Oil on Water

13

— Your friend, I am sorry to say, is dying.

The Doctor was an overweight cherub and when he breathed he did so with painful effort through his mouth; the wheezing and spluttering sound accompanying it was loud and unpleasant. He was dressed in the same military fatigues and boots as before, but this time without the grubby white jacket, and whenever he leaned forward the shirt buttons across his fraught midsection threatened to pop. The shirt was wet under the armpits. He smoked incessantly, and as he spoke his words came out shrouded in cigarette smoke. How did he manage, in the midst of such aridity and want and barrenness, to look so fat, so gross? But as he spoke, and as I listened, I soon forgot his physical appearance. He was intelligent and sympathetic, philosophical almost, his tiny eyes seeming to probe deep into his listener’s soul, searching for whatever ailment was plaguing him.

Out of a vague sense of decorum he had led me out to break the news, away from the feverish eyes of the soldiers, and from the sleeping Zaq. He offered me a cigarette and when I shook my head he nodded approvingly. Now we were walking back and forth on the edge of the water, and we kept swatting at the midges and flies that flew out of the grass at our feet.

— What exactly is wrong with him, Doctor?

— Have you ever heard of dengue fever?

I hadn’t.

— It’s a hemorrhagic fever, very dangerous. It kills very quickly if not treated immediately.

— Is that what he has?

— No. It’s a similar strain, quite new, still nameless. I’ve come across it only two or three times before in this area. Bugs and the water, you know.

— You mean he won’t live?

He avoided my perplexed gaze and waved his hand around, embracing the whole visible universe in his gesture.

— Somewhere in these godforsaken waters, that’s where he must have picked it up. There’re plenty of bugs flourishing here. And he was in pretty bad shape to begin with. I suspect his liver is gone already.

He wiped his sweaty forehead, giving me a full view of his armpit. I felt an irrational hatred for him and nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to puncture his overfed middle and calmly watch whatever stuffing was inside pour out.

— Well, you have to do something about it.

— I’m afraid I can’t. Not with the tools I have here. You’ll have to take him back to Port Harcourt, to a proper hospital.

— I’ll talk to the Major. We need transportation immediately.

— You could try, but I doubt he’ll help you in any way. He’s not a very obliging kind of person, I’m sorry to say. Do you know, I saved his life, that’s how I ended up here as the doctor, and yet even I can’t be sure of him at any time. Mercurial, that’s what he is. Unpredictable. It’s the oil and the fighting. It affects everyone in a strange way. I’m going to write a book on that someday. I’ve been in these waters five years now and I tell you this place is a dead place, a place for dying.

He pointed at the faraway orange sky. — Those damned flares. There weren’t that many of them when I first came here. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here all my life.

— Well, then, what are you saying, what should I do? My friend is dying. Tell me what to do.

— Ah, it is not easy. .

Happy to find a listening ear, he grew talkative. I could imagine how he must have spent his days here, hunched over his beakers and blood samples, his speculative, philosophical observations met by the groans and whimpers of soldiers.

A leaner, more idealistic man, he had been posted to a village not far from here five years ago, fresh from medical school. The old doctor, who was about to retire, met him at the boat and had boys take his bags to his new quarters, a spacious hut near the dispensary. The next day the old man showed him around the village and the two-room dispensary. The village consisted of not more than twenty families, and each family’s ailments had been neatly recorded and filed in the old doctor’s shaky but neat handwriting and stored in alphabetical order in files kept in two formidable-looking iron filing cabinets in the back room.

— It was a small village. At first I was lonely, and daily I thought of nothing but how to work my way out of that posting, but I soon grew fond of the place and the people. Anyway, the old doctor, before he finally bowed out, took me from door to door, and to the neighboring communities, introducing me to the people. I set up mobile clinics in my boat, I held educational classes in churches and schools, talking to teachers and pastors and community leaders. But I soon discovered that the village’s chief discontent was not over their health; they were a remarkably healthy people, actually. One day an elder looked me in the face and said, I am not ill. I am just poor. Can you give me medicine for that? We want that fire that burns day and night. He told me that, plainly, pugnaciously.

— Well, as if in answer to his request, two years after my arrival in the village, oil was discovered. Be careful what you wish for, they say. Yes, just on the edge of the village, by the water, there was oil in commercial quantities. The villagers feasted for weeks. They got their orange fire, planted firmly over the water at the edge of the village. Night and day it burned, and now the villagers had no need for candles or lamps, all they had to do at night was to throw open their doors and windows and just like that, everything was illuminated. That light soon became the village square. At night men and women would stand facing it, lost in wonder, for hours, simply staring till their eyes watered and their heads grew dizzy. Village meetings, which used to take place early in the mornings on Saturdays in one of the school classrooms, now took place at night under the orange fire: the elders, in their wrappers and holding their walking sticks, would arrange their chairs in a semicircle and hold forth. A night market developed around that glow, and every evening women brought their wares. Some came from the neighboring villages, they bought and sold, they set up portable iron hearths and fried akara and fish, which they sold to happy children under that fire. And when Brother Jonah came back from the city, or, as he described it, from the belly of the big whale, after being away for three years, it was under the orange glow that his congregation met every Sunday night. They’d dance, their faces raised up to that undying glow, singing their thanks and joy, their voices carrying for miles over the water. They called it the Fire of Pentecost. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it made them very happy. They said it was a sign, the fulfillment of some covenant with God.

— Well, I did my duty as their doctor. I told them of the dangers that accompany that quenchless flare, but they wouldn’t listen. And then a year later, when the livestock began to die and the plants began to wither on their stalks, I took samples of the drinking water and in my lab I measured the level of toxins in it: it was rising, steadily. In one year it had grown to almost twice the safe level. Of course, the people didn’t listen, they were still in thrall to the orange glare. When I confronted the oil workers, they offered me money and a job. The manager, an Italian guy, wrote me a check and said I was now on their payroll. He told me to continue doing what I was doing, but this time I was to come only to him with my results. I thought they’d do something with my results, but they didn’t. So, when people started dying, I took blood samples and recorded the toxins in them, and this time I sent my results to the government. They thanked me and dumped the results in some filing cabinet. More people died and I sent my results to NGOs and international organizations, which published them in international journals and urged the government to do something about the flares, but nothing happened. More people fell sick, a lot died. I watched the night market fold up and the council meetings cease. The church also folded when Brother Jonah got a job as a clerk with the oil company. Almost overnight I watched the whole village disappear, just like that. I was their doctor, I should have done more than I did. Well, since then I’ve become something of an itinerant doctor. I go from community to community and I try to create awareness of the dangers lurking in the wells and in the air above. They all share the same story, the same diseases. I do what good I can.

I watched his lips as he spoke, watched his cigarette burn and the ash rise in loops high over his head, adding more pollutants to the polluted air, but all the time my mind was trying to make sense of what he had said about Zaq.

He put a hand on my shoulder. — I’m sorry about your friend. I’ll talk to the Major. I’ll try to persuade him to let you go, but I warn you, don’t expect a quick response. Take your friend to another doctor. Get a second opinion, but that won’t really help much, I’m afraid. I’ve seen this happen many times in this area. A man suddenly comes down with a mild headache, becomes feverish, then develops rashes, and suddenly a vital organ shuts down. And those whom the disease doesn’t kill, the violence does. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing here; I tell you there’s more need for gravediggers than for a doctor.

I wanted to ask the Doctor if he thought the fighting would end soon, who was right, who was wrong, if he knew where the Professor was, if he had heard about the kidnapped woman, but instead I turned and looked toward the shed where Zaq lay, breathing away his life.

— Thank you, Doctor. I have to go to my friend now.

— By all means. Let’s go together.

He led the way, belching smoke, his fat arms horizontally suspended from his sides, his fat bottom almost popping out of his trousers, and I could hear his wheezing, phlegmy breathing, and I wanted to shout after him, Doctor, heal thyself!

— The Major will speak with you. I told him about your need to be gone from here as soon as possible. He’s waiting for us in the command hut. Let’s not keep him waiting.

The Doctor led the way, and Zaq and I followed. Soldiers bearing rifles came and went, some nodding briefly to the Doctor as they passed us. The command hut was situated at the edge of the camp, right by the path we took coming in from the boat. The Major met us in front of the hut, waved us in, a smile on his face.

— Hope you had a good night, hope the mosquitoes didn’t bother you.

He was in a good mood today, almost conciliatory, making a joke about the rock-hard bread he gave us and the black sugarless tea in dented aluminum cups. Zaq and I sat on a long hardwood bench that faced the command table, with the Major on the other side of it. The Doctor sat apart, by a square window looking out on the trees by the waterfront. I ate the hard dry bread and sipped the cold tea, but Zaq didn’t even look at the bread, and the tea he downed in a single gulp, more from thirst than from an enjoyment of the bitter, inky taste. He didn’t look like a dying man — he looked rested and alert. The Doctor said it would be like this, good days alternating with bad ones. I hadn’t told Zaq all that the Doctor had said, only that his condition was serious, and he needed to be in a hospital as soon as possible. He had nodded and failed to inquire any further.

I decided to take advantage of the Major’s good mood immediately.

— The old man and the boy. . when can we talk to them?

— Tell me, what do you know about them?

— They’re simple peasants, trying to make a living. We’ve been together this past week, believe me, they’re not rebels.

— I know these people more than you do. You know the problem with you reporters? You believe everything you read in the papers.

The Doctor laughed, the Major waited for us to laugh, and when we didn’t he went on.

— Let me give you an example. The Doctor here told me that one of your plans on this trip is to interview the Professor, yes? Well, what do you know about him? I’ll tell you what you know: he used to work for an oil company, and one day he grew disgusted with the environmental abuse and he became a militant to fight for change. That’s what the papers say. Well, that isn’t true.

Zaq lifted his empty teacup and put it down again.

— Well, Major, what is true?

— The Doctor can tell you about the deserted villages around here. They used to be well populated, you know, thriving. Now the people have all packed their things and left, because of the violence. People like the Professor are responsible for that, they call themselves freedom fighters, but they are rebels, terrorists, kidnappers. Do you keep up with the news? Ah, yes, you write the news. Well, just now, on that radio, it was announced they just kidnapped a three-year-old girl in Port Harcourt, and you know what, her family is not connected to the oil industry. A three-year-old girl. They don’t care if they’re caught or shot. Their life is so miserable to begin with, and they dream of becoming instant millionaires. It’s my job to pursue them to their swamp hideouts. I capture them, and most times it’s easier to shoot them than to capture them. Saves time, saves the government money.

— Now, let’s come back to this so-called Professor. We have a big file on him, on all of them. His name is Ani Wilson. A secondary-school dropout, a backstreet thug and bully who went to jail for the first time at fifteen. When he came out at twenty he became a party thug in the pay of his local government chairman, who was up for reelection. He was convicted of murder at the age of twenty-two and sent to prison for life. He broke out of jail at thirty, by which time he had realized there was no future in being a petty thug and hired gun. Luckily for him, his politician godfather had reinvented himself as a pro-environmentalist and won a seat in the senate. But they parted ways when Ani was bought by a rival politician, who paid him to kill his erstwhile godfather; the assassination attempt was foiled, and his godfather called the police on him, and that was when he moved into the swamps and joined a rebel group that specialized in kidnapping foreigners for ransom. You know who the leader of that group was?

— Who?

— He was known as the Professor — only he wasn’t a real professor. It was just his gang name.

— And so—

— And so Ani killed him in a power struggle and took over not only the leadership but the title of “Professor” as well. The myth of the Professor lives on.

— I see.

— I’m glad you see. I know these people. I’m the one who can handle them, the only one. They understand only one language: force. That’s all.

The Major brought down his fist on the flimsy table, making the cups and pens jump.

— And what of your prisoners here? Are you going to try them?

— You journalists, with your fancy ideas about human rights and justice. . all nonsense. There are no human rights for people like him. You jail them and in a year they’ll be out on the streets. The best thing is to line them up and shoot them. But you people. .

The Major made a dismissive gesture with his hand and stood up. He went to the window and looked out toward the river.

— We want to interview them, your prisoners. We want to hear their side of the story.

The Major turned to Zaq, his head tilted, considering the unexpected request.

— You, I thought you were sick and wanted a doctor immediately, even though the Doctor here is the best in the whole world. It is true. He saved my life.

The Doctor sipped his tea and continued to look out through the window.

— I’m feeling better, thank you. Let us interview them.

— Well, why not? I’ll bring them over here right away and you will listen to them and afterwards you tell me what you think.

— No. Don’t bring them here. If they think you ordered the interview, they’ll be guarded, they won’t open up. Tonight, lock us up with them, let them think we’re also under suspicion.

— Are you sure you want to be locked up with them?

The Major looked from Zaq to the Doctor to me. Zaq nodded. I nodded, even though this was not something Zaq had informed me about earlier.

— Well, then, you’d better do it as soon as you can, tonight. Tomorrow we leave for Irikefe — that is actually the main reason I called you. We just heard the island has been attacked by your friends the rebels. There is serious fighting going on at the moment and our men need reenforcement. We leave early tomorrow. You can come with me, or you can stay with the rebels till I come back. You decide.

— We’ll come.

— Good. That’s settled. Now, I want to know more about you two. I’m curious about people and their motives. Why did you come here, to a war zone? You could get killed. Are you looking for fame? Is that it? Tell me how you came here.

It was a long time before nightfall, when we’d interview the militants. There was a lot of time to kill. So I told him how I received the assignment to interview the Englishwoman, and about the burning island, and how we all ended up on Irikefe. I told him almost everything. But I did not tell him about Boma, and how I found her waiting for me that day when I returned to Port Harcourt.

14

The soldiers led us to the lockup when the sun was setting over the land. They walked behind us, their guns raised and aimed at a point between my shoulder blades; Zaq was walking slightly ahead of me on the narrow path leading to the little hut. The lockup was at the farthest end of the square, next to the water, and as we approached we could see the mosquitoes rising in a thick cloud over the water. I was worried about Zaq. His early morning alertness had gradually given way to bad-tempered enervation as the sun went down, and now his legs dragged, his shoulders slumped as he walked, and even from here I could hear his breath wheezing out of his nose. I had tried to convince him to let me go alone to the lockup, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

— This is what I came for. Besides, how would you explain my absence to them?

— I’d tell them you are not feeling well.

— No, that won’t work. We mustn’t leave anything to chance. Besides, I feel strong.

And I couldn’t argue any further without telling him bluntly that he was dying, and even if I did, it was no guarantee he’d budge. The soldiers opened the door and threw us in, then they closed it. We felt our way to the wall and we sat against it. Immediately Zaq slumped against me, his head sliding down my shoulder and lolling helplessly. And for a moment I asked myself, What if he died, right here, right now? Best to pretend things were the same as before, that Zaq was all right, and we would interview these people, and we’d go back to write the story. I even tried to fashion a headline that would be worthy of such a great story, the perfect, inevitable headline, the one that gets your story on the front cover, an inch high, the one that compels the most indifferent reader to stop and pick up the paper.

When my eyes got used to the gloom in the shed, and when I had controlled the dizzying, nauseating effect of the petrol smell that rose off the men’s bodies and clothes to cast a miasmatic shadow over the tiny room, I saw Tamuno and Michael huddled together in a corner. The boy was asleep, his head resting on his father’s scrawny shoulder, his feet stretched out straight before him. I realized the old man was staring at me, and in his posture I saw an embarrassed apology, as if he were trying to say sorry that things had ended up like this, and I wanted to tell him that it was I who should be apologizing for leading him into this.

Most of the men were lying on the floor, some with faces turned toward the wall. I didn’t know how long they had been the Major’s prisoners, or what other punishment they had endured in addition to the petrol-drenching, but they all looked exhausted and dispirited. In a uniform, spastic choreography they scratched and twitched and rubbed their dry skin where the petrol had scalded them, where it still burned. Only one of them sat without the mad twitching; his head was bowed, but he did not seem defeated or fatigued, like the others; he looked like a man lost in thought, a man seated against a wall in his own compound. I crawled toward him, and as I neared him a huge paw from behind grabbed me by the neck and pulled, and suddenly I was staring at two red eyes that bore into me, unblinking, expressionless. The thinking man raised his head and motioned to my captor.

— Let him go, Taiga.

I couldn’t breathe until the fist released me, then I was gasping, sucking in the fumy air, rubbing my neck, which felt broken. I sat next to the man.

— Thanks.

— Did you think he was going to kill you? We’re not murderers, my friend, regardless of what you guys write about us.

— My name is Rufus, and that’s my colleague Zaq.

— So, what are you doing here?

— We’re prisoners, like you. The Major doesn’t believe we’re innocent journalists.

— Well, are you?

— What?

— Innocent journalists?

— Of course we are. I work for the Reporter, and Zaq works for the Star.

— Is he the Zaq who used to be with the Daily Times?

— Yes, he is—

— Let him speak for himself!

Zaq coughed and sat up straight.

— Yes, my friend. It’s me. What’s your name?

— Henshaw.

— Glad to meet you, Henshaw.

— We came to find out about the British woman. Is she still alive?

— Is that all you want from me, to tell you whether some foreign hostage is alive or not? Who is she in the context of the war that’s going on out there, the hopes and ambitions being created and destroyed? Can’t you see the larger picture?

Henshaw sounded educated and very confident, so perhaps the best way to make progress was to appeal to his reason. Zaq must have sensed that as well. I waited for Henshaw to speak some more, but he didn’t. He kept his head inclined, as if slumbering, already bored by that little exchange. After a while I cleared my throat. I could feel Zaq in the dark, waiting, willing me to go on.

— Does your group have a name?

— No! We used to have a name, but no more. That is for children and idiots. We are the people, we are the Delta, we represent the very earth on which we stand.

— Are you with the Professor?

— No. I have never met the Professor. We’re a different group, the six of us. That man is with the Professor. Perhaps he can tell you about the white woman. Hey, you, talk to the reporters. Go on, talk.

The scratching and twitching and pain-filled groans had stopped as everyone strained to listen to our talk. Even the mosquitoes had somehow stopped singing around my ears. I turned to look at the man. He was seated by himself near the door, his back pushing into the wall, away from all the eyes suddenly turned on him. He began to shake his head as I crawled toward him, and when I was in front of him he turned his face away.

— Look, you heard what I told him. We’re impartial reporters. All we want to know is where the woman is, if she’s alive.

He mumbled something, his voice coming out like a sob. I leaned closer to him.

— What?

Now he turned to me and even in the dark I could see how young he was — between fifteen and twenty. His face was smooth, hairless.

— His name is Gabriel. He was here before we came, at least two days.

The voice came from one of the faces seated around Henshaw — possibly from the one named Taiga.

— Gabriel, I’m Rufus. Have you heard anything about the woman? We saw the battle with the soldiers — were you there? Did you hear any of your friends talking about it? We saw dead bodies. Were you there? Were you captured, did you surrender?

— Come on, man, stop whimpering like a girl and talk. Talk! Taiga, make him talk!

The threat did the trick. For the first time the boy nodded his head instead of shaking it. He raised his head and looked into my eyes and now his words came out coherently. He’d been there, at the battle. But he didn’t say anything more after that, and when I threw more questions, he looked defiantly from me to Taiga.

— Why don’t you find out, since you’re a reporter?

I crawled back to where Zaq lay and sprawled out beside him. I didn’t feel as if I had gained much information. I still hadn’t found out anything new about the woman. Had she escaped? I hoped not, because she had no way of surviving out there in the swamps by herself: first of all, her skin would be her worst enemy, it’d emblazon her presence like lightning in a dark night wherever she went, and she might escape from one kidnapper only to end up in the hands of another.

TOWARD MORNING, WHEN A PINK light stitched in through the million micro-openings in the roof thatch, Henshaw crawled over to my side and shook me awake. I sat up beside him, our shoulders touching. Outside, the bugle sounded.

— I know exactly what they’re doing out there: right now the soldiers will be in line, shoulder to shoulder, all twenty of them, one sergeant, two corporals and the rest privates, all standing at attention, and he’ll be telling them why they must hate the militants, why they must fight to keep the country safe and united. Ten minutes of that. I’ve been here four days now and I know exactly what they do every minute of the day. I can tell you what they eat, what they think, who is tired of the Major’s demented patriotism and just wants to go home. We’ll outlast them. That’s all we need to do. Sit tight. Wait. This land is ours, after all.

He paused, his eyes closed. All the other faces were staring at him, but their ears were focused on something farther off, somewhere close to where the bugle had sounded, waiting. And yes, there was a distant sound of a voice, firm, authoritative. Too far away for the words to register. After what seemed like ten minutes, he resumed his commentary.

— Now he’s walking in their midst, putting a hand on this one’s shoulder, reprimanding that one for a smudge on his boots — imagine reprimanding a soldier for a smudge here in the jungle. . and now he is dismissing them. Five of them are coming this way, guns firmly clasped in both hands, trotting, and here they are.

Footsteps came to a stop in front of the hut, and Zaq and I waited to see what was going to happen. The door was kicked open, and two soldiers entered in a splash of morning sunlight. The others waited outside.

— Oya, stand up. Single file. Proceed outside.

It was the tallest of them speaking. They didn’t kick or hit the prisoners, they just stood there, their guns ready, waiting for the men to get in line.

15

The Major waved his hand toward the approaching shoreline, but his voice was drowned out by the noise from the helicopter that suddenly appeared above us, like a bird of ill omen. The Major looked up, then he took out his radio and put it to his ear. When he finished speaking his face had a satisfied grin.

— Be prepared for what you are about to see. Irikefe is now mostly ashes and rubble, bombed by the gun helicopter over there. Not a hut is left standing. .

— What of the people?

— Most of them would still be there, I suppose. But expect a lot of casualties, unavoidable, of course. This is a war zone. . Look, look, you can see the smoke from here.

We descended from the boat into the restless water. On the shore was a line of soldiers in battle gear, pointing their guns at us. They led us toward the trees and then to a field of rubble, which I saw was all that was left of the sculpture garden. Memory is nothing but a view through a car window, fast-changing, impressionistic. Of all the things that I saw that day, and all the words that I heard, what made the most impression was the sight of the broken statues. The arms and legs and heads sundered from the body. I recall a face, its expression of terror so lifelike, the eyes so mobile staring up at me as I passed, its nose broken, its mouth half open and eager to share its secret. And later, when I voiced my lament to Naman — Look, they broke the statues — he smiled sadly and nodded and said, Everything that was made must one day cease to be. It is the nature of existence.

The fighting was over when we got off the boat, but the earth was still smoldering with the remains of battle, the huts still gave out smoke, and soldiers still fired guns sporadically into the air as they corralled the villagers into one big clearing, trying to determine who among them was a militant and who wasn’t. I couldn’t recognize the hut where we once slept, and the log on which I once sat. Zaq sat down heavily on the first surface he found. I couldn’t sit — I mingled with the worshippers, trying to see if I could find a familiar face, Gloria, or Naman, and yes, here was a familiar face, even though half of it was swollen and covered with blood. It was a man who’d been seated with Gloria and Naman, eating dinner, and if I hadn’t been looking keenly, peering almost rudely into the faces, I wouldn’t have recognized him. His once-pure-white robe was now specked with the green of crushed leaves and the rust and red of blood, and the one side of his face capable of expression looked vacant, vague, tired, like a man after a long trek, thirsty, but unsure where to look for water or rest. When I stopped next to him and took his hand and introduced myself, he licked his chapped lips and tried to smile.

— Ah, the reporter. But what are you doing here? This place is very dangerous for you. You shouldn’t have returned.

— Where’s Gloria and Naman?

He pointed vaguely and continued walking, his eyes looking around for something in the rubble. A woman took me to Naman. He was surrounded by a group of women, all weeping and holding one another, and he went from one to the other, calming them down. I shook his hand and he told me to sit beside him. Like the others’, his white robe was covered in blood, maybe his, maybe not. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I pointed.

— The statuary is all gone.

— It is the nature of existence. A thing is created, it blooms for a while if it is capable of blooming, then it ceases to be.

He said that two days ago the militants had arrived. The worshippers were as usual having their morning dip, chanting their hymn to the sun, and the next thing they knew they were surrounded by gunmen. Of course, they had been visited by the militants before, but nothing like this — usually they came for food, or for medical supplies, or for clothes; once they attempted to abduct a woman worshipper, but Naman had stood in front of the woman and said they had to shoot him first, and of course when their leader, the real Professor, who was a gentleman, found out, he had publicly punished the militants and personally apologized to the community. A good man, the real Professor. But this time it was another leader, a younger one, and he gathered everyone into the worship hut and said he wanted all the worshippers to swear allegiance to him — imagine that. When Naman said that wasn’t really necessary, the man placed a gun on his chest and told him to shut up. Then he said he had discovered that traitors, informers, had been giving information to the soldiers. Someone here at the shrine, on the island, must have given them away to the soldiers just before they arranged to meet with the reporters on Agbuki. He said he and his men would spend the night here and tomorrow they’d be on their way, but before they left they’d take a hostage, just to make sure of the worshippers’ cooperation. And then he pointed at Gloria, and said, You will come with us tomorrow.

But the soldiers came early the next morning. First they came in a boat, and there were only five of them. They were on routine patrol; they hadn’t known the militants were there, and they ran into an ambush — it was a massacre. They were all killed instantly. The militants had machine guns and grenades. But the soldiers must have called for backup because this morning the helicopter came and started shooting at everything beneath it, indiscriminately.

— People running and jumping into the water. It was awful. Awful. The water turned red. Blood, it was blood. In the confusion the rebels slipped away and left the villagers to face the soldiers. Now, see, everything is in ruins. Nothing left, it is a miracle so many are still alive. A miracle.

He kept repeating it: a miracle.

— And Gloria, where is she?

— They took her away like they promised. She was crying and screaming, but they dragged her away.

I WENT OVER TO ZAQ.

— A lady was here just now, looking for you. She said she was your sister. Do you have a sister?

— Boma. Here?

Zaq looked about, raising his head from the grass. He was exactly where I’d left him over two hours ago, in the grass under a tree, but now he was fully stretched on his back, his head propped up on the tree’s protruding root.

— I told her to walk about, that you were somewhere out there. Maybe she’s with the women over there.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that news. What would Boma be doing here? How did she get here? I left Zaq and headed for the group of women. The camp had segregated itself, with the men on one side, closer to the water, and the women camped where the tree line began. The women were seated in groups, the fit ones tending to the wounded, while the children crawled between their legs and rolled about in the grass, oblivious of the moment’s gravity. And on the outskirts of the two groups were the soldiers, their guns raised, their eyes alert to any movement over the water. I found her sitting by herself on a log, looking absently at two urchins wrestling in the grass. She had a smile on her face, and she looked pretty. I was looking at the good side of her face, and suddenly I was back many years to the last time I’d seen her like this, without the scar. I had returned from Port Harcourt after my apprenticeship with Udoh Fotos; Boma and John had started going out then and were already talking of getting married someday. John had pointed at the entire town of Junction with his hand.

— But we have to get out of here first.

On the day I left, John and Boma had walked me to the bus station, and as the bus pulled away Boma waved and waved and the sun fell on her smooth face, just as it fell now. Smooth and unmarred.

— What are you doing here? I know, don’t tell me. You’re hoping to find John in the forest, waiting for you.

My voice rose as I spoke, and I felt it rising even higher. I pointed around.

— Look, they’re fighting a war here. You could get killed, Boma. And all for what, for a man who walked out on you because he couldn’t bear to look at your face anymore? It’s time to move on. He’s never coming back. He’s gone. Accept it.

She was staring at me, her head inclined, as if she were watching a stranger. But I was remorseless. I was tired, and all I wanted was to be as far away from here as possible, but her presence only added to the weight on my shoulders.

— I came to look for you, not for John.

I sat down beside her.

— You were supposed to be gone for only a day. I went to your office to see if they had any news and they said no. Nothing. And then your editor said to tell you not to bother to show up at the office.

— He said that?

— Yes.

How quickly things change. It seemed like only yesterday I was seated at the Chairman’s right hand, being toasted by the staff, and now I had no job.

— How long have you been here?

— I got here yesterday; the fighting began just after I arrived.

The kids wrestling in the grass were now eating out of the same bowl, placed before them by their mother, who stood watching over them as they ate. She was a tired-looking woman with her hair in knots; she held her grimy white robe bunched up at the hip, lifting it clear of the muddy grass. Her exposed calves were thick and chunky, merging into her ankles without definition.

— I was worried about you.

I felt tired. I felt ashamed at my outburst.

I tried a joke when I saw how crestfallen she looked.

— I’m the Lucky One, remember? Nothing will happen to me.

— Have you found the woman?

— What woman?

— The white woman you were looking for.

— No.

— I met your friend, Zaq, over there. What’s wrong with him?

— He’s not well. He’s dying.

— He’s dying?

— That’s what the doctor said.

— So, what are you going to do?

— Find a boat and take him to Port Harcourt. They have to evacuate these wounded people soon anyway.

I SAT UP ALL NIGHT beside Zaq. Boma was curled up on her spread-out wrapper close to us, fast asleep, her head resting on her arm, her face beautiful in the glow of the fire someone had started not too far away. I listened to the anxious murmurs of the men around the fire as they sat hunched forward, still in their white frocks. Some of them would look up and stare at me and I’d look back at them, my face full of questions, but I got only silent head shakes. Some shrank from me, as though I were an interrogator brandishing tools of torture. From the women’s section came the cries and whimpers of children, from the waterfront came the crunch of soldiers’ boots on the hard pebbles of the beach. I watched the fire burn bright and die. I was exhausted but I did not sleep. Instead I let my mind remember the many conversations we had had, right here on this island.

Once Zaq had asked me:

— Rufus, what books have you read?

I mentioned a few journalism books, but he shook his head impatiently.

— You must take a year off, one of these days, before you’re old and tired and weighed down by responsibility. Go away somewhere, and read. Read all the important books. Educate yourself, then you’ll see the world in a different way.

It was the day after we had dug up the empty grave. We had gone to sleep exhausted by all the excitement; perhaps that was why we didn’t hear them the next morning when they opened our door. They came very early. We didn’t hear them enter, but the sun on my face woke me up. It was a wafer of a ray, flattened by a narrow crack in the door that directed the sun squarely on my face. I opened my eyes; then, seeing the three men standing solemnly just inside the doorway, I sat up. Zaq, like me, was just waking up, but already his eyes looked alert, and he was getting to his feet.

It was Naman, with two other men I had never seen before, but who, from their clothes, seemed like priests. They stood with their hands clasped behind their backs, the gravitas around them as solid as a rock. Naman, in the middle, was tall and upright; the others were shorter, stooped, and older. One was thin and bald and mustached, and the other was portly, with a fine head of hair.

— These are my fellow priests, and together we represent the entire community.

Zaq stood up and faced them.

— You are welcome, but did you have to wake us up like this?

— You have committed a grave ill. By going to the burial ground and digging up a grave last night, you have desecrated the place, and now—

— Hold on. What are you talking about? Who said we were at the burial ground last night?

Zaq tried to outstare the unblinking priests, but there was neither power nor conviction in his eyes and voice. I said nothing. I sensed a certain change in Naman: this wasn’t the same man I had talked to yesterday. He seemed more distant, sadder, and yet there was a determination, a coldness I had not noticed before in him. He was here to carry out a task, and he was going to do it, though he found the task unpleasant. Now he suddenly stepped forward and before I could draw back he took my right hand and raised it up to Zaq. I was taken by surprise and quickly curled my fingers, trying to hide the telltale red earth that my hasty washing last night hadn’t removed from under the chipped nails. Zaq’s stare wavered. He sighed.

— Well. .

— Our head priest died this morning. And now we cannot bury her because your activity last night has disrupted the balance of things. A purification ceremony has to be carried out. In the meantime, please remain in your hut. The elders will hold a meeting and decide what is to be done.

— We did what we did because you lied to us.

Naman turned to him fiercely. — I didn’t lie to you. I told you all I knew. Please stay here till we send for you.

— No. We’re leaving today.

— You can’t leave till after the burial.

— When is the burial?

— After the purification ritual.

— And when is that?

— We don’t know.

— What do you mean?

— We don’t know how long the ritual will take, we don’t know what the ritual will be, because we have never been faced with such a situation before. No one has ever desecrated a grave before today.

— But it wasn’t even a grave, there was no body in it. .

— But what if there had been a body?

At last the bald-headed elder spoke, his voice as whispery as a ribbon of smoke. His voice was almost pleading, but in his rheumy eyes there was a threat.

— We are having a meeting of all the elders today. Please don’t leave your hut till you have permission.

Naman turned to go, then he stopped and looked at us, and when he spoke his voice was a bit softer.

— In any case, there will be no ferry to take you off the island. There will be no movement or activity till after the burial. The whole community will be in mourning.

— If we attempt to leave, will we be stopped?

— How can you leave? Will you swim, Mr. Zaq? We’d rather you didn’t force our hands. This is a moment of great sorrow for us.

And they left us. Zaq stood at the door, watching the men disappear into the trees.

— Do you think they’re serious?

— They seemed serious about the ferry not coming.

He returned and sat down on his mat. After a while he lay down on his back, facing the roof, his arms folded under his head. I sat down and tried to imitate his calm, but my mind was an ocean, choppy and turbulent and roaring with a million thoughts. My job wasn’t the best in the world — I thought I should receive more recognition and encouragement for the effort and enthusiasm I put into it — but it was the only one I had and I certainly didn’t want to lose it. The only way to keep it was to get to the office as soon as I could. And suddenly I noticed the white robe over Zaq’s mat, hanging from a nail. He still hadn’t returned it. I saw myself in it, disguised as a worshipper, slipping unnoticed into the woods and onto the path between the trees, I saw myself standing at the waterfront, waiting for the next ferry, a fishing boat, anything to take me away to Port Harcourt. Zaq watched curiously as I slipped the robe over my head.

— I’ll be back.

I stepped out, hesitant. But everything was as it used to be, men and women in robes came and went, and there were no sentries lurking behind trees watching our door. Perhaps my disguise was working, or perhaps Naman felt his warning had been stern enough to deter us from attempting to escape. I slipped unnoticed into the woods, taking the path between the tall trees and walking fast toward the waterfront, my head bowed, purposeful. But even from afar I could see the usually busy waterfront was empty today. Where were the fishermen setting out or returning in their long narrow boats with their jute nets at their feet and their sturdy oars in their hands? And where were the women waiting to buy the fish fresh from the water, talking to each other and to the fishermen at the top of their voices, now bantering, now flirting, but always bargaining? There was no ferry waiting to take passengers back to Port Harcourt and to the dozens of tiny islands dotting the endless water that now appeared so daunting and so foe-like. I was a lone figure in a white robe walking on the beach, looking about, and when I finally got tired I headed back to the village center. What I needed, I realized, was an ally in the enemy camp, someone who could tell me how serious the elders were about detaining us here, and how long the detention might last. Gloria.

THE TENEMENT HOUSE was not far from the waterfront. Two women were standing at the front entrance, one with a plastic bucket in her hand, the other holding a baby in her arms. They moved aside as I approached, not pausing in their breathless discussion. My disguise, so far, was holding. But Gloria’s door was locked with a big Yale padlock.

Zaq was still lying on his back, his eyes staring at the roof, when I returned.

— We can’t get away. There are no boats coming or going, and the whole village is staying home. Nothing is happening.

— You should rest. Save your energy.

— But we’re trapped here. We could be here for days, weeks. .

— Nothing we can do about it, so we wait. Conserve our energy.

I sat on my mat and stared at the open door. At midday two women came in and gave us lunch, avoiding our eyes, evading our questions. At sundown they returned with dinner. I had no appetite. I watched Zaq eat the boiled yam and oil with gusto. Then I slipped out again as soon as it was dark. Surely she would have heard about our situation by now? Why hadn’t Gloria tried to communicate, send us a note? Perhaps she had been warned to keep away from us. I entered the woods, walking fast, almost running, and soon I was out of the trees and once more entering the tenement house. I almost expected to find the two gossiping women still standing by the entrance, but the space where they stood was now empty, the front door ajar. I went inside. The wind stopped suddenly, as if cut off by a switch. Gloria’s door was still locked. I decided to wait. For the first time I noticed the rows of doors to my left and right. Some were half open, and sounds from radios drifted out faintly from behind fluttering curtains. A door opened to my right and a woman came out, a bucket in her hand. She glanced at me as she passed, then she went to a corner and I heard the sound of tap water falling into her metal bucket. I turned and left.

The next day I sat on my mat, staring at Zaq, saying nothing, eating when the women brought food, going to the outhouse when I was pressed. When the sun had traveled all the way across the sky and still nothing had happened, no one had come to talk to us, I lay on my back and closed my eyes. I conserved my energy, as Zaq had suggested. Boma would be worried by now, wondering what had happened to me.

— If we were to go after the woman, all the way, how would we get off the island? We don’t have a boat, we don’t know where the militants are camped. .

Perhaps I spoke out of desperation, knowing that my job might not be waiting for me when I got back to Port Harcourt. Or perhaps I was swayed by Zaq’s promise of starting a real paper, or maybe a secret part of me had always been waiting for a chance like this, I didn’t know, but suddenly I was excited. I wanted to go after the kidnapped woman, to find out what really happened, to interview the Professor. .

— But we have money.

Zaq was smiling as he brought out his brown envelope.

— I’m sure we can get some local guide, some fisherman who knows his way around.

— And then—

— The rest we will deal with when we come to it.

But, as it turned out, we didn’t have to go looking for a boat — one came to us. Early in the morning, before the cocks began to crow, there was a tentative knock on the door. Zaq and I jumped up at the same time, but I got there before him. I stared at our visitor with disappointment. It wasn’t Gloria. It was the old boatman, looking as unobtrusive, as natural, as the grass and the trees outside. The morning light fell on his frayed homespun shirt and bare feet, and on the long oar in his hand, held against his chest.

— What do you want?

— Oga Naman send me. He say make I carry you go where you wan go, but you must come quick-quick.

Zaq and I looked at each other and we didn’t wait for him to repeat his offer. We followed him to the boat and soon Irikefe Island was behind us, swallowed by the distance and the darkness of the mist that rose like smoke from the riverbanks. Midriver the water was clear and mobile, but toward the banks it turned brackish and still, trapped by mangroves in whose branches the mist hung in clumps like cotton balls. Ahead of us the mist arched clear over the water like a bridge. Sometimes, entering an especially narrow channel in the river, our light wooden canoe would be so enveloped in the dense gray stuff that we couldn’t see each other as we glided silently over the water.

16

It felt surreal to be back again on the island, trapped again, but this time not by harmless priests and worshippers, but by the Major and his soldiers. Many times in the night Zaq had woken up agitated and sweaty, looking at me as if trying to remember where he had seen me before. Then I’d hold his hand and shout his name, attempting to penetrate the fog in his eyes, but they just looked at me, confused and teary, growing cloudier every minute. And at last, when Zaq went back to sleep, I let go of his hand and sat with my head bowed. I felt cold and nauseous. Perhaps I was coming down with a fever. I wanted to stay awake, but every so often I’d nod off, only to be jerked back to consciousness by Zaq’s voice, low and faint, coming from a measureless distance, asking for a drink.

— A drink. Just a sip. One sip, please.

It’d be a miracle if he lasted the night. I felt the tiredness and the hopelessness weigh down on me and, not knowing what I was doing, I turned to him and grabbed his hand, my arm shaking as badly as his.

— What are we doing here, Zaq? It makes no sense. No sense.

Toward dawn I fell asleep, and when I woke up I found Zaq and Naman whispering together, and I couldn’t conceal my surprise at how fresh and rested they both appeared. Zaq was sitting without help, and talking lucidly. He smiled at me.

— Hello.

— Where is Boma?

— Somewhere about.

The soldiers herded us to the water to do our morning ablutions, the women behind a huge boulder away from the men. I watched the men wade in and out, dipping their faces into the water and washing under their armpits, their faces blank, their motions mechanical. Some tried to wash the blood spots off their white robes, without much success. I sat with them on the beach as they waited for their robes to dry, some dressed only in their trousers and some in underpants, their eyes lost, faraway. After a while I noticed that the people were moving back to the campsite. Ahead a soldier was waving them forward toward the Major, who was making an address. He was standing on a huge, still smoldering log, looking over the heads of the people, his uniform and his boots as spotless as ever. He raised his rifle and pointed around with it, calling for silence.

— It has come to our attention that the militants who killed our men yesterday, and who caused this massive destruction upon your island, are still out there, not far from here, perhaps planning another attack.

The men looked at each other wearily, while the women pulled the children closer.

— We are also aware that among us here, there are some who are sympathetic to the militants, who are in cahoots with them. We will find you and we will deal with you. We will return fire for fire. As long as you do what we tell you, you will be safe. Nothing will happen to you. You will be confined to this island for at least one week. No going, no coming. You have enough food here on the island. And for those of you who are wounded, we have a doctor. He will be brought here today to attend to your wounds. He is good, he saved my life once when I—

A murmur began among the people and it soon turned into an uproar. The Major stopped talking and looked down at the people. His men raised their rifles nervously and the uproar died out as quickly as it had started. The Major lowered his rifle and turned his back on the crowd.

— You are dismissed.

— YOU CAN SLIP AWAY quite easily if you want to.

I looked at Zaq. He and Naman had been in a huddle again since we returned from listening to the Major, and I had been wondering what it was they were whispering about, but now I knew. Far away, next to the rubble that had been the communal kitchen, a sort of field kitchen had been set up, supervised by the women, who were in turn supervised by the soldiers. A line of hungry men, women and children had formed in front of the triangular hearths.

— Slip away and go where? Besides, my sister is here. I have to look after her. And you, Zaq, we have to get you to Port Harcourt.

— I’ll be fine, and so will your sister. The worst is over, I think.

Boma was with the group of women at the hearth. I could see her red blouse standing out in the cluster of white robes around her. She was laughing as she bustled about, organizing the children into a neat line, ladling porridge from a pot into cups and bowls. She looked really happy, and for a moment I almost started to believe that the worst really was over.

— What do you want me to do?

— It’s not what we want you to do, it’s what must be done, and the truth is, you are the only one in a position to do it.

— What do you want me to do?

— Slip away. Go to Port Harcourt and tell the editors what’s happening here. We’re trapped here for at least a week — you heard what he said. No one out there knows what’s going on here. These people need help. Soon, in a day or two, if they don’t get it, they’ll start dying. .

— My editor won’t listen to me. I’ve lost my job.

— Go to Beke, my editor. He is a resourceful person. He has his faults, but he can talk to the other editors. He has good contacts in Lagos. Tell him what’s going on here. You have to do it, you have to do it now.

Escaping the camp was easier than I had expected. I put on the white robe Naman gave me and kept my head low. I entered the woods and went toward the cemetery, all the while keeping half an eye on the soldiers, but none of them seemed interested in me. Only later did I discover the reason for this lack of attention: there was simply no means of leaving the island by boat, even if one escaped the camp. The boats had been systematically riddled with bullet holes by the soldiers, and the narrow, dugout canoes had been chopped to bits and were being used as firewood. I did as Naman instructed, and once I left the cemetery I headed north, making for the water. I swam away from the shore, and then took a deep breath and dived. Naman said that all I had to do was let myself be carried by the water and I’d end up near the pier where the fishermen kept their canoes, and once in a canoe, I wouldn’t take long to get to Tamuno’s village and there Chief Ibiram would help me get to Port Harcourt.

But as I dived and touched bottom, everything went dark. I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes I was on the shore, my legs in the water and my head in the sand, and above me the sun was harsh, burning into my face. I stood up, looking around, trying to determine where I was and how long I had been unconscious. I dragged myself to the line of trees. To my left I could see the fencing around the cemetery, so I had really not gone very far at all in the water. The pier was still way off, about a kilometer away. I decided to walk through the trees, keeping the water in view till I got to the pier. I was so hungry and weak that I fell down after taking only a few steps. I hoped I was not coming down with the same fever as Zaq, but I didn’t want to think about it. I forced myself up and resumed walking, sitting down sometimes for over thirty minutes to rest my wobbly legs, and as I got nearer to the pier, I kept my eyes open for the canoes, and for the soldiers who might be out there patrolling, looking for stray villagers or invading militants.

Much later, driven by hunger, I came out of the woods and headed for the village center, ducking behind a tree whenever I heard a noise. I passed houses with wide-open doors through which I could see the empty compounds. Some of the houses had broken walls and roofs, with smoke still issuing from the rafters, yet some were surprisingly untouched. At Gloria’s tenement I found the front door was kicked in, and it now lay beside the doorway, its zinc sheet twisted and torn. I went in slowly, staying close to the walls. The central space in the compound was littered with all sorts of objects abandoned by their fleeing owners: a lady’s shoe, a magazine, a shattered earthenware pot by the kitchen door. The door to Gloria’s room was open, and I entered. I looked at the broken pieces from a mirror on the floor, and the open wardrobe, and the cracked window, and I imagined her being dragged out by the men as she cried and begged to be spared. I sat on the bed where we had once made love. Over there was the seat where she had entertained me with a bowl of jollof rice. At the thought of food my stomach rumbled, my knees felt weak and I knew that I might have to return to the shrine and admit to Zaq that I had failed. But first I needed rest. I lay back and closed my eyes; when I opened them again it was dark. I was sweating and shaking, my mouth was dry and I could feel the heat rising off my skin. I was definitely coming down with something. I curled up in the bed, watching the compound through the open door. I was too weak to care anymore if I was discovered by the soldiers.

17

Outside the sun is bright. I am talking to Zaq in the hut; it is one of those days when he looks spry and full of energy.

— Did you really love Anita? Can you continue to love a person regardless of such shortcomings? Maybe because you hope to save them? Or because you can’t help it? Isn’t that what love is all about?

Zaq says nothing. He turns his face away, but just before he does so, I see the pain, the bitterness on that face. The sadness seems so out of keeping with the beautiful day outside, and I feel sorry I introduced a sad note into such a glorious day, but I want to hear his answer desperately, for some reason. He speaks softly, sadly.

— What’s the point? It is all memory now.

Anita died in a detention center in London. She hanged herself in the bathroom. The news didn’t make the front pages of the Lagos papers, just a single column in the back of one or two provincials.

Voices. Whispers. Soldiers, perhaps. Then the cry of a child, and I thought I was imagining it. I got off the bed and crawled on all fours to the door. It was dark, the voices were coming from one of the many broken-down doors on either my right or my left. I waited, controlling my breathing, and suddenly I saw a flicker of light, and then it disappeared. Not soldiers — they would be more brash and noisy than this. I stood up and moved toward the room, but just as I got to the door my leg kicked against an empty tin, which elicited a brief scurrying sound from the room. Then silence.

— Hello.

Silence.

— Is anyone there? I’m a friend. I know you can hear me.

My voice shook, my legs were bowed and I had to hold on to the doorframe with both hands to remain upright.

— I’m a friend. I’m coming in. Here I come.

It was a moonless night and the room was nothing but vague outlines and humps. I held my breath and waited, and after a while I heard breathing, movement. I braced myself, half expecting something to whizz out of the darkness and connect with my face, but instead a match was struck and a face emerged behind the glow. A candle was lit. It was a man, in the corner, crouched on the floor. He raised the light, moving his face sideways, trying to see my face. I stepped in, and in the corners still cloaked in shadow I could hear other figures moving about, staring at me.

— My name is Rufus. I’m alone.

I spoke without thinking, trying to give as much reassuring information as possible. I couldn’t see his face: he shaded the candle with his hand so that the light fell only in my direction.

— I’m a reporter.

— A reporter?

It seemed the man turned to look into the dark part of the room, as if to communicate his surprise to the others in the shadows.

— Yes. I’m a reporter from Port Harcourt.

— What are you doing here by yourself?

Now I knew he wasn’t dangerous.

— Listen, do you have anything I can eat? I’m very hungry.

He got up and disappeared behind the light, then I heard whispering, a woman’s voice, low. He came back with something in his hand and handed it to me. It was meat, dried, rubbery, gamy. I sat down on the floor and ate, all the while staring into his glowing, watchful eyes, and when I finished he gave me a cup of water that I drank in a single gulp. He seemed to want to get rid of me as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t ready to leave him just yet, I was curious to see who was with him, and I had questions that needed to be answered, like where to find a boat.

— I escaped from the fighting. Who are you?

A figure rose from the corner and entered the light, and I saw a woman in a boubou and wrapper, a head-tie covering most of her face. More figures came forward. It was a whole family: father, mother and three children. The youngest, who looked to be about three, was crying, her face running with tears and snot, blotchy from insect bites and grime. The mother and children had been huddled beneath a large blanket, and now the children peered at me from outside the light’s circumference, and their expressions told me they felt more pity for me than fear. They had been here a whole day now. They had locked themselves up in the toilet when the shooting began, and afterward they had moved to this tiny room, coming out only to go to the toilet or to look for food. The husband was a tall, distracted-looking fisherman and he jumped at the slightest noise, clearly scared witless for his children’s safety. I wondered if there were similar families in the other houses, huddled beneath blankets, stifling their children’s cries, waiting for the storm to blow away. Revived by the water and dried meat, I stood up.

— You’d do better if you joined the camp. The soldiers are not letting anyone off the island for a few more days. You can’t survive here that long.

The wife shook her head, grabbing her children to her bosom. He looked at me and then at his wife and the children. I guessed he’d do whatever she said.

— Where can I find a boat?

He looked at her and she nodded. Crawling from house to house, dashing forward, then stopping, he led me back into the woods. He took me near the waterfront, and between two thick trees, in a deep gorge that led all the way to the sea, cleverly covered by grass and sand and rocks, he unearthed a boat and two oars. He helped me push it to the water and pointed me in the right direction. The sea was very narrow here; all I had to do was cross it and on the other side I’d find the river that led inland.

I waved as the boat pulled away, and he stood there a long time, waving back. For a moment he had put aside the enormous responsibilities of protecting his family, and now he had to return. And soon I had no need for the long oar — the water was swift, the waves were high and then low, and it wasn’t long before there was as much water in the boat as in the sea. The waves flashed at me, white and swift and startling, carrying me away.

ON A SPIT OF DRY LAND in the middle of the sea — that was how they found me, they told me. There was no sign of my boat, and I was unconscious and spitting out water. I was discovered by a group of villagers venturing far from their little village to where the fishing was better, and if they hadn’t gone that far, or if they had been an hour later, I’d have died, exposed, cold, belly-up, like a beached fish. It seemed I had made it to the river, more by accident than by my own efforts. I woke up in a little room filled with smoked fish left to dry on racks. A single lamp hung from the roof on a long hook. In its weak, smoky light I saw that everywhere was covered with fish, and the only space left was where I was lying on a mat against the wall. The smell of fish got me crawling to the door and emptying my stomach on the doorstep.

They didn’t ask who I was and where I was going and why I was here; they only asked if I was strong enough to move on. These were dangerous waters, and I could be an escaped hostage. The last thing they wanted was a boatload of gun-wielding militants berthing on their shore. If I was going to get out of there, I had to regain my strength. I slurped the thick corn porridge they gave me with superhuman concentration and then went outside and threw up. I asked for more, my hands shaking. There were four people peering down at me: an old man seated on a rickety hand-carved stool, fair-skinned, with hairs all over his face and growing like tendrils out of his nostrils and ears and armpits and out of the top of his singlet; a fat woman standing over him, the hair on her head white and knotted; and two silent men standing in the shadows behind the fat woman, not saying much, not much hair on their heads. A smoky lamp on a hook hung from the roof. The woman took the bowl from my hands and shook her head.

— No more.

I slept for a half hour or so and didn’t even notice the fish smell. When I woke up I was strong enough to eat a whole fish. Catfish, the whiskers on its intact face looking like the hairs on the old man’s face. I told the old man I was a journalist and I was on my way to Port Harcourt.

— Ah, Port Harcourt, very far from here.

He pointed up with his hand, and from the way he pointed, and the vague, uncomprehending look on his face, Port Harcourt might have been on the moon. The others nodded.

— Can you help me?

— Everybody wan go Port Harcourt. You go enter ferry from Irikefe.

— I’ve come from Irikefe. There’s fighting going on there.

Again, they didn’t ask for details, though surely they must have been aware of the fight? News traveled fast on the water, from island to island, from creek to creek, boat to boat, hut to hut. They continued to stare at me in silence, and the lamp grew smokier above us, making my eyes water. It took a while before I registered something odd in the man’s comment.

— What do you mean, everybody wants to go to Port Harcourt? Who else wants to go there?

They looked at each other. Their eyes expressed their debate, whether to trust me — a stranger who had just washed up on their shore — or not.

— I’m a journalist. You can trust me.

The woman spoke first. She said a white woman was there three days ago, wanting a boat to go to Port Harcourt.

— Was she alone?

— No. One man dey with am. Him name na Salomon.

Isabel Floode. And Salomon, the wanted driver. The two had arrived in a boat, the woman’s face blackened with charcoal, dressed in a man’s clothes, her hair covered in a hat, but there was no hiding the blue eyes when she came closer, nor was there disguising the voice, the speech. She didn’t look very well, her arms were covered in bug bites and rashes and she looked weak, but she was determined to go to Port Harcourt at once. They spent the night there because they had arrived very late. They didn’t say much about where they were from or who they were, but they did promise the villagers a lot of money if they would help them get to Irikefe in the morning, from where they’d get the ferry to Port Harcourt. But then the fighting had broken out.

— Where is she now?

— We send her to Chief Ibiram.

— Chief Ibiram?

— Yes. Him place no far from here.

I looked around the little room, the three faces staring at me. I tried to imagine the woman here, her life in the hands of Salomon and these simple fishing folk. Until now I had only thought of her as a subject, if I thought of her at all, but now, perhaps because of my weakened state, I found myself trying to imagine what must have gone through her mind. How did she manage to escape, coming so far, only to discover the fighting at Irikefe? But why didn’t she go to the soldiers? I looked outside at the forest and the abandoned boats on the water, the few thatched huts, and I thought, what could fate possibly want with her on these oil-polluted waters? The forsaken villages, the gas flares, the stumps of pipes from exhausted wells with their heads capped and left jutting out of the oil-scorched earth, and the ever-present pipelines crisscrossing the landscape, sometimes like tree roots surfacing far away from the parent tree, sometimes like diseased veins on the back of an old shriveled hand, and sometimes in squiggles like ominous writing on the wall. Maybe fate wanted to show her firsthand the carcasses of the fish and crabs and waterbirds that floated on the deserted beaches of these tiny towns and villages and islands every morning, killed by the oil her husband was helping to produce.

— Listen, you must take me to Chief Ibiram now. He is a friend. I have to meet the white woman.

They looked at each other and shook their heads.

— Chief Ibiram don go. E no dey here anymore. E say e no wan stay here anymore, because of so so fighting and because of bad fishing.

— So where is he going to?

They all pointed in the same direction: northward. That meant Port Harcourt, and that explained why they had sent the woman to him: to hitch a ride on one of his boats — it was her best chance of getting there. With the whole clan on the move, she could travel with them undetected.

18

It was not easy: First I had to convince them I was strong enough to leave, then I had to convince them we could catch up with Chief Ibiram if we left immediately. When words failed I waved my big wet wad of James Floode’s money before the hirsute old man, and he nodded. Two young men, Charles and Peter, eager and full of questions, set out with me in one of the village’s few riverworthy boats, and we headed north, hoping Chief Ibiram and his clan hadn’t already put too much distance between themselves and us. Charles, it turned out, was the one who had taken Salomon and Isabel to Chief Ibiram. He said Chief Ibiram and his people had left their settlement late the previous night, preferring to travel under cover of darkness, and by his estimate that put them at least ten hours ahead of us, but because they had children and women they’d be forced to stop often. If we went hard without a pause — we carried two extra gallons of petrol to avoid stopping for refills — we should be able to catch up with them before sunset.

As we passed the flood plain where Chief Ibiram’s village had once stood, I told the two men to slow down for a minute. The place looked desolate: the only signs that a community had once thrived here were a few sticks jutting out of the water, pieces of straw from roof thatches scattered in the mud and a pile of garbage under a tree, that was all.

WE CAUGHT UP with them very late in the afternoon — and by now I was almost fainting from fatigue and weakness. My guides had offered many times to stop and rest but I had insisted we keep going, and now they had to hold me under the arms as I got off the boat.

The group was camped in a forest not far from the river, where their boats, laden with their meager belongings, waited near the trees and rocks on the banks. They had set up tents and sheds, and curious faces peered out of the doorway slits as we passed, some nodding in recognition. Young men and women and children sat under trees, eating, or playing, or just idly waiting for nightfall, when they’d be on the move again. Chief Ibiram’s tent lay a few meters from the others.

— Good to see your face again, reporter.

— You too, Chief Ibiram.

He was seated on his reclining chair, his radio on a side table; I sat on a mat, facing him, and for a second it seemed time had not moved an inch since that day when the old man and his son had first brought Zaq and me to this community. The same cloth chair, the same radio by his side, and somewhere in an imaginary back room I could hear women and children talking and laughing. Only this time there was no Zaq, and this time it was I who was slumped and bowed like Zaq had been that day, and all alone. And the old man, Tamuno and his son Michael, where were they?

— They returned safely. They are fine. They are out there, somewhere.

— Good to hear that.

— And where is your friend, Zaq?

— I left him at Irikefe. He’s not well.

— You also don’t look well, reporter.

— I’ll be fine. I’m on my way to Port Harcourt, where I’ll see a doctor. And you, I see you are on the move again.

— Yes, we couldn’t remain there anymore. My people, they are frightened, the violence gets closer every day. We’ve heard of a place not too far from Port Harcourt, the people there are friendly, most of them are refugees like us. My people could get some sort of work in Port Harcourt.

His voice was hopeful, but his eyes were pessimistic, cloudy. Gradually the community was drifting toward the big city, and sooner or later it would be swallowed up, its people dispersed, like people getting off a bus and joining the traffic on the city streets. He sighed.

— You came for the white woman, didn’t you? Do you want to see her now?

— Can I?

At last I was going to see Isabel Floode, and I didn’t even have a pen or a notepad or my camera. I tried to control my nervousness as I followed Chief Ibiram out of his tent into the heat. She was in a tent by herself, seated on what looked like a folded trampoline; beside her was a half-covered bowl with a half-eaten meal in it. She was staring out to the trees through the door slit, and she didn’t seem at all surprised to see us; perhaps her recent experiences had exhausted her capacity for surprise — which I could understand. Now she looked up with a dull, locked-in expression, waiting for us to speak.

— This is Rufus, a journalist. He’s come to see you.

At the mention of “journalist” a spark of interest entered her eyes. His job done, Chief Ibiram nodded at me, turned and left us. Now I saw how thin she looked. Her hair had been chopped off and the jagged edges hung unevenly over her ears. An old red blouse that didn’t seem to belong to her hung from her shoulders, and her collarbones jutted out, stretching the skin. Her face was covered in rashes; the skin was still slightly discolored from whatever dye she had used to disguise her skin while making her escape from her kidnappers. But it was her eyes that expressed her situation best: they looked hollow, lusterless, and even when they rested directly on you, they did so bluntly, never cutting below the surface. She was about forty years old, but right now she looked ten years older.

— My name is Rufus. I’m from the Reporter.

— Hello. I’m Isabel Floode.

— Yes. Mrs. Floode, your husband sent me. . us. Me and a friend, though I’m alone here at the moment. We’ve been searching for you for more than two weeks now.

— James sent you?

— Yes. He sent us to see if you were alive and well, and

if possible to negotiate your ransom. . but now that you are free. .

— Yes, yes. I’m free.

I noticed that her attention kept wavering. Her eyes were still fixed at the little slit through which a line of light came into the tent, and I wondered what she was staring at outside, or if she was expecting something to come charging in. I felt awkward, unsure how to behave with her, what to say or ask. I had always imagined she’d be surrounded by gun-toting militants when I met her, and I had always assumed Zaq would be there with me and he’d do all the talking; not in my wildest imaginings did I ever see myself sitting less than a meter from her, alone in a tent by the river, carrying the burden of the conversation. But I was a reporter, and this was what reporters do — improvise, look confident and poised.

— Mr. Floode really wanted to be here himself, but because of security. .

She said nothing, and kept staring at the same spot.

— I know you’re tired; if you’d rather rest. .

Now she turned to me and I saw how my unexpected comment had taken her by surprise. She shook her head.

— No. I can talk. What do you want to know?

— Well, how did you do it? How did you manage to escape?

— It wasn’t that hard. Salomon was able to overpower the guard. He bashed him on the head with a stone, and we slipped away. I guess they weren’t expecting us to try something so crazy.

— Yes, Salomon, why did he help you escape? He kidnapped you in the first place, didn’t he?

— It’s complicated.

— What do you mean?

— He didn’t actually kidnap me.

— He didn’t? Well, the police are looking for him. He’s their primary suspect.

— Look, you’ll have to ask Salomon for some of the details of what happened that day. He’s out there somewhere. What I can tell you is what I know.

— Okay. That’s all right. Please go ahead, Mrs. Floode.

— Sorry. . I didn’t mean to snap at you, but everything is so. . I expected to die back there, you know. I still find it hard to believe I’m here, almost safe, on my way to Port Harcourt. When I decided to come to this country, the last thing on my mind was getting kidnapped. Of course, I had been advised about the risks of coming to Nigeria, to Port Harcourt. The embassy had shown me all the newspaper clippings about abducted foreigners, but I didn’t pay much attention. I was coming on a special mission. I was coming to save my marriage.

She paused and looked at me, her eyes still expressionless. I had read somewhere that she was a schoolteacher — perhaps her husband had told me — and her eyes made me feel like an erring student, waiting for judgment.

— Rufus, I’m telling you all this just to put everything into perspective. I know you must have risked a lot to be here, so you deserve to know everything. Perhaps my husband has told you some of it already, but it doesn’t matter. Though I expect you to use your judgment to know what to print and what to leave out.

I nodded. She turned away and continued her story.

She had met Floode at university. He was in his final year, and she was a year behind. They got married a year after she graduated. The first years were happy ones. He worked for a chemical company in London, but then he got his present job, and that was when things began to change. He was a gifted petroleum engineer, and his skills were in great demand. He began to travel a lot, and over the past three years he had lived in five different countries: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Canada, Netherlands and now Nigeria. At first she happily went with him to each new place, but after Canada she suddenly lost interest. Why go all that distance only to stay at home watching TV or shopping at the mall, never seeing him till late in the evenings? So when he got posted to the Netherlands, they decided it was best if she stayed with his mother in Newcastle. But six months later he was out of the Netherlands and on his way to Nigeria. When she asked him if he was happy with the way things were, if he would perhaps think of another line of work for the sake of their marriage, he told her Nigeria would be for only two years, and then he would retire. He was being paid a lot of money to go there because of the dangerous conditions. But then she met someone else. It was nothing serious, nothing actually happened, but it got her thinking.

— I realized how lonely I had been all this while. What we had, me and James, couldn’t really be called a marriage. At first we used to phone every day, but then many days would pass without a word from him. He always claimed that the infrastructure in Nigeria was just awful. Well, I had a brilliant idea. I was going to have a baby. I was going to go to Nigeria on a surprise visit, get pregnant, and everything would be fine.

At first he appeared happy to see her, and every day he came home early from work; there were invitations from other families for cocktails and garden parties, and trips to Lagos and Abuja — in the evenings they’d sit out on the veranda, with its view of the distant sea, and eat, refreshed by the sea breeze. But then, abruptly, things changed. A bomb exploded at his office, and the next day an Italian worker was kidnapped. He started coming home late, saying things were crazy at the office, and he had to be there all the time. After a month of waiting for things to change, of going to the club to play tennis with some of the wives, of sipping sherry under umbrellas by the pool, alone, she realized that was it, and things were not going to change.

— When, in desperation, I told him about my intention to get pregnant, he said it was out of the question. And that was when he told me he was seeing someone else. He didn’t tell me whom, and I assumed it was one of the many expatriate women I always saw at the club. He told me he wanted a divorce.

I kept nodding, keeping my expression pleasant and interested, comparing what she was telling me with what her husband had told me. I tried to calm my excitement: I was being handed a major scoop, and, though I had no pen or recorder, I was storing every word, every inflection of her voice.

— Well, he said the affair had been going on for a while, and. . and that she was pregnant. You can imagine how I felt, the shock. It was as if a cloud had risen in the room, roaring and blocking out every other thing. I couldn’t see. I needed to be alone, to think. It was late at night and I didn’t know the roads very well. The driver, Salomon, always took me out, but I didn’t care. I took the car and went to the club. My plan was to leave for London the next morning.

But she was surprised to find that Salomon had come to look for her there. At first she thought he was waiting to drive her home, but then she noticed he wasn’t wearing his blue-and-black uniform.

— Hello, Solomon. .

— Salomon.

She realized she had always referred to him as Solomon, and he had never corrected her, till now.

— Oh, sorry.

— It’s okay. No problem.

— Did James send you?

— No, madam. I came to talk to you about something serious.

He looked and sounded different. He was wearing a jacket — a bit tight around the shoulders — and it gave him a more formal air than the uniform ever did; and he wasn’t speaking the usual pidgin English that she found so irksome and that always had to be explained to her. Today he spoke a grammatically faultless English, and even the accent was modified, easy to understand. Later she discovered that he was actually a university graduate who, like a lot of young men in the Delta, had been forced to take a job far below his qualifications while he waited for that elusive office job with an oil company. She gave him the car keys and they drove — she had no idea where they were going, but she didn’t care. Something told her what she was about to hear wasn’t going to be pleasant. He said nothing as he drove but she could feel him watching her in the car mirror. Finally they stopped at what looked like a roadside motel.

— Can I get a drink here?

— Yes. My uncle owns this place.

— Good. I’ll have a whiskey.

He led her into a deserted bar, and they sat in a dark corner. The bartender glanced briefly at them and returned to reading his magazine. Salomon went to the bar and returned with her drink.

— Thanks. Aren’t you having anything?

— No, madam. I’m fine.

— Okay, what is it?

— It’s about Koko.

— Koko? What about Koko?

Koko was the maid. She cooked and cleaned three days a week.

— Koko is my fiancée. Yesterday she told me she was pregnant.

He looked mournful, uncomfortable. He sat stiffly on the edge of his seat, and he avoided her eyes as he spoke.

— Well, Salomon, congratulations, but I’m in no mood to celebrate—

— No, not by me. She is pregnant by the Oga.

She didn’t feel anger or sadness; she had already exhausted that emotion the night before. She only felt surprised that she had been unable to detect what was going on, right under her nose, and she felt sadness, not for herself but for Salomon.

— Do you love her?

He nodded, the bitterness now plain on his face, making his mouth twist at the side and his eyes turn red and teary.

— I love her.

— I’m sorry.

— It is not fair. How can Oga do this to me? I respected him. I trusted him, and see what he did to me. Why? I want to know why, can you please tell me?

— And, suddenly, I didn’t feel like seeing James again. I didn’t want to go home; I couldn’t. I told Salomon to take me to any good hotel, and he suggested I stay there, at his uncle’s motel.

— And you weren’t scared of staying there? You trusted Salomon that much?

— I guess I did. I had known him for over six months by then, and. . it was a good motel, really. It was quite clean, but, most important, it was the last place James would come looking for me.

— But why didn’t you go back to the club?

— Because that was the first place James would come looking for me. And I didn’t want to see them, my fellow expatriates, with their phony smiles, laughing at me behind my back. I just wanted to be alone. . I gave Salomon a note for James. I told him to give Salomon my things, that I was leaving the next day, that I would call him when I got to London. And—

She was interrupted by a hand parting a slit in the tent’s entrance and a face peeping in — it was the young girl, Alali, and she entered with a single item of clothing held gingerly in her hand. Isabel took it — it was a blouse — and put it beside her on the mat. She smiled up at the girl, who smiled back and skipped out of the tent.

I waited for her to resume where she’d stopped, and as I waited my nervousness returned. She had told me a great deal, but there was still a lot more to tell, and what if she didn’t want to go on — how should I persuade her to finish the story? So far all I had was one half of a story. What would I do with it if I didn’t get the other half? She closed her eyes and held one palm to her forehead — she wasn’t well, it was obvious.

— Mrs. Floode. . are you all right? Do you need a rest? We can continue later. .

She nodded gratefully.

— Yes, please. I have a crushing headache. .

I left. It was a long way to Port Harcourt and I was sure there’d be another opportunity to finish the interview. Besides, I was also feeling tired. The initial burst of energy I’d felt when she granted me the interview was dissipating. I met the girl outside and she took me to Tamuno and Michael. They were by the water, stripped to the waist, working on a boat, patching holes with tar and scraping mud from the bottom. Other men were equally busy getting their boats ready for departure. The old man took my hand and pumped it energetically. The boy wrapped his arms around my waist and for a moment I was reminded of how he had done the same to Zaq when Zaq agreed to take him back to Port Harcourt. Now I wondered if that promise would ever be kept.

— But where Oga Zaq? You come alone?

I sat next to them and told them about Irikefe, about the fallen statues and the burned houses, about the injured worshippers held more or less as prisoners by the occupying soldiers. They worked as I talked, and the water in the river flowed, and the men came and went, calling out to each other, and for a moment I believed that my adventure was over and that by this time tomorrow I’d be in Port Harcourt, perhaps writing my story, safe, and wiser from my experiences.

19

But that was a dangerous thought, an illusion — like a drowning man letting down his guard at the sight of shore, deceived by the promise of safety, and drowning as a consequence. We were still deep in militant territory and, as if to remind me of this, the militants came. They must have been watching us and waiting, as we were, for nightfall. They waited until all the boats were loaded and everyone was on board and about to sail before they appeared. The roar of their speedboats was deafening, the glare of their flashlights blinded our eyes and threw the women and children into panic and confusion. Some of the women and children started to jump into the shallow water, some threw themselves below the benches, but, above the cries and wails of women and even men, one voice rose and tried to maintain calm — it was Chief Ibiram’s, from the lead boat. I could see his silhouette as he stood up, his arms raised.

— Calm down. Sit still. Everybody, sit down.

The militants said nothing and continued to circle in their boats, blocking all avenues of sudden escape, and then at last, when the noise had gone down a bit, a man in one of the boats stood up and shouted over the water:

— We want the white woman now. Give us the white woman and her driver and we won’t harm you. If you don’t we will sink all your boats and set fire to your things. If you tink say na joke, try us.

I was in Tamuno’s boat with Isabel and Salomon. We were sitting side by side, and behind us father and son watched and waited in silence. I waited. And then the man started to count:

— One, two, three. .

The third count was accompanied by gunfire aimed into the cloudy night sky. Isabel stood up, holding on to my shoulder for balance, and I could feel how her hand shook. And when she spoke her words were almost a sob:

— I. . am here. Please. . don’t shoot. I’m here.

The light fell on her. She removed the black scarf covering her chopped hair, and with the other hand she covered her eyes from the blinding flashlight.

— Bring her here. Now!

This was accompanied by another wild gunshot into the sky. The old man lowered his oar into the water and rowed, and slowly we went past the other boats, past the neutral space between our men and the militants, and then we were with them. Two men jumped out of a boat, still holding their guns on us, and helped Isabel out and into their boat.

— Where is the driver?

Salomon stood up and, in trying to get out, fell into the water and came up again, gasping for breath. The two men pulled him out and pushed him onto a seat next to Isabel, and then, when we thought it was over, the leader of the militants let off another shot into the sky.

— Chief Ibiram, why did you do this? Are you now on their side? Are you trying to take her back to get a reward, is that so?

— It is not so. We are only trying to help her. She came to us and begged—

— She came to you, then you should have known what to do. Tell me, what should you have done when my prisoner escapes and comes to you? I can’t hear you. Louder!

— I should have come to you. I am sorry. This will not happen again.

— You are right, it will not happen again. To make sure it doesn’t I will take one of you with me. Just as insurance. When we are sure you haven’t gone to the government soldiers to betray us, he will be released. You decide who.

I noticed Tamuno inching closer to his son and putting a protective arm around him; I was sure that behind me, in the other boats, mothers were wrapping their arms around their children, and fathers were lowering their heads in anxiety.

— Chief, we are waiting. One, two, three. .

Again a flash and the rude sound of gunfire, followed by silence. I could imagine Chief Ibiram in his boat, and the million things going through his mind.

— Well, since no one is willing to come, we will take this boy here.

And again the two men jumped into the water and came to our boat.

— Nooo! Abeg. Please! Noo!

The cry came from the old man as the men approached our boat; he threw himself at them as they began to drag Michael out of the boat, his puny arms rising and falling ineffectually against the men’s burly frames, but still he fought them, his rage churning up the water. The boy grabbed tightly on to my arm, screaming for his father. I saw a gun rise and then descend on the old man’s head and he slumped against the boat and then into the water. Slowly I stood up, my arms raised. An image of the boy proudly scrawling his name in the sand came to my mind, and it seemed like just yesterday. The old man had served us diligently in the hope that we’d take his son to Port Harcourt and a better future, and instead we had led him to incarceration and being doused in petrol. Now the old man lay faceup in the water, and his son was about to be taken away.

— I will go. Take me. Leave the boy alone.

I got into the water and helped Tamuno back into the boat. Then the two men took my arms and we waded to their boat, where they shoved me in beside Salomon and Isabel.

THEY WERE THE MASTERS of the waterways — they knew every turning, every shallow, every rapid; many times I expected our boat to crash into some shadowy form looming suddenly in front of us — a tree, a rock — but our boat would effortlessly curve away into the darkness and into an open expanse of water and the men would let their guns roar as if in defiance of danger and death. There were five boats with four men in each, all armed, all eager to shoot off a few rounds at the slightest opportunity. Salomon and Isabel and I hung on for dear life as the boats ate up the darkness. I had expected a blindfold, but nobody paid me or my fellow prisoners any attention once we left Chief Ibiram and his people.

Our destination turned out to be closer than I had anticipated — we got there in under thirty minutes, and even in the dark I could appreciate how impregnable the approach to land was. It was one solid slab of granite rising sheer from the water, and not till we left the boats did I see the tiny steps cut into the rock face; they looked no more than hand- and toeholds, but they were cut in a curving zigzag, making the climb easier than one would have expected, yet still daunting to someone not fully recovered from a fever, and hungry, and prodded by guns in the back, and unsure of whatever lay in store. Our arrival was announced by more gunshots and whoops and calls, but the camp was clearly asleep. A few fires burned to illuminate makeshift sheds and tents, and two sentries appeared suddenly from behind trees, their presence indicated only by the inevitable cigarette between their lips. Salomon and I were dumped under a tree, while Isabel was led away to a group of tents. Although we couldn’t see any guards in our immediate vicinity, I knew they were there, shadowy, watching, waiting. I turned to my companion, but he had dragged himself to the foot of the tree and was seated with his back against it, his head lowered to his knees, and after a while I realized he was sobbing.

— Salomon, are you all right?

He said nothing, and I decided to let him cry in peace. I could imagine how terrified he must be. After all, he had helped the woman escape, and he knew a terrible punishment awaited him in the morning. I hoped he would be composed enough to grant me an interview before they came for him. . for us. I was aware that unless I could prove I was a journalist, and that I could be useful to the militants with my piece, my fate wouldn’t be any better than Salomon’s. I lay on my back and closed my eyes, but that night sleep didn’t come easily.

IN THE MORNING I was awakened by a kick in the ribs. I sat up, holding my aching side, and saw a man with a gun standing over me. He said nothing, only motioned with his gun. He wanted me to stand up. I stood up. Salomon was already on his feet, and from his swollen and bloodshot eyes I could tell he hadn’t slept much last night.

— Let’s go.

Another gunman appeared and led the way through the center of the camp. The militants were already awake and busy. Men and a few women crawled in and out of canvas tents; others sat or stood under trees in groups, talking and smoking and cleaning their guns. All seemed to be dressed in black, some wearing headbands and some wearing masks.

— Keep walking.

We went deeper into the camp, away from the river, and as we went the trees grew denser, our path grew narrower and I kept looking around trying to spot Isabel, or Gloria. We passed a group standing before an open fire, and when the smell of the meat they were roasting reached me my legs almost buckled. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. We passed another group standing in a circle, singing in loud, discordant voices, and when I recognized the song as one from my long-ago Sunday school, I did so with shock. A tall man with gray hair stood in the center of the circle, frenziedly waving a Bible in the air, his eyes closed, leading the song. Our escorts finally led us to another group sitting under a leafless tree standing by itself in a large circular clearing. There were already about half a dozen men sitting under the tree, and they all looked abject and forlorn. At the edge of the clearing I saw two militants sitting on boulders, guns lying in the grass beside them.

— Sit here.

I was glad to sit, for my legs could barely support me. When I regained my breath I turned to the men around me, and they all stared back at me. Prisoners, like me. I wondered if they were being held for ransom, or if they had simply fallen foul of the Professor and were being kept here in the open as punishment. As I turned away from their faces I noticed a footpath leading away into a densely wooded area, and now I could hear voices coming from that direction. I wondered if it was an extension of the camp, and if there were more prisoners being held there. We sat for hours, we watched the shadows under the trees shift and grow longer and longer and still no one came to talk to us. We watched the camp going about its regular business. Every once in a while a militant would step forward and release a shot into the air, almost casually, and his friends would cheer him briefly before resuming whatever they were doing. Salomon still sat away from me, his head bowed. At last I stood up and faced the guards, and one immediately stepped toward me, his gun raised.

— I need to stretch my legs. I have cramps.

I went over and stood next to him.

— My name is Rufus. I’m a reporter. It’s very important that I speak to the Professor — I have an urgent message for him.

He looked at me, and I could see he was trying to decide whether I was joking or not. He was young, about twenty, he had cross-eyes and I couldn’t tell if he was staring unblinkingly at me or at something else, but his gun was without doubt pointed at my gut. He didn’t look threatening, and he even smiled at me when I asked him his name.

— Joseph. People call me Joe. Which paper you work for?

— The Reporter.

— So you be reporter and you work for Reporter.

— Yes, funny.

He nodded, smiling widely.

— I really have to see the Professor.

— No worry, you go see am. He dey busy right now.

Joseph continued to stare over my shoulder and to point the gun at me. When I got tired of standing I sat down again. One of the men dragged himself over, carefully reclining on one elbow, and, as I turned away from him, he tapped me on the shoulder. I was surprised by the sudden show of interest.

— Are you really a journalist?

— Yes.

I raised my head to see a line of about ten men emerging from the path — they were talking excitedly, and all carried sacks over their shoulders.

— They are getting ready for something big.

— What?

Now I turned to the man and looked at him closely for the first time. His hollow eyes were like those of a holy anchorite who has fasted for days and reached that stage of numbness from which there is no return, unless perhaps by electric shock. Without thinking I stood up and made for the narrow path. The guards, surprised, didn’t react till I had gone a few meters, then Joseph ran to me and held me by the hand, the wide smile still on his face.

— I have to see the Professor.

Joseph was roughly pushed aside by the other guard, a short, stout fellow with red, merciless eyes, who stood firmly in my path. He threw away his cigarette into the bush and moved closer to me till his gun made contact with my chest.

— Where you tink say you dey go?

— I have to see the Professor. I’m a reporter—

— Go back before I blast you to hell!

I went back. The reclining man tapped me again on the shoulder.

— Well, you are a very brave man.

He stared directly at me, as the light fell on his face through the few tree branches, leaving blotches of light and shade where the shadow mixed with light.

— What do you mean?

— You don’t seem to be afraid of their guns.

— Who are you? Why are you here? Are you prisoners, hostages?

— We are militants, just like them.

— Then why are they guarding you?

— We have a slight problem, that’s all. Each of us is here for a different reason. Those two sitting right under the tree, they are from a different gang and they want to join this gang, so they are being watched for a day or two to make sure they are who they claim to be. That one next to them, in the blue shirt, he is being punished. He used to be one of the Professor’s top men, he was sent to buy boats from a foreign dealer and somehow he lost a lot of money in the transaction, I don’t know how much, but the Professor is very angry with him, very angry. See that one over there, near the path, sitting by himself? Well, he made a mistake. He brought back the wrong hostage.

The man he pointed to was seated on the very edge of the patchy shade cast by the tree’s few leaves. He was a fair-skinned, balding man, dressed in green military fatigues, mostly now torn and dirty, his head bowed between his knees, exposing the round bald spot at the back of his head.

— The Professor needed to raise money quick quick to pay for a consignment of guns he was expecting from overseas, so he sent that guy over there, his name is Monday. His assignment was simple: take some of the boys, and enough guns and boats and everything you need, go to one of the oil companies in Port Harcourt and kidnap one foreign oil worker and bring him back. Well, he went, and he returns with this cheerful-looking man who keeps saying they are making a terrible mistake in kidnapping him. Well, they didn’t listen to him. They lock him up in one of the tents over there reserved for such purposes. They send their ransom demand, and they wait for the company to get in touch so they can begin negotiations, but surprisingly, the company shows no interest. Meanwhile, the hostage is treated like all other hostages, very good food, everything he needs, they even bring a doctor to see him when he has a problem. Well, eventually they discovered what was wrong. The hostage was not a white man at all, despite his very fair skin. You know what he was? An albino! And here he was eating the best food and sleeping all day, as if he was on vacation. Very funny, isn’t it?

— What do they call this place?

— Forest. And you, what is a reporter doing here?

— I was taken by force, together with that man over there. If I can talk to the Professor, I can prove who I am.

— Don’t worry, the Professor will see you eventually. His men will tell him what you said and he will want to verify if it is true. I just hope you can prove you are who you claim to be.

And, having said that, the man suddenly lost interest in me. He went back to his spot and to his ruminations.

20

I was somewhat cheered by the man’s assurance that the Professor would definitely see me, and even further cheered when a team of women appeared with food in a big basin and then proceeded to ladle out portions in plastic plates to each of us. The food wasn’t remarkable — rice immersed in a mess of beans — but it was filling. After eating I decided to tackle Salomon right away — I had given him enough time to recover, and perhaps what he needed to snap him out of his self-pity was conversation. I went over and sat next to him, and he looked up but said nothing. He was a tall, angular beanpole of a man. His skin and clothes looked as if they hadn’t touched water in a long time, and he gave off a musty smell that was quite overpowering, even in the open air. He kept licking his dry lips as he waited for me to speak, and I saw his hand shaking slightly. He kept darting glances at the guards, who were now watching us intently.

— Hi, Salomon.

— Hello.

— We need to talk. .

— I don’t want to talk. Leave me alone, please.

— Look, Salomon, I know you’re scared of what might happen to you here. I’m scared too. But by talking to me, you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

— How?

— Once I have your story, they wouldn’t dare do anything to you, because they know when I go out there I will print it, and the world will know you are here, kept against your will. .

— Nonsense.

— What?

I thought I was doing so well, and for a moment I was telling myself that even Zaq would be proud of my persuasiveness, but obviously the driver wasn’t persuaded.

— These people, they no care. They have killed before, and I know nothing is going to save me. . nothing. . The Professor is a madman. I have seen what he can do. A few days ago, just before we ran away, he shot a man over there. Point-blank. He said the man was giving away information to the soldiers, he screamed at him and called him a traitor, then he took out his gun and, boom! He shot him and said, Throw him into the water for the fish to eat. Just like that.

I refused to let my perturbation show. If I showed no fear, nothing would go wrong. I renewed my effort, and as I spoke I was aware my words were also aimed at myself, at my quaking heart.

— Well, but isn’t that another good reason why you should tell me everything? Isabel told me what happened, about her husband and your fiancée. The police have everyone thinking you’re some crazy kidnapper — don’t you want to put the record straight? This might be your only chance, you know. Don’t you want your family and friends to know the truth, the real truth?

— It is a long story. .

— I’m very patient, and it doesn’t look as if we’re going anywhere soon.

— What do you want to know?

— Your side of the story. Why did you kidnap her?

— I didn’t kidnap her. .

— Well, okay. Tell me about you and Koko.

I saw his eyes darken with anger, and he started to rock himself back and forth, back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

— Well, I knew she was pregnant. We lived together, and we were happy — well, I thought we were. I was happy. I was looking forward to being a father. I never suspected she was cheating on me, how could she? It was I who brought her to Port Harcourt from our village. She wanted to be a nurse, she took the exam, and as we waited for the results, she begged me to help her look for a temporary job, just till the results came out. And so I talked to my Oga. He was always good to me. A nice man. And he said, yes, why not? And that was how she started working in that house. I did everything for her. If only I’d known things would turn out like this. I should have realized something was wrong when she got her exam results and she said she wasn’t going to nursing school anymore. She said we needed the money for the wedding, and for the coming baby.

Salomon paused, as if to go on would be just too painful. He continued to rock back and forth, back and forth, the harsh sun overhead forcing the sweat to drip down his face, but he didn’t seem to notice.

The day she told him about James Floode, he had returned early from work. The madam didn’t need him for the rest of the day, so he went to his two-room tenement house and turned on the TV. Usually Koko was home from work earlier than he was, but today she didn’t return till after nightfall, and he had started to worry. He saw that something was wrong the moment she entered. She looked distracted, and she went into the bedroom without a word. When he followed her he found her lying in bed, her eyes closed. When he asked her what was wrong, and if they were not going to eat, she threw off the sheets and started raging at him. It was as if she had been waiting to do this for a very long time.

— You this man, why don’t you leave me alone? Don’t you know where the kitchen is? Or don’t you have hands?

— She had never behaved that way before, and I thought it was the pregnancy, so I said nothing. I just turned to go back to the living room, but then, as I turned, she made that sucking noise through her teeth and said, Mumu. I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked her, What did you call me?

— Mumu. Fool. Mugu. You heard me right. And I want to tell you, I am moving out tomorrow. No more marriage.

— Koko, have you been drinking? Is it me you are calling a fool?

— Yes. All this while I have just been pretending with you. And this pregnancy that you think is yours, it is not. It is the Oga’s pregnancy.

— I don’t understand.

— What is there to understand? Me and the Oga, we are in love. He is getting a divorce from his wife, and he is going to marry me. He will take me to London with him when his contract finishes.

Salomon didn’t know what happened; he said he saw himself standing over her, his fist raised. He must have hit her, but she didn’t cry, in fact her eyes were glowing with triumph, and she was still hissing at him. She said if he touched her again, he would not only lose his job, but she would make sure the Oga had him arrested. Slowly he lowered his hand. He went out to a nearby bar and he drank till closing time, and when he came back she wasn’t there — she had packed a bag and left.

— The next morning I decided to go meet the madam and tell her what had happened. She was very friendly, unlike the other oyinbo women I had worked with, who only shout orders at you. I remember, the day she arrived, I had picked her up from the airport, and she told me how tough it was getting through customs, and how they asked her to open all her bags, and how they had put their hands all over her things, including her underwear, a few of her things had been confiscated for further examination. She said to me in her soft English voice, I’m sure I’ll never see them again. Will I, do you think? She was like that when we drove around, asking questions, leaning forward in the back seat and talking to me.

— At the house I was told by the guards at the gate that Madam wasn’t at home, and I decided to check the European Club, even though it was I who always took her there. When I found her, she seemed very sad, and I knew she was dealing with the same problem as myself. But later, at my uncle’s motel, I realized she didn’t know it was Koko her husband was leaving her for.

He stopped his narration suddenly and stared past me at the sun that seemed to be hanging on the edge of the sky, all orange and red and purple, as if it were only a hand span away.

— Reporter—

— Call me Rufus.

— You know why I am telling you all this, Rufus? It is because some of us might not live to see another sunset like this one.

— Everything will be fine. You’re doing the right thing by talking to me.

— You must write it down exactly as I say, because I am the only one who knows everything that happened. I had a hand in the kidnapping, at first, but later I took care of her very well, otherwise. . she wouldn’t be alive right now.

— What happened after you left her at your uncle’s motel for the night?

— It is a long story. .

— I’m listening.

— I went back to my room, but I couldn’t rest. My mind was still worried. Later, when my neighbor Bassey came back, we sat down to drink and when he asked me where Koko was, I told him everything. When I left him, he went and told his friend Jamabo, a police officer, and it was Jamabo who came up with the kidnapping idea. Late that night they came knocking on my door. I listened as they laid out the plan. Jamabo said as a police officer he had seen many cases of kidnapping and it is like plucking money off a money tree — that was how he put it. And when I asked, What if we get caught? He said there was no danger of that: usually the police stay out of it, leaving the oil company to handle things its own way, which is what it prefers. But what of the woman? I said. She has done nothing wrong, will she be all right? Jamabo said nothing would happen to her. She would remain in the hotel room, we’d treat her well, and we’d let her go as soon as we had the money. It wouldn’t take more than two days in all. He said technically it wasn’t even kidnapping; I’d just be collecting payment for all the pain these people caused me, a refund for all my investment in Koko. And that was what convinced me. The Oga had insulted me badly, he’d taken away my pride, my dignity, my manhood, and all the time I was serving him honestly, diligently. I trusted him. And another point, the money wasn’t even coming out of his pocket: the oil company always pays the ransom, and Bassey said that if you thought about it carefully, you’d realize that the money came from our oil, so we would be getting back what was ours in the first place. Well, I started to really think. This was the chance of a lifetime. And, like Jamabo said, it wasn’t a real kidnapping. So we all agreed. We were going to ask for one million dollars. Over three hundred thousand each. We would be rich. With that kind of money I could get out of the country and no one would ever find me.

And so, their plan carefully prepared, the three went to the motel early the next morning. Isabel looked surprised to see not just Salomon but also two other men with him, one carrying a duffel bag, but she let them in and turned to Salomon for explanation. Salomon just stood there, unable to speak, unable to look her directly in the eye. But when Bassey pushed him aside impatiently to face her, Salomon found his voice.

— I will tell her.

He took her into the next room and told her the two men outside would stay with her until her husband paid ransom for her. He said if her husband cooperated, she would be free in a day or two. Slowly she sat down on the bed, shaking her head.

— No, Salomon, you’re doing the wrong thing. Listen, they’ll catch you and you’ll go to prison — do you want that? I know you’re doing this because of your fiancée, but this is wrong.

He turned and left the room, locking the door behind him, but Jamabo went in again and inspected the windows, making sure they were all firmly secured. The men stayed in the living room all day, playing cards, and when night finally fell, Salomon checked on her once more to make sure she was okay — there was a fridge in the bedroom, with water and fruit and bread in it — and then he left. However, a big shock awaited him when he got home and turned on the TV.

— The first thing I saw on the screen was the madam’s face, she was missing, and then my own face, the last person she was seen with when leaving the European Club in her car. And I remembered I had left the car at the motel, and I began to worry. What if somebody stumbled upon it, my uncle or one of his workers?

The same story was on all the stations: Isabel Floode, only six months in the country, abducted on the way home from the European Club, her driver, Salomon, wanted for questioning. He felt trapped in his room, unsure what to do. The plan had been for him to take the ransom note to Floode’s office in the morning and to drop it there without being seen; Jamabo had drafted the note with clear instructions as to where to bring the money and how to get the woman back. But this was now too dangerous and would have to change.

He couldn’t stay in his room any longer, so he quickly gathered together a few things and took a bus back to the motel.

— I went straight to number nineteen and knocked on the door. I could see the curtain shake as a figure observed me from inside. I shouted, It is me, Salomon, open up quickly. Jamabo opened the door and dragged me inside, telling me to keep my voice down. I looked around and he was alone. I went to the adjoining room where the madam was, and it was empty. Jamabo is sitting on a chair in the first room, waiting for me. Sit down, he told me, there is a change in plans. What do you mean, there is a change in plans? I shouted at him. Who is making the plans, is it not me? He said, Sit down, I am making the plans now. Listen, we think the million dollars you are asking is too small for this operation. But that is bigger than you are ever going to earn in all your life as a policeman. Besides, this is not a real kidnapping, I said. Isn’t it? he asked. My friend, kidnapping is kidnapping. Did you see the news? I am thinking that is why you came back so quickly, isn’t it? Where is she? I asked. Don’t worry, she is being taken somewhere safe as we speak. I saw the news and I knew she couldn’t stay here any longer, so I called a friend of mine who owns a boat and now he is taking her to an island not far from here. No one can find her there. We’ll soon join her. But before we go, I want to make sure you are with us. This is not a game anymore. That is why we are asking for three million instead of one. Last week, a foreign family was kidnapped, a man and his wife, their company paid three million ransom for them. Cash. This woman is worth nothing less than that, but if they decide to negotiate, we can go down to two million. Are you coming with us? You decide. But, I said to him, this is not a real kidnapping. But it is, he said, we will get the same prison sentence regardless of how much we ask for. You are a kidnapper already. Well, I had no option. And we left. First I went and checked out of the motel room, as if nothing was wrong, then we took the car and dumped it in front of a supermarket, then we set out for Agbuki Island. That was where she was being taken by Bassey.

— 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

When 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.

I PASSED THE TWO MEN on my way back, and once more they paused and nodded to me, and I nodded back. Boma was waiting for me at the edge of the sculpture garden. She was wearing the long white robe. I stopped and pointed at the robe.

She looked well. There was a smile on her face.

— Well, you look healthy, happy.

— I’m happy to see you back in one piece. You left without telling me.

— I’m back now.

— And the white woman?

— She’s still there. I have a message for her husband from the kidnappers.

— Will she be all right?

— Yes. I’ll meet with her husband today, and I’m sure he’ll do the right thing. We have only a few hours before the ferry gets here. You have to get ready.

She turned and looked toward the shrine, where a few worshippers were beginning to line up, getting ready for their morning procession to the sea. She turned back to me.

— I’ve made up my mind to stay.

— Stay here?

She nodded. — I like it here, I like the people and I can feel myself relaxing in a way I haven’t in a long time. My spirit feels settled.

— Well, if you’re sure. .

She came forward and hugged me, then she left to join the procession. I made my way to the little hill overlooking the sea. The ferry wouldn’t be here till afternoon. Gloria and I would have lunch with Boma and Naman before we left, but until then I would sit and watch, perhaps for the last time, the worshippers procede to the water. In the distance, at the edge of the clearing where the huts began, I saw a portly figure in a white jacket talking to Gloria; it was Dr. Dagogo-Mark.

Far away on the horizon the flares were still sending up smoke into the air, and for a moment I imagined, somewhere on the river, a refinery up in flames, sabotaged by the Professor and his men — if nothing had happened last night to stop them. I imagined huge cliffs of smoke and giant escarpments of orange fire rising into the atmosphere, and thousands of gallons of oil floating on the water, the weight of the oil tight like a hangman’s noose around the neck of whatever life-form lay underneath. I thought of Isabel out there in the forest, waiting. She might not have long to wait. This could all be over by tomorrow, and then a period of mental healing would begin for her, but by then she would be somewhere far away, among her people. A fortnight hence and she’d look back and this would all be nothing but a memory, an anecdote for the dinner table. And her husband, James Floode, I wondered what his future plans were: but I would have a chance to ask him later today when I saw him.

Now the worshippers were in the water, swaying and humming; I strained my eyes, trying to determine which of them was Boma. She’d be happy here, I was sure. This was a place of healing and soon she’d forget John, her scars would recede to the back of her mind and one day she’d look in the mirror and see they were gone. I had felt the same optimism days ago when I looked back from the militants’ boat at Chief Ibiram and his people. They were a fragile flotilla, ordinary men and women and babies, a puny armada about to launch itself once more into uncertain waters. That day I didn’t get a chance to wave goodbye to them: Tamuno and Michael and Ibiram and Alali and all the nameless ones. Now, alone on the hill, I raised my hands and waved and waved — down below someone waved back, it looked like Boma, but it was too far to say for sure. I turned and began my descent.