Dragon House

by John Shors

  Her tears dropped to his chest, and she stroked his brow. “Please don’t go. I’m not ready. I want more time with you. I need more time with you.”

  “I went . . . a long time ago. Except for you. I tried . . . and tried and tried . . . never to leave you.”

  “You didn’t,” she replied, fighting the shudders that threatened to consume her. “I promise that you didn’t. I missed you . . . when you left. But I knew you still loved me.”

  He tilted his head so that his flesh pressed more firmly against her palm. “Someday . . . if you have a child . . . will you take her to a ball game and tell her about our afternoons . . . and about how her grandpa wanted to take her? I would have taken her. And we’d have done . . . the same things. Eaten peanuts. Cheered with the crowd.”

  “I’ll tell her everything. And I’ll take her. I’ll show her where we sat.”

  He nodded, searching her face, longing to bring it with him on his journey. “I love you,” he said. “I love you . . . so much, Iris. More than words . . . can say. And I’ll find you in Saigon.”

  “You will?”

  “I’ll listen for children’s laughter. And I’ll follow . . . I’ll follow it to you.”

  “Promise?”

  “I do.”

  She kissed his brow, aware that he was between worlds, drifting from one to the other. Weeping silently, she carefully climbed into his bed and lay beside him, comforting him as he’d done for her when nightmares had left her shaking.

  “My baby girl,” he whispered. “You shine . . . such a light on me.”

  ONE

  Dusk and Dawn

  The small apartment that Iris had rented for two years resembled the office of a college professor. In the living room, on wooden tables and shelves, piles of books were stacked like cords of firewood. The books were old and new, worn and untouched. Hundreds of hardcovers comprised the bases of these piles, while pa perbacks teetered on top of them. Several of the piles had tumbled, and books were strewn in odd places.

  The rest of her home was unremarkable in every way. The kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom could have housed a monk. No luxuries abounded. No family photographs gathered dust. Twenty stories below, the pulse of Chicago drifted up to her closed windows. Horns, sirens, the rumble of a passing elevated train seeped into her room—though she’d long ago learned to block out such sounds.

  Though Iris would have normally kept her books in perfect order, since her father’s death five weeks earlier she’d been far less inclined to complete such tasks. Her thoughts had dwelled on her memories of their time together. She tended to think about their best moments—of renting a canoe and paddling to an island, where they camped for two nights, of him teaching her how to throw and catch a baseball. She tried to ignore painful recollections—times when he’d unexpectedly gone away or broken his promises to be by her side. As a young girl, she’d hated such occurrences. They’d made her feel unloved and unwanted and, most of all, confused. She didn’t understand why he needed to be away from his family. How could he love her, yet leave her so easily? The misery and bewilderment that this question created had lasted for years.

  As a teenager, Iris had resented her father. It wasn’t until after finishing college that she began to grasp why he’d so often been gone. He had never told her of his demons, but she’d read several books about the war and realized that his maladies weren’t unusual. He’d been wounded deep inside, where light never reached and couldn’t help him heal.

  Iris wasn’t sure exactly why she was going to Vietnam. Of course, she’d wanted to put her father at ease during his last days, and her words about traveling to Saigon had done just that—resonating within him. But a part of her also needed to complete his dream. Over the past two years, he’d spoken to her about this dream, about his longing to do something good. And she had seen beauty in what he was trying to accomplish. Her love for him had grown then—because he’d confided in her about his hopes and fears. And when he had taken trips to Saigon, they’d been with her blessing. He’d returned with pictures and stories, and they had eaten pizza in her apartment while he told her about the children he was trying to save. During these conversations, which often lasted long into the night, she had never felt closer to him.

  Though her father had often been gone during her childhood, her mother had tried valiantly to fill the holes in Iris’s life. Because of her mother’s unending support, Iris couldn’t imagine growing up alone on the streets, with no one to care for her. And upon hearing her father’s stories of such children, she had instinctively wanted to do something to help. Of course, she’d never expected to try to finish what he’d started, but as his death had loomed, she knew that she couldn’t walk away from the children. She couldn’t leave them alone, not when she might be able to make their lives better.

  Now, as Iris lay on her futon, she tried to suppress her nervousness about what she’d promised her father. Propped up on her chest was a battered copy of Heart of Darkness. The book had long been one of her favorites, and with thoughts of her trip to Saigon dominating her day, she thought it apt to read about Marlow’s journey through the Congo and through himself.

  Iris laid the book down on her chest and closed her eyes. The lone window in her room was darkening, as dusk unfolded in the city below. Though she had eaten only a premade salad for dinner, and though her stomach was in want of more food, she was ready for sleep. She’d spent the afternoon packing and e-mailing her contacts in Saigon about her visit. After turning off the evening news she had showered, brushed her teeth, put on lightweight pajamas, and crept into bed.

  She rolled to her left and glanced at the urn containing her father’s cremated remains. One of his last wishes was to be cremated, and she’d done as he asked, sobbing when she had first opened the silver container and seen his remains. She’d touched him, surprised that the urn didn’t contain ashes but rather tiny pieces of bone. How she longed to somehow fashion those pieces back into the man she had glimpsed on and off through the years—a man who loved her, who was able to temporarily place his sorrows aside and push his little girl high on a swing.

  A soft but abrupt knock on her door caused her heart to skip. Iris had few visitors and couldn’t imagine who’d stop by without calling first. She stood up, buttoned her top higher, and walked toward the entryway. Peering through the peephole, she saw a woman’s familiar face. Iris opened the door and leaned toward her former neighbor. “Mrs. Woods?”

  An ample woman dressed in a gray sweater and jeans nodded. “Hello, Iris. Sorry to . . . drop by like this. May I come in?”

  “Oh,” Iris replied, opening the door wider and stepping backward. “Of course.”

  Mrs. Woods stepped inside and glanced around. Iris noticed that her visitor’s face seemed haggard, that she looked to have been crying. “Here,” Iris said, lifting a pile of books from a cracked leather chair. “Please sit down.”

  “Thank you.”

  “May I bring you something to drink? I don’t have much. But I could put on a pot of tea.”

  “There’s no need to trouble yourself.” When Iris nodded but made no reply, her visitor shifted on her seat and finally made eye contact. “Locust Street seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “I heard that our house is for sale again. We should never have left.”

  Iris remembered watching from across the street as men filled a moving truck. “We were all sad to see you go,” she replied, clearing off another chair.

  Mrs. Woods leaned forward. “I’m so sorry about your father. I didn’t know him well, but he must have been a good man to have such a daughter.”

  “He was wonderful.”

  “How’s your mother doing? I called her yesterday, and we caught up, but some things don’t always get said on the phone.”

  “Oh, she’s fine, thanks. Busier than you might expect—traveling with friends, still playing bridge.”

  “And you?”
<
br />   “I’m okay. I miss him.”

  Mrs. Woods looked at the piles of books. “You know, we’re all really proud of you. You’re famous around here. At least, to those of us who read book reviews.”

  Iris pushed a tendril of her long hair from her face. “Thanks, but I don’t think there are many of you left.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “Well, that would be nice. But with the Internet and iPods and everything else, sometimes I feel like I’m only writing for myself.”

  “Trust me, Iris, your words have meaning. If they didn’t . . . publishers wouldn’t send you so many books.”

  Iris smiled faintly, wondering why she was entertaining Mrs. Woods, whom she hadn’t seen in several years, but not wanting to ask. “How’s Noah?”

  The older woman’s demeanor immediately changed. Her body seemed to sag, her lips pressed together, and she shook her head. “He’s not good,” she replied, easing her hands beneath her thighs.

  “Why not?”

  “Did you know he was in Iraq?”

  “No. No one’s told me anything. Did something happen to him?”

  Mrs. Woods pursed her lips. She closed her eyes for a moment. “His Humvee hit a roadside bomb. And he . . . he lost part of a leg. And the side of his forehead . . . Oh, Iris, they had to stitch him all back together.”

  Iris moved toward her visitor and, kneeling, took Mrs. Woods’s hands in her own. “I don’t know what to say,” she confessed, her eyes, lately so accustomed to tears, glistening once again. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  “He’s been home for five months. He’s so depressed. So angry. I hardly recognize him. It’s just terrible . . . for us all.”

  Iris shook her head, as if she could deny what she was hearing. Noah, three years her junior, had always been such a happy boy. She remembered him following her home from elementary school, stepping in her tracks in the snow. Years later, she had been aware that he’d had a crush on her, and had pretended not to notice his awkward advances. He’d been much shorter than she, and older boys had often teased him about his misplaced affections. But Noah had never seemed bothered by their antics.

  “He was always so active,” Iris said softly. “Running around, dribbling his basketball. I can’t imagine him . . . without a leg.”

  Mrs. Woods wiped her eyes. “He has a prosthesis, of course. But it hurts him. And he hardly moves. He sleeps until noon. He drinks too much and too often. He doesn’t listen to me, though I don’t blame him for that. I don’t know what to say to him. How could I?”

  “Has he been to see a—”

  “Sometimes I worry that he wants to die. It’s so awful, Iris. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t call his sisters.” Mrs. Woods closed her eyes, shaking her head. Iris handed her a tissue, which she blew into and held tight. “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything. And I mean everything in the world. But he won’t . . . he won’t do anything. He’s so miserable. So lost.”

  “What about—”

  “Will you take him with you? Will you please take him with you?”

  “Take him with me?”

  “I heard about your trip. About how you’re spending a month in Vietnam to open your father’s center. Can you take Noah? Take him there and give him something good to do. Give his life some meaning.”

  Iris pushed her hair aside. Though she wanted to help Noah, she couldn’t imagine having to watch over him on top of everything else. How would she ever open her father’s center if she also had to worry about Noah? “I don’t know,” she replied, twisting a ring. “I just don’t think I could take him. I’ve already got more than I can handle. And he’s probably better off here, with you. Wouldn’t he be better off with his family?”

  Mrs. Woods reached for Iris’s hands. “He’s alone . . . and in so much pain,” she said, tears streaming down her face, her voice cracking. “He’ll go with you. I’m sure he will. He’s always looked up to you. And yesterday, after I spoke with your mother, he asked about you. And when I told him what you were doing, he actually asked me another question. He seemed . . . interested. Not like the old Noah, but at least . . . at least he spoke more than three words.”

  “But I just don’t think—”

  “Please, Iris. Please don’t let me watch my boy die. Please don’t. He’s dying now, and watching him die is killing me as well.” Mrs. Woods shuddered, drawing Iris closer. “Please, please, please take him. If it doesn’t work, I’ll come for him. I’ll bring him home. But please try. He’s a beautiful soul and watching him suffer is just . . . It’s too much.”

  “And you really think he’d like to go?”

  Mrs. Woods nodded, her eyes bloodshot. “A mother . . . knows her children, Iris. And I know Noah. He used to speak about you so often. I think he loved you . . . in his own way.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “And he loves children. He always has. What you’re doing . . . what your father was doing . . . he’ll respond to it. I just know he will. He wants to go back to who he was. But he doesn’t know how.”

  Iris took another tissue and wiped Mrs. Woods’s face. “I’m leaving so soon. In four days.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The sooner, the better.”

  Iris thought about her father, about how he also came home shattered from a war that wasn’t of his making. A marriage and a daughter hadn’t saved him from his demons. Why would Saigon save Noah? Though Iris was unsure, she knew what her father would say, knew he’d want her to bring Noah. “I’ll take him,” she finally replied. “If he wants to go. If he really wants to go.”

  Mrs. Woods leaned against Iris, hugging her tight. “Thank you, thank you, Iris. You don’t know what this means to me. To my family.”

  Iris stroked the older woman’s back, wondering how Noah’s presence would change things, wondering what the future held for them both. In four days she’d be on a plane with Noah, and they’d arrive in a country that had both destroyed and redeemed her father. How could a place have such power? Such influence?

  As Mrs. Woods continued to thank her, Iris wondered what Noah would find in Vietnam. What would she find? Would her father come to her, as he’d promised? Would she somehow manage to fulfill the dream that had occupied his last years of life? Or would she fail him? Or watch Noah die?

  Anxious about her trip and what she might discover, Iris glanced atop a pile of books to where her plane ticket rested. She suddenly wanted to hold the ticket, to feel one more connection to her father. She wanted to leave.

  AT THE MOMENT THAT IRIS GLANCED at her plane ticket, a new day was unfolding in Vietnam, a country of a thousand faces, a thousand voices.

  To the south, immense wooden barges plowed through the muddy waters of the Mekong Delta. The barges were often blue with red trim and were curved like bananas. Though their profiles were almost majestic—with brightly painted wheelhouses and rigging—the barges fought the currents like slugs making their way up a brown leaf. A pair of owlish yellow-and-black eyes was painted below each bow. These eyes warned countless smaller vessels that behemoths approached. Despite the size of the owl-eyed barges, the Mekong Delta was several miles wide and dwarfed everything atop it. The murky waters contrasted powerfully with the vibrant foliage on either shore. Flowering water lilies bobbed against the current. Children swam in the shallows. Ancient houseboats filled with tourists journeyed toward Cambodia. And perhaps most prominent, floating markets drew buyers toward canoelike vessels filled with vegetables, fruits, and fish.

  North of the delta, narrow roads led toward Saigon or, as it was known these days, Ho Chi Minh City. The roads thrived with life, carrying commerce the way a vein moves blood. They brimmed with countless motor scooters, trucks, and ox-driven carts. Most of the roads were lined with stalls—rusty shelters that sold axles, bricks, food, lamp-posts, refrigerators, and everything else that the mind could conceive. Occasionally, the stalls would vanish into the jungle, within which hundreds of hammocks hung from slen
der trees. The hammocks held travelers who, for a nominal fee, could park their vehicles in the shade, drink something sweet, and then sleep for as long as they’d like.

  Even though the day was young, Ho Chi Minh City pulsated like a hive containing every insect species on Earth. The city was a kaleidoscope of old versus new, memories versus ideas, stone versus chrome. Dilapidated bicycle taxis mingled with customized SUVs. Sparkling hotels rose like rays of sunlight above squalor and sin. Red flags bearing a yellow star fluttered in a dirty wind. College students sat drinking lattes and text messaging friends, while crippled veterans of the American War begged on street corners. And two children—a brother and sister by all accounts other than blood—awoke beneath a bridge and wondered when they would eat and if they’d be beaten that night.

  Farther to the north, the country rose and fell. Mountains resembling green waves were rife with ancient shrines, underground tunnels, scents of flowers and decay. Stonesmiths cut white and black marble from deforested foothills, while more distant rises were almost untouched by human hands. Snaking around the mountains, scores of rivers created a seemingly infinite network of waterways. Villages hewn out of the jungle thrived beside the rivers. To the east, salt-encrusted towns bordered the South China Sea.

  As in the rest of Vietnam, the weather in Hanoi was already damp and hot, infused with the breath of people, machines, and creatures both seen and undiscovered. The new capital moved slower than its counterpart to the south. Women in conical hats sat in open-air markets and sold dried shrimp, rice, natural medicines, vegetables, eels, and flowers. At the city’s center sprawled Hoan Kiem Lake, one of Hanoi’s most famous sights. Massive willow trees surrounded the large body of water. On a treelined path strode students and lovers. In small courtyards women practiced tai chi.

  Beyond Hanoi, farmers labored in secret fields, growing poppies that they refined into opium. Indigenous tribes traveled by elephant through rain forests. Malaria-ridden mosquitoes attacked nursing babies. Traders ferried goods to Laos and China. Children sat in classrooms, hunted giant catfish, and worked in fields and factories.