Happiness, Like Water

by Chinelo Okparanta

  They ate sitting on the chairs that Nneoma had set out on her veranda. It would be more relaxed that way, the dibia had said. And so, of course, Nneoma complied.

  The pastor was speaking now, having finally begun his sermon. Still, Nneoma continued her conversation with the woman. She spoke in a hushed voice.

  ‘Di-gi, o no ebe?’ she asked.

  ‘Home,’ the woman replied, also in a hushed voice, and keeping her eyes in the direction of the pastor. ‘He’s at home putting together furniture. Arranging the house. We’re still unpacking. But by next week, we should be settled, and then he’ll join me in church.’

  Nneoma nodded. ‘It’s good to have a husband,’ she said. ‘Makes things easier.’

  The woman looked at Nneoma now, she let out a quiet laugh, but she nodded, too. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Some things it does make easier.’ She turned back from Nneoma and looked once more in the direction of the pastor, who still stood at the podium delivering his sermon.

  Nneoma resigned herself to her thoughts, while the woman appeared to resign herself to the sermon.

  Nneoma thought of Obinna, of those years when she was sure that he’d be the one. She was not quite sure how things could have gone so wrong. She remembered the day they did.

  That day, he had come into her classroom again.

  He was wearing a button-down shirt, tucked into his trousers. A tie hung down from his neck. She was just sitting at her desk, gazing out the window. As had become his habit, he came in and took that same chair on the other side of her desk.

  He’d brought with him a box of chalk and a blackboard eraser. ‘This should do for the next few weeks,’ he said. ‘But let me know if you need more.’

  She nodded. She allowed her fingers to touch and linger on his as she accepted the package. He eyed her quizzically. She noticed this, was flattered by it. How wonderful, she thought, the way he seemed to caress her face with his eyes.

  Now, when she thought of it, she knew that there were things she should have considered before going ahead with her plan. Practical things, like, was he in fact interested in her? Was he just performing a duty, just handing out supplies so that his school would run smoothly?

  But it had not even occurred to her to question his affection.

  She accepted the box of chalk along with the eraser and placed them on her desk. She looked at him—at his hair, his face, his eyes. His hair appeared greyer now, but his face retained its youth. His teeth were crooked, but in a way she found endearing.

  She took in all of his features as he stood in front of her, continued to take in all of it as he asked, ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

  She shook her head.

  He nodded and then turned to leave. Just as he turned, she shouted, ‘Wait!’ It came out like a gasp.

  He turned back around.

  She was giddy with anticipation. It occurred to her that soon she would be able to make the announcement to her mama, to her papa, to everyone who mocked, who doubted. She would be able to say, ‘I’m getting married.’ Or, ‘Here is my husband-to-be.’ And she would present Obinna to them.

  She was wearing two wrappers, both tied at her waist. There were concentric designs on the wrappers—circles and spheres of different sizes, clusters of them meeting at the middle. The blouse she wore that day was made of lace and was short-sleeved, with a low neckline that came just below her shoulders.

  She had secured the hem of the blouse to the wrappers with safety pins. Also, she had made sure to tuck the hem of the longer wrapper—just the edge of it—beneath one of the legs of her desk.

  She rose up from her seat then, abruptly. She felt the tug of the desk’s leg on her wrapper, and the wrapper’s tug on her blouse. The wrapper slid down her waist, still covering her body, but it pulled the blouse with it further down below her shoulders so that it exposed half of her chest, that smooth yellow-brownness of it, smooth but not flat, because there was of course the matter of the exposed breast, which was small but round and full, which rose and tapered into a nipple the colour of lumber wood. The nipple was nearly a perfect circle, she knew, and at the very tip of it—at the very tip of the other one, too—was that tiny opening, from which she desperately hoped that milk would one day flow, enough to nourish her child.

  Obinna gasped then. ‘Miss Enwere!’ he exclaimed. ‘Cover yourself!’

  Nneoma stood where she was, just looking at him.

  ‘Miss Enwere! Do you hear me?’

  Finally she said, ‘Obinna, don’t worry. Everything is just the way it should be.’ She pulled the wrapper from underneath the leg of the desk then. She held it—held the portion that she had latched on to as she pulled. She walked over to him. Her blouse still hung down her chest.

  When she reached him, she took his hand in hers, placed it on her chest, just above her exposed breast. She sighed with satisfaction. There was release, a blissful lightness in the mere touch of his skin on hers. She breathed deeply.

  ‘I want this,’ she said. ‘I want you. Don’t you want me, too?’ Why had she even asked this last question? At the time, she was sure he wanted her too.

  He jerked his hand away, his face angry. She did not understand.

  ‘Obinna,’ she said. It was both an exclamation and a question.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Miss Enwere!’ he said. ‘Do you value your job? Do you value your job?! I suggest you pull yourself together, or you will soon be out of a job!’ He turned to leave the room. At the door, he stopped. ‘And, from now on,’ he said, ‘it’s Mr Nkangineme to you.’

  For months afterwards, it was an embarrassment to see him, even from a distance—at morning assemblies, especially. He stopped coming to her classroom to drop off supplies. Or, rather, he must have dropped them off late in the evenings after she was gone for the day, or early in the mornings before she arrived. But he was a professional, and she knew that word of the incident had not spread from him. She was thankful for that.

  Months passed, and she remained at the school, because she had been unsuccessful in finding other work. Eventually, it seemed he forgot the incident and began again to bring her supplies. They remained professional about those brief encounters. She called him Mr Nkangineme.

  Now the pastor called for silent prayer, and the church was quiet for a minute or two. The pastor finished with the Lord’s Prayer, first in Igbo, then in English. The congregation recited along with him, their voices loud and imploring.

  Next, the choir began to sing, and the ushers came around carrying circular golden trays in which the tithe money was placed. When the tray arrived at her, Nneoma dug into her handbag and placed her money on the tray, more than a few naira bills, in multiples of a hundred, more than enough to buy a loaf of bread. The woman next to her dug into her purse as well; Nneoma watched. The woman placed some naira bills into the tray. Nneoma smiled approvingly at her as she did. The woman smiled back.

  When all the money had been collected, the ushers gathered in front of the stage. The pastor moved forward to collect each tray. The choir sang even louder now. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below . . .

  When the singing was done, the pastor delivered his closing address. ‘Go in peace,’ he said to the congregation. ‘Return no-one evil for evil. And in all things, seek the good.’

  The choir sang briefly, just a refrain. Members of the congregation began to rise, their voices along with their bodies. The service was over.

  Nneoma turned to the woman. ‘My friend Ezioma,’ she said. ‘I met her at work. I teach at Staff School, in Abuloma.’

  The woman nodded, picking up her handbag from her lap and making to rise.

  ‘It was thanks to my invitation that she ever even started to come to this church. I invited her, you see.’

  ‘I see,’ the woman said, nodding.

  Nneoma skipped the part about the dibia and the potion. She jumped to the lunch. She told the woman again that Ezioma was pregnant and sho
wing by that time. Eight months, just like the woman. Perhaps Ezioma had eaten too much that day, Nneoma told the woman. Because the next day, Monday, she did not show up to school. On Tuesday, she did not show up again. On Wednesday, Mr Nkangineme held a teachers’ meeting early, at 7 a.m., an hour and a half before the students arrived. All the teachers gathered, sat around that long oval table in the headmaster’s office. He had been unable to contact Ezioma by phone, Nneoma told the woman. And Ezioma’s husband was apparently still away on the work trip. Mr Nkangineme had called the meeting to see if any of the teachers had heard from Ezioma.

  By now the woman was no longer making to leave. She had settled back into the bench, taken with Nneoma’s story.

  Nneoma continued.

  Perhaps she was ill, Mr Nkangineme had speculated. Maybe too ill to contact the school. One of them should pay her a visit, to let her know that she was on their minds, in their prayers, he concluded.

  But it should be someone who knew her well, he said. All the teachers agreed.

  Who was closest to her then? the headmaster asked.

  Eyes scanned the room. Most of them landed on Nneoma. By then, the teachers knew that Ezioma and Nneoma had grown close, that they sometimes walked home together after school. They’d heard that Ezioma sometimes attended church services with Nneoma on Rumuola Road.

  Nneoma complied hesitantly. She asked the teachers when they thought was a good time for her to go.

  The teachers responded that she should go as soon as possible. ‘Now,’ they said.

  The gate to Ezioma’s house was locked. There was no gateman, at least not at the time Nneoma arrived. She was forced to get on the tips of her toes. Then she reached inside the gate with her hands, manipulated the latch until she managed to open it. Lucky for her that there was no padlock.

  She walked across the front yard, towards the front entrance. The door was wide—a double-leaf door—made of glass on the top half, wood on the bottom.

  She knocked. Her heart had begun to beat fast by then. She could feel her palms sweating. She continued to knock, each one louder than the one before. She turned the knob as she knocked, but the door was locked. She shook it frantically. Eventually, it occurred to her to try to pick the lock. She reached for her hair, took out one of the bobby pins that held her hair in a bun. She inserted it this way and that, inside the key hole, to the side of the door where the bolt and socket met.

  Finally, the door opened. Her heart beat even faster. In the parlour, everything was calm, except for the buzzing of the ceiling fan. But the air smelled moist, musty. When she breathed deeply enough, there was something in it like rotten soup.

  A picture of Ezioma and her husband hung on another wall, smiling faces. In the picture, her husband wore a light-green agbada and sokoto. He had the look of an Oga, which perhaps he was, all that travelling he did. But there had been no gatemen guarding the gate, like big men often had. And there were no housegirls to be seen. In fact, the house itself was modest at best. But no matter, Nneoma thought. She turned from the picture to tackle the matter for which she had come.

  There were two doors, one on each side of the corridor. There was a third door straight ahead. None of the doors was quite pulled closed. She pushed the one ahead first. She saw the toilet, a sink, the bath stall. Some towels hanging on a rack. She pulled the door back—not all the way closed, but just the way it had been.

  She turned to her left. She pushed that door slowly. She felt her breath catch as it opened. What if things were exactly the way she expected they’d be? She’d cry, she thought. She’d cry for poor Ezioma. But she’d be grateful to the dibia. And she’d be grateful for the baby.

  She entered the room. She could see a lump on one side of the double bed. That scent of rotten soup was stronger now than before. She moved closer, went directly to the lump. She found Ezioma there, just lying down, her blanket pulled up to her chest.

  Nneoma began to cry then. She flipped the blanket from Ezioma’s chest. She touched Ezioma’s belly. It was stiff. She bent her head to be closer, listening for signs of life in Ezioma’s rigid belly. She could not have been sure, but somehow Nneoma knew then that the baby had not survived. She moaned. She imagined Ezioma being buried in that cemetery across from the Staff School compound. She imagined the baby being buried with her. It infuriated her, the thought. She pounded her fist into the mattress, narrowly missing Ezioma’s body. Over and over again, she pounded. Then she curled into a ball at the side of the bed. She cried, but there was no-one to hear.

  It was afternoon by the time Nneoma picked herself up from the floor. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her blouse, which had by then sneaked out from underneath her wrapper. She did not have to look for the phone. It was there, sitting on the bedside table, on the other side of the bed. She picked it up, dialled the school. Obinna picked up. Mr Nkangineme. She told him exactly how it was. Almost exactly, anyway. She told him of the way she had found Ezioma—still sleeping in bed, only more than sleeping: dead. She told him that she’d been in shock, that she’d been curled up, crying by Ezioma’s side all this time.

  ‘My God!’ he exclaimed. Then, ‘Miss Enwere, I’m so sorry for your loss.’ His tone was sympathetic.

  Now, in church, the pregnant woman listened, expressed her sympathy as Nneoma told the story.

  As she did with Mr Nkangineme, Nneoma left out any mention of her role in all of it—no mention of her visits to the dibia, no mention of the dibia’s potion, or of its use in the preparation of the food she served Ezioma that Sunday lunch long ago. She did not tell the woman that part of her devastation about the situation was in the knowledge that she had sacrificed Ezioma but had wound up with no child after all.

  What she did tell the woman was that all of this happened over a decade ago. Twelve years, to be exact. She was twenty-eight years old at the time.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said now, moving to embrace Nneoma. ‘Ndo.’ She repeated it, whispered it. Sorry.

  For a moment, Nneoma remembered the pastor, his ban on hugs. She thought that perhaps the pastor was wrong. Perhaps hugs did nothing to scare the visitors away. Well, ban or not, here she was being embraced by this visitor. How she had missed these embraces! How long had it been since the last time someone held her this way? Very long—in fact, so long that she did not remember. She would savour it, then: she leaned into the embrace, grateful for it. She breathed in the musty scent of the woman. It was nourishing and comforting, the embrace.

  Just as soon as the woman released her, Nneoma’s thoughts were back to Ezioma again, and she remembered the days after she lost Ezioma and the baby, how she’d thought she heard people talking about her, gossiping about her being unmarried, about her being childless. Mgbaliga. Nwanyi-iga. ‘Empty barrel. Old maid,’ the voices said. She heard them as she walked down to the market, as she rode the bus on her errands, even in school she heard the whispers. The whispers scolded, ridiculed, condemned.

  Her parents appeared to be whispering too, each time Nneoma stopped by to visit them in the village. They’d shake their heads disappointedly, and it seemed to her that they muttered something about how she would soon be past childbearing age. It seemed to her that they muttered things like, ‘All your friends are leaving you behind. Won’t you do something about it?’

  There, seated in the church beside the woman, Nneoma began to hear the voices again: Mgbaliga. Nwanyi-iga. MGBALIGA. NWANYI-IGA. She shook her head, trying to shake the voices away. To no avail. Then all the words of the day were mixing up in her head. Praise God. Confession. Nwanyi-iga. Sin. Creatures. Blessings. Di-gi, o no ebe? Mgbaliga!

  She continued to shake her head, furiously now. Soon her thoughts were racing with the same things with which they raced around this period in her scheme: how happy she would be if it worked this time. How much she would love and nurture the child, never taking her eyes away from it. She would name the child Ekwutosina, if it were a girl. Cease your gossiping. An answer to those whispers. And, if it
were a boy, Chukwuemeka. God has been very generous to me. Also an answer to the whispers.

  ‘You should allow yourself to move on,’ the woman said.

  ‘Yes. I really should,’ Nneoma replied emphatically. ‘But it’s hard.’

  ‘What are you doing this evening?’ the woman asked. ‘You should drop by my house. All that with Ezioma was so long ago. You need to try to get over it. Come over. I’ll prepare food. We’ll eat. I will help you take your mind off it. We will talk of other things, get to know each other better. My husband will be busy working on the house. He won’t disturb.’

  Nneoma nodded, accepted. ‘Da’lu. Imela,’ she said. Thank you. ‘What shall I bring?’

  The woman waved her hand as if to say, Don’t worry about it. ‘Just bring yourself,’ she said.

  ‘Oh no, I must bring something,’ Nneoma said. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘If you insist. Bring whatever you want.’

  Nneoma nodded and thanked the woman again. Then she watched as the woman stood up finally to leave. The church was mostly cleared out now.

  The woman paused. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, her voice soft and concerned.

  ‘Yes,’ Nneoma replied. ‘I will come this evening,’ she said to the woman. But her mind was drifting again. She thought of the potion now. It had failed with Ezioma. It had failed with the women who came after Ezioma, all three of them. They had taken their babies along with them, just like Ezioma.

  Suddenly Nneoma was doubtful. They were all such kind women, Nneoma thought. What sense was there in continuing to waste their lives like this?

  She wondered if she should bother with this woman. No, she decided. She said it aloud: ‘No!’

  ‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked again.

  Nneoma grew even more doubtful. This doubt was not, had never been part of the plan. She rose from the bench. ‘No,’ she said to herself, softer now. ‘Maybe I won’t go after all.’ Her intention now was to head out of the church—to walk in the direction of the nearest staircase, to go outside for fresh air. But beneath her the floor seemed to shake. She sat back down on the bench. Soon it appeared to her that the walls of the church were collapsing: a crumbling cake. She heard loud screaming and thuds of racing feet. She wanted to run too, but her legs refused to move. Her heart was beating fast, faster. It was a struggle to catch her breath. ‘No more,’ she said, very boldly. ‘Not this evening. Not ever again.’ But even as she said it, a part of her still hoped. It was a deep-seated hope borne of nothing more than habit. It was a desperate one, this hope. It was the hope that the woman would insist.