Oil on Water (18 page)

—I know the place. I was there with other reporters. We met nothing there but dead bodies and burned-down houses, I said.

—We went there in a speedboat, and I was surprised at how glad she was to see me. I promised her everything would be all right. They had locked her up by herself in one of the huts and she looked terrified. Well, in the morning we wrote the new ransom note and sent it to the husband, but we didn’t hear back from him, nothing. Two days we were there and by now the lady was beginning to fall sick and the army was out there patrolling the river trying to find her and we didn’t know how long we could remain undetected. Jamabo said we should go and meet the husband with a picture of her as proof. He wanted me to do it since I was the driver and the husband knew me. The other two said we should seek help from other gangs, bigger gangs who have done this kind of thing before, like the Professor. There was constant argument and fighting, and all the time, when I go to give her her food, she’d urge me to take her back home, that she’d make sure her husband paid me my share of the ransom money no matter how much it was. She said she’d not mention my part in it. But I told her I couldn’t. The others were watching us all the time and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me if they suspected anything. Besides, I couldn’t see myself taking the husband’s money like that: I still hated him. Anyway, things were resolved for us the next day when the whole island was surrounded by boats. It was the Professor. His men came out shooting into the air, they shot at goats and dogs and chickens just like that. They went from door to door till they came to us. We were all in the same hut, the hostage and Bassey and me and Jamabo and Paul, the man with the boat who Jamabo hired. Well, the Professor came in and I was surprised to see how small and ordinary he looked. I had read about him in all the papers and I always assumed he would be a big man. He sat down and he didn’t look at us, but he said to the madam, Are they treating you well? I hope they are, because if they are not, then they will be giving all of us a bad name. Kidnapping is not for amateurs, they make a mess, people get killed, and when they do the papers have a field day. They call us barbaric, and it spoils business for everyone. Jamabo quickly jumped in and said, We are taking care of her very well. Everything is under control. Ah, so you are the leader, the Professor said, turning and looking up at Jamabo. Jamabo nodded eagerly. And you think you can just kidnap people here in my territory, without letting me know? The Professor spoke very mildly, he didn’t raise his voice. And Jamabo kept nodding and even smiling, he said,
Haba
, Professor, we were going to contact you after everything has been settled. We will give you your share . . . And the Professor raised his hand and said to his men who were standing there holding guns, Take him out. And they grabbed Jamabo and took him out and after a minute we heard a scream, then a gunshot. Just like that. Well, everyone fell silent. We couldn’t believe what had just happened. But we never saw Jamabo again. Not even his dead body. The madam was holding my hand, and she was trying to hide behind me and she was whimpering like this, Mmmh, mmmmh, on and on, and she didn’t even know she was doing it. He looked at me and at her and he said, We are taking you off the hands of these idiots. But she was still whimpering and shaking her head and holding my hand and saying, Please, please, no. And he said, Believe me, you are more likely to get hurt in the hands of these idiots than with us. We will get in touch with your family and everything will be settled in a few days. We want this over as soon as possible. He looked at me and said, You must be the driver. She seems to trust you, so you will come with us. You are in charge of her welfare. And then Bassey raised his hand and said, Please, Oga Professor, I want to join you too. You are welcome, said the Professor. And we left together. They blindfolded me, and Isabel and Bassey. We were taken onto a boat and then we were on the water. It was a fairly long boat journey and when the blindfold was finally removed, we were on a strange beach with statues facing the water. They call it Irikefe.

I nodded.

—I know Irikefe.

—That day the Professor called me and said, How much were you idiots asking for?

—And I said three million, and he shook his head and said, Idiot. She is worth more than that. At least five million. We will send them her hair, that should convince them we have her. If it doesn’t, we will send an ear. But I hope it never gets to that, not good for business. She does have rather distinctive hair, so the husband should know it is hers. At the moment she is all over the news. That is good. The more publicity, the more money the company is willing to pay; if they refuse to pay, they will be seen in a bad light. So we will send the hair, then we will arrange a viewing. We will call the media to come in two days.

—The plan was to bring you reporters first to Agbuki, and then to Irikefe, where she was being held. And I was left with her because I was the only one she would talk to, and she was really falling sick by now. Vomiting all the time. She couldn’t eat the food. The Professor went with two boatloads of his men to Agbuki to wait for the media. He loves the media, he loves talking about his war for the environment and he wanted to receive the media personally and lead them to the worshippers’ island. But somehow the army had found out what was going on and were waiting for him when he got there. They thought he was with the woman. Many men were killed. But the Professor got away, they went back to Irikefe and that night we left the island with the hostage and came here.

—And what happened to your other partner?

—Bassey.

—Yes.

—He was killed by the soldiers on that island.

—Now tell me about the escape, how did you manage it?

He said although he was not confined in any way, he soon realized that he was as much a hostage in the forest as Isabel, and he grew scared. And meanwhile the woman grew sicker every day. After the attack at Agbuki, the Professor had raised the ransom money to ten million dollars, he had also grown more cautious and it didn’t look as if she’d be freed anytime soon. She grew more nervous, her face grew red and blotchy with insect bites and her clothes were all torn and dirty—they gave her a military jacket to put on when she washed her things. She cried more and more often, and more and more time went by, and at last Salomon gave in. He told her he would try to escape, but they had to plan carefully. The good thing was that even though general security was very tight, only one guard watched over them at any one time, because it didn’t seem conceivable that they’d make a break for it. Where would they go?

—It was not going to be easy. If we were able to leave the forest, we’d have to find one of the military camps out there, and if we didn’t find any, we’d have to find a village that would agree to hide us and help us get word to the military or to her husband. Hopefully they’d help us if we promised them money. I knew the people were more likely to betray us to the Professor—they fear the militants more than the army. But by now I was as desperate as she was to escape.

—How did you do it?

—At night, on a day when the camp was almost deserted, most of the men had gone on an operation, they do that all the time. I was in charge of her, as always. I knew where they keep the boats, over on that side, in a cave. There are always a few boats there; in case they are attacked suddenly by the army they can get away in the boats. And so that night she put on the military jacket and covered her hair and blackened her face a bit so she wouldn’t be recognized. The guard watching us always fell asleep around one p.m.; I guess he didn’t believe we would ever attempt to run away. So we waited till I was sure he was asleep, then we sneaked out. We almost made it to the boats when we were challenged by a voice right behind me. I didn’t think, I just threw myself at him, and luckily he didn’t have time to fire his gun. We fought and I bashed his head with a rock. I don’t know if he died. We rowed for many hours till we got to a village, and for a while luck was on our side. They were good people. They listened to our story, and they helped us.

21

W
hen I woke up the next morning a man was kneeling over me,
nudging me with his gun. I sat up quickly and the man stood up and moved back. The others were awake, except Salomon, who wasn’t anywhere to be seen. After our interview he had turned away from me and lain on his side, and he hadn’t gotten up even when our evening meal was brought by the same group that had fed us earlier. When I called to him to come and eat, he had said no, he wasn’t hungry. Now the man with the gun beckoned to me with one hand and turned and started toward the trees. For some reason I knew I was being taken to the Professor, and I was ready. In the time I had been here I had somehow managed to get over my initial fear and nervousness, and had finally come to believe what I always knew in my heart was true and yet had never taken consolation in: the Professor needed the press, and from all that I had heard about him, he wasn’t a madman who shot people for fun. He was a man with an agenda, and anything that could help him in that pursuit he’d treat with respect. I was that thing, and the more firmly I believed that, and behaved accordingly, the safer I would be.

The Professor was lying in a hammock hanging from two stunted mango trees, and he jumped down as soon as I was presented to him. There were about a dozen men around him, all armed, all looking distrustfully at me. Above us, through the tree branches, I could see the sun just breaking out of the eastern clouds. Most of the camp was still asleep.

—Journalist, it is a pity about your friend.

—My friend?

—The white woman’s driver. Didn’t they tell you? Didn’t anyone tell him? He tried to run away early this morning. He had done it once, and he thought it was going to be as easy as before, but you can’t fool the people all the time. My men saw him and gave chase and he lost his head. He jumped off the cliff and fell on the rocks below. He died instantly.

I closed my eyes.

—His body was taken away by the river. A tragedy, don’t you think?

—I find it hard to believe . . .

The Professor stepped forward till he was standing right in front of me, but the menace of this gesture was diminished by his short stature—his eyes were just about level with my chin. Two of his men stepped forward with him, and their combined presence forced me to take a step back, and yet I felt no fear.

—Are you calling me a liar, reporter?

—No, Professor. I am not. I don’t know you well enough to do that.

He looked at me for a while, and then he turned and hopped back into his hammock, his short legs swinging, his thick military boots clicking together, dropping bits of mud into the grass. He extended his arm and one of the men placed a rifle into the open hand.

—You reporters, you are always clever with words—me, I am a soldier, I know how to fight, and I will never stop fighting till I achieve my goal. Write that when you get back.

—I will do that.

—I called you here to set you free. You can go. There is a boat waiting for you. One of my men will take you to a nearby village and you will be on your own. We are going out on an operation; you may have noticed the whole camp getting ready. By this time tomorrow, one of the major oil depots will be burning. I want you to write about it, tell them I am responsible. I can’t tell you more than that, but I can tell you the war is just starting. We will make it so hot for the government and the oil companies that they will be forced to pull out. That is all I can say for now.

—What about the woman?

—The woman is safe, as you will see for yourself.

There was a movement behind the trees and two men appeared, leading Isabel. She looked as I had last seen her, still wearing the same clothes, her hair shockingly cropped short, but in her posture and in her gaze I detected a subtle change, a sort of resignation, a surrender to the strange and obscure forces that sometimes take over our lives, and which it is futile to resist. I made to go toward her but one of the men raised his gun and shook his head at me. My eyes met hers and I nodded, and she nodded, then she turned and was led away by the men.

—Take this envelope to her husband: it contains more of her hair. Tell him his wife is safe, but after two days, if we don’t hear from him, we can’t guarantee her safety anymore. We are getting impatient. Two days, final.

—There is another woman, from Irikefe. Her name is Gloria. Your men took her a few days ago . . .

—Ah, the nurse. She is gone. We set her free two days ago. Did you think we’d keep her here against her wish, rape her, maybe? We are not the barbarians the government propagandists say we are. We are for the people. Everything we do is for the people, what will we gain if we terrorize them? I am speaking for myself and my group, of course. I am aware that, out there, there are criminal elements looting and killing under the guise of freedom fighting, but we are different. Those kind of rebels, they are our enemies. That is why I am letting you go, so you can write the truth. And be careful, whatever you write, be careful. I am watching you. I have people everywhere.

—I will write only the truth.

He jumped down and came forward till his chin was almost touching my chest. This time he reached out a finger and poked me, his eyes locked with mine.

—Write only the truth. Tell them about the flares you see at night, and the oil on the water. And the soldiers forcing us to escalate the violence every day. Tell them how we are hounded daily in our own land. Where do they want us to go, tell me, where? Tell them we are going nowhere. This land belongs to us. That is the truth, remember that. You can go.

I SAT UNDER
a tree and watched the men come and go, some of them busy comparing guns, rolls of bullets draped around their shoulders like scarves. Some carried metal boxes that they passed down to the boats waiting in the river. They were on the warpath, and I was free. Soon I would have to set out on my own path, yet a heaviness lay on my heart, and I felt no exhilaration or joy or relief. I just felt tired, and hungry. I kept looking in the direction in which I had seen Isabel disappear, and I was tempted to go after her and assure her I would deliver the silent message she had passed to me with her eyes, and I would waste no time doing it. But she knew that already, I was sure.

OUR BOAT’S PROW
broke into the dense, inscrutable mist, making for open water. It was an old wooden boat with an outboard motor that looked just about capable enough to take us to the next settlement. I looked back to the shore we had just left. A few militants stood in the mist, guns dangling by their sides, staring after our slowly disappearing boat. My escort left me on the other riverbank with a plastic bottle full of water. Behind me was a dense forest and my heart quivered just to think that I’d soon be traversing its depth on my way to where, he told me, I’d find a village and a boat to take me to Irikefe. The river curved in a big U, and the ground I’d be covering was the middle of the U; on the other side I’d meet the river again where it joined the sea and where the village was.

When I came out of the forest, I had no problem getting a boat, and after a ride of over two hours on the sea we arrived at Irikefe. I got down and thanked the villagers who had transported me. I joined a group standing by the water watching three fishermen in a boat slowly pulling up a big net full of wriggling fish. We cheered as the net came up, and then I left the group and headed for Gloria’s house.

I found her at the standpipe, bent over an iron bucket filled with soapy water and dirty clothes. I stood over her, unable to speak, and when she looked up and saw me, she straightened up slowly. Then she smiled and I thought it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. She took my hand and led me inside, making me sit on the bed. She knelt down and took off my shoes, and then she went out and returned after a few minutes.

—I have taken a bucket to the bathroom for you.

She gave me a towel and I went out. After the bath she gave me a bowl of hot pepper soup and I drank. Then I slept. She was lying beside me when I woke up, her eyes closed. The window was open and the wind was shaking the curtain and it was as though it were riffling through a field in my mind. I sat up and gently shook her arm till she opened her eyes. She smiled.

—I was watching you sleep, and then I fell asleep. You slept for five hours.

She told me Zaq was dead. He’d died before the militants brought Gloria back to Irikefe, setting her free on the shore. I let her words sink in, not interrupting. When she came back she found the military pulling out, and the villagers, led by Naman, who was now the head priest, engaged in rebuilding the shrine and the huts and salvaging anything that they could. First she joined her cotenants to make their house habitable, scrubbing the floor till her hands ached, repainting the walls and finding a strange pleasure in watching the grime disappear forever beneath the cover of fresh new paint, then nailing back the windows onto their hinges and finally throwing away whatever was beyond repair. Afterward she felt like Christians must after being baptized: born again. Then she joined the worshippers who were putting together the statues piece by piece; when they were through, an uninformed observer would never be able to guess that only a week ago the figures had been knocked down and broken by the soldiers. Even the chips and holes in them only added to their dignity.

Boma was still on the island. She had joined the worshippers, walking with them in a procession every morning and every evening to immerse herself in the sea and sing a hymn to the rising and the setting of the sun. And since Gloria had returned, the two had been inseparable. Every morning they would stand at the waterfront, looking hopefully at each incoming boat, waiting for me to return. When she told me Zaq had been buried on the island, at the little cemetery near the sculpture garden, I stood up and put on my shirt.

—I have to go and say goodbye.

Although the Doctor had prepared me for this, and although I had been with Zaq most of last week and seen him ailing and declining daily, I still felt totally disoriented by the news of his death. I didn’t know there were tears on my face till I felt them fall on my arm. Gloria held my hand and pulled me back into bed.

—Rest. You have a slight fever. You’ll be stronger tomorrow. We will go together tomorrow.

—Tomorrow I have to be in Port Harcourt; a woman’s fate rests in my hands.

—You can do both tomorrow. I’ll come to Port Harcourt with you . . . if you want. I could ask the Doctor for a few days off.

—What doctor?

—Dr. Dagogo-Mark.

She said he had arrived on the island the day I left, and he had opted to remain after the soldiers had pulled out. Already he had set up a dispensary, and he was now talking about starting a proper hospital with wards and an operating theater.

—He is a good man.

—I know.

We sat down side by side on the bed and watched the darkness grow, not bothering to turn on the light.

—What about your fiancé?

—I haven’t thought about him in a long time.

WE SET OUT FOR THE SHRINE
with the first light. Gloria left me at the sculpture garden and went to look for Boma. She was right—though the number of statues had greatly diminished, those that now stood looked as if they had always been like this. Their scars and punctures seemed to have been put there by time and weather, and not by random weaponry. There were two men walking among the statues, picking up loose stones, wiping off the final traces of the violence from the figures. They nodded at me and I nodded back. Zaq had been buried in the empty grave he and I had once dug up in the dead of the night, intoxicated by whiskey and feverish with the prospects of uncovering a major scoop. A wooden cross stood at the head of the grave, and attached to the cross was a square of wood bearing the simple inscription:

ZAQ. JOURNALIST. AUGUST 2009. RIP

There were over a dozen new graves surrounding Zaq’s, their mounds rising like freshly prepared furrows in a field, raw and dark and fecund, waiting for seeding. I sat in the dirt and stared for a long time at the simple grave, not sure what to do. I wished I had a bottle of his favorite Johnnie Walker so I could pour him a libation. I wondered what he would have made of it all, he who had traveled so far, and seen so much, and suffered so much, only to end up in this strange place, with such a plain epitaph. I remembered he once told me of his time in Ouagadougou. It was in the last days of General Abacha, when the pressure on journalists and pro-democracy activists was at its most fervent pitch, and Zaq had escaped to Burkina Faso to lie low, to wait for Abacha’s inevitable downfall. He was telling me this the day after we had dug up the empty grave, the day Naman had forbidden us to leave the island. He was drinking, lying on his mat, staring at the ceiling, and he asked me, as he always did, Did you ever think in your wildest moment that you’d be here, in this hut, detained by some nature-worshipping priest? Ah, such is life. Of all the places I have been to, only one place still stays in my mind. You can’t guess where, not in a million years.

—London? New York? Paris? Johannesburg?

—No. Nothing so fancy. Ouagadougou. If I could return to any one period in my life, one place, it would be Ouagadougou.

—Ouagadougou? Why?

—I met a woman there, and we lived together for four months.

And he closed his eyes, his face pointed at the roof, and I waited and waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. The smile stayed on his lips till he fell asleep. Perhaps he was there right now, in Ouagadougou, taking a last detour to revisit friends before passing on to eternity, wherever that is.