Oil on Water (3 page)

I clearly saw images
from that evening rise up before me as if popping out of the flooded and barren mud flats outside. I saw the oversized plastic bracelet on Ms. Ronke’s veiny wrist, the gaudy playing-card patterns on Mr. Malik’s tie, the hair-fringed mole on the pale cheek of the Chinese restaurateur as he bent over our table and whispered solicitously, You lika food? More wine, yes? Halfway through the meal Zaq slumped forward and passed out, his face missing his plate by inches but knocking down the empty wineglass. Mr. Malik and I lifted him up under the arms, and while the girls got their things we took him out and sat him on a bench by the roadside, hoping the air would revive him, but after the air-conditioned restaurant the atmosphere outside felt heavy and humid, plastering a thin sheen of sweat on our skin. Mr. Malik took off his jacket and waved it back and forth over Zaq’s snoring face, his garish tie swinging from his neck with each movement.

—Now, how do we get him back to his hotel room?

None of us had a car.

A molue bus stopped by the curb and the passengers got off it like somnambulists, their steps leaden, their heads bowed, their faces dull and expressionless. They bumped into one another as they milled about confusedly for a while, and then they begin to veer off singly into the dark side streets, the glow from an
akara
woman’s fire throwing their shadows in front of them, long and blurred and ominous. Linda looked a bit sullen, perhaps unhappy at losing the chance to share the great Zaq’s bed. Tolu yawned and looked at her watch, holding her bag tightly to her flat chest, eager to leave. But for me the night was just about to begin, as I foolishly volunteered to take Zaq back to his hotel room. He vomited all over the back seat of the taxi, and the angry driver threw us out after taking his money. We stood by the roadside and watched the taxi’s red back light screaming its anger at us. Then we walked for what seemed like hours through dark and narrow alleyways, Zaq’s arm on my shoulder, his weight resting on my side, and it was all I could do to walk without falling. We staggered from one side of a nameless backstreet to another, often unable to avoid stepping into the open gutters that overflowed with the city’s filth; we passed half-lit doorways where aging prostitutes called out to us in hoarse voices that lacked all persuasiveness; we passed a group of idle young men who stared long and hard at us, then followed us for about a block before finally deciding we weren’t worth robbing. When I couldn’t bear Zaq’s weight any longer, I let him slide like a sack off my shoulder. He sank to the ground in slow motion and sat hunched over, his face buried in his knees, his back curved. And we remained like that for a long time, side by side on the curb, the night around us like a blanket, lifting only when an occasional bus full of passengers roared past. Then, when I thought Zaq had fallen asleep, he spoke, his voice coming to me clear.

—Bar Beach.

—What?

—We’re at Bar Beach. Right behind us. You can smell the water.

I stood up and turned, and there behind the rudimentary fence running beside the road was the white sand glowing in the dark, and the dark water washing over the sand. For a while the fresh sea air had been blowing right at us, but I had been too tired to notice. Once more I put his arm over my shoulder, and we staggered to the noisy, crowded beach. I paid the predatory youths at the improvised gate and we went in. I spread Zaq out on the sand where the water would not reach us and, laying side by side, we immediately fell asleep. In the morning he woke me up and pointed eastward to the huge red sun emerging out of the blue water.

—Beautiful.

—Yes, beautiful.

All around us were people sprawled out on the beach: drunks slowly waking up to their hangovers; vagabonds and lunatics exhausted from their motiveless prowling; lovers who couldn’t afford a hotel room for the night. I was twenty. The day before, I had graduated from the School of Journalism, and instead of heading off home to Port Harcourt I had stayed to listen to Zaq’s lecture, seeking inspiration. The truth was that I had no plans, no job waiting for me. My ultimate ambition was of course to become like Zaq someday: to be respected all over the country for my strong liberal views, and to write editorials that would be read with awe. But hanging out with him the previous night had brought no enlightenment as to how to realize my ambition. He gave me his number before we parted, and in that I had at least achieved more than Tolu. I thanked him and turned to go.

—What’s your name?

—Rufus.

—Rufus, you have the patience to make a great reporter someday.

I watched him head for one of the makeshift bars, where a few early clients were trying the hair-of-the-dog cure. Or they were clients from the previous night finishing up their last orders. He sat down and beckoned to the barman.

To kill time I updated
my reporter’s notebook, as I had done without fail every morning since the day we started on the white woman’s trail. I sat against the wall, and while Zaq fiddled absently with Chief Ibiram’s radio I wrote down all that I had witnessed since we left Irikefe: the abandoned villages, the hopeless landscape, the gas flares that always burned in the distance. I re-created with as much detail as I could the brutal taking of Karibi, and, as I wrote, his son’s words came back to me:
He’ll be taken to Port Harcourt, where he’ll be tried and found guilty of fraternizing with the militants.

Zaq fell asleep in the chair. I was hungry and, since it didn’t look like anyone was coming soon to offer us food, I decided to do some scouting. I got up and opened the door through which the girl had appeared yesterday with the lamp and food. I found myself on a half-exposed walkway that connected the front room to other areas of the house, presumably the kitchen and the storage rooms. From here I could see the other houses, and I could hear voices of children and women. The women were standing in an open shed around a hearth, probably smoking fish. The smoke from the hearth rose through the shed’s thatch roof and dissipated in the dull, cloudy skies. I opened the first door on my right and saw a group of children, about five of them, all about the same age, seated around an old woman. She was telling them a story. They looked up at me, and my shadow fell on the floor before them as I stood in the half-open doorway, trying to see into the dark room. I withdrew and went to another door, and this time I was in the right place. It was the kitchen, but, apart from a few pots and pans resting on a smoke-blackened table, it was empty. In a corner was a water pot with a plastic cup hanging from a string over it. I drank, but as I turned to go the old woman entered and stood just inside the doorway, but without blocking it.

—Hello, I’m looking for the old man . . . and the boy. We came together yesterday. And . . . food . . .

She kept nodding as I spoke, a friendly smile on her lined face, and as she nodded she repeated the same word: Yes. She probably couldn’t understand me, and because I didn’t speak the local language I simply mimed eating—putting my right hand to my mouth.

—Food, please.

She laughed, nodding her understanding.

—Yes, yes.

She brought me a bowl full of corn porridge—it was warm and sickly sweet and filling. She stood by the door and watched me eat, nodding and smiling all the time. Through the open door behind her came the voices of the children in the back. When I asked her when the men would be back, she said nothing, but kept smiling and bowing and moving backward until she was out of the door. Afterward, I walked out into the mud flats. I spent the next hour walking in an ankle-high flood, my trousers rolled up to my knees, taking pictures of the houses. Most of the houses were empty, the men out fishing and the women smoking fish in the shed I’d seen earlier. I went to the shed last. The older women stared into the camera lens silently, their tired, lined faces neither acknowledging nor forbidding my action; the younger women giggled self-consciously, hastily wiping the ash and sweat from their faces with the edges of their wrappers; the children ran forward and posed with hands on their waists, pushing each other out of the way.

While I was on my way back to Chief Ibiram’s front room, the men returned. I passed them hauling their canoes out of the shallow water and tying them to the house stilts; others carried the day’s catch in plastic buckets and wicker baskets, and, from what I could see, it wasn’t bountiful. The boy and the girl took from one boat a basket with a handful of thin wiggling fish at the bottom. The kids stopped on the veranda when they saw me, waiting for me to speak, standing side by side with the basket on the floor between them, and behind them the sun was huge and dying, spilling orange and red and rust on the shallow river and the mangroves.

—Smile.

They smiled. I clicked. I wanted to talk to them, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I had known the boy for a couple of days now, and in that time I had never heard him say much, only answers to his father’s questions or commands, and mostly they never talked at all; each seemed to have an instinctive understanding of what the other wanted.

—When I was a boy, me and my sister, we used to catch crabs.

They looked at each other. —No crabs here now. The water is not good.

The girl, whose name was Alali, was more willing to talk. The boy only nodded with his head lowered, a fixed smile on his lips. I wanted to tell them about my childhood in a village not too far away from here. I realized how very much like theirs my childhood must have been. Barefoot and underfed we may have been, but the sea was just outside our door, constantly bringing surprises, suggesting a certain possibility to our lives. Boma and I used to spend the whole night by the water, catching crabs, armed with sticks and basket, our hands covered in old rags to protect our fingers from the scissor-sharp claws. We usually sold our catch to the market women, but sometimes, to make more money, we took the ferry to Port Harcourt to sell to the restaurants by the waterfront. That was how we paid our school fees when our father lost his job.

Zaq was trying hard
to hide his annoyance, and he wasn’t succeeding.

—You should have told us you were going to be out all day. We’ve wasted a whole day now. I thought your job was to be our guide, we hired you.

We were in the veranda; Chief Ibiram was inside somewhere, taking a bath. Technically, we hadn’t hired the old man; he had simply appeared out of the night and become our guide, he and his son. But I understood Zaq’s anger, because I felt it too. But mine wasn’t directed at the old man; rather, it came from a feeling of frustration and general irritability at the way things had been going since we started on the trail of the kidnapped woman. Events were always a step ahead of us, as if Eshu the trickster god were out to play with us. Zaq’s anger was intensified by his strange fever, and the continuous ache from his swelling legs. The booze had helped to dull the pain, but now that the booze was finished, the pain kept him constantly on edge.

The old man looked close to tears; he glanced toward me helplessly, waving his hands.

—You no well, sir, tha’s why. I think say you go stop here rest small before we go. Tha’s why . . .

But Zaq’s anger disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. He lowered his voice and turned to go into the house. —We really must set out early tomorrow. First thing in the morning.

—Yes. Yes, sir. Early morning, tomorrow.

That night I listened to Zaq turning and moaning and cursing on the mat beside me, all night long battling his pain and his demons.

3

T
oward morning, sitting side by side, both of us having given up
on sleep, I asked Zaq how he ended up on this assignment.

—They came to my office. It was just another dull day at work, and, believe me, setting out on an expedition after some kidnapped woman was the furthest thing from my mind.

His editor, Beke Johnson, who was also the Daily Star’s owner, walked into his office, his face nervous with excitement, and told him two men wanted to see him. Two white men.

—I recognized the husband immediately. I had seen his face alongside his wife’s in the papers and on TV for the past few days. Oil-company worker, British, petroleum engineer, his wife had gone out by herself and she never came back, believed to have been kidnapped by the militants. The kidnapping was of some interest to me because only the day before I had written an editorial on another kidnapping, that of a seventy-year-old woman and a three-year-old girl. They’d been kidnapped for ransom by militants. I titled the editorial “Gangsters or Freedom Fighters?”

—I’m an avid reader of your column.

The man moved forward and offered Zaq his hand. Zaq looked at the hand as though unsure what to do with it, his eyes blinking in the strong light coming in through the open windows, then he stuck out his own pudgy hand and shook it. He was badly hung-over and his breath left his corpulent frame in a heaving, gasping motion. Beke Johnson hovered behind his desk, urging the visitors to please sit down, please sit down. His rumpled suit and tie, the wolfish smile on his fat face, added to Zaq’s headache and he felt like reaching out and covering the smile with his hand. The other visitor remained standing, looking out through the open window, as if to avoid a bad smell in the narrow room. Zaq took in the black nondescript suit, the blue shirt, the black-and-white-striped tie, the well-polished black shoes: diplomatic service, most likely security section. He must have been the handler, there to make sure the husband didn’t betray the famous stiff-upper-lip tradition.

—You want to see me?

Zaq stood with his hands clasped before him, trying not to scratch at his stubbled chin. His eyes were red and teary from gazing all day into the computer screen, his lips were parched.

—I am—

—I know who you are. You’re in the news. What can I do for you?

The husband sighed. His eyes went to the other man, who nodded and spoke directly to Zaq.

—Well, you already know about the kidnapping, so we won’t go into all that. James here is a great admirer of your writing, and it was his idea that we come to you and ask you to go with a few other journalists to confirm that his wife is still alive. We need to know that before commencing with the ransom negotiation.

Zaq turned to James, waiting for him to assent. James’s eyes were baggy and red, his white shirt rumpled; he had the look of a desperate man, ready to try anything in the hope of getting his wife back.

—What good will that do? There’s nothing I can bring back the other reporters can’t.

—I know, but I think you understand more than the others what’s at stake here. Please. Listen, I feel I can trust you, though we’ve never met before. I went to Leeds University, same as you . . . I hope that means something to you . . .

—I’m just a desk journalist. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your situation, but I can’t help . . . I’m sure she’s safe. She’ll be returned safely to you. They won’t harm her, they never do . . .

Black Suit gave James a look that urged him toward the door, indicating that their presence here had been a bad idea in the first place and that it was time to go. But James continued speaking, his eyes on Zaq. —I wish I could go myself, and I would, but my people think it’s a bad idea, I’d only end up providing them with a second hostage.

—Well, Zaq, what do you say?

Beke came and laid a fat hand on Zaq’s shoulder. Zaq was looking at the dirty carpet. It had patterns of green-and-red interlocking squares on it, but the squares were now faded, ground into loose ribbons and threads by countless washings, and footsteps, and something else, a kind of despair, a lack of the energy needed for holding on, for persevering. The chairs and tables and filing cabinets had the same look, as did the faces and shoulders of his fellow reporters as they came in off the crowded buses and the merciless streets early in the morning. He had seen it on faces coming off the buses in Lagos and Abuja and Kano and Ibadan: a drugged, let-me-just-get-through-the-day look. He continued to stare at the carpet, for what was the point in meeting the visitors’ eyes if he couldn’t be of help?

Now Black Suit and James were at the door. Black Suit pulled it open.

—Gentlemen, thanks for your time. This visit must remain between us . . .

Zaq said it was the tone of the man’s voice that made him look up. The voice was dismissive, almost derisive. And he felt what he hadn’t felt in a long time: pride, vanity—two things he had always tried to avoid because they had no place in a reporter’s life.

—I’ll go. I’ll do it.

The men stopped at the door. James shook off his companion’s hand, turned back and took Zaq’s hand. He brought out a photograph from his pocket. She was a pretty woman, her hair a unique mixture of red and brunette, and in the picture she looked young, carefree, smiling confidently into the camera. Zaq guessed it must have been taken when she was younger, perhaps at university.

—How old is your wife?

—Thirty-nine. Her name is Isabel. She also went to Leeds.

Zaq nodded, staring at the picture. He saw no point in telling James that he had only gone to Leeds for a six-month journalism certificate course. He had never gone to university—he was an autodidact, everything he knew he had learned in the newsroom and on the streets and from books, but what he knew he knew well. He could quote from Aristotle and Plato and Tolstoy and Shakespeare and Soyinka and Fanon and Mandela and Gandhi and Dante in a conversation, casually, perfectly.

—So far we’ve had over a dozen ransom demands by different groups: the Black Belts of Justice, the Free Delta Army and the—

—The AK-47 Freedom Fighters.

—It’s all so confusing. This is a chance to make contact with the real kidnappers. We’ll negotiate, as long as she’s alive, we’ll pay . . .

—How do you know which group is the real one? Do they have a name?

—No name. Here’s their letter: no signature. In the letter was some of her hair: I know her hair, it’s really distinctive. There’s a request for five million dollars. They want us to send five reporters to confirm she is alive and well.

—Very professional.

—There’s something more.

—Yes?

—Her driver, Salomon: we believe he’s had a hand in this. He hasn’t been to work since the day she disappeared.

—Did they go out together?

—No. But we can’t find him.

Black Suit, at last wiping the surprise off his ruddy face, stepped forward.

—Your job is simple. Just confirm she’s alive, take pictures and we’ll take it from there. It should be easy. You leave in two days, early, and by sundown you’re back. Of course, we’re willing to remunerate you quite decently for your trouble. And remember, make them understand that nothing must happen to her. She’s a British citizen—

Zaq interrupted him, not raising his gaze from the picture. —So, does that make her more important than if she were, say, Nepalese, or Guyanese, or Greek?

The man made to open his mouth, but the husband spoke first. —Simon, old chap, let me handle this.

After the men left, Beke went over to Zaq and shook his hand, patting him on the back at the same time.

—This is it, Zaq. Our big opportunity. Don’t forget to take our subscription form when next you meet them.

—Come on, Beke. The man’s wife has been kidnapped.

—But, still, an opportunity is an opportunity. How often does the oil company come knocking on your door, asking for a favor? We’re talking petrodollars here, and a major scoop! Come on. I can imagine the headlines already. This will be the making of us. Our circulation will hit the roof—

—But first I have to survive the little trip to the kidnappers’ den, wherever it may be.

—Well, yes. Everything will go well. God willing. They don’t harm reporters.

—What about those two reporters shot in the back on a similar assignment just weeks ago? You have a short memory. Or would you like to go in my place?

—You can handle it, Zaq. You’ve been in worse spots.

—I’m already regretting this decision.

Beke led Zaq back to his tiny windowless office and stood at the door watching as Zaq cleared his table and picked up his jacket.

—You’re not going home, are you? The day’s still young. Who’s going to write the editorial, the Metro column, the book review?

Zaq brushed past him. —Why don’t you write them yourself, just for a change?

And that, he said, was how he was recruited.

Early next morning,
before we left Chief Ibiram’s house, I took the old man to one side and asked him if we needed to pay his brother for our board. The money would come out of our expense account anyway, and the Chief had been a perfect host. He hesitated, then he shook his round, hairless head.

—No, no pay. Na my brother, Chief Ibiram.

Last night, when we urged him to ask his brother if he had heard anything of the missing woman, or if he knew where we could make contact with the militants, he had shaken his head and said no without the usual diffidence to his voice. I guess he didn’t want to get his family involved in our quest, and if what happened to Karibi was an indication of what also happened to informers, then I respected his decision. Communities like this had borne the brunt of the oil wars, caught between the militants and the military. The only way they could avoid being crushed out of existence was to pretend to be deaf and dumb and blind.

We got Zaq into the boat with the help of the Chief and we drifted almost aimlessly on the opaque, misty water. The water took on different forms as we glided on it. Sometimes it was a snake, twisting and fast and slippery, poisonous. Sometimes it was an old jute rope, frayed and wobbly and breaking into jagged, feathery ends, the fresh water abruptly replaced by a thick marshy tract of mangroves standing over still, brackish water that lapped at the adventitious roots. Then we’d have to push the boat, or carry its dead weight on our shoulders, till we found the rope again. Sometimes it was an arrow, straight and unerring, taking us on its tip for miles and miles, the foul smell of the swamps replaced by the musky, energizing river smell, and at such times we’d become aware of the clear sky above as if for the first time. But the swamps and the mist always returned, and strange objects would float past us: a piece of cloth, a rolling log, a dead fowl, a bloated dog belly-up with black birds perching on it, their expressionless eyes blinking rapidly, their sharp beaks savagely cutting into the soft decaying flesh. Once we saw a human arm severed at the elbow bobbing away from us, its fingers opening and closing, beckoning. In my dreams I still see that lone arm, floating away, sometimes with its middle finger extended derisively, before disappearing into the dark mist.

About an hour after we set out our engine spluttered, spewed out a thick clump of black smoke and went quiet. The old man and his son fiddled with the engine and attempted to restart it, but finally they gave up and we took turns rowing with oars. We rested by the riverbank whenever we could, and by the time we got to the next village the sun was going down and we left the boat on the deserted beach and went to look for shelter for the night.

It turned out this wasn’t a village at all. It looked like a setting for a sci-fi movie: the meager landscape was covered in pipelines flying in all directions, sprouting from the evil-smelling, oil-fecund earth. The pipes crisscrossed and interconnected endlessly all over the eerie field. We walked inland, ducking under or hopping over the giant pipes, our shoes and trousers turning black with oil. The old man took me to the edge of the field and pointed into the distance. Zaq joined us.

—Oil rigs.

—So why haven’t the militants bombed the pipelines here?

—Because the oil companies pay them not to do so.

—Or perhaps the oil companies paid the soldiers to keep the militants away.

—Or that. Yes.

We spent the night by the water, fighting off insects, unable to fall asleep till early morning, when the bright sun chased away the insects. When I opened my eyes the old man was talking to Zaq. They were standing near the water’s edge. The boy was seated in the wet sand, idly picking up pebbles and throwing them at the boat, listening to the dull wooden sound as they hit, pausing once in a while to glance back at his father. I stood up and stretched. The old man shouted something at the boy, apparently telling him not to throw stones at the boat, for he ceased immediately, lowering his head, but a moment later, like a sleepwalker, he picked up another pebble and weakly threw it, but this time into the water, where it landed with a tiny plop. I wondered what the old man was telling Zaq. He wasn’t looking into Zaq’s eyes but at the ground, rooting in the sand with his bare, gnarled toe, waving his hand occasionally to expatiate on a point, and once he pointed at me. Zaq was not speaking; he was gazing at the boy, a sort of doubtful, surprised look on his face. I turned away from them. If they wanted me involved in whatever it was they were discussing, Zaq would let me know. But, even as I turned away, Zaq called out: