Behold the Dreamers (7 page)

A
ROUND
HIM
TOURISTS
AND
N
EW
Y
ORKERS
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.”

“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.

Jende began to feel lighter, a leaf released from beneath a rock. His situation wasn't half as bad as he'd feared. How much would it cost to fight all the way to the end, he asked Bubakar. A few thousand, the lawyer told him. But no need to worry about that just yet. “You and your cousin have already spent a good amount of money to get you this far. Take a break and save for the battle ahead. When the court sends the Notice to Appear, we'll discuss a payment plan.

“You are in a better situation than many others,” Bubakar added. “You have a wife who has a job, even though she does not have working papers. Immigration didn't get back to us within a hundred and fifty days after we filed your application so I forced them to give you a work permit. At least you have been able to work legally. At least there are two of you, my brother. You can both work and pay whatever bills you have. Some families don't even have one job.”

“But what about my work permit?” Jende asked. “Will I be able to renew it after it expires now that Immigration wants to deport me?”

“Did your employer ask to see your work permit when he hired you?” Bubakar said.

“No.”

“Good. Then stay with him.”

“But what will happen if I cannot renew it and the police stops me and—”

“Don't worry about things that might never happen, my brother.”

“So if my work permit expires and I cannot renew it and the police stops me on the road, I won't get into trouble for working as a driver?”

“Listen to me,” Bubakar said, somewhat impatiently. “As far as Immigration is concerned, there are many things that are illegal and many that are gray, and by ‘gray' I mean the things that are illegal but which the government doesn't want to spend time worrying about. You understand me,
abi
? My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police—that's the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?”

Jende said he did.

“Live your life wisely and put aside all the money you can,” Bubakar said. “Maybe one day, Inshallah, an immigration bill like the one Kennedy and McCain were fighting for will pass Congress and the government will give everyone papers. Then your
wahala
will be over.”

“But Mr. Bubakar, after that thing didn't pass two years ago, I just lose all hope.”

“No, don't lose all hope. Maybe one day, Obama, Hillary, if one of them wins president, they'll give everyone papers. Who knows? Hillary likes immigrant people. And Obama, he must know some Kenyan people without papers that he'll like to help.”

“But can such a thing ever really happen?”

“Oh, yes. It happened before, one time, I think 1983. It can surely happen again, but we cannot hope for it. We'll keep on trying our own way, and you keep on sleeping with one eye open, eh? Because until the day you become American citizen, Immigration will always be right on your ass, every single day, following you everywhere, and you'll need money to fight them if they decide they hate the way your fart smells. But Inshallah, one day you'll become a citizen, and when that happens, no one can
ever
touch you. You and your family will finally be able to relax. You'll at last be able to sleep well, and you'll begin to really enjoy your life in this country. That will be good, eh, my brother?”

S
HE
MET
HIM
AT
A
CAFÉ
ACROSS
FROM
THE
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
ON
F
ORTY-
second Street, the same place where she had met him the past two times. After she'd emailed him the morning after he suggested they meet to talk about improving her precalculus grade, he had replied within an hour and proposed they meet in the café because he didn't have an office since he wasn't really a professor, just a mathematics Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center who was teaching for extra income and experience. He went to the café every Sunday to study, he told her during their first meeting, and he was glad to meet students there, though he didn't understand why more students didn't take his offer to help them. I am very grateful for your offer, Professor, she'd said to him, leading him to remind her once more that she didn't have to keep on calling him Professor. Call me Jerry, just like everyone in class does, he'd said, but she couldn't because he was her teacher and she had to address him properly, as she'd been taught to do in primary school.

“This is my son, Liomi, Professor,” she said upon arrival for the third meeting, pulling a seat from the adjacent table for Liomi. “I am sorry I have to bring him, but my husband is working, and we have plans after this with my friend.”

“No, not at all. Hi, Lomein, how are you?”

Liomi smiled.

“Open your mouth and talk to the professor,” Neni said.

“I am fine,” Liomi said.

“How old are you?” she heard the instructor say as she walked toward the counter to order two cups of hot chocolate. She heard Liomi say six going on seven, then giggle at something the instructor said. By the time she got to the front of the line Liomi and her instructor were chatting like old friends, the instructor drawing something on a notepad and making hand maneuvers which thoroughly amused Liomi.

“You have children, Professor?” she asked as she set the cups of hot chocolate on the table.

The instructor shook his head and, with a feeble smile, said, “I wish.”

“You can borrow mine if you want.”

“Oh, I'll take him,” he said. “Just don't be surprised if I refuse to give him back.”

“We can make arrangements for that,” she said, smiling as she pulled out her precalculus textbook. She was glad she was feeling more at ease with the instructor, to the extent that she was making jokes. On their first meeting, she'd been immensely uncomfortable spending one-on-one time in a café with a man she barely knew: The whole hour she had mostly nodded while the instructor spoke, scarcely asking questions, because she was afraid of asking a stupid question and embarrassing herself. Before the second meeting, though, she told herself it was no use going downtown if she couldn't take full advantage of the instructor's offer and ultimately improve her grade. So, though nervous, she had pushed herself to ask multiple questions, and the instructor had answered even the most stupid of them. By the third meeting—despite still being anxious enough that she'd told Liomi before they entered the café not to say a word to the professor lest he get upset by a child disturbing him and leave—she was feeling far more comfortable, so much that, toward the end of their session, she and the instructor began chatting about where they'd each grown up. The instructor's father was in the military, she learned, and he'd lived in many parts of America and Europe. Germany was his favorite place to live, he said, because, even as a child, he could tell how much the Germans loved Americans, and it felt great to be loved for his nationality. She wanted to know more about what such a life was like, how wonderful or awful it must have been not to have the same friends for all of his childhood, but she didn't know which questions were appropriate to ask of an instructor and which ones weren't, so she told him about her life in Cameroon instead, about how she'd never traveled farther than forty miles from Limbe, laughing at how pathetic it now sounded. He was curious about her pharmacist dreams, but Fatou arrived early, with her two youngest children in tow, to put an end to their conversation.

“We gonno drop the childrens to play games,” Fatou announced to the instructor as she sat down in Liomi's seat after Neni had introduced them and sent the kids off to get cookies. “Then we gonno do we eyebrow and we do we nails and we gonno go to all-we-can-eat Chinese restaurant because today is day for mothers and we musto be very, very special.”

“Ugh,” the instructor said. “Totally forgot about Mother's Day. I should call my mom and do something nice for her, right?”

“And you wife,” Fatou said.

“I'm not married.”

“Girlfriend?”

Neni kicked Fatou's leg under the table.

“Boyfriend,” the instructor said.

“Boyfriend?” the women asked in unison.

The instructor laughed. “I take it you ladies don't know many men with boyfriends?”

Fatou shook her head. Neni's mouth remained ajar.

“I don't know no gay man from my country,” Fatou said. “But my village we used to got one man who walk lika woman. He hang his hand for air and shake his
derrière
very nice when he dance.”

“That's funny.”

“Everybody say he musto be woman inside, but nobody call him gay because he got a wife and childrens. And we no got no word for gay. So, I am happy to meet you!”

“But I thought you said you like children, Professor,” Neni said, the shock still apparent in her voice.

“Oh, I love children.”

“But how can you … I thought …”

“I've always wanted kids. As soon as I'm done with school, my boyfriend and I, we really hope we can adopt.”

“Take one of my childrens,” Fatou said, giggling. “I got seven.”

“Seven!”

Fatou nodded.

“Wow.”

“Yes, me, too, I say the same thing every day. Wow, I got seven childrens?
Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, mon Dieu!”

“How many do you want?” Neni asked the instructor.

“One or two,” he said, “but definitely not seven.”

Fatou and the instructor laughed together, but Neni couldn't find a way to get past her confusion. How could he be gay? Why was he gay? I can't believe he's gay, she said to Fatou over and over as they walked toward the subway with their sons.

“Oh, no, you no musto tell me,” Fatou said. “I see you face when he say it.”

“It's just that—”

“Just that you like tall Porto Rican boy with long hair. I see for you eyes how you like him.”

“Why does everybody who looks Hispanic have to be Puerto Rican to you?”

“He like you, you like him.”

“What are you talking about? I don't like him.”

“What you mean, you don't like him? I see how you look at him when I enter café. You laugh at everything he say, ha, ha, ha, too funny.
Ah,
oui, Professeur; vraiment, Professeur
.”

“I did not say anything like that!”

“Then why you lie?”

“Lie about what?”

“Why you no tell Jende you gonno meet
professeur
inside café?”

“I already told you. I don't want him to worry.”

“Worry for what?”

“Worry about the things men worry about when their wife has a rendezvous on a Sunday afternoon with a young professor. If you were him, would you like it?”

“I no worry if Ousmane gonno meet anybody … but what if Liomi tell him?”

“I told Liomi to say I went to study, which is true. What is the difference between me telling Jende I'm going to study versus I'm going to meet my professor to help me with my schoolwork? It all has to do with my school.”

“Aha,” Fatou said as they descended the stairs to the downtown D train.

“Aha, what?”

“That be the same reason why my cousin husband beat her one day back home.”

“Because she went to meet with her professor?”

“No, no,” Fatou said, shaking her head and wagging her index finger at Neni. “Because she do what you just do. Husband think she somewhere, then he pass somewhere different and see her drinking beer with other man. Husband drag her back to house and beat her well. He say, why you gonno disgrace me, lie to me, and then go sit drink beer with other man? She say, oh, no, he just my friend, but husband say, then why you lie to me?”

“So what did your cousin do?”

“What she gonno do? She do stupid thing, husband beat her. That all. She learn lesson, marriage continue, everybody happy.”