by Mbue, Imbolo
“You see what I told you?” Bubakar said, grinning as they exited the federal building. “I continue doing this and we continue buying you time. For now, you’re a free man!”
Jende nodded, though he didn’t feel free. It seemed to him a rather pathetic way of being, postponing the inevitable. He would much rather be truly free.
Forty-one
SHE SAT ON THE CROSSTOWN BUS WITH THE GIFT BAG ON HER LAP, WATCHING as shoppers entered and exited clothing stores and corner bodegas, electronics stores and jewelry boutiques, beauty supply stores and fast-food joints. Traffic on 125th Street was slow—the M60 bus was moving and stopping every quarter-minute—but she remained calm, listening as two men behind her chatted about the Obama inauguration.
I wouldn’t have missed it for nothing, the first man said.
My son says to me, I ain’t coming to stand for hours in no cold, the second man said.
Cold?
Can you believe these children? A historic moment and you’re gonna be talking nonsense about no cold weather?
The first man chuckled.
I got bumps all over me still, thinking about when that pastor came up to say prayers, talking about the miracle, how such a day could even be possible—
In our lifetime.
In my mama’s lifetime.
You know, whatever happens from here, it almost don’t matter.
No, don’t suppose it does.
’Cause somewhere up there, Dr. King is looking down at Brother Barack and saying, that’s my boy.
That’s right. Our boy did it.
At Lexington, she got off the bus and took the 5 subway downtown. Again, she held the gift bag on her lap, her grip on its handle tight. When she got off at the Seventy-seventh Street stop, she checked the Edwardses’ address and began walking toward Park Avenue. She had never been in this part of town and was awed by its elegance—streets with no dirt; doormen dressed like rich men; a woman in six-inch Louboutin heels strutting as if the world should be hers on a diamond-encrusted platter; everything so close to Harlem and yet ten thousand miles away from Harlem.
“Can I help you?” the doorman at the Sapphire said to her, not moving away from the fiberglass door.
“I am here to see Mrs. Edwards, please,” she said.
“She’s expecting you?”
Neni nodded, hoping the absence of words would hide her deception.
“Service entrance,” the man said, motioning toward the garage on the right.
Her heart pumped faster than usual as she walked down the dim-lighted hall to apartment 25A. What if Mrs. Edwards wasn’t home? she thought. What if Anna changed her mind and refused to let her in? Anna had told her that Mrs. Edwards might be in the master bedroom and not want to be disturbed, but Neni could stop by, try her luck.
“You lucky,” Anna whispered as she opened the door. “She just came back out to living room.”
Neni took off her shoes in the foyer and followed Anna into the kitchen.
“What you want to see her for?” Anna asked, looking at Neni curiously.
“I just want to give her a gift.”
“I give it to her for you,” Anna said, extending her hand.
“No, I want to give it to her myself,” Neni said, putting the bag behind her back. She couldn’t share her plan with Anna—Anna would definitely try to discourage her.
Anna had called two days after Jende lost his job to say how sorry she was and how much she feared she would be next, because Cindy was acting like a madwoman these days (barely eating; rarely going out; stumbling around the apartment some mornings with puffy, bloodshot eyes), and Anna couldn’t tell Clark anything about the alcohol now because if Cindy suspected she was talking about her, all the years she’d worked for the family would mean nothing. Now, Anna said, she was secretly calling housekeeping agencies to see if she could get a new job, while jumping even higher at every word Cindy uttered so Cindy wouldn’t find any reason to fire her, because she badly needed a job, especially now that her daughter was in college and her oldest son’s construction business was failing and he and his wife and three children had moved in with her. Neni, still discombobulated and uninterested in talking about someone potentially losing a job when her husband had already lost his, had aloofly assured Anna that Cindy wasn’t going to fire her after twenty-two years of service, but Anna had said over and over that you never know, sometimes people do funny things, so you just never know.
“Wait here,” Anna said. “I go see if she wants to see you.”
For minutes, Neni stood alone in the kitchen, looking around at the stainless steel appliances and the cream-colored cabinetry with brass handles; the ultraclean kitchen island with a bowl of perfect-looking apples and bananas; the black marble table and vase of fresh pink calla lilies; the Wolf stove, with its frantically loud red buttons. The kitchen was more beautiful than the one in Southampton, which Neni had been certain couldn’t be surpassed in beauty. She wondered if Cindy cooked here often, or if she used it only occasionally, to make a special recipe for the boys or give detailed directions to the help during party preparations, the way she’d done over the summer.
“Go to living room now,” Anna whispered to her. “Do it quick and leave.”
Neni stepped into the Edwardses’ Upper East Side living room for the first time, and for a lengthy second all she saw was the view of Manhattan beyond the window—a panorama of steel and concrete buildings tightly packed like the brick and caraboat houses of New Town, Limbe. The room smelled of the softest, sweetest intermingling of baby powder and perfume, and she realized, like Jende had said, that everything in it was white or gray: the large chandelier (white crystals, gleaming silvery finish); the floor (glossy marble and gray); the plush carpet (snow white); the sofa and love seat (white); the armchairs (gray with white throws); the textured wall coverings (four shades of gray); the glass center table and the silver vases on it; the candlesticks standing in the four corners of the room (silver); the ottoman (striped gray); the twin wall frames behind the sofa, with line-drawn portraits of a naked woman lying on her back and side (white canvas), and the window curtains and valance (silver).
“Anna says you came to give me something?” Cindy said. She did not lift her eyes from the book she was reading.
“Yes, madam,” Neni said. “Good morning, madam.”
Cindy stretched out her hand to receive the bag.
“It was made by my mother in Cameroon, madam,” Neni said, handing it over. “I thought you would like it, because you said you liked when I wore the same kind of dress in the Hamptons.”
Cindy peered into the bag and put it aside, on the floor. “Thank you,” she said. “Tell Jende I say hello.”
Neni stood in the same spot, confounded.
She hadn’t imagined the meeting would begin and end this way. Not considering how much Cindy had seemed to like her in her last days in Southampton, and how well they had parted (with a hug, albeit an awkward one, which she’d felt compelled to give the madam as gratitude for the gifts and bonus money). Cindy had asked about Liomi at the brunch in June’s apartment, and told Neni that she’d be sending him a couple of Mighty’s old winter jackets through Jende, which she did three days later. But the happy Mrs. Edwards of that Sunday was not the same Mrs. Edwards sitting in her living room that Tuesday. Anna had mentioned that Cindy had lost at least ten pounds since Clark moved to the hotel the day after Christmas, and Neni could tell, from how gaunt her face looked even beneath her makeup.
“Anything else?” Cindy asked, looking up at her.
“Yes … yes, madam,” Neni said. “I also came to talk to you about something, madam.”
“Yes?”
Deciding she had to be brave if she was to say what she had come to say, Neni walked to the sofa and sat down next to Cindy. Cindy’s eyes widened at her former housekeeper’s audacity, but she said nothing.
“I came here, madam, to see if you can help my husband,” Neni said. Her head was tilted
, her eyes narrowed to implore in ways her words couldn’t. “If you could please help my husband … if you could help him get his job back with Mr. Edwards.”
Cindy turned her face away and looked toward the window. While the thousand different sounds of New York City blended outside, Neni waited for a response.
“You’re funny, you know,” Cindy said, turning to face Neni. She was not smiling. “You’re a very funny girl. You’re coming to ask me to help your husband?”
Neni nodded.
“Why? What do you think I can do for him?”
“Anything, madam.”
“Your husband lost his job because Clark no longer needs his services. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“But madam,” Neni said, her head still tilted, her eyes still beseeching, “maybe you can help him get another job? Maybe you know someone, or one of your friends, maybe they need a chauffeur?”
Cindy scoffed. “What do you think I am?” she asked. “An employment agency? Why can’t he go out there and get a job like everybody else?”
“It’s not that he can’t get a job by himself, madam. He found a little something, washing dishes at restaurants, but it is not easy, too many hours, and his feet hurt every night. It’s so hard out there, madam. Too … very hard to get a good job now, and it is hard for me and the children, too, with him not having a good job that can take care of us well.”
“I’m sorry,” Cindy said, picking up her book. “It’s a tough world.”
Neni’s throat tightened and she swallowed hard. “But back in the Hamptons, madam,” she said, “you told me to help you. Remember how I promised you, madam? As woman to woman. As a mother to a mother. I am asking the same from you today. Please, Mrs. Edwards. To help me any way that you can help me.”
Cindy continued reading.
“In any way, madam. Even if it’s a job for me. Even if—”
“I’m sorry, okay? I really can’t help you. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Please, madam—”
“If you could leave so I can continue my reading, I’ll appreciate it.”
But she didn’t leave. Neni Jonga wasn’t going to leave until she got what she wanted. She turned around, picked up her purse from the floor, and pulled out her cell phone. She opened it, and there, in the picture folder, she found what she was looking for. Her moment had arrived.
“That day, madam,” she said, her head no longer tilted, “I took a picture.”
Cindy looked up from her book.
“That day in the Hamptons,” Neni whispered, moving nearer to Cindy and holding her Motorola RAZR close to Cindy’s face, “I took this.”
Cindy looked at the photo. In an instant her face turned from gaunt to ghostly as she stared at an image of herself in a stupor, her mouth half open, drool running down her chin, her upper body splayed against the headboard, a bottle of pills and a half-empty bottle of wine on the nightstand.
“How dare you!”
Neni pulled back the phone and closed it.
“You think you can blackmail me? Who do you think you are?”
“I’m just a mother like you, madam,” Neni said, putting the phone back in her purse. “I’m only trying to do what I have to do for my family.”
“Get out of my house right now!”
Neni did not move.
Cindy stood up and repeated the command.
Neni remained seated and silent.
“Is everything okay?” Anna asked, running into the living room with a duster. She was talking to Cindy but looking at Neni, giving her an angry What the hell are you doing? look. Neni ignored her. This had nothing to do with her.
“Call 911!” Cindy shouted.
Still Neni did not budge. She chuckled and shook her head.
“Yes,” Anna said, rushing to the kitchen before stopping halfway. “What should I say?”
“An intruder! Hurry. Get me the phone! You want to learn a lesson, I’ll teach you a lesson!”
Neni remained seated. “I Googled it all, madam,” she said, smirking.
“Googled what!”
“Googled how to do this well … what to say when the police comes.”
“You useless piece of shit!”
“I know what the police will ask me. What I will say. Before the police comes I will delete the picture. When they come, I will say I don’t know what you’re talking about. Police will think you’re a crazy woman and they’ll call your husband. Or your friends. Then you will have to tell them. Is that what you want, Mrs. Edwards?”
“Anna! Phone!”
Anna ran to the living room with the kitchen phone and handed it to Cindy.
“Leave us,” Cindy said to Anna, who gave Neni another dirty look before hurrying out of the living room.
Cindy held the phone, looking at it as if punching 911 required a strength she couldn’t muster.
“Call them,” Neni said.
“Shut up!”
“What are you going to tell them, madam? That I have a picture of you doing drugs and drinking? I’m not afraid. You’re the one who should be afraid, because if the police takes me away everyone is going to know why.”
Cindy remained standing, clutching the phone and breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling like that of a woman sprinting up Mount Cameroon.
“Call them, madam,” Neni said again. “Please call them.”
If a glare could kill, dismember, and chop a body into fine bits, Neni’s body would have ended up a trillion little pieces because that was what Cindy’s eyes would have done to her. But a glare could do no such thing, and Neni could see she was halfway to victory.
Cindy threw the phone on the sofa and sat down trembling. “What do you want?” she said to Neni. Even her cheeks were trembling.
“Help, madam. Any kind of help.”
“And you think this is how to get it? This is what you had planned all along when I hired you? To blackmail me? To find a way to hurt my family?”
Neni shook her head. “I never took the picture for this reason, madam. I was afraid that day and I took the picture so that if something bad had happened to you, I will show the police what you were looking like when I entered the room and my hands will be clean. I didn’t even remember I had the picture till a few days ago when—”
“You must think I’m stupid if you expect me to believe that.”
“Believe it or not, it’s the truth, Mrs. Edwards.”
“Blackmailing … blackmailing …,” Cindy said, shaking her head and wagging her finger at Neni. “It’s a crime … you’ll pay for this … I’ll make you pay for this …”
For what seemed like a thousand seconds the women stared at each other: brown eyes next to hazel eyes, round cheeks next to hollow cheeks, face of determination next to face of defeat.
Cindy turned her face away first. “What are you going to do with the picture?” she asked, looking at the skyline outside, panic fully taking over her speech for the first time that afternoon.
Neni shrugged. “I don’t yet know, madam,” she said, smirking again. “But a person I met, he works for a website that writes news about people in the Hamptons. He told me they are always looking for good pictures of women like you.”
“You filthy bitch!”
Neni grinned. The lie had worked. This was precisely where she wanted Cindy. “I wish you, too, a good day, madam,” she said, picking up her purse. She stood up and straightened her red turtleneck.
“Sit down,” Cindy ordered.
“I’m sorry, madam. I need to go cook dinner for my family.”
“I said sit down!”
Neni sat down.
“How much do you want?”
Neni looked Cindy straight in her eyes, let out a short laugh, and said nothing.
“I said name your price.”
“You should know better than me, madam, how much this kind of thing should cost.”
“Wow,” Cindy said, shaking her head again. “Wow. I’m very d
isappointed in you, Neni. I’m appalled, and so, so disappointed.”
Neni Jonga would not be fooled again. A courage she never knew she possessed had fully taken root. She shrugged and pulled her purse closer to her chest.
“After all Clark and I have done for you and Jende? This is how you repay us?”
Neni turned her face away and fidgeted as if getting ready to stand up again. Cindy stood up, hurried out of the room, and returned a minute later with a check.
Without looking at the sum on the check, Neni shook her head. “Cash, madam,” she said.
“I don’t keep large amounts of cash at home.”
“That’s not what I heard, madam. I heard rich people keep a lot of cash in their houses, in case something bad happens to the banks.”
“Don’t make assumptions about me based on what you’ve read.”
Neni scoffed and smiled. She was enjoying this more than she’d thought she would. “Then I’ll wait for you to go to the bank. Or we can go together.”
She saw Cindy’s fist clench and for a second thought the woman was going to break her jawbone, or ask Anna to call 911 again. Instead, Cindy turned around and returned minutes later with a paper bag.
“I’m only giving you this,” Cindy said as she handed over the bag, “because of the goodness of my heart. Because I know how badly you need it, and I wouldn’t want your children to suffer because of you and your husband’s stupidity. But if I ever see you again, I promise you, you will end up in jail. You can choose to believe it or not, but I’ll make sure you go to jail, and I won’t give a shit. Now hand me the picture and get the hell out of my house.”
Neni took out the SIM card from her cell phone, handed the phone to Cindy, and walked out of the Edwardses’ apartment.
Forty-two
AFTER SHE’D PUT THE CHILDREN TO BED, SHE COUNTED THE MONEY IN the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror, and smiled: Nothing like starting the day agonizing over money and ending it triumphant beyond her imagination. She opened the medicine cabinet, took out her red lipstick and applied it, puckered her lips, smiled again, sprayed perfume on her neck, and walked out to the living room, where Jende was watching a Nets game.