Diamonds in the Shadow

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Yes, because having hands was better than having diamonds. So Andre might actually know about the diamonds. Yet when Celestine read her grocery list aloud, Andre looked up, bright-eyed and eager. Vegetables! he seemed to be thinking.

  Was he also thinking, And when we cash in our diamonds, we'll buy an estate in the country and a great car, and we'll eat all our meals out?

  Jared couldn't see it.

  Alake was just too screwy to be included in diamond smuggling. Although with the fabulous new hairstyle Mopsy had given her, she looked intelligent and thoughtful instead of lost and dumb.

  Alake was sitting next to Mopsy, who was deep in a teaching moment, reading aloud from her favorite picture book, trying to make Alake say “Tyrannosaurus rex.” Alake was not saying it.

  Mattu was sitting on the floor in that squat/crunch/posture nobody but baseball catchers could achieve. His lips moved as he read his biology textbook. He did not hear or see the television; he was not aware of Mopsy's silly story. He was completely absorbed in the page, treating every word like gold.

  … or diamonds.

  If they all knew about the diamonds, wouldn't they be more of a team? Jared could imagine them saying to each other, We're out of here. You be the son, you be the daughter, we'll be the grown-ups. We'll get to America, cash in our diamonds and lead the good life.

  But why would anybody choose Alake? And if you were planning all that, wouldn't you rehearse? Wouldn't you at least coordinate escape stories?

  It was a mystery. But in some ways, all families were mysteries. Maybe even all people. Look at the mystery of Brady Wall. He had turned into a completely different—

  Turn in, thought Jared.

  Diamonds or no diamonds, papers or no papers, Jared could not turn his family in.

  Because somehow, the Amabos had become his family.

  One summer, Jared had gone to camp on a lake. There had been swimming and canoeing and water polo, but what he remembered most was that he forgot his family existed. His whole life was camp. When his parents and baby sister showed up on Visitors' Day, he was shocked. Who were these people?

  The people who mattered lived with him at camp.

  When you lived with somebody, they mattered.

  Jared cleared his throat. “Mattu, I left the window open and rain blew in. It soaked into your boxes. I tried to move them to a dry place but the boxes split. I'm really sorry. We have to transfer the ashes into new containers.”

  Did this announcement have an impact on anybody? Celestine's pencil was no longer moving over her grocery list, but maybe she was done. Andre gasped, but it could have been at the game. Mattu's eyes grew huge, but they did this fifty times a day. Alake was always motionless anyway.

  “The ashes of your grandma and grandpa?” shrieked Mopsy. “Oh, Mattu! This is so awful!”

  Mom, always practical, said, “Tupperware, maybe? Until we buy real urns?” She threw open the cabinets and produced two round plastic containers with bright blue lids while Mopsy got the DustBuster.

  “No,” said Jared. “You can't vacuum it. You'd mix the ashes with dust and lint.” Not to mention, he thought, that the pebbles, which might or might not be diamonds, are too heavy and wide to go through the slot.

  It's my fault, thought Mopsy. I weakened that box. What if I have to admit it? What kind of disgusting person goes pawing around in somebody's grandparents' ashes?

  They all swarmed upstairs after Mattu, but when Mattu reached Jared's door and saw the mess, he put out his arm to block the Finches. “This is my responsibility. Please wait downstairs. Thank you, Mrs. Kara, for the new—” He blanked.

  “Tupperware,” said Mom, as if it were a password and now she'd get to stay.

  Had Mattu been calling her mother Mrs. Kara all along? Mopsy hadn't noticed. There was so much to notice that she didn't notice enough.

  Reluctantly, everybody left Mattu alone with the ashes of his grandparents.

  Downstairs, Celestine was now adding a column of numbers, using her favorite new toy, a tiny purple foam calculator. Andre was cheering his team. Mopsy was never going to understand cheering a rerun. Those were Andre's parents up there in a puddle. Shouldn't he react a little more than this?

  When Mattu finally rejoined them, Mopsy had a hundred questions. “What happened to your poor grandma and grandpa, anyway, Mattu?” she began.

  “They were clubbed to death.”

  She had not expected an answer like that. Maybe she hadn't even expected an answer. She was nauseated by the physical closeness that clubbing meant. The killer's eyes would have looked into the victim's eyes. The person trying to flee would have watched his killer's fingers tighten on the stick. You'd have to pack a lot of muscle into the swing of your club to commit murder. What had the club been made of? The only club Mopsy had ever seen was used in golf. She blundered into the next question. “Was it the same day you got your terrible scar?”

  “His scar is not terrible,” said Mom, who liked to pretend that awful things were just fine fine fine. “Mattu is a very handsome boy.”

  It occurred to Mopsy that marriage to her mom must be annoying. Mom could never allow anything awful just to be awful. Mopsy looked at her father. He was staring down into his cell phone, no more aware of dead people's ashes than Andre was. Mopsy stopped caring about Mattu. What was she going to do about her father?

  “Mattu, you're shivering,” said Mom. “Here. Have a blanket.”

  They all had their own couch blankets, two or three yards of fat cushiony fleece. Dad, who was always hot, and Jared, who was always hotter, never touched their couch blankets, which stayed neatly folded year after year. Mom and Mopsy, on the other hand, had favorites.

  Mattu accepted a huge length of scarlet, which he flung grandly around his shoulders, a tribal prince in royal robes. Alake not only watched him, she actually looked back at the couch blanket pile. Mopsy picked out her personal favorite, a swath of hot pink, and wrapped Alake like a package.

  Alake wore her blanket to the dinner table.

  “No,” said Mom. “You need your hands to eat, Alake, and you're going to eat tonight. I'm sick of you not eating. Give me the blanket.”

  “Hang on, Alake,” said Jared. “I've got this big thick sweatshirt I never wear because I hate it. It's perfectly acceptable for dinner-table wear, and it's just as fleecy on the inside.”

  Mopsy knew what it would be: the mauve Metropolitan Opera sweatshirt Grandma had given him for Christmas. Jared would die before being seen in it. When he came downstairs and tossed it to Alake, Mopsy said, “I don't think it's a good gift if it's something you hate, Jared. I think a good gift has to be something you love.”

  Alake caught the sweatshirt, pulled it over her head and adjusted it around her shoulders.

  “Don't get all philosophical on me, Mopsy,” said Jared. “Alake likes it and it solves the problem. And now when Grandma asks if I love the sweatshirt, I can say yes. I just won't add that I love it on somebody else.”

  It was love.

  Alake loved the softness of the fleece on her skin. She loved the color, sort of like the raspberries that even Mrs. Finch, who would buy anything, refused to buy because they were out of season and too expensive.

  Alake loved how the sleeves hung past her fingers, so that her terrible hands were hidden even from her. In a way, she envied Andre. If her hands were gone, would the murder she had committed with those hands also go away?

  After dinner, Celestine did not return to coupon study. She read a book: the Bible. It was Jared's, actually; the one all kids got in fourth grade, when people figured they could read for real. This Bible was a version called The Message, and it had never crossed Jared's mind to open it. It had been gathering dust on the bookcase near the sofa since fourth grade.

  Dad was still just sitting, now and then rubbing his forehead or eyes.

  Celestine said softly, “It hurts that your friend took from the church.”

  Jared could tell by his posture tha
t Dad simply could not bear to talk about this anymore with anyone.

  “This thief worked at your side,” said Celestine, “pretending to work with you, but in fact, working for himself. The loss of money hurts the church, but the broken trust hurts you.”

  Shock sliced through Jared like a machete. He, Jared, was a thief. He had stolen from Mattu. And broken a trust, because he was only pretending to work with Mattu.

  His mouth was dry.

  I didn't steal anything, he told himself. It was just there, I just looked at it, I just held it up to the light to see what it was. And didn't put it back.

  Emmy Wall had sobbed the very same words. Brady meant to put it back. He didn't mean for anybody to notice, because he was going to put it back.

  Am I going to put my diamond back? Why did I take it, anyway?

  What would Mattu say to Jared when they were alone in the bedroom?

  But that night Mattu fell asleep as usual, his even breathing filling the room. Maybe he hadn't counted the diamonds.

  Maybe they weren't diamonds.

  Around one in the morning, Jared slipped out of bed, crept down the stairs and slid into the kitchen–family room. Shutting the doors so nobody would hear the soft clicking of the keyboard, he turned on Mom's computer, went online and did a search.

  “Diamonds” and “Africa” gave him plenty of hits.

  He found a site about diamonds in South Africa's famous deep mines with their tight security and followed a link to diamonds in West Africa, Mattu's side of the continent.

  Here, diamonds were alluvial, which meant they lay near the surface of the earth, spread by streams and seasonal rains. They were dug up with plain old garden shovels. The “mines” in Sierra Leone were actually fields, and diamonds were the crop.

  Those diamonds paid for, and had started, and were a big reason for the continuation of, Africa's many civil wars. Diamonds bought guns and machetes, jeeps and uniforms, food and drink. Diamonds turned ordinary men into killers. The killing was not part of a plan to change a government or society. It was just killing. The diamond guys liked to shed blood, so their source of income was called blood diamonds. West Africa—Sierra Leone in particular—was the source of most blood diamonds.

  Some sites didn't say “blood diamonds” but “conflict diamonds,” which made the gems sound like the source of mild arguments, whereas blood diamonds implied the slash in Mattu's cheek, and his dead grandparents, ruined sister and handless father.

  One article insisted that in Africa, any government activity required a bribe. The best bribe was solid money rather than paper. That meant gold or silver, or in much of Africa, diamonds.

  Jared had never bribed anybody for anything. He was confident his parents never had. Teachers bribed students all the time, of course—If you're good, you can go to the auditorium for the presentation on diving for underwater treasure, they'd wheedle. But even when you weren't good, you still got to go, because the teacher wanted to go too.

  Okay, so bribes. Maybe the Amabo family had bought their way out of Africa.

  Jared always worried about those boat people from Cuba or Haiti or wherever. They wanted what the Amabos wanted: food on the table and the safety of walls. They were willing to do what Celestine was willing to do: anything. Willing to do what Mattu was: go to school, study hard.

  Jared just could not reconcile the behavior of the Amabos with blood diamonds.

  I've been watching too many movies, he thought. The family says these are ashes, so that's what they are.

  He tried a few more sites, looking for specific information about West Africa. He was reading the very paragraph he'd been hunting for when somebody breathed next to him. Jared practically had a heart attack. But it was only Mopsy. “What are you sneaking up on me for?” he demanded in a whisper.

  “I want to talk,” she whispered back. “What are you doing?”

  “Studying up on Sierra Leone and Liberia and all.”

  He expected Mopsy to say, I might believe you'd be up in the middle of the night checking baseball statistics, but you're Jared; you're not down here studying scary little countries in Africa. Instead, Mopsy nodded. “Because Andre and Celestine and Mattu and Alake are not a father and mother, a son and a daughter.”

  His bouncy little sister, who was not known for thinking at all, had come to the same conclusion he had, when their mom and dad hadn't. “I agree. I don't think these four people are related.”

  “I think Celestine and Andre go together,” said Mopsy. “Think about what Celestine has to do for Andre in private. Would you do that for some stranger? Now tell me what you found out online.”

  Jared pointed to the screen. “West Africans don't usually cremate people.”

  Mopsy nodded. “Did you look in those boxes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stuff glows.”

  “I saw.” He reached into his pocket. The stone had a silky feel. “I took one,” he told his sister. He could not believe that of all the people he knew, he trusted her. “I think they're raw diamonds.”

  “Take it to a jewelry store and ask,” said Mopsy.

  THE AFRICANS WERE UP AT dawn to see what snow was like. Eight inches had fallen. Andre waded in it, poking the stubs of his arms down into the snow and flinging the white stuff around. What was it like, Mopsy wondered, to feel things without fingers?

  Mom dragged out a big cardboard box of mittens and scarves and a huge clear plastic container of boots. Everybody gathered around to examine this unfamiliar gear.

  “Oh, look!” said Mopsy happily. “My baby mittens.” They were attached by a long crocheted cord, which threaded down her sleeves and over her shoulders so she wouldn't lose them. “Usually,” Mopsy explained to the Amabos, “that's for little kids.”

  “Or me,” said Andre eagerly.

  Celestine and Mom took an old pair of Dad's gloves, made a hole in the leather of each with an awl, strung a cord through and looped the cord over Andre's shoulders. When Celestine helped him into Dad's old winter jacket, gloved hands appeared at the bottom of the sleeves.

  The snow was heavy and wet—perfect for snowmen. Jared and Mopsy and Mattu rolled a ball until it was so large they couldn't move it any farther. They made the second snowball, packed it hard and carefully lifted it on top of the base. The third, smallest ball took only a moment. Mom handed out celery, a carrot and prunes, which became green hands, orange nose and wrinkled eyes, and a scarf Dad hated anyway and would be happy to find ruined.

  The Amabos gazed upon this snowman with more than their usual fascination and puzzlement.

  “Is it part of your religion? asked Mattu.

  While the others were making a second snowman, Jared went inside for breakfast. It was a school day, although doing so much so early in the morning made it feel weekendish. There sat Alake in the yellow and cream living room, lost among the sofas, not even looking out the windows at the snow.

  Jared felt a strange rage. He grabbed an old ski jacket of his own—so weird dressing a girl his age—and pushed her out the door. She didn't join the others. Nor did they call to her.

  Jared escorted his mother inside. “How long are you going to let this go on?” he snapped.

  “Let what go on?”

  “There's something so wrong with this family. And with you too, Mom. You're lavishing all this care on Mattu and Celestine and Andre but you're pretending Alake isn't alive, just like her own mother and father do. Celestine and Andre figure Alake is dead in heart, and if just they wait long enough, she'll die in body too.”

  “That's disgusting,” said his mother. “Don't you be negative and unchristian to Celestine and Andre, who are doing their very, very, very best. I believe that with love and comfort and counseling, Alake will be herself again one day.”

  “And have you seen Celestine and Andre offer any love or comfort to Alake?”

  But the back door opened and in came Celestine, Andre and Mattu, and they were all carrying snowballs and had not kicked t
he snow off their boots and Mom rushed forward with a new set of important American rules. She did not notice that all three steered around Alake.

  Celestine made waffles (she was in love with the waffle maker) and heated up the syrup (she was in love with the microwave) and fried the bacon (she was way better than Jared at flipping the package over to check the little bacon window for fat). She had discovered place mats, folded napkins and candles. It was a very heavily decorated breakfast table.

  Dad hated this kind of thing. He liked breakfast without adornment. Just put a piece of toast in my hand and let me run to my car, was his motto. Where was Dad, anyway? He couldn't have gotten up any earlier than Andre. Was he hanging out in his room, waiting for people to leave?

  Jared texted his father. miss u where r u?

  “Eat fast,” said Celestine. “You have to catch your bus.”

  “I can't eat fast,” said Mopsy. “I don't know how. I'm a slow eater.” Carefully she buttered her waffle so the exact right amount of butter melted in each little square.

  Celestine and Mom heaved identical sighs.

  How strange was the structure of this new family of eight: Celestine adored and wanted to be just like Mom, while Mom loved molding Celestine in her image. The two of them were surging forward. Andre, as if attached by his mitten cords, was not lost and floating but learning everything, poised on the edge of a life in which he too could participate; a life with hands.

  Maybe it was Dad who was lost and floating.

  Dad answered the text message immediately. Left early.

  I'll say, thought Jared. He read the rest of the message. Hold the fort i lv u.

  Jared poured syrup on his waffle. A minute earlier, he'd been ready to tell Dad about the diamonds. But the message troubled him. Maybe what Jared needed to do was empty the fort instead of holding it. Drew Finch had to earn a living and support everybody and their hobbies. He was required to save the church, the world, a man without hands and a girl without speech. Did he really need to worry about smuggled blood diamonds as well?