Behold the Dreamers

by Mbue, Imbolo

  At three o’clock, two hours before Vince was supposed to arrive, Jende’s phone rang, and it was Vince.

  “I don’t know, Vince,” Neni heard Jende say in the living room. “Let me first ask my wife what she thinks.”

  His hands over the mouthpiece, Jende came to Neni in the kitchen. “Vince wants to know if it’s okay for him to bring Mighty.”

  “No!”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “God forbid! You want Mrs. Edwards to kill us? Her baby in Harlem? In the evening? Please, God, oh, I’m not participating. No, no, no. I don’t want any trouble whatsoever.”

  Jende went back into the living room, spoke to Vince for a half minute, and came back. “He says his parents don’t have to know. Mr. Edwards is at work and Mrs. Edwards is at a dinner something and they’re not going to know anything. He says Mighty had a playdate, but the playdate canceled, so he’s just going to spend all evening sitting at home with his nanny.”

  “Let him do that, then.”

  Jende turned to walk away but hesitated. “Let the child come, Neni,” he said.

  “I said no.”

  “He’s never been on the subway, he’s never been to Harlem. Let his brother bring him. Vince is leaving next week, and they will not see each other again for who knows how long? And it’s only for one hour.”

  “And you don’t think something bad can happen in one hour?” Neni said, sweating over the stove as she scrubbed off the grime from all the cooking and frying.

  “If something happens, it’ll be on Vince’s head. I’ll tell him that.”

  “That’s what you’re going to say when they try to put us in prison?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll go to prison alone for both of us,” he said, winking at her.

  Neni turned her face away and continued scrubbing the stove with greater fervor. Just like him to think he knew the answers. She heard him tell Vince that it was okay, they were all excited to see them at five o’clock, and later tell Liomi that the special guest they’d spoken about was bringing another guest, so he better go change into even nicer clothes. By the time Vince and Mighty arrived, Neni had showered and changed her clothes, too, and her mood was far more excited than fearful.

  “Neni!” Mighty said when she opened the door, rushing to hug her.

  “What are you guys doing in my house?” she teased them as Vince gave her a hug and stooped to high-five Liomi.

  “I can’t believe I’m in Harlem!” Mighty said. “Did you make puff-puff?”

  Neni and Jende laughed. “That’s for breakfast,” Jende said. “This evening we have food that you will eat and your belly will get so full it will explode.”

  “Cool!”

  If the Edwards boys were fazed by the obvious signs of poverty in the apartment (the worn-out brown carpet; the retro TV sitting on a coffee table across from the sofa; the fan in the corner struggling to do the job of an AC; the fake flowers hanging on the wall and doing nothing to brighten the living room), they did not show it. They acted as if they were in any of the apartments they visited on Park or Madison, as if it were just a different kind of beautiful apartment in a different kind of nice neighborhood. Mighty ran to the bedroom with Liomi to see Liomi’s toys and called out to his brother that wow, everyone gets to sleep in the same bedroom here, how cool! Vince sat with Jende on the faded green sofa, drinking Malta and eating roasted peanuts with him, talking about America the good country, America the bad country, America the country that no one could argue was the most powerful country in the world.

  When Neni was done putting the food in serving dishes and placing them on the table, Jende announced it was time to eat.

  “We are going to eat Cameroon style,” he said to Vince and Mighty. “In Cameroon we do not usually sit around the table, like you do in America. Everyone takes their food and sits where they like, on a chair, on the floor. They eat how they like, with a spoon or a fork or with their hands—”

  “I wanna sit on the floor and eat with my hands!” Mighty said, and Liomi immediately added that he wanted to do the same thing. So Neni put a tablecloth on the floor, moved the food from the table, and they all sat in a circle on the floor and ate, laughing out loud with full mouths as Jende told them stories from his boyhood, like how he and Winston used to go stealing mangoes when they were eleven and how one time his foot got caught in an animal trap and he had to run all the way back home with a trap stuck to his foot, only to arrive and have his father beat him before going to fetch the man who owned the trap to come take it off. Vince chuckled, and Mighty and Liomi laughed so hard they almost choked, but Neni only rolled her eyes because she’d heard the story before and every time the story had a different ending.

  “Papa has the best stories!” Liomi exclaimed.

  “I wanna hear more!” Mighty said.

  Vince looked at his watch, then at Jende and Neni, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, bud, we’ve got to leave now.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve got other plans. I’ve got to take you back home to Stacy.”

  “But Neni!” Mighty cried, looking at Neni, who averted her gaze. Vince stood up and walked to the kitchen to wash his hands.

  “I don’t wanna go back just yet,” Mighty said to Jende and Neni, looking beseechingly from one to the other. “Please, can I stay a little longer?”

  “Your mother and father will not be happy, Mighty,” Jende said.

  “But they won’t even be back home till after midnight. Dad may not even come back till tomorrow, and Mom said she might not be home till after two in the morning. I heard her tell Stacy that. So I can stay till ten or eleven and they won’t even know it.”

  “I’m sorry, bud,” Vince said, coming out of the kitchen. “I’ve got other plans. This was fun, right? I’ll pick you up Monday evening and we’ll do something fun again, okay?”

  Mighty did not respond. He pouted and turned his face away, rubbing his fingers, which were fully covered with palm oil from the ekwang.

  “Maybe I’ll come to your house for a playdate, too,” Liomi said to Mighty, perhaps in an attempt to cheer him up or perhaps because Mighty had mentioned that he had the latest and cooler model of some of the toys Liomi had, most of which Cindy had given Neni. Whatever his intention, he said it so sweetly and sincerely that Neni almost laughed but, seeing how upset Mighty was, thought it best not to openly laugh at her child’s innocence in believing he would someday get an invite to a playdate at the Edwardses’. But then, she thought, she couldn’t be so sure Cindy wouldn’t invite Liomi over. Without ever meeting Liomi, Cindy had been sending him toys and clothes, some of them brand-new. When Liomi had come down with a case of pneumonia barely a month after Jende started working for them, Cindy had sent Jende home one evening with a basket of fruits and teas and healthy snacks. She’d written Liomi a letter, after he sent her a handmade thank-you card, praising his handwriting and saying Jende must be doing a great job raising him.

  “Why can’t Jende take me home later?” Mighty asked, still pouting and ignoring Vince’s pleas to stand up and wash his hands. “I’m going to go home, and it’s going to be boring sitting—”

  “But you told me you have fun with Stacy,” Neni said.

  “Yeah, but not this kind. Please, Neni. We didn’t even get to make puff-puff.”

  “Maybe I’ll come back to the Hamptons next summer,” Neni said. “Then we’ll get to do everything all over again, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Jende stood up and held out his hand to Mighty to help him stand up. “There will be another time, Mighty,” he said to the boy. “By the grace of God, there will be many more times.”

  Mighty stood up and followed Jende to the kitchen sink, where he washed his hands.

  After an hour and a half of fun, the Jongas hugged the Edwards boys goodbye and wished Vince a good time in India, and the Edwards boys thanked the Jongas for a really cool dinner party.

  As they were about t
o leave, Mighty remembered something.

  “How’s there going to be another time like this when Vince is leaving?” he asked Neni. “My mom and dad are never going to bring me here.”

  Smiling, Neni told him that he was going to have to take the subway and come all by himself then, which made Mighty grin—the idea of taking the subway alone from the Upper East Side to Harlem to have Cameroonian food must have sounded totally awesome.

  Twenty-six

  IT HAPPENED IN THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER, AROUND THE TIME WHEN the night air begins to ruthlessly wipe out memories of summer and once-happy chimes of ice cream trucks begin to sound like elegies.

  Two weeks before it happened, he had a lifelike dream, the kind of dream he would remember in detail even months after. He was back in Limbe, strolling through the market with his friend Bosco, who, oddly, was slender and tall and looked nothing like the tree trunk of a man he was in real life. It was a market day, a Tuesday or a Friday—he could tell from how crowded the market was and how slowly cars moved through it, drivers impatiently honking and pushing their heads out of windows to swear at each other, screaming, Commot for my front before I cam jambox ya mouth; ya mami ya; ya mami pima!

  As they strolled past the brick store that sold chocolate spread, imported wine, and other luxurious foods, Bosco pointed out that there were no singing gamblers in the market that evening. Jende looked at the spot where the singing gamblers usually gathered, next to the women selling jaburu and strong kanda and assorted smoked fishes. There was no one there. No men from some unknown place, wearing agbadas, beating djembe drums, and singing in perfect harmony as they tried to entice passersby to come spend a little bit of money to play games that could win them a whole lot of money.

  “I think they moved to another spot,” Jende said. “Today is a market day—they cannot miss their chance to come on a day when everyone comes with big purses.”

  “I’ve never liked those singing gamblers,” Bosco said, “but at least they’re not half as bad as money doublers. I hate money doublers.”

  “You shouldn’t hate anyone.”

  “But I hate them! I really hate money doublers!” Bosco screamed, his face suddenly unpleasantly twisted like that of a child about to descend into a tantrum. “My mother gave them my school fees to double so she could use the second part to pay for my sister’s school fees, but they never brought back the money. My mother lost everything! That’s why I never finished school. They stole my school fees!”

  “But it’s your mother’s fault for giving them the money.”

  “No, it’s not her fault! It’s the doublers’ fault. They promised to double the money. They didn’t double it! They took it and spent it and left us with nothing.”

  Bosco sat down on the sidewalk and began wailing. Jende tried to calm him down by rubbing his shoulders but he refused to be consoled, pushing away Jende’s hands and hysterically crying and cursing the money doublers over and over. A crowd gathered around him, asking what was wrong. Money doublers, money doublers, he cried. The crowd started laughing. Stupid man, ei di cry like small baby, they said. Money doublers them know how for talk sweet talk. If they want we money, we go give them.

  “No!” Bosco begged. “Don’t give your money to money doublers. Money doublers are bad people. God will punish them! They will have everlasting diarrhea for what they did to my mother! They will never sleep at night again. Their children will all die horrible deaths!”

  Embarrassed, unsure of how to get the crowd to leave his friend alone, Jende began running. He ran through the market, elbowing a girl with a tray of yellow peppers on her head and a burly man carrying yards of fabric on his shoulders. The wind was pushing against him, as if to prevent him from going forward, as if to stop him from deserting his friend and leaving him a carcass for mockers, but he pushed against it, running faster than a man fleeing salivating wildcats, hoping to see the ocean and be relieved by the sight of it. Finally, out of breath, he got to the beach. But there was no water there, only a pile of garbage in its place, foul-smelling and stretching to the horizon.

  He woke up sweating.

  While showering that morning, he thought about the dream and decided that it was because he hadn’t kept his promise to Bosco. Bosco had called him two months earlier, asking for money to take his wife to see a specialist at Bingo Baptist Hospital for pain and swelling in her right breast. The doctor at the government hospital at Mile One hadn’t been able to explain what was wrong with the breast, and Bosco’s wife had been crying incessantly for days, unable to move her right hand. The bobbi dey like say ei don already start rotten for inside, Bosco had said, his voice breaking as his wife screamed in the background. Jende had promised to see what he could do. He had done nothing. The night before his dream, he’d spoken to Sapeur, who’d told him that Death was coming for Bosco’s wife any day now. The dream was therefore his guilt manifesting, Jende decided. He thought about calling Bosco to see what he could do, but there was no credit on his calling card. Besides, he didn’t think he had any kind of money that could save Bosco’s wife. And he had to rush to work.

  At work he continued thinking about the dream as he drove Mighty and Stacy to a playdate, about what else it could mean. Maybe one of his friends back home had given money to a money doubler. It wouldn’t surprise him if that were the case. People didn’t learn, even after all the stories that circulated around Limbe of how money doublers had deceived Ma-this or Pa-that. Why couldn’t people learn? he asked himself. By all accounts, no one in Limbe had ever given money to a money doubler and gotten the money doubled. No one had ever given money and gotten any money back. And yet people continued to give to them, falling into the trap of crafty young men who walked up to them on the street and visited them in their homes, promising quick and high returns on their money through incomprehensible means. One woman at Sapa Road had been so enraptured by the two charming men in suits who visited her at home that she’d given them all of her life’s savings for double the money in three months’ time. Her hope, the story around Limbe went, was that she would use the doubled money to buy a ticket for her only son to move to America. But the doublers did not return on the appointed day. Or the day after. Or the month after. Destroyed, the woman had eaten rat poison and died, leaving the son to bury her.

  By the time Jende woke up on the day Lehman collapsed, he had pushed the dream and Bosco to the hinterland of his mind. He was thinking nothing of money doublers and their unfathomable victims, merely glad he didn’t have to go to work on a Monday. Cindy had given him the day off, telling him Clark would be too busy in the office to go anywhere, and assuring him that she and Mighty would be fine in cabs, considering she had only one appointment and Mighty’s piano teacher was on vacation.

  Jende thankfully accepted Cindy’s gift—a weekday off would be great for him. With Liomi at school, he could spend some alone time with Neni and help her around the house: clean the bathroom, do laundry, and, if he had enough time, cook and freeze a couple of meals so Neni wouldn’t have to worry about cooking until at least the following week. Her back had been aching unceasingly since she returned from the Hamptons, and he’d asked her to stop working and take only the minimum number of classes needed to retain her student visa. Pregnant women are not supposed to do anything strenuous in their last months, he’d said to her, even though his mother had continued farming till the day she gave birth to each of her five children and had in fact given birth to his youngest brother under a guava tree at their farm behind Mawoh Quarters.

  “But I like to work,” Neni had protested, berating herself for days after she’d called the agency to say she wouldn’t be available to work for a few months. Work will be there for you when you’re ready, he assured her. He listened patiently whenever she began a piteous and long-winded rant about how being pregnant and not working made her feel fat and lazy and worthless, told her to remember how much she sometimes hated her job, and guaranteed her that not working was the best decision because
her health was the most important thing. I’ll go out there and work four jobs before I let you go to work in pain and discomfort, he promised her.

  A week after she quit her job, he took his dedication to her a step further and informed her that she was going to take off the upcoming spring and summer semesters and stay home after the baby arrived in December.

  “No!” she immediately responded, standing up from the sofa where they’d been cuddling. “I’m not taking off any time from school.”

  “I’ve already thought about it and decided,” he calmly informed her, leaning back on the sofa and crossing his legs.

  “You’ve decided, eh?” she said, glaring at him, hands akimbo, as he picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. “What do you mean you’ve decided? When did you decide this? You know I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit when you decide something about me without asking me. I’m not your child!”

  “You’re my wife and you’re carrying my child,” he said without looking at her, leisurely clicking the remote control as if he and his wife were discussing what to have for dinner. “I want my wife to stay home with my new child for some time.”

  “Why?”

  “I think it’s going to be best for you and the baby.”

  “What about what I think is best?” she retorted, angry at him for making a decision about her life without consulting her and, even worse, for forcing her to add another year to the time it would take her to become a pharmacist. “How can you decide I’m taking off two semesters without asking me if it’s going to make me happy?”