Do you know how to grow orchids? I said, hoping that orchids did not spring from miracle water, that even a woman like me could raise them.
Maiker has lost her mind, Houa said, giggling now, like we were ten and secretly had learned something of our parents. Why was she laughing at me? Embarrassed, I told her it was getting close to time for me to pick up Hnuhlee from school. You better hurry then. Before you regret staying here too long. She turned me by the shoulder in the direction of my daughter’s school and nudged me away. Go on, before she’s lost to you!
* * *
—
A month into the dry season, but the lingering humidity left water everywhere truck tires had carved into soft earth, where motorcycle tires were too thin for the weight they carried. To remain presentable while looking for work, always you must keep one eye on the ground, one eye on the road ahead, because, sometimes, the cleanest way forward means veering to the other side of the road; always your hands clutching and lifting your sarong to keep the hem from getting dirty, or enough to free your legs to jump over a muddy puddle. I was most jealous of the Laotian lady and her shorts on these days.
Three weeks into our lives in Phondachet, still without work, I picked up Hnuhlee and told her teacher I might have to pull her out of school. Hnuhlee looked at me, widened eyes and opened mouth, as though she was hollow—all hope cut down and burned, and her spirit abandoned her body, leaving only a skin shell. Those words in my voice and my daughter’s emptiness convinced me, as mother, I was failing.
Not even a month yet, her teacher said. How is she to learn? He pulled me away from Hnuhlee. She is a good student, he said quiet into my ear, still holding my arm. You must do whatever you can to keep her in school. Warm were his words. I told him I had asked around for work until my throat was so parched I almost fell to my knees to drink water from a roadside puddle like some animal. Then consider becoming an orchid seller, he said. To convince me, he nodded his approval, proud of his suggestion as teacher, as someone with knowledge. I will buy from you, he said.
But to hear a strange man say those words suddenly made them mean something different: man language was made of words a woman should not question or dispute, but needed only to follow, give in to, act upon. If I hesitated and waited, I knew, he would think I was considering it. I snatched Hnuhlee’s hand and hurried away. Most, though, I wanted to spit at his feet, call him dogface, tell him to die, but I did not want Hnuhlee to know something was wrong. To swallow down those words was hard—they hooked on my tongue, swelled heavy on my chest, smothering me.
Am I not coming back? Hnuhlee said.
New school, I said, keeping my words short to hide the shake in my voice. New teacher. Better school. Smarter teacher! You will be a better girl when you finish this school. School fee was paid to the end of the month, but I tried not to think of the lost days and wasted money. Else, I might turn beggar and allow her teacher to see me in my place.
I already have two friends, Hnuhlee said.
I handed her the red-bean bun the monks had given me. Eat this and be quiet.
Her teeth, she tore at the plastic wrapping of the bun while her little feet tried to keep up. You want me to save a little for Bone and Skin? she said. After the dogs followed me home, I had tied them to a post in our courtyard. At the same times each morning and night, I fed them what Hnuhlee and I could spare. I told her to go ahead and finish the bun, pulled on her arm, walking faster, not looking back. Never. After swallowing the last bite, she told me she needed water.
Swallow your spit. Unless you want to drink my piss.
I really need water, she said. You made me eat too fast. She started to hiccup, and I feared she would choke and die on me—and what type of mother would I be, then, if I let my daughter die in front of me?—so I hit her on the back three times. I dragged her toward the house, hopping over the muddy tire ruts, lifting her arm so she, too, would jump, as though mother bird teaching baby bird to fly, and Hnuhlee started to cry. The running only worsened her need for water, I knew, but, quick, we needed to get far away, get home. As last option, I decided to collect my spit in my mouth for her to drink. In that moment, though now it seems unclean, it felt natural that what came from my body would nourish hers, spit included, but the running allowed no spit to collect. Suddenly, Hnuhlee stopped and slipped out of my hand, gasping for breath like being pulled underwater, or squeezing her tiny body was a snake. I snatched her up in my arms to carry—but, oh, how she had grown in the few weeks we had been here—and I tumbled over. She staggered to her feet, looking at me like I was a man attempting to kidnap her to be my bride, and ran from me. To watch her escape, my seat on the ground, my sarong muddied—how fast she ran, I was hopeful.
When, finally, I caught up to her, we almost were home, but still she struggled to push down the food, and after hitting her three more times on the back, I looked up and saw the Laotian lady judging me from the open gate of her courtyard.
What she do that was so bad? she said.
She needs water, I said.
And you hit her?
I’m her mother, I said. I’m helping her.
By hitting her cause she thirsty? She called for her son to bring her a bowl of water.
As Hnuhlee tilted it to drink, the bowl caught a few of her tears. That sadness flushed into my belly and settled there, and I knew, then, orchids were raised on the backs and tears of women. I turned away from the Laotian lady and her fat body because I had no high seat in my life to argue from, and the thought of how she had put it shamed me. Even my body had failed to provide Hnuhlee the thing she needed.
Later in the evening, there were knocks on my courtyard gate. It was rude of the stranger, and at this time of night? Already, did a rumor get out that I was selling orchids? Bone and Skin disappointed me with their silence.
Husband said tomorrow you go fishing with me, the Laotian lady said, standing by my gate. Wake up early. There is plenty water on the river. She grinned, and again, I felt such shame, that grin a weight sinking me to live with the catfish and stingray. I nodded, though I was terrified of water. Because I am a woman, I never learned to swim; fishing was a man’s job. To escape the communists when we crossed the Mekong into Thailand, I had convinced my husband to hire a small boat for us. I knew many people who died in the river when they tried to swim it. But since I took my daughter back to Laos, I had no other choice.
To Hnuhlee early the next morning, I said, You must wait until I can afford a new school. Work on what you have learned so far. Don’t go outside. Do not open the door for anyone. This, you must do for me. Understand? I let my dear dogs loose in the courtyard, hoping on my return, still they would be there, waiting for me by the door to be fed.
* * *
—
On the new cassette, Mother says it is the tenth month, fourteenth day of 1985. She tells me they buy clothing in big black plastic bags from the thrift store for twenty-five cents each without knowing what is inside—they like the surprise and disappointment. For only twenty-five cents, they throw the disappointments away, or use them as rags and towels to wipe their feet with. Father is 182 pounds and one of my sisters has a new baby boy. Because of the baby, everyone says they have not much to send, but please do not think they do not love me with only ten dollars from each. Grandma Joua says her son is in his second year at the university, but she sends twenty dollars because she wants my Hnuhlee to stay in school. Again, they yell at me for leaving the refugee camp. Stupid, they say. I should have stayed, so at least, still I would be allowed to come. But America had probably made them forget how, in the refugee camp, you could not even make a life like a maggot in waste. There are other ways to cross the ocean, they say. Think about yourself. Where will you live when Hnuhlee marries? Who will take you in? Still you are young, you could try to have sons here. But I did not want a man to tell my Hnuhlee she was to get married, have children,
and not go to school, always to wear a sarong that would keep her legs close and never allow her a full stride when she needs to run. She would be disappointed in me, more so because I had dragged her back to wait for her father. She was to wear shorts and pants, if she wanted, to match strides with men, that way she would not fall behind, she would not keep them waiting; and should she err in her journey, an unfettered sidestep could right her way, an about-face would not trip her up; she was not to be like me.
* * *
—
Mr. Cha lost his job with the tree farm while I had good work as a fisherwoman. The Laotian lady, who told me her name was Kethavong, and her husband owned two boats, long and only wide as a tree but with a five-HP motor attached to each. After seeing me hit my daughter that day, Mrs. Kethavong said she convinced her husband to let me help.
How did you convince your husband? I asked on the first day as we got into the boat.
We have two boats, she said. More boats, more fish, more money. Even my husband is smart enough to know that. Mrs. Kethavong and I worked one boat, her husband worked the other.
Thank you, I said. What to say to someone who might have saved your life? The first three months, I went out with an old inner tube tied to me. After making some money, I bought a small air vest. That vest protected me from causing a tidal wave of bad luck if I fell in the water. To think one wrong shift of your body is all it takes, it is a wonder how small things keep safe a life: Mrs. Kethavong’s offer for me to help fish; the air vest, which would save my life so I could make my daughter’s life, which, as it is doing now, is providing life for the child in her belly.
You work hard. That is all I ask, Mrs. Kethavong said. We trolled the wood boat out to the deeper, calmer breaks—this river is not the Mekong but a smaller river that brings water from a mountain lake to the Mekong, so when it is raining the water can be fast. Also, a wife has other ways of convincing her husband. Mrs. Kethavong stood up in the narrow boat, shifted her solid thighs from side to side like a dancer, upsetting the boat until I thought we were going to capsize and drown. She laughed loud at the fear on my face. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I am talking about, she said.
I am not pretending, I wanted to tell her. I could not remember many of the ways a wife can convince her husband.
Mrs. Kethavong and I dropped four nets and pulled them up every two hours. Usually, one net, we catch only seven or eight fish. Once, on our lucky day, forty-two fish. At two in the afternoon, if our catch was low, I hauled the fish in a cart to her sister’s booth in the marketplace while Mrs. Kethavong and her husband continued fishing in one boat until nightfall. If we catch many fish, two or sometimes all of us will take the fish to market. What fish remained after three days on ice would be brought home and smoke-dried. The Kethavongs would give me a little to keep, and we would take the rest back to the sister’s to sell.
One day, as we waited for the hour to come before we pulled in the nets, Mrs. Kethavong asked me why I have not remarried—I am still young, I have left a little beauty.
I said, I’m holding out for a rich Hmong-American. She laughed and shook her head, said that I was smart to do so, but she knew I was lying and only was giving me space. What can I do? I said. Already, I am married.
Yes, Mrs. Kethavong said. A lifetime ago.
No, this lifetime. But I knew what she meant—war makes a lifetime of a year. My marriage was a marriage of waiting. In 1985, my husband and I had been married for ten years, but we were together, I counted, only thirty-nine months. We made a life between the times he was away at war and when he found his way home, and always, he remembered to hide his gun in the jungle so no one would suspect he was a soldier. I was used to life without him, but always, I expected he would return and we would continue as husband and wife. I never told my husband I loved him, and he never told me. Wrong ears hung like leaves in the forest, and your words might give you away, so tenderly, my husband and I tried to treat each other, not be so rough when we talked. When we were together, we tried to be happy. That was enough. To Mrs. Kethavong, I said, What if I remarry, and he comes back? If I were a man, that would be okay, I could have more than one wife, but I was born a woman. And the thought of remarrying could never be on my mind.
* * *
—
I put Hnuhlee in the school of the three Kethavong children, deeper into Vientiane and more expensive, but there, they taught the students English.
Mr. Cha’s sons started trading labor for money with the farmers in the countryside, and sometimes, he joined them. They were fed a handful of rice at lunchtime. Mr. Cha refused to ask his sons for their earnings to help with expenses. If they have need for money, he explained, they have in mind already what they’re going to spend it on. Mr. Cha’s hair was long to his waist by this time. When there was not enough work for father and sons, Mr. Cha would let his sons work, and he would walk to Vientiane, as I had the year before, looking for work.
One day, Mr. Cha returned with his gold hair muddied, nose bloodied and crooked, and lip fat and swollen as a sow’s teat. This time I wasn’t quick enough, he said. I plowed over a grandmother pulling a cart of vegetables—wincing as he pressed his bottom lip with his thumb and finger—and stopped to help her. I never imagined I would become a thief. He rubbed the bruise reddening along his right temple to the corner of his mouth. I steal only food. Nothing else. He was staring off behind me, but I knew he could not see anything in the distance. I let the cook beat me up afterward.
While I gathered a bowl of water and towel, he came into my courtyard and, kicking out his legs, sat on a stool. The five black hens I had managed to buy flapped their wings, could not get away fast enough from him. Up, I said, tapping the bottom of his chin. He leaned back, tilted his head. Since my husband left to find his parents, this was the closest I had come to a man. Strong on his warm body was the smell of salt and wood. I wiped away the dirt on the side of his face and saw, clearer, the bruise. The pain was blackening like a disease in his skin. His eyes were light brown, the color of green tea. To look into them made me uncomfortable, but I wanted to look because they were so different, and knowing this—that I wanted to look—made me shy and want to smile.
Close your eyes, I told him.
What for? he said.
So I can see your face better.
What about me? Then I can’t see.
Close them, I said, impatient, a tone rarely used with my husband. There is nothing to see. I ran the towel across his eyes so he would close them.
What if I can’t see and my hand happens to do this— His hand reached out and grabbed my outer thigh, and my body flinched, a lasting reaction from the war to gunshots and explosions, to loud foreign voices telling you to stop, a body gathering itself one last time before being hurt.
Stop it, dogface! I ground the towel into his lip. His hands shot up to grab my wrist, still my hands. That happens when you don’t respect me. You get hurt. I pulled my arm away; faster were my heart and breathing. He opened his eyes to look at me, to see how my face was, to see if maybe I might be smiling, but I held still my face. The pain had put tears in his eyes, and I felt bad about what I had done, about how I was seeing this man cry. Close them, I said, and made my fingers into a fork to pretend to blind him until he lidded his eyes from my sight. With one hand, I cupped the side of his face gently. His skin was cooling from the water, and I was reminded of how I held my husband’s face that last night. With the other hand, I pressed the towel into Mr. Cha’s face firmly, so he would not notice how my other hand was holding him.
This is good pain, he said as I poured water down his hair, which I had untangled. Reminds me of the pain in the war when my feet were rotting with blisters, my shoulders ached from a pack full of rice, ammo, and water—all a man needs in life. You risk getting your foot stuck in a hole or rolling an ankle over a root. In war, to survive, you must be willing to
do what the enemy is not. And sometimes that means going blindly into a thicket to sleep. And always you slept on the most uncomfortable ground because, there, the enemy rarely looks. War made for a tough life, but I felt like a man. This pain reminds me of that life.
I thought stealing didn’t make you feel like a man, I said, squeezing my hands down his hair, which was softer when dirty than mine was when clean, this long hair, he told me once, his mother said never to cut because it was the only golden thing she could give him.
But this pain does.
Those who think like you are few. I handed him a torn and fraying towel. This isn’t the cleanest. But you need to bathe before you can get a cleaner one.
I haven’t complained, he said. He dried off his hair, wrung out the towel, and hung it over the top rail of my fence.
Since you are a thief now, I said before he left, go steal me a rooster. Recently, I had started letting my hens out of the courtyard when I was home so they could be covered by a neighbor’s wandering rooster, but no luck yet. I will give you eggs to start a flock. Maybe it will help you steal less. Unless you like getting beat up and washed by a woman.
* * *
—
By 1990, about once a week, I would drop off a bag of four or five dried fish for Mr. Cha and his sons. He said to me one day, It’s a good thing my wife died when she did. War makes you glad your loved ones are dead.
Only a man would say such a thing, I said. Only thinking about himself. I reminded him of his sons, how they needed their mother, even though they were poor, as Hnuhlee needed her father.
All these women making money now, he said, shaking his head, breathing loud a sigh. What’s left to remind me that I’m a man? I can’t find work. I am nothing. My usefulness slowly erased. But these women—cash in their waistbands, stuffed into their bras—they have so many ideas about life. New ideas, too. Even bossing their husbands around.
The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019) Page 38
