Children of the River (13 page)

—ALBERT SCHWEITZER

Tears sprang to her eyes. A sense of peace filled her. A good place, good people inside to put this over the door, to know that people coming here might be feeling scared because they were sick or hurt. Or because they feared for a loved one.
Someday she'd be a doctor. Someday she'd be one of those good people inside, ready to offer help and kindness.
And as for today … hadn't Jonathan himself called her brave? Surely if she could get on a boat and come halfway around the world, she could walk into a hospital without trembling.
She stepped up to the glass doors; they opened before her.
Jonathan lay propped against the clean white pillows in a cotton gown. His eyes were closed, but his black lashes rested on cheeks still flushed with health. Tubes and dials hung on the wall and around the complicated bed, but with relief Sundara noted that he didn't seem to be hooked up to any of them.
A football game was in progress on the overhead television, being watched, apparently, by an unseen roommate on the other side of the orange plaid curtain.
“Jonatan?”
“Hmm?” He opened his eyes. They looked bluer than ever next to the sky color of his gown. “Sundara.” He pushed himself to more of a sitting position. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled. “What you think? I come to see for myself you okay.”
His smile was sleepy, happily bewildered. “I thought you'd given up on me.”
“Silly.” Suddenly she wanted to tousle his hair, a strange longing for a girl taught not to touch the heads of others. “You know that not the way I feel.”
She smiled. He smiled back at her. For a long time they just looked at each other.
“So. You are okay?” she asked. “I've been so worried.”
“Yeah, I'm okay.”
“You have a lot of pain?”
“Only when I move. It's like this horrendous headache.”
“Then it is true, what Ravy tell me? You hurt your head?”
“Yeah, just a slight concussion, turns out.”
“But this is very bad,” she said softly, “to be hurt in your head. Jonatan, your head is the place of your soul, your life force. You must take care.”
She hadn't realized how good it would feel to be near him again. When they'd huddled together in the grandstands the day before, she'd been so numb with grief she hadn't even thought about it. But now … the television football game, the rattling of carts in the hall, the intercom paging some doctor—everything faded into muffled background noise. She and Jonathan might have been alone in this huge building as they gazed at each other.
“I've stopped seeing stars,” he finally offered, grinning.
“Stars?”
“I mean, my head's okay.”
“Ah, that is good. They don't have to cut anything open?”
“Yow.” He winced playfully. “The way you put things sometimes …”
“Sorry.”
He laughed. “No, nothing cut open. Mostly they're just checking my eyeballs a lot.”
“Ooh! I'm glad. Soka say they sometime so quick to cut here.”
“So tell me,” he said after a moment. “How are
you
doing? I've been worried, too, after yesterday. Even in the middle of the game, all I could think about was the stuff you'd told me.”
“I'm okay,” she said. She didn't want to think about what had happened to Chamroeun anymore. What good would it do?
Another long silence.
Then Jonathan cleared his throat. “Does your aunt know you're here?”
She shook her head. “They think I'm at the store.” She glanced at the big clock on the wall and started to back out the door. “Now I see you not too bad, I better go.”
He jerked forward. “No, don't—ow.” He eased back, closing his eyes. “I forget. I can't do that.” He opened his eyes again. “Just stay a
little
longer?”
“Well … okay.” She shifted nervously. “But only a minute.” The room was warm; she eased out of her jacket. Then she glanced out the open door toward the nurses’ station in the middle of the circular ward. “Does your father work at this hospital?”
“Sure, sometimes. It's the only hospital we've got, right?”
“It is a good place, I think. I know this when I see what they put above the door.”
“Above the door? What do you mean? Where?”
“At the front of the hospital. You never notice the words? Well, maybe you can look at it sometime. It make me think about your father, how he so kind to us when we first come.”
“Okay, I will.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “You should have seen him last night He and Mom were freaking out in here. He kept grabbing my toes. ‘Can you feel that? Can you feel it?’ I must've told him ten times I could, but he had to hear it over and over.”
“He love you very much. He worried about you.”
“I know, I know.” He sighed. “And I guess I really am lucky. Did you know that guys have been paralyzed in accidents just like this?”
“Really?” She moved to the side of his bed again. “Maybe this kind of an omen for you.”
“Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, talk about getting beat over the head with something.”
His roommate turned up the television's volume. Jonathan and Sundara looked up at the screen, little figures scrambling over a bright green background.
“At halftime President Carter was on,” Jonathan said, “asking people to send money for the camps in Thailand.”
“Oh.” For a few hours she'd almost forgotten about the camps, the thousands of miserable people. She'd been too busy worrying about this one person, this Jonathan McKinnon.
A lady wearing a smock wheeled in a cart of flowers and set two or three bouquets on Jonathan's bedside stand.
“Oh, no,” Jonathan said. “Flowers? This is embarrassing.”
“And these,” the lady said, handing him a stack of cards that had evidently been hand-delivered.
“And this,” a nurse added, struggling to pull a huge balloon bouquet through the door. Each balloon had a smiley face on it.
Jonathan turned red.
The nurse gave Sundara a funny look. “Visiting hours haven't started yet, have they? Jonathan's only supposed to be seeing family members.”
He leaned forward. “She's my sister.”
“Now wait a minute …”
“Adopted,” he added.
The nurse didn't believe him for a minute, Sundara saw, but it didn't matter. For a disarming smile like his, she'd wink at the rules. Frowning in mock disapproval, she handed him the braided ribbons of the balloon bouquet and went out after the lady with the cart.
“How
did
you get in here?” he whispered.
Sundara shrugged, smiling. “I just walk in. Hold my head up like I know where I'm going and nobody stop me.
He smiled. Then he pulled out the bouquet's little card. “I knew it. Cathy.” He tossed it aside. “I wish she wouldn't do stuff like this.”
Sundara hesitated. “Do you want me to tie it to the bed railing?”
“Huh. What I'd really like is for you to open the window and let it float away.”
“But Jonatan, what will she think when she come to see you?”
He sighed. “I know, I don't want to hurt her feelings.” He let go of the ribbons and shut his eyes as the balloons rose. “But I hate those smiley faces. You'd think she'd know that by now.”
Sundara wasn't sure what to say. They'd never once mentioned Cathy's name, but now that the American girl's spirit hovered between them in this white-walled room, there were things she wanted to know, things she suddenly had to know.
“Jonatan?” She watched the balloons bouncing gently against the ceiling. “Do you love Cathy a lot?”
“Catty,” he said. “The way you say it, it comes out Catty.”
She gave him a chiding look. “You not answering my question.”
“Okay, okay. What was the question? Do I love Cathy.” He screwed up his face in exaggerated thought, then shook his head. “I don't know. I thought I did. Or maybe I thought I ought to. But do you realize the kind of stuff she talks to me about?” He sat up. “What do I think of her chances for making homecoming court. Should she get a haircut. When am I going to get some new clothes. Why won't I dress up like a rally girl for their pep skit.” He sank back. “I'm not sure if she's changed or it's just me.” He paused. “I know
I've
changed. Now that I've known you I'm not the same person anymore.
Nothing's
the same. I mean, I never used to worry much, but now when I read the papers I get so upset, and when the coach makes us actually
pray
before the game, I just want to—”
“Jonatan—now be calm. Don't get excited.”
“No, really. I've had it. I'm supposed to pray to win a football game when babies are starving?” He gripped the bed's side rails. “You've changed everything. You've made me see the world isn't all nice sunny little places like Willamette Grove.”
She lowered her eyelids. “You happier before I come.”
“No! I mean, yes, but it was a different kind of happy. A not-knowing sort of happy. When you're with me I'm happy in a knowing sort of way. It goes deeper.” He looked at her, then wearily lowered himself. “I'm probably not making any sense at all.”
“I understand what you say, I think.” She looked away. “Except about Cathy.”
He sighed. “You want to know if I love her.” He reached over and tilted Sundara's face toward him. “Ask me a question I can answer. Ask me if I love
you.
”

CHAPTER
16

For the next few days, she wore Jonathan's love like a warm cloak around her. The way he'd just come right out and said it! /
love you, Sundara.
Leaving the hospital in a daze, she had realized she couldn't remember anyone ever saying those words to her before—not even her parents. She liked this American way of being so honest. If she were honest with him … No, she mustn't think of it. She was not allowed to love Jonathan McKinnon. Still, whatever happened, it was a wonderful feeling, knowing he loved her.
Then one morning the halls were draped with WELCOME BACK, JONATHAN banners. When Sundara saw them, her heart began to pound. He was back at school. He was “He just upset about that.” Sundara's jaw was working. “Maybe he doesn't think football so important compare to the big thing he worry about.”
One of the younger assistant coaches came in. Hacken-bruck rolled his eyes at him and shook his head.
“McKinnon?” the younger man said.
Hackenbruck nodded.
The assistant coach threw a leg over a chair, sitting in it backward.
They stared at her, waiting.
“I'm telling the true,” she said. “Jonatan make up his own mind about this.”
“Yeah?” Hackenbruck said. “Well, I'm not so sure he's functioning with all his screws tight these days. If he's got some problems, we'd like to help him. What is it, drugs? Problems at home? Has he given you any other reasons for doing this? I'd blame the whole thing on his concussion except I've smelled this coming on.”
Sundara focused on the big bulletin board of newspaper clippings, recognizing some of the pictures from Jonathan's scrapbook. She was trying to remember all the things he'd said about football.
“Well, one thing, he doesn't want to. hurt his knee.”
“Hurt his knees” Hackenbruck made a pained face. “What kind of talk is that?”
Sundara tossed her hair back. “Maybe that
smart
talk. Why he want to break his good body for a game he doesn't like?”
“Doesn't like?” the assistant said. “But he's a very talented player.”
“Maybe, but that make no matter. He not happy about it.”
“Not happy about it.” Hackenbruck loaded each word “By all means, enlighten me.”
“Well, you say he not himself. How do you know? Maybe this the real Jonatan now and he not himself before.”
“Oh, very clever. Maybe / ought to start spouting all this mystical shit. Because that's what he's hung up on. It's not really you at all.”
Sundara looked away, cheeks burning. Jonathan loved her. He'd said so.
“I used to feel sorry for you,” Cathy went on, “but now I am just so sick of hearing about your deep, dark, tragic past. Good grief. You ought to be grateful! You got to come to America!”
Sundara took a sharp breath. “You think everybody in the world just sitting there wishing they can leave their homeland for your country?”
“Well, yeah, I think they probably are, if they're smart enough to want a better life.”
“But who decide what is a better life? You? Maybe I like my life before. If we choose to come, that one thing, but we
are finte
to leave.”
“Even so, I still think you laid all this stuff on him so he'd feel sorry for you.”
“That not true!”
“Well, come on! You don't think he'd feel the same if you were just the girl next door, do you?”
“But—” Sundara had to smile. It was so obvious. “If I am the girl next door, I am not Sundara Sovann. I am not the girl he like. Cannot separate someone from their past. I am everything I already live through. Just as you are.”
Cathy's face was pink up to her eyelids. Her voice broke. “Well, what am I supposed to do? Hope for something awful to happen to me.so I can act real brave about it? Then maybe I could compete?”
Sundara sighed. Now she no longer feared Cathy. Now she could tell her off.
And now that she could, she no longer wanted to.
“I'm sorry you unhappy,” she said. “I never mean to make everybody so sad.” And then she walked on, pretending not to see the clusters of people who'd been lingering, trying to hear.
By the time she reached American lit, the teacher had a note for her. She was to report to Coach Hackenbruck. About Jonathan, of course, but what could the coach want with her?
When she appeared at his door, Coach Hackenbruck swung his feet off his desk and wasted no time on pleasantries. “I don't suppose I have to tell you about McKinnon quitting.”
“I just now hear it.”
“Well, what do you think we ought to do?”
Sundara blinked at him. “I'm beg your pardon?”
“Look, let's be frank. I know something's going on between you two, and I have a hunch you have something to do with this.”
“I never tell him to quit. People blaming me, but this not my idea at all.”
“Oh, no? Then tell me why he was in here not forty-five minutes ago raving about the U.S. bombing of Vietnam.”
“You mean Cambodia?”
“Whatever. What the hell has it got to do with football?”
“He just upset about that.” Sundara's jaw was working. “Maybe he doesn't think football so important compare to the big thing he worry about.”
One of the younger assistant coaches came in. Hacken-bruck rolled his eyes at him and shook his head.
“McKinnon?” the younger man said.
Hackenbruck nodded.
The assistant coach threw a leg over a chair, sitting in it backward.
They stared at her, waiting.
“Tm telling the true,” she said. “Jonatan make up his own mind about this.”
“Yeah?” Hackenbruck said. “Well, I'm not so sure he's functioning with all his screws tight these days. If he's got some problems, we'd like to help him. What is it, drugs? Problems at home? Has he given you any other reasons for doing this? I'd blame the whole thing on his concussion except I've smelled this coming on.”
Sundara focused on the big bulletin board of newspaper clippings, recognizing some of the pictures from Jonathan's scrapbook. She was trying to remember all the things he'd said about football.
“Well, one thing, he doesn't want to hurt his knee.”
“Hurt his knees” Hackenbruck made a pained face. “What kind of talk is that?”
Sundara tossed her hair back. “Maybe that
smart
talk. Why he want
to
break his good body for a game he doesn't like?”
“Doesn't like?” the assistant said. “But he's a very talented player.”
“Maybe, but that make no matter. He not happy about it.”
“Not happy about it.” Hackenbruck loaded each word with disgust. He swiveled to his assistant. “Do you believe this? Kid's our best shot at the state title next year and
he's not happy about it.”
He rested his elbows on his knees and twirled his whistle cord around his finger.
He took a deep breath. “I may look like an old fogy to you,” he said to Sundara, “but I'm not
so
old I don't remember what it feels like to be a seventeen-year-old boy. Now, I know we can't keep them away from you girls, but sometimes you have too much influence on them. And I don't mind telling you, when that's the case, it's a heck of a lot easier on everybody if the girl is somebody who's— well, somebody who—”
“Somebody with white skin?” Sundara said. “Somebody who can do embarrassing dancing on the rally squad? Somebody who think a player who make a touchdown is a big man?”
“Now, don't get upset,” the younger coach said, but it was Hackenbruck he glanced at. Fleetingly, Sundara remembered what Kelly had said: Nobody argued with Hackenbruck.
The assistant coach turned back to Sundara. “You've got to give us a break here. We're trying to work this out. And this
is
kind of a tough case.”
“Yes, very sad for you. Your star player doesn't like to smash into other people for fun.”
Hackenbruck stood up. “Now listen here, young lady—”
“Hold on, Jack. It wasn't her idea, remember? Maybe she'd just as soon have a boyfriend who
is
on the team.” He rested his forearms on the back of the chair and smiled at Sundara. “Maybe she could … ahh … persuade him?” Then he winked.
It was not a nice wink. It was a wink that made her mad.
“No;” she said. “No, I can't. Please excuse me. I'm missing my class.”
She turned and marched out of their office.
Jonathan caught up with her just before international relations.
“I've been looking for you all over,” he said, almost panting. His hair was messier than usual, his flannel shirt hung open over his T-shirt.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. “Everybody talking like you going crazy.”
“I'm not going crazy. I'm getting sane.”
“But you quit the team?”
“Yeah, right. So what? One more game the doctor didn't want me in anyway.”
“But next year … ?”
“To hell with next year. Listen, I've got to tell you something.” He steered her around the corner where there weren't so many people. “Last night I had this huge fight with my parents.”
“They mad about you quit the team?”
“No, no, it's— See, this guy in our church decided to organize a group of doctors to volunteer for the refugee camps. He came over last night and asked my dad if he'd go. I thought, wow, this is great. No waiting around for the government. Just get some doctors together and go. And then—I couldn't believe it when my dad was so waf-fly. And my mom—for weeks she's been sniffling over all these pictures in the magazines, going, Oh, I wish we could
do
something.’ Now all of a sudden it's Oh, better not. What if you get a disease? What if you get shot?’ ”
She stared at him. He was talking so fast. Had he forgotten about the hospital? About telling her he loved her? First she'd been wondering what they could possibly say to each other after that.
Then
she'd been expecting to hear about football. The last thing on her mind was the refugee camps.
“So of course she runs for her checkbook,” he went on, “like she can send a donation instead of my dad. God, is that typical?”
“Jonatan, can you calm down? I have a hard time to understand. They ask your father to help and he doesn't want to go?”
“Well, he says he hasn't made up his mind, but I don't believe him. He's backpedaling so fast, coming up with all this garbage about how it's no use sending doctors if all they really need is people with shovels to bury the dead. Keeps saying he's not convinced they've got a workable system set up for medical people.” Jonathan snorted. “Just making excuses.” He raised his eyebrows with a shrug. “And that's what I told him.”
“Jonatan! You say that to your father?”
“Yeah, I did. And I told him I was having a hard time believing his old stories about the free clinic, working with poor people and stuff. Not that I think he's lying. Just that it's hard to imagine he and Mom used to be that way. Now they seem to think it's enough to sit in their armchairs and watch it on TV as long as they keep saying how awful it all is.”
“I think you too hard on them.”
“That's another thing.” Now he actually sounded angry. “I also told him he doesn't deserve the way you look up to him like he's some kind of hero.”
“You
are
going crazy, talk back to him like that. You don't understand. When we first come … when you having a really bad time, somebody who nice seem like a hero enough.”
“Okay, so he was nice. Big deal, Sundara. Basically, he only did what any doctor would do. Prescribing antibiotics isn't heroic.”
Sundara looked away from him, down the hall. Why did they have to argue about this? Everyone else was mad at her; she'd been counting on Jonathan to talk about loving her. A girl she didn't even know gave her a dirty look in passing—this silly football thing. And couldn't they just forget Cambodia for once?
“Come on, Sundara, you've seen it on the news. It's going to take a lot more than
nice
to clean up the mess at those refugee camps.”
She leveled a look at him. “Don't you talk to me that way.”
He took a step back. “Hey, I didn't—”
“Not my fault you mad at your father, not my fault you quit the team.” She flashed her eyes at him. “And especially not my fault everybody die in Cambodia!”