Because suddenly it seems to me that what brought me here, to this place, has a lot to do with my trying to be someone I’m not. Chaluay. Who was I to her? Some farang loaded with money—or so it would seem from the stories I told—and easily able to get more. I think back to those conversations when I lived out my make-believe life, drawing in bits and pieces of it whenever the mood struck me. If I had done things differently, would Chaluay still have acted as she did?
There’s no way of knowing. But one thing I do know. I’m tired of pretending.
The room has gone quiet. I look at the captain and something I now see in those fireball eyes—some spark of warmth or understanding—gives me courage. Surely this strange boy-man with the larger-than-life voice has had his own share of difficulties in life. Maybe he, of all people, could understand mine. All the times I’ve closed my lips and held in my secrets, what was really the point? What good did it do me?
I’m sorry, Mama. I’ve tried—I really have. But this world is not like the inside. I can’t fight my battles with fantasy. I am not you. I have to work things out in my own way.
With a deep breath, I decide to take a chance. I decide to risk everything I have on a handful of whispered words. I break the final taboo and, for the first time in my life, speak aloud my full name.
“My name is Luchi Ann Finn,” I begin. “I am thirteen years old and I was born in the Khon Mueang Women’s Prison.”
The ship pitches and tosses, so much so that I hardly notice the sticky web of secrets break loose around me as I push through and lay my life bare before this stranger.
But it feels magical.
I am like a bottle kept so long closed in on itself, but once open, unable to be corked again. Words spill out of me like water, pouring over my lap, over the floor, over and around and through my listener. And the captain looks at me, wide-eyed, mouth open. After a few minutes he drops down in the chair opposite me, pulls a silver flask out of his jacket, and takes a drink.
“Go on,” he booms, and I do.
I tell him about Mama, about her secrets, about my grandmother’s letter. I talk about Kiet and Chaluay and how I came to be sleeping with the cabbages on his boat. I talk until my throat feels like dried fish and every word comes out with a crackle. I talk until the sky outside the little round window glows pink and shiny, and the captain still sits next to me, shaking his head, turning his now-empty flask over and over in his lap.
It doesn’t seem to occur to him to doubt my story. Maybe it’s too fantastic to be anything but true, sitting here as we are, in a wood-paneled room on a container barge in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. One black dot in a sea of blue; two strangers tossed together by circumstance, and finding—just for a moment—a connection and kinship they had not even known they were looking for.
36
My story is finished, and at first the captain sits dazed. Then he leaps up and starts pacing back and forth, crackling with energy. Before my eyes he transforms from hunter to protector.
“My dear,” he says. “Never in my life have I heard such a tale! Astounding! But don’t you worry yourself—no, you’ve come to the right place. How you came to be here—bah!” He puffs a little, like an annoyed dragon. “That so-called friend … such treachery! Bald thieving!”
How quickly he has forgotten my own dishonesty, in his concern over the wrongs done to me. My eyes fill with tears.
“The California Dreamer is outfitted to hold fifteen passengers, fifteen paying guests we can carry as well as a full complement of goods. And how many are on board now, you ask? Hah!” The captain slaps his knee in a triumph of his own genius. “Six! Six passengers on board, and so we have plenty of room for you, my girl. No, say no more. You’ll be my guest and I’ll not hear of anything different. In fact, I have just the place to put you—a charming stateroom on the upper deck that will suit you perfectly.
“Well?” he barks, pausing midstep. “What do you think of that, eh? I’ll have you outfitted in no time. Right as rain, you’ll be. No need to worry about a thing. What do you say to that, girl, eh? Luchi—that’s your name? Luchi, a fine name. Can’t say I’ve heard it before, but it rings strong, yes sir it does.”
“I am overwhelmed,” I say. “I fear I will not be able to repay you. I do have some baht. It’s not much, but …”
“Tosh and nonsense,” he blusters, going red in the cheeks. “Of course you’re not going to pay me. You will be a guest on my ship—a guest, do you hear? I won’t have it be said I took money from an impoverished child, no sir, not Captain Jensen! It’s the least I can do after all you’ve been through, and that’s a fact. Now, up you get, girl. Let’s move you along to the dining hall.” He looks at me and lifts a burly eyebrow. “No. I think the stateroom first. You’ll want to get cleaned up. Follow me.”
With that, the captain yanks open the door and marches out into the hall, leaving me wondering: What just happened? Did my story somehow cut through his crusty exterior to find the hidden warmth? Could it be that all it took to put my life back on course was a long shot of the truth? After all the strange turns my road has taken, I don’t know how to handle this sweeping kindness.
“Who are you?” I ask the empty room the question I would not dare ask the captain to his face. “Are you some kind of a fairy godmother?”
Saying this out loud makes me giggle, and in the distance I hear the captain’s voice booming: “Now, where’s that young girl gone and put herself?”
I jump to my feet, slip my bag over my shoulder, and step out into the hallway. It’s easy enough to follow him. His stream of words floats along like a guide rope through the corridors, leading me around unfamiliar cabins, through narrow halls, with the ship swaying gently around me.
For a second I think back to that moment I first set foot on a boat with Chaluay, and am surprised that I no longer feel the least bit afraid. It turns out that deep water—much like the truth about my past—wasn’t there to drown me at all, but to bring me where I needed to go.
37
It is easier than I expect to fall into the ship’s routine. It’s a carefree life: all the structure and boundary of the inside, blown through with the salt tang of freedom, the knowledge that this small moving world is mine to explore, to navigate, to possess. That it is not only sheltering me, but also driving me toward my goal.
The stateroom the captain has promised me is enormous. This whole wide space—all for me? I count careful steps down the center of the room, from one side to the other. I measure ten paces one way and twelve the opposite. It is so much bigger than the room I grew up in, and that was always swarming with people. The bed is as big as three of my old prison cots, and it is up off the ground almost to my thighs. A colorful bedcover is draped over it, and when I peek underneath I see a smooth-sliding drawer: empty, inviting me to fill it with treasures.
The floor is covered with a deep brown fur, and after I have measured the room I kick off my sandals and spend long minutes treading back and forth, tangling my toes in its plush covering and trying not to laugh out loud. So this is the miracle of carpeting!
There is more to the room, much more, and it takes me several hours to explore it to my satisfaction. Once that is conquered I venture out to other parts of the ship: the kitchen with its sweaty, noisy bustle; the navigation deck, where the captain pulls up a stool for me and launches into long historical and scientific lectures; the lounge, where I make the timid acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg, retired globe-paddlers and self-appointed freighter-travel experts, who are authoring their third highly acclaimed book on the subject.
And there is the rec room, so called not because it has been wrecked, as I first thought, but short for “recreation,” which is a word I did not find much use for growing up. This room is full of brightly colored game boxes, paperback books, a television larger than the window of my old cell, and stacks of movies and video games. This room terrifies me. I feel its magnetic tug but I cannot follow it. With such a glut of i
nformation, how could I possibly know where to begin? How could I keep from being buried by the mountain of things I do not know, that I cannot ever hope to catch up on?
These questions do not seem to bother Captain Jensen. He takes my gaps in stride and makes it his business to compress a lifetime of missed opportunities and knowledge into three weeks of travel by sea. There seems to be no time when his lips are not moving. It occurs to me at some point that it was a good thing I got my whole story out that first day, for I have hardly been able to speak six words together to him since.
But my mind is wild with new knowledge. I learn about the sea and the different types of freighters, of which the break-bulk, or general cargo (into which category falls the California Dreamer), is the vastly superior, in that it can load free goods as well as containers. While more and more freighters are reformatting to transport only containers, Captain Jensen tells me he sees the value in maintaining some of the old sense of tradition, and that he has made a fine business so far in giving value to big and small vendors alike, not only those who have the money and means to hire at the top of the line.
I learn about satellites, those hidden machines that loop the earth so far out of sight which have put the old navigational tools almost completely out of business. The satellite is a further boon, the captain explains, because it allows for phone and limited Internet usage, despite being so far out at sea. This is no small miracle, he assures me, and looks over to see if I am suitably impressed.
I consider this. “My set of encyclopedias was published in 1986,” I say. “My grasp of technology is … limited.” I am being generous, of course. I have seen the computer in Chief Warden Kanya’s office, the one my mother was given special privileges to use twice a year, but I was never allowed to touch it myself. One magazine sent to Jeanne by her cousin contained an article debating companies named Microsoft and Macintosh, and meant nothing to me. I know computers are information machines, but in Mama’s case they only launched her into weeks of dark depression. What could I want with such a device?
Captain Jensen looks thoughtful. “Nineteen eighty-six?” he asks. “Well, we shall have to remedy that somehow. But tell me, have you been in the rec room yet?”
I lower my head, shake it just barely. I hope he will not probe further.
But this is Captain Jensen, after all.
“All right,” he says. “Out with it, girlie. What’s eating you?”
I sink lower in my chair, but seconds tick by and I am so shocked at his sudden silence that I have to put out words to fill it. “It’s a lovely room,” I try. “But it’s just … too much. There is too much there. I don’t know where to start.”
That’s all I can manage, and I am not sure if he will understand. But he nods.
“Ah, of course. Too bloody much information. And why not? A girl can’t chow down a whole supermarket in one sitting, can she? And who would expect it? Well, my dear, I have an idea. We’ll have things sorted out for you in no time. Nineteen eighty-six? My, my!” He shakes his head and his muttering trails off under his breath.
In a few minutes we are back to the history and development of satellite technology, but when I return to my room after dinner that night, I find that someone has been there before me. On my bed I see a small pile of books.
I approach, lift the first one reverently, as if it might explode in my hands, or maybe light a fire that will never go out again. I trace my finger along the titles, inspect each one: A Tale of Two Cities. Charlotte’s Web. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I flick open this last one—it is a silly name that makes me want to laugh. And before long I am drawn into this story of a child who has grown up in one world, never dreaming that one day he would learn about another one so completely different from all he has known, so full of wonders, a world where every hidden dream has the chance to come true.
After that, a new book or magazine is on my bed every time I come into my room. Some have faded cloth covers and gilt writing. Others are soft paperbacks and have photographs of girls with red lips and shiny hair. Some are magazines from one, two, or six years ago. I read names of people I have never heard of, learn what they ate for breakfast and how often their shirts have come untucked from their skirts, and who was caught walking in public with toilet paper stuck to her shoe. It all seems so trivial. When I was growing up, many inmates were obsessed with analyzing and gossiping about what their cellmates or others said and did. It was a way of passing the time, putting a lens up to our tiny world and finding out what crawled under every rock. But I am shocked to find that same thing here, on the outside.
Maybe some things don’t change no matter where you are.
I soon begin to set those magazines aside unopened. It’s the books that really tug me under. Most of what I read is new to me, but some stories I have heard before, in Bibi’s croonings, in Mama’s bedtime tales, even some books I owned or borrowed and read on the inside. These existing pieces frame my growing knowledge, make the new portions fit better. Slowly, one bit at a time, I feel the world beginning to take shape around me. It is a fascinating course of discovery, and before long I find myself with a huge stack of completed items.
One day soon, I decide, I will go into the rec room. Only to return things. I won’t stay; I will just walk to the door and slide in the books I have read. Or maybe I could walk inside, just as far as the bookshelves. Just to make sure that every book I have been given is filed back in its proper place.
Maybe, if something catches my eye, I might also leave with one or two new books to read. Books that I have picked out for myself.
“So how are you faring?” the captain asks me a few days later, as we sit at dinner with the ship’s first mate, Ahmed, and the Rosenbergs. “Enough to do? Your room to your satisfaction? Explored every nook and cranny of the place yet?”
“Oh yes, it is all wonderful. Thank you,” I murmur into my bowl of split-pea soup. And it’s true. He’s been so generous and welcoming I sometimes feel embarrassed by it.
“That’s just capital. But I’d do anything for you, Mandy, you know that.”
Mandy? I look up. Captain Jensen’s face has gone ghost-white. The spoon he is holding drops from his hand and clatters down onto his plate. Thick green soup splatters all over the tablecloth.
“Captain?” I say.
But he jumps up, pushes away from the table, and dashes off across the dining room. I look around the table. “What just happened?”
The others exchange glances. Then Ahmed says, “Mandy was Captain Jensen’s daughter. She died two years ago.”
Mrs. Rosenberg reaches over and puts her hand on top of mine. “It’s been so good to have you here, darling. This is our third trip with Captain Jensen, and the first time we’ve seen him the way he was before. He’s been almost … happy. You’ve done this for him. I think he’s just so glad to have a child around again.”
Missing pieces fall into place in my mind, and suddenly the captain’s immediate welcome, his unconditional acceptance, makes a lot more sense. But at what price has come my rescue? I stand up and push my chair away from the table. “Please excuse me,” I say. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
I know that whatever happened to Mandy Jensen wasn’t my fault, but I can’t help feeling guilty. Her death, after all, has contributed to my own good fortune. And this makes me feel like the worst kind of thief. I walk past the captain’s stateroom, but his door is open and the room is empty. Where would he be? I drift up one hall and down another, but he’s in none of his usual places. Finally I come out on deck and there he is, on the bridge, looking out over the water.
He half turns his head, and smiles when he sees that it’s me. “Luchi,” he says. “I’m so sorry. Shameful display, what you saw down there. I can’t excuse myself. It’s just—” His voice breaks a little and I rush over, put my hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry, Captain Jensen,” I say. “The others told me about—about …”
He wipes his eyes and laugh
s a little. “It’s okay. You can say her name. Mandy was more full of life than anyone I’ve ever known. She … she would have been eleven this year. This month.”
There’s nothing I can say to that, so I just squeeze his arm a little harder. He reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a picture of a girl with light brown braids and laughing green eyes. She looks so alive that it takes my breath away. And I never even knew her. How does he go on?
I think of Mama. How alive she was … until she wasn’t. I remember my own picture, the one in my tea box, the one I’ve held through so many days, soaked with tears so many nights. And just like that, my feelings of guilt are gone. I haven’t stolen anything from Captain Jensen, any more than he has from me. I’m not his Mandy, but if he can find some laughter in my eyes, if I can find some shelter in his words, then maybe—even just for a short time—both of us can feel that we’ve never really left home. That life can still go on.
38
After that day, Mandy gradually becomes a part of our daily conversations. “You should read this—it was her favorite book,” the captain would say. Or, “That’s just the sort of thing Mandy would do!” Or, “Well, my girl, as I told Mandy the first time she fell and scraped her knee …” To my surprise, I find I enjoy these little reminiscences; I like learning about this girl who, if she were alive, might not be too different from me. I’ve never had a friend my age, but some nights, alone in my stateroom, I imagine her sitting next to me, reading or talking or playing a game. It’s almost as good as the real thing.
Mandy isn’t the only thing we talk about, of course. The subject of computers fascinates Captain Jensen endlessly, and he devotes much time to trying to help me understand these complicated machines. It’s no use. Computer is another language, and it’s clear to me that I will never be fluent.
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