Lotusland

  The brown shells rattled hollowly when he added to them — adding not for any reason, only as a way to put off doing what he came for.

  With the toe of his shoe he pushed them back in the lake. The scum of rotting leaves, broken tree branches, and trash at the water's edge was thick enough that the shells didn't sink. He watched this strange island butt against the shore as he gathered courage to approach Anthony's house.

  A group of men squatted 30 feet to his right, watching him over a folded towel on which lay a modest catch of fish. Their carious teeth moved up and down, not in conversation, as he first thought, but to chew on what they'd pulled from the lake. The men's eyes followed him as he went along the flagstone path to Anthony's house.

  He spotted Binh, the gardener who watered the plants and flowers in the enclosed courtyard every morning, and called his name. When Binh dropped his hose and hurried over, Nathan asked him to unlock the gate. "I'm here to see Anthony."

  Binh became talkative as he let Nathan in. "In my opinion, he was too fat. Those things happen when you're like he was."

  "I'm sure it was a lot of things," Nathan said, slipping into the courtyard.

  "If he dies, I hope his family doesn't let me go. None of them are very kind to me. Sometimes I catch the kids letting the air out of my bicycle tires. And I don't dare complain; otherwise I'd be out of a job. Maybe you can put in a good word about me."

  "I'll do that," Nathan said, anxious to get to the house. But before he left he asked Binh about Anthony's condition.

  "All I know is he had that stroke. They've got a live-in nurse, but visitors have stopped coming. Anyhow he's rich, so I'm sure he'll get better. He's lucky to have all that money."

  Sunlight streamed through a hole in the sky as Nathan made his way to the front door. He thought he saw Huong pass by a window, but she was gone before he could identify who it was.

  He'd called Huong three days before to see if he might visit. When she said to come whenever he pleased, he asked what had caused the stroke. "It started with a heart attack," she said. "No sooner had I found him on the floor and called an ambulance than the stroke hit. I didn't know until later that he'd suffered both." The doctors at Bach Mai told her that Anthony's heart was weak, and its weakness had induced a narrowed brain artery to close.

  Nathan rapped the door's brass knocker against its base. He shielded his eyes from the sun while waiting for someone to come.

  Hao opened the door. She grinned at him, exposing a gap in her front teeth. Huong came up and sent her off.

  Huong wore a tight DKNY t-shirt and a loose patterned skirt that ended two inches above her knees. He noticed her toenails were painted maroon and gold, and studded down the middle with fake diamonds.

  "I thought you'd be at the office. It's nearly ten already."

  He wondered if she'd seen him standing along the shore this last half hour. "I can't stay long."

  "We missed you when the company visited the hospital. I heard you were in Saigon."

  "I was. Anthony approved the trip before, and it was too late to change my plans."

  "I haven't been there for a long time. Would I even recognize it now?"

  He smiled uncomfortably. "It's changed. Just like everything's changed."

  "But I like change. My life's much better now than when I was growing up." She glanced over her shoulder, hesitating before letting him through the door.

  Nathan stepped inside, struck by her tactless optimism. Where did Anthony fit into the changes that had brought her happiness?

  Hao had joined Anh on the floor in front of the TV. A uniformed nurse sat by the window sending phone messages. The house smelled queerly, like old urine.

  "Can I see him?"

  "If you want. He's in the fourth guest room."

  Nathan glanced at the marble staircase. "I'm not sure I remember where it is."

  He was about to go upstairs on his own, but Huong stepped forward and kicked lightly her children's feet.

  "Kids," she said, tsk-ing them when they didn't respond.

  Her irritated noise did its trick: Anh and Hao looked over their shoulders at her.

  "Show Uncle Nathan where Daddy's room is."

  A sour look spread over Anh's face. He'd turned four a few weeks ago, just before Anthony was stricken. "I don't want to," he said.

  "I said show Uncle Nathan where Daddy's sleeping. Hao, be a good girl and drag your brother with you."

  Hao pointed glumly at the TV. "Can I do it after it's over?"

  "Don't disobey me."

  When the kids got to their feet, Hao leaned into Anh and whispered something.

  "I'll find him," Nathan assured Huong, starting for the stairs. This time she didn't stop him. As he climbed the first step, Hao announced she was going outside to play. Anh, without a word, ran after her.

  Huong asked the nurse to go watch the children. The nurse did as she was told, hardly looking up from her phone.

  When Huong closed the door, Nathan realized her hair was shorter than the last time he'd seen her. It made her look younger, but also more severe.

  "It's been a long time since it was just us."

  Tuned to her subtlety, Nathan remembered how she'd spoken to him the night he met Hoa. But as he thought about it he realized she was right: they hadn't been alone together since before she had children. "Not since we were in Saigon."

  "It shouldn't be like that." She gestured for him to sit down. "You look good. You've obviously been taking care of yourself."

  "Not really."

  She took a deep breath and smiled at him. Her eyes had filled with tears. "You're a good person, Nathan."

  He shook his head. "I haven't been a good person for a long time."

  "You're good to me. You always have been."

  "I let Anthony down. Both of you, really."

  She struggled to keep smiling as she dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. "I know you tried to persuade him not to leave us."

  Nathan's stomach dropped. She knew. She knew and yet here she was, trapped by the deadfall of a plan Anthony couldn't carry out. What had Anthony told her, and where did Nathan fit into his confession? He wished his name had never come up.

  Her brown eyes, in the sunlight through the window, had become a lighter color, as if stripped of a protective layer; he felt he could read her thoughts. Something in her eyes warned him to be careful.

  "I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't remember trying to persuade — "

  "Nathan," she said, her voice trembling. "The last thing we talked about was his plan to abandon us. He had his heart attack in the storage room, going through our possessions. I was crying so hard in our bedroom that I didn't hear him fall or call for help. He told me about your conversation on the kayak and that you tried to change his mind."

  He couldn't imagine how difficult it must be for her now, caring for an invalid who had made clear his intention of abandoning her and their children. Such a scenario was too cruel for both of them. Looking at Huong he wondered how she could be expected to deal with Anthony's stroke after an admission as shattering as that. What motivation would she have to see him back to health? Surely, though, she realized that Anthony would never leave them now. Maybe she saw this as a chance to win him back.

  "I . . . I can't remember."

  She locked the door and went to the window. Nathan couldn't see outside from where he sat, but he heard Anh and Hao faintly laughing somewhere. Seeing Huong lock her children and the nurse out of her house alarmed him.

  She took her time coming back to the room.

  "I'm selling the company," she said, sitting down. "I've had it valued and I'm going to cash in."

  "Why? Why would you do that?"

  "Anthony was the heart and soul of New Century, and I know it's not in you to take his place. I don't want the agency to l
ose money from poor management. And it's bound to if I don't sell it immediately."

  A cloud passed over the sun, darkening her eyes again.

  "You could hire someone."

  "But there's no point. Only Anthony could make it successful."

  "What will happen to all the staff?"

  "You always think about others before yourself, don't you?"

  He paused to see if she meant to be sarcastic, but he couldn't tell. "No," he said. "Lately I only seem to think about myself."

  "I don't think so." She leaned toward him with her cleavage visible down her shirt. "With the money I'll get, you and I could start something together."

  Her words unnerved him, and the feeling mixed with the dread he felt being here. "Like what?"

  "We almost started something special back in Saigon. But for some reason I chose Anthony instead of you."

  Nathan shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. "He's your husband. He's the father of your children."

  A tear ran down her cheek and she wiped it away.

  By the sound of it, she'd given up on Anthony. If he'd told her he was leaving them, he couldn't blame her. But to give up on him now seemed somehow too cruel.

  "And," she added, almost like an afterthought, "you haven't seen him."

  "I don't expect to be thrilled by how he is." He watched her pull her shirt to her eyes and cry into it. "Why, what am I going to find?"

  "No hope," she said.

  Nathan didn't know what she meant by "hope." Surely it was too early still to know his prognosis. Neither of them said anything for a long time. "Where did you say he is?"

  "The third floor."

  Nathan stood up. He wanted to get away from her. When he was about to head for the stairs, he said: "Has he had many visitors?"

  "None the last few days. They've stopped coming."

  Nathan thought about this. "How many people know you're selling the company?"

  "You, me, my lawyer, and, as of yesterday, the people who made the offer."

  "No one at the agency knows?"

  "Not yet. You can call a meeting next week to break the news."

  Nathan stood frozen, unable to process what she'd said. After a moment he managed to turn away and went to find Anthony.

  On the stairs he spotted a yellow and blue water gun. He'd seen kids using toys like this and knew the water could be shot a great distance. The water pressure, when the mechanism was pumped several times, was strong enough on impact to make a child cry. Water glistened along the barrel, and as he picked it up he could tell it was nearly empty. He set it back down, imagining the noise Anh and Hao had made chasing each other around the house with it.

  When he reached the third floor, he could barely see the end of the hallway. The darkness gave the impression that Anthony was stashed away like an overused possession, broken finally and ready to be forgotten.

  Toys were scattered here, too, with several miniature cars lying overturned beyond a cracked-open door. He noticed a small puddle, and it took him a moment to make a connection between this and the water gun on the stairs.

  Reluctance took shape in the hand he rested on the doorknob. Instinct told him to knock, but the polite custom seemed unnecessary.

  Stepping into the room was like rushing through dusk into night. The room was pitch dark. Before he could discern Anthony's figure beneath the bed sheets, the stench of something unclean, perhaps fecal, overpowered him. He lifted his shirt over his nose and opened the drapes and window.

  Despite the breeze that entered, he switched on the overhead fan to assure the room of the circulation it desperately needed. Eventually he lowered his shirt and turned back to the bed.

  Anthony's face was haggard. His thin, greying beard had patches matted like moss on a rock, and his hair stuck out every which way. It was as if his facial muscles had been pulled out, like threads from a woven shirt, leaving his expression so slack he was barely recognizable. He looked like he'd aged ten years.

  There was an odd discoloration to the sheet. While white in most places, it was darker in spots, too. As Nathan got closer he realized that the sheet was splattered with water from his waist to his neck. A hard lump formed in Nathan's throat.

  He went back to the window. Outside, Anh and Hao were playing at the edge of the lake. Perhaps 30 feet beyond them, four evenly spaced conical hats bobbed along the surface. Nathan couldn't see the peasants' faces, only their chins and the dark blisters of their mouths, but they seemed to be watching the children, like animals waiting out their prey.

  Nathan's hands began to ache, and he realized that he'd been squeezing them into fists. Anger rose inside him so powerfully he felt blinded by it. He left the room to retrieve the water gun from the stairs — for a moment the desire to hurl the thing down three floors and smash it overtook him. It was just as well Anh and Hao had gotten away. He didn't know what he'd have done had he caught them in the act — the very idea frightened him, such was his belief that he'd have hurt them — but he wanted to make them regret what they'd done.

  Back in Anthony's room he set the gun lengthwise over his knee and pushed down on each end until it snapped in two. Water flew all over Nathan, and pieces of plastic shot across the floor.

  "See what I did?" he said to Anthony. "They won't bother you with that anymore."

  But Nathan knew that children, if resourceful, could replace a water gun with worse things to pick on someone weak. He began to think they'd get angry at what he'd done, and would take it out on Anthony when no one was around. Disgusted, he tossed the remains of the water gun into a trashcan.

  His eye fell on a vase of dead lotuses on a nightstand beside the bed. The purple fist of blossoms had long ago unclenched, letting dangle various petals streaked with the grey of decay. He took the vase to the window and poured its murky water to the gravel below. He looked again for the children, but they were gone.

  Here and there, where Anthony's white sheet was wet, the pink of his skin showed through. Nathan grabbed a towel from the bathroom and blotted the water from Anthony's face. When he touched Anthony's unshaven cheek, he returned to the bathroom. He gathered together a razor, shaving cream, and small porcelain bowl filled with hot water, and brought them back to the nightstand.

  He pulled a chair over and sat on it, then massaged shaving cream across Anthony's cheeks, neck, chin, and upper lip. With one hand he stretched Anthony's cheek taut and with the other he carefully ran the razor through Anthony's beard, trying not to snag his hairs in the blade. A swathe of flesh appeared; not the pink he expected but a sallow grey, cool and clammy beneath his fingers. He dipped the razor in the bowl, swirled it around so the cream dissolved, and tapped off on the bowl's edge the collected hairs between the blades.

  Shaving an inert face was difficult, but eventually he finished. When he was done, the porcelain bowl swam with clumps of shaving cream and little hairs.

  "You look younger without the beard," Nathan remarked quietly. "Are you more comfortable now without it?"

  There was no flicker of a response, though, and Nathan was left feeling that, no, Anthony wasn't any more comfortable now than he'd been before he came.

  Nathan dumped the contents into the bathroom sink, rinsed the bowl, and then brought it back into the room filled with water. He dabbed a corner of the towel into the bowl and wiped Anthony's forehead and the corners of his eyes. Except for the sluggish throb of a vein in his neck, Anthony showed no sign of life.

  "Are they taking care of you?"

  He didn't expect a reply. He didn't expect anything from the body lying before him. And he wondered if that was why he'd come.

  He leaned over and lifted Anthony's eyelids. The eyes that had been hidden stared vacantly upward.

  "She's selling the company. Did she tell you?" The blue irises beneath him didn't seem to belong to a living pers
on. He pushed lightly at Anthony's eyeball through his eyelid. There was no reaction to the pressure. "She's right. I could never manage it like you. She's doing it because she knows I'd fuck everything up on my own." He forced out a weak, sorrowful laugh. "It'll be okay. And you'll return to your old self again in no time. But I'll tell you — you better get that stupid idea of leaving your family out of your head. You need them now like never before."

  He straightened the sheet over Anthony's body and stared down at him. He felt suddenly like he had when he toured Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, gawking at an embalmed, discolored body displayed behind glass.

  He opened the door and turned back a final time. He hadn't noticed until now that the floor tiles were streaked with grime. Dust blew along the sides of the walls, and long black hairs, presumably from Huong or the nurse, clumped around the bedposts.

  "I'll come by again. And I'll make sure they take care of you better than this." He shut the door.

  Cartoon music from downstairs drifted up to him, where he stood trembling from the shock of having seen Anthony in this condition.

  From the open door of a room down the hall someone started to speak. The voice was low and Nathan couldn't make out the words. As he approached he saw the shadow of a head against the wall and, then, peering around the doorway into the room, he spotted Huong's father.

  He sat stark naked in a straight-backed chair, with a low Chinese table before him. On one side of the table was a stack of folded laundry, while wadded clothes were strewn on the other side and on the floor.

  Huong's father had a t-shirt in his hands and was inspecting the picture on the front: a red sun with the outline of Florida inside it. The words Sunshine State sandwiched the picture. Huong's father slipped it on over his head. As small as he was, it tumbled to his knees when he stood.

  "What about this one?" he said.

  Only then did Nathan realize another person was there. An old woman with grey hair in a bun poked her head through a bathroom door and looked. "Too big," she said. "They're all too big. The clothes you have are fine. And you're too old now to dress like a Westerner."

  "It's good quality material," he said, tracing the Atlantic coastline of Florida with a finger. "If he dies, I'd like to have some of these."