Quan Barry - She Weeps Each Time You're Born

Rabbit and Qui were almost to the first intersection when the pancake seller who was still packing her things whistled. They turned around and saw the fire burning strong in the metal drum they left each night under the cinnamon tree. Quickly Rabbit ran back with the broom handle. She didn’t understand. There was hardly anything left to burn. After she put it out, swirling the broomstick around in the flames, she touched the side of the drum with her fingers. It was cool to the touch. She put her whole hand on it just to be sure.

Rabbit walked away, peering at the skin of her palm. The pancake seller whistled again. The flames leaped up like the branches of a tree. This time after she put it out, she peered deep into the drum. There was nothing in it, not even ash.

The final time she and Qui stood together watching from a distance up Duong Khiem. The pancake seller was at their side. The sun was going down on the other end of the boulevard. Bats were beginning to knife through the evening air. The women stood for whole minutes, universes born and falling dead. A bat dropped out of the sky. The pancake seller nudged the creature with her foot. They all looked up at the exact moment when the fire ignited. The thing lighting as if the drum were full of gasoline, and someone had tossed in a lit match.

For a long time none of them moved. Then the pancake seller turned the bat over and righted it. The thing spread its wings and shot straight up into the air. Down the street the fire was still burning. Go on, Rabbit said to Qui. Go home. I’ll see to this. Qui fingered the flower in her hair and nodded. The pancake seller clucked her teeth and went her own way.

There was no rush as Rabbit walked back. Maybe this time she would let it burn. Even from down the street she could smell the cinnamon tree on the wind. She breathed the scent in, filling her lungs. Overhead black clouds raced through the sky. She thought of the ocean at night, clouds like an invading army. Peering up into the tree’s boughs, she could see a cluster of long yellow flowers studded with the little round fruit black like pepper. It hadn’t been there in the morning. She stood studying it. She had never seen the tree flower.

When she looked back down, he was standing by the fire. His hair was wet, eyes blue as stars, the skin of his face pink where he had scrubbed it raw. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. She didn’t know how to tell him. Chúng tôi đóng cửa, she said. We’re closed. He shook his head. Я хочу избавиться от этого вкуса во рту. I have to get the taste out of my mouth . The first flashes of lightning appearing in the heavens. Already she could feel a dark wave cresting in her body, though where it would lead she didn’t know. The scar on his neck glowed in the light of the fire. And so it began. The two of them speaking in their own languages, though it didn’t matter. Each one talking as if to comfort himself.

Rabbit reached up her sleeve and took out the small misshapen lemon. The Russian had to look at it a moment before realizing what it was. Прекрасно, he said. He took it and tore off the rind with his bare hands. Then he shoved it in his mouth and bit down. Slowly his face changed, the skin trembling around his eyes. Finally the taste of something besides blood in his mouth.

The fire turned a steely blue, then abuptly died out, the color like stars twinkling on a mountain. The Russian banged the barrel with the side of his fist. The metal rang on and on. Rabbit flashed on the image of a dead sow, its stomach rowed with big rubbery teats, things buzzing in the charred barrel of its torso. She wondered where she had ever seen such a thing. Already the Russian was walking away down the street. He spit the lemon out into his palm and turned around. Ты идешь, he called. You coming? Overhead the sky at once darkening and growing lighter as the thunderheads flashed. Rabbit took a deep breath and ran to catch up.

They walked side by side without touching. The Russian’s strides were long, but Rabbit managed to stay with him. They passed a group of Black Hmong scurrying along the road. The Red and Black Hmong lived up in the terraced hills stretching all the way to Sapa. Gradually their culture was being erased. Ethnic Vietnamese were flooding into Hoa Thien, the government anxious to build up the towns along the border with China, Vietnam’s ancient enemy. The Hmong women wore deep indigo scarves in their hair. The matriarch of the group walked at the front chewing something, the muscles tightening in her jaw. One of the younger women eyed the Russian, her curiosity evident. Xin chao , said Rabbit. Xin chao , said the matriarch. When the old woman smiled, Rabbit could see she was missing several teeth, but the ones she had left were a familiar dark red in color.

Rabbit knew the Russian was taking her to the quarter where the Russians went to drink kvass and listen to music. There was a café run by a mixed breed who was said to be the granddaughter of Lenin. Rabbit didn’t know what happened in that part of town, but once Giang had told her she didn’t need to know, Giang’s lips stained and swollen. The Russian was striding up ahead. Rabbit could hear music playing like the kind she sometimes heard coming from the dorm. Мы оживаем в ночи, he shouted over his shoulder. We Russians come alive at night .

They passed a café. Men sat out front smoking water pipes and waiting for the rain to arrive before moving inside. There was a Vietnamese policeman in his uniform sitting at one of the outdoor tables playing chess with a Russian. The policeman had his hand on his queen as he sat studying the board. He looked up at them as they passed. Спокойной ночи, the policeman said. The other man sitting at the table laughed.

The Russian led her straight to the house. From the outside it was western looking. He pulled a key out of his pocket and opened the door. There were newspapers and ashtrays piled on a card table. A small Japanese refrigerator buzzed in a corner. She watched him walk up a flight of stairs. When he didn’t come back down, she put her hand on her chest to slow her heart and followed.

Son was sitting at the top of the steps, the scratch on his face inflamed the same as it was the night he’d injured it fishing the Mekong long ago. Looking at him, Rabbit marveled that she had ever been that young, that the two of them had ever been mistaken for brothers. Son looked her full in the face. He was crying. I hear you, Rabbit said, stepping over him and on up the stairs. But he just cried harder.

When she entered the room, her heart fell silent. There was nothing but a western-style bed and a table with a chair, in the open closet a few suits and a pair of shoes. She felt something stirring in her body. Every morning for the last month she and the Russian had stared at each other as he walked by on his way out to the Nam Yum to search for the dead among old mines. She took a deep breath. She could smell cinnamon coming from her hair.

Outside, the sky opened up with a tidal roar. The rain fell like nails on the tin roof. She knew it would only last ten, fifteen minutes at the most, the monsoon rains always torrential but brief. When it stopped, it would stop on a dime. In fifteen minutes the moon would be out, sailing through the heavens, the world left dripping, cleansed.

On the table a candle was burning. Shadows quivered on the walls. The Russian was curled up in the bed, his clothes heaped on the floor. The rain hammered the window. Rabbit looked at his body, the dark tan and the dramatic lines where the skin went white. She could see a spot he’d missed. She twisted a corner of her shirt and wet it with her mouth. The bed sank slightly with her weight. A spot just behind his ear. The blood came away easily.