The sun sits just above the horizon, touching the waves with gold, and the pirate in the wheelhouse has turned to wonder at its beauty. It is all he sees. While the noise of the tiny splash is lost in the rhythmic thump of the engine, as the boat heads home.
Rolling over in his bed, Sai Rakdee feels the discomfort of something hard under his back. He opens his eyes and sees the blood, staining the sheet, soaking his shirt. And reaching beneath him he feels the sting as the sharp blade cuts deep into his hand. He draws it out and stares at it in wonder.
Then at the writing smeared across the mirror on the wall before him.
Two words, traced out in blood.
Trao dòi … Fair exchange …
He looks at the knife, then back at the mirror, and he understands.
The sea is calm — as calm as such a creature can ever be-and she rides on its back, lulled by the movement of the swell, unaware of the exact moment when the waves close over her. Aware only of the silence and the way the sky looks green and suddenly far away. She is weightless. She is free.
She is smiling as she opens herself to the waters and breathes in eternity.
PART TWO
HEROES
AND VILLAINS
7
OUT OF THE GREEN
TOAN’S STORY
Everyone knew I was destined to be lucky.
After all, I was getting extra help, wasn’t I? You see, from the day I was born I had extra … protection. There was my father and mother and everyone who lived, at different times, in the dwelling above the shop. On the night I was born. my grandmother read the signs. A fortuitous time. She said that I was marked for good fortune, that Quan Yin had smiled on me. That though the path of my journey would not be smooth, I would walk it with confidence and I would feel, at times, the hand of providence on my shoulder. It was a good feeling, growing up, to know I was lucky, and I never really lost the security it gave me. My mother always said I would stick my hand in a lion’s mouth, if there was something in there that I really wanted.
An old woman’s superstition? Maybe. Who knows? All I do know is that there were times in my life when I felt … special. Protected, maybe, or suddenly confident.
Like the time I went for my first audition; no acting training, no experience, but the word was on the streets, and the ads were in the Vietnamese newspaper, and something inside me said, Yes, if you want it, you can do it. Go for it!
And I did, and I could. And I got the part. And the rest is history.
So if my family want to attribute it to luck, or help from Quan Yin, who am I to say they’re wrong?
My grandmother is a medium for the goddess Quan Yin. She has been for as long as anyone can remember. She was born near Can Tho in 1916 and from the time she was very young the people of the town were already talking about her. The little girl who “knew things”. Things that no one could possibly explain. Unless …
Look, you don’t have to believe it. Sometimes when I’m going through one of my logical phases, I’m not too sure I believe it myself. But she does, and so do enough of the people I respect for me not to dismiss it out of hand.
Faith is a strange thing. It isn’t logical. It can’t be. If it’s logical, it can’t be faith, can it? Because faith breaks all the rules they teach you in Science.
“I believe because I believe” isn’t very good scientific method. Where is the proof? Where is the explanation? Define “goddess”. Explain how something can be “known” without some physical access to the information.
My grandmother says that men (and women, I guess) have forgotten how to talk with their gods. It happens, she says, when the world becomes more important to them than the soul. And when she speaks, she makes it sound convincing.
Other times … I don’t know.
I talked to Miro about it once, and he suggested that maybe what she had was a kind of telepathy, ESP or something. I guess that was easier for him to believe than something supernatural like gods and goddesses. I suppose it does sound more scientific.
But for me … There really isn’t a whole lot of difference between believing in ESP and believing in Quan Yin. If Miro wants to believe in a mind-power that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support, that’s fine. But until the scientists find a way of explaining what it is and how it works — until there is some kind of hard evidence — it’s just as supernatural and unexplainable as a goddess, or reincarnation, or a man two thousand years ago dying on a cross then coming back to life. You just have to take it on faith.
Anyway … Grandma.
My grandmother knows things.
Take the time they tried to shake her down, for example.
It was a couple of weeks after we had left Rach Gia. By that stage, we were “safe” on dry land in Malaysia, but she had no way of knowing that. It wasn’t like you could just pick up the phone and call.
It was mid-morning and Aunt Loan was down at the markets. Two men came into the shop when she was there alone. Party officials, complete with badly fitting suits and all the right papers.
Was she Vo Kim Tuyet? Was she aware that members of her family had been caught trying to leave the country illegally, and that they were now being held at Nam Can awaiting further deliberation? That it could mean long imprisonment for the adults, as well as the confiscation of all property. Unless …
Then came the shake-down.
For a “small consideration” it could be arranged for the charges to be dropped, and for them to be returned home without any further action against them. But it had to be done today, and in secret.
“I just knew,” my grandmother told us, years later. “For a moment their words sounded convincing and I was ready to agree to whatever they wanted, but then a feeling of wonderful calm came over me and I knew. That it was all a lie. I knew what to say.”
She told them that she was shocked that members of her family could dare to break the law in such a manner, and that there was only one way for the family honour to be restored. That they must accept the punishment appropriate for their crimes. That much as she would like to pay the … costs involved in setting them free, as a good citizen she must live by the law-as must her family. They would have to accept whatever punishment was in store for them.
“They left,” she said, and she smiled as she remembered. “I didn’t hear from them again.”
“But how did you know they were lying?” I asked. “How could you be sure they hadn’t captured us?” I was sitting across from her on the lounge. She looked into my eyes then away.
She didn’t reply immediately, but as I followed the line of her gaze I found myself looking at the statue of the goddess.
“I just knew,” she said at last.
We could have done with my grandmother’s “gift” as we approached the Malaysian coast.
Without Tan’s experience, we weren’t sure exactly where to land, so we set a course which would bring us to the coast somewhere between the northern city of Kota Baharu and the large island of Pulau Redang. All that was really important was that we make it to shore and try to claim our refugee status. There were rumours that the Malaysians and the Thais further north were getting tough with the constant stream of escapees, and were trying to stop them from landing. Towing them back out to sea and leaving them to the mercy of the winds and the pirates. There were even reports of shots being fired to discourage them.
It would have been best from that point of view to arrive at night But maybe it was better that we didn’t No one knew the coast, or the dangers it presented, and there was a very real risk of tearing out the bottom on a reef or grounding on a sand-bar too far from shore to swim in. And such a risk was considered worse than the possible resistance of local villagers or the reaction of the authorities to our arrival.
Besides, after the horrors of the trip most people just wanted to get as far away as possible from the stench of their floating prison and the endless buffetting of the waves. And waiting even another twelve hours fo
r nightfall just wouldn’t have been an acceptable alternative.
I remember watching my mother trying to comfort my cousins in their loss — Phuong, who leaned against her sobbing quietly, and Linh,who sat just out of reach, staring up at the sky beyond the hatch opening. I moved across and touched her shoulder. She didn’t move; didn’t look around.
“Linh?” I whispered. But she said nothing.
I was six and a half years old. I didn’t have the words to help her. Hell, I didn’t even know what had happened to us. So, I did all I could, I put my arm around her and I looked up at the sky too.
At least she didn’t pull away.
*
4 March 1977
Malang Beach, Malaysia
ISYAH
Omar sits in the sand watching the waves roll onto the beach a few metres in front of him. He is fourteen years old, and he has the important job of washing the shell-fish in a large bucket of salt-water. But as usual his attention has wandered.
Among the rocks at the end of the beach Isyah, his mother, searches for the dark shells, levering them from the hard surfcaes with the sharpened point of her knife and placing them in her collection bucket. Every now and again she pauses to look back at her son.
Fourteen years old and he sits on the beach like a four-year-old. Which is all he will ever be. He will never take a wife, never earn a living, never give her the grandchildren that all her friends await so eagerly.
But he will never leave her, as other boys leave their mothers. And at least he is alive.
She remembers the day they carried him from the sea, limp and blue. No breath, no pulse. She remembers the man on the beach breathing the spirit back into him. A stranger. A European, who left before she had the chance to thank him for her son’s life.
In the months that followed it became clear that the boy would never be the same; that something was lost. jamil, the old man in the marketplace, said it was the payment Death took for returning a life, and that she should be grateful for any mercy He thought fit to bestow. And now, ten years later, Isyah looks at her son sitting in the sand, watching the waves, and she is grateful.
And as she watches, he stands, pointing out to sea.
“Kapal nelayan!“ he shouts. “Kapal nelayan!”
He is jumping up and down in the sand. She watches him for another moment before turning her gaze to the horizon.
The boat is a fishing vessel and not Malay. It is heading in from the north and making no attempt to parallel the coast. Which can mean only one thing. She shades her eyes from the mid-morning sun and squints to make out the vessel’s details. Even from far away she can see the crowd of people crammed onto the deck, and the fact of it confirms her earlier suspicion.
Refugees.
The talk in the neighbouring villages has been of the government finally resisting the invasion from the other side of the Gulf, and driving the boats back to sea. We are not a rich country, they say. It was not our war. It is not our problem …
But not often do any of the desperate “invaders” find themselves off this particular part of the coast. Further north and south the tides and currents are kinder and the military presence is less concentrated.
She watches as the boat grows gradually larger.
Omar has moved down to the water’s edge. Or as close as he ever ventures. He has a fear of the waves, which is quite under—standable —and reassuring. It means that she can leave him on the beach without worrying about …
Her attention is drawn by a sudden movement, captured in the corner of her eye. She turns to watch the coastal patrol vessel speeding into view around the rocky headland. It sounds its horn — a plaintive, lowing sound, at odds with the streamlined aggressiveness of the vessel itself
The incoming boat is no more than half a kilometre off-shore when the patrol opens fire — a single warning shot across the bow of the intruder. She see the puff of white, and a moment later the dull thud of the explosion reaches her ears, just as water plumes into the air twenty metres from the boat.
On the beach the boy squeals with excitement, jumping up and down in the sand, clapping his hands. She drops her bucket onto the rocks and moves to join him beside the water.
The shot has not deterred them. The boat keeps coming, closing the distance between the desperate group and the shore which must mean so much to them. Another shot splashes into the sea — much closer this time. On the deck she can make out the individual shapes of men, women and children crowding against the rails, as the boat creeps painfully closer.
She watches, fascinated. Some of the braver ones have begun diving into the water, starting the long swim to shore. The shelf is not steep, and out where they are the water is probably no deeper than three or four metres, but for a woman trying to support a young child it might as well be forty.
And the currents …
She looks at the boy and remembers the cruel power of the sea. The power that can tear your child from your arms and carry him away, while you scream and grasp at nothing …
*
TOAN’S STORY
We stood there looking down at the green water; my mother, the boys, Linh and Phuong — and me. My father was standing in the middle of a group of men at the rear of the boat, and they were arguing in loud whispers, as if they thought they could keep the seriousness of the situation a secret from us all. I looked over at him, there among the men, and caught himsneaking a glance at us. And the expression in his eyes scared me. Something was happening that I didn’t understand, but if it could make my father that frightened …
I turned back to my mother, but she was staring out across the water, towards the rocky point and the approaching patrol boat.
It was coming closer on a course that intercepted ours, firing across us, and though we had ignored the first two shots, we could not trust them to keep using the gun only as a warning.
Then some of the adults began jumping overboard. The ones without families, I guess. We were still to far out for any of the children to have a chance of getting ashore safely. They began swimming desperately for the sand, and as I looked towards where they were going I saw, standing just beyond the breaking waves, a woman and a boy. They were staring across at us, almost close enough to shout out to.
So close. After days of danger and sickness we were almost there. And now it looked as if we were never going to make it.
The group of men broke up and they joined us at the railing, staring down, trying to gauge the depth of the water. My father looked towards the beach then back at the water. Then he made his decision.
“Another hundred metres.”
No one answered, but there seemed to be a kind of unspoken acceptance.
“Get ready,” he said.
Part of me — the part that wasn’t scared out of its wits — was proud of the way those men did what he said. Without question. I don’t suppose I ever really thought of my father as a leader; not before that moment, and not often afterwards. He was just an ordinary man, living an ordinary life. But sometimes it’s in a crisis that you catch. a glimpse of what lies inside someone. And standing there at the railing with his family beside him, and their whole future at stake, for that short time he was a leader, and his authority got results.
The men fanned out across the deck, collecting anything that might keep a person afloat. Crates and boxes, lifebelts, pieces of foam, a few inflated car inner-tubes. They even tore pieces from the framework of the boat itself.
And they piled them at the bow.
The patrol-boat was gaining on us and I watched it coming. Then I watched the woman on the shore. She hadn’t moved. Her arm was around the boy’s shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from jumping up and down.
As we crept closer to the land, I could see the swimmers around us and ahead of us in the water. The curent must have been strong and travelling almost parallel to the line of the shore, because it was spreading them out along the beach. The stronger swimmers made some progress, but others were st
ruggling. Some had already given up trying to fight the rip and were letting it take them, staying afloat and gambling that it would carry them closer in further down the beach.
Soon all but the very best swimmers were behind us, and we must have moved beyond the strongest of the current because suddenly they seemed to be making some headway. Then the patrol boat sounded its horn again and I looked away.
They were close now. Soon they would intercept us. They had stopped firing as soon as they realised that we were not going to change course. The men had called their bluff and won the hand. But the game was not yet over.
Later, I learned what they must have intended. To board us and tow the boat back out to sea. We were uninvited. We were without country. We had no rights.
We were not their responsibility.
That was when the men acted. On my father ‘s order they took axes and metal poles, and anything that could do damage, and went down the ladders into the forward and central holds.
From where we stood we could see nothing of what they were doing, but we could hear it. As the Malaysian vessel drew closer, my father and the others were tearing holes in the bottom of the boat, opening it to the power of the sea. And as they broke through, and the water began pouring in, they streamed back onto the deck and started throwing overboard all the things they had gathered. Objects that floated like debris around the boat, waiting.
And then the men and some of the women and children began to jump in.
Once in the water, they called up to their families, who leaped down to join them. My mother lifted Linhhigh over the railing, paused for a moment, then dropped her down to where my father waited. Phuong, Son and Hoang were already climbing the rail and I watched them drop the three or four metres into the suddenly crowded water. Then it was my turn.
It’s strange what you remember. Hanging there in my mother ‘s outstretched hands, waiting to drop into the sea, I don’t remember any fear, or even any noise, though there must have been plenty of both. The boat was filling with water and it settled to one side; not much, and not viciously, but suddenly enough for my mother to lose her balance slightly. I felt her fingers dig into the flesh under my armpits and I knew that she was about to let go, but the thing I remember at that moment is looking across at the beach and seeing the expression on the face of the Malaysian woman. She had moved away from the boy, towards the water’s edge, and the terror etched on her face was vivid even to me.
Only the Heart Page 7
