LONTAR issue #1 (11 page)

How I got lost I don't know. I can only attribute it to stupidity or blind panic. It's like one minute there is an obvious trail of broken branches behind me and the next I am standing in a small clearing, the jungle unbroken around me.
 

When I was about four I fell into a dried-up well. Back then, my mother was still alive and it was she who found me, after I'd cried myself hoarse and scraped my fingertips raw. Standing in the center of this small jungle clearing is like being in that well again.

There are some fears that can't be controlled and being lost in the jungle as night falls is one of them. At least I can't control my dread, and I can't stop my mind from turning and returning to the old medicine woman's ghost story.

The story isn't especially original. I tell it to myself as I pace in circles around the clearing.

Long ago a young couple fell in love. The man had to go away to work but promised the girl that he'd return for her. She waited and waited but he did not come. She was pregnant and it became harder and harder to disguise her pregnancy. As an unwed mother she would be shunned and despised and her family dishonored.

One day a traveler came through the village. He had seen the girl's lover, he said. He was alive and well, and now living in another village with a new girlfriend.
 

Upon hearing of her lover's betrayal the girl hung herself. She died cursing her unfaithful man and all men who might be tempted to betray their sweethearts.

Every now and then a man ventures too far into the jungle and meets the girl's ghost. The very sight of her robs a man of his life force.
 

It's a creepy story, but it's not creepy enough to have caused the goose bumps that are covering my arms, or the cold sweat on my back, or my heart palpitations. I pride myself on being good in a crisis, but at this moment, I am panicking. Every rustling leaf or snapping twig is the girl's ghost, and in a jungle, it is never quiet. I crouch down and bury my face into my knees, as though this might prevent me from catching sight of her. I find myself praying to my dead mother.

The whimpering sound is so faint that I think that I'm imagining it. Then I think that I might be making the noise. That's how scared I am. But the sound keeps getting louder, the whimpers turning into cries, which is when I recognize it for what it is: it's the sound of a crying baby.

I don't want to follow the sound but how can I not? Besides, I'm beyond logic by this point. What's a baby doing in the middle of the jungle?
 

The crying keeps getting louder and my breathing keeps getting faster. I am pushing my way through trees, branches and thorns catching in my hair and clothes, other branches whipping back and slapping me in the face. I don't care. I just have to keep going.

Just as I've lost all sense of direction I've lost all sense of time. Hours could have passed. Or days. Or maybe it's been a matter of minutes. Part of me suspects that the crying is in my head, or that the ghost girl is controlling me. I am too scared to stop so I just keep thrashing through the jungle.

It's the quality of light that I notice first, for I have broken free of the foliage and reached the river. Although it is dark, it is slightly less dark than it was under the tree canopy. I turn and see the darker shadow of our boat. The baby's cries seem to have ceased. Relief floods over me.

I wade through the shallows, stumbling with fatigue. The rocks are loose and slippery.
 

The boat is as it was when I left, still listing to one side, a rope tying it to a thick branch. I stagger towards it. I am about ten feet from the boat when I trip, my foot striking something hard yet yielding. In my panic, I fall forward, my hand touching something smooth and slippery.

It takes a moment to register, and even when I realize what it is, my mind rejects it. That cannot be Chau's head bobbing with the current. It cannot be his hair brushing against my arms, or his bulging eyes staring up at me.
 

My voice seems to have left me.

I don't find Loc until dawn, since I'd spent what was left of the night on the opposite bank of the river, curled behind a fallen tree, shaking. I am not proud of this. Perhaps if I'd found him sooner I could have helped him.

But now it's too late. Whatever happened to Loc is done and there's no way to undo it, no way to wipe that look of horrified shock from his face. At least no way that I know. He won't talk, or rather he can't. I don't think that the Loc whom I knew yesterday is still here, or anywhere else for that matter. He doesn't seem to recognize me, nor have any thought besides blind terror.
 

Traffic on this river is non-existent, but this morning my luck seems to have changed, because another boat appears, heading downriver. It's manned by two young Bahnar guys who speak no Vietnamese. I can see that they don't want to stop, especially after they get a look at Loc. I bet that I look rough too, and desperate.

Luckily I'd finished burying Chau by the time that the ethnic guys had showed up, or else they'd never have stopped for us. I offer them all of the money that I have to take me and Loc downriver. We communicate via sign language. I am so grateful to pull away from this place that I'm close to tears. Loc sits with his eyes shut.

Chau's death results in endless questions and even more paperwork. The authorities want a simple solution. How did Chau drown? Did Loc go insane upon finding Chau's body? Did Chau seem suicidal? I stick to my story about having gone off to collect firewood. I don't mention the crying baby or the ghost girl. If I did, I'd likely be shipped off to the same mental hospital where Loc is sent.
 

Of course I beg to be transferred. And of course nobody listens to me. Instead, they give me two weeks' leave, then order me back to work. I'm petrified but what choice do I have? In the army, there's no way to disobey an order.

So here I am, about a month after Chau's death, navigating the farthest stretch of the Yellow River along with Binh and two new guys. Binh's fever had gone down soon after we'd left him in the old woman's stilt hut. He has no idea how lucky he was.

When we'd passed the spot where Chau died, I was terrified. Now that we've made it all the way to Buon Taly village, our turning-around-point, I feel a bit calmer. In two months my military service will end. That's four more trips max and I'm out of here.

Like everyone else, the new guys have heard rumors about Loc and Chau. Everyone in our unit has asked me about it. I tell everyone that I don't know what happened, which is the truth. I don't want to know.

We've only been in Buon Taly a few hours when I see Loc's girl, standing beside a spindly hut, watching us. Instead of her traditional woven top she's wearing a green t-shirt. There's a sad look on her face. I guess that she's already figured out that Loc isn't here. She looks a little plumper than when I last saw her.

She waits until I'm alone before she approaches me, her pretty face creased with worry.
 
She says hello, then asks when Loc is coming back.

When I tell her that he won't be back, her face crumples. She doesn't cry, and I admire her for that, because she obviously wants to. "Why?" she says. Her plump lower lip quivers. "He said he would marry me. You must take me to see him."

Up close, I can see the hint of a belly on her. It doesn't take a doctor to figure out that she's pregnant. And if I suspect, the entire village must know. She is carrying Loc's baby.

"He's very sick," I say. I feel like a bastard giving her such bad news but I figure that she has to know. "He won't get better. Ever. He doesn't even remember his own name. You have to forget about him."

She keeps insisting that he's going to marry her, that she must see him, that she can help him. I grit my teeth. Even if Loc hadn't gone mad, he wouldn't be marrying her. He had a well-connected Vietnamese fiancée. "Please take me to him," she begs. I imagine the scene. There's no way that his family would agree to him marrying some ethnic minority girl who showed up claiming to be his girlfriend. They'd tell her to get lost. She has to accept that she and Loc are over.

Eventually she does cry. I feel even worse for her. She's a sweet girl. And a beautiful one. I don't mind her dark skin. I even like it.

You might think that I'm crazy and maybe I am, but all of a sudden I know what to do. I will marry her. I tell her my idea, and how it will be, how she will have to stay here until I finish my military service. After that we can go anywhere where we can find work, although it won't be easy. I'm not going to take her back to my dad's place. His new wife would make her life hell anyways.

She listens to me talk. It has gotten dark without my noticing. She has stopped crying, although I can't see her eyes. I have no idea what she's thinking.

"Yes," she says. She sounds scared and very young. I don't even know what her name is.
 

Luckily the baby takes after his mom, although his ears do stick out a bit. Once I've saved up enough cash I'm going to get them fixed. I've heard that it's a simple operation. We named the boy Loc, mostly to appease my conscience. I don't know whether my wife still misses Loc or not. I don't even know if she loves me.
 

It's three years later when I'm working as a driver for a tourist company that I have a stop-over in Danang. By now Loc is out of the mental hospital and back home with his family. He still hasn't said a word to anyone.

When I enter his parents' sitting room he doesn't seem to know who I am. He is even thinner than he used to be. His eyes look empty. I go to shake his hand but he jerks away. His mom pulls out a chair for me and gently chastises her son for having bad manners.
 

I don't know why I came, or what I can say to him. I don't want to upset him any more than he obviously is. I feel terribly guilty. "Lyun is okay," I say. "Your girl is okay, Loc."

I guess that I'm hoping for some reaction, some sign that he's understood and that he is comforted. But there's nothing, no flicker of the old Loc, only those black, staring eyes that look through me and past me, towards a dark stretch of the Yellow River.
 

I don't stay long. It is too upsetting. His mother thanks me for coming and I say that I'll be back, although I know that I won't. I'm sure that Loc's mother knows that I'm lying.
 

I'd rented a motorbike to get out here and I drive it at random, down dirt paths through dry, dusty countryside. I pass small farms and fields of dragon fruit. This flat, barren land is nothing like the jungle in Kon Tum. Eventually I reach a small river, only about half as wide as the Yellow River. I dismount from my bike and walk to the water's edge, then squat on my heels and splash water onto my face. The sun is hot and the water is cool. I stay crouched where I am with my eyes closed.

In all these years I have tried not to think about that night. I have not discussed it with my wife. I have never repeated the old woman's ghost story. But I've been unable to stop the dreams, or rather the same dream, over and over again. In the dream, I walk out of the jungle to find Loc and Chau alive, stretched out asleep by a dying fire, and watched over by a woman. When she turns I see that she's my wife, and that she's holding an infant, but I know that they aren't human. I stand frozen.
 

"They have untrue hearts," she says, "But you are faithful."

I wait, knowing what will come next but unable to change it, for my will is no longer my own. Her ghostly beauty has bewitched me. "They must be stopped," she says, and so I drag Chau into the river and hold his head under. He writhes and bucks, but I am stronger.

When Loc starts to scream, I always wake up. I am shaking and crying.

My wife always asks what's wrong, her dark eyes full of concern.
 

I am unable to answer.

The Gambler

Paolo Bacigalupi

The fiction of Paolo Bacigalupi (USA) has won the Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, Locus, and Michael L. Printz awards, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His debut collection
Pump Six and Other Stories
was named best book of the year by Publishers Weekly, and his first novel
The Windup Girl
was honored by Time Magazine as one of the Top 10 Books of 2009. "The Gambler" originally appeared in
Fast Forward 2
(ed. Lou Anders, Pyr, 2008), and was a finalist for both the Nebula and the Hugo.

My father was a gambler. He believed in the workings of karma and luck. He hunted for lucky numbers on license plates and bet on lotteries and fighting roosters. Looking back, I think perhaps he was not a large man, but when he took me to the
muy thai
fights, I thought him so. He would bet and he would win and laugh and drink
laolao
with his friends, and they all seemed so large. In the heat drip of Vientiane, he was a lucky ghost, walking the mirror-sheen streets in the darkness.
 

Everything for my father was a gamble: roulette and blackjack, new rice variants and the arrival of the monsoons. When the pretender monarch Khamsing announced his New Lao Kingdom, my father gambled on civil disobedience. He bet on the teachings of Mr. Henry David Thoreau and on whisper sheets posted on lampposts. He bet on saffron-robed monks marching in protest and on the hidden humanity of the soldiers with their well-oiled AK-47s and their mirrored helmets.