Behold the Dreamers(67)
“Good evening, madam,” he said as he held the car door open for her.
She did not reply. Her countenance was as hard as marble, her eyes covered with sunglasses in the light darkness, her lips pursed so tightly it was unimaginable they had ever broken into a smile.
“Lincoln Center, madam?”
“Take me home.”
“Yes, madam.”
He waited for her questions, but nothing came—not one word during the forty-minute traffic-laden ride to the Sapphire, not even a word on her phone. He imagined she had turned her phone off, and he couldn’t blame her for silencing the world at such a time—her friends were probably trying to reach her to express their shock, tell her how awfully sorry they were, say all manner of things that would do nothing to take away her disgrace. What good would it do her to listen to all that? And if they weren’t calling her, they were calling each other to say, can you believe it? Clark of all people? Poor Cindy must be utterly devastated! But how could he? Do you think the story is true? What’s she going to do now? And they would go on and on, saying the same kind of things his mother’s friends used to say in their kitchen in Limbe when one of their mates’ husbands had been caught atop a spread-eagled woman. In New Town, in New York, the women all seemed to agree that the friend had to find a way to move on, forgetting that the wreckage of so devastating a betrayal cannot easily be cleared away.
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.”
Thirty-four
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 …”