Wizard of the Crow Read Free

moment.
    A record player was programmed to play only one hymn:
    Our Lord will come back one day
He will take us to his home above
I will then know how much he loves me
Whenever he comes back
    And when he comes back
You the wicked will be left behind
Moaning your wicked deeds
Whenever our Lord comes back
    The idea of the endless repetition of this hymn pleased him so much that he had amplifiers placed at the four corners of the seven-acre plantation so that passersby and even others would benefit from the tune and the words.
    Rachael would remain thus, awaiting his second coming, and on that day when he found that she had shed all the tears for all the tomorrows of all the children she had accused him of abusing, he would take her back to restart life exactly from where it had stopped, or rather Rachael would resume her life, which had been marking time, like a cinematic frame on pause. I am your beginning and your end.
    What were you before I made you my wife? he asked, and answered himself, A primary school teacher. I am the past and the presentyou have been and
I am your tomorrow take it or leave it,
he added in English as he turned his back on her.
    There was only one entrance to the seven-acre prison. An armed guard was stationed at the stone gate to make sure that she neither left or received visitors except officials who replenished supplies and doubled as spies, or else her children.
    Her children? Apart from the numberless others he begot upon his bed-makers, the Ruler had four boys with Rachael. They were not the brightest in their class, and he had taken them out of school before they had obtained their high school diplomas. He enlisted them in the army—to learn on the job—where they quickly rose to the highest ranks. At the beginning of their mother’s frozen present, the firstborn, Rueben Kucera, was a three-star general in the army; the second, Samwel Moya, a two-star general in the air force; the third, Dickens Soi, a one-star general in the navy; and the fourth, Richard Runyenje, an army captain. But apart from their military duties they were all on the board of directors of several parastatals closely linked to foreign companies, particularly those involved in the exploration of oil and the mining of precious metals. They were also on several licensing boards. Their main task was to sniff out any anti-government plots in the three branches of the armed forces, as well as to receive bribes. The only problem was that the four were so partial to alcohol and drugs that it was difficult for them to keep up with whatever was happening in the armed forces or on the boards over which they sat. The Ruler was rather disappointed, for he had hoped that at least one of his sons with Rachael might inherit the throne, establishing a mighty family dynasty, and so he often scolded them for their lack of ambition and appetite for power. Yet on the days when they brought him their collections, there was the celebratory atmosphere of a family reunion.
    They did not view their mother’s life in a seven-acre cage as a dangerous confinement, and when they were not too drunk they would call her—Rachael could receive calls but she could not call out—to say how are you, and when they heard her say that she was fine, they took it that all was well with her and they would quickly return to what they knew best: alcohol, drugs, and bribes.
    In calling her, albeit only now and then, the sons actually showed more humanity toward her than did their father, who never once visitedthe cage to say another word, good or bad. Despite this, Rachael was always in the Ruler’s mind, for he received daily reports of her moods and activities; how she spent her day, how she slept, the words she muttered to herself, everything.
    What he yearned to hear was any news of her tears, the one sign that would unerringly point to her breakdown and desire for redemption. But he didn’t. It is said by those who hold the fourth theory that Rachael, aware