by Various
"Honey, are you okay? It's getting late." Carol's voice startled him back to reality. He noted the look of concern on her face and forced himself to smile.
"Of course I am," he said. He pounced, grabbing her suddenly by the shoulders and forcing her back against the pillows. "One for you," he said, kissing her cheek, "and one for Godzilla," he added, bending to kiss the barely noticeable bulge of her abdomen. He rolled out of the bed and began to get dressed. "Remember, Pop's coming home from the hospital tonight, so we're eating at Dom and Marie' s."
He said good-bye to his son and went out into the early morning breeze. His brother Joey had often offered to pick him up with the truck on his way back from the food
distribution center, but it was so beautiful in the mornings before the worst of the day's weather hit, and only a handful of people on the streets. Besides, it wasn't such a long walk.
The market was already a busy place when he got there. Angelina Lo Patto was emptying a bucket of ice into her display window, for the squid and porgies and filets of bluefish, cod, and flounder to rest on. Outside her store were barrels of live crabs and buckets of mussels and clams. Several of the butchers were laying out bright red cuts of meat delivered fresh from the slaughterhouse around the corner, and the poultry men were stacking crates of squawking birds and frantically scrabbling rabbits waiting to be selected for their moment of glory. Mrs. Ly, an elderly Vietnamese woman who was the newest vendor in his block of the market, had just let herself out of her son's station wagon to begin setting up her card table across the street.
Joey was late with the truck. There were no crates to be pried open, no oranges to tumble out onto the dusty gray planks of his rickety stand, no onions to rustle their brown paper skins in the cool morning breeze. He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the cool bricks of the spice store to wait. Across the street, Mrs. Ly's son piled boxes on the sidewalk so that the children with him could unpack their goodies onto the table. There were always groups of children around Mrs. Ly's stand in the mornings. So many, that he had been unable to keep himself from asking her once if they were all hers. How she had laughed. Two were her grandchildren, the rest belonged to the other families who shared the rented house with her. All came to help from time to time, and Richie loved to watch them as they stopped to play, got in each other's way, and occasionally broke some of the merchandise. When that happened, Mrs. Ly would cuff the offender soundly, yelling all the while in short, unintelligible, singsong bursts. Most of the children were very young, but today there was an older girl with them, wearing one of those purple balloon coats that had been the rage a year or so ago. She worked with her back to him, setting out rows of cheap, cut-glass bud vases, her hair swaying back and forth against the violet nylon as she moved. Thot had not
been much older than that when he had first seen her, leaning over a small, magnetic chessboard behind the HQ. She had been so pathetically eager to learn to play the game, so charmingly anxious to improve her English that he had felt compelled to ask her father if he could give her lessons. He had never meant to become more than her teacher.
The girl in the purple coat reminded him of Thot; though she was of bigger build, she had the same delicateness of movement, as though the very air around her was made of crystal that she might shatter with an ungraceful move. Slowly, she turned and fixed on Richie a sad-eyed stare that made his chest ache and sent his cigarette rolling across the sidewalk in a flash of sparks. What was there about that face? It was not Thot's face. Only the child's eyes were Oriental. The rest of her features were very European. And yet...
"Well, are you gonna help or what?" Joey asked, punching Richie gently on the arm.
"Huh? Help what?"
"What the hell do you think I'm talking about?" Joey said disgustedly. "We gotta unload."
Richie looked into Joey's face, which was a younger mirror of his own. Vinnie, Dom, Joey, himself, Pop . . . there was no denying the relationship. All had the same squared-off jaw, that thin upper lip balanced against a much fuller lower one, a straight nose with slightly flared nostrils. Even the kids, Vinnie's four, Dom's three, and his own son, Jason, had that same Augustino face, looking more like sisters and brothers than cousins. He glanced back across the street in time to catch one more look at the girl as she followed the other children into the waiting car. Nose, mouth, chin . . . except for the eyes, she had the same face. His heart lurched. Without a word to his brother, he started across the street.
"Richie!"
He stopped and changed gears, noticing his brother through a haze of fog. It wasn't possible. He had checked it out very carefully. Thot and Mia were both dead.
"Okay, I don't need to work today if you don't," Joey said, tossing a crate of lettuce back on the ground.
"The hell you don't," Richie said, and grabbing the nearest crate, he began to pry open one of the wooden slats. He threw himself into the work, but thoughts of the child nagged at him through the early morning chores. There were few customers on the streets as yet; if he was going to talk to Mrs. Ly, there would be no better time. "Joey, I'm takin' a break," he called back over his shoulder.
"Good morning, Augustino," Mrs. Ly said, pronouncing his name as if it were four separate words.
"That girl," he said, without greeting. "That girl in the purple coat who was helping you unload this morning—who is she?"
"Very pretty, that one, but much too young for you." Mrs. Ly laughed.
"How old is she?" Richie asked, and something about his expression took the smile off of her face. She looked him over carefully, and then as if she too noticed something for the first time, she nodded gravely.
"The child was orphaned very young. We cannot be certain of her true age. None of her relatives have ever claimed her. Her age of record is fifteen. She may be younger, but not much. Some of these mixed-blood children tend to be a little bit bigger."
His temples throbbed and his neck ached, the dragon felt like a lead weight on its thong. Fourteen . . . She could be fourteen. "Tell me whatever you know about her? Or her family? How did you happen to find her . . . ?"
"Slow down, Augustino. This is not the place or time. We will talk later. You come back to my house for lunch. My daughter makes bahn cuon. . . . It is very good," she said.
He nodded. "When?" he asked.
"My daughter-in-law comes to watch the stand at twelve. We can go then," she said and turned to face her first customer of the morning.
The day dragged slowly, with just enough business to keep his mind from wandering completely out of the
present, though he felt much more comfortable with his daydreams. He found it hard to keep the resentment out of his voice when some old lady would interrupt him by paying for her purchases. Joey was little help. Periodically, Richie looked up to see if Mrs. Ly's relief had come yet. What would she be able to tell him? Was there any way that he could know for sure? He touched the dragon through the thin cotton cloth of his T-shirt.
At exactly twelve-thirty Mrs. Ly's daughter-in-law turned onto Ninth Street and the old woman nodded to him from across the street.
Richie followed the old lady through the crowds and stalls of the market until she turned down a tiny row-houselined street. All the while, his mind flooded with the memory of a tiny baby pressed briefly into his arms. For a long time he had hoped and searched, and then he had searched without hope until the word came back that they were dead. Now he could feel the warmth of hope radiate in his chest, right under the dragon; he could almost believe that the carving itself was glowing with its own warmth and sending the heat throughout his body.
They stopped in front of a shabby-looking brick house on Christian Street that would have been too small even for one large family. Mrs. Ly led him up the weatherworn stairs and through the aluminum screen door into a living room crammed with worn furniture and knickknacks. It was a noisy home. Voices came from every room, along with the cry of babies, and the high-pitched giggle and chatter of small children
too young to be out playing on their own. But beneath the clutter of a house stuffed with more people than it was ever designed to hold, he could see that the place was spotlessly clean. Mrs. Ly left him seated on the sofa and went into the kitchen. He heard a long exchange of rapid-fire Vietnamese. It had never really sounded like a language to him, and he wished now that he had taken the trouble to learn it from Thot, as she had learned English from him. Whatever Mrs. Ly had said, a parade of people came out of the kitchen, passed quickly through the living room and up the stairway. One young woman smiled and nodded in Richie's direction, the other two completely ignored him. Mrs. Ly then motioned for Richie to follow her.
They ate first, with only occasional, polite bursts of conversation about business. The food was gone, but the smell of boiling cabbage that hung about the kitchen made it difficult for him to eat. Mrs. Ly finished first and waited patiently while he popped the last bite into his mouth. "Now, Augustino," she said at last, "tell me why you want to know about this child."
He told her what he could about himself and Thot, about the child they had had together, revealing more with his eyes and the tone of his voice about just how lost he had been when he had been forced to return home without them—about the painful readjustment to the life he had left.
She did not interrupt his speech. When he finished she took his hand and said, "Augustino, I am sorry. No one can give you the information you seek. The child herself knows nothing of her past. She was an orphan, a street child, when she was found. Phen Ngo worked for my husband many years ago in Saigon. Her own children were both killed in the war. It was said that single women with children were given preference in leaving the country, so she and the child adopted each other. This way it worked out better for both of them.
"As for the child's name, she has used many. She was content to take the name of Phen Ngo's oldest girl. And while it does seem likely that her father was an American soldier, there were so many soldiers there fifteen years ago, so many mixed-blood children left behind . . . This resemblance you see, it could be coincidence. You will never be more sure than you are at this moment. Is this enough for you? You must think about this thing carefully. Remember, it has been fourteen years."
Richie flipped a finger under the thong around his neck and tugged out the dragon. It felt warm and alive in his hand. "Thot gave me this," he said. "The child has one also."
Mrs. Ly studied the carving. "Lynn has such a thing,"
she said slowly, "but even that means very little. Such carvings are not uncommon in my country. Many have them."
"I think I might be her father," he said at last.
"You must not think. You must be certain in your heart. More than that, you must make a decision as to what you will do about it. The child is not unhappy here. This is a better life than the one she knew before. If you decide that she is your child, will you take her away? It will be very hard for her. She does not speak your language, she does not know your ways.
"And your family, Augustino. Will they be as eager to welcome this child that may or may not be yours?" She stared at him for a long time. "We will go back to work now. You must talk with your wife. You must talk with your brothers and your parents. When you are sure, then you can come back . . . if you still want to."
All the way home that night, Richie tried to think up ways of telling Carol. There didn't seem to be any way to avoid hurting her, but she was so damned maternal that—once she got over the shock—she would have no problem accepting the girl. Then, when he had Carol on his side, they could stand together against anything his family had to offer.
He was nervous when he entered the house, anxious to tell her and have done with it, but she was busy helping Jason with his day-camp project. Then Marge Braunstein called and Carol settled in for a nice long chat. He didn't get her alone until she was seated at the vanity getting ready to put on her evening's makeup. "Carol, I have something very important to talk to you about," he said.
"Go ahead," she said, brushing a thin dark line above the lashes on her upper eyelid.
"It's about when I was in 'Nam," he said, "and it's kind of hard for me to talk about. I know I never told you much about what went on over there, or why I stopped writing to you. It was very good of you, sweetheart, not to push me about things until I was ready, but now there's a reason why you have to know. So, please, be patient with me for a few minutes. You see, there was this girl—"
"Oh, spare me, Richie. True confessions . . . just what I need," she said angrily, blinking back a tear. "Did it ever occur to you to wonder why I never asked you about all this? Did you really think it was my overwhelming patience, or maybe that I just didn't care? I never thought that you were celibate the whole two years that you didn't write. I didn't ask because I didn't want to know about `this girl.' As long as you didn't say anything, I could convince myself that it wasn't anything serious, that it was only because I wasn't around. Then it wasn't so bad. But now . . . now you're going to tell me that you were ready to throw me over for one of them, aren't you? Tonight; when I have to go over to your brother's house and play sweet adoring wife for your whole family." She slammed her hairbrush down on the vanity and stood up, her face tight and red-streaked with tears.
"You know, it wouldn't have been so bad back when we were kids and I had all those romantic notions of what they were like, but now . . . Now that I see them every day, sitting out in front of their foul-smelling apartments with their tight little monkey asses, gabbing together like a flock of turkeys, grabbing free this and free that off the government, while decent people have to work their asses off to get anything." She stood over him breathing heavily for a moment, then turned and walked out of the room.
He stared after her, shaking with rage. How dare she betray him like this. For the first time since they had been married, he wanted to hit her. But in a moment the feeling left him and he found himself strangely empty and lost. There was nothing left to do. This woman would never accept the child. He reached for his dragon and felt its warmth burning there beneath his cotton shirt, but this time it gave him no comfort. What good was it? It was a part of his past, like Thot, like the girl . . . like the woman he had thought he was married to. He would have to put it all behind him and get on with his life. He reached for the dragon and tugged it off, rubbing the back of his neck raw on the thong before it finally parted. He slipped the tiny carving from the leather string and stared at it in his palm.
It, too, had betrayed him. He took a deep breath and threw the dragon across the room.
"Darling," Carol whispered. He turned to see her standing in the doorway, looking much more controlled. "I'm sorry, honey. I know you didn't tell me just to hurt me. I know you're not that kind of person. There had to be a reason. Whatever it is, I want to help. Has she turned up in Philly? Is that it? Is she trying to hurt you, now, after all these years? Whatever it is, I'll stand by you," she said. She walked toward him with her hand outstretched to soothe him, but he couldn't bear to let her touch him. Not just yet. He brushed past her.
"I'll meet you at Dom's," he said.
Even a walk through his beloved South Philly streets didn't seem to be much help. The problem, as it unfolded in his mind, seemed to be an endless maze from which there was no exit. His parents would be worse than Carol. What a fuss they had made when Dom had started dating that Jewish girl.
He sat on an empty step for a while to watch a group of girls playing rope, until tears came to his eyes, then forced himself to move on. Guilt and worry were a terrible load on his mind. He began to feel as if he were being followed. Stalked, rather, like a deer during hunting season. But a look over his shoulder told him what he already knew—there was nobody there.
Dom's house was alive and crackling with the casual tension that overlaid most family gatherings. Poppa, the undisputed king of the castle, being thoroughly patronized by his sons. The women always found some excuse to go off together, leaving Mama in the kitchen by herself. Only Richie stood
aloof, watching it all with mixed emotions. The children took their turns going to grandpa for their little tokens of affection—he would like to see Mia as part of that group. And yet, seeing how ill the old man was, how much he had aged in the last few weeks, Richie wondered if he had the right to disturb the old man's peace.
Carol went to bed as soon as they got home, but he couldn't bring himself to get that close to her. He stayed
downstairs, awake most of the night, trying to concentrate on a movie. He awoke in the morning to find himself crumpled into the unopened recliner. Everything ached. The cut on his neck burned unbearably and the long-healed injury of his leg throbbed almost as badly as it had when the bone was broken. He could hear no signs of movement from upstairs, though his watch told him that it was an hour past their usual wake-up time. How could they sleep so long in this muggy and stifling heat? Summer seemed to have crept up on them during the night. He rubbed his gritty eyeballs and went about the painful business of disentangling himself from the chair.
The world wobbled. Noise; the nerve-wrenching noise of grinding metal and rock, human voices shrieking, shouting, glass shattering, desks, typewriters, chairs being flung against the walls. Heat, and the bitter smell of burning wood and flesh. Reaching out for something, anything solid, and his leg, almost with a will of its own, twisting in the opposite direction. A dull thump; an incredible burst of pain that momentarily took his vision, his arms working, vainly trying to pull himself out. Dust closed his eyes and choked his nose and throat. The endless hours that seemed like years waiting for anything, even death to free him from the pain.
His leg ached so badly that he almost didn't make it up the stairs, and his hands shook as he fumbled with the shower knobs. He'd read enough to know about flashbacks without ever having one before—but it had been so real that he had trouble placing himself in the present. His dragon, his only comfort during the long time waiting for rescue and the months in the hospital that followed, was gone. He couldn't remember what he'd done with it. He sank down until he was seated in the tub and let the stinging water wash away his tears.