Dragon House (19 page)

“You boys think you’re going to get formula by kicking that stone?” Mai asked. “Stop kicking that stone.”

Tung looked up at her. “I miss my mother, Mai.”

“I know.”

“I dream about her every night.”

Minh managed to finally dislodge the piece of cement. He wasn’t sure if Tung wanted it but nonetheless pushed it in his direction. He hoped to help Tung, only he didn’t know how. His lip throbbed from the back of Loc’s hand, and he still tasted blood.

Mai sighed, fanning herself. A woman stepped from the gallery, and Mai approached her without pause. “You buy something pretty?” she asked in English.

The woman studied the three children before her. “No. Not today.”

“That too bad. Next time you buy something, sure, sure.”

“I leave tomorrow.”

“That even more too bad. I think you miss Vietnam.”

The woman wiped her brow. “Well, I’ll be back.”

Mai fanned the foreigner. “My friends and I, we eat nothing today. We very hungry. Can you buy us three milks? Please?”

After glancing at her watch, the woman replied, “I’ll give you three dollars. You can buy yourselves some milk.”

Mai shook her head. “We cannot go into store. They think we steal. So we cannot buy milk. You come with us. It only take one minute. Please.”

The woman looked from face to face. “Only three dollars? Nothing more?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And only a minute?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Then let’s go.”

Mai handed the woman a fan and started walking, her heart beating quickly. She didn’t like the idea of misleading the foreigner, but Tung’s baby sister was probably starving. Mai had heard stories of motherless babies dying before, and she didn’t want Tung to lose his little sister. Mai walked fast, telling the woman about the sights they passed. Soon they came to a large department store. The store was sleek and new, and without a foreign escort Mai would have never been allowed inside. She proceeded to an elevator bank, and the group rode together to the third floor.

The door opened and they emerged into a supermarket. Mai proceeded past a bank of cashiers, her eyes searching. The woman was getting impatient and Mai began to fear the worst. She headed down an aisle that contained baby goods, pausing in front of stacks of powdered formula. Lifting the smallest carton from the shelf, she held it in front of the woman. “Please, miss. My friend’s baby sister has no food. Her mother die already. Please buy formula so she can eat tonight.”

The woman’s jaw dropped. “You . . . you lied to me.”

Mai lowered her head, ashamed. “Please, miss. Please help. She only three month old.”

“That’s about thirteen dollars. You want me to spend thirteen dollars on formula?”

“For baby girl, yes, please help. This not for me. It for her.”

The woman angrily thrust Mai’s fan into her hand. “I should have known better than to trust you,” she said, turning away, walking toward the elevators.

Mai felt her face flush. She held the formula and the fan in her trembling hands. She wondered who’d overheard the exchange, and she wanted to become invisible. She’d been unseen her whole life, and she needed to be unseen at that moment, for her shame was endless. She had always tried to be honest, to rise above what she’d watched so many others become. And the way the woman had looked at her, with such disappointment and scorn in her eyes, had stolen whatever pride Mai had managed to muster over the years. She felt so small and tired. She sniffed. A tear tumbled down her cheek.

Minh watched Mai falter, hating her descent. He saw Tung look around, study his environment. He suddenly knew that Tung was going to try to steal a carton of formula. Minh shook his head, aware that he needed to lead his friends away from danger, from a danger that could destroy them all forever. Tung reached for the formula, but Minh was faster, his good hand grabbing Tung’s wrist, his stump easing between Mai’s arm and her waist. Almost dropping his game, he pulled them away from the formula, from the mixture that would fill a baby’s belly.

As Minh guided Mai toward the elevators, he realized that he was going to have to save her. She had led him for too long. She’d been his voice, his mind, his hope. She’d told him stories at night when he needed to hear, held him close when he needed to feel. Now it was his turn to hold her. He knew that she was close to breaking. She had been that way for several months, sometimes crying when she thought he was asleep. Unless he changed their fate, her laughter would no longer please his ears. The street was slowly killing her, though she pretended otherwise. It was killing her as it killed everyone else—even Loc.

Minh brought Mai and Tung into the light, the real light of day. And since he had no immediate plan to save Mai or to buy Tung some formula, he simply headed toward the giant Western hotels, where the stakes were always the highest.

 

 

THE STREETS WERE DARKENING, MOVING IN concert with Noah’s mood. Carrying two plastic bags, one that threatened to burst from the weight of its load, he shuffled forward, trying to ease the burden on his prosthesis. He hadn’t taken a painkiller of any sort for several hours and his stump and lower back throbbed like giant toothaches. His pants pocket held several pills, and he was tempted to escape from his misery. Unfortunately, the pills numbed his mind as well as his body. And knowing that Thien had brought Tam and Qui to the center, and that they were awaiting his return, Noah wasn’t ready to enter oblivion. After he saw her, gave her his gift, and said good night, he could take his pills, enjoy a drink, and then slip away into a realm where he’d float for a few minutes before falling asleep.

Noah tried to take his mind off his pain by gazing at the strange sights around him. He circumvented an outdoor restaurant, which was really nothing more than three wooden tables encircling the base of a large umbrella. Young soldiers and a family occupied the tables, slurping up big bowls of
pho
. Not five feet from the patrons, a woman wearing a purple blouse chopped vegetables on a wooden block and dropped them into a stainless-steel cauldron. She talked incessantly, provoking laughter from the soldiers, who drank beer and had their arms around one another.

Noah turned toward the street that ran alongside Iris’s center. Not far ahead, a group of men were huddled tightly together, many of them crouched or kneeling. Noah had seen several such gatherings, and knew that the men were gambling. But he wasn’t sure if they used dice or cards or something else altogether. The men were intent on whatever lay before them, chatting excitedly, getting closer to the ground. A boy on the periphery of the group waved to Noah, who returned the greeting and stepped into the street, dodging scooters.

Soon Noah was in the center. The smell of garlic seeped from the kitchen. The first floor was empty, though voices drifted down from above. Noah ascended the stairs slowly, as if a toddler first learning to walk. He listened to the voices, which switched back and forth between Vietnamese and English. He might have heard Tam once but wasn’t sure. He tried to remember her face. She’d been so wet, so light against him. Did she really put her arms around me like that? he wondered. Like I was her father carrying her to bed?

He entered the dormitory, noting that Iris and Thien had moved two bunk beds against each other, so Tam and Qui could sleep together on the bottom beds. Tam lay on one bed but was propped up by some pillows. Qui sat next to her, wearing a new dress. Noah realized that several of his whiskey bottles had been wrapped in colored paper, set on nearby chests, and filled with yellow flowers. He didn’t know what kind of flowers they were but was amazed to see these same flowers depicted on the new pajamas that Tam wore. He glanced at Iris and then Thien. His gaze swung back to Tam. “Hello,” he said quietly, the sight of her in a soft bed causing his eyes to dampen.

She smiled. “I no want dream tonight.”

“Why not?”

Stretching out her arms, she replied, “This better. I want . . . feel this bed all night.”

Noah nodded. “It’s yours,” he said, taking a step toward her, reaching into one of the plastic bags, and removing a Vietnamese doll. The doll wore a traditional Vietnamese dress, an
ao dai
, which was blue and adorned with white bamboo leaves. The doll carried a circular pink purse, and her long hair fell from beneath a conical hat. Noah handed his gift to Tam. “Maybe you’d like to share your new bed with her.”

Tam’s eyes widened. She’d never touched anything so lovely, and she held the doll with reverence, afraid her fingers might dirty the beautiful silk dress. She looked closer and saw that the doll had white gloves and shoes. Her lips had been painted red. A pearl necklace surrounded the high collar of her dress. Tam touched the doll’s hair with her forefinger. The hair moved. It wasn’t plastic. It seemed real.

At that moment the pain in Tam’s bones seemed to travel somewhere else. She didn’t feel hot or cold. She didn’t find it hard to breathe. She wasn’t even tired. And she didn’t wonder where her mother was, or why her mother hadn’t come home for so long. At that moment Tam was happy. She made sure that her fingers were clean and then she touched the doll’s dress, tracing its contours, pretending that its leaves were blowing in the wind.

Realizing that she needed to thank someone for her good fortune, Tam looked up, forgetting where she was. A tall man stood before her, a Western man. His eyes were kind, and she remembered that he’d given her the doll, remembered how he’d carried her through the rain. “Thank you, mister,” she said, gently stroking the doll’s hair, careful not to dislodge her hat. “Thank you so much. For everything.”

Noah noticed how Qui was beaming, how the lines seemed to have fallen from her face. “What are you going to name her?” he asked.

“Dung,” Tam replied.

Thien smiled at Tam, then turned to Noah. “In Vietnamese, ‘dung’ means ‘beautiful.’ ”

Iris watched Tam kiss her doll’s cheek. She wanted to e-mail her mother, to let her know the good that her father’s center had already done. “Is it too cold in here?” she asked Qui. “Too hot? Or do you need any more food?”

Qui lowered her head, still not believing their extraordinary change in circumstances. “No, Miss Iris,” she replied, wondering if she were dreaming, knowing that waking from such a dream would be more than her heart could handle. “You already do too much for us. Please no worry about us again.”

“And you know where the bathroom is?” Iris asked. “And how to work the shower?”

Qui had never used a shower and was sure she’d continue to fill a bowl with water and clean herself with a damp cloth. But the American woman had gone to great lengths to show her how to operate the complex system of faucets. And so Qui nodded. “You too kind, Miss Iris,” she said, unused to having someone worry about her, and not knowing what to say. “Please go rest. You must be tired.”

Iris looked around the room, wondering if she and Thien had forgotten to tell Qui anything. While Noah had been searching for his welcome gift, they’d spent the better part of an hour showing Qui where everything was. They’d been detailed, perhaps too much so. In any case, Iris worried about her guests’ first night. She wanted things to go smoothly. “I’ll leave the light on in the hallway,” she said. “And I’ll check on you later.”

“Thank you, Miss Iris,” Qui replied, turning her gaze from Iris to Tam, who was pretending to comb her doll’s hair. Tam grinned, looking as if she weren’t sick and in pain, but happy. Qui’s eyes watered. For a thousand nights, she had prayed for miracles. She’d prayed until exhaustion or bitterness had overcome her. Remarkably, just as she had ceased to believe in miracles, when she’d felt betrayed by the mere existence of the word, a miracle had finally befallen her.

Swinging her gaze back to the Americans, to the foreigners she hardly knew, Qui shook her head in wonder. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or to hold these tall strangers in her arms. All she knew was that she could live a hundred lifetimes and never be able to repay them for what they’d already done. “Thank you, Miss Iris and Mr. Noah,” she said softly, her voice threatening to crumble. “What you do for Tam, it beautiful.”

Iris saw the tears in Qui’s eyes and she smiled. “Sleep well tonight.”

Noah and Thien also said good night and followed Iris into the stairwell. Iris was about to head down to the kitchen, but Noah touched her shoulder and pointed to a metal ladder that ran from near their feet to a trapdoor in the ceiling above the stairwell. “Follow me,” he said. Clenching the remaining plastic bag in his teeth, he slowly made his way up the ladder. Each step sent a spasm of pain pulsating from his stump to his back, but he didn’t change direction. The trapdoor had no lock and he pushed it open, dust drifting on him.

Noah climbed to the rooftop and helped Iris and Thien move up and into the fresh air. Dusk was about to blossom, and the fading sun spread a layer of itself on the faces of buildings and towers. This layer made structures glow as if they’d been painted crimson instead of white. Traffic, most of which was unseen, hummed without pause—the steady pulse of the city.

The center’s rooftop was covered in smooth river stones. Noah nudged a stone with his good foot, wondering what purpose it served. He then withdrew three cans of Tiger beer from the plastic bag and handed a can to both Iris and Thien. The women looked at him expectantly, but he wasn’t sure what to say and so said nothing. Thien opened her can and handed it to Iris. She then opened Noah’s can and then the last. Forty feet below, scooters beeped and darted.

“I’d like to thank you both . . . for putting up with me,” Noah said. “I don’t make it easy. And I’m sorry about that.”

Thien shrugged, sipping her beer. “My life is easy, Mr. Noah. So please do not worry about me. It is my pleasure to know you.”

Iris watched Thien, watched how her eyes seemed to linger on Noah’s face. “She’s right,” Iris said, tasting the beer, savoring its coolness. “It really hasn’t been a problem.”