Helon Habila - Oil on Water

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

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

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

— You were having a bad dream.

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

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

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

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

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

— Don’t you like the food, Mr. Zaq?

— Zaq is my first name, actually.

— Oh, so sorry, Mr. .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—“Beware: Dangerous lunatic on the loose.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Tolu.

— Right. Tolu. Want a go?