Chinelo Okparanta - Happiness, Like Water

She was wearing two wrappers, both tied at her waist. There were concentric designs on the wrappers — circles and spheres of different sizes, clusters of them meeting at the middle. The blouse she wore that day was made of lace and was short-sleeved, with a low neckline that came just below her shoulders.

She had secured the hem of the blouse to the wrappers with safety pins. Also, she had made sure to tuck the hem of the longer wrapper — just the edge of it — beneath one of the legs of her desk.

She rose up from her seat then, abruptly. She felt the tug of the desk’s leg on her wrapper, and the wrapper’s tug on her blouse. The wrapper slid down her waist, still covering her body, but it pulled the blouse with it further down below her shoulders so that it exposed half of her chest, that smooth yellow-brownness of it, smooth but not flat, because there was of course the matter of the exposed breast, which was small but round and full, which rose and tapered into a nipple the colour of lumber wood. The nipple was nearly a perfect circle, she knew, and at the very tip of it — at the very tip of the other one, too — was that tiny opening, from which she desperately hoped that milk would one day flow, enough to nourish her child.

Obinna gasped then. ‘Miss Enwere!’ he exclaimed. ‘Cover yourself!’

Nneoma stood where she was, just looking at him.

‘Miss Enwere! Do you hear me?’

Finally she said, ‘Obinna, don’t worry. Everything is just the way it should be.’ She pulled the wrapper from underneath the leg of the desk then. She held it — held the portion that she had latched on to as she pulled. She walked over to him. Her blouse still hung down her chest.

When she reached him, she took his hand in hers, placed it on her chest, just above her exposed breast. She sighed with satisfaction. There was release, a blissful lightness in the mere touch of his skin on hers. She breathed deeply.

‘I want this,’ she said. ‘I want you . Don’t you want me, too?’ Why had she even asked this last question? At the time, she was sure he wanted her too.

He jerked his hand away, his face angry. She did not understand.

‘Obinna,’ she said. It was both an exclamation and a question.

‘Pull yourself together, Miss Enwere!’ he said. ‘Do you value your job? Do you value your job?! I suggest you pull yourself together, or you will soon be out of a job!’ He turned to leave the room. At the door, he stopped. ‘And, from now on,’ he said, ‘it’s Mr Nkangineme to you.’

For months afterwards, it was an embarrassment to see him, even from a distance — at morning assemblies, especially. He stopped coming to her classroom to drop off supplies. Or, rather, he must have dropped them off late in the evenings after she was gone for the day, or early in the mornings before she arrived. But he was a professional, and she knew that word of the incident had not spread from him. She was thankful for that.

Months passed, and she remained at the school, because she had been unsuccessful in finding other work. Eventually, it seemed he forgot the incident and began again to bring her supplies. They remained professional about those brief encounters. She called him Mr Nkangineme.

Now the pastor called for silent prayer, and the church was quiet for a minute or two. The pastor finished with the Lord’s Prayer, first in Igbo, then in English. The congregation recited along with him, their voices loud and imploring.

Next, the choir began to sing, and the ushers came around carrying circular golden trays in which the tithe money was placed. When the tray arrived at her, Nneoma dug into her handbag and placed her money on the tray, more than a few naira bills, in multiples of a hundred, more than enough to buy a loaf of bread. The woman next to her dug into her purse as well; Nneoma watched. The woman placed some naira bills into the tray. Nneoma smiled approvingly at her as she did. The woman smiled back.

When all the money had been collected, the ushers gathered in front of the stage. The pastor moved forward to collect each tray. The choir sang even louder now. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below …

When the singing was done, the pastor delivered his closing address. ‘Go in peace,’ he said to the congregation. ‘Return no-one evil for evil. And in all things, seek the good.’

The choir sang briefly, just a refrain. Members of the congregation began to rise, their voices along with their bodies. The service was over.

Nneoma turned to the woman. ‘My friend Ezioma,’ she said. ‘I met her at work. I teach at Staff School, in Abuloma.’

The woman nodded, picking up her handbag from her lap and making to rise.

‘It was thanks to my invitation that she ever even started to come to this church. I invited her, you see.’

‘I see,’ the woman said, nodding.

Nneoma skipped the part about the dibia and the potion. She jumped to the lunch. She told the woman again that Ezioma was pregnant and showing by that time. Eight months, just like the woman. Perhaps Ezioma had eaten too much that day, Nneoma told the woman. Because the next day, Monday, she did not show up to school. On Tuesday, she did not show up again. On Wednesday, Mr Nkangineme held a teachers’ meeting early, at 7 a.m., an hour and a half before the students arrived. All the teachers gathered, sat around that long oval table in the headmaster’s office. He had been unable to contact Ezioma by phone, Nneoma told the woman. And Ezioma’s husband was apparently still away on the work trip. Mr Nkangineme had called the meeting to see if any of the teachers had heard from Ezioma.

By now the woman was no longer making to leave. She had settled back into the bench, taken with Nneoma’s story.

Nneoma continued.

Perhaps she was ill, Mr Nkangineme had speculated. Maybe too ill to contact the school. One of them should pay her a visit, to let her know that she was on their minds, in their prayers, he concluded.

But it should be someone who knew her well, he said. All the teachers agreed.

Who was closest to her then? the headmaster asked.

Eyes scanned the room. Most of them landed on Nneoma. By then, the teachers knew that Ezioma and Nneoma had grown close, that they sometimes walked home together after school. They’d heard that Ezioma sometimes attended church services with Nneoma on Rumuola Road.

Nneoma complied hesitantly. She asked the teachers when they thought was a good time for her to go.

The teachers responded that she should go as soon as possible. ‘Now,’ they said.

The gate to Ezioma’s house was locked. There was no gateman, at least not at the time Nneoma arrived. She was forced to get on the tips of her toes. Then she reached inside the gate with her hands, manipulated the latch until she managed to open it. Lucky for her that there was no padlock.

She walked across the front yard, towards the front entrance. The door was wide — a double-leaf door — made of glass on the top half, wood on the bottom.

She knocked. Her heart had begun to beat fast by then. She could feel her palms sweating. She continued to knock, each one louder than the one before. She turned the knob as she knocked, but the door was locked. She shook it frantically. Eventually, it occurred to her to try to pick the lock. She reached for her hair, took out one of the bobby pins that held her hair in a bun. She inserted it this way and that, inside the key hole, to the side of the door where the bolt and socket met.

Finally, the door opened. Her heart beat even faster. In the parlour, everything was calm, except for the buzzing of the ceiling fan. But the air smelled moist, musty. When she breathed deeply enough, there was something in it like rotten soup.