A Million Shades of Gray (4 page)

“We have no cows.”

“Chickens, then.”

“We have no chickens.”

Sometimes Y'Tin wondered how Monsieur Thorat survived. “Never mind then,” Y'Tin said.

“Anyone who thinks they know someone interested, talk to me
after
class, please.” The boys sat patiently while Monsieur Thorat wrote on the board. “Y'Tin!” he said crisply when he'd finished.

Y'Tin stood up. “
Bon matin
, Monsieur Thorat.”

“Bon matin,
Y'Tin.
Comment allez vous?”

“Bien,
Monsieur Thorat.”

“Avez-vous fait vos devoirs?
” Monsieur asked.

“Non. Je regrette,
Monsieur Thorat.”

Monsieur Thorat pursed his lips. Y'Tin had not even thought of his homework.

“Y'Juen,
vos devoirs?”

“Non. Je regrette,
Monsieur Thorat.”

“Has
anybody
done their homework?” Monsieur Thorat cried out in Vietnamese.

Only Big Boy, from the Mnong tribe, raised a hand, causing Monsieur Thorat to purse his lips again. “Can anybody diagram this sentence?” he asked resignedly, as if he already knew the answer. Big Boy's hand raised again.

Gunfire sounded outside, and the entire class
fell to the ground. The classroom's only window shattered, shards of glass slicing through the air. Someone outside laughed.

Gunfire was nothing new. The war had been going on for as long as Y'Tin could remember. The French had fought in Vietnam before Y'Tin was born, and after that the Americans came, and left. And now the North and the South were fighting. The North was Communist, and the South was not, and that was supposedly the problem. Y'Tin didn't want the country to be Communist because then there would be too many rules. Life had enough rules as it was.

But his favorite auntie didn't like the Americans because several of the village men had been killed fighting with them. Auntie owned the longhouse and acted like the boss lady she was, but she had a deep belly laugh that always made Y'Tin laugh, even if he didn't know what he was laughing at. And since she owned all the family property, including Lady, Y'Tin respected her a lot. Still, he had liked the Americans. The Americans had been the only ones who'd treated the Dega as equals. His father said so over and over. And so, once again, it must be true.

Y'Tin waited for Monsieur to let the class know it was safe to rise. He idly jangled his brass bracelets. He saw that Y'Hon, who had no friends, was kneeling beneath his seat, reading. He was always reading, even when he walked. Y'Juen was watching a huge black spider crawl under his desk. Y'Juen was Y'Tin's best friend because they had been born on the same day, though in different years. They were in the same class because Y'Juen had started school one year after Y'Tin.

The boys stayed on the floor for several minutes before Monsieur Thorat stood up. “They're gone,” he said.

“Who was it, Monsieur Thorat?” Y'Juen asked.

“I don't know,” he replied, peering out the window.

Y'Tin stood up and peered out the window as well. Everything was peaceful outside. He guessed the temperature was about twenty-six degrees Celsius, the morning mist blown away and the sky as blue as he'd ever seen it. Y'Juen's family owned the only thermometer in the village. Now that there was a thermometer, everybody always wanted to know what the temperature was. Before, all you had to do was step outside to know if it was warm or
cold. Now you needed a thermometer to tell you.

The wind drifted through the holes in the glass and brushed Y'Tin's face. It was actually a beautiful day.

Big Boy eagerly answered practically every question Monsieur Thorat asked the rest of the morning. He wasn't that smart, but he tried hardest. He was only second smartest, maybe third. Personally, Y'Tin felt he himself was second smartest. He just didn't get good grades. Why study? He was an elephant keeper!

Most of the afternoon was spent on math and language, and after school Y'Tin and a few of his friends walked home together. A strong wind had kicked up, rustling the towering trees. The canopy was so heavy and the trees were so tall that Y'Tin could not see the tops of many of them. Even an elephant looked small next to the trees. “I wonder what the shaman will say about the wind,” Y'Tin remarked. The village shaman was an expert at studying the weather and what it meant.

“He's sick today,” Y'Juen said. “His friends are going to sacrifice a pig to make him better.”

“They should sacrifice the pig before he gets sick, not after.”

“Now you think you're a shaman.”

The boys laughed. Then Y'Juen grew serious.

“My father is talking about hiding in the jungle,” he said. “He says the NVA is coming soon.”

“My father said so too,” Y'Tin said. He felt his stomach clench, the way it did sometimes when he thought about the war. His father had said that if the North Vietnamese Army took over South Vietnam by force, he would become a guerilla warrior based in the jungle. Monsieur Thorat had said that a guerilla was a soldier who was part of “an irregular armed force fighting a stronger force by sabotage and harassment.” For instance, the Vietcong were the guerillas who fought on the same side as the North Vietnamese Army. Y'Tin had memorized the definition because it might be his own fate someday. Hopefully, that would never happen. The village was isolated in the jungle, and because of the heavy foliage, you could not even see the village from twenty steps away. It was possible the North Vietnamese might never even stumble across Y'Tin's home … or so he hoped.

Y'Tin continued, “Before they left, the Americans said they would help us.”

“Help us what?” Y'Juen said.

Y'Tin thought that over. “Help us win the war. It's not too late.” He knew that sounded ridiculous. They had not even won the war when the Americans
were
here.

“Why leave and come back when they were already here?”

All the boys stopped walking. Y'Tin looked at the others. He had known them since he was a baby. Why argue? And, more particularly, why argue when you knew you were wrong? So he suggested that they play soccer when they got home.

“Y'Tin, you can't even kick the ball straight,” Y'Juen kidded him.

Y'Tin laughed. “Neither can you!”

By the time they reached the village, they were joking about who was the best soccer player. As usual, Lady was waiting for him. She liked to knock his head with her trunk when he returned home from school. That could actually be painful, but it made Y'Tin happy anyway. The other boys headed for the gate while Y'Tin unchained Lady. She looked up toward the sky as a helicopter roared above.

The helicopter passed exactly over where Y'Tin was standing, and he looked upward and waited for the noise to subside. When the Americans
were here, helicopters passed overhead all the time. Y'Tin's mother had called it the War of the Helicopters. Y'Tin didn't recognize the make of the helicopter that flew overhead, but it might have been one that the Americans had left behind.

“Hey, Y'Tin,” called out Tomas, sauntering up. “Did you learn anything in school today?”

“Nah. I already know everything.” Tomas laughed, and they walked down to the river with Y'Siu and the elephants, as they did every day when Y'Tin got home. Y'Tin loved this part of the day. Next to his father, Tomas was the man Y'Tin most admired. Tomas knew elephants like nobody else, even Y'Tin.

“Someone shot up the window at school today,” Y'Tin told them.

“Who was it?”

“I don't know. We heard them laugh.”

“Maybe it was just a joke.”

“Absolutely!” Y'Tin exclaimed.

Tomas put his hand on the top of his head and pulled it to the side, cracking his neck. He did that all the time. Y'Tin thought it was a strange habit, but what did he know?

Y'Tin watched the elephants walk silently
through the jungle. He felt sorry for all the animals, caught in the middle of a war. His father had told him that during one Special Forces mission they had come across several dead elephants where a bomb had dropped.

“If the North Vietnamese or Vietcong ever attack the village, we should escape with the elephants,” Y'Tin said. His stomach hurt again.

“And if either you or Y'Siu gets hurt, I promise I'll bring your elephants into the jungle,” Tomas replied.

“And if you get hurt, I'll take Geng with me when I escape with Lady, Y'Siu, and Dok. I swear it.”

“I swear it too,” Tomas said solemnly.

The jungle could soak up thousands of Dega villagers, “like a dry cloth soaking up water,” according to Y'Tin's father. “We must use the jungle as a weapon,” he liked to say. Every time he said that, he acted like it was the first time he'd said it, even though Y'Tin had heard him say the exact same thing at least ten times.

At the river, the elephants drank their fill and then loaded their trunks with water that they playfully sprayed into the air. Then they lumbered over to a bamboo grove and began pulling off leaves.
Y'Tin couldn't imagine eating nothing but leaves and grass and fruits—he would lose weight, absolutely. But the elephants grew huge from such a diet.

Y'Tin, Thomas, and Y'Siu squatted on the ground, Y'Tin trying to forget about the war. Right now is what he should be thinking of. The North Vietnamese might not even come to their village, he reminded himself again.

He turned his attention back to the elephants. They were ripping bark off a tree. The boys waited for the elephants to finish before taking them back.

When they returned to the pen, Tomas cleaned it up while Y'Siu stroked and talked to and chanted to Dok. He did that a lot. Sometimes Y'Siu had whole conversations with his elephant. Y'Tin headed for the gate. The women had left the fields to make the evening meal, and he could smell meat cooking. Outside the fence, Y'Tin's friends were still kicking around a soccer ball. Y'Tin broke into a run and gave the ball the hardest kick he could. For once the ball flew through the air and landed ten meters away.

“Y'Tin hit the ball straight!” shouted Y'Juen. “It's a miracle!”

“You're just jealous!” Y'Tin shouted back.

Some of the older boys walked through their game. “Nobody's jealous of you!” one of them shouted out. Y'Tin watched Y'Juen chase after the boys. Y'Juen was always worried about what the older boys thought. He was insecure that way. On the other hand, he was physically brave. He once jumped from a tall waterfall into the river below. Y'Tin wouldn't make the jump—he was too scared. But Y'Tin didn't care what the older boys thought. Let them think what they wanted. That had nothing to do with him.

They played until the men came in from the fields. As Y'Tin headed for his longhouse, Y'Pioc, one of the older boys, ran up to him. “Y'Tin! Wait up.”

Y'Tin waited. Y'Pioc said, “Say, did you hear? My family and yours have decided I'm going to marry your sister in three years.” Y'Pioc was fifteen years old, as was Y'Tin's sister H'Juaih. His sister was a catch because Y'Tin's family owned a beautiful gong, an elephant, twenty buffalo, countless chickens, and numerous jars of fermenting rice wine buried in the ground. And his family's farmlands were more extensive than any other family's in the village. Anyway, Y'Pioc was quiet, but Y'Tin liked him.
Y'Tin could tell that all three of his spirits were content and that he would make H'Juaih happy. It was a good marriage for both sides. H'Juaih wasn't as pretty as some girls, but everybody agreed she was one of the smartest. And there was something about her, a kind of grace, that also made her a good catch. When the time came, Y'Pioc would move in with Y'Tin's family, and not long after that Y'Tin would move in with whomever he married. Y'Tin would miss his family, but that was the way it was.

Y'Tin's parents had been talking about H'Juaih for several months. As usual, it took Ama a long time to make a decision. Since boys always became a part of the wife's family, Ama had been concerned that Y'Pioc wouldn't fit in with the family, but last night after some begging from H'Juaih, Ama had finally decided that it was a good match.

“Congratulations,” Y'Tin said.

“When we're brothers, can you teach me how to take care of elephants?”

People said that Y'Tin liked elephants more than he liked people, which was true. And Y'Tin knew that some people thought he could talk with the elephants. Y'Tin often laid his forehead against Lady's hide, and he felt he did sort of talk
with her. That was the truth. Still, he was no match for Y'Siu. During Y'Siu's long conversations with Dok, he would occasionally pause, as if listening to his elephant.

Y'Tin laughed. “You might start to like elephants more than my sister. She'll have to compete for attention.”

They both laughed. “But seriously, you'll teach me?”

“Whenever you want. You're my family now. That's the truth.”

“Do you need me to help you today?”

“No,” Y'Tin said. “But you can come with me to wash her one morning before school if you want.”

He saw his sister walking with some friends past the small longhouse of the Knul clan. Y'Pioc ran after them, trailing the girls without speaking. Y'Tin watched until they walked out of sight. Y'Tin was happy for his sister. She and Y'Pioc could both be a little prim, but maybe marriage would loosen them up.

When he reached his house, Y'Tin climbed up the ladder. An elephant was carved at the top. Everywhere Y'Tin looked, he saw elephants. That was his fate.

His mother was boiling rice and jungle potatoes in the kitchen outside their bedroom. Chickens, buffalo, and pigs were mostly used for sacrifices rather than for daily meals. Meat to consume for dinner came from hunting and the various fish and small-animal traps Y'Tin and his father set in the jungle. All down the long hallway, Y'Tin saw women cooking at their kitchens. All ten women cooked with great solemnity, as if they were involved in a very serious matter. His auntie who owned the longhouse was no doubt cooking chicken. Y'Tin's family could have eaten chicken too, but Y'Tin's mother didn't believe in eating meat every night because despite the family's wealth,
she was very frugal. Y'Tin remembered that the Americans were so rich, they ate meat every day.