After three or four minutes of searching the sidewalk for the awful blue shirt, she gets up. The traffic hurtles by, all gleam and glass and chrome and steel. She has not actually crossed a Bangkok street yet, except when many others were crossing, too, but now she is alone. A big
The woman does not look up, not even when Da says, “Hello.”
This close, she can see that the bundle in the woman’s lap is a baby, not much older than Peep. The woman holds it carelessly, as though it were a newspaper or something else that can’t be damaged by letting it roll onto the pavement. The child’s eyes are wide and startled, like the eyes of someone who has just learned that people sometimes hurt each other on purpose.
“Are you all right?” Da asks. She sits back on her heels, village style.
The woman says, “Go away.”
“Kep’s probably eating.”
“Who cares? Go away.” She has not turned her head, not given Da so much as a glance.
“Where’s…um, where’s…” She doesn’t know the name of the missing child.
“Gone. I don’t want to talk about it.” She reaches up and scrubs the palm of her hand fiercely across her cheeks. “Little idiot. He never even learned to button his shirt right.”
“Gone where?” People are pushing past them now as the afternoon rush intensifies, but neither of them pays any attention. Their bowls are on the pavement, forgotten.
“I had to button it every morning. Can you believe that? Seven years old and he couldn’t-” She stops talking abruptly.
“He’s seven? He looks so much younger.”
“They let him starve,” the woman says. “When he was three, his mother knew he was wrong. He didn’t look at things. He didn’t learn. So she fed her other kids, and after a while she pushed him out of the house. He didn’t get enough to eat, so he stayed small.”
“But then how…why did you have him?”
“I took him. Nobody wanted him. He just sat and cried because he was hungry. His mother had three healthy kids and no money; she couldn’t take care of an idiot. I didn’t…I didn’t have any. Children, I mean. When I ran to Bangkok, I brought him with me.”
“I thought they gave him to you.”
“No. I was different.” She passes her sleeve over her face and sniffles. “I told them that people would give more because he was an idiot. I mean, he wasn’t really an idiot, he was…he was just a little…a little, aaahhh, slow. And he was-” She loses her voice for a second and clears her throat. “He was sweet.”
“I don’t understand,” Da says. “He was yours. You mothered him, so he was yours. Where is he? And why do you have this baby?”
“I told you,” the woman says in a tone of pure rage. “I told you not to name yours. They’ll take him. They take all of them. I thought I was safe, because nobody would want him, but I was wrong. I wasn’t making enough money. They said he was too stupid, he was a freak, people didn’t want to see him on the sidewalk. So they took him away from me.”
“Where is he? Why do they take the babies? Where do the babies come from? Can’t you get him back?” The questions are tumbling out, and Da has to pause, get a breath. “Where have they taken him?”
The other woman says, “I don’t know. I’ll never know. Because he’s not…not normal. When they take yours, and they will, they’ll sell him.”
Da feels like she has been punched. “Sell him.”
“Of course, you idiot. What do you think they do with them? Send them to school? Buy them toys on their birthdays? They sell them. They sell them to anyone who wants them, anyone who can afford them. But Tatti-I mean…I mean, the boy-I don’t know what they’ll do with him. No one will see how sweet he is. No one will see that he needs to be loved. They’ll just see an idiot who can’t button his shirt. He’s not worth anything.” She bends forward and begins to weep in earnest, the child on her lap wide-eyed and frightened.
“What can I do to help you?” Da asks, and a heavy hand lands on her shoulder. She looks up to see Kep glowering down at her. His red face proclaims several beers, or possibly whiskey, with his lunch.
“What are you doing here?”
“I…ah, she seemed upset, so-”
