50 pages • 1 hour read
Helon HabilaOil on Water
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-15
Chapter 13 Summary
This chapter begins back at the military camp where Rufus and Zaq have been kept under the strict supervision of the major. The doctor tells Rufus that Zaq is dying: “It’s a hemorrhagic fever, very dangerous. It kills very quickly if not treated immediately” (150). Rufus is upset and tells the doctor that he has to do something. The doctor responds that he is ill-equipped to treat such a condition, and even at a hospital, it is unlikely Zaq would survive. In fact, due to Zaq’s alcohol intake, his liver might already be destroyed.
The doctor then tells Rufus how he came to be in the village. When he was assigned to the small village, he hoped to eventually go somewhere larger and more exciting, but he came to enjoy his position and love the people. They lived happily until oil was discovered. At first, the discovery seemed like a blessing, bringing money and industry to the village, but inevitably the waters and land were poisoned and polluted, so everyone got sick. When the doctor reported this, the oil company put him on the payroll to keep him quiet. Rufus asks the doctor to speak with the major and try to convince him to let Zaq go to the hospital back in the city.
The major allows them an audience; Rufus asks when they might be able to see the old man and the boy again. The major laughs and makes fun of the journalists and then tells them how horrible the militants are and how they kidnap and harm children. The journalists ask to interview the major’s other prisoners, and he allows it, but they tell him that anyone they interview will be too scared to say anything true in the presence of the major. Instead, they plan to spend the night with the prisoners in lockup, to which the major agrees.
Chapter 14 Summary
Upon their arrival at lockup, Rufus and Zaq are thrown into the darkness by the soldiers. Zaq is sick and slumps over on Rufus but insists that this is what he came here for and that they must go forward with their plan. Tamuno and Michael are in the corner of the room; several other men are lying around on the floor. Rufus sees one man, Henshaw, who appears to be deep in thought: “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 the wall in his own compound” (162). Rufus crawls toward the man but is intercepted by Taiga, a very large and strong man who follows Henshaw’s orders. Henshaw tells Taiga to let Rufus go and talks with him. Henshaw is annoyed when asked about the kidnapping, wanting the journalists to care about the larger picture, along with the hopes and ambitions of the militants. He says he has never met the Professor and that his group is different than the Professor’s. He sends Rufus across the room to speak with a young man named Gabriel, who knew the Professor. Gabriel is unwilling to talk; when threatened by Taiga, he tells the journalists that he was at the battle they came across on the island, where so many lay dead.
In the morning, Henshaw wakes Rufus and tells him what to expect:
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 (165).
Henshaw demonstrates that he knows their routines perfectly, calling the action until the moment the soldiers kick down the door and herd the prisoners out of the hut.
Chapter 15 Summary
The major has decided to take the journalists back to the island of Irikefe, where he warns them that they will see devastation: “Irikefe is now mostly ashes and rubble, bombed by the gun helicopter over there” (166). Rufus is particularly depressed upon noticing the sculpture garden has been destroyed, with pieces of the statues littering the ground. He finds someone he knows—one of the men who sat with Gloria and the priest, Naman, at dinner—and the man seems distant and traumatized. He points vaguely when asked where Naman and Gloria are, and Rufus takes off to find Naman. Naman is surrounded by weeping women and is trying to calm them down in the aftermath of the battle. He tells Rufus that the militants arrived two days ago. Instead of the Professor, however, this group was led by a young man who wanted to take Gloria as a hostage to remind the villagers that the militants expected cooperation. A routine military patrol found them there and was decimated, but not before calling for backup. Early the next morning, the helicopter gunship arrived and attacked the island.
Rufus goes back to Zaq, who tells Rufus that his sister is on the island and looking for him. Rufus goes to the tree line, where the women are camped, and finds Boma there. Rufus is angry at her, snapping that she could get killed and chastising her for coming here to try to find John, her former husband. She replies that she actually came looking for Rufus since he’d been gone so long; his editor told her to inform him he no longer had a job. Rufus, Boma, and Zaq all stay the night there, hoping they will soon be taken to Port Harcourt.
The next morning, Rufus thinks back to what happened after they dug up the grave in which they’d been told Isabel Floode was buried. They were woken up by Naman and two other priests. Naman had seemed different: colder and less friendly. He chastised Zaq and Rufus for digging up the grave and told them they were not allowed to leave the island until a purification ritual had been performed and the priests had decided what to do. Naman told them that a ferry would not come and that there would be no way for them to leave the island, even if they demanded it. Rufus slipped out, wearing the robes of a worshipper, and checked out the situation. Naman was telling the truth: There were no boats available to take them away. They were unsure of what to do, but early the next morning, the old man appeared again and told them he had been ordered to take them away from the island by Naman and that they had to hurry. That is what they did, leaving Irikefe behind them.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
Even after the major takes the journalists back to Irikefe, Rufus and Zaq are under the direct control of the military forces. The might of the major and his soldiers is on full display, contrasting markedly with the relative powerlessness of ordinary civilians. It is likewise clear that the latter cannot rely on the militias for protection, as these groups perpetrate violence of their own. The plight of communities like Irikefe, caught between these various factions, is at the heart of the novel’s commentary on The Environmental and Social Effects of Neocolonialism.
Being journalists, the protagonists are in a unique position to confer with all sides of the conflict: the military, the militants, and the oil company. There is danger for them still with all three entities, but they are also in a position of power because all of the different sides want to control the messaging in a way that conceals their true motives. The militants position themselves as freedom fighters working to run the oil companies out of the area but are in practice often concerned more with their own power. The military, though ostensibly working on behalf of the oil company, is really more concerned with its own profit and supports the oil company because of the profits that doing so affords. The oil companies of course are interested in nothing but profit, and once the land is sucked dry of resources, they will leave and ruin some other place. When Rufus and Zaq are thrown into lockup with the prisoners, they are between two worlds: They are with the militant fighters but not truly prisoners, and they know they have a chance of being freed after interviewing the prisoners. This highlights the ethical complexities and responsibilities of their position; while they have access to information that most people don’t, they are also subject to pressure to tailor their story to serve varying interests.
Toward the end of the section, it becomes clear exactly how far beyond the point of no return Rufus has come. Boma has come to the island to look for him because she is worried. He no longer has a job to go back to. The people are angry because of his desecration of their burial site, and he is now back on an island that the chief had forbidden him to leave. In order to escape, it emerges that he did something reminiscent of Zaq: disguise himself and slip away in the robes of the worshippers. It is not yet clear whether he will come to a better end than the one Zaq seems bound for.
