Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

As they approached the Sapphire, Jende looked at Cindy in the rearview mirror, hoping she would say something, anything, to open up the opportunity for him to profess his innocence, but she remained silent. He had not anticipated this silence and, even if he had, he wouldn’t have imagined it would be more dread-inducing than the questions.

They got within a block of the Sapphire and still she remained silent, her face fully drawn down and turned toward the window and the cold dark world outside.

“I’m taking you to the office at eleven-thirty tomorrow, madam?” he asked as he pulled in front of the building.

She did not respond.

“I have the book with all the entries for the day, madam,” he said as he held the car door open for her to exit. “I wrote down everything he—”

“Keep it,” she said as she walked away. “I’ve got no use for it anymore.”

FIRST HE THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A COLD — THE BOY HAD BEEN SNIFFLING ever since they pulled out from in front of the Sapphire. Then he thought Mighty was making playful sounds to amuse himself, so he asked no questions. Most mornings Jende would have asked him how he was feeling, if he was all right, but today his mind was on nothing but the quagmire in which he was wobbling and the adversities that were certain to engulf him if he couldn’t extricate himself from the Edwardses’ marriage and protect his job. He had to talk to Winston as soon as he was alone in the car, get advice on what to say or do, or not say or not do, when he picked up Cindy later in the morning.

“Do you have any tissues?” Mighty asked him at a traffic light.

Jende pulled one out of the glove compartment and turned to give it to him.

“Mighty,” he said, surprised to see a tear running down the boy’s left cheek. “What is wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Mighty whispered, wiping his eyes.

“Oh, no, Mighty, please tell me. Are you okay?”

Mighty nodded.

Jende pulled to the side of the street. They needed to be at the school in ten minutes to avoid being late, but he wasn’t going to let a child go to school crying. His father once did that to him, let him cry all the way to school when he was eight, the day after his grandfather died. He had begged his father to let him stay home for that one day, but his father had refused: Sitting at home and not learning how to read and write is not going to bring your mbamba back, Pa Jonga had said to Jende and his brothers as he left the house with other male relatives to go dig a grave. Jende had begged his mother to let him stay home after his father left, but his mother, never one to disobey her husband, had dried her son’s eyes and told him to go to school. Even now, thirty years later, he still remembered the despondency of that day: wiping his eyes with the hem of his uniform as he walked up Church Street with his mukuta school bag; friends telling him “ashia ya” over and over, which made him cry even more; floundering in grief as he watched his classmates excitedly raise their hands to answer arithmetic questions and tell the teacher who discovered Cameroon (“The Portuguese!”); sitting under the cashew tree during recess, thinking of his mbamba while other boys played football.

He turned off the car and got into the backseat. “Tell me what is wrong, Mighty,” he said. “Please.”

Mighty closed his eyes to squeeze out his tears.

“Did someone say something to you? Is someone bothering you at school?”

“We’re not going anymore …,” Mighty said. “We’re not going to St. Barths.”

“Oh, I am so very sorry to hear that, Mighty. Your mother just told you that?”

He shook his head. “They didn’t tell me. I just … I can tell. I heard everything last night.”

“You heard what?”

“Everything … her screaming … she was crying …” His face was fully red, his nose flaring and unflaring as he struggled to compose himself and handle his heartache with as much dignity as a ten-year-old could. “I stood outside their door. I heard Mom crying and Dad saying that … that maybe it was time to stop everything, that he couldn’t play games anymore … and Mom, she was just crying and screaming so loud …”

Jende took the tissue Mighty had in his hand. “Married people fight all the time, Mighty,” he said as he wiped the tears rolling down Mighty’s cheeks. “You know that, right? Just the other night me and Neni, we had a fight, but the next morning we were friends again. You know your mommy and daddy are going to be friends again, right?”

Mighty shook his head.

“I will not worry myself too much if I was you. They will become friends again, I promise you. You will go to St. Barths, and I will hear about all the fun—”

“It’s going to be the worst Christmas ever!”

“Oh, Mighty,” Jende said, pulling the child to his chest. He thought for a moment that someone might see him and call the police — a black man with a white boy against his chest, inside a luxury car, on the side of a street on the Upper East Side — but he hoped no one would, because he wasn’t going to push the child away as his tears ran full force. He was going to let Mighty have a good cry, because sometimes all a person needs to feel better is a really good cry.

“Can I come visit you and Neni this weekend?” Mighty asked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand after he’d finished his cry and Jende had dried his eyes again.

“Me and Neni would be so glad to have you, Mighty. That is a very good idea. But your parents, we cannot lie to them.”

“Please, Jende, just for a little bit?”

“I am sorry, Mighty. I would really like for you to come, but I cannot do something like that.”

“Not even for one hour? Maybe Stacy could come, too?”

Jende shook his head.

Mighty nodded sadly, wiping the last of the fluids on his face.

“But you know what we could do?” Jende said, smiling. “Neni could make you some puff-puff and fried ripe plantains, and I will bring it to you tomorrow. Maybe you can eat some in the car going to school and eat the rest coming back home. Will that make you happy?”

The boy looked up at him, nodded, and smiled.

THEY NAMED HER AMATIMBA MONYENGI, HOPING IT WAS THEIR DEAD daughter who had returned to bring them happiness: Amatimba for “she has returned” and Monyengi for “happiness,” both in their native Bakweri. They would call her Timba, for short.

She was born on the tenth of December at Harlem Hospital, two blocks from their apartment. On the twelfth of December they walked home from the hospital, father cradling newborn daughter in a carrier, mother holding firstborn son by the hand. In their apartment were their friends, who had come to celebrate with them. Winston was in Houston for the holidays, to continue wooing Maami back, but nine friends were packed in the boiling living room to eat and rejoice and welcome Timba to earth.

“Take as much time off as you need,” Clark said when Jende called to share the news. “Mighty’s going to be on his winter break soon, Cindy is taking some time off work. We’ll be fine.”

“Thank you so much, sir,” Jende replied, unsurprised at his employer’s generosity. “Merry Christmas to you and to Mrs. Edwards.”

Jende called Cindy, too, to personally tell her the news. She did not return his voice message, but Anna stopped by with a box of size-two diapers a couple of days later, which he and Neni assumed was from the Edwardses.

“How can we ever thank Mr. and Mrs. Edwards?” Neni asked him after Anna had cooed to Timba and hurriedly left to avoid missing her train home to Peekskill.