World And Town Part 22

He winks. "I'm sure it was a leap," he says. "That Toutmange was an Ignoriah par excellence, wouldn't you say?"

"A regular bombillator," she agrees, smiling.

"What a team we've always been." He laughs an appreciative laugh. But then he looks away. He is wearing some sort of silver amulet on a leather string; who knows what it means.

Outside, though a hazy stillness lingers, the summer people are leaving. How fast the summers go around here! It does seem that the days have only just warmed up. But already the nights are earlier and cooler, and the fruit trees heavy. Hitherto outdoor mice are starting to move in; the goldenrod is up; Millie's is closing earlier, having lost its summer help. School is set to start.

Still, though they've missed all the deadlines and done none of the forms, the Chhungs are talking home schooling. The first day of school comes and goes; the Chhung kids are still at home. The second day, Sophy appears at Hattie's door, shorn; she's wearing a small silver cross on a chain.

All these new pendants!

"It's good to see you again," says Hattie, carefully. Da gun-with as much detachment as she can muster.

Sophy picks Annie up roughly. "I cut my hair."

"I see," says Hattie.

"It's crooked."

It looks as if she cut it blindfolded.

Still, Hattie insists, "It's cute. Fetching." Diplomatic in a way she can only hope Sophy will forgive-trying to pretend she isn't thinking things, though: Her Sophy! Her beautiful Sophy.

"It's not supposed to be fetching. It's supposed to keep me from temptation." Sophy cradles Annie, who licks and licks her face; she wrinkles her nose, drying it with a raised shoulder. "It's crooked," she says again.

"Well," allows Hattie, "it could use"-she thinks-"adjustment."

"I was hoping you'd make it even. Our scissors suck."

"You can't do much with dull blades," says Hattie.

"That's what I told Sarun." Sophy lets Annie spill out of her arms. "I told him you can't do much with dull blades."

"Well, sit down. I do have a better pair."

Scissors, comb, towel. Sophy dunks her head in the kitchen sink then perches on a stool, an old beach towel draped over her strong shoulders. A seaside-like sun bathes her striped back.

"Should I take off my cross?"

"If you want to."

She leaves it on. Hattie squeegees a section of hair with two fingers, cuts, squeegees again; the excess water beads into her hand. She consults the dogs. What do they think? They sweep the floor with their tails. Hattie did use to cut both Joe's and Josh's hair, once upon a time, but she's rusty; she hopes Sophy doesn't end up with a crew cut.

"There." Hattie directs Sophy to a door mirror at last; Sophy reappears with a shy smile. A satisfied customer, though, if anything, her beauty bursts forth more lusciously than ever. Her eyes have more lilt, her lips more pout; her cheekbones could be Sophia Loren's. The short roundness of her new do seems to change even her proportions: Her neck seems longer, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so full that the cross above them just seems a tease.

Ooh, la-la! Lee would have said. Get that girl a diaphragm!

But luckily, she is dead and not here, thinks Hattie-even as she thinks, how could she have thought that? How could she?

"So will that do it?" Hattie asks, sweeping.

Sophy nods, trying to tuck her hair behind her ears; it doesn't stay. "It's so I can go to school."

"Did your dad change his mind?"

Sophy nods; her hair sweeps teasingly into her eyes. "After I cut it. Plus I prayed."

"Well, wonderful." Hattie gets out her dustpan.

"So no more Chinese lessons," Sophy says. "Now that I'm starting school again."

"Ah," says Hattie. "Are you excited?"

"It's better than being stuck in the trailer all day."

"I bet."

Sophy plays with Annie. "Sit," she says, and is delighted when Annie obeys, even if she immediately stands back up. "You're getting big!" she tells Annie.

Annie sits again.

"I wonder if you're going to have time for your Bible study cla.s.s," says Hattie. "What with homework and all." She raises the subject casually, trying not to upset Sophy again. And Sophy, happily, does not seem upset.

"No," she says. "But it's okay, because I'm going to the church school. So I'll have Bible study every day anyway."

Church school?

"You know. The one down the street from church."

And then Hattie remembers: the school Candy complained about. The one the church put straight across from the public school on purpose, people say, to draw kids away.

"How are you going to get there?" asks Hattie, carefully.

"The blue car."

"Ah. Well, good luck and come poke your head in every now and then. Annie's going to miss you."

Sophy kneels to give Annie a hug. "Do you think she'll know I've left her?"

"Are you leaving her?"

Sophy touches noses with Annie. "Eskimo kiss," she says. Annie's tail thumps.

"Would you like her?" asks Hattie, after a moment. "You can have her if you'd like."

"Can I really?" Sophy's on all fours, now, like Annie.

"Of course."

"Though would my dad let me keep her? That's the problem, isn't it."

"Good point."

Sophy sits back on her heels. "Maybe I could keep her here?"

"Sure. If you'd like. This can be your kennel."

Sophy plays with Annie some more, considering.

"You could walk her. Teach her tricks. Feed her ice cream."

Sophy waggles her head; she chews on a hangnail, her lips drawn back. "But to do that I'd have to come back all the time, wouldn't I?"

"It wouldn't be so bad. You could have a cookie while you were here. Review your Chinese." The more Hattie thinks about this, the more she likes the idea. She smiles.

But Sophy doesn't smile. "Like who even speaks Chinese anyway," she says, suddenly. "This place is full of dog beds and dog dishes. It smells like dogs. You can hardly breathe in here."

Is that true? When the windows have been open all summer? Hattie is stung, though of course people do get used to smells, and what was it that Lee once said? I, personally, have always loved your kennel-I mean, living room. It just reminds me of-oh, I don't know. Dogs.

"It's a trap," says Sophy.

A trap?

"Oh, Sophy. It might smell like the dogs, but it's not a trap."

But already she is escaping out the door.

Chhung is unhappy about Sophy quitting Chinese, but cheers up when Hattie offers to tutor Mum in English instead. Your trailer seems a little quiet, she says, what with Sophy at school during the day. And he agrees: Mum could use both the company and the practice. Thanks to the English program on TV, Mum understands more and more. And thanks to Sesame Street-Big Bird. She's learned a lot from Big Bird. But her p.r.o.nunciation-he shakes his head. Not clear. Hard to understand. Hattie suggests they ask Mum what she thinks of the idea, but Chhung insists he knows.

"She like it." He raps on his brace with his knuckles for emphasis. "I know."

The air smells so strongly of cigarettes that Hattie asks if she can open a window.

"Would you like lessons, too?" she goes on.

"No, no," he says. "I don't need."

But late the next day, when Hattie sits down with Mum at the kitchen table-an L in the counter, really-he pulls his easy chair in extra close. The TV is, what's more, off-a surprise to Hattie on more than one count. Hasn't he heard?

"America has been attacked by terrorists," she says.

Chhung blinks even as his eyes shoot back and forth. "Wha?"

"Terrorists," she says, slowly. A new word for her, too, and how to explain? The World Trade Center-big buildings-New York. New York City. Mum and Chhung nod. Hattie finds a pencil and draws the two towers. Didn't they see it on TV? The plane, the fire, the people jumping out the windows? Desperate, she says, they were desperate-the easiest part of the story for them to understand. People jumping rather than burning, people having no choice-of course. Not owning a TV herself, Hattie watched as much as she could stand at Greta's-the events repeating again and again on the screen and then again and again, all night, in her head; only to be recounted so often on the radio today that it seemed that history could just get stuck; no one was ever going to move past this. And what a different America they live in now, with such a different idea of what's possible-a world so different from the one Lee and Joe knew, she could never explain it to them. It's a c.o.c.kamamie way to see things, Hattie knows-plain nuts. And yet she feels it-how Lee and Joe have retreated to the back side of a divide. How she's gone on. And how she's left them behind now-she who was once left behind herself. She feels that. She's gone on.

Chhung, meanwhile, thought it was all a movie.

"I don't like." He waves his hand. "Watch DVD instead," he says. "Killing Fields."

"It wasn't a movie," says Hattie. "It was real. Terrible. Many people died. Many, many people."

She knows, of course, that it will not seem like so many people to the Chhungs; that like her parents, they counted hards.h.i.+p by the millions. The millions wounded, the millions dead. Still, she is annoyed when Chhung shakes his head. He translates for Mum, who likewise shakes her head and frowns matter-of-factly. Her hair bun bristles with pins and looks about as likely to unravel as a polyp, but still she pats it, as if to keep it under control.

"Not so serious," says Chhung. And, with confidence: "He cannot win. American destroy him right away." He taps on his back brace. "American verry srrong."

It was what Hattie's father used to say about America way back when: America is strong. America is not weak like China. Hattie understands, but knows herself on the other side of a divide here, too. Is there any point in going on?

"Lesson time," she says finally.

She turns her attention around like a cart.

Officially, Chhung has left Sarun to dig on his own because of Gift; Chhung is supposed to babysit so that Mum can concentrate. Right now, though, Gift is napping on the couch, his bare tummy rising and falling. His legs turn out like a ballet dancer's; his short arms lie along the sides of his head as if that is as comfortable a position as any. He looks to have no shoulders.

"Tie?" asks Mum.

"Tea," says Hattie. "Yes, I would love some tea."

Mum fills a white enamel saucepan with water and offers Hattie some dried anchovies.

"Thank you. Delicious." Hattie has always loved little fish-salty sweet things, too. "Thank you," she says again, her irritation subsiding.

Mum's head bobs.

"You should say, 'You're welcome.' "

Mum tries. Hattie takes notes: stresses all three syllables, and the syllables are very short.

"You're welcome," Hattie says again.

"Yor wel-c.u.m."

Hattie's mother may have been a heretic, but when Hattie was a girl, her English lessons were based on the Bible. She can still see her old green primer with the cross on its cover; all those bearded foreign devils with helmets on, too. Still, it was a textbook. Mum should probably have a textbook. For now Hattie simply runs through the vowels, noting problems.

"Can you say bait?"

"Baay," says Mum.

A bit of tw.a.n.g there; trouble with the ending consonant. Hattie goes on. "Can you say bat?"

"Bat."

Good. A bit short, but good.

"Beet?" "Beee."

Hattie makes a note. "Bet?"

The next lesson, Hattie works on p.r.o.nunciation again, but adds some phrases: Thank you, Thanks, You're welcome, How are you. The sounds are hard for Mum, but she smiles the whole time, tentative but eager. Learning English at her age is not easy; she might as well be trying to tuck Mount Tai under her arm and jump over the North Sea, as Hattie's father used to say. Still, she reminds Hattie of how students make the teacher. Mum is such a different student from Sophy, but then her students were all different, she remembers. And how each one gave her a bit of herself-she remembers that, too. She looks forward to coming again.