Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

It was outside on the concrete steps of the church that I liked to sit after service and watch as Chibundu Ejiofor and the other boys played their silly games, like Police: an officer making an arrest. And Chibundu, with his mischievous childhood eyes, his quick wit, would always declare himself the policeman. Then, “You’re under arrest,” he would say eagerly, holding his hand to another boy’s chest, his fingers shaped to resemble a gun.

Sometimes a handful of the girls came out and watched the boys with me. But mostly they preferred to remain inside with their parents so as not to risk having the boys dirty their fine Sunday clothes.

It was in that church, at the tail end of the harmattan, that I prayed my war prayer, because it was there and then, just before the morning service, that Chibundu had joked that soon bomber planes would be everywhere. This was shortly before the war started, and before the bombers began coming into Ojoto. Chibundu made a buzzing sound from his mouth, like an aeroplane engine, and I laughed because of the silly way that his face puffed out, like a blowfish. But it was no laughing matter really, and so I gathered myself and told him, “Not so,” that he was wrong, that the planes would never be everywhere. And I was confident in saying this, because those were the days when Papa was going around saying that the war was just a figment of some adults’ imaginations, and that chances were that bomber planes would never see the light of day anywhere in Nigeria, let alone in Ojoto. Those were the days when Papa was certain of this, and so I was certain with him.

Chibundu’s mother had overheard us, and just as I had finished responding to him, she came up to Chibundu — walked up to him and very offhandedly and unceremoniously slapped him on the side of his head. “ Ishi-gi o mebiri e mebi? ” she asked. Is your head broken? How dare you open your mouth and breathe life into something so terrible!

For the remainder of that day, Chibundu walked around moping like a wounded dog. Later, during the morning service, when the pastor asked us to carry on with our silent prayers, I prayed about the war, pleaded with God to make like a magician and cause all the talk of war, even the idea of it, to disappear. So that Chibundu would not be right. So that the bomber planes would never surround us. So that a day would not come when we had to carry a war everywhere we went, like a second skin, not a single moment of relief.

Dear God , I prayed, please help us.

All that time had passed, and Chibundu had been right in the end. It didn’t appear that God had been bothered to answer my prayer.

June 23, 1968. We scrambled our way through the shrubbery and down the carved mud steps that led into the bunker. We breathed raspy, thick breaths. We sat in silence in that all-earth room, a space that was hardly big enough to contain a double bed. It was high enough for me to stand upright, but not high enough for Mama, or any other average-sized adult, let alone a tall adult, to do so, not without her head touching the top.

We crouched. Sometimes we turned our eyes to the entranceway above, where a plank of wood concealed by palm fronds served as both cover and camouflage.

In addition to the palm fronds that he had spread all over our compound, Papa had also spread palm fronds on the roof of our house. Maybe the camouflage would work for the house the way it worked for the bunker, I reasoned that day. Maybe the enemy planes would see the palm fronds and would not know to bomb the house.

In the bunker, I prayed to God again: Dear God, please help Papa. Please make it so that the bomber planes don’t go crashing into him.

Mama remained crouched by my side, not saying a word, as if at any moment she would rush out and go looking for Papa. I scooted nearer to her, bit my lips and my nails. I held my breath and repeated my prayer over and over again: Dear God, please help Papa. Please make it so that the bomber planes don’t go crashing into him.

I reasoned the way any other child my age might have: maybe this time God would lift His eyes from whatever else was taking up His attention in heaven — maybe disciplining some misbehaving angels or managing some natural disaster, maybe creating more humans, or taking care of dead human souls, or even doing housework (cloud work? heaven work?). What kinds of things occupied Him up there in heaven and kept Him from answering our prayers? He probably didn’t sleep or eat, so what, then? What kinds of things were more important to Him than us, His very own children?

Maybe this time, I mused, I would manage to get His attention and He would lift His eyes and look upon me and soak up my prayer the way that a sponge soaks up water, the way that a drunkard soaks up his booze, the way that clothes soak up rainwater, the way that blotting paper soaks up ink. He would soak up my prayer and be full with it so that He would be compelled to do something.

Maybe this time He would be bothered to answer my prayer.

The sounds of the planes grew louder above us, followed by screams, followed by thuds of feet, or of objects, or even of bodies crashing into the land. We shivered through all of it, and the murky, sepulchral soil of the bunker appeared to shiver with us. The raid seemed longer that day than ever before.

THE BACK OF our concrete fence had come down in parts, and the shattered cement blocks all around the area made it so that we could not reenter the compound through the back, so we went around the fence and out onto the road, from which we would then make our way to the front of the house and try to reenter that way.

Up and down the road voices were calling out sharply — questioning voices — the way they always called out after a raid. Howling voices, as if all that shouting could somehow restore order.

“Have you seen my veranda chair?” a woman was shouting, a shrill voice, as if she were on the verge of tears. If luck was on her side, she would find the chair — most likely in broken pieces scattered across the road, one shattered limb after another. If luck was on her side, she would find it and be able to piece it back together again.

“Have you seen my son?” a second woman was asking. In between the questioning, she cried out her son’s name. “Amanze, where are you? The aeroplanes have come and gone. It’s time for you to come out of hiding! Amanze, do you hear me?”

More voices, and soon they all seemed to merge. A chorus of voices, a mixed collection, like an assortment of varying hopes tossed together into one great big wishing well.

“I’m looking for my mother,” a small voice now came crying, distinct from all the rest, a girl’s, four or five years old. Something Mama used to say: if you are looking for something, chances are you will find it in the last place you think to look. I wondered if the girl would find her mother in the graveyard.

A dog was barking as we hastened across heaps of crumbled concrete, across fallen tree branches, across pieces of zinc siding and toppled roofs.

The front gate was clear enough. We entered. Behind us the gate door swayed. The sound was something like a wail.

We did not stop on the veranda to dust off our blouses and wrappers, the way we always did. We ran, instead, clear past the veranda and into the house, me following close behind Mama.

Later, Mama would say that she had been aware of the scent even from the veranda. Later, she would say that she had been aware of it the way a person is aware of the perch of a mosquito: it would be a moment before she felt its sting.

She says if someone were to have asked her in that very instant, she would have explained it as a musty scent, a little metallic, something like the scent of rusting iron.