The next morning dawned April balmy, warm enough for Luisa to ride her bike to campus. That was spring in Chicago: prepare for the worst, then praise the weather gods when given a reprieve. A female security guard followed Luisa in a car. By now the guards were as familiar to her as her shadow—someone had been with her since she was a baby—and she’d learned to ignore them. She locked the bike in the iron bike rack and strolled across a wide plaza.
McCormick Technological Institute was one of the more modern buildings on Northwestern’s campus, at least architecturally. In fact, the building’s only link to the past was some stone carvings above the door. Luisa wasn’t quite sure what they were and was too embarrassed to ask, but one looked like an ancient Greek using a primitive lever to move a boulder. Another could have been chemist John Dalton or Sir Isaac Newton sitting beside an unknown machine.
She went inside and walked down halls marked by linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting. When she turned right, the interior changed dramatically, and she crossed a sunlit glassed-in bridge that took her to the Mudd library. Like the bridge, the library was relentlessly bright and modern. It wasn’t crowded, and she was able to get on a computer right away.
She entered “Angola” and “maps” and clicked on search. A moment later she was crestfallen. Most of the maps and information about Angola were in the main library, not Mudd. She searched again, adding the terms “engineering” and “technical” but nothing materialized. She took the steps up to the stacks on the third floor where a small collection of maps was housed. She found nothing.
She came back outside. She’d have to go to the main library. She was unlocking her bike, her back to the sidewalk, when a male voice called out.
“Hey Lulu!”
She turned around. A gangly young man in threadbare jeans and a bulky jacket was heading toward her. His brown hair was thick, curly, and flyaway, giving him an Albert Einstein look, which was magnified by rimless glasses. Behind the glasses was a pair of bright blue eyes.
“Hey you.” She slipped her arms around his neck and gave him a long, slow kiss. His body relaxed into hers, and when they broke apart, those big blue eyes were squeezed shut, and she saw his languid smile. Jedidiah Collins, from Montana, was as different from Luisa as a horse from a rattlesnake, he joked. He grew up riding the range and helping his father herd cattle. He was a direct, easy-going cowboy, and she’d never seen him in a bad mood. It was as if coming from Big Sky country had imbued him with a permanently sunny disposition. With her intensity, complicated family history, and activism, Luisa was the exact opposite, an exotic hothouse flower. Which made them a perfect match.
She finished unlocking her bike. They were a match in other ways, too. They were almost exactly the same height, which meant their pace matched when they walked arm in arm or jogged. In bed, too, they were a match, and she felt herself warm as she remembered the nights in his apartment when she was supposed to be at the library.
“What’re you up to, Lulu?”
She loved his nickname for her. “I was looking for a map of Angola.”
“Angola? What for?”
Although Jed knew her family history, and liked to hear the stories—he was the first to admit that everything he knew about the Mafia was from the movies—Luisa made a brushing aside gesture. “Just a little family business.”
She was surprised he didn’t follow up. She realized why when he spoke.
“Um, do you have any classes this afternoon?” There was a catch in his voice.
Luisa knew what that meant. It had been a few days since they’d been together. She looked up. “None that I can’t miss.”
They walked the bike back to his apartment. The security guard knew better than to tell her mother.
After making love, Jed dozed off. Luisa wondered if she should be irritated but decided it gave her an opportunity. She slipped out of bed, threw on one of his t-shirts, and went to the blinking laptop on his desk.
If only she knew where her grandfather had been stationed in Angola. Her mother didn’t know, and she doubted Gran did, either. She Googled “Cuban soldiers in Angola” and was surprised at the number of hits that came back. She started reading. Apparently, Cubans had been posted all over Angola in virtually every province. She remembered her mother telling her half a million Cubans had been there over the years. Which didn’t help. Why couldn’t the Cubans have been squeezed into a smaller, more enclosed area? South Vietnam, for example? Or a place so desolate there were only a few options, like Afghanistan?
She went back to Google and searched maps of Angola, drilling down on the images. She scanned dozens of maps, some topographical, like the ones she’d found the night before, some political. But she didn’t find any places that looked like her grandfather’s map.
Twenty minutes later, Jed stirred. “What are you doing?” He stifled a yawn.
“I told you.”
“Yeah. I know. A map of Angola. But why?”
She turned in the chair. “My grandmother gave me a map that her—my grandfather—drew in Angola. He was stationed there when he was in the Cuban Army. But we don’t know where. I’ve been trying to find out. Without much success.”
“Nothing in the library?”
“Not in Mudd. I thought there might be engineering maps but I didn’t find any. There could be more at the main library, which is where I was headed before I got—waylaid.”
“You know, I might be able to create a computer program that would let you scan in the drawing and compare it to existing maps.”
Jed was a graduate student in computer science. For a moment Luisa’s hope flared. “That would be way cool. How long would it take?”
“I don’t know. A week or two.”
She screwed up her mouth. “I was hoping it’d be more like an hour. I’d like to figure this out.”
He leaned over his bedside table, grabbed his glasses, and put them on. He brushed his hair back, a habit he’d adopted when he was pondering something. Then he rolled back and stretched out his arms. “You know, Lu, for a smart girl, you’re not using your head.”
“What do you mean?” she said in an irritated tone.
“Think about it. What’s in Angola? And the Congo? And all over that part of the world?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” He paused. “And I’ll bet your grandmother does, too.” He held up his fingers and wiggled them.
She stared at Jed for a moment. Then her mouth opened. “Diamonds!”
“Bloody and otherwise.”
She smacked herself on her forehead. “Of course! I am so stupid. Mining maps!”
“Now you’re thinking.”
Luisa swiveled back to Jed’s laptop and entered “mining,” “maps,” and “Angola.” Several websites popped up. They weren’t in color and they weren’t much more than pen and ink drawings. Which was exactly what she needed. A few moments later Luisa whistled.
“Jed. Look at this!”