Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

And yet, despite this portrait of a self-assured woman, Cindy seemed to have a near obsession with being where everyone was and doing what everyone was doing. Within four days, Neni noticed that she was on the phone with a friend at least once a day, wondering if the friend had gotten an invitation to So-and-So’s cocktail party, or This-and-That’s dinner party, or that upcoming gala or wedding. On the few occasions when her friends apparently told her they’d gotten their invites and she hadn’t gotten hers, she seemed to be in physical pain, her deep sighs and suddenly slumped shoulders and sad voice revealing to Neni that despite the fact that she was telling her friends that it was okay, she wasn’t okay because she was probably wondering why she hadn’t been invited, what she’d done to not be invited, if her social status was intact. This desperation to always be a part of something, always maintain a sense of specialness thanks to the action of others, baffled Neni, but she didn’t call Jende to talk about it because she knew he would say what he always said whenever she said she couldn’t understand why people cared about stupid things like the approval of others: Different things are important to different people.

Five days after her arrival, though, she called him to talk about Cindy, terrified.

“I think Mrs. Edwards is very sick,” she whispered from her room in the basement.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

There was no one else in the house, and Mrs. Edwards looked sick, she told him.

“What kind of sick, Neni? Fever? Headache? Stomachache?”

“No, no, not that kind of sick,” she whispered again.

Where was everybody? he wanted to know. Mr. Edwards was in the city, and Mighty and Vince were at the beach, she informed him. What did it matter where they were? she asked in frustration after replying to the question. Mrs. Edwards did not look well, and she was afraid because she didn’t know what to do. The madam looked like she was very sick, but maybe she wasn’t sick. She needed advice from her husband, not one question after another.

“But you’re saying fifty different things,” he said. “Say something that makes sense.”

Mrs. Edwards had told her she was going into her bedroom for a nap and asked that she not be disturbed. Neni had stayed in the basement, doing laundry, before remembering that the sheets in the guest bedroom needed to be laundered. She had opened the door to the second-floor guest room without knocking, assuming Mrs. Edwards was asleep in the master bedroom on the first floor. When she entered, she had seen the frightful sight: the always composed and elegant madam splayed against the headboard of the bed, hair strands lying on her sweaty face, her hands limp on her sides, her mouth half open with saliva halfway down her chin.

“I’m afraid,” she said to him, panicked and near tears. “She was fine this morning. She told me one hour ago that she was going to nap, and then I go to the guest bedroom and see this.”

“Does she look dead?” Jende asked.

“No, I saw her breathing,” she whispered. “Oh, Papa God, what should I do?”

Jende was silent for a moment. “Don’t do anything,” he told his wife. “Just pretend you didn’t see anything. If something happens to her, you can say you did not know. You can say you never entered the room.”

“But what if something is wrong and I am supposed to do something?”

“Neni, Neni, listen to me,” her husband commanded. “Let her husband and her sons find her and decide what to do. Do not touch her, you hear me? Don’t even go back to the room. Do not involve yourself in their business, I’m begging you.”

“I have to do—”

“You don’t have to do anything!”

She hung up and called her friend Betty. Betty was in her seventh year of nursing school — she would know what to do.

“I think it’s drugs, oh,” Betty screeched above the sound of her children screaming in the background. “Only drugs can make you look like that.”

“Betty, please stop joking. I’m talking about something serious which—”

“Who said I’m joking? I’m telling you that it’s drugs.”

“No … not Mrs. Edwards.”

“Why are you arguing with me? Rich people like them, they like drugs.”

“Not Mrs. Edwards! She’s not that kind of person, Betty, I swear to you.”

“Where do you know her from? Because she wears nice clothes, you think—”

“What would she do drugs for?”

“Neni, please, if you don’t want to believe me, then let me get off the phone.”

“Oh, Papa God!” Neni cried, slapping her thigh as the phone beeped and displayed an incoming call from Jende. She ignored his call, knowing what he wanted to reiterate.

“Listen to me,” Betty said. “Listen. Go wake her up. Shake her only softly, okay?”

“And what if she doesn’t wake up?”

“You move that thing one more time,” Betty shouted away from the receiver, “I’ll come over there and cause you some serious injuries.”

“Betty, I don’t know—”

“Hold on,” Betty said, and for almost a minute Neni heard nothing but the sound of a toddler screaming. “You don’t teach these children how to obey, tomorrow they’ll start behaving like American children,” Betty said when she returned to the phone.

“You think I should wake her up?”

“Yes, go wake her up.”

“ Chai! Man no die ei rotten.”

“You’ve used your pretty legs to walk right into trouble.”

Neni laughed, the kind of mirthless laugh her mother used to emit when life was so strange only a laugh could give one the strength to face it.

“If she’s dead,” Betty added, “call her husband, not the police.”

“Okay, okay, let me go.”

“And Neni,” Betty said right before she hung up, “please, don’t tell the police you called me first. I’m begging, don’t even mention my name for any reason whatsoever. I’m afraid of police people.”

Neni hung up and ran back upstairs, her grip tight around her cell phone. Cindy was sleeping in the same position. For a minute Neni stood next to the bed, staring at the prescription pill bottle next to the empty glass and half-empty bottle of red wine on the nightstand, before moving closer.

“Mrs. Edwards,” she whispered, nudging Cindy in the arm. Jende would kill her for this, but she couldn’t leave the woman alone in this state.

Cindy did not respond.

Neni put her cell phone in the pocket of her kaba, leaned closer, and spoke directly into Cindy’s ear. “Mrs. Edwards.”

Immediately, Cindy closed her mouth and began smacking her lips.

“Mrs. Edwards, are you okay?”

Cindy opened her eyes slightly. “What do you want?” she asked in a husky slur.

“Nothing, madam. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

Cindy sat up, brushed off the hair lying on her face, wiped her chin. She opened her eyes fully and looked at Neni. “What time is it?”

Neni took out her cell phone and looked at the time. “Five o’clock, madam.”

“Shit,” Cindy said, turning her legs around to get out of the bed. She staggered with her first step, and Neni quickly caught her by the arm. “It’s okay,” Cindy said, pulling away. “I’m okay.”

Still brushing hair off her face, she sat on the armchair next to the closet and asked for a glass of cold water, which Neni hastily ran off to get even before she was done asking. When she finished drinking, Cindy asked for a second glass of water and a plate of salad — plain lettuce with oil and vinegar — which Neni brought on a tray. Carefully, Neni lifted Cindy’s legs and placed them on a footstool so the tray could balance with ease on her lap.