This story, like all the best stories, begins with a death.
Pu had been planting new season rice in the fields far beyond the temple ruins, where the openbill storks pick out fat, juicy apple snails. His body was found face down in the shallow water, his tattered cane hat floating like a lotus next to him. Paw said Pu’s heart had failed. Ya said that which had never existed cannot fail.
Nobody mourned Pu. There was no decoration of his casket, and the bier it sat on remained unadorned. There had been little chanting, and nobody had attached ribbons for Pu to receive his merit. After three days, Paw burned the body.
“I’m free now,” Ya whispered, and she took my hands in hers. She was crying, and smiling. Her hands were knotted and twisted like tree roots and her cheeks shone like apples in the firelight. Ya said Pu was phi phong now, and giggled and cried.
I stood and watched as the casket slowly disintegrated. Pu’s hand fell from the shroud and into the flames. Sparks soared upward, into the bruised night sky. I imagined them to be Pu’s soul, leaving his body in search of a new home.
“Laloo,” my mother said, “take your brother, draw some water for me.”
“Yes Mae.” I scooped Mee Noi up and headed down the dusty lane, picking my way past the chicken cages and dogs that lazed in the evening heat. Toads chattered idly in the ditches.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
The intense heat of the day had left the old teak house sweltering. I lay awake, listening to the irregular breathing of my family, each of them struggling with the day’s events.
Beside me, Mee Noi fretted on the bamboo matting. I picked him up and carried him downstairs into the cool evening air. We walked down the lane to the ruined wat and climbed the worn steps. Bright moonlight cast crisp shadows on the broken Buddha statues that ringed the terrace.
This was where I escaped to when the house was unbearable. Up here, you could feel the gentle breeze that rolled across the paddy fields, bringing with it a soft sigh of frangipane and jasmine. Deep in the darkness, fireflies danced. Tiny sparks reflected in the paddy water, twin traces of light drawing mystical shapes. I lay back on the warm stone and peered up at the vast sky and felt at once as if I might fall forward into its infinite depths. Mee Noi stirred next to me, tiny pudgy hands plucking at the stars.
When Mae and Paw were away taking the harvest to the city, and I was still small enough to be washed in the bucket behind the house, Ya would sing songs from her childhood to me. She was from the mountains in the northwest, beyond the rice fields and river plains, so I never understood the words, but I could tell that they were songs of love and pain. Ya would often chuckle and sob quietly, lost deep in memory. Those songs came back to me now, the words pebble-smooth in my mouth, the melody flowing around them like a stream.
After a while, Mee Noi’s breathing began to slow, and his arms folded over his head. I watched as his chest rose and fell, and used the rhythm to guide the pace of my singing. Above us, golden chariots with flaming wheels crossed the sky, and ancestors danced in the starlight.
I finished the song and yawned, feeling the mass of the ancient temple under my body. It was my anchor, the only thing keeping me attached to this earth.
Mee Noi sighed and opened his eyes. He looked at me expectantly and gurgled. I smiled and started again, enjoying the night. As I sang, I started to weave different songs together, to blend the sounds and phrases from my childhood lullabies. Mee Noi grew quieter, and I watched the soft rise and fall of his chest. Up, down.
As I sang, a shimmering, roiling shape appeared above Mee Noi’s face. It was a glittering apple snail, rolling and looping over itself. The shell turned this way and that, a never-ending spiral of light. I stopped singing and moved over for a closer look. The apparition had slowed to a gentle, graceful tumble, allowing me to examine it. The shell shone, and pinpricks of light pulsed along the snail’s sinewy body. I held my breath and reached out a hand to touch it, to see if it were real.
All at once, there was a commotion in the air above me and a gust of wind pushed me to the ground. There was a loud clack clack clack and something white hit me around the head. I raised my arms over my face.
When the noise had stopped, I peered through my hands to see a completely white openbill stork such as we had in the paddies, standing over Mee Noi. Its eyes shone bitterly, and I had no doubt that it meant us harm. It was as tall as me, and its perfect feathers gave off a bright glow that hurt my eyes.
As I lay helpless on the worn stone, the stork stretched out its neck, opened its terrible bill and plucked the snail from the air above Mee Noi. Clack clack. The snail was gone.
I screamed. The shock of the bird arriving had robbed me of my senses, but they flooded back suddenly. Mee Noi lay helpless and unconscious at the stork’s cruel claws.
“Go away! Leave him alone!” I jumped up and waved my arms at the intruder. In response, it spread its mighty wings, crouched and lazily sprung off into the night. As quickly as it had arrived, it left.
“Mee Noi, oh no! Please don’t be harmed!” I desperately checked the baby for grazes and cuts. Nothing. He was sound asleep and snoring softly. Relieved, I picked him up and made my way quickly back to the house.
In the house, all was quiet. Everyone seemed to have sunk into a fitful sleep. I lay Mee Noi on the bamboo matting next to mine and curled up. Within minutes, I slipped beneath the surface of my dreams like a stone.
“Laloo, where is my water?” Mae was awake, and grumpy. Paw had risen early and headed to the temple. Ya was outside, cleaning out the chickens.
“I’ll get it now,” I replied, pushing myself awake. I looked over at Mee Noi, who was sleeping soundly.
The morning was hot and humid, and there was much to sort out following Pu’s cremation. I swept the yard and set about my usual tasks while Ya cooked and Mae fed the animals. The sun was high overhead when Mae went back in to the house. I was squatting in the shade of a fig tree fixing baskets when I heard the scream.
“Ya, help me, come quick! Come! Mee Noi isn’t moving!” I dropped the cane I was holding and ran as fast as I could, pushing past Ya as she levered her ancient bones up the hard wooden steps.
“Mae, what is it? What’s wrong with him?” She was crouched in the cooking area, clutching the baby to her chest. His arm drooped at a strange angle. As I stood and stared, breathless and confused, Ya came to the head of the stairs.
“Give him here my child,” Ya said, reaching out her frail arms. Reluctantly, Mae handed the child to her mother. Ya took Mee Noi and checked him all over, then peered into his face. Tenderly, she used a crabbed hand to push open his eyelids. “This child is not sick,” she said, “but he is not well.”
Mae sobbed helplessly. I bit my lip and said nothing.
The next few days saw many visitors to the stilted house. First, the neighbours who had heard the commotion, then their neighbours, then the abbot, then many, many monks who came and prayed and chanted and burned incense that stung my eyes and made my nose itch, then finally the doctor who could find nothing wrong with little Mee Noi. I sat on my ankles to one side, watching my baby brother get passed around like a rag doll, eyes rolling, drool looping from his slack mouth.
On the evening of the third day since Mee Noi had stopped responding, I lay on my bamboo mat thinking about what I had done, listening to the quiet rumbles of far-off thunder. My insides churned with guilt, and I twisted and turned restlessly. Not wanting to wake anyone, I rose and left the house. Outside, I found Ya sat under the fig tree, her bamboo pipe glowing deep red in the dark.
“Little Laloo, what troubles you?” a smudge of smoke made it hard to make out her shape. I decided to tell her what had happened.
“Beloved Ya, I have done something terrible and I do not know what to do,” I pulled up my t-shirt to hide my trembling chin.
Ya did not reply, just chewed on her pipe and closed her eyes.
“Mee Noi was restless, so I took him to the temple to sleep in the cool evening air. We climbed to the top, to Buddha, and I laid him down so we could watch the stars. But he would not sleep, and so I started to sing. I sang the songs you sang to me as a child, the songs you sang to help me sleep.”
Ya’s eyes opened and captured me with a terrifying gaze. She reached out a twisted hand and gently plucked my t-shirt from my mouth.
“What did you sing, Laloo?” There was an edge in Ya’s voice I had never heard before.
I described the songs I had sung, and the words I had brought together. As I did so, Ya sucked and chewed on the pipe. I told her about the glittering apple snail that had appeared, and I told her about the clack clack clack and the great white stork. And I told her about the stork reaching out with it’s razor sharp beak and plucking the apple snail from the air.
Ya let out a moan and knocked out her pipe. “Help me up.”
Stiffly, she led me across the yard to the spirit house that stood forlornly looking out over the silent paddy fields. “Laloo, that was no snail, and that was no stork.” As she talked, she gently moved aside the day’s offerings. “Quick, hold this, and be careful with it.” She passed me down a small glass jar, no bigger than my fist. It was bound fast with faded ribbons.
“What is this, Ya?” I could see nothing in the jar.
“Bring the baby. We have work to do.”
In the house, I lifted Mee Noi from Mae’s arms as silently as I could manage and tiptoed back down the stairs to a waiting Ya.
“Come.”
We walked back down the lane to the ruined temple. High above us, the night sky was thick with clouds that fizzled and cracked with lightning. Bats swooped and clicked in the air above us as we made our way to the platform of the watchful broken Buddha statues.
“Lay him there,” Ya said, gesturing to the centre of the ruined temple where I had lain just three nights ago. Gently, I placed Mee Noi on the worn brick. Ya slowly lowered herself to her knees beside his lifeless body. “Pass me the jar,” she whispered. As I did so, I noticed that her hands were trembling. She looked at me.
“Many years ago, when I was a young girl, I lived with my family in the mountains to the northwest. Our life was poor, but happy. After a time, I married a boy. Oh, I loved him so much. One day, people arrived from the North. They said that our land was theirs now, and that we should pay tribute. They killed my parents and burned our house. My love was shot for protecting me, for letting me escape.” Ya paused and swallowed. “I fled to the city and found that I was with child. I married the first man I could. He was cruel and knew that the child I carried was not his, knew that I did not love him but being an unwed mother was a dishonourable thing.” Ya’s curled fingers had started to unpick the ribbon wrapped tightly around the tiny jar. “I gave birth to a boy. Every part of him was perfect. But my husband hated him, hated that he existed. He got drunk and brutally beat the child, then crushed my hands, so I could not work, could not leave him. After he had passed out, as I clutched my dying son, I sang to him, the song you sang to Mee Noi.” Her fingers loosened the last of the ribbon and she held up the jar. A soft glow shone through the filthy glass. “Help me with the lid, Laloo.”
I wrapped my hand around Ya’s knotted fingers and gripped the lid. Eventually it gave way and unscrewed. We lowered our still-joined hands and looked inside at the glittering golden apple snail that floated within. I looked up at Ya. Tears traced the folds of her face.
We turned over the jar and gently tipped the snail onto Mee Noi’s chest. Ya closed her eyes and started to sing words that I had heard a thousand times. I closed my eyes and listened. High above, thunder rolled across the sky.
When her song was done, I opened my eyes. The snail was gone, and Ya was completely still. Her cheeks were wet from tears, and her chest heaved deeply.
A gurgle startled me.
I looked down at Mee Noi to see his eyes open and looking at me. His hands grasped the air, searching for a foot or a finger to hold.
“Mee Noi! Oh my brother, you’re awake!” Ya opened her eyes and looked down at the baby.
“Sometimes burning a bridge is the only way to make it to the other side,” she said, and rose stiffly. “Let us return Mee Noi to where he belongs.”
We picked our way down the temple steps and walked up the dusty lane to the house, Ya carrying a happily gurgling Mee Noi. At the foot of the steps, Ya passed him to me. “Oh, my son,” she whispered to the baby, “I will not fail you again.”
Upstairs, I carefully placed Mee Noi between Mae and Paw and lay on my bamboo mat, waiting for dawn.
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