The Merit Birds (13 page)

Cam

Somchai woke me from a restless sleep early one Monday morning. He yanked the thin cover off me.

“How'd you get in here?” I croaked. I hadn't said a word to anyone since three days ago at the victory monument.

“Julia finally let me in, in spite of the fact that you've been telling her not to. I can't believe you're still in bed. Come on, this is enough. She died — you didn't. Your mom told me you haven't been back to school yet.” He dug through my drawers, threw some clothes on my bed. “You're going to school.”

I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head.

“Golden brother, I would love to go to school for you, believe me, but I have to get to my job. My uncle got one for me at the Vietnamese sandwich shop. Chopping vegetables. They're expecting me. Get up.”

I stood up. Somchai gave me a light-hearted shove.

“That's better. See you after work.” I heard our rusty front gate slam shut behind him.

My head throbbed as I trudged through the school hallway. I could hear the noise of homeroom as I got closer. Olivia, the New Zealand girl I'd met at the beginning of the semester, babbled about a weekend trip to Nam Ngum. I heard another group talk about where they were going for lunch. I dreaded opening the door, entering the bright classroom. They all seemed so naive. Their lives were so simple.

I finally opened it and the conversations screeched to a halt as swiftly as a head-on collision. The room was silent except for the sound of the rickety ceiling fan rotating overhead. I conspicuously found my desk. Why was everyone looking at me? Thankfully, Mr. Rose finally entered the humid room and broke the silence as he dropped textbooks on his desk with a clunk. He nodded curtly at me.

“Long time no see.” His eyes searched me, concerned.

I couldn't focus on anything during class. Mr. Rose finished his lesson and we worked on some algebra problems by ourselves. I could hear the scratching of pencils and see my classmates, their heads bent earnestly over their work. I stared down at the blank notebook in front of me. I couldn't think about anything but Nok. Who was driving her on that night? My mind was a jumble. Maybe it was all some kind of joke. Maybe I would run into her somewhere. I imagined how she would smile and take my hand.

“Come on, Cam,” she would say, all glistening and full of life. “Let's go for a walk.”

Mr. Rose interrupted my thoughts. I could sense him standing over my desk.

“We've got to talk,” he whispered. “Come to my office after school. I'll arrange for a meeting.” He sounded too serious.

Had he heard about Nok? Or was he mad because I'd missed so much school. It couldn't still be about the basketball fight, could it? So much had happened since then, it seemed like lifetimes ago. I had almost forgotten about the Thai guard.

Turns out no one else had.

“I hear he has brain damage,” my German teammate told me in between periods. “I thought that's why you haven't bothered to show up at school.”

Saliva thickened in my mouth. I tried to swallow. During my days in bed I had wondered how life could possibly be worse. Now I knew. I couldn't wait until after school to talk to Mr. Rose. I had to see him now. It felt like everyone's eyes were on me as I speed-walked through the hallway to his office. I saw girls beside their lockers, whispering to each other. Anthony, our team goon, caught up to me and pushed the back of my shoulder.

“Way to go.” He laughed stupidly. “You really gave it to him.”

I finally made it to Mr. Rose's office, but he wasn't there. I'd have to wait. I went outside to the school track. A burst of monsoon rain had started, turning the track into a red mud bath. I didn't care. I ran it anyway. I ran as fast as I could, around and around again. Crimson earth splattered up my calves, squished in the Nike knock-offs Julia had bought me at the Morning Market, and bled onto my shirt like I had been shot in the heart. I could taste earth in my mouth and feel its grit in my teeth. The mud squelched as my feet pounded against it. A sharp stitch stretched across my side. I ignored it and sprinted faster and faster until finally I doubled over, heaving and breathless.

Seng

Seng couldn't leave Laos legally. Despite the country's slipshod rules and sleepy border guards, he would definitely be caught. Mother Water would have to save them. They'd travel across the Mekong River and into Thailand on the other side. Vong said she heard of riverbanks farther south of the city so completely covered in brush that no one would see them descend into the wide river. A villager there would take them on a fishing boat.

“Who told you about that?” Seng asked.

“Someone I know.” She shrugged uncomfortably. He was beginning to wonder if he knew this sister at all.

“But what about when we reach the other side? Won't the Thais spot us?” He hoped his voice wasn't giving away how nervous he felt. He didn't want Vong to know how dependent he felt on her right now. Another sister bailing him out.

“We'll take our chances. They don't patrol the entire riverbank.”

From Nong Khai they'd take the train to Bangkok. From there, they'd have to see about Canada. Vong said she had a little savings they could live off for a while.

The next night, they didn't speak as they moved along Vientiane's shadowy edges. The moonless sky was a gift from the spirits, cloaking them in darkness so complete they could barely see each other. Seng was edgy — jumping at the sound of a matted village dog sniffing out a companion in the night, or at the spark of a motorbike engine starting on a dark street. But Vong looked focused. They walked soundlessly throughout the long night. Seng flinched at the gravely call of a bulbul bird. Dawn would soon come. He thought he could smell the smoke of a villager's morning fire.

“She said it was somewhere along here,” Vong whispered absentmindedly to herself.

“Who did?” Seng asked. She ignored him. What else had this sister kept from him? He still couldn't believe all this time he'd thought she was in America.

She pulled back razor-sharp branches from their faces as they skulked through dense brush towards the Mekong. He heard the sound of water rushing. The great river heaved forward through the humid night. Mosquitoes swarmed them. Vong reached up to slap a mosquito feasting on the back of her sweaty neck. She let go of a branch too soon and it flung behind her viciously to catch Seng in the cheekbone. He felt a trickle of blood ooze down his face. The weight of their actions struck him, as an angry hand strikes a cheek. What the hell was she thinking? Why was he following her so dumbly? But then the smell of a cigarette met his nose. Someone was nearby.

“We're here,” Vong whispered. She cleared back the last swatch of brush to reveal an elderly man crouched along the dark riverbank, puffing peacefully on a hand-rolled cigarette.

“Good evening, my child,” he spoke to Vong in a soft, shaky voice. “To Thailand?” He nodded toward the Mekong, shimmering like an oil slick in the night. The old man was shirtless, wearing nothing but dirty white shorts on his thin body. His ribs stuck out and his gentle smile was toothless. In the shadowy moonlight Seng could see his cropped, white hair, thin and stark on his dark brown head.

Vong nodded and placed a massive wad of bills in his old, gnarled hands.

“Quickly, sir,” she whispered. “Morning is coming.”

The fugitives boarded a worn, long-tail boat and the old man pushed a bamboo stick into the riverbank, casting them out into the deep, dark water. Seng was stunned. He had lived in this city for most of his life and didn't know that, as he slept, people did this kind of thing. Escaped crimes. How many Lao people had this man rowed across to Thai shores? How did Vong know about him? He thought better about asking his questions. He had some brains left. Silence was the only thing that could serve them at the moment.

He thought of Nok and wondered where Nana had put her ashes. He listened to the old wooden boat slide through the water and chanted a thousand silent prayers for the dead and the living. He wasn't sure which category he fit into at the moment. Was there an almost-dead category?

The bank on the other side loomed imminent and black in the night. But there were no Thai police walking up and down with flashlights or dogs barking ferociously to announce their arrival. Just an elderly woman in a fading
sin
beckoning them toward her. Seng's eyes met Vong's.

“A Lao sister,” the old man explained. “She lives in Thailand now. Follow her. She will show you where to go.”

Vong grasped their elderly captain's bony hands in hers.

“You have a good heart,” she whispered.

“Be safe, my child.”

Suddenly, Seng slipped as he stepped out of the boat, hurtling into the water. His stocky body met the dark river with a loud splash. He felt the cool water envelop his body. He couldn't swim. He kicked and flailed violently. He didn't know which way was up. A pressure grew in his head as he felt water filling his ears and nose. Bubbles were all around, but the longer he was underwater the slower they became. Soon he could only see a shimmer of blackness and moonlight. His body began to feel so heavy and his pounding heart gave way to a strange calmness.
This might be the way to escape
, he thought, and stopped kicking so hard. Now he understood how the dead could be grateful. He let his body go limp. He wondered if this is how it felt in the womb. When there was no space between him and his mother, when he existed between earth and the otherworld.

Suddenly he felt a sharp poke on the top of his head, as if someone was poking him with a stick.

No
, he thought.
Let me be
.

But the stick wouldn't stop its probing. It annoyed Seng and he batted at it with his hand, but the stick persisted. He grabbed on to it tightly, hoping to pull it from the hands of the person on the other end, but instead he was dragged up out of the river, coughing and gasping, his loud panting floating along the river, on the edge where air meets water. He looked up to see Vong leaning over the edge of the old man's long-tail boat, reeling him in like a fish. He could see the relief in her eyes as she dragged him to the boat's edge and she and the man hoisted him onto the deck. She had saved his life. He didn't feel so grateful anymore.

He couldn't stand upright. He felt like his knees were going to double beneath him. He shook his head, but the water in his ears wouldn't budge, nor would the strange feeling of disappointment.

Vong hugged him fiercely and then took a hand towel from her backpack to dry her brother's shivering body. He wasn't cold in the hot night. He was shaking with fear. She looked in her brother's eyes and placed both hands on his shoulders, attempting to steady him.

“It's going to be okay, Seng.”

Seng doubted that very much, but he followed her off the boat, as a dog follows its owner.

The old woman was waiting silently at the forest's edge. Seng's wet flip-flops flapped too noisily against his feet as they followed her wordlessly through dense Thai brush. Finally the sky lightened above them and swallows and fairy-bluebirds announced dawn's arrival. Seng's pulse began to slow to a normal pace.

“We are coming to the end of the forest now. You may cross over the farmer's field at the forest's edge in safety. Beyond the field is a market, where you can find some breakfast.” The old woman had clearly explained this many times before.

“Why do you do this?” Vong asked.

The old woman smiled. “I was a dancer in the king's court.”

They immediately knew how the woman's story ended. All of the dancers were stolen away. They were interned in political re-education camps. Somehow, this woman must have escaped or been freed. Seng wondered if perhaps she had known their mother. In another situation he would have asked. Right now he didn't know if he could even find his voice.

The woman watched them from the lush foliage as they walked along the perimeter of the farmer's green rice paddy. It wasn't until they were alone in the bustling, rural Thai market that Seng dared to speak.

“Now what?” he asked.

Cam

Mr. Rose finally answered my pounding on his door. I walked into his office and stopped short. Julia was there, sitting with her long, pale legs crossed in one of the wooden chairs across from Mr. Rose's desk.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Cam, you should have told me about the basketball fight,” she said gently. I could tell she was taking it easy on me because of Nok.

“You would have known about it if you'd come.”

She looked towards the window and inhaled audibly.

“Cam, Ms. White, I've called you in here because the police want to investigate,” Mr. Rose said, a look of pity softening his stern eyes.

Julia leaned forward in her seat. “What?”

I was stunned. I sat silent. I couldn't take anymore. Fuck Julia for bringing me to this country.

“I've been handling it up until now,” Mr. Rose explained. “I thought the other coach and I would be able to work it out, but the guard's family wants to press charges.”

“But I didn't mean to hurt him so badly.” My voice sounded small and muted, like it wasn't coming from me. My throat was as dry as Vientiane before the rains, but my palms were monsoon-damp. “He started it. Fights happen in basketball all the time.”

“Cam, he had two fractured vertebrae in his neck, a major concussion, vertebral ligament damage, and facial wounds. That does not happen in basketball all the time.” Mr. Rose fiddled nervously with a paper clip on his desk.

I stared at the red mud dribbling down my shins like blood. I wished I had run away instead of racing around the track like a trapped rodent running the wheel in its cage. I didn't say anything. My brain wouldn't work.

“I think you should get a lawyer,” Mr. Rose said softly.

Julia and I looked at each other with bewilderment. I rarely saw Julia look so confused. The office was silent except for the clicking of Mr. Rose's paper clip on the desk.

“Mr. Rose, where would we find a lawyer in this country? There's not even a Canadian embassy in Laos to advise us,” Julia said.

“I don't know,” he replied. “I've never been in this situation before. Would someone at your office know?”

“I'm not sure.”

I knew she'd be humiliated to ask someone in her office. I sat there, on the periphery, listening to them talk about what to do.

“One of the investigative police officers, Mr. Phon, would like to meet with you to explain what the charges are,” Mr. Rose said.

Julia stood to leave. She looked like a lost child. I suddenly understood how my temper had hurt her. I nodded at Mr. Rose and followed her out of the office. As we rode home in a
tuk-tuk
she reached over to clasp my hand and I did not pull it away.

There was no indication that the office housed Laos's investigative police. From outside, the dilapidated wooden house looked like any one of the ever-present beer shops that decorated Vientiane's streets. A big yellow Beerlao sign hung out front and underneath it a middle-aged woman sold steaming bowls of noodle soup to hungry passersby.

“Mr. Phon,
yu boh
?” I asked her. She pointed upstairs.

Julia followed me up the rickety wooden steps and I knocked on the hollow door at the top.

“Ah, Mr. Cameron and Mrs. Julia. Do come in. I've heard all about you,” Mr. Phon said, his grin exposing a mouth of missing teeth.

We followed the extremely short man into his office. The drab, dirty-yellow colour, the posters peeling off the wall, and the sullied fake flowers gave the office a sad air of someone who once dreamed of big things. On the bureau sat a large framed picture of Mr. Phon in a suit with the same fake grin he had given us. Mr. Rose said that Mr. Phon had studied law abroad, but being a lawyer from a country with few enforced laws meant that he was jobless when he returned to Laos. Even when he did find work as an investigative police officer he wasn't very busy. Mr. Rose explained that the truth usually isn't hard to find because of the smallness of Vientiane's neighbourhoods, and the interconnectedness of the people.

“Where is your lawyer?” Mr. Phon looked around the room for someone he obviously knew wouldn't be there.

“We haven't been able to get in touch with the Canadian embassy in Bangkok yet,” Julia said.

Mr. Phon nodded slowly. I felt as vulnerable as a child who'd just wet his pants.

“What are the charges, sir?” Julia asked.

“It's interesting you should ask, Mrs. Julia. The first charge is assault causing bodily harm.”

“What do you mean ‘the first charge'?” she asked. “There are more?”

“Shortly after Mr. Cameron's name came across my desk for assault, I heard his name mentioned in association with another crime against our people.”

“What?” Suddenly I couldn't hear properly.

“Mr. Cameron, did you have a Lao girlfriend?” Mr. Phon's English made the question seem all the more abrupt. It shoved me out of my daze.

“Pardon?” My head reeled. “I don't understand.”

“A girlfriend who died.”

“What? How do you know about her?”

“Where were you on the night of April 14th, 2000?”

I looked at Julia. Why was he asking me this stuff?

“Cameron, don't answer him, please,” Julia said. “Mr. Phon, we need a lawyer.”

“Since you asked, Mrs. Julia, the second charge is manslaughter.”

The world screeched to a halt. My head flopped forward.

“What are you talking about?” Julia said in a wavering voice. My eyes were closed. I wanted to reach across the desk and squeeze Mr. Phon's neck until his eyes popped out.

Julia buried her head in her hands. I could hear her sniffing back tears.

“Mr. Cam, can you tell me how much you drank at the Lao New Year party?”

“I wasn't at the Lao New Year party.”

“So drunk you can't even remember, hey.” He snorted a chuckle.

“No, Mr. Phon —”

“We have reports that you were there.

“I was supposed to be there but —”

“Cam, please,” Julia said, black rivers of mascara running down her cheeks. “Do not say anything. Not until we get some legal help.”

“Mrs. Julia, may I remind you that you are not in Canada anymore,” Mr. Phon said. “We do things differently here. Our legal processes don't take nearly as much time as yours.”

“From what I hear you have no legal processes,” Julia said.

“You people always think your way of doing things is better,” Mr Phon replied, annoyed. “Cameron, Mr. Khamdeng, who hosted the party, said that Nok invited you. It was his bike, but he wasn't driving. He has an alibi. The faster we do this, the better. The government is breathing down my back to solve this one. They want to see the foreigner responsible for killing a Lao daughter put in jail.”

“Jail?” Julia said forcefully, the
J
popping out of her mouth vehemently. “Jail?”

This could not be happening. It just couldn't. I was petrified.

“Assault. Manslaughter. We can't have this danger to Lao people walking free in Vientiane,” said Mr. Phon. “Local people were harmed or killed in both cases. It's my job to protect my fellow citizens and I take my job very seriously.” He stared at me. “
Very
seriously.”

“But I wasn't at the party. I was in Vang Vieng.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Yes, my friend was with me. Somchai. He lives next door.”

Mr. Phon looked disappointed. He scratched his head and made some notes.

“Okay, then how about this basketball fight? Did you do it?”

“Mr. Phon, we're leaving. This is ridiculous. My son's not admitting to anything. We need some kind of lawyer here.”

“Suit yourself, madam.”

Julia stood up and grabbed my hand, squeezing it hard. It felt good to have her clutching on to me like that. I followed her outside and was relieved that it was pouring down rain by the bucketful so no one could see my watery eyes.

Julia was on the phone with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa when they came for me. There were three of them in green-beige uniforms, each with a pistol at his side.

“You are being charged with assault causing bodily harm and manslaughter. You will be held until there is a trial,” one of the police officers said in broken English.

I just stood there, stunned, while another handcuffed me.

Julia began to scream. “You can't do this! You can't just jail someone without some kind of legal decision.” She was pale with terror.

“There was a legal decision,” the lead officer said. “To put him in jail.”

“But he wasn't there to defend himself. He hasn't done anything wrong.” She grabbed at the officer leading me into the back of a rusty black truck.

“Two local people are his victims. A Thai and a Lao.” He gently tried to push her off of him, but she kept lunging back. Finally the two other officers held on to her arms as they loaded me into the truck. An icy chill climbed up my back.

“Cam!” She started to scream. “They're taking my son! Help me, someone!” I heard her cry and saw her body heave as the truck's engine started.

“Julia!” I yelled. I struggled to free my arms from the handcuffs. “Let me go!” I screamed at the guards. “I didn't do anything! You can't do this!” Their faces were stony and silent, although I thought I detected a look of pity in one man's eyes.

I watched from the back of the truck as my mother doubled over, clutching her middle, and got smaller and smaller in the distance.