Little Brother Page 6

  The woman hit him hard in the face with her forearm and he spun from the bike with a shout of pain. She glanced down briefly at his sprawled body before turning away.

  Then she mounted Vithy’s bike and rode rapidly towards the border.

  THE CART

  Vithy sat up in a puddle and watched the bike he had created from a scrapyard disappear down the road. He fingered his nose, where the woman had hit him, but he wasn’t angry, just hurt and surprised. Once upon a time he might have been shocked by some adult stealing a bike from a kid – especially him – but he had seen a lot since then. Now he accepted the theft as just one of those things, something that was his fault because he could have stayed off the road in daytime.

  He got up, shrugged and walked on. Of course, it was going to be harder and longer to get to the border. There was no meat or rice left and it would take him two days of walking to reach it. Oh, he’d get there all right, but it would have been so much easier if he had been Mang. If he had been Mang the woman would never have thought of taking his bike, would she? Everything is easier for big kids. Small kids have to be smarter …

  Vithy was hoping that the woman would fall off his bike and break a leg when something snorted at him. He turned to see a slow bullock pulling a cart carrying a load of firewood and an old man with a tailless monkey on his shoulder.

  The old man touched the brim of his straw hat with his prod and smiled. ‘Ah, we might’ve got past you, you’re so much asleep … Going to the border?’

  Vithy nodded.

  ‘There’s nowhere else to go. C’mon up.’ He stretched his hand down to Vithy.

  The bullock looked hard at Vithy, as if it could smell yesterday’s meat in his breath. Vithy hesitated. ‘Ah, I am too heavy.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Naga can pull an elephant off its feet. You’re a flea.’ He caught Vithy’s wrist and flicked him casually up onto the cart. ‘What’s your name?’

  Vithy told him. The bullock looked back at Vithy and snorted, but it continued its rolling gait. The monkey scratched its chin as it studied Vithy gravely.

  ‘Are you going to the border?’ Vithy asked. He tried a smile for the monkey but was met with an irritated click of its teeth.

  The old man scratched his knee. ‘I go close, but not there. You know there’s trouble ahead.’

  Vithy’s arm suddenly trembled. He leant on it. ‘What?’

  The old man raised a finger. ‘Listen.’

  Vithy stopped breathing and he could hear a faint rumble like a distant storm. He had heard it before, just before Mang and he had broken from the Khmer Rouge soldiers in the forest. Before he had been running from the sound, but this time he was going right into it. ‘Fighting?’ he said.

  ‘It comes and it goes. Two armies out there, between us and Thailand. They fight when they find each other. This road goes straight into Thailand but you cannot follow it.’

  Vithy stared far ahead, at the empty road and the peaceful blue hills. Just waiting for him. ‘There’s soldiers?’

  ‘Many of them. Big guns, lorries, tanks. Everything. It’s a war.’

  ‘Then how do I reach the border?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  Vithy felt a great wave of weariness. He was too hungry, his nose throbbed, his legs ached so much he was sure they were going to drop off. He did not want to go on.

  The old man scratched the monkey’s head. ‘Maybe you better forget about the border. Why you want to go to Thailand anyway? Better stay with us.’

  ‘Us?’ A family, a village? Mang was a long way away.

  The old man waved his hand over the cart and the bullock and the monkey. ‘We have a house. Not much good, but it is a house. We even have two ducks.’

  Not a village, not even a family, just the old man and the monkey, and the bullock. And two ducks. But it was a place, wasn’t it? Vithy remembered feeding the family ducks at Sambor. Not two, but a yard of frantic birds, flapping, clacking their beaks angrily at each other as he moved among them with a bowl of grain. Dad was chasing them from his vegetable patch all the time, shouting, waving a stick. Then Vithy was a little god and the whole world was under his control. Sorei grew up a bit and took over the ducks and of course he was too old to feed ducks now … but, still …

  Vithy smiled and shook hands with the monkey. They were beginning to make friends. ‘What do you call the monkey?’

  The old man glared down at Vithy. ‘She is not a monkey. She is an ape. A gibbon ape. See, no tail.’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot.’

  ‘She is Apsara.’

  ‘Apsara?’ Vithy remembered the stone dancing girls in Angkor. And Mum. He looked at the ape and slowly smiled as he pictured the ape in the sparkling green and gold costume and towering head-dress Mum had worn. He grinned, and suddenly giggled.

  The old man looked down his nose. ‘You do not think she is Apsara?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Dance, Apsara. Dance.’

  The ape bared a tooth at Vithy and somersaulted casually to the broad back of Naga. Totally ignored by the bullock, Apsara spun, swayed to an ancient rhythm, wobbled her head and became the evil and all-powerful Monkey God. She flipped several times in the air and clapped her hands until she had Vithy clapping his and laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks.

  But suddenly Apsara stopped her dance and leapt from Naga’s back to the old man’s lap. The old man turned to see two trucks roaring towards the cart. The first truck slowed beside the cart and thirty soldiers were looking hard at Vithy.

  ‘Where you go?’ The officer in the cabin spoke with an effort and a heavy accent.

  The old man bowed his head. ‘Only to my house.’

  ‘You are going to the Khmer Rouge.’

  The old man stiffened his neck. ‘No. never.’

  ‘What are you carrying?’

  The old man passed his arm over his load of firewood. ‘As you see.’ He jerked lightly on the reins.

  Naga stopped in a slow step and the truck rolled forward. The officer hesitated, then motioned the trucks on their way.

  ‘Leeches,’ said the old man. And smiled.

  The old man flicked his prod and Naga leaned forward very slowly until the cart began to move. Naga accelerated with the casual power of a great train leaving a station, but only to the speed of a man walking fast. After one gentle hill Naga moved from the road to a rutted track without any sign from the old man.

  ‘Apsara, coco,’ said the old man.

  Apsara immediately turned and burrowed beneath the firewood. She disappeared, then reappeared with a yellow coconut in her hands. She gave it to the old man and pulled an old metal spike from behind the seat. She held it point upwards against the seat as the old man punched a hole in the coconut. Then the three of them shared the rich clear milk.

  ‘We have to hide things now,’ the old man said, ‘from thieves and leeches. Apsara and me, we know where there’s coconut trees, and sweet potatoes, even bananas. But we have to keep them hidden, eh?’

  ‘Mang and me, we used to hide things in our special tree,’ Vithy said, feeling the coconut milk coursing down to his waiting belly. ‘Nobody knew about it. We once found an old gold watch and hid it there, but it disappeared. Mang said it was phis, spirits of the forest …’

  ‘Who is Mang?’

  ‘My brother. I’m going to find him over the border.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the old man.

  They split open the coconut and ate the white flesh and Vithy talked about Phnom Penh, the great ship in the Mekong, the house in the forest and his escape from the paddy with Mang. But the old man didn’t say much at all. The sun slowly closed Vithy’s eyes and the cart was rocking gently like a fishing boat. He finally slumped back with his mouth open and a piece of half-eaten coconut on his lap.

  Vithy awoke with the old man’s hand on his shoulder. It was still light but there were a few stars in the sky.

  ‘I think you leave now.’

  Vithy straightened his back and his neck felt
as if someone had been beating it with a club.

  ‘Listen.’

  Vithy sat up and looked at a low range of jungled hills, a dark green shadow in the twilight. Very peaceful, except for someone setting off crackers a long way away.

  ‘A battle?’ He spoke in a faint whisper.

  The old man shook his head. ‘Just a squabble. But it is far ahead, nothing to worry about. I hear some fighting in the hills behind us, but there is no fighting out there tonight.’ He pointed at the forest straight out from the cart.

  Vithy breathed in. ‘You think I should go?’

  The old man smiled. ‘You have a brother.’

  ‘Goodbye, then.’ Vithy stared at the sullen hills and thought of an easy life with the gentle old man and his ape. It was all so safe …

  ‘Goodbye.’ The old man was looking straight ahead.

  Vithy closed his eyes and jumped from the cart.

  ‘Vithy?’ the old man called after him.

  Vithy turned.

  ‘Be very careful.’

  Vithy nodded and walked into the forest.

  THE BORDER

  For ten minutes Vithy crashed through the undergrowth as if he was being chased, then he turned. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for; maybe he wanted to see the old man for the last time, or maybe he wanted to be called back, but the forest had closed behind him. He was once again completely alone in a forest full of enemies.

  He stopped and listened. The forest was breathing, ticking, rustling, chattering quietly to itself, but there was nothing he could see beyond the dark columns of the trees. He was being watched.

  Vithy pressed against a tree and a lone night bird wailed from a hill. He shook his head in disgust. Of course he was being watched. The insects were watching him; the monkeys were watching him; the birds were watching him.

  And he told himself, they had better. Because he was the most dangerous animal in the forest. Nothing frightened him at all. Really. They had better remember that. He took a deep breath and strode from the tree he had been hiding behind.

  After half an hour of pushing through dry undergrowth, trying to ignore the terrible din he was making, Vithy found a track and the forest opened up. He began humming softly …

  The shots were so close they seemed to explode inside Vithy’s head.

  He threw himself to the ground and clapped his hands over his ears. He could still hear the savage chop-chopping of several guns no more than fifty metres away, the gasping of the bullets and the splintering of wounded timber. He could hear running feet on the path and he rolled quickly into the undergrowth. They had caught him. They had let him go in the forest just to wait for him here. They had been playing games with him.

  Vithy heard the panting runners before he saw them. Then two men jerked towards him, clawing at the air as if they were trying to swim. He slithered into a trembling runner’s crouch in the bushes.

  No. Don’t move. Just don’t move.

  They passed him and a man stumbled close on their heels, looking backwards to a woman with a small girl held to her shoulder. The little girl was screaming, but she stopped when she saw Vithy and stared at him with enormous eyes until she was bounced out of sight. Then a stream of old men and women with a few children. Last was a teenage girl trying to run with a one-legged man. She saw Vithy’s face in the bush, frowned, opened her mouth and ran on. A gun coughed from a tree and the girl swayed but kept moving. Vithy bit his forearm but did not move. Maybe, just maybe, they don’t know you’re here. Lie still.

  There was no more shooting. The pounding on the path receded but there was a rustling in the forest all around him. A man laughed briefly, a gun clicked and the rustling faded away.

  Vithy remained motionless until well after the insects had begun to murmur again. He slowly relaxed his legs, rested his head on his arms and allowed his arms to tremble. He listened to the beat of his own heart and ran his fingers over a pebble until it began to shine dully. But finally he knew there were no soldiers near him any more.

  He stood up, carefully brushing the sticks from his shirt, and listened. When nothing changed he moved along the path, from tree to tree, holding himself in a hunch between the trees. But as he crept through the forest his confidence seeped back. He could almost see the border beyond the next trees. A slow shuffle became a walk, a sweeping stride, then a tiptoe run. He could not be stopped now.

  He tripped over something lying across the path, stumbled, but kept running. He had glimpsed only a black shadow as he had passed over it, touched it with his foot for an instant, but that ‘something’ nagged at his memory as he ran.

  It was a body.

  How could he tell? Just a few more minutes and he would be at the border, past the Khmer Rouge for ever and with Mang.

  It was a woman.

  Don’t be stupid. It was a log covered with vines.

  It was a woman with long black hair fallen across her face.

  If it was a woman, she’s dead and there’s nothing you can do.

  She’s alive.

  How can you tell? Look, there’s soldiers everywhere. They can probably hear you running. You’re almost there.

  She might be alive.

  Look, what do you want? People aren’t expected to do things now. Things aren’t normal any more. It’s a war and people just look after themselves. Like the woman who stole your bike …

  Like the old man with the coconut? Like the King with your piece of gold?

  Vithy slowed down and stopped with a sigh.

  He walked back and found the teenage girl with her mouth open and her eyes closed. There was no sign of the one-legged man she had been helping. Vithy bent over her, with a peculiar mix of feelings, sorrow and the hope that she would be dead and he could run on to the border.

  Then she coughed.

  ‘I’ve got to go …’ Vithy muttered. But he knelt by the girl.

  The girl looked as if she was peacefully asleep with her long eyelashes resting on her cheeks and her ribs moving very slowly under her black dress. But her shoulder was covered in blood and she was still bleeding. Left alone, she would die in an hour.

  But what could he do?

  Once a Meo, a mountain hunter, ran up to Dad and pleaded for help when he, Mang and Vithy had been looking for a Buddhist ruin in the mountains near Sambor. The Meo said a friend’s old rifle had exploded when he pulled the trigger. What could Dad do, Mang wanted to know. This time there was no medicine bag, no nearby clinic.

  ‘There’s a nearby jungle,’ Dad said. ‘That might do.’ So the Meo’s friend was carried to safety on a stretcher made of vines and branches, drugged with herbs, and his wounds treated with other drugs and black mud …

  Vithy looked round hurriedly and ran to a nearby bank of moss. He carefully lifted a ragged square of moss from the bank and carried it back to the girl with both hands. He gently tore her dress from her shoulder and stopped the suddenly increasing flow of blood by pressing the moss over the wound. He moved his fingers over her shoulder and found that the bullet had missed her shoulder-blade but had broken her collar-bone.

  He stood up, took his shirt off and tore it into broad strips and placed them beside the girl. He collected some palm leaves, placed them over the darkening moss and tied a bandage around her body to keep the moss and palm leaves in place. He tied loose loops round her shoulders and scrubbed her face with moss until she woke.

  The girl opened her eyes, closed them again in pain and flicked them wide and staring. ‘Please,’ she groaned.

  Vithy recognized the fear. ‘No soldier. I am Muong Vithy. Can you sit up?’

  The girl relaxed. ‘No, I am dying.’

  ‘No you’re not. It’s only a broken bone.’

  The girl pressed her lips together. ‘You’re only a boy. You don’t know anything. I am dying. I have been shot so many times …’

  ‘Only once. And it went right through. Look, the border is just over the hill.’

  The girl was breathing hard. �
�Over this hill?’

  ‘With hospitals and everything. If you can sit up I can help.’

  ‘Kid doctor,’ the girl snorted.

  ‘My father was a doctor.’ Vithy reached for her good arm.

  She looked thoughtfully at Vithy, glanced at her torn dress, the bandage and the palm leaves, and took his hand. He leaned back and pulled very hard. The girl gasped and shuddered, but she sat up.

  ‘My shoulder …’ She pushed the words between her teeth and clutched at her left elbow to support the arm.

  ‘Can you stay up?’ Vithy moved behind the girl with a strip from his shirt.

  ‘I can’t get up. Never.’

  ‘Yes.’ Vithy knelt and fed the strip through the shoulder hoops and pulled them towards each other, bracing the shoulders.

  ‘That’s better,’ the girl said in surprise.

  ‘Good.’ Vithy tied a knot and made a wrist sling from his remaining strip.

  The girl considered her arm. ‘Maybe it will do. What do we do now?’

  ‘You have to get up and walk.’ Vithy stepped to the girl’s side.

  ‘Just a minute.’ The girl leaned away from her broken collar-bone and began to relax her face.

  Vithy thought she almost looked beautiful, maybe the way Sorei would have looked in twelve years …’ What’s your name?’

  ‘Saro. Didn’t I tell you? Where are the others?’

  ‘The people that were with you?’

  ‘Yes. Ah, you weren’t with us. You were hiding.’

  ‘They’ve gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘I think they were sure you were dead.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t, was I?’

  Vithy shrugged.

  ‘I’ll bite some heads off when I find them. All right.’ Saro clutched at Vithy’s neck and pulled herself angrily to her feet. She swayed dangerously as all the colour drained from her face. ‘Ooh …’ she said at last. ‘I’m so weak.’

  ‘You lost a lot of blood. Lean on me.’

  The small boy and the tall young woman moved slowly through the forest, her right hand pressing hard on his shoulder as he went ahead. In the beginning they talked a little, but they soon needed all their breath for walking. They struggled up the hill, and panted, and stopped and walked again. When something slithered across their path they did not change their pace at all. It was just too hard to slow down and then start again. But at last the hill began to flatten.