Oil on Water

Rufus's¹ front-page story earned him the Chairman's praise and the seat of honor at the editorial lunch. He then visited Floode's⁵ double-gated waterfront mansion.

Over whiskey, the husband admitted the marriage was already dead — Isabel³ had come to Nigeria hoping to save it by having a baby, but Floode⁵ had another woman, a local, already expecting his child. Rufus¹ noticed Floode's⁵ hand brush the maid Koko's¹⁶ thigh as she served drinks. Floode⁵ offered a hundred thousand naira for Rufus¹ to return to Irikefe and convince Zaq² to keep searching, plus another hundred thousand for Zaq.²

Rufus¹ pocketed the envelopes, unsure whether he'd honor the deal or simply keep the money. Back home, he found Boma¹¹ waiting — evicted, her husband John gone, her scarred face tracked with tears.

Back on Irikefe, Rufus¹ found Zaq² gaunt but lucid, attended by a nurse named Gloria.⁷ The priest Naman⁶ led them to the shrine's cemetery and showed them a fresh unmarked mound — the grave of Isabel Floode,³ he claimed, brought by the militants and buried after she died of illness.

Zaq² didn't believe it. That night, fortified by whiskey, the two dug up the grave by lamplight. Rufus's¹ shovel struck not flesh but stone — a boulder planted as a decoy. Isabel³ was alive. By morning, Naman⁶ discovered the desecration.

The head priestess had just died, and the disturbed grave threw the burial ritual into disarray. The priests confined Rufus¹ and Zaq² to their hut. But days later, Naman⁶ relented — sending Tamuno⁴ at dawn with a boat to spirit them deeper into the Delta.

Deeper into the waterways, Rufus¹ and Zaq² drifted through villages emptied by the oil war. In one, a poisoned well exhaled the stench of something decomposing in its depths. Dead birds hung oil-slicked from mangrove branches. A severed human arm floated past the boat.

At a market village, soldiers descended to arrest a blacksmith named Karibi for allegedly aiding militants — his son predicted conviction was certain. That night they sheltered with Tamuno's⁴ brother, Chief Ibiram,¹³ whose entire clan lived in exile on stilts over mud flats.

The chief described how oil companies seized their ancestral land, arrested their head chief who died in custody, then waved a contract the dead man had supposedly signed. Ten families refused the money and left — their uncollected payment a curse on the companies. They had been wandering ever since.

An oil-company helicopter spotted their boat. Military speedboats intercepted, sank Tamuno's⁴ canoe, and marched them to a camp commanded by a volatile officer. The Major¹⁰ lined up seven captured militants in a clearing.

Then, methodically, he poured petrol over each bowed head — including Tamuno's⁴ and young Michael's,¹⁴ lumped in with the prisoners. Rufus¹ confronted him and was jabbed in the chest, told he could easily join the kneeling men. The camp doctor, Dagogo-Mark,¹² pulled Rufus¹ aside afterward with devastating news: Zaq's² blood work revealed a rare hemorrhagic fever endemic to these poisoned waters.

His liver was likely gone already. Without a proper hospital, the doctor said quietly, Zaq² was dying. He'd seen it before. A man gets a headache, then a rash, then an organ simply stops.

The Major¹⁰ announced that militants had attacked Irikefe and loaded his prisoners onto boats. What Rufus¹ found broke him more than any dead body: the sculpture garden pulverized, arms and heads sundered from clay torsos, a face staring upward with an expression so lifelike its mouth seemed eager to share a secret.

Naman,⁶ bloodied but composed, explained that militants had demanded the worshippers' allegiance and pointed at Gloria⁷ — she would be their hostage. When soldiers arrived by helicopter, they bombed everything indiscriminately.

Then Boma¹¹ appeared — she had come to find Rufus¹ and arrived just before the violence. She carried grim news from his office: his editor said not to bother returning. Rufus¹ had lost his job, his camera, his notebook. He had only Zaq's² fading breath and a deadline pressing from every direction.

Zaq² and Naman⁶ conspired to send Rufus¹ off the occupied island to reach Port Harcourt and alert editors. Wearing a worshipper's white robe, Rufus¹ swam from shore, blacked out in the water, and woke facedown on a beach.

He walked through the gutted village, found Gloria's⁷ ransacked room, and collapsed on her bed with fever. A fisherman's family gave him a hidden boat, and he launched into heaving waves that swamped his craft. Villagers found him unconscious on a spit of dry land.

When he recovered, a woman told him something that reignited everything: a white woman with blackened skin had passed through days ago, accompanied by a man named Salomon⁸ — Isabel's³ driver, the prime suspect in her kidnapping. The villagers had sent them to Chief Ibiram,¹³ who was migrating north with his whole clan.

Rufus¹ paid two boatmen to pursue Chief Ibiram's¹³ flotilla and caught the migrating clan camped in a forest by the river. The chief led him to a tent where Isabel³ sat thin and rash-covered, her hair hacked to jagged edges, wearing someone else's blouse. She spoke carefully.

She had come to Nigeria to get pregnant and save her marriage, but Floode⁵ wanted a divorce — there was another woman already carrying his child. Devastated, she fled to the European Club. There Salomon⁸ found her and revealed his own parallel betrayal: Koko,¹⁶ the Floodes' maid, was also Salomon's⁸ fiancée — and she was pregnant by Floode.⁵

He took Isabel³ to his uncle's motel. She never intended to disappear. But she woke the next morning inside a kidnapping that Salomon⁸ had not planned alone. Her headache forced a pause. The rest of the story belonged to Salomon.⁸

That night, as the clan loaded their boats to travel under cover of darkness, speedboats roared out of nowhere. Militants circled the flotilla, flashlights blinding the women and children. Their leader demanded the white woman. Isabel³ stood and identified herself, trembling.

She and Salomon⁸ were pulled from Tamuno's⁴ boat. Then the militant demanded a hostage — insurance against betrayal. When he began counting to three, punctuating each number with gunfire, and his men moved toward Michael,¹⁴ Rufus¹ stood up. He would go.

He climbed into the water and was shoved beside Isabel³ and Salomon⁸ in the militants' boat. Tamuno⁴ lay stunned in the water after being struck with a gun butt. Within thirty minutes, Rufus¹ found himself scaling granite steps carved into a cliff face, entering the Professor's⁹ hidden camp — a prisoner once more.

Under a leafless tree ringed by armed guards, Rufus¹ persuaded the defeated Salomon⁸ to talk. After Koko¹⁶ confessed the baby was Floode's,⁵ Salomon's⁸ neighbor and a corrupt police officer named Jamabo hatched the ransom scheme — just collecting payment for what the oil man had stolen, they told him.

They locked Isabel³ in the motel room, but Salomon's⁸ face appeared on television as a suspect. Panicking, Jamabo escalated: moved the hostage, tripled the ransom. Then the Professor's⁹ men arrived, executed Jamabo on the spot, and absorbed the operation.

The Professor⁹ raised the price to ten million dollars. Salomon⁸ had once helped Isabel³ escape by bashing a guard with a rock. Now, recaptured and awaiting punishment, he tried to run in the dark. He fell from the cliff edge onto the rocks below. The river carried his body away.

The Professor⁹ — small, ordinary, lounging in a hammock between mango trees — told Rufus¹ that Salomon⁸ had died at dawn. He handed Rufus¹ an envelope containing Isabel's³ hair and a two-day ultimatum for Floode.⁵ He confirmed Gloria⁷ had been freed days earlier.

He told Rufus¹ to write the truth — about the flares, the poisoned water, the soldiers driving escalation. An escort delivered Rufus¹ to the far riverbank and pointed him toward a forest path. When he finally reached Irikefe and found Gloria⁷ at her standpipe, she smiled — the most beautiful sight he could remember.

After he bathed and ate and slept five hours, she told him gently: Zaq² was dead. He had been buried in the empty grave they'd once dug up together, under a wooden cross bearing only his name, his profession, and the date.

Rufus¹ knelt at Zaq's² grave, wishing he had a bottle of Johnnie Walker to pour as a libation. He recalled Zaq's² one contented memory — four months in Ouagadougou with a woman whose name he never shared, the smile lingering on his sleeping lips.

In the morning, Boma¹¹ appeared in a worshipper's white robe. She had joined the daily processions to the sea, and her spirit, for the first time since the fire, felt settled. She was staying. Gloria⁷ offered to accompany Rufus¹ to Port Harcourt.

From the hilltop, he watched the procession sway into the waves — somewhere among the white figures was his sister,¹¹ beginning to heal. On the horizon, gas flares sent up their perpetual smoke. He turned and began his descent toward the ferry, carrying in his pocket a woman's future and a two-day clock.