The Unwanted

by Kien Nguyen

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It did not take us long to get from the market to Loan's house. I did not forget the route, even though it had been three years since my last visit. The city was much the same as before, but the mansion had changed a great deal. Remnants of a wedding were evident in the festive decorations on the white railings and the red debris of firecrackers on the ground. The house, no longer my mother's favored eggshell color, had been painted blue. New windows and doors replaced old, broken ones. On the top floor overlooking the street, where my family name once appeared, hung a national flag.

  The garden was again lush, with a variety of hybrid plants in expensive antique pots. Flowers bloomed under the encouraging sun as though to mock us with the illusion that behind the tall gate, life was still carefree. The pool, however, was empty, standing in the middle of the garden like an unsightly blemish. I found myself playing the role of an outsider, looking in like one of the dirty children my mother had trained me to despise in the old days. With a heavy heart, I rang the doorbell.

  Within moments, Loan appeared at the front door with an apron around her waist and a pair of chopsticks in her hand. Upon seeing us, she grasped her face in disbelief and the chopsticks fell to the floor. Jimmy and I cried her name with joy. However, our enthusiasm died as soon as we recognized Mr. Tran's silhouette from behind the screen door. He walked out and stood beside Loan, frowning at us.

  Irritably, he asked her, “Why are they here?”

  “I don't know.” She ran down the steps toward the gate. “I think something happened, and they are coming for help.”

  “Come back in the house this instant. I need to have a word with you. Inside.” He disappeared behind the front door.

  Loan pressed her face between the railings of the gate to look at us. “How did you get here?” she whispered. “Where is your mother? Wait, tell me later.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Listen, children. Remember the back door? I'll meet you there in about five minutes, okay? Mr. Tran doesn't want the neighbors to see what's going on from this side of the house. Do you understand?”

  We nodded and she hurried back inside.

  Half an hour later, we sat on the wet dirt under the thick canopy of a clump of wild lilacs. There was no sign of Loan. Down the alley, a woman turned on the motor of her juice stand and began making fruit drink from long stalks of sugar cane. The sudden noise and the sweet smell churned our empty stomachs with painful waves. My sister hid her head in her moldy pillow and sniffed quietly.

  A rustle of leaves behind us brought Jimmy and me to our feet. Loan appeared outside her kitchen and held the door open. “Leave the dog outside,” she said to Jimmy.

  When we were inside, she noticed the bruises on my lower face. “What happened to all of you?” she asked. “Where is your mother? Is she all right?”

  I didn't know where to begin. Instead, I began to cry. In fact, we all sobbed in Loan's arms. She got up from the embrace a moment later.

  “I was in the middle of cooking when the doorbell rang. Let me make lunch for all of you,” she said. “Look at you. Poor kids, you must be starving.”

  I sat down on the floor near the hot stove, feeling exhausted yet content. Before Loan could open the food cabinet, Mr. Tran stormed into the kitchen. His hands hung in tight fists beneath his long-sleeved denim shirt. Ignoring us, he marched toward his wife, who froze the moment she saw him. He grabbed her arm and dragged her outside.

  Over his shoulder he ordered us, “Stay where you are. Don't move!”

  Soon Loan returned to the kitchen. She stood in the doorway and bit her nails for several minutes. I raised myself up from the floor.

  “Loan, is everything all right?” I asked.

  Loan's eyes were red and wet with tears.

  “Are you okay? What is wrong, Loan?” I asked her again.

  She touched my hair the same way she used to when I was younger. “Kien, do you remember when I said to you that I want you to come and visit me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am sorry, darling,” she said between her sobs. “I shouldn't have said that to you even though I meant every word. Neither you nor your siblings can stay here. I don't know what kind of trouble you are in, or what caused you to come here. I can't help you. I am not allowed to get involved.”

  “Why? What do you mean you are not allowed to?” I searched her face. “He wants us to leave, doesn't he?”

  “Remember all the letters from me that you've never gotten?” she asked me.

  I nodded. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Mr. Tran was supposed to deliver them to you.”

  Suddenly I understood. “But he didn't.”

  Loan was shaking visibly. “I can't have anything to do with your family as long as I am staying here in his house.”

  Each word she said cut a new wound into me. “I understand,” I said coldly. “Don't worry! We are leaving right now.”

  “I'll walk you out. I am sorry, children. I wish I could be of more help to all of you.”

  “It's quite all right. Let me get my brother and sister ready.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Home.”

  I lifted BeTi to her feet. Jimmy walked outside to untie his dog from the fence. Loan turned to me and asked. “Is there anything I can do?”

  The scent of sugar-cane juice still lingered in the air. “We could use a cold drink from that stand over there,” I suggested. “If it is not too much trouble.”

  WE WALKED on the familiar yet empty streets to the market once again. Each of us held a heavy plastic bag of sugar water mixed with crushed ice. The soothing taste replenished my body with new burst of energy. Without turning back, I could sense Loan standing alone in the middle of the road, watching us.

  At a trash bin near the fish section, two flaxen-haired boys were busily digging in the trash. They looked up just to glare aggressively at Jimmy and me, as though preparing to defend their territory. One of the boys had lost an eye. He blinked his single blue eye and bared his tiny rat teeth while searching for a weapon among the rocks nearby. His partner quickly ate something that he had found in the garbage. Purple slime smeared his face.

  “What do we do now, Kien?” Jimmy asked.

  “We could beg for food,” I suggested.

  “No,” Jimmy moaned weakly.

  “Do you have any other plan?”

  We continued to walk through the bazaar. It was overcrowded with aggressive shoppers. We hung on to each other against the surge of traffic.

  “Then get ready to beg for food,” I screamed so that my voice could rise above the shrill noises around us.

  “Please, Kien. I don't want to beg. We can go home and sell something.”

  “What can we sell, Jimmy? Besides, who would want to buy anything from us?”

  Jimmy's eyes filled with water. “We could sell Lou to the butcher.”

  “You are crazy. He'll kill your dog.”

  “Not if we get him to promise and hold the dog for two days. Once Mom gets home, we can buy Lou back from him with interest.”

  “What if she never comes back?”

  Tears rolled down his face. “Don't be evil. She will be back.”

  I lifted my sister up and ushered the dog forward. “So, let's assume that you were right. Even if Mom came back, what makes you think that the butcher would keep your dog for two days?”

  He ran to catch up with me. “He will. Listen to me, Kien. The man owes me a favor. If you reminded him, he would have to agree.” The enthusiasm had returned to his voice.

  “Me?” I stopped in the middle of the muddy path, holding on to BeTi. “Why do I have to remind him? Are you suggesting that I have to negotiate instead of you?”

  “You know I can't sell my own dog. How could I?”

  “So you really want me to do this?”

  Jimmy looked at my sister, who sagged in my hands like a dirty puppet. Her skin was the color of a lemon, hot to the touch. He nodded sad
ly.

  I sighed. “Fine. Tell me what act of kindness you granted this man, so that I can remind him.”

  “Okay, it happened this way. A while back, one evening,” he began uneasily, “I was playing hide-and-seek with the Tong brothers on the street when Mrs. Butcher approached us. She asked us for help. Her husband had gone out drinking with our uncle early that afternoon. In the middle of our game, we saw Uncle come back drunk and pass out on the front lawn without Mr. Butcher. Of course, his wife got real scared.”

  The hill that led to the highway opened before us as the market fell behind. Beyond it, the landscape was immense, wild, and desolate. We moved slowly down the road while Jimmy continued with his story.

  “So, I told her that I would find her husband. It wasn't easy, but I remembered the way. And the three of us—me, Duy, and little Roi—went across the rice fields to the next town. That night, there was a blackout and the whole city went dark. We didn't see much of the road, and we all kept falling into the potholes. Also, we were telling ghost stories and spooking each other.”

  “Get to the point, Jimmy.”

  “Well, you remember the stream that runs through Mr. Qui Ba's lands? It waters his rice fields even during the drought, while everyone else prays for rain —”

  “Get to the point.”

  “All right, I will. When we got close to the stream, we heard a moaning sound. It was weak, shaky as if it belonged to a ghost. Roi wanted to run, so did I. But Duy stopped us. We crept closer, and we found Mr. Butcher leaning against a tree, looking down at the stream. He was crying bitterly. ‘Please, God and Buddha,’ he said, staring at his crotch, ‘what have I done to deserve this? If it doesn't stop, I am going to die for sure.’ We approached him from behind. ‘Hello,’ I said to him. ‘What's troubling you, sir?’ He looked up. Under the pale moonlight, his face was smeared with tears. ‘I am dying,’ he said. ‘No, you are not. You are just very drunk,’ I said, to which he replied, ‘For the last three hours, I've been doing nothing but pissing myself away. It won't stop. I think I am going to piss to death.’ I told him, ‘It's okay. You are not pissing. It is just the sound of running water in the stream. You need to go home with us.’ So we zipped him up and got him home safely.”

  Despite everything, I broke out laughing.

  “On the way home, he was so relieved that we'd saved him, he promised to return the favor one day.”

  Jimmy stopped to finish his sugar-cane drink. “Please,” he continued, “mention the story to him and his wife. Make them agree to our condition before you sell them my Lou. Otherwise, don't do it!”

  “I will, I promise.”

  “Okay,” he said, sighing.

  He lifted my sister to his back. She flattened her greasy pillow against the nape of his neck and rested her head. As usual, the dog strutted a few feet ahead of us, sniffing the ground as we went.

  Jimmy turned to me. “Kien,” he said tensely.

  “Yes?”

  “If Mom doesn't come back —”

  “I thought you didn't want to talk about that.”

  “I don't. But just in case, what are we going to do?”

  “I don't have any idea.”

  “You are not going to abandon us, are you?” he asked.

  I looked at my brother. Just nine years old, he looked like an old man, depleted and out of breath. Beads of perspiration hung at the tips of his hair. Shaking my head, I answered, “I would never leave you. I promise we'll stay together.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At the entrance to our village, Jimmy stopped, sighed, and readjusted BeTi on his back. “I am taking her home. You take care of Lou; make sure that they understand the agreement.”

  I lifted my sister off Jimmy's back. “Let's forget the whole thing. I can't do what you are asking me. We'll manage somehow.”

  It was dark. The streets were empty, flickering with fireflies in the bushes. The alley that led to our compound seemed endless, but the longer we walked, the stronger the smell of my uncle's ripe guavas became. My brother's dog whined softly as we approached our front door, and Jimmy patted it between the ears to keep it silent. Both houses were lit up. There were many shadows in my grandparents' bedroom. From a window, someone spotted us and let out a blood-curdling scream.

  The town commander, Mr. Qui Ba, ran out the front door, followed by my mother. Behind them were Mrs. Dang and a few policemen. My mother burst into tears upon seeing us. Flooded with emotion, we held on to each other. I could feel my sister struggle to get air. My mother's body trembled.

  She picked up my sister, noticed the ugly bruises on my face, and demanded an explanation. Under the pale streetlights, I showed her the bumps and contusions Tin had left on my back while Jimmy relived the potato story. Her face registered pain and anger, making her skin redden like blazing coal.

  Turning to Mr. Qui Ba, my mother wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The community leader seemed lost in thought with his eyebrows knitted together. She cleared her throat. “You saw what has happened. Please do something to help us. I demand satisfaction.”

  He started. “What are you asking, Khuon? You were gone for nine days, leaving your children behind. We all thought you had abandoned them. Report to the community center tomorrow—maybe we can deal with this issue then. However, now is not a good time; it is getting dark, and your children are safe. Please go to bed.”

  Ignoring his advice, my mother marched straight to my aunt's house and pushed the front door open. With her hands on her hips, she faced their living room and yelled out Tin's name. Her voice penetrated the dark, without the slightest trace of fear.

  In her room, Moonlight woke up and began to cough. My aunt's voice yelled back at my mother, “What are you doing, screaming like that? Can't you wait till tomorrow to settle things with him?” She appeared from her bedroom, where she had shared a bed with her youngest four daughters for the past several years.

  “I want to settle things now,” my mother screamed.

  “All right, then,” my aunt screamed back. “Tin, come out here, now.”

  “Listen, ladies,” Mr. Qui Ba interrupted. “Stop making a scene. I don't want to arrest any of you.”

  A light switch clicked, and light flooded the living room. Tin walked nervously out to face my mother. She glared at him, then at his parents.

  “You almost killed my son today,” she said, “over three small pieces of potato. Were my children's lives that cheap to you? Look around you, what do you see?”

  Tin shifted on his feet uneasily.

  “What do you see?” she asked Tin once more, but decided to answer the question herself. “All of this, the house, the furniture, even the food that is still stuck between your teeth, all came from me. That's right. Just ask your incompetent parents if you want to know. You may not have any respect for me, or any feeling for my children, but you cannot deny the fact that your existences are made possible because of this lowly prostitute. Don't you dare ever touch any of my children again! The next time I see you lay a finger on them, I will torch this entire place. Compared to you, I have nothing to lose, so don't back me into a corner.”

  “And you —” she pointed a finger at my aunt, who was pale with embarrassment—“each time you told me that I am your only sister, in my heart, I truly wanted to believe you, but I won't anymore. It always ends up hurting too much. Today, your son beat mine to within an inch of death. I am terminating this relationship, sister. From this point on, we are just two unfortunate families sharing a well and a shit house.” She stamped her foot for emphasis. “Take a close look at your life if you dare. Do you understand why you allow your children to harass mine? Jealousy, that's why. You are jealous of the fact that all of your fourteen children could never measure up in Daddy's eyes as much as one half-breed of mine. It hurts, doesn't it? Knowing that your children can never be good enough. But how could they? Just look at them, and the parents that gave life to them. I sincerely hope that I never have to see your face ag
ain.”

  My mother took us back to our house, slamming the door behind her. Mrs. Dang followed us. The community leader and his men stood in my aunt's garden. He quickly regained his composure and shouted after my mother, “Khuon, report to my office tomorrow morning.”

  Turning to us, my mother noticed my sister's sickly face for the first time. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” she asked.

  “Food,” BeTi moaned.

  “Of course, what am I thinking?” she exclaimed. “We are going to the noodle shop. Dang, would you like to accompany us?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The noodle shop was fifteen minutes from our home, next to an old buffalo farm. Behind it, gleaming under the pale streetlight, were railroad tracks. The stench of animal dung mixed with the smell of grilled pork in the air. The shop was an annex of somebody's kitchen, extended into the garden with a couple of large tables and a few benches. The owner was a middleaged woman with an overwhelming smell of curry and burned fat in her clothes. She sat on a small wooden stool cleaning a pig carcass by the well. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back in a tight bun and held on top of her head by a single porcupine quill. At her feet lay an aluminum pan filled with cooked sausages, some of which spilled over the side and floated above the muddy ground. The pig's belly bore a longitudinal cut that extended from throat to tail, gaping between her expert hands to reveal a bloody darkness within. In the dimly lit kitchen, two pots of broth boiled fervently over the stoves, sending the odors of spices, fish, and meat into the night.

  We sat on a bench. The shop lady stopped, washed her hands in a basin, and took my mother's order with a bored look. “Would you like some snacks?” she asked.