Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

AT FIRST MAMA had come at least every other weekend to visit me at the school, as if to keep an eye out that I was not falling back into temptation with Amina. The school was a three-hour trip from her bungalow in Aba, and given that she was now running her shop, which was open every day of the week, locking up and coming to the school was a sacrifice where income was concerned, but she did it anyway.

Whenever she visited, she brought provisions for me: Cabin biscuits, tinned Titus sardines, garri, sugar, Peak milk, a can of Milo, a loaf of bread, and some cooked rice and stew. She and I would sit on the veranda of my dorm building and eat the rice and stew.

She’d stay with me for several hours. Amina knew to keep away during these times.

This was the way it went:

Me, taking one spoon for every five of Mama’s.

“Eat more,” she’d say.

“Mama, I’m not hungry,” I’d reply.

“How can it be afternoon, you haven’t eaten any lunch, and you tell me you’re not hungry?”

I’d simply shrug.

When she could no longer persuade me to eat more, she’d shake her head and say something to the effect of, “This child, I don’t know what I will do with you!”

We always sat around for a while afterward as Mama drilled me on my courses and general welfare. Sometimes we’d take a stroll outside the school compound before she then prepared to leave.

“You make sure you eat the remaining food,” she’d say. “Don’t let me hear that you threw it away or let it go to waste. Remember Biafra.” Almost always, the same reminder of the war and how hard food was to come by during those days.

“I won’t throw it away or let it go to waste,” I always responded. Which was the truth, because after I had walked Mama to the school gate and seen her off, I returned to my room only to pick up the remaining food and take it to Amina’s dorm. She was the reason that I was careful not to eat too much with Mama. Amina was the one I looked forward to sharing my meals with.

“THE DEVIL HAS returned again to cast his net on you,” Mama would surely say of what I was doing. Or “Adam and Eve, not Eve and Eve.” But even with those words in my head, I could not help myself.

I continued to see Amina. On evenings after classes, we ate our meals together, if not in the cafeteria, then on the veranda steps or inside our dorms, at our desks.

On weekends when we were allowed, or when more holidays rolled around, those holidays during which we did not go home, we strolled over to the river together. Sometimes we held hands as we walked, as inconspicuously as we could, making sure to present ourselves in a manner more like that of regular schoolgirls than that of two girls in love.

But we were in love, or at least I believed myself completely to be. I craved Amina’s presence for no other reason than to have it. It was certainly friendship too, this intimate companionship with someone who knew me in a way that no one else did: it was a heightened state of friendship. Maybe it was also a bit of infatuation. But what I knew for sure was that it was also love. Maybe love was some combination of friendship and infatuation. A deeply felt affection accompanied by a certain sort of awe. And by gratitude. And by a desire for a lifetime of togetherness.

THE DISCOVERY BEGAN with just a rumor and occurred well into our second year at the school.

On visiting days, which usually fell on Saturdays, students from the neighboring boys’ school came. The teachers would walk around carrying their canes in their hands, chaperoning their visit. All over the campus, girls and boys gathered on the verandas in front of the buildings. No one was allowed to take a boy inside the dorm. But by the Monday following one Saturday visit from the boys, rumors began to spread.

The story had it that long before this last visiting day, a boy had been sneaking onto the campus and even inside a girl’s dorm — or maybe the girl had been sneaking out to his dorm to be with him. Either way, now she was pregnant, and the rumors implied that she’d been pregnant for some time.

Ugochi’s name was the first to pop into my mind. How long had I been watching her sneaking in and out of campus at night, meeting this man friend and that. It made sense to me that it must be her.

Monday morning and afternoon came and went, and I did not see or hear from Ugochi. She did not come to the dorm room at all.

Then, Monday evening, the whistle shrieked as one of the prefects came around announcing that morning assembly the following day would be earlier than usual. “Do not come a minute late or there will be consequences!” the prefect warned.

I thought of poor Ugochi. Where was she now? How was she handling all that was befalling her? How terrible it must be for her to have people whispering about her behind her back.

Tuesday morning came. We stood in rows, in our green and white uniforms, on the assembly grounds.

“Many of you know Ozioma,” the headmistress began. “And by now many of you have heard that she is pregnant with a certain Nonso’s child.” There was a collective gasp at the revelation of the names. I sighed with relief that it was not Ugochi, and then it was a moment before I wrapped my brain around the fact that quiet Ozioma, whom everyone knew to be the headmistress’s pet, had somehow slipped up and, in the process, wound up pregnant.

“Hush with your surprise,” the headmistress was saying. “Now, I ask you all before me, why are you surprised? Is it a surprise? Is it not true that bad company corrupts good character?

“But let it be known that this was not the result of any negligence on the part of your teachers or on my part. Between assemblies and Sunday services and revivals, you certainly have been taught right from wrong. Those of you who have made a habit of sneaking out of school grounds, take note.”

She finished: “A word is enough for the wise. Let this be a warning. Be wary of becoming like Ozioma, of allowing your good character to be soiled by bad company.”

It was in this vein that Tuesday turned to Wednesday, and Wednesday to Thursday, and so on until the weekend rolled around. Many of the students packed their bags and went home for the weekend. Amina and I remained again, only this time with the headmistress’s warning in mind.

BECAUSE IT WAS primarily an Igbo school, it was also a Christian school, and because it was a Christian school, all of the students were required to go to Sunday services and Sunday revivals, as well as Wednesday-evening devotionals. This was a requirement even on holidays, for those who stayed behind. If Amina had not taken issue with the grammar school teacher’s decision to conduct Bible studies on her behalf — there was no indication that she had remonstrated — she was not now taking issue with having to attend services and practice the Christian faith. She attended and participated just like any of the other girls, the Hausa/Igbo girl included.

Early on a Sunday Amina and I had gone to the service with all the girls who had not gone home. Then we had whiled away time reading at the library.

Now we were once again at the river, sitting in our usual spot, observing as the sky changed from bright blue to gray. After a while, the sun appeared to dissolve, and we watched as the sky turned a deeper shade of gray.

Amina took my hand and pulled me up, smiling all the while. She held my hand that way for a few moments, then stepped back from where I stood, letting go of my hand. She twirled then, so fast that her pleated skirt rose flat around her, like an upside-down plate. She giggled, as if embarrassed that her skirt should come up so far. She pushed it back down with her hands, looking into my eyes, searching, as if to find out exactly how much I had seen.