by Dionne Brand
“Yeah, and what’re you doing? Saving the whales? Making money, right? And Bo has to always bail you out of some stupid idea.”
“Stupid idea? I’m not the one running home broke all the time!”
They came to a small impasse. Each forgetting the new start they had been on the border of only a month ago. Instead, each contemplating the devious machinations of their childhood, the strokes and plays they had performed to hoodwink, outwit, and misrepresent their parents until, bored and frustrated with translation, they had set off to live another life outside the knowledge or apprehension of Tuan and Cam.
“Well, I did a good thing. I finally found him like I told you I would!” Binh exulted, stabbing at the photograph.
“Who is he?” Tuyen’s voice was small. She hadn’t wanted confirmation of her guesses, but she wanted Binh to say the word all the same. The word hanging over them all, the word like a jewel of air that would break open their existences to the dreadful. The word that had caused their parents such pain and that had to be said sacredly or not at all.
“Quy.”
“How do you know it’s him? How did you find him? Mom’s been looking for years and never found him. How could you have done it? You don’t know that for sure.” Jealousy, resentment, suspicion erupted in Tuyen.
“It is him, and I found him.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Tell me, tell me how you know it’s him. It could be anybody. You never saw him. You never knew him.”
“So what? Of course it’s him. What do you think I would do? Mum’s not good with English, you know that. That’s why the whole thing was fucked up and she got taken so many times. There are records, like I told you. People don’t just disappear. Hello, it’s 2002. If you had any love for them, you would’ve tried to find him too.”
“Oh, please! He was a boy, for Christ’s sake—a baby almost.”
“See—you don’t have faith.”
“Well, how come …?” How come what? Tuyen couldn’t finish the question. Her suspicions of Binh were stronger—he never explained anything, and here he was trying so hard to do that.
“I asked you, didn’t I? You fucked off. You think I wouldn’t find out? Anyway, I haven’t told Ma and Bo yet, not really. I hinted to Bo months ago, I said I was looking. I didn’t want to get their hopes up and then it wasn’t him. I wanted to make sure. Listen, I did my homework, okay? I checked him out good first.”
“I don’t believe you.” She was petulant.
“Believe what you like. Anyway, why were you sneaking around taking pictures and now coming to bully me, huh? You must have seen it too. The resemblance. You did, didn’t you? So what’s the problem? It’s gonna make them happy.”
“But how?”
“Look, I tracked him down. I checked all the possible places he could’ve gone. He was old enough to remember his name. A common name, all right, but I tracked him down. It’s taken me a year. You probably figured I was going for drugs or porno or something. You always think the worst of me. So, anyways, I found him and I checked him out.”
“And now he’s here?”
“He’s here.”
“And you haven’t taken him home yet? Why?”
“Now, wouldn’t you know if I did? I’m preparing them.”
“So where is he, then?”
“In back. Helping me unload stuff.”
“Stuff? Where?”
“Jeez! Yes, stuff—drives, belts, shoes. He’s going to come into business with me. He’ll do that end. You’ll see. And they’ll be happy.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t trust this.”
She should be feeling elated, happy for her parents, happy for their life, she thought. She should be hugging Binh. She should at least be shocked and pleased that Binh had found Quy, but all she felt was a tingling of things coming apart.
Her mother would be vindicated. She cannot imagine the look of utter pleasure that would spread over her mother’s face—the nights of sleep Cam would finally get, the change that would come over their lives, how her sisters would be released from their shame of not watching, of not witnessing, of surviving. How her father would stop the intense self-punishment he had undertaken ever since Quy’s loss. And how, finally, a brother who was lost would find his people, his home, would hear all of the sorrow that loss had given, would be told of the frantic searches for him, of how not a piece of bread was eaten without the taste of his absence, how life had been limped through since his departure.
All this Tuyen knew she should have felt—instead, there was a sense of foreboding rather than relief. Was she afraid that she would no longer be the centre of attention; that she would be replaced? Binh obviously didn’t feel that, so in the end was he a better person than she? These thoughts tumbled through her mind—she felt slightly ashamed and now expectant. Quy was fifty feet away, and she wanted to flee. She should be bursting out the back door, welcoming her brother; instead, she felt like bolting. She suddenly realized what she had heard.
“He’s out back?”
“I’m here,” someone said behind her.
She turned to see the boyish face of the photograph. The man smiled through it, giving the face a ferocious look. Tuyen was frozen. Her fingers twitched to her mouth. He had been standing in the recess of the blinds near the dressing rooms. For how long?
“Sister?” he asked.
Binh was beside Tuyen, pushing her toward the man. “Yes, big brother, this is our little sister.”
She felt small and speechless.
“Good, good,” the man said in a thick accent. He bowed to her. Binh pushed her closer.
“She’s shocked,” he said to the man. Then to Tuyen, “Is that how you greet your brother? Go.”
Tuyen was propelled by Binh’s hand and an ineffable dread toward the man. She reached involuntarily for his shoulders. He felt like nothing, a ghost. She sensed something malevolent and withdrew her arms.
“She’s in shock,” Binh said again. The pressure of his hand increased on her back, urging her forward, willing her to be nice.
“Much time to know my little sister,” the man said haltingly, the words sounding like new stones on his tongue.
“When … when did you arrive?” Tuyen managed.
“Not long. Not long. Brother Binh is caring for me gratefully.”
“When …” She began another question, but Binh jumped in.
“Well, we’ll go later today. I’ve told them that I have good news for us. They have no idea that he’s here. I only told Bo that I may have found our brother. I didn’t want to tell Ma in case. But now, now everything is fine.”
“Today?” She seemed only able to deliver one or two words, like a child. No coherent thoughts came to her except that something was wrong. Her brother couldn’t be this man. This man had a contained tightness, a light presence; this man she was sure could harm you coolly, arbitrarily. But what had she expected? Why shouldn’t he be such a man? After all he had been through? Why shouldn’t he be ferine and cold? He was entitled. He could not simply live in their imagination perpetually innocent, perpetually pure. Things had happened to him. Probably bad things. She—they were all transfixed in the past, but he had been living. Living out their distress as well as his own. What leads people into certain lives; what molecules of air and senses and events make them veer this way or that? Of course it was her brother Quy. Of course it wasn’t. What difference would it make? This man had arrived in their orbit, and he was therefore theirs. What had she expected? A boy poised on a boat, waiting to be picked up and led back to his real life? She wanted to ask him, Where have you been? She wanted to ask him, Who are you? She was tongue-tied.
“Today?” She turned to Binh, aware of the man as one is aware of a gecko, a spider, a shadow.
“Yes, today. I’m going to find him a suit.”
“A suit? What for?”
“To wear.” Does a shadow wear a suit? How could Binh think of these things now? A suit. “Yo
u can come up with us. That’ll make things nice for them.”
“When?” She was hating this inability to compose a sentence with a verb in front of this man, Quy. And had he overheard their whole conversation? She had the feeling that he had, and she knew she didn’t like the idea of that.
“This evening. I’m looking forward most sweetly to meeting my mother and father.” His voice only gave Tuyen more to worry about. There, there in that sentence it was over-something. Overweaning, overconfident, overly formal. Then the quality of it—like someone trying to hide a self, a more ravenous side.
“Binh, it’s going to be such a shock. Did you talk to Bo about it, at least?” She turned to Binh, suddenly wanting what they had never had—cooperation.
“Yes, yes—no, look, I wanted it to be a great surprise for everyone.” He was opening another box, pulling out shirts and measuring them against Quy’s body. “I left you a message. Bo called you too. He said he told you to call me.”
Yes, she had avoided the messages. Now she was sorry. But really, she thought, what could she have done? Binh was in charge.
“What do you think, Tuyen? This one right?”
He was acting too strangely, she thought. How did it matter what the man wore? Maybe it was as it seemed and her imagination had run away with her, her mistrust for Binh. Maybe she’d had too much to drink over the course of the last three days and she was the one acting strangely.
“I apologize,” she said, abruptly facing Quy. “Welcome. My mother and father have never recovered from losing you.”
“No I,” Quy replied.
Again she heard that formal tone faintly secreting a crudity. She felt embarrassed at thinking this.
“Can I go up with you both, Binh?” And now her brother had the upper hand—having to ask Binh was hard, but no way she was leaving him unobserved.
“Of course. I’m taking him for dinner. It’s Monday, remember?”
The restaurant was usually closed on a Monday, and the family usually had dinner together at Richmond Hill, with the exception of Tuyen, who wounded them all by missing this time frequently. It was a ritual she had found as tedious as the restaurant itself ever since she was a teenager. Now she felt justly reprimanded.
“Football again!” Quy rushed to the store window. There had been a gathering crescendo of car horns outside. Tuyen became fully aware of the brewing traffic jam outside on the street. Red flags washed past the window. “Korea! Du-ma-may!”
The coarse expletive jarred Tuyen. Binh laughed, waving at the passersby, giving the victory sign.
“Our big brother, Tuyen! He’s home!” he said, grabbing her shoulder. She squirmed at this show of affection from him.
“Yes. Well, I’ll come back,” she said. “What time?”
“How about five, five-thirty? It’ll be hell getting out of here.”
She remembered to grab the photographs, shoving them into the bag sheepishly. “Okay.” She made a small shy gesture of goodbye to Quy as she opened the door and plunged into the growing red crowd outside. The noises rose. Korea had almost scored a goal against Germany.
Tuyen made her way through the crowd grimly. Christ! Was she so hateful as to prefer that Quy had not been found? She turned right and headed south to her apartment. One thing, she decided, her mother and father could not be hurt. She’d see to that. She would do her part, even if this Quy gave her the creeps. That was unfair, she thought. She didn’t even know him. At any rate, whatever, she would stick by her mother and father. It was all well and good to have a tragic story in the past, but what if it returns? What if it comes back with all it has stored up, to be resolved and decided, to be answered. She couldn’t foresee an easy time, as Binh must have envisaged. The lost boy would have to have been sad, lonely, angry, hurt, angry. Was that the scraping sound she had heard in his voice? Would he have had a life with love? A girlfriend, a wife, children, perhaps? She had been rude, and not very clever—she hadn’t asked him any of this. Would he have let the past go as chance—unfair, but chance—and made the best of what he got? Yes, of course there were stories of refugees made good no matter the circumstances. God. What did she mean, made good? That was so weak, that was so lame. She couldn’t believe she was thinking it. Would he be kind to her mother and father?
In the end that is what she meant, she realized, that is what she wanted. They deserved kindness, and Tuyen doubted whether this ghost could deliver it.
When Tuyen arrived at the alleyway leading to her apartment, a black Audi was practically blocking the doorway to the stairs. Music was booming from speakers at Kumaran’s window. It was Oku’s “The Jungle Is a Skyscraper.” And the walls of the two buildings caverning the alley were now covered in paintings. On one side there was a flowering jungle, lianas wrapped around the CN Tower, elephants drinking by the lake, pelicans perched on the fire escapes. On the other side there was a seaside, a woman in a bathing suit and hat shading her eyes, looking out to sea. The black Audi was parked outside a cabana, a boat rocked against the radio antenna of the car. Tuyen recognized the scenes. The places Carla had talked about, the places where Angela Chiarelli dreamed of going. Tuyen hadn’t noticed the paintings earlier. Kumaran must have done them during the weekend, which had been a boozy blur for her. The one time she’d come home she hadn’t seen anyone. The Audi parked outside now was real. She didn’t recognize it. No one in this alleyway could afford an Audi. She called to Kumaran over Ornette Coleman’s shrieking in loops, but Kumaran probably could not hear her. She edged her way around the car and opened the door to the staircase. She heard laughter upstairs from Carla’s side. “Carla!” she called, climbing the stairs. Maybe Carla could help her think this out, stop her from being paranoid, offer her a way of seeing the new apparition of her brother Quy as a blessing. Precious.
“Tuyen, Jamal! Jamal got out!” Carla stood at the top of the stairs, beaming.
“Great! Hey, Jamal!” Tuyen replied, as he appeared behind Carla. “What’s happening, how are you?”
“I’m chilling … you know.” His eyes looked red. They’d been doing a joint.
“Come on in, we’re having a celebration. I was looking for you all weekend to tell you. He’s been out since Friday. Where you been?”
“Oh, you know …” Carla seemed unusually manic to Tuyen. She was disappointed that she would not be able to talk to Carla about Quy, and she didn’t have time for a party. “Listen, I’m just here to change to go to Richmond Hill. Home for dinner.”
“Oh, come on. Come in for a minute.” She pulled Tuyen into the room. Tuyen reached to hug Jamal.
“Okay, but just for a minute. Jamal, how are you? How’re you doing?”
“You know, no problem, no problem. Just getting my head together.”
“Great, great.” Tuyen had no idea what to say that hadn’t been said. No one could be expected to be optimistic about Jamal, except Carla, of course. And right now she had her own trouble to deal with, so the words on her lips sounded distant and insincere.
“Tuyen, here, have a beer with us.”
“No, I really do have to go, love. You know. Hey, whose car is that blocking the door?”
“Oh, it’s Derek’s. He lent it to me to go find a job. You know, new life and all that shit, right?” Jamal said the last sentence slowly and with sarcasm.
“Great, so you all are fine now?”
“Well, fine as it gets, I guess.” There was something odd going on, but Tuyen didn’t have the time. Carla’s eyes were glassy, as if she wanted to wring some genuine happiness out of the occasion.
“Hey, your brother still got that sweet Beamer X5?”
“I guess. Is that what it is? I don’t know cars.”
“Cars! That’s not a car, Tuyen, that’s like phat, man, that’s the bomb.” His eyes were animated, and his fingers snapped on the end of his arms.
Tuyen caught a glimpse of the brand on his chest. “Why’d you do that?” she asked, pointing.
“Ah, that’s nothi
ng,” he said, his hand coming to pull his shirt tight. Then, “So, like, what’d he pay for that?”
“No idea. Jeez, I gotta go, I gotta go. Glad you’re all right, Jamal.” Tuyen got up.
“Don’t go yet.” Carla sounded pleading, following Tuyen to the door.
“No, really, I got to.” She felt Carla grasp her hand, interlacing her fingers with an intimacy that at any other time she would have loved. “Check you later.” Even now she wanted to hold her and kiss her.
Tuyen hurried over to her place, dropped her bag, and sat on the floor, holding her temples. She closed her eyes and exhaled a gush of a breath. She was trying to sort herself out. She had to be calm, she told herself. That way she could observe the way things were going. She felt dazed too. What would all of it mean for her? She saw it only as binding her closer. Not that she hated her family. She just didn’t want to be in their everyday life. But now she had been drawn back into it. Look, she told herself, on the other hand it could be good. No skeletons, no ghost. The universe restored. She knew that Tuan and Cam would’ve given up anything they had for this moment. Though deep in her heart she blamed them for not doing just that, and for surviving and dragging her into their survival. But now it was going to be fine. She could unblame them. Binh had redeemed them.
She breathed deeply, got up, and walked to her window, which faced the alley. An iguana was climbing through the opposite window, a parrot soared to the chimney, a peacock leapt off a tree near the garbage cans. The Audi was gone, and Carla was getting on her bike near the Amazon, her face an electric radiance. Tuyen smiled. Everything would be fine. She remembered Varo’s Exploration of the Sources of the Orinoco. She had her art, she had her life. Whatever. Anyways.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE RIDE TO RICHMOND HILL was suddenly too short. Tuyen sat in the back seat of the Beamer. They seemed to be moving so quickly. When they were on the highway, she said, “How are we going to do this, Binh?” She spoke to him, but the back of Quy’s head concentrated her.