ECLIPSE (2 page)

“Shame,” a man called out.

“Yes,” Bobby answered. “But now it is not some colonial governor who rules us. It is a Luandian who has suspended our constitution, banned our political parties, jailed our leaders, and shut down our newspapers. Karama’s police extort money from the innocent; his prisoners rot for years without a trial; his judges take bribes before pronouncing sentence. And he uses ill-gotten petrodollars to pay off the
generals, bureaucrats, governors, and chiefs who help maintain his power, the better to siphon the billions he steals from us into American jets, Italian sports cars, and bank accounts in Switzerland.”

No,
Marissa thought—not at the sound of truth, but from fear of its consequences. For a moment, she shut her eyes, instinctively listening for alien sounds, perhaps a powerboat landing on the beach nearby, the first warning of an invader. Through the roar of flaring she heard a faint but familiar whir. “This must not be,” Bobby was saying. “People are not made for states—states are made for people.”

Marissa opened her eyes. From the sky behind her husband came a streak of light, blurred by the orange glow of the flare. Then the sound she heard merged with the silhouette of a helicopter, hovering above the palm trees with an arrhythmic thud, its beam aimed at the villagers, whose heads turned from Bobby to stare upward at the dark metallic bird. Marissa glimpsed a white circle painted on its side, framing the large black letters PGL.

On the platform, Bobby looked from the helicopter to his people, their connection to him severed by the fear stamped on their faces. Part of Marissa wished for Bobby to send them home.

Instead, his voice carried above the sounds of blades chopping air. He pointed to the intruder. “PGL, too,” he cried out, “is our oppressor. It banished peace from our land from the day it laid its first pipeline, letting nothing stand in its way—not trees or farms or rivers, nor even beast or man.”

As did the others, Marissa saw, Femi Okari looked from the helicopter to Bobby.
“Why?”
Bobby shouted. “Because we are
Africans.
Petro-Global does not rape the land in the United States or Europe—only in Luandia. And now we’ve become its pawns in a ruthless competition among superpowers frightened that terrorists will cut off the flow of the oil from the Middle East, their lifeblood . . .”

As though in answer, the helicopter swooped down over the platform, the swirling blades drowning out Bobby’s voice, its shaft of light impaling him like a lone figure in a passion play. Following the beam upward, Marissa could make out the fleshy face of a blond man gazing down from the chopper at Bobby Okari. And then, with a leisure that made its departure as ominous as its presence, the helicopter floated away until at last it became a shadow, vanishing in the half-light of an illuminated sky.

Only then did Bobby speak again, his voice softer but still resonant.
“Tonight, we demand that those whose lives depend on oil respect
our
lives and
our
lands. That the United States, PetroGlobal Oil’s home, require its subsidiary PGL to follow the high standard of human rights it professes to value and open its courts to our claims against it. That PGL renounce its pact with General Karama and his machinery of death and open its books so that we can see how much our government has stolen from us. That the Karama regime grant us the right to run our own affairs, and free elections where our ballots are counted, not burned.”

With each demand, the crowd seemed more inspired, its outcry louder and more sustained. “The people of Lana,” Bobby continued, “asked these things and were slaughtered for it. So now I tell Karama this.

“Tonight, throughout Asariland, Asari women are blocking the roads to PGL’s oil facilities. And, a few moments ago, Asari men in boats seized the offshore oil platform that mars the serenity of our fishing waters.” With the voice and manner of a prophet, Bobby pointed over the heads of his listeners. “Look, and you will see.”

Turning with the others, Marissa looked toward the mouth of the creek that ran beside the village to the ocean and saw the flicker of torchlights from the oil platform, as though suspended above the dark waters. Only then did she fully comprehend how much her husband had dared; when Bobby spoke again, the Asari turned to him in wonder. “The time has come,” he told them, “for General Karama to help us build the Asariland of our hopes.

“We know that he can do this. In four years he raised a new capital city from nothing, then named this glistening creation after himself.” Bobby’s lips formed a broad but ironic smile. “So we will promise him that every road, school, and hospital we build will bear his name. We will do this for him, yes?”

Amid the cheers and laughter someone called out, “Yes.”

“It must be so,” Bobby answered, his voice strong again. “For this has become a dangerous country. Too many of our young men, deprived of any future, drink gin and smoke weed from morning to night. Too many others have taken up arms and vanished to hideouts in the creeks, killing one another for the right to live as criminals. If Karama does not yield, we will descend into an unending darkness of corruption, criminality, murder, and reprisal, condemning those who survive to a permanent hell. And among the things that will
not
survive is PGL—”

“Kill them all,” a young man called out.

Glancing through the crowd, Marissa spotted him, a youth taller than most others—restrained from joining the militia, rumor had it, only by his attraction to Omo. Glancing at the girl, Marissa saw her downcast eyes fill with doubt and worry. “No,” Bobby answered. “To act with violence will only bring to our door reprisals far more terrible than what we saw in Lana. I want no more blood spilled in Asariland.”

Uncertainty filled the young man’s face; though some around him nodded their approval, others wore expressions grimmer and more opaque. As though to reassure them, Bobby continued: “But the government’s time is short. Every day our patience frays, and our youth slip beyond our power to restrain them. Karama and PGL must give us justice now, or there will be no peace for the powerful and PGL will be driven from Asariland.”

“Fuck
PGL,” a voice called, and then a ragged chant came from a cluster of young men near Marissa. “PGL, go to hell. PGL, go to hell . . .”

Bobby held up a hand, his face impassive until, at last, there was silence. “Let us march to join our brothers and sisters,” he told them, “and pray for the souls of our dead.”

AS CONCEIVED BY
Bobby, the climactic event would be a meeting with demonstrators from a neighboring village at the site of a recent oil spill, which, bursting into flames, had incinerated men and women from both villages who had come to scavenge for oil. Tonight those assembled would gather in memorial. But at least one of the villagers would be missing: Chief Femi Okari, Marissa noted, had gazed across the water at the torches flickering on the oil platform and then, shaking his head, turned away to walk home.

With Bobby and Marissa at their head, the people of Goro gathered where the road began, many with cigarette lighters held aloft. As the march commenced, the villagers began singing their anthem: “Be proud, Asari people, be proud.”

A few feet ahead, Marissa spoke to Bobby beneath the chorus. “Women blocking roads, men seizing the platform. Did your council approve?”

“Is it dangerous, you mean?”

His voice held a hint of challenge. “I already know that,” Marissa answered calmly. “So do the others.”

“Do you doubt me?”

“Only when I should. What did Atiku say?”

Bobby did not look at her. “Atiku is rallying support in England,” he answered in a weary voice. “Our young need more than words from us, or more will drift away.”

Through her misgivings, Marissa sensed that he had made this decision in the face of resistance from his lieutenants and found it painful to consider how this might end. Taking his hand, she asked, “Is today all you had hoped for?”

Bobby summoned a small smile. “Do you see their eagerness, the joy on their faces? For a day they are free of docility and fear.” He paused, then finished softly, “Were I to die right now, Marissa, I would die a happy man.”

His faintly autumnal tone reminded Marissa of the gray flecks she had begun to notice in his hair, the deepening grooves in his face that betrayed that he was not only older than she, but suffering from an exhaustion he tried to conceal from the others. She grasped his hand more tightly.

For a mile they walked at the head of the Asari along a dirt road forged by PGL repair crews between mangroves and palm trees, the orange glow of flaring gas lighting their path. Then Bobby stopped abruptly.

Marissa followed his gaze. At a fork in the road ahead, three silhouettes hung from the thick branches of a tree, specters in the devil’s light.

Turning, Bobby held up his hand. The marchers fell quiet, save for cries of shock from those who saw what Bobby saw. “Wait here,” Bobby told Marissa.

But she did not. Together, they moved toward the tree, stopping only when the three shadows became corpses. As Bobby held up his cigarette lighter Marissa saw that strangulation had contorted their faces and suffused their eyes with blood. All were Luandian; all wore denim shirts bearing the letters PGL.

Her stomach constricting, Marissa turned to Bobby. Tears shone in his eyes. “Now what will happen to us?” he murmured.

A stirring in the grove of palms behind the corpses made Marissa flinch. The figure of a large man emerged, followed by three others. As the men stepped into the light, Marissa recognized the familiar uniform of Luandian soldiers and saw their leader’s face.

Instantly she felt herself recoil: though she knew him only by the patch over his right eye, by reputation Colonel Paul Okimbo was a mass murderer,
a rapist, and, the survivors of Lana whispered, insane. Okimbo wore the eye patch, it was said, to conceal a walleye and, bizarrely, to evoke the Israeli general Moshe Dayan. Stopping beside the hanging bodies, he trained his remaining eye on Bobby, then Marissa, letting his gaze linger.

Facing Bobby, he said, “This is your work, Bobby Okari.”

“No,” Bobby answered. “Not mine, and not ours.”

Okimbo emitted a bark of laughter. “So you say. But soon you will face the justice of Savior Karama.”

Marissa watched Bobby exert the full force of his will to meet Okimbo’s stare. A spurt of anger broke the colonel’s impassivity. “Unless the Asari withdraw at once,” he snapped, “there will be consequences. Some will die.”

Feeling the dampness on her forehead, Marissa saw the sheen of sweat on Bobby’s face. With palpable reluctance, he answered, “As you say. But this will not end here.”

“Of that you can rest assured,” Okimbo responded with the flicker of a smile. “I know two hundred ways of killing a man, and more men than that who deserve to die.”

To Marissa, the silence that followed felt suffocating. Involuntarily, it seemed, Bobby looked from Okimbo to the corpses, hanging with eerie stillness in the dense night air.

Seeing this, Okimbo placed his hand on the back of the body nearest him, idly shoving it toward Bobby as though propelling a child on a swing. As the dead man slowly swung between them, Okimbo said softly, “For you, hanging will do nicely.”

T
HE DAY BEFORE HIS DIVORCE BECAME FINAL
, D
AMON
P
IERCE SENT
an e-mail to a friend, a woman he cared for deeply, the one who had chosen another man and another life.

Pierce was alone at Sea Ranch on the last weekend before the house became Amy’s, contemplating the rugged California coastline and what his own life had brought him. Now it was early evening, and the sun slowly setting over the cobalt-blue Pacific was so bright that Pierce squinted at the screen. Despite this, he composed his words with care: he had met her in a creative writing class and, even now, their exchanges strove to capture events in a way the other would appreciate and make a good-natured effort to surpass. It was a pleasure that Amy, far more literal and less romantic, had never understood; still less did she appreciate that this complex blend of admiration and remembered attraction, surviving time and distance, had come to hold a mirror to their marriage.

His e-mail reflected his mood, the ironic yet sober assessment of a man on the cusp of midlife—a partner in a fifteen-hundred-lawyer megafirm caught between an increasingly thwarted professional desire to do good and a former blue-collar boy’s appreciation of fine dining, good wine, and travel undreamed of in his youth. Among Pierce’s specialties was complex international litigation, in which he enjoyed a considerable reputation; as he had told his correspondent several years ago, “not everyone has put away for life the murderous president of a former Balkan rump state.”

Perhaps this experience as a war crimes prosecutor, the clearest expression of his still flickering idealism, reflected his admiration for her
commitment to others, the harder choices she had made. But his work in Kosovo was now years in the past. For Pierce, the chief residue of this time was the several hundred dead men, women, and children—the defendant’s victims—on whom the world’s attention had focused far too late, and whose images still came to him in dreams.

“Since returning to the firm,” he wrote now, “my practice has become more or less what you predicted. My principal clients are investment bankers and tarnished corporate titans staring at a stretch in prison for ambitions that exceeded the law. Some strike me as almost tragic; others as loathsome. A few are even innocent. Many of them I like—it’s me I wonder about. Often I remember what Charlie Hale, my best friend at the firm, said after our first week as associates: ‘Damon, my boy, us two will do well here. In ten years, we’ll be partners; in twenty we’ll have more money than time; in forty we’ll be looking back at our careers. And after
that
. . .,’ he finished with a sardonic grin, ‘there’s only one big move left.’

“Charlie, however, has a nice wife and three bright-eyed daughters he adores.