As his wife, I long to help him, but what can I do?
* * *
The next day follows the usual course: foraging, followed by selling trinkets. In the late afternoon, after the tourists have returned to their hotels and we’ve gone home to change, my friends and I gather outside once again. We sit on logs to embroider, trade stories, and sing. We’re united by sorrow, and I’m comforted by the fact that we all speak the same language and follow the same traditions. We all wish for the bounty of the earth to reward us. We all hope for peace, quiet, and sanctuary. We just want to be left alone to sojourn through our lives—apart from lowland dwellers, apart even from other hill tribes. We want to be embraced by the warmth of the earth’s soil, the energy of its trees, and the fragrance of its blooms. But since our lives are out of alignment with the world, today we must endure a visit from the strangest creatures of all: missionaries. Akhas are taught never to hate, but this particular group of foreigners, who tell us our practices are evil and there is only one god, challenge my patience.
“No god would permit the killing of twins,” the white man yammers at the four of us, as though the practice still continued. His wife tries to talk to us about babies who are born with other problems. “These children are God’s special gifts.” They spend another half hour belittling us for our “foolish superstitions.” To them, we are not just tu—backward—we are sinful.
When I first encountered the couple, I saw people who didn’t know how to exist in harmony with the earth, the animals, or the rain, wind, and sun. I ignored the gossips who told me that missionaries kidnap Akha children and send them to orphanages and forced labor camps, but today, after the couple leaves, Wife-of-Shaw-kah tells us what happened to her.
“When I was full with child, they encouraged me to go to their clinic to have my baby,” she confides, trying unsuccessfully to keep her emotions hidden. “They said that if it was born with a cleft palate or an extra finger, their doctors would fix it. So I went to the clinic. They put me to sleep. When I woke up, they handed me my baby. She was perfect, and I had not suffered. But they did something to me when I was asleep, and I have not been able to come to a head again.”
I’ve now heard variations of this story too many times to doubt their truth.
I change the subject by seeking my friends’ advice. “I think I made a mistake in marrying my husband, but what can I do about it now?”
“You need to be careful in what you say,” one of the women warns. “He could sell you.”
I hadn’t considered that this could happen to me, and the idea—suddenly too real—makes me even more desperate. “But what if I could find my way back to Nannuo Mountain? I could return my wedding gifts to my in-laws to signal my divorce. I might be accepted back into Spring Well Village—”
“Those things are not possible.” Wife-of-Ah-joe cuts me off. “Even if you follow the rituals for divorce, you can never go home. Too shameful.”
I remember First Sister-in-law warning me of that but in more traditional words. Other things A-ma and A-ba relayed to me through the sisters-in-law also come back to me: A weak boy grows up to be a weak man and The whole mountain knows he’s lazy. And that was before the heartbreak of Yan-yeh.
“At least he hasn’t taken your bracelets or the silver from your headdress,” Wife-of-Za-po offers helpfully. “When that happens, you’ll have nothing left.”
That evening, after a dinner of soup made with no more than hot water and jungle tubers, San-pa takes the money I give him and pulls on his cape.
“Will you be gone long?” I ask.
“Do not ask me one more question,” he yells. “Do you understand? Not one more!”
He storms out of our hut. I doubt he will be back tonight. He might not even return tomorrow night. Fighting despair, I repeat in my mind what Deh-ja told me. All you can do is live.
Deep in the night I have a terrible dream. Deh-ja’s human rejects come out of her body. They are not babies, though, but yapping, miniature, yet somehow full-grown, dogs. A-ma puts them in a bag and sits on it until their yelping quiets. Deh-ja, as in real life, weeps. Ci-teh reclines in the corner, giggling. A-ma pushes medicine down Deh-ja’s throat. Her head begins to nod. She looks at us sleepily. Then San-pa appears. He takes the sack of dogs outside, strings the carcasses end to end on a spit, and roasts them over a fire for his evening meal. He tears the animals apart with his teeth. His mouth is as greasy as the first time I saw him. He stares at me, begins to nod, finally dozing off. Then he jerks his head up and grins, showing me all of his shiny teeth . . .
I jolt awake. I feel more alone than I thought possible. I’m unable to return to sleep, because the dream felt so real. In the morning, I can’t bring myself to go foraging, but at noon I put on my tourist costume—my wedding clothes and headdress, which once meant so much to me—and go outside. As my neighbors and I pose for pictures and pocket tips, I continue to ponder the significance of my dream. I look at it from every angle. I think about how A-ba, my brothers, and my sisters-in-law would decipher the messages. And then, of course, my mind goes to A-ma, the best interpreter of dreams on Nannuo Mountain. She would see the violation of Akha Law in every image, just as I do. For all the visions, though, only two matter in the end. The way both Deh-ja’s and San-pa’s heads nodded so dreamily. I’m shoving a handful of woven sunglass cases in the face of a woman with hair the color of wild mustard—“You want to buy?”—when the meaning becomes clear.
My husband is a heroin addict. This is not going to get better. Things can only get worse.
I manage to complete my sale and then walk back to my house, in a daze, without saying goodbye to my friends. Maybe I should be more upset. Maybe I should be pulling my hair, screaming down the path, or sobbing in a heap at the feet of an elephant. But I’m not the girl I once was. I’m still only eighteen years old, but I’m many decades older in my heart.
I enter the single room that is my home. San-pa has returned and is stretched out on our sleeping mat, an arm draped over his eyes.
“Wife,” he says, acknowledging my presence.
“Husband,” I say, kneeling on the edge of the mat.
There must be something in the way I speak the word, because his arm drops to his side and he stares into my eyes. Despite everything, he can still read me very well. A second or two, and he understands that I know.
“I thought coming back for you would change everything.” His breath still smells sweet, yet his excuses for his drug use merely incorporate variations of the same familiar torments. “But you doomed us by having the human reject. Then you made it so we couldn’t fix our mistake and save our daughter.”
I have a lot of remorse for the things I’ve done, but I won’t allow San-pa to make me feel guilty any longer.
“I’m the one who suffered. I carried Yan-yeh within me. I gave birth to her. I was her mother, and I did everything I could to save her. I needed you, and I still need you.”
Tears pool in his eyes. “You did this to me.”
“I didn’t make you into the man you are,” I say sadly. “You’ve always been exactly who you are. A weak man. A pancake stealer.”
They’re such gentle admonitions when I could say so much worse, but they cut to the very heart of who San-pa is. His eyes go cold, and he rolls away from me.
I lie down next to him. A canyon of sorrow and regret fills the space between us. By the time he sneaks out hours later, I know what I must do.
Still dressed in my wedding clothes, I pack the rest of my belongings in my carrying basket. I need to be gone from the village before others rise, but I’m not hurried or frightened. I calmly rummage through San-pa’s basket to retrieve my hidden money. We don’t have any food, but I’ll be able to survive in the jungle as long as I have my knife. Beyond that, I don’t have a plan. I can’t go home. Maybe I’ll end up living in a lean-to next to Deh-ja. Even that would be better than this.
I don’t bother to glance around the room to collect memori
es. Resolution guides me now. I brush off my skirt three times and recite the words that will begin to set my divorce in motion and instruct my soul to accompany me and not be tempted to remain behind. “I’m leaving, leaving, leaving.” I’m so very thankful I don’t have children, because custom would force me either to maroon them with San-pa or to give them to his parents.
I slowly walk down the lane that divides the village, careful not to rouse the dogs. But as soon as I reach the last house, I gallop for the dense protection of the jungle. My husband may have his drugs, but I feel something pulsing through me, giving me the strength to flee. At the top of a rise, I pause, crouch, listen. Nothing. I run again. I’m familiar enough with where I live from the long hours spent foraging that for now I know which direction to go. That doesn’t mean I’m confident. San-pa might come looking for me. I try to move carefully through the jungle, but I’m in a hurry and he is a good tracker when he wants to be.
The descent of fog over the mountain comes as either a gift or another danger. It will give me the ability to hide, but it’s also disorienting. Spirits lie in wait for the weak, the sick, the frightened. I try to build courage by reminding myself I’m Akha. We live in the jungle. We get food and medicine from the jungle. If we’re careful, we can protect ourselves from bad spirits, wild animals, and fateful accidents. But in running away from my husband, I’m not being careful. Then it hits me. What if he finds me? He has to know I won’t go back with him. My blood chills. If he finds me, I’ve left him with two options: sell me or kill me. Both would be his right.
* * *
Yunnan lies to the north. I follow mountain paths from dawn to dusk, watching the way the sun moves across the sky: to my right in the mornings, to my left in the afternoons. I drink water from streams and eat plants. I loop magic vine over my shoulders, hoping it will protect me from bad spirits and my husband. I walk—and sometimes run—until I can’t go another step. Then I veer off the trail and find a place to rest. I’m exhausted, but I barely sleep. If a gopher does not have his escape route dug and ready ahead of time, then it will be difficult to run away when he needs it. If I’d had an escape plan, I could have protected myself with rituals and talismans. Now I’m scared, never an emotion to have in the jungle. I spend the black night hours listening to every snap and creak coming from the shadows. On the fourth day, I feel San-pa’s presence. If he sang to me, I fear I would hear him. But there’s something else too. The wind shifts, and I catch the smell of wildness. A spirit or spirits?
Terrified, I sprint into a small clearing with high grass and hunker down. Hidden. Safe. But then, like a rabbit, I can’t keep still. I bolt up out of the grass and run as fast as I can back into the jungle until I reach the trail. I jump from rock to rock, scramble over outcroppings, slip in mud, pick myself up, and keep going. My legs and lungs ache with fiery pain.
My mind races with sick knowledge. If it’s true that A-poe-mi-yeh—the supreme god of the Akha people—has placed a stamp inside every person’s head that says how long he or she will live and that we each have a tree in the spirit world that represents us, then the due date on my stamp must surely be coming and my tree must have shed its leaves. So many aphorisms A-ma used to recite come back to me as recriminations. Why didn’t I listen? Because I was like every other girl. Stupidly prideful. Too sure of myself. Foolish in love. Yes, I’ve sinned—against my a-ma and a-ba, against my husband, against my baby. Now that the end of my life feels so close I inwardly beg for it to last a little longer. Let me go back home. Let me find my baby. Let me survive what is hunting me. Give me a chance. I will fight. I will be better. Sun and Moon, help me.
Behind me I hear someone—something—crashing through the dank undergrowth. I duck behind a tree, as if that could hide me from a hunter. I hear the hum then thwack as an arrow embeds itself in a tree near me. The thought that I won’t see death coming—that I’ll end my life with an arrow in my back—hurts more than I could have imagined. I want to see San-pa. I want to look in his eyes when he pulls back the arrow and lets it fly to my heart. When I die, I want to face all the mistakes I’ve made.
I step from my hiding place. There is San-pa. His crossbow is raised. He loved me once, and I loved him. And now here we are. His arm begins to draw back the arrow.
“Cat!” he says sharply in warning.
My eyes move to my right, to where I heard the first arrow hit. There, by the tree, a tiger crouches, ready to pounce. His golden eyes hold me still. His whiskers twitch.
San-pa calls again, this time for the tiger’s attention. “Cat!”
The beast shifts his gaze from me to the nuisance who’s interrupted his hunt. San-pa shoots the arrow just as the tiger lunges. Another thwack as the arrow misses its intended target. The tiger passes so close to me that I feel the hard slap of his tail. Two bounds, and he reaches San-pa. The first scream is one of anger. But as the tiger bites into San-pa’s thigh, his screams turn to pain and terror. The tiger backs off, then playfully swats San-pa with his paw. A sound grates out of the tiger’s throat—rrrrrrr. He turns his head to make sure I’m still here.
San-pa manages to grab another arrow, holding it before him like a spear. So pathetic. The tiger pounces again. He doesn’t go for San-pa’s throat. Instead he bites into San-pa’s stomach and yanks with such ferocity that my husband is lifted off the ground and tossed hard against a tree. His agonized groan tells me he’s still alive, but even if the tiger doesn’t attack San-pa again, he will die. A terrible death. And I’m next.
With the stronger of the two of us incapacitated, the tiger returns his attention to me. His mouth and whiskers are stained with blood, but he has such a regal and powerful face. I close my eyes so my mind can go one last time to my daughter. Wherever you are, always remember I loved you.
“Cat!” San-pa screams.
I open my eyes to see the tiger glance back at San-pa. This time the hum is short. Thwack, as the arrow enters the tiger’s eye. The animal stands perfectly still for a moment, then his knees crumple. I collapse too. My fingers grip the ground. My heart pounds. Carefully I crawl past the tiger to San-pa. His guts lie about him like jungle vines. Blood is everywhere. His eyes are wide and unblinking. His last breathing act was to save my life.
Roger Siegel, M.D.
Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA
November 5, 1996
Sheldon Katz, M.D.
800 Fairmount Ave.
Pasadena, CA 91105
RE: HALEY DAVIS
Dear Sheldon,
On November 3, I saw your patient, Haley Davis, for a follow-up with respect to the management of her parasites and accompanying infectious diseases. After a lengthy stay in our pediatric intensive care unit, I am most pleased to report that Haley no longer exhibits any symptoms. Her stools are normal. Her lung fields are clear. She has not developed secondary complications: her heart is normal in size and configuration, her renal and liver functions are normal as well.
I have gotten to know Constance and Dan, who are delightful people and, I believe, very good parents. They will vigorously carry out all instructions to ensure Haley’s continued health and well-being. As for Haley, rarely in my professional life have I seen such a fighter. She’s not only responded to treatment, she’s begun to thrive. She’s gained weight and has caught up to her age-appropriate developmental milestones: she can roll over and sit up unassisted, and she’s become a master creeper. I expect she will have begun walking on her own in time for her first birthday in a couple of weeks, to which the family has invited me. Haley is very eager to please. The nurses in the unit love to make her laugh, but I’m her favorite. When she touches my nose, I stick out my tongue. She giggles so hard she tips over. Her verbal skills are coming along, but I was one of her first ten words. She calls me Da Ta, for doctor. All who have treated Haley consider her to be a bright and very cheerful child.
Since Haley is doing so well, I make no further recommendations at this time. Many thanks for allowing me to follow
this nice youngster with you.
With warm personal regards,
Roger Siegel, M.D.
GOODBYE TO THE TEARS
What am I to do now? We Akha have many customs, but none are more sacred than those for the dead, because these are souls who’ve moved from the living world to the spirit world. For a normal death, the ceremonies are ten times greater than those for a wedding. For someone who’s died a terrible death, though, traditions are severely simplified. Still, all dead must be treated with reverence and accord to clear their passage and see them settled in their new home, but there are too many things I can’t do for my husband. No songs of mourning will shudder along the hillsides telling everyone on Nannuo Mountain of our tragedy. I can’t weep—as a proper widow—as his family sacrifices a water buffalo, chickens, and other animals to make amends to the universe for their son’s terrible death and to prevent him from causing trouble in the village. Most of all, I can’t stay in this spot for three days and three nights with San-pa’s body. I just can’t. Nevertheless, I need to make sure his spirit is in his corpse and that both are completely in the ground, because his nature in the life he lived—and not his last moments—are what will drive him now.
I wash what’s left of his body as best I can with water from a nearby stream. Never before have I seen anything so horrible. His flesh has been torn and ripped. I don’t know what to do with his innards, which don’t want to fit back in his stomach cavity. I place a coin on his tongue and bind his jaw closed with a length of vine. “May you use that money to buy clothes and food in your new home,” I recite. I pull two threads from my skirt. One I use to tie San-pa’s thumbs together; the other to tie his big toes together. We do this to remind the dead that they are indeed dead. Surely San-pa knows he’s dead, but I perform this small act for him out of gratitude for his saving me.