“I don’t know, little bird,” she said. “I don’t know.”
At midday, they stopped in a clearing and the men pulled the children out of the van. Livia stood in the tall grass and held Nason’s hand, blinking in the glare of the scorching sun, her skin sticky with sweat. She tried not to be afraid, but she didn’t like that they had stopped. The van was horrible, but she had quickly become accustomed to it. She wasn’t afraid of the van anymore. She was afraid of what would happen next.
The four men stood around the children as they unloaded them from the van, obviously intent on preventing any escape. But one boy must have been planning for this moment, because as soon as his feet touched the grass, he took off running. One of the men grabbed the boy by the shoulder, but the boy squirmed free and raced away.
The boy had gotten not thirty feet when a man popped up from the grass like a tiger and clubbed him across the face with a forearm. The boy flew through the air and landed on his back. The man hauled him up, slung him over a shoulder like a sack of rice, carried him back, and dropped him on the ground in front of the children. And then, with no expression and no sound, the man pulled off his belt and began to whip him. The boy writhed and shrieked, but the man continued, his expression almost bored.
Some of the children turned away. Others were crying. One threw up. Livia, without thinking, shouted in Lahu, “Stop it! Stop!” And then, remembering her Thai lessons, shouted it in Thai.
None of the men even looked at her, least of all the one whipping the boy. She watched, horrified, holding Nason’s sobbing face to her chest so she wouldn’t see, then glanced at the other children to see if anyone else would at least protest. One of them, a Yao boy, she thought, looked older than the others. Certainly he was bigger, almost as big as the men, though not as big as the skull-faced one. But he did nothing.
It went on for a long time. And then, as suddenly and dispassionately as he’d started, the man stopped. He looked at the other children, as though mildly curious about which one he would whip next, and Livia thought his eyes were as flat and cold as a snake’s.
If they had been deeper in the forest, Livia could have found one of the herbs her people used for cuts and pain. But in this grass, there was nothing. She wanted to go to the boy and try to comfort him, but Nason was holding her too tightly, still shaking and crying. So Livia stood still and whispered to Nason that it was all right, she was here, she wouldn’t let her go, they would be all right.
One of the men unzipped his pants and urinated into the grass, not bothering even to turn his back to them. Livia realized she needed to go, too. She didn’t want to ask permission—it felt like a bad idea, and besides, it wasn’t as though they would allow her any privacy. She imagined waiting, and realized she couldn’t. So she squatted, lowered her pants as little as possible, and peed. She kept her arms in front, covering herself as best she could, and stared fixedly at the grass, her face burning with shame.
When she was done, she hurriedly pulled up her pants and stood. She glanced at the men. None of them said anything. But she didn’t like the way they were watching her.
Some of the other children, realizing it was okay, followed suit. But most of them, it seemed, didn’t need to go. They had already lost control of their bladders—and some, of their bowels—in the van, or while the man had been whipping the boy.
The other men relieved themselves, too. Then they smoked cigarettes while the children squatted on the ground, most of them softly moaning and crying, the only other sounds the buzz of insects in the trees and the call of birds in the distance. Then the tall man looked at his watch and nodded to the others. They gestured to the van and kicked the children to make them move. Livia got up quickly, Nason clutching her arm. She wanted to go before the other children so she could be next to the window. If she could see outside, she might learn something, something that could help them. Despite the kicks, some of the children remained frozen in place, crying helplessly. The man who had whipped the running boy pulled off his belt and drew back his arm, and the stragglers hurried forward, too.
Back in the van, Livia found herself next to the boy who had been whipped. She touched his arm and whispered in Lahu, “Are you okay?”
It was a stupid question, she knew. Of course he wasn’t okay. None of them was okay. But she had to do something.
The boy looked at her, his eyes red. His lips were swollen and bloody, probably from when the man had clubbed him to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Livia tried again, this time in Thai.
The boy said something Livia couldn’t understand—Hmong, she thought, but it was slurred because of his lips and she wasn’t sure.
“Thai,” she said. “Do you speak Thai?”
The boy looked left and right as though searching for something, then said in Thai, “Where? Where we go?”