ECLIPSE Read Online Free PDF Page B

cadaverous professor of international relations who had begun to introduce him. After describingBobby as a visiting professor of literature and one of Africa’s most gifted young novelists, the man’s voice became a pipe organ of piety: Bobby Okari’s true mission, it transpired, was to speak for the embattled people of West Africa who, for too long, had suffered from the oppression of neo-colonialists, arms merchants, purveyors of diamonds, and, most deadly, petroleum companies who fed the Western world’s rapacious thirst for oil.
    Immediately, Pierce was bored. The professor struck him as a man whose impact on these problems consisted of ringing declarations to groups who could have recited them in their sleep. The more fruitful study was Bobby Okari. From his biography and appearance, Pierce put him at a good ten years older than Marissa; small and bright-eyed, he awaited his turn with an obvious restiveness. When at last the professor finished his peroration, Marissa leaned forward in anticipation, and Pierce wondered what about this diminutive figure Marissa found so captivating.
    The first seconds were not promising—Bobby Okari looked barely taller than the podium. With an engaging smile, he stood briefly on his toes, accenting the moment of unintended comedy. “I don’t worry if you can’t see me,” he assured his audience in a resonant voice. “If you can hear me, you can also hear my people.”
    For the next half hour, Bobby Okari enthralled his audience as completely as, judging from her rapt expression, he enthralled Marissa Brand. In mesmeric cadences, he limned the paradox through which oil riches in the hands of kleptocrats and oil companies deepened the Asari people’s misery. Nor did he exempt his listeners. “When you use our oil,” he told them, “you facilitate our exploitation.
    “Without knowing it you help them steal our land, enslave our children, turn our girls into prostitutes who service the men who fill your gas tanks. Nor can you alleviate our suffering merely by developing more gas-efficient cars.”
    This drew a ripple of nervous laughter. “When the white man came to Luandia,” Bobby continued, “our people had the land and the white man had the Bible. Now the Asari have the Bible and the white man has our land. As in so many things, this reflects the toxins of Western society—racism and greed.”
    Seeing Marissa’s mouth curl in a bitter smile, Pierce divined that much of her response to Bobby was visceral, and perhaps involved race. “When Luandians hate Americans,” he said, “it is because Americans allow the oilcompanies to embody the evils you claim to deplore.” Pausing, Bobby surveyed his audience as though looking into each face and heart, and then his voice softened. “But I do not come here to abuse you.
    “So many of you were once soldiers of conscience in the struggle to make your country what it claims to be.
All
of you can be that now. Today, your moral imperative must be to improve the lot of humanity—not just among the your own people but in the world. Even, I dare to hope, in Luandia.”
    The audience applauded warmly. But for Bobby Okari, Pierce knew, this night was merely practice for an enterprise more challenging than pricking the nerve ends of Berkeley progressives. Touching Marissa’s arm, he murmured, “I’d very much like to meet him.”
    “I HAVE A modest goal,” Bobby told Pierce wryly. “To start a movement among the Asari, like that of Martin Luther King, which will spread throughout the delta until we are too mighty to resist.”
    They sat in a Thai restaurant on Shattuck Avenue, a favorite of Bobby and Marissa’s. To Pierce, Bobby’s entire being belied his self-deprecating tone: his eyes were filled with hope, even confidence, and his slender frame radiated a kinetic energy. With a smile that mingled challenge with humor, Bobby said, “You are skeptical, I see.”
    Marissa looked from Bobby to Pierce. “It’s a reflex,”