World And Town Part 4

Sophy considers. "Yeah, like 'Ma'am.' It's a little like 'Ma'am.' Not exactly, but sort of. It's hard to explain."

"I think I get it," Hattie says again. She turns to Mum. "And where in Cambodia are you from?"

Mum tightens her arms around the baby and shakes her head.

"She doesn't speak English," Sophy explains. "And she doesn't read or write Khmer, either."

Kh-mai, she says, Hattie notices. Not Kh-mer, but Kh-mai.

"She's, what's that word?"

"Illiterate?"

"Illiterate. Yeah, that's it. She's illiterate. But she works hard, she knows you've got to work hard in America because, like, nothing grows on trees."

Mum says something then, holding the baby with one hand, and smoothing her s.h.i.+rt with the other. The s.h.i.+rt's close-fitting in a way you don't see much around here-a matter of tucks and darts. It doesn't move, the way Sophy's T-s.h.i.+rt does; it's formal. Both s.h.i.+rts, though, show their wearer's long waist and modest bust to advantage. Sophy tugs on hers with one hand behind each hip, as if adjusting a bustle.

"She says do you know anyone looking for a house cleaner, because, like, she can clean. And she does factory work, too. Like, if anyone around here is making electronics or medical equipment. Anything like that." Though Sophy shoos at the air with her raisinless hand, Mum, mysteriously, does not have to swat; the flies, for some reason, leave her alone. "She can do anything, she's really good, you should see."

"No medical equipment," answers Hattie. "But a lot of people do bake things."

Sophy translates. Looking in the air, thinking, speaking, looking in the air again. She gestures, swatting some more. Mum nods.

Hattie nods back.

And everyone smiles in the gray air-happy. In some basic, reasonless way, happy. A speckled pool of light-who knows where it's from, it must have bounced off something, somewhere-flickers at their feet, dancing and live.

The baby's name, it seems, is Gift.

"Because my mom thought he was, like, a gift," says Sophy.

He? The baby is wearing another frilly s.h.i.+rt today, with green-and-pink pants. Dangling its-or rather, his-legs on either side of Mum's hip, he is having a two-handed swig from the bottle, which really does look full of soda.

"Mehmehmehmme," he says.

"Gift. What a lovely name," says Hattie. "Is he a boy?"

"Yes," says Sophy. "He's my brother."

"I see." Hattie does not ask why he's wearing girls' clothes.

Still, Sophy volunteers, "We dress him like that because somebody gave us that clothes." She shrugs. "And we don't care."

"Ah," says Hattie. "And here I don't care, either."

Sophy tilts her head, thinking about that. Mum murmurs.

"She says Cambodians can make-what?" says Sophy.

"Do-na," says Mum herself then, suddenly. Softly, but bravely. And again-a bit more slowly: "Do. Na." She holds her mouth open after the second syllable, like a singer drawing out her vowels. Lovely as she is, her bottom teeth do zigzag.

"Oh, right, doughnuts." Sophy's teeth are better than her mother's.

"Ah." Hattie smiles at Mum. "Very good."

"She's never made them herself, but Cambodians make, like, all the doughnuts in California. So it's definitely something Cambodians can do," says Sophy.

"Is that so," says Hattie.

Mum adds something quietly, from behind Gift, in Khmer, then lifts her chin in Hattie's direction.

"They also can make-what?" says Sophy.

"Ba-geh," says Mum.

"This French thing," says Sophy.

"Baguettes?" says Hattie.

An inspired guess. Mum nods and smiles, but with her lips pressed together, so that her smile is more a matter of her eyes than her mouth-a radiance.

"Yeah. If anyone around here likes that," says Sophy.

"I'll ask around."

Beside them, the pit yawns, dark and rough, all roots and rock.

"She's a great worker," Sophy says again. "Like she's fast, but she pays attention, too, you know? She doesn't make mistakes."

"She's accurate?" says Hattie.

"Yeah, accurate." Sophy nods, tilting her head. "She's, like, accurate. Where she used to work they always gave the most complicated stuff to her. They weren't ever things she'd want herself, if anyone gave her one of whatever it was she'd just give it to the monks at the temple. But she made them because she was supposed to-like it was her fate. She's Buddhist."

Hattie looks at Mum-keeping her in the conversation. Not that paranoia is the human condition, as Lee used to maintain. But Mum might just understand more English than she speaks.

"Is she observant?"

"What does that mean?"

" 'Observant'? It means, does she observe Buddhist rituals? Go to temple? Is she practicing?"

"Oh, I get it." Sophy nods. "Yeah, back in our old town, she went every week. Because she had to, like, bring the monks food so they could eat, to begin with. Like they'd leave this bowl out on the steps for people to put rice in, and my mom would always do that. Bring them stuff." Her eyes go to Gift, who's lost interest in the raisins; she pops what's left of them into her mouth, licks her open palm, and wipes it on her jeans. "And there were, like, all these festivals. Like to remember the dead, even if no one can really do it right because they don't have people's ashes." She licks her palm a second time-still sticky, apparently-and wipes it again. "But anyway, there's no temple around here. I mean, that's not full of hippies. And there aren't any meditation groups, either. So I guess she's not so observant anymore."

"Very good."

"Even if all she thinks about is kam, day and night, still. Is that what you mean?"

"Kam?"

"It means 'karma.' "

"Ah. Kam," Hattie repeats-the student, instead of the teacher.

"She won't kill anything, even a fly," Sophy goes on. "Because she's trying to get out of this life." "She believes life is suffering?"

"Yeah. But, like, it's all fake, too, it's hard to explain."

Gift throws his empty bottle to the ground and, when Sophy retrieves it, throws it to the ground again. This time Hattie returns it.

"I see you," she tells him, smiling. "I see you."

He coos adorably, then pitches the thing so hard he all but nails a chipmunk.

"What do you mean, it's all fake?" This time when Hattie rescues the projectile, she hides it behind her back. Gift squirms and cranes.

"Like we're all just fooled," says Sophy. "Like we think the world is real when it isn't."

"Like it's the veil of Maya?"

Sophy c.o.c.ks her head. "How did you know that?"

Hattie shrugs-producing the bottle, to Gift's delight, before hiding it behind her back again. "I grew up in China, where a lot of people were Buddhist. Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, Christian. And all of them at the same time, sometimes."

Sophy laughs.

Gift kicks with his chubby hand outstretched-clearer than his mother, maybe, about object permanence.

"Are you Buddhist, too?" Hattie goes on.

Sophy starts to answer but doesn't; Hattie looks up to see the ruffled curtain drawn aside.

Chhung, watching from the trailer.

The curtain shuts again.

Hattie returns the bottle to Gift once more but, rather than let him restart his game, Mum says something to Sophy, smiles at Hattie, and heads inside; never mind that Gift is reaching and kicking in protest, his pant legs dancing like puppets. Hattie is still waving when Sophy's blond brother saunters up.

"This is Sarun," says Sophy, rolling the r.

"How do you do, Sarun." Hattie rolls the r, too. "My name is Hattie. It's nice to meet you."

" 'S dope," he says.

"Cut it, Bong!" says Sophy immediately. Her eyebrows lift, her nostrils flare. "No talking ghetto!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, too," says Sarun then, with mock manners. He has a deep, round scar on his cheek, as if someone poked him with an ice pick; his earrings are little pirate hoops.

"What does Bong mean?" asks Hattie.

"Just, like, I don't know. Older brother or sister," says Sophy. "Or cousin. Anything like that."

Sarun tries out the wheelbarrow.

" 'S ite," he says.

"Bong!" says Sophy.

"What does that mean, 'ite'?" says Hattie.

"It means 'all right,' " says Sarun. "All right, 'ite, get it?" He takes the wheelbarrow for a little test drive, trotting along behind it. Up one side of the pit, around the end, back. The wheel shrieks and squeals but no one seems to mind.

"He just has to, like, talk ghetto for some reason," says Sophy as his...o...b..t swings their way.

"For your express benefit." Sarun skids to a dramatic halt.

Hattie starts to explain why it might be to his benefit, too, to speak standard English but stops herself. She is not, after all, responsible for this young person. She's retired. She smiles instead. "Talk however you want."

"With regard to this wheelbarrow," says Sarun, "I'd just like to say, it is just what I always wanted."

"Don't talk California, either!" Sophy tells him.

"How is that California?" asks Hattie.

"It's, like, Hollywood. The way rich people talk," says Sophy.

"Ah." Hattie nods. "Anyway, Merry Christmas," she says.

Sarun grins and doffs his baseball cap to her, his jewelry gleaming pale in the low light.

"Thanks," says Sophy, her cheeks flushed. She waves both her hands, holding their open palms out in front of her like airplane propellers. "Thanks for coming. Thanks for the wheelbarrow! And last time for the cookies, and the drawer! Everything!"

Hattie hesitates, but only a little. "You're welcome," she says, and waves a good-bye to them all, including Chhung, who reemerges just as she leaves. He nods, stubs out a cigarette, swats a few flies. Then he pulls the net down over his face and tries out the wheelbarrow himself, pus.h.i.+ng coolly and with dignity.

Ginny's breakup is common knowledge, but as she doesn't seem to want to talk about it and as the walking group would rather sigh over Hattie anyway, they do, huddling at the Come 'n' Eat after their walk.

"Was he the love of your youth?" Beth runs a rock quarry, but she's the dreamiest of the group when it comes to romance. She ruffles her short hair as if trying to put a bend in it, then jabs a toothpick in her mouth.

"Yes and no," says Hattie.

Bringing gasps from some, and from even the avowedly post-romantic, looks of interest. The love of her youth, sort of, returned in her late middle age to find her!

"I don't know that he's here to find me," says Hattie. "And I did marry another man." As everyone knows but red-haired Candy, the newest member of the group.

"And what happened to him?" she asks.

"Lung cancer," says Hattie. "Never smoked, but he got lung cancer."

It's hardly news at this point, and goodness knows they've all had their share of illnesses and accidents and shock; they're veterans of life. Still, it quiets things down. Other patrons push their chairs back; the front door opens and shuts, then opens but doesn't shut as Hattie steels herself to explain about radon, and about how the cancer had already spread by the time they found it-to his liver and brain before anyone knew a thing. His illness having been found late, and having only involved a chapter or two, Lee used to say, Not like my Tale of Two t.i.tties; it was just lucky I didn't have three. That being the sort of joke only Lee would make-the sort even she stopped being able to make, some days; days when it was everything she could do to get herself out of bed and make herself walk. Walking, walking the drugs out of her system-walking, walking, in her pink punk wig. Candy does not ask about any of that, though. Instead, all she wants to know is, "Did you love him?" Her pale face washed out by her bright hair as she asks simply and sweetly. Unblinkingly.