The Perfect Nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Author:Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2020-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Ogre and the Cure-All Hair

Njeri suggested we take different routes to circumvent the crocodile rivers.

After a few days, we entered a forest so thick that

We could not tell day from night and it was fatigue that forced us to rest.

We made fire, and, as was our habit, we took turns for rest and guard duty.

Some stayed awake as watchmen while the rest of us slept.

Wanjirũ interrupted our sleep; human screams had awoken her.

She had even seen, or thought she had, a big tongue snatch our guards,

But she couldn’t tell if it was a nightmare or not.

We stared at one another in terror, for indeed

We couldn’t see any of the three guards.

We said we should wait until dawn to look for them.

Then Waithĩra heard some steps heading toward us.

We struck the hard stones together, as you taught us, and

Waited for the sound echo to help us locate the source of the steps

Or even estimate the size of the thing that made them.

But no echo came back.

Suddenly we heard a voice loud as thunder:

“This forest is ogreland! Go back to where you came from.”

The thundering voice shook the forest. And yet

We still could not tell the direction it came from.

We pointed spears and arrows in all directions.

Wanjirũ offered to talk to it so that, as it answered, we would estimate its location.

“Who are you? A bodiless voice?

Are you a human, a bad spirit, or a good spirit?”

“I am Mwengeca, king of ogres,” the bodiless voice answered.

We looked blindly around at each other in the dark: The Mwengeca you told us about?

The one with the hair that could give power back to Warigia’s legs?

“How can we tell that you really are the Mwengeca?” Wanjirũ asked,

“Because right now we can’t even see you.”

“My body cannot be seen with human eyes,” the ogre said.

“It is impossible for you to know where I am, whether far or near.

My tongue is also my eye and mouth.

It shines like lightning and creates a path of light in the dark.

It lengthens like a chameleon’s reaching out for a fly.

It sees all and reaches all the corners of my forest.

“My hair cures all. Call it the cure-all,

For there is no wound it cannot heal.

Is that why you come to my forest?

To steal my cure-all?

Why do you want to end illnesses on earth?”

“We have no wounds in the heart or body for you to cure,” said Wanjirũ.

“Besides, we can cure ourselves. You are not the only know-it-all.”

“You, the talkative dame, are the one I have always looked for,” said Mwengeca.

“Smooth-tongued Wanjirũ, join me and together we rule my Forest Kingdom.”

Wanjirũ’s group shouted back in unison:

“A greedy heart has no cure but a knife in the heart.”

Spears raised, some of them made as if to move, but

Wanjirũ restrained them, saying, “Let the head lead the heart.”

Hurry hurry hardly ever gets things right.

What they sought from this ogre called for a wily mind.

She had not even finished, when out came a wide red tongue.

Before we had recovered from the shock, the tongue caught three other men,

Tying them together and pulling the human bundle to its hiding place.

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