Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

“The only thing that concerns me about him,” the teacher went on, “is that—”

“What concerns you about him?” Neni asked, suddenly alert.

“Oh, nothing too bad,” the teacher said with a short laugh, a faint accent (Hispanic? Italian?) seeping through her warm voice and causing Neni to wonder if she was an immigrant or a child of immigrants. If she was an immigrant, she didn’t appear to be a poor one, not with the dazzling diamond ring on her finger and the Coach bag on the table. She was new to the school and seemed no older than twenty-four, probably only a year or two into teaching, and it was clear to Neni, from the young woman’s cheerful demeanor and easy smile, that she was enjoying her job, and that regardless of why she initially took the job, she believed in what she was doing, in the difference she was making in the lives of her students. It was evident she was nowhere close to being as disillusioned as Liomi’s teacher from the previous year, who repeatedly shook her head and sighed at least ten times during parent-teacher conferences.

“Liomi’s a good student, Mrs. Jonga,” she said, “but he could be more attentive in class.”

“Attentive, eh?”

The teacher nodded. “Just a little bit more, yes. It could make a world of difference.”

“And by not attentive, what do you mean? Is he sleeping when you are talking?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” the teacher said, smiling again, apparently to put Neni at ease. Her makeup and pink lipstick were fresh, as if she had applied them between the end of classes and the start of her meetings with the parents; every strand of her hair was pulled into a neat bun at the back of her head. As far as Neni was concerned, she looked as if she was all set to go out to dinner with her fiancé, or to one of those lounges where young women without family responsibilities went to drink and laugh after work.

“I didn’t say he’s not attentive,” she said. “He is. He’s a good listener. But every so often, he lets himself get distracted in class. He and his friend Billy—”

“They do what?” Neni asked. She was aware of the anger in her voice but didn’t care to tell the teacher that the anger wasn’t directed at her.

“Billy’s the clown, but Liomi can’t stop himself from laughing at every silly thing Billy says or does. Liomi’s a great kid, Mrs. Jonga. He’s obedient, he’s sharp, he’s just an all-around good boy. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this — I can tell from his performance how involved you are in his schooling.”

“But he makes noise in class?”

“He loves to laugh. Which is fine, of course. It’s a good thing to be happy, don’t get me wrong, but when he’s in class, it would help for him to be less … giggly?”

“And you spoke to him? He does not listen to you?”

“He listens sometimes. I’ve moved him and Billy to extreme ends of the classroom. It’s not just Liomi. Other kids get a kick out of Billy and his little brand of comedy — we’re working on him. But in the meantime, it’ll be good if we can help Liomi so he doesn’t continue to—”

“Oh, don’t worry about anything continuing,” Neni said, widening her eyes as she stood up to button her jacket. “None of this nonsense will continue after today.”

The teacher nodded and was about to add something, but Neni was already out the door. She ordered Liomi to stand up and he complied, jumping up from a bench in the hallway and strapping on his backpack. She said nothing more to him until they got home, though she held his hand firmly as they walked down Frederick Douglass Boulevard, tightening her grip as they hurried past a housing project where two young men had been gunned down the week before.

At home, she gave him crackers and orange juice. She could see his fear as he gingerly moved the crackers into his mouth.

“Lio,” she said to him softly, after he had finished his snack and she had asked him to sit next to her on the sofa. She hadn’t envisioned herself speaking to him this gently when she’d walked out of the parent-teacher conference, but something about walking past a place where young men had died, then watching him eat his crackers so sadly, had softened her heart.

“Lio, do you know why we send you to school?” she said.

He nodded, looking down to avoid her eyes.

“Do we send you to school to play, Liomi?”

He shook his head.

“Tell me why we send you to school.”

“So I can learn,” he said slowly, almost shamefully.

“To learn and do what else?”

“You send me to … nothing, Mama. Just to learn.”

“Then why do you play in class? Eh? Why do you not listen to your teacher?”

He looked at her, then the floor, then the wall, but said nothing.

“Answer me!” she said. “Who is Billy?”

“He is my friend.”

“Your friend, eh?”

He nodded, still looking away.

“Because he’s your friend, you have to let him distract you? Have I not told you that when it comes to school, you cannot let yourself be distracted?”

“But Mama, I did not do anything—”

“Listen to me, Liomi! Open your ears and listen to me, because I will say this once and then I’ll never say it again. You do not go to school to play. You do not go to school to make friends. You go to school to sit quietly in class and open your ears like gongo leaf and listen to your teacher. Are you hearing me?”

The child nodded.

“Open your mouth and say ‘Yes, Mama’!”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Do you think Papa goes to work every day so you can play in school? Without school, you will be nothing. You will never be anybody. Me and Papa, we wake up every day and do everything we can so you can have a good life and become somebody one day, and you repay us by going to school and playing in class? You know what’s going to happen if I tell Papa what the teacher told me? Do you think he’ll be happy to hear that you think school is a place to play?”

“Mama, please …”

“Why should I not tell him?”

“I won’t do it—”

“Wipe your eyes,” she said. “I won’t tell him. But if I hear that you did one stupid thing in class again …”

He nodded, drying his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“I hope so, because you don’t know how it hurt me today, what the teacher said.”

His lips started trembling, and with one look at them, and his tear-stained face, her heart softened again. She moved closer to him, wiped his cheeks with her palm.

“You’re going to do well in school, Liomi,” she said, drying her palm on her scrubs. “You’re going to graduate high school with A grades and go to a good college and become a doctor or a lawyer. You want to become a lawyer like Uncle Winston or a doctor like Dr. Tobias, don’t you?”

The child shook his head.

“What are you shaking your head for? Don’t you want to be a lawyer or a doctor?”

“I want to be a chauffeur.”

“A chauffeur!” Neni exclaimed. “You want to be a chauffeur?”

Liomi nodded, looking at her confusedly, his brow furrowed and lips slightly parted.

“Oh, Lio,” she said, laughing, enjoying the first light moment of her day. “Nobody chooses to be a chauffeur. You think Papa would choose to be a chauffeur if he could choose to be anything in the world? Papa is a chauffeur not because it is the best thing he can be. Papa’s a chauffeur because he didn’t finish school. And he’ll never be able to finish school now, because he has to work so me and you can finish school. A chauffeur job is a good job for Papa, but it won’t be for you.”

Liomi forced a smile.

“I’ve told you this, and I’ll keep on telling you: School is everything for people like us. We don’t do well in school, we don’t have any chance in this world. You know that, right?”