Happiness, Like Water

by Chinelo Okparanta

  Outside, the sky is greying, and the sun looks like a fuzzy, deep-orange ball in the clouds. I look down at the carpet with the circles that I’ve drawn. There is a dark spot in the middle of one of the loops, and for whatever reason, maybe because I am talking with her on the phone, or maybe because we’re talking about Papa, I see her face in that area of the carpet, and I see the dark spot above her left cheekbone. It reminds me of the picture on her Massachusetts driver’s licence, in which she’s sporting the remains of a black eye.

  When I think of Massachusetts, I think of overfed cockroaches and mice, inflated and brown, brazen and indiscreet, not like the ones in Port Harcourt. They were the first things we met in our apartment on Comm Ave. Even now in my apartment in Pennsylvania, three or so hundred miles away, sometimes I can almost hear the scurrying of the mice, the sounds that their little feet made as they scampered about the tattered linoleum of that tired, old kitchen in Boston.

  When I think of Massachusetts, I think also of that cold and windy November day, the day we came, Mama and I, in our matching cotton dresses, Papa in his finest isiagu, patterned with gold lion heads embroidered on the main fabric.

  Even the heavier fabric of the isiagu did not do much to protect him from the cold. It did only a little more than the cotton of our dresses did for us.

  But mostly, when I think of Massachusetts, I remember the period when Mama went on that trip to Florida, just a few months after we arrived.

  Someone, another international student in Papa’s engineering programme, tells Papa and Mama about a church group that’s offering to help us get working papers and possibly even help us become legal permanent residents. During the day, Papa attends classes at Boston University. During the nights, he works as the superintendent of the building where we live. In exchange for free housing in the basement apartment and some pocket change, he sweeps floors and takes out trash from the lounges. He answers the calls of the residents. If they are locked out of their apartments, he opens the doors. If a light bulb is broken, he replaces it. It is a 24/7 job, and combined with his classes, he has no choice but to stay back. Mama heads off to Florida on her own.

  Those days, we get our food from the food bank at the church on Beacon Street. Mama makes sure to get the supplies before she leaves. Two boxes of cornflakes, a box of cherry-flavoured Fruit Roll-Ups, a loaf of bread, tomatoes, onions and a bag of rice. From Christie’s Market, she buys some oranges and bananas, and a carton of milk, because there are no oranges or bananas or milk at the food bank. She buys a crate of eggs, because the eggs at the bank are always several weeks expired. I am seven, almost eight years old, and the day Mama leaves for Florida, she wakes me up early to say goodbye. ‘Be good,’ she says. ‘Take care of your father.’ I nod, though I’m not sure what that will mean.

  That evening, Papa returns from school or work, I don’t know which.

  ‘Papa, welcome,’ I say, like I always do, when he enters the apartment. I am in the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge for something to eat.

  ‘You’re hungry?’ he asks. His voice is serious.

  I close the fridge and look at him. I nod.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Okay.’ He puts down the bag that is hanging from his shoulder, runs his hand back and forth over his head. ‘You can go watch television in the living room. I’ll get something ready for us.’

  From the living room, I hear metal clanging on metal. I hear whisking in a bowl. When Papa calls me to eat, there is a small tray of toasted bread, a stick of butter on a white saucer, and a plate of something in between scrambled eggs and an omelette, tomato and onion cubes scattered evenly, jagged and protruding, like raised scars across the top.

  We eat together that evening, and even if the omelette is runny and bland, and even if the toast is charred on one side, I eat them all as if I’m eating one of Mama’s dishes—her rice and beans or her beef stew or her okra soup. I lick my lips and tell him thank you when I’m done. I clear the table, and he helps me. I tuck that evening away in my memory, safely, so that I do not forget it, because I am seven, almost eight years old, and it is the first time that I am seeing this side of him.

  A couple of days later, Mama returns from Florida. She doesn’t get the working papers. It even turns out that the church organization might be a scam. I’m sitting in my room when I hear her tell this to Papa. He grunts and tells her to hush. How would she know a scam from real, he asks. She says she knows. He tells her to hush again. ‘This is what happens when you send a woman to take care of business,’ he says. ‘An utter disaster,’ he says.

  I come out of my room when he has gone into theirs. Her luggage is on the living-room floor. She smiles at me when she sees me, pats me on the shoulder, asks me if I’m hungry. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Very hungry,’ and it’s the truth. It is late evening by then, and, knowing that Mama would be returning that day, Papa did not prepare anything for dinner.

  Mama nods and tells me she’ll go get some groceries straight away, from the African store off Beacon Street, not too far from where we live. Today is a celebration that calls for Nigerian food, she says, because for now it seems we have no choice but to remain Nigerians. ‘Might as well make it a celebration,’ she says. ‘No need to lament who we are.’ I watch her walk towards the door, and I make a motion to follow, even if I don’t have my shoes on. ‘Stay,’ she says. ‘I’ll be back before long.’ I lean on the door and watch her walk away. My stomach is growling, but all I can do is watch. When she turns the corner—when I can’t see her any more—I shut the door and fasten the latch.

  She comes back before long, like she says. She cooks up the meal, whistling and humming the whole time. Then she dishes out some of the food for Papa, a tray of egusi soup, which she makes from the fresh egusi seeds that she gets from the Nigerian store. On the tray there is also a round ball of garri. She takes the tray to Papa in his room, still whistling and smiling and bopping her head just a bit, even as she enters the room. It is silent for a while and then I hear his voice. I don’t hear her voice, and meanwhile I’m thinking how I wish she’d hurry up in there, because hunger is about to kill me. Then something in me suddenly becomes afraid. I go to my room and wait. His voice grows louder, scolding, and there is a loud smacking sound. And still she does not come out. And still, his scolding voice.

  At first I want to run out to her, but I am too afraid. But then even the fear becomes too much to bear, and so I come out of my room again, make my way to the kitchen, inch closer and closer to their bedroom. On the wall dividing their bedroom from the living room is a black shelf. I am hiding to the side of the shelf, crouched down on my knees, when I see Mama come out of the room with the tray. She goes back into the kitchen, shaking her head from side to side. She fusses with the pots and pans and then she heads back to his room with another tray of food.

  A little later that evening, the area around her left eye starts to grow darker. Mostly, this is what I remember when I think of Massachusetts.

  The next few days, I can’t stop thinking of Mama’s voice on the phone, telling me she needs all the help she can get. I can’t walk down the hallways of Allen High School, I can’t eat dinner, without hearing her voice, pleading for me to come home. A week later, I make the decision.

  School has not yet let out for the summer, so I take an emergency leave of absence, and a substitute teacher takes over for me.

  They don’t live in Boston any more. They are now in New Jersey, because Papa found himself a better-paying job there with Bristol-Myers Squibb. Before that he worked for several different pharmaceutical companies, the first of which was the reason we were able to remain in the States. That first one had been willing to sponsor him for permanent residency, which made it so that we could legally stay.

  In any case, prior to his falling sick, he worked for the manufacturing engineering sector of Bristol-Myers. Mama said he helped to produce medications to treat everything from arthritis to cardiovascular disease, from cancer to psychiatric disorders.
As I pack my bags, I find myself wondering if he manufactured the medications that will be used to treat him now.

  They live a couple of hours’ drive from me, US-22E to PA-33S all the way to I-287S and then to Route 1. When I finally arrive, I park my car in front of the house, and I breathe. It is the first time in years, about ten years now, that I am allowed to come home.

  She has left the key for me underneath the doormat. When I bend down to retrieve it, I recognize the doormat, the same one from nearly a decade ago. But it’s still looking brand new, not fraying at the edges at all. I wonder how often doormats are replaced. I wonder if they have just gotten into the habit of replacing it with the exact same type. I wonder if maybe there is just no-one stepping on the mat, perhaps it is always just the two of them, never any guests, never any extra footsteps.

  The house is a bi-level. I climb up the staircase. The living room is at the top of the staircase, to the left. To the left of that is the doorway to their bedroom. The door is pulled closed, and though I know that he’s not in there, that he is in some room in Saint Peter’s Hospital, probably wearing one of those pale blue gowns whose open back is only drawn together by a pair of thin strings, though I know that he is quite a distance away, prepping for thyroid surgery, I feel the muscles of my stomach tighten.

  I head for my old room. I turn the knob and stare for a bit. On my old dresser are two rows of stuffed animals: purple baby Dumbo with his large, drooping ears; yellow ducks in a line, some ripped at the seams, others with deep red, almost brown blotches—dried blood—marking their bodies: old consequences of Papa’s rage; little Sacagawea with her long braids and her peeling, dangling eyelashes. I shake the dust off them. I watch the dust particles scatter in the air. Then I run my hand across the back of one of the ducks and pick it up. It’s been years since I picked any of them up, years since I talked to them, hushed, in the dark, staining them with tears, telling them my list of things I’d take with me when I turned eighteen and left. When I put the duck back down, back with the group, I imagine that they begin again to talk amongst themselves, like we used to when I was one of them. Only, now I am a stranger. I don’t talk to them, and I barely listen.

  The bed is made with pale yellow sheets that I do not recognize, but my old comforter is folded at the foot, as if it has been waiting there these ten years, anticipating my return.

  I sit on the bed, close my eyes for a moment. I breathe in, inhale the musty, stale air, and then I open up my eyes and look in the direction of the window. The curtains are pulled open, and the sunlight enters. I can see its rays, a light-yellowish diagonal line from the windows down to the floor, with dust particles like minuscule butterflies floating in it. On the area of the carpet where the light lands, the curtain’s embroidered leaves appear to float too, drifting shadows on the rug. I stare at the drifting leaves, allow myself to be hypnotized by them, but it’s a melancholic sort of hypnosis, the kind where you find yourself reliving all the things you wish you never had to live at all.

  They had an argument my senior year in high school. One of the serious ones. I got in the middle of it, screamed, told him what a horrible father he was. Pushed him away from her. What kind of husband beats his wife? I asked.

  Suddenly his hand was coming down hard on my face, his tight fist landing right smack on my mouth.

  We still don’t know who called the police, and we certainly did not hear them knock, if at all they knocked. One moment, Papa’s hand is coming down on my face, the next moment a couple of officers in dark uniforms with guns and badges are appearing in the doorway of Mama and Papa’s bedroom, which is where we were at the time.

  So, the officers arrive, and for a time both of them stay with us in the house, asking questions, taking notes. Then one of them tells Mama and me to follow him. He leads us outside.

  I sit on the hood of Papa’s Ford Taurus. The tears dry on my face, and the skin on my cheeks feels stiff, as if all the moisture in it has dried away with the tears. There is a cool breeze, and I turn my face into it and right into the scrutinizing gaze of the officer.

  ‘Your lips are bleeding,’ the officer says, staring at me. ‘You’ll have to tell me who did it to you.’

  I touch my lips. The blood is caked, congealed by the air. It feels bumpy like a scab.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me who did it to you,’ the officer says again.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Mama blinking purposefully and shaking her head at me. ‘What will happen if I tell you?’ I ask the officer, picking at the congealed blood, wiping it away with the sleeve of my shirt.

  ‘It’s a crime,’ the officer says. ‘The person responsible will be arrested and put in jail.’

  Mama blinks some more.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the officer says. ‘A little jail time will teach him a lesson. He’ll know better than to do it again.’

  ‘Your father is diabetic,’ Mama bursts out then. ‘Do you want to be the one to send a diabetic man to jail? What will happen to him there? Do you want to be responsible for destroying his health?’

  ‘Ma’am,’ the officer says.

  ‘I fell,’ I say. ‘It’s my fault. I fell on my face.’

  The officer stares at me hard, jots down some notes. Before long he and his partner are inside their police cruiser, backing out of the driveway.

  The next day, period four, Mrs Beatty’s calculus class, the intercom goes off, and I hear my name. ‘Uchenna Okoli, please report to Mr Loftin’s office.’

  Mr Loftin is the guidance counsellor, and in his office, he pulls out the local newspaper, turns to the last few pages of it, asks me if everything is okay at home.

  I tell him yes.

  He looks at me as if he is inspecting me, as if I am an experiment and he’s watching to write a report.

  He says, ‘I don’t know any other family by the name of Okoli in the entire of Edison Township. As a matter of fact, I don’t know any other Okolis at all.’

  I nod. ‘It’s a rare name,’ I say. I try to chuckle, but it comes out like a cough. I put my right arm on the armrest and act like I’m merely relaxing into the chair. Then I lean my head on my hand and cover a good portion of my lips that way.

  He nods. ‘Your family was cited for an incident of domestic violence,’ he says. ‘You’re the only Okoli family I could find in Edison.’

  Tears well up in my eyes, not because I’m sad or embarrassed. Tears well up because suddenly I feel relieved.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Mr Loftin asks.

  I nod and start to speak. ‘My father,’ I say. I pause.

  ‘Your father?’ Mr Loftin asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He gets angry.’

  ‘Did he do something to you?’ Mr Loftin asks.

  Do you want to be responsible for sending a diabetic man to jail? I hear in my head.

  I wipe my eyes and smile. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  Mr Loftin nods.

  I say, ‘You know, I have a perfect 4.0. I’m in all those AP classes. I’ve taken the tests and have a semester worth of AP credits. Before you know it, I’ll be in college. And I’ll do well in college. Everything will be fine.’

  It comes out like a rehearsed speech, which is sort of what it is, because I’ve told it to myself so many times those past few months, every time Papa lashed out at Mama and me.

  Mr Loftin nods. ‘You’ll do just fine in college, yes,’ he says. ‘But there are other issues. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asks.

  I nod.

  ‘I’ll be here if you change your mind,’ he says, as I get up to leave.

  Somewhere in the middle of going to and from the hospital, I find out that the thyroid gland is butterfly-shaped, that its two lobes look somewhat like wings. Butterflies should be soft and beautiful, but I imagine that perhaps this is the issue with Papa’s thyroid. Perhaps his thyroid has never be
en quite the way it should be. I imagine that removing it from his neck might result in the change that we’ve always wanted.

  He stays in the hospital for a week. The surgery is simple, goes exactly as expected, the doctors say. He will be back to normal within a couple of days of being discharged, they tell us.

  He comes home, walks around in his blue-and-white-striped pyjamas for more than a couple of days. He drags his feet, mutters.

  We beg him to eat, but he shakes his head and tells us that he has no appetite. One week passes. Two weeks pass. ‘It’s a shame,’ he says one evening. His voice is throaty and his accent is heavy like Mama’s. ‘Such a shame to be so sick and weak.’

  ‘Munchausen’s syndrome,’ I whisper to Mama when we leave him.

  She scowls at me.

  ‘Better this way,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll take Munchausen any day over the shouting and the hitting.’

  She is wearing her mauve gown. It is sleeveless and goes down to her ankles. Her cheekbones are high, and the skin on her face appears supple and young. At first glance, hers is not the face of a fifty-five-year-old woman. But there are grey bags under her eyes. And her forehead wrinkles just a bit, like the creased linen of her gown. She looks at me and shakes her head. ‘Don’t call trouble where there’s no trouble,’ she says.

  She is right about there not being trouble. For once, Papa is placid, docile.

  That evening, Papa calls my name. He calls it loudly, so that I can hear it even from the kitchen, even with their bedroom door being shut. He is sitting up on his bed when I open the door, his back facing the wall. His comforter is a tawny landscape of purple and green swirls, like little snakes on sandy desert land. It is pulled midway up his torso. I stand at the entrance of the room, just under the arch of the doorway. ‘Yes, Papa?’ I say.

  He is wearing a white singlet and fussing with his comforter. He asks for a glass of water. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.