"Resnick, Mike - Kirinyaga 5 - The Manamouki" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"I am saying that we will think about it," repeated Mwange.
"That is all that I ask," I said, getting to my feet and walking to the door of the hut.
"You demand a lot, Koriba," said Mwange bitterly.
"I demand nothing," I replied. "I merely suggest."
"Coming from the mundumugu, is there a difference?"
I did not answer her, because in truth there was no difference whatsoever.
* * * *
"You seem unhappy, Koriba," said Ndemi.
He had just finished feeding my chickens and my goats, and now he sat down beside me in the shade of my acacia tree.
"I am," I said.
"Mwange," he said, nodding his head.
"Mwange," I agreed.
Two weeks had passed since I had visited her and Nkobe.
"I saw her this morning, when I went to the river to fill your gourds," said Ndemi. "She, too, seems unhappy."
"She is," I said. "And there is nothing that I can do about it."
"But you are the mundumugu."
"I know."
"You are the most powerful of men," continued Ndemi. "Surely you can put an end to her sorrow."
I sighed. "The mundumugu is both the both the most powerful and the weakest of men. In Mwange's case, I am the weakest."
"I do not understand."
"The mundumugu is the most powerful of men when it comes to interpreting the law," I said. "But he is also the weakest of men, for it is he, of all men, who must be bound by that law, no matter what else happens." I paused. "I should allow her to be what she can be, instead of being merely a manamouki. And failing that, I should make her leave Kirinyaga and return to Kenya." I sighed again. "But she must behave like a manamouki if she is to have a life here, and she has broken no law that would allow me to force her to leave."
Ndemi frowned. "Being a mundumugu can be more difficult that I thought."
I smiled at him and placed a hand upon his head. "Tomorrow I will begin to teach you to make the ointments that cure the sick."
"Really?" he said, his face brightening.
I nodded. "Your last statement tells me that you are no longer a child."
"I have not been a child for many rains," he protested.
"Do not say any more," I told him with a wry smile, "or we will do more harvest prayers instead."
He immediately fell silent, and I looked out across the distant savannah, where a swirling tower of dust raced across the arid plain, and wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, what to do about Mwange.
How long I sat thus, motionless, I do not know, but eventually I felt Ndemi tugging at the blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders.
"Women," he whispered.
"What?" I said, not comprehending.
"From the village," he said, gesturing toward the path that led to my boma.
I looked where he indicated and saw four of the village women approaching. There was Wambu, and Sabo, and Bori, and with them this time was Morina, the second wife of Kimoda.
"Should I leave?" asked Ndemi.
I shook my head. "If you are to become a mundumugu, it is time you started listening to a mundumugu's problems."
The four women stopped perhaps ten feet away from me.
"Jambo," I said, staring at them.
"The Kenyan witch must leave!" said Wambu.
"We have been through this before," I said.
"But now she has broken the law," said Wambu.
"Oh?" I said. "In what way?"
Wambu grabbed Morina by the arm and shoved her even closer to me. "Tell him," she said triumphantly.
"She has bewitched my daughter," said Morina, obviously uneasy in my presence.
"How has Mwange bewitched your daughter?" I asked.
"My Muri was a good, obedient child," said Muri. "She always helped me grind the grain, and she dutifully cared for her two younger brothers when I was working in the fields, and she never left the thorn gate open at night so that hyenas could enter our boma and kill our goats and cattle." She paused, and I could see that she was trying very hard not to cry. "All she could talk about since the last long rains was her forthcoming circumsion ceremony, and who she hoped would pay the bride price for her. She was a perfect daughter, a daughter any mother would be proud of." Now a tear trickled down her cheek. "And then the Kenyan woman came, and Muri spent her time with her, and now" -- suddenly the single tear became a veritable flood -- "now she tells me that she refuses to be circumsized. She will never marry and she will die an old, barren woman!"
Morina could speak no more, and began beating her breasts with her clenched fists.
"That is not all," added Wambu. "The reason Muri does not wish to be circumcized is because the Kenyan woman herself has not been circumsized. And yet the Kenyan woman has married a Kikuyu man, and has tried to live among us as his manamouki." She glared at me. "She has broken the law, Koriba! We must cast her out!"
"I am the mundumugu," I replied sternly. "I will decide what must be done."
"You know what must be done!" said Wambu furiously.
"That is all," I said. "I will hear no more."