Diamonds in the Shadow (4 page)

And a refugee camp would hardly feature a modern facility. They probably cooked the grandparents' bodies over an open fire, thought George, cringing. He imagined this poor brave kid collecting the ashes.

The techs opened each box and peeked in. One stuck his gloved hand down into the ashes and felt around, but the other glared at him. “Enough already!” he said, closing the boxes and handing them to Mattu, who held them with his elbows out so nobody could bump his precious burden.

But the episode was not over. The guards were now bothered by Mr. Amabo, whose attitude and posture were peculiar. “You walk through, too, sir. Take off your jacket first.”

Mrs. Amabo interfered. “He keeps his jacket on,” she said firmly.

“Sorry, ma'am. It has to come off.”

“I'll get it,” said George quickly.

“No, you stay where you are,” said the guard. He frowned. The father's sleeves were safety-pinned to the pockets.

Mrs. Amabo said quietly, “His hands were cut off by the enemy.”

George Neville gasped. He had not known about this disability.
He was amazed that the Refugee Aid Society had accepted Mr. Amabo. In their program, the adults had to be able to work—they couldn't show up in America just to go on welfare. The sponsors—a church in Connecticut—would have a job lined up for Mr. Amabo, and the job would require hands because every job required hands.

This guy was going to have serious medical bills. The Society would never take on such an expensive person. And if they did, they'd let the sponsor know, because sponsors had the right to refuse a refugee—if, say, they wanted a family with kids, and found they were getting four unrelated single men in their teens.

No wonder the wife's hurrying, thought George. She's scared I'll send them back.

The guard unzipped Mr. Amabo's jacket and gently removed it. Underneath, the husband wore a short-sleeved African print shirt, pressed and buttoned. One arm stopped just below the elbow and the other just above the wrist. The stubs had healed into rippled red scar tissue. They were horrifying to look at.

Mr. and Mrs. Amabo went by turns through the X-ray. The guard handed the sweat jacket to the wife, who put it back on her husband, neatly tucking the sleeves into the pockets and fastening the safety pins. The daughter, in the way of embarrassed teenagers everywhere, pretended this was not happening. Staring at the floor, she remained motionless until George gave her a tiny push to get her to walk through the X-ray.

This family really worried George.

Almost anybody in a displaced persons camp could meet the first condition of being declared a refugee: if they went home again,
they'd be persecuted—which in Africa usually meant slaughtered. But to resettle permanently in the United States, refugees had to be able to thrive. George saw little indication that these people could thrive. And in this situation the refugee family was not going to be housed in a separate apartment. These guys were actually going to live in the home of their sponsor—which meant
two
families had to thrive, because American sponsors did best when they became friends with their families. The Amabos did not have an ounce of cheer or energy, the two attributes that counted with Americans. Out of all the thousands of refugee families desperate to be saved, how had these four gotten seats on a plane?

Bribery, he supposed. A way of life in Africa.

George understood. If his kids were trapped in war and famine, and he had a chance to get them out, he'd pay anybody anything.

George had never sent a refugee back. He didn't want to start now. He had a queasy moment of post-9/11 rage at immigration officers who had let nineteen killers into the country. But the Amabos weren't dangerous. They were defeated.

Wasn't that what America was about? Giving people a chance to recover? And perhaps George was being unfair to the silent, sluggish girl; perhaps she was actually behaving well, having been raised in a world where speech and action belonged to her elders.

At last the X-ray detour was over. The guards seemed a little embarrassed to have raised so much commotion over the ashes of grandparents. They escorted the Amabos and George back to Passport Control.

Mr. Amabo's eyes ceaselessly scoured the hundreds of people inching forward in the long lines. He and his wife were visibly afraid. It was George's job to comfort them, and he had failed.

The fifth refugee was the last passenger off the plane. His eyes raked the crowd. The other four refugees were nowhere to be seen. It had never occurred to him that they might get separated. Disbelief turned to rage.

The fifth refugee could read but had not used this skill in years. He did not glance at some woman holding a sign until the woman actually dared pluck at his sleeve. “Are you Victor?” she said, beaming. “I'm here to escort you to your next flight.”

He stared at her. “I do not take another plane. I stay here. New York City.”

“No. According to your paperwork, you're headed for Texas.”

The woman actually took his arm. He could not imagine a situation where he would allow a woman to lead. He shook her off. “I go with the Amabo family who got off this plane ahead of me,” he said, raising his voice to make her understand.

The vast space was suddenly less full of passengers and more full of men and women in uniform, standing in the bored but grim way of soldiers. They began drifting toward him and he had visions of being turned back to Africa. He of all people could never go back.

The woman walked Victor to another gate. One of the soldiers ambled along next to him. Victor could easily overpower
one man, and take his weapon, but there were other soldiers all around. And he did not know this building, or how to get out of it, or the landscape around it. Most important of all, he did not know where the Amabo family was.

The fury that always seethed inside Victor increased. He yearned to wrap his hands around the woman's throat or around the barrel of that gun.

This could not be happening.

They could not be forcing him to leave New York. He had to be here!

But neither could he attract more attention.

Victor was helpless, a thing that had not happened to him in many years.

People would pay for this.

At the final check, Mrs. Amabo held out a fat packet of refugee paperwork. Immigration went through each page. Photographs were studied. Questions were asked.

Mr. Amabo said nothing. The girl said nothing. The boy clutched his ashes.

George said a silent prayer for the Finch family. They were going to need all the help they could get.

The immigration officer straightened up the papers and slid them back into their envelope. Then he smiled at Mrs. Amabo. “Welcome to America.”

T
HINGS WENT WRONG FROM THE
start.

Jared's mother routinely took hundreds of photographs, which she e-mailed to everybody whether they cared about the Finch family or not. She loved to chronicle her children's lives. Jared figured half the reason Mom wanted to host a refugee family was to start a new scrapbook, plus flood the church Web site with a million photos.

The four Africans had assembled on the sidewalk on the departure level. They stood with their backs to each other, wild creatures keeping watch in every direction. They were so fearful that their eyes flared open, as if they were gazelles scenting a predator.

I'm comparing these people to animals, thought Jared.

The mother was statuesque in her colorful wrappings, while the father was bent and cringing in a faded sweatshirt. There
was
a son—Jared's age, lanky and athletic, with extraordinarily black skin. The daughter, much lighter in complexion, was deathly thin, her hair wild as jungle vines.

Mom lifted her digital camera.

The African mother raised her hands in the universal gesture for “No!” and repositioned her family until they were too far
apart to be in one shot. “No photographs,” she ordered. Her accent was thick and soupy; and if she had not been pointing at the camera, Jared would not have figured out the word “photographs.”

“It's for the scrapbook!” cried Jared's mother, speaking clearly so they would grasp the importance of her hobby.

Jared wanted to fall through the sidewalk. Like Africans cared whether Kara Finch kept a scrapbook. These people had been trying to stay alive, not position photos on a page.

“Great,” whispered his dad. “We haven't even said hello yet and we've already tripped over some tribal taboo.”

Maybe a hundred years earlier. Even twenty. But in the television, Internet, digital-camera era? Jared doubted it.

His mom flushed and dropped the camera into her purse.

The African mother was equally embarrassed. She bowed slightly, and then they all bowed, as if it were suddenly 1800 and the Finches were used to bowing. Mom recovered. Throwing her arms around this large, impressive African woman, Jared's mother said, “I'm sorry about the camera. I'm Kara Finch and you're part of our family now. You'll be living with us. Welcome to America.”

The woman was shocked. “Living with you?”

“I know you expected your own apartment, but that didn't work out after all. We'll have lots of adjustments to make,” said Jared's mother happily, because she loved adjusting, whereas everybody else hated it and wanted everything to stay the same. “I know we'll be best best friends.”

The Africans were stunned by this conviction.

So was Jared.

“Thank you,” said the African mother dubiously. “I am… Celestine Amabo, and I am happy to be in your country.” She did not look happy. She was breathing fast and shivering.

Dad, meanwhile, was trying to shake hands with the father, but the man kept bowing instead. “I am Andre,” he said. “I thank you because you take us in. God be with you.”

My turn, thought Jared, who totally did not want a turn. He faced his future roommate. “I'm Jared,” he said reluctantly.

The boy was taller than Jared, willowy and hard, like men who win marathons. Handsome. Hair trimmed so short it was hardly there. He held two containers that didn't look as strong as cereal boxes.

“I am Mattu,” said the boy. He hardly glanced at Jared, his gaze still swinging in all directions. How could he have such huge eyes? Wasn't eye size pretty regular among human beings?

“If he's Mattu,” Mopsy cried, “then you're Alake! Am I saying it right? A lake? Is that who you are? I'm Mopsy! You're going to share my bedroom! We'll have the best time. I love sleepovers. We've got all new sheets and blankets for you!”

The African girl didn't even see Mopsy, let alone hear her—a skill Jared would have loved to possess. He had the awful thought that the girl was blind.

Dad's hand still hung in the air. He was staring at Andre's sleeves. The wind flattened them.

“He has no hands,” said the mother softly. “The rebels chopped them off.”

That little detail had not shown up in the grainy, above-the-shoulders
black-and-white photo. Since they'd had no idea what skills, if any, the adults would have, Jared's dad had gone ahead and found work for Andre at the Quick Lube, vacuuming cars, on the theory that anybody could manage that.