THEY BADE NEW YORK CITY GOODBYE ON ONE OF THE HOTTEST DAYS OF the year. Late August, around the same time he had arrived five years before. They boarded an Air Maroc flight from JFK to Douala via Casablanca. On the cab ride to the airport, she stared out the window in silence. It was all passing her by. America was passing her by. New York City was passing her by. Bridges and billboards bearing smiling people were passing her by. Skyscrapers and brownstones were rushing by. Fast. Too fast. Forever.
He felt nothing.
He forced himself to feel nothing.
He sat in the front seat with the seed money for his new life packed in a red JanSport backpack, twenty-one little bundles of cash tied with brown rubber bands. Each bundle contained a thousand dollars of his fortune: eighteen thousand from Cindy Edwards and their savings; fourteen hundred dollars from the people at Judson; two thousand from Clark Edwards.
“Why don’t you just send it through Western Union and pick it up when you arrive?” Winston had asked him.
“Never,” he had said. “You want Cameroon government to know I have this kind of money and come after me?”
“You and your fears,” Winston had said, laughing. “What will they do if they know? They can’t tax money you transfer.”
“That’s what you think, eh? Wait until Biya decides to change the law. Then the government is going to start asking for ten percent of all Western Union transfers.”
“Ah, Bo! The government can never do such a thing.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know. But, now that you say it, I don’t blame you for being cautious. One can never trust any government—I don’t trust the American government and I definitely don’t trust the Cameroon government.”
“No, but it’s our government and it’s our country. We love it, we hate it, it’s still our country. How man go do?”
“It’s our country,” Winston agreed. “We can never disown it.”
At four in the morning of the day after they left New York, they arrived in Cameroon. And as they had been warned, the country was no different from the one they had left.
Douala International Airport was still steamy and overcrowded. Customs officers there still demanded bribes that weary travelers gave for lack of energy to fight a devious system. Men and women in bright African fabrics still crowded the exit from customs, calling out to their recently arrived loved ones, shouting in English, French, pidgin English, and any of the two hundred indigenous languages of the country, saying, I’m over here, we’re all over here. Overjoyed parents, and sometimes what seemed like whole extended families, still waited outside the arrival terminal to welcome sons and daughters who had traveled overseas and returned to bring them pride, pushing and shoving to get to a long-awaited hug. Young boys dressed in rags still lingered around the airport parking lot, seeking gullible arrivals who would believe their claims of hunger and homelessness and spare them a dollar or euro. The drive from Douala to Limbe was still arduous, with drivers and pedestrians swearing at each other, young and old alike fighting for space on the dusty and congested streets of Bonaberi.
Jende’s brother Moto met them at the airport with a borrowed Ford pickup truck for the two-hour drive to Limbe. The Ford was the only vehicle he could find that could fit the family and their seven suitcases bearing clothes and shoes. More of their possessions would be arriving months later in a shipping container: the old Hyundai; four large boxes of discount store clothes and shoes; three boxes of preserved food, all bought in dollar stores; two suitcases containing Liomi’s toys and games and books; a car seat, stroller, and Pack ’n Play bought from Craigslist for Timba. There were also three suitcases containing the clothes Cindy had given Neni and the things Neni had purchased in Chinatown: fake Chanel, Gucci, and Versace purses; cheap jewelry, sunglasses, and shoes; human-hair wigs and weaves; creams, perfumes, and makeup. These purchases were what she would use to prove to the loose women of Limbe that she was not at their level. Cindy’s things she planned to reserve for special occasions. She would wear them to weddings and anniversaries to show those girls that even though she had returned home and was living among them, she was not one of them—she was now a woman of class, with real designer items, and none of them could compete with her.
Just after seven o’clock, while Neni and the children slept, the pickup went under the red and white sign above the highway that said “Welcome to Limbe, The Town of Friendship.” Memories of the sign had given Jende comfort during his first days in America, a comfort meshed with the belief that he would one day be driving toward it in circumstances different from when he’d driven away from it.
“Welcome indeed,” he said to himself, as the lights of his hometown appeared in the distance. Moto moved one hand from the steering wheel and gave him a congratulatory tap on the shoulder.
“What did you say, Papa?” a drowsy and awakening Liomi asked.
Jende turned from the front seat and looked at his son. “Guess where we are,” he whispered.
“Where?” Liomi asked, struggling to open his eyes.
“Guess,” Jende whispered again.
The boy opened his eyes and said, “Home?”