Timothy Hallinan - The Fourth Watcher

The cigarette, a cheap Korean counterfeit Marlboro he brought into the country with him, burns rewardingly in the back of his throat. It’s the burn he’s become accustomed to, the burn he looks forward to forty or fifty times a day. When the watcher first arrived in Bangkok, two days earlier, he had bought a pack of real American Marlboros at the airport, lit one eagerly, taken a deep drag, and tossed the pack away. No bite. He likes a cigarette with bite.

So far this evening, he has seen no other watchers, which is something new. The only interesting thing about this job is that the man he’s watching seems to be being followed by half the city.

Coming out of the bedroom, Rafferty stops at the sight: the two of them curled together on the couch, snug as puppies. Rose’s hair falls over both of them like a lush black shawl, spilling off Miaow’s shoulders and over her plump brown knees. Miaow is gazing dreamily down at the three candles burning on the cake, one for each decade of Rose’s life. The glow of the candles paints Rose’s and Miaow’s faces with gold, making them smooth as water-carved stone. Through the sliding glass door beyond them, the lights of Bangkok glitter like bad costume jewelry. A sentence spontaneously assembles itself in Rafferty’s mind:

Everything I want is here.

“You both look beautiful,” Rafferty says. His heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s taking a hammer to his ribs. Now that the time has come, he is terrified. He slips into his pocket the small box he retrieved from the bureau in his bedroom and comes the rest of the way into the room, trailing a vaporous wake of White Shoulders. Leaning against the cake is a square of white, an envelope with a rose drawn on it in colored pencil, Miaow’s medium of choice since she decided that crayons were for babies. Although she showed him half a dozen attempts at the envelope, she has not allowed him to see the card.

“The cake is perfect,” Rose says. “I’ll remember it my whole life. Look, you can hardly tell it was broken.”

“Shall we sing?” Rafferty asks, sitting on the floor, on the other side of the table so he can see them both. His mouth is dry. “You can start, Miaow.”

Miaow sits up and crosses her hands in her lap. It makes her look like a miniature lawyer. “Not yet. I have to tell you something first.” Then she stops, her eyes on a spot on the table. After a moment she begins to move her lips as though trying out the words she will say. Finally she says, “Ohhhhhhh.” She kicks one heel against the couch. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Rose leans toward her.

“Don’t know if you’ll. .” Miaow’s eyes go to Rafferty with an unfamiliar urgency. “Promise you won’t get mad.”

“Me?” Rafferty asks. “When was the last time I got mad at you?”

“Just a few minutes ago,” she says, “but you always forget.” And to Rose, “Maybe you. . maybe you’ll be mad.”

Rose touches the tip of Miaow’s microscopic nose. “Why would we get mad at you?”

Miaow turns her head away from Rose’s finger. This time her heel strikes the couch harder, and a puff of dust halos the candle. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have. .”

Rose glances at Rafferty, who raises his shoulders a tenth of an inch and lets them drop. “Shouldn’t have what?” Rose asks.

“Ohhh. .” and suddenly Miaow is blinking fast, a sure sign she’s on the verge of tears. “It’s. . it’s dumb. I mean, stupid.”

“You’re never stupid, Miaow.”

She reaches across the table and snatches the card she made. “Yes I am. I’m stupid. Why would you want-”

“Whatever it is,” Rose says, “if you want it, I do, too.”

Miaow looks at her hard enough to see through her. “You promise?”

“I promise. From here.” Rose touches her heart. “To here.” She touches Miaow’s. “Tell us.”

“I can’t,” Miaow says. Then she kicks the couch again, jams her eyes closed, and shoves the card at Rose. “Go ahead,” she says.

Rose holds the card to the candlelight. “What a beautiful envelope. Did you draw this?”

“Uh-huh.” Miaow’s voice is barely audible.

“Here goes.” Rose slips a nail beneath the flap and opens it. Miaow hears it and grabs her lower lip between her teeth, eyes still closed. Rose removes the card, looks down at it, and her eyes dart to Rafferty’s with an amazed appeal Rafferty has never seen in them before. Miaow has opened her eyes and is watching her with all her being, chewing her lower lip.

“Oh,” Rose says. It’s her turn to blink. “Oh, Miaow.”

“Is it-” Miaow fidgets with her entire body. “I mean, are you, are you-”

“No, no, never.” She leans down and kisses Miaow on the forehead. “I’m honored.”

“You are?” Miaow’s arms are still knotted, as if she is cold.

“It makes me very happy,” Rose says. She looks down at the card again and then across at Rafferty. “Poke,” she says, and then she swallows. “Say happybirthday to Miaow.”

“To Miaow?”

Rose turns the card toward him. It depicts a very tall woman with long hair holding hands with a very short girl whose hair is severely parted in the middle. They are surrounded by colored candles, a wreath of flame. Underneath the picture, in English, are the words happy-birthday to us. “Let me read the inside,” Rose says. “It says-” Her eyes come back to Rafferty’s, and she exhales and starts again. “It says, ‘Dear Rose. I don’t know my happybirthday. Can I have yours? Because we love each other. Sincerely, Miaow.’ ”

“It’s dumb,” Miaow says, close to tears.

“It’s beautiful,” Rose says. “It’s the best present I could have.” She puts both arms around Miaow, and Miaow pushes her head fiercely against Rose’s chest.

“Hey,” Rafferty says, “Let me have some of that.” He moves to the couch and wraps his arms around both of them, with Rose in the middle.

“We don’t have a present for Miaow,” Rafferty says.

“My happybirthday is my present,” Miaow says into Rose’s shirt.

“We have to do better than that,” Rafferty says. He leans across Rose and smooths Miaow’s hair. He knows she hates it, but he can’t help himself. “Is there something you want?”

“I have everything,” she says. A year ago she had been living on the sidewalk.

“There must be something.”

“Wait a minute.” Miaow sits forward. “Can I be nine?” Her eyes travel from Rafferty to Rose and back again. “If this is my happybirthday, I should be-”

“Okay,” Rafferty says. “You’re nine.”

“Oh,” Rose says, sitting bolt upright. “We have something else.” She reaches down and grabs her purse and then roots around in it. When her hand comes out, it has the Totoro T-shirt in it. “And look,” she says, bringing up the other one. “One for each of us. We can dress the same on our happybirthday.”

Miaow looks from one shirt to the other, and stuns Rafferty by bursting into a wail. Then she grabs the T-shirt and runs from the room. “Help me,” Rose says urgently, fumbling with the top button on her shirt. “You start from the bottom.”

In less than a minute, the white shirt has been shoved behind the couch and Rose is wearing her Totoro shirt. Miaow comes back into the room wearing hers, scrubbing at her eyes with her forearm. “We’re twins,” Rose says. “We have the same birthday, so we’re twins.” Miaow climbs back up on the couch and leans on Rose’s shoulder, two furry forest animals in their nest.

“Happybirthday to all of us,” Rose says. “It’s everybody’s happy-birthday.” She kisses Miaow on the forehead and turns to kiss Rafferty on the neck. Then, very softly, she licks his ear.