The Merit Birds (17 page)

Seng

This time Seng remembered how to get to Khaosan Road. He walked up and down the bustling tourist area scanning the sidewalks for the spring-roll woman. Hours passed and he couldn't find her. Finally he stopped to ask a street vendor selling pad Thai if he knew her. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, to have another person acknowledge his existence in this city, but he had to know.

“Do you know how many old ladies sell spring rolls around here?” the vendor laughed as he passed hot sauce to a black guy with a Canadian flag sewn on his backpack. Suddenly Seng didn't feel so good. He walked back to the guesthouse, but he came back the next day. He told Vong the walks were doing him good. Helping him to clear his mind.

“Don't you think you should stick around here? Hide out in the room?”

“It's making me crazy, staying in there all the time. Besides, don't you think the guesthouse staff wonder why we never go out?”

“Okay,” she said, like she was giving him permission. “Just keep your head down.”

The pad Thai vendor laughed when he recognized Seng in the throng.

“You still looking for your lady?” he asked.

Maybe Vong had been right. He should really stay in the room and not risk being noticed. But he had to know.

Suddenly he spotted her. She was wearing the same conical hat and passing a flimsy paper plate with spring rolls to a blonde tourist. He barely even noticed the girl's pretty face. Instead he sat and watched the old woman. He could see her forehead shining with sweat underneath her hat. Her well-worn skirt was decorated with grease stains. Sometimes she would take a break and sit on the curb, rocking back and forth and rubbing her hands up and down her thighs. Something wasn't right with her, but Seng didn't know what. She placed a hand on the small of her back and stood up stiffly, surveying the cement sidewalks for her next point of sale. He strained to hear her through the crowd, but she rarely spoke. He grew more agitated. He needed to know.

She bent over her giant pot of spring rolls as he approached her.

“How many?” she asked, without looking up. Somehow he wasn't surprised to hear her Lao accent. He really should go. If she was Lao, she might have heard about him. But his feet were frozen in place.

“I'm not here for spring rolls.” He didn't know what to say now that he had approached her. The woman looked up and then gasped.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

He couldn't see her eyes behind her dark sunglasses, but her head turned slightly from side to side, as if she was scanning the streets anxiously. She acted as if she hadn't heard him.

“Are you Lao?” he asked. She hobbled hurriedly in the direction of the bus stop.

“Wait!” Seng called, but she kept walking. He followed her. She glanced over her shoulder at him and tried to quicken her pace, but Seng caught up to her feeble gait.

“Are you from Luang Prabang?” he called out to the back of her wrinkled brown blouse.

She wheeled around to look at him. She dropped her basket of spring rolls. One rolled out of the basket and onto the grey street littered with cigarette butts. Her jaw briefly dropped.

“Who are you? You are with the Lao government?” She made an effort to stand taller.

“No.”

“What do you want?”

“Are you a mother? Of three children?” He couldn't believe he was asking her this. All of the stress must really be weighing on him. But his heart leapt up into his throat. He badly wanted her to say yes.

The woman stood silently for a long time. She looked down at the road and fiddled with the fold of her soiled skirt. She suddenly looked like she had forgotten where she was.

“I must go,” she finally said and bent to pick up her basket.

“Don't!”

But she was already shuffling back toward the bus stop.

Cam

The short prison guard missing one yellowed front tooth came for me again. This time I didn't feel like I was going to piss my pants with fear. For some reason the guards didn't bother Sai and me too much. So far I had been spared the wooden leg blocks.

“It's the breath,” Sai explained.

“What are you talking about now?” He was always coming up with weird explanations.

“When your breath is deep and strong you are deep and strong. People can sense that. They feel it in your presence. You get a lot more respect.”

“If you say so.”

Whatever it was, the guard tossed me one tiny slice of kindness that damp afternoon. He told me where he was taking me. I wouldn't have to agonize over whether I was headed for the interrogation room. I wondered if they'd built the visitor's hut right beside the terrifying room on purpose. So they could play cruel mind games with the prisoners.

“Meeting with Australian guy,” the guard said, his pink tongue flicking at the doorway of his missing tooth.

My fifteen-minute consular visit. My stomach flipped. Someone besides my mom, Somchai, and Meh Mee actually cared. I mattered.

“I'm Ned Jones,” the pale Australian official said, nodding as the guard led me into the clammy visitor hut. With one hairy arm he passed me a plastic shopping bag filled with granola bars, nuts, and beef jerky. I felt like he was handing me a bag of jewels.

“Tough spot, isn't it?”

I nodded, even though the casual way he had said it told me that he had no clue how bad it was. Even still, I felt like hugging the guy. My nightmare was over. He said I had been in here for seven months. It seemed like seven years. It couldn't end too soon. I took a seat across the table from my sweaty Aussie saviour. A pudgy guard eyed us from the hut's corner.

“I'm really glad to see you,” I said.

“Me, too. The Canadian officials in Bangkok have been ringing me hourly. You're causing quite a stir back in Canada.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, your mom won't rest. I think she's contacted every newspaper, radio station, and magazine in your country.”

I swallowed. I thought about how much I wanted to see her.

“Why hasn't she come again?”

“Son, believe me, she's trying. She's at the prison gates every day trying to convince them to let her in. They're afraid she'll talk too much to the international press.”

“How about Somchai?”

“Ah, yes, your friend. He was roughed up, but he's okay. They haven't come for him again. His mother won't let him anywhere near this place. She's afraid they'll lock him up, too.”

“But he hasn't done anything wrong.”

“Have you?”

“No,” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. The truth was I had done so many things wrong. Maybe I had even caused Nok's death. If I had been at that party she could still be alive today. My anger had gotten in the way of my whole life.

After some silence Ned Jones looked away and shuffled through some papers.

“So when am I getting out?”

He looked up from his papers with a look of surprise on his leathery face. He scratched the back of his neck.

“Getting out? You need to have a trial first.”

I sucked in a clipped inhale. I forced myself to try to breathe. Really breathe. All the way down into my belly, like Sai taught me. But my chest tightened.

“When is that going to be?” I asked, breathless.

“We're putting the pressure on, Cam. I assure you. A Canadian officer from the embassy in Bangkok is making plans to come here and meet with some government folks. They've got a lawyer to work on your case. We're making steps.”

“Mr. Jones, I can't stay here anymore. I can't.”

He reached across the table to lay a hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off. The guard placed a hand on the pistol hanging from his hip.

“Cam, we are doing everything we can.”

The guard coughed and pointed to the clock.

“I'm sorry, but I need to go now. I'll see you next month.”

“Next month? What the fuck? You can't leave me here.”

“Cam, you have to understand. We have to respect the rules of the country.”

The guard opened the door, flooding the dim room with severe sunlight. Mr. Jones straightened his pile of papers and tucked them into his briefcase. He was nothing but a dark shadow as he paused briefly in the doorframe, the bright sun of freedom behind him.

Seng

Vong bought some incense from the corner store near the guesthouse.

“I want to burn it for Nok at the spirit house in front of where we're staying,” she told Seng. She seemed edgier today, talking more quickly, her movements more abrupt. He worried that her money was running out. He said he would come, too.

The guesthouse courtyard was overflowing with red hibiscus bushes, birds of paradise, and leafy banana plants. A little pool was in the centre with orange and white koi swimming around. In a far corner sat the little spirit house on a rough wooden post. After mouthing their prayers, they sat for a long time on a grey, stone bench underneath an ancient banyan tree. There was nothing else to do. Nowhere else to go. They were drifting — without a home or a purpose. Seven whole months had passed and they still had no plan. They were only living off Vong's savings.

The incense smoke crawled lazily up from the spirit house before vanishing into the smoggy sky. Vong rubbed the top of her thighs over and over again. He listened to the swishing sound her hands made as they ran along her polyester pants.

“Vong? Do you think Pa and Meh could still be alive?”

She turned to face him.

“Don't be ridiculous, Seng.”

“Did Meh have any sisters who looked like her?”

“No. Don't you think we would have known our aunts?”

“How did we find out that they died?”

“A letter from the government.”

“Did we get their ashes?”

“We got Pa's, but not Meh's. Seng, why are you asking me all of this stuff?”

“I just miss her, that's all.”

He looked down into his hands in his lap. Of course the spring-roll woman couldn't be their mom. She would have recognized her son. This whole situation was just making him crazy.

Seng

There was nothing to do while Seng and Vong struggled to come up with a plan. But the next day, he was drawn back to Khaosan Road like a magnet. He sat on the stoop of the boarded-up shop where he had sat before, watching his spring-roll woman. He thought she kept peering over in his direction. Finally, when she had a break in between customers, she feebly walked toward him. His heart beat faster.

“You are not with the police?” she asked, standing taller.

“Definitely not,” he said.

“I know who you are, then.”

She slipped him a piece of paper. It was a crumpled flyer from one of the massage houses, damp with sweat. He took it and thought a smile might have passed briefly over her thin lips. She glanced nervously all around before picking up her basket and disappearing into the crowd on the sidewalk. With trembling hands he turned the flyer over and read what she had written on the other side.

“Wait!” he screamed.

He ran after her, snaking his way through the Khaosan crowd.

“Wait!”

He finally spotted her getting on a busy bus. He stood on the sidewalk and watched, tears like rivers down his cheeks, as the bus pulled away. His mother watched him from the window. He read the note again.

Emkhan Mannivong

Apartment 8

Savoy Apartments

Suhnthon Kosa Road

Cam

I sat with Sai in meditation every day. Early each morning, before the guards came to get us for work.

“You two lose your mind,” Huang said, watching us and laughing.

“No, we're watching our minds,” Sai said.

I couldn't believe how my mind flipped all the time between the past and the future. I hardly ever thought about what was real, what was happening at that very exact moment. I rarely noticed the present.

“It's normal,” Sai said. “You can't stop your mind from thinking. That's what it was made to do. Just watch it, like you were sitting on a riverbank, watching your thoughts float by. Observe each thought and then let it go, don't add on to it or follow it. It's how you can control your mind instead of it controlling you. When you notice your mind wandering just bring your attention back to your breath. It's your link to what is true right now.”

When I'd sat like that long enough I would start to feel kind of tingly and high. Suddenly I would feel bigger than myself. I would see how so much of my anger came from my childhood. When I breathed long enough I could let it go. I felt so light.

“Crazy, crazy.” Huang clicked his tongue.

That day I was put to work digging another pond to house more catfish. It was how the guards supplemented their income. I don't think they made much money being guards. I was working with three other guys, none of them from my cell. One was Eastern European and didn't speak English. The other two were Vietnamese. One of them had some English; he said his name was Trahn. The work was backbreaking. We thrust rusty shovels into the ground over and over again. The muscles between my shoulder blades began to spasm. Suddenly Trahn's friend collapsed. I dropped my shovel and ran to him.

He was lying on his back, his arms stretched out by his sides, eyes fluttering. “What's wrong with him?” I asked Trahn. The guy was panicking, shaking his friend's shoulders.

“He not eat in a week. He's very weak. He never gets broth or rice. The big guy in our cell eats most.”

A guard blew a whistle and came running over to us.

“Back to work,” he barked. He started to push Trahn off his friend. We walked reluctantly back to our shovels. The collapsed man lay limp on the dirt. The guard kicked him in the leg and then turned to walk away, glancing over his shoulder at us every now and then. When he rounded the corner I crept back to Trahn.

“I'll be back,” I whispered.

“You'll be in big trouble!” he said. “Interrogation room!”

I glanced all around to make sure no one was watching. Then I walked swiftly to the guards' staff room. None of them would be there yet. It was too early for their break. Looking over my shoulder, I turned to slowly open the door. It creaked noisily on its hinges. My fearful heart beat deafeningly inside my ribcage. I quickly scanned the room and saw a huge bottle of water sitting on a water tipper. I picked a metal cup off the counter and quickly tipped the huge bottle to fill the cup with water. I was too hasty and some water sloshed on the floor. I turned to walk as quickly as I could out of the room without spilling the water. Trahn looked at me with awe as I approached. I bent over his friend and trickled water through the thin parting of his lips. My hands were shaking and I spilled some on the man's chest. His eyes fluttered and he began to swallow.

“Now I'll get you food,” I whispered in his ear.

“Thank you,” Trahn whispered to me. “Your heart so kind. But you need to stop. You get us all in trouble.”

I couldn't stop. I was eighteen and had never thought beyond what I wanted or how sorry I was for myself. Suddenly serving this weak man was giving me power. For once I felt purposeful. Destined. I suddenly realized how helping him would save me.

I took the empty cup with me so the guys wouldn't get in trouble if a guard came while I was gone. I skulked to the stinking room where the fish were cleaned. I saw a prisoner bent over the pile of fish corpses, gutting them with a knife. A bored-looking guard watched him inattentively from the corner. I was nauseous, but something urged me on. I didn't want the other prisoner to see me, otherwise he'd be implicated, too. I waited and watched until the guard left, likely to take a piss. The prisoner gutted another fish and then stood to stretch. He turned his back to me as he twisted his body from side to side, trying to get the kinks out of his hunched back. It was my moment. I swallowed. I slunk into the room, grabbed two slippery catfish, and was gone.

I sped-walked back to the site where we were digging the pond. I had a fish tucked under each armpit. I surreptitiously passed them to Trahn, who was helping his weak friend sit up.

“Here. Feed these to him. I can get you more later,” I whispered. I resolved to find a way to bring my share of the catfish to Trahn's cell.

“But, the guard, he —” Trahn was interrupted as the guard who had kicked his friend came running across the field to us.

“You!” He pointed at me. “I was here two minutes ago and you weren't. Where were you?”

I saw the grim expression on Trahn's face.

“Answer!” the guard barked.

“Getting food,” I said. “He will die without it.” I pointed to the prisoner sitting on the ground and looking around, dazed.

“He gets food,” the guard spat.

“Not enough.”

“I didn't want to do this, but you could have got me in big trouble. I've had to report you to my supervisor,” the guard said. “Tomorrow you'll have a meeting with him. He said he'd take you to the interrogation room himself.”

I heard Trahn's shovel drop.