Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

I rose and went back into the house to iron Chibundu’s work clothes. I had lost track of time and stayed outside longer than planned. Chibundu would be out of the bathroom at any moment, wondering where his clothes were.

From the bedroom I could hear him in the bathroom, could hear those final sounds that meant he was about to come out: a gargling, a spitting. Soon he would turn the knob and the door would whine open. I quickly ironed the shirt and trousers and then spread them out flat across the bed.

I moved to the kitchen, began to fry his eggs and make his toast.

Minutes passed, and soon I watched as he came into the kitchen, fully dressed, briefcase and watch in hand.

He set his briefcase down on the floor, then sat, adjusting the watch on his wrist, hurried-like, as if he hardly had time, not even for that.

I joined him at the table, watched as he began to eat, scarfing down his food, barely chewing even a morsel of it.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re not late, if anything you’re early, and yet you’re rushing. Clearly, it’s something. What is it?”

He smiled broadly. “Remember what I said about determination? I have several appointments. Arrangements to make. Important things to be done.”

“What kind of arrangements? What important things?” I wanted to know.

He rose from his seat, grabbing his briefcase from the floor. “Don’t worry, you’ll see” was all he would say.

On his way out, he stopped in front of me, placed a kiss on my forehead, and at that moment I thought: What did it matter whether he told me his important business or not? What did it matter if he withheld or disclosed? What did it matter that we were man and wife, supposedly one flesh? It seemed to me that there were no two married people more empty-feeling, no two married people more estranged from each other than the two of us. What was the sense, then, of that forehead kiss?

Man and wife, the Bible said. It was a nice thought, but only in the limited way that theoretical things often are.

That evening, I sat at the kitchen table, gazing out the window, waiting for him to return. On the table, our dishes and utensils and drinking glasses sat, all clean and set for use. On the stove, a pot of rice and chicken stew simmering on low heat. All that remained was for Chibundu to return and for the food to be served.

The sky had turned dark, a deep shade of orange mixed heavily with gray. Nearly an hour had passed since his usual return time, and about an hour and a half since I had finished cooking, yet he had not returned.

“Soon,” I muttered. “Soon.”

Another half an hour went by, and still no sign of him.

I went to the telephone at the entrance to the kitchen. The dial tone was strong and loud in my ear. I dialed his office number. His phone began to ring as I fixed my eyes on the empty dishes and the unused utensils. Ring. Ring. Ring. All that ringing and no one to answer the call.

I was now too hungry to wait. I hung up the phone. At the stove, I scooped rice out of the pot, sprinkled stew over it, returned to the kitchen table with my plate. Outside, the sky had turned darker, a murky shade of purple and black swirls.

I had just filled my mouth with rice and was in the middle of chewing when I heard footsteps and a fussing at the door. I swallowed the food in my mouth and went to the door.

I turned on the veranda light to see more clearly in the darkness outside. Chibundu’s face was the first thing that greeted me. In one hand he was carrying a folded baby-blue stroller, in the other his work briefcase.

Behind him was a van, its driver in the middle of taking out a number of baby’s things: a dark-wood crib, a small natural-colored Moses basket, a stack of cloth diapers, a Fisher-Price swing, a box on which were images of baby bottles.

I opened the door wide for him to enter, which he then did, transferring the briefcase so that he was now holding the stroller and the case all in one hand. With his free hand he stroked me on the cheek.

“After this baby will be another and another and maybe even another. All of these will be a good investment, passed down from one child to the next.”

“Another and another and maybe even another?”

He nodded, smiling brightly, and now he was off, going back and forth from the doorway into the parlor, now he and the deliveryman, as they carried in the rest of the items.

When they were done with the unloading, and when Chibundu had paid the man and sent him off, the two of us sat alone in the parlor. Chibundu reached into the pocket of his trousers, took out an envelope, and handed it to me.

“This came in our post office box. It’s for you.”

On the envelope were two addresses, one of them ours, the other a return address. No name appeared above the return address, and I did not take the time to read what exactly the address was. I knew that something about the writing looked familiar, and that was enough for me to get my hopes up. How many times had I sat across from Ndidi at her table, watching her write notes on her students’ essays? I should have known that the letter was not from her, but for that moment my mind somehow made itself up that it was indeed from her. My heart began to race, and I tore into the envelope like a wildcat clawing hungrily into a package of hard-earned meat, baring its teeth, getting ready to devour. Only when I had ripped apart the envelope and was at the point of folding open the card inside did my mind begin to place the handwriting. Inside the card, I read a confirmation, a brief message:

We heard the wonderful news. Congratulations to you and Chibundu on the pregnancy! We are so happy for you and looking very much forward to soon meeting your precious bundle of joy!

At the bottom of the note, the grammar school teacher and his wife signed their names, bold curvy letters that screamed of excitement, letters that looked like the sound of “Joy to the World” or “Jingle Bells.”

Until that day, I had never been so disappointed to see a pair of names on a greeting card. Beyond the disappointment, I felt anger at Ndidi, a full and overwhelming kind of anger like wasted energy, and I was out of breath with it, because what was I, chicken feed? What was I, the kind of thing you threw out after you were done using it? Toilet paper, an old toothbrush, shards of broken glass? Suddenly I was remembering how discarded the whole situation with Amina had left me feeling. It felt like the cruelest kind of déjà vu. Like the beginnings of a condemnation to a lifetime of the same kind of role.

That night, after Chibundu had fallen asleep, I took out my chest from the bottom drawer of the bedside table. I unfolded a sheet of paper and wrote to Ndidi:

I banish all thoughts of you. I banish you. I banish you. I banish you.

I folded the paper back into fourths and eighths, and put it safely into the back of the bedside drawer.

I HAD CUT UP the peppers, the tomatoes, and the onions, and had finished grinding them for the stew, when the pain began. It had started the night before, that first pang disappearing quickly, and each time it returned, it was hardly a pain at all. But there it was again, excruciating, and I knocked over the mixture of peppers and onions and tomatoes, pinkish-red sauce scattering across the kitchen floor.

I calmed myself. Surely I had some time. No need to panic.

Chibundu was at work. I went to the phone, dialed his work number.

His voice came over the line. “Hello?”

“Chibundu,” I said, “I think the baby’s coming. Obiawana. She’s coming. You have to come.”

For a moment I heard several voices on the line. I could not make out what was being said, and whether it was to me.