Summary
Matigari and Mũriũki eat at the restaurant, where Matigari is surprised to find the bar staffed entirely by women. The barmaids put on the "housewives' programme," a radio show run by the "minister's wife," who encourages women to give up "adultery and drunkenness" and "take refuge in the church." Matigari realizes he should interview women to search for his people.
A captivatingly beautiful woman named Gũthera enters the bar and tells the other women about being harassed by a police officer. Though she is a sex worker in desperate need of money, she refuses to take on police officers as clients, as their "money stinks of blood." Gũthera flirts with Matigari, who chastens her, rejecting her advances.
Gũthera leaves the bar, and outside, the policeman she rejects orders his dog to attack her. A jeering crowd gathers around her as she stares "death in the face." Matigari, remembering his commitment to nonviolence, shouts down the crowd, criticizing them for "watching the beauty" of their shared home "being trodden down by these beasts," meaning the police. Because of his courageous pronouncement, the policemen assume Matigari is "an eminent person dressed plainly" and leave him alone.
Back in the bar, the other women comfort Gũthera, who tells Matigari her story. Gũthera grew up in the Christian church under the care of a kind father. During a war, Gũthera's father is arrested for "carrying bullets in his Bible." She visits him in prison, where the superintendent offers her a deal: her virginity in exchange for her father's life. When Gũthera refuses, her father is killed, plunging her family into poverty. Gũthera's church community, fearing her father's "terrorist" connections, refuses to help her. With no other options, she decides to sell sex for money, though she cannot make enough to give her siblings a high standard of living. Because a policeman blackmailed her for her father's life, Gũthera's "eleventh commandment" is to never sleep with a police officer.
Matigari then shares his story and asks for Gũthera's help finding his family. She suggests he "go to the plantations," where many women without other options are forced to work. To "express her gratitude for what he had done for her," Gũthera offers to take Matigari to a plantation where he can speak to the women laborers.
Matigari, Gũthera, and Mũriũki walk through the heat to an empty tea plantation that "spread out uniformly and endlessly in all directions." Mũriũki and Gũthera explain that individuals or foreign companies own the land and that the police often use violence to quell worker's strikes. When the group cannot find the plantation laborers, they decide to sleep for the night, but Matigari is disappointed not to have found his family.
A pair of horses gallop past Matigari and his friends, leading them to "the house" Matigari built. Matigari approaches the riders, Robert Williams and John Boy Junior, the sons of Settler Williams and John Boy, who reveal that their fathers disappeared forty years previously. Matigari claims the house and explains his reasoning, and John Boy Junior, angered by Matigari insulting his father, whips Matigari.
As John Boy Junior explains his advanced education, Matigari realizes that he himself contributed to John Boy Junior's tuition, hoping that the child would use his education to "come back and clean up our cities, our country, and deliver us from slavery." However, John Boy Junior has adopted an individualist mindset; he argues that the country's belief in the value of "families, clans, nationalities, people, masses" holds them back from progress.
Matigari attempts to enter the house, and police officers arrest him, throwing him in a disgusting, pungent jail cell. The prisoners discuss the respective "crimes" for which they were charged, all of which were acts of desperation, such as stealing food, questioning the government, and attacking a colonist for unpaid wages. Matigari shares his food and beer with the inmates, who pool their supply of matches and candles to light the darkness.
Matigari tells his story, prompting a worker to share how he resisted workers' strikes to keep his job, believing that "a person who endures finally overcomes." However, he regrets his decision, as his time in the factory destroyed his health and left him with no savings or pension. The man then explains how local people have mythologized Matigari, saying he "transformed into a giant" to call off the police. He then reveals that Ngarũro wa Kĩrĩro escaped capture and that the Minister for Truth and Justice plans to visit the factory the next day. After a while, the prison door mysteriously opens, and the men escape.
Analysis
A mural on the wall of the bar depicts a group of animals sitting in a circle drinking beer while the lion collects money and encourages the rest to spend the little money they have on alcohol. This satirical image symbolizes the social state of Matigari's country. The government collects money from the citizens through taxes, encouraging them to numb their senses with alcohol to prevent them from realizing how they are exploited. The lion has the word 'tribute' written on his belly, which indicates that the country's leader redirects the tax money into his own pocket instead of spending it for the benefit of the public. By presenting the citizens as animals, the mural emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of post-colonial capitalism and satirically depicts complex social issues, like the interconnection between poverty and addiction.
The government of Matigari's country also uses sexist ideas to enforce an exploitative social order. For example, Matigari is shocked to see women working at a bar, ostensibly a form of social progress. However, the women's independence is only at the surface level. In the bar, they complete domestic tasks, like crocheting, and listen to a radio program directed at "housewives" that encourages women to stop "competing with their husbands in drinking and adultery." By this, the program means that women should uphold higher moral standards and that men are permitted to engage in "amoral" acts like drunkenness and infidelity. The program also encourages women to attend church; missionary Christianity here is another tool of colonial oppression. Thus, in Matigari's country, women are exploited economically as laborers equal to men, yet still suffer misogynistic double standards and sexual harassment.
The text makes heavy use of allusions to the Christian gospel to explore themes of revolution and resistance. The gospel stories center on the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, a rabbi who led a non-violent resistance against the Roman occupation of Israel and the oppression of the Jewish people before being executed. Similarly, Matigari leads "his people" to resist oppression using "the best of peace," uses cryptic language, gives moral sermons, and seemingly possesses superhuman powers, all allusions to the Christ figure. Just as Jesus in the gospels claims to be the eternal Son of God, Matigari claims he is an immortal being who was "there at the time of the Portuguese, and at the time of the Arabs, and at the time of the British" occupation of his country. The text's plot also explicitly references scenes from the gospel stories. For example, the scene when Matigari "rescues" Gũthera from the police references a Biblical story where Jesus intervenes on behalf of a woman "caught in adultery." In the prison, Matigari and his fellow inmates share a "last supper," in which the drunkard affirms that he will be like "John the Baptist," comparing Matigari directly to Jesus Christ.
The text itself also references famous Bible verses, changing terms and phrases to reference the text's plot. For example, Matigari affirms that "There is no greater love" than for "men and women [to] give up their lives for the people by taking to the mountains and forests." This quotation parallels the Bible verse John 5:13, "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends." The quotation explains how Matigari's pursuit of Settler Williams in the wilderness for forty years (similar to Jesus's forty-day temptation in the desert by Satan) is a sacrificial act that invites others to join the anti-imperialist revolution.
The text explores the cyclical nature of racism and colonial oppression through the characters of John Boy Junior and Robert Williams. John Boy Junior and Robert Williams inherit the tea plantation from their respective fathers, feeling that their advanced education and business ventures entitle them to their wealth. Matigari expects John Boy Junior to side with Matigari and his people, as John Boy Junior is Black, and his education was funded by Black people who hoped John Boy Junior would use his education to end social and economic oppression. However, John Boy's wealth and status influence his worldview, and he looks down on other Black people for prioritizing community development over individual achievements. His physical description emphasizes John Boy Junior's corrupted outlook. Matgari notes that Robert Williams, a white colonizer's son, and John Boy Junior look and act precisely the same: "the only difference between the two men was their skin color." John Boy Junior also benefits from racist, colonial oppression, illustrating Matigari's belief that there are only two types of people, "those who sell out, the traitors, and those who serve the people, the patriots."
Robert Williams and John Boy Junior amusedly observe Matigari's claim on the house, calling the interaction a "play" in which John Boy Junior is an actor and Robert Williams is the "audience." Through this language, the text distinguishes John Boy Junior's position in society and Robert's. John Boy Junior distances himself from other Black people in his country, but he is still expected to use his identity and labor to uphold a neocolonial system. As a wealthy white man, Robert profits off others without having to interact with the working class.
Different characters throughout the text serve symbolic roles, represented by their names. For example, while in prison, Matigari befriends the inmates who have been arrested for pickpocketing, manslaughter, homelessness, and various other petty crimes. The text refers to each character by their offense, rendered in quotation marks, such as the "thief," the "vagrant," and the "murderer." By placing each symbolic title in quotation marks, the text affirms that each character's crimes were justified, as they were acts of desperation caused by living under extreme oppression and exploitation. Additionally, these titles comment on how those accused of crimes are labeled and dehumanized despite their unique circumstances and identities.
