Dragon House (37 page)

“No, I didn’t.”

“You gave her a family. You gave her joy. You gave it to Qui too.”

“It didn’t last. Nothing lasts.”

“For Mai and Minh . . . it can last.”

“I feel sick.”

“Just slow down. Breathe. In and out. And here . . . put your head on my shoulder.”

Iris did as he asked, wanting to be held, needing to be held. If she wasn’t held, she didn’t think that she could endure the pain, the knowledge that the world had lost Tam and Qui, a pair of angels who would never be replaced.

FIFTEEN

In the Footsteps of Dragons

T
he kitchen smelled of roasted garlic and shrimp, but no one seemed interested in the meal. Iris, Noah, Thien, Mai, and Minh sat around a wooden table and poked at their food. A stray shrimp was eaten but not tasted. A pork dumpling was dipped in sauce but then left idle. Several times Iris or Thien tried to start conversations, but words quickly became hollow, meaningless. Thoughts about anything other than Tam and Qui seemed traitorous, and thoughts about Tam and Qui were too painful to bring to life.

Though everyone around the table had experienced death, Noah had suffered its sorrows most often. And events of the previous night reminded him of those sorrows. Tam had been too young to die, just like his friends in Iraq. He’d seen too many of his friends perish—bright and brave soldiers who were young fathers and mothers, who had dreams that would forever go unfulfilled. His best friend, Wesley, had told him about such dreams. And now Wes was gone, just as Tam was—both beautiful souls that should have flourished for decades longer.

While Noah lamented the loss of Tam and Qui, and reflected on the war, Iris thought about the events of the past two weeks, asking herself if she should have done anything differently. Should she have gotten on a plane with Tam and taken her to America? Would someone at home have been able to save her? What if she’d come to Vietnam a year earlier with her father? Maybe she’d have met Tam and been able to rescue her.

Iris assailed herself for what she saw as failings. She had failed her father, and she’d failed Tam and Qui. They were all dead, and she’d done too little to save them. She thought repeatedly about how Qui had held Tam, at the end, and knew that this vision would always remain with her. Her tears came and went as she drifted between misery and self-condemnation.

Iris no longer believed God to be compassionate and caring. Those were lies told over thousands of years. If God existed, he was obviously indifferent to Tam’s sufferings. And Iris could never love such a being. Such a being deserved only her scorn.

And yet, her disdain for her fellow man and woman was stronger than her disgust at God. At least, she thought, God didn’t walk the Earth. He didn’t see and touch horrors and choose to ignore them. He didn’t buy massive diamonds or ride in limousines when children were sick and hungry. He didn’t watch Tam beg and hurry past without a second glance.

Hating the world, and the lies that were told, Iris looked up from her food and saw that Thien was also trying to hold back tears. The sight of Thien’s misery caused Iris to shudder. At that moment she’d have given anything to hear Thien sing and Tam whisper to Dung. Before Thien could cry, Iris gathered her will and said softly, “I think we should rename the center . . . after Tam.”

At first no one responded. To Iris’s surprise, Mai was the first to speak. “Sure, sure,” she said, holding Dung carefully, cradling the doll as if it contained Tam’s spirit. “This good idea. It make Tam happy. And it make other children happy.”

“Do we . . . do you know her last name?” Noah asked Iris.

“Tran. It was Tran.”

“The Tam Tran Center for Street Children?”

“Yes,” Iris replied, wiping her eyes. “That’s it.”

Thien took Iris’s hands in her own. “We could have a sign made with her photo.”

Iris nodded, thinking of the picture Thien had taken of Tam. “She’d . . . I’m sure she’d really like that.” Iris sniffed several times, the memory of the photo causing her grief to rise up as if the bonds holding it in place had snapped. Before she started to weep, she turned to Mai and Minh. “Why don’t you go outside and play? It’s such a beautiful day.”

Minh pretended not to see Iris’s tears. He put his stump in Mai’s hand.

“Good idea,” Mai replied, letting Minh lead her out of the kitchen. “You come too. Okay, Miss Iris?”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“I’ll be there.”

Mai and Minh departed, and to Iris the room abruptly seemed empty. Without the children, the kitchen had lost its life, the way colors fade from a fish that has been stolen from the sea. Iris wanted to add life and colors to the room, not to see them taken away. “Do you think . . . What do you think about spreading their ashes beneath the trees you planted?” Iris asked Noah. She wiped her eyes, no longer able to keep her tears at bay. Shudders consumed her—aftershocks from the collapse and departure of beauty.

Thien wrapped her arms around Iris and held her tight. “It is good to cry, my sister,” Thien said, even though she hated tears.

Noah moved beside them, searching for their hands, unsure what to say. He couldn’t speak, because he understood that some wounds could never be completely closed. To speak of such healing was to lie. And he didn’t want to lie to Iris and Thien, any more than he wanted to dishonor Tam and Qui.

And so he simply sat and held Iris and Thien as they cried over a girl and an old woman whom they’d found and lost—stars that had shimmered in their presence for a moment and then disappeared into an uncaring sky.

 

 

FOR TWO DAYS, LOC HAD BEEN watching and waiting. Pretending to be a blind beggar, he’d sat near a gate in the fence that surrounded the playground. Staring blankly into the playground, he’d looked for Mai and Minh. He had seen them several times, but they’d always been accompanied by an adult.

Sitting so idle had been a hellacious experience for Loc. It reminded him of his youth, of years spent begging on corners. Even worse, he hadn’t been able to light his pipe during the long hours by the playground. And not being able to float between worlds caused aches and memories to torment him the way flies bite at the tender flesh beneath a water buffalo’s eyes.

Loc blamed Mai and Minh for his predicament. If they’d stayed loyal to him, he wouldn’t be out of money, wouldn’t be desperate and sitting against a stone wall. Instead he’d be drifting above the filth that comprised his life. He’d be free of pain. A woman might be beside him, sharing his pipe and soon his bed.

Loc cursed, feeling old and tired without opium within him. Without opium, his rotting tooth assailed him, his once-broken ankle ached. He needed the drug, needed it the way a bicycle needs wheels. Without opium to carry him, he’d end his life. He’d find his mother, kill her, and then step in front of the nearest bus.

Though Loc was unafraid of death, he wanted to live. Opium made this desire possible. With opium he was strong. He could travel to places far and near. He could feel the soft contours of a woman and know that, at least for the moment, she was his.

Mai and Minh’s money allowed such realities and fantasies to exist. Above all other needs in his life, he needed the girl and half boy. Without them, nothing else mattered.

Holding a long, rusting nail in one hand and a beggar’s bowl in the other, Loc continued to watch the playground. When Mai and Minh suddenly appeared, his aches and bitterness departed, replaced by anger and greed. The children were alone. They moved toward a seesaw and soon started to go up and down.

Loc’s rage increased when he realized that the children were wearing new clothes. The money for those clothes could have gone to him, could have bought him a night of pleasure. Gripping the nail like a knife, Loc hurried across the street, moving silently and swiftly, eager to see them cry and to once again hold them in his power.

 

 

TO MINH, THE SEESAW DIDN’T SEEM so extraordinary without Tam on it. When she’d been on it, she had seemed to infuse light and life into the plywood elephant to the point where Minh thought it might charge across the playground and into the city. Now the elephant merely went up and down. It didn’t seem real. It didn’t make him smile. It simply was a pair of painted boards connected by another board.

Minh wished that he’d been wrong about Noah’s promise. But in the end, Tam had been taken all too easily. She hadn’t even gone kicking and screaming. She’d simply gone. And in her absence, Minh wondered what would be taken next from him. Maybe he’d get sick and die. Maybe Noah would leave. Most frightening, maybe Mai would make new friends at the center and forget all about him. He was nothing special, he knew. She’d already remained with him far longer than anyone else had. Anyone, that is, but Loc.

“Should we stay here?” Mai asked, pushing against the ground with her sandaled feet.

Minh tapped his finger on the seesaw, wanting her to stay, even though new friends might steal her from him.

“I wish you’d talk,” she replied, frowning. “Why won’t you ever talk to me, Minh the Silent?”

He shrugged, unwilling to answer.

“I should call you Minh the Stubborn, or maybe Minh the Scared. How can you be so smart at games and so scared to talk?”

He kicked harder against the soil, sending her downward quickly.

“Just for once I wish you’d talk to me,” she said, swatting away a bee. “You could tell me anything and I’d listen. You could talk about your toes, your stump. About how I saw you steal that croissant when we were starving. About the Shaq. Or Tam. Just tell me about something or someone and I’ll be so much happier.”

Minh shook his head.

“That’s right. Just sit there. Sit there looking stupid and ignoring me.” Mai wiped away a tear, and started to get off the seesaw.

Minh was about to reach for her when to his horror he saw Loc suddenly appear behind her. Loc grabbed her, slamming her against him as if she were made of straw. He held a nail near her eye. Minh looked toward the center, his legs swinging off the seesaw.

“Don’t move,” Loc said, the nail’s point touching Mai’s lashes. “Either of you brats move or make a sound, and she loses an eye.”

Minh glanced at the nail, and again at the center.

“Don’t test me, half boy,” Loc snarled, his lips drawn back. “I took your hand and I’ll take her eye.”

His vision clouding with tears, Minh nodded. He had never known how he’d lost his hand. He had always wanted to believe that he’d injured it as a baby, that no one could have ever intentionally hurt him.

“You’ll cry more if I poke out her eye,” Loc said, pulling Mai from the seesaw. “Now, follow me—both of you. And keep your mouth shut, girl, or you’ll never see again.”

Minh did as asked, struggling to breathe as Loc carried Mai’s limp figure from the playground, through the gate, and into the street. Loc headed toward a distant scooter that Minh soon recognized. He tried to reach out to Mai, to touch her hand and tell her that he was sorry. But Loc swatted away his fingers and all he could do was cry.

NOAH TOOK A DRINK FROM THE whiskey lemonade that Thien had made for him. Though alcohol usually soothed him, he didn’t feel his aches fading away. Listening to Iris and Thien talk about Tam, he felt helpless and hopeless. Thien’s tears made him want to hold her, but he knew that Iris needed her and so he remained still.

He took another sip of his drink and rose awkwardly from his plastic chair. “I’m going to see how Mai and Minh are doing,” he said, looking from one set of watery eyes to the other.

Iris nodded. “We should . . . get them out of here for a while. What could we do?”

“We could go to the zoo,” Thien suggested. “Or a puppet show.”

Iris blew into a tissue. “The zoo. That’s a good idea. Noah, why don’t you ask them?”

“Sure,” Noah replied, moving slowly, his prosthesis giving him more problems than usual. He stepped outside, scanning the playground. To his surprise, Mai and Minh were nowhere to be seen. Though the seesaw was empty, Noah walked over to it, as if it might tell him where they’d gone.

“Mai?” he called out, holding the elephant’s ear. He glanced around, noticed the open gate, and stepped through it and into the street. He looked left and then right. And his heart dropped like a stone when he saw Mai and Minh being forced onto a scooter by Loc.

“Hey!” Noah yelled, hurrying ahead. “Let them go!”

Loc turned in his direction and smiled. He then twisted the throttle and the scooter sped away. Minh was at the rear and reached back toward Noah, his stump held out over the back tire.

“Jump!” Noah shouted, still trying to run after them.

Minh shook his head.

“Turn the key, Mai!” Noah screamed. “Turn it!”

The scooter sped around a corner and vanished. Noah swore, hurrying back toward the kitchen, shouting to Iris and Thien as he drew near, “He got them!”