Moon Bear

by Gill Lewis

  Ma grabbed me by my shirt. She held the oil lamp up to my face. “Tam! Where have you been?” She glared at Noy, taking in his muddied clothes and the hunting knife strapped around his waist. She knew us too well. “Bear hunting is not a game for boys.”

  Pa pushed a bamboo cage into my hands. “There’s no time for talk. Cage the chickens before they scatter to the forest. The piglets, too.” He turned to Noy. “Get home, Noy. Your brother is looking for you.”

  The rumble of trucks was louder now. They were in the valley below. I could see them, a snake of headlights through the trees. The throb of their engines pulsed through the ground beneath my feet.

  Ma woke my younger sisters. Sulee wiped the sleep from her eyes. Mae started crying, and clung to Ma’s skirt. “Hurry, Tam!”

  Pa gave me a shove. “There is not much time.”

  I grabbed the cage from him. I knew where I’d find our hens. They’d be tucked in their night roosts, in the dirt hollows around the wooden poles that held our house high off the ground. The piglets would be dozing in the warm ashes of last night’s fire. In the darkness I could hear calls and shouts from other houses. Babies cried. Pigs grunted. Footsteps and hushed voices rushed past as the village was shaken out of sleep. An escaped piglet squealed past, its hooves drumming the dry dirt. I pulled our hens out and bound their feet with twine so they could not fight on the long journey ahead. I pushed them, flapping and clucking, into the cages. I tried to grab the old cockerel, but he was already awake and flew up to the roof, where he threw his head back and announced the dawn that was yet to come. Maybe he’d heard the soldiers too.

  “Tam!” My father was beside me. He bent next to me and closed the cage door, binding it with twine. I could hear his breath whistle through his teeth as he bit the ends. “Your mother and sisters are going to fetch what they can from the fields. We must pack everything. There is no coming back.”

  I felt bile rise inside me, the bitter taste sharp inside my mouth.

  Pa lifted the cage from me and carried it to the roadside, where baskets, bags, and cages and boxes were growing in a steady pile, ready to be packed into the trucks. Villagers streamed between their houses and the roadside, like a nest of forest ants on the move, holding outsize belongings above their heads. I carried out our rice bags and pots and pans. I rolled our clothes inside our mattresses and blankets. Nothing could be left behind. We would need it all.

  I climbed the steps one last time to fetch Ma’s embroideries. She hoped to sell them in the markets when we moved to our new home. Our house was empty now. A single room. A shell. It smelled different. Felt different. Hollow. Empty. Where our mattresses had lain was now bare floor. We would not sleep here or eat in this room again. I tried to push the thoughts from my mind. I slumped down and hugged the roll of embroidery against me, breathing in the sharp tang of dye.

  “Come to say good-bye?”

  I spun around. I hadn’t seen Grandfather. He was sitting by the window, perfectly still, pooled in moonlight.

  I pushed hot tears from my face. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

  “I’m not going with them,” I said. “I’m staying with you.”

  Grandfather said nothing. He lit his pipe, and I watched the first puffs of smoke rise like a pale blue mist around him. The sweet flower smell of his pipe smoke filled the room. He leaned back and stretched his bad leg out in front of him, the groove of the thigh-length scar dark against his skin.

  I waited for him to speak, but he turned his head to the thud of feet on the steps outside our house. The door was flung open, and the chief held up a lamp, its circle of dim yellow light darkening the night.

  I leaned back into the shadows and hoped he wouldn’t see me. Through the open door I could see the monster shapes of trucks and the silhouettes of soldiers spilling out into the village.

  The chief stepped toward Grandfather. “Puan,” he said. “The soldiers are here to take us. No one can be left behind.”

  Grandfather took his pipe from his mouth. “You know I cannot come.”

  The chief paced to the window. “You have no choice. They will burn our homes to make way for the road to the new dam.”

  Grandfather eased his bad leg underneath him. “Your father and I once fought side by side for our freedom, and yet now you give it away on the promise of a parcel of land and a new home.”

  The chief turned to face him. “That was forty years ago, Puan. Times have changed. The world has changed. We must change too.”

  Grandfather leaned forward through the screen of smoke. “This is not the way.”

  I dug my nails into the roll of cloth. I shouldn’t be here, listening to Grandfather speaking out against the chief.

  The chief leaned against the window frame and stared out into the darkness. I couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders were slumped. “I do this for our children, Puan,” he said. “We will have schools and hospitals and good homes. The big dam will give us electricity. Our country will be rich. We will be rich. Our children will lead better lives. Isn’t this what you want for them too?”

  Grandfather got to his feet and leaned out of the window. He spat onto the ground below. The air pulsed with the throb of engines. It shook the timbers of our house. It filled the night. A million trucks, it seemed.

  Grandfather shook his head. “This was once the richest land in the whole world. It was called the Land of a Million Elephants.” He turned around to look at the chief. “But I do not think there are many wild elephants in Laos now. Do you?”

  The chief backed to the door. “You will die if you stay here.”

  Blue smoke curled around Grandfather and swirled out through the window, as if the forest had already claimed him for itself.

  “Then I will die as I was born,” Grandfather said. “I will die free.”

  The chief stared at him, then turned and left, pushing past Pa on the steps outside.

  Pa saw me in the shadows. “Tam, it is time to go. The trucks are waiting.”

  Grandfather stood up. He tied his hunting knife around his waist and picked up a small bag of belongings at his feet.

  I stepped beside him. “I will stay with you.”

  Grandfather held me by the shoulders. “This forest is no place for boys.”

  I gripped the slingshot in my pocket. “I can look after myself. I can look after you, too.”

  Grandfather leaned down. “Tam, your mother and sisters need you more than I do.”

  Pa stepped forward and took my arm. He and Grandfather stood facing each other, heads bowed, almost touching. That’s how I remember them, the last time I ever saw them together. Pa and Grandfather, the Bee Men, and a silent language passing between them. The secret language of the bees.

  Outside, I felt the heat. It seared through the air. A plume of thick white smoke rose up from the houses at the far end of the village. Flames reached up into the sky, the sparks drifting high above our heads. Acrid smoke hung in the air. It filled my lungs and stung my eyes. Between the flames, the soldiers moved, silent figures in the roar of fire, burning what used to be our homes. Beyond the fires, the trucks were waiting. Pa grabbed my arm and pulled me with him. The chief was standing with a soldier at the tailgate of the last truck.

  The soldier ran his eyes down names on his clipboard. He looked up. “We are missing one. There should be one more.”

  Pa glanced at the chief and then at the soldier. “There are no more.”

  The soldier read out a name. “Puan Vang.”

  Grandfather’s name.

  The chief cleared his throat. “Puan is a dead man.”

  My stomach clenched. I fixed my eyes on the soldier’s sheets of paper. He tapped the end of his pencil against Grandfather’s name. He twirled his pencil around his fingers, as if he was letting them decide. I waited for him to tell us we were lying, but instead he crossed a hard line through Grandfather’s name, threw the clipboard in the back of the truck, and barked at us to get in too.

  I pu
t one foot on the tailgate and the soldier heaved me in. I sprawled on the floor beside Ma, my sisters, and a cage of chickens. Sulee took my hand and gripped it tightly. Mae was curled up in Ma’s lap, her head pressed against Ma’s chest. I felt feet land next to me as Pa and the chief climbed in. Two soldiers sat at the back of the truck, their guns resting between their knees. The tailgate slammed shut and the truck rumbled into life. We lurched forward and picked up speed, bumping down the track.

  I glanced at our chief. He looked small next to the soldiers, not like our chief at all. Black soot smeared his clothes and skin. He stared down at his hands, his face hidden in the shadows.

  When the soldiers first came, our chief said we would not move. But more soldiers came a second time with General Chan and other men in suits from the city. We were promised new homes, electricity, televisions, paddy fields, and a school. We were promised better lives. And when the soldiers came a third time, the chief agreed that we would move.

  Grandfather said the chief had sold our freedom.

  Pa said he’d had no choice.

  I sat up and stared beyond the soldiers. I searched for our house, but it was lost in the blaze of white heat.

  Ma tried to pull me back. “Don’t look, Tam.”

  But I couldn’t help it.

  I had to look.

  I watched our village burn, engulfed in smoke and flame.

  In my mind I saw the mother bear with her cub, fleeing through the forest.

  Maybe one of my souls escaped with them that night, because it felt as if something deep inside had been ripped apart. I knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

  “Welcome,” said General Chan. “Welcome to your new life.”

  I sat with Noy and the other villagers on the bare patch of earth at the village edge. Our new village lay in the Mekong Valley between the distant blue hills and the Great River. It had been seven days since we left the mountains. General Chan had come to see us, clattering out of the sky in his helicopter with his men in suits and a man with a huge camera. The general stood in front of us, a short, well-fed man, the buttons of his uniform straining over his round stomach. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, he looked at us with small, quick eyes.

  Noy leaned into me. “He’s the one building the dam, the one who made us move.”

  I felt General Chan’s eyes linger on us. I nudged Noy away. “Shh!”

  General Chan pushed his chest out and thrust his shoulders back. He paced up and down, watching us all. “I hope you have now settled in the new homes that have been built for you. I’m sure you will agree they are bigger and more comfortable than your old homes.”

  I looked beyond him to the houses that stretched out in two neat rows along the road. The houses were wooden, like our old homes, but set up high on concrete posts. Our house was big, but the chief and his family had the biggest house. It was nearest to the water pump, although I knew Noy’s mother didn’t like it there. Water spirits had already taken one of her babies. She didn’t want them taking any more.

  General Chan swept his arm towards the rise of ground beyond the village. “You have vegetable gardens and paddy fields,” he said. “You will be able to grow enough rice to sell at the markets. You have everything you need to start a better life.” He paused and smiled. “But come,” he said, signaling to the chief. “People don’t want to hear this from me. They want to hear it from you.”

  The chief joined the general and faced us too.

  The general pointed to the cameraman. “Tell the people of Laos what life is like in your village,” he said.

  Noy leaned into me. “We’re going to be on TV!”

  The chief cleared his throat. “It is much better here,” he said. He kept looking from General Chan to the camera. The general smiled and pointed to the camera.

  The chief started again. “Life is much better here,” he said, speaking to the camera. “We have land to plant our own rice. We have clean water. We will be able to sell our vegetables at the market. Our children will be able to go to school. We will have health care too. It is better here.”

  General Chan kept smiling and nodding as the chief spoke. When the chief had finished, the camera swept across us and we waved and grinned. I had to pull Sulee down to stop her dancing. General Chan announced that he had some gifts for us all. Each household was to have two more sacks of rice. He said he had a present for the chief, too. Noy’s older brother went to fetch it from the helicopter. I could tell the box was heavy by the way he arched his back to carry it. Everyone watched as the chief peeled back the wrapping and opened it.

  Children in front of me knelt up to see.

  Noy turned to me and grinned. “Just look at that!”

  I watched as Noy’s brother lifted out a huge television. I’d only seen one through the window of the bar at the logging station where Pa traded honey and bush meat. It was small and was fixed high up on a wall above the bar. But this TV was huge. The chief ran his hand along the top of the screen, thanking General Chan.

  General Chan swung his arm in an arc across the bare ground where we were sitting. He waited until the camera was on him. “The only thing missing is a school,” he said. “This is where we will build one. Right here.”

  I felt Ma squeeze my arm, and I looked up at her. She nodded and smiled, and I leaned in to her.

  Maybe Grandfather was wrong. Maybe life could be better here. I could go to school. We wouldn’t need rice handouts when we grew our own. We could see a doctor if we were sick. We didn’t have electricity yet, but it would come. When it did, we would be able to study at night and Ma would be able to do her embroidery. Maybe we could even have a TV too.

  We could live here.

  This was our new village.

  Our new life.

  I wanted to tell Grandfather to come and live with us.

  I wanted him to know life could be good.

  “Ow!” I rubbed my shoulder where a clod of earth had struck me.

  “Hey, Tam! Look at you! You’re fat and lazy now.”

  I looked up and grinned. Noy was standing in front of me, silhouetted against the midday sun, his slingshot aimed at me. He let another clod of earth fly, and it hit me on the cheek. I brushed it off and sat up. I must have dozed off in the heat. The smoke haze from slash-and-burn farming in the hills hung like a gray fog between us and the sky. We hadn’t seen the moon or stars since we’d arrived at our new village. It was much hotter here than in our old home in the mountains. There was no cooling breeze, not even at night.

  Noy loaded a small pebble in the slingshot. “Too fat to fight, Tam?”

  It was true. I’d filled out since we’d moved into our new homes. My ribs didn’t stick out so much, and the tops of my legs were now thicker than my knees. We’d all been given rice, and General Chan had promised more. I’d eaten more rice since we’d moved than I’d eaten all year, even though Pa said we should be careful not to use it up too quickly. He said it would take a long time to grow our own.

  Noy pelted me again. The pebble cracked against my skull. I scrambled up and he darted away, ducking behind the concrete posts holding our new house from the ground.

  “Too slow,” he taunted.

  I set off after him along the track. Chickens scattered in a flurry of dust and feathers in front of us. Dogs barked. Children shouted for Noy and then for me. The stilted houses passed in a blur. Noy ducked under a line of washed blankets and sprinted along the road out from the village. I ran after him, my feet flying across the dirt. I caught up with him at the village edge and pulled him down, and we fell in a sprawling mass in the dirt, laughing and catching our breath. Dust-red rivers of sweat ran down his face. I grabbed a handful of grit and tried to shove it down Noy’s shirt, but he pushed me away.

  “Get off.” He scowled.

  I chucked another handful of earth and glared at him. He was always the one to decide the game was over. But Noy was already sitting up and looking beyond the low rise of scrubland to the hi
ghway in the distance. Dust clouds followed two trucks rumbling southbound.

  He turned to me, his head tilted to one side. “Have you been to the Mekong yet, Tam?”

  “No,” I said. I frowned at him. We both knew only some of the elders had been down to the river to buy fishing nets.

  “Me neither,” said Noy.

  Beyond the highway, hidden from view behind scrubland and fields, lay the great Mekong. The River of All Rivers.

  A slow smile spread across Noy’s face.

  It reminded me of the night he dared me to take the moon bear cub. I scooped some dirt and let it trickle through my fingers. The image of the cub had stayed with me. I was glad it was still free in the forest. I often thought about Grandfather, too. I imagined him collecting wild honey from the bees and setting nets to fish the river. I imagined him sleeping beneath the stars we could not see.

  Noy whacked my arm. “Wake up, Tam!” He stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. “Come on, let’s go and see the Mekong for ourselves.”

  I should have still been helping Pa, but I’d slipped away. My hands and fingers were sore and blistered from pulling stones and thick rooted weeds from the ground. I couldn’t see Ma. She was probably with him too.

  “I have to help in the fields,” I said.

  Noy shrugged his shoulders and set off down the track. His heels kicked up puffs of red dust behind him. I thought he’d turn around to see if I was following, but he kept on walking, straight on. I glanced back at the village. We wouldn’t be that long. If we hurried, we wouldn’t even be missed. I wanted to see the Mekong. I’d heard stories about it, of fish as big as elephants and water dragons living deep beneath its surface. Most of all, I didn’t want Noy to see it before me.

  “Wait,” I called after him. “Wait.”

  He didn’t stop, and I had to run to catch up with him.

  He only stopped where our track met the main highway. It ran north and south, a long straight line of new tarmac. The road was empty except for a glint of metal in the far distance. I stepped out onto the road. The surface was tacky in the heat. It smelled of tar and tire rubber. The heat burned into the soles of my feet and I had to leap across in long footsteps. Noy followed, wiping his feet in the dust on the far side to cool them down.