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The Crows of Kille Manjaro |
| Written by Joseph Galea | |
| Friday, 08 February 2008 | |
Alfred and Henry sat in silence on the park bench. They came to this spot often on their frequent walks through the park. Both were retired and had been friends for many years. Their deep friendship did not require them to speak much to each other. They just walked and sat together, enjoying the natural beauty of the park and each other’s quiet company. The bench was their favourite resting-place on their walks through the park. It was in a small clearing at the edge of a woodlot, surrounded on three sides by large trees, birches mainly, but also enough evergreens to keep it from looking too forlorn in the winter. On the fourth side, the open side, stretched a large expanse of lawn where young mothers brought their children to play. There was nobody around today. It was a school day. The only sounds were the rustling of the trees played upon by a light breeze and the occasional scampering of a squirrel on his way to hoarding nuts for the coming winter. Suddenly, a shrill cry filled the air – the loud cawing of a crow. The elderly friends looked up and around to see where it was coming from. “Caw, Caw, Caw” came the call again, as if calling to them. To the right of where they were sitting, on one of the highest branches of a large birch tree, was a big black crow. As they looked, another joined it on the branch, and then yet another and another. They seemed to come out of nowhere. They perched there, occasionally flapping their wings and cawing in that shrill, harsh voice of theirs. The first crow flew down to the ground, some twenty feet in front of where the two friends sat. From its vantage point it had seen a scrap of bread, probably discarded by some child, and flew down to claim it. Its three colleagues soon joined it on the ground, cawing vigorously, flapping their large strong wings, requesting that the newfound treasure be shared with them.
“They remind me of Kille Manjaro!” said Alfred. “Kilimanjaro?” asked his friend, “you never told me that you’ve been to Africa!” “I haven’t. I said, Kille Manjaro, not Kilimanjaro. Kille was his first name, short for Achilles, someone told me. He was a strange one, Mr. Manjaro was, that’s for sure! His was one of the strangest cases I’ve ever come across. In many ways it’s why I left England I suppose.”
“Tell me about it,” said Henry, intrigued by the sudden seriousness in Alfred’s voice.
“It was many years ago, oh 47 or 48 years ago I’d say. I was a young constable then, in a small village in England. It was a nice place to live. Quiet, friendly people; everyone knew and looked after each other. Mr. Manjaro lived on the outskirts of the village, in a small one-bedroom cottage, with a large barn in the field at the back. He was a black gentleman, unusual in a small English village at the time. He was tall, at least six-foot-three. He spoke English well, but nobody knew much about him. The older folk in the village said he had shown up one day with title to the dilapidated cottage and barn and took up residence there. Over the years he had fixed up the property, doing all the work himself. He kept himself to himself, only going into the village to buy groceries. Rumours abounded about who he was. The one that persisted was that he was a Masai warrior, exiled by his tribe, for reasons unknown, and brought to England by a British Army Colonel who had befriended him. It was this Colonel who probably gave him the name Achilles. The children of the village believed he was a witchdoctor. But despite their fear, and against their mothers’ advice, they were drawn to his cottage. Manjaro used to see them staring at him from behind the fence, but never said anything to them. Every morning he would walk to his barn and spend hours in there. There always were many crows around the Manjaro place. They seemed to live there – perching on the roof, looking for food on the ground, and flying in and out of a small open window in the front gable of the big barn. The children used to say that Manjaro spoke to the birds. They said they perched on his shoulders and spoke in his ear.
Old Manjaro and what he did in his barn all day intrigued me. However, there never was any complaint about him, except from an old army type, old Jake Cooper, who often gave vent to his bigotry at the local, especially after he had had a few pints of his favourite bitter. He used to echo the children’s claim about Manjaro being a witch doctor. “I tell you, I’ve seen men like him in Africa. They can cast spells – even make animals do their bidding,” he used to tell anyone who would listen to him. But nobody paid him much attention. The villagers were generally down-to-earth, live-and-let-live people. So long as old Manjaro didn’t interfere with their lives, they did not care who or what he was.
Except for an occasional “Good Evening” when I came across Manjaro in his garden on my evening beat, I had never spoken to him. I had never set foot on his property either, that is till one day old Cooper was found dead in his sitting room, sitting in his favourite chair in front of the television.
There really was no reason for me to go see Manjaro. Cooper’s death was certified as being due to a heart attack. There were no signs of foul play and the case was closed. Any unusual event in a small village causes some gossip, and so did Cooper’s passing, but after he was buried and respects paid, it was soon forgotten. However, the scared look on Cooper’s lifeless face, when I had first gone to investigate continued to haunt me. I had asked the coroner about it, and he said it was quite usual to see that expression on heart-attack victims – “it’s the realization that one is about to die!” he had told me. But when the ambulance men came to take his body away, I had noticed something else. Something I never mentioned to anyone until today. In one corner of the room, behind the television I saw a stain on the carpet. It looked like fresh bird droppings, and from a largish bird at that.
On one of my regular village rounds some weeks later I decided to stop in on Mr. Manjaro. When I got to his property, I walked through his well-tended front garden to the front door of his cottage. I knocked. No reply. I knocked again but was greeted by more silence. I was about to return to my beat, when I felt a presence. I walked to the back of the house but still saw nobody. Suddenly a loud “Caw! Caw!” startled me. I looked in the direction of the cry, and then I saw him. He was standing quietly, at the door of his big barn. On the roof above him perched a large crow, whose cry had drawn my attention. He motioned “Come!” to me, and as I walked up to meet him he turned round and entered the barn.
I found him sitting at a large table. Only the light from a small table lamp disturbed the gloom filling the large barn. Without looking up, he pointed out an empty chair, and I sat down. He continued to work silently at his task. The stuffed crow he had mounted on a section of a log seemed to come to life as he inserted the glass eyes into its proud head! He pushed the finished work back a little and sat quietly admiring it for a few moments, a shadow of a smile appearing on his stern, but majestic features. He then turned his penetrating eyes towards me, “he was a proud one,” he said indicating the bird. “Fifteen years old, and very wise. He came to die here. They are all very wise, very brave. Very intelligent, misunderstood creatures. I understand them. In my small way I help them retain their pride, their majesty, their glory!” He swept his hand in a wide arc to indicate the dark space of the barn beyond our circle of light. I looked around, and as my eyes became adapted to the shadows, I could see them. The barn was full of crows. Some were perched on the rafters, some were in full flight with their strong wings spread out. Most were stuffed, although I could see movement up above.
It was a surreal scene; I felt I was dreaming. But then a voice called me back to reality: “And how can I help you?” it said in a thick accent. I was speechless. I had forgotten why I had come to visit this strange old African man. The place was deadly quiet – even the movement above had stopped. The silence matured around us – and then the voice again: “Maybe you want to ask about Mister Cooper?” Then it came back to me, but I felt I was intruding, going into areas where I did not belong, and I said sheepishly: “Well, yes, actually! Did you know Mr. Cooper.” The silence returned. A pregnant pause later: “I never had the pleasure of meeting him. I knew of him. I know he did not like me. I know he said bad things about me to others. But his feelings about me were of no consequence to me. He never spoke to me. I never spoke to him.” “But then, how did you know he did not like you, that he talked badly about you?” He laughed, a short, deep laugh, which in my state of mind I found rather eerie, “A little bird told me; well maybe not so little!” He laughed his brief eerie laugh again as he pulled the stuffed crow on the table a little towards him. Then in a serious tone he said, “I joke. In a small village such as this it is difficult to keep secrets. Everyone knows what everyone else thinks.” I wanted to ask about the stain on the carpet but didn’t know how. “You have anymore questions for us?” he said. The “us” was not lost on me, but I said nothing. I felt uncomfortable in this aged man’s presence and his stuffed and living crows. I wanted to get away. “No. Thank you for your time,” I mumbled. We stood and faced each other. I put out my hand to him and we shook hands. He had a very strong grip for a man his age – a warrior’s grip. “You are a good man, constable,” he said “ be assured we had nothing to do with Mr. Cooper’s death. Men are often victims to their own fears.” I nodded and walked away, out of the barn and into the real world again. As I closed the garden gate behind me a crow cawed loudly from the direction of the barn. I imagined it a goodbye, hoped it was not a warning.
I never saw Mr. Manjaro again after that day, but village life continued as usual. The children still went to try and catch Mr. Manjaro talking to the crows. He still kept to himself. On my regular evening beat I sometimes saw a dim light in the big barn at the back of his house and I imagined the old man at work, restoring some crow who had come to him to die to its former glory.”
Alfred paused in his story. He looked up at the crows in the birch tree, their argument about the bread resolved, the bread long eaten. They were sitting there, watching, looking out over the park with their intelligent eyes. Another crow joined them, cawing loudly, a refrain that was soon taken up by the others. Then they all took off on some common mission. Alfred followed them with his eyes, saw them soaring into the wintering sky, and then come to ground on the far end of the park.
“So whatever happened to the man?” asked Henry, curiously.
Alfred came to from his reverie. “It was a year later, maybe two, I forget now. Time passes so quickly. It was on my morning beat. I used to patrol the village twice a day, once in the morning, and then in the evening. On foot, or maybe on my bike if it was raining. None of your fancy patrol cars, in those days.”
“Manjaro! What happened to Manjaro?” insisted Henry impatiently.
“Oh, yes!” continued Alfred. “As I said, a year or so later, as I approached Mr. Manjaro’s place I noticed a black mass overhead. It was crows. I never saw so many of them together. I stopped and saw them land on the barn roof on Manjaro’s property. Then I saw the others – they were all over the place, the lawn was practically covered in black birds. I could see doors to the barn were open wide and birds were flying in and out. The uncanny thing was they were so quiet. Not as much as a single caw among them all. They just congregated there, and every few minutes they were joined by new arrivals. There must have been hundreds of them. I tell you, it was the eeriest sights I will ever live to see. I went up to the main cottage and knocked loudly on the door. As on my previous visit, there was no reply. I made my way cautiously towards the back of the house and the pathway to the barn. It was difficult to walk through the seething mass of crows that had gathered on that lawn. I was scared, scared that these strong birds with their sharp beaks would turn on me. In their large numbers they could have easily overwhelmed me and picked my bones clean had they wanted to, but they seemed not to notice me. They parted before me as I walked slowly to the open doors of the barn.
The semi-darkness of the barn was made even darker by the black birds milling around in the space. Live crows mingled with their many stuffed kin in their various lifelike positions throughout the barn. And all of this in silence, except for the rustle of feathers and the scraping of taloned feet on the old wood rafters.”
“So, was Manjaro there?’, asked Henry, impatient to find out the ending to Alfred’s weird tale.
“At first, all I could see were crows,” continued Alfred. “Crows on the ground, in the air, on the walls, up in the roof space – just blackness of feathers in the gloom of the barn. I walked around slowly. On the table, at which we had sat on my previous visit, was an unfinished work of Manjaro. It was a large crow, wings spread wide as if coming in to land. It appeared alive till I noticed that its eyes were missing. There was nobody there. Then I noticed a dim light towards the back of the barn and made my way there through the black sea of crows. The light was coming from a small room built inside the barn. The door was ajar, and lines of crows were streaming in and out of the room. I opened it slowly and went in. That is where I found him. “
“Was he dead?” asked Henry anxiously.
“He was standing motionless in a corner of the room, looking as alive as I had seen him at our first meeting. But he was naked, except for a decorated loincloth. In his left hand he carried a round shield, while in his right he held a tall spear. He had large earrings in his ears, and other decorations about his body. Everything about him, as I found out later, indicated a proud Masai warrior of the highest standing. I called out to him, but got no reply. As I walked slowly towards him I sensed a distinct change in the mood of the crows in the room. I was afraid, but I was also determined to see the matter through. As I walked to him I kept speaking to him, but still he did not reply. He just stared ahead of him, holding his head up high, proud and secure in what and who he was. Then I was standing next to him. I did not dare touch him for fear of his feathered guardians, but it was obvious that Kille Manjaro was dead. I could not understand it. How could someone die and remain standing proudly holding his shield and his spear, the symbols of his people? I slowly walked around the lifeless, and yet so apparently live, body of the old Masai warrior. And suddenly I knew. I looked more closely at the gleaming black skin of his body and saw the small neat stitches of expert taxidermists.” Copyright 2008 Joseph Galea |
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