Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

He nodded.

“Me and Papa, we don’t want you to ever be a chauffeur. Never. We want you to have a chauffeur. Maybe you’ll become a big man on Wall Street like Mr. Edwards, eh? That’ll make us so happy. But first you must do well in school, okay?”

Liomi nodded again and she smiled at him, then rubbed his head. For the first time since Bubakar told Jende about the possible deportation, she was hopeful. Until the day she left the country, she was going to keep believing that she and her family had a chance.

When Jende returned home from work around six o’clock (thanks to Mr. Edwards being out of the country for work and Mrs. Edwards canceling her evening plans because of a cold), she served him his dinner and left for her eight o’clock precalculus class without telling him what Liomi’s teacher had said. In class she sat in the front row, as she did in every class, believing physical proximity to the teacher was directly related to class grades. Except that night, her theory was once more proven wrong: When the instructor returned the previous week’s test, she had a B-minus.

“I just … I don’t understand this grade, Professor,” she said to the instructor after she’d lingered around him long enough for all the other students to leave.

“Do you disagree with the grade?” the instructor asked as he moved a folder into his burgundy man bag.

“No, I don’t think I disagree,” she said. “It’s just that I stayed up all night the night before this test to study. I did many practice problems, Professor.”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do.”

“All this studying and I end up … I hate it when I work so hard for something and I get a result like this. I just hate it! No matter what I do, I just cannot do well in precalculus, and now my whole GPA is going to go down …”

“I’m sorry,” the instructor said as she began walking toward the door.

“It’s okay, Professor,” she said, turning around. “I’m not angry at you.”

“Why don’t you email me? I’ll be glad to meet to see what you’re struggling with.”

She sighed and nodded, fatigue blended with frustration making it hard for her to utter words.

“And cheer up,” the instructor said. “Lots of students would be happy with a B-minus.”

AROUND HIM TOURISTS AND NEW YORKERS CHATTED OR IGNORED EACH other, everyone enfolded in their joys and sorrows and apathies. Someone laughed at one end of the subway car, a sweet laugh that on any other day would have made him look around because he loved to see the faces from which happy sounds came. Not tonight — he couldn’t care about the merriment of others. He kept his head down, immersed in his misery. This is what it had come down to, he thought. This is what all his suffering had amounted to. Where did he go wrong? He rubbed his face with his palms. What would he do in Limbe if he returned there? Maybe the Council would have a job for him, but it would probably be a laborer job. No way in heaven and on earth was he going back to sweeping streets and picking up dead cats and dogs. Maybe he’d move to Yaoundé or Douala, get a job as chauffeur for a big man there. That might work … but such a job would never come by without a connection, and he knew no one with a solid link to a minister or CEO or any of the big men who ran the country and always kept at their service chauffeurs/bodyguards to tail them from dawn to dusk and run errands for their wives and mistresses and make their children feel like little princes and princesses. If by chance he could get such a good job, he might be able to rebuild his life in … No, he wasn’t going to think about what he would do in Cameroon. He wasn’t returning. That was never the plan. He’d done everything the way he had planned to. He was in America. Neni was here with him. Liomi was an American boy now. They weren’t going back to Limbe. Oh, God, don’t let them deport me, he prayed. Please, Papa God. Please.

“Can I sit here?” a pleasant voice asked him. He lifted his head and saw a young black man pointing to the seat next to him, where he had placed his bag.

“Oh, yes,” he said, taking the bag and putting it between his feet. “So sorry.”

He bowed his head again. He exhaled. What were his choices? What could he do to stay in America? Nothing, except ask for the judge’s mercy, Bubakar had said. Or maybe he could talk to Mr. Edwards. Yes, he could tell Mr. Edwards the truth about his immigration situation. Mr. Edwards might help him. He might give him money to hire a better lawyer. But Winston had said it was better he stayed with Bubakar. Bubakar may be a useless mbutuku, Winston had said, but he was the architect of the case, and he would know best how to handle it in front of a judge. Winston was sure the judge would not deport Jende — New York immigration judges were known for their leniency, he’d found out.

It was of no consolation.

Jende heard the automated system tell riders to stand clear of the closing doors, please. He lifted his head. The white people were nearly all gone. Mostly black people remained. More black people got in. That was how he knew it was Harlem, 125th Street. He picked up his bag and stood by the door. When he exited at 135th Street, he went into the bodega at the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and bought a Diet Coke to change his mood, to help him force out a smile when he walked into the apartment and saw Neni sitting at the table waiting for him with a face as crestfallen as a basset hound’s.

The next evening he called Bubakar from the car while waiting for Cindy, who was treating her friend June to a facial on Prince Street. It had been a week since Bubakar called him and in that time he had wanted to call the lawyer to get a better understanding of his case, but every time he picked up his phone he couldn’t dial the number because … what if Bubakar had more bad news for him?

“Listen, my brother,” Bubakar said. “These things take time, eh? Immigration courts are backlogged these days like nothing I’ve ever seen before — there’s just too many people the government wants to deport and not enough judges eager to deport them. You should have received your Notice to Appear long ago, but the way your asylum case has been going, I don’t even know when you’re going to get it because I’m calling the asylum office and nobody is telling me anything useful. So you may not even have to stand in front of a judge for up to six months, maybe even one year. And then after the judge sees you, he’s going to want to see you again, and the next court date may not be for Allah alone knows how long. And even if the judge denies your asylum case, my brother, we can still appeal the decision. We can even do more than one appeal.”

“Eh?” Jende said. “You mean to say I’m not going to court any day now to hear that I have to leave the country as soon as possible?”

“No! It’s not that bad, at all! There is still a long process ahead.”

“So I could still have a few years in this country?”

“A few years?” Bubakar asked in mock shock. “How about thirty years? I know people who’ve been fighting Immigration forever. In that time, they’ve gone to school, married, had children, started businesses, made money, and enjoyed their lives. The only thing they cannot do is go outside the country. But if you’re in America, what is there to see outside America, abi ?”

Jende laughed. Truly, he thought, there was nothing much to see outside America. Anything a man wanted to see — mountains, valleys, wonderful cities — could be seen here, and God willing, after he’d saved enough money, he would take his family to see other parts of the country. Maybe he would take them to see the Pacific Ocean, which Vince Edwards had told him was where he’d seen a most beautiful sunset that had brought tears to his eyes and left him humbled by the beauty of the Universe, the magnificent gift that is Presence on Earth, the vanity that is the pursuit of anything but Truth and Love.