Idols (31 page)

“I thought you said you had gotten a boat,” Fortis bellows. His voice echoes along the flat stretch of river.

“Don’t quibble.” Bibi smiles, folding his arms. He’s enjoying this.

Them.

All three of them, the great beasts.

I stare at the elephants in front of me. They are, all three, as tall as the low houses that line the river on either side. Standing on the banks of the Ping River, up to their haunches in water, they look a bit like small floating barges.

When Brutus barks at them, though, they rear backward, as if they are afraid of this one little animal, smaller than they are by a ton.

I laugh, in spite of everything. “He’s right, Bibi. I’m pretty sure those aren’t boats,” I say. The closer one, the one with the long eyelashes, moves her trunk toward me. “Last time I checked.”

“They’re not. That is.” He points to where a crude raft floats, tied to the makeshift dock, a few lengths away. “But how do you think that boat is going to get all the way up the river? It’s not, not without our friends. These boats who are not boats.”

The elephant feels her way across my chestpack, my stomach, like a puppy sniffing for food.

I look at Bibi. “Do those things know how to swim?”

“No. They know how to pull. And eat.”

Bibi tosses me a cluster of short, squat bananas, and I hold it out to the elephant. She wraps her trunk around it and, in a flash, opens up her mouth to reveal a yawning pink tongue and four rounded teeth.

The banana disappears. Tima comes close and pats her trunk, timidly. “Harder,” says Bibi. “That old girl has skin thick as brick. You’re like a fly or a feather, trying to get her attention.”

Tima rubs the elephant’s trunk. It’s finely spotted, crisscrossed with wrinkles, like some old Grass grandmother’s skin after a lifetime of working in the fields. “You’re beautiful, aren’t you?”

The elephant’s trunk curls back around Tima’s body, sniffing her. Bibi hands her a piece of sugarcane, and Tima slides it into the curl of the elephant’s trunk. It disappears as quickly as the banana did—only, the crunching sound of the elephant’s chewing is infinitely louder.

“Four teeth,” Bibi says, shrugging. “But strong ones.”

“She chews like Fortis,” says Lucas. “Maybe even worse.”

“Thanks for that, mate.” Fortis shakes his head.

“That chewing sound? That’s nothing,” says Bibi. “You should hear her farts.”

Fortis rolls his eyes.

“What’s her name?” asks Lucas.

“Ping, Ching, and Chang,” he says, pointing to each elephant in turn. “They never go anywhere without each other. Their families have been together for generations.”

Tima moves to the second beast, reaching for the second spotted trunk. Chang’s ears flap appreciatively as Tima pats her. “That one is blind, but she stays in the middle. The others look out for her.”

“How old?”

“Older than you. Older than me. Older than The Day itself.” Bibi nods. “These girls have seen it all.”

“How is it, Bibi, that you managed to procure three elephants within the span of a week?” Fortis says, skeptically.

Bibi shrugs. “I know a monk who knows a monk. Who knows a farmer. Who knows a guy who rescues elephants. We have to get them back within the week, or we pay double the digs.” He pats Fortis’s cheek. “And by that I mean, you do, Merk. Of course.”

“Of course.” Fortis glares. “Leave it to the Merk. The Merk, he’ll take care of everythin’.”

So it goes with these two, for the rest of the morning, and for every morning.

But before the sun can rise too much higher in the sky, Ping and Ching and Chang are bound with strong cords and tied to a hook that has been hammered into the central bamboo pole of the raft. We load supplies in the center of the raft, mostly food for the elephants, and by the time all of us have climbed aboard, the raft sinks a few inches beneath the surface of the river. Fortis grimaces and he and Bibi work on redistributing the weight. They fight like an old married couple.

It’s going to be a long ride.

Tima is as unhappy about it as Fortis. “I don’t think it’s fair, really. No elephant should have to drag something so heavy all the way up a river.”

We all look at Bibi when she says it. He shrugs. “What do you want me to do, pull the raft with the rest of the elephants?”

“That,” says Fortis, “is an excellent idea.”

Bibi just laughs and peels another banana, which Chang deftly steals before he can take a bite.

An hour later, Ping, Ching, and Chang are pulling the rest of us along the river, near the banks. We float along behind them, bound by cord as if they are the wind and we are a sailboat. Tima has decided that science has ruled in favor of the river. “Since the real weight is carried by the water, not the elephants.”

Once again, Fortis kicks at Bibi with an amused snort—almost sending our raft into a complete backspin.

Because just as it seemed at first glance, our raft really is just a few dozen bamboo poles lashed together with rope and something that looks like tar.

Again, not what any of us had in mind when Bibi first said
boat
.

But Bibi has lined the raft with floor pillows from his classroom, and as I settle in, I think it’s not half bad. There are worse ways to go. Like donkeys, I remember. Like cargo ships. Like Embassy Tracks. Like crashing Chevros, or Choppers. Sometimes a few dozen bamboo poles are infinitely better than the alternatives.

“The pillows are a nice touch,” grumbles Fortis.

“They’re not for your comfort. They’re for camouflage,” Bibi says. I notice the embroidered rugs beneath them. “First sign of trouble, you disappear beneath them. Not that I’m expecting any trouble,” he adds.

“Why would you expect any trouble?” Fortis only smiles.

The water ripples, broad and flat and wide, in front of us. The air is so thick with haze we could be back home in the Southlands. Dragonflies hover skittishly over the water.

Lying next to Lucas, staring up at the clouds, I realize the two of us haven’t really spoken in days—not since we stole away together beneath the dock.

It’s not often that we’re alone. Ro has made certain of that, especially since that day.

I look to where Ro and Tima sit along the edge of the raft, dragging their feet in the river. Then, as I keep my eyes on the clouds, I slide my hand toward Lucas’s, next to me.

Just one touch. Just one
, I think, as my little finger curls around his. It feels like I’m diving into him, the moment our fingers touch.

“Stop,” Lucas says, smiling into the sunlight and bright sky. His voice is so quiet I almost can’t make out the words. “I know what you’re doing.”

“You do?” I say, twisting my head so I can see his face next to me. Now I can hear the water lapping against the bamboo beneath me.

“I do.”

“That makes two of us,” I say. “Because I know what you’re doing too.”

“What’s that?” Lucas asks, studying me.

“Missing me,” I say. Then I settle next to him, leaning my head along his chest.

I think Lucas is smiling back at me—I can’t tell for certain—but his breathing steadies and he lets his hand fall along my back, pulling me closer.

I fall asleep like that. I imagine he does too. I try not to dream for fear of what will come.

I imagine he does too.

Even when dawn breaks, and I wake covered in pillows—even when my breath shows white in the cold morning air—Lucas is beside me, keeping me warm.

I hear Tima’s voice from the riverbank. She is awake, splashing along with the elephants. Choosing to walk instead of ride. She whispers to them, probably telling them her secrets while she keeps watch. She quietly sneaks them sugarcane from a large bag over her shoulder, and they betray her confidence with their noisy crunching.

Ro runs after her, down the muddy bank. She’s his constant companion lately, and I wonder how much he’s shared with her.

How much of what he knows. What he’s seen.

I sit up to see how far we have traveled in the night. Fortis and Bibi are awake, watching the riverbanks, not talking. Lucas rolls over onto his other side.

In every direction, I can see ridges of hills peppered with green, round clusters of trees, blanketed by even more haze.

“Dragon’s breath. Moisture, from the rice fields. Especially strong during the wintertime,” Bibi explains, but I don’t need an explanation. It’s just like the Porthole, back home.

The rice fields, they’re nothing like I’ve ever seen. Not in real life. They’re banked into squares by what looks like low walls of mud, and fringed by palm trees, reflecting a watery sky back up to the real one.

The reflected sky is what triggers the memory. “I dreamed this. Not this, exactly. But the rice fields, they looked just like that. In my dream,” I say.

Workers crouch in the field in faded blue jackets and pants, with woven straw hats and straw baskets slung over their shoulders, big and round. One man balances two such baskets, hanging from either end of a pole he carries over his shoulders.

“Ah.” Bibi nods. “An omen. A good one. The Buddha carries us in the right direction. We trust the Path.”

“I thought you said the monks at the temple told you we had to go this way.” Lucas sits up, groggily.

“Trust the Path, but trust the monks, too. Especially the ones who are good with maps.”

“Are there rice paddies the whole way along the river?”

“The farmers here, they earn a living by growing tea, vegetables. Mostly rice. Somebody has to feed the poor souls in the Projects.” Bibi points. “That over there is a pineapple farm. You like pineapple? Strawberries? Sunflower seeds?” No one says anything. He shrugs. “Okay, fine. No stopping for strawberries. So then we head straight up to Ping.”

“I thought we were on the Ping,” I say, looking at the great stretch of water in front of us.

“Not the river. New Ping City. Chiang Ping Mai.” He smiles. “Around here, everything is Ping. Lucky river. Lucky name.”

Luck is so hard to come by, these days. No wonder the names have all changed and changed again.