People could not believe their ears: how could the Ruler suspend a minister who for many years had been his right-hand man? They whistled in disbelief when they heard that the police had raided the offices of the Minister of State and collected all his files for further investigation, and that Minister Sikiokuu himself had been arrested and was now being held to account for the disappearance of Machokali. Mambo alluded to the long-standing rivalry between Machokali and Sikiokuu, going all the way back to the days when Machokali chose London for the surgical enlargement of his eyes and Sikiokuu, Paris for the surgical enlargement of his ears. Speaking off the cuff, Mambo said that these two were fighting proxy wars for the British and the French. It was a well-known fact that these two nations, England and France, had always fought for the dominance of Europe, dating all the way back to the days of Napoleon and Nelson. That was why he, Mambo, had refused to follow in their misguided footsteps and gone to Germany for an adjustment of his tongue, which he was now putting to good use as the voice of the commander in chief. Mambo now returned to his prepared text, insinuating that Sikiokuu was involved in a dangerous cabal spreading doubts about the government. But why? Actions spoke louder than words.
Among the items seized from the minister’s offices was a suit that was more or less a replica of those worn only by the Ruler, complete with lion-skin patches, reserved by law for only the Ruler. Sikiokuu had even copied the seat on which the Ruler sat when chairing cabinet sessions. Big Ben Mambo, however, urged the people not to draw any conclusions before the commission of inquiry had completed its work.
But this did not mean that people would have to keep their mouths shut, and anybody who had any information about the disappearance of the beloved son of the soil or about Sikiokuu’s religious sect would be given a chance to present oral or written evidence to the government commission.
And now, speaking in the name of the commander in chief of the Aburlrian Armed Forces, he was ordering all the armored cars off the streets. He was also asking the crowd to disperse peacefully now that the government had responded to their main concerns.
But even as the armored cars retreated to side streets, people did not scatter; they intensified their singing and prayers, now and then shouting: We want our voice back.
2
The two main pillars on which his rule depended, the armed forces and the West, had loosened considerably. The Ruler had to find a way of shoring them up, and he would do so by showing both that his hold on power was not entirely dependent on them. And what better way of showing this than dispersing the defiant crowd without the aid of a reluctant military? But what other than the military and the police could he use to effect it?
The Ruler knew that he could no longer rely on any of his cabinet ministers. He had received reports that some ministers, like military officers, perhaps taking their lead from the disgraced Sikiokuu, had recently been seen cozying up to Western embassies. Gemstone’s remarks that he knew fairly well what was going on in the cabinet made him suspect that some of his ministers were paid informants. To frustrate these informants, he had decided not to hold cabinet meetings. Now that Machokali and Sikiokuu were no longer around, the Ruler realized how much he had depended on them in times of crisis. Not that he missed them, for he had replaced them with Tajirika and Kaniürü, who could be trusted to say what he wanted to hear. He played them time and again against each other. The Ruler would often meet with each separately. There were things that he wanted to remain between Kaniürü and himself, and others that he wished to share only with Tajirika. He also knew that they were crooks. Although they hated each other, he knew that he had to forestall the possibility of a conspiracy between them against him. My special advisers, he fondly called them, and it was to them that he now turned for help in finding the most appropriate means of dispersing the crowd. First up was Kaniürü.
Kaniürü came up with two proposals. If for some reason the Ruler did not want to deploy the armed forces, then he should play deaf to all pleas of restraint from foreign countries and give Kaniürü’s boys the license to trash the arrogant gathering as a lesson. Alternatively, efforts should be intensified to recapture the Wizard of the Crow, who should be compelled under threats of torture and death to use his powers to cure the maddening crowd of its queuing mania and cleanse it of all impure thoughts. He, Kaniürü, had already set snares for the wizard, and although they had yet to catch the quarry, he was positive that the Wizard of the Crow and the Limping Witch would not evade Kaniürü’s nose for long, he added, and laughed.
Tajirika, too, advised enlisting the services of the Wizard of the Crow but stressed the unlimited manufacture of Burl money, which would be divided into two piles.
The first lot would go to buying foreign currencies to be stashed in Swiss banks, adding to what was already there. The Ruler could also use the money to buy properties in tax havens abroad. As governor of the Central Bank, Tajirika would of course ensure that the new money got into circulation without a hitch; even so, he argued for the creation of new banks, Mwathirika Ltd.
The other pile would be used to disperse the crowd in the most effective, public, and peaceful manner possible. The Ruler would simply announce a day when money would fall on the waiting crowd like manna from Heaven. At an appointed time, four helicopters would drop Burl notes starting in the center of the crowd and fanning to the east, west, north, and south. The scramble would scatter the dissidents to the four winds.
The setting up of money-laundering banks sounded like a stroke of genius, and the Ruler could not help thinking that if the Wizard of the Crow were forced to reveal the secret of dollars growing on trees, this windfall income could also be put into national and international circulation easily, along the paths already tested with the Burl. The idea of Mwathirika banks was so appealing that the Ruler insisted that Vinjinia, Tajirika’s wife, become its nominal founder and managing director and the Ruler’s sons, its board of directors. Tajirika’s other suggestion was equally brilliant, achieving the desired result without recourse to bloodshed.
A crook after my own heart, the Ruler muttered to himself, mesmerized by the simple beauty of Tajirika’s plan, and he was glad that he had appointed him governor.
“And Titus,” said the Ruler suddenly, as if rewarding him for the clarity of his plan. “There is a chair and some clothes that I understand were taken from Sikiokuu’s offices. You now see the kind of ministers with whom I had surrounded myself? Appointing themselves heirs to my seat? I don’t trust—I mean, keep this evidence of treachery under lock and key for me until I decide what to do with Sikiokuu and his coconspirators.”
Tajirika sensed in this the Ruler’s discomfiture with the armed forces and, emboldened by the new trust the Ruler had placed in him, he deigned to offer more general advice.
“Thank you for the trust you have invested in me, and I swear never to betray you. And if I might say so, you may need fresh eyes and ears in the State House to uncover what some people might be up to, eyes that can also quietly oversee the leaders of the armed forces, a kind of super-eye on the military.”
“I don’t think that your experience in military affairs goes beyond your taking over an armed camp with shit and urine,” the Ruler said coldly, resenting Tajirika’s intimations of his unease with the military. “Stick to money matters.”
That was a misstep, Tajirika thought, and in an effort to recover he hastened to ask, “When may I start putting my fiscal plan in motion?”
“I will think about it,” said the Ruler.
Tajirika’s plan was appealing to the Ruler’s philosophy that greed and self-interest ruled the world. But Kaniürü’s plans had the ascendancy.
And then other events occurred that suddenly moved the Tajirika plan from the realm of aesthetics to that of the practical and immediate.
3
Tajirika had gone to the Central Bank early to get some work done before calls started coming in. This late to bed and early to work was one of the changes in hi
s lifestyle since becoming the governor. He would read the local, then foreign papers, mainly the business pages, and then check the Internet for the latest international stock market results and exchange rates; that way he would start his day with a proper overview of the money market of the world.
But before he had even settled into his chair, the telephone rang. Shall I take it or not? Tajirika wondered. But what if I don’t take it and later it turns out to have come from the State House? The Ruler had the habit of calling his advisers at any time of day or night. Tajirika took the phone; it was someone from the Eldares Times.
“We tried the State House and we could not get through,” the reporter told him. “So we thought of calling you instead.”
Even though he was not a minister, Tajirika did not mind people thinking or even knowing that the Ruler trusted him more than he did the ministers. And if he played his cards right, perhaps … who knows? he would sometimes tell Vinjinia.
“You have not strayed too far from the path,” Tajirika said, a touch of pride in his voice.
“We are actually calling you in your capacity as chairperson of Marching to Heaven,” the man said.
Tajirika felt his whole body tingle with excitement. Had the loans come through? In Marching to Heaven lay the biggest and most endless source of money, moreover money that did not require secret plantations and laundering facilities.
“You are talking to the right person,” Tajirika hastened to say. “What can I do for you?”
“A few words about today’s headline.”
“Today’s paper?” Tajirika asked.
“Yes,” the man said. Your reaction to the news.”
“I have not yet read it. Can you call back in five minutes? Or, better still, why don’t you just read it to me?”
“Global Bank Refuses to Lend Money for Marching to Heaven.”
“Excuse me,” Tajirika muttered.
“The Global Bank does not think that Marching to Heaven is a viable project. It is a case of free enterprise going too far.”
Tajirika’s hands shook. He did not wait for the reporter to stop reading.
“No comment. Please try the State House again,” said Tajirika in a tremulous voice.
He put the receiver down and reached for the Eldares Times. It was not just the loans for Marching to Heaven. The Global Bank and its policy-making body, the Global Ministry of Finance, had put on hold even those funds previously agreed upon. Worse still, the funds would remain frozen until the Aburlrian government had instituted economic and political reforms and took concrete steps to end inflation and corruption.
Tajirika did not know whether to cry for loss of these loans or laugh for joy: his proposed monetary policy was now more pertinent than ever.
The phone rang again.
Tajirika headed straight for the State House.
4
The floor of the Ruler’s sanctuary was littered with newspapers, the Ruler not apparently present. Tajirika looked up at the ceiling and his jaw fell; he took a step back for a clearer view. He could not believe his eyes. The Ruler’s legs hung in the air, his head touching the ceiling and his whole body gently swaying.
“Don’t just stand there with your mouth open—get me down,” the Ruler told him.
Tajirika felt weak in the knees and tried hard not to faint.
“Should I call the guards for help?”
“Of course not, you fool. Get me down.”
Tajirika could not reach the dangling feet, even on tiptoes. The Ruler’s body, now more passive than ever, seemed impossibly light; only the ceiling prevented it from floating away. Tajirika stood on a chair and grasped at the Ruler’s feet, but no matter how often he did, the Ruler would again rise like a balloon.
“What shall we do now?” asked Tajirika.
“That’s why I had you summoned,” replied the Ruler, looking down from the ceiling.
Tajirika thought that the Ruler was talking about his floating body.
“Yes, this matter is truly amazing,” Tajirika said, vaguely, sympathetically.
“There must be forces working against me at the Global Bank,” the Ruler said.
No, the Ruler is talking about the news, and I was about to suggest I chain him to the ground, Tajirika said to himself. He now sat on a chair with his head leaning back, the better to hear and see.
The Global Bank news had hit the Ruler hard, especially because the Bank had not seen fit to grant him the courtesy of first informing him through diplomatic channels or a special envoy but had released their communication to the media in New York.
“Look around you. Look at those papers. Look at all the headlines. Is there a soul in the whole wide world who is not reading this?
Where have diplomatic niceties gone? Imagine how my enemies must be rejoicing, believing that their agitation was responsible for halting our plans for Marching to Heaven!”
“Racists,” said Tajirika, putting as much hatred as he could into his voice. “Exactly what I myself said,” the Ruler said. “But we shall show the Bank that we were not born yesterday. What do you say, Titus?”
“You have spoken the truth, Your Mighty Excellency. We will fight back,” Tajirika said, noting that the Ruler had called him Titus as if they were the closest of friends.
“That’s why I made you the governor of money. Yes, fight back. Good words. You know that Gemstone is behind all this. He is the source of this undiluted hatred of me.”
“Racist,” Tajirika said again.
“You have spoken the truth, as always,” the Ruler said again, before he started complaining of a stomachache and demanding that his personal doctor be called.
Tajirika went to the telephone, feeling relieved that someone else would soon be joining him to help him cope with the astonishment he was witnessing.
5
In response to Dr. Kaboca’s “How are you?” a seated Tajirika simply pointed at the ceiling. The doctor did not understand the meaning of Tajirika’s gesture, and for a moment he thought that maybe Tajirika was mentally unbalanced and that it was because of him that he had been summoned to the State House. Where is the Ruler? Dr. Kaboca asked. “Can’t you see that the Ruler has conquered gravity!” Tajirika said impatiently.
Dr. Kaboca looked up, and soon Tajirika found himself bent over the doctor’s prostrate body, fanning him with a handkerchief, trying to revive him.
“It looks as if the doctor himself is in need of a doctor!” came a voice from the ceiling.
“It is the heat,” Dr. Kaboca said after he had regained consciousness. “Now, Mr. Tajirika, please leave the room.”
“No,” said the Ruler. “Tajirika is my special adviser. In all matters. Feel free to treat me in his presence.”
The Ruler was quite candid with the doctor. He explained that when he read the news from the Global Bank, he had become so angry that his body started to expand even more. He had called his special adviser to have somebody to talk to in the hope that this would ease the anger within. While waiting for Tajirika, he had read some more newspapers, only to feel his anger mount until it almost choked him, and that was when he felt himself lifted uncontrollably. He could not tell exactly when it started, but it was definitely when he was already in the air that his tummy began to ache. At first the pain was manageable, but now it had become unbearable.
With the help of some carpenters who rigged a platform of sorts, Dr. Kaboca and Tajirika were able to pull the Ruler down and secure him with straps for a medical exam.
They did such a good job that it now looked as if the Ruler was actually seated on a high chair of authority, his voice reaching those seated below his feet as if it were God’s voice from above. The men were made permanent state carpenters and they would leave the State House only when the Ruler willed it.
Dr. Kaboca climbed onto the platform, examined the Ruler’s tonsils, and took his temperature and blood pressure. Nothing seemed amiss. He felt the Ruler’s stomach and, recalling prevalent rumors in the cou
ntry that he might be in a certain way, thought it best to prescribe the need for a team of medical doctors. He reminded the Ruler that when they left America it had been decided that Dr. Clarkwell and Professor Furyk would be invited to Aburlria to look further into his condition. Now was the time, he suggested, to confer with them on this new complication of symptoms: further bodily expansion, lightness of the body, and bellyache.
6
“What? His legs dangling in the air?” Vinjinia asked Tajirika.
The image of a Ruler suspended in the air with only the soles of his shoes visible from the floor made her laugh until her ribs ached.
It was the same day, late at night. Tajirika did not always tell Vinjinia about the goings-on in the State House, but this story he could not keep to himself. Yet he took the precaution of swearing Vinjinia to secrecy.
“Do you think this is the work of the Wizard of the Crow? Or the Limping Witch?” Vinjinia whispered.
“With the wizard you cannot rule out anything.”
“What if the house did not have a ceiling and a roof?” she wondered loudly.
“He would have reached Heaven before Marching to Heaven,” Tajirika responded, but Vinjinia was the one who saw the fun in the quip and laughed again.
When Vinjinia next met with Maritha and Mariko she took Maritha aside, made her also swear not to tell anybody, and whispered the Ruler’s story. But of course Maritha told Mariko, and he did not see any harm in telling Dove, and Dove did not see any harm …
And so on, until the story reached the People’s Assembly, which meant that soon all of Aburlria was talking about it.