Nowhere Girl

by A. J. Paquette

  Chaluay’s persistence and iron will help me, eventually, to move up the stairs and to the deck. My knees shake and my breakfast rises in my throat, but I breathe slowly and force myself not to give in to panic. And after a while I find that being able to see all that roaring water actually makes things easier. It brings my terror out of the shadows, lets me look on its face. And to my surprise, it is not as deadly as I had thought.

  Once again I find that to see, to choose with open eyes, is far better than cowering in darkness, drowning in my fear.

  I still cannot follow Chaluay to the guardrails, won’t even watch as she reaches her arms out over the edge to try to touch the rising sprays of water, won’t throw dry bread crusts to the catfish that cluster in gulping masses just outside the boat’s wake. But I can bear to sit, far back from the edge, on a soft covered bench. And as the minutes tick away, I find I can smile at the early-morning sun’s glow on my hands, at the fresh-scrubbed air, at the bustle of chattering languages and the raucous joy of a group of people doing something wonderful on a mild day.

  Then the rain starts up and most of the people go inside, but when Chaluay stays on deck I don’t even mind. I just sit and soak in the wet morning, and think how different some things are from how they seemed from a distance.

  And when my feet finally cross the barrier to safety, I think that in another life, I might have grown to miss that boat’s gentle rocking, so like the movement of my cot when I was very young, so like my mother’s arms.

  30

  After our early-morning jaunt, Chaluay reminds me that she doesn’t have all day to spend sightseeing. “Some of us have to work for our money,” she says, and her tone has enough bite that I look up in surprise. But she just tosses me the spare helmet and kicks her bike engine to life.

  She drops me on Rama IV with a good-bye as clipped and a look nearly as stony as on our first meeting with Kiet. “Chok dee na ja,” she says, wishing me luck, but doesn’t look like she really means it. What caused her to move from this morning’s near-friendship back to this? I shake my head and push away the uncomfortable prickle at the base of my neck. I have bigger things to worry about.

  Mostly: Rama IV is a longer street than I had expected, and I have been dropped off nowhere near BK Storage.

  I set off walking.

  My feet are sore by the time I see the tall Boss Towers building that was scribbled onto my map by the friendly travel man. From there it’s just minutes to get to BK Storage, a huge white box of a building with orange and blue trim on the edges. I stand outside for a long time, telling myself that just because it is shaped like a prison does not mean it will be the same on the inside. Finally I push open the front door and slip in.

  And there I gasp. It’s like moving from summer to winter in an eye’s blink. A moment ago my arms were shiny with sweat. Now I can see every hair standing on end, and my back teeth start to clatter against each other. What is this strange frozen world? Even the coldest nights in my cell were nothing like this.

  Unable to make sense of it, I move down the carpeted hall and come to a wide-open area where a young woman sits behind a gleaming wood desk.

  “May I help you?” she asks in English.

  I don’t have any idea what to do, so I just pull out the key and place it on the desk in front of her. She picks it up and frowns, turns it over in her hands a few times. I try to imagine the key as seen through her eyes: the tendrils of rust curling along the teeth, the shriveled-up label, the cracked and peeling plastic. I sink a little lower where I stand.

  “Will you wait a moment, please?” She gets up and slides out of the room.

  I can’t even imagine what’s coming next. If this is my last clue and it goes nowhere, what happens then? But a minute later the young woman beckons me down another hallway. I enter a small bright office where a foreign man with pale hair stands frowning at me, holding my key.

  “Good morning, Miss—?”

  “Luchi Ann,” I say, but I know this isn’t enough. Never reveal your full name, Mama always told me. But how can I avoid it now? I settle on the next-best thing, though there is really no difference. “The key belonged to my mother. Her name was Helena Finn.”

  The man must notice my use of the past tense. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “Won’t you sit down, Miss Finn? My name is Henry Rogers, and I’ll help you sort this out. It’s a bit of a problem, though—we haven’t used this series of keys for nearly a decade. Do you know when your mother had a box with us?”

  I drift into the chair he pointed out. Is this it, then? Nothing but a dead end? Have I spilled a lifetime’s secret to a stranger for nothing? “Fourteen years ago,” I say dully. I look at the carpet, tracing the curlicue pattern with my eyes, trying to keep back the blurry tears that threaten to spill out.

  But Henry Rogers doesn’t keep talking. He’s looking at the key with a thoughtful expression. “Finn,” he says. “Now, why does that name ring a bell?” He turns to the computer, types for a few minutes, then stands up and walks over to a big filing cabinet. As he pulls open drawers and shifts around the papers inside, he tosses an occasional look over his shoulder at me, keeping up a patter of conversation. “I’ve been doing this a long time, you know. Going on twenty years. And I see all types in this business—all types. We don’t get many longtime customers, and I know I haven’t ever had a Finn in here. But there’s something that tickles at me, something— Ah!”

  I look up, hardly daring to hope.

  Henry whips out a yellowish folder. His eyes are bright. “Of course! Box 391—how could I forget? One of our regulars, he was. Nice young chap, drifted in and out occasionally, family business interests he was checking on here or some such. He liked to store things with us for safekeeping, since he was in the country fairly often. Long-term fellow, always paid up regular from a dedicated account.”

  My mouth feels like it is full of dry lentils. I couldn’t say a word if I tried.

  “Last time he came through—right you are!—fourteen years ago, he added a name to the account: a certain Helena Finn.” Henry looks up with a triumphant smile, takes in my expression, and returns hastily to his paperwork. “Special delivery, this one. Obviously important to him. Left it here and said he’d be back—but that’s the last I ever heard. I always did wonder what became of him. He was paid up for the rest of the year, and truth be told, he had left enough in the dedicated account that the payments kept up automatically. We actually had those goods in storage as recently as six or seven years ago.”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

  Henry’s eyes are bleak. “I’m sorry, Miss Finn—Luchi. You have to understand, it’s been so long. Unclaimed materials are recycled. The contents of that box just aren’t around anymore.”

  But I hardly hear his last words. My thoughts are stuck back a few minutes ago, back at the first mention of that elusive he. There is a clue here, something immensely valuable to me, something I desperately need to know. I clear my throat, press my nails hard into the chair’s leathery surface.

  “Who—” My voice is hoarse and raspy. “He—you mentioned you knew the man who—who set up, who opened the account. Can you tell me—who he is? His name?”

  Henry looks up in surprise. “Why, of course. Helena Finn was his wife, recently married I understood. So I assume that would be your father, wouldn’t it? His name was Payne. Rupert Payne.”

  31

  The rest of the day drifts by in a haze. I somehow make my way to Lumphini Park, where I connect with a bench and stare out across the lush green grass, seeing nothing. Rupert Payne, my father. Why did he never return for the items in his storage box? How did my mother end up with his key? Obviously there is some connection to Payne Industries, the company Jeanne talked about that so upset my mother. Could my father have been the one Mama feared so desperately? Is he the horrible, evil person she has been hiding from? If so, then why can’t I suppress this desperate need to find him, to know him, to hear what he has t
o say?

  I asked the man at the storage facility as many questions as I could think of, but his memory did not stretch to the kinds of details I need. Now I can think of a hundred questions I didn’t ask, but I cannot return and face him again. I know I shouldn’t be sitting here, wasting the day away. I know I should go back to the travel store, but I am so deeply sunk in my despair that I cannot bring myself to move.

  And so I stay tangled in my thoughts, and by the time I see Chaluay’s lean form beckoning me, I am no closer to unraveling them. For her sake I shake myself out of my stupor and try to paste on a cheerful expression.

  But Chaluay seems to be in a funk of her own. As I climb on and settle my hands around her waist, she calls out, “Have you made plans for when you will leave Bangkok?”

  I blush at her forwardness, but she hurries quickly along. “Only because I—I might need to travel soon. I will likely have to go out of town. So I just wondered if you—did you buy your ticket?”

  “Not yet,” I say, and then I feel suddenly angry with myself. Why, instead of spending the day dreaming of lost things, did I not go straight to Siam Square? First thing tomorrow, that’s exactly what I’ll do. “But very soon. I must go soon. Tomorrow I will buy the ticket.”

  And finally the knot in my mind untangles, and with that comes the peace I have been searching for all day. It’s time to take the next step of my journey. I used the key. I didn’t find any tangible treasure, no memento of my mother’s past, but I did learn something important: my father’s name. In spite of everything, my plan has grown stronger. I do have family, though they don’t know it—and no one, not even Chaluay and her sour mood, can take my plan away from me.

  Or so I think as I go to sleep that night.

  The next morning, I am shaken awake again in the early dark, so that for a moment I wonder if perhaps I have been trapped in a never-ending yesterday. But Chaluay’s look is not what it was; there is no sunrise on the river hiding in her gaze. Her look, from last night’s pebbly stone, has gone to rock-hard flint.

  “You must wake up,” she says, shaking me again.

  “I’m awake,” I say, sitting up and pulling the cover around my shoulders, shivering in the chilly dark. Outside, thunder rumbles, and the rain roars like a waterfall.

  Chaluay does not meet my eyes. Now that I am up, she backs away and scuffs toward the kitchen. “I am sorry,” she says. “We must leave here now. I have had … unexpected news. I must leave town at once.”

  I gape at her. My mind is still fuzzy with sleep, and I am not sure what I am hearing. “But—”

  “I am sorry,” she says again. “But we must go very quickly. There is no time to do anything.” She shoves my clothes at me, a neat folded pile. Did I leave them on the end of my bed, and not in my bag as I thought?

  Still in the fuddle of sleep, I accept the clothes and go into the washroom to change. When I come out, she hands me a paper bag. “Food,” she says. “This will last you today.” She is looking everywhere except at me. I feel like I am back on the river, only now the boat is being peeled away, board by board, and the waves are roaring closer and closer. Outside the window, jagged lightning and cracks of thunder tear apart the sky.

  Within minutes, we are out on the street. Chaluay’s bike roars through puddles, dashing the last bits of sleep from my foggy mind.

  “Where do you need to go? Has something bad happened?” I call to Chaluay over the wind. But either she doesn’t hear me or she chooses not to answer, and I do not repeat myself.

  We are riding in a part of town that I have not yet seen. Everything around me gleams dark and wet. We are close to the river, but it is bigger and harsher than where we rode the ferry yesterday. I see many trucks and forklifts and, out on the water, ships so huge they look like floating barns. Has Chaluay brought me to the port? How will I get from here to the travel store?

  The bike stops and I climb off, my mind whirling with questions. Chaluay does not follow me. Instead, she revs up the engine again. “I am sorry,” she says quietly. For the first time since yesterday, she looks me full in the face, and my heart freezes inside me.

  What is she not telling me?

  Chaluay nods her head and roars away into the dark.

  And as she goes, a flutter of memories come to me: Jeanne’s warnings to always watch your back, no matter where you are. Chaluay’s eyes, skittering guiltily around me, hurrying me out of her way. The travel man’s angry hiss, telling me I should never carry around so much—

  My hands, already wet but now ice-cold, fly to my bag. Ducking under an awning I claw open the top and pull out the tea box. My heart skips a beat to find it still there. Mama’s papers. The letter. And the little pile of baht and—

  The pouch that held my dollars, my ticket to freedom?

  I pull everything out and rifle through it, check down to the bottom of the bag. But the pouch is no longer there.

  Every last dollar is gone.

  32

  When I return to myself I am standing under the awning, frozen in place, clutching what is left of my life in my two arms. I still cannot believe it’s true. Chaluay is not some street urchin, some common thief. She is a good friend of Kiet’s, a girl not much older than me, someone who has shown herself to be playful and fun-loving. Someone I thought could become a friend. Was that all for show?

  How could she rob me of my only means of getting home? Did she realize she was stealing away my last hope?

  And my heart sinks further. She probably didn’t realize. She had no idea who I was or how little I had. I made sure of that with everything I said and didn’t say, made sure she thought I was some rich entitled foreigner.

  But oh, that doesn’t, couldn’t ever excuse her! I throw my back against the wall, let the ground pull me down as I sink to my knees and pull up my hands to cover my head. It’s gone. All of it. My plan, my hopes, my future.

  Chaluay has stolen it all.

  For a moment I think of trying to find her and explain—if she knew my situation, she would return the money, wouldn’t she? But of course, this is impossible. What do I know of her house but a maze of Bangkok streets seen from the back of a speeding motorbike? I could go to her corner on Soi 2, but I know in my gut she won’t be there to find. She and my dollars will be far away by this time.

  I watch the wave of despair as it rolls closer. I drop my head and let it break over me, crushing me. For the first time since leaving Khon Mueang Women’s Prison I feel completely and utterly lost. There is no one to fall back on. I think of Jeanne and Bibi and Isra. What would they say to me now? What would Kiet tell me if I called his mobile phone and told him what had happened?

  What would Mama do? I reach a tentative hand into my bag and touch the bundle that holds the urn. In my mind I can see Mama’s face—lined, strong, peaceful. I remember her last words to me. She said, Go home, but she said something else, too. Be strong, she told me. Do what I could never do. I remember Mama’s tears and I see her terrified eyes, see the hope and strength that would build in her slowly, only to be dashed away every time she ventured to the computer and came face-to-face with her personal terror. That fear is here now, my own brand of it; I can feel it reaching for me, looking for a way into my soul.

  But I cannot let it have me.

  I must go on. No matter what becomes of me now, I have to keep going. I know this with every breath that pulls through my body.

  It may not be what Mama herself would have done. But it is what she told me. And it’s what I must now do.

  But how? Where? What hope do I have, with no money to take me anywhere? I lift my arms to wipe my face and pull my bag over my shoulder. Stepping back out into the rain, I look around me, taking in the trappings of the port, already busy in the early morning.

  The port?

  Was this Chaluay’s try at an apology? Just how long was she planning this theft? I think back to her talk about boat travel, even showing me how to get onboard a ship without paying. Was that when she
made up her mind to do this?

  I dig inside me for anger, for rage, for the smallest trickle of hatred. But I am numb. Chaluay has left me with nothing.

  Nothing but my loss, and a yawning emptiness.

  For a long time I walk up and down the quay, looking with eyes that feel as empty as my insides. The sun has come up by this time, and the port is abuzz with activity. There are big trucks and little trucks, flatbeds loaded with boxes and machines with long cranes that swing metal containers high into the air.

  And the ships! In the light they are like small countries, like all of Khon Mueang Women’s Prison could fall inside and be lost forever. I wonder how those ships can stay afloat on the slippery surface of the water.

  My hand strays into my bag. I feel for the tea box and pull it out—so much lighter, so empty without Mama’s pouch. Closing my eyes, I reach inside myself and try to feel something, anything, to show me that I am still alive, that I really should keep going. But my heart is silent as a stone.

  I open the tea box and look inside. The baht Isra left me are still there, but it is only a few hundred. From my time at the stores yesterday, I know this could buy me several nice sarongs, or a week’s supply of cup noodles. It can be nowhere near enough to let me travel on one of these ships to America.

  I look around for a smaller ship, one with tourists climbing on and off, though I hate to even consider following Chaluay’s example. I hate that I seem to have no other choice. But the only people I see are wearing grubby overalls. They yell and sweat and lift and push. These are workers. The ships are not for carrying people at all.

  I swallow tears and keep walking. As I pass each ship, I lean my head back to study it from top to bottom. Every one looks much the same, but I distract myself by reading the fancy painted names on the sides. The letters are printed big and bold and I like the way they put everything right out in the open for the world to see.

  I pay special attention to the ships with English names. Caledonia, says the first. Juniper, goes another. Southwestern Foghorn, and Tarantula Queen, and California Dreamer.