Oil on Water (2 page)

—I get friend for next village. Na good man. We go stop rest small, maybe we fit sleep there tonight. Na good man.

—How far is it from here?

—Not too far, but e far small.

WE WERE AS SOUNDLESS
as a ghost ship, the roar of our motor muffled by the saturated air. Over the black, expressionless water there were no birds or fish or other water creatures—we were alone. When we arrived, a group of urchins welcomed us with shouts and curious stares. We left the boy in charge of the boat and headed for the rust-red roofs that formed this tiny riverside village. After a few minutes the boy got out of the boat and joined the other boys, who were now kicking an old and patchy leather ball in the sand. The old man led us down an open street that cut the village in two. On either side were similar boxlike houses looking down on the central street with something like a sneer. The houses seemed to belong more to the trees and forest behind them than they did to a domestic human settlement. Women and children stared out at us inquisitively, but they quickly closed their doors or turned to some task when we waved or called out to them. Now we were in front of a cluster of open sheds and huts and stalls separated from one another by narrow passages. Inside the sheds and huts and sometimes out in the passages, all sorts of consumer goods were displayed—from bath soaps and detergents to tins of sardines nestling next to tins of milk and packs of biscuits; there were crates of Coca-Cola and Fanta on shelves and under tables; there were secondhand clothes, radio batteries, plastic toys and even roofing nails in broken packs. Loud-voiced women with grimy aprons around their wide waists stood in the middle of the sheds, scooping
garri
from iron basins with measuring bowls and pouring it into plastic bags held by customers. This part of the village was so different from the one we had just passed that I wondered if we were still in the same village. The women called out to us as we passed, pointing to their wares to tempt us. The last shed in the cluster was a blacksmith’s.

—Na my friend Karibi shop be dis.

The old man went inside. Four men stood in a semicircle in a corner of the shed, talking in low voices. In the center, squatting before a blazing hearth stocked with metal, was a young man who looked up at us briefly before returning to his chore. The men stopped talking and one of them shook hands with the old man; the others nodded at him, then turned to look at us, their faces solemn. The old man talked for a while with the man while the others listened and interjected once in a while, their faces and gestures expressing deep perplexity, then he rejoined us, looking troubled.

—Is that your friend?

—Yes. Him say we must go. We no fit stay.

—But we just got here. Is something wrong?

—Yes. Dem hear say soja de come here today. Dem de come find am.

—Find him for what?

The old man shrugged and turned to look at the men in the shed. —Dem say he de help de militants.

—So why isn’t he hiding?

—He say he de innocent so he no go run anywhere. Karibi na important man for dis village. Very proud man.

We stood there, unsure what to do. I looked at Zaq. Clearly a newsworthy event was about to unfold and, rather than leaving, shouldn’t I be getting my camera ready, and perhaps interviewing the man for some background? But before that thought could transform into action things began to happen. There was a loud noise as of stampeding feet, dust rose and covered the tight passages and the stalls and sheds, people rushed down the passages, knocking down tables and entire sheds as they went. Then a single gunshot rang out. For a moment everyone froze. As I turned to ask the old man what was going on, a terrified market woman suddenly appeared in front of me, her eyes blinded by fear. The next minute I was flat on my back and her considerable mass was pinning me to the dusty ground, then she was up on her feet and away, agile, almost airborne. Long afterward I remembered her marketplace smell and her unseeing eyes above mine, and the moaning, terrified sound coming continuously from her mouth, a sound she was unaware she was making.

—
THEY ARE HERE!
The soldiers are here!

They came out of the sheds and houses and passages, wielding whips and guns, occasionally firing into the air to create more chaos. A man ran out of a hut and came face-to-face with a soldier; he raised his hands high in surrender as, in a single motion, the soldier reversed his rifle and swung the butt at the man’s head. The man fell back into the doorway and the soldier moved on to another target. I was saved from a broken jaw or a cracked skull because I was still on the ground trying to regain my wind. Karibi and his friends, now joined by his son, stood motionless, shoulder to shoulder, watching the pandemonium unfolding toward them—like a wave that had started from far away in the sea and was now unstoppably headed at them on the shore, gaining strength and fury as it came. Over ten soldiers surrounded the smithy, facing the silent, defiant men. One of the soldiers, a sergeant, stepped into the shed and pointed his rifle at Karibi.

—You, come with us.

His men rushed forward and grabbed Karibi, who didn’t struggle or say a word. The other men watched, glaring at the soldiers but saying nothing. They pinned his hands behind him and dragged him away through the wide village street. In the distance a woman wailed at the top of her voice, calling to God over and over: Tamuno! Tamuno!

2.

W
e left before the dust had finally settled. We went to the riverbank
with the villagers to watch the two speedboats that had brought the soldiers fly away over the water and out of sight. Karibi sat straight between two soldiers, his hands tied behind him, his face staring into the distant horizon. His son said he’d be taken to Port Harcourt, where he’d be tried and found guilty of fraternizing with the militants.

—But he’s innocent. Isn’t he innocent?

My question to Zaq, even I knew, was futile: how was he to know who was innocent and who wasn’t, after all; hadn’t we both just met the man for the first time today? But I couldn’t get rid of the image of Karibi, stoic and defiant in the face of the threat from the soldiers—surely only an innocent man would be so unruffled, so confident?

Zaq looked at me and shrugged. —Guilty of what, and innocent of what? Some of the militants actually come from villages like this, so how can you stop these people from fraternizing with them?

The old man decided to take us to his own village. It was a bit out of our way, he said, but it was the only place we could be sure of food and lodging for the night. And Zaq definitely needed some sort of medical attention, or at least a long rest.

Night had fallen by the time we finally got there. It was an entire village on stilts, situated by the river on a vast mud flat, which at that moment was underwater, so the village appeared to float; narrow passages of water divided one row of huts from the next, like streets. The houses were made from weeping-willow bamboos and raffia palms and bits of zinc and plywood and cloth and it seemed anything else the builders were able to lay their hands on. The whole scarecrow settlement looked as if the next strong wind or wave would blow it away. Dugout canoes rested beneath the house floors; secured by jute ropes to the stilts, they tugged at the restraints like horses. We floated silently between the houses, as figures in doorways and windows waved down to us; occasionally we caught the sound of laughter over the silence, and sometimes the sound of a radio, its static strange and elemental in the desolate village. Finally, we came to a stop before one of the houses, which was larger than the others. A wooden ladder dangling over the water led up to its front door.

—Wait here small. I dey come.

The old man left us and climbed up the ladder to the door. The boy remained with us in the boat, wordless, looking tired and sleepy. We didn’t wait long before the old man reappeared. With him was a big man who waved down to us and called out in a loud, friendly voice:

—Come, in, come in.

We climbed the shaky ladder, placing each foot carefully, ready to grab at whatever was nearby to save ourselves if the rungs gave out from under us. I went first and then dragged Zaq after me, his weight like a sack of sand. The living room was surprisingly spacious, made more so by the absence of furniture and one large open window. The floor was covered with old straw mats on which we sank as if they were cushions of the softest down. The big man sat in the only chair in the room, an armchair by the window facing the veranda and the river outside.

—You are welcome to our village.

The old man stood between us and the man in the chair, making introductions.

—My brother, Chief Ibiram, de welcome you. Na him be the chief of this whole village. Na my brother for the same mother. These na my friends, dem be journalist. Na good people, das why I bring dem here.

—You are welcome to our village.

Clearly the Chief wasn’t a man of many words, but he appeared happy to be hosting us. I looked from the old man to his brother, trying to see a resemblance: there wasn’t any. Our guide was gray, wiry and gnomish, whereas his brother was an impressive figure of a man, over six feet tall, and even seated he dominated the whole room, making everything else appear on a smaller scale. The introductions over, the old man sat down beside his brother. A radio, tuned to a station broadcasting in a language I could not identify, played softly on a side table next to Chief Ibiram.

A door opened and a young girl came in with a lamp, which she set in the middle of the floor; it had grown totally dark outside. She was about ten, and as she bent down to place the lamp she glanced at us furtively, and in the quick, shivering light I saw her surprisingly delicate features, her smooth ebony skin, the white of her eyes, the long black lashes—and then she was gone. Later, she returned with food on a tray: boiled cassava and fish with palm oil and ground pepper. The Chief came down from his chair and we ate together on the floor. I was sure it was the best food I had ever eaten; I kept staring at the door through which the girl had appeared and disappeared, hoping she’d return bearing more food.

Zaq did not eat. He sat away from us, his back propped up against the wall, and in the lamplight I could see the sweat on his forehead. But he did not complain. He sat, still and full of whiskey, his back against the flimsy straw wall, and soon he was snoring. Afterward, the old man joined the Chief by the radio and they sat listening intently. All night long they listened. I’d wake up suddenly and see them seated in the same position, listening as if the message coming out of the tiny world-receiver was a matter of life and death. They talked—perhaps commenting on what was coming from the radio—in a mixture of pidgin English and their language. I couldn’t understand their words, but I imagined they were speaking of the dwindling stocks of fish in the river, the rising toxicity of the water and how soon they might have to move to a place where the fishing was still fairly good. I listened in and out of sleep and I dreamed of the little girl with the burnished skin.

It is dark.
We are on the beach catching crabs to sell to the market women in the morning. We have done this every night, she and I, but tonight the sea is harsh, frothing and spitting, and overhead the skies open up as if in sympathy. We begin to run. Boma is five years older than me, and so faster and surer on her feet, and now I slip, and it is to save me that she jumps into the waves and pushes me onto the beach to safety. I am alone on the beach in the miraculous, malevolent storm and my sister is in the dark, dark water, arms flailing, and I see only the white of her rough homespun dress rising and falling, and then she is gone and I am never ever going to see her again, and now I am in the river, trying to outrun its tumultuous rise and fall, to reach her and save her and say I’m sorry for making her fall into the water. I leave the bucket of crabs overturned and the crabs scatter all over the place, seeking their holes beneath the rising and rising water. The waves, the waves, vicious, implacable, and they have taken my sister away. And for some reason she is not sad or angry; she is just calm and she keeps repeating the same thing, You lucky, lucky boy. Always lucky from the day you were born. Nothing will ever harm you. Slow down, say father and mother, we can’t understand a word you’re saying. I keep repeating her name, Boma, Boma. She is gone. The waves have her. The whole village comes out with lamps, and the men go out in boats when the storm subsides. We find her the next day, on an outcrop in the middle of the sea, the now all calm and demure and wouldn’t-drown-a-fly sea. She is beached on this square of dry land in the middle of the sea and she is asleep or unconscious, and the men put her in the boat and take her home and for a whole week she does nothing but sleep and spit out seawater.

I woke up, half asleep,
and Zaq was standing over me. He looked rested: his eyes were clear and there was a smile on his lips.

—You were having a bad dream.

—Are we leaving? Where’s the old man, and the boy?

—They went fishing or catching crabs or whatever it is they do around here.

He sat down in Chief Ibiram’s chair and fiddled with the radio controls, then looked at me and smiled. —Did you ever think that one day you’d visit a place like this when you became a reporter?

There was a jauntiness to his voice, and a glitter to his smile, and he looked almost happy. Suddenly I recalled the first time I met him, almost five years ago, when he came to deliver the annual graduation lecture at the Ikeja School of Journalism in Lagos. Having graduated at the top of my class, I had been chosen, with two others, to go to dinner with Zaq afterward. The others were Linda, the prettiest girl in my set, and Tolu, the brainiest. Tolu, like me, was a big fan of the great journalist, and I was sure somewhere in her bag was a recorder and a little notebook with a long list of questions she wanted to ask him: questions about life after journalism school, about things to expect in the newsroom, about the best papers to send applications to and, finally, whether he would mind being one of her references, or perhaps doing a letter of introduction to one of the editors . . . Besides being the brainiest student in my class, she was also the most aggressive, the most annoying and the least pretty, with sickly yellow eyes that had a disconcerting way of looking at you without blinking.

We were in the back room of a Chinese restaurant in Ikeja; the girls were seated on both sides of Zaq. Linda giggled as she poured more red wine into his glass, contriving to thrust her remarkable chest into his face as she did so. I was across the table, and on my left were my two lecturers, Ms. Ronke and Mr. Malik. Their hands, I could see clearly, were in each other’s crotches under the table. And the night was just starting. A light in a red lampshade hung above the aisle to our left, throwing a funereal glow onto our table. We were all desperately trying to engage Zaq in conversation, but at the moment he seemed more focused on getting wasted. We had been there less than an hour, and while we waited for our order he had finished a bottle of Shiraz by himself; a second bottle, which he had started with the food, stood half empty before him. His kung pao chicken, beside the bottle of wine, was still untouched. Tolu, all the time glaring at the flirty Linda, cleared her throat.

—Don’t you like the food, Mr. Zaq?

—Zaq is my first name, actually.

—Oh, so sorry, Mr. . . .

—It’s also my last name. I’ve had only one name since I became a journalist. And that was a long time ago.

Tolu fell back. As the evening wore on and her frustration mounted, I began to feel sorry for her. Zaq raised his full glass, waving it as he leaned forward and sideways toward Ms. Ronke, turning his back on Tolu.

—Here’s a riddle. A madman escapes from an institution. He crosses a river and comes across some washerwomen, he rapes them, well, not all of them, as that mightn’t really be possible . . .

Ms. Ronke winked at him, pushing aside a lick of hair from her wig.

—Surely that’d depend on how . . . talented he was?

Ms. Ronke had worked with Zaq on one of the Lagos newspapers a long time ago. She had practiced journalism for more than ten years before turning to lecturing and she could hold her own with any man in anything, bawdy jokes included. Linda giggled. Tolu glared at her and cleared her throat.

—Surely, Zaq . . . sir, the subject of rape is a sensitive one, most women wouldn’t see the joke in . . . I mean . . .

Zaq nodded. —I agree with you, but remember, as a reporter you’ll come across worse things out there. Now, as I was saying, this well-equipped and talented lunatic rapes all the washer-women and runs away. Now, here’s the question. Say you were a journalist covering the rapes; your story is written, and you want a headline. And there’s no subeditor to help you out on this one. The headline has to be witty, truthful, intriguing, compelling and with some literary appeal. What would it be?

Tolu stabbed her food with her fork, not looking up. I sipped my drink and went first.

—“Beware: Dangerous lunatic on the loose.”

Zaq inclined his head. —Scary, not witty enough. Next. Ronke, give it a try.

—How about: “Mad rapist coming your way”?

Malik raised his hand in surrender, laughing. —I’ll pass. Zaq, why don’t you tell us?

But Linda jumped in eagerly, putting a hand on Zaq’s arm, batting her eyes at him.

—Wait. Me, me. I’ll try: “Dangerous escaped lunatic and rapist on the loose. Beware.”

—Too long. Too repetitive. And where’s the aesthetic, where’s the wit? By the way, Folu, this is a real story. It actually happened.

—Tolu.

—Right. Tolu. Want a go?

Tolu sipped her drink and refused to speak. Linda giggled and leaned heavily against Zaq. She had had only a single glass of wine and already her eyes were dim and her words were becoming indistinct. Zaq placed both elbows on the table and clutched his glass in one hand, his voice falling low like that of a coach giving a pep talk.

—First of all, you couldn’t get the answer because the perfect headline is never thought up; it’s given to you. An inspiration. A revelation. You can make up a great headline by trying, but not a perfect one. The perfect one always comes to you after you’ve already published your story. Always too late. Now, this guy was lucky: it came to him when he needed it.

—Come on, Zaq. Tell us.

—“Loose nut screws washers and bolts”! Ha ha! How about that?

Now, sitting in Chief Ibiram’s
front room, far away from Ikeja and Chinese restaurants, I wondered where Tolu was. She had been voted most likely to be famous by our classmates, and one day, I was sure, I’d turn on the TV and see her breaking some major news story, or I’d come across her byline on the cover of a Lagos newspaper over the most interesting story of the year. Five years had passed, and in those five years I had followed Zaq’s progress in the papers, but I hadn’t seen him again, not until now, not until this assignment.