A Grain of Wheat: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

On the day of Uhuru, as people are awaiting nightfall and the beginning of the celebration that will formally mark Kenya’s independence, Mugo is spotted walking to the market in the rain. This is an odd behavior, conjuring images of Jomo Kenyatta returning from his exile during a rainstorm. To the people of Thabai, it merely confirms that “Mugo, our hero, [is] no ordinary man.” In Wambui’s eyes, Mugo is “Kihika born again” and thus vital for their Uhuru celebrations. Since Wambui “believe[s] in the power of women to influence events, especially where men [have] failed to act,” she and the other women of the village decide that Mumbi must go to convince Mugo to attend Uhuru.

Mumbi suffers when she returns to her parents—Mbugua is angry at her for abandoning her husband over a mere beating, though Wanjiku is privately sympathetic. She is also burdened by the knowledge that General R. will execute Karanja once he is exposed as Kihika’s betrayer. Although she hates Karanja, Mumbi also hates the thought of more death and violence attached to her brother. She decides to send word to Karanja in Githima, warning him not to attend the Uhuru ceremony.

Mumbi receives Wambui’s request that she speak with Mugo, and she goes to his hut, emboldened by the responsibility. She finds Mugo there, his voice oddly shaky, and she briefly remarks that she hoped Mugo would explain her story to Gikonyo, though it is too late for that to be reconciled now. She presses him to speak at the Uhuru celebrations this night. Mugo is reticent, but Mumbi realizes that she has a strange power over him, though he still will not speak. At first it seems to Mumbi that this is merely because of all of the horrible things he saw in detention, the torture and dehumanization, but Mugo finally admits that he is the one who murdered Kihika. Briefly falling into a wicked hysteria—seemingly the release of years of pent-up paranoia and fear—he attempts to strangle Mumbi as well. Mumbi resists, but then relents, realizing Mugo is not himself.

The narration moves to 1954, when DO Thomas Robson, known as Tom the Terror, oppresses Thabai and the surrounding region with a psychopathic fury. It is Tom who names the Freedom Fighters the Mau Mau and begins hunting them relentlessly. To the Gikuyu, he becomes a nightmare, seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once, always hunting, always stalking. In May 1955, as Tom is driving his jeep, a bent-over man is hobbling across the road. Tom calls him over to his jeep. The man approaches, visibly terrified, but when he is near, stands straight, pulls a pistol from his pocket, and shoots DO Robson twice in the chest.

Soldiers pour into Thabai and news spreads that DO Robson has been murdered. Mugo, only twenty-five years old, returns home from working his strip of land to rest, but as he is trying to sleep the sound of soldiers, screams, and whistles fill the village. Someone knocks quietly but insistently at the door and Mugo lets them in, expecting them to be homeguards. Instead, Kihika enters, shutting the door behind him. Mugo asks if Kihika means to kill him. Outside, soldiers are blowing whistles, searching huts, shouting madly. Kihika is visibly scared, and Mugo is terrified that he himself will be caught and labeled a Mau Mau terrorist. He blows out the oil lamp, and in the darkness Kihika explains that the Freedom Fighters do not kill without reason, but only certain targets to strike terror in the hearts of the whiteman and bring unity to the hearts of the blackman. Mugo, however, thinks he is a madman.

Kihika says that he has seen Mugo’s independence and self-sufficiency and believes he would be the best man to organize an underground movement in Thabai to support the Freedom Fighters. This alarms Mugo, but he does not have the strength to protest beyond saying that he has never taken the oath. Kihika responds that the oath itself is meaningless, merely a symbol to bind weak men to secrecy, like “water sprinkled on a man’s head at baptism.” Kihika can read men’s faces, and strong men such as Mugo have no need for an oath. Mugo considers running out the door and alerting the soldiers, until he remembers that Kihika has just killed a man and could certainly do it again. Unaware of these thoughts, Kihika arranges a time and place for them to meet in the forest in one week. They hear shouting and gunshots in the distance, and Kihika slips out and disappears into the night, a nervous “man on the run.”

Mugo sits alone by himself, unsure of what to do. His future seems obliterated, as Kihika has unjustly forced his own struggles upon Mugo’s life. Mugo bitterly reflects, “He is not satisfied with butchering men and women and children. He must call on me to bathe in the blood.” Mugo spends the next several days in fear, wandering between his hut and his land, convinced first that he will be arrested and then later that Kihika will come to murder him. More than anything, Mugo repeats to himself, “Why did [Kihika] do this to me?”

This anguish and Mugo’s wandering ends the moment he sees a wanted poster with Kihika’s face above a hefty monetary sum. Mugo is struck with a strange pleasure. His mind wanders to the righteousness of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, yet Isaac was spared from death. In Mugo’s mind, one thought rings clearly: “I am important. I must not die. To keep myself alive, healthy, strong—to wait for my mission in life is a duty to myself, to men and women of tomorrow.” These righteous notions mix with fantasies about money and the power and women that will bring him, cementing his place in society and proving to the world that he is someone important.

Mugo goes to the DO’s office and requests a private audience. The homeguards viciously harass him until John Thompson arrives, earning Mugo’s gratitude by saving him from the bullies. Mugo is nervous, but announces to Thompson that he knows where Kihika will be that very night. Momentarily, the act of betrayal thrills Mugo and he sees it as “a great act of moral courage.” This evaporates, however, when Thompson grabs him by the chin, spits in his face, and knocks Mugo to the floor, claiming that many have already given them false information. Mugo will be kept a prisoner until Thompson determines that his information is correct; if it is not, he will hang Mugo. Within that instant, Mugo is overcome with regret. “He did not want the money. He did not want to know what he had done.”