Nowhere Girl (10 page)

29

We stay hidden for less time than we spent preparing to sneak onboard the boat. Every corner is crowded with passengers, and no one gives us a second look. I am also interested to see that most of the people on the boat are
farang
. Many of these foreigners hold travel maps and lean far over the side of the boat, talking loudly and pointing and clicking their cameras in the direction of the rising sun.

As I stand and take in my surroundings, the rumbling of this great water beast grows louder. There is a lurch, and a man's voice comes out of a little speaker box in the corner of the room. He is telling us to find seats or stand up on deck to see the sights, telling us to enjoy this sunrise tour of Bangkok, City of Angels, telling us that the ride will last one hour and forty minutes … and here my heart begins to pound so hard I am afraid it will break free from my chest.

The boat's jolts have turned into strong, churning movements that tug us along on the rough water. Chaluay and I are well below the deck, but in my mind I can still see those hungry waves. They are the opposite of everything I have known—they are free, unbound, stretching out so far in every direction—and the thought of all that wide-open space after the sturdy sameness of my upbringing is more than I can handle.

Chaluay does not seem to have noticed my distress. She is halfway up the stairs. “I do this all the time. They are so busy they never notice one or two extra people.” She stops now, near the top step, and turns to look at me. For the first time, she falters. “Are you all right? Don't you like boats?”

Now there is a statement that should not be a question. I shake my head and push farther back into the wall. Slowly I sink to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees, holding them tight against my wavering stomach. Maybe if I close myself up tight like this, I will be able to survive until we get back to dry land.

My eyes are squeezed shut and the boat jostles from side to side, so I don't notice right away that Chaluay has come back to sit on the floor next to me. I open my eyes and her face is soft and questioning.

“How are you going to get to America if you cannot travel by boat?” she asks.

That surprises me out of my discomfort and I look up at her. “By airplane,” I say. “I told you.”

She waves that aside. “Airplanes are very expensive. You say you have enough, but what if you run out of money? The boat is much cheaper. Safer, too. It takes only a little longer to get there.”

I try to laugh at the thought of the word “safe” being connected with this rickety vessel, but it comes out as a snort. Chaluay leans closer and gives me a tight smile. “You will be all right,” she says. “I will sit here with you for a few minutes; then we will go up on deck. Together.”

I groan, pressing my face into my hands. The world is still so new, so full of things that terrify me. Must I take handfuls of it all at once?

Chaluay's persistence and iron will help me, eventually, to move up the stairs and to the deck. My knees shake and my breakfast rises in my throat, but I breathe slowly and force myself not to give in to panic. And after a while I find that being able to see all that roaring water actually makes things easier. It brings my terror out of the shadows, lets me look on its face. And to my surprise, it is not as deadly as I had thought.

Once again I find that to see, to choose with open eyes, is far better than cowering in darkness, drowning in my fear.

I still cannot follow Chaluay to the guardrails, won't even watch as she reaches her arms out over the edge to try to touch the rising sprays of water, won't throw dry bread crusts to the catfish that cluster in gulping masses just outside the boat's wake. But I can bear to sit, far back from the edge, on a soft covered bench. And as the minutes tick away, I find I can smile at the early-morning sun's glow on my hands, at the fresh-scrubbed air, at the bustle of chattering languages and the raucous joy of a group of people doing something wonderful on a mild day.

Then the rain starts up and most of the people go inside, but when Chaluay stays on deck I don't even mind. I just sit and soak in the wet morning, and think how different some things are from how they seemed from a distance.

And when my feet finally cross the barrier to safety, I think that in another life, I might have grown to miss that boat's gentle rocking, so like the movement of my cot when I was very young, so like my mother's arms.

30

After our early-morning jaunt, Chaluay reminds me that she doesn't have all day to spend sightseeing. “Some of us have to work for our money,” she says, and her tone has enough bite that I look up in surprise. But she just tosses me the spare helmet and kicks her bike engine to life.

She drops me on Rama IV with a good-bye as clipped and a look nearly as stony as on our first meeting with Kiet. “
Chok dee na ja
,” she says, wishing me luck, but doesn't look like she really means it. What caused her to move from this morning's near-friendship back to this? I shake my head and push away the uncomfortable prickle at the base of my neck. I have bigger things to worry about.

Mostly: Rama IV is a longer street than I had expected, and I have been dropped off nowhere near BK Storage.

I set off walking.

My feet are sore by the time I see the tall Boss Towers building that was scribbled onto my map by the friendly travel man. From there it's just minutes to get to BK Storage, a huge white box of a building with orange and blue trim on the edges. I stand outside for a long time, telling myself that just because it is shaped like a prison does not mean it will be the same on the inside. Finally I push open the front door and slip in.

And there I gasp. It's like moving from summer to winter in an eye's blink. A moment ago my arms were shiny with sweat. Now I can see every hair standing on end, and my back teeth start to clatter against each other. What is this strange frozen world? Even the coldest nights in my cell were nothing like this.

Unable to make sense of it, I move down the carpeted hall and come to a wide-open area where a young woman sits behind a gleaming wood desk.

“May I help you?” she asks in English.

I don't have any idea what to do, so I just pull out the key and place it on the desk in front of her. She picks it up and frowns, turns it over in her hands a few times. I try to imagine the key as seen through her eyes: the tendrils of rust curling along the teeth, the shriveled-up label, the cracked and peeling plastic. I sink a little lower where I stand.

“Will you wait a moment, please?” She gets up and slides out of the room.

I can't even imagine what's coming next. If this is my last clue and it goes nowhere, what happens then? But a minute later the young woman beckons me down another hallway. I enter a small bright office where a foreign man with pale hair stands frowning at me, holding my key.

“Good morning, Miss—?”

“Luchi Ann,” I say, but I know this isn't enough.
Never reveal your full name
, Mama always told me. But how can I avoid it now? I settle on the next-best thing, though there is really no difference. “The key belonged to my mother. Her name was Helena Finn.”

The man must notice my use of the past tense. “I'm so sorry,” he murmurs. “Won't you sit down, Miss Finn? My name is Henry Rogers, and I'll help you sort this out. It's a bit of a problem, though—we haven't used this series of keys for nearly a decade. Do you know when your mother had a box with us?”

I drift into the chair he pointed out. Is this it, then? Nothing but a dead end? Have I spilled a lifetime's secret to a stranger for nothing? “Fourteen years ago,” I say dully. I look at the carpet, tracing the curlicue pattern with my eyes, trying to keep back the blurry tears that threaten to spill out.

But Henry Rogers doesn't keep talking. He's looking at the key with a thoughtful expression. “Finn,” he says. “Now, why does that name ring a bell?” He turns to the computer, types for a few minutes, then stands up and walks over to a big filing cabinet. As he pulls open drawers and shifts around the papers inside, he tosses an occasional look over his shoulder at me, keeping up a patter of conversation. “I've been doing this a long time, you know. Going on twenty years. And I see all types in this business—all types. We don't get many longtime customers, and I know I haven't ever had a Finn in here. But there's something that tickles at me, something— Ah!”

I look up, hardly daring to hope.

Henry whips out a yellowish folder. His eyes are bright. “Of course! Box 391—how could I forget? One of our regulars, he was. Nice young chap, drifted in and out occasionally, family business interests he was checking on here or some such. He liked to store things with us for safekeeping, since he was in the country fairly often. Long-term fellow, always paid up regular from a dedicated account.”

My mouth feels like it is full of dry lentils. I couldn't say a word if I tried.

“Last time he came through—right you are!—fourteen years ago, he added a name to the account: a certain Helena Finn.” Henry looks up with a triumphant smile, takes in my expression, and returns hastily to his paperwork. “Special delivery, this one. Obviously important to him. Left it here and said he'd be back—but that's the last I ever heard. I always did wonder what became of him. He was paid up for the rest of the year, and truth be told, he had left enough in the dedicated account that the payments kept up automatically. We actually had those goods in storage as recently as six or seven years ago.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Henry's eyes are bleak. “I'm sorry, Miss Finn—Luchi. You have to understand, it's been so long. Unclaimed materials are recycled. The contents of that box just aren't around anymore.”

But I hardly hear his last words. My thoughts are stuck back a few minutes ago, back at the first mention of that elusive
he
. There
is
a clue here, something immensely valuable to me, something I desperately need to know. I clear my throat, press my nails hard into the chair's leathery surface.

“Who—” My voice is hoarse and raspy. “He—you mentioned you knew the man who—who set up, who opened the account. Can you tell me—who he is? His name?”

Henry looks up in surprise. “Why, of course. Helena Finn was his wife, recently married I understood. So I assume that would be your father, wouldn't it? His name was Payne. Rupert Payne.”

31

The rest of the day drifts by in a haze. I somehow make my way to Lumphini Park, where I connect with a bench and stare out across the lush green grass, seeing nothing. Rupert Payne, my father. Why did he never return for the items in his storage box? How did my mother end up with his key? Obviously there is some connection to Payne Industries, the company Jeanne talked about that so upset my mother. Could my father have been the one Mama feared so desperately? Is he the horrible, evil person she has been hiding from? If so, then why can't I suppress this desperate need to find him, to know him, to hear what he has to say?

I asked the man at the storage facility as many questions as I could think of, but his memory did not stretch to the kinds of details I need. Now I can think of a hundred questions I didn't ask, but I cannot return and face him again. I know I shouldn't be sitting here, wasting the day away. I know I should go back to the travel store, but I am so deeply sunk in my despair that I cannot bring myself to move.

And so I stay tangled in my thoughts, and by the time I see Chaluay's lean form beckoning me, I am no closer to unraveling them. For her sake I shake myself out of my stupor and try to paste on a cheerful expression.

But Chaluay seems to be in a funk of her own. As I climb on and settle my hands around her waist, she calls out, “Have you made plans for when you will leave Bangkok?”

I blush at her forwardness, but she hurries quickly along. “Only because I—I might need to travel soon. I will likely have to go out of town. So I just wondered if you—did you buy your ticket?”

“Not yet,” I say, and then I feel suddenly angry with myself. Why, instead of spending the day dreaming of lost things, did I not go straight to Siam Square? First thing tomorrow, that's exactly what I'll do. “But very soon. I must go soon. Tomorrow I will buy the ticket.”

And finally the knot in my mind untangles, and with that comes the peace I have been searching for all day. It's time to take the next step of my journey. I used the key. I didn't find any tangible treasure, no memento of my mother's past, but I did learn something important: my father's name. In spite of everything, my plan has grown stronger. I do have family, though they don't know it—and no one, not even Chaluay and her sour mood, can take my plan away from me.

Or so I think as I go to sleep that night.

The next morning, I am shaken awake again in the early dark, so that for a moment I wonder if perhaps I have been trapped in a never-ending yesterday. But Chaluay's look is not what it was; there is no sunrise on the river hiding in her gaze. Her look, from last night's pebbly stone, has gone to rock-hard flint.

“You must wake up,” she says, shaking me again.

“I'm awake,” I say, sitting up and pulling the cover around my shoulders, shivering in the chilly dark. Outside, thunder rumbles, and the rain roars like a waterfall.

Chaluay does not meet my eyes. Now that I am up, she backs away and scuffs toward the kitchen. “I am sorry,” she says. “We must leave here now. I have had … unexpected news. I must leave town at once.”

I gape at her. My mind is still fuzzy with sleep, and I am not sure what I am hearing. “But—”

“I am sorry,” she says again. “But we must go very quickly. There is no time to do anything.” She shoves my clothes at me, a neat folded pile. Did I leave them on the end of my bed, and not in my bag as I thought?

Still in the fuddle of sleep, I accept the clothes and go into the washroom to change. When I come out, she hands me a paper bag. “Food,” she says. “This will last you today.” She is looking everywhere except at me. I feel like I am back on the river, only now the boat is being peeled away, board by board, and the waves are roaring closer and closer. Outside the window, jagged lightning and cracks of thunder tear apart the sky.

Within minutes, we are out on the street. Chaluay's bike roars through puddles, dashing the last bits of sleep from my foggy mind.

“Where do you need to go? Has something bad happened?” I call to Chaluay over the wind. But either she doesn't hear me or she chooses not to answer, and I do not repeat myself.

We are riding in a part of town that I have not yet seen. Everything around me gleams dark and wet. We are close to the river, but it is bigger and harsher than where we rode the ferry yesterday. I see many trucks and forklifts and, out on the water, ships so huge they look like floating barns. Has Chaluay brought me to the port? How will I get from here to the travel store?

The bike stops and I climb off, my mind whirling with questions. Chaluay does not follow me. Instead, she revs up the engine again. “I am sorry,” she says quietly. For the first time since yesterday, she looks me full in the face, and my heart freezes inside me.

What is she not telling me?

Chaluay nods her head and roars away into the dark.

And as she goes, a flutter of memories come to me: Jeanne's warnings to always watch your back, no matter where you are. Chaluay's eyes, skittering guiltily around me, hurrying me out of her way. The travel man's angry hiss, telling me I should never carry around so much—

My hands, already wet but now ice-cold, fly to my bag. Ducking under an awning I claw open the top and pull out the tea box. My heart skips a beat to find it still there. Mama's papers. The letter. And the little pile of
baht
and—

The pouch that held my dollars, my ticket to freedom?

I pull everything out and rifle through it, check down to the bottom of the bag. But the pouch is no longer there.

Every last dollar is gone.