Behold the Dreamers

by Mbue, Imbolo

  “Right after it kills you.”

  When Jende came home that night, she showed him the letter, concerned about what he would say about the hundred-dollar application fee but excited for him to see the validation of her academic prowess, thanks to him working hard to send her to school.

  “I don’t even know if I should bother trying to join,” she said, feigning disinterest.

  “But this is good, bébé,” he said. “The letter says you are one of the top students in your college. Why didn’t you tell me that? Even with you not going to school this semester they’re still thinking of you.”

  “So I can spend the one hundred dollars to join?”

  “Spend three hundred,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her. “If there ever was a reason to pinch out a little something from the savings, this is it. If you can join and get one of these scholarships that they say they give to their members …”

  “That’s the same thing I was thinking, the scholarships. Imagine, bébé! If I could get a scholarship to help us pay for September, or even January, wouldn’t that be something?”

  “Maybe I’ll finally know again what it’s like to have a good night’s sleep.”

  The next day she submitted her membership application online and, days later, received an envelope welcoming her to the society and telling her about all the benefits. She immediately went to the website the letter directed her to and, there, she saw the scholarships—dozens of scholarships for students with her grade point average, and students with her level of progress, and students with her major and career interest. For most of the scholarships, though, the deadline had passed. For the ones whose deadlines were still open, she needed to be nominated by a dean.

  “Then go see the dean and beg him to nominate you,” Jende said after she told him what she’d discovered.

  “But I don’t know any dean,” she said, trying not to get upset at his patronizing tone.

  “You go to your school, Neni, and ask someone who this dean who nominates people is. You go to the man and tell him your situation, okay? You tell the man that you have to return to school in September to remain legal in the country. Tell him you are very smart and you want to be a pharmacist but your husband doesn’t make good money anymore. Let him know how bad you want to be a pharmacist, and how bad your husband wants you to be a pharmacist. You have to say anything you can, because you don’t know if the man is going to have a soft heart.”

  She listened, nodded, and, an hour later, emailed her former precalculus instructor, who wrote back the next morning with the name and office number of the nominator, Dean Flipkens. The instructor told her she didn’t need an appointment to see the dean, she could go there anytime. That afternoon she took Timba to Betty’s, hoping to see the dean so she could get her scholarship as soon as possible.

  On the walk from the subway to the school she imagined the dean as a kindly old white man with a head of sparse gray hair, but when she got there she realized she had visualized incorrectly: He was a white man, but young—with a head of thick brown hair—and within a minute of being in his office, she could tell his heart wasn’t nearly as soft as Jende had hoped it would be.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Jonga,” he said to her, “but I don’t nominate by request. I nominate students with stellar grades who are making a contribution to the college and their community.”

  “I understand, Dean,” Neni said collectedly, trying not to sound as desperate as she was. “But you can see, I have very good grades, which is why I came here to see you today.”

  “I see your grades all right. But what about your involvement in the college and the community?”

  “I—”

  “Are you a member of any organization on campus? Have you done anything to enrich the lives of other students at BMCC?”

  “Dean, I have—”

  “Do you volunteer at any organization in the city? In your neighborhood?”

  Neni shook her head. “I volunteered at my church one time, but … I really would like to volunteer more, Dean,” she said, suddenly feeling ashamed, as if she’d been caught stealing. “It’s just that I have no time, Dean.”

  “No one has time, Ms. Jonga,” the dean said.

  “I have two children, and before my second child was born I was also working. If I had any time, I would be so glad to do something for BMCC because I like the school. But without the time, Dean, I just cannot do anything.”

  “I’m not sure what to tell you.”

  “I need any kind of help, Dean Flipkens. I only have two more semesters before I can transfer to four-year college. But my husband, he lost his job that pays good money. I really don’t know how I can come back to school in September if someone doesn’t help me with a scholarship. If there’s anything you can do to help me …”

  The dean stared at her through his geek-chic black-framed glasses, then turned toward his computer. He couldn’t be less than her age, Neni estimated, though he looked much younger, quite like the flawless-skinned and neatly coiffed young men in the billboards that floated over Times Square. Neni couldn’t help thinking he was sitting in that office only because he had to, not because he wanted to, and that was enough to make her believe the man wouldn’t care if she had to drop out of BMCC.

  As he moved his mouse around the pad, she watched his hands, well manicured and soft-looking, the hands of someone who’d never known a day of hard labor.

  “I would send you over to financial aid,” he said, turning his attention back to her, “but I see here you’re an international student. I’m sure you know that pretty much every scholarship or grant we offer is for citizens or permanent residents, so there really isn’t much they can do for you.”

  Neni nodded, buttoning her jacket and reaching down for her purse lying on the floor.

  “Though I must ask you, Ms. Jonga,” he went on, ignoring Neni’s attempt to end the meeting, “I see here that your plan after graduation is to apply to pharmacy school. Is that still the case?”

  Neni nodded, not wanting to waste any more words with him.

  “May I ask why pharmacy?”

  “I like pharmacy,” she briskly replied.

  “I understand. But why?”

  “Because I want to give people medicine to feel better. When I came to America my husband’s cousin advised me to do it, that it’s a very good thing to study. And everyone tells me that it’s a good job. Is there a problem with me trying to become a pharmacist, Dean?”

  The dean smiled, and Neni imagined he was derisively laughing at her inwardly, at the impassioned manner in which she’d just defended her career choice.

  “Everyone who told you pharmacy is a great career is right,” he said, still smiling haughtily, “but I wonder—and I hate saying this to students, because I don’t want anyone to think I’m asking them to dream small—have you wondered if it is the right career path for someone in your circumstances?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I’m simply wondering, Ms. Jonga, if perhaps another career path may be better suited for someone like you.”

  “I want to be a pharmacist,” Neni said, no longer trying to disguise her anger.

  “That’s great, and I commend you for that. But you came here today because you are desperate for money to finish school. You have two children, your husband doesn’t make enough money, and, by all accounts, you’re having a hard time making ends meet. Pharmacy school is very expensive, Ms. Jonga, and you’re an international student. Unless you change your legal status it’s going to be hard for you to get loans to get the degree, if you can find a way to get your associate’s from BMCC in the first place.”

  “So you are telling me you think I should not try to be a pharmacist?”

  The dean took off his glasses, placed them on the desk.

  “One of my duties as associate dean of students,” he said, “is to offer our students career counseling. And my aim when I counsel st
udents like you, Ms. Jonga, is to guide them toward achievable goals. Do you understand what that means, for a goal to be achievable?”

  Neni glared on without a word.

  “There are lots of other great careers in the healthcare field, and we can help you get into those. Licensed practical nurse, ultrasound technician, medical billing and coding, lots of great careers which … you know, which will be more achievable—”

  “I don’t want achievable.”

  “It would be a shame for you to spend years pursuing a goal which you have such little chance of achieving, don’t you think? I’m just … I just want us to talk it out and see what the odds are of you, you know, graduating from BMCC, getting into pharmacy school, and becoming a licensed pharmacist while dealing with financial stress, raising two children, and living in the country on a temporary visa. Don’t you think it would be a shame to start something, spend time and money, only to give it up later because you realize it’s too much for you? And before you think I’m trying to rain on your parade, please know that I’m only saying this from years of experience. You won’t believe how often I see this happen, and what a shame I think it is that we didn’t give the student the best counsel. Because for every student in your situation who does become a pharmacist or doctor, there are four or five more who never make it into pharmacy or medical school and then they have to turn around and start trying to become a nurse.”

  Neni laughed and shook her head. The situation wasn’t funny, but in a way it was.

  “I don’t think I said anything funny,” the dean said.

  “Did you grow up dreaming of having this job you have right now, Dean Flipkens?” Neni asked, the funniness of the situation gone, replaced by a rage bubbling so ferociously within her that she was afraid it would spill out through her nose.

  “Actually, I had other dreams, but you know … in life you have to—”

  “That’s why you don’t want me to be a pharmacist?” she said, standing up and slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Because you are sitting in this office and not somewhere else?”

  “Please have a seat, Ms. Jonga,” the young man said, motioning to the chair. “There’s no need to get—”

  “I want to become a pharmacist!” Neni said. “And I will become a pharmacist.”

  When Jende came home from work that night she told him nothing of the conversation, except that she was likely not going to get any kind of scholarship. Then why are we still planning to go to the ceremony for this honor society thing? he asked in a tone that made her feel as if she’d sorely disappointed him. Because it would be good to celebrate how far I’ve come, she responded, but he was unconvinced. He wasn’t going to take off work and lose money just to go watch her join an organization that wasn’t going to help them. Go with one of your friends, he said to her. Or ask Winston.

  Winston told her he would be delighted to attend, when she called to invite him. He teased her about the accomplishment, saying she’d better make sure she was joining an honor society and not a secret society because sometimes they looked the same, and she teased him back, saying the only secret society she would ever consider joining was the one he’d joined, which had taken him from Chicago grocery store cashier to Wall Street lawyer. Winston laughed, told her how proud he was of her, and on the day of the induction ceremony, he left work early to join her and Fatou and the kids in front of the auditorium. While Fatou stayed with Timba in the hallway, Winston and Liomi clapped and cheered as Neni, alongside twenty-eight other students, was formally inducted as a member of Phi Theta Kappa. After the ceremony, Winston took everyone to a sushi restaurant where he ordered a platter of eel and avocado rolls, California rolls, and shrimp and cucumber rolls. He encouraged Fatou to have as much sake as she wanted, laughing with her as she downed it and slammed the cup on the table every time.

  “We enjoy lika this when she join société,” Fatou said, giggling at her silly self for acting like the girls she’d seen on MTV, “what you gonno do when she become pharmacist?”

  “He will take us to a restaurant in the Trump Hotel,” Neni said, laughing, a spoonful of miso soup in one hand. “He will hire Donald Trump himself to cook steak for us.”

  Winston shook his head. “No,” he said, smiling at the fun the women were having at his expense. “The day this our special girl becomes a pharmacist, I will take everyone to a place called the Four Seasons.”

  Forty-eight

  THE RAINY SEASON IN LIMBE BEGINS IN APRIL. THE RAIN COMES EVERY few days for an hour or two, not too heavy to stop the townsfolk from going outside but heavy enough to force them to put on their chang shoes before braving the muddy streets. By May, the rains are heavier and times between downpours are cooler, though not so cool that the townsfolk have to put on sweaters just yet. The May rains tend to come at night, drumming so loudly on zinc roofs that some folks fear they will awaken to find their roofs lying on top of them.

  The night Pa Jonga died was one such rainy May night.

  His wife and children had spent all evening and the early part of the night rushing out in the unabating rain to the backyard kitchen, to boil masepo and fever grass for him. They made him drink it, along with the paracetamol and nivaquine the pharmacist at Half Mile had prescribed. The pharmacist had diagnosed Pa Jonga with either malaria or typhoid fever, and had asked that Pa Jonga be given the meds on a full stomach three times a day. Ma Jonga and her sons did everything the pharmacist said, but neither the white man’s medicine nor the native medicine worked: Pa Ikola Jonga died at four in the morning, around the time of the neighborhood mosque’s first call to prayers.

  Jende had two hours left before the end of his shift at the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant when his middle brother, Moto, called him on his cell phone within an hour of the death. The old man’s body was still lying warm on his bed. “Papa, don die, oh,” Moto cried. “Papa don die.”

  The chef excused Jende for the rest of the night. “I am so sorry for your loss,” he said. “Please extend my condolences to the rest of your family in Africa.”

  Jende sat with his head down for the entire subway ride home, too stunned to cry. He found Neni wailing on her cell phone when he entered the apartment. Upon seeing him, she dropped the phone and ran into his arms to hold him. It was then the dam behind his eyelids broke.

  Papa, oh, Papa, he cried, how could you not give me one last chance to see you again? Eh, Papa, how could you do this to me? His nose, eyes, and mouth were spewing out liquid in all directions. Why did you not wait for me, Papa? Eh? Why you do me so?

  Winston and his girlfriend, Maami, came over just after midnight. Winston took off the day from work, and Maami—who had recently moved to New York from Houston after Winston had successfully wooed her back and immediately impregnated her—brought her laptop to do her accounting job in the bedroom. Many friends came over in the evening, the same friends who had come to dance when Timba was born. None of them asked if Jende would be going back home. They figured he would tell them if he was going, and if he wasn’t going, well, no grown man should be made to tell anyone that he couldn’t go home to bury his father.

  Pa Jonga was placed in the Limbe Provincial Mortuary and buried two weeks later. Jende sent the money for the funeral, a two-day extravaganza of food and drinks, speeches and libations, dancing and singing and crying. It was an event that cost more money than Pa Jonga had made in the last ten years of his life. His body, adorned in a white suit, was placed on a bed of bricks covered with a brand-new white bedspread. All night, Ma Jonga sat on the floor beside the bed, dressed in a black kaba, nodding as sympathizers filed through the room to view the remains and encourage her to be strong.

  Ashia, mama, they said. Tie heart, na so life dey, oh. How man go do?

  The next day the remains were blessed by the pastor of Mizpah Baptist Church, even though Pa Jonga had not been to church in decades. Ma Jonga had always wanted him to be baptized just like Jende and her other sons had been; she had envisioned the pastor di
pping him into the little stream that flowed through the Botanic Garden and then raising him out of the water as the congregation sang, Ring the bells of heaven! There is joy today, for a soul returning from the wild! But Pa Jonga wanted none of that church palaver. When I die, he told his wife, I go follow Jesus if I see ei with my own two eyes.

  “Which church is going to agree to bless him now?” Jende had asked Moto as they talked about how they could give Pa Jonga one of the best funerals New Town had ever seen (no one with a grown child in America should have an ordinary funeral, the belief in Limbe went).

  “Any church that likes money will bless him,” Moto had replied. “I know you’ve already sent all the money you can, but if you could send a little more so we can give a nice envelope to a church, they’ll be glad to send their pastor to bless him and send him straight to heaven.”

  For the first time in many days, Jende had laughed.

  He sent the money and learned the next day that Mizpah Baptist Church had agreed to bless his father. Ma Jonga was still a staunch card-carrying parishioner of the church as well as a member of its Kakane women’s group. It was for her sake that the pastor agreed to come to the house and bless Pa Jonga on his journey to Paradise. The money Jende had sent was not to pay the church, after all, but as a thanksgiving offering for his father’s long happy life.

  After the funeral service, the Kakane women’s group, dressed in their social wrappers, led the mourners in a march from the house to the graveyard. A hired marching band followed the women, and then came the rented Land Rover bearing Pa Jonga’s brass-handled casket. Behind the Land Rover, a two-mile-long cluster of family and friends marched, some with framed portraits of Pa Jonga lifted high above their heads. They marched and they danced and they wailed all through New Town and through the market, crying and singing, Yondo, yondo, yondo, yondo suelele.

  Jende watched it all on the video he had asked Moto to have made.

  He watched the six-hour DVD collection in one sitting. He saw his mother collapse in grief when the casket opened to reveal his father’s body after it had been brought home for the wake. He listened to the speeches about what a good man Pa Jonga was, and what a fine farmer and draughts player, too. He watched the dances that went on from late Friday night to early Saturday morning. He listened to the pastor’s sermon in the house, a sermon about how neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate God’s children from His love. Jende watched the moment when his father was lowered into the ground and the pastor bellowed, Ikola Jonga, from dust you came, to dust you will return.