Yes, she had avoided the messages. Now she was sorry. But really, she thought, what could she have done? Binh was in charge.
“What do you think, Tuyen? This one right?”
He was acting too strangely, she thought. How did it matter what the man wore? Maybe it was as it seemed and her imagination had run away with her, her mistrust for Binh. Maybe she’d had too much to drink over the course of the last three days and she was the one acting strangely.
“I apologize,” she said, abruptly facing Quy. “Welcome. My mother and father have never recovered from losing you.”
“No I,” Quy replied.
Again she heard that formal tone faintly secreting a crudity. She felt embarrassed at thinking this.
“Can I go up with you both, Binh?” And now her brother had the upper hand—having to ask Binh was hard, but no way she was leaving him unobserved.
“Of course. I’m taking him for dinner. It’s Monday, remember?”
The restaurant was usually closed on a Monday, and the family usually had dinner together at Richmond Hill, with the exception of Tuyen, who wounded them all by missing this time frequently. It was a ritual she had found as tedious as the restaurant itself ever since she was a teenager. Now she felt justly reprimanded.
“Football again!” Quy rushed to the store window. There had been a gathering crescendo of car horns outside. Tuyen became fully aware of the brewing traffic jam outside on the street. Red flags washed past the window. “Korea! Du-ma-may!”
The coarse expletive jarred Tuyen. Binh laughed, waving at the passersby, giving the victory sign.
“Our big brother, Tuyen! He’s home!” he said, grabbing her shoulder. She squirmed at this show of affection from him.
“Yes. Well, I’ll come back,” she said. “What time?”
“How about five, five-thirty? It’ll be hell getting out of here.”
She remembered to grab the photographs, shoving them into the bag sheepishly. “Okay.” She made a small shy gesture of goodbye to Quy as she opened the door and plunged into the growing red crowd outside. The noises rose. Korea had almost scored a goal against Germany.
Tuyen made her way through the crowd grimly. Christ! Was she so hateful as to prefer that Quy had not been found? She turned right and headed south to her apartment. One thing, she decided, her mother and father could not be hurt. She’d see to that. She would do her part, even if this Quy gave her the creeps. That was unfair, she thought. She didn’t even know him. At any rate, whatever, she would stick by her mother and father. It was all well and good to have a tragic story in the past, but what if it returns? What if it comes back with all it has stored up, to be resolved and decided, to be answered. She couldn’t foresee an easy time, as Binh must have envisaged. The lost boy would have to have been sad, lonely, angry, hurt, angry. Was that the scraping sound she had heard in his voice? Would he have had a life with love? A girlfriend, a wife, children, perhaps? She had been rude, and not very clever—she hadn’t asked him any of this. Would he have let the past go as chance—unfair, but chance—and made the best of what he got? Yes, of course there were stories of refugees made good no matter the circumstances. God. What did she mean, made good? That was so weak, that was so lame. She couldn’t believe she was thinking it. Would he be kind to her mother and father?
In the end that is what she meant, she realized, that is what she wanted. They deserved kindness, and Tuyen doubted whether this ghost could deliver it.
When Tuyen arrived at the alleyway leading to her apartment, a black Audi was practically blocking the doorway to the stairs. Music was booming from speakers at Kumaran’s window. It was Oku’s “The Jungle Is a Skyscraper.” And the walls of the two buildings caverning the alley were now covered in paintings. On one side there was a flowering jungle, lianas wrapped around the CN Tower, elephants drinking by the lake, pelicans perched on the fire escapes. On the other side there was a seaside, a woman in a bathing suit and hat shading her eyes, looking out to sea. The black Audi was parked outside a cabana, a boat rocked against the radio antenna of the car. Tuyen recognized the scenes. The places Carla had talked about, the places where Angela Chiarelli dreamed of going. Tuyen hadn’t noticed the paintings earlier. Kumaran must have done them during the weekend, which had been a boozy blur for her. The one time she’d come home she hadn’t seen anyone. The Audi parked outside now was real. She didn’t recognize it. No one in this alleyway could afford an Audi. She called to Kumaran over Ornette Coleman’s shrieking in loops, but Kumaran probably could not hear her. She edged her way around the car and opened the door to the staircase. She heard laughter upstairs from Carla’s side. “Carla!” she called, climbing the stairs. Maybe Carla could help her think this out, stop her from being paranoid, offer her a way of seeing the new apparition of her brother Quy as a blessing. Precious.
“Tuyen, Jamal! Jamal got out!” Carla stood at the top of the stairs, beaming.
“Great! Hey, Jamal!” Tuyen replied, as he appeared behind Carla. “What’s happening, how are you?”
“I’m chilling … you know.” His eyes looked red. They’d been doing a joint.
“Come on in, we’re having a celebration. I was looking for you all weekend to tell you. He’s been out since Friday. Where you been?”
“Oh, you know …” Carla seemed unusually manic to Tuyen. She was disappointed that she would not be able to talk to Carla about Quy, and she didn’t have time for a party. “Listen, I’m just
