Diamonds in the Shadow (7 page)

The Africans pressed up against the far windows as if the minister were spreading disease.

“No cameras, Pete,” said Dad. “I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what.”

Dr. Nickerson looked as if he had been slugged. His smile vanished and his face grew lined.

Mopsy had forgotten. This very same TV station and both of the local newspapers had gleefully covered Brady Wall's theft. They did not tire of stating that in organized religion, either priests were out there touching little boys or deacons were out there stealing donations. Poor Dr. Nickerson. This would have been some much-needed good publicity.

The minister trudged back toward the crowd, telling them
that film was offensive to the religious and tribal habits of their new guests and that sensitive people would back off.

Nobody with a camera
is
sensitive, but everybody wants to
think
they're sensitive, so finally, the TV people gave up and went away. Even Mrs. Lane left, and she did not easily go along with anything.

The Amabos sat in the van, hands—or in Andre's case, sleeves—over their faces.

Except Alake, who had not noticed.

On the plane to Texas, a passenger asked to be reseated. He did not make eye contact with the fifth refugee when he moved. He considered alerting the flight attendant that there was something wrong with the man in 23B. He decided this would only delay the flight.

Step one, said Mom, was the bathroom. She would take Celestine and Andre to theirs, Jared would take Mattu to his and Mopsy would take Alake to hers. Everyone must be grimy after so much travel. Everybody was to borrow a bathrobe after they took a shower, and meanwhile Mom would run everybody's clothes through the wash, since nobody had a change.

Jared ran up the stairs with Mattu carefully climbing after
him, balancing his boxes. “Where do you want to put those?” asked Jared.

Mattu was too busy staring at his new room to answer.

For all Jared knew, in Africa ten families would sleep in a room this size. Jared didn't feel like thinking about that stuff. “This is your bed,” he said, pointing to the one he normally used as a table. It had been cleared off and had clean sheets. Flannel sheets, which Jared detested, but which Mom felt were cozy in winter.

Mattu continued to hold his boxes.

“What's in them?” asked Jared again.

“The ashes of my grandparents.”

Jared was speechless. All four of his grandparents were alive and well and probably playing tennis or golf right now, since they wintered in Arizona. He couldn't stand thinking of his beloved grandparents disappearing into some shabby little cardboard box.

The dormer window had a large ledge, almost a seat, which Jared used as a drop-off spot for anything he might want again one day. He swept everything onto the floor and dusted the surface with the flat of his hand. Since Jared was always hot, he generally left this window cracked. A sliver of cold air shivered over the ledge. It felt good. Jared opened the window wider.

By day he had a fabulous view of the water, but Jared had no use for views. What he liked was the cliff. Jared and his friends used to play Search and Rescue up and down that cliff, but when they got older, they played soccer in the road instead. Now everybody he knew had a driver's license (except Jared, whose parents did not
think he was mature enough to drive, but somehow he
was
mature enough to sponsor a refugee) and nobody hung around playing ball anymore.

Mattu set his boxes down and flexed his arms.

He must've been holding them for like twenty-four or thirty-six hours, thought Jared. He turned on the shower, showed Mattu how to get the water hotter or cooler, handed him a washcloth and towel, flung a bathrobe onto the counter and left. He had no idea whether Mattu was used to showers and flush toilets and soap that pumped out of a plastic bottle. But a guy who could hang on to his dead grandparents' ashes through a civil war, two continents and Immigration could probably manage a bath.

Mopsy got Alake upstairs by pushing lightly in the middle of her back. The minute Mopsy stopped pushing, Alake came to a halt. It was a slow trip.

Mopsy's bedroom was pink, white and frilly, but her bathroom was yellow, with yellow towels and a yellow and white striped shower curtain and a yellow and green finger painting Mopsy had done in nursery school. Mopsy pulled Alake off the thick pink carpet of her bedroom and onto the white tiles of the bathroom. Alake showed no sign of knowing what a bathroom was for.

Mopsy peeled off her own clothing, hoping Alake would follow this example, but Alake didn't, so Mopsy carefully tugged at
the girl's T-shirt. Alake lifted her arms, her first voluntary move, and Mopsy felt pretty good about that.

Nothing more happened.

Mopsy's shower was a square stall with a clear sliding door. She turned on the shower, checked the temperature, got in, soaped, rinsed and stepped out. She wrapped herself in a huge yellow towel. Then she pushed Alake—still half dressed—under the water and slid the door closed.

She went back into the bedroom to give Alake a little privacy. Maybe Alake would get bare under the shower. After a while Mopsy went back in the bathroom. The shower was still running, but all of Alake's clothing was now lying on the floor and she was dripping on the mat, a towel around her just the way Mopsy had done it. She looked clean and relaxed. Or maybe Mopsy was making that up.

Mopsy turned off the flow of water and held out the sleeves of her bathrobe, which was short on Alake but fleecy and warm. Mopsy tied it around Alake's waist, stuck floppy bunny slippers on her feet and tugged her downstairs.

She was pronouncing the name “a lake.” It occurred to her that nobody in the African family had used the name yet.

Two people could sit on stools at the kitchen bar, and eight at the farm-style table. Jared looked with satisfaction at the feast provided by the church ladies. It was sufficient for a castle during a siege, or else teenage boys.

Here at the back of the house, there was no view of anything, and with the sun down, there was nothing outside but darkness. “We must close off the night,” said Celestine urgently.

“It's okay,” said Mom. “There's nothing out there.”

“There is always something out there,” said Celestine.

They must have seen American TV news, which loved crime above all else. Celestine probably figured that what you found in an American backyard was murderers.

“That's Africa,” said Mom, smiling. “This is a totally safe neighborhood. I love the dark.”

Clearly the Africans considered this insane. Nobody moved toward the dinner table, because they couldn't breathe, never mind chew, with all that darkness staring at them.

Mom, who had solutions for everything, went and got sheets, which she thumbtacked over the windows.

Andre was now clad in Dad's bathrobe. It was pale gray terry cloth with elbow-length sleeves. His stubs were hideously visible, shiny and swollen and pitted. Evidently Andre didn't care about people seeing the stubs. He didn't realize that in America, anything ugly about your body, you hid or solved, whether it was buck teeth or a birthmark.

“This is like Thanksgiving,” said Mopsy happily. “Although for Thanksgiving, you can't have some mountain of rice, I wonder who brought the rice, you have to have mashed potatoes. Which are better,” she added, like some future Mrs. Lame, forcing everybody into her own lifestyle and choice of carbohydrate.

Dad bowed his head to say the blessing.

Jared never closed his eyes during prayers. He lost his balance if he closed his eyes. Plus it signified a degree of participation Jared refused to make. He listened but didn't pray. Alake didn't close her eyes either, but that didn't matter, since she didn't see to start with.

“Father, we thank thee for our new friends, who have arrived safe and sound.”

Jared wasn't so sure. Alake did not seem sound in mind or body.

Jared's dad paused, as if wracking his brain to come up with some other blessings, and to Jared's amazement, Andre took up the prayer. “Father in heaven, we thank you that we are safely under this roof. We thank You for this fine food you have put on the table before us. You have blessed us.”

Andre, who wasn't able to eat with his fingers, never mind his fork? Andre thought he was blessed?

“Dear Jesus,” added Celestine, “we thank you for Drew Finch, Kara Finch, Jared and Martha, and for the minister of your church, who protected us.”

There was another pause, as if people thought that somebody else—Jared, for example—would also pray. They were wrong. Finally Dad said, “Amen.”

“Thank you for remembering my name is Martha,” said Mopsy.

“Your name is Mopsy,” said Jared. “Only mature women can be called Martha.”

“Don't bicker,” said their mother.

Celestine spooned rice into Andre as if he were a child in a high chair. When a grain of rice got stuck to the side of his mouth, she cleaned it off with her spoon, the way you would with a baby. Jared wondered how Celestine helped Andre in the bathroom, since Andre also couldn't use toilet paper or brush his teeth. He shuddered.

Dad glared at him.

Jared shrugged. What other reaction could a person have but a shudder?

Andre reached forward with his uneven stubs, gripped his water glass and tilted it up to drink. Only about half of it spilled.

“Well, the first thing we're doing,” said Mom with the certainty that always made Jared want to live elsewhere, because when she talked like that, there was no way out, “is getting started on prosthetic hands for you, Andre. I'm calling Yale–New Haven Hospital in the morning.”

This would be her new passion. Like when she started the adult day care; she'd spent a million hours getting that going. Now she was going to spend a million hours getting metal claws stuck to Andre's stumps. The only thing worse than sitting at dinner across from a guy with no hands was going to be sitting at dinner across from a guy with hooks.

Alake just sat there, in Mopsy's old fleece bathrobe with the yellow duckies appliquéd to the pockets. She must have been starving, but she didn't eat. And although Celestine fed Andre, she didn't seem to consider feeding Alake.