readiness, I sought out Tan, thinking we might go for a walk; but she was engaged in altering Kai’s costume. I wandered into the main tent and busied myself by making sure the sawdust had been spread evenly. Kai was swinging high above on a rope suspended from the metal ring at the top of the tent, and one of our miniature tigers had climbed a second rope and was clinging to it by its furry hands, batting at her playfully whenever she swooped near. Tranh and Mei were playing cards in the bleachers, and Kim was walking hand-in-hand with our talking monkey, chattering away as if the creature could understand her-now and then it would turn its white face to her and squeak in response, saying “I love you” and “I’m hungry” and other equally non-responsive phrases. I stood by the entranceway, feeling rather paternal toward my little family gathered under the lights, and I was just considering whether or not I should return to the trailer and see if Tan had finished, when a baritone voice sounded behind me, saying, “Where can I find Vang Ky?”
My father was standing with hands in pockets a few feet away, wearing black trousers and a gray shirt of some shiny material. He looked softer and heavier than he did in his photographs, and the flying fish tattoo on his cheek was now surrounded by more than half-a-dozen tiny emblems denoting his business connections. With his immense head, his shaved skull gleaming in the hot lights, he himself seemed the emblem of some monumental and soulless concern. At his shoulder, over a foot shorter than he, was a striking Vietnamese woman with long straight hair, dressed in tight black slacks and a matching tunic:
Phuong Ahn Nguyen. She was staring at me intently.
Stunned, I managed to get out that Vang was no longer with the circus, and my father said, “How can that be? He’s the owner, isn’t he?”
Shock was giving way to anger, anger so fulminant I could barely contain it. My hands trembled. If I’d had one of my knives to hand, I would have plunged it without a thought into his chest. I did the best I could to conceal my mood and told him what had become of Vang; but it seemed that as I catalogued each new detail of his face and body-a frown line, a reddened ear lobe, a crease in his fleshy neck-a vial of some furious chemical was tipped over and added to the mix of my blood.
“Goddamn it!” he said, casting his eyes up to the canvas; he appeared distraught. “Shit!” He glanced down at me. “Have you got his access code? It’s never the same once they go to Heaven. I’m not sure they really know what’s going on. But I guess it’s my only option.”
“I doubt he’d approve of my giving the code to a stranger,” I told him.
“We’re not strangers,” he said. “Vang was my father-in-law. We had a falling-out after my wife died. I hoped having the circus here for a week, I’d be able to persuade him to sit down and talk. There’s no reason for us to be at odds.”
I suppose the most astonishing thing he said was that Vang was his father-in-law, and thus my grandfather. I didn’t know what to make of that; I could think of no reason he might have for lying, yet it raised a number of troubling questions.
But his last statement, his implicit denial of responsibility for my mother’s death…it had come so easily to his lips! Hatred flowered in me like a cold star, acting to calm me, allowing me to exert a measure of control over my anger.
Phoung stepped forward and put a hand on my chest; my heart pounded against the pressure of her palm. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“I’m…surprised,” I said. “That’s all. I didn’t realize Vang had a son-in-law.”
Her make-up was severe, her lips painted a dark mauve, her eyes shaded by the same color, but in the fineness of her features and the long oval shape of her face, she bore a slight resemblance to Tan.
“Why are you angry?” she asked.
My father eased her aside. “It’s all right. I came on pretty strong-he’s got every right to be angry. Why don’t the two of us…what’s your name, kid?”
“Dat,” I said, though I was tempted to tell him the truth.
“Dat and I will have a talk,” he said to Phuong. “I’ll meet you back at the house.”
We went outside, and Phuong, displaying more than a little reluctance, headed off in the general direction of the trailer. It was going on dusk and the fog was closing in. The many-colored bulbs strung in the trees close to the wall and lining the paths had been turned on; each bulb was englobed by a fuzzy halo, and altogether they imbued the encroaching jungle with an eerily festive air, as if the spirits lost in the dark green tangles were planning a party. We stood beside the wall, beneath the great hill rising from the shifting fogbank, and my father tried to convince me to hand over the code. When I refused he offered money, and when I refused his money he glared at me and said, “Maybe you don’t get it. I really need the code. What’s it going to take for you to give it to me?”
“Perhaps it’s you who doesn’t get it,” I said. “If Vang wanted you to have the code he would have given it to you. But he gave it tome, and to no one else. I consider that a trust, and I won’t break it unless he signifies that I should.”
He looked off into the jungle, ran a hand across his scalp, and made a frustrated noise. I doubted he was experienced at rejection, and though it didn’t satisfy my anger, it pleased me to have rejected him. Finally he laughed. “Either you’re a hell of a businessman or an honorable man. Or maybe you’re both. That’s a scary notion.” He shook his head in what I took for amiable acceptance. “Why not call Vang? Ask him if he’d mind having a talk with me.”
I didn’t understand how this was possible.
“What sort of computer do you own?” he asked.
I told him and he said, “That won’t do it. Tell you what. Come over to my house tonight after your show.
You can use my computer to contact him. I’ll pay for your time.”
I was suddenly suspicious. He seemed to be offering himself to me, making himself vulnerable, and I did not believe that was in his nature. His desire to contact Vang might be a charade. What if he had discovered my identity and was luring me into a trap? “I don’t know if I can get away,” I said. “It may have to be in the morning.”
He looked displeased, but said, “Very well.” He fingered a business card from his pocket, gave it to me.
“My address.” Then he pressed what appeared to be a crystal button into my hand. “Don’t lose it. Carry it with you whenever you come. If you don’t, you’ll be picked up on the street and taken somewhere quite unpleasant.”
As soon as he was out of sight I hurried over to the trailer, intending to sort things out with Tan. She was outside, sitting on a folding chair, framed by a spill of hazy yellow light from the door. Her head was down, and her blouse was torn, the top two buttons missing. I asked what was wrong; she shook her head and would not meet my eyes. But when I persisted she said, “That woman…the one who works for your father…”
“Phuong? Did she hurt you?”
She kept her head down, but I could see her chin quivering. “I was coming to find you, and I ran into her.
She started talking to me. I thought she was just being friendly, but then she tried to kiss me. And when I resisted”-she displayed the tear in her blouse-“she did this.” She gathered herself. “She wants me to be with her tonight. If I refuse, she says she’ll make trouble for us.”
It would have been impossible for me to hate my father more, but this new insult, this threat to Tan, perfected it, added a finishing color, like the last brush stroke applied to a masterpiece. I stood a moment gazing off toward the hill-it seemed I had inside me an analog to that forbidding shape, something equally stony and vast. I led Tan into the trailer, sat her down at the desk, and made her tea; then I repeated all my father had said. “Is it possible,” I asked, “that Vang is my grandfather?”
She held the teacup in both hands, blew on the steaming liquid and took a sip. “I don’t know. My family has always been secretive. All my parents told me was that Vang was once a wealthy man with a loving family, and that he had lost everything.”
“If he is my grandfather,” I said, “then we’re cousins.”
She set down the cup and stared dolefully into it as if she saw in its depths an inescapable resolution. “I don’t care. If we were brother and sister, I wouldn’t care.”
I pulled her up, put my arms around her, and she pressed herself against me. I felt that I was at the center of an enormously complicated knot, too diminutive to be able to see all its loops and twists. If Vang was my grandfather, why had he treated me with such coldness? Perhaps my mother’s death had deadened his heart, perhaps that explained it. But knowing that Tan and I were cousins, wouldn’t he have told us the truth when he saw how close we were becoming? Or was he so old-fashioned that the idea of an intimate union between cousins didn’t bother him? The most reasonable explanation was that my father had lied. I saw that now, saw it with absolute
