World And Town Part 27

A lot of the hunters are neighbors-some of them rough customers, but not all of them as bad as Jill paints them. And it's only every now and then, really, that you see a flatbed with a bear, though Hattie did see a cub on its back the other day, its narrow snout reminding her, disconcertingly, of Annie's.

I'll but lie and bleed awhile.

It's hard to feel that Ginny's got the right idea, especially as poor Everett hardly seems worth hara.s.sing. He does not go out and, what with the mini-mall trouble, isn't building anymore, either. The fire wasn't much, really, as fires go, but coming on top of the plywood, people say, it could ruin him. He can't pay his subcontractors; he can't pay the lumberyard. All he can do is drink, it seems, knowing that there are hunters all around him-knowing that he's treed. Hattie and others have started leaving food at the base of his tower, but what else can they do? Besides shake their heads-that tower-all that sc.r.a.p wood hammered on every which way. It's pretty crackpot. Hattie shouts up to him one day, standing in the goldenrod. The sun is bright in her face as she fas.h.i.+ons a crude megaphone out of some cardboard, then shouts and shouts into the clear fall air. Sounding a little crackpot herself-she almost can't blame him for not answering. And what would she say if he did? That she talked to Ginny? That she could try talking to Ginny again? When she can see how much good it did the first time, and when Ginny is conveniently out of town, anyway? Visiting friends, people say.

At least the food's disappearing. What's more, he's been spotted twice in town.

"He's alive," says Beth. "I'm not worried."

And should they suspend yoga? That's another question. There are DO NOT TRESPa.s.s signs up all along the boundary between this property and Ginny's; bullets are not going to whiz past them as they cross the field to cla.s.s. Still, the studio stands all of fifteen feet in from the property line, and some of the hunters are kids-twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. There is reason for concern.

"I do not want to suspend," says Jill Jenkins-at least waiting to speak until after cla.s.s this time. "As it is, life revolves around hunting. Do you realize there are whole weeks we can't teach a thing? The kids plain don't show up. Do you realize? Our culture is as screwed up as anything in the Middle East. They're not the only ones who can't seem to do anything about their extremes. It's us, too. It's us."

And in truth there is a kind of magnificence to her wide-flung arms. Probably she'd have confronted Guy LaPoint, too, once upon a time.

As Joe used to say, A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Still, the cla.s.s sighs; and Carter is not inclined to continue, he says-his gaze fixed, as if he's only just noticed them, on the covered forms at the back of the room. He pulls down the sleeves of his long-sleeved T-s.h.i.+rt; and people, of course, take their cue from him. They are not going to be able to concentrate, they say. Because shots are disturbing. They're just a disturbing sound.

Jill strides out, her yoga mat rolled tight; Carter, head down, ties his red laces. Who knows what's going on? Well, never mind. Hattie's had enough of dog pose for the season.

You can't see hunters from the trailer. The noise is hard to miss, though, as the mountain cul-de-sac gathers noise up; things resound, especially sounds like this-a perforating sound, like something a paper punch might make, if it had a setting for punching air. It's disturbing, just as the yoga cla.s.s said. A disturbing sound. Reveille and Annie have their neon orange bandannas on, to be sure they can be seen if they go out, and Hattie is keeping an eye on Chhung-watching him over there by the pit. He's wearing his brace again, she sees, and though he still shouts most toward sundown, he's shouting a lot in the daytime, too, now. PTSD, Greta says. He's bound to have PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Hattie is keeping an eye out.

And so it is that she sees a cop show up at the trailer one morning. It's just one cop, and a fairly small one, at that-a kid, really, a lot like the kids Hattie used to teach. A pointy-headed skinny thing, more like an asparagus than an agent of the law. No one would ever listen to him if he weren't wearing a uniform. Is he there to question Sarun? Sarun is outside, digging, but no problem. He and Chhung come in. The cop sits with Sarun on the couch awhile. One on one end, the other on the other, as if on a first date. Sarun nods. Answers questions. Chhung watches. After all of five minutes, the cop stands and pulls his belt up. Tucks his s.h.i.+rt in. Mum offers him a snack, but he declines, shaking Mum's hand instead. Chhung's, too-insisting, you can see, that Chhung not get up out of his chair. He shakes Sarun's hand last. Sarun bows a little, his arms at his sides.

Down the two crates, across the packed dirt. The cop starts his car, backs up, turns around, and heads up toward the road. The Chhungs watch from the doorway as if they've never seen anything like it-an asparagus with a car. Then the door closes. Sarun throws himself back on the couch-half sitting, half lying down in the eternal way of teenagers, as if the one thing they do not want to do is bend at the hips. He's propped up on his elbows, remote control in hand, but Chhung has other plans. They head back outside. It is a breezy day, sunny, full of blowing leaves and wild turkeys. Hattie watches a flock cross her yard-jakes, she knows, by their size and by the way their mature middle tailfeathers jut out, longer than the rest. The turkeys step warily, young but canny-aware, it seems, there is danger everywhere. Hunters. Who knows what. Reasons to fly off.

Banging. "Hattie!" In the middle of the night, banging. "Hattie!" Hattie comes up slowly, trying to kick off her covers, only to find that they include a lead ap.r.o.n. Which for a moment she almost can't throw off, though it's blocking her q.

Someone banging at the slider.

"Hattie!"

"Sophy?" Suddenly Hattie's up, the dogs are up, they're all hurrying to the slider. "What's the matter?"

"You have to come! Quick! Hurry!"

Sophy runs off, a dark figure in white T-s.h.i.+rt; Hattie grabs a flashlight. The dogs want to follow, but she says, Sit. Stay. Reveille obeys; Annie sits but does not stay. Both watch-alert as turkeys and missing Cato, Hattie knows. Cato! If Cato were still alive, she'd bring him for sure. Cato, Cato. Cato the Wise. Where is her robe? Why is she out without her robe? And why is she out in her slippers-she is slipping in her slippers-and what is that sound? Mum crying-wailing. Something Hattie's never heard before. Mum wails in high-pitched waves-keening. That must be keening. The sound of a grief beyond grief. Does Hattie really want to know what caused it? Down through the ferns, half withered now. The trailer door is open. She climbs in carefully, not wanting to trip-why is she out in her slippers-but, there. She's in. Alone. How bright it is. The living room is empty.

"Sophy?"

The wailing.

"Mum?"

The kitchen is empty. Sophy and Mum's room is empty. But then there they are. Mum and Gift huddling in the corner of Chhung and Sarun's dark room; and before them, huge Sarun, sprawling. He's on his back, his arms and legs akimbo, taking up the whole carpet-a giant with giant amounts of blood. Hattie puts a hand to her mouth and nose; she can feel the rise of retch. The stench of blood is everywhere, that metallic smell, mixed in with the cigarette smoke-what happened? There's so much blood it is hard to know what happened, where the wounds are. Hard, in the low light, to see-how slow her retinas are to adjust. Slow. Don't they have another lamp? But no. There is just this one lamp, a desk lamp, really, on a low table. Hattie draws her nightgown in, kneeling-thank goodness she can still kneel-because, well, first Cato, and now this. This. She tries to breathe. To think. Not to retch. A gash in the arm-the head, too. A gash in the back of his head. A pool of dark blood. His hair is matted.

"Sarun?" She slaps his face a little. Gently. His cheek cool and wet, his skin soft and smooth, like Joe's when he died. Though warm, still-at least his skin is still warm. He's not cold like Joe and Cato; he's warm. Warm.

"Sarun."

He's breathing, but his breaths are shallow and his eyes half shut.

Mum wails. Gift, too, is crying and hitting his mother.

The smell.

Hattie nods at Mum rea.s.suringly, then turns, relieved; Sophy's appeared. "Call 911," Hattie tells her.

"Will the police come?"

"You have to call, Sophy. Your brother's unconscious."

Sophy looks at Sarun, then at Mum.

"My dad will kill me."

"Now. You have to call now. Now." Hattie speaks slowly and clearly, as if they're having a lesson; Mum, though still crying, looks up and nods. Sophy goes. Is their phone working? Hattie tries to listen; Sophy is talking, good.

Good. Head injury, better not to move him. Hattie checks his pulse. Okay. His heart is working. Okay. But how to stop the bleeding? Should she press something to his head? To stop the bleeding? Or not? Infection, the blood-brain barrier.

"Sarun?"

Bleeding to death. He's bleeding to death.

She presses a corner of the sheet to his skull, but where there should be bone there is mush; she can't press.

I'll but lie and bleed awhile.

Mum is wailing again. Wailing, wailing. Stop, Hattie wants to say. Just stop! Gift, too, is still whimpering, his arms around Mum's neck, but his body craned around. He's chewing on a plastic figure-blue and red, a superhero. She's holding him with her knees and arms. His diaper is turgid.

"Sophy!" calls Hattie. "Ask if we should try to stop the bleeding! Tell them his skull is smashed!"

But Sophy is talking to an operator, not a doctor. Germs.

"Sophy! Put some water on to boil!"

What if there's an unstable piece of something? A piece of skull. She doesn't want to dislodge anything. But bleed to death-he could bleed to death. And so she finally just grabs the sheet again, and moves his wet hair out of the way. Then, there. She presses gently. The blood soaks through to her fingertips, warm and sticky. She should really press harder, but it's squishy-the spot's squishy. Harder. She stares at the gold earring there by her thumb; it's mottled with blood. A lacy pattern like a cell structure revealed by a Golgi stain. The links of his necklace, too, are all caked. But his scar, the round one Sophy said was made by a bullet in his last life, is here, now, in this life, blood-free.

"Sarun? Sarun?" Still nothing. Pale-even in the low light, she can see that he's pale.

Pale as Lee, when she was dying. But not raving, as she was. Lee raved and raved before she stopped.

"Do you need a whole pot?" yells Sophy.

"No. Just be quick."

Press harder.

"A half-pot okay?" calls Sophy.

"Do two half-pots. Use two burners. Hurry up."

Bleeding. Blood in his ear but not coming out of it, she doesn't think.

A car motor. Doors. EMTs. Thank G.o.d! Hattie hesitates to let go of the sticky sheet, but here comes a purple-gloved hand holding a surreally white pad. She almost falls as she stands-suddenly lightheaded-but is caught by other hands, three large bodies taking up the airs.p.a.ce now. Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d. Mum abruptly stops crying-Gift, too-as if they don't want to cry in front of strangers, or as if they are just plain shocked: What beings are these, in fluorescent yellow vests? They have walkie-talkies in their pockets; they're wearing purple gloves. The woman's hair is clamped up. No one blanches. They simply press, replace, wrap. Remove his earrings, hand them to Hattie. The gauze goes over his forehead to the back of his head; around his chin, too; he looks like a mummy. They cut and tape even as they check his temperature, his blood pressure, his pulse, his breathing rate. His pupil size, but not to see if he is high-to see if he is reacting. s.h.i.+ning their light in his eyes. What's his name? asks the woman. Sarun, says Sophy. His name is Sarun. She doesn't roll the r-making it easier for the EMTs to p.r.o.nounce. How're you doing, Saroon, says the woman loudly. Can you hear me, Saroon? How're you doing? Can you hear me? Sarun's eyes flutter. Good boy! says the woman. Now we're going to put this collar on you. We're going to lift up your head and slide it right under you. Ready? There you go. Now we're strapping it up. That's going to stabilize your neck. Now we are going to move you-ready? She looks at her partners. One-two-three! Sarun groans as they lift him in one sure movement onto a blue trauma board. They strap him down with straps. He stops groaning. Saroon! Are you there? Saroon! Saroon! Ah, there you are. Good boy! says the woman again. What happened? An attacker, says Hattie instantly. Exhausted but not batty. A stranger. Just walked on in. No one they know, they don't think. Any sign of the attack weapon? No. And no one saw anyone? A rise of suspicion just as Sophy appears-do they still need the water? Hattie speaks clearly, not looking at Sophy but aiming her story toward her. They just came home and found him like that. Hattie shakes her head. Terrible. Has she volunteered too much? Should she say something about Chhung? Give him an alibi? Never mind. Suspicious or not, the EMTs are moving Sarun and the board-one-two-three!-onto the stretcher; they're covering him with a sheet. A blanket. Strapping him down again with what look to be seat belts from an airplane. When did all these things become blue?-the stretcher, the sheet, the blanket. Didn't they all use to be white? Never mind. What do you think? asks Hattie-almost asking, Is it serious? Hattie gone batty! Well, they'll do a scan at the hospital, says the woman, but she's guessing depressed occipital skull fracture. Is he going to die? asks Sophy. And the woman looks at her then with her kindly eyes; she has eyes like Cato's, a little rheumy, with a dip to their lower edge. We're doing our level best, she says. But if you want to do something, you could say a prayer. He could probably use some prayers.

And so Sophy prays, her eyes closed and her lips moving; Mum prays, too. And Hattie prays as well, though she does not believe in instrumental prayer. Her prayer is more like meditation, usually, a way of expressing wonder. Grat.i.tude. Perplexity. Grief. She does not expect results, especially as she is not even sure who she's addressing. But today, she just puts in her wish list. Please, dear G.o.d. Please. A few last flies buzz around-flies, this time of year!-a few survivors. May Sarun survive, too, she prays. May Sarun survive, too. And as she prays, it suddenly comes to her; as she prays, she suddenly knows-the shovel. Not the knife, in the end. It was the shovel.

The shovel.

Hattie blind as a batty.

Her nightgown is heavy and soaked-the lead ap.r.o.n of her dreams.

The EMTs are moving Sarun out of the trailer. Out through the living room, out through the front door. Down the crate steps. Can Mum and Sophy and Gift and Hattie all ride in the ambulance, too? Debbie-the woman's name is Debbie-shakes her head no as the men pop the stretcher wheels down. No. Hattie gestures then at Mum. Go, she says. Take Gift. Go. We'll follow. Mum nods, understanding. Hattie smiles. The EMTs align the stretcher with the ambulance. Then, there: Up go the wheels and in slides Sarun like a baguette. Sophy helps Mum in next, then starts to hand Gift up but Debbie says sorry, no babies. We'll follow you, says Hattie again. Mum nods. She says something to Sophy in Khmer, her voice urgent and alive. Her face, though, is like plastic. A green dolphin air freshener dangles from a grab bar in the ceiling.

Back up to Hattie's house. How can she still be holding Sarun's earrings? Anyway, out of that nightgown, where are her shoes? If only they had a diaper for Gift; they take off his dirty one and hold him over the toilet. Where, to their surprise, he pees. Good boy! Though what diaper rash-the poor thing. It's raised and patchy, a yeast rash. They dab him with Vaseline and wrap him in a towel; the hospital will have diapers. Her keys on the red hook. Sophy kisses Annie's nose through the screen Hattie should really have replaced with a storm door by now-Sophy pinning her hair back with both hands. She looks to be putting her ears on. Then the engine, the headlights. Hattie's distance gla.s.ses. And there, as she turns the car around: Chhung, sitting in the guard chair in the moonlight. The trees behind him glint as if with frost; his white brace, too, glows dully. His cigarette flares orange. He himself is more shadow than substance, though, like the shovel Hattie can barely make out. It grows out of the dirt beside him like a plant. He is going to go to h.e.l.l! says Sophy, beside her. He is! He is going to go to h.e.l.l!

Mam-mam-lehla-la! agrees Gift.

Ratanak Chhung, the lucky one.

The one who got sent to the temple school; the one who lived.

Hattie turns her headlights back off as they roll by.

The coming of Sophy's sisters, three days later, is not subdued. What with the blue car in the shop, Sophy asks if Hattie will pick them up at the bus station; and so it is that Hattie gets to behold Sophan and Sopheap teetering down the bus steps. Shouting, Mum! Sophy! Gift! Sophy! as they try not to trip in their high heels. Their knees are too high, their thighs are too short. The railing's in the wrong place. They are carrying too many bags-some three or four bright bags each. Which mostly have shoulder straps, a sign of some sense, except that several of the straps have slipped off the girls' shoulders and are fanning out midair. Sophy and Hattie try to help take the bags, Sophy shouting, Sophan! Sopheap! at the same time-making enough of a commotion that people stop to watch. But of course, the girls would be a sight anyway-three Sophys, it does seem-the three of them almost exactly the same height, as if that were the fas.h.i.+on, with the same flat behinds and the same narrow waists. And the same shy energy-as if they could either bubble up or disappear, depending. They are smooth-skinned, bright-eyed, live-bodied; their hands seem to be everywhere. Sophan looks more like Chhung, and Sopheap and Sophy more like Mum, but Sophan and Sopheap look like each other, too, with chipmunk-red hair they've had straightened; it falls silken and perfect, awaiting a ruffling wind. Sophy's hair, in comparison, is bedlam. And yet anyone would know the three of them to be sisters by their happiness. Sophan and Sopheap play with Sophy's short hair, amazed; and when she cries, they wipe her eyes for her, crying, too, then cup her radiant face in their hands-their fingers on her cheeks, in her hair. They fondle her earringless ears. No hoops! Sophy shrugs and laughs through her tears. And look-Mum is crying, too. The girls hug their mother gingerly. With Sophy they are babble and arms. With Mum they seem worried they could squeeze her into another shape by mistake. They move their warmth out of their limbs, into their faces; it's what hippies say energy workers do. Move their energy. Still their bodies. The sisters' eyes get large and liquid; they tilt their heads. Nod. Say something in Khmer, consult with Sophy, say something else. Their smiles grow and grow-their mouths widening, their cheeks lifting, their eyes crinkling. Then they nod again, lowering their gaze, until time itself seems to be blossoming with joy. For there is Mum, looking for once unbuffeted by the world. No larger than she was, but more firmly here somehow. Not a half-being whose other half may still be hiding out from the war; not a half-ghost undecided about her commitment to this moment and place. Instead, she is the slightly undersized, perfectly whole being on whom the natural order of things lightly rests-reserved, as always, except for her face, which has something of the look of an extra bus headlight.

Now Gift is threatening to cry, excited to be held by Sopheap and Sophan, but scared of them, too. You don't remember us! they say. You've forgotten us! Sophy tries to take him back, but Sophan and Sopheap will not let him go until he starts out-and-out wailing. Then back he goes to Mum, his crying stopping so abruptly that everyone laughs, even Gift himself, after a moment. And who's this? Ginny? ask the sisters. Ginny. No, Hattie, says Sophy. This is Hattie. So nice to meet you, say Sophan and Sopheap then. So nice, Hattie!-never mind that a bus station official is telling them to move out of the way, please, no one can get by. Sophan and Sopheap and Sophy come together for a moment. Then Sophy is hoisting Gift onto her hip, and Sophan and Sopheap are flanking their mother, each insisting on taking an arm even as they refuse to let Hattie help with the bags. The group keeps having to rest, rehoist, rearrange, reseat. Rest again. Yet still they refuse Hattie's help-half shuffling, half tottering through the bus station like some newfangled pushmi-pullyu. They rest. Then it is across the parking lot to the car, where Sophan and Sopheap can finally quiz Sophy some more. Why'd you do that to your hair? I told you. No, you didn't. And you didn't tell me, either! I did! You didn't! They pull and tease until Sophy finally swats their hands away. Happy to be annoyed, happy to be swatted back, happy to return the return swat. A sister, still, though wisps of hair play about Sophan's and Sopheap's eyes and necks-a sister, though they are wearing makeup and chains and hoops, and cute tops with tight jeans. Sopheap's hoodie is red with AMOUR printed across the front; inside she is wearing a white top with red trim. Sophan's top is sparkly-midnight blue with metallic trim. Only Sophy, the country mouse, is wearing a plain blue sweater and plain blue sweatpants. Still, she swats at them, a sister. Who does still wear a necklace, at least-her sisters play with the cross-and though she never takes it off, she takes it off now and lets them try it on. First Sophan, then Sopheap, who wants to wear it awhile. She wants to see if it makes her feel anything, she says, and so Sophy lets her borrow it for the whole drive back to the trailer.

It's a squeeze, getting the three girls and Gift into the backseat of what is, after all, a subcompact car, but they don't mind. They insist that Sophy sit in the middle, Gift on her lap. Everything is in English. In the front seat Mum faces forward, but with her chin lifted high and her head tipped back.

"Can you understand them?" asks Hattie.

Mum moves her head in something like a nod, though not a nod, either-picking up words, Hattie guesses, a phrase here and there. Every now and then the girls say something in Khmer, but Sopheap and Sophan do not speak as much Khmer as Sophy; mostly it is English, English, English. What is there to do around here? they want to know. They don't like Sophy's Christian radio station; Hattie happily shuts it off. Wow, cows, they say then. Why do they have those yellow things in their ears? And what's that smell? They roll their windows up; they hold their noses and point. What's that? They are impressed that Sophy knows what a pony is. A llama.

"They have mad ears," says Sophan. She asks if dogs pull people on sleds around here.

Sopheap and Sophy laugh. "No, no," they say. "That's Alaska!"

Sophan, though, is still curious. "Do people here burn wood to keep warm?"

It is a few minutes before Sopheap finally says, "So, like, Sarun is in the hospital?"

Sophy nods.

"And, like, what happened? Dad beat Sarun up and somebody called the police?" Sopheap asks lightly, in a just-wondering voice.

"Yeah, except it wasn't somebody." Sophy noses Gift's back. "It was me."

"You?" says Sophan.

Silence.

"Because there was blood everywhere, you should have seen," says Sophy, finally. "And, anyway, I didn't call the police. I called 911."

More silence. The winds.h.i.+eld darkens, then brightens-the car pa.s.sing through the shadow of a cloud.

"Wow," says Sopheap.

"Those are cool cows," says Sophan.

The cows are black except for what look like huge white c.u.mmerbunds fitted around their bellies.

"They're called Dutch belted cows," says Sophy. "Because of, like, their belt." She lays Gift down flat across her knees, so that his head is on Sophan's lap and his feet on Sopheap's.

"You shouldn't feel bad that you called," says Sopheap.

"He was going to die," says Sophy.

"It was a good choice," says Sophan, playing with Gift's hands; he grabs her earrings anyway. "Ow."

"Definitely," says Sopheap.

Sophy, in the rearview mirror, is blinking hard, her nostrils red; she looks as though she might cry.

"Actually I made a lot of bad choices," she says. "Like a lot of them."

"Still," says Sophan. "That one was good." She nods supportively.

"And then what happened?" Sopheap pulls Gift's feet up to her cheeks; she kisses his toes.

"He got to the hospital and was bad but then he woke up and was talking. And everything was good until he had this big drop in blood pressure. Because of the bleeding in his head, I think it was called 'subdural.' Because it was, like, under his skull, and I guess sub means, like, 'under.' And that's why you guys were allowed to come visit. Because he was unconscious again and they thought he might die."

Sopheap stops playing.

"We were, like, mad scared," says Sophan. "When we were, like, informed."

"I guess it was pretty serious." Sophy jostles Gift on her knees. "But now he's okay, except that they had to drill these holes in his head."

Gift chortles.

"Holes?" says Sophan, finally. "In his head?"