Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

“Would you like me to run a bath for you, madam?” Neni asked.

Cindy nodded.

Neni went into the bathroom, scrubbed her hands, and turned on the water in the bathtub. She poured in ten drops of bubble bath, knelt by the tub — her growing belly against its cold skin — and stirred the water in the gentle circular manner that Anna had taught her. When the tub was full, she came out and took Cindy’s tray.

“Clark won’t be coming tonight anymore,” Cindy said as Neni was about to exit the bedroom. “Vince is leaving after he and Mighty get back — he’s spending the next couple of days with a friend on Martha’s Vineyard. You can serve Mighty his dinner whenever he wants.”

“Yes, madam,” Neni said, and hurried downstairs.

Around seven o’clock, she heard the Jaguar’s engine in the driveway, Cindy leaving for one social engagement or another.

SHE STOOD AT THE DOOR KNOCKING LIGHTLY AND INSISTENTLY, DETERMINED to wake her up.

“What is it?” she heard Cindy groan.

“It’s me, madam,” Neni replied.

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering, madam, about your breakfast. If you would like me to bring it in there or set it out for you by the pool.”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven o’clock, madam.”

“By the pool,” she said after a pause. “Set it in an hour.”

When Cindy came out of the bedroom just before noon, after showering and putting on a purple-striped halter-top dress, Neni was at the kitchen counter, slicing up pineapples. “Almost ready, madam,” she said. “Good morning.”

Cindy nodded and went to the table by the pool. Through the window Neni could see her staring at the pool water, which was blue and still except for a lone leaf causing frail ripples at the center. Neni picked up the tray and hurried outside.

“I am sorry to keep you waiting, madam,” she said, placing the tray on the table. “Would you like anything else?”

“Where’s Mighty?”

“He went to the water, madam, with the neighbor and the neighbor’s son. He said it would be okay with you. I gave him a sandwich and a banana.”

Cindy picked up a glass pitcher to pour milk into her coffee. Neni turned around and started walking back to the kitchen.

“Neni?” Cindy called, just as Neni was about to reenter the house.

“Madam.”

“Pull up a seat and sit right here.”

Neni looked at Cindy, puzzled, but she returned and obeyed.

For the next minute, Cindy took little bites of her egg-white omelet, her sliced pineapples, and her blueberries. Neni sat across from her and stared at the concrete.

“Thank you for helping me yesterday,” Cindy began, setting her coffee mug down and dabbing her lips. She picked up her sunglasses and put them on despite the cloudiness of the day.

Neni watched her and smiled, a smile tightly bound by nerves and discomfort. “It was nothing, madam,” she said in the slow, delicate manner in which she had been training herself to speak whenever she spoke to non-Africans. “You were a little sick, madam. I am glad I was able to come in and help you.”

“But I wasn’t sick,” Cindy said. “I know you know that.”

“I only thought—”

“It’s okay,” Cindy said, raising her palm to silence her. “You’re a grown woman. There’s no need to lie. I know you saw everything on the nightstand, and you didn’t think I was just napping. You’re smart enough to put two and two together. I could see in your eyes how scared you were.”

“I did not see anything, madam.”

“Yes, you did. And I’d rather you don’t try to take me for a fool.”

Neni put her hands together on her lap and began rubbing them. She moved her eyes from Cindy’s face to her own widening feet piling out of her blue flip-flops and back to Cindy’s face. “I did not, madam, I swear … I only thought you were sick, that is why I came this morning to wake you up when you did not wake up at your normal time.”

Cindy snickered and shook her head.

“I am truly very sorry, madam,” Neni continued, looking pleadingly into Cindy’s eyes. “I did not mean to find out anything.”

Cindy stirred her coffee with a silver spoon and set it down. The ocean breeze which Neni had enjoyed that morning was no longer relaxing — it’d become a nuisance as it gained force and blew her braids into her face.

Deliberately, Cindy took off her sunglasses, put them on the table, and looked into Neni’s eyes. “You probably look at me,” she said, “and think I came from a life like this. You probably think I was born into this kind of money, right?”

Neni did not respond.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Cindy went on. “I came from a poor family. A very, very poor family.”

“Me, too, madam—”

Cindy shook her head. “No, you don’t understand,” she said. “Being poor for you in Africa is fine. Most of you are poor over there. The shame of it, it’s not as bad for you.”

Neni closed her eyes and nodded as if she completely understood and agreed.

“Over here, it’s embarrassing, humiliating, very painful,” Cindy continued, looking into the distance beyond the trees. “Waiting in lines with homeless people to enter food pantries. Living in a poorly heated house in the winter. Eating rice and SPAM for almost every dinner. Being laughed at in school. Having people treat you as if you’re some sort of …” A lone tear dropped down her right cheek. She brushed it off with her index finger. “You have no idea how much I’ve endured.”

“No, madam.”

“I won’t ever forget the night I told my mother I wanted shrimp and vegetables for dinner. Such a luxury, how dare I ask for it? She slapped me and sent me to bed hungry. That was her thing. A slap or a reminder that I was just a piece of shit.”

She cleared her throat.

Neni looked down at her hands, then Cindy’s face.

“But I came away from all that, as you can see. I worked my way through college, got a job, my own apartment, learned how to carry myself well and fit effortlessly in this new world so I would never be looked down on again, or seen as a piece of shit. Because I know what I am, and no one can ever take away the things I’ve achieved for myself.”

“It’s true, madam.”

Cindy picked up her teaspoon, stirred her coffee again. She put down the teaspoon and looked at Neni, whose eyes were now lowered.

“Why am I telling you all this, Neni?” she asked.

“I don’t … I don’t know, madam,” Neni replied, her voice low and loaded with fright.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know where I came from and why I fight hard every day to remain here. To keep my family together. To have all this.” She spread her arm and motioned toward the house and the pool and the yard. “I’m telling you this,” she said, her eyes fixed on Neni’s face, “because I want you to never tell anyone what happened yesterday.”

“I swear to you, madam, on my grandmother’s grave, that I will never tell anyone.”

“You are a woman, Neni. A wife, a mother, like me. I am asking you to make this promise to me not as from an employee to an employer but as from one woman to another, as from one who knows how important it is to protect our families.”

“I swear to you, madam. I promise you, from one woman to another.”

Cindy laid open her right hand on the table, and Neni put hers in it.

“Thank you,” Cindy said, smiling her first smile of the day and squeezing Neni’s hand.

Neni smiled back.

“You’re a good woman.”

Neni bowed her head and nodded. Cindy released her hand. Neni stood up and began walking back to the kitchen.

“By the way,” Cindy said, “what size clothes do you wear? When you’re not pregnant, that is.”