Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta

Author:Chinelo Okparanta
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I continue to wait. The fan oscillates, and I trace its rotations with my eyes. I think of the spill and I remember Gloria’s description: something like black clouds forming in waters that would usually be clear and blue. The waters of the Niger Delta were once clear and blue. Now the children wade in the water and come out with Shell oil glowing on their skin.

I’m imagining stagnant waters painted black and brown with crude when finally someone calls my name. The voice is harsh and causes me to think of gravel, of rock-strewn roads, the kinds filled with potholes the size of washbasins, the kind of potholes we see all over Nigeria, the kind I imagine America does not have.

I answer the call with a smile plastered on my face. But all the while my heart is palpitating—rapid, irregular beats that only I can hear. They are loud and distracting, like raindrops on zinc.

The man who calls my name is old and grey-haired and wears suspenders over a yellow-white short-sleeved shirt. He doesn’t smile at me, just turns quickly around and leads me down a narrow corridor. He stops at the door of a small room and makes a gesture with his hand, motioning me to enter. He does not follow me into the room, which is more an enclosed cubicle than a room; instead there is a clicking sound behind me. I turn around to see that the door has been shut.

In the room, another man sits on a swivel chair, the kind with thick padding and expensive grey-and-white cloth covering. He stands up as I walk towards him. His skin is tan, but a pale sort of tan. He says hello, and his words come out a little more smoothly than I am accustomed to, levelled and under-accentuated, as if his tongue has somehow flattened the words, as if it has somehow diluted them in his mouth. An American.

He wears a black suit with pin stripes, a dress shirt with the two top buttons undone, no tie; and he looks quite seriously at me. He reaches across the table, which is more like a counter, to shake my hand. He wears three rings, each on its own finger, excepting the index and the thumb. The stones in the rings sparkle as they reflect the light.

He offers me the metal stool across from him. When I am seated, he asks for my papers: identification documents; invitation letter; bank records.

‘Miss Nnenna Etoniru,’ he begins, pronouncing my name in his diluted sort of way. ‘Tell me your occupation.’

‘Teacher,’ I say.

‘Place of employment,’ he says, not quite a question.

‘Federal Government Girls’ College in Abuloma. I work there as a science teacher.’

‘A decent job.’

I nod. ‘Yes, it’s a good enough job,’ I say.

He lifts up my letter of invitation. The paper is thin and from the back I can see the swirls of Gloria’s signature. ‘Who is this Miss Gloria Oke?’ he asks. ‘Who is she to you?’

‘A friend,’ I say. And that answer is true.

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