Diamonds in the Shadow (24 page)

Jared listened to his mother and Mrs. Wall.

He had had a sort of argument with Tay in school while they were waiting for their respective Africans to finish up at the guidance office. “I don't see you guys in church anymore,” he had said casually, because he would have loved to see her every day of the week.

“We don't go anymore. My parents are furious about that theft. They gave their hard-earned money to the church and what happens? A deacon steals it. Church is supposed to improve people, but it obviously doesn't.”

Jared was not sure that self-improvement was the purpose of church. But he said, “My parents are furious too.”

“People who go to church are such hypocrites,” said Tay. “They dress up in their fine clothes and carry their matching handbags and plump down in some pew and sign up for committees and pretend to be religious, but really they just want the attention.”

Jared had often laughed at his mother's need for handbags that matched all her outfits. And of course she loved attention. Who didn't?

But she signs up for committees hoping to do good in the world, he thought. She believes that's what God expects of her. She believes.

“But nobody believes any of that stuff anyway, not for real,” said Tay.

My mother does. Andre. Celestine. Maybe Dad. I'm not sure about Dad. He's so shaken. And me? What about me?

“Don't pack for Wisconsin yet,” insisted Mrs. Finch. “Come to church Sunday.”

“Impossible,” said Emmy Wall.

“Possible,” said Kara Finch.

That is the difference, thought Alake. In Africa, everything is impossible. But in America, everything is possible.

T
HE PUPPY HAD A SOFTENING
effect on everybody. Even Dad kept saying to Alake, “Talk to your puppy. Jopsy has to get to know your voice.” Jared thought the puppy might do a better job of keeping Dad home than his wife and children were doing.

Alake looked ready to talk. But she couldn't quite get there.

“Jopsy has to learn to sit, stay and heel,” Dad told her. “But above all, he has to learn not to beg. You feed Jopsy one more time from the dinner table and you're both sleeping in the garage.” But he was smiling when he said this. And it seemed to Jared that a smile trembled on Alake's lips too—that she was ready to be happy.

When the doorbell rang, for once the Amabos did not act as if someone had thrown a grenade. But it was Kirk Crick, and he had in fact come with a grenade.

“I've found an apartment,” he said briskly. “It's in Norwich. Forty-five-minute drive northeast of here. Nice and cheap, because Norwich is a depressed little city. The apartment's not very big and it's not very clean, but we can get volunteers to help scrub and furnish it. The high school, the Norwich Free Academy, is
excellent. There's another Super Stop and Shop there, Celestine, and I've already called the managers and they're happy to switch you to that location. Mattu, I can't do anything about your new part-time job, but you can hunt for another one. The important thing is, Mattu will have his driver's license soon. With the donated car, the Amabos have their own transportation, and that will give them real freedom. The current tenants are moving out today, and we can get you in there by the middle of next week.”

Celestine glowed. Her jaw was set at a determined angle and she sat straighter.

Andre lifted sparkling eyes. His lips moved as he thanked the Lord.

It occurred to Jared for the first time that a refugee must hate being a refugee.

Who wants to be on the receiving end of charity? Nobody. And in their own home, no matter how sad the city or how shabby the space, the Amabo family would not be refugees.

“They're not ready!” cried Mopsy.

“It's like learning to swim,” said Kirk Crick gently. “If somebody always holds you up, you never learn. But once you're in over your head, you start paddling.”

“Or drown,” said Mopsy.

Kirk Crick smiled at Celestine and Andre. “They won't drown.”

Jared knew he was right. Celestine was as driven to pull off her new life as any high school honor student was to get into a
great college. Mattu would absorb knowledge in any school. Andre would get his hands and swim with the best of them. As for Alake, she would be lost with or without Mopsy.

Their own apartment. Where they would build their new lives. A new high school, with the lovely name Free. Where they would be free of everything, including the past and the Finches and their overwhelming kindness.

Kirk Crick explained how to register the donated car.

I am the only driver, thought Mattu.

He, Mattu, was crucial to the family's survival.
He
would fill that car with gas and groceries;
he
would take Celestine to her job and pick her up afterward;
he
would drive Andre to his job, when Andre got hands. And Mattu would get an after-school job in this new town and bring in money.

They would not, however, be free from the threat of the fifth refugee.

We won't get a regular telephone, Mattu decided. A phone means a public listing. A street address in print and online. I'll have a cell phone instead, and that way nobody can find us.

The instant he thought of that, another solution sprang to Mattu's mind. He knew what to do about the diamonds.

Mopsy was the only one of the eight members of this temporary family who wasn't ready. “Norwich is too far away for us to help easily. Alake still needs us.”

Kirk Crick brushed this away. “Every school system in the state has a special-ed program. A counselor will deal with Alake. Which reminds me. The apartment building doesn't allow pets.”

Alake had never come across the concept of a pet. She would never have believed that grocery stores had an entire aisle for pet food. Now that she had a pet of her own, she could not believe that in this country where people would do anything for you, she could not keep her pet.

Kirk Crick said he would telephone Tay and tell her to come get the puppy.

Life was sweeping forward like a broom, and Alake was rubbish.

She would be rubbish in the Amabo family too. They had been brought together to carry Victor's diamonds. Victor had bought and threatened and killed his way through the veil that tried—and sometimes failed—to protect America from the wrong kind of person.

They didn't call them blood diamonds anymore, because the West was squeamish and didn't like to hear about bloodshed. Americans liked to pretend that bad things weren't really happening. They called them conflict diamonds—as if after a brief argument, shiny stones changed hands. But in Victor's case, Alake thought, these were blood diamonds. And nothing
changed
hands. The hands were cut off.

In a camp with thousands of possible fake daughters, why had Victor chosen Alake
?

No doubt because he had once given her an order and she had obeyed. He might need her obedience again. She remembered Victor forcing Mattu to kiss the edge of his machete. Obey me, Victor explained, or end up handless like Andre. People always obeyed Victor.

“Find a different apartment,” said Mopsy to Kirk Crick. “Alake loves Jopsy. She needs Jopsy.”

“Compared to what they went through, losing a puppy is nothing.”

“This is America,” said Mopsy. “You get to keep your puppy. That's the point. That's why they came here.”

“Puppies are not on the list of reasons to come to America. And the Amabos don't have enough income even for this rundown apartment. They'll have to be subsidized. Once Mattu gets an after-school job and Andre is employed, they'll make it. But they sure won't be buying dog food.”

Mattu was not quick with Internet research the way Jared was. It took hours for him to come up with four possible phone numbers. At school, he lied to Mrs. Dowling and pretended he was expected at the guidance office. But Celestine had given him ten dollars in quarters for the pay phones outside the boys' locker room. Jared and Mopsy always checked the caller ID on their
phones to find out who was calling before they said anything. If people in Texas had caller ID, they would not know it was Mattu calling and they could not make any connection with a family named Finch.

The first refugee agency Mattu called in Texas listened to his request. But they did not have a refugee named Victor among their current clients. The second agency had no one named Victor. But the third number was answered by somebody who said, “We can do that for you, but wait. First the—”

Mattu hung up. He was sweating with the horror of being a telephone line away from Victor. Even though he'd looked up Texas on a map and used Mr. Finch's ruler to multiply the scale and figure out the number of miles between him and Victor— almost two thousand, which seemed like enough—he was talking to a person who had talked to Victor.

It took hours to calm down.

Then he reexamined his plan.

It was still brilliant.