The Merit Birds (7 page)

Nok

Every day at four in the afternoon, Nok would sneak into the tiny bathroom stall at Fa Ngum Massage and brush her long, dark hair until it gleamed. She didn't want Nana to see her, although she knew her friend already suspected things. Cam came for a massage every day when he was done school. Nok couldn't wait for him to get there. At first she told herself there was no way she was ever going to fall for a
falang
. She didn't think they could be trusted. She was afraid after what had happened to her at the massage house. She still had a creepy feeling that she hadn't seen the last of the foreigner who had tried to attack her.

But Cam was so genuinely interested in her life. Unlike a lot of Lao guys, he didn't have any expectations about what a teenage girl should be doing or thinking. No questions about when she was going to get married or how many babies she wanted. He let her be who she was, and his Western naïveté made her believe that she could do anything. She'd never had a boyfriend before.

“You'll go to university someday,” he said, not understanding that there was truly no money. Or time. She had to be working if she and Seng wanted to eat.

“There's got to be a student loan you can get or something.”

“No, Cam, not here.”

“But you can't give up on your dream. You're too smart.”

She loved how he believed in her. He never doubted that her future would be bright. She loved how his freckles dusted his nose like cinnamon on a French cake. The way his strong fingers would reach out to lightly brush her arm when they shared a joke, or how his sandy blonde hair fell into his exotic green eyes.

Last night, after work, they'd walked along the river together, stopping to buy warm cobs of corn from farmers' wives crouched along the banks. She'd linked arms with him and steered him down the bank and closer to the river. It was quiet and dark down there; farther from the road and riverside terraces where people chatted and laughed over beer or mango shakes. No one would spot them. She stopped to wipe a kernel of corn from his chin. She wanted to meet his eyes, but at that moment she couldn't bring herself to. For the first time in her life she felt reticent. He raised a hand to smooth her hair away from her face. She swallowed. Her skin tingled and an unusual kind of warmth rushed over her body. She wanted more, but was afraid of what that meant.

“Cam,” she said, and for a split second was unsure if she should ask what was on her mind.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever had sex?”

His eyes widened.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know I can be too direct.”

“No, no, it's okay.” He paused and looked out over the river. Then he said, “Yes.”

She wasn't surprised. “With who?” she asked.

“Drunk, at a party. It was kind of stupid, actually. At the time it felt good, but now I see how fake it was. Just a big act. Kind of explains why I felt depressed the next day.” He turned and met her eyes. “Have you?”

“No. Things are slower here — at least for girls.”

He looked into her eyes before looking towards the river, dark and slippery in the moonlight.

“So beautiful,” he said.

“Wait until you see it all fat and swollen during the rainy season. These banks we're standing on will be covered with water.”

“No, I mean you.”

She looked at her feet. A fisherman rode by on a creaky, rusty bike. Nok could hear him click his tongue as he eyed the two of them. She gently pulled on Cam's arm so he'd start walking again.

“Do you want to go to Keng Heng?” she asked. The sticky rice was overpriced, but the restaurant usually had a good mix of Lao and foreigners. They wouldn't stand out as much.

The restaurant wasn't far from the river, in a pretty, two-storey colonial villa next to Nam Phou Fountain. The building was a leftover from the days when Laos was a French colony. Now it teemed with Lao NGO workers and their foreign colleagues, scruffy-looking backpackers, United Nations staff, English teachers, and wealthy Lao teenagers craving a glimpse of the world outside of their landlocked country. Western dance music pumped from the stereo. Nok had never been inside before. It was way too expensive for her and Seng. No one she knew would be there.

“Tonight is insect night!” their cheery Lao waiter told them in English as he seated them. “Larvae, grasshoppers, crickets. Do you dare try?”

Nok knew it was an attention-grabber to attract tourists.
Falangs
were always fascinated by what Lao people ate: omelettes with ant eggs, whole frogs barbequed on wooden skewers, duck's-blood soup. They couldn't get over how some Vietnamese living in Laos loved their barbequed dog.

“Uh, okay,” Cam said, falling for it.

The waiter brought a round plate to their table of assorted fried insects resting on a pillow of sliced cucumber. Nok laughed as Cam bit gingerly into a crunchy, whole grasshopper.

“I was thinking, maybe —” she started.

Cam spat a barely chewed cricket into his napkin, interrupting her. They laughed out loud.

“Yeah?” he said, wiping his mouth.

“Lao New Year is coming up. There's this party my brother's friend is having. Do you want to come?”

“Of course. You sure it will be okay? I mean, with your brother and all?”

“Well, Seng does like anything Western.”

She looked around the room. She noticed a few other mixed couples — Lao and Western.

“Where do you live, anyway?” Cam asked.

“Near That Luang.”

“I haven't been there yet.”

“You have to go! It's Laos's national symbol. Such a beautiful golden
stupa.
”

“What's that?”

“It's a giant, sacred mound, all golden with three tiers. It's supposed to have the Buddha's breastbone inside. During the November full moon there's the That Luang festival. I'll take you there.”

For a second she worried that she had said too much, insinuating that they would still be together in November. It was just April, after all. But then she saw Cam's massive grin.

“People come from all over the country for the festival,” she continued. “In the morning thousands of people pray together. You can barely even see the
stupa
because of all the people. Women wear their best
sins
and bring alms for the monks and nuns — bananas,
kip
, sticky rice. People push their way through the crowd, selling little birds, like finches or plovers, in homemade cages. You can buy them and let them go. It builds your merit.”

He reached across the table and touched her hand. Her immediate reaction was to pull it away, but they would be okay here. Judging by the other couples in the restaurant, it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary. Besides, she was beginning to care less about what other people thought. They sat like that for a while, happy and quiet, until the rest of their meal arrived. Nok looked around the restaurant as their waiter laid out baskets of sticky rice, spicy bowls of
laap
, an overflowing plate of mint, dill, and other leaves picked from the forest or tiny streams, and enormous, steaming bowls of noodle soup. For a second she wondered if she should eat her sticky rice with her hand, rolling it in a ball in her right hand the way Lao people always do. Do they use cutlery in a place like this? She couldn't imagine how you would eat sticky rice any other way. It would just stick all over a spoon. She was surprised by her insecure thoughts. She decided she wasn't going to change how she had always eaten just because a lot of foreigners happened to be around. She smiled when she saw Cam reach into the basket of rice with his hand. But before she could do the same, her smile vanished.

She looked up to see the
falang
who had mistaken her for a prostitute peering down from the restaurant's second-storey balcony. She could never forget those empty, ice-blue eyes. She pretended she didn't see him, but could tell from her peripheral vision that he wasn't taking his eyes off her. She couldn't concentrate on what Cam was saying.

“We have to go,” she stood up too abruptly, knocking over her cup of lemon-grass tea.

“Why? We just got here,” Cam said gently, grabbing for napkins before the burning tea crept across the table and onto his lap.

The foreigner grinned with intent as he met Nok's eyes from the balcony overlooking the restaurant's first floor.

“Just come on!” she grabbed Cam's hand. He looked shocked, but she clenched his hand firmly and led him through tightly spaced tables toward the door. Sweaty backpackers with dreadlocks and dusty clothes, or wealthy Lao women in expensive, shiny
sins
looked up with curiosity from their tables.

“Nok, we have to pay.”

By this time the foreigner had come down the polished, wooden stairs and stood right behind her. She grabbed on to Cam's arm and pretended not to notice him. He followed them through the noisy restaurant. The pumping dance music paused briefly before the next song began.

“I knew it,” he leaned over and whispered, breathy and heavy, in her ear. He reeked of rice whiskey. He glanced at Cam with glazed, bloodshot eyes and leaned in closer to Nok. “I knew you were a whore the minute I saw you.”

“Cam!” Nok screamed and pushed him outside into the heavy humidity of the night. The restaurant door swung shut behind her, leaving the drunken foreigner inside. She raced down Settathirath Road and didn't stop until she was gasping for air. Cam caught up to her.

“Who the hell was that?”

“I have to go home now.” She was ashamed beyond words.

“Who was that guy? What did he say?” Cam looked bewildered.

“I'll see you tomorrow, okay?” she said, and turned to hail a
tuk-tuk
. As her heart rate began to slow down, she watched Cam's confused face fade into the distance. The shaky auto rickshaw trundled along, taking her home to be alone with her humiliation. She looked down into her lap and watched the pattern of wet spots her tears made on her
sin
.

By the time the
tuk-tuk
wobbled to a stop in front of her house, her tears had turned into anger. Did that ugly Frenchman see her? Really see her? Did he see that she was a person, just like him? Could he know that she graduated at the top of her class? That she was supporting herself and her brother at the age of sixteen? Her dignity was invisible to him because of her poverty, because her English wasn't perfect, because she was a girl, and because of her brown skin. To him, she was just another thing to buy and use. All he knew about was the money in his pocket and the selfishness in his heart.

She bit on her bottom lip as she counted out
kip
to pay the rickshaw driver. The ride had cost all of the money she had made that day. She wondered why her karma had made this experience necessary. What was she meant to learn? She looked up and saw Seng walking down their laneway with a worried look on his face. They never took
tuk-tuks
.

“Nok?”

He held his hands open at his sides, questioning and offering his support to her at the same time.

“I have a headache, I'm going inside,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

He shifted. “I'll get started on dinner,
nong sao
.”

She could tell by his tone that he understood something beyond a headache was going on.

She went into their one-room home and curled into a fetal position on the sleeping mat. When Seng called her for dinner she pretended she was asleep. Telling him what had happened would only multiply her shame.

Cam

I walked home from the insect restaurant and sat on the front porch, a heavy kind of sadness settling onto me. I didn't even want to play ball when Somchai came by.

“You seem like a creature from outer space,” he said.

“Maybe I am,” I said. “After all, Canada is on the other side of the world.” I looked down at my dirty basketball shoes.

I didn't sleep that night. I kept replaying the scene with the drunk guy in my head to see if there was something I missed that would explain things to me. The next morning I skipped school and went to the massage house instead.

My heart beat faster as Nok came to the entrance and held the door open for me.

“Don't tell me another dog has watered you.” Her unique choice of English words made her comment even cuter, but her face looked heavy and drawn.

“Nope, just interested in another hour of satisfaction under the hands of Miss Nok.”

She seemed to bristle.

“You mean you'd like a massage?” she asked.

The hot season sun was not the reason for my red face. What else did she think I meant?

“Of course, I meant a massage. What else?” I asked, trying to sound understanding instead of irritated.

“Maybe Nana can massage you today,” she said.

Okay, now I was irritated.

“What? Why? Have people been bugging you about being seen with me? Was it that drunk guy last night?”

She shook her head and ran to the staff room upstairs.

“What the hell, Nok? What's going on?” I yelled up the stairs after her. I could feel the anger rising. Maybe she'd had a thing with the drunk guy. Why else was she keeping things from me? She was usually so honest. Nana looked up from her work at the front reception desk and eyed me curiously.

Come on, get it together. Breathe.

I followed Nok upstairs and into the staff room, even though it was for employees only.

“Nok?”

She turned to look at me. Tears flowed like rivers down her cheeks.

“What's going on?” I asked, softening.

“That man, last night? He thinks I'm a hooker,” she said, unable to meet my eyes. I sat down beside her and put my arms around her. In between sobs, she told me the story about the attack.

I felt the blood drain from my face. Someone did that? To her?

“What if he comes back, Cam?”

“I will be there,” I said. The man would be dead.

“No, Cam. We can't be seen together anymore.”

“What?” I felt like she was speaking a different language.

“We just can't. It's not safe.”

“Nok, that doesn't make sense.”

“He thinks I'm a prostitute and you're my client.”

“Who cares what he thinks? We aren't the only mixed couple around Vientiane.”

She stood up and wiped her eyes. She crossed her arms and turned her back to me to look out the window.

“You're really upset and scared right now,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “Take some time before you make sudden decisions.”

She exhaled loudly. “Look,” she said, whipping her head around abruptly so a silken strand of hair caught in her moist lips. “There are some things
falangs
can't understand.” She turned her back to me.

So that was it then. I was nothing more than a
falang
to her.

A foreigner. Just like him.

My deep breaths abandoned me. I felt desperate. I was going to lose her. I reached out and grabbed her harshly by the shoulders. Her head jerked until she stood looking at me, shock in her molasses eyes. I wanted to make her understand. Make her see me. See that I was not like him.

“Cam, go. Just go!” she screamed.

I heard Nana coming up the stairs behind me. By then I knew that if there was one thing Lao people didn't like, it was public displays of temper. What the hell was I doing? I loosened my grip.

“I'll never understand you people,” I growled as I stomped down the stairs and slammed the flimsy massage­house door shut.