Diamonds in the Shadow

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Oh, God! Open my life, that I may be part of this!

  “Silently now I wait for thee,” said the hymn.

  Not that, Lord. I don't want to be silent. I want to talk.

  The room seemed full of answers. If Alake just dared to stretch her fingers, she could catch hold of a word—two words— even an answer.

  But people in this church did not stretch or leap or dance or cry out.

  They sat quietly.

  Sunday afternoon, the entire Finch family seemed exhausted. Mr. Finch napped in front of the television. Mopsy fell asleep leaning against her father. Jared fell asleep playing a video game. Mrs. Finch dozed over her knitting.

  Alake felt brave. All by herself she would go to the bedroom she shared with Mopsy. Americans believed you could start over. Americans believed that even someone like Alake could be a new person with a new future. She would look into that mirror and see if there were any traces of what she had prayed for: her new self, cleansed of all that had come before.

  Alake walked slowly up the stairs. She dared pray to that God, the one who forgave.

  But down the hall from the other direction came Andre. Andre had never looked at her, and he didn't look at her now. He knew who she was; they had all known, at that camp.

  She was someone not worth speaking to, not worth looking at. Someone who had killed.

  If Alake had ever had a message from God, this was it.

  You cannot escape what you did, God said to her. Africa is in this house with you. See what Victor's soldiers did to Andre's hands? It cannot be undone.

  You cannot be forgiven.

  The librarians came through for Victor. They found the information he needed. They were happy about it. So was Victor. Where, he asked them, was this place called Prospect Hill?

  They printed a map. They printed driving instructions.

  “Is it as far as New York City?”

  “Farther. It's past New York. Maybe a hundred and fifty miles north.”

  Victor took his maps and left. Driving required a car. Victor went out on the streets to get one.

  The snow melted and then froze again that night, coating the roads with ice. Trucks threw brown sand in a lacy pattern, but the hill was still treacherous.

  Icy weather was a signal to Mom that cookies must be baked. Jared thought this was a nice habit in a person. He stole a little dough while Mom was showing Celestine the cookie cutter selection.

  Dad was giving Andre and Mattu a map-reading lesson. The Amabos didn't come from a world with enough paved roads to bother with maps. Maps were difficult. Andre was struggling to figure out which little lines on the local map were the ones on which he'd ridden his bike.

  “And these?” Celestine asked Mom.

  “Easter shapes,” Mom explained. “That's a bunny and that's an egg.”

  “How do you celebrate Easter in Africa, Celestine?” Jared asked, guessing that Africa had a real shortage of Peeps candy chicks and plastic grass.

  Celestine slid her first batch of cookies into the oven. To Jared's amazement, she actually answered a question about her past. “Last Easter, in the refugee camp, when many children had died of diarrhea, there was such sorrow. But we were joyful that Easter was coming.”

  “Excuse me?” said Jared. “How could you feel joyful when babies were dying?”

  “Because Christ is risen and he is with us in our suffering. On Easter morning, I was at peace over the death of my daughter.”

  Mopsy stopped reading.

  Dad stopped looking at the map.

  Mom stopped rolling out dough.

  “We had another daughter,” explained Andre softly. “She is in heaven. We do not talk about her.”

  So Alake was just a throwaway kid—the daughter who had survived. Her parents resented her for being alive. There was no rescue from that.

  Victor returned to the little apartment to get the various things he had acquired. Some of those were weapons.

  The refugee supervisor was waiting at Victor's apartment for Victor to appear. “You made promises when you were accepted for refugee status,” he said to Victor. And then he made a fatal error. “You promised to work and to hold a job. If you are not at work tomorrow, I will have to call Immigration about you.”

  Celestine and Mattu stood with their backs pressed against the garage, as if they expected to be shot. “Oh, my God!” Dad kept yelling.

  Jared's father never swore. Jared couldn't imagine what had happened.

  Dad was so mad he was panting. “Driving back and forth on our driveway is not enough practice for you to take the car, drive across town and get on the highway! You have to have a license, Mattu! What made you go to Stop and Shop anyway? We couldn't fit another Cheerio in this house. And you can't just take my car! Did you hit anything?” he shouted, clearly envisioning streets full of dead toddlers, smashed cats and dented school buses.

  Mattu and Celestine exchanged horrified looks.

  They had hit something.

  Please don't let it be anything formerly alive, thought Jared.

  “A grocery cart,” whispered Mattu. “When we drove away. It was just there. In the middle of where you park the car. It stuck to us. I couldn't get rid of it. Finally it rolled off.”

  Jared began laughing hysterically.

  “I wanted to work at that grocery store instead of the motel,” said Celestine desperately. “I telephoned for a job interview, just the way it said to do in our manual.”

  “This is fabulous, Daddy,” said Mopsy. “Taking the initiative and testing abilities and exploring unknown territory. It's like a checklist for life. Did you get the job, Celestine?”

  “I start Monday,” she whispered.

  “Congratulations!” shrieked Mopsy. “I'm so happy for you! Even though I would rather be dead than a checkout clerk.”

  “I'm a stock person. I'll put things on shelves. Things to eat.”

  Mopsy flung her arms around Celestine and they kissed and hugged. Dad pulled himself together and patted her shoulder. Then he informed Mattu that driving lessons were over.

  “I, on the other hand,” said Jared, “am mature in comparison, and ought to be the one taking driving lessons.”

  “Good plan,” said Dad. “The way I'm feeling now, any time I can drive away from here is a good time.”

  “But right now,” said Mom, “it's dinnertime. My schedule always trumps your schedule.”

  “So true,” said Dad glumly.

  Everybody paraded into the kitchen, which is always a family's favorite room and which in this household was really and truly the favorite because that was where all the food was.

  Jared was the last to leave the frigid garage and the only one who saw Alake. She had not been part of the action or part of the result. Nobody had hugged her or even thought of hugging her. Maybe hugs were more crucial than food. But Jared couldn't hug her either. “You okay, Alake?”

  It was a stupid question.

  But she did not treat it stupidly. She looked at Jared with real eyes—the eyes of a person. Sad eyes.

  They were home alone, Alake and Mopsy.

  Mopsy had a plan. She always had a plan for Alake. She had dragged out another old picture book and was reading aloud to Alake, poking her finger at each word. Inside her fleece blanket, Alake was shivering with pride. She could read every one of those words by herself. Everything she had learned in Africa, before life went wrong, had come back into her mind. She could read!

  Mopsy turned the page. There was a picnic under a tree, and there were happy children with wide curved smiles. Alake had a sudden beautiful memory, untainted by blood and evil: her family, smiling, under a tree.

  An ugly rasping sound came from outdoors. Like a motorcycle, but rougher. Alake stiffened.

  “It's not our car,” said Mopsy. “It's somebody who needs a new muffler and probably everything else.” She ran to look out the window. “It's all rusted out and beat up,” she reported to Alake. “And old. Longer and flatte
r than cars are now. Plus an ugly color. Who would drive that thing?”

  Alake stood up. Her couch blanket fell to the floor.

  She followed Mopsy into the front room, keeping her back against the interior walls and making sure she was not visible from the windows. She rushed to the drapes and looked carefully through the crack. She gave a little moan of horror and then sprang into the front hall before Mopsy could. Every night Celestine double-checked the front door to be sure that the upper knob, which moved a fat metal bolt into the frame, was turned in the right direction. The safe direction.

  It wasn't turned. The door was unlocked.

  Alake shoved the dead bolt home.

  Mopsy was sick of being patient with Alake. “It's okay,” she said. The pointless anxiety was driving her crazy.

  The doorbell rang.

  Alake fled upstairs. Mopsy could tell from the sounds that Alake had gone not only into the bedroom, but into the closet.

  Mopsy opened the door for the stranger.

  Mopsy loved strangers. They were so much more interesting than people you already knew. Uncovering the details of other people's lives was Mopsy's specialty. In fact, now that she thought about it, probably being a talk show hostess was her best future.

  “Hi,” said Mopsy, smiling. “Are you here about the Amabos?”

  JARED AND MATTU WERE ON the late bus. Jared was sleepy in the overheated bus.

  Mattu asked suddenly, “What do you think it means in church when they say your sins are forgiven?”

  “It's a crock,” said Jared, not bothering to open his eyes. “I don't believe there's such a thing as sin anyway. Just look at television. You can do anything you want with anybody you want for any reason you want and what happens? Nothing. There are crimes, and sometimes people go to jail for them, but not always. I bet Brady Wall gets off.”

  “But if they chop off your hands, have they not committed a sin?”

  All these Africans had to do was utter one sentence and all Jared's thoughts were flung into turmoil. Yes. There were still sins. And chopping off somebody's hands was one of them.

  Mattu said in a low, intense voice, “Could you be forgiven for chopping off somebody's hands?”

  Jared wanted to leap off the bus and walk home. Had Mattu chopped somebody's hands off? Andre's, for example? No wonder these people didn't talk to each other.

  “Would Jesus forgive?” Mattu pressed.

  This was so not Jared's thing. “Ask my parents.” He felt queerly out of breath. Panicky.

  “It is your thought I wish to hear.”

  “I don't see how even Jesus could forgive somebody who chopped off somebody else's hands. It would be like forgiving the Holocaust.”

  “What is the Holocaust?” Mattu asked.

  Jared was always startled at how little Mattu knew of the West. But why did Jared have to be the person to explain? One good thing. Jared had learned that he was not destined to be a teacher. One future career down, a thousand choices to go. “This nightmare that happened in Germany in the 1940s. The bad guys penned up several million Jews and slaughtered them. It's called the Holocaust.”

  Mattu nodded. “We have those in Africa. I have been in one.”

  George Neville had been so tense at Kennedy Airport as the Finches left with the Amabos that he had hardly even noticed the little Finch girl. He was pleased that she had recognized him, although how hard could it be, since he was probably the only black person she'd ever met before the Amabos got here?

  Mopsy brought him a plate of sugar cookies, gleaming with pink and white icing. The cookies were delicious.

  “Celestine made them,” the little girl told him. “There is absolutely not one thing that Celestine can't do. She got herself a new job too. On her own. She's amazing. And Mattu just found out that a boy at high school—Ian—has an after-school job. Mattu didn't know there was such a thing. He went to work with Ian yesterday, and they can take Mattu on too, and he starts next week.”

  This was excellent news. George had been worried about this African family, and even more worried about their American hosts. It hadn't been extra work but a relief when Kirk Crick had called and asked if George could make the weekly visit this time. “How is Mr. Amabo doing?” he asked, remembering the sad, cringing father in the stretched-out sweatshirt and the sight of those naked arm stubs.

  “Super. He and Mom have gone for the final visit to the surgeon before the first operation. You would not believe how fast everything has come together. I was worried because I thought he was going to get hooks, but they'll tackle the one cut off closer to the wrist first, and if it works, it's going to be an actual hand. Would you like to see photographs of the technology?”

  “I'll pass, thank you. And how's the daughter?”

  “Alake's upstairs. I'll run and get her. She has the most fabulous new hairstyle. I cut her hair. I did an awesome job, if I do say so myself. Although my mother had to clip a little bit more on one side where I got it lopsided. Alake's going to high school with Jared now, and her escort is Tay, so everybody is jealous, because who wouldn't want Tay walking around with you?” Mopsy headed for the stairs.

  Through the front door came Mattu and Jared, shaking off snow and laughing. “Hey, Mr. Neville!” cried Mattu. “Great to see you again!”

  Upstairs, Mopsy said severely, “Stop hiding from people. People are nice. He's your refugee guy. He isn't going to deport you or something. Is that what you thought, when you recognized him?”

  Nothing was going to make Alake head downstairs while Mr. Neville was here. Which was just as well. No need for him to find out that Alake was still silent.

  Mopsy thought up some really good lies to tell Mr. Neville about why Alake wasn't trotting down to show off her new hairstyle, but it turned out not to be necessary, because just then Celestine was dropped off by her church volunteer driver, and Mopsy knew, because it happened with everybody, that even Mr. Neville would not think of Alake again.

  Mopsy flung herself onto her bed and caught sight of her computer screen on the way down. “I know what let's do. Now that you're in high school, Alake, I never see you, and I never know what you're doing. I'm going to show you one more time how to send e-mails, and then you're going to write to me and that's that, Alake. I can totally tell you can read now, because out of the corner of my eye I was watching your eyes move from word to word when we were looking at that book. And the real bonus is, you still don't have to talk. E-mail is perfect for you.” Mopsy shoved Alake onto the desk chair and propped her hands on the keyboard.

  Alake studied her fingers as if they were objects on a shelf.

  “Type!” shrieked Mopsy. “Or I'm going to start kicking you. Communicate with me!”

  A tiny smile seemed to quirk the corners of Alake's lips. She lifted her hands. Curling her fingers just as Mopsy did, she began to tap letters. One by one, letters appeared on the screen.

  Mopsy caught her breath. Okay, God, this is the time. Show Alake she's a real person, and make her figure out that real people talk to other people.

  But the letters on the screen were random.

  They did not form words.

  deerjopsyeilovyouo

  Alake was not trying to communicate. She was just tapping.

  Mopsy told herself that they were making progress; at least Alake's hands weren't lying in her lap like stuffed animals. And typing was new to Alake—this was her very first keyboard moment. Mopsy should not have such high expectations. Still, it was depressing. Quinnie said Alake couldn't do anything. Mopsy had been hoping she could saunter into school and say “Alake can so do anything.”

  Alake's posture was strange. In fact, Alake seemed to be the one holding her breath. She looked at Mopsy, and she seemed to want something. What?

  Mopsy looked at the letters again. deerjopsyeilovyouo

  Dear Jopsy.

  I love you.

  Mopsy began to cry. “No, don't change the ‘J' to an ‘M.' It's perfect the way it is. You were ju
st up one row when you aimed at ‘M.' I love my new name. Now what we're going to do is, we're going to forward your first-ever message to Quinnie so she knows you've named me Jopsy.”

  On the screen, Mopsy opened her address book. She clicked Quinnie's name. The message space appeared. Mopsy typed standing up, her arms in Alake's face. Here's Alake's first e-mail. Isn't this great? I'm still Martha to you, but I'm Jopsy to Alake. Write back immediately so Alake gets into e-mail and does it all the time.

  Alake elbowed Mopsy away from the keyboard.

  This was the best thing to happen in weeks! Mopsy thought. This was true communication. This was how sisters behaved. They shoved.

  Mopsy was totally happy until Alake deleted the name Quinnie and painstakingly typed in Tay.

  Even though Mopsy adored Tay and wanted to be just like her when she grew up (assuming she ever did; all bets seemed to be against it), she didn't want Tay to be the important person in Alake's life. Mopsy wanted to matter most. She sighed but called Jared on her cell phone to demand Tay's e-mail address. “Stop lying, Jared. You do so have it. You just don't want to share with me. I know Tay texts you during the day to let you know how it's going.”

  Jared sighed so loudly you could hear him ten telephones away. Then he dictated Tay's address and Mopsy typed it in.

  The body of the refugee supervisor was discovered in a parking lot. His hands had been cut off. The amputations, said the coroner, had occurred before the man died.

  The murder made the news in Texas.

  But not in Connecticut.

  Mr. Neville was long gone, and Jared and Mattu and Alake were downstairs watching television when at last there was a message on Mopsy's e-mail. “Alake!” she screamed. “Get up here! Tay answered! It's addressed to you, so you have to read it!”

  Alake went up the stairs like a shot, like a real person who really and truly wanted to say real things. She tiptoed into Mopsy's room. She seated herself carefully in front of the computer. She straightened her clothes.