Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

Other trees lined each side of the trail leading up to where she stood, trees hovering above: palm, iroko, cashew, and plantain trees. Behind Chidinma, the trail appeared to taper into the lake beyond, which then tapered into a vanishing point somewhere in the distance, in the bluish-black horizon. The moon, obscured as it was by clouds, asserted itself just enough to leave the tips of the trees silvery and bright.

Near the tip of the trail, not quite close enough to where the earth gave way to water, there were even more burning candles.

I approached Chidinma with horror, and as I did, I saw that she was standing with her feet not quite touching the earth, like a ghost floating above the ground. How could it be? I lifted my eyes to check. I saw, dangling from the udala tree, a wiry rope leading to the wiry noose that was tied around Chidinma’s neck. Somehow I had at first failed to see it, but I saw it now, extending down from the branches of the udala tree, and Chidinma, my child, dangling from it.

I made to run for her, but my legs were heavy, as if they were being pulled down by wet mud. I forced them to move, keeping my eyes on her. I saw the moment when she lifted her eyes to me. She was wearing that familiar expressionless look on her face, and then her lips curved into a slight smile, something sinister, nothing like anything I had ever seen on her.

A book appeared in her hands. It was my papa’s old Bible — that small one from long ago, with the black leather binding and yellowing pages. As she hung from the tree, she began reading from the Bible. I listened to the words that she read, but I could not make them out.

I was too late. By the time I reached her, her eyes had fallen closed. Her skin was still warm, but a coldness was setting in.

A new dream followed, and in it, I saw Chidinma all grown up: a beautiful woman with a rich brown complexion and full, shapely lips, and her eyes very sharp. She sat outside in a yard full of udala trees, holding a child in her arms.

All around were the sounds of helicopter and bomber engines, the thudding sounds of running feet, of things crashing into the earth. War sounds.

From where I stood, I screamed at Chidinma to get up from where she sat, to hurry so that we could run and hide in the bunker. It was nighttime, dark all around except for dull moonlight. “Chidinma, come!” I screamed. Chidinma looked up at me and caught my eyes with her own. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, appearing angry and wild.

Just then the child in her arms began to choke. Chidinma looked down at the child. But she did nothing more than look. I could have done something to help the choking child, but there seemed to be an invisible fence between me and the scene in front of me. I could no more reach in to grab Chidinma and drag her to the bunker than I could help soothe the choking child.

In her arms, the child gasped and gasped, bringing its hands to its neck, its pleading eyes turning up toward Chidinma. Its face appeared to swell. More gasping, more pleading with its eyes. Still, Chidinma only watched. She did not do a thing to help the choking child.

Sometimes a decision comes upon us that way — in a series of dreams, in a series of small epiphanies. Imagine that there is a murmur of a sound, something from somewhere in the distance. It is not quite noticeable, but the minutes go by and the sound gets stronger: quonk, quonk, quonk , and finally you look up and see a skein, a flock of geese, a perfect V up above in the sky.

I woke up with a start, frantic, drenched in sweat, gasping for air. It did not seem that I was at home, or that I was on my bed. I stared blankly around, trying to make sense of where I was. It was then that I made the realization: Chidinma and I were both choking under the weight of something larger than us, something heavy and weighty, the weight of tradition and superstition and of all our legends.

The bedroom took shape around me: the floral sheets and the wooden side table and the dresser on which I saw my reflection in the mirror. The dark curtains on the windows. Chibundu by my side.

I sat up in bed, set my feet firmly on the floor. The solution to my problems became clear. Why had it taken this long for me to act? There’s a way in which life takes us along for a ride and we begin to think that our destinies are not in fact up to us.

Chidinma’s crying now rang out in my mind. But the bedroom door was closed, so if she had truly cried, I could not possibly have heard. Still, her cry rang out.

Chibundu lay sleeping on his side of the bed, his snoring reverberating like a horn. I rose, quickly gathered some things into a bag, being very careful not to wake Chibundu. I tiptoed out of the room, carrying the bag with me. I went straight for Chidinma’s room.

In her room, I bundled her against my chest, tying her in place with a wrapper stretched across my shoulder. She had been asleep when I came to her, but now she opened her eyes, and she squirmed a little, giving off her usual baby scent, of talc and fragrance, sweet and soft, a little like incense.

I carried her that way out of the room, into the parlor, and out the parlor door.

Outside, darkness wrapped itself around me like grace. The leaves were thrashing in the breeze, and along the road, by the side of a small shed, a woman was pouring soapy water out of a bucket. A man was sweeping the front stoop of his own shed.

At the taxi stand, I stood while the oga in a blue-and-black agbada and sokoto directed me to a cab. I walked, all the while rocking Chidinma in my arms.

Sitting in the taxi as it drove off, I thought once more about the way that life so often takes us the long way around. But perhaps it didn’t matter, long or short, as long as we eventually found our way to where we needed to be.

The taxi dropped me a short distance from Mama’s gate. Up the hill a light was shining like a bonfire.

I walked, not at all sure what I’d say when I reached Mama’s gate, or when I was inside the gate, or when I knocked on the door and Mama opened it for me. Maybe something about wanting to be alone, like her. Wanting to be rid of all attachments to people, save for the ones I chose for myself.

I passed a small patch of land, sprinkled here and there with green moss. I passed a tall iroko tree, and a chicken with red patches on its head, walking circles around the iroko tree.

Just before I reached Mama’s gate, I stopped. On the side of the road where I stood was a tree stump. I took a seat on it. There, I prayed silently, asking God to forgive me for abandoning my marriage. I prayed for what might have amounted to seconds, or minutes, or perhaps even hours.

I stood up and, feeling ambitious and a little brave, brushed off my wrapper, ridding it of all the dust it had gathered on the walk. I brushed it fervently, as if to start my life anew.

Aba, Abia State

January 13, 2014

IN A LIFE STORY full of dreams, there are even more dreams.

From time to time Amina still comes to me at night. Three particular dreams. Each one takes its turn, and each turn, like a habit, recurs.

In the first, I have found my way back to Oraifite, to Amina’s and my old secondary school there. The visit takes place in the evening. I get off the bus and make my way to the river. The sun is setting, causing the water to glisten. I find that spot where we once sat, and I grab a handful of sand and watch the grains trickle out from between my fingers, just as Amina had done that time long ago.

This is the first.

In the second dream, I have trekked all the way down to the grammar school teacher’s house. The place has long been abandoned, but I approach anyway, make my way across its front yard, across the weeds that are creeping up, covering the path leading from the gate to the entrance of the house. Weeds on concrete, drowning the cement.