Livia didn’t think Mrs. Lone wanted to call her anything at all, as she never said Livia’s name and in fact barely spoke to her, preferring a grudging nod or forced smile on those occasions when simply ignoring Livia wasn’t feasible. But regardless, Livia welcomed the change. Labee was her name. But “Livia” felt like someone else, like a shield or disguise, something behind which she could conceal her real self.
So Labee became Livia, and sat with Nanu every day at the polished wooden table in the Lones’ dining room, uneasy in the strange, cushioned chair, glancing suspiciously at the giant light hanging above them, a thing with arms like an octopus made of hundreds of little pieces of cut glass, what Nanu called a “chandelier,” their voices echoing off the room’s cream-colored walls. A maid would bring them lunch at noon. Nanu told Livia they should try to use only English even during their break, but Livia sensed the woman missed her other language, and sometimes she would relent while they ate. She told Livia her mother had been trafficked from Thailand to America, just as Livia had been, and that Nanu had been born here and was therefore automatically a citizen. Her mother was put to work cleaning big American houses like this one, and Nanu had helped, until she managed to get a better job, translating part time for the Thai Embassy in Washington. But Mr. Lone had paid her even more than what she made at the embassy to come to Llewellyn and tutor Livia, for which she was grateful. Mr. Lone was a powerful man, Nanu told her, and Livia was lucky he had taken an interest in her welfare.
After lunch, more women would come to the house, all pasty white Americans, each a teacher from a local school, whom Mr. Lone was paying to spend some of the summer tutoring Livia in math, science, and social studies. As the sun moved westward in the sky and the dining room gradually filled with its golden light, Livia learned about algebraic equations, and the characteristics of unicellular and multicellular life, and the origins of the American Revolution and Civil War. Math was her favorite because she needed so little English to understand it. For the other subjects, Nanu translated. There was a lot to learn and none of it was easy, but the feeling of being able to control something, the possibility of mastering it, was galvanizing for Livia, and she studied diligently even through dinner, even in bed. Eventually, she would become too tired to focus, and feel herself slipping in and out of wakefulness while she practiced her English drills with a tape recorder.
But no matter how tired she was, she never went to sleep without first kneeling in front of the window so she was facing the world outside, and whispering in Lahu as though Nason could actually hear her, “I love you, little bird. I will never forget. I will never stop looking. And one day I will find you.”
Every evening, when he returned to the house, Mr. Lone would stop by the dining room, his tie loosened and a drink in hand, and ask about Livia’s progress. Livia could tell from the smell that it was an alcohol drink, something she didn’t like because Skull Face and the other men had liked alcohol drinks, too. Nanu issued glowing reports, and in a matter of weeks, Livia was able to answer Mr. Lone’s questions directly. And every day, she asked him a question of her own: “Please, Mr. Lone, have you learned anything about my sister Nason?”
“I haven’t, Livia, but I promise I’m trying. And please, feel free to call me Fred.”
When he was gone, Livia asked Nanu to explain the phrase “feel free.” It seemed that while on the one hand, Mr. Lone was giving Livia the choice of what to call him, on the other he was also letting her know his own preferences. It also seemed that in America, using the first name implied familiarity, while the last name was generally more respectful but also more distant. Livia decided that as long as she had a choice, she would use Mr. Lone’s last name. She hadn’t liked him from the beginning. And she sometimes didn’t like the way she thought he was looking at her. It reminded her of Skull Face.