The Tapestries (24 page)

“No, it is not,” she said. “I will always be a reminder of what happened to your family, and how you want to destroy mine. Sooner or later your love for me will turn into hate, because I will be preventing you from carrying out your duty.”

Dan pulled away from her. More than ever he was forced to face the painful truth of their doomed love. She touched his face with an unbearable tenderness. “I will help you escape,” she said at last. “I have a plan.”

Even during this last hour she was still thinking of his safety. He was struck by the thought that he might abandon his search for vengeance altogether, as long as he had her by his side. But in his mind the thought of Ven rose. Envisioning her fate in the hands of the magistrate, he stifled a sob. Tai May was right about his obligation: Blood can only be washed away by blood. For Ven, and for his family, he had no right to be happy. With a heavy heart he muttered, “It's the only way.” Each word sounded like the mournful note of a dirge.

“When you leave this town,” she said, “go to Hue City. It is a large place, and you can blend in with the crowd. No one can find you there.”

“Without you, I can never be happy,” he said.

With her mouth close to his ear she said through tears, “Climb inside the carriage and conceal yourself, and do not make any move until you hear my voice.” She pressed a finger against his lips, preventing him from arguing. He did as he was told.

Not until he was inside the vehicle's compartment did she flick the leather rope, allowing the stallions to trot another twenty yards forward. With a nervous gesture, she stopped, tilted her head, and looked at the uniformed men.

M
aster Long waited inside his car. Now that the carriage had halted, he could look out the window and keep an eye on his daughter and the runaway slave. His legs astride, his arms raised, the mayor stretched in satisfaction. Any minute now, they would surrender. In truth, he could not imagine any possible escape for them, except perhaps another pointless chase if they cut across the field. Through the windshield he saw the outline of the carriage, immobile. Time trickled by. Fifteen minutes stretched into an eternity. He did not expect this stillness; it felt wrong. He wondered whether he should make the first move. The soldiers waited for his order.

“Not yet,” he mumbled. “Not just yet…”

The wheels of the carriage rolled again on the pebbled road. The policemen started, and their horses pranced nervously. The soldiers' hands went to the left sides of their waistbands, grabbing the handles of the metal clubs. Resuming their flight, the runaways made a brusque turn and plunged into the cornfield. At the same moment, the guards kicked their boots into their mounts, causing them to bolt forward. Just as Master Long had envisioned, the chase entered a new phase of excitement. However, this time it involved an entire team of policemen.

Master Long slammed his fist against the steering wheel and cursed. It was late, and he yearned to capture the runaway so this night would soon be over. With a reluctant effort, he put the car into gear and stepped on the gas pedal, joining the pursuit after the last horseman.

In the cornfield, the fugitive carriage came to another unexpected halt. He heard his daughter's scream above the neighing of the frightened horses. Under the yellow darkness of the moon, he saw the back of her vehicle sink into the ground, as though the soft earth were swallowing its wheels. The horses' front legs, attached to the yoke, swam helplessly among the wilted corn plants. His anger turned to fear as he thought of his daughter's safety. He kicked open the door and sprang outside.

Brushing the men aside, he drew near the sinking carriage. Its door was ajar, but the inner compartment was empty. He found his daughter alone in the driver's seat; her hand clutched a small piece of cloth. Between her fingers, he could see an embroidered red rose, exquisite in its craftsmanship.

“Forgive me, Father,” Tai May said. “Mouse isn't here anymore. I have set him free.”

chapter fourteen

The Scarecrow

D
un, young Master. You must not worry about me.” Ven's words to her husband took the last of her breath, and she let her head drop back to the ground. She had fought the same battle for so long that she was exhausted. Painfully, she raised herself and saw Dan fleeing with the girl from the house of Toan. She had succeeded in giving him a chance to get away. Above, birds were shrieking inside the thick curtain of leaves.

The guard rose to his feet—a tall man in a disheveled brown uniform, his long hair and thick beard whipping about him in the windy night. Red-faced with anger, he swung his leg. Ven felt the toe of his boot crash into her torso, somewhere between her fifth and last ribs. For a moment, her vision blurred, but she did not wince. She fell back, gasping, with her face again smeared into the soil.

The guard placed his foot on her head, saying, “Magistrate Toan, give me permission to crush this she-devil's skull, sir.”

The old man clasped his hands together, dropping the gun on his lap. “No, do not do so,” he said. “Do not throw garbage out just because you have to clean up the house. You might find an opportunity to reuse it later.” He paused, and then continued, “I remember the woman who uttered those very words to me, my mother.”

Behind him, the captain of the guards exclaimed, “Truer words could not be said at a better time! The ancient one must have been a remarkable lady, possessed a great deal of wit and cleverness. You have inherited many of her superior traits.”

“Indeed I have,” the old man agreed. He fingered the gun on his knees, touching its copper barrel languorously. His rheumy eyes were clouded in gloomy reminiscence.

Then the murkiness vanished from his eyes. He dangled the gun before his face, leaning back against his chair. With a look of intense concentration, he fastened his eyes on Ven. “Bring that beast closer to me. It is time for me to reuse my trash. You all witnessed that beggar, in her insanity, kill the king's minister and his son.” He signaled to the same guard, whose foot was still planted across her head, and continued, “And fetch her knife, too.”

In the aftermath of the rain, the air was heavy with moist foreboding. The other three soldiers moved slowly across the veranda and whispered to one another. They paused while the longhaired guard bent down and grabbed a handful of Ven's mane. “Get up!” he shouted, and gave her head a mighty yank.

Ven cleared her throat and expelled a large spume of mud toward the old man. “Murderer!” she shouted. “You may be playing with justice, but your end is drawing near. I knew your plan, and I can read your evil thoughts. Do not expect my husband and me to take the blame for your murderous acts. I would die before I would admit to your accusation. As long as there is a single breath left in me, I will expose you.”

The guard's fist slammed her left cheekbone and sent her swerving a half circle in space. She collapsed on her side, coughing a black tooth onto the ground. The old man bared a smile, stained brown from opium sediment and the viscous juice of betel nuts.

“Bravo,” he cheered. “You speak eloquently, like a scholar. But now, prisoner, I must inform you that I will not satisfy your wish to be terminated from this earth. You will live, and your case will be tried in court, so that the massacre you committed can be punished, in the name of justice and for the respect due to the departed. Only then shall the judge determine your fate. I imagine your sentence would very likely be death by hanging.”

Two guards drew closer. She felt her body being lifted up from the wide plot of ground. “I would rather die than be pushed around by you animals,” she cried to the guards. In their hands, she was dragged across the yard until her face was inches away from the pointed tips of the magistrate's shoes. She stopped struggling. She wanted to stain his expensive sandals with her bloody spit, but the pain in her mouth made it impossible for her to pucker. She raised her head, wanting him to see the defiance in her. The old man took her kitchen knife from the longhaired guard. In his softest voice and most polite manner, he ordered his men, “Hold her still and pry her mouth open.”

She was the only one who did not understand what he was planning. His men seemed to recognize his intention. She was pulled to her knees. One of the soldiers seized her bound wrists and held them as another grabbed the crown of her head. Captain Sai extended his left palm across the bridge of her nose and clutched her cheekbones. His other hand parted her lips, hooked his fingers over her lower teeth, and forced her jaw downward. She found herself locked in position with her mouth gapispbg open, waiting. The hinges of her jaw screamed in agony.

The magistrate rose and bolted forward. She could smell the musty odor of his clothes. His sparse eyebrows, with hairs as long and translucent as a cat's whiskers, shrouded his eyes. He inhaled, and Ven felt there was no air left between them. The knife gleamed in his hand.

Ven tried to back away, but her captors kept her planted on the ground. Her lips were stretched wide and her chin was wet with saliva. Wide-eyed, she watched the old man and realized for the first time what was about to happen. She screamed, only to find that her voice screeched to its highest note and dissolved. The recognition of her helplessness drove her to the brink of insanity. She listened to her mind shrieking,
Oh, Heaven, please let it happen quickly.

The old man seized her tongue with his thumb and forefinger, which were wrapped inside a white handkerchief. She struggled to break away, whipping her head from side to side, but the soldiers tightened their hold. She looked in fright at her tongue, wedged inside the cotton fabric. The pain of her flesh jammed in the old man's fingers caused her eyes to swell with tears. She watched him give it a few quick pulls before he tightened his fingers and flexed his arm. With each tug, Ven felt her innards being hauled up through her throat. The blade flashed through the air above her.

“You will not die,” he said to her. “But you shall hold your silence forever.”

He sliced the blade into her. At first, she did not feel the pain; her mouth was already on fire. Blood splattered into her oral cavity like a flood pouring through a collapsing dam after a heavy rain. She gasped for air when the liquid rose up to her nose. She could hear the soldiers yelling in disgust as she fell to the ground, her open mouth making a strange, hurtful howl. Her feet dug the soil in uncontrollable spasms.

The magistrate stood before her, shrunken and wrinkled like a three-day-old carcass, with the blood-splattered handkerchief in his hand. She saw a gray morsel of flesh lying on the snowy fabric. His voice seemed to come from far away as he gave an order to the captain.

“Arrest this prisoner in the name of the law. Hang her against a post for the rest of this night so that she will not escape. I want you to inform the minister's sailors about his tragic end at your first meeting with them tomorrow morning.”

“What should I tell them?” came the voice of Captain Sai.

“Tell them that you are deeply bewildered at what happened here tonight, that the minister and his son were gunned down by a lunatic who has been a runaway fugitive for the past nine years. And tell them that to carry out this arrest, I will personally escort the convict to the Purple Forbidden City. However, there is a slight probability that this female criminal may not survive the journey, since as you all may see, her mental illness causes her to commit excessive self-destructive behavior.”

His voice faded. Somewhere above her, the harvest moon showed its sallow face beyond the thickets of leaves. Ven lay still and drifted into a world of silent agony, as the darkness slowly claimed her.

I
t was past midnight when the time-teller made his first round along the main roads of the Cam Le Village. As usual, he was intoxicated. And as usual, the world seemed to dwindle down to one last staggering man and his creeping shadow. The quiet town seemed as isolated as a cemetery.

Big Con shook his head and cursed. His voice traveled through the hollow darkness, as if he were screaming into a bottomless well. No one responded to his vulgarity. Not a soul in the depth of night cared about his drunkenness, or the fact that he had missed his duty to announce the last two passages of time.

He lurched along, wobbling from one pothole to the next, not realizing where he was heading. The generous moon, hovering above the cornfields like the biggest lantern he had ever seen, held him spellbound with its ashen glow. Or perhaps the enormous opening that he was looking at was simply the sky's pulsating anus, spitting at him a rain of slippery, fatty, yellow excretion in its indifferent, wordless manner. He let his mind float, drawn toward the mesmerizing orb, while he held the wine bottle in his stiff fingers. The ground beneath him was littered with tiny frangipani flowers.

The stillness of his surroundings reminded Big Con of his time-telling obligation, and he reached into his pocket. Instead of the metal gong and its padded hammer, he found a handful of tobacco, mixed with the fuzz of his garments. He sniffed at the foreign object in his palm until his nose detected the distinctive, pungent smell of tar. The puckered scars on his face relaxed in a grin of satisfaction. He stuffed the wad under his upper lip, where the skin had sunken a little because of his missing incisor. Sometimes the taste and sensation of nicotine wedged inside the gap of his gum could summon up enough vigor to ignite in him the urge to fight.

Ahead, the house of Toan was still illuminated with glinting lanterns, a sight that stirred his curiosity. Weaving down the uneven road, he abandoned the hypnotic moon and focused instead on the enchanted dwelling before him. The intermittent shine filtering through the cracks of the mansion's gates sparkled on the raindrops that clung to the corn leaves.

Big Con thought he heard a human sound coming from somewhere behind the brick wall. However, it was not singing; nor was it talking. To him, the noise was more like the sigh of the wind rasping through trees and bushes on a drizzly day.

He stood at the gate a long time, looking at it, waiting for the ferocious dog to come charging from behind the lilac shrubbery to snarl its hot breath through the keyhole. Then he recalled that the damnable beast had been dead for several years now. His toes, curling from the memory of the sharp fangs and frothy spittle, kicked the wooden gate cautiously. It felt cold against his skin, but it swung back. The courtyard glistened from the afternoon's rain. There seemed to be no one inside. The sound he had just heard must have been the wind.