“I will be more thoughtful, Ah Ma,” I said, striving to sound polite. “Can I have my doll back now?”
She harrumphed. “That rag? I gave it to the neighbor’s daughter.”
“You said you’d give her back when I brought the medicine.”
“I changed my mind. You’re too old to be playing with dolls. You have so many toys—look at those little mosquitoes your mother’s taken in.” She pointed at a tent full of our neighbors’ children. “They have nothing.”
Before I could protest, Mama ladled medicine into a bowl and passed it to me. “Give this to your brother. Tell him to finish it.”
I gave her a pleading look. I was waiting for her secret smile, a promise to get my doll back while I went to Yi Gor. But Mama was silent. Her hand was on her chest, where her rosary beads lay behind her tunic.
I turned back to Ah Ma. “Which neighbor?”
“Ying!” warned Mama.
I stomped my foot, but that was the extent of my rebellion. I ducked under the mosquito netting to my brothers’ tent.
Yi Gor lay on a pile of blankets rank with vomit. He was pale, his skin clammy and his closed eyelids marbled with tiny veins. I knew he wasn’t asleep, because he rolled to his side and said, “What are you staring at, nosy hen?”
“Mama made you soup.” I passed him the bowl. “Drink it.”
“It’s hot,” Yi Gor complained. “Blow on it for me.”
One of Yi Gor’s favorite amusements was ordering me around. I glowered but did as he asked.
He rolled to his side. “I heard Dai Gor say something about rice. Did you get eggs, too?”
“Yes,” I said meanly, “and lychees and steamed cakes from Mrs.Wong’s bakery.” I saw his disappointment and suddenly felt bad. Seven tin soldiers surrounded his blanket—toys he had brought from home, now half buried in the dirt.
I pushed the toys aside and sat beside him, dipping a wooden spoon into his soup. I blew it cool.
Yi Gor turned away when I raised the spoon. “It smells rotten.”
“Yousmell rotten.”
My brother gave me a feeble glare. “Someone’s in a bad mood.”
Yi Gor coughed, and I seized the bucket behind his pillows in case he needed to vomit. But he simply let out a ragged breath. Finally, he took the spoon. He screwed up his face at the bitter taste, but he drank half the bowl without complaint. When he was nearly done, I rewarded him with a sip of boiled water.
“Dai Gor wanted to bet that you wouldn’t come back,” he said. “I could’ve won his radio, but—”
“But what?”
“I didn’t want to bet,” he confessed. “I’m glad you went and not Mama. I’m also glad you weren’t killed.”
Yi Gor lifted his spoon again, and little by little, he finished the soup, letting out a cough at the end. He looked so pitiful lying there, yet he did something I would never forget.
He smiled at me.
In the years to come, when my brother and I were no longer speaking, I would often come back to this moment—and wish that I had smiled back.
Two weeks later, the Japanese left.
Summer had gone. We were on the brink of autumn and the hills were turning red, maple leaves coating the ground ina bloodred carpet. The trees became easier to climb, and my brothers and I wasted no time. The wind whistled against the nape of my neck as I clung to a newly barren branch, watching the Japanese crawl out of our hometown.
From my perch, the line of cars composed a long, armored centipede with no head, just a continuous tail. It made for quite the monster, with the smoke gasping out of the exhaust pipes, puffing into the shape of wispy black legs. We watched to the very end, when even the centipede’s shadow was gone—before we began our long way home.
There was no celebration when we returned to Tunglam. No one cheered, for there was little to be happy about. Our town was forever changed. Much of the farmland had been razed or scorched, trees had been chopped down, livestock slaughtered, shops plundered. Everyone knew someone who’d gone missing, and there were walls of barbed wire that hadn’t been there before, enclosing areas that gave off suspicious odors. A few times Mama covered my eyes with her hand as we walked down the street. She wouldn’t tell me why.
