— Look at the soldiers, look at their eyes, all feverish with excitement and expectation.
— Expectation of what?
— Of the day when the Major will strike a match and throw it at the bowed, petrol-soaked heads. One day it will happen — see how the Major’s hands shake with the temptation.
The Major’s loud mocking voice cut the air.
— What, you can’t stand the smell of oil? Isn’t it what you fight for, kill for? Go on, enjoy. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll hate the smell of it, you won’t take money that comes from oil, you won’t get in a car because it runs on petrol. You’ll hate the very name petrol.
— They say he became like this after his daughter was raped. She was only eighteen. A student at the university. She was the brightest in her class, she was studying to become a doctor. .
— You want resource control? Well, control this. How does it feel? This will teach you to kidnap innocent children. This will teach you to terrorize innocent villages.
— One day she’s walking to the hostel from the library, it’s late at night, she has an exam the next day and she’s been reading and doesn’t know it’s so late. Then a car pulls up beside her and she’s offered a lift. She recognizes one of the faces, a classmate. She gets in.
— Sergeant! Get me more petrol. These people are so thirsty. They drank it all up. Would you believe that? Hurry up.
— But the car doesn’t take her to her room. They head for the city. She begins to scream when her pleading to be taken back to the hostel meets with only drunken laughter. They take her to a strange room in some run-down hotel and lock her up in the wardrobe after sealing her mouth with duct tape. They leave her there all night. That boy that she recognized, he was about to be initiated into a campus fraternity, and part of his initiation ceremony required rape, and he had to supply the girl. .
One of the men returned with the watering can and handed it to the Sergeant, who handed it to the Major.
— So, where were we, who is next?
— She only happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The next day, they take her to a graveyard and rape her repeatedly, then they let her go. The frat boys didn’t think she’d give up their names; besides, one of the boys was some minister’s son. But she did. Nothing happened to him, of course; he was only suspended from university for a semester. The Major here, he took it calmly, surprisingly. Many thought he’d lose his head and maybe shoot the boy, and in anticipation of this the boy’s father sent his son away to a university in London. Well, the Major is a patient man. He waited. A year later the boy came home for Christmas. The Major heard about it and one night he got two of his men and went to the boy’s favorite nightclub and abducted him right in front of everyone. They took him to the graveyard and shot him in the groin after breaking his four limbs. He didn’t die. They made sure of that. He phoned his father, who came and got him and flew him overseas for treatment. The Major was arrested, and court-martialed. The army sent him away to this place as punishment, and he’s been here three years now. One day he’s going to light that match. Even his men know it. Just a matter of time.
— What happened to his daughter?
— They said she transferred to another university in the north, Zaria or Maiduguri, and completed her studies.
The boy, Michael, was last in line. The Major was as conscientious with him as he was with the others, making sure the petrol found every exposed surface on the boy’s face. I witnessed the boy desperately spitting out the petrol as it ran down his face, wiping his eyes and nostrils with the sleeve of his homespun shirt, but the friction from the wiping only chafed his skin, inflaming it, making the petrol sting harder. I promised myself that if I got out of here I’d write about this, every detail, every petrol trickle, every howl of pain. Now I knew what Zaq meant when he said so long ago in that lecture that this job will sometimes break your heart. He said journalism shows you firsthand how nations are built, how great men achieve their greatness. And then he had quoted the proverb about how elephants achieve their great size: they simply eat up everything that stands in their path, trees and ants and plants and dirt, everything. I lowered my head to control the rage. I felt impotent, helpless, like a man running in his sleep with his legs crossed. At last the Major flung away the empty watering can. He strode over to us, his face contorted by some obscure rage. He was breathing hard.
— Journalist, you want to interview the rebels, well, here they are. There will be time for that.
I looked at the kneeling men. One of them, the eldest, with gray hair, the one in the middle, looked like he was finding it hard to focus, wiping his face and swaying, intoxicated by the oil fumes; then he pitched forward and puked into the muddy brown grass in front of him.
— Take them away, and make sure you bring them out here tomorrow morning for their morning shower.
— When can I interview them?
I was following the Major into his shed, the command shed. He turned and stared at me for a long time, thinking, then the anger left his face, to be replaced by a malevolent smirk. He put a hand on my shoulder.
— You — how can I be sure you are who you claim to be? Do you have any ID? Nothing? Not even a recorder, a pen, a notebook? What kind of reporters are you?
— We lost our things when your men sank our boat.
— Hmm. So far I have treated you like gentlemen. I am a gentleman, an officer and a gentleman. Ask my men. They love me because I am a fair man. But I have one question only for you: how can I know you are who you claim to be? That is all. Answer me that question and you are free.
He smelled of sweat and the marshes, and petrol. The petrol had left stains on his trouser legs and on his boots.
— We’re looking for the Englishwoman, for the story. That is all.
— I’m looking for the woman too, everyone is looking for her. You think you can find her if we can’t? Still, I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you, you see my dilemma? You have till tomorrow to think of something. Talk to the other guy. Tomorrow, I want proof. Answers. Otherwise I’ll have to lock you up with the rebels and treat you the same way.
— What of the old man and his child? They’re innocent, nothing to do with all these—
— Go. I have work to do.
— I must insist, Major.
— Insist? Did you say insist? Do you know what’s going on out there? There’s a war going on! People are being shot. In Port Harcourt oil companies are being bombed, police stations are being overrun, the world oil price is shooting through the roof. You insist! I can shoot you right now and throw you into the swamp and that’s it. Now get out.
6
— What can we do to help the old man and his son, Zaq?
— Nothing, my young friend. I wish it were that easy to intervene and change the course of things. It isn’t. We’ll observe, and then we’ll write about it when we can.
We lay side by side. The Doctor had given me one of the cots vacated by a sick soldier who had been moved to one of the huts for the night. Zaq and I were alone in the infirmary. Half of the structure was open to the elements, and not far away in the swamps we could hear the bullfrogs bellowing, we could see the glow of the gas flares like distant malfunctioning stars. Though it was humid and airless, our blankets were pulled to our necks — they were our only protection from the mosquitoes. The Doctor had apologized for the accommodation; the only alternative to the infirmary was the lockup, where the militants were being held under heavy guard, and as much as we wanted to interview them, spending the night cooped up in a tight hut with them didn’t appeal. Zaq was sleepless, restless, and though his voice was weak and raspy, he kept talking, keeping me from nodding off.