get in the way; it was as if the heavens were conspiring with him to play games of light and shadows with me. He made me run around in circles the whole time. Then I saw him go through some bush and I followed him. It was dark in the thick growth. I tripped over something and fell. It was a rock cleft in two. I got back up and resumed running. Only when I reached the other side of the bush did I realize that I was near Santalucia. Between the edge of the bush and where the houses begin was an empty space, and as the man crossed it I saw that what I had taken to be two was actually one. And yet I could have sworn that I had seen two persons! No sooner had I blinked than the man was gone. As there was no gap in the hedge, I could not tell how he got through.”