Diamonds in the Shadow

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “I didn't know. They were supposed to live somewhere else, but the apartment fell through, so my parents volunteered.”

  “What's he like?”

  “Hard to say. Mainly he's polite. You want to meet him?”

  Daniel considered this.

  He's worried that Mattu will become his burden, thought Jared. That their skin color will chain them together.

  The word “chain” seemed an unfortunate choice, since Daniel's ancestors had to have been slaves, and Jared tried to delete it from his thoughts, but it sat there. It occurred to him that if the four Amabos were not joined by blood, they were now chained to each other by paperwork.

  Mattu was visibly joyful to see another black person. He trotted over, hand extended to shake Daniel's, a smile as huge as his eyes illuminating his face. When they had introduced themselves, Mattu said, “You do not play soccer, Daniel?”

  “I hate sports.”

  Jared laughed. “How do you get out of gym so often, anyway? I didn't think hating it was an excuse.”

  “I fake illnesses. Today I'm faking a chest cold.”

  “Which would stop you how, exactly, from playing soccer?” Jared demanded.

  “I'm so bad at every sport, the gym teachers are thrilled to have me on the sidelines.”

  “We laugh at what?” asked Mattu.

  “Me,” said Daniel, smiling. “My parents are way into eating out, Mattu. You guys like fish? There's a terrific fish house down the road.”

  Mattu had no idea what Daniel was saying.

  “He's inviting the four of you for dinner at a restaurant,” said Jared.

  Mattu got flustered. Jared could think of plenty of reasons: Andre's lack of arms, Alake's lack of speech, the general lack of family togetherness, failure to know what country they were from…

  “Or maybe we should wait a while,” said Daniel. “Till everybody's settled in.”

  Mattu was obviously relieved.

  Jared was not. What did “settled in” mean? Weren't “settlers” people who never left?

  Neither Andre nor Celestine asked the children how their first day at school had been. Jared's mom did not notice. “Everybody in the car!” she called. “We're headed for Super Stop and Shop.”

  “Not me,” said Jared. “I have homework.”

  “No,” said his mother. “We need a ratio of one of us to one of them, and we're already short because Dad isn't home from work yet.”

  Jared hated grocery shopping. It was enough that he'd taken Mattu to school.

  “No, you can't get out of it,” said his mother. “You do any whining, Jared, and you can go live with Aunt Valerie.”

  This was a huge threat. Aunt Valerie had given up her job as a stockbroker and bought a run-down farm in northwest New York, where the lake effect dumped a thousand feet of snow every year. She was now raising llamas. Visiting Aunt Valerie consisted of shoveling manure in bad weather.

  Jared had to laugh.

  At the huge Stop & Shop, Celestine and Andre were enchanted by the metal-fence-like things on wheels called carts. They shared one, and then Mattu wanted one too, and then didn't Mopsy yank a cart out for Alake? Alake did not look at Mopsy, let alone put her fingers on the handle. This didn't bother Mopsy, who loved grocery shopping. She bounced up and down the aisles like some horrifying toy whose batteries you prayed would run down, but they never did. So here was Jared in an actual parade of carts.

  They entered vegetable territory. Jared had only the mildest interest in green food, so he hardly glanced. But the Amabo family stopped short. Celestine gave a little cry. Mattu whispered to Jared, “Is all that real?”

  “We need two kinds of potatoes,” said Mom. “Boiling for mashed and Idaho for baking. We want lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery and radishes for salad, and of course fruit—let's see what looks good.”

  Her guests were spellbound by the stacks and piles, bins and bags of gleaming, clean, misted, perfect food.

  Mattu, who had touched every surface in the gym, now needed to touch every vegetable. Andre sang out the names of everything he recognized and demanded words for everything he did not, so he and Mom became a little chorus.

  Andre: “What is that?”

  Mom: “Cauliflower.”

  Andre: “Oh! Cauliflower!”

  Jared died several deaths, but nobody was watching; they were too busy with their own lists and whiny kids, and for all Jared knew, they were just as excited by cauliflower.

  His mother tossed food into her cart with the practiced hand of many years' shopping. Celestine whispered, “Hot peppers, perhaps?”

  Mom's idea of spice was salt, so she had never bought a hot pepper. But there they were, separate from the fat salad-type peppers. “You pick,” she told Celestine.

  Celestine couldn't quite bring herself to touch them. “I have no money. This will cost a great deal.”

  “The church raised money for groceries. I've got cash in my purse that is actually yours, and when we get to checkout, you'll actually pay for it.” Mom took out a white envelope and opened the flap to show Celestine a thick wad of bills.

  But Celestine was studying the people in matching store jackets.

  “They work here,” explained Jared.

  “Oh, my! Could I work here too?” Celestine asked Mom, hardly daring to hope.

  “I've gotten you a job at a motel, but we can come back another time and interview here. Keep moving, we don't have all day. Bread!” Mom yelled, as if she were in charge of bingo. Mopsy, who had high bread standards, tried to get there first so she could give bread orders. Mattu could hardly wait to see bread and was speeding around the corner. Jared hoped he wouldn't take down a tower of canned goods. Jared would have to go wait in the car if anything that humiliating happened.

  Alake was left standing in the fruit aisle. Nobody in her family had noticed her. Even Mopsy had forgotten her.

  Long, thin brown fingers shivering, Alake reached toward a tower of polished red apples. Her fingers closed on the top apple. She slid it under her shirt.

  “We can get all the food you want, Alake,” said Jared. “But we have to buy it.” He gently tugged her wrist until the apple appeared again. “It's not a good thing in America to take the apple without paying.”

  Alake nodded.

  She knows what I said, he thought.

  Alake held the apple out in front of her.

  “I'll teach you American money when we get to checkout, okay?” said Jared.

  They were in the store almost another hour, and she never let the precious apple sag.

  THEY WERE LATE FOR CHURCH, not because the Amabos weren't ready, but because Dad wasn't. “Instead of going to our church,” he said, “let's go to our sister church in New Haven. Most of that congregation is black. They'd be so excited to meet you and share in welcoming you, and you're probably sick of nobody but white people around.”

  Celestine and Andre were even more amazed by this suggestion than Jared. “No, thank you,” said Celestine. “We will go to the church which is sponsoring us and paying for our groceries. It is our church now.”

  “You're just looking for an excuse to be somewhere else, Dad,” said Mopsy.

  “It is a terrible sorrow,” agreed Celestine, “that a man you trusted stole from you. Trust broken is worse than money taken.”

  Jared hadn't known until his little sister said so that their father was so upset he didn't want to show up at his own church. And Jared hadn't known until an African refugee said so that it wasn't about the money.

  Celestine wore her glorious headpiece and her ferociously colored wrap, while Mopsy had put Alake into a hot pink pants suit of Mom's that Mom never wore because it was gaudy. As long as you didn't notice her hair, Alake looked as if she had just fallen off a runway at some important fashion show. It was impossible, however, not to notice her hair.

  Mattu insisted on wearing a suit of Dad's. The pant legs showed several inches of ankle and the sleeves exposed several inches
of wrist. This was meaningless to Mattu.

  Andre chose a sports jacket from the clothing donation pile and did not mind that no hands showed at the bottom of the cuffs.

  They sat in the front row at church. Latecomers always had to sit in front, because the back pews filled first. People liked to survey their friends and neighbors, but they didn't want to be surveyed. Jared hated sitting in front.

  It was a good hymn day, though, with all three hymns worth singing. This was not always the case. Sometimes singing was the low point of the hour. They opened with “We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing,” usually a Thanksgiving hymn. Because, Dr. Nickerson explained, we are giving thanks for the presence of the Amabo family.

  Andre had a fine, rich tenor. People took notice. Who is this guy? Let's get him in the choir. How amazing that Andre would know hymns at all, let alone this one, and that he could so easily read the difficult, old-fashioned verses.

  Everywhere I turn, I'm a racist, thought Jared. I thought they'd be just a little bit literate.

  Jared listened to the sermon, which he rarely did. He was generally lost in thoughts of the car he would one day own or songs he planned to download.

  The minister had latched on to the word “inn” in the story of the Good Samaritan, where the good guy rescues a hurt stranger and carries him to an inn. The good guy has places to go and people to see, so he pays the innkeeper to take care of the hurt guy and moves on. It was a good text for discussing refugees. We the church are paying the bills, explained Dr. Nickerson, while the Finches are providing the inn.

  Bet the innkeeper didn't have to share his bedroom, thought Jared. Bet the innkeeper lived in a separate wing.

  Dr. Nickerson made no mention of Brady Wall's theft. Instead, he had a letter to the congregation printed in the bulletin. Jared never read stuff that wasn't required, making him the only person in church actually listening to the sermon, because everybody else was reading up on their new financial and legal nightmare. The minister ended on a warm, welcoming note, asking Celestine, Andre, Mattu and Alake to stand and make themselves known—like there could be any doubt which ones were from Africa.

  Afterward there was a special coffee hour and a receiving line. Since a crucial member of the receiving line didn't shake hands, and since the supposedly competent adults were off discussing Brady Wall, Jared stepped between Andre and the first eager hand shaker. “Africans bow,” he said, and demonstrated. Andre gave Jared a particularly sweet smile and bowed to a family of Americans, who giggled as one and bowed back.

  The restaurant Mom had chosen for Sunday dinner had deep, dark booths. Jared always preferred a booth, but especially today, because then nobody would see Celestine feeding Andre.

  “That was a fine service,” said Celestine. “Each week I will look forward to hearing the word of God.”

  “God is good,” agreed Andre.

  Jared could not let this pass. “Andre, somebody chopped off your hands. That's evil. And you run around saying God is good? If God was good, he wouldn't have let that happen.”

  “It was not the fault of God,” said Andre.

  “Well, he should have stepped in and stopped it,” said Jared.

  Andre grinned. “I would have been glad to see Him.”

  Mopsy leaned forward. “Andre, have you ever met anybody who actually saw God?”

  “In our hearts, we have all seen God. God kept me going when there was nothing else.”

  “You would have kept going anyway, because of your children,” said Mopsy with American certainty.

  Andre looked puzzled.

  Because he doesn't have children, Jared thought.

  Mattu tilted his large menu. “An entire page lists only things to drink.”

  One thing these guys did well—change the subject. “Right,” said Jared. “Ten ways to have coffee, three kinds of Coke—”

  “I can read,” said Mattu irritably.

  Mopsy giggled. “Isn't Jared annoying? How are you doing sharing a room? Does it make the refugee camp look good?”

  Mattu smiled at Mopsy. “Nothing would make a refugee camp look good. And I love this list of things to drink. Once when I was on the run, I was so thirsty, I knelt down and drank the urine of a cow puddled in its hoofprint.”

  Andre nodded. “When I was that thirsty, I used to put rocks in my mouth. Somehow it felt damp to the tongue.”

  “You were that bad off,” demanded Jared, “and still you think God is good? You've been praying to him all this time, he should do a little something for you.”

  “He brought me here,” Andre pointed out.

  “Which reminds me,” said Mom brightly. “The newspaper called. They want your thoughts about America.”

  So that was why Mom had been vacuuming and plumping pillows.

  “No,” said Celestine.

  Mom's cheeks were very pink. “The media tends not to cover Africa. I have collected statistics. Congo had about a million displaced persons during their civil war. Two million each had to flee Sierra Leone, Somalia and Liberia. And there's Sudan. Angola. Rwanda. Americans would be more touched by your story than by statistics. Africa needs the publicity. If we personalize the civil war—”

  “Mom,” said Mopsy sharply. “Andre does not want to be photographed. Celestine does not want to be a story. That's that.”

  This actually shut their mother up. Jared was impressed.

  The waitress brought their meals.

  “I'm the hamburger,” called Mopsy. “It's not too well done or too rare, is it? It has to be perfect or I can't eat it.” Mopsy cut into her hamburger to check its perfection level.

  The Africans watched in silent astonishment. Probably in Africa, if you had anything to eat, it was perfect.

  Dad was just sitting there. He wasn't part of the conversation. He didn't even seem like part of the family. It was Andre who said softly. “Let us thank our Lord Jesus Christ for the many blessings which surround us.”

  Since they were nicely hidden, Jared didn't mind holding hands. He reached out automatically to form the circle and then yanked his fingers away just before they touched the hideous stub above Andre's wrist. He set his hand on Andre's shoulder instead.

  A shoulder was what you used when you shrugged. Andre still possessed shoulders. He could shrug. But he didn't. He thanked the Lord for the many blessings that surrounded him.

  Of thirty-nine days, five were already gone.

  Victor did not know where New York City was or how to get there. He did know, from having looked out the window on that plane, that he would have to cross a vast amount of land.

  The refugee officer said that while of course Victor could live anywhere, he had to have a job there, and housing, and once he had his Social Security number, he would need to work hard, very hard, and save money, and get to New York on his own.

  The cash Victor was given hardly bought one meal. Victor solved this problem. There were plenty of elderly and crippled to prey on.

  Death was fascinating, but Mopsy had no firsthand knowledge of it.

  Death showed up on television a lot. If you watched police or lawyer shows or soap operas, people were always dying—murder, car accident, suicide or the result of stupidity or some crazy stunt. And of course, if you watched the news, the most important thing after sports and weather was always the number of people killed in battle or dying in some plague (probably in another country) or committing crimes in some grim city (probably just down the road). Mopsy also loved a paperback series in which yet another beautiful girl got a dread disease but faced death bravely, surrounded by friends.

  Now death was right in Mopsy's house.

  Two unburied people sitting on a shelf.

  It was not wise to go into Jared's personal space, because (talk about death) Jared would kill her.

  Mopsy waited. The afternoon came, when Jared was out in the driveway with Andre, and Alake and Mattu were snacking in the kitchen with Mom. Or at least, Mattu was snacking. Alake was prob
ably just sitting in front of her snack.

  Mopsy ran upstairs and slipped into her brother's room.

  Mopsy could hardly get lunch money to school without losing it. How remarkable that Mattu had carried his grandparents' ashes around the world with barely a dent or a crease in the boxes. Of course, Mattu was very cute and a refugee and all, so the flight attendants had probably bent the rules for him, especially when he spoke with his adorable English accent, and let him hold the boxes in his lap the whole way.

  Mopsy slid one finger under a flap. It lifted easily. She peeked. There were flakes like charcoal ash but also grit like cat litter, and many bits the size of peas and marbles. Imagine cooking your grandparents. Mopsy gave the box a shake to make the ash settle more, so she could see farther down.

  Something glowed.

  Mopsy almost dropped the box.

  She gave herself a moment's rest and then shook the box again and peeked. Now two bits of bone glowed.

  Haunted ashes.

  Mopsy closed the box and turned to flee. It's got my fingerprints on it now, she thought. It would be just like Jared to check and to find out if I touched—

  In the doorway stood Alake.

  Alake did not appear to have seen anything or thought about anything. She was just there.

  Mopsy had the ghastly thought that Alake herself was nothing but ashes, her heart beating but her soul charred and dead.

  Mattu seemed fine riding home next to Jared on the bus, but each day, when he left its shelter, he seemed desperate to get back inside someplace. Again today Mattu raced up Prospect Hill while Jared trudged slowly behind him. What was there for Mattu to be afraid of outside that didn't exist inside? By now Mattu had to know that there weren't enemy soldiers or wild animals around, preparing to ambush him. The only thing that should actually frighten the Africans was getting deported—and why would that be more likely outdoors?

  Mattu darted in the side door as Andre hurried out to greet Jared.

  That was your son speeding by, thought Jared. You might say hi now and then.