World And Town Part 15

Sophy nods again, her long lashes s.h.i.+ning.

Chhung has set up a guard station by the pit, with a blue web folding chair and a plastic-crate coffee table. What with his brace, he has to grip both arms of the chair to settle himself down-it's an ordeal. And yet once he gets there, he doesn't stay put. Instead he sits for a while, then gets up. Then walks a bit. Then goes lowering himself all over again as if he can't help it. Of course, there's something in a person that loves a chair. Hattie'd be the first to admit it-all those months she spent in Joe's reclin-o-matic, after all. Still, how sad to behold that something in action, and then in action again.

Back when Chhung and Sarun dug together, they took breaks all the time. They stepped back, took stock of things. Had themselves some water, or a cigarette-swatted flies. Treated themselves to new Band-Aids. Sarun, like Chhung, was wearing a straw hat sometimes-hanging Band-Aids around the brim so that they hung down in a fringe. A little Carmen Miranda, Cambodian-style. But now Chhung smokes and drinks while Sarun works like a machine. Sarun does eat with Chhung when Sophy or Mum brings lunch out; but other than that, he just digs and digs. With more efficiency than show now-as if he's come to see what true labor is, Joe would say, namely invisible. As he's wearing cut-off sweats and no s.h.i.+rt, his tattoos show today instead-a writhing blue-black ma.s.s with a dragon theme. Monsters breathe fire over his sweaty back.

The acrimony doesn't begin until late, when Chhung hits a certain high. Once the light turns thick, though, his voice, likewise, turns viscous. The pitch of his Khmer is the same, the trrip and ay and ai of it, but add urgency and volume, and it all seems to embody more than the words can possibly say-bearing something fierce from another realm into this one. The strength and pain of it roll right on in through Hattie's windows, open as they are, now, most days; she's begun closing them when Chhung starts and Sarun, in turn, begins to answer, but there's no blocking their awful duet. What with her storm windows off, she has just the single pane of gla.s.s to pull down-a skinny thing that keeps the rain out, but that is finally more poncho than barrier-and that window frame's not so tight, either. By dinnertime, Hattie has to turn on the radio if she wants peace, and loud, never mind that the result is not peace.

"Is Sarun all right?" Hattie asks Sophy.

Sophy tucks Annie's head between her knees. "Yes."

"Are you sure?" says Hattie. "Because sometimes ..."

"Yes!"

Annie licks and licks Sophy as if after some essential canine nutrient.

"Okay, fly-swatter game," Hattie says, producing a plastic fly swatter-this being one of Sophy's favorite games, usually. Hattie p.r.o.nounces a word; Sophy swats the character for it. Today, though, Sophy twirls the swatter between swats, and when Annie wants to chew on the swatter, lets her. She slumps down in her chair, the soles of her feet turning in.

If Sarun has to walk by his dad now, he scuttles-head down, arms at his sides in a fas.h.i.+on Hattie hasn't seen since she was a child. It's a posture that used to infuriate Hattie's mother. Stand up! she'd insist. Straighter! Straighter! Terrifying the person, of course. Sarun does not appear too terrified. But when Chhung orders Sarun to kneel, as he likes to, Sarun does just kneel. Then Chhung struggles to his feet and, as best he can, hits Sarun at the back of the head. Aiming, it seems, for somewhere between the primary visual cortex and the cerebellum: a potentially devastating place to strike. It's just lucky he's using a rolled-up newspaper so that, all in all, the striking seems to hurt Chhung more than it does Sarun. Who could defend himself easily enough if he wanted to, anyway. He doesn't even try, though. Quite the contrary, he moves in closer if his father is having to reach too far-helping Chhung out. Making sure he doesn't aggravate his back.

A filial son.

Hattie cannot stop watching. She tries to paint but-talk about compulsion-lets her brush go dry as she sits, binoculars raised, wis.h.i.+ng she did not see, could somehow not see how, even with Sarun kneeling and holding dead still, Chhung misses his son's head every now and then; he has to step forward to catch himself if he's not going to pitch forward into the pit. A saving movement that so clearly pains Chhung, Sarun finally picks a spot smack in front of his father one day, kneeling in the most convenient place possible. He holds his hands behind his tattooed back. No hat. His earrings gleam, as does his light-colored ponytail-the ponytail riding up as he bends his neck forward.

Thwhap. Hattie knows she is imagining the sound-that she cannot possibly be hearing the sound. And yet as Chhung's arm drops through the air, she could swear she is hearing it anyway. Hearing it with your heart's ear, her mother used to say. Your heart's ear being better than your two ears put together.

Your heart's ear being your true ear.

A chipmunk stops right next to the Chhungs, jerking its head up with interest. Then it lowers it as if in imitation of Sarun.

Thwhap.

Sarun has to help Chhung back into his chair, too. He does this gently, leaning over his father, but looking off at the same time. Not as though he is looking for something-just looking. Away. As if something has caught his attention and, foveal creature that he is, he has to turn his head to look at it-though there's nothing out there to look at, of course.

As if, if he moves his head, maybe there will be.

Hattie washes her brushes out. Rolls them up in a bamboo mat, ties the mat up with string, then rinses out her inkstone. One must always start with fresh ink, her father used to say, if the results are to be fresh. She watches the water run black and black and black.

Is the beating because of the van?" she asks Sophy.

Sophy does not answer at first. But when Annie brings her the tennis ball, she suddenly allows, "Yeah."

"Sarun's friends from the city? The troublemakers?"

Sophy nods, throwing. Her brain having worked out its motor program, her motion is smoothing out with every toss now. She doesn't have to think about what she's doing; she can leave things up to her cerebellum.

Her lovely, undamaged cerebellum.

"What do they want?" asks Hattie.

"I don't know. Maybe they want the TV back." Sophy throws the ball once more, but this time Annie keeps it to chew on instead of bringing it back. Sophy wags her finger, laughing.

"Is it theirs?" asks Hattie.

"They sold it to us cheap."

"Friends' price?"

Sophy nods.

(Discounts! Joe used to say. How is it possible for so many to be in love with discounts?) "Did your dad know?" Hattie can guess the answer but asks anyway.

Sophy pretzels up her body in answer; she sips some coffee. Two teaspoons of sugar, a ton of milk.

"He must have known," says Hattie.

And sure enough, Sophy splays her toes like a cat.

"So now Sarun should go with his friends."

Sophy nods into her mug.

"Can you give the TV back?"

"He would go anyway."

"Because?"

"Because in his last life he was a soldier. Traveling everywhere. Fighting. That's why he was born with that scar on his cheek." Sophy drills at her own cheek with a pointed finger. "You know, like from a bullet." She holds out her hand. Annie's been ignoring it and mostly just wants to chew but Sophy holds it out anyway, like a parent dangling a toy her child used to just love.

"And that's why he is the way he is?" Hattie asks.

Sophy nods.

"Do you really believe that?" Hattie is a little amazed-such a web of significance! Though no more extraordinary than any other, she supposes.

"I know it's not something you can prove." Sophy lowers her hand, giving up. "Anyway, we need the money."

"You know, there are other ways of supporting your family," says Hattie, helpfully.

But Sophy's hands are wound tight around her cup, her fingers laced up.

Judy Tell-All stops by with news: Carter, it seems, is seeing Jill Jenkins. Who's not that much younger than him, really-"I mean what's sixty-seven minus fifty-two, twelve?"

"Fifteen."

Et cetera.

"I don't know why you're telling me this." Hattie adjusts her reading gla.s.ses; she stares at her page. She'd been trying to add a rock to her bamboo, just to mix things up. Add some enlivening contrast.

Judy shrugs as if to say, I just wanted you to know that I knew.

And maybe: I will always know things you don't. Watching the way I do.

How does a person turn into Judy Tell-All?

Hattie picks up an old copy of Science as the screen door bangs shut. There's no point in trying to paint; her concentration's shot. And now poor Cato cries out as he slowly stands. A puppy today but one day he'll be as inflexible as his namesake, Joe predicted.

Poor Cato.

"Courage," she says. If only she could stop him from standing before his warm compress! Instead, she can only stand, too, lending moral support. "Come, my friend." What was it Lee used to recite? Come my friend, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Come my friend, 'tis not too late to seek a newer girl.

Back when he was sixteen, Carter had arms that swung like pendula, as if they were weighted at their ends by his hands. Which did just hang there sometimes, awkward and large, like a gorilla's, but were more often reaching up to some wall or ceiling; he was always trying to see how much more he'd grown and how his range had expanded. Including, it seemed, his range of females, many of whom he'd talk over with Hattie, if only to show how little they meant to him. And she-playing older sister-would consider them in turn, if only to show how little they meant to her, either.

"Kind of serious," he said of one. "We talk and talk."

"What do you talk about?"

"Oh, what it means to be alive. Things like that."

"Hmm," she said. "That sounds interesting."

Another was consumed with shopping.

"I'm fascinated," he said. "I mean, it has got to be an act, right?"

"Hmm," she said.

"Come on, Miss Confucius, tell me. Is she pulling my leg?"

"Pulling your leg?"

"Now you're pulling my leg! You know precisely what that means-don't pretend that you don't!"

How much they laughed back then!-laughed and laughed until Carter met Meredith, the provost's daughter.

"Courage," she tells Cato again. And there-he's a bit better now that he's standing; it's not as bad as getting up and down, or stairs. She puts some music on. Sweeps the cabin, licks a finger, rubs a window pane to see if the grime is on the inside or out, then gets out a bucket and brush and tackles the spider webs on the outside of the house. Her lights are so encased in filaments, they seem like giant egg sacs themselves, evolved to be not only extra-large but extra-sticky. Her hands are soon webbed with goo.

She has only just scrubbed off her hands and sat down to ink-making when another visitor arrives.

"Sophy?"

Sophy stands stiff as a porch post. Hattie tells her to come in, but she won't; Hattie has to put down her ink stick to go open the slider.

"I brought you your newspaper," says Sophy.

And so she has-grasping it so hard, she has given the thing a waist.

"Sarun's run away," she says, petting Annie.

"Did he go in the van?"

"We're not sure." Sophy picks Annie up by the shoulders. "My dad's flipping out."

"Let's go look for him."

"Look for him?" Annie, hind legs up, is craning forward to lick Sophy's face.

"Where are my keys?"

On their red hook.

Chhung declines to come, but Mum sits, small and tense, in the front seat next to Hattie. She has a handkerchief knotted tight around her fingers; she worries the cloth. Sophy holds Gift in the back. As Hattie doesn't have a ca.r.s.eat, they do have to keep their fingers crossed that a cop doesn't catch them, but never mind. They circle the lake. Then it's up into the hills on the east side-rising so high on the inclines that Hattie all but forgets their errand from time to time. They're so high, they seem to be crossing the sky-the clouds just ahead, immense and otherworldly; the mountains down below, piddling and inconsequential. The trees on the mountains are not trees but tree moss. The roads are like insect trails.

At lower elevations, though, the roads are normal enough again, and finally dry, with cars sending up plumes of dust-the terrors of early spring having given way to something more bucolic. Some of the farms have developments "eating up their fenders," as people say, but look how they buzz now with plowing and planting. The air smells of gra.s.s and manure; the lambs and kids are filling out; and, most spectacularly of all, the dandelions are blooming. The car pa.s.ses field after field of the most joyous, f.e.c.kless yellow; it should really be named the state weed. Isn't Ginny's old farm around here? Rex's place, as people still call it-next door to the commune? Hattie reseats her gla.s.ses, squinting at a three-story barn with a broken-down sugarhouse; she fiddles with her radio. Tuning into a Christian music station at Sophy's request. Though what in heaven's name are they talking about? How men are absent from family life, and women becoming wild, and here it comes, of course, Ephesians 5:2223: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.... Paul seeing eye to eye with Confucius on this one. Can Sophy really be interested in this? But there she is, leaning forward, listening, her broad forehead gleaming like a polished rock. Hattie tries to tune the show out and mostly succeeds, but is thankful when Gift begins to fuss so that Sophy finally has no choice but to sit back and play with him. She bounces him, kisses him, tickles him; she claps his feet and plays peek-a-boo and lets him chew on her knuckle, then bounces him some more until finally Hattie asks, Does he like music? And sure enough, a tape of Greta's calms him down. Some kind of Social Club-a Cuban thing-maybe it's just the novelty that does it. Anyway, his eyes widen, and his fists bang; he suddenly shrieks and suddenly quiets. He looks more like Mum every day-Sophy, too-that same broad forehead. Now Sophy wipes his drool with her fingers as the car makes its way from one town to the next-down the wooded lanes, across the open fields. They enter a green valley.

Mum is quiet and unmoving. Her shoulder strap crosses her too high for comfort; another person would draw it down into her lap, or slip it behind her. But Mum just leans back. Never mind that the strap still crosses her chin and part of her cheek; she is holding her handkerchief more loosely now, and watching the road with such interest that Hattie wonders how many times she's sat in the front seat of a car. Many times, surely, back when Sarun had wheels? Sarun, Sarun. They check out the town centers especially, though a lot of them aren't much more than a gas pump that works or doesn't. A Chinese restaurant or a tattoo parlor or a video store; a general store with sagging steps and a live-bait sign. Everything needs paint.

At least the apple trees are blooming.

How can they find a boy who could be anywhere?

Sarun, Sarun, Sarun.

The city is just outcroppings of signage at first. A pizza place. A car wash. But then, suddenly: storefronts, sidewalks, parking meters, sewer grates. Streetlights and traffic lights; dogs on leashes, the poor things. How are Hattie and company going to search a whole city? Anyway, there's Gift's diaper to take care of, first; and wouldn't it be nice to find him a place to toddle around? Hattie is in truth keeping an eye out as much for a park as for Sarun, when they spot-yo!-a familiar blond ponytail sauntering toward the bus station, alone. He's wearing a black-and-silver sweats.h.i.+rt Hattie doesn't recognize, and swaggering as if he is not coming down a sidewalk exactly, but something with more roll.

"Sarun!" Sophy sweeps her hair back like a girl in one of their Asian romance tapes. "Sarun!"

He startles; stops; does a theatrical double-take.

"Yo! Sarun!"

He hesitates, glancing over his shoulder, but then turns smartly on his heel, strides over and salutes. His hands are clean for a change and, though scarred and scratched up, Band-Aid-free.

"What are you doing here?" says Sophy. "We've been worried about you."

"Had to get out of there."

"We've been driving all over, looking for you!"

"Yeah? Well, you found me." He reaches in to cuff Gift; he ruffles his hair.

"You hungry?" Sophy's tone is nothing Hattie's ever heard from her before-wheedling and appeasing, girly. "Want to get something to eat?"