Out of the Dragon's Mouth (9 page)

Twelve

A few days later, after breakfast, Mai heard Lan and some of the other girls seated in the sand, giggling, as they held their balls of yarn in their laps and looped strands around the points of their needles.

Lan gestured for her to come over. “Mai, get your knitting needles and yarn. Come on.”

Mai groaned. She did not feel like gossiping with the girls. Not today. She had too many worries. She ducked behind the rice bag partition that separated their hammocks from the others and crawled into hers.

A soft voice called to her. “Mai, are you in there? What's the matter?” Lan peeked around the partition, and Mai looked up at her. “Still worried about that ghost?”

Mai could not tell whether Lan was teasing her or not, but she didn't answer.

“You know, Mai, the best way to get rid of a ghost is to be around people. They like to haunt you when you're alone.” Lan stroked her hand. “Come on out and learn to knit. You can't lie in here all day.”

Lan sounded like her nanny, Ba Du, who had always tried to comfort her and cheer her up when she was sad. Ba Du had been Mai's constant companion since she was born. She had nursed her, rocked her, dressed her, read her stories, and loved her when her mother had been too busy waiting on Grandmother to pay any attention to her. Ba Du. She had called her Du for short.

Mai laughed when she remembered how stubborn she had been. She had hated baths when she was little and had screamed when Du tried to put her in the washtub. The water had chilled her bare limbs at first, even though Du would mix a kettle of hot water from the brick kitchen stove with the cold river water from the clay tank. How patient Du had been with her. Where was she now, Mai wondered? Was she still alive? How she missed her.

Enough daydreaming. She had to get ready to go to America. She could not lie here and feel sorry for herself. Father would be disappointed in her if she let Small Auntie and Sang's ghost frighten her. Somehow she would have to appease Sang's wandering spirit.

Mai found the basket she had put her balled yarn and knitting needles in and walked with Lan to the knitting circle in the sand. The girls looked up as she approached them.

“Sit down,” Kim said, as she patted the ground next to her. “We'll teach you how to knit.”

Kim, a short plump girl with pockmarked cheeks, sat next to Ngoc, Lan's older sister. Ngoc,
a tall girl with bony arms and legs, a flat chest, and a long neck, didn't have a spare ounce of flesh on her. She
rarely smiled, unlike Lan, who could be heard laughing even when she was hauling the heaviest water buckets from the well.

“Is it hard?” Mai asked, lowering herself to the spot near Kim.

Kim shook her head. “You just have to learn two stitches and be able to count.”

Mai liked Kim. Although she was a university student like the others, she treated Mai as an equal, unlike some of the girls who thought she was just a child. She and Kim had talked one night after dinner and Kim had told her about her family, her mother's death from malaria, and her father's imprisonment in a re-education camp. Like Mai, she was Chinese, her father a wealthy landowner whose land had been conscripted by the Communists.

Kim's brother, Tuan, often joined them in the evening after dinner when they sat talking around the fire. Mai thought he was handsome with his wire frame glasses, angular cheekbones, and squared jaw. Although he had little to say, when he did say something, Mai noticed that everyone listened to him. He knew a lot about the history of Vietnam, the war, and why the Communists had won.

“The Viet Cong have always had the hearts of the peasants. They are the only ones who have wanted to reunite the country. Ho Chi Minh, their great leader, instilled so much nationalism in them and they fought hard. South Vietnam never had a chance once the Americans pulled out,” Tuan said. Mai knew little about politics, but Tuan spoke with authority.

As she looked at her knitting needles, Mai's cheeks turned red. Why was she always afraid to try new things? She had tried to learn to cook when they came to the island, but all she ever managed to do was warm the beef stew or peas from the cans or boil a little rice over the cooking fire. When they had fresh food on Thursday, like chicken or bok choy, Lan cooked for them. She would show the girls now that she could do something well.

Kim ignored her embarrassment and proceeded to show her how to hold the needles and loop the yarn around them. Mai tried to concentrate, but she kept thinking about Sang's ghost and his threat of revenge.

“There are two stitches, knit and purl. Hold the needle like this and loop the yarn this way. Then bring the needle through like this.”

Mai tried to do what she was being shown, but the needle slipped out of the yarn loop. She looked over at Lan and Ngoc, who were busy weaving their needles in and out of the yarn. She looped the yarn around the needle again and pulled the loop through, and then it came to her—the tigers.

Of course. That's how they would keep Sang's ghost
away. She jumped up from the circle, clutching her needles and yarn, and ran to the tent. Where was that paper that Hiep had bought? What had he done with the pencil? She could hear Lan calling. “Mai, what's the matter?”

“I just remembered something. I can't knit now. Maybe later,” she answered.

Mai rummaged in Hiep's hammock, and there, underneath his extra T-shirt, were the pencil and pad of paper. The paper was plain white, about the size of the composition book she'd used at school, but it would do. She carried the paper and pencil outside and found a flat black rock to sit on.

She stared out at the panorama of the yellow sky dipping into the jade green sea and closed her eyes, trying to remember what they had looked like. Then she opened her eyes and began to draw: first the head, and then the long sleek body coming out of the drawing as if it were ready to pounce.

She sketched slowly, adding the sharp teeth, the small ears, and the long tail. She made thin black marks for the stripes, and when she had finished, she held the drawing up in front of her. It almost looked like a tiger. She added a few more stripes, and, satisfied with the first drawing, began a second. One tiger would not do. She would need two.

When she finished the second tiger, she carried the drawings to her hammock and, unraveling a piece of string from the rice bag partition, hung one tiger picture above her hammock and one above Hiep's hammock.

At home, outside their bedrooms, Father had hung pictures of tigers to keep the evil spirits away from them. He told them the tiger was the strongest and most vicious animal in the Chinese zodiac and that it would protect them. He had also told her that he was glad she had not been born in the year of the tiger, for girls born under its sign were too domineering and hard to marry off.

Mai felt the tension in her melt as she looked at the tigers. Their mouths were open wide, displaying their sharp teeth, and their bodies were curved and poised to pounce. She knew they could keep Sang's ghost away. Mai couldn't w
ait to see Hiep; he would be so thankful to her.

But when Hiep came in, his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face, he barely noticed the tigers.

“Hiep, look. Remember the tigers outside my bedroom? That's the answer. I drew some tigers for us. Now Sang can't harm us.”

Hiep lay down in his hammock and looked at the tiger face staring at him. “I had forgotten, Mai. You're right.” He groaned and reached for his side.

“What's the matter, Hiep? Did you hurt yourself today?”

“I don't think so, but my right side has been aching all day. I think I'll rest awhile.” He closed his eyes and grimaced as he sought to get comfortable in his hammock.

“Let me warm up some dinner for you.” Mai picked up a can of beef stew.

“I'm not really hungry. Just leave me alone.”

Hiep turned his face away from her and put his arms over his head. Mai glanced at the tigers, admiring her work and hurt that Hiep had been so abrupt with her. She didn't always feel good either, but she would never treat him with
disrespect. Of course, he was her elder, but she cooked
for him and washed his clothes and took care of him. He should be grateful for her help. She left the tent and saw Kien coming down the beach, his eyes squinting in the sun, his arms swinging at his side. Kien. She looked at him and a smile touched her lips.

“Mai, I've been looking for you. Want to go look for firewood with me?”

Mai brightened. She needed to get away from Hiep and the tent. “Sure, I need some for this evening's fire.”

Kien walked alongside her as they crossed the sand and passed by the coconut palms and low-lying grasses at the edge of the jungle. She would never go very far into the jungle. Beyond were the mountains, rising straight up into the tropical sky. Who knew what kind of wild animals might be there? She had heard that boars ran wild on some of the islands.

There might even be some tigers. Pictures of them were fine, but she would not like to run into a real one. A seven-year-old boy in her village had been eaten by a tiger early one morning as he looked for his ball on the edge of the jungle. All that was left of him was a sandal with a bloody foot in it, the stumps of two toes, surrounded by tiger tracks. Father had warned them never to go into the jungle by themselves. She had had nightmares for weeks about being eaten by a tiger.

She glanced up at Kien as they padded through the tall thickets of bamboo, stopping at intervals to pick up broken branches to pile in their arms. Kien held his head up when he walked, not afraid of anything. The only sound Mai heard was the pounding of her heart as she thought of Sang's ghost and what he might do to them.

“What's the matter, Mai? Is something bothering you? You're so quiet.” Kien looked up at her as he stooped to pick up a small twig.
No one else notices me the way he does
, Mai thought. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“It's Sang's ghost. He visited Hiep too. He's real and he wants to punish us. We wrote my uncle to see if he could get us out of here soon, and then I drew paper tigers to scare Sang's ghost away. But I don't know if any of this is going to work, and if it doesn't, he may kill us.”

Her words came out in a torrent.
Oh, no
. She looked at him. Would he believe her? Kien's eyes narrowed and he closed his rough fingers around her hand. She drew it away, embarrassed.

“Don't be afraid. I'll protect you from his ghost.” Kien thrust out his thin chest and tried to look brave like a tiger.

Mai doubted that even Kien could protect them, but she remembered her dream where he had come and encircled her with his arm, and she felt comforted.

“You do believe me, don't you, Kien? Ghosts are real. It's not some silly superstition. Grandfather told me about their wandering spirits.”

“I do,” said Kien. “But I haven't seen Sang's ghost.”

“He's here. On this island. I've seen him three times.”

She stayed close to him as they continued picking up wood. When their arms were full, they carried the branches back to the tent and dropped them near the three rocks surrounding the fire pit.

Hiep was not in his hammock when Mai pushed the rice bag partition aside to check on him. What was wrong with him? He had probably just pulled a muscle when he was working at the well. He needed a little time to heal and he would be fine.

She remembered the time she'd run in a race at school. The ground had been uneven and she had stumbled, fallen, and hurt her side, losing the race. For several days, she'd flinched every time she took a step, the pain surging down her side. But then she slowly felt better. Yes, time would heal him.

For the next several days, Hiep was not himself, rarely talking, coming back to the tent late and eating a few grains of rice, then going to sleep in his hammock without a word to anyone. His once-bright eyes turned dim and his walk
was slow and sad. Mai had tried to talk to him, but he
brushed her away.

“Something's wrong with Hiep,” Lan said. “He won't eat. And he won't talk to me. I'm worried about him.”

“I am too,” Mai said. Lan followed her to Hiep's hammock.

“What's the matter, Hiep? Aren't you feeling well? You can't go on like this. Please talk to me.” Mai's voice cracked as she reached forward to touch Hiep's forehead.

Lan offered him a cup of water. He turned his head
away. Mai saw that his eyes and skin had a yellow hue, like the bananas in her father's orchard.

“I'm just a little tired. I need to sleep,” he groaned.

The next morning Mai heard him retching, and she peered down to see him with vomit spewing from his mouth like a fountain to the floor of the tent, his body turned to the side to avoid soiling his hammock.

“Hiep, let me help you outside,” she offered, but his answer was another retch of his body, with one more stream of vomit dribbling down his bare chest. She grabbed his arms, but he was like one of the large boulders on the beach and she couldn't move him. His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled back, but he didn't respond. What should she do?

The acrid smell of vomit overcame her and she stepped outside the partition to look for help. She tried not to panic. Was Hiep dying, or had he just eaten some spoiled food? Spoiled food wouldn't make his eyes and skin yellow, would it?

Mai looked around. The island was just starting to stir. Usually, she loved the way the billowing clouds filled the once-empty sky, signaling the beginning of the rainy season after the long dry spell. She could hear the soft melodious voices of the young women as they built their cooking fires and began the morning ritual of boiling rice for breakfast. She could smell the salt air as it rode the waves to the beach and feel the sizzle of the morning sun as it started to fry the day. Lan was adding twigs one at a time to her cooking fire.