Imbolo Mbue - Behold the Dreamers

Jende laughed and promised to think about it. Two days later, when Winston stopped by for a visit, Jende declined the offer. He was appreciative of his cousin’s help, but he wanted to run his own business, get to know what it was like to answer to no man. All his life it had been yes sir, yes madam. A time had to come for him to stand above others and hear yes, Mr. Jonga.

Upon his return to Limbe, he would start his own business: Jonga Enterprises. His slogan would be “Jonga Enterprises: Bringing the Wisdom of Wall Street to Limbe.” He would diversify and conglomerate and acquire as many competitors as possible. But he’d have to start small. Maybe he’d own a couple of taxis or benskins . Or hire people to farm the eight acres of land his father had left for him in Bimbia. He could sell the food in the Limbe market and ship some of it abroad. Winston encouraged him to move forward with the farming idea first. There were enough taxis in Limbe, and benskins —with their high accident rates which had left many swearing that motorcycles were the devil’s creations — were bound to fall out of favor with the public soon enough. But food, Winston said, would always be needed.

“Food,” Jende agreed, “and drinking spots.”

“Will people in Limbe ever get tired of drinking?” Winston said. “I hear drinking spots are opening all over town like no man’s business. They say there’s even a spot that sells Heineken and Budweiser. Heineken and Budweiser? In Cameroon?”

Jende leaned forward on the sofa to rock the bassinet in which Timba was lying belly up and on the verge of fussing. Winston stood up and peered at the baby. He smiled at her, tickled her belly, cooed in response to her toothless grin, and returned to the sofa.

“That’s how you know this American domination has gone too far, Bo,” Winston said. “ Paysan s have gone from wanting Guinness and 33 Export to wanting Budweiser and Heineken.”

“And Motorola RAZR,” Jende said. “My mother asked me to bring back a RAZR for her so she can have the nicest phone among all her friends who she goes to farm with. Don’t ask me why she takes her cell phone to the farm. There’s no network there. She saw a RAZR in a Nigerian movie, she wants it.”

“Why should she be left behind in the twentieth century?”

“I told Neni,” Jende went on. “I said, ‘Maybe you won’t even miss New York too much because Limbe now has so many things New York has.’ But no, she doesn’t listen. She continues walking around the house with a long face like something whose name I can’t even remember right now.”

“Ah, Bo. Please, have a bit of sympathy for her. It’s not easy for her to be—”

“But isn’t it true? Everything she sees here, she’s going to see in Limbe. The girls in Limbe now, I hear they all look like Beyoncé. And no one wants to drink country mimbo anymore. Palm wine is falling out of fashion. Everyone is American or European now. Emmanu told me a club in West End even sells Cristal glass by glass.”

“You’re serious?”

“I’m serious. Victor owns the club. You remember Victor?”

“Which Victor?” Winston asked. “The one we used to play football against in the inter-quarter league? The one who lives behind the Catholic church and has those buttocks like a woman’s?”

“That one,” Jende said. “Emmanu swears the club is helele .”

“How did he come up with the capital?”

“You didn’t hear the story? The boy went to Bulgaria. Bulgaria or Russia or Australia — somewhere over there. Boy comes back with some serious kolo . Rumor all over town is that he was a dancer. Who knows what kind of dance he did? From the kind of money he brought back, he must have done it very well.”

“A black man shaking it for white women,” Winston said. “Isn’t that what they want? And Victor could shake it, let me tell you. I’ll never forget the time I was dancing toward this fine ngah at Black and White. I think it was a Christmas Day. The music was booming, man, I was moving it, ready to pounce and make my move.” He stood up and gyrated his hips to show the makossa moves of his younger days.

Jende watched him, smiling.

“Then,” Winston said, and paused, his hands spread out, “out of nowhere Victor comes out and does this Michael Jackson move, and the ngah starts laughing. I think it was ‘Thriller,’ because that boy was doing some serious vibrations. The ngah is laughing and laughing, and next thing I know, wait, where is she? The bastard stole the ngah with his Michael Jackson moves, right in front of me! I stood there in the middle of that nightclub, high and dry!”

Jende laughed until he fully doubled over, gasping for air. “Ah, Limbe,” he said. “I cannot believe I will be there again.”

“Just don’t become an American Wonder when you go back,” Winston said, laughing as he sat down. “Play it mature, please. That’s all I ask of you.”

Jende shook his head.

He would never become an American Wonder, one of those mbutuku s who went to America and upon their return home spoke with laughable American accents, spraying “wannas” and “gonnas” all over sentences. They strutted around town wearing suits and cowboy boots and baseball caps, claiming to understand very little of Cameroonian culture because they were now too American. Come and see American Wonder, the song about them went. Come and see American Wonder. Do you know American Wonder? Come and see American Wonder.

He would never be laughable. He would be respectable.

Later that evening, after Neni and Liomi had returned home from buying Liomi new sneakers, Jende told Neni the idea of wholesaling food. She kept her head down, saying nothing as she unpacked the sneakers and put them inside a Ghana Must Go bag.

“Maybe we can even find a way to export some of the food over here, eh?” he said. “Maybe sell in African stores here?”

“What do you need my opinion for?” she said, lifting her head to look at him as if he disgusted her. “Aren’t you the knower of everything?” Her eyes seemed ready to tear through him like a sharp knife slicing pork belly. It had been less than a week since their moment in Times Square and she was back to despising him for taking her and her children away from America.

“But bébé, ” he said, “I just thought you’d like to know—”

“Why? No, please, don’t ask me anything. Just do whatever you want to do, okay? Whatever you want, however you want it, just do it. You don’t need to ask me.”

Thankfully, Liomi was back to wanting to grow up to be like him, so after Neni shut the bedroom door saying she wanted to finish her work in peace and quiet, Jende went into the living room, where he and his son roughhoused on the floor and tickled each other so hard they both gasped for air.

He called his brother Moto the next day and asked him to begin the search for men to till the land in Bimbia and plant plantains, egusi, and yams. He also asked him to be on the lookout for a three-bedroom brick house with a garage, as well as a maid and a temporary car he would drive until the used Hyundai he had purchased at a New Jersey state auction arrived in a shipping container. Three days later, his brother texted to say he had found a house for rent in Coconut Island, as well as a car, a 1998 Pajero. He would have the house furnished with basic necessities and a housemaid hired by the time the family arrived.

“Look you,” Fatou said when Neni told her about the house and the maid. “You gonno leave small one-room and go stay for mansion? Why Ousmane not do this for me, too?”

“So ask Ousmane to take you back home then,” Neni retorted.