Free The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Page A

words seemed to be opening a new world to Waiyaki. Yet he could not see it clearly. He was being carried by her voice as it vibrated.
    â€œI want to be a woman made beautiful in the tribe: a husband for my bed; children to play around the hearth.” It was a dream in which he was being carried, forgetting himself and the place where he stood. He remembered such another dream, long ago. But this was of a different nature, stirring violent and contradictory forces in him: “Yes—I want to be a woman made beautiful in the manner of the tribe. . . .”
    And she moved away in the dream with the dream and the darkness. Waiyaki remained where he was standing, feeling slightly dizzy and numb. Gradually he woke from his numbness. He was troubled. He walked back to the crowd. But he now knew that they would not catch him again for he was apart from it all. That night a feeling that he lacked something, that he yearned for something beyond him, came in low waves of sadness that would not let him sleep.

CHAPTER TEN
    There was mist everywhere. It covered Kameno, Makuyu and the other ridges in its thin white grayness. It was chilling, chilling the skin. But Honia river flowed on as if defying the mist. The water, however, was cold.
    To Waiyaki, bathing so early in the morning, the water seemed to cut his skin like a sharp knife. He shivered a little as he sat, naked, near the banks of the river. The cold water had gone through the skin, numbing the muscles. His arms, bent at the elbow, rested on the knees. The palms were folded tightly into a fist, so that the knuckles of the fingers appeared like little swellings. The thumbs passed between the first and second fingers and pointed upward. His penis had shrunk in size and, as Waiyaki looked at it, he wondered if it really belonged to him. Waiyaki was not alone. All along the banks the other initiates sat, waiting for the “surgeon.”
    All his life Waiyaki had waited for this day, for this very opportunity to reveal his courage like a man. This had been the secret ambition of his youth. Yet, now that the time had come, he felt afraid. He did not, however, show it. He just stared into space, fear giving him courage. His eyes never moved. He was actually seeing nothing. The knife produced a thin sharp pain as it cut through the flesh. The surgeon had done his work. Blood trickled freely on to the ground, sinking into the soil. Henceforth a religious bond linked Waiyaki to the earth, as if his blood was an offering. Around him women were shouting and praising him. The son of Chege had proved himself. Such praises were lavished only on the brave.
    Waiyaki sat still after the surgeon had left him. He was now covered with a white sheet. All was well. Yet the pain came and shook him to the roots. What was Muthoni feeling, he wondered. He thought that if he had been in her position he would never have brought himself into such pain. Immediately he hated himself for holding such sentiments. He was of the tribe. He had to endure its ways and be inside the secrets of the hills.
    His childhood days came and fleeted by. Many things clouded his mind; his early adventure; the years at school. He thought of Livingstone. What would he now think if he found Waiyaki sitting there facing the river, holding his penis with blood dripping on to his fingers, falling to the ground, while a white calico sheet covered him? Waiyaki wanted to laugh at the monstrous idea of Livingstone standing and watching all . . . a-a-a- . . . the numbness was wearing away . . . the skin alive again . . . pain . . . Waiyaki could not move. The pain was eating through him. That was the gate to the mystery of the hills. And that day when Chege took him to the sacred grove appeared vividly for a second. Then the experience lost its clear edges . . . most . . . strange how that old man defied time . . . had Waiyaki understood him?