Periodically, voices came out of Tanya’s radio. The radio was attached by a spiral cord to a little black box clipped to the shoulder of Tanya’s uniform. A microphone, Livia understood, like the one on the karaoke box in the village. Tanya would pick up the microphone when the voices came out of the radio and talk into it. One of these conversations lasted longer than the others. Tanya glanced at Livia while she spoke, and it sounded like she was arguing. When the conversation was over, she squatted so she was looking up at Livia, who was still sitting on the table. She spoke some words—a question, from the tone—and Livia could tell she was sad, or uneasy, which made Livia uneasy, too. A moment later, another blue-uniformed woman came in, this one pasty white. Tanya gestured to the pasty woman and said to Livia, “Camille.”
Tanya was introducing this new police person. Which meant she was leaving. Livia had been right. She knew not to trust Tanya. Not to trust anyone.
Livia turned her face away and said nothing. She heard the women talking, and then the sound of the door as it opened and closed. When she looked again, Tanya was gone, replaced by Camille.
Someone brought more hot food on a tray—some kind of meat, and vegetables Livia didn’t recognize. She devoured it all anyway. Then they brought her a blanket and a pillow. She slept curled up on the table, waking up frightened and disoriented several times during the night, and dreaming she was back in the forest with Nason.
In the morning, Tanya returned with several new people: three pasty men in suits and neckties, and a woman in western clothes but with a Lahu face. The woman looked at Livia and said in Lahu, “Hello, I’m Nanu, though here I’m called Nancy. Are you the one called Labee?”
Even more than when she had spoken on the phone the day before to the Thai woman, Livia was overwhelmed at being able to understand someone, and this time someone who spoke her own language. “Yes!” she said, nodding vigorously and wiping the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “Yes, I’m Labee. Please, do you know where my sister Nason is?”
“We don’t know, Labee, but I want you to tell me everything you can so we can help. Was your sister with you on the boat?”
“Not on this boat. On a different boat. A bigger one. The one that took us from Thailand.”
“All right, wait just a moment, I’m going to translate what you said for these people. They’re going to try to help. All right?”
Livia nodded vigorously, her jaw clenched shut. Now that she could be understood, it was almost impossible not to talk.
Nanu translated, talking more to the men in suits than to Tanya or the other policewoman. Then she turned back to Livia. “Labee, the small boat you were on, the one that brought you here, came from Portland.”
“Portland?”
“Yes, a city on the West Coast of America. Was Nason with you when you were put on the small boat from Portland?”
An image of Nason, mute and vacant and bleeding, flashed across Livia’s mind, and she pushed it away. These people were trying to help. To help, they needed information. And the more they learned from Livia, the more she might learn from them.
“I . . . I think so. The men who took us made me go to sleep. When I woke up, I was on the small boat. And”—her voice caught for a moment, and she forced herself to continue—“Nason was gone.”
“Do you know how long you were on the big boat?”
“I’m not sure. We were in a box. But I think . . . maybe a week. Is this really America?”
“Yes, it is. A week would have been long enough to reach Portland. Were there other people with you on the big boat?”
America. Livia still couldn’t believe it. It was so dizzying, disorienting. She pushed the feeling away and forced herself to focus. “Yes, eleven other children, plus Nason and me. Hmong, Yao . . . all from the hill tribes.”
Nanu translated for the men in suits and talked back and forth with them. Then she said to Livia, “Some of these men are with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That means they’re experts on human smuggling.”
“Human smuggling?”
“What happened to you and your sister. And the other children. Smugglers take people from poorer countries to richer ones.”
“You mean, they steal people?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it means. And sometimes they even steal children.”
One of the men said something to Nanu. Nanu nodded and said to Livia, “There’s a lot of human smuggling from and through Thailand, and these men are trying to stop it. They want you to tell us about the men who took you so they can find and arrest them.”
Livia told them everything she could about Skull Face and Dirty Beard and Square Head. The men asked lots of questions, and Nanu translated back and forth.
At one point, Nanu asked, “Did the men . . . hurt you or your sister, Labee?”
The way she said it, Livia understood how she meant hurt. Without thinking, she said, “No. They just kept us in a box, like the one on the small boat. And they whipped a Hmong boy named Kai, when he tried to escape.”
Nanu looked at her, and Livia sensed she understood Livia was lying about the men not hurting her and Nason. But Nanu didn’t press. Not that it would have mattered. Livia was too ashamed of what the men had done to her, and too guilty about what they had done to Nason. She would never speak of it to anyone. Never.
Tanya said something to Nanu, who translated, “Where can we find your parents, Labee?”
Livia was immediately suspicious. “Why?”
Nanu nodded as though she already understood. “Labee, did your parents, did they . . .”