“Mai?” said Sang. But immediately she ohed with understanding.
“My nephew’s a girl,” said Uncle Hung, eyes still closed. “And a great little sailor, it turns out.”
“How can I help?” asked Thanh. Mai had outshone him again.
“Eat something,” said Uncle Truc. “Sang, maybe you can take the engine for a few minutes for me.”
As Thanh ate, he marveled again at how the sea could have quieted so thoroughly while he’d slept. The water lay tranquil—a person could almost walk on it.
“Mai’s going to sleep right through all this calm,” Uncle Truc said.
Just then, Mai’s head rose from under the tarp, followed by The Turtle’s. But by then the water chopped lightly, and the little boat bobbed on the waves.
“She did miss it,” said Sang. “Mai, come have some breakfast.”
As Uncle Truc picked his daughter up, The Turtle crowed.
• • •
“HOW MUCH did that storm set us back?” Sang asked later that morning. Uncle Truc steered, gray with weariness, while The Turtle played near his feet with a spoon Thanh had given her.
“Well,” said Mai, who sat halfway in the tent, “the short version is that we’re lost. The storm really blasted us. But we’ll figure something out.”
She spoke as if she were part of the team of grown-ups who were in charge. It was irritating. “We?” Thanh asked.
She frowned at him. “Not a we that includes you, if that’s what you’re asking. We meaning me and Uncle Hung and Uncle Truc.” She muttered something under her breath that sounded, again, like knucklehead.
Thanh decided there was nothing about this girl that he liked.
Sang didn’t seem to hear Mai. She turned to Uncle Truc. “We’re lost?”
He nodded. “The storm threw us off course, it’s true. But no worries. We’re still heading south. Even if we miss Malaysia we’ll hit something. Eventually.”
“Before we run out of gas?”
“We have some cooking oil, and if we run out of fuel we can power the engine on that for a little while.”
As Uncle Truc spoke, Uncle Hung emerged from the tent, stepping carefully over Mai’s legs in the doorway. “That’s right,” he said. “Also we’ll keep an eye out for any big foreign ships, flag them down. They might be able to give us some fuel. I’ve heard of that happening.” He paused, glancing at Uncle Truc as if wondering if he should say more. When Uncle Truc nodded, he said, “The fuel is a problem. And the drinking water, too. But we’re okay.” They weren’t okay. They were miles from okay, but Uncle Hung seemed determined to put things in a good light. He stretched and took the engine seat from Uncle Truc, patting him on his good shoulder. “Take a nap, baby brother.” Uncle Truc rolled himself under the tent.
As he checked over the engine, Uncle Hung said, “Sang. You haven’t gone to the salon yet.”
“What?” Sang grabbed The Turtle as she scooted past, stopping her from following her father under the tarp, and plopped the baby into her lap. The Turtle yelped, then laid her head against Sang’s shoulder.
But Thanh knew what Uncle Hung meant. “I didn’t talk to her yet. About cutting her hair.”
In her slow voice Mai said, “Are you stupid? We need to get this taken care of.”
Hung cleared his throat. “Mai.”
Mai snapped her mouth closed and flushed. She walked, graceful despite the rocking, to the other end of the boat— only about six meters from where they sat near the engine—and pretended to be looking out to sea.
“Cutting my hair?” said Sang. A dangerous thread ran through her voice. The Turtle lifted her head and gazed at Sang’s face.
Thanh glanced at Uncle Hung, hoping he’d take care of the conversation, but he just stared pointedly at Thanh, an I’m-not-joking-this-time look on his face.
Thanh sighed. “You should cut your hair. Short.”
“Why?” Her eyes narrowed even further and the dangerous thread wove itself through the entire why. The Turtle reached up and patted her cheek.
“Borrow my knife,” Uncle Hung said, “and cut your hair like a boy’s. And take my extra shirt to wear. If we’re found at sea, better that you are a boy than a girl. You know what I mean.” Then he grinned. “You’ll make a good boy. Scrawny and tough.”
“I love having short hair,” said Mai, from the front of the boat, running her hand over her fuzz.
Sang did not speak. The Turtle continued to pat her cheek.
“Yours doesn’t have to be as short as Mai’s. And you can be a girl again when we get to the camp,” said Uncle Hung. “Just as beautiful. And safe.”
“But my hair . . .” Sang fingered it. It was filthy with seawater and the Turtle’s vomit. But Thanh could imagine it clean, thick and glossy with hints of blue deep inside like a jewel, framing her round, clear face. Artistic at heart, Sang was always finding pretty rocks and flowers to decorate their home, and embroidering everything she could with intricate designs. Her hair was, Thanh thought, yet another beautiful thing that made her happy.
Even with it cut, Thanh doubted she’d look much like a boy. But she had lost weight in the past months. He squinted, studying her. She was downright skinny. And dirty. Maybe with a man’s shirt on, she’d look convincing. Maybe.
“Better your hair than something else,” said Uncle Hung meaningfully.
“I’ll borrow your shirt. Thank you.” She bowed her head to him politely. “But I’ll wait to cut my hair. We haven’t even seen any ships yet. What are the chances that we will?” Then she froze, a stricken look on her face. For that was exactly what they were hoping for now—that someone would see them and help with directions and fuel and water.
“Well,” said Uncle Hung after a pause, “keep thinking about the hair, hmm?”
• • •
THEY MADE IT only one more day before the fuel ran out, and the next morning—the third morning, Thanh thought, the morning they would have reached land if only they hadn’t gotten lost—Uncle Truc and Uncle Hung decided to use the cooking oil as fuel. The engine coughed and sputtered, and the boat smelled like a kitchen fire.
Everyone was weary. They were running out of fresh water, so they only drank a little bit, and only when Uncle Hung said it was time to drink. The Turtle cried; she was thirsty and scared of the waves. They huddled in the tent to get out of the sun, and the tent grew clammy and too warm. No one spoke. No one slept. The waves made the little boat stutter and jump, and through the tent’s triangle, Thanh saw only endless sea.
By evening of that miserable, nothing-happening day—still the third day? It was getting hard to tell—they ran out of cooking fuel.
Later that night, Uncle Truc sat on watch, quietly steering a boat that was no longer moving. Everyone else lay in the tent except Thanh, who curled on his side in the doorway. He listened to the soft breathing behind him and the salt water lightly flicking the sides of the boat around him, and he licked his dry lips and fantasized about rain: in his mind he was lying on a soft, grassy hill with his mouth open to the dripping sky.
All night long it did not rain. And to hear the water around them—constantly tapping the boat—was maddening. But Thanh knew that salt water would kill much faster than simple dehydration would.
The next day, they spotted a ship—a transport that looked possibly Malaysian. (Uncle Hung hoped so, anyway, as that would suggest they were maybe near land.) But it didn’t stop to help, even though Thanh and everyone else waved frantically and Hung swung his extra shirt—wet but still somewhat clean—high above his head like a flag. The ship passed them without any sign.
They drank even less water that day.
Near evening, when the two siblings were momentarily together at the front of the boat, Sang cried. She crouched next to Thanh, her hand on top of his as he gripped the edge of the boat for balance, and her
face broke and her shoulders heaved. Thanh didn’t know what to do; his big sister never cried, not since the night Uncle Truc had told them their father had died. Finally she cleared her throat and patted his hand. “I’m sorry. I promised Mom I’d be in charge. And I messed up, bringing us here.”
She sounded defeated. Thanh knew why: they might die here in the middle of the South China Sea. And they might die soon. They had no way to reach land, and no one to help them. Water was almost gone.
“I thought we should stay together.” Her face collapsed again, but only for a moment before she took a deep breath and calmed herself. “I should have left you behind—you would have been safe in Vietnam.”
Thanh shook his head. “You know that’s not true.” He didn’t know what else to say, but the idea that he would have been safe in the country where both their parents had died was almost funny, even now. “We’re going to reach land. I know it.” But he didn’t know it. And Sang knew he didn’t, of course.
Her chin wobbled dangerously. “I hate being in charge. I hate it.”
She did? Thanh always thought of Sang as the big sister: the one who cooked his meals after their mother died; the one who kept house for them after their father’s arrest; the one who made all the decisions now that they were orphaned. She didn’t like being that person? Then who did she want to be?
“I wanted to go to art school,” she said, almost as if he’d asked the question out loud. Her voice had returned to normal. “I know it’s silly, but I’m good at fancy needlework and at drawing on paper, and I thought maybe I’d be good at painting, too, if I ever studied it. One time Dad even told me—” She stopped as if she’d been cut off.
Thanh waited, but Sang didn’t say more.
“It’s not silly,” he said. And it wasn’t. “When we get to the refugee camp, I’ll find you some paper and a pencil. And some thread and fabric. You made everything beautiful in Vietnam. And you’ll make everything beautiful again.”
Sang reached for her brother and drew him in. He could feel her sigh against him, and he knew she was trying not to cry again. “When we get to the camp,” she said, her voice hitching just a little. “Sure.”
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING began the fifth or maybe sixth day at sea. We arrived two days ago to a refugee camp in . . . Malaysia, thought Thanh. But his imagination felt blunted, and he couldn’t take the fantasy any further. He couldn’t stop himself, though, from picturing the mythical camp: barrels and barrels of water.
Mid-morning, they saw another transport vessel. Everyone waved as they had before. Uncle Hung snatched up his shirt and whipped it around like a small hurricane.
Uncle Truc had been dozing. “What country is it?” he asked groggily. His long face was deeply lined, as if he’d aged by years in the past days.
Uncle Hung shook his head. He was a riverboatman; he didn’t know how to identify foreign ships. He kept waving. Uncle Truc lifted the baby in the air in hopes that they’d see her, and she kicked her good foot and cried for water.
The vessel let down a smaller boat, which ran a motor and sped toward them. When it reached them, a bearded white man introduced himself in English: the captain of a Norwegian ship. He told them he’d heard all about boat people.
“Who?” Mai said quietly to Thanh. Her English was not strong, and “boat people” sounded wrong to her ears. Thanh’s English was good, and it sounded strange to him, too.
The captain brought them jugs and jugs of water. And he brought them food—raisins, dried meat, tins of vegetables; even two loaves of American bread in plastic bags with a word on the side that the captain said, wrinkling his nose a bit, was WONDER—and several containers of fuel. He told them they were probably only a day or two from the Philippines, if that was where they wanted to go. They’d missed Malaysia.
Uncle Truc nodded, gray with weariness. He looked as if he no longer cared where they went so long as they got to land.
“I can’t take you on board,” the captain said regretfully. He didn’t know what his rights and duties were as far as boat people were concerned. He could get into a lot of trouble if he brought refugees into an Asian port aboard his boat. But he could give them supplies and advice, and he hoped it would help.
Uncle Hung and Uncle Truc thanked him.
The captain glanced around, nodded at Thanh and Mai. “Fine young men you have to help you,” he said. Mai snorted a little; everything they wore was dirty and torn, and they all swayed with fatigue. Then the captain saw Sang, half hidden behind Uncle Truc, and he saluted. “And a young lady. She’ll be a heartbreaker, I can tell.” He slowed his speech down here, as people sometimes do when they talk to a small child or someone not very bright or someone who doesn’t speak their language, and opened his mouth carefully around each word. “Pretty little girl.” Mai snorted again; Sang’s hair was almost white in places from The Turtle’s frequent spitting up.
Sang lowered her head; Thanh could see that she was rolling her eyes. “Sixteen,” she muttered in Vietnamese, “is not a little girl.”
“My sister,” said Thanh in English. “Sir,” he added, to be polite. He didn’t like the captain’s look.
The captain tossed his head back and laughed. “That’s right, son. Watch out for your sister. Look after her.” Then he tipped his head at Thanh. “You have good English.” It was a question.
“My father taught us when we were little. Me and my sister. We lived at a base for a while, with some American soldiers, and I always talked with them. Later, I studied my dad’s books.” He thought of the small story collection and the dictionary left behind.
“Very good English,” said the captain again. “You must be a smart boy.” Though he grinned at the compliment, Thanh shook his head—he was good only at learning English and telling stories, not at anything else.
But the captain patted Thanh on the head, pulled an American quarter out of his pocket, and pressed it into his hand, explaining that he’d been to New York recently. “You get to the USA someday, you buy yourself a Coca-Cola and think kindly on the man who helped you out at sea.” He gave a quarter to Mai, too, then motioned to his pilot to start the boat’s engine and take him back to his ship. “Safe journeys,” he said. “Good luck.” And left.
Before the captain was even aboard his big ship again, everyone drank some of the fresh water he’d brought. Sang started to feed The Turtle bread slices, carefully opening the WONDER plastic so that she could reseal it afterward. Mai pried at a vegetable can with her knife and they drank that water, too, and ate the mushy peas while the transport ship chugged toward the horizon and away from them.
The little flat-bottomed boat was alone on the ocean once again.
4
ENGINE GROWLING on real fuel, they headed south, flush with food and water. Though they were still on rations, Thanh wasn’t parched, just thirsty; and he wasn’t starved, just hungry. Not like he hadn’t been hungry before—almost every day since his father had been taken to the prison camp. Some days he’d worked for the rice farmer down the road, but the farmer didn’t always need him. And since Sang didn’t make a lot of money from her sewing, their bellies had often gnawed at night, especially if Uncle Truc and his wife, Aunt Duyen, had had a hard day, too—then there would be nothing to share among them. Today was certainly not worse than those days. There are harder things than being on a boat, Thanh thought. We’re almost there, we braved a storm, and we have enough food and water and fuel to make it to a port. And what a story it will make! He could already hear it in his head: The ocean reached over the vessel and struck our faces with her icy fingers—
“Hey, spacey,” said Mai. There was no malice in her tone, just matter-of-fact truth. “Do you see something?” She shaded her eyes and stared in the direction he was looking, then shook her head when she realized nothing was out there. “What’re you thinking about?”
“Nothi
ng.” Then, when she turned her intense dark eyes to him, he added, “Just . . . daydreaming.” He waited for her to say something teasing or blunt. But she didn’t.
She said, “I wish I could daydream more, like you. Instead, I just worry. And plan.” She shook her head.
He was surprised at the almost compliment she’d paid him. “You shouldn’t worry. We’re going to be okay.” He reached out, almost touched her shoulder like they were friends, and then pulled his hand back.
“Promise?” Her mouth twisted wryly.
“Promise.” He crossed and re-crossed his pinkies.
Mai smiled—that slow, bonfire-lighting smile—and walked away to take the engine for Uncle Hung. At Uncle Hung’s suggestion, Thanh scooted over to the rice pot to open food with Mai’s knife, thinking they’d eat canned carrots (which The Turtle loved).
But just as Sang sat next to him with The Turtle, Mai called out, “Boat!”
Everyone froze for a moment. Sang looked up at Mai, who was peering at the horizon intently, hand still on the tiller. Squinting, Uncle Hung stood and shaded his eyes and frowned deeply; Uncle Truc staggered to his feet. Everyone looked. The boat was far off, hard to see. A fishing boat? It seemed to be moving toward them. Quickly.
Suddenly Uncle Hung took the tiller and swung the engine around. “Let’s go.” They began to head back north.
“What—?” asked Thanh.
No one answered, but Sang said to Uncle Truc, who half stood in the boat, “Is it—?”
Uncle Truc said, “Maybe just fishermen. Maybe not.” He turned to them. “All of you get down.” He gestured at the young people. His glance rested on Sang and his face softened. “Now is a good time to cut your hair.”
Sang’s mouth opened in a small O. Her face looked as if a stone had been tossed in the middle and sent ripples outward. Then she nodded just once and dropped to the bottom of the boat with the others. “Knife,” Sang said, setting The Turtle down, and Thanh realized he still had Mai’s in his hand. He gave it to Sang.
A Crack in the Sea Page 13