Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

“Well, then, you might as well stop hiding them in that box. You might as well just throw them out.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “I will throw them out, yes. That’s exactly what I will do.”

I squirmed free of his grasp, took the paper from him. I would have folded it back up, stuck it back in the chest with the rest of them, but his eyes were steady on me, and somehow I felt I owed that much to him. I looked one last time at the letter, then turned so that my eyes met his. I ripped the letter into shreds, one tiny little piece at a time.

We continued to stand there. Finally he turned away from me, walked over to the bedroom wardrobe. His work briefcase sat in front of the wardrobe. He picked up the briefcase, placed it on the bed, popped open its snaps. He lifted out some piles of paper, a stack of folders. Underneath was a wad of about a dozen envelopes, held together with a tan rubber band.

He extended the stack of envelopes to me.

“You might as well have these now,” he said. “They’re yours.”

I struggled to understand what was happening. Chibundu tried to explain himself: “I thought maybe if I kept them away from you… I hadn’t realized that you… that you reciprocated her feelings. I was so sure that you didn’t… and if I kept these from you… there would have been no sense in giving them to you…” His voice faded away, as if utterly confused, or as if he were unconvinced of his own rationale.

I snatched the envelopes from him.

I looked down at the top envelope, about to open it, when I saw that its side had already been opened, neatly, carefully, as if to carry out the pretense that it had not been opened at all. All the rest of the envelopes were the same way.

In the moment that followed, I recognized the handwriting and cried out in surprise, and in anger. My hands shook as I held the letters.

“Chibundu, where did these come from? How long have you been keeping these? Why didn’t you give them to me?”

Surely they must have started to arrive after the first two or three months that we moved to Port Harcourt, because those first few months I had been vigilant about checking the mailbox. No way would Chibundu have intercepted those letters before I got to them, so vigilant was I. But then months had gone by, and not a thing from Ndidi, and eventually I had resigned myself to checking the box only once in a while — once or twice every couple of weeks. Somehow the timing must have worked in Chibundu’s favor, so that he managed to get to the box before me on the days when Ndidi’s letters came in. But for every single one of her letters?

I said, “Chibundu, how is it that you got ahold of all these letters before I did?”

His jaw tightened as if he was not going to explain, but he explained anyway. “The first one I stumbled on by accident. I opened it just by accident. But after I read it… I began going to the post office every afternoon during my lunch break, early enough to get to them before I knew you would. Each time I saw an envelope with her writing, and with her return address, I took it. The rest of the mail I left in the box for later, either for you to get or for me to pick up on my way home from work.”

I was aghast. “That’s a breach of confidence and trust!”

“I didn’t mean to… I was afraid… I couldn’t risk…” His voice broke. He gathered himself, then he said, “Ijeoma! You’re the one who has broken my confidence and trust! You stand there and you lie to me and tell me you never sent a letter to her? Never? Not once?”

Immediately I recognized that he had caught me in my own lie. He grabbed the letters from my hand, riffled through the envelopes. He must have memorized them, which ones were which, because it took him only a couple of minutes to land on the two letters that he was looking for. He read:

My darling Ijeoma, just as I thought I might never hear from you again, I received your letter in the mail. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. ..

“And what about this other one?” he asked.

My dear Ijeoma, I received your second letter in the mail today. What was I ever thinking to encourage you to marry? Yesterday, I ran into your mother and she couldn’t stop gushing over the fact that you are pregnant. I’ve never felt such anger at the thought of anything as the thought of Chibundu having his way with you…

He stopped there, and he said, “So, you see, I’m the one who should be asking the questions here. You lied to me and said you never sent a letter to her. But you know, Ijeoma, if I’m to be honest too, then I should admit that I actually knew you had written to her, only somehow I really hoped that you had just written back to tell her to stop, because what business did you have writing to reciprocate her feelings? You’re a married woman, Ijeoma! Do you hear me? You’re a married woman, for God’s sake!”

I wanted to scream at him at this point, and remind him that I had tried to tell him, that day long ago in church. Had he forgotten? I felt the urge to explain that I had not in fact tried to keep it from him, not really. Yes, I had hidden it, but also I had not hidden it.

He went on. “Imagine my surprise to find all those stashed-up letters in your drawer today. Imagine! Now I can see clearly that I was wrong in what I was hoping. So, what is it, Ijeoma? You really love her? How long has this thing between you and her been going on? How long were you both… before I married you? And how long after? How long?”

“Chibundu, I only wrote three letters,” I said. This time I was speaking the truth. It was risky enough to send those three. After all that time of not receiving anything back from her, I could not have sent more. “Just three,” I said. “I stopped myself from sending the rest.”

By now Chibundu was frantic. He cried out, “You have finished me! You have finished me completely! How could you? How could you?”

Suddenly he regrouped himself, regained his composure. His voice took back its steadiness. He said, “You can do whatever you will with those letters. You can even continue to write to her. But don’t you forget for one moment — not for one tiny moment — that you are my wife. You are my wife, for God’s sake. I can do things to make your life miserable. Do you hear me? You are my wife. Whatever you do, don’t provoke me, or I will see to it that you pay the price.”

I LAY IN BED unable to get my limbs to move, my mind heavy with the realization of what I had become: the equivalent of a washrag, worn and limp, not from overuse, but rather from misuse and manhandling.

Chibundu was maneuvering himself about the room with an energy that seemed to say that everything was just the way it should be. Now he was pulling on his shirt and trousers, whistling as he did. Now he stood before the dresser mirror, humming the tune of a song I did not recognize, arranging the collar of his shirt, then tying his tie around his neck.

Chidinma was most likely wide awake in her room, playing with her toys and waiting for me to come and collect her. Instead, I continued to lie in bed.

The scent of his cologne was so strong in the room that it seemed as if someone were chopping wood and crushing the leaves and blowing the aroma out in the air with a fan.

He turned away from the dresser and began walking toward me. He took a seat on my side of the bed. There was a sallowness to his face, something a little like old age. I observed the way the crow’s- feet seemed suddenly to have deepened around his eyes. I observed the way his hair seemed grayer than ever before.

He sat so that he was facing the windows, his eyes lowered to the floor. The silence between us was loud.