Free The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

from the side. She danced, sang; describing love; telling of relationships between a woman and a man; scenes and words of loving-making. The missionaries in Siriana would certainly have condemned her to eternal hell. Waiyaki gazed at her. Something slightly stirred in him. In the yellow light she appeared beautiful and happy, a strange kind of elation.
    Somebody pulled him into the circle. It was Kinuthia. “Dance!” the girls shouted, pulling him along the circle and repeating some of the hip motions for him. At first that thing inside him kept him aloof, preventing him from fully joining the stream. Although his body moved and his mouth responded to the words, his soul did not fully participate. Then, from a corner, he heard his name. They were singing for him, some praising him and others making jibes at him. The name was taken up by the drummers and the soloists.
    The frenzy and shrieks were up again. And suddenly he felt as if a hand soft and strong had held his soul and whipped it off. It was so strange that he felt his emotions and desires temporarily arrested in a single timeless moment; then release. Waiyaki was nothing. He was free. He forgot everything. He wanted only this thing now, this mad intoxication of ecstasy and pleasure. Quick waves of motion flashed through his flesh, through his being.
    He was given a horn. He blew it madly. He jumped and swung his hips and did all sorts of marvels with his body. The others tried to follow him. Muthoni’s secret was out. You did not have to learn. No. You just gave yourself to the dream in the rhythm. Within a few seconds he found himself face to face with Muthoni. Both had been thrown into the center.
    And she seemed to hold him still. Not with hands. Not with anything visible. It was something inside her. What was it? He could not divine what it was. Perhaps her laughter. He thought there was magic in it because it rang into his heart, arousing things he had never felt before. And what was shining in her eyes? Was there a streak of sadness in them? For a time Waiyaki was afraid and looked round. His mother was watching them. He turned to Muthoni. The magic was not there any more; it had gone. In the next moment Waiyaki found himself wandering alone, blindly away from the crowd, wrestling with a hollowness inside his stomach. He felt hurt. He had laid himself naked, exposed himself for all the eyes to see.
    He ran into her in the darkened fringe of the trees. She stood there and the only communication between them was quiet breathing, as if each had his own devil to wrestle with.
    â€œYou are a rebel,” he said, almost unconsciously.
    â€œYes—I am,” Muthoni answered defiantly.
    â€œWhy did you do it, Muthoni?” he asked with bitterness.
    â€œDo what?”
    Waiyaki felt foolish. The words had just formed and he had meant to speak to her gently, coaxing the story out of her. And now he relented. He stammered with confusion.
    â€œI—I mean—eh—eh—running—going away from your father.” She did not answer at once. There was silence between them. They could not see each other in the darkness but they felt each other’s presence by their breathing. Then she spoke, in a clear voice but slightly vibrant with sadness.
    â€œNo one will understand. I say I am a Christian and my father and mother have followed the new faith. I have not run away from that. But I also want to be initiated into the ways of the tribe. How can I possibly remain as I am now? I knew that my father would not let me and so I came.” Her voice seemed to change. Yet she was speaking in the same tone. Waiyaki, however, felt as if she had forgotten him, as if she was telling her story to the darkness. “I want to be a woman. Father and Mother are circumcised. But why are they stopping me, why do they deny me this? How could I be outside the tribe, when all the girls born with me at the same time have left me?”
    Muthoni’s