by Tricia Dower
Between Lionel’s visits, Matsi replayed his breathy voice in her head. She wished he’d never won her. The things he said – like, just because he was older didn’t mean they couldn’t love each other – made her loneliness worse. Her parents had said, “Love you” every morning before she went to school and every evening when they tucked her in. “Love you, too,” she always sang back. She no longer remembered her room.
“Pop never hugged me,” Lionel said one night, pulling Matsi onto his lap. His penis rose like a cobra between her legs. “If I went to hug him, he’d say ‘quit acting like a girl.’ He didn’t respect my rights, either. When I was ten he gave my bike away because I forgot to hang up my clothes one day. Can you believe that? I mean, I was only ten.”
Matsi squeezed the cobra with her thighs. Was this acting like a girl? Lionel touched her shoulders and back in little tickles she didn’t mind.
“He didn’t have my permission to give that bike away. Ma always made excuses for him – he’d had a bad day at work, he didn’t feel good, us kids were too noisy. She knew that wasn’t true. She was lying. I hate liars.”
Matsi’s throat went hard as a marble. Having a secret was no good if you could never share it with someone. Especially if he found out before you told him and thought you were a liar. She wanted to speak so badly she almost threw up.
“Sometimes when I can’t get you right away, I sit on another man’s chair after he goes off with a gal. I like the warmth he left behind. I mean if there’s something wrong with me, same thing’s wrong with him, right?”
Matsi didn’t know what to do about the marble in her throat. And the tears that dripped from her face onto Lionel’s leg.
“Hey, hey,” he said, turning her around to face him. “Not hurting you, am I? I never want to hurt you.” He wiped her tears with his thumb.
She knew Lionel loved her. It was her stubborn voice that needed persuading.
“If I could, I’d take you home with me.”
Why couldn’t he?
Daddy sent her away with friends of friends who turned up at the camp where you huddled in tents when you weren’t collecting bodies. From Vancouver, too, they were, the Wongs. Quite the co-inky-dink. They gave her a gift with their claw-like hands, a miniature elephant carved from teak. They called it Packy Durm.
Matsi. Such a distinctive name, Mrs. Wong said in a voice that came out of her nose. After Ma-tsu, Daddy explained, the Goddess of the Sea. Also called the Empress of Heaven, Mr. Wong said, trying to wear the smarter pants. Astride the bribing Packy Durm, Matsi rode into the conversation: When Ma-tsu was born she didn’t cry and neither did I. Her very first name was Silent Girl. How brave she was, said Mr. Wong. Precocious, too, no doubt. Matsi wanted to stay and play detective, find Mummy in a lagoon, but seven-year-olds don’t get to vote. Daddy wrote to Whom It May that it was okay if the Wongs took her home to her aunt who would hug her, feed her, and walk her to school, like a puppy from the pound. It’s safer there, Daddy said. Only sickness and sorrow here, only corpses burning on wooden pyres.
“Aver so often a charmer get friendly wit a boy, tink he help her leave afore she paid up,” Maw-Maw said one night before the evening’s first contest. She was brushing Matsi’s hair, checking it for bugs that looked like sesame seeds when they fell to the floor.
When Matsi remembered not to twist her hair into knots as she slept, Maw-Maw rewarded her with tender strokes of the brush that entered her brain and hypnotized her.
“Case you tinkin dat way, let me tell you de police just gonna bring you back. Police and me take care a each other.”
Matsi sat on a stool, her head and back cushioned by Maw-Maw’s chest.
Maw-Maw tugged at Matsi’s ear. “You know what I sayin. T-Henry seen dat boy talkin at you, de one wit a head as swivelly as a owl’s. Seen him teachin you games. Seen you understandin.”
Matsi closed her eyes as Maw-Maw caught her hair in both hands and cinched it with a rubber band. The briefest of memories skipped through her heart: her head in her mother’s lap, Mummy stroking her hair and the side of her face.
“Never seen dat afore, me. A boy wantin the same twat aver time. Nuttin wrong wit dat. Good f’business, actually. He bid averbody else up, him. How much he gonna pay f’go-go, I wonder. You ready f’dat? Afore I pin you up, get down on de floor.”
Maw-Maw lifted her off the stool and placed her on her back; bent her knees open like a frog’s. She’d lain like that when Maw-Maw bought her, before the price was set.
“May be dipped in de bayou, me, but I know my business. When you make de boys wait f’go-go, dey wet demselves tinkin bout it. Bring all de cash dey got, happy to give it to me.”
She stuck her finger in Matsi’s hole and wiggled it around. Monkeys scooted across Matsi’s mind, looking for places to pee.
Maw-Maw grunted, pulled her finger out. “Still too small. Could bleed to det. Not trowin you way like dat. I take care a my dahlins. When you ready, gonna be de best contest ever. Li’l Lotus Lady: de rabbit in a pack a foxes. Get dubba my money back.”
Matsi heard nothing after bleed to death. She stumbled as she danced for the men that night. Stared at the older girls who did go-go. For the first time she wanted to speak to them, ask them what it was like. Wanted to kick them for not knowing English. Pound them with her fists for knowing something more important. Maw-Maw could decide any day that Matsi was ready for go-go. She had to convince her voice to trust Lionel.
A bus chug-chugged them away from camp, past shredded houses, shrouded mounds of bodies. Then one plane flew them to Hong Kong where the Wongs tried to pretend the next plane would go to Vancouver. Didn’t they know she could read?
Mr. Wong said: Don’t spoil the surprise from your father, your auntie, and us. Trust me, you’ll love it, that’s all I will say, the department of questions is closed.
A surprise to ponder while riding on clouds, earning junior pilot wings.
You’re going to Disneyland, Mrs. Wong said, as the plane dropped onto LA which means Left Alone, Liars All. Auntie’s meeting you here, will take you there in a big white van, let’s hurry and find it, shall we?
Disneyland! Matsi ran with the Wongs but they found the wrong van and left her alone to flail at two men who tied her with rope and taped her mouth shut.
It was dark outside when the van parked beside a lonely house in a field of scorched grass. They carried her in like a bag of rice, flung her onto a mattress, and cut her loose to face the stares of a dozen girls from under the sea or maybe Pluto, so weird the language they spoke.
Matsi and her voice were ready for Lionel’s next visit. Only a few men sat in the room, elbows on knees, talking to each other, paying little attention to her dancing. Lionel won her easily. He seemed anxious, said, “Hurry up,” as she stooped for her kimono.
“Florida’s evacuating,” he said when they got to their room. He unzipped his pants. “Why aren’t we? Nobody’s telling us what to do. The governor says we should pray. That the best she can come up with?” His bushy eyebrows rose up and down like inchworms.
When he didn’t pick up his clothes, Matsi lifted them off the floor one at a time and folded them into tight squares. Waited for him to notice.
“Some people say it’s no big deal, we’ve had a couple worse ones already this year. But I know we’re overdue for a reckoning. God is not happy with us.”
His penis drooped like a used-up balloon.
“They say it won’t be as bad as the big flood when I was a kid. All I remember are coffins floating down the street, giving me nightmares.”
When it rained day after day in Vancouver, some people’s garages flooded. Matsi had seen it on TV. She stroked Lionel’s penis but it stayed soft. He pushed her hand away.
“Sorry, gal. Can’t get my mind off the storm. Don’t know why I’m here. Thinking of callin
g Ma. See if she needs help. Ever tell you I drive a school bus? I could get her whole neighborhood out of here on that bus. She’d like me then.”
Matsi wouldn’t take up much room on the bus, could share a seat with someone small. She yanked Lionel’s arm until he looked down.
“What, sweetheart?”
She crooked her finger. He crouched in front of her, smiled.
She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Can you keep a secret?” Her voice sounded as if it had come through fog.
He sat down hard on the floor. “What the heck?”
“Shh,” she said, pointing toward the door. “T-Henry.”
“I feel really stupid,” he said, softly. “They speak English in Thailand?”
“I’m from Canada.”
He slowly shook his head. “How did you get here?”
Matsi spoke into his ear about the Wongs.
“Jesus.” He pressed the sides of his head. “Means the cops are looking for you.”
“I don’t want the cops to find me. They’ll get me in trouble with Maw-Maw. Can you call Daddy? I know the number.”
Lionel grabbed his bundle of clothes and stood. “You’re a real comedian. Can you imagine what he’d do to me if I told him I know where to find you?”
“Don’t say your name.”
He stepped into his shorts and jeans. “He’d trace my call, have me arrested.”
“I’ll tell him not to.”
“You must’ve been laughing inside all this time, letting me jabber on, pretending you didn’t understand.” He finished dressing.
Matsi could see Lionel in his yellow bus, bouncing along with the bumps on the road, steering with one hand while turning on the wipers. “If you don’t help me, nobody will,” she said so quietly he might not have heard. The marble was back in her throat.
“It’s like you were eavesdropping. I’m deeply disappointed.” He turned away without kissing her hand, without promising to come back. She wanted to rip her voice out of her throat for saying all the wrong things.
When she returned to the contest room, T-Henry and Maw-Maw stood side by side. They looked but didn’t say anything, didn’t hit her for causing Lionel to leave before his time was up. There were no more contests that night. No more men arrived.
“Doan worry bout de turnout,” Maw-Maw said later when she put the girls to bed. “No fines tonight. T-Henry gone to town, tellin all de boys bout our Hurricane Special. Next time you wake up, de place be chock a block with boys waitin f’you.” Matsi curled into herself, thumb in her mouth. How long did it take to grow up and be able to punish people for hurting you, for making you want to die? If she were the real Empress, she’d hurl lightning at Lionel, banish him to the moon.
They laughed when she asked, Where’s my suitcase, my backpack? You’re an actress, they said, in the game, now, no need for clothes. Smile for the camera, be sexy. See the others? See how they smile? One man cocked a gun and she smiled. The gun didn’t get in the picture.
Look at you, a movie star, they said, making her run, jump, hopscotch on one foot. She shook with shame. It was wrong to be naked with strangers. They took pictures of men touching her, men clutching her, men sticking their fingers wherever they liked. Men rude as temple monkeys wanting only bananas, making you scream, Mummy shouting: Throw them the bunch.
Lionel had set everything off kilter. Maw-Maw woke the girls earlier the next day. Matsi was sure of it because her stomach wasn’t yet rumbling. Maw-Maw hurried them through their baths, didn’t fix their hair, didn’t get them into their costumes, and didn’t line them up behind the door. She brought them out naked and timid into the contest room where eleven men stood around a radio one man held. Matsi tried not to look for Lionel.
“How all y’all doin?” Maw-Maw said.
“Storm’s coming,” someone said. “Get on with it.”
“Yeah,” said another, making his knuckles go snap.
“Okay, okay,” Maw-Maw said. “Sit youself down, settle in real good. You face be red tomorra when dis bit o rain blow clear over de Guff.”
No one sat. The air felt crackly, dangerous.
“You lucky tonight. F’one low price, averbody can have go-go wit all but two a de dahlin. May have to wait you turn, but nobody lonely tonight.”
“How much?” one man asked, taking a seat.
“Hold you water. I gettin to dat. F’you boys wantin sometin to member dis li’l bitty rain, Maw-Maw got two contest tonight, each a one f’two dahlin never done go-go afore. Boat a dem tight as Chinee finger puzzle. You aver seen one of dem puzzle?” Maw-Maw put the tips of her middle fingers together and pretended to struggle to pull them apart. The men laughed, ugly laughs that made Matsi shiver.
Maw-Maw turned to her. “First on the menu: Li’l Lotus Lady. So tiny, a mosquito could carry her away. Well, maybe a big mosquito. Plenty a dem around.” The men laughed again. A few clapped. Matsi hugged herself, ashamed of her nakedness for the first time in a long while. When the bidding started, she tuned out the noise. Heard only her own short breaths.
You’re better than drugs, said the man with the gun. Can be sold more than once if you keep yourself pretty. Stop licking your lips, making that ring round your rosy mouth.
They sold her to new men who sold her to new men who sold her to house after house, each one farther away from LA, each one guarded by guns and slobbering dogs. You had to feel sorry for the dogs in that heat. Each house was the same until Maw-Maw’s, the same boring movie star stuff. After a while you want more to do, when there’s nothing to read, no one giving you homework. Maw-Maw’s was like skipping a grade, running to catch up on lessons you’d missed, especially the ones about go-go.
The man who won her had rat-like eyes, sharp little teeth, and three tiny jewels in the lobe of one ear. She stood straight as a pole when he dropped his pants. Still as a stone when he circled her waist with his clammy hands and lifted her up as if they were doing Swan Lake. He lifted her high and sat on the chair, spread her legs with his knees and speared her. She was somewhere else at the time, afloat by the door, which as it turned out, was a much better place to watch that poodoo ballet. Not much to see, the swan only screaming, staining the dance floor with drops of red rain.
T-Henry wrapped her in a sheet and carried her to the sleeping room where Maw-Maw waited. “Go back f’Rosie,” she said, taking Matsi from him. “Gonna be awrite, Cherie,” she said, easing Matsi onto a cot, kissing her forehead. She patted a warm, wet cloth between Matsi’s legs where pain rose and fell like an ocean wave. Matsi couldn’t stop her jaw from shaking. “Hush, Cherie,” Maw-Maw said. “Hush, dahlin.” Maw-Maw diapered her with a thick towel. Lifted and rocked her in her arms.
T-Henry came back with the girl Maw-Maw called Mexicali Rosie. Laid her on the cot next to Matsi. Blood streaked the girl’s legs. Rosie cried like a little lamb. Maw-Maw lowered Matsi back onto the cot to tend to Rosie. She went back and forth between them – giving them sips of water, changing their diapers – for what felt like hours before the other girls came in. They stood silent around Rosie and Matsi until Maw-Maw said, “Time to make do-do.” Said it softly, sadly. The girls went to their cots.
T-Henry’s voice floated in from the doorway. “Ready, Ma?”
Maw-Maw slowly walked away, doused the light, and locked the door.
Matsi rode her pain for hours, aware only of the occasional vibration of heavy trucks on the street, loudspeakers calling out words she couldn’t decipher. Rosie cried off and on. “Hush, Cherie,” Matsi would say, stretching her hand out to touch the girl’s cot. She slept for a while, waking to the smack of wind and rain against the room’s boarded up windows. She ached for food, almost frantic to hear the click of Maw-Maw’s key. Hunger became nausea as the pain returned.
Rain pounded the roof and the walls. It shook the hou
se. Close by, the sound of splashing water. The others must have heard it, too. They were talking excitedly, feeling their way around in the dark.
A loud snap made one of the girls yelp. Matsi pushed herself onto her elbows and strained to see. A chunk of the roof had fallen through the ceiling and onto some cots. Water streamed in, filling the room faster than Matsi thought possible, lifting her cot off the floor, turning it into a raft that soon overturned. She tried to doggy paddle but the diaper dragged her down. She pulled it off and winced as cold water stung her wounded place. She bumped into Rosie who lay on the rising water like a fallen leaf. Rosie looked dead.
Matsi screamed and two older girls swam to her side. One hooked an arm around Rosie’s neck and pulled her toward the ceiling. The other took Matsi’s hand and did the same, making Matsi ashamed. They were braver than she. Stronger, too. They hoisted themselves onto the roof, pulling Matsi and Rosie behind them.
Matsi clung to shingles as the rain beat her back and her legs and glued her hair to her head. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been outside. The wind sounded like a plane lifting off a runway, perhaps a plane to Vancouver. One by one the brown girls flopped onto the roof and Matsi lay with them like sisters, their bodies a chain, hand locked into hand, those on either side of Rosie gripping her wrists.
As the wind and rain subsided, Matsi raised her head to a world like nothing she’d ever seen. Houses were drowning. Only rooftops poked out as far as she could see, people-shapes sitting or standing on them. The sole lights were tiny ones like fireflies blinking on and off from those rooftops. She heard a yell here, another there. A helicopter flew overhead and one of the girls called out to it. The pilot must not have heard. Her back began itching, then her arms and her legs. The shingles in front of her seemed to move. The brown girls screamed. The roof was thick with bugs – spiders and roaches in search of higher ground. Someone swatted herself, letting go of Rosie who slipped off the roof. They all wailed then, making so much noise they didn’t hear the boat. Who knows how long it took them to hear Maw-Maw and T-Henry shouting?