Nowhere Girl

by A. J. Paquette

  I have walked on for eight or ten steps before I suddenly stop and turn back.

  California? This is a name I have heard before. It’s a place. I’ve heard Mama talk about this place, read about it in my textbooks. Even Bibi told me how she traveled there on vacation once, many years ago.

  With a rush it comes back to me, and with it, a thin tremor of excitement. Of possibility.

  California is a place.

  A place in America.

  I know that California is not the same state as Massachusetts, which is where my Mama was from. But it’s a start. It’s in America, after all. It cannot be far. Maybe I can walk from one place to the other once I arrive.

  I have traveled from Khon Mueang Women’s Prison all the way to Bangkok. I have come this far.

  I could give up now, when everything seems so hopeless.

  Or I could keep moving forward. I could try again.

  I think for a long time about how I might get on the ship. It’s clear that I cannot simply sneak onto this ship as Chaluay did the tourist vessel. This is not a boat jumble-packed with people, where a farang girl with yellow hair would not stand out or be noticed. This is a ship for carrying big objects.

  As I watch, I see that what’s being transported are huge metal boxes the size of our cell back on the inside. A giant crane lifts them, one by one, and drops them with a deafening clatter onto the deck of the wide, flat ship.

  The ghost of an idea ripples through me. What if I could sneak into one of those boxes? I could slip inside, shut the doors, and be dropped right onto the ship’s deck. It is not a bad plan. It is a plan that could succeed. But not right now. There are too many people around, too much activity.

  So I sit in my corner, out of sight, watching the movement along the dock. I wait while the sun scoots across the sky and the crane starts and stops and the men run around and shout and call each other names in Thai that make my cheeks flush. I nibble the food Chaluay has left me, but I do not eat much. I don’t know how long I will need it to last.

  In the paper bag she has also put a plastic bottle of iced tea. I take one small sip and rub the last tear tracks from around my eyes. With this sweetness on my lips and the big ship before me, almost, almost I can turn my mind from Chaluay’s betrayal and set my sights on the future.

  33

  I find my chance when the midday sun is high, wavering in the sky behind grim rain clouds. The dock is cleared out like the rice fields after harvest. On the far side of the cranes, a cluster of men eats from paper bags, but everyone else must have gone looking for market stalls.

  I may not get another chance. I stand up and settle my pouch over my shoulder. I slip from my shelter into the light rain.

  Up close, the containers are solid and tower high, giant boxes of rusty blue or red or green metal. They are shut tight with wide, heavy bolts. I reach the first one, but no matter how hard I tug at the front, it does not open. I try another, two, three more. Finally I throw myself at the doors, but still they do not budge.

  My heart is sinking fast. Time is speeding and I can almost see the watery sun moving across the sky. In the distance, an engine roars back to life. Anytime now, the men will return to work. But I cannot give up. Not when I am so close. I move faster, shoving the door of each container in turn, yanking and pulling to see if maybe this one will let me in.

  And then I see it: not a container at all, but a flat wooden pallet with low walls and no roof. It is piled with stacks of wooden crates and the crates are stuffed with cabbages. A heavy blue tarp is thrown over the whole pallet and tied down with cords as thick as my arm.

  But not every corner is tied down. One edge is loose, flapping in the light breeze. I look both ways. Loud, brusque voices call out from somewhere nearby, but no workers are in sight. Not yet.

  I take a deep breath. Then I grasp the plastic tarp with both hands, tug it up, and crawl underneath. Making myself small, so very small, I scramble over wood and cabbage and crawl-squeeze-push my way onto the pallet.

  I pull the tarp down behind me, covering myself from sight.

  The boxes on the pallet are piled every which way, in stacks both low and high. It’s not hard to find a spot where two boxes are stacked next to six, and the blue tarp rises up into a tentlike spot just right for me to sit under. I make myself as comfortable as I can on the cold, lumpy bed. I reach behind to push against the tall stack. It feels sturdy, and the crates have a ridge all around the side so they can be stacked safely. At least I know they will not tumble over onto me when the pallet begins to move.

  Then the deafening roar of the crane’s motor starts up somewhere nearby, and blind panic surges through me. I feel like my head will explode.

  Before I have time to blink or react—change my mind, maybe, push through the opening and dart out, saying it was all a mistake—there is a terrifying jolt. Something slams into my hideaway.

  My hands fly out to the side. I grab the edges of a plywood box so hard I can feel tiny splinters cut into my fingers. There is another, bigger jolt as something slides underneath the pallet. Then a sickening lurch, a clang …

  And I am airborne.

  For long minutes I feel myself swing from side to side. All morning I have watched this action unfold, the giant crane clamping onto containers and pallets, hoisting them high in the air, swinging them up and over the thin watery gap, then dropping them with a thud onto the waiting ship’s deck.

  I press my back into the boxes and hope that the stack will remain steady. I don’t want to die crushed by cabbages. And here, swaying high over a space of nothing, a fit of hysterical laughter seizes me. I have come this far—I have done so much—and here I am, dangling in the air like a worm on a hook.

  Slowly, forcefully, I loosen my grip on the sides of the box. I pull my knees into my chest. I make myself breathe in and out. The churning in the pit of my stomach slows, though I can still feel the air swirling outside my floating nest.

  There is a click and a whir and a pause—and I reach down and grab the sides again just in time. My stomach does a complete somersault as my pallet is released from the crane and plummets down to the waiting deck. I hit with a jolt that throws my head back against the plywood and leaves me gasping for breath, my neck aching and my jaw tightly clenched.

  I can no longer hear the crane’s motor. The men’s voices are a distant memory. But now there is a new sound, and it is heat and stink and motion all together. It is a low, grating rumble that comes from somewhere deep below me.

  It is the ship’s motor, gearing up for departure.

  There is truly no turning back.

  34

  Long after that last freefall, I stay folded in on myself. There is a tender spot on the back of my scalp and splinters in my palms and a throb in my neck. But for now, I am safe. The cabbages underneath me are smooth stones; the tarp overhead is a tent to keep out trouble. Time blurs. My early wake-up this morning blends with all the tension and action and high emotion of the past hours, lulling me into a trance, pushing my worries into the background.

  I sleep.

  When I am jolted awake, at first I don’t know what has woken me. My fingertips are tingling and my ears are ringing. My wide eyes gobble up my strange surroundings. This cocoon of blue, this warm nest, with the soothing pitter-patter just inches from my face—what is all this? For long seconds, my mind is an empty wall.

  It is all starting to come back to me when a sound rips through my mind. It’s some kind of horn, I can tell right away, but like nothing I have heard before. This must be what awoke me from my sleep. The sound is low and guttural, and seems to come from deep in the belly of this great ship-beast I am riding, merging sound and smoke and grinding gears into one earth-shaking noise that sets my whole body trembling.

  Then we are moving.

  And suddenly I am glad for this noise, this horrible bellowing that feels like a knife through my mind. I am glad, because as long as I am busy fighting off the assault of that sound, I ca
n’t think about that narrow stretch of water that separates the ship from the shore. That trickle of water that will become a pool, that will become a lake, that will become an ocean bigger than my whole world, that could swallow me into nothing, that could drown me without a second thought.

  My ship is leaving the harbor. My real journey has begun.

  And this is how the time goes.

  I don’t know what part of the ship my pallet has been placed on, but the voices, when they come at all, are faint and indistinct. I nibble bites of the food Chaluay left me, ration myself to tiny sips of the tea. When the morning light shines bright through the tarp, I can see inside my little room. During this time I study the letter from my grandmother, puzzling over its meaning.

  I think about Mama and her secrets. I think, once again, of my father. All my life Mama lived in a prison filled with women, but I know that my beginning cannot have taken place there. I have counted back the months, and I know that she already carried me inside her when she was arrested.

  And this brings me back to Rupert Payne. I whisper his name over and over to myself, like I am searching it for some hidden meaning, some clue to his nature or whereabouts.

  Growing up without my father was not difficult. I had a mother, many mothers, and all the care and nurturing I wanted. What more could I need? But now I am alone. Now my bars are gone and so are all my mothers. In this cold new world, I could learn to like having a pair of strong arms behind me, holding me up, protecting me.

  But again, the letter haunts me. “That monster of a man,” my grandmother said. What if she was referring to my father? What if he was the unspeakable terror who broke my mother’s mind and flung her to this strange refuge at the end of the world? Or … what if my father is still out there somewhere, wishing and wondering about me, as I am about him?

  This last thought trembles through my mind, timidly at first, then gaining force. And like a shiver that grows strong with the cold, my need surges and swirls and threatens to swallow me. It is the wanting that gives it strength, I know, and I can see that it’s as much of a fantasy as my Cinderella dreams of someday finding a home, a happy ending, getting answers to my lifetime of secrets. With effort, I force the thoughts away and anchor myself in the now.

  Outside, the night has fallen with the wind’s whisper kiss. The deck is perfectly silent, has been for hours. My paper bag holds only a few leftover crumbs. The tea is long gone. My stomach cramps with hunger. How long have I been in this tent, sitting alone, dancing with my thoughts? I know I have passed at least three nights, but with the way my world blurs, it might have been more. I sleep some and then awaken, talk to myself and try not to listen too carefully to the answers.

  I think of Kiet and the way his look held mine, like I was a very small sculpture, finely carved and easily breakable. I wonder if he was right to think this, or if there’s more to me than that, if there is something inside me that won’t break, that will go on no matter what, that will push through storm and fire to reach my goal. There are times I have felt this want like a hard stone pushing me on. But other times I just feel tired, and alone, and afraid.

  Near me lies one cabbage, plucked halfway to its core. I pull another crunchy leaf close to my lips, shear it with small, neat bites. It gives me both food and drink, but I fear it may not be enough. Already my jaws ache with crunching, and my throat feels parched and raw.

  When the night is darker, I will crawl out of my hole, as I have done several times so far. On these forays I find a dark corner to empty my aching bladder. I stretch my legs and teach them how to walk again after the long cramped hours in one position. I put trembling hands on the rail and turn my face into the foam-spattered darkness that holds my terror and my deliverance, my way to safety.

  I hold my face into the wind and I stand there until the shivering stops and I can persuade myself, for one stinging moment, that I am not afraid.

  PART I I I

  Discovery

  35

  Deliverance, when it comes, is sharp and sudden. It starts with footsteps growing steadily nearer, and I know then what is coming. There’s a swish and a groan and a sudden burst of light, and then a bold, strong gasp of air lands on me like a slap.

  I squint into the sudden pool of brightness. A man’s voice yells, then falters, and then the cover drops over me again. Cringing into myself, I squirm farther back on my pallet, try to push myself out of sight.

  I’ve been discovered. What will become of me now?

  I feel like a cornered animal, and my panic is so strong it blinds my eyes, steals my tongue, paralyzes every muscle in my body. Blood pounds in my ears and in the time-frozen silence I can hear the thump, thump, swish of my heartbeat rising and falling.

  A white cloud of fear swirls toward me and I want nothing more than to fall into it, lose myself in its blank emptiness. But the cloud becomes a screen and on the screen I see images. Me. My life. Through the pounding of my heart I remember everything that’s happened since I left the prison. I remember Mama.

  And I see her as she so often was: her wide, terror-struck eyes as she grappled with some nightmare, as she lay still inside her life and let fear hold her captive. I see her beaten not by prison but by her own refusal to fight. And I finally see the truth: Mama gave up on her life.

  But what about me? I think of myself, the paths I’ve traveled and the distance I’ve come. I remember the danger on the road to Sukhothai. I remember arriving at the port, alone, betrayed. I was afraid, but I didn’t lie down and quit. I didn’t give up then and … the knowledge hits me like a bucket of icy water, waking me out of my stupor.

  I won’t give up now, either. I won’t. I can’t let my fear hold me down. Not now; not ever again.

  Whatever is to come, I must face it.

  I don’t have long to wait. The bellow of voices gets louder; then my covering is pulled all the way off. Black-stained hands drag me to my feet and tug me onto the deck. More lights point at me now, three or four bright beams coming from different directions. Then two of the lights turn away and a rough brown arm reaches out and grabs hold of my shoulder, tries to yank me forward.

  My legs crumple under me. Is it from fear? Hunger? Weakness after being hidden so long? I’ve got to stand up. I’ve got to be strong.

  Four sailors loom on all sides of me. I push my palms onto the deck, stand up on wobbly legs. The nearest man digs callused fingers into my arm, half tugging, half carrying me along the deck and through a rusty metal door, where I nearly topple down a long flight of stairs.

  The man behind me grabs my other arm, and together the two keep me upright. My shoulders ache and my head pounds, so I shut my eyes and just try to keep up. And then I’m in a room, propped up on a narrow seat that leans against the wall. Three of the men are gone, but the fourth glares at me. His hands open and close like he is looking for something to throttle. He glares at me through bloodshot eyes.

  “Stowaway,” he says to me in broken English. “Much bad, very bad. You see captain now. Very bad, much danger. Captain very much punishment.”

  I turn my eyes from the sailor’s burning look, and after another minute he stomps away.

  I am alone. Again.

  The room I am in is sparse, with two chairs clamped to the floor and a bare countertop. A small round window shows the blackness of the outside. I am looking out of it, trying to find stars in the night sky, trying not to think about where I am and what will happen next, trying to cling to my hope, when there is a noise behind me.

  The door opens with a sharp click.

  Footsteps.

  The captain has arrived.

  Where is that strength I’ve only just found? Where is my backbone when I need it? My eyes are glued to the window. I can’t move a muscle.

  “You there!” grates a harsh voice. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

  It’s useless to delay what must be done. I take a deep breath and turn to face the captain.

  And then I freeze midturn.


  I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is not it. The man in the doorway is no taller than I am, and has the frame of a boy. He’s got very pale skin and his shock of gray-white hair is topped with a captain’s hat that looks comically large. Even his clothes look too big. But his mouth is turned down at the edges, a stringy gray mustache quivers, and his eyes look like exploding firecrackers.

  The first shock of unreality is followed by a lurch in my stomach as I look into his eyes. I see no softness, no mercy there. Whatever his size, this man means business.

  “Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?” The captain’s voice booms so loud that I start to shake. Instinctively I bring my hands together and bow my head in a wai. He probably won’t know the traditional Thai greeting, but it soothes me. And hides my face for one precious moment while I try to gather myself.

  “Sir—” I begin, trembling a little, but he cuts me off. His voice rises to typhoon level.

  “Do you have any idea how many stowaways try to sneak on my ship at every port of call? Do you know how much each one costs me? The trouble and paperwork and money it takes to get them sorted out? Do you want to know what I did with the last stowaway? Huh?”

  I flinch as horrible images flash through my head. What does happen to stowaways on a ship? Do they get thrown overboard? Put to work as slave labor? Locked up in a dark prison cell?

  A shudder goes through me as I picture myself returning to prison, only this time as a real inmate, this time all alone. I ball my hands and force myself to keep taking slow breaths. What can I do?

  The captain marches closer. Suddenly he stops, a puzzled look on his face. He leans forward and grabs my chin, turns it from side to side. “How old are you, girl? You look like a child. Are you here alone?”

  I shiver.

  So this is it. The moment of truth. Where is that new girl inside me, the one with no stain on her past, the one with all ordinary answers to so many difficult questions? Can that girl save me now? Could she ever?