Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

He was wearing a cotton singlet and a pair of old khaki trousers. Patches of sweat had formed across the singlet, dark areas of dampness all over. The fabric of his trousers appeared, in spots, a darker shade of beige. Behind him, the parlor door remained open.

He cocked his head a bit to the side. He lifted one eyebrow, a slight lift, looking at me the way he had begun to look at me those days, in a slightly astonished way. Finally he spoke. “Why didn’t you open?”

“I didn’t hear,” I replied.

He cocked his head some more. “You didn’t hear?”

“No,” I replied. But of course I had heard the knuckle-cracking sounds. I had in fact heard, only I had not equated the sound to someone knocking. I said, “I’m sorry. I think I mistook your knocking for something else.”

Mockingly, he said, “You think you mistook my knocking for something else.” He repeated it, even more mockingly, very singsongy, “ You think you mistook my knocking for something else. ”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Now tell me, what am I to do with your sorry? Can I make soup with it? Can I pay bills with it? What exactly is your sorry good for?”

He turned in the direction of the kitchen. “I left my jug of drinking water in there. I needed you to bring it out to me. You didn’t hear, so you couldn’t bring it to me. You tell me you’re sorry. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how useless your sorry is to me now.”

He shifted his weight on his legs. He tapped the machete lightly on the tile floor, transferred it from one hand to the other, shifting his weight once more and just looking at me.

Chidinma was making babbling sounds. His gaze moved down to her.

“Speaking of the child, we should really try again,” he said.

“We really should try what again?”

“Is she awake?” he asked.

“Something between asleep and awake,” I said.

He nodded.

“We should try for a son.”

I let out a sigh. It came out a little like a gasp.

“If the man who goes to the farm and comes back with no cassava is a true farmer, he will return to the farm, will put in the work necessary, so that one day he can return from the farm with cassava in his basket.” He paused. “We will try again for a son, put in the work necessary to bear ourselves a son. I will have a son. I deserve that much from you.”

I collected myself. I said, “Chibundu, I’m not really up to having another child, certainly not so soon. And besides, she’s just as good as a son.”

“Ha!” he cried out, very indignantly. “Is she really? Are you forgetting that girls cannot pass on the family name? If for no other reason at all, you will give me a son to pass on my family name.”

“Chibundu, since when did you begin to care about all that nonsense?” I asked. “She’s your child. Your flesh and blood. Your daughter.”

“Yes,” he said. “But she is no son. I want my son. I see the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you. She is all yours. I want my own. And maybe when he grows, and when you are too busy to answer my calls, he can be the one to bring me my jug of water. You’ll have your girl, and I’ll have my boy.”

“Chibundu, I’m not—”

“What are you not? What exactly are you not?” He moved closer, so close that I could feel his breath on my face and the blade of his machete on my leg. “You owe me that much,” he said in a steady whisper. “Do you hear me? You owe me that much.”

Sometimes these days it seems to me that what happened next was no accident on Chibundu’s part. But then there are other times when I tell myself that it was indeed an accident, that Chibundu could not possibly have known, which would explain the bewildered look on his face when he became aware of it. But the truth is that a man who sets out to destroy can still be bewildered, especially when he is forced to look his indiscretion in the eye.

In any case, he was by now hovering above me, so that his machete all of a sudden was pushing heavily on the skin of my leg. I tried to move away, but he would not allow it. He moved closer, pushing the big knife farther into my leg.

“Chibundu!” I shouted. “Any more and you’ll tear open my skin!”

His eyes widened, and he gazed at me with a bewildered look on his face. Finally he took a few steps back, still staring, still bewildered. A long silent moment passed between us, after which he turned around, machete in hand, and walked out of the parlor door.

That night, after I had put Chidinma to sleep, I went into the bedroom and lay down to sleep. Chibundu was in the bathroom. I thought, How dare he have done what he did to me, to nearly tear open my skin with a machete? And who was to say he wouldn’t one day do something like that — something harmful — to poor little helpless Chidinma? What was to stop him from doing it?

The bedroom ceiling light was still on.

First the sound of silence and then the sound of a turning knob. Chibundu appeared at the doorway wearing his pajama bottoms, drawstrings dangling down the front, like what should have been a temptation. He waited there by the door, just looking at me. I stared back.

“Are you just going to stand there?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to come to bed?”

He continued to stand. I pulled the covers up to my chest and turned around so that I was no longer facing him. He flicked off the light switch by the door; the room went dark. I listened to the soft thump of his footsteps as he walked the short distance to the bed.

His body sank into the bed. More minutes passed.

I had begun to doze off when I felt the tap of his fingers on the back of my hand.

I knew what it must be. I pulled the blanket up to my chest, holding it tight, trying to ignore the tapping.

He tapped again. I finally turned to answer, repositioning myself so that I was now lying on my back, the blanket still high on my chest.

In the darkness, I watched as his murky, monster-like face came square above mine. His hands found their way to mine as he twisted the blanket out of my hold.

“The sooner we get to it, the sooner we’ll be done,” he said.

I stiffened.

His breath above me was chillingly warm as he settled himself on top of me. There was the rough movement of his hands and legs as the bottom of his pajamas came off. His hands returned to the space between our bodies, holding me in place as he lowered himself, and as he writhed himself into me.

THERE WERE TWO ways I always imagined telling him that I could no longer go on trying for a boy, that I could no longer even go on being married to him. At some point during the confession, I would also tell him that all the time I had been married to him, how could he not have seen, just how could he possibly not have seen, that I had been the whole while in love with somebody else?

Two ways. The first:

I’d be in the kitchen making supper, stirring Maggi seasoning or crushed tatashi into a pot of soup. I’d listen to the opening of the front door as Chibundu entered from work.

I’d move to set the dishes on the table. Near me, on the floor, Chidinma happily swinging in her Fisher-Price swing.

Chibundu would make a detour to the bathroom, followed by a detour to the bedroom. After that he would arrive at the table, looking tired and disheveled, the way he had begun to look, his shirt unbuttoned from top to bottom, his feet bare under his trousers.

Between us, our now-usual silence as he took his seat at the table, as I served him his okra soup and garri with contrived mindlessness, as if today were just another ordinary day.

I’d eat, and I’d watch as he ate, and I’d watch as he peered intermittently at me. We’d stay like that for a while, and then I’d vomit it all out on him, the way a drunk vomits up undigested food, the way he hurls out sprays of stomach acid, sloppy matter haphazardly jetting forth out of me.