The Merit Birds Part 16

"What do you want?"

"Are you a mother? Of three children?" He couldn't believe he was asking her this. All of the stress must really be weighing on him. But his heart leapt up into his throat. He badly wanted her to say yes.

The woman stood silently for a long time. She looked down at the road and fiddled with the fold of her soiled skirt. She suddenly looked like she had forgotten where she was.

"I must go," she finally said and bent to pick up her basket.

"Don't!"

But she was already shuffling back toward the bus stop.

Sun of Freedom.

Cam.

The short prison guard missing one yellowed front tooth came for me again. This time I didn't feel like I was going to p.i.s.s my pants with fear. For some reason the guards didn't bother Sai and me too much. So far I had been spared the wooden leg blocks.

"It's the breath," Sai explained.

"What are you talking about now?" He was always coming up with weird explanations.

"When your breath is deep and strong you are deep and strong. People can sense that. They feel it in your presence. You get a lot more respect."

"If you say so."

Whatever it was, the guard tossed me one tiny slice of kindness that damp afternoon. He told me where he was taking me. I wouldn't have to agonize over whether I was headed for the interrogation room. I wondered if they'd built the visitor's hut right beside the terrifying room on purpose. So they could play cruel mind games with the prisoners.

"Meeting with Australian guy," the guard said, his pink tongue flicking at the doorway of his missing tooth.

My fifteen-minute consular visit. My stomach flipped. Someone besides my mom, Somchai, and Meh Mee actually cared. I mattered.

"I'm Ned Jones," the pale Australian official said, nodding as the guard led me into the clammy visitor hut. With one hairy arm he pa.s.sed me a plastic shopping bag filled with granola bars, nuts, and beef jerky. I felt like he was handing me a bag of jewels.

"Tough spot, isn't it?"

I nodded, even though the casual way he had said it told me that he had no clue how bad it was. Even still, I felt like hugging the guy. My nightmare was over. He said I had been in here for seven months. It seemed like seven years. It couldn't end too soon. I took a seat across the table from my sweaty Aussie saviour. A pudgy guard eyed us from the hut's corner.

"I'm really glad to see you," I said.

"Me, too. The Canadian officials in Bangkok have been ringing me hourly. You're causing quite a stir back in Canada."

"Really?"

"Yeah, your mom won't rest. I think she's contacted every newspaper, radio station, and magazine in your country."

I swallowed. I thought about how much I wanted to see her.

"Why hasn't she come again?"

"Son, believe me, she's trying. She's at the prison gates every day trying to convince them to let her in. They're afraid she'll talk too much to the international press."

"How about Somchai?"

"Ah, yes, your friend. He was roughed up, but he's okay. They haven't come for him again. His mother won't let him anywhere near this place. She's afraid they'll lock him up, too."

"But he hasn't done anything wrong."

"Have you?"

"No," I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. The truth was I had done so many things wrong. Maybe I had even caused Nok's death. If I had been at that party she could still be alive today. My anger had gotten in the way of my whole life.

After some silence Ned Jones looked away and shuffled through some papers.

"So when am I getting out?"

He looked up from his papers with a look of surprise on his leathery face. He scratched the back of his neck.

"Getting out? You need to have a trial first."

I sucked in a clipped inhale. I forced myself to try to breathe. Really breathe. All the way down into my belly, like Sai taught me. But my chest tightened.

"When is that going to be?" I asked, breathless.

"We're putting the pressure on, Cam. I a.s.sure you. A Canadian officer from the emba.s.sy in Bangkok is making plans to come here and meet with some government folks. They've got a lawyer to work on your case. We're making steps."

"Mr. Jones, I can't stay here anymore. I can't."

He reached across the table to lay a hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off. The guard placed a hand on the pistol hanging from his hip.

"Cam, we are doing everything we can."

The guard coughed and pointed to the clock.

"I'm sorry, but I need to go now. I'll see you next month."

"Next month? What the f.u.c.k? You can't leave me here."

"Cam, you have to understand. We have to respect the rules of the country."

The guard opened the door, flooding the dim room with severe sunlight. Mr. Jones straightened his pile of papers and tucked them into his briefcase. He was nothing but a dark shadow as he paused briefly in the doorframe, the bright sun of freedom behind him.

Political Re-education.

Seng.

Vong bought some incense from the corner store near the guesthouse.

"I want to burn it for Nok at the spirit house in front of where we're staying," she told Seng. She seemed edgier today, talking more quickly, her movements more abrupt. He worried that her money was running out. He said he would come, too.

The guesthouse courtyard was overflowing with red hibiscus bushes, birds of paradise, and leafy banana plants. A little pool was in the centre with orange and white koi swimming around. In a far corner sat the little spirit house on a rough wooden post. After mouthing their prayers, they sat for a long time on a grey, stone bench underneath an ancient banyan tree. There was nothing else to do. Nowhere else to go. They were drifting - without a home or a purpose. Seven whole months had pa.s.sed and they still had no plan. They were only living off Vong's savings.

The incense smoke crawled lazily up from the spirit house before vanis.h.i.+ng into the smoggy sky. Vong rubbed the top of her thighs over and over again. He listened to the swis.h.i.+ng sound her hands made as they ran along her polyester pants.

"Vong? Do you think Pa and Meh could still be alive?"

She turned to face him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Seng."

"Did Meh have any sisters who looked like her?"

"No. Don't you think we would have known our aunts?"

"How did we find out that they died?"

"A letter from the government."

"Did we get their ashes?"

"We got Pa's, but not Meh's. Seng, why are you asking me all of this stuff?"

"I just miss her, that's all."

He looked down into his hands in his lap. Of course the spring-roll woman couldn't be their mom. She would have recognized her son. This whole situation was just making him crazy.

Meh.

Seng.

There was nothing to do while Seng and Vong struggled to come up with a plan. But the next day, he was drawn back to Khaosan Road like a magnet. He sat on the stoop of the boarded-up shop where he had sat before, watching his spring-roll woman. He thought she kept peering over in his direction. Finally, when she had a break in between customers, she feebly walked toward him. His heart beat faster.

"You are not with the police?" she asked, standing taller.

"Definitely not," he said.

"I know who you are, then."

She slipped him a piece of paper. It was a crumpled flyer from one of the ma.s.sage houses, damp with sweat. He took it and thought a smile might have pa.s.sed briefly over her thin lips. She glanced nervously all around before picking up her basket and disappearing into the crowd on the sidewalk. With trembling hands he turned the flyer over and read what she had written on the other side.

"Wait!" he screamed.

He ran after her, snaking his way through the Khaosan crowd.

"Wait!"

He finally spotted her getting on a busy bus. He stood on the sidewalk and watched, tears like rivers down his cheeks, as the bus pulled away. His mother watched him from the window. He read the note again.

Emkhan Mannivong.

Apartment 8.

Savoy Apartments.

Suhnthon Kosa Road.

The Middle Way.

Cam.

I sat with Sai in meditation every day. Early each morning, before the guards came to get us for work.

"You two lose your mind," Huang said, watching us and laughing.

"No, we're watching our minds," Sai said.

I couldn't believe how my mind flipped all the time between the past and the future. I hardly ever thought about what was real, what was happening at that very exact moment. I rarely noticed the present.

"It's normal," Sai said. "You can't stop your mind from thinking. That's what it was made to do. Just watch it, like you were sitting on a riverbank, watching your thoughts float by. Observe each thought and then let it go, don't add on to it or follow it. It's how you can control your mind instead of it controlling you. When you notice your mind wandering just bring your attention back to your breath. It's your link to what is true right now."

When I'd sat like that long enough I would start to feel kind of tingly and high. Suddenly I would feel bigger than myself. I would see how so much of my anger came from my childhood. When I breathed long enough I could let it go. I felt so light.

"Crazy, crazy." Huang clicked his tongue.

That day I was put to work digging another pond to house more catfish. It was how the guards supplemented their income. I don't think they made much money being guards. I was working with three other guys, none of them from my cell. One was Eastern European and didn't speak English. The other two were Vietnamese. One of them had some English; he said his name was Trahn. The work was backbreaking. We thrust rusty shovels into the ground over and over again. The muscles between my shoulder blades began to spasm. Suddenly Trahn's friend collapsed. I dropped my shovel and ran to him.