Diamonds in the Shadow (30 page)

When Mattu finally cornered Jared, his host wouldn't look at him. Mattu didn't like looking at himself either.

“What are you going to tell people?” Mattu asked Jared. “What did
you
tell them?”

“Lies.” Without the lies, Mattu was afraid they would be deported.

Jared sighed. Finally he said, “You had good reasons to come to America. I think you should've done everything differently, but you didn't, and maybe you couldn't, and Mopsy's okay, and tomorrow you'll have what you came for. A new life.”

How American, thought Mattu, to move on like that. And how Christian—to accept and forgive.

Mattu had come to the conclusion that most Americans were extraordinarily Christian, even when they weren't Christian by label. They all believed in that great rule: help your neighbor.

Alake had helped the most of all. She had never had the diamonds, of course. Mattu himself had taken the diamonds. Once she realized the containers were empty, Alake had had only a few seconds to figure out how to destroy Victor without weapons. She had drawn him out to sea.

Lord, prayed Mattu, forgive me. She is the one who put our American family first. Save her, Lord.

He looked around Jared's room for the last time. Then he looked at Jared, who was still glaring at him. “Thank you for sharing your room,” said Mattu softly.

Jared said nothing. He followed Mattu downstairs and out to the driveway. It was snowing very lightly, although it seemed too warm for snow, and the air felt thick and soft and lacy.

Mrs. Lane was supervising in the driveway, shouting orders to donors and packers. She beamed at Jared. “Isn't it wonderful that we've all worked so hard and accomplished so much all these weeks! I'm so proud of my contribution.”

Jared was not aware that she had done any work whatsoever. His mother had done every bit of it, except for the driving. He caught up to Mattu. “One thing you haven't told me, Mattu. Where are the diamonds now?” He felt morally superior because he'd put his diamond back. “You kept them for yourself, didn't you?”

Mattu shook his head. “I had to get them back to Victor. But Victor doesn't leave people alive. So I went online, located refugee agencies in Texas, where George Neville said he was going, and asked each one if I mailed them a package, would they get it to their client Victor? Two of them said they didn't have a client named Victor. But the third agency said they could. So on Sunday, I sneaked into your father's office and took a padded envelope. I poured the ashes into the fireplace and the diamonds into the envelope. Then I took the same amount of stamps that your mother put on her package the day we had our post office lesson. I addressed it to the agency in Austin. I didn't put a return address on the envelope, because then Victor would know where it came from. I thought I was being very clever.”

You were, thought Jared. If I were Mopsy, I'd clap. You learned about a thousand things to pull that off.

What would they do, these people in Texas, when they opened the package addressed to Victor, the refugee who had murdered their supervisor? Would they see gravel and throw it
away? Or recognize diamonds and sell them for a good cause—or for greed? Or turn the package over to the police, where it might lie unopened in some evidence box? “The postmark shows part of the zip code, though,” he said, finding it difficult to get out of teaching mode. “They're going to put two and two together and know it came from you, what with all the publicity and the police.”

Mattu shook his head. “When Mrs. Kara took Andre to Boston for his second opinion, Andre hid the package under his shirt and mailed it there.”

Jared was filled with admiration. Just escaping his mother's vigilance would have been a task and a half, but also hiding stuff from her and finding a mailbox? “Good plan,” said Jared.

“No. A terrible plan. We did nothing right. We kept dangerous secrets. We are still keeping the secrets, but they are not dangerous now.”

“You never wanted to keep the diamonds?” Jared asked.

Mattu shook his head. “They were in the shadow of evil.”

Jared's scalp prickled. Now he knew four people in the world who knew that money is not treasure. Love is treasure. Food and hands and a roof of your own are treasure.

Mrs. Lane gave permission to the first van of donated stuff to set out for the new apartment. Jared and Mattu waved. The second van drove off. Jared and Mattu waved.

“Is Celestine your mother?” asked Jared.

“No. But she and Andre are married. They had kids. The kids are dead. I don't know about Alake's family.”

“Hop in, you two,” said Mom, backing her car out of the garage and pausing next to them. “I'm dropping Andre at the apartment and we'll give everything a final check.”

All the mysteries are cleared up, thought Jared. But not all the work is done. There is one more thing.

Alake was in a white room with white sheets and a white table and a white wall.

People were kind. Mrs. Finch had come to give her a hug and a kiss. Tay came, and Jared, and Alake tried to find words to thank them, but no words entered or left her mouth. It was as if her only speech had been with Victor, and that would last forever. Alake would never talk to nice people, only evil ones.

Get-well cards and flowers came from school and church.

Alake shivered under the blankets.

The concussion from when her skull had hit the stones of the breakwater was healing.

But everything else was broken open. People would have pieced the truth together now. They would put Alake in some pen like that corner of the refugee camp. The hymn would come true after all: she would have to walk this lonesome valley by herself.

Better not to try walking at all. Better to sink back into what she had been: nothing.

When the door of her hospital room opened this time, it was
not an aide, a doctor or a nurse. It was Celestine, who hated Alake for being alive when her real daughter was not.

Go away, thought Alake.

But Celestine sat on the bed. She took Alake's limp hand. How often in America people had held Alake's hand—that distant extension of Alake, which had once pulled a trigger.

“They know nothing,” said Celestine. “When Mopsy repeated what Victor told her about us, I laughed and said it was nonsense. They believed me, of course. Americans always want to believe that evil is nonsense.”

The Finches did not know what Alake was? Mopsy did not understand? The Finches still thought she was Alake?

“We have moved into the new apartment,” said Celestine. “It is empty without a daughter. You saved the daughter of those who saved us. That makes you my daughter now. Come home. From our new home, you will go to school again, and make me even more proud than I am now.” Celestine pulled Alake into her arms, her black African arms, with the scent and the grip and the warmth that Alake had once known, and Celestine rocked her. Celestine's fingers moved over the stubble of Alake's hair, caressing her cheeks and feeling her throat, as a mother does, to be sure that all is well.

A terrible sob came out of Alake's throat and terrible tears burst out of her eyes.

They rocked together, weeping for things past and things that might come true.

The door opened again.

Alake did not want an interruption. It was wonderful to hold a puppy, but infinitely more wonderful to be held by your mother.

In came Mopsy and Mrs. Finch, then Andre and Mr. Finch. They were all smiling.

“We're here to check you out of the hospital,” said Mopsy, dancing around. “The doctor says you can come home. Not our home this time.
Your
home. That apartment is not perfect, Alake. You don't even have your own bedroom. You're going to sleep on this thing called a futon. By day it's a couch, and at night it's your bed in the living room.”

A mother is enough, Alake told herself. And a couch in the living room is enough. I can't ask for more.

But she was already an American. She wanted more.

And more came.

Because Americans believed that if there was any chance you could have it all, you should have it all.

Jared walked in, grinning. Mattu came in behind him, wearing an exceptionally large ski jacket. Two people could have stood inside that jacket.

Alake was so glad to see them. So amazed that Mattu would bother.

“I talked to the landlord,” said Jared. “Mom was right, you know, Alake. TV publicity does a lot for people. Daniel not only called the police, he called the TV station, and they had a camera there before Victor's body even got dragged out of the water. There was all this coverage of how you saved Mopsy's life and
stuff. I found the landlord and I said to him, ‘So Alake needs her puppy.' And do you know what the landlord said, Alake?”

Mattu unzipped his jacket. A small brown and white muzzle appeared, and huge brown eyes.

“The landlord said, ‘You bet.' He saw on TV what you did and he said, A heroine like that gets to have her puppy.'”

Mattu poured Jopsy onto Alake's bed and Jopsy poured love all over Alake. When she wept for joy, Jopsy licked the tears. Alake could speak no words, but she found them in her heart.

Thank you, God, for families.

The family named Amabo finished the paperwork to check their daughter, Alake, out of the hospital.

The family named Finch took the elevator to the ground floor and went out to their two cars.

“Why don't I drive the Amabos back to their apartment?” said Jared's mom. “You three can head on home.”

“Good idea,” said his dad, always grateful not to have to schlep anybody or anything anywhere. “Want a driving lesson on the way home, Jared?”

Jared was always ready for a driving lesson. He put his arm, however, around the sister who had not turned out to be so annoying after all. “Want to come, Martha? You can sit in the back and be jealous, because it'll be years before you get to drive.”

“But I'm very mature for my age,” said Martha Finch, smiling.
“I bet I pass the driver's test while you're still trying to learn parallel parking, Jared.”

He didn't argue. He was kind of a slow learner at important stuff. But he was a lucky guy. He came from a family of good teachers.

A church where I was once organist runs its own refugee ministry. I belong to the Congregational Church, sometimes called the United Church of Christ. Many of our Connecticut churches have sponsored refugees. The ministry owns a multifamily house, where refugees live when they first arrive. Over a three-year period, this church has welcomed eighty-seven people from ten countries.

My own church was asked to take in a family of four African Muslims from Sierra Leone. They lived with me for the first month, but this is
not
their story. This book is fiction. Nobody in this book represents a real person. To ensure that I did not accidentally use the name of a real refugee, I even made up the last name Amabo (it's Latin: “I will love”) and the first names Mattu and Alake. The Refugee Aid Society is a fictional group. Prospect Hill is a fictional town.

Mrs. Finch was correct—most of us hear and know very little about Africa.

In 2004, there were more than three million refugees in Africa. How can we even start to think about that many people
?
How can we picture any of them?

I was privileged to know a refugee family, but not everyone can do that. I recommend a wonderful coffee-table book called
Hungry Planet
, by Faith D'Aluisio, with amazing photographs by Peter Menzel. It won a James Beard Foundation Award. Its stunning pictures show what families in locations all over the world—from an African refugee camp to a farm in Ecuador and a city in Mongolia—have for dinner and how they get it.

Although I have statistics about Liberia and Sierra Leone from sources like the United Nations and Church World Service, it's
Hungry Planet
I want you to look at, so I'm using a few statistics from that book.

About Darfur
(a region of Sudan in Africa, at this writing in the midst of war)

Number of refugee camps: 160+

Percentage of Darfur's population living in these camps: 30 Percentage of those people who saw a family member killed: 61

About Chad
(a neighboring African country)

Number of camps for Darfur refugees: 11

Number of refugees in one camp: 30,000+

Main food for a family of refugees for one week: 39 pounds of sorghum (a grain). It isn't ground into flour; that must be done by hand.

Years of warfare since 1960: 35

Percentage of houses
with
electricity: 2

Doctors for every 100,000 people: 3

What are we to do to help this desperate continent?

So far, no long-term solutions are being offered.

Perhaps the person who figures out how to help will be you.

CAROLINE B. COONEY
is the author of many books for young people, including
A Friend at Midnight; Hit the Road; Code Orange; The Girl Who Invented Romance; Family Reunion; Goddess of Yesterday
(an ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book);
The Ransom of Mercy Carter; Tune In Anytime; Burning Up; The Face on the Milk Carton
(an IRA-CBC Children's Choice Book) and its companions,
Whatever Happened to Janie?
and
The Voice on the Radio
(each of them an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults), as well as
What Janie Found; What Child Is This?
(an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults);
Driver's Ed
(an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults and a
Booklist
Editors' Choice);
Among Friends; Twenty Pageants Later;
and the Time Travel Quartet:
Both Sides of Time, Out of Time, Prisoner of Time
, and
For All Time
, which are also available as
The Time Travelers
, Volumes I and II.

Caroline B. Cooney lives in Madison, Connecticut, and New York City.