Authors: Chinelo Okparanta

Under the Udala Trees (34 page)

W
E WERE IN
bed again. The lights in the room were out.

Moments earlier he had lain down beside me. Now he spoke. “You think I don't know that you're awake?”

I ignored him, continued to pretend to be asleep.

He pulled on my hair.

“Chibundu, please,” I shouted.

“âChibundu, please' what?”

“I'm trying to sleep. Please just let me sleep.”

“You'll sleep when you're done.”

I shifted farther away from him, very close to the edge of the bed. A moment later, I felt his weight lift from the bed. I listened to his footsteps. I heard the flick of the switch. Light flooded the room.

I remained where I lay, very still on the bed, listening to a rustling sound that could only have been coming from him. Soon he was stamping his feet and coming around the bed, and I opened my eyes to find him standing before me, his wallet and some naira bills in his hand.

“
Ngwa
, tell me, how much do you want? How much does it cost to get you to do it tonight?”

“Chibundu!” I exclaimed.

“Tell me, if it's not enough that I'm your husband, maybe I can pay you to do it. Tell me, how much should I pay?”

“Chibundu, stop. I'm not a whore.”

He laughed loudly. “You're not a whore! Are you sure about that? You're not a whore? So why is it that I have to fight to sleep with you? You must be a whore. You must be giving it to someone else, which is why you have nothing left for me.”

I ignored him.

He moved forward. I felt his presence heavy over me. He threw the money in my face. The bills scattered around me, on the bed and on the floor.

He dug back into his wallet. This time he filled his hands with kobo coins. He tossed them in my face. The coins fell, making sounds like tiny bells as they hit the floor.

He stood there looking intently at me, waiting for me to react. I only continued to sit where I was, only continued to look intently back at him. I must have felt so tethered to him, so tethered to my life with him, to the superficial normalcy of it. That tethering way in which what is familiar manages to grab ahold of us and pin us down. Marriage to him was what I now knew as normal and familiar, so that even with this terrible treatment of meâcalling me a whore, throwing money in my face, and the restâthe thought never once occurred to me that these were grounds on which I could now pack up my bags and leave.

Finally he turned away. The lights went back off. A little later, I felt his weight back on the bed.

I
BEGAN TO SPEAK
to Chidinma absent-mindedly those days.

“Your father wants for you a brother,” I'd say, rubbing my belly. “Chigoziem will be his name.”

I spoke in a monotone those days, because by then I had begun to grow numb. As much as I didn't want it to happen, it was happening. Often my only thought was of how much longer I could carry on that way. How much longer could I continue to exist in this marriage with Chibundu? I was convinced that I would only grow deader were I to stay in it. I would only grow more numb. And who would take care of Chidinma if things went that way? Who would take care of her if I became like the living dead?

Chidinma sat in the tub and watched my hands ride up and down my belly. She just watched, quietly peering at me, her small hands tightly gripping the side of the tub.

Those days there had begun to be a frightened look on her faceâthe look of a child who was afraid that she'd soon be let go, that she'd soon be discarded by the people who should have loved her most. Or maybe I only imagined it so. To me, it was the look of a child who somehow knew that she had been placed in the care of a mother as lukewarm as the water in which she sat.

I lathered the washcloth, soaked it in the tub of water. I squeezed it just above Chidinma's head so that the water trickled down like raindrops.

“Chigoziem,” I said. Her eyes plunged down to my belly. She pressed her little lips together, and appeared to frown at me.

“Who is in there?” I asked.

“Chi-do-dem,” she murmured.

I leaned over, kissed her head, kissed the small brown curls of hair on it.

O
UTSIDE, THROUGH THE
open front door and windows, a dog was barking somewhere down the road. Between the barking, the sounds of children laughing, talking, shouting. Day was turning to dusk.

We were experiencing a power outageâNEPA was becoming less and less reliable these days. I had (as was becoming my habit) moved the center table to the side in order to allow Chidinma to play on the carpet. On the table was a candle set atop a tin can, its flame flickering, dimly lighting the room. We had already eaten supper, and Chibundu was out with some of his work friends. He was going out with them more and more, arriving home just in time to crawl into bed.

Chidinma rose from the carpet. She had been sitting for all of half an hour, tugging not at her rag doll but at another one of her dolls: a little unclothed plastic one. She tugged, pulling its plastic arms and legs out of their sockets so all that remained were the torso, the head, and a thick wad of stringy artificial hair.

She stood, holding the doll by its hair, and settled herself squarely on her own two feet. She began wobbling toward me, trembling like the candle's flame, the doll's hair swaying from side to side in her hand.

When she reached me, she let go of the doll, allowing it to fall to the floor. Her hands reached up, her mouth formed the word “Mama,” and I knew that she wanted me to hold her. This was the way she begged me to pick her up. I slid down from the sofa onto the parlor floor, lifted her, and set her down on my lap.

The song came to me:

Nkita Chikwendu

Tagburu Chikwendu

Ebe ha na'azo anu.

Ha hapu Chikwendu

Kwoba nkita oria.

O di kwa mu wonder.

The story came next. I thought of all the details of it, the way Papa used to tell it to me:

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Chikwendu, a homeless orphan who managed to find himself a beautiful little dog as a companion. The dog was always by his side. They played together all through the day, and at night Chikwendu could be seen sharing his sleeping mat with his dog.

One day a tall, dark, and handsome stranger from a faraway village was traveling through Chikwendu's village, carrying a basket of roasted meat on his head. All day, Chikwendu had not eaten, and now he sat on the side of the road, begging passersby for something to eat.

From across the road, the stranger caught sight of Chikwendu in his threadbare pants and no shirt, all skin and bones. Immediately he thought, How hungry this boy must be. He took pity on Chikwendu and crossed the road to where Chikwendu and his dog sat. There, he lowered his basket from his head and pulled out a piece of roasted meat from within, which Chikwendu accepted with delight. It was a small piece of meat, but the boy was grateful all the same. He rose to his feet and thanked the stranger with all the energy he could muster.

As the stranger walked off, Chikwendu sat back on the ground and began eating the meat. His dog by his side was at that moment growling softly, a light, barely perceptible rumbling of a sound.

It was not that Chikwendu did not want to share. He had always made it a point to share all his food with his dog. But this time, the piece of meat was so small that Chikwendu could not even begin to imagine how to set about cutting off a bit of it for the dog. Chikwendu simply allowed himself to eat the meat. The next food he got, he promised himself that he would give to the dog.

But the dog could not possibly have read his mind. And so, just as Chikwendu was putting the last morsel into his mouth, the dog attacked. So began the struggle. A gash here, another gash there. Barking and loud growling, teeth sinking into flesh. Tumbling and rolling of bodies along the side of the dirt road. Sometimes it was Chikwendu who wound up on top, and sometimes it was the dog who got the upper hand. Chikwendu screamed and screamed, and the dog barked and barked, and the villagers heard the noise. By the end of it all, a crowd had gathered, and they stood around watching as Chikwendu and his dog lay still on the ground, unmoving, from injury and from exhaustion, their bodies covered in blood. The tiniest piece of uneaten roasted meat lay on the ground, still giving off its strong scent.

Perhaps it was the whiff of the meat that had had an effect on the villagers, the same way that it had had an effect on the dog. Perhaps the smell had somehow driven the villagers crazy too, because they now stepped in, but instead of tending to the boy, they got on their knees and took turns tending to the dog. Instead of tending to Chikwendu's wounds, or at least to both the boy's wounds and his dog's, they all gathered around the dog, and it was on the dog's wounds that they rubbed their ointments and wrapped their plasters. They carried on tending to the dog, leaving Chikwendu there on the road to die.

Chidinma could not yet have understood, but as soon as I was done with the story, she looked up at me with an expression of fear on her face. She sat that way, her face upturned and gazing fearfully at me.

I finished by singing the song again, the way Papa used to finish the story off for me:

Chikwendu's dog bit him

While they were fighting

Over a piece of meat.

The people left Chikwendu

But treated the sick dog.

It really is a wonder.

I
SAT ON A
damp stool by the tub, rinsing off the soap bubbles from her hair and body.

Again, a story:

Obaludo's mother worked as a trader of goods and knew well that during market days the spirits came out of the spirit world to do their own trading. On these market days, she made sure to leave her three daughters with food, and with careful instructions on how to prepare the food, so as not to have to go out of the house and risk coming face to face with the spirits, for the spirits were known to do harm to children in any number of ways.

This particular day, Obaludo's mother brought out some snails and a small tuber of yam and gave them to Obaludo and her sisters. “The snails release liquid,” she said, “so you must roast the yam first, or else the snails will quench the fire.”

She was careful to repeat the warning, especially for the sake of Obaludo, the beautiful daughter, whose beauty she knew was the envy of so many villagers and spirits alike.

Then Obaludo's mother left.

Hours passed and finally suppertime arrived. The girls set about cooking their meal, only they had by now forgotten their mother's warning. They started off with the snails instead of the yam. The snails had hardly finished cooking when the fire was quenched. And now they remembered the warning that their mother had given to them. But it was too late.

Their mother would not be returning for several hours yet. They were hungry, and the thought of waiting so long was like torture to them. Together they decided that they had no choice but to go in search of fire.

They fought over who would go for fire.

The two younger sisters consorted and decided that the best thing would be for the eldest sister to go.
Nwaegbe
, the younger two sisters begged,
please won't you go and get us fire.

But she refused.

They begged Nwaegbe again:
Elder sister, please won't you go and get us fire.

Again she refused.

Now the first and youngest sisters consorted among themselves. Finally they reached a decision: that the second sister, Nwaugo, should be the one to go. They presented their case to Nwaugo. They pleaded,
Nwaugo, please go and get us fire.

But like Nwaegbe, the second sister refused.

Knowing that there was no one else to askâthat she was the only remaining option or else they would starveâObaludo decided to go for the fire herself.

At first the roads were clear. Obaludo had begun to think that she would make it there and back just fine when, as her mother had warned, she met with a spirit.

The spirit began. “Tunya!” it said.

Obaludo replied to the spirit, “Tunya to you too!”

The spirit said, “Tunke!”

Obaludo said, “Tunke to you too!”

The exchange continued like that for some time. Obaludo could not have known it, but in the moments during which they exchanged those words, the spirit was taking away her beauty and replacing it with its own ugliness.

I sang the song softly as I bathed Chidinma: