Dragon House (26 page)

Iris felt as if a unique cultural experience occurred on the back of scooters. She reflected that in America, people drove their cars and rarely even opened their windows. Within cars people tended to be isolated, listening to the radio or maybe talking on the phone to a friend. Cars were people’s places of refuge, highly personalized sanctuaries within which Americans often sought escape. Driving a scooter in Vietnam was a completely different experience. In addition to the ease of conversation, the lack of lanes and laws almost mandated that people act in cooperation. Drivers didn’t cut one another off or blast their horns. Though they drove quickly, always looking for the fastest route, if an old woman was trying to cross an impossibly busy street, people braked and weaved around her without a second glance. Or if someone was asking directions from another driver and slowing traffic, other scooters simply eased their way past the pair of sluggish vehicles. And amazingly, if a scooter was going the wrong way down the side of a street, no one seemed to get angry. They appeared to accept the fact that the person was trying to get from one place to another and was taking the best route possible.

Though she didn’t understand why, Iris liked the combination of lawlessness and courtesy that seemed to permeate the streets. She’d always appreciated rules and rarely broke them, but now, much to her surprise, she liked the feeling that someone wasn’t watching over her back, ensuring that she did everything properly. She felt liberated, and this sense of freedom was magnified by the little rocket beneath her. She’d never experienced such a satisfying set of sensations, not even when seeing her name in print.

A bell sounded ahead and a machine lowered a long bamboo pole across the street. Iris braked alongside those around her, moving like everyone else as close to the pole as possible. A horn sounded and a beat-up passenger train rumbled across the street. The engine belched thick black smoke skyward. A series of rusting and battered train cars followed the engine, clanging against one another as if each car were trying to move to the head of a line. Arms hung from open windows. Pieces of paper and other litter tumbled as the train swept past.

A man on a rusty scooter eased next to Iris. He was unusually large and wore a baseball jersey. A mole on his chin sprouted long black hairs. He didn’t have a helmet, and his matted locks jutted out in a hundred different directions. Iris nodded to him and returned her gaze to the train, which had almost cleared the street. To her surprise, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and realized that the man was leaning toward her. She wasn’t sure what to do and said hello in Vietnamese.

“You go home,” he replied in broken English. “Leave Vietnam.”

Iris released the grip on her throttle. “What?”

“Children no want your help.”

She shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

“You go home! You understand?” He revved his engine and his scooter bumped into hers. “You leave Vietnam. If you stay, you get hurt!”

Her heart started to thump wildly, and she looked for a way to escape. But dozens of scooters encircled her. She glanced at him and saw that a drop of saliva hung from his lip. He seemed completely unaware of it. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked, bending away from him, fear causing her voice to crack.

“You like your long hair? Maybe I cut it off next time we meet. Maybe I do more. You leave Vietnam soon and never come back. That safer for you. Very much safer.” He revved his scooter again. “I see where you live. Understand? You no safe at your center!”

The bamboo pole began to swing upward and scooters edged forward. Exhaust spewed from behind them, covering Iris. Her hands trembling, she twisted her throttle and angled her scooter away from his. She tried to flee him, but he followed behind her, and she felt his scooter bump into hers. “Leave me alone!” she shouted, seeking to maneuver around those ahead of her.

“Go back to USA!”

Iris crossed the train tracks, her speed increasing. She turned too swiftly and her scooter brushed up against a schoolgirl’s. For a terrifying second the scooters locked together. Then the girl managed to veer away. Suddenly the thought of crashing was worse than Iris’s fear of the man behind her. She pulled to the curb, shaking violently. Turning around, she looked for her pursuer. But he was nowhere to be found. Somehow he’d disappeared.

She struggled to put down the kickstand and then leaned against a cement telephone pole, shaking uncontrollably. Running her hands through her hair, she imagined him cutting it off. His eyes had seemed to see through her, his body like a shadow covering her. She’d felt his evil as clearly as if it had been smoke that she’d drawn into her lungs. “Why?” she muttered, looking for him, afraid that he’d pop into view. The thought of him watching her in the center made her sick to her stomach.

A boy darted across the nearby street and she was reminded of the policeman’s warning. Hadn’t he told her that some children should be left alone? That people, bad people, might depend on them? Realizing that the man in the baseball jersey must be such a person, she got back on her scooter, still shaking. At least now she understood why he’d followed her. He was afraid of losing a child to her. Nothing more. Nothing less. But which child? And what could she do about it?

Resolving to talk with Thien, Noah, and the policeman, she glanced around once more, ensuring that he wasn’t lurking nearby. With trembling hands, she twisted the throttle. The scooter drifted forward and again she was in the thick of traffic. Wanting to get back to the center as quickly as possible, she turned to the west, away from the river.

As Iris drove she did her best to calm her frayed nerves. She’d been threatened before—held at knifepoint in Chicago until her purse was emptied. She had survived that encounter and told herself that she’d survive this one. She just needed to be more careful, and to get more people invested in the success of her center. The policeman would help her. Noah and Thien would help her. She wasn’t alone.

Iris knew that the man in the baseball jersey must have scared children in the exact manner that he’d scared her. And this knowledge made her angry. If he had frightened her so much that she’d almost wrecked her scooter, he must have given children nightmares. He might have even hurt them. And perhaps a child he’d hurt was going to come running through her doors.

“You won’t shut me down,” she whispered, imagining what such a child might have gone through. A threat wasn’t going to make her abandon that child. Not when she had help and wasn’t alone. Though Iris had never considered herself brave, she was going to be brave for the children. They needed her. And if she had to risk everything to help them, then that was a risk she was going to take. If she didn’t take it, the children would suffer, and she’d have failed them like everyone else. And she wasn’t going to fail them, or her father, or herself.

The center came into view and she expertly drove her scooter straight to its gate. As she stepped inside, she felt more connected to the building than ever. It had become her home. And no one was going to be forced from it.

 

 

NOAH PAUSED IN HIS WORK, GLANCING around the playground. Earlier that morning he’d sprinkled grass seed everywhere and covered it with a thin layer of dirt. He had also planted two trees deep in the soil beneath the chips of concrete. One was a head-high mango tree that he had positioned near the building. The other was a slightly larger banyan tree that he’d planted near the center of the playground. Thien had picked out the trees at a local market. She’d told him that the mango tree would provide healthy food for the children. And though she wasn’t a Buddhist, she’d explained how Buddha was sitting beneath a banyan tree when he received his enlightenment. Surely such a tree would be good for children to seek shade under.

Turning around, Noah watched Thien speak with Mai and Minh as they watered the young trees. The children had returned not long after breakfast. Minh had won two dollars from Noah in Connect Four while Thien and Mai had spread more dirt atop the grass seed. Noah had been surprised to see the children again so soon, but Thien had seemed to expect them. She’d given them each a buttered croissant and fresh orange juice that she had squeezed at dawn.

Now, as Noah stood on his stone path and eyed the trio, he wondered what Thien and Mai were talking about. Each was laughing. Mai gestured animatedly, her hands appearing to speak. The girl had seemed sad the day before, Noah reflected. What had made her so happy?

Thien removed her cap and undid her ponytail. Her hair was much longer than Noah had realized. Straight and almost impossibly dark, it moved like water through her fingers. She fashioned a new ponytail, tied it up with a rubber band, and then inserted her hair through the hole in the back of her cap. She did all of this in a matter of seconds, but to Noah time seemed to move much slower.

Laughing at something Mai said, Thien removed a tangerine from her pocket. She began to peel it and after separating it into slices offered Mai and Minh a treat. Noah saw them accept, noting how Thien’s bare arm glowed in the light. She smiled. She bit into the fruit. He watched her eat and he saw her, for the first time, not only as someone who was kind and pure, but as someone who was also beautiful and captivating. He wondered if his back and stump would ache were he to touch her naked body. He tried to imagine her contours, but her loose-fitting, paint-covered clothes covered up whatever curves she possessed.

She glanced in his direction, and he swung his gaze toward a pile of supplies that they’d bought the day before. Leaning against the fence was a long, wide board that he planned on using for the seesaw. Beside the board were two truck tires. Much smaller cuts of wood rested on the tires, as did a hand drill and a bag of nuts and bolts.

Two nights earlier, while he lay awake in bed trying to think of anything but his misery, he had envisioned how he might make a seesaw for Tam. A long board, he’d figured, could be mounted to truck tires, so that one tire went on each side of the board’s middle. The tires would roll easily back and forth as children leapt upward. He could build an elephant on one end of the seesaw once it had been fashioned. Plywood would work well for the elephant’s profile, which he’d cut carefully, and which would then be brought to life by Thien’s paintbrush.

Noah walked to the main board, which was about ten feet long, a foot wide, and two inches thick. Without thinking, he lifted it from where it rested against the fence and tried to lower it to the ground. The board was heavy, and his prosthesis seemed to buckle beneath him. He fell awkwardly to his left, the board banging against the shin of his good leg. Pain was instantaneous, and Noah clenched his teeth, trying to remain silent.

Thien must have seen him fall. She handed the children the last of her slices and hurried toward him. Feeling feebler than ever, Noah struggled to his feet. Though certain that his shin was bleeding, he didn’t lift his pant leg to inspect the wound. Instead he wiped a streak of fresh soil from his chin. “It’s all right,” he said when Thien reached out to him, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her face tight with concern.

“Just great. Never better.”

“But, Mr. Noah, your leg, it must be—”

“Please . . . please call me Noah.”

“That board is too heavy for you to lift alone. Next time please let me help you.”

He studied her small frame, knowing that she was far sturdier than she appeared. He weighed twice as much as she did. He’d been in a war. He’d killed and saved. And yet he knew that she was stronger than he was, even though she was untested. “Next time I’ll get you,” he finally replied.

She rubbed his shoulder and then turned to Mai and Minh. “Will you help us?” she asked in English, wanting to include them.

Mai hurried over, eager to participate. “Sure, sure. What you making?”

Noah unconsciously rubbed his stump. “A surprise.”

“If you no tell me what it is, how can I help?” she asked, frowning.

Minh moved beside Noah, glancing at his fake foot.

“Did you get run over by car?” Mai wondered. “Is that how you lose your leg? Or maybe a snake bite you?”

Noah was about to respond when Thien said something to Mai in Vietnamese. Mai dropped her gaze. “It’s all right,” Noah said, though he hated talking about the past, about his mistakes. Reliving his mistakes tended to make him despise himself, as if he bore all the blame for his suffering. “I fought in Iraq,” he replied, wishing he could have a drink. “And a bomb took my leg.”

Mai nodded. “I so sorry about your leg. I wish you still had two.”

“Thanks.”

“Minh and I watched George Bush’s war on the television. Outside a store. We watch every day for a while. We saw so much. We no like war, but we watch. Sure, sure, we did. Anyway, why you no find those weapons of big destruction?”

Because they didn’t exist, Noah thought. Because the goddamn war was a lie. The weapons didn’t exist and Saddam was no more connected to al-Qaeda than my grandmother is. “We tried our best,” he said. “But we shouldn’t have gone.” He reached again for the board, needing to change the subject.

Thien sought to help him turn the board onto its side. “What should we do with this, Mr. Noah?”

He let her hold the board while he grabbed one of the tires and dragged it over. “We’re going to take some more wood and bolt it to this board, and then bolt on the tires.” He dropped the tire and then gave the hand drill to Minh, hoping that he’d be able to turn it. “Can you drill a hole for me?” Noah asked, pointing to a spot on the tire’s sidewall.

Minh nodded. He leaned forward, using his good hand to grasp the drill. He positioned it properly, then took the handle between his teeth. He bit it hard, placed his hand on the crank, and began to turn. It took only about a dozen turns for the drill to puncture the tire.