The Thing Around Your Neck

Nkem, a Nigerian woman living in the Philadelphia area, receives a call from a friend telling her that her husband, Obiora, has a young girlfriend back in Nigeria. Nkem has long been frustrated by the fact that Obiora only spends two months of the year in the US with her. Obiora is an art dealer and business man. Nkem observes the replication Benin bronzes that he has decorated their house with. She thinks about how Obiora will return the next week and how at first she had felt like she was a part of an exclusive club, having married a rich man. Nkem thinks about a conversation she had with another Nigerian woman left in the US by her rich husband; the woman said that their husbands would never move to the US because in the US they don’t get to be “big men” (28). Nkem goes to the bathroom and cuts her hair short, just like how she was told her husband’s girlfriend wears it.

Obiora calls and notices that Nkem is not speaking normally, but he gets off the phone quickly after telling her how excited he is to see her and their two children the next week.