Song of a Dry River Read online

  Kubandu, who lived in a neighboring village, had been found hoarding water that he had gathered before the river ran dry, and his neighbors burned his hut and killed his cattle.

  A brush fire had broken out in the western plains, and had destroyed eleven shambas before it had been stopped.

  Koinnage's visits to his mother became more frequent, more noisy, and more fruitless.

  Even Ndemi, who previously had agreed that the mundumugu could, by definition, do no wrong, again began to question the need for the drought.

  “Someday you will be the mundumugu,” I said. “Remember all that I have taught you.” I paused. “Now, if you should be confronted with the same situation, what will you do?”

  He was silent for a moment. “I would probably let her live on the hill.”

  “That is contrary to our tradition.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But she is living on the hill now, and all the Kikuyu who are not living on the hill are suffering.” He paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is time to discard some traditions, rather than punish the whole world because one old woman chooses to ignore them.”

  “No!” I said heatedly. “When we lived in Kenya and the Europeans came, they convinced us to discard a tradition. And when we found out how easy it was, we discarded another, and then another, and eventually we discarded so many that we were no longer Kikuyu, but merely black Europeans.” I paused and lowered my voice. “That is why we came to Kirinyaga, Ndemi—so that we could become Kikuyu once again. Have you listened to nothing I have said to you during the past two months?”

  “I have listened,” replied Ndemi. “I just do not understand how living on this hill makes her less of a Kikuyu.”

  “You had no trouble understanding it two months ago.”

  “My family was not starving two months ago.”

  “One has nothing to do with the other,” I said. “She broke the law; she must be punished.”

  Ndemi paused. “I have been thinking about that.”

  “And?”

  “Are there not degrees of lawbreaking?” said Ndemi. “Surely what she did is not the same as murdering a neighbor. And if there are degrees of lawbreaking, then should there not also be degrees of punishment?”

  “I will explain it once again, Ndemi,” I said, “for the day will come that you take my place as the mundumugu, and when that day comes, your authority must be absolute. And that means that the punishment for anyone who refuses to recognize your authority must also be absolute.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “This is wrong,” he said at last.

  “What is?”

  “You have not called down the drought because she has broken the law,” he answered. “You have brought this suffering to Kirinyaga because she disobeyed you.”

  “They are one and the same thing,” I said.

  He sighed deeply, and furrowed his youthful brow in thought. “I am not sure of that.”

  That was when I knew that he would not be ready to be the mundumugu for a long, long time.

  * * * *

  On the day that the drought was five months old, Koinnage made another trip to the hill, and this time there was no yelling. He stayed and spoke to Mumbi for perhaps five minutes, and then, without even looking toward me, he walked back to the village.

  And twenty minutes later, Mumbi climbed up to the top of the hill and stood before the gate to my boma.

  “I am returning to Koinnage's shamba,” she announced.

  An enormous surge of relief swept over me. “I knew that sooner or later you would see that you were wrong,” I said.

  “I am not returning because I am wrong,” she said, “but because you are, and I cannot allow more harm to come to Kirinyaga because of it.” She paused. “Kibo's milk has gone dry, and her baby is dying. My grandchildren have almost nothing left to eat.” She glared at me. “You had better bring the rains today, old man.”

  “I will ask Ngai to bring the rains as soon as you have returned to your home,” I promised her.

  “You had better do more than ask Him,” she said. “You had better order Him.”

  “That is blasphemy.”

  “How will you punish me for my blasphemy?” she said. “Will you bring forth a flood and destroy even more of our world?”

  “I have destroyed nothing,” I said. “It was you who broke the law.”

  “Look out at the dry river, Koriba,” she said, pointing down the hill. “Study it well, for it is Kirinyaga, barren and unchanging.”

  I looked down upon the river. “It's changelessness is one of its virtues,” I said.

  “But it is a river,” she said. “All living things change—even the Kikuyu.”

  “Not on Kirinyaga,” I said adamantly.

  “They change or they die,” she continued. “I do not intend to die. You have won the battle, Koriba, but the war goes on.”

  Before I could answer her she turned and walked down the long, winding path to the village.

  * * * *

  That afternoon I brought down the rains. The river filled with water, the fields turned green, the cattle and goats and the animals of the savannah slaked their thirst and renewed their strength, and the world of Kirinyaga returned to healthy, vigorous life.

  But from that day forth, Njoro never again addressed me as m'zee, the traditional term of respect the Kikuyu have always used to signify age and wisdom. Siboki built two large containers for water, each the size of a large hut, and threatened to harm anyone who came near them. Even Ndemi, who had previously absorbed everything I taught him without question, now seemed to consider and weigh each of my statements carefully before accepting them.

  Kibo's baby had died, and Mumbi moved into her boma until Kibo regained her health, then built her own hut out in the fields of Koinnage's shamba. Since she was still officially living on his property, I chose to ignore it. She remained there until the next long rains, at which time she became so infirm that she finally had to move to the hut she had formerly occupied. Now that she needed the help of her family she accepted it, but Koinnage later told me that she never sang again after the day she left my hill.

  As for myself, I spent many long days on my hill, watching the river flow past, clear and cool and unchanging, and wondering uneasily if I had somehow had changed the course of that other, more important river through which we all must swim.

  -end-