Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

It was afternoon, just after morning classes. “I like your scarf,” I said. “Can I see?”

She seemed to think about it, then waved me over. “Yes, come see. But remember, you can see it, but you can’t have it. It’s my special scarf.”

“What makes it special?” I asked.

She placed it in my open hands, allowed me to hold and examine it. The petals were outlined in pink. The cloth was smooth and soft to the touch, like silk.

“Special means it’s for special occasions.”

“What special occasions?” I asked, staring questioningly at her.

She giggled. “Come on,” she said. “You mean you really don’t know?”

I shook my head.

She spoke in pidgin now. “You sef, you no dey know these things. Which kain girl you be? Yellow sissy like you, you no get special man friend?”

I couldn’t help myself: a laugh escaped my mouth. A special man friend was the last thing on my mind. I shook my head and told her that I did not have a special man friend.

Now Ugochi looked at me with what seemed to be a mixture of bafflement and pity. “Ah, well,” she said, “maybe one day you’ll find yourself one. But anyway, the point is, men like these things. They want ocho mma, nwa nlecha, asa mma, asa mpete. ” She laughed a brief, womanly laugh, almost a mockery of herself. “You know, beautiful, beautiful. No be small thing o! I save my pretty things for when I spend time with my special man friends. Special things for special people. You know?”

The whistle blew, calling us for afternoon classes. Outside, the sounds of feet and the rising of voices. “Time to go,” she said, and she reached out and collected the scarf.

EARLY ONE MORNING, I sat at my desk dressed in my school uniform, a green-and-white-checkered blouse and the matching dark green pencil skirt that went with it. I was studying, and in the gaps between my studying, I thought of Amina and heard Mama’s voice in my head saying, “ Nee anya. No matter what you do, stay away from that girl!” If Mama only knew that there had not been a need for her warning, I mused.

All night and morning long, I had not seen Ugochi, but now she flung open the door and entered with her usual bravado.

I turned around and watched her walk in. Her makeup and clothes were disheveled. Her hair was pinned up with one of her ribbons, but it was disheveled too. All of that mess and still she was wearing a big smile on her face.

“What are you doing there at your desk?” she asked.

“Studying,” I said.

“Studying?”

“We have our history test today. Have you forgotten?”

She looked blankly at me, as if she were going through a stack of notecards in her mind. Finally she said, “Ah, that’s right. Well, I’m sure it’s not really something that needs studying for. I’m sure I’ll do well enough even without studying.”

“And how will you manage that?” I asked.

She was untying the ribbon from her hair. She stuttered a bit, then said, “Well, you know. Most of those things we learned this time around have those songs to go with them.” She began singing: “There are seven rivers in Africa: Nile, Niger, Senegal, Congo, Orange, Limpopo, Zambezi. Azikiwe, Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa. Onye ocha, sepu aka n’opu eze.

“And there you have it,” she said, stretching her arms wide open as if to say, Ta-da! “All in one song, you have the seven rivers and the first three founding fathers.”

“Good job,” I said. “But, you know, that will only get you so far. There’s not a song for everything. And anyway, what if one of the questions is why the song ends with that last part: ‘White man, take your hand off the chief’s hat’? Do you know that answer?”

She laughed. “Nobody’s hand should ever be on anyone’s hat. Not without permission, anyway. But my point with the song is, I will know some of the answers on the exam. Even a little is better than nothing at all, abi? ”

“What about Things Fall Apart ? Have you read it yet? We will probably have to write an essay on it.”

She waved her hand at me as if to brush the question away. As she did, she kicked off her skirt and said, “Everyone knows the story of Okonkwo.”

I had been looking at her as she spoke, following her movements with my eyes, but as her skirt came off, I turned around to keep from watching. “I will manage just fine with that one,” she was saying, and from the corner of my eye I could tell that she was now unbuttoning her blouse.

I continued to avert my eyes out of a feeling of self-consciousness, also out of a desire to be respectful to her. I looked up only when I was sure I had given her enough time to finish undressing and finish putting on her school uniform. But when I looked back at her she had still not managed to put on her uniform. Instead, she was wrapped in her towel and was holding her bathing bucket and bowl. She said, “I’m going to get a quick bath. Wait for me. Don’t leave without me, okay?”

I nodded.

“As for studying,” she said, in a mixture of proper English and pidgin, “really, no be big problem. I go manage. See you in a few minutes.”

Her voice trailed off, and moments later the door was closing behind her.

“CLASSES REALLY DO get in the way of living,” Ugochi was saying as she bent to put some clothes in her bag again. “Imagine, the inconvenience of having to come back only to pack up and leave again!”

I laughed.

“But seriously,” she said, “I can’t help looking forward to the weekend. Nothing like being able to have unlimited time with my”—she winked at me before continuing—“with my special man friends.”

“How many special man friends are you even talking about? And if there are so many of them, how can they all be special?”

“Daaaarling,” she said, dragging out the word. She had recently started calling me “darling” because she could just tell, she said, that I was the kind of close friend she’d always wished for. Now she was calling me it again, saying, in a mawkish voice, “Daaaarling, that’s for me to know and for you — not to find out.”

Laughter sneaked out of my lips. “One of these days you’ll get caught,” I teased. “Sneaking in and out of campus like you’re always doing. Don’t be surprised when you finally get caught.”

She shook her head. “Ye of little faith,” she said. “Don’t you worry about me. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got these things covered.”

When the knock came, she had just finished packing her bag. She zipped the bag up and went to answer.

Through the window by my bed, I could see by the swooshing of leaves that a breeze was blowing.

The door swung open from the force of the breeze. Someone took a step inside. At first all I saw was the silhouette of a girl in a long dark dress. I could not make out her features, and if she had hair on her head, I could not have said. She took a few more steps into the dorm room. “I’m looking for Ijeoma,” she said. It was the last voice that I had expected to hear.

Ugochi stepped aside and pointed the girl in my direction, and then she went back to her bed, picked up her bag, slung it across her shoulder. “See you later, daaaarling,” she said teasingly. “I have some important business to take care of, as you know, but I shall be back.” She winked.

I waved at her, but I was startled by the sudden awareness of myself and of everything around me. For one thing, I felt an urge to explain, even to apologize, to Amina for Ugochi’s use of “darling,” because what if Amina thought that it meant something more than just the word? I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression, whatever that impression might be.