Quan Barry - She Weeps Each Time You're Born

Just then the other boat came racing out of the fog. One minute there was nothing and then it was right behind them. Hai and Duc were busy yelling at the doctor in the pilothouse, An and Tu standing between them. You lied to us, the brothers said. We were each supposed to put in a third. The doctor was wailing that he had to get out of Vietnam. My brothers and sisters got out, he said. There is nothing left here for me.

The other boat was less than a hundred feet away. Clouds of fog passed in front of it as if it were flying through the sky. Rabbit could see someone standing on deck holding a gun. One minute the man was there, and the next he was gone, lost in the fog, then he was back again with another man at his side. I was going to pay, but he wanted more or he said he’d tell the police, sobbed the doctor. Arun was tugging An’s arm and pointing. Hai took a swing at the doctor. He hit him in the face. The doctor fell on his knees. They all looked to where Arun was pointing. Beyond the little girl in the strange black shoe a boat was racing toward them. The man at the wheel of the other boat stood with a knife in his teeth.

Most likely the pirates were Thai, but they could have been from anywhere. The occasional Vietnamese word floated across the water. Stop. You can’t escape. The other boat wasn’t as good, but it had fewer people on board and probably more fuel. Arun ran down below and got the last of the chicken fat. Duc opened up the throttle. They could keep the pirates off for now, maybe a whole day, but eventually they’d run out of gas. The best they could hope for was another storm or dense fog or a commercial ship passing by or land, but even land wasn’t a guarantee of anything.

When the doctor got his senses back, he stood up and limped down into the hold. What is it, said his wife. What’s happened? From a worn black medical bag he pulled out an old handgun and some bullets. Lord God, she said, crossing herself. Then he pulled out a bundle of raggedy towels. Husband, what’s going on? Slowly he worked his way to the center like a surgeon removing someone’s bandages. His wife crossed herself. It was a foot-tall ceramic crucifix, the thing cream colored, though the drops of blood adorning His head and hands were painted a deep red, the scarlet tears running down His ribs like falling petals. The doctor kissed it before screwing it onto a metal pole. He handed it to his wife. There was blood trickling out of his nose. Together they crawled through the filth in the hold and came back upstairs hand in hand. Hai eyed them as they made their way to the back of the boat.

Duc wanted the doctor to shoot, but An said the pirates might shoot back and the doctor only had four bullets. He told Sang to round up the children and keep them below deck along with the other women. Son didn’t want to go, but his sister had him by the neck, her grip like iron. Down in the hold he could smell joss burning. Phuong had set up a small altar with a bowl of hardened rice ruined by seawater and a few small portraits. It was too dark to make out any of the details in the faces. Son could just see the poses. Men and women looking head-on into the camera, their faces frozen and unsmiling.

The sack was lying on the floor at Phuong’s feet. Make an offering to the spirits, she said. Son knelt beside his mother. Though he wanted to be on deck with his father and the other men, he knew now wasn’t the time. Phuong handed him a joss stick. He clapped it in his hands. Smoke clouded the air. The scratch on his face started to itch. Rabbit could hear one of the voices in the sack wailing that the mandarin was just a man. Who will look out for us, the earth’s meek, the voice said. Above deck the doctor and his wife stood waving the dead figure of their god at the enemy. Below Phuong called on Quan Am, the many-armed Goddess of Compassion, to hear them.

Nobody heard the shot over the incessant roar of the waves. In the fog, the gun’s flash was barely perceptible. From below deck they could hear the doctor’s wife screaming and feet pounding the boards as someone ran toward her. In her red wedding dress Sang gathered the little girl Minh in her arms. It’s all right, Sang said. Just hold on to me.

The doctor and his wife had been standing on the starboard side, the wife waving the crucifix in the air. The other boat was close enough they could see two men leering at the front. One of them was holding a whip. The second man held the gun, steadying it with both hands. His shoulder jerked back as he pulled the trigger. Then the doctor crumpled. The wife dropped the crucifix. It shattered on the deck. Her screams brought some of the Cambodians. When Arun saw the blood pooling under the doctor, he put his hands over his eyes.

They all knew what would happen if the pirates boarded them. The pirates would ransack their possessions, taking all of their valuables. The marauders would beat and kill some of the men. Sang in her red ao dai would be passed around. Qui would be kept alive as a slave. The pirates would take everything and leave the survivors adrift to die at sea. Even Huyen might be raped.

The pirates pulled up alongside. They stood on board holding ropes with grappling hooks. There were less than twenty feet between the boats. One of them was swinging his rope. He threw it, the hook glinting in the light, but when it landed, An threw it overboard. All the while the doctor’s wife was screaming, her body prostrate over her husband’s. Nobody could tell if he was alive or dead. Pieces of the shattered crucifix lay in his blood.

Then it happened. They heard it down in the hold, though they didn’t know what it was. One minute the other boat was chasing them down, and the next it was engulfed in flames. A man ran on deck on fire, arms flapping like a bird. The explosion sent pieces of flaming debris onto their own deck. Even before they could sort out what had happened, the Cambodians were running around throwing the burning pieces into the sea.

The doctor was still alive. Across the water the man on fire screamed as he leaped into the ocean. The sound like the end of the world, skin crackling like a burning log. Thy will be done, the doctor said weakly. His wife helped him make the sign of the cross. Then he died.

It took a long time to realize what had happened. The pirates had hit a mine. There were minefields all over the South China Sea. Governments ringing their waters with them, some governments to keep refugees out, others to keep their own people in.

On deck they stood watching the pirates’ boat sink in the distance. For the moment they forgot their own hunger and thirst. Black smoke raged up into the air. After a while only a faint glow was left illuminating the haze. Duc only told Hai. Hai had already been thinking the same thing. Where there’s one, there’s many, Duc said.

Less than fifteen minutes later they threw the doctor over the side. The shards of the crucifix were tied around his neck. With the little girl standing in her black boot beside her mother, there was no attempt to keep the other children away. Rabbit could hear the doctor searching through the darkness. Ora pro nobis peccatoribus . For the briefest instant the body was sailing into the fog. Pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. She didn’t even see it hit the water. As if he were flying off a stage. All around them the waters were eerily smooth. For the first time since they’d entered it, the South China Sea was calm as if made of glass. What were you arguing about, said his widow in a quiet voice. Her face like the face of her god, long and impassive, all attachment severed. Duc and Hai looked at each other. Nothing, said Hai. At the front of the boat Tu asked Qui to watch the widow. He was afraid she might throw herself and the little girl overboard. Briefly he touched Qui’s cheek with his hand. Her sorrow is deep, he said. All around them the fog was starting to lift. Just as he said it, he felt himself flying through the air. Please, he thought, only I deserve this, and then everything went black.