Diamonds in the Shadow (9 page)

J
ARED WOKE UP STARVING TO
death. He arrived in the kitchen to find all four Africans already at the breakfast table. Alake was sitting there not drinking her orange juice and not touching her Cheerios. Jared tried to see Cheerios through African eyes but failed. He waved a jelly doughnut in front of Alake's eyes.

“Jared, don't push,” said his mother, as if there were any other way to get Alake going.

Mattu examined the selection of bagels, cinnamon raisin toast, blueberry and apple muffins and plain and sugar cereals. He chose one of everything and ate as if he really
were
starving to death.

Jared hadn't done any homework, because going to the airport had taken the whole day, not to mention the time he'd lost due to the shock of getting refugees to start with. The high school would totally accept refugees as an excuse for staying home, and he was planning on a long, happy breakfast and a little TV.

Mopsy was the kind of person who couldn't bear to miss school. She still loved her teachers, something Jared had
outgrown in second grade. Maybe first. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't been all that fond of his kindergarten teacher.

Mopsy said, “Alake goes to school with me today.”

“But what can she do in school?” asked Mattu. “She just sits. Will the teacher not be angry?”

“No, they'll try to make her comfortable,” said Mom, as if Alake were dying in hospice, “and then do some testing.”

Jared wanted to know how testing was going to work on a person who was mute and blind, but he let it go.

“And since Alake is happy with Mopsy…,” Mom began.

Alake doesn't do “happy” any more than she does “unhappy,” Jared thought. Alake is just there.

“… and since hanging around the house would be boring for poor Alake…”

Jared rolled his eyes. What does Alake know about boring? It's all boring if you're unconscious.

Mopsy, predictably, clapped her hands and danced in a circle around Alake, who did not notice. Alake was wearing yesterday's yellow pants and faded cotton T-shirt, washed and pressed by Mom. “She needs something better to wear,” said Mopsy. “This isn't pretty and it has no style.”

“Raid my closet,” said Mom. “She's my height.”

“Your stuff is middle-aged, Mom. First days of school are very important, even if you're from Africa. Maybe especially if you're from Africa. She has to look good.”

“She looks better than good,” Mom pointed out. “She's beautiful.”

This was where most American parents would chime in. Always compliment: that was the American rule. But Andre and Celestine remained silent.

“Are we also going to school?” Mattu asked Jared. And then in a whisper, as if praying, he breathed, “I would love to go to school.”

Fine, they'd go to school. Grumpily, Jared picked out decent clothes for Mattu. Jared liked his clothing baggy, so it was not that hard to fit a person several inches taller. He wanted Mattu wearing exactly what everybody else wore. Jared was actually a little worried about the reception an African might get in a school nearly all white. He could think of quite a few guys who were always trolling around for somebody to pick on. The British accent helped, but the right clothes would stack the deck in Mattu's favor.

Mopsy replaced Alake's shabby outfit with a sleek lime green sweater and crisp black pants. Since Alake was starvation thin, the clothes hung as if Alake weren't even in them. Mom kissed Alake good-bye, which Alake noticed no more than she would the wind, but when Mom kissed Mattu's cheek, he stepped back and gaped at her.

Mom giggled. “Have a lovely first day of school,” she said, because she was the kind of person who actually believed that first days of school could be lovely. “I'll be taking your parents shopping for clothes and shoes and handbags.” Mom cared deeply about handbags, which she changed to match every outfit, but her real love was shoes. She had an entire closet for shoes.

Mattu put his hand to his cheek where Jared's mom had kissed him. Jared thought he was kind of happy about it. But maybe not. Jared went outside. Mattu stepped out with him and immediately froze like a cartoon, eyes flickering left and right, peering through the trees. Jared almost said, What? You think man-eating lions are hanging out in the hemlocks? But he restrained himself and looked back to see how Mopsy was doing. She was going to have a seriously weird day, presenting a girl from Africa who didn't speak and wasn't going to lift a pencil.

Mopsy was literally pulling Alake out the door. Good thing Jared didn't have to take Alake. If he showed up shoving some girl into school, they'd probably arrest him.

Celestine and Andre did not say good-bye, wish their kids luck or give them a hug. So Jared's guess was right, and these were not Mattu and Alake's parents… or they were the parents and didn't like their kids… or African families were really different from American families.

It was still early in the morning and very chilly, but the slanted rays of the sun were strong. When Alake turned her head from the bright light, her eyes narrowed. She looked hard and scary and used up. She had no shape under the clothing, and no stranger could have said whether she was a girl or boy, whether she was ten years old or twenty.

These people could be anybody.

Cell phones were not allowed in either the high school or the middle school. Jared always took his anyway, to use in the
hall or at lunch or under the desk, but Mopsy, naturally, obeyed and never took her phone. Jared ran back in, scooped her cell off its charger in the kitchen and caught up to his sister. “Keep your phone on. If you need me, call. If the teachers whine about it, tell them you have to stay in touch because of Alake.”

Mopsy was delighted. She took the phone proudly, as if it symbolized something, and tucked it in the outside phone pocket of her book bag.

Alake's eyes drifted toward the phone.

In Austin, the two young men from Sudan lay awake all night. They did not talk to each other. There was no need.

Eventually the fifth refugee fell into that deep, almost comatose sleep of one who has traveled many hours and crossed several time zones.

At dawn the other two slipped out, abandoning the apartment to Victor. When they were safely away, they used Luke's cell phone—it was common for Christian Africans to have biblical names—and left a message at the refugee agency. “This is the kind of man we left behind. We will find somewhere else to live. Do not tell this man where we go. Do not give him our phone number. Do not tell him where we work.”

Mopsy stood Alake like a totem pole in front of the sixth-grade class. “This,” she announced, “is Alake. Isn't that a pretty name? Alake is one of the refugees I've been telling you that our church is sponsoring, but what we didn't expect is, they're living at my house. Alake's my roommate. But there's a problem we didn't know about. Alake has had a terrible shock from all the war and killing and she stopped speaking. So we'll talk to her, but she won't talk to us. Come on, Alake, sit by me.”

Mopsy had presented Alake's case so easily that even the teachers accepted her explanation. Class took place around Alake, but nobody tried to make her part of it. Alake not only didn't talk, she didn't look at the other sixth graders, didn't look out at the schoolyard and didn't look down at the book Mopsy was trying to share.

“She's not exactly like a person, is she?” whispered Quinnie. “She's more like a doll you prop up in a chair.”

“Shhh, Quinnie. She speaks English.”

“How do you know?”

Mopsy frowned. How
did
she know? “Well, the others speak English,” she said defensively, and got a queer little shiver in her spine. She had not said “Alake's mom and dad and brother speak English.” She had said “the others.”

Because the four Africans did not give off the aura of family.

In fact, Mopsy didn't know how Alake's name was pronounced because none of the other three had spoken it. Names were so important. Was Alake Amabo nameless inside her own family?

Third period, a counselor came to take Alake for testing, but Alake did not move, so Mopsy went first, pulling Alake by the hand.

“Like a mutt learning how to heel,” said one of the boys, and several kids laughed.

Mopsy had not known that her classmates would be mean. What was she going to do about the boy and the laughter? She hoped Alake had not understood.

In the counselor's office, Alake did not pick up the pencil to mark answers, nor did she even seem to hear the questions. The counselor couldn't do simple visual tests because Alake never saw the computer screen.

“This is beyond me,” said the counselor. “I guess first we should have her hearing tested. When does she go to the doctor?”

The principal and the nurse joined them. “You can't just bring her to school, Mopsy,” said the principal angrily. “We have to have papers proving that Alake has had her shots.”

Mopsy produced the papers provided by the Refugee Aid Society.

The nurse was not impressed. “These are photocopies. They're not dated, and they don't even have her name. They're just stuff.
Go
to your regular doctor and have her get all her shots.”

“But she might end up getting an extra one,” protested Mopsy, who could think of nothing worse than an unnecessary needle. Then she remembered Andre's arms.

The nurse shrugged.

Mopsy stood her ground. “Alake is a refugee. The definition of a refugee is, they didn't have time to grab their paperwork. They were running. They barely escaped with their lives.”

“That's what they claim,” said the nurse with a sniff. “Some people will tell any old lie to come to America.”

Mopsy, who loved everybody, now hated several boys in class plus the nurse. “Alake, don't listen to her. I know you didn't tell any lies.”

Alake's eyelids quivered, which Mopsy figured was a sign of strong emotion.

In the cafeteria line, Alake would not pick up a tray or touch the food, so Mopsy loaded a tray with stuff normal people liked and went to her favorite table, where everybody made room and said hello and then took offense because Alake wasn't grateful to be welcomed. “Get over it!” snapped Mopsy. “Alake is doing the best she can.”

Mopsy never snapped at anybody, so her friends giggled and got over it.

Mopsy set a little place for Alake, with plate, fork, spoon and drink. She named the foods and chatted about how yummy everything was. Mopsy's friends couldn't say whatever they were thinking, so the topic of Africans living in your bedroom was not mentioned and instead they discussed television. Everybody had watched different shows the night before, so they filled each other in.

Mopsy was pretty sure that Alake's eyes had now fastened on her food. But they were going to run out of lunchtime before
Alake made the decision to chew or not to chew. Since everybody else liked five minutes in the bathroom to gossip and fix their hair, and two or three minutes to saunter back to class, the other girls left while Mopsy and Alake continued to sit.

Alake watched them go.

Mopsy was pleased. Alake knew that things were happening and one day she would jump in.

I will totally save her, thought Mopsy proudly.