Diamonds in the Shadow

IN LONDON, FIVE PASSENGERS CHANGED planes for New York City. The four refugees sponsored by Jared's church were seated at the front of the economy section. They did not speak to one another. They did not look at one another. They were separated from a fifth refugee by many rows. Now and then he walked down the aisle to stare at them. They did not look back.

  In Connecticut, Jared awoke almost sick with knowledge: We should not be taking these people in.

  Jared did not say this to his parents. They would think he was selfish, racist and unwilling to share a piece of toast, never mind his room and his life.

  The Finches left ridiculously early for the airport. “After all,” said Jared's mother, “I-95 traffic might crawl along at thirty miles an hour, and we have to cross the Whitestone Bridge, not to mention parking problems.”

  They were using the church van, a vehicle Dad detested because it was unwieldy and had blind spots and a lousy radio. Mom rattled on and on. She was nervous. Even Dad was nervous. Dad traveled a lot and was comfortable in any situation, so his anxiety surprised Jared. Had Dad heard those words after all—there are no good guys? Or was he working out the arithmetic of building a church addition without money? Jared thought the arithmetic was simple. No money, no addition.

  Or maybe Dad was thinking of Brady Wall, the friend with whom he had golfed, played tennis, watched football and raised kids. Was he imagining Brady in prison? Was he hoping Brady would really suffer? Or was he worried about Brady, trying to understand and planning to forgive?

  But Jared did not talk about important things with his parents. In fact, if something was important, the last people with whom he discussed it were his parents.

  His sister was so bouncy with excitement she needed the seat belt to hold her down. All Mopsy had to do was breathe and she embarrassed Jared. Now she was going to embarrass him in front of a bunch of African refugees.

  Jared took out his iPod.

  When the plane was about to land, all passengers were required to sit in their own seats, wearing their seat belts. The plane landed so smoothly that the four refugees in front knew they were on the ground only when some passengers cheered. The refugees had difficulty undoing their seat belts. The flight attendant had to help.

  Even so, they were among the first passengers off the plane.

  They had learned something on that first leg from Nigeria to England: it takes a long time to empty a large plane. A person seated in the rear cannot run down the aisle and catch up to the people seated in the front. He has to wait for hundreds of passengers to file slowly out. It would be several minutes before the fifth refugee could catch up to them.

  They did not discuss this. They followed the flight attendant off the plane and down a narrow sloping corridor, which they now knew would connect the plane to the terminal. They arrived in a huge room packed with people and seats, chaos and lines. And there stood a man holding a large cardboard sign that read AMABO FAMILY.

  “Welcome,” he said, stepping forward.

  The refugees retreated. The man smiled anyway. “I'm the representative from the Refugee Aid Society. My name is George Neville. I'll be getting you through Immigration and introducing you to your sponsors. Your family is already here, parked and waiting and very excited to meet you.”

  The Africans looked puzzled.

  George Neville did not find this unusual. The distance between Africa and New York City was not just miles. This would be a new world for the Amabos in every way; it was natural for them to be afraid.

  He could not tell who was in charge. Usually in any group of refugees, one person had a little more poise, was a little more articulate, and that person took over. George Neville offered his hand for the father to shake, but the father, a shriveled, tired man in a limp zippered sweat jacket, did not take George's hand.

  Mrs. Amabo—a large, striking woman wearing a high head cloth in a vivid orange print and a floor-length wrap with a fierce geometric pattern—whispered the words on the sign: “Amabo family.”

  The teenage boy said suddenly, “We are delighted to meet you, Mr. Neville.”

  George was astonished. The boy's speech was beautiful, with a British accent, as if he had been at a boarding school in England, not in a refugee camp in Africa.

  “I,” said the boy, “am Mattu Amabo.”

  Mrs. Amabo looked at the passengers oozing off the plane. “Let us hurry on, Mr. Neville.” Her English was remarkably different from her son's, with an accent so thick George could barely understand her. But civil war separated families. He assumed that the son had lived in some other situation, possibly even in some other country. The family was lucky to have been reunited.

  Hurrying was not something Africans usually did. They did not share the American concept of rushing here and there to arrive someplace at a precise minute. “We don't have to hurry,” George Neville assured her. “We have a lot of lines to wait in.”

  The mother pointed down the vast terminal, where the other passengers were headed. “This way?” she asked, moving forward.

  George quick-stepped to stay beside her. “After such a long flight, you look very fine, Mrs. Amabo.”

  She did not respond. She just walked faster.

  Behind George, the husband and the son cast glances over their shoulders. George did not see this. The daughter trudged along as if she were only half there or were just half a person. George did not see this either.

  Jared's mom had been gripping her cell phone like a revolver. When at last it rang, she nodded excitedly to let everybody know that this was the phone call. Then she turned gloomy. “It will be some time before our family gets through Immigration. Be patient, the man said.” Kara Finch had zero patience; her major goal in life was to do everything right now. She was a great maker of lists and schedules timed to the minute—where to be when, and what to do there, or buy there, or see there, and when to get back, and who to take with you. Jared hoped these poor Africans were braced for an American woman who planned to whip them into shape in five minutes or less.

  The huge waiting area had very few seats, as if saying, Keep going—get to your cars—don't stay a minute longer.

  The Finches wandered around and found seats, but not next to each other. Jared was relieved, because the last thing he wanted was to end up with Mopsy, who would babble. To his surprise, he felt the family separation intensely, as if from now on, the four Finches would be strangers.

  Mopsy loved sitting apart from her family, because such a thing rarely happened. She was heavily supervised, from what after-school snack to have to what television show not to watch. If she played games, it was in a group with a coach. If she met friends, it was after conference calls between parents. If she went shopping, it was with somebody's mother, and even when she went next door, it was with cell phone in hand.

  Mopsy had heard of girls who were mall rats and could wander around on their own. She had never known anyone allowed to do that. She had heard of parents who let some ten-year-old babysit their newborn, but where Mopsy lived, the ten-year-old still had a babysitter, over whom a hidden camera panned.

  Mopsy loved this vast airport room packed with people who did not resemble anybody in Connecticut. She loved their clothes—Indian women in gleaming saris over heavy winter trousers, Arab men with turbans, Americans back from Disney World with tans and souvenirs.

  She had been awake half the night thinking about the new family. It was as exciting as Christmas Eve. She hoped these poor people wouldn't have a son, who would have to live with Jared and would end up wishing he were back in Africa. Surely one of the people in those two lower photographs was a girl. What would she be like? This was a difficult year for Mopsy, because she had no best friend. Beth and Kelly had moved away, and Meghan had become best friends with Aimee instead, and Rachel was too into sports for Mopsy's taste, and Quinnie was too new to be sure of. Mopsy planned to be best friends with this new roommate.

  She could not actually imagine the Africans. Everything Kirk Crick said was ha
rd to grasp, especially how there were no good guys. Mopsy rejected that. Everybody was a good guy deep down.

  Except…if so… what about Brady Wall? Was a guy who stole from his church still a good guy?

  Mopsy did not like thinking about bad people who stole. She liked talking. She said to the total stranger sitting next to her, “Are you American? Are you coming or going? We're not doing either one. We're waiting. Guess who we're waiting for!”

  The fifth refugee was not only in the last row, he also had the window seat. He could not even stand until his row chose to move.

  In his native land, he would have permitted no man to block his way. But an airplane was not anyone's native land, so he could not beat a path down the aisle and catch up to the other refugees.

  In his native land, he would have been armed. But in the land of airplanes, men could not carry weapons. He was pretty sure weapons would be as easy to get in America as they had been in Africa.

  Every passenger between him and the exit seemed to be old or fat or crippled or whiny. They took forever to gather their things, and then each one dawdled in the aisle.

  He stared at his watch, a thing he had never owned before, because in his former life, he had controlled time. He had never measured it. It took eleven minutes to empty the massive plane.

  But it was not minutes he cared about. It was days. He had thirty-nine of them.

  And then for one weekend, and one weekend only, the dealer would be in New York.

  This gave the fifth refugee plenty of time to learn everything he needed to know about the city. The familiar hot excitement of combat filled his heart and he barely restrained himself from kicking his way to the front.

  The African family was twitchy with nerves, looking this way and that.

  The mother clutched the spiral-bound paperback given to everyone in her situation: Welcome to the United States: A Guidebook for Refugees. Many of the refugees George met had not just read it, but practically memorized it. “In the United States,” they might tell George, “great value is placed on employment. Going to work and being self-sufficient are important priorities for refugees.” It was a good sign that Mrs. Amabo was reading the manual.

  George collected the family's paperwork from Mrs. Amabo, and repeated their names as he checked each batch. “Andre.”

  The father nodded. George had hardly expected refugees to have luggage, but the father carried nothing whatsoever. His hands were jammed in the pockets of a long-sleeved, hooded sweatshirt, an odd choice for a man coming from such a hot country. On the other hand, it was January, and it must have been cold in England, and perhaps he'd been given the jacket there.

  Mattu had already identified himself. The only one with carry-ons, he cradled two small gray cardboard cartons. He was tall and lean, like a starved marathon runner. His jeans were too short, his loafers did not match and his T-shirt was too small. For the first time, George noticed a long thin scar running down the boy's cheek. “Mattu, what happened?”

  “Machete,” said the boy dismissively.

  Mattu must literally have escaped death by a fraction of an inch. George Neville imagined him running, perhaps trying to save the sister standing so dismally beside him, or little ones who hadn't made it after all.

  “Then you must be Alake,” he said to the daughter.

  She wore yellow cotton trousers and a faded cotton T-shirt over a painfully thin body. Her hair was a soiled nest of tangle and knot. George would have expected finely worked braids, because usually the whole camp came through for their successful ones, the ones who got to leave, and somebody would have braided this girl's hair. But in her slumped bones and blank face, George could read all the trauma of civil war. He was not surprised when she did not respond to her name.

  George led them to Passport Control. The line was long and moving slowly.

  The family remained silent. Most refugees whispered nervously in their own language to reassure each other, and huddled close, fearful of separation. But the Amabos did not even seem aware of each other.

  The teenage boy, who was last in their little group, seemed to come to a decision. He straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, set his two boxes on the floor and studied them. Then he turned his back on his two boxes.

  The people behind him in line did not close the gap. They stared down at the boxes. Mattu Amabo had not actually abandoned his luggage, a thing forbidden in airports. But he looked as if he planned to. Armed guards were there in a moment. “These are yours?” they said sharply. They were polite, but George knew the kid would be terrified. Where Mattu came from, armed guards killed you.

  Visibly trembling, Mattu picked his boxes back up, but in his anxiety, he dropped one. It fell only a few inches, but one corner was dented. A little bit of white dust wafted out.

  The guards waved people away. They drew back speedily. There was never a time anyone wanted to be around unknown white dust.

  George Neville's heart sank. There couldn't possibly be anything dangerous in those boxes. Mattu would have taken them through checkpoints in two other airports before he landed in New York.

  Mattu's explanation was swift and heartbreaking. “The ashes of my grandparents are in my boxes,” he said softly. He looked down at the container in his right hand. “My grandmother is in this one.” He nodded at the container in his left. “My grandfather is in this one.”

  George had not known that cremation was practiced in West Africa. It was amazing that the kid had been able to keep track of his grandparents during the war years, let alone their ashes. George was awestruck by Mattu's determination. This kid meant to bury his grandparents in this new world, where he could honor them, and keep their names alive for his own children, and their children. So the Amabos were stubborn, a great trait in immigrants. Maybe that would save them.

  He glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Amabo. They were not looking at the boxes, but out over the great hall into which passengers were pouring.

  “The boxes are not sealed,” said Mattu. “You are welcome to look inside. But precious ash might blow out when the lids are open.”

  Ashes were treated by airlines as ordinary carry-ons, which always struck George as creepy. People rarely checked ashes in their luggage. No one wanted to risk losing the remains of a loved one.

  The guards were skeptical. “Why did you set them down?”

  “My arms are tired.” This sounded fine until both Mattu and his father looked compulsively over their shoulders, biting their lips and breathing hard. The guards pulled the family out of line and led them on a circuitous route to an X-ray facility where the contents of the boxes could be double-checked.

  George tried to comfort the Amabos. “It's all right. This is just a security measure. No big deal. You probably went through X-rays twice already on this trip. You're old hands now.”

  The boy reluctantly set his boxes on the conveyor belt. The staff finally coaxed Mattu to walk on through, promising that the ashes would arrive safely on the other side. They paused the conveyor belt to study the contents. “The bones aren't completely baked to ash,” commented one.

  George Neville's own parents had been cremated, so he had dealt with ashes. Even the hottest fire didn't reduce everything, and bone bits were always left. He remembered the horror of accidentally rattling his father's bones in their cremation container.

  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?