The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015

by Laura Furman

  Sawat whispers, “His father has a demon.”

  Yes, there are demons here. There are crafty lizards and Buddha shelves, and everything is a lie. You are told every day to smile, even if you have no joy in your heart.

  Sawat says the man’s name, Khunpol, and Shirin thinks she has seen him in the village. He has an outdoor restaurant—three plastic tables and a pot of noodles—that she often visits. Khunpol is a smallish man, with a hard-set face, yellow teeth, high cheekbones like a woman’s, and two missing fingers. He makes a very good pad see ew. He has no wife. Does this boy, then, have no mother?

  In Thailand, there are rules about greeting strangers, rules about touching, about older and younger. Hands together, bowing. But Shirin pulls the boy into her arms and presses him hard against her chest, so that she can easily feel his tiny pulse speeding up, fast and faint, like the heartbeat of a bird in the hand.

  She holds him there for a moment and his body loosens. Sawat shifts around uncomfortably. Then Shirin feels something strange. In her arms, the boy is squirming, readjusting his body somehow. She feels his hand wriggle free and she loosens her grip but doesn’t let go, thinking that this boy must be starving for affection. She whispers, “It’s okay,” rubs his back and drones on and on in the soothing way she once used with Leila, as if to teach him her Western ways, this is how we say everything will be fine…in Iran or America or somewhere. In the universal language you may one day learn.

  Then she feels his small hand on her breast, resting there, the way her daughter used to do when Shirin held her close. The boy breathes warmly on her neck, and he reminds her so much of a helpless infant, a tired baby falling asleep. But just as she is about to revisit that old motherly wound, his hand moves and she is gripped by a wicked thought. It must be wicked, because who can think such a thing of a harmless boy? It must be the evil in her mind, the influence of the Buddha shelf or whatever strange spirits live in this country. Could it be that this child is willfully touching her breast—?

  She pulls away quickly, so that some hurt registers in the boy’s expression.

  She looks at Sawat, who only smiles. It seems she missed these small movements. She considers asking Sawat if such an action is normal, but does not. It seems shameful.

  For days she obsesses over the incident. Was it the evil in her own heart that caused her to hurt a fragile boy only wanting a moment of maternal affection? Or was the child acting out of some ugly preadolescent curiosity? Was it her demon or his? Maybe he was confused. Surely she did nothing wrong in hugging the boy. Though in the end, her guilt seems always to rest upon that moment of hurt in his sleepy eyes, when she pulled away and he looked up like a child whose spoon has been pulled out of his mouth. Does Boonmee ever get hugged in his house? Was it wrong to push him away when he was grabbing for a substitute mother?

  At bedtime, she puts on Iranian music. A sad melody by Googoosh called “Nafas,” which means “breath.” Googoosh’s life reminds her that even if you are beautiful and beloved by the world, even if you’ve conquered every mundane worry, what you do suffer you suffer alone. She makes herself a plate of fruits for dinner, saying the names out loud so that when she talks of them later, she will use the right words. There is the spiky red one, the one that looks like a baby armadillo, the one that smells like feet. She likes peeling back the thin inner lining that separates the flesh from the rough skins of almost all of them. She imagines that even the richest people on earth don’t eat better than the fruits of Thailand—God’s bounty on a plate.

  At mealtimes alone, she has a habit of retreating deep into her own imagination, usually dreaming up what she will say in her next conversation with Leila, whenever that may be. If they were to talk today, she thinks, she would seek advice about Boonmee. They would discuss him at length, because Leila is a student of psychology. She would tell her daughter about the poverty here, the stifling heat of her house, the neighbors she can see through her window who never talk to each other. Leila joon, she would say, you don’t know what they suffer here.

  The question of the boy consumes her. After dinner, she sits up with a cup of tea and wonders why she has only ever e-mailed her daughter. Obviously the girl doesn’t check her university account. She sends four expensive text messages to Leila’s phone before her ancient mobile comes to life at three a.m.—Leila must have forgotten the eleven-hour time difference. In her rush to answer, she almost trips out of bed, forgetting about the mosquito net. A lizard sticks its ugly tongue out at her. “Evil thing,” she whispers.

  “Leila joon?” she answers, already breathless.

  “What’s wrong?” Leila asks, and Shirin realizes that if the matter is not urgent, Leila will be angry. They are, after all, in the middle of a cold war. Still, Leila’s voice warms her through, like weighty palms pressed to a sore back.

  “Oh nothing,” says Shirin, “I’m just a little sick. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “No, no,” says Leila, her voice tentative but concerned. “How are you?”

  It seems that Leila is opening the door to a conversation and so Shirin tiptoes through. She mentions the hot weather, the watery fruits, and the Thai people’s obsession with demons, how they are tied to more than just sin—“They’re everywhere, Leila joon!”

  Soon they fall into natural conversation and Leila tells her about school. She uses words and phrases that, after fifteen years in America, Shirin understands but will never appreciate. Leila’s new boyfriend, it seems, is turning out to be a colossal dick, and she is thinking of phoning in some paper on Carl Jung. She throws psychology words into her everyday speech. Somebody has a Napoleon complex. Somebody else is engaging in serious transference. Shirin listens and waits for the chance to discuss Boonmee. What part of his psyche made him do this strange thing? Her daughter will have theories.

  Finally, Leila starts to say that she has to leave and Shirin blurts it out, “One of the children at school grabbed for my breast. Is that normal?”

  There is a moment of silence, and then Leila laughs, her sweet young laugh. “Oh Maman joon,” she says, amused but on the verge of distraction. “It’s just instinct.”

  For a moment Shirin forgets her concerns. She tells the story only to entertain, and Leila rewards her with gasps and giggles and clever American jokes. Then she says, as if just thinking of it, “I’m going to Tokyo for a week during break. What if I visit?”

  Something moves in Shirin’s chest, a flutter, like when Leila was a child and they were friends. “Are you serious?” she says. “You can take the time off?”

  “I just said it’s break,” says Leila. “I’m Googling Chiang Mai right now. What street’s your apartment on?” She reads the websites aloud, thrilled by the city’s many restaurants and elephant reserves and massage parlors.

  Shirin waits for a moment. Before she can think through the consequences of the lie, and her daily promises to God and to herself, she has already blurted, “Right in the center, Leila joon. It’s very modern. Very, very nice. You’ll love it.”

  Sometimes the villagers offer her gifts, watery lychee and pungent durian, heavenly fruits that she knows to accept. In Iran, accepting is impolite, and it is customary to refuse three times. In Iran one must show no need, no suffering. One must always be above it. Here, it is better, simpler, to share your troubles so that the community can help. This feels so natural that soon Shirin forgets the old ways. She puts away the last of her American clothes, deciding that the fisherman pants are far more appropriate. On the twentieth of the month, when she usually colors her hair, she tells herself that she is too busy and as the weeks pass she continues to skip it, preferring to show her true age. Her neighbors’ bows grow deeper with each sawat-dee-kha.

  Two weeks before her daughter’s visit, she considers coloring her hair for Leila’s sake, but decides against it.

  Leila is scheduled to arrive on a Saturday morning. Shirin spends a week preparing, cooking Iranian dishes, washing the floors of her hut, findi
ng a flowerpot for the Buddha shelf. She thinks of what she will say to Leila. Leila joon, did you know there are water monitors here as big as a small car? Did you know that the durian is a fruit that you can only eat after it rots, its best value coming in its most decrepit state? Leila joon, let me tell you about Boonmee. I think he might have a demon, or some other kind of strangeness you might explain. She lays out a number of pungent herbs that are supposed to ward off the lizards. They don’t work. She has arranged a ride from Phrao to Chiang Mai Airport in a weekly van bound for the night market. She is the first one inside, and the rest trickle in. Most of the other passengers are food vendors. In the stuffy, humid van, the smell of fish and meat on their bodies becomes a toxic vapor that nauseates her. She spots Boonmee’s father, Khunpol, sitting in front, and she wants so much to confront him on the boy’s behalf. Instead she glares at the back of his neck and wishes for all the fattest lizards in Thailand to visit him in the night.

  She rechecks the bus schedule, their transportation back to the village. On the return trip, she will be with Leila—the thought fills her with anticipation. At the airport lounge, she waits with a fragrant jasmine necklace that she has made. After an hour, she sees a familiar figure in the distance, her exhausted daughter, long and shapely in jeans and a T-shirt. She can barely contain her joy as she flings the necklace around Leila’s neck. Leila laughs. “I missed you, Maman joon,” she whispers into Shirin’s shoulder.

  The trouble starts on the bus, but Shirin is sure she can manage it. “It’s just a short ride,” she says, to a visibly annoyed Leila, who promptly falls asleep on her shoulder. She wakes up two hours later and asks how long it’s been. “Fifteen minutes,” says Shirin.

  Leila checks her watch and frowns. “So you don’t live in Chiang Mai?” She says this in that way she has, always accusing. Her stare pierces Shirin and she is forced to look at her lap. “You didn’t have to do it again,” Leila whispers, as if she’s already a licensed psychologist. “I would’ve come either way.” They’ve talked about the lying before, and Shirin has tried to explain. It’s not lying. In Iran everyone knows a real lie from these everyday things. You just don’t know your own culture.

  As soon as they arrive Leila falls asleep on a mat on the floor. Shirin thinks this is a good sign. She prepares some food and checks the bicycles for their evening ride. When she wakes an hour later, Leila looks around and groans, scratching her bare arm where she has been bitten several times. So much fuss, Shirin thinks. “Maman,” Leila says calmly, “we need to talk about this situation.”

  Shirin ignores her and suggests they go for a walk. What situation? Her daughter has become too American for her own good, always alluding to later discussions. Just say it or don’t say it. Though, a minute later when Leila meanders to the bathroom, Shirin thinks maybe she has raised a true Persian daughter, after all. Iranians may be good liars, but they’re even better at drama. There is a phrase in Farsi, putting the whole house on your head. It’s used to describe the moment when someone goes so crazy, so uncontrollably bonkers, as Americans would say, that they explode into a thousand sizzling pieces, their anger like shrapnel, piercing everything.

  This is what happens when Leila sees the toilet.

  A boycott ensues. “I will not even attempt to go in that hole,” Leila says. “Maman joon, you said Chiang Mai. Why would you not give me time to plan for this?”

  Leila falls asleep again, this time under the mosquito net (which, thank God, she finds charming), and Shirin sits up worrying about her daughter’s colon and bladder—all the digestive problems she could develop, holding it in after twenty hours of flying. For a second she allows herself the realization that she should have anticipated this. Leila is a city girl, an American. She has always been weak in her body. Should she forgive this?

  No…She prepares a speech about gratitude and authenticity, about Boonmee. She wants to tell her daughter that she is letting her seams show, an ugly thing. She chops watermelon with a machete. She cleans the toilet, which, to be fair, isn’t a hole. It’s lined with porcelain, and that makes it a style, not a lesser thing. She imagines that she will win over her stubborn, city-spoiled daughter with lessons and beautiful words about strength of will and true beauty. Then she will teach Leila how to use this toilet and they will laugh at the silliness of it, remembering the last time she taught Leila this very skill, when Leila was two and they were in Iran, in a bathroom exactly like this one.

  When Leila wakes, she is crying softly into the pillow. “I can’t sleep. It’s so hot,” she whispers. Shirin brings her the watermelon.

  “Don’t you remember Iran?” Shirin says. “The villages we used to visit?”

  “No,” says Leila, putting on that professional stare again.

  “How about a ride in the rice fields,” Shirin offers. “I borrowed a bike for you.”

  “Okay,” Leila says, and takes one bite of the watermelon, then winces. She whispers, “Maman joon, you lied so so much. Why can’t you stop? Why do it with me?”

  Shirin ignores this. “Get dressed. Let’s go.”

  For the rest of the weekend they follow Shirin’s schedule: biking through rice fields, walking through the village, visiting each and every one of her acquaintances. She can see that Leila is suffering through it for her sake. On Sunday, Leila says fewer words, though it’s a joy that as the hours pass, the words she does speak are mostly Farsi.

  When there is little to say, they laugh at small things. “What the hell is that?” says Leila on Monday morning, as she crawls out from under the mosquito net they share.

  “Don’t try to kill it,” says Shirin, wanting to annoy her daughter, “too much guts.”

  Leila rolls her eyes and suppresses a smile. Then she surprises Shirin by touching the evil creature, letting the lizard crawl onto her hand. “Hello there, little guy,” she says.

  After breakfast, Leila visits Shirin’s school, sits in the back and listens as Shirin gives the lesson with twice her usual energy. The children sense the cause of this and flock to Leila. Later over noodles under a straw awning, Leila says, “Maman joon, that boy has a touch of autism…” She pauses. “I’ll send you some books to read. Maybe if his family understood it better…” They discuss this for an hour, as they might do in a café in New York. Later, Shirin notices that Boonmee is the only topic they spoke about as friends, two adults without a bitter history or any foreignness at all.

  Now and then, mostly in the hours when Leila’s jet lag is strong, they suffer each other with much huffing. On the third day of the visit, the hottest yet, Leila steps outside, into the half-covered area between Shirin’s house and the quiet couple next door, wearing tiny shorts and a tank top. Shirin rushes to her, hoping to get her back inside before the neighbors see. “You can’t dress like that here,” she says.

  “It’s a hundred degrees. What else am I gonna wear?” says Leila as she takes her sunglasses out from between her breasts. Shirin can see that her daughter is on edge, and that her patience is running out, but she persists. When Shirin presents her with a pair of fisherman pants—a light rose pair she picked out at the last Sunday market—Leila laughs. “I’m comfortable as is. I’ll just go out by myself today. You rest here.”

  “Leila,” says Shirin, growing angry. “Stop this. People here won’t respect you in those clothes. How will I go on living here if my daughter behaves like a total farang?”

  “Respect me? Are you serious?” Leila snaps, wiping the sweat from her arms, her skin now covered with the bites of a hundred mosquitoes.

  Shirin sighs. “How did I raise such willful daughter? New York has ruined you.”

  Leila laughs. Then she just smirks for a moment. “You really care that much…? Maman, they’re all strangers.” She says this word slowly, as if Shirin doesn’t know the meaning. “Nobody gives a flying fuck what I—” Leila is raising her voice now and they are only a few feet from the neighbor’s window. Shirin pulls her daughter inside, where Leila proceeds not j
ust to put the whole house on her head, but possibly the entire village.

  Shirin hurries to the kitchen window, to see if they are watching. The couple is sitting on the floor, having tea, neither of them looking up from their cups. She can see from their profiles that they are absolutely listening—such an impolite daughter, only the wickedest woman must deserve such offspring. What has the foreign woman, this farang, done in her life to earn such a curse, they will wonder.

  Shirin too wonders things. How much face has she lost in this one exchange? Will the villagers still call her doctor? Will they listen raptly to her every word?

  Mother and daughter don’t speak for the rest of the day. It’s as if all the tension of the last three days has struck them dumb and lame in each other’s presence. Finally, just as Shirin gets up to warm some dinner, Leila meanders barefoot into the long corridor that serves as a living room. Shirin used to be so charmed by this small space, its bright blue walls and cozy shape. She was proud of it, but now it is as if the gauze has been removed from her eyes. Now, looking through Leila’s eyes, it is just a walkway to connect the shameful toilet, meager kitchen, and stifling bedroom under one roof. Leila drops to the floor, presses her face against the cool, cherry-red tiles. She moans a little.

  “Mommy joon, I tried,” she whispers to the tiles, “I really, really tried. But I can’t stay here longer. I haven’t taken a shit in three days. I’ll die.”

  Shirin raises an eyebrow. “What have you been doing in the bathroom then?”

  Leila shrugs. “I’ll die,” she repeats.