Behold the Dreamers(13)

“Speaking of which, I need to check up on her,” Clark said as he pressed a few keys on his phone. “Hey, it’s me,” he said after the voicemail greeting. “Sorry I didn’t call back last week. Ridiculously busy at work, so much going on. Anyway, I spoke to Mom last night, and she told me you and the girls aren’t coming to Mexico? Cec, listen. Put everything on my credit card. Okay? I’m sorry if I haven’t made it clear enough, but I want you to put everything you can’t afford on that credit card. Everything. The flight, the hotel, the rental car, Keila’s braces, whatever you need, just put it on the card. You know how much all of us being there means to them. It’s Dad’s eightieth, Cec. And I want to see the girls. It’s been so crazy at work, I’m barely breathing, but I’ll try to pick up the next time you call. Or email. You know email or text is always better for me.”

He threw his head back after hanging up, his eyes closed.

“So, you didn’t have a job back home?” he asked Jende, opening his eyes and picking up his laptop.

“Oh, no, sir, I had a job,” Jende replied. “I worked for the Limbe Urban Council.”

“And it wasn’t a good job?”

Jende laughed, taken aback by Clark’s question, which he found na?ve. “Sir,” he said, “there is no good or bad job in my country.”

“Because?”

“Because any job is a good job in Cameroon, Mr. Edwards. Just to have somewhere that you can wake up in the morning and go to is a good thing. But what about the future? That is the problem, sir. I could not even marry my wife. I did—”

“What do you mean, you couldn’t marry? Poor people get married every day.”

“Yes, they can, sir. Everyone can marry, sir. But not everyone can marry the person that they want. My wife’s father, Mr. Edwards, he is a greedy man. He refused for me to marry his daughter because he wanted my wife to marry someone with more money. Someone who can give him money whenever he asks for it. But I didn’t have. What was I supposed to do?”

Clark snickered. “I guess people don’t elope in Cameroon, huh?”

“A rope, sir?”

“No, elope. You know, when you run away and get married without involving your crazy family?”

“Oh, no, no, no, sir, we do it. People do it. We also do ‘come we stay.’ Which means a man says to a woman, ‘Come let us live together,’ but he does not marry her first. But I could never do that, sir. Never.”

“Why?”

“It does not show respect for a woman, sir. A man has to go to a woman’s family and pay bride-price for her head, sir. And then take her out through the front door. I had to show I am a real man, sir. Not take her for free as if she is … as if she is something I picked on the street.”

“Right,” Clark said, snickering again. “So you’ve paid for your wife?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Jende said, beaming with pride. “Once I come to America and send my father-in-law a nice transfer through Western Union, he sees that maybe I am going to be a rich man one day, he changed his mind.”

Clark laughed.

“I know it is funny, sir. But I had to get my wife. By two years after I came to New York, I had saved good money to pay the bride-price and bring her and my son over here. I sent money to my mother and father, and they bought everything my father-in-law wanted as the bride-price. The goats. The pigs. The chickens. The palm oil, bags of rice. The salt. The cloth, bottles of wine. They bought it all. I even give an envelope of cash double what he asked for, sir.”

“No kidding.”

“No, sir. Before my wife comes to America, my family goes to her family, and they hand the bride-price and sing and dance together. And then we were married.”

Clark’s phone buzzed. “Fascinating story,” he said, picking it up and putting it back down.

“And the truth, sir,” Jende went on, unable to stop himself, “is that the paper I signed as marriage certificate at city hall is not what makes me feel like I marry my wife. That does not mean too much. It is the bride-price I paid. I give her family honor.”

“Well,” Clark said, clicking on his laptop, “I hope she’s been worth it.”

“Oh, yes, sir! She is. I have the best wife in the whole world, sir.”

They drove in silence for the next forty-five minutes. Traffic was sparse in the lower part of New Jersey except for tractor-trailers, which seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“So you think America is better than Cameroon?” Clark asked, still looking at his laptop.

“One million times, sir,” Jende said. “One million times. Look at me today, Mr. Edwards. Driving you in this nice car. You are talking to me as if I am somebody, and I am sitting in this seat, feeling as if I am somebody.”

Clark put aside the laptop and picked up another folder, one with loose sheets. He flipped through the sheets, scribbling on a writing pad. “What I’m curious about still,” he said, without pausing to look up at Jende, “is how you could buy a ticket to come to America if you said you were that poor.”

Once more Jende thought of the best answer. There was no shame in telling the truth, so he told it. “My cousin, sir,” he said. “Winston.”

“The associate at Dustin, Connors, and Solomon?”