Children of the River (14 page)

CHAPTER
17

Sundara flipped off the kitchen faucet. “Ravy, could you help me, please?”
No answer. Not surprising, with that awful TV noise. She marched past the boys and turned down the volume. If Soka was so concerned about evil American influences, why didn't she ban these shows? Look at little Pon, sitting there big-eyed, learning to believe that a car can squeal tires, fly through the air, and explode in a fireball without the driver even getting scratched.
“Hey, watch out” Ravy motioned her aside. “You're in our way.”
“Could you put the clothes in the dryer, please? And start a load of towels?”
He frowned, intent on the screen. “That's not a boy's job.”
Something snapped. “Not a boy's job” She stepped between him and the chasing cars, hands on her hips. “Would you rather clean up the kitchen? I can't do everything myself, you know. I'm not your servant.”
Startled, Ravy rose and went to the garage, eyeing her over his shoulder. Pon looked surprised too.
Well, let them be shocked. She went back to loading the dishwasher. Ravy took to American ways easily enough when they suited him; maybe he'd have to accept a few he didn't like so much. In America it might not be so easy finding the kind of woman who would spoil him. Besides, he knew how to work; it wouldn't hurt him to help out on Saturday. They had so much to catch up on. She hadn't realized how many chores her aunt usually took care of until she stopped.
“Hey, are you all right?” Ravy said now, coming back into the kitchen.
She heard the washer and dryer humming. She sighed. He wasn't a bad boy. He couldn't help it if Soka let him think women would always wait on him.
“Sorry I'm so cross, Ravy. It's been a hard week.”
School had been bad enough with all the trouble over Jonathan, and then she dreaded coming home too. After last week's grim news, Soka had grieved herself into a bad cold. She called in sick at work, gave up cooking and cleaning. Every afternoon she waited for Sundara to come home, eager for fresh ears to hear her sorrowing. She hardly ate anything, and managed to kill everyone else's appetite, too, going on at each meal about how terrible it made her feel to eat, knowing so many were starving. “I'm starting to fear we'll never see any of our relatives again in this life,” she took to saying, and each time she repeated her dark premonition, the knot in Sundara's stomach clenched tighter.
“Think I'll head over to Kevin's,” Ravy said now.
Sundara nodded, envying him. He wanted to leave before Soka, Naro, and Grandmother came back from the grocery store.
She fastened the chain behind him. Well, she'd have her own brief escape when Soka came home, even if it was just a trip to the garbage dump. At least it would give her a chance to see Moni. That was something. Maybe things would have been easier lately if she'd been able to talk with her, let Moni find the black humor in all this. If there was any. Sundara longed to be distracted with talk of married life, but Moni and Chan Seng were busy, she knew, moving into their new apartment. Today, though, she had promised to haul a broken chair away for them.
She whirled through the kitchen, wiping the counters, the stove, getting down on her hands and knees to scrub the floor. Soka must be given no excuse to criticize.
When the kitchen was done, she hurried out to the garage and pulled the dry clothes into a basket. It was cold in the garage now; they'd had to move her cot into the family room, which she disliked. She did not miss the smell of gasoline, but apparently she had developed an American taste for privacy. All week she hardly slept for listening to her aunt roaming the house at night like a restless ghost, sobbing out her regrets, berating herself for the way she'd treated those they'd left behind.
Sundara was in the bedroom folding clothes when she heard them ringing insistently for her to unfasten the door chain. She hurried down the hall with the empty plastic laundry basket.
When she opened the door, the silence was as cold as the rush of foggy air. Grandmother tottered past her to the bedroom, staring straight ahead. Had the clerks been rude to her again? Naro seemed agitated, setting down his sacks, unwinding the scarf from his neck.
Soka dropped her sack of groceries on the counter with an angry
tbunk.
“So.” She stared at Sundara through narrowed eyes that skewered her like hot pokers. “Why do you
do
these things, Niece? Don't we have troubles enough?”
Sundara glanced at Naro, but he was putting vegetables in the refrigerator, his back squarely turned.
“What have I done?” Sundara's voice was faint.
“What, she asks.
What?
Shamed us all, that's what! We met with the wife of Pok Sary in the produce section, and listen to this: She could not
wait
to tell us that her son saw you and that American boy walking away from the school together.”
The laundry basket slipped from Sundara's hand. She reached for the counter to steady herself. “Please let me explain, Younger Aunt.”
“Then it's true! Oh, what Fate! Fool that I am, I still held out hope that she lied. What is the matter with you, girl? Sometimes I wonder what life you came from before this. You made a promise to me!”
“But Younger Aunt, I've kept that promise. It's not the way Pok Simo makes it sound. I was upset. Jonatan only wanted to help me. It was the day after we learned the news of Theary and my friend Ghamroeun.”
Soka paused. That had been a dark day for the whole family; Sundara was safe in pleading grief.
“I wasn't even thinking clearly,” Sundara added.
Soka seemed to consider this. “So this is the one and only time since your promise you have talked to this boy?”
Sundara hesitated, remembering the hospital visit.
“Ah-iw/ So it isn't” Soka said, pouncing in.
“But you don't understand, Younger Aunt—”
“I understand.” Soka's voice gathered intensity. “I understand that you play me like a fool with your deceit. I understand that I am weary of feeding and sheltering a girl who makes me lose face with people like the wife of Pok Sary.”,
“Now, Soka,” Naro said. “Why don't we just forget what that family thinks of us? We have no need to impress them.”
“Ha! You're trying to tell me you felt no shame when she practically came out and called our niece a filthy—”
“Soka! Enough!”
Rebuked, Soka turned on Sundara a look of purest loathing. “I wish you would go,” she said evenly. “Get out of my sight.”
Sundara stepped back as if slapped, then turned and fled the kitchen. Soka moved to follow and finish the tongue-lashing, but Naro blocked her way.
“Little Sister, this is no way to talk!”
“Oh, isn't it? Why do you defend her? She lied to us!”
From the dining area Pon began to cry.
Sundara cringed in the hallway, her heart pounding painfully. All this shouting, and because of her.
Soka's voice rose. “Maybe you'd be more concerned about her if she were the daughter
of your
sister!
Your
responsibility!”
“Responsibility! For four years I've heard nothing but
responsibility
when it comes to our niece. Is that all you think of her? A child needs affection too. You're too hard on her. You Ve given her all the discipline and none of the love. I hardly think that's what your sister had in mind when she entrusted her to you.”
“She didn't want her to turn into a bad girl either.”
“She's not a bad girl.”
“She's becoming one. Can't you see that?”
Stop!
Sundara clapped her hands over her ears.
Phase stop!
“No, I don't see that. I see a girl who's doing her best and having a hard time just like the rest of us. You're not the only one who was uprooted, you know” Such hot retorts, accusations obviously long held inside, silently rehearsed. Sundara burned.
“And as for these complaints about feeding her,” Naro went on, “are you forgetting how hard she worked this summer? She earned a lot of money. And it's not as if she's come home pregnant. But the way you rave on … Don't we have enough troubles right now without you worrying about what might or might not happen in the future?”
“But
you
are the one who says we must look to the future, plan for her to be a doctor.”
“Yes, that's right. And the girl brings home straight A's. What more do you want?”
“Straight A's won't save her if she's ruined by an American boy. You just want to shut your eyes to the problem because you know this would never have happened if we hadn't come to America!”
“Soka” There was a shocked pause. “Now I know for certain you're out of your mind. We would all be
dead
if we hadn't come to America. And you know it.”
This was unreal, a bad dream. People did not shout this way, rage at each other …
Sundara's uncle was at her side, a pulse pounding in his temple, surprise at his own anger plain on his face. He put his hand on her shoulder, thinking. He glanced back toward the kitchen.
“It might be best if you went ahead to the dump. We must all regain our senses.”
Sundara nodded numbly. But where could she go if Soka decided to throw her out for good? To a city to beg on the streets as she'd heard some runaways did? A government orphan home, living with strangers … ?
Naro put the car keys in her hand. “I don't think Soka even knows what she's saying anymore.”
She knows,
Sundara thought. Soka had said nothing Sundara hadn't already known she'd felt, nothing she hadn't heard in her voice many times before.
“I will speak to her while you're gone.”
Sundara pulled her rubber mud boots from the hall closet and jammed her feet into them. “Please don't trouble yourself, Uncle.” Couldn't he see? It didn't matter what anyone said. Soka would always hate her. She hadn't been able to save Soka's baby, and Soka was never going to forgive her. Sundara opened the front door to the fog. The very air in this house was poisoned with Soka's hatred; she couldn't stand to breathe it another minute.
She longed to spill this to Moni, but when her friend opened her apartment door, the words wouldn't come. Sundara leaned against the doorjamb, still weak with the force of Soka's anger.
“Sundara! What is it? Are you sick? Oh, of course, your friend Chamroeun. I was so sorry to hear that news.”
Sundara shook her head.
“The American boy, then?”
“Yes, no. Oh Moni, it's everything. My chest feels tight enough to break open. This time Soka will throw me out, I'm sure of it.”
“Oh, I can't believe that. Come in now. Sit down.”
“No, no, I must go to the dump.”
“Just a minute, then.” Moni went in and spoke with her husband. “I'd better come with you, Little Sister. We can talk in the car.”
But Sundara couldn't talk, couldn't explain. She was weary of trying. Chamroeun was dead, Soka would always hate her, they would never see their family again. She could never fit in with the Americans, yet now that she'd known Jonathan, she could never accept an arranged marriage to a stranger. What was the point? What was the point of trying anymore? What was die point of anything?
At the deserted dump, Sundara drove the station wagon up the muddy road to the top and backed it to the edge of the steep slope. She opened the door. The stench of rotting garbage hit her in the face, turned her stomach. She put on her work gloves as Moni got out the other side. Then they opened the back hatch and Moni pulled out her chair. Taking short, quick breaths of the stinking fog, Sundara opened the plastic cans and spilled the contents of each down the slope. She shoved the cans back in, slammed the door, stripped off the gloves.
Then she saw it. Down in the rubble, a tiny arm reached through the garbage toward her. She shut her eyes, heart pounding.
“Little Sister, what is it?”
Cautiously, Sundara opened her eyes. Still there. She stared, trembling.
Moni squinted in the same direction. “Oh, it's just a doll.” She smiled tentatively. “A broken doll?”
Sundara fought for breath, stumbling back against the car, pressing her head between her hands. “The baby … Oh, the baby …”
“Sundara, what are you talking about?” Moni peered down into the rubble again. “It's not a baby. It's a doll. Can't you see that?”
“No, no …” Sundara knew a doll from a baby, and she knew an omen when she saw one too. She sank to the mud.
“Sundara” Moni tried to pull her up but she fell back against the tire.
“No use, Moni. No use.” She was sobbing now, powerless to stop it from engulfing her … the brief instant of hope at the baby's stirring, the bewilderment at pulling back the
krama,
and—
God in heaven
—the last shudder of life, the tiny hand slowly uncurling its fingers…. Seeing it all again now, her cry rose.
“Nooooo!”
Moni fell back, hand to her mouth.
“Nooo! She'll be with me forever” Sundara cried.
“Please,”
Moni begged. “What are you talking about?”
“Soka's baby! Oiee! I might as well have her lashed in my
kratna
for the rest of my life.”
“What is this? Soka had a baby?”
Sundara nodded crazily, holding her head as if to crush it. “And I let her die! I was supposed to take care of her and instead I let her die!”
“Oh … oh, merciful God …” Moni glanced around, wringing her hands. “I've got to get you home.”
“I have no home!”
“Sundara, you've got to get up. I can't drive your uncle's car. I only have my learner's permit!”
This struck Sundara as wildly, absurdly funny. She began laughing hysterically. Moni, who knew how to keep babies alive, who had tramped hundreds of miles through the jungle alone, afraid to drive a car!
But Moni's voice sounded wavery and close to tears. “Don't laugh like that, Little Sister! You're scaring me!”
Sundara went back to crying. “Just leave me here, Moni. Just leave me.”
Suddenly, Moni's strong arms were around her, dragging her to the car, wrestling her inside.
Moni got in the driver's side, put her hands on the wheel, and drew a deep breath. “Heaven protect us,” she said. She turned on the ignition.
Sundara sobbed all the way home. Her hair stuck to her wet face as she huddled on the front seat, a muddy heap. Finally, the car stopped. The door on her side opened and hands reached for her, arms lifted her out. Moni had summoned Naro. Supporting Sundara between them, they half carried her to the house.
“One look at this broken doll,” Moni said, “and she fell down in a fit.”
“She was upset when she left. She and Soka, you know …”
“Yes, I could see that, but what is this business of Soka's baby?”
“Ah, she spoke of that?”
Soka came in from the living room, trailed by Grandmother. “What's the matter with her?”