Eighty Days to Elsewhere

by kc dyer

  She throws her arms around Sumaya, who looks like she’s about to cry. “Look how tall you get! I’m Le, and this my sister Fan. Your auntie show me pictures of you, but when you were a baby. Like three years old. And look at you now!”

  She releases Sumaya from the hug, but holds her at arm’s length by her shoulders, and then turns her, as if displaying a prize, to the other stylist. “She look like a young Nkruna, eh? Just like her!”

  Fan beams.

  “There’s got to be a mistake,” whispers Sumaya. “I sent her e-mails from the camp. She had to know I was coming. I have her last letter.”

  I gently disentangle Sumaya from Le’s grip and help her over to a low stool by the door. “Show me the letter,” I say softly, and Sumaya hands me the envelope.

  It’s stained with age and has creases so deep the ink has completely faded in places. I slip the letter out from inside and find it wrapped around a tattered snapshot of two tall, strikingly elegant Somali women, standing outside this very shop. Tucking it safely back into the envelope, I carefully unfold the letter. It’s brief and has exactly zero words I can read.

  “Is this in—Arabic?” I ask her, and she nods miserably. “How long have you had this letter, Sumaya?”

  “A long time,” she admits. “Five years, maybe. But Nkruna texted Aabe—my papa—in the camps.”

  Dom flashes me a warning look—unnecessarily, since I pick up the reference immediately. In all the time I’ve known her, Sumaya has referred to her father exactly once, and that was to tell me that her parents were dead. Still, we need information in order to decide what to do next, so I risk another question.

  “So when was the last time you heard from her—from Nkruna?”

  Sumaya takes a deep breath. I notice, with relief, the color seems to have returned to her lips. “I don’t know. She was sending texts to Aabe, but he got moved to a different part of the camp, so I didn’t get to see him. And then . . .”

  She pauses for a long moment, and I can feel the daggers shooting at me out of Dom’s eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he says in a low voice. “We don’t need to go over it now.”

  But Sumaya smooths down her hijab and stands up. “At least a year,” she says, her voice stronger. “It might be more. Since they—the camp leaders—they took my phone away.”

  Dominic pats her shoulder and then turns back to the sisters, neither of whom has paused in her work.

  “Look,” he says, and I can hear the edge in his voice. “This is important. Sumaya has come a long way to find her auntie, and now you say she’s not here. Was it Toronto? Ottawa? Saskatchewan?”

  “That’s a province, not a city,” I snap, and then almost immediately regret it, since I can’t think of another one. “Montreal?” I say, at last.

  “Vancouver?” Dom says at the same moment.

  Fan’s face lights up. “Might be Vancouver,” she says. “I think yes.”

  “Good! That’s great,” I say. “So do you think you might have an old e-mail or something with her address on it?”

  But both Fan and Le are shaking their heads firmly.

  Le pulls out an enormous can of hairspray, and tilts her hand over her client’s eyes before liberally applying it. “She hasn’t contact us,” she says, and then coughs a little after inhaling the spray. “I’m really sorry, but no.”

  Fan reaches over to her sister and pokes her with a long red fingernail. “There’s always Nena,” she says.

  “Who’s Nena?” I ask, as she resumes her braiding.

  “She used to work here,” interjects Le, unsnapping her client’s protective cape. “She’s good friend to Nkruna—best friend. Maybe they talk since she left? But you never get Nena. She’s a nanny now, work way down in Stanley. South Island.” She ushers her client past Dom and me, and we shuffle sideways to make room for her to stand at the tiny cash desk.

  But Fan’s not finished. “It Sunday,” she says. “We have picnic. I meet Nena, with Gu and sometimes Joan. She bring her dumpling.” She snaps an elastic around the end of the braid, and feeds a bead into place. “Nena make the best dumpling.”

  “What?” says Le to her sister. “Since when you go meet Nena?”

  Fan shrugs. “Every few week. She text me.” She holds up her phone and waggles it at us.

  “Okay, this could be good,” Dom says. “If Nkruna’s kept in touch with Nena, she might have an address we can use. When are you meeting her?”

  “Tonight,” says Fan. “After work. I could take you.”

  “But—you said the South Island,” I say to Le. “Is it far?”

  Le shrugs. “Stanley one hour, maybe longer, by train.”

  I exchange a glance with Dom. “Far, then,” I say. “If we have to wait until Fan finishes work, the chances of us meeting up with this Nena and still making it back in time to catch the ship home before it sails . . .”

  “We can do it,” Dom says firmly. “We have to. Can you give us her address in Stanley?”

  But Fan is shaking her head at her sister. “No—no. You wrong, Le. I meet Nena here, not Stanley. She and Gu, they set up on flyover by Canal Road. Cool breeze there, off water in evening. We have picnic. They bring dumpling.”

  “Did you say Canal Road?” says Sumaya quietly.

  “That the place,” agrees Fan, grinning at Sumaya. “Big walkway. Shady with breeze off water.”

  I hold up a hand. “Sorry—what do you mean by sets up?”

  Le collects money and shoos her freshly backcombed customer out the door. A young man slips into the chair in her place. Fan is still patiently braiding. The woman in her chair has a bridal magazine open in her lap.

  “Oh you know, they get Sundays and some Wednesday afternoons off, so the helpers everywhere,” Fan continues. “You must have seen them, climbing up here?”

  “Do you mean all the ladies with the sheets of cardboard?” asks Sumaya.

  Le clucks disapprovingly, but Fan chuckles. “Heh. Yes. Hong Kong very big helper culture. All family have helper, who live in. Most are foreign, yes?”

  “All wealthy family,” Le interjects.

  I lock eyes with Dominic. “Okay, so that’s what Klahan meant by the helper culture,” I mutter.

  The young girl, who has paused in her diligent sweeping of hair to listen in, pipes up for the first time. “Not all wealthy,” she says in a sweet, high-pitched voice. “I had nanny when I was small, and my family not wealthy.”

  She smiles shyly at Sumaya, who looks about the same age. “She was more like a granny to me,” she says confidentially. “I cry for weeks when she die last year.”

  “You did, is true,” agrees Fan, pausing to hold a mirror up to the back of her client’s head.

  “It’s true,” Le adds grudgingly.

  I can feel Dom shifting restively beside me.

  Le pulls out a pair of lethal-looking shears and starts in at the nape of her client’s neck. “All these women,” she says. “Mostly women, some men too . . .”

  “All gardeners are men,” interjects the young sweeper.

  “These helpers, they live in. No homes of their own. So on Sundays, they flock to the city. Find a cool place, shady place to sit. They fill streets too much. Get in way.”

  “You too cranky, Le,” says Fan. “Helpers need time with friends. Only fun for them all week.”

  She winks at me. “I take you. You see.”

  Dom clears his throat. “What time do you get off work?”

  Fan shrugs. “When I’m finish,” she says, indicating the woman in her chair. Considering half the woman’s hair is still in banana clips, it doesn’t seem like anytime soon.

  Dom pulls the map out of his back pocket and leans toward me. “We came past Canal Road on the way here,” he says to me in a low voice. “I’m sure I can find it on the map. Let’s go.”


  I grab his arm. “They said she’s in Canada,” I hiss. “Our ship is heading to San Francisco. And you know how easy it’s going to be bringing a refugee back through the US . . .”

  “Not easy. I know.” Dom takes a deep breath. “Look. This is my problem. It was me who helped her in the first place, and I need to see it through. I’ll go locate this Nena, and get Nkruna’s address. I’ll escort Sumaya to her auntie in Vancouver, and then take a train to San Francisco. You can take the boat straight through.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, right, Mr. Self-Sacrifice. What about your mom?”

  “My mom doesn’t enter into this. What’s important here . . .”

  “What’s important here is Sumaya,” I say, jamming my thumb over my shoulder toward the doorway. “After all we’ve been through—let’s get her to her auntie. Together. After that? All bets are off.”

  He grins at me. “You got a deal.” He waves the map at Fan. “We’ll find your friend Nena at Canal Street, right?”

  “Canal Road,” corrects Fan. “We meet at the flyover Hennessy Road. If anyone know Nkruna address, she know.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thank you very much—both of you.” I turn to Dom. “We’re going to have to run back down all those stairs.”

  “Easier than running up,” he says, and then his grip on my hand, which he hasn’t released, tightens convulsively.

  “Ow! What?”

  I turn to face the empty doorway.

  Sumaya is gone.

  chapter forty-seven

  IMAGE: Villain-beater

  IG: DomBakes [Hong Kong, April 16]

  #CurseYourEnemy #StandUpSuccess

  19017

  Everything goes to hell for the next few minutes, but after a bit of yelling and cursing in both American English and Cantonese, we determine a few solid facts. Sumaya is indeed missing. But so is the hair-sweeping girl, whose name, it turns out, is Melody.

  “Oh—that girl always trouble,” says Le, shaking her fist at the darkening doorway.

  “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have brought up the whole ExLibris thing,” I say. “She’s gone to find Nena without us.”

  “Well, if so, she hasn’t had a very long head start. We can catch her if we leave now,” Dom says. His voice has taken on a panicky tone I’ve never heard before.

  I don’t like it, especially when my own stomach is suddenly in knots. One of us needs to keep it together. But he’s right. We need to run.

  After the swiftest of farewells to Le and Fan, we start down the steps that parallel the outdoor escalators. This is no easy jaunt. In the first place, there’s a flow of pedestrian traffic in both directions, with an absurd percentage actually hiking up the steps toward us. How they can do this through the steamy, scented heat of a Hong Kong evening seems nothing short of insanity. The steps are worn and broken in places, and at least half of the flights don’t have a handrail. Twice I instinctively grab at Dominic’s shoulder as he runs ahead of me. The second time he stops so abruptly that I careen into his back.

  “This isn’t safe,” he says quietly. “We’re not going to do her any good if one of us breaks an ankle on these stairs.”

  He settles his pack on both shoulders, takes my suitcase in one hand, and laces his fingers between mine with the other. I’m so worried about losing Sumaya that it’s a full minute—two flights of steps, with a traffic-laden road in between—before I begin to feel self-conscious about holding his hand. Worse, listening to Dom’s quick breathing as we shoot down the stairs makes my own level of desperation rise.

  Finally, we’re forced to stop at a street where the traffic is flowing far too quickly to dash through. He releases me and bends over, hands on his knees, panting as we wait for the light.

  “What is she thinking?” I splutter.

  Turning to face me, he uses the back of one hand to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. His shirt is soaked, glued to his skin. This close, he gives off the scent of athletic male, with an inexplicable hint of cinnamon. By contrast, I’m sure I just smell sweaty. I take a self-conscious step away.

  “Whatever it is, she means well,” he says. “She’s operating on a teenage brain.”

  “She’s got to know we’re going to come after her,” I say as the walk light begins to chirp.

  Dom grabs my hand again and we shoot across the road and down the next flight of steps. After another few minutes, we reach the place where we joined the moving sidewalk on our route up. Dominic makes a sharp right onto the main road, and without letting go of my hand, continues our run along the sidewalk.

  “Wait a sec,” I gasp, and he slows to a trot, and then stops at the corner. It’s the worst possible kind of traffic—too many vehicles to allow for jaywalking, and few enough so they can move at a decent clip. Complicating things are the motorcycles and motorized scooters that come shooting out of teeny alleyways, honking—always honking.

  “Still not as bad as Mumbai,” Dom pants as we wait for the light. “At least we can cross at lights here.”

  I take a deep breath of the steamy air. “Can I see the map?” I say. “I have an idea.”

  Dom whips the map out of his pocket and steps over to where we can look at it in the red neon light of a noodle bar sign.

  “Look,” I say, pointing to the map. “If this is Canal Road, it’s only a block away from a metro station. Why don’t we hop on the train?”

  Dom gives a weary smile. “Best idea I’ve heard all day,” he says. “We might even beat her there!”

  By the time we thunder down the steps at the Central Station, the wall clocks are reading 6:00 p.m. We’ve lost an entire day looking for Nkruna, but having lost Sumaya, too, has made things so much worse. Most of the rush hour appears to have passed, but the crowds waiting for the train are still of a daunting size. Thankfully, the lineups remain pretty orderly, and we’re able to crush onto the third train that appears. I spend the ride pushed into a corner near the door, unfortunately nowhere near one of the dangling handholds. Dom squeezes in beside me and then angles himself so his back is to me. He stands a full head and shoulders over most of the crowd, and can easily reach one of the high railings.

  “Grab on to me,” he whispers over one shoulder as the train lurches forward. As I clutch at the strap of his pack, he winces and turns to face me. “The curse of big feet on a crowded subway car,” he mutters. Luckily, the ride is over in a matter of minutes, and the train belches us out at Causeway Bay, the station nearest Canal Road.

  A light rain has begun to fall, but there’s too much warmth still in the air to feel refreshed. Water trickles down my spine. I have no idea if it’s sweat or rain, but at this point it doesn’t really matter.

  After getting turned around on Hennessy Road, we finally set off in the direction our creased, and now dripping, map tells us is the right one. The pedestrian traffic is heavier here, and the best we can manage is a fast walk, so it’s another couple of minutes before we spot the flyover near Canal Road. Around us, the city is lighting up, from neon to lanterns and everything in between. The whole thing reminds me of Times Square on a steamy summer night, apart from the lack of American voices in the air. It’s with real relief that I hurry beneath the Canal Road flyover. The atmosphere of only barely controlled chaos along Hennessy is not really any better here, but at least we are under cover from the rain.

  As I stop to get my breath, a strange new world emerges before my eyes. The freeway above us is broad, and every square inch of the shelter it offers underneath is packed with things I’ve never seen before. The smoky air is thick with the unmistakable perfume of incense, and music is spilling out from a dozen different sources, giving the place a festive, almost circus-like atmosphere. Small stalls, mostly in the form of tiny cupboards on wheels, are lined up in haphazard rows. With the doors flung open, the shelves are loaded with fruit and dancing candles and small stone statues. A
few have iron bowls on the ground in front, with low fires burning inside.

  “I think those might be—altars,” I whisper to Dom, who is actually beginning to look a little overwhelmed.

  “That one lady is telling fortunes,” he says. “But the one behind you? I have no idea.”

  I spin around to see a woman, bent with age, hunched on a stool. In one hand she’s holding a worn leather shoe. The old lady is vigorously beating something on the tabletop in front of her, while a small circle of onlookers observe. I shuffle a little closer and see with some puzzlement that she’s smacking a tattered piece of pale blue paper.

  Beside the lady is another custom-built shrine, this one featuring several golden figurines, along with the more standard piles of oranges, bananas, and dragon fruit. Several of the shelves of her shrine are adorned with paper tigers, and in fact, as I watch, the old lady pauses in her beating to place one of these tigers atop the small brazier at her feet. The flames shoot up and there’s a muted murmur from the encircling crowd.

  As the flames settle back down, the woman resumes beating the paper effigy, which is now unrecognizable. I can’t tell if it was once one of the paper tigers, or something else.

  “What the hell?” mutters Dom.

  “You want turn?” A small man steps in front of us. “Grandma Chi do da siu yan for you. Fifty dollar. Very good deal.”

  “We’re looking for a lost girl,” Dom interrupts. “Maybe you’ve seen her? Blue headscarf, bright . . .”

  “No. Grandma Chi no find missing people. She villain-beater. She solve all your problem. Send bad spirit away. Fifty dollar.”

  “No thanks,” Dom says shortly and turns away. By this time, the crowd has grown around us, and it’s impossible to move. In front of us, the villain-beater finishes her job with a flourish that sounds a bit like a drum solo, and then tosses a couple of wooden blocks from the table onto the ground.