BOOK SIX
Bearded Daemons
1
A week after their return, Nyawlra visited Maritha and Mariko. She found them grieving for their cat, crucified by the Soldiers of Christ.
“What does the cat have to do with religion?” Kamltl asked, pained.
Kamltl and Nyawlra had rented a place in the run-down but most populous area of Santalucia. There was no question about resuming their business in herbs—they would have to find other means of survival.
Nyawlra recounted what Maritha and Mariko had told her: the soldiers wanted Satan to feel the pain Christ had felt.
“These sects are turning their followers into fools. Adults, supposed grown-ups, killing a cat?”
“Actually it did not die,” Nyawlra said. “When the soldiers went back after three days, they found the nails still in the tree but not the cat. Maritha and Mariko were telling me that somehow the cat had survived and was once again in their keeping. And apparently the soldiers had realized that the cat they had crucified was the same one that used to follow Maritha and Mariko wherever they went. But instead of saying they were sorry for what they had done, they went straight to All Saints Cathedral and publicly accused the couple of being servants of Satan, declaring that even the victory that the couple had earlier claimed was no victory but defeat, and thus the two had lied to God. They demanded that Bishop Tireless Kanogori expel Mariko and Maritha because they were in league with Satan. When Bishop Tireless refused, they accused him of going to bed with the Devil. Citing occasions when the bishop had let Satan escape, once through the window and secondly through the door, they demanded his resignation. The congregation, led by Vinjinia, however, stood behind their bishop. The warriors, led by three holy men, Sweeper-of-Souls, Soul’s Walking Stick, and Pilot-of-Souls, broke away and formed the Church of Christian Soldiers.”
“How did they come to accept the three as holy?”
“Numeral three was the sign. The sweepers, to whom Satan first appeared, were three. One of them has a walking stick with three small twigs at the handle. Into this mix bring in the Holy Trinity. Three then becomes a holy number. The Church even earned international visibility when the three holy men were invited to a Global Christian Right gathering in America. The holy men were to testify about their struggles against Satan that had paved the way for democracy in Aburlria. But the invitation was withdrawn because the Church of Christian Soldiers did not last a week before it split into three separate entities each claiming to be the true Church of Christian Soldiers.”
“Why?”
“They got into a theological dispute about the nature of Satan. Apparently, on the day of the smog, the three groups had different encounters with the vision of Satan. One group, led by Sweeper-of-Souls, claimed that Satan was a seven-bodied white American and that on the day of the smog, as they kept vigil on all the paths in and out of the State House, they saw him leave the palace in a hurry, after he had set explosions. A black man was chasing the hydra-bodied Satan. They joined in the chase at a distance. Afterward they swore in the name of Christ that they did see the hydra-bodied white creature enter the American embassy, from where, soon after, came the sound of a gunshot, and they saw the black man fall. Luckily for them, Jesus told them to run away. The second group, led by Pilot-of-Souls, said that Satan was definitely black. Pilot-of-Souls saw him on the platform during the Devil-sponsored People’s Assembly and heard him boast how he freely assumed human and animal forms and traveled inside time itself. The third group, led by Soul’s Walking Stick, rejects the claims of the first two and emphasizes the catlike quality of Satan, citing the incident at the cathedral when Satan entered a cat’s body and then lured the police to handcuff a shadow that later addressed the People’s Assembly while Satan himself was snoring within the cat at the ruins. They disagreed about everything except that once at a city dumpsite Satan did appear to them, with Soul’s
Walking Stick further claiming that when he was lost to alcohol, the same Satan had pursued him from bar to bar. He was at the Sell-Me-Death bar when he saw three hell-riders carry Satan away and so … what is the matter?”
“It brings back memories,” Kamltl said somberly. He told her about his dealings with the cat after first encountering it at the burned-down shrine, how it kept him company when he spent the night there as a homeless drunk and it did the same thing recently, at the church basement. Whenever the cat was around, he felt less lonely. “But it is not only that,” he continued. “It’s true there were times when I felt pursued by unseen eyes and people were running away from me. Did you ever hear rumors of a man who came back from the dead after burial at a dumpsite?”
“Yes, there was a time when rumors of souls of the homeless being taken away were rampant, but I never took them seriously. I thought it was the folks’ way of explaining the fact that people were dying of hunger and disease.”
“Well, that person was me. The holy men are referring to that incident. It was the same day that you and I met at Tajirika’s.”
“But was it true? Did you fly out of yourself?”
“Yes, and it was not the last time. Sometimes when alone, I feel out of myself—I mean, out of my body—and I float in the sky in the form of a bird. That’s exactly the experience I once had. I never told you this—I thought you might think me out of my mind.”
He briefly narrated his flight over Africa, the Caribbean, and South America and back to Manhattan, New York.
“Most of what I was trying to tell the People’s Assembly was a slice of what formed within me during my global journey in search of the source of black power.”
They fell silent, with NyawTra wondering how to undertake the whole thing and KamTtT how she was taking it.
“And the source? Did you find it?”
“Yes, in the unity of our blackness.”
“Unity between us, the Buler, and Tajirika? They are black; we are all black.”
“Stop the sarcasm. You cannot keep on detecting classes and class struggles in everything. Bace also matters.”
“I don’t mean to be sarcastic,” NyawTra hastened to say. “I don’t discount the fact of blackness when used to forge a sense of community across nations, territories, and continents in the quest for equality, social justice, and the fullness of life for all. But too often the appeal to blackness glosses over the valley between opposing positions. Even the extreme black rightists with anti—working people’s agendas are now claiming their share of victimology. As you so clearly said in the assembly, it is from our midst that there arises those who sow discord, the seeds of our defeat.”
“Yes, I saw them, half beast and half human …” said Kamltl.
“As a figure of speech?” Nyawlra asked.
“They were real,” Kamltl said emphatically. “The ones I saw when in my bird form were real.”
Unable to take his wanderings as a bird with a straight face, Nyawlra interrupted: “When Maritha and Mariko were telling me about the Soldiers of Christ believing in a Devil who resides in a cat, I felt like laughing but did not. Do you know why? The Soldiers of Christ remind me of my maternal great-grandmother. She was among the first or second generation of those who ran away from what they saw as savagery and sought refuge in the new Christian mission centers, though in her case she was also running away from a marriage forced on her. Do you know that my great-grandmother, to her dying day, when she was more than ninety years old, believed in the physical reality of devils and angels? That they often walked the earth? God was also real, and she described him as an old man with a white beard and long silvery hair reaching down to his feet. That was her explanation for why nobody could tell the gender and color of God. But what am I supposed to think when the one I love, whose judgment and insights I trust, tells me that he has been a bird and seems to believe it? If the soldiers remind me of my great-grandmother, you remind me of Gacirü and Gaclgua—you know, Vinjinia’s kids. When Tajirika was stricken with white-ache and Vinjinia came to work in the o
ffice for the first time in her life, she often brought her children with her and I told them stories. They loved the Marimü stories about the two-mouthed ogres, with one mouth at the back of the head and the other in front …”
“That is it,” Kamltl interrupted. “You have said it. Ogres.”
Nyawlra was startled by his reaction, and she stared at him, once again struck by how seriously he seemed to take the whole thing. Kamltl noticed her disbelief.
“Nyawlra, don’t ask me to explain, but do me a favor,” he said, trying to reassure her of his sanity. “Go back to Maritha and Mariko tomorrow and ask Vinjinia to find out if Tajirika has grown long hair or has started wearing a cap, or covering his head at night or doing anything unusual, however small, that he was not doing before. Ask them to give her this message. At night when Tajirika is asleep, she should inspect his face well, and particularly the back of his head.”
“What?” Nyawlra asked, mystified.
“I want to know if Tajirika has grown a second mouth.”
Nyawlra could not help it. She laughed till she felt as if her ribs were cracking. But Kamltl did not join her laughter.
“You cannot be serious. I should not have brought you news of the cat’s crucifixion.”
“It is not just Tajirika,” Kamltl said, ignoring her. “I suspect the same of Kaniürü and the other followers of the Ruler.”
She felt like laughing again but held back. What was going to be an uneventful return to Eldares had turned out to be a drama of sorts, Nyawlra thought. A cat, a bird, and now an ogre? Maybe she had underestimated what Kamltl had gone through. Maybe the shooting and the coma had affected his mind.
She was up early the next day and went to buy the Eldares Times; by the time she came back Kamltl had already cooked. They sat down to a breakfast of bread, eggs, and lettuce. As she ate she kept glancing at the headlines.
“Oh, look at this,” she said to Kamltl, and pushed the newspaper across the table toward him.
On the front page was a picture of Sikiokuu. The caption said that the ex-minister had taken a delegation of the members of his Loyal Democratic Party to pledge loyalty and affirm that his party was ready to work with the Ruling Party to nurture the healthy growth of Baby D, and he called upon all the other loyal parties to follow his example. The same page had pictures of Kaniürü and Tajirika in their new roles as Ministers of Finance and Defense, respectively.
“Did you look at the pictures carefully? Did you see how they are dressed?” Kamltl asked Nyawlra, and pushed the newspaper back to her.
“I don’t see anything odd about it,” she said.
“They are wearing baseball caps turned backward.”
“So what?” Nyawlra asked, puzzled.
“Fear not the caps they are wearing but the mouths the caps might be covering.’’
Nyawlra raised her head from the newspaper and looked at Kamltl, her doubts about his sanity deepening.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she said in English, smiling at him, humoring him. “Okay I will ask Maritha and Mariko to visit Vinjinia.”
2
Several weeks later, Nyawlra got an urgent summons from Maritha and Mariko. She went to their place. Had they succeeded in their mission? What had Vinjinia reported? Nyawlra was pleased with the way she and Vinjinia had worked together in the past. In her hour of greatest need, Vinjinia had acted as her eyes and ears at the State House. She knew that Vinjinia was doing so mainly as a thank-you to the women who had come to her rescue, but still her acts of solidarity, no matter the motivation, showed that her heart was not made of stone. Her position as the managing director of the Mwathirika banks, with the Ruler’s sons on its board of governors, as well as the position of her husband, first as Minister of Finance and now as Minister of Defense, would make her invaluable to the movement. They had not communicated since Nyawlra’s presumed death, and so this message from Vinjinia was going to be a measure of where their relationship stood.
“Matters are not that good,” said Maritha.
“Property and power can change hearts,” Mariko said.
“Tell me the news,” Nyawlra said.
“We went to her place in Golden Heights,” Maritha said.
“Because she does not come to the cathedral as regularly as she used to,” Mariko explained.
“And we knew that this matter was important to you,” said Maritha.
“In the front yard was Tajirika’s Mercedes-Benz, with its ministerial flag waving in the wind,” Mariko said.
“When Vinjinia saw that it was us, she came outside and quickly led us back to the gates.”
“There was no please come in or anything like that.”
“No welcome with a cup of tea or water.”
“Not like old times.”
“It was as if she was now tired of us.”
“Not that we are complaining.”
“Oh, no. If anything, we are still grateful for the way she came to our defense against those soldiers. Oh, what has come over young people that they would turn on their mothers and fathers?” Maritha said.
“We pray for them daily.”
“That they may see the light and glory of the Lord.”
“Amen,” the two said in unison.
“So what happened?” asked Nyawlra, thinking that they were straying into irrelevance.
“We talked outside, at the gates,” Mariko said.
“And from the way she received us we knew that all was not well,” said Maritha.
“Yes, we sensed this long before she opened her mouth.”
“I asked her: How are the children?”
“She said: Gacirü and Gaclgua! You call them children? These days they cease to be children the moment they go to secondary school. They are young adults. Anyway, they are at home on holidays. But what wind has blown you toward these parts?”
“So we told her,” started Maritha.
“That we have a message from the dead …” added Mariko.
“She did not even let us finish. She said that she did not want any messages from the dead. Things have changed. Aburiria is no longer what it used to be. To us is now born a savior, Baby D. The people who used to give a bad name to the Buler, like the late Machokali and the ex-minister Sikiokuu, with their endless fights for power, are no longer. The Buler has a plan to improve the lot of women and give them jobs previously for men only. And he has already started to implement his plan; there are women assistant ministers and managing directors of the banks. The Buler has called on all citizens to keep in step with Baby D …” Maritha paused and then stopped, as if she did not really want to come to the next part of the message.
“And then she said that the dead or her ghost should be told that
Vinjinia was very angry with her for suggesting that her husband was growing a second mouth at the back of his head,” Mariko said bluntly.
“That her husband is not a two-mouthed ogre or any other type of ogre.”
“The cap that Tajirika wears was a special gift from the Global Bank, and in any case it is now a fashion in the West. Even she, Vinjinia, was now regularly wearing a scarf on her head as demanded of women by the apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians and the apostle Peter in his first letter to the world.”
“Yes, people should give Baby D a chance to grow.”
“The times of rumors and sorcery are gone, gone forever.”
“And then we heard the car in the yard rev up.”
“And the Mercedes we had seen in the yard came past the gate and hooted piii-piii.”
“It was Tajirika saying bye-bye to Vinjinia.”
“He had come for a change of clothes, Vinjinia told us.”
“Very busy with the business of the nation, she added.”
“And she was about to slam the gates shut before our very eyes …”
“Saying that she had another meeting …”
“When Gaclgua suddenly came running and screaming …”
“That h
is sister Gacirü was stuck in the Lake of Tears.”
“Vinjinia screamed with terror and started running down the garden that sloped from the yard, with Gaclgua following behind.”
“We, too, followed.”
“I have never seen the likes of what I saw down in the valley below,” Mariko said.
“A group of duikers were suspended in the air in the act of leaping so that from a distance they looked alive and at different stages of the act,” Maritha explained, pointing a finger in the air as if even now, inside her house, she could still see them.
“And the birds, too … frozen in one spot in the sky as if suspended by the setting sun,” Mariko added, also pointing a finger at a scene visible only to themselves.
“Yes, because the setting sun sent orange rays to where the animals hung suspended in the sky”
“On the surface of the lake were many more creatures also trapped at a standstill.”
“A hen and its young ones. And a cock running after another hen.”
“And just as it stretches its wings to mount …”
“Wonders will never cease. Ducks, too …”
“See that cat about to jump on that mouse …”
“What about that dog with its mouth open, barking silence at the birds in the air?”
“And those two goats and the cow with its young following behind, and in the middle stands Gacirü, their daughter,” said Maritha.
“Frozen in the act of running.”
“A shadow.”
“A human silhouette.”
“Like Lot’s wife.”
“Except that Gacirü had not yet turned to stone.”
“Or to a pillar of salt.”
“We found Vinjinia by the lake.”
“And their boy … Gaclgua.”
“Both crying for Gacirü … calling out endearingly, Cirü, oh, our Cirü.”
“And Cirü does not hear, does not turn.”
“They are both afraid to touch the lake.”