Helon Habila - Oil on Water

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

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

— Come on, Zaq. Tell us.

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

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

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

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

None of us had a car.

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

— Bar Beach.

— What?

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

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

— Beautiful.

— Yes, beautiful.

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

— What’s your name?

— Rufus.

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

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

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

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