World and Town (25 page)

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free
.

It did.

T
here’s a strange van in town—a white van, with more panels than windows. It’s the kind of under-detailed vehicle that puts Hattie in mind of fetal pigs—that looks as if it got pulled off the line before it reached full van-dom. A thing designed for equipment, really, not passengers. And what a strange way of driving it has, going up and down the road the way it does. Hattie can’t help but notice as she crosses the room to wash out her brush: up and down, up and down, until finally it stops at the top of the Chhungs’ driveway. Sarun lopes up the hill as the kid in the passenger seat jumps out to open the tailgate. Maybe four or five kids in there? All black-hairs, and presumably Cambodian, though who knows. Gangs, Hattie knows, can be pan-Asian, mixed-race, anything; even thuggery’s multicultural these days. Sarun climbs in; the back doors close; the door-closer hops back into the passenger seat up front. The van speeds off with a roar. Hattie sits down with a frown.

D
id anyone get out?” Sophy asks later. She’s brought an old tennis ball for Annie, and is playing fetch in the house—something Hattie would not normally encourage. But how amazed Sophy is to find that dogs will chase things! And what an interesting way of throwing she has—her hand springing open as if she’s setting a bird free. She opens her mouth, too, the way Gift would, as if that will help somehow.

“More wrist,” says Hattie, gently.

Sophy adds more wrist. Still, Cato and Reveille barely look up. Only Annie, foolish Annie, scrambles madly after every ball, dribbling or not, her back paws slipping out from under her.

“Did anyone get out?” Sophy asks again.

“No,” says Hattie. “No one got out. That is, except to let Sarun in.” She thumbs through their textbook, undoing some dog-ears. She irons out the creases with her thumbnail.

“Sarun got in?”

“He did.”

Annie catches a ball on the fly, leaping up gracefully into the air, but Sophy doesn’t notice. Neither does she see how though Annie lands ker-plop on her hip, the ball’s still in her mouth; her tail’s going wild.

“His friends from the city?” asks Hattie.

Sophy nods, trying to wrest the ball out from between Annie’s teeth. “We were doing so good,” she says. And though as she speaks, Sophy does manage to pry open Annie’s mouth, reclaim the ball, bop Annie on the nose with it, and send it back across the room, the bounce is entirely in the ball. Her voice has none.

“You’re still doing good,” says Hattie. “Your family’s going to be okay.”

But Sophy’s forehead crumples anyway—despite the dogs, despite Annie, despite the soft light and soft air that they seem to pull in around them. Such happy animal innocence! And should not innocence touch innocence?

Sadness, though, will stake itself off. “You don’t understand.”

“He said he would quit that gang,” says Hattie.

Sophy nods.

“Your father’s going to be upset.”

Sophy nods.

“And just when you were starting over.” Starting over being the town pastime, it does seem.

Sophy nods again, her long lashes shining.

• • •

C
hhung 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 shirt, his tattoos show today instead—a writhing blue-black mass 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 glass 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 pronounces 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.

I
f Sarun has to walk by his dad now, he scuttles—head down, arms at his sides in a fashion 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, wishing 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.

I
s 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.

J
udy 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 glasses; 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!
”