Lucky Ticket

by Joey Bui

  While Comma was in the outdoor kitchen behind the house, washing off her make-up, she heard Slip putting a pot on the stove. When she came back inside, he had finished brewing tea and was bringing it over on a tray with two cups.

  He placed the tray in the middle the bedspread and sat down on the edge of the bed. Comma sat on the other side. She glanced at him as she took her cup. Were they now going to talk about what happened on a wedding night?

  ‘Are you cold?’ Slip asked her.

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ Comma replied.

  ‘We were afraid that the thatching of the walls was not tight enough,’ said Slip.

  ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ said Comma. ‘Besides, even if there are gaps in the walls, it’s nice to have a breeze coming in at night. As long as the roof doesn’t leak.’

  ‘Yes, the roof is well-layered. It won’t leak,’ said Slip.

  They sipped on their tea. Comma recognised the floral fragrance, but could not put her finger on the name of the flower.

  ‘Are you tired?’ asked Slip.

  ‘Yes, a bit,’ she said. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ he said. He took a few more sips of tea. ‘Did you have a good day?’

  ‘I did. Did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Slip. His voice trailed with an unfinished thought. Comma waited patiently for him to continue. ‘Shall we go to sleep?’

  Comma froze, wondering if he meant what she thought he could mean, and what would come next.

  ‘We can talk more tomorrow morning,’ he said.

  He put the tea tray away, came back to the bedroom, lifted the blanket and lay down. Comma remained seated, imagining all the different ways in which he might start touching her, feeling unprepared for each of them. But when she eventually turned around to look at him, his eyes were closed.

  In the moonlight filtering through the little room, Comma stared at her husband. He really was very handsome. She thought of all the women who would want to gaze at him as she was now: the mysterious woman who did not kill her after all, for example. Yet in his sleep, Slip’s beauty seemed something private. Was his strong jaw clenched? And were his wide lips, firmly closed, shutting her out? Comma wondered. She kept looking at him, waiting. Surely he was not already asleep. After all, it was their wedding night. But he did not move and eventually she lifted the blanket and lay down. Although the bed was small, there was a surprising amount of space between them, enough for the blanket to lie flat.

  Still Comma waited. She was too tense and bewildered to sleep. She hoped he would reach for her at some point, but after what felt like hours, she noticed that his breathing was louder and more rhythmic. He really was asleep. She closed her eyes. Even were it not for Slip’s behaviour, it would have been hard for Comma to sleep. All the sounds of the night were different. They were closer to the river here and she could hear the water lapping against the bank. The cicadas sung at a different pitch and rhythm. She thought she could hear the Nguyễns’ buffaloes snoring in the field. There were rustles and whistles she did not recognise. Comma spent the first night of her marriage sleepless.

  Slip told her that it was quail season. His plan was to fashion nets to trap and hunt the birds at night. The hunting field was about an hour’s bike ride from their home. Slip had discovered it on one of his exploratory rides, something she had never heard of before. Her younger brothers liked to roam the countryside, but they had never been allowed to go far, and the older boys she knew didn’t have time for aimless wandering. Slip explained his plans for the day to her, but Comma did not feel she could question him further. Neither did he ask what she planned to do with her day.

  Comma prepared breakfast and lunch, cleaned their house, and then walked over to help Slip’s mother with her chores and the preparations for the dinner they were to all eat together at the Nguyễn house. Slip’s mother was extraordinarily kind, given how often mothers-in-law enslaved their sons’ brides. She was also more independent and capable than Comma’s own mother; her house was already in order. She did not need Comma to do much. So when Slip brought up the quail-hunting, Comma offered to sell the birds at the land market, especially as they did not have an extra boat for her to go to the floating market.

  After spending the day building nets and hooks, Slip collected baskets from his family’s house and left to hunt after dinner. Comma watched him ride off until she could no longer make out his silhouette. She couldn’t help thinking that Slip had chosen to go out at night to avoid her. He had not raised the subject of sex and still had not touched her. And now it was the second night of their marriage and he was not even in the house. To comfort herself, she brewed the floral tea before bed. Because she had barely slept the night before, she only had to listen to the strange cicadas for a moment before she fell asleep.

  When Comma woke the next morning, Slip was beside her in the bed. She did not know when he had returned. Wild flapping sounds came from outside. When she went outside, she found about thirty quail in a bamboo pen that Slip must have built yesterday as well. She felt a flush of pride, which immediately turned to embarrassment, as she realised that he was perhaps not truly her husband yet.

  She went to make their coffee and breakfast. The sounds of the cooking woke Slip, who appeared in their outside kitchen.

  ‘That’s an incredible lot of quail!’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t it!’ It was a kind smile, a real smile. Or was he just being polite, she wondered.

  ‘They look so lively, they must have the run of the field out there,’ she said, knowing that the more chicken and quail ran, the tastier their meat was.

  ‘They’ll be delicious. We’ll save one to bring over to my mother’s for dinner,’ said Slip. ‘Are you sure you can sell these at the land market? Do you need help?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be fine. I used to sell at the markets every day with my sister,’ said Comma.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, with a hint of apology. ‘If you need anything, I can help you.’

  She could sense his polite manner taking over.

  ‘I’ll be fine. You should get some rest. Were you out there all night?’ said Comma.

  ‘Yes, I think I will rest. It was almost dawn when I returned,’ said Slip.

  So they went their separate ways. Comma was glad to have something to do. There were too many quail to bike over herself, so she borrowed a large wooden cart from the Nguyễn property. She secured the quail tightly in two baskets and wheeled the squawking, flapping lot over to the land market, which was much closer to the Nguyễns’ than to her family’s house. Now that she was a married woman, Comma arrived at the market with her hair in a bun instead of braids.

  The quail were a success and sold out quickly. No one else at the market had quails as large and energetic as Comma’s. Shoppers also stopped by her stall to congratulate her on the marriage. That night, as Comma and Slip’s quails were cooked in thirty-odd homes in Cai Lậy, the tastiness of the meat assured the province that the marriage must be a very blessed one.

  For the next four weeks, Comma and Slip busied themselves with quail. He was gone every night after dinner, she went to sleep alone, he came back before dawn, and as he slept during the day, she went out and sold all the quail at the market. He had found a way to attach larger baskets to the back of his bike to transport more quail home. ‘There are as many quail out there as I want,’ he said. They were making a great profit, but the work was not enough to distract Comma from her worries.

  She could not tell anyone that she and Slip had still not had sex. She could not speak about it with someone from his family, and she would not be able to visit her own family for at least another month. It was a bad sign for a bride to come back to her mother’s house too early; it was seen as disrespectful to the groom’s family. She wasn’t sure, anyway, that she could really discuss this with Apostrophe, and Comma could not broach the subject with her mother, who would only be made uncomfortable.

  Although Comma did not engage in gossi
p, she knew at least that it was uncommon for a new couple not to have sex. From what she gathered, grooms could not keep their hands off their new brides. What cruel coincidence was it that she, the introverted and cool-headed girl, had found herself married to a strangely dispassionate boy? He was, she was discovering, different from most people she knew. It was forgivable for a male not to be lanh, but most men in Cai Lậy were even louder than that, more impulsive. She did not want a brash husband, but she had not imagined a marriage like this. Until now, she had been proud of living without the wild Mekong passion—it made her a good daughter and gave her a steady hand in running the household. Comma had always been ready for anything, and weathered everything. But could she really live without passion for the rest of her life?

  And then the threats turned up again. Several times she found voodoo dolls in her pockets, needles stuck in the vagina. Other times she found notes with locks of hair, or in a pool of spit, or amongst fingernails. They were more frequent now. Was the sender desperate, she asked herself, or was it for fun? She found them all while Slip was away. And he was so often away. She passed on three of the notes to Apostrophe at the land market, and received translations back the next day.

  I WILL SLASH UP YOUR VAGINA.

  HE WILL LEAVE YOU, YOU UGLY HAG.

  HE WILL NEVER LOVE YOU.

  Comma was no longer frightened by these threats. The mystery woman had not done anything, despite her promise to kill Comma before the wedding. But the threats irritated her. They seemed to mock her. Did the woman know that she and Slip still had not consummated their marriage? The woman obviously hung about the house, after all—she placed the notes in the clothes Comma left to dry in the backyard. Did she know, as Comma knew, that Slip did not love Comma? Did the mystery woman know—it panicked Comma even to say it in her head—that Comma did not love Slip, and was not sure that she was even capable of it? The threats were proof of an intensity of feeling somewhere out there, the very thing that was lacking between the newlywed couple.

  One night Comma stayed up until Slip came home, around dawn. She dared to watch as he undressed with his back to her, gazing at the broad shoulders admired by so many women in Cai Lậy, and at his muscles rippling in the faint light. She shifted in the bed as he approached, to let him know she was awake.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ he whispered.

  ‘No, I was already awake.’

  ‘Well, sorry. Go back to sleep,’ he said, crawling under the blanket gingerly.

  Comma turned on her side so that she could still see him. His eyes were closed. Resolutely, she thought. What was wrong? She wished she could ask him. Maybe it was up to her to reach out for him. But clearly he did not want her to. In the shut eyes and perfectly still form—when he really could not be asleep yet!—it was obvious he did not want anything to happen between them. But she was desperate for some kind of answer.

  ‘I want to go with you next time,’ said Comma.

  His eyes fluttered open. ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Quail-hunting with you,’ she said.

  ‘You do?’ he said slowly. Lying on his back, he looked up at the ceiling.

  ‘I can be helpful,’ said Comma. ‘And I want to see what it’s like.’

  ‘It won’t be easy for you,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mind. I can keep up,’ said Comma.

  ‘It takes most of the night,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  He was silent for a while longer. ‘If you’re sure,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Eventually his eyes closed again, and then fluttered open, as though he was bracing for more queries from her. Comma turned away, onto her back. Her heart was racing, and she hoped he couldn’t tell. She wondered if the mystery woman or the greedy spirits of the Mekong were nearby that night, and whether they had heard Comma begin to fight for Slip.

  Comma and Slip were to set out quail-hunting the next night. After she came home from the land market, with all quail sold out as expected, she imagined he might suggest she was tired from the work and should stay home. But he didn’t, and she was glad. There were other ways he could stymie their plan—by mentioning it to his parents at dinner, for example. The Nguyễn parents would have objected to the idea and Comma would have been obliged to obey them. But he didn’t bring it up. Perhaps he hoped she had forgotten?

  After they had walked home from dinner, Comma went outside to bring the laundry in. She no longer left it out to dry at night, tired of having to check her pockets for voodoo dolls and needles. Folding clothes inside the house, she was again surprised by how strongly Slip’s scent stayed in his shirts, so much stronger than how he smelt in person. She heard him fiddling in the kitchen, then the whistle of boiling water. He brought in two cups, the steel Vietnamese phin coffee filter on top of each cup.

  ‘You better have some coffee, then,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He sat down next to her. They said nothing as the coffee dripped smoothly and she finished folding. He got up and put away the piles of clothes and the pegs.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked when he was done.

  ‘Ready.’

  Outside, as he fastened his basket to his bike, she started to do the same with hers.

  ‘You don’t need to bring another basket—mine is big enough,’ said Slip.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘It’s a really long ride out there and tough to carry the quail home,’ he said.

  ‘We can take more this way,’ she replied.

  He stopped moving, about to object further, but instead he watched her finish knotting the rope. He had not seen her handiwork before, as he usually took his nap while she got her cart ready for the market. In truth, Comma was apprehensive about the night. She had never ridden that far or been to wild places, and never even stayed up all night. But the rope was something she knew how to do well and she didn’t want to show any hesitation. When she had finished the knots, she looked at him and he nodded.

  Slip mounted his bike and led them to the main path by the River Ba Rại. As she followed him, Comma decided that she liked riding at night. It felt faster than usual, and she was excited by the shadows of the trees and the large tropical leaves looming towards her as she sped along. Soon they were out of the town and travelling down open dirt roads. They rode on for miles.

  The wind slapped at Comma. Every now and then her fingers grew stiff around the bike handles and she had to wriggle them back to life. Slip looked back at her frequently. The rapid twist of his head, and the flash of his face, made him look bewildered, as if he was trying to believe she was really there. Comma resolved to keep up with him, but her legs were not used to the exercise and her calves were cramping painfully.

  They left the river and the wide road and turned down a narrow, raised dirt path into a rice paddy. After the rice paddy came wild grass, a pond, and then Slip stopped. The moment Comma dismounted, her legs cramped so much that she wanted to fall to her knees. But she disguised it from Slip, and only massaged her legs when he wasn’t looking.

  Slip reached into his basket and took out several rings of bamboo that he looped around his neck, like giant necklaces, along with a handful of small nets that he looped around his elbows. The strands of the nets were fine and white; Comma could barely see them in the darkness.

  ‘Traps for the birds,’ he explained.

  She nodded awkwardly, feeling exposed out there in the middle of the night on strange land. The ride had been much further than she had expected. But the moon was out and Comma imagined that there was no other place in the world where a person could see so many stars.

  She followed Slip as he walked among the tall grass. He squatted down, flexed the bamboo into an arc and inserted it into the dirt. Then he pried a net from the other tangled nets, and tugged it down both sides of the bamboo arc, as if he was putting a shirt on a toddler. After he had laid down four nets, Comma spoke up.

  ‘Let me try—I think I know how it
works,’ she said.

  He handed her half of the remaining bamboo and nets. He stood by to watch her lay her first trap. Once she was finished, he squatted next to her and shook the bamboo, testing its strength. He nodded approvingly.

  ‘Good. Make sure the net reaches all the way down, so that it doesn’t spring up,’ he said.

  Comma found the work soothing. After the first fifteen traps, Slip took longer bamboo strips out of the basket and they laid down the larger nets.

  Then he walked her back to the raised dirt road, where they could observe the traps. He sat down and rested his wrists on his knees, looking satisfied. Comma sat beside him, flexing her legs out carefully and wincing.

  ‘Now we wait,’ he said.

  Comma grew tenser with every passing minute. Her ears strained for the approach of the quails. But none came. Slip had brought home so many, there must be a squall of them, but where were they? Her head swam with the possibilities of what could happen between her and Slip. Why had she insisted on coming tonight, anyway? What was it that she planned to do out here that would be different from what had been happening at home? Even if there were quail, Comma could not bear the thought of merely catching quail and biking all the way back, only for each of them to climb into bed with the blanket flat between them. Not without an explanation—or something.

  Several times, over the long hours, she almost spoke. Finally, when she was about to burst out with questions, Slip held up his hand.

  ‘A quail is coming,’ he whispered breathlessly.

  He pointed to the left of the field: a patch of grass blades was moving and then a round, brown quail emerged. Comma screamed in excitement, her hand clutching Slip’s sleeve as they watched the quail run straight into one of their traps: a little soccer ball in the darkness. As the quail struggled, making a ruckus, the net tangled until the bird was stuck.