“You,” the man said and grabbed for her. Mai-Nu darted away, but the other two men were there. They trapped her between them and closed on her, wrestled her writhing body into submission. Mai-Nu shouted a steady stream of what Benito guessed were Hmong curses while the first man begged her to remain still.
“It is for both our happiness,” he said as they carried Mai-Nu toward the door.
Benito was running now, out of his bedroom, out of his house and toward Mai-Nu’s front steps. He hit the first man out the door, leaping high with all his weight and momentum, catching the man with an elbow just under the chin, smashing him against the door frame, as clean a check as he had every thrown—his coach would have been proud.
The man bounced off the frame and crumbled to the sidewalk. The second man dropped Mai-Nu’s legs and swung at Benito, but he danced away easily. He was more than a half dozen years younger than the three men, but five inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. And years of summer league had taught him how to throw a punch. But there were three of them.
“I called the cops,” Benito shouted. “The cops are on their way.”
Mai-Nu squirmed out of the third man’s grasp and struck him hard in the face.
The man seemed mystified.
“But I love you,” he said.
Mai-Nu hit him again.
The first two men turned toward Benito.
“The cops are coming,” he repeated.
One of them said something that Benito could not understand. The other said, “We must leave,” in clear English.
“Not without Mai-Nu,” the third man said.
Mai-Nu shoved him hard and he nearly fell off the steps. His companions grabbed his shoulders and spoke rapidly to him as they dragged him to the van parked directly in front of Mai-Nu’s house.
“Mai-Nu, Mai-Nu,” he chanted as they stuffed him inside. A moment later they were driving off.
Mai-Nu watched them go, her hands clenched so tightly that her fingernails dug ugly half-moons into her palms.
Benito rested a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
Mai-Nu spun violently toward him.
“Yes, I am okay.”
Benito was startled by her anger and took a step backward. Mai-Nu saw the hurt expression in his face and reached for him.
“Benito, Benito,” she chanted. “You were so brave.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He could feel her exquisite skin beneath the wet nightshirt, could feel her breasts flatten against his chest.
“You are my very good friend,” Mai-Nu said as she kissed his ear and his cheek. “My very good friend.”
She released him and smiled so brightly, Benito put his hand on his heart, afraid that it had stopped beating.
“Are you all right?” Mai-Nu asked him.
Benito nodded his head.
“You are sure?”
Benito nodded again. After a moment, he found enough breath to ask, “Who were those men?”
“They are from the Kue clan.”
“You know them?”
“Yes.”
“What were they doing here? Why did they try to kidnap you?”
“It is called ‘marriage by capture.’”
“What?”
“It is a Hmong custom. If a woman spends three days in a man’s home, even if there is no physical contact between them, she must marry him as long as he can pay the bride price set by her family.”
“By your uncle.”
“It is becoming rare in America, but my uncle is desperate.”
“That’s crazy. I mean, they gotta know that you would turn them in, right? They have to know you’d have them arrested.”
Mai-Nu did not answer.
“Right?”
“I could not do that to my people. For practicing a custom that has existed for hundreds of years, no I could not do that.”
“But you wouldn’t marry him?”
“You are very kind, Benito. And very brave. I am in your debt.”
“Mai-Nu, you wouldn’t marry him.”
“I must ask you one more favor.”
“Anything.”
“You must not tell my brother about tonight. You must not tell him about my uncle. I know that he asked you to watch out for me, but you must not tell him anything. The way Cheng is, what he thinks of the old ways, you must not tell him. It would be very bad.”
“Mai-Nu?”
“You must promise.”
“I promise.”
She embraced him; her lips found the side of his mouth. She said goodnight and returned to her house, locking the door behind her. Benito stood on the sidewalk for a long time, his fingers gently caressing the spot where Mai-Nu had kissed him.
It was a soft, cool night full of wishing stars, unusual for August in Minnesota—a summer evening filled with the promise of autumn—and Benito was terrified that the weather might encourage Mai-Nu to close her windows and lower her shade. As it was, she was dressed in blue Capri pants and a boxy white sweatshirt that revealed nothing of the body beneath. She was sitting on her front stoop, her back against the door, sipping vodka and orange juice.
Benito called to her from the sidewalk.
“Qué pa, ¡chica!” he said. “¿Co’mo te va?”
“Very well, thank you,” Mai-Nu replied and patted the space next to her. Benito sat down.
“My Spanish is improving,” she said.
“Si.”
“I heard from a college, today,” Benito said just to be saying something. “Minnesota State wants me to come down to Mankato and look at their campus.”
Mai-Nu hugged Benito’s arm and a jolt of electricity surged through his body.
“You will go far, I know you will,” she told him.
“I need to get my scores up. I took a practice ACT test and only got a nineteen. Nineteen is borderline.”
“It is hard, I know.”
“Did you take the ACT?”
“Yes.”
“How’d you do?”
“Thirty-one.”
Benito’s eyes widened in respect. Thirty-one put Mai-Nu in the top five percent in the country.
“I have always done well with tests,” she told him.
Benito didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing. They sat together in silence, Mai-Nu still holding Benito’s arm. She released it only when a Honda Accord slowed to a stop directly in front of them. Its lights flicked off, the engine was silenced. The man who stepped out of the vehicle was the largest Asian Benito had ever seen, nearly six feet tall. His jaw was square, his eyes unblinking—a military man, Benito decided. He smiled at Mai-Nu with a stern kindliness.
“You do not have a cordial word for your uncle?” he said.
“Why are you here?” Mai-Nu asked.
“We have much to talk about.”
Benito started to rise. Mai-Nu reached for him, but Benito pulled his arm away.
“It is a private matter,” he said and moved to his own stoop. It was only a dozen steps away; he didn’t figure to miss much.
“Did you send those assholes last night?” Mai-Nu asked.
“Mai-Nu, your language…”
“Screw my language,” she said and took a long pull of her drink.
Pa Chou’s eyes became narrow slits. His voice was suddenly cold and hard.
“The way you drink,” he said. “The way you talk. What has become of you?”
“I am angry, Pa Chou. Do you blame me?”
Pa Chou glanced around the street. Seeing Benito pretending not to listen, he said, “Let us go inside.”
“Fine,” said Mai-Nu. She stood and went into her house. Pa Chou followed. Benito gave them a head start, then dashed into his own house. His mother asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to his room to listen to music. Once there he stared intently through Mai-Nu’s window, but could see neither her nor her uncle. But he could hear them. They spoke their native language.
Benito did not have to understand their words to know they were angry.
He sat and listened for what seemed like a long time. Then he heard a distinct sound of skin slapping skin violently, followed by Mai-Nu falling into her living room. Pa Chou was there in an instant. He heaved her up by her arms, shook her like a doll and slapped her again with the back of his hand. Mai-Nu shouted at him and Pa Chou hit her again. Mai-Nu fell out of sight and Pa Chou followed. There were more shouts and more slapping sounds. Finally, Pa Chou strode purposely across the living room to the front door. He shouted something at Mai-Nu over his shoulder and left the house. Mai-Nu walked slowly into her living room and collapsed to her knees, leaning against the sofa. She covered her face with her arms and wept.
Benito closed his eyes and braced myself with both hands against his bureau. Something in his stomach flipped and flopped and tried to escape through his throat, but he choked it down. A blinding rage burned at the edge of his eyelids until teardrops formed. He smashed his fist against the side of the bureau, then shook the pain out of his hand.
It was a family matter, he told himself. It had nothing to do with him.
But he could tell Cheng Song about it.
He could do that.
The headline of the St. Paul Pioneer Press four days later read:
Killing underscores problems
in growing Hmong community
The story suggested that the murder of Pa Chou Song and the subsequent arrest of Cheng Song by St. Paul police officers the next day was an indication of how difficult it is for many in the Hmong community to assimilate to American culture. But that is not what distressed Benito. It was the photograph of Pa Chou that the paper printed—a decidedly small man in his late forties standing next to the doorway of a Hmong restaurant.
Benito was confused. He rushed to Mai-Nu’s house and knocked on her door.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Benito Hernandez,” he answered through the screen door.
“Come in. Sit down. I will be there in a minute.”
Benito entered the house and found a seat on the rust-colored sofa. There was a law book on the coffee table. Benito glanced at the spine—Minnesota Statutes 2004. He opened it to the page held by a bookmark. A passage had been highlighted in yellow.
524.2-803 Effect of homicide on instate succession, wills, joint assets, life insurance and beneficiary designations.
(a) A surviving spouse, heir or devisee who feloniously and intentionally kills the decedent is not entitled to any benefits under the will… Property appointed by the will of the decedent to or for the benefit of the killer passes as if the killer had predeceased the decedent.
Mai-Nu had written something in the margin next to the passage with a fluid hand, and Benito turned the book to read it.
As only other living relative, I will inherit everything.
Benito closed the book and returned it to the table when Mai-Nu entered the room. He stood to greet her. She appeared more radiant than at any time since he had known her. Her smile seemed like a gift to the world.
Mai-Nu was tying a white silk scarf around her head. She said, “It is traditional to wear a white headband when one is in mourning.”
“Mourning for your uncle,” Benito said.
“And my brother.”
Benito was standing in front of her now, clutching the newspaper.
“Thank you for thinking of me.” Mai-Nu gestured at the paper. “But I have already read it.”
Benito showed her the photograph.
“This is your uncle?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Pa Chou Song?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It is not the man who came here that day. The man who beat you.”
“You saw him beat me?”
“I saw…”
“Did you, Benito?”
Benito glanced at the open window and back at Mai-Nu.
“I saw,” he said.
“And you told my brother?”
“I know now that you wanted me to tell Cheng what I saw.”
“Did I?”
Benito nodded.
“There is no evidence of that.”
“Evidence?”
“Did I tell you to go to my brother?”
“No.”
“Did I tell not to speak to my brother.”
“Yes.”
“That is the evidence that the court will hear, should you go to court.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mai-Nu brushed past Benito and retrieved the law book from the coffee table. She hugged it to her breasts.
“In Laos, women are expected to submit,” she said. “Submit to their husbands, submit to their fathers, submit to their uncles. Not here. Here we are equal. Here we are protected by the law. I love America.”
“Who was the man who came here that night?”
“A friend, Benito. Like you.”
She reached out and gently stroked Benito’s cheek.
“You must go now,” she said.
A few minutes later, Benito returned to his bedroom. Dark and menacing storm clouds were rolling in from the northwest, laying siege to the sun and casting the world half in shadow. Mai-Nu’s lights were on and though it was early morning, he had a good view of her living room.
He did not see her at first, then Mai-Nu appeared. She moved to the window and looked directly at him. She smiled and blew him a kiss. And slowly lowered her shade.
“Mai Nu’s Window” Copyright ©2006 by David Housewright. First published in Twin Cities Noir, Akashic Books.
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Author’s Note: The Minnesota Crime Wave was back at it with an anthology called Resort to Murder. This time, the concept was that each of the stories had to take place at one of Minnesota’s countless resorts. I picked one on the shores of Lake Vermillon in the northern part of the state. I later asked my accountant if I could deduct my gambling losses from my taxes as a legitimate business deduction—it was research, after all. He didn’t think that was a good idea. Oh, well. Something you should know—to a writer everything is material. Every place we go, every person we meet, every conversation we have could end up in a book or story. For example—the first nine lines of dialogue in this story were taken verbatim from a conversation with a waitress—and my sister-in-law—on a veranda of a restaurant in Minneapolis. The rest of the story, though, is purely fiction.
Miss Behavin’
The waitress said, “That’s a pretty ring.”
Kathryn held her hand up and examined the ring like she was seeing it for the first time. The diamond sparkled in the light.
“Thank you,” she said.
“How long have you kids been married?”
The question startled her. She flashed a panicked gaze at her companion sitting across the table.
“Thirteen years,” he said.
“Good for you.” The waitress finished refilling their water glasses and left to serve other customers. Kathryn watched her drift across the restaurant. A strand of black hair fell against her cheek when her head swung back to the table and she smoothed it into place.
“She thought we were married,” Kathryn said.
“We are married,” her companion said.
“But not to each other.”
“A minor technicality.”
“Is that all it is?”
“Kathryn, it’s all perfectly innocent. If anyone asks—”
“Like your wife, Dr. Markham?”
“Yes, like my wife,” Markham said. “If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I met an interesting, intelligent woman during a seminar at a pharmaceutical convention and we had lunch together in plain sight of everyone. So, what do you think about the new Beta-blockers, Doctor?”
“I’m surprised you even remember what the seminar was about considering the way you kept staring at my legs.”
“They are magnificent.”
Markham liked the way Kathryn’s cheeks fl
amed at the compliment, liked the way she smiled coyly and looked away. Doctors were all the same, he believed. No matter how generous, considerate or kindly they might seem, they were still doctors, which meant they were smarter than everyone else and sooner or later they would need to prove it. Kathryn was trying to prove it now, trying to prove how sophisticated and worldly she was. Like during the seminar when she noticed Markham noticing her. She leaned across two seats and whispered, “May I help you?”
“Just looking,” Markham said.
“See anything you like?”
“One or two things, but I prefer to conduct a full examination before I make a final diagnosis.”
“Perhaps a joint consultation is called for.”
It was Kathryn who suggested lunch. The drug companies sponsoring the four-day convention insisted that the physicians and other guests attend all the morning seminars, yet afternoons and evenings were free for fun and frolic. Only Kathryn was over her head. To her surprise Markham had taken her flirting seriously and pressed hard. She would now either have to run for cover or make good on her innuendoes. Markham was betting on the latter. He had been convinced from the moment Kathryn walked into the meeting room and searched carefully before selecting his row, that she could be had.
“We’re so lucky with the weather,” Kathryn told him. “I expected northern Minnesota to be much colder. How far are we from Canada?”
“About forty miles as the crow flies.”
“Where I come from, most people think Minnesota is somewhere up around the Arctic Circle. But it’s really quite lovely.”
“Lovely,” Markham repeated. He was looking directly in her eyes when he said the word so she wouldn’t be mistaken about what he meant. She smiled and glanced away again. Works every time, he told himself.
“Tell me about your wife,” Kathryn said.
This time it was Markham’s turn to look away. He wasn’t embarrassed or surprised; sooner or later the question always came up. He was merely buying time while he selected the desired response: soft, hard or harder? Some women preferred to hear nasty tales about the wife. They wanted to make sure they weren’t breaking up a happy home. Markham thought it made being the other woman easier for them to bear. Hey, the bitch deserves it. Yet, Kathryn seemed different. The way she averted her eyes when he complimented her, the way she suddenly seemed fearful that they would be seen together, what the waitress would think—Kathryn was concerned with consequences. First do no harm. Soft, he decided.
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