Dreams from My Father

trees that our grandfather planted. Granny is talking, telling me something funny, and I can hear the cow swishing its tall behind us, and the chickens pecking at the edges of the field, and the smell of the fire from the cooking hut. And under the mango tree, near the cornfields, is the place where the Old Man is buried….”
    Her flight was starting to board. We remained seated, and Auma closed her eyes, squeezing my hand.
    “We need to go home,” she said. “We need to go home, Barack, and see him there.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

    R AFIQ HAD DONE HIS best to spruce the place up. There was a new sign above the entrance, and the door had been propped open to let in the spring light. The floors were freshly scrubbed, the furniture rearranged. Rafiq wore a black suit and a black leather tie; his leather
kufu
was polished to a high gloss. For several minutes, he fussed over a long folding table set up on one side of the room, instructing a couple of his men on how to arrange the cookies and punch, fidgeting with the picture of Harold that hung from the wall.
    “That look straight to you?” he asked me.
    “It’s straight, Rafiq.”
    The mayor was coming to cut the ribbon for the new MET intake center opening in Roseland. It was considered a great coup, and for weeks Rafiq had begged to have the activities start at his building. He wasn’t the only one. The alderman had said he’d be happy to host a briefing with the mayor at his office. The state senator, an old ward heeler who’d made the mistake of backing one of the white candidates in the last mayoral election, had promised to help us get money for any project we wanted if we just got him on the program. Even Reverend Smalls had called, suggesting that we’d be helping ourselves by letting him introduce his “good friend Harold.” Whenever I walked into the DCP office, my secretary would hand me the latest batch of messages.
    “You’ve sure become popular, Barack,” she would say before the phone started ringing again.
    I looked now at the crowd that had gathered inside Rafiq’s warehouse, mostly politicians and hangers-on, all of them taking peeks out the door every few minutes while plainclothes policemen spoke into their walkie-talkies and surveyed the scene. Wading my way across the room, I found Will and Angela and pulled them aside.
    “You guys ready?”
    They nodded.
    “Remember,” I said, “try to get Harold to commit to come to our rally in the fall. Do it while his scheduler is around. Tell him about all the work we’re doing out here, and why—”
    At that moment, a murmur ran through the crowd, then a sudden stillness. A large motorcade pulled up, a limousine door opened, and from behind a phalanx of policemen I saw the Man himself. He wore a plain blue suit and a rumpled trench coat; his gray hair looked a little frazzled, and he was shorter than I had expected. Still, his presence was undeniable, his smile that of a man at the height of his powers. Immediately, the crowd began chanting—“Ha-rold! Ha-rold!”—and the mayor made a small pirouette, his hand held up in acknowledgment. With Ms. Alvarez and the plainclothes cops leading the way, he began making his way through the throng. Past the senator and the alderman. Past Rafiq and me. Past Reverend Smalls’s outstretched hand. Until he finally came to a stop directly in front of Angela.
    “Ms. Rider.” He took her hand, and made a slight bow. “It’s a pleasure. I’ve heard excellent things about your work.”
    Angela looked like she was going to pass out. The mayor asked if she would introduce him to her associates, and she began to laugh and flutter about before gathering enough composure to take him down the row of leaders. They all stood at attention like a line of scouts, each one wearing the same helpless grin. When the review was over, the mayor offered Angela his arm, and together they walked toward the door, the crowd pressing behind them.
    “Honey, can you believe this?” Shirley whispered to Mona.
    The ceremony lasted about fifteen minutes. Police had closed off two blocks of Michigan Avenue, and a small stage had been set up in front of the storefront where the MET center would soon open. Angela introduced all the church members who’d worked on the project, as well as the politicians in attendance; Will gave a brief speech about DCP. The mayor congratulated us on our civic involvement, while the senator, Reverend Smalls, and the alderman jockeyed for