Out of the Dragon's Mouth (14 page)

“Goodbye, Minh. I hope you have a good life.” Tomorrow, or the next day, Minh and his family would be gone on the early boat to the mainland, and then Small Auntie would not be able to take the bracelet away. Mai would have to hide until then.

“Goodbye. Maybe we'll see each other again.” A smile crept across the solemn landscape of Minh's face.

The sun splattered over the fine white sand as Mai re-turned to their camp, her chest heaving. Pushing back the hanging rice bag, she entered the section of the tent that Hiep and she had shared. His hammock hung limply between two poles, a brown plastic bag dangling from one, his few possessions in it.

Mai removed the bag from the hook and opened it. A crumpled white T-shirt and a tan pair of shorts lay on top. Underneath was the shiny metal can opener with the black handle her uncle had traded three cans of peas for at the market, and a deck of cards. How Hiep had loved to gamble. It had taken Mai a while to discover that he went to card games when he stayed out late at night. She hadn't minded. At least he had found something to entertain himself, and he had no money to lose. Sometimes he'd even won extra food for them.

Mai's gaze went over to her hammock. Four small cans for drinking and eating lined the edge of a small bench. Next to them, the oil-filled can Hiep had fashioned into a candle stood by the two halves of a large oil can he had cut for cooking pots.

She reached up and ran her fingers across her red bag. The zipper whined as she opened it and pulled out the red blouse and the pair of black pants. She smoothed the wrinkles in the cotton blouse and thought of the day when she would wear this outfit to America. Mother had sewn them just for that. Underneath the outfit lay her plainer blouse and pants, along with her notebook, pencil, yarn, knitting needles, and the lumpy scarf she'd made. Mai sighed, folded the outfit, and replaced it in the bag. Unfolding and folding her “going to America” clothes had become a morning ritual with her. Sometimes she even slipped them on and pretended she'd heard her name over the loudspeaker.

She stroked the bracelet deep in her pants pocket. When it was dark and no one was around, she would bury it in the sand under her cooking fire. She should have hidden it there when she first came to this camp instead of carrying it tucked in her waistband, but she wanted it close to her so that she could feel its power. Now she wanted to gaze at it, the bracelet she had nearly lost.
Mother, I have not failed you
, she thought.

She edged into a corner of the tent, then slid the bracelet from her pocket and held it to the light with both hands, admiring the deep glow of its burnished gold. She pushed it on her wrist, its power warming her fingertips and sending a rush of heat through her body. Her ears tingled and her knees trembled.
I shall never let you go again,
she promised it.
Mother gave you to me to help me through this journey and I will hold on to you with all my might.
Folding her hands around the bracelet, she prayed to Buddha for strength and wisdom and then solemnly returned the bracelet to the dark folds of her pocket.

When the crimson cast of day kissed the horizon with its last beams of light, Mai listened to the singsong voices gossiping near the water's edge, the cry of a soaring seagull, the creaking of the tent poles, the clang of pots being hung up to dry, the whoosh of a tent flap being lowered, the pattering of feet on the sand, someone snoring in the space next to her, a gentle laugh, and the beating of her own heart. Alive—this was how it felt.

She listened until the voices from the water's edge
retreated to their tents, and then she crept over to her cooking fire, three large rocks arranged in a triangle. Reaching down and lifting the ashes from the hole in the center, she dropped them on the sand, then dug a deeper pit within the fire hole. She placed the bracelet, wrapped in a small corner of rice bag, in the hole. The briny dampness invaded her nostrils as she patted the sand over the bracelet and scooped the ashes back in the fire hole. Gleaming beacons on the far-off Malaysian mainland and the blinking lights of a fishing boat on its way to harbor were her only witnesses.

The mainland. That's where they had taken Hiep to die, and then buried him. What it was like, lying in a hole covered by earth? Did he feel anything? Had he known he was going to die? What had he thought about in those last moments? Had he been afraid? Had anyone been with him to hold his hand as his spirit left his body? He had died so far from home. His spirit would not find rest.

She remembered the young woman cast into the deep on her sea journey. The sharks had eaten her. What would happen to Hiep's body? Her parents had never discussed these things in front of her, preferring her to remain innocent and naïve, trying to protect her from life. Now she had to learn on her own.

She crawled back into the tent and stood up, her soul awash with fear and grief. Lighting a tin can candle and placing it on her bench, she tried to focus her eyes in the dim light, but the bamboo tent poles wobbled, her hammock started to sway, and the ground tilted to the sky. The tent rocked like their ship in the stormy sea.

Hold on, hold on
, she cried to herself. “Cha, Father, help me.” She could see her father's face, with a cigarette drooping from his mouth, exhaling a puff of smoke and smiling at her. She reached out for him, but he was not there. No one was. Kien, where was Kien? “Kien!” Her cries echoed into the darkness.

A soft, petal-like voice called back to her. “Mai, what's the matter?” A hand caressed her aching back with a touch so gentle she thought it might be the wing of a butterfly. She lay on her stomach in her hammock with her eyes closed, afraid to move, afraid the soothing strokes would stop. How wonderful it would be to lie there forever, adrift in this sea of peace. Then the voice spoke again, a voice she knew.

“Don't cry, little one. Whatever it is, I'll help you.” Lan, her eyes filled with love, stroked her hair. Mai peered at her through teary lashes.

“Where is Kien? I need him,” Mai said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“He didn't come back to camp this evening. I don't know where he is. What's wrong?”

“It's Uncle Hiep. They took him to the mainland. He's, he's … ” Mai held her head in her hands and started to wail.

“He's what, Mai? Tell me.” Lan caught her breath.

“He's dead, Lan. He died. I didn't think he was that sick. If I'd known, I wouldn't have left him.” Mai swiped her tears with the tips of her fingers, leaving a dark smudge across her cheekbones. “I just came back to get the tiger pictures so Uncle Sang's ghost wouldn't harm him. And then Kien and I went to the well.”

Mai stopped, realizing that the trip to the well was a secret. But what did it matter now? Hiep was dead. Nothing had worked. Sang had won. Her hand froze in midair and then fell limply to her side. She reached for Lan and clutched her in her arms. She could feel the beating of Lan's heart, hear her sobs of anguish as they welled up from deep within her.

Mai began to sob in rhythm with Lan, and together they cried out to the unfair universe that had robbed them of the fair and handsome Hiep. They sat clinging together on the bench, comforting each other with their mournful sounds, as if they were the only two people in the world who had loved Hiep.

Lan
had
loved Hiep. Mai had noticed Lan's shyness around Hiep, and the way she would blush when he spoke to her, but Lan's wails made it clear that her love had been true. Just like in the Chinese operas. The fair maiden dying for love, but in this case, Hiep had died, and Lan, the fair maiden, was left to mourn. Why hadn't Hiep declared his love for Lan? She drew her arms back from Lan and looked at her. Lan, her face damp with tears, lowered her eyes.

“Lan, why didn't you tell me how much you cared for Hiep?”

Lan folded her hands delicately in her lap and did not answer, though a crimson blush crept across her cheeks. Mai thought of Kien and her own love for him. She had not told Lan her secret. Maybe it was better not to tell, but she wanted to share these feelings with someone. Mai enjoyed listening to the girls whisper about their crushes to one another as they sat together in their knitting circle.

She thought of her parents and their marriage. Shuddering, she remembered the time she asked her mother if she had loved her father when they'd gotten married. Her mother, emotionless, had shaken her head.

“My parents arranged the marriage through a matchmaker. Your father's family was very important and very rich,” Mother had said, a far-off look in her eyes.

“But they couldn't make you marry him, could they?”

“They were so happy to have me marry him. What could I say?” Mother whispered.

“Was Father handsome? Did he love you?”

“He had good features, but he had only seen me once. We did not marry for love,” she sniffed.

“But do you love each other now?” The answer was important to Mai.

“Ours was the largest wedding the village had ever seen. Over three hundred guests.”

Mai remembered the framed photograph of her parents on their wedding day, standing in front of the family altar, their hands at their sides, staring at the camera unsmiling, flanked by their friends and parents. Her mother had not answered the question. Mai had not asked it again.

“What's the matter?” Ngoc stepped through the partition, followed by Kim.

Mai's chin trembled, and her voice cracked. “Uncle Hiep's dead.”

“It can't be true,” Ngoc gulped, grabbing Mai's hand, tears welling in her eyes. She looked over at Lan, who was wiping her tears with her hair. “What happened?”

Mai related the events of the past few days and Ngoc nodded, her jaw dropping in disbelief. Kim shook her head.

“I want him to have a funeral, but the doctor told me he has already been buried,” Mai said.

“Did you ask if he had a funeral?” Ngoc replied, pushing a strand of hair out of Mai's eyes.

“No, I didn't think of it. Do you think they might have given him one?”

In a proper Chinese Buddhist funeral like her grandmother's, which Mai remembered, Hiep would have been ushered into the next world by chanting monks and his family's prayers while fake money was burned to ensure that he would not want in the afterlife. When his coffin was lowered into its grave, the mourners would have turned their backs to it and stifled their tears so that his spirit would not wish to remain on earth. Then there would have been forty-nine days of mourning, and visits to the temple once a week to pray for his spirit.

“We could pray for him,” Lan said. “I'm sure our ancestors would hear us.”

She knelt on the ground and put her palms together. Kim, Ngoc, and Mai knelt down next to her, the sand gritty on Mai's bare knees. Lan chanted softly for Hiep's soul to be received into the afterworld and for it to rest in peace while the three girls followed along, bowing three times before Hiep's hammock, their heads touching the ground each time, their chants seeping through the dangling rice bags and off into the night. Lan's sounds broke off into sobs and she buried her face on the ground. Mai, desolate, stopped and placed her hand on Lan's back.

“Thank you, Lan. I'm sure Uncle Hiep's spirit will be welcomed into the afterlife now.” Mai could feel Lan's body calming under her touch. Oh, how she wished Kien were here. Where was he? She needed him now. Lan stood up and hugged Mai.

“We can't do anything else now. He's gone. Go to sleep, Lan. You're tired,” Mai said, thinking of the last time she had seen Hiep, lying on that cot in the clinic, his feverish body draped with a mosquito net. How she wished she had stayed with him. She would never forgive herself for leaving him.

“Mai, come and sleep with us. You don't want to be alone tonight,” Ngoc said.

“Yes, come with us,” Lan urged.

“I'll be all right here. You don't have room for me.” Mai wanted to be alone, to grieve by herself, to pray and meditate and ask Buddha to forgive her for neglecting Hiep when he had most needed her, for letting him die alone. Did the girls wonder why she had left him?

“Good night, then,” they whispered. “Come get us if you are lonely,” Ngoc added as the sisters slipped through the hanging rice bags.

Mai crawled into Hiep's hammock, burying her nose in its mesh, smelling him, his musky odor. What if they had gone to the clinic sooner? If only a Chinese doctor had seen him. Father said Chinese medicine was the most powerful. What kind of medicine did these Americans have? She folded her hands and prayed to Great-grandfather's spirit for release—release from this island, release from her anger—and for forgiveness. An offshore breeze wafted through the tent, gathering her cares in its wings and carrying them out to sea, dropping the seeds of sleep on her as it passed by. Her lids closed, her hands folded in supplication.

A cry pierced the night. Mai covered her ears and wriggled deeper into the folds of her blanket. Another cry followed. She pressed her hands even harder against her ears until the side of her head started to throb from the pressure.
No more ghosts. No more ghosts. Go away and leave me alone
, she thought.
I've had enough of you. How many lost spirits roamed the island? So many dead. Away. Away.

Lifting her hands from her ears, Mai waited for another cry, but all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. And then she slept.

Seventeen

The next morning Mai poked her head through the opening of Ngoc and Lan's section of the tent. “Did you hear that cry last night?”

Ngoc, her cheeks wrinkled with the lines of sleep, looked up. “No.”

It must have been a dream. Was Hiep haunting her now because she had left him?

“Where is Lan?” asked Mai, noticing Lan's empty hammock.

“I don't know. She must have risen before me.” Ngoc ran her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair and yawned. Mai slipped on her dép and gathered a pot and a small handful of rice. Little islands of smoke from cooking fires dotted the beach. She approached her fire pit, relieved to see it hadn't been disturbed in the night. Who had cried out? Maybe it had only been a bird. She added a few twigs to the smoldering coals and a flame shot up.

A crackling sound, the woody smell of smoke. A cup of cold water and a handful of rice. She poured these into the cooking pot and balanced it over the fire, scanning the beach for Lan. Where could she be? A voice nagged at Mai:
Go find her.
As soon as the rice had cooked, she decided. The smell made her ravenous; her stomach rumbled. Then she felt a tap on the shoulder. Startled, she turned around. Kien, a bucket of sea cucumbers in his hand, gave her a broad-toothed grin.

“I've brought you a treat for your breakfast,” he said, pushing the bucket toward her.

“Kien, I'm so glad to see you. Have you seen Lan? Ngoc and I couldn't find her this morning.”

Kien set the bucket on the sand. “She's probably gone for water. Have you checked the well?”

Mai felt foolish as she realized that she and Ngoc hadn't actually searched for Lan. Of course, Lan would be back. But the voice still harped at her.
Go find her.
Could the cry in the night have been Lan's? No, Kim and Ngoc would have heard it, sleeping in the same tent with her.

“It's just that she was so upset about Uncle Hiep. She loved him, you know.” Mai lowered her eyes and blushed.

Kien took Mai's hand. “I'll help you find her. You stay here, in case she comes this way, and I'll go to the well.”

Mai smiled. “Thank you, Kien. I know I'm probably worrying for nothing.”

“I'm sure she's all right.” He squeezed her hand and she watched the curve of his back through his T-shirt, the tight muscles in his calves, as he strode down the beach.

One morning a week earlier she and Lan had been sitting on the beach knitting as a Malaysian soldier with a wide grin on his pock-marked face emerged from a thicket of bamboo trees on the edge of the jungle, his long rifle slung over his shoulder, a belt of bullets shining against the dark green of his uniform. The girls cringed and followed him with their lowered eyes. His skin, much darker than theirs, and his eyes, large and deep and separated by a sharp nose, had added to their fright. His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle. Then he'd headed away from them, whistling to himself. Ten minutes later a young girl stumbled onto the beach crying, clutching her shoulders, her dark hair disheveled, her blouse torn.

“What's the matter with her?” Mai had wondered aloud.

Lan had continued to knit, her head down. Mai watched the girl. She fell down in the shallow waves, scrubbing her legs as if trying to wash away a stubborn stain.

“She's a bad girl.” Lan pointed her knitting needles at her and pursed her lips.

“Why?” Mai persisted.

“She and that soldier. She did something bad with him.”

“What?” Mai dropped her needles in her lap. Silence.

“You don't want to know.” Lan turned her face away from Mai so that all she could see was her profile. “That's how girls get extra food. I would rather starve.” Lan dropped a stitch and leaned close to her knitting to try to find it.

The girl turned from the waves and lurched her way up the beach to her tent.

“Stay away from girls like that,” Lan warned.

Mai had known better than to ask any more questions. The commanding tone of Lan's voice told her this was all of the information she was going to give. Mai had looked up from her knitting out to sea, where a gull dove toward the glassy surface for a fish.

Something was bothering Lan. A sadness had replaced the sparkle in her eyes.

Ngoc came out of the tent, jolting Mai's reverie. “Kien went to the well to find Lan,” Mai called.

Ngoc nodded, cupping her chin in her hands. “I thought she would be back by now.”

The girls looked at each other, mute. Mai squatted by the fire and stirred the rice. Almost done. She tasted a spoonful, hot on her tongue, the grains soft. Shifting the pot off the fire, she spooned the rice into her tin bowl and sat on her heels, watching the steam rise in the morning air. The rice stuck in her throat. Ngoc knelt beside her. Mai gestured toward the pot. Ngoc shook her head.

“I'm not hungry. I think I'd better go look for Lan. She usually tells me when she's going somewhere.”

Mai hesitated. “Did she tell you that she loved Uncle Hiep?”

Ngoc's head jerked around. “She never said a word to me. Why do you say that?”

Mai could hear anger in Ngoc's voice. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I must be mistaken.” She looked down at the rice in her chopsticks. Her hands shook and she dropped the rice in the sand. Why was Ngoc angry with her? What was wrong with loving Hiep?

By noon there was still no Lan. Kien and Mai had gone to the middle of the island to collect their rations. Mai had even stopped to ask Miss Cindy if she'd seen Lan. Cindy's blue eyes narrowed in concern. She shook her head. No, she had not seen her.

When they returned, the bags of food over their shoulders, Ngoc was slumped on a rock in the shade of a palm tree, staring at a seashell in her hands.

“Well, was she there?” Ngoc asked, jumping up and running toward them. She stumbled on a branch in the ground and fell on her face at their feet. The shell skittered across the sand. Kien leaned over to help her up, but she pushed his hand away and stood up by herself. Drops of perspiration covered her face and her thick black hair fell over her eyes. She leaned over and retrieved the shell.

“We couldn't find her,” Kien answered.

They unpacked the canned goods from the bags, stacked them in the tent on the bench, and then joined Kim in the shade of a palm eating leftover rice from breakfast. “She'll be back by dinner, wherever she is. Don't worry,” said Kien, brushing a fly from his bowl of rice.

But the sun began its afternoon descent toward the horizon and Lan did not return.

“We should have checked the clinic. Do you think she's sick and didn't tell us?” Kien asked.

“S
he would have told me if she wasn't feeling well,” Ngoc said, frowning

Mai spent the sultry afternoon with Kien, trying to practice writing the English alphabet, her eyes popping up from the paper every minute to survey the beach. Then the foursome squatted around the fire pit for the evening meal, eating slowly in a depressed silence.

“When was the last time you saw her, Ngoc?” Kien asked.

Ngoc finished swallowing her mouthful of rice. “She was in the tent with me. She told me she was going out to look at the stars. I fell asleep before she came back. I never thought … ” Ngoc began to cry. “I should have stayed awake until she came back. I should have gone with her.”

“Something might have happened to her on the beach last night,” Mai said. “Does it look like she slept in her hammock?”

“No. Her blanket was folded,” Ngoc said.

“Were there any soldiers around here last evening?” asked Mai, remembering the Malaysian soldier she and Lan had seen coming out of the woods.

“No soldiers,” Kien said.

“We've got to find her.” Mai's voice was insistent. “Before it's too late.”

The three stared at Mai.

“
You don't think she'd harm herself, do you?
”
Kim asked.

Mai's eyes gave the answer.
Dying of love might not just be in operas, she thought.

“Maybe she has gone to the mainland to make sure Hiep's body has been properly buried,” Kien said.

Mai brightened. “Let's go to the pier and see if anyone has seen her leaving the island.”

“I'll go with you, Mai. Kim and Ngoc, why don't you stay here in case she returns?” Kien brushed the strands of dark hair from his eyes. Mai loved those eyes, blue as the sky. They made her feel safe. If anything happened to Kien, she would not know what to do. Would she run away? Would she die of sadness? Kien held her hand as they walked down the beach to the rock crossing. His hand, so solid, so strong. She tightened her grip. Kien turned and looked at her. He squeezed her hand and continued walking.

No one had seen Lan at the Red Cross tent. No one had seen Lan at the pier. No one had seen Lan at the market. They questioned children playing in the waves, women carrying water from the wells, men unloading cabbages by the food tent. They called Lan's name from the edge of the jungle to the ocean's waves, but there was no answer.

Where was she? How could she disappear on such a small island? Mai thought of the jungle, the dense undergrowth, the mountains, their steep cliffs. A place where no one ventured.

Discouraged, Mai and Kien picked up their canned food and returned to the camp.

“Maybe Lan has come back while we were gone,” Mai said, hoping that they had all been worried for nothing.

“Wouldn't that be great?” Kien answered, his voice hoarse from calling Lan's name.

But Lan hadn't returned and Mai wasn't sure what else to do. Didn't she know they were sad enough without having to worry about her? How selfish of her. She would tell
Lan how angry she was when she returned. She watched
the
young men and women carrying water, washing dishes,
building fires as if nothing had happened. Mai listened for Lan's lilting voice above the singsong chatter, imagining her running down the beach laughing at them for worrying about her. Why had Lan disappeared?

When the darkness draped the island with a sequined stretch of velvet, Mai shivered even though the night air was
warm. Lan was still gone. Kien, Kim, and Ngoc huddled
together by the fire. Kien was the first to speak.

“Should we ask the soldiers? Maybe they've seen her. They're supposed to be protecting us.”

“No. We can't trust them. If she tried to sneak away from the island, they'll just punish her.” Mai's arm brushed against his.

“It's so hard to wait,
”
Ngoc complained.

“Where might she have gone?” asked Kien. He looked at Kim, who sat silently regarding them. “What do you think, Kim? You haven't spoken.”

“My heart is too sad,” whispered Kim, wringing her hands.

“I'm still thinking about that cry I heard last night. What if it was Lan? What if someone attacked her?” Mai clenched her hands. “We should search the beach.”

“But you're the only one who heard it. No one else did,” said Ngoc.

“Maybe you were sleeping too soundly. I might have been dreaming, but maybe not. It's worth a look.” Mai looked at Kien.

“I'll go with you. We might find something,” Kien replied.

After a dinner of rice and sea cucumber prepared by Ngoc, Mai and Kien walked in the wet sand, watching the waves curl and crash while the horizon swallowed the egg-round sun.

“What's that?” Mai asked. A wave had deposited a single dép on the beach. Kien walked over the picked it up, dangling it between his fingers.

“Look, there's another one.” Mai pointed to a spot farther down the beach. She ran to pick it up before the waves came and reclaimed it. “They match,” she said holding the lone black dép next to the one Kien held. “And they're both the same size.”

She held them sole to sole. Small, a woman's. It wasn't
the first time she'd discovered objects on the beach. Fishing boats packed with refugees had been landing almost weekly. She knew that many didn't make it. Tales of broken engines and men, women, and children adrift in the ocean with nothing to eat for days haunted her. Thai pirates often attacked, throwing refugees overboard to be eaten by sharks, remnants of their meager belongings washing upon the island's shore.

Mai carried the dép back to their tent, followed by Kien. Was Kien thinking what she was thinking?
I have to show these to Ngoc, just to make sure
, she thought. Strange, she had spent so much time with Lan, but she couldn't remember what her dép looked like. Ngoc would know.

Mai handed them to Ngoc. Ngoc held one in each hand and gingerly turned them over. She traced her finger around the edge of one, feeling the wetness of the rubber. A tear rolled down her cheek and dropped onto the sole of the dép. She handed them back to Mai and nodded. “Where did you find them?” she asked.

“By the water's edge. Down there.” Mai pointed toward the spot.

“They look like hers. The left one had a hole in the bottom.” Ngoc ran the tip of her finger around a small hole in the rubber sole.

“Maybe she went for a swim and forgot them,” Kien said, his arms folded across his chest.

“She doesn't know how to swim.” Ngoc knelt and placed the dép carefully on the sand, next to each other.

Abandoned. Lost. Mai's chest hurt looking at them.

“I'm tired. I need to lie down,” Ngoc whispered, slipping inside the tent.

“I'm going to go with her,” Mai said to Kien. “She shouldn't be alone.”

She found Ngoc curled into a tight round ball on her sleeping mat, her eyes fixed on the tarp above her. “Ngoc, we'll find her. She couldn't have gone very far.”