Anna is watching him, her forehead furrowed in what looks like puzzlement. He feels the same expression on his own forehead and smoothes it out. “Yes, sir. Tomorrow?”
“First thing. And you’ll communicate with me only directly. No emails, no voice mails except to tell me to call you back.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you.”
As Arthit puts the phone down, Anna tilts her head slightly, a question.
“I have the feeling,” Arthit says, “that I’m being gotten out of the way.”
BOO’S OFFICE OCCUPIES a windowless corner in an unpainted concrete building that adjoins Father Bill’s First Home center for Bangkok’s homeless children. The office isn’t much—its third and fourth walls are a pair of white screens loaned by the same hospital that furnishes the hospital bed and the almost-nurse—but there are still days, after all his years on the street, when he can’t believe it’s his.
He has a small desk and three chairs—reserving the comfortable one for himself—plus an ancient, cracked-screen laptop and a broken table fan that he keeps on top of the desk because he thinks it makes him look prosperous. Behind the desk is a wheeled whiteboard that’s supposed to be filled with to-do lists, but kids come in when he’s not here and decorate it with doodles.
He’s no longer the sullen, amphetamine-addicted street child whom Miaow dragged home to Rafferty, trying to repay him for having protected her when she was left on the sidewalk to live or die. He’s tall and handsome now, with shining shoulder-length hair and an effortless air of competence. After years of commanding street gangs and then helping other street children escape the sidewalks, he’s now—at the age of sixteen—been given probationary control of a rundown, dirty, badly ventilated building, two stories high and swarming with mice, that adjoins First Home, a substantial shelter and school that feeds and educates Thailand’s poorest children.
Father Bill, the priest who runs First Home with Old Testament firmness, regards Boo as an experiment, the goal of which is to find a way to open his sanctuary to some of Bangkok’s more dangerous street kids—kids who have stayed alive by committing occasionally violent crimes. In the ten months Boo has been here, he’s had as many as thirty kids sleeping in the building at a time, boys downstairs and girls on the second floor. So far only nine of them have made it into First Home.
Boo worries about the kids, but he’s worried about himself, too. A couple of years ago, he rescued a 17-year-old girl named Da who had been put on the street by a high-ranking gangster to beg. At the last moment, the gangster had handed Da an infant—women with babies earn more—so when Boo snatched her from the gang, he took the baby, too. And now, he supposes, they’ve become a family. He’s being paid almost nothing at First Home, but he and Da and the child need every penny of it.
Which makes him even more anxious that in the ten months since Father Bill gave him the space and the opportunity to prove himself, more than half of the kids Boo has lassoed into staying there have melted back onto the streets, and most of the others have accepted the meals and the bed but declined the school and the other activities that the priest regards as minimum commitments for formal admission to First Home. Sooner or later, these kids disappear, too. Boo is on trial.
And now this.
The young black American woman sitting opposite him is not coping well with the heat; the underarms of her short-sleeved blouse are soaked, and a bead of sweat wobbles at the tip of her nose. Boo wouldn’t dream of laughing at her, though; he admires Khun Katherine far too much for that. She came all the way from America to work with Father Bill’s castaway kids, and no one puts in longer days than she does.
“She’s out of danger,” Katherine says in her slow, careful, badly pronounced Thai. He could speak English to her, but she insists on Thai, and she’s gotten better even in the time Boo has been here. She’s taken the chair closest on the other side of the desk, having been in the office often enough to avoid the one that wobbles. “Her fever is gone, her vital signs are good. She might even have gained a little weight. If she’d chew and swallow something, we wouldn’t have to keep her attached to the IV. There’d be no reason for her to stay in that hospital bed.”
“Except that there’s nowhere else,” Boo says.
“You can’t keep her sedated and handcuffed forever.”
“She’s tried to harm herself. And has hurt others. She gouged the faces of the two guys who brought her in.”
“I walked her to the bathroom this morning,” Katherine said.
He blinks. “You should have asked me.”
“She had to go, Boo. The boy was there, so I couldn’t give her the bedpan.”
“What boy?”
“That sweet little one with the awful teeth.”
Boo thinks for a moment. “Noo.”
“That’s not what his girlfriend calls him. Noo? You mean, like rat? What a terrible nickname.”
Boo puts his elbows on his desk and rubs his eyes. There’s no point in pretending he understands anything she’s saying. “His girlfriend?”
“The one who was with him when he found the patient.”
“Chalee,” Boo says. “She calls him Dok. So, you couldn’t use a bedpan because Dok was in the room. Why were Dok and Chalee in—”
“They’re always in there.”
“They’ve been skipping school?” Classes are offered six days a week, including Saturday.
“They take turns. The one who goes catches the other one up. Did you know that Chalee can draw?”
“What? Who cares?” He pauses. One of Katherine’s responsibilities is the relationship between Father Bill and the hospital that donates medical supplies and the beds; there’s no point in alienating her. “Has—has she talked to them?”
“No. But she likes them.”
“You don’t know that. All you know is that she hasn’t tried to kill them yet.”
“She lets Dok sleep on the bed.”
Boo brings his palms down on the desk. The noise is louder than he expected it to be. “Why don’t I know about this?”
“They’ve been with her practically ever since she—”
“They’re spending the night in her room? I do a bed check every night, and they’ve been here.”
“You thought they were here the night they found her, too,” Katherine says, and then she laughs, and, after a second, Boo joins in.
“They’re with her now?”
“Always,” Katherine says patiently. “That’s why I couldn’t use the bedpan. And I wanted to take her for a walk.”
“So you unhandcuffed her, too. She might have hurt you.”
“She was calm,” Katherine says. “She’s better with women.”
“She’s better with women,” Boo repeats mechanically, but he’s thinking, She was calm? “You talked to her?”
“Sure. All the way to the bathroom and back. All she did was look around. She sniffed the air a few times, like an animal.”
“And then you handcuffed her again. She didn’t fight you?”
“She put her arms on the railings of the bed and looked at the ceiling. She doesn’t need to be in a hospital bed, although she won’t want to part with Dok and Chalee.”
“But she won’t eat. And how can you be sure she won’t hurt herself?”
“Boo, we need that bed. We have two sick kids inside the compound. I know you hate to lose any of them. But this girl is twelve or thirteen. She’s not an infant who can’t meet her own needs, she’s—”
“Meet her own needs? She won’t even eat.”
“She can’t get the care she needs here,” Katherine says. “Maybe she should go to an institution.”
Boo says, “I thought this was an institution.”
“Where she can get medical help. Emotional help. She hasn’t spoken a word, she won’t meet your eyes, she’s borderline suicidal, which is probably why she won’t eat. These aren’t the normal street-kid problems.”
“I’ve had kids al
most this bad before,” Boo says, although it’s not actually true. “The best help for kids is other kids. She’ll stay here.” Katherine mops her forehead with the tail of her blouse, which is already soaked, and Boo watches her suffer the heat with a tiny bit of satisfaction. “But she needs the bed just a little longer. I can’t trust her around the other kids yet.”
“She’s getting along with—with Chalee and Dok.” Katherine puts her hands on the arms of her chair. “Come on. She’s awake now. The kids are with her. Just come take a look.”
Boo gets up unwillingly and follows her through the gap in the partitions that defines his doorway and across the boys’ dormitory—empty in the daytime and with blankets and sheets on only a melancholy seven cots—and out of the building. They’re no sooner in the blinding sunlight than Chalee almost runs into them, Dok hurrying just a few steps behind her.
“Boo, Boo,” Chalee says, grabbing his wrist and practically swinging from it.
Dok says, “She said something.”
“What?”
“Not Thai,” Chalee says. “Sounded like—” She closes her eyes to concentrate, but then she opens them again and waves Dok to her. When he’s next to her, she whispers in his ear. Dok screws up his face, his rat-teeth gleaming in the sun, and shakes his head. Chalee stamps her foot impatiently and whispers again into Dok’s ear, and Dok gives her a huge smile.
Proudly, Chalee says to Boo, “She said, Poke.”
ANDREW’S FATHER WEARS slacks and a long-sleeve knit shirt, buttoned almost to the neck, and he manages to make it look like a uniform. His receding hair is combed back and wet-looking. Even standing in Poke’s doorway, he has the bearing of a soldier.
His face is uncomfortably stiff. Poke thinks, with a sinking feeling, He’s embarrassed.
“Mr. Nguyen.” He steps aside without actually inviting Nguyen in, and after an awkward moment, Nguyen comes through the door.
He lets his eyes travel over the living room, tiny compared to the Nguyen apartment. His gaze pauses at the enormous television set, which in Poke’s class-conscious imagination, screams nouveau riche, and halts when it settles on Rose, immaculate on the couch in a long-sleeve coral shirt that gives her the blush of a nectarine.
Nguyen bows slightly. “Mrs. Rafferty.”
Rose says, to Poke, “Will this take long?” From Rose, that’s breathtakingly rude.
Small red spots bloom on Nguyen’s cheekbones.
“Will it?” Rafferty asks.
“I wanted to apologize—” Nguyen begins.
“Ahh, well, if that’s why you’re here, let’s get the person you owe the apology to.” He raises his voice. “Miaow. Andrew’s father is here.”
They hear her bedroom door open, and a moment later she’s standing at the end of the hallway. Her hands are clapped to her sides like those of someone standing at attention. Her lips are pressed together so tightly they look like they’ve been sewn shut, and the tilt of her head has something imperious in it, but her eyes are the eyes of someone expecting a slap.
“I’m here to say I’m sorry,” Nguyen says. “You have to believe that I admire your courage, young lady, and that I know—because Andrew has made certain that I know—that you saved him from something dangerous yesterday.” He stops, looking like he’s lost his place.
The line of Miaow’s mouth hardens in a way that doesn’t suggest that she appreciates the sentiment, but her eyes don’t waver.
“I spoke to you yesterday in a way I shouldn’t have. I owed you thanks, not rudeness. I apologize for that.”
Miaow says, “But.”
Nguyen holds her gaze. Miaow’s head still tilts upward as the silence stretches out, but then she brings up her right palm, brusquely wipes her eyes with it, and turns and goes back down the hallway.
Rafferty hears the phone in her bedroom play the final chord of “A Day in the Life.” Miaow accelerates, but not much, and closes the door behind her.
Rafferty and Nguyen look down the hallway. Rose leans her head back against the wall behind the couch and closes her eyes.
Rafferty says, “But.”
Nguyen says, “Andrew is my only child. His future is more important to me than my own.” He puts his hands in his pockets and immediately takes them out again. “He needs to be around girls who are—”
“Upper class,” Rafferty suggests.
“Vietnamese,” Nguyen says.
“Right,” Rafferty says. “Well, now that you’ve soothed your conscience—”
“I’m an only son,” Nguyen says. “Andrew is an only son. That’s a burden for a Vietnamese family, especially one like mine. If he had an older brother, if—if—” He waves the thought away. “And we’re only going to be stationed in Bangkok one more year … They’d have to separate then, anyway. It’s probably better that they say goodbye now, before they grow—fonder of each other. It could be very difficult for both of them, if they—”
Rafferty jumps at the bang of the door to Miaow’s room being thrown open, hard enough for the knob to punch a hole in the wall.
Miaow marches into the living room and past Nguyen to the door as though the room were empty. She opens the front door.
Rafferty says, “Where are you going?”
She says, “Somewhere else,” and slams the door behind her.
Rose says to Nguyen, “Are you finished?”
He says, “I am sorry.”
“Wait,” Rose says. “Only one elevator is working. She doesn’t want to be with you.”
In the bedroom, Rose’s phone begins to ring. She gets up, and Nguyen’s eyes follow her as she leaves the room.
“Count of five,” Rafferty says. “One. Two.” He goes to the front door. “Three. Four.” On “Five,” he pulls the door open, looks out, and says, “Coast clear. Goodbye.”
Nguyen nods and goes out into the hallway, and when Rafferty closes the door and turns around, he sees Rose, her hands tight on the phone.
“It’s my mother,” she says. “I haven’t talked to her today, so she didn’t know we weren’t going to tell Miaow about the baby.”
Rafferty says, “Oh, no.”
“She called just now to ask Miaow if she was excited about being an older sister. Miaow hung up on her.”
Rafferty says, “Where would she go?” With a cold spasm of panic, he remembers Arthit saying to keep her home on Sunday, and on the kitchen counter, his phone rings.
“She could be anywhere in Bangkok,” Rose says. “You’d better get that,” and Rafferty skids across the floor to pick it up. It says ARTHIT.
“I think we need to talk,” Arthit says. “They’re sending me out of Bangkok, and I haven’t heard anything new about the phone.”
“Arthit—” Poke begins, but the phone bleats to announce a call waiting. An unknown number. “I’ll call you right back.” He touches the screen to accept the call.
“Mr. Rafferty?” says a voice Poke hasn’t heard in more than two years. “This is Boo.”
Part Three
DROWNING GIRLS
24
One Girl Down There Somewhere
VIOLET SKY TO the west. To the east, the hard white diamond of the evening star, punching a hole in the dark. The tatter of bats in flight. The same sky that’s hung above this swampy bend in the Chao Phraya River for hundreds of thousands of years.
On the curving banks of the river, a city that’s been the capital of Thailand under several names, most recently, Krung Thep Maha Nakon, known to the world as Bangkok. Like the ever-expanding boundaries of the town, the city’s history has been fluid and often directed by its sheer, obliging adaptability; the name Bangkok has no clear meaning in Thai and may have been adopted formally as the city’s name simply as a convenience for the foreigners who misheard and mispronounced one of the town’s colloquial names, Bang ko. The town exploded in an influx of foreign money in the 1980s, and exploded again more recently as poverty and the breakdown of community structures in the countryside have swelled the popu
lation to an estimated ten million, and as many as twelve million at the peak of the workday.
Ten to twelve million people. A thousand miles of sidewalk beneath the bat-specked, purpling sky. One girl down there somewhere.
RAFFERTY AND ROSE are in a cab, heading for Arthit’s house, when Rose says, “Call Boo back now. If anybody can find her, he can.”
Rafferty says, “I’m not thinking clearly,” and hits redial.
WHEN ARTHIT OPENS the door, Rose hugs him so hard he huffs like someone who’s been hit in the stomach. She lets go of him and steps back, blinking tears away. Rafferty throws an arm around Arthit’s shoulders, and Arthit turns to lead them into the house.
“Boo might be coming, too,” Rafferty says, and then they’re in the living room, and in its dead center, standing very straight, with her hands crossed formally in front of her, is Anna. She’s wearing business clothes: a jacket and matching slacks, every crease sharp, and Rafferty understands immediately that she’s dressed up for this meeting. She looks at Arthit as though seeking reassurance and then blinks heavily and directs her eyes to Poke.
But Rose takes control of the moment, saying, in Thai, “Hello. I’m Rose.” She looks around the room and says, “You’ve made this room even more beautiful.”
Anna, her eyes sharp with the embarrassment of speaking aloud, says, “Thank you.”
Now that Rose has opened the door, Poke can say, more or less naturally, “Hello, Anna.”
Anna keeps her hands in front of her and makes a very small bow, almost Japanese-style, from the waist, and then opens her hands and lifts them in a wai, just beneath her chin. Rafferty sees it as a request for forgiveness, or at the least as a plea for him to pretend forgiveness.
“We’re all friends,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”
The four of them stand there for a moment, Arthit shifting a bit, and Rose says, to Anna, “Our daughter has run away.” Her tone is light enough to draw a glance from Rafferty.
“She’s been through a lot,” Rafferty says.
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