Read Online Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James Lee Burke
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priest said he would try to find out but that we had to leave the village. He said they would hurt my mother the way they hurt the other lady because of the clinic—
She went silent on the couch and stared out the screen door at the fireflies’ lightning in the dusk. Her tan face was now discolored with the same pale, bloodless spots it had had when I pulled her out of the water. Annie stroked her close-cropped hair with her palm and squeezed her around the shoulders.
“Dave, maybe that’s enough,” she said.
“No, she’s got to tell it all. She’s too little a kid to carry that kind of stuff around by herself,” I said. Then, to Felix, “What other lady?”
” Quién es la otra señora ?” he asked.
—She worked at the clinic with my mother. Her stomach was big and it made her walk like a duck. One day the soldiers came and pulled her out in the road by her arms. She was calling the names of her friends to help her, but the people were afraid and tried to hide. Then the soldiers made us go outside and watch the thing they did to her in the road—
Her eyes were wide and had the empty, dry, glazed expression of someone who might be staring into a furnace. “ Qué hicieron los soldados ?” Felix said softly.
—They went to the woodcutter’s house and came back with his machete. They were chopping and the machete was wet and red in the sunlight. A soldier put his hands in her stomach and took out her baby. The people were crying now and covering their faces. The priest ran to us from the church, but they knocked him down and beat him in the road. The fat lady and her baby stayed out there by themselves in the sun. The smell was like the smell in the cane when we found my uncle. It was in all the houses, and when we woke up in the morning it was still there but worse—
The cicadas were loud in the trees. There was nothing we could say. How do you explain evil to a child, particularly when the child’s experience with it is perhaps greater than your own? I had seen children in a Saigon burn ward whose eyes rendered you mute before you could even attempt to apologise for the calamity that adults had imposed upon them. My condolence became a box of Hershey bars.
We drove to Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge for pecan pie and listened to the Acadian string band, then took a ride down Bayou Teche on the paddle-wheel pleasure boat that operated up and down the bayou for tourists. It was dark now, and the trees on some of the lawns were hung with Japanese lanterns, and you could smell barbecue fires and crabs boiling in the lighted and screened summerhouses beyond the cane that grew along the bayou’s banks. The baseball diamond in the park looked as if it were lit by an enormous white flare, and people were cheering on an American Legion game that had all the innocent and provincial intensity of a scene clipped from the summer of 1941. Alafair sat on a wooden bench between Annie and me and watched the cypress trees and shadowy lawns and the scrolled nineteenth-century homes slip past us. Maybe it wasn’t much to offer in recompense, but it was all we had.
The air was cool and the eastern sky plum-colored and striped with low-hanging red clouds when I opened up the bait shop the next morning. I worked until about nine o’clock, then left it with Batist and walked back up to the house for breakfast. I was just having my last cup of coffee when he called me on the phone.
“Dave, you ‘member that colored man that rent from us this morning?” he said.
“No.”
“He talked funny. He not from around here, no.”
“I don’t remember him, Batist. What is it?”
“He said he run the boat up on the bar and bust off the propeller. He ax if you want to come get it.”
“Where is he?”
“Sout’ of the four-corners. You want me go after him?”
“That’s all right. I’ll go in a few minutes. Did you give him an extra shearing pin?”
” Mais sure. He say that ain’t it.”
“Okay, Batist.
She went silent on the couch and stared out the screen door at the fireflies’ lightning in the dusk. Her tan face was now discolored with the same pale, bloodless spots it had had when I pulled her out of the water. Annie stroked her close-cropped hair with her palm and squeezed her around the shoulders.
“Dave, maybe that’s enough,” she said.
“No, she’s got to tell it all. She’s too little a kid to carry that kind of stuff around by herself,” I said. Then, to Felix, “What other lady?”
” Quién es la otra señora ?” he asked.
—She worked at the clinic with my mother. Her stomach was big and it made her walk like a duck. One day the soldiers came and pulled her out in the road by her arms. She was calling the names of her friends to help her, but the people were afraid and tried to hide. Then the soldiers made us go outside and watch the thing they did to her in the road—
Her eyes were wide and had the empty, dry, glazed expression of someone who might be staring into a furnace. “ Qué hicieron los soldados ?” Felix said softly.
—They went to the woodcutter’s house and came back with his machete. They were chopping and the machete was wet and red in the sunlight. A soldier put his hands in her stomach and took out her baby. The people were crying now and covering their faces. The priest ran to us from the church, but they knocked him down and beat him in the road. The fat lady and her baby stayed out there by themselves in the sun. The smell was like the smell in the cane when we found my uncle. It was in all the houses, and when we woke up in the morning it was still there but worse—
The cicadas were loud in the trees. There was nothing we could say. How do you explain evil to a child, particularly when the child’s experience with it is perhaps greater than your own? I had seen children in a Saigon burn ward whose eyes rendered you mute before you could even attempt to apologise for the calamity that adults had imposed upon them. My condolence became a box of Hershey bars.
We drove to Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge for pecan pie and listened to the Acadian string band, then took a ride down Bayou Teche on the paddle-wheel pleasure boat that operated up and down the bayou for tourists. It was dark now, and the trees on some of the lawns were hung with Japanese lanterns, and you could smell barbecue fires and crabs boiling in the lighted and screened summerhouses beyond the cane that grew along the bayou’s banks. The baseball diamond in the park looked as if it were lit by an enormous white flare, and people were cheering on an American Legion game that had all the innocent and provincial intensity of a scene clipped from the summer of 1941. Alafair sat on a wooden bench between Annie and me and watched the cypress trees and shadowy lawns and the scrolled nineteenth-century homes slip past us. Maybe it wasn’t much to offer in recompense, but it was all we had.
The air was cool and the eastern sky plum-colored and striped with low-hanging red clouds when I opened up the bait shop the next morning. I worked until about nine o’clock, then left it with Batist and walked back up to the house for breakfast. I was just having my last cup of coffee when he called me on the phone.
“Dave, you ‘member that colored man that rent from us this morning?” he said.
“No.”
“He talked funny. He not from around here, no.”
“I don’t remember him, Batist. What is it?”
“He said he run the boat up on the bar and bust off the propeller. He ax if you want to come get it.”
“Where is he?”
“Sout’ of the four-corners. You want me go after him?”
“That’s all right. I’ll go in a few minutes. Did you give him an extra shearing pin?”
” Mais sure. He say that ain’t it.”
“Okay, Batist.
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