Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (536 page)

Once before we had lived in harmony with the land, many long years ago. Then had come the printed word. It turned us first into slaves, and then into Christians, and then into soldiers and factory workers and mechanics and politicians, into everything that the Kikuyu were never meant to be. It had happened before; it could happen again.

We had come to the world of Kirinyaga to create a perfect Kikuyu society, a Kikuyu Utopia: could one gifted little girl carry within her the seeds of our destruction? I could not be sure, but it was a fact that gifted children grew up. They became Jesus, and Mohammed, and Jomo Kenyata—but they also became Tippoo Tib, the greatest slaver of all, and Idi Amin, butcher of his own people. Or, more often, they became Frederich Neitzsche and Karl Marx, brilliant men in their own right, but who influenced less brilliant, less capable men. Did I have the right to stand aside and hope that her influence upon our society would be benign when all history suggested that the opposite was more likely to be true?

My decision was painful, but it was not a difficult one.

“Computer,” I said at last, “I have a new Priority Order that supercedes my previous directive. You are no longer allowed to communicate with Kamari under any circumstances whatsoever. Should she activate you, you are to tell her that Koriba has forbidden you to have any contact with her, and you are then to deactivate immediately. Do you understand?”

“Understood and logged.”

“Good,” I said. “Now deactivate.”

* * * *

When I returned from the village the next morning, I found my water gourds empty, my blanket unfolded, my
boma
filled with the dung of my goats.

The
mundumugu
is all-powerful among the Kikuyu, but he is not without compassion. I decided to forgive this childish display of temper, and so I did not visit Kamari’s father, nor did I tell the other children to avoid her.

She did not come again in the afternoon. I know, because I waited beside my hut to explain my decision to her. Finally, when twilight came, I sent for the boy, Ndemi, to fill my gourds and clean my
boma
, and although such chores are woman’s work, he did not dare disobey his
mundumugu
, although his every gesture displayed contempt for the tasks I had set for him.

When two more days had passed with no sign of Kamari, I summoned Njoro, her father.

“Kamari has broken her word to me,” I said when he arrived. “If she does not come to clean my boma this afternoon, I will be forced to place a thahu upon her.”

He looked puzzled. “She says that you have already placed a curse on her, Koriba. I was going to ask you if we should turn her out of our
boma
.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Do not turn her out of your
boma
. I have placed no
thahu
on her yet—but she must come to work this afternoon.”

“I do not know if she is strong enough,” said Njoro. “She has had neither food nor water for three days, and she sits motionless in my wife’s hut.” He paused. “
Someone
has placed a
thahu
on her. If it was not you, perhaps you can cast a spell to remove it.”

“She has gone three days without eating or drinking?” I repeated.

He nodded.

“I will see her,” I said, getting to my feet and following him down the winding path to the village. When we reached Njoro’s
boma
he led me to his wife’s hut, then called Kamari’s worried mother out and stood aside as I entered. Kamari sat at the farthest point from the door, her back propped against a wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms encircling her thin legs.

“
Jambo
, Kamari,” I said.

She stared at me but said nothing.

“Your mother worries for you, and your father tells me that you no longer eat or drink.”

She made no answer.

“You also have not kept your promise to tend my
boma
.”

Silence.

“Have you forgotten how to speak?” I said.

“Kikuyu women do not speak,” she said bitterly. “They do not think. All they do is bear babies and cook food and gather firewood and till the fields. They do not have to speak or think to do that.”

“Are you that unhappy?”

She did not answer.

“Listen to my words, Kamari,” I said slowly. “I made my decision for the good of Kirinyaga, and I will not recant it. As a Kikuyu woman, you must live the life that has been ordained for you.” I paused. “However, neither the Kikuyu nor the Eutopian Council are without compassion for the individual. Any member of our society may leave if he wishes. According to the charter we signed when we claimed this world, you need only walk to that area known as Haven, and a Maintenance ship will pick you up and transport you to the location of your choice.”

“All I know is Kirinyaga,” she said. “How am I to chose a new home if I am forbidden to learn about other places?”

“I do not know,” I admitted.

“I don’t
want
to leave Kirinyaga!” she continued. “This is my home. These are my people. I am a Kikuyu girl, not a Maasai girl or a European girl. I will bear my husband’s children and till his
shamba
, I will gather his wood and cook his meals and weave his garments, I will leave my parents’ shamba and live with my husband’s family. I will do all this without complaint, Koriba, if you will just let me learn to read and write!”

“I cannot,” I said sadly.

“Buy
why
?”

“Who is the wisest man you know, Kamari?” I asked.

“The
mundumugu
is always the wisest man in the village.”

“Then you must trust to my wisdom.”

“But I feel like the pygmy falcon,” she said, her misery reflected in her voice. “He spent his life dreaming of soaring high upon the winds. I dream of seeing words upon the computer screen.”

“You are not like the falcon at all,” I said. “He was prevented from being what he was meant to be. You are prevented from being what you are not meant to be.”

“You are not an evil man, Koriba,” she said solemnly. “But you are wrong.”

“If that is so, then I shall have to live with it,” I said.

“But you are asking
me
to live with it,” she said, “and that is your crime.”

“If you call me a criminal again,” I said sternly, for no one may speak thus to the
mundumugu
, “I shall surely place a
thahu
on you.”

“What more can you do?” she said bitterly.

“I can turn you into a hyena, an unclean eater of human flesh who prowls only in the darkness. I can fill your belly with thorns, so that your every movement will be agony. I can—”

“You are just a man,” she said wearily, “and you have already done your worst.”

“I will hear no more of this,” I said. “I order you to eat and drink what your mother brings to you, and I expect to see you at my
boma
this afternoon.”

I walked out of the hut and told Kamari’s mother to bring her banana mash and water, then stopped by old Benima’s
shamba
. Buffalo had stampeded through his fields, destroying his crops, and I sacrificed a goat to remove the
thahu
that had fallen upon his land.

When I was finished I stopped at Koinnage’s
boma
, where he offered me some freshly-brewed
pombe
and began complaining about Kibo, his newest wife, who kept taking sides with Shumi, his second wife, against Wambu, his senior wife.

“You can always divorce her and return her to her family’s
shamba
,” I suggested.

“She cost twenty cows and five goats!” he complained. “Will her family return them?”

“No, they will not.”

“Then I will not send her back.”

“As you wish,” I said with a shrug.

“Besides, she is very strong and very lovely,” he continued. “I just wish she would stop fighting with Wambu.”

“What do they fight about?” I asked.

“They fight about who will fetch the water, and who will mend my garments, and who will repair the thatch on my hut.” He paused. “They even argue about whose hut I should visit at night, as if I had no choice in the matter.”

“Do they ever fight about ideas?” I asked.

“Ideas?” he repeated blankly.

“Such as you might find in books.”

He laughed. “They are
women
, Koriba. What need have they for ideas?” He paused. “In fact, what need have any of us for them?”

“I do not know,” I said. “I was merely curious.”

“You look disturbed,” he noted.

“It must be the
pombe
,” I said. “I am an old man, and perhaps it is too strong.”

“That is because Kibo will not listen when Wambu tells her how to brew it. I really should send her away”—he looked at Kibo as she carried a load of wood on her strong, young back—”but she is so young and so lovely.” Suddenly his gaze went beyond his newest wife to the village. “Ah!” he said. “I see that old Siboki has finally died.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He pointed to a thin column of smoke. “They are burning his hut.”

I stared off in the direction he indicated. “That is not Siboki’s hut,” I said. “His
boma
is more to the west.”

“Who else is old and infirm and due to die?” asked Koinnage.

And suddenly I knew, as surely as I knew that Ngai sits on His throne atop the holy mountain, that Kamari was dead.

I walked to Njoro’s
shamba
as quickly as I could. When I arrived, Kamari’s mother and sister and grandmother were already wailing the death chant, tears streaming down their faces.

“What happened?” I demanded, walking up to Njoro.

“Why do you ask, when it is you who destroyed her?” he replied bitterly.

“I did not destroy her,” I said.

“Did you not threaten to place a
thahu
on her just this morning?” he persisted. “You did so, and now she is dead, and I have but one daughter to bring the bride price, and I have had to burn Kamari’s hut.”

“Stop worrying about bride prices and huts and tell me what happened, or you shall learn what it means to be cursed by a
mundumugu
!” I snapped.

“She hung herself in her hut with a length of buffalo hide.”

Five women from the neighboring
shamba
arrived and took up the death chant.

“She hung herself in her hut?” I repeated.

He nodded. “She could at least have hung herself from a tree, so that her hut would not be unclean and I would not have to burn it.”

“Be quiet!” I said, trying to collect my thoughts.

“She was not a bad daughter,” he continued. “Why did you curse her, Koriba?”

“I did not place a
thahu
upon her,” I said, wondering if I spoke the truth. “I wished only to save her.”

“Who has stronger medicine than you?” he asked fearfully.

“She broke the law of Ngai,” I answered.

“And now Ngai has taken His vengeance!” moaned Njoro fearfully. “Which member of my family will He strike down next?”

“None of you,” I said. “Only Kamari broke the law.”

“I am a poor man,” said Njoro cautiously, “even poorer now than before. How much must I pay you to ask Ngai to receive Kamari’s spirit with compassion and forgiveness?”

“I will do that whether you pay me or not,” I answered.

“You will not charge me?” he asked.

“I will not charge you.”

“Thank you, Koriba!” he said fervently.

I stood and stared at the blazing hut, trying not to think of the smoldering body of the little girl inside it.

“Koriba?” said Njoro after a lengthy silence.

“What now?” I asked irritably.

“We did not know what to do with the buffalo hide, for it bore the mark of your
thahu
, and we were afraid to burn it. Now I know that the marks were made by Ngai and not you, and I am afraid even to touch it. Will you take it away?”

“What marks?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

He took me by the arm and led me around to the front of the burning hut. There, on the ground, some ten paces from the entrance, lay the strip of tanned hide with which Kamari had hanged herself, and scrawled upon it were more of the strange symbols I had seen on my computer screen three days earlier.