Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

“What kind of place?”

“It’s a surprise,” she said. “Let’s just say there’ll be good music and dancing.”

“Okay,” I said. “When would you like us to go?”

She answered with a naughty smile. “Tonight, if you want.”

It was nearing eight o’clock. I said, “Mama will not like it if I stay out too late.” I put on a stern face and mimicked Mama: “‘A self-respecting young lady does not roam around at night.’”

Ndidi chuckled. “You make it sound like I’m proposing prostitution.”

“Maybe not as bad as prostitution, but—”

“We won’t stay out that late,” she said. “Just a couple of hours or so.”

We were seated together on her sofa. She reached out and slid her fingers up and down my arm. There was a clear attraction by now between us, and therein lay my struggle. My mind was a mess. First there was the issue of Amina. Each time I allowed myself to acknowledge my attraction to Ndidi, I felt wretched about the fact that she was not Amina, and that by beginning to have feelings for someone other than Amina, I was somehow betraying her. Never mind that she was the one who betrayed me. I felt it all the same.

And then there was the matter of Mama. To be living so close to her while carrying on an affair with Ndidi was not something I could quite stomach. There’s a way in which distance represses one’s sense of obligation, or rather, a way in which closeness intensifies one’s sense of duty. Now that I was living with Mama, I felt — in a way I never felt while I was away at Obodoañuli Academy — a strong obligation to meet her expectations of me. Especially after the thing with Amina had anyway gone and backfired on me. Would this one backfire too? Would I go through all that emotional investment just for Ndidi to end up betraying me the way that Amina had done?

“So, what do you think?” Ndidi asked. “Shall we go?” The look on her face told me that she already knew my answer, but I replied anyway. “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to go with you.” Despite my inner turmoil about the whole situation, it was the truth. Wherever it was she was going to take me, I wanted still to be with her.

“Good,” she said. Her bottle of Fanta was in her hand, at her lips. She held it there as she scrutinized my face. “You’re sure?”

I nodded and said that I was sure.

As we freshened up, brushed our hair, and retouched our makeup, Ndidi said to me, “Now, there’s one more thing I have to tell you.”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s about the place where we’re going.”

“What about it?”

“It’s not the kind of place you want to go around talking about. In fact, you have to promise me that you won’t go talking to anyone about it.”

“Why not?” I asked. “What kind of place is it??”

“You’ll find out. But for now you’ll have to promise me that you won’t. You can’t let your mother know of it. No mentioning it to her. I can’t take you to it if you don’t promise.”

“I wasn’t planning on mentioning it to Mama,” I said.

“Good,” she replied. “Because mentioning it to anyone can cost some of us, if not all of us, our lives.”

I laughed at the gravity of what she was saying. “Now you’re being ridiculous,” I said. “What kind of place is it you’re taking me to that can result in people dying?”

She laughed back. “It sounds more serious than I meant it to sound. But it is serious still. So, like I said, just promise me that you will not breathe a word about any of it to anyone at all.”

“I promise you,” I said.

The place was a small, dimly lit church-like structure at the end of a dirt road, which we got to from the main Aba road. To the side of it, above a giant white cross, hung a sign that read FRIEND IN JESUS CHURCH OF GOD. Another sign, a banner stretched across the blue and white columns that led to the carved wooden door, announced, in deep purple print, FOUNTAIN OF LOVE.

“You brought me to church?” I whispered to Ndidi as we stood beneath the awning at the entrance, about to enter.

“Wait and be surprised,” she said.

We entered. Inside, strobe lights flashed softly. Heavy, deep purple drapes hung at the windows. Tables lined the perimeter of the room with decorative candles lit up at their centers. Each table was flanked by two or three chairs, most of which were occupied by people who appeared to be engaged in conversation.

The music was toned-down, very restrained, in an almost indulgent sort of way. In the middle of the room couples were dancing slowly. The scent of whiskey and beer was strong in the air.

We took a seat at one of the tables with two chairs. A plain-faced woman walked up to us, wearing a white oxford shirt tucked in at the waist of a pair of khaki bell-bottoms. Her hair was long, in thin dreadlocks, and silver hoops dangled from her earlobes.

“Ah, Ndidi, we thought you had forgotten us!” the woman said.

Ndidi rose from her seat and greeted the woman with a hug. “I’ve been busy with school,” she said.

“You can’t mean it!” the woman replied teasingly. “You can’t have been that busy! Looks to me that you’ve had plenty of time to be taking care of yourself. You’re looking very fine,” she said.

Ndidi brushed off the compliment and said, “This is my friend Ijeoma. Ijeoma, this is Adanna.”

Adanna’s face appeared pinched now, impish. “Soooo.” She dragged out the word. “So this is who has been keeping you busy?” she asked, extending her hand to shake mine.

Ndidi ignored the comment. She said, “It’s Ijeoma’s first time here. I’m hoping you behave so that you don’t chase her away.”

Adanna laughed. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’ll be on best behavior.” She turned to me. “Welcome, Ijeoma. I hope you enjoy yourself. We have a good-sized dance floor. Feel free to make use of it. All I ask is you save at least one dance for me.” She winked at me.

Another woman, in a short white skirt and a thick afro, had come to Adanna’s side, linking arms with her and then leaning in and kissing Adanna on the cheek. Adanna turned to Ndidi and said, “Lucky there’s no shortage of women tonight.”

She winked at Ndidi, and as she did, she allowed herself to be coaxed away.

“How long have they been using the church this way?” I asked later, on the dance floor.

“A long time,” Ndidi said. “Several years by now. This one is not even the first. The last one was destroyed by fire some years ago. It was just outside of town. Somehow, someone got wind that it was not a real church, and then a group of people got together and set fire to it. Luckily they set the fire in broad daylight and no one was there, so no one was killed. But this one is different. It’s a real church during the day. People go to it to worship, which makes it an even stronger camouflage than that previous church. So far, so good. We are yet to be found out.”

We continued to dance. After some time, I asked, “So, who is Adanna to you?”

Ndidi laughed. “No one at all,” she said.

“She sounded to me like more than no one.”

Ndidi began to protest, but then she seemed to think better of it. She said, “Well, we’re friends. We teach together at the school. She’s the one who first brought me here. She might be a little interested in me.”

“You’re not interested back?”

She shook her head. “She’s a wonderful friend. But there’s somebody else who is taking up my attention for now.”

I knew that she was talking about me. And again I thought of Amina. A surge of anxiety came over me: why was it that I was having such strong emotions for this other woman who was not Amina? Again I felt myself the betrayer, equally as the betrayed.