The Thing Around Your Neck Read online

  “Okay. I’ll see you soon. I just literally pushed my last client out of the office. We’ve managed to get her husband to agree to settle out of court and she was starting to linger too much.” He laughed shortly.

  “Okay then.” Kamara was about to put the phone down when she realized that Neil was still there.

  “Kamara?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a little concerned about tomorrow. You know, I’m actually not sure how healthy that kind of competition is at his age.”

  Kamara ran the tap and rinsed away the last streaks of dark green liquid. “He’ll be fine.”

  “I hope going to Zany Brainy takes his mind off the competition for a little while.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Kamara repeated.

  “Would you like to come to Zany Brainy? I’ll drop you off at home afterwards.”

  Kamara said she would rather go home. She didn’t know why she had lied about Josh being in the bathroom; it had slipped out so easily. Before, she would have chatted with Neil and probably gone along with them to Zany Brainy, but she didn’t feel like having that get-along relationship with Neil anymore.

  She was still holding the phone; it had started to buzz noisily. She touched the PROTECT OUR ANGELS sticker that Neil had recently placed on the cradle, a day after he called, frantic, because he had just seen a photo on the Internet of a child molester who had recently moved to their neighborhood and who looked exactly like the UPS delivery man. Where is Josh? Where is Josh? Neil had asked, as if Josh would have been anywhere else but somewhere in the house. Kamara had hung up feeling sorry for him. She had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rare disease that they had just read about, made them think they had the right to protect their child from disappointment and want and failure. A sated belly gave Americans the luxury of praising themselves for being good parents, as if caring for one’s child were the exception rather than the rule. It used to amuse Kamara, watching women on television talk about how much they loved their children, what sacrifices they made for them. Now, it annoyed her. Now that her periods insisted on coming month after month, she resented those manicured women with their effortlessly conceived babies and their breezy expressions like “healthy parenting.”

  She put the phone down and tugged at the black sticker to see how easily it would come off. When Neil interviewed her for the job, the NO TO GUNS sticker had been silver, and it was the first thing she told Tobechi about, how strange it was to watch Neil smooth it over and over again, as if in a ritual. But Tobechi was not interested in the sticker. He asked her about the house, details she could not possibly know. Was it a colonial? How old was it? And all the while his eyes were shining with watery dreams. “We will live in a house like that one day in Ardmore, too, or another place on the Main Line,” he said.

  She said nothing, because it was not where they lived that mattered to her, it was what they had become.

  They met in university at Nsukka, both of them in their final years, he in engineering and she in chemistry. He was quiet, bookish, smallish, the kind of boy parents said had “bright prospects.” But what drew her was the way he looked at her with awed eyes, eyes that made her like herself. After a month, she moved into his room in the Boys’ Quarters on a tree-lined avenue of the campus and they went everywhere together, climbing on the same okada, Kamara lodged between Tobechi and the motorcyclist. They took bucket baths together in the bathroom with slimy walls, they cooked on his little stove outside, and when his friends began to call him “woman wrapper,” he smiled as if they did not know what they were missing. The wedding, which took place shortly after they completed their National Youth Service, was hurried because an uncle, a pastor, had just offered to help Tobechi get an American visa by including his name in a group going for a conference of the Evangelical Faith Mission. America was about hard work, they both knew, and one would make it if one was prepared to work hard. Tobechi would get to America and find a job and work for two years and get a green card and send for her. But two years passed, then four, and she was in Enugu teaching in a secondary school and doing a part-time master’s program and attending the christenings of friends’ children, while Tobechi was driving a taxi in Philadelphia for a Nigerian man who cheated all his drivers because none of them had papers.Another year passed. Tobechi could not send as much money as he wanted to because most of it was going into what he called “sorting his papers.” Her aunties’ whisperings became louder and louder: What is that boy waiting for? If he cannot organize himself and send for his wife, he should let us know, because a woman’s time passes quickly! During their telephone conversations, she heard the strain in his voice and she consoled him and longed for him and cried when she was alone until the day finally came: Tobechi called to say that his green card was on the table in front of him and that it was not even green.

  Kamara would always remember the air-conditioned staleness of the air when she arrived at the Philadelphia airport. She was still holding her passport, slightly folded on the page that had the visitor’s visa with Tobechi’s name as sponsor, when she came out at Arrivals and there he was, lighter-skinned, chubby, laughing. It had been six years. They clung to each other. In the car, he told her that he had sorted his papers as a single person and so they would marry again in America and he would file for her green card. He took off his shoes when they got to the apartment and she looked at his toes, dark against the milk-colored linoleum of the kitchen floor, and noticed that they had sprouted hair. She did not remember his toes with hair. She stared at him as he spoke, his Igbo interspersed with English that had an ungainly American accent: “Amah go” for “I will go.” He had not spoken like that on the phone. Or had he, and she had not noticed? Was it simply that seeing him was different and that it was the Tobechi of university that she had expected to find? He excavated memories and aired them, rejoiced in them: Do you remember the night we bought suya in the rain? She remembered. She remembered that there had been a crackling thunderstorm and the electric bulbs were blinking and they had eaten the soggy grilled meat with raw onions that made their eyes water. She remembered how they had woken up the next morning with onions heavy on their breath. She remembered, too, how their relationship had been filled with an effortless ease. Now, their silences were awkward, but she told herself that things would get better, they had been apart a long time, after all. In bed, she felt nothing except for the rubbery friction of skin against skin and she clearly remembered the way it used to be between them, he silent and gentle and firm, she loud and grasping and writhing. Now, she wondered if it was even the same Tobechi, this person who seemed so eager, so theatrical, and who, most worrying of all, had begun to talk in that false accent that made her want to slap his face. I wanna fuck you. I’m gonna fuck you. The first weekend he took her out to see Philadelphia, they walked up and down Old City until she was exhausted and he asked her to sit on a bench while he went and bought her a bottle of water. As he walked back toward her in his slightly baggy jeans and a T-shirt, the tangerine-colored sun behind him, she thought for a moment that he was somebody she did not know at all. He would come home from his new job as a manager at Burger King bearing a little gift: the latest Essence magazine, Maltina from the African store, a chocolate bar. On the day they went to a courthouse to exchange vows in front of an impatient-looking woman, he whistled happily as he knotted his tie and she watched him with a kind of desperate sadness, wanting so much to feel his delight. There were emotions she wanted to hold in the palm of her hand that were simply no longer there.

  While he was at work, she would pace the apartment and watch TV and eat everything in the fridge, even spoonfuls of margarine after she had finished the bread. Her clothes pinched her waist and armpits, and so she took to walking around with only her abada wrapper tied loosely around her and knotted under her arm. She was finally with Tobechi
in America, finally with her good man, and the feeling was one of flatness. It was only Chinwe she felt she could really talk to. Chinwe was the friend who had never told her she was foolish to wait for Tobechi, and if she told Chinwe how she did not like her bed but did not want to get up from it in the morning, Chinwe would understand her bewilderment.

  She called Chinwe and Chinwe began to cry after the first hello and kedu. Another woman was pregnant for Chinwe’s husband and he was going to pay her bride price because Chinwe had two daughters and the woman came from a family of many sons. Kamara tried to soothe Chinwe, raged about the useless husband, and then hung up without saying a word about her new life; she could not complain about not having shoes when the person she was talking to had no legs.

  With her mother on the phone, she said everything was fine. “We will hear the patter of little feet soon,” her mother said, and she said “Ise!” to show that she seconded the blessing. And she did: she had taken to closing her eyes while Tobechi was on top of her, willing herself to become pregnant, because if that did not shake her out of her dismay at least it would give her something to care about. Tobechi had brought her contraception pills because he wanted a year of just the both of them, to catch up, to enjoy each other, but she flushed one pill down the toilet each day and wondered how he could not see the grayness that clouded her days, the hard things that had slipped in between them. On Monday of last week, though, he had noticed the change in her.

  “You’re bright today, Kam,” he said as he hugged her that evening. He sounded happy that she was bright. She was both thrilled and sorry, for having this knowledge she could not share with him, for suddenly believing again in ways that had nothing to do with him. She could not tell him how Tracy had come upstairs to the kitchen and how surprised she had been because she had given up wondering what kind of mother this was.

  “Hi, Kamara,” Tracy had said, coming toward her. “I’m Tracy.” Her voice was deep and her womanly body was fluid and her sweater and hands were paint-stained.

  “Oh, hello,” Kamara said, smiling. “Nice to finally meet you, Tracy.”

  Kamara held out a hand but Tracy came close and touched her chin. “Did you ever wear braces?”

  “Braces?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, no.”

  “You have the most beautiful teeth.”

  Tracy’s hand was still on her chin, slightly tilting her head up, and Kamara felt, first, like an adored little girl, and then like a bride. She smiled again. She was extremely aware of her body, of Tracy’s eyes, of the space between them being so small, so very small.

  “Have you ever been an artist’s model?” Tracy asked.

  “No … no.”

  Josh came into the kitchen and rushed to Tracy, his face lit up. “Mommy!” Tracy hugged him and kissed him and ruffled his hair. “Have you finished your work, Mommy?” He clung to her hand.

  “Not yet, honey.” She seemed to be familiar with the kitchen. Kamara had expected that she would not know where the glasses were kept or how to operate the water filter. “I’m stuck, so I thought I’d come upstairs for a little while.” She was smoothing Josh’s hair. She turned to Kamara. “It’s stuck right here in my throat, you know?”

  “Yes,” Kamara said, although she did not know. Tracy was looking right into her eyes in a way that made Kamara’s tongue feel blubbery.

  “Neil says you have a master’s degree,” Tracy said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s wonderful. I hated college and couldn’t wait to graduate!” She laughed. Kamara laughed. Josh laughed. Tracy riffled through the mail on the table, picked up one envelope and tore it open and put it back. Kamara and Josh watched her in silence. Then she turned. “Okay, I guess I better get back to work. See you guys later.”

  “Why don’t you show Josh what you’re working on?” Kamara asked, because she could not bear the thought of Tracy leaving.

  Tracy seemed taken aback by the suggestion for a moment, then she looked down at Josh. “Want to see it, buddy?”

  “Yeah!”

  In the basement, a wide painting leaned against the wall.

  “It’s pretty,” Josh said. “Right, Kamara?”

  It looked like haphazard splashes of bright paint to her. “Yes. It’s very nice.”

  She was more curious about the basement itself, where Tracy practically lived, the slumping couch and cluttered tables and coffee-stained mugs. Tracy was tickling Josh and Josh was laughing. Tracy turned to her. “Sorry it’s such a mess in here.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She wanted to offer to clean up for Tracy, anything to remain here.

  “Neil says you’ve only just moved to the States? I’d love to hear about Nigeria. I was in Ghana a couple of years ago.”

  “Oh.” Kamara sucked in her belly. “Did you like Ghana?”

  “Very much. The motherland informs all of my work.” Tracy was tickling Josh but her eyes were steady on Kamara. “Are you Yoruba?”

  “No. Igbo.”

  “What does your name mean? Am I saying it right? Kamara?”

  “Yes. It’s a short form of Kamarachizuoroanyi: ‘May God’s Grace Be Sufficient for Us.’”

  “It’s beautiful, it’s like music. Kamara, Kamara, Kamara.”

  Kamara imagined Tracy saying that again, this time in her ear, in a whisper. Kamara, Kamara, Kamara, she would say while their bodies swayed to the music of the name.

  Josh was running with a paintbrush in his hand and Tracy ran after him; they came close to Kamara. Tracy stopped. “Do you like this job, Kamara?”

  “Yes.” Kamara was surprised. “Josh is a very good boy.”

  Tracy nodded. She reached out and, again, lightly touched Kamara’s face. Her eyes gleamed in the light from the halogen lamps.

  “Would you take your clothes off for me?” she asked in a tone as soft as a breath, so soft Kamara was not sure she had heard correctly. “I’d paint you. But it wouldn’t look much like you.”

  Kamara knew that she was no longer breathing as she should. “Oh. I don’t know,” she said.

  “Think about it,” Tracy said, before she turned to Josh and told him she had to get back to work.

  “Time for your spinach, Josh,” Kamara said, in a voice too loud, and went upstairs, wishing she had said something bolder, wishing Tracy would come up again.

  . . .

  Neil had only just begun letting Josh have chocolate sprinkles, after a new book claimed his sugar-free sweetener was carcinogenic, and so Josh was eating his dessert of organic frozen yogurt dotted with chocolate sprinkles when the garage door opened. Neil was wearing a sleek dark suit. He placed his leather bag down on the counter, said hi to Kamara, and then swooped down on Josh. “Hello, bud!”

  “Hi, Daddy.” Josh kissed him and laughed when Neil nuzzled his neck.

  “How did your reading practice with Kamara go?”

  “Good.”

  “Are you nervous, bud? You’ll do great, I bet you’ll win. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t because you’re still a winner for Daddy. Are you all set for Zany Brainy? It should be fun. Chum the Cheeseball’s first visit!”

  “Yes.” Josh pushed his plate aside and started to look through his schoolbag.

  “I’ll look at your school stuff later,” Neil said.

  “I can’t find my shoelaces. I took them out in the playground.” Josh brought out a piece of paper from his bag. His dirt-encrusted shoelaces were tangled around it and he pulled the laces apart. “Oh, look! Remember the special family Shabbat cards my class was working on, Dad?”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yes!” Josh held the crayon-colored paper up, moving it this way and that. In his precociously well-formed hand were the words Kamara, I’m glad we are family. Shabbat shalom.

  “I forgot to give it to you last Friday, Kamara. So I’ll have to wait till tomorrow to give it to you, okay?” Josh said, his face solemn.

  “Okay, Josh,” Kamara said. She was rinsing off
his plate for the dishwasher.

  Neil took the card from Josh. “You know, Josh,” he said, giving the card back, “it’s very sweet of you to give this to Kamara, but Kamara is your nanny and your friend, and this was for family.”

  “Miss Leah said I could.”

  Neil looked at Kamara, as if seeking support, but Kamara looked away and focused on opening the dishwasher.

  “Can we go, Dad?” Josh asked.

  “Sure.”

  Before they left, Kamara said, “Good luck tomorrow, Josh.”

  Kamara watched them drive off in Neil’s Jaguar. Her feet itched to go down the stairs, to knock on Tracy’s door and offer something: coffee, a glass of water, a sandwich, herself. In the bathroom, she patted her newly braided hair, touched up her lipgloss and mascara, then started down the stairs that led to the basement. She stopped many times and went back. Finally she rushed down the stairs and knocked on the door. She knocked again and again.

  Tracy opened it. “I thought you’d gone,” she said, her expression distant. She was wearing a faded T-shirt and paint-streaked jeans and her eyebrows were so thick and straight they looked fake.

  “No.” Kamara felt awkward. Why haven’t you come up since Monday of last week? Why have your eyes not lit up at seeing me? “Neil and Josh just left for Zany Brainy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Josh tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” There was something in her demeanor that Kamara feared was an irritated impatience.

  “I’m sure Josh will win,” Kamara said.

  “He just might.”

  Tracy seemed to be moving back, as if about to shut the door.

  “Do you need anything?” Kamara asked.

  Slowly, Tracy smiled. She moved forward now, closer to Kamara, too close, her face against Kamara’s. “You will take your clothes off for me,” she said.

  “Yes.” Kamara kept her belly sucked in until Tracy said, “Good. But not today. Today isn’t a good day,” and disappeared into the room.