“Not long. Since spring.”
“When I first came to Princeton, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a house only for grad students and fellows, but I kind of like it now. The first time Udenna visited me, he said this square building was so ugly and charmless. Were you in graduate housing before?”
“No.” Chinedu paused and looked away. “I knew I had to make the effort to make friends in this building. How else will I get to the grocery store and to church? Thank God you have a car,” he said.
She liked that he had said “Thank God you have a car,” because it was a statement about friendship, about doing things together in the long term, about having somebody who would listen to her talk about Udenna.
On Sundays, she drove Chinedu to his Pentecostal church in Lawrenceville before going to the Catholic church on Nassau Street, and when she picked him up after service, they went grocery shopping at McCaffrey’s. She noticed how few groceries he bought and how carefully he scoured the sale flyers that Udenna had always ignored.
When she stopped at Wild Oats, where she and Udenna had bought organic vegetables, Chinedu shook his head in wonder because he did not understand why anybody would pay more money for the same vegetables just because they had been grown without chemicals. He was examining the grains displayed in large plastic dispensers while she selected broccoli and put it in a bag.
“Chemical-free this. Chemical-free that. People are wasting money for nothing. Aren’t the medicines they take to stay alive chemica
ls, too?”
“You know it’s not the same thing, Chinedu.”
“I don’t see the difference.”
Ukamaka laughed. “It doesn’t really matter to me either way, but Udenna always wanted us to buy organic fruits and vegetables. I think he had read somewhere that it was what somebody like him was supposed to buy.”
Chinedu looked at her with that unreadable closed expression again. Was he judging her? Trying to make up his mind about something he thought of her?
She said, as she opened the trunk to put in the grocery bag, “I’m starving. Should we get a sandwich somewhere?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It’s my treat. Or do you prefer Chinese?”
“I’m fasting,” he said quietly.
“Oh.” As a teenager, she, too, had fasted, drinking only water from morning until evening for a whole week, asking God to help her get the best result in the Senior Secondary School exam. She got the third-best result.
“No wonder you didn’t eat any rice yesterday,” she said. “Will you sit with me while I eat then?”
“Sure.”
“Do you fast often, or is this a special prayer you are doing? Or is it too personal for me to ask?”
“It is too personal for you to ask,” Chinedu said with a mocking solemnity.
She took down the car windows as she backed out of Wild Oats, stopping to let two jacketless women walk past, their jeans tight, their blond hair blown sideways by the wind. It was a strangely warm day for late autumn.
“Fall sometimes reminds me of harmattan,” Chinedu said.
“I know,” Ukamaka said. “I love harmattan. I think it’s because of Christmas. I love the dryness and dust of Christmas. Udenna and I went back together for Christmas last year and he spent New Year’s Day with my family in Nimo and my uncle kept questioning him: ‘Young man, when will you bring your family to come and knock on our door? What are you studying in school?’?” Ukamaka mimicked a gruff voice and Chinedu laughed.
“Have you gone home to visit since you left?” Ukamaka asked, and as soon as she did, she wished she had not. Of course he would not have been able to afford a ticket home to visit.
“No.” His tone was flat.
“I was planning to move back after graduate school and work with an NGO in Lagos, but Udenna wanted to go into politics, so I started planning to live in Abuja instead. Will you move back when you finish here? I can imagine the loads of money you’ll make at one of those oil companies in the Niger Delta, with your chemistry doctorate.” She knew she was speaking too fast, babbling, really, trying to make up for the discomfort she had felt earlier.
“I don’t know.” Chinedu shrugged. “Can I change the radio station?”
“Of course.” She sensed his mood shift in the way he kept his eyes focused on the window after he changed the radio from NPR to an FM station with loud music.
“I think I’ll get your favorite, sushi, instead of a sandwich,” she said, her tone teasing. She had once asked if he liked sushi and he had said, “God forbid. I am an African man. I eat only cooked food.” She added, “You really should try sushi sometime. How can you live in Princeton and not eat sashimi?”