Behold the Dreamers

by Mbue, Imbolo

  His sorrow at not being able to bury his father was as heavy as his grief at the death. Every scene in the grainy video made him cry, except the ones where he was too astonished at the weight gained or gray hair developed or teeth lost by certain friends and family members, people he hadn’t seen in almost five years.

  The day after he watched the video his back began to ache. He had to leave one job early one afternoon and call off the other job in the evening. The pain in his feet seemed to have traveled to his back, only with more ferocity. He spent many mornings before work lying on the floor, writhing in pain, swallowing as many as five Tylenol capsules at a time. A colleague referred him to a cash-only doctor in Jamaica, Queens, who charged him sixty dollars for a twenty-minute consultation, after informing him that the accident health insurance plan Neni had bought for them online—after her eligibility for the state’s free Prenatal Care Assistance Program ended—was pretty much useless (the children were both receiving insurance through Child Health Plus, at no cost, thankfully).

  In a windowless basement office, the doctor examined him and told him his pains might be stress-induced. “Are you dealing with any major stressors in your life?” he asked Jende.

  Am I dealing with any major stressors in my life, Jende wanted to say. Yes, Doctor, turns out I am. In a few weeks I am due to stand in front of an immigration judge to continue begging him to please not deport me. My father just died and I could not bury him. What could be a bigger shame for a firstborn son? My mother is getting too old to be breeding pigs and farming and selling in the market, so I have to start sending her money more frequently. I have a wife and two children who I need to feed and clothe and shelter every day. My wife is supposed to return to school to keep her student visa, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford her international student tuition by washing dishes at restaurants. She may have to drop out of school and live without any kind of papers. Maybe she’ll end up in front of an immigration judge, too, begging to please be allowed to remain in the country so she can find a way to finish her school. Forget about school, we don’t even have enough to cook a good meal with chicken some days. I am holding on tightly to my savings so that I’ll be ready for the day when worse comes to worst, but now I ask myself what am I saving it for? The worse has come to the worst, and my back is breaking. So, yes, Doctor, I have many major stressors in my life.

  Forty-nine

  HE KNEW IT WAS OVER THE MOMENT HE WALKED OUT OF THE DOCTOR’S office.

  That night, after work, he asked Neni to sit down at the dinette. He took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. “Neni,” he began.

  “What’s wrong? What did the doctor say?”

  “Neni,” he called her name again.

  “Jende, please—”

  “I’m ready to go back home,” he said.

  “Home where? What do you mean by ‘go back home’?”

  He took a deep breath and was silent for several seconds. “Home to Limbe,” he said to his wife. “I want to go back to Limbe.”

  She pulled her hand from his and shifted backward in her chair, as if he’d just revealed that he had a vile contagious disease. “What’s the meaning of all this?” she asked. Her voice was angry.

  “I don’t want to stay in this country anymore.”

  “You want us to pack up our things and go back to Limbe? Is that what you’re saying?”

  He nodded, looking at her sorrowfully, like a child pleading for mercy.

  She peered into his eyes, bloodshot and heavy eyes that seemed to belong to a sick, broken man. When he tried to take her hand into his again, she shifted farther away from him and put them behind her back.

  “You want to return to Limbe?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why are you talking like this, Jende? What’s the meaning of all this?”

  “I don’t like what my life has become in this country. I don’t know how long I can continue living like this, Neni. The suffering in Limbe was bad, but this one here, right now … it’s more than I can take.”

  Neni Jonga stared at her husband as if wanting to feel sympathy but capable of feeling only irritation. “Is it something the doctor said?” she asked. “Is it because of your back?”

  “No … I mean, it’s not only because of my back. It’s everything, Neni. Have you not seen how unhappy I’ve been?”

  “Of course, bébé. I’ve seen how you’ve been unhappy. But your father died, and you have been in mourning. Anyone who loves their father the way you loved your father would be unhappy.”

  “But it’s not only my father’s death. It’s everything that’s happened. I lost my job. My papier situation. This work, work, work, all the time. For what? For a little money? How much suffering can a man take in this world, eh? How much longer …” His voice broke at the end of his question, but he cleared his throat to push it out.

  “You know we can get through anything, Jends,” Neni said, taking his hand. “We’ve been through so much. You know we’ll be okay, right?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll be okay. I’m trying really hard, but I don’t know if my life will get better in this country. How long will I keep on washing dishes?”

  “Only until you get your papier.”

  “That’s not true,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “Papier is not everything. In America today, having documents is not enough. Look at how many people with papers are struggling. Look at how even some Americans are suffering. They were born in this country. They have American passports, and yet they are sleeping on the street, going to bed hungry, losing their jobs and houses every day in this … this economic crisis.”

  Timba started whimpering in the bedroom. They stopped talking, looking past each other as they waited for her to put herself back to sleep. She did.

  “Having papers in this country is not everything,” Jende continued. “What do you think is going to change with my life if I get papers tomorrow?”

  “You will get a better job, won’t you?”

  “What better job? I have no education that anyone can call a real education. What will I do? Go to work at Pathmark? Spend ten years weighing shrimp like Tunde?”

  “But bébé, working at Pathmark is a good job. You know that. Tunde has a very good job. He has benefits, all kind of insurance. He even has a retirement plan—that’s what Olu told me. And on top of that he buys food for his family on a discount. How is that not a good job?”

  Jende looked at Neni and chuckled, a cheerless chuckle followed by another shake of his head. Maybe she thought it was such a good life her friend Olu had because her husband worked at the Pathmark seafood counter, but he didn’t think Tunde was so happy with his life. How could he possibly be, spending all those days of the week around seafood, coming home at the end of the day smelling like fish.

  “So you think Tunde and Olu have such a good life, eh?”

  “I think they manage well, and we can, too, if you get your papier and get a job like that.”

  “And how long do you think I can take care of my family with the kind of money Pathmark will pay me? Eh, Neni? How am I going to send you to pharmacy school with that kind of money? How are we going to send Liomi to college? Or be able to ever move out of this place full of cockroaches?”

  “Then we’ll go to Phoenix. That’s what you’ve always wanted, right?”

  “I’m not moving to Phoenix! You think Phoenix is going to have something better for us? I was sitting here feeling jealous of Arkamo because he has that nice four-bedroom house over there, only to find out two days ago that he lost his house. The department store where he was working closed down, he doesn’t have a job, he cannot pay the bank, the bank takes back the house. You know where he and his family are living now? In his sister’s basement, which has no windows! Is that what you want for us, Neni? To end up in a basement in Phoenix?”

  Neni sighed and shook her head. “Okay, bébé,” she said. “Then we’ll stay in New York
. Maybe you could go back to working as a driver. Maybe we can find you another job like the one you had with Mr. Edwards?”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “I’m only saying that—”

  “You think it’s easy to get a job like that? You think it’s easy for someone like me to get a good job like that? Were you not here when I sent out one hundred résumés for all those chauffeur jobs on the Internet and no one called me back? You know I only got the job with Mr. Edwards because Mr. Dawson likes Winston very much and he trusted Winston to recommend someone good. I got the job only because of Winston, not because of myself. Okay? So stop talking like someone who has no sense.”

  She could tell she had incensed him. She tried to rub his shoulder to atone for whatever she had said to infuriate him, but he pulled away and stood up.

  “Please, bébé,” she said, looking up at him. “We’re going to be fine, right?”

  He walked out of the room without responding and went into the kitchen. When she went to join him, she found him opening and shutting drawers and cabinets.

  “Bébé, what are you looking for?”

  “You need to know something, Neni,” he said, turning to face her. “You need to know that much of what has happened to get us here is because of Winston. You understand? If Winston didn’t offer to pay the rest of Bubakar’s fees, you know we would not have as much money saved right now. We will have nothing if it wasn’t for my cousin paying for almost all of Bubakar and my immigration fees, helping me find a good job, helping me find this apartment! But if things start to get too bad for us in this country, you have a student visa, I have the government trying to deport me, you need to stay in school to keep your student visa, we start running out of money, one of us gets seriously sick, who are we going to turn to? Winston is going to have a child. He’s going to get married. Have more children. His little sisters are finishing Buea University next year and then he has to bring them over here. We will no longer have Winston to turn to left and right. And even if we could, I am a man! I cannot continue waiting for my cousin to rescue me all the time.”

  “But no one knows how God works. Maybe, one way or another, you can get another job driving someone else, eh?”

  “You’re not listening to me, Neni. You’re not listening! Forget about how God works, okay? Because even if I try again to look for a job as a driver, do you really think a big man on Wall Street will hire some African man from the street just like that? With this kind of economy, all kinds of people are looking for a job like that. Even some of those people who used to wear suits to work on Wall Street are now looking for jobs as drivers. Nothing is easy anymore. How do you think I’m ever going to get another job that pays thirty-five thousand dollars?”

  “Maybe you can—”

  “Maybe I can do what?”

  “There are other things—”

  “Why are you arguing with me? Is it that you don’t believe me? You should have been with me last week when I saw this man who used to drive another executive at Lehman Brothers. We used to sit together outside the building sometimes; he was a fresh round man. I saw him downtown: The man looked like he had his last good meal a year ago. He has not been able to find another job. He says too many people want to be chauffeurs now. Even people who used to be police and people with fine college degrees, they want to be chauffeurs. Everyone is losing jobs everywhere and looking for new jobs, anything to pay bills. So you tell me—if he, an American, a white man with papers, cannot get a new chauffeur job then what about me? They say the country will get better, but you know what? I don’t know if I can stay here until that happens. I don’t know if I can continue suffering like this just because I want to live in America.”

  Fifty

  SHE WOULD NOT BE LEAVING. NEVER. SHE WOULD NOT BE RETURNING TO Limbe.

  For years she had stayed in her father’s house doing nothing but housework, first too grief-stricken and shamed to return to school after dropping out and then losing her daughter; later—when she was ready to return, four years after the baby’s death—unable to do so because her father didn’t think it was worthwhile paying for an almost-twenty-year-old to attend secondary school. He had suggested she apprentice as a seamstress, which she was opposed to because, she told him, she’d never imagined herself sitting at a sewing machine five days a week. Fine then, he’d said to her, stay at home and imagine yourself doing nothing for the rest of your life. It was only when Liomi was one year old that he finally agreed to pay for her to attend evening computer classes, after she’d convinced him that acquiring basic computer skills might help her get an office job. After the year of classes, though, she’d been unable to get a job because there were too few jobs in Limbe, never mind one for a young woman who hadn’t made it as far as high school. She had been bored and frustrated at home, unable to have any sort of independence because she was financially dependent on her parents, unable to marry Jende because her father wouldn’t let her marry a council laborer and unable to do anything about it because both she and Jende believed it wrong to defy a parent and marry against his or her wishes.

  By her late twenties, all she could think about was America.

  It wasn’t that she thought life in America had no ills—she’d watched enough episodes of Dallas and Dynasty to know that the country had its share of vicious people—but, rather, because shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Cosby Show had shown her that there was a place in the world where blacks had the same chance at prosperity as whites. The African-Americans she saw on TV in Cameroon were happy and successful, well educated and respectable, and she’d come to believe that if they could flourish in America, surely she could, too. America gave everyone, black or white, an equal opportunity to be whatever they wished to be. Even after she’d seen the movies Boyz n the Hood and Do the Right Thing, she couldn’t be swayed or convinced that the kind of black life depicted represented anything but a very small percentage of black life, just like Americans probably understood that the images they saw of war and starvation in Africa were but a very small percentage of African life. None of the folks from Limbe who had emigrated to America sent home pictures of a life like the ones in those movies. Every picture she’d seen of Cameroonians in America was a portrait of bliss: children laughing in snow; couples smiling at a mall; families posing in front of a nice house with a nice car nearby. America, to her, was synonymous with happiness.

  Which was why, on the day Jende shared with her Winston’s offer to buy him a ticket so he could move to America and eventually bring her and Liomi over, she had wept as she composed a five-paragraph email of gratitude to Winston. She began watching American movies like Stepmom and Mrs. Doubtfire not only for leisure but also as advance preparation, envisioning a future in New York where she would finish her education, own a home, raise a happy family. Though she’d been surprised to learn upon arrival that not many blacks lived like the ones in the sitcoms, and virtually no one, black or white, had a butler like the family in The Fresh Prince, the realization had done little to change her impression of what was possible in America. America might be flawed, but it was still a beautiful country. She could still become far more than she would have become in Limbe. In spite of her daily hardships, she could still send pictures to her friends in Limbe and say, look at me, look at me and my children, we’re finally on our way.

  But now, after coming so far for so long, with only two semesters left at BMCC before she could transfer to a pharmacy school, Jende wanted her to return home. He wanted to drag her back to Limbe. Never.

  “But what you gonno do?” Fatou asked as she braided Neni’s hair.

  “I don’t know,” Neni said. “I really don’t know.”

  Fatou turned Neni around by the shoulders and pressed her head down so she could finish a cornrow. “Marriage,” Fatou said, “is a thing you want. But when you gonno get it, it bring you all the thing you no want.”

  Neni scoffed. Fatou couldn’t stop herself from making up a new p
roverb on the spot; she could never prevent herself from being a one-woman book of odd opinions.

  “No matter what woman in this country do,” she went on, “we African woman musto stand behind the husband and be following them and say yes, yes. That what we African woman musto do. We no gonno say to husband, no, I no gonno do it.”

  “So you do everything Ousmane asks you to do, eh?”

  “Yes. I do. Everything he want, I do. Why you think we got seven childrens?”

  “Because Ousmane said so?”

  “What you think? What woman no crazy wanno suffer like that seven time in one life?”

  Neni laughed, but the afternoon would be one of the few times she would laugh about her plight with a friend. Most times she would shake her head in bewilderment, which was what she did two days later, when Betty stopped by to drop off her children before heading to her second job at a Lower East Side nursing home.

  “Tell him you’re not going,” Betty said in the kitchen while the children fought over the remote control in the living room. “What does he mean life is too hard here? If life was not hard for us back home why did we leave our countries and come here?”

  “He thinks it’s better for a person to suffer in their own country than to suffer somewhere else.”

  “Ha! Please, don’t make me laugh. He really thinks suffering in Cameroon is better than suffering in America?”