When I first encountered the couple, I saw people who didn’t know how to exist in harmony with the earth, the animals, or the rain, wind, and sun. I ignored the gossips who told me that missionaries kidnap Akha children and send them to orphanages and forced labor camps, but today, after the couple leaves, Wife-of-Shaw-kah tells us what happened to her.
“When I was full with child, they encouraged me to go to their clinic to have my baby,” she confides, trying unsuccessfully to keep her emotions hidden. “They said that if it was born with a cleft palate or an extra finger, their doctors would fix it. So I went to the clinic. They put me to sleep. When I woke up, they handed me my baby. She was perfect, and I had not suffered. But they did something to me when I was asleep, and I have not been able to come to a head again.”
I’ve now heard variations of this story too many times to doubt their truth.
I change the subject by seeking my friends’ advice. “I think I made a mistake in marrying my husband, but what can I do about it now?”
“You need to be careful in what you say,” one of the women warns. “He could sell you.”
I hadn’t considered that this could happen to me, and the idea—suddenly too real—makes me even more desperate. “But what if I could find my way back to Nannuo Mountain? I could return my wedding gifts to my in-laws to signal my divorce. I might be accepted back into Spring Well Village—”
“Those things are not possible.” Wife-of-Ah-joe cuts me off. “Even if you follow the rituals for divorce, you can never go home. Too shameful.”
I remember First Sister-in-law warning me of that but in more traditional words. Other things A-ma and A-ba relayed to me through the sisters-in-law also come back to me: A weak boy grows up to be a weak man and The whole mountain knows he’s lazy. And that was before the heartbreak of Yan-yeh.
“At least he hasn’t taken your bracelets or the silver from your headdress,” Wife-of-Za-po offers helpfully. “When that happens, you’ll have nothing left.”
That evening, after a dinner of soup made with no more than hot water and jungle tubers, San-pa takes the money I give him and pulls on his cape.
“Will you be gone long?” I ask.
“Do not ask me one more question,” he yells. “Do you understand? Not one more!”
He storms out of our hut. I doubt he will be back tonight. He might not even return tomorrow night. Fighting despair, I repeat in my mind what Deh-ja told me. All you can do is live.
Deep in the night I have a terrible dream. Deh-ja’s human rejects come out of her body. They are not babies, though, but yapping, miniature, yet somehow full-grown, dogs. A-ma puts them in a bag and sits on it until their yelping quiets. Deh-ja, as in real life, weeps. Ci-teh reclines in the corner, giggling. A-ma pushes medicine down Deh-ja’s throat. Her head begins to nod. She looks at us sleepily. Then San-pa appears. He takes the sack of dogs outside, strings the carcasses end to end on a spit, and roasts them over a fire for his evening meal. He tears the animals apart with his teeth. His mouth is as greasy as the first time I saw him. He stares at me, begins to nod, finally dozing off. Then he jerks his head up and grins, showing me all of his shiny teeth . . .
I jolt awake. I feel more alone than I thought possible. I’m unable to return to sleep, because the dream felt so real. In the morning, I can’t bring myself to go foraging, but at noon I put on my tourist costume—my wedding clothes and headdress, which once meant so much to me—and go outside. As my neighbors and I pose for pictures and pocket tips, I continue to ponder the significance of my dream. I look at it from every angle. I think about how A-ba, my brothers, and my sisters-in-law would decipher the messages. And then, of course, my mind goes to A-ma, the best interpreter of dreams on Nannuo Mountain. She would see the violation of Akha Law in every image, just as I do. For all the visions, though, only two matter in the end. The way both Deh-ja’s and San-pa’s heads nodded so dreamily. I’m shoving a handful of woven sunglass cases in the face of a woman with hair the color of wild mustard—“You want to buy?”—when the meaning becomes clear.
My husband is a heroin addict. This is not going to get better. Things can only get worse.
I manage to complete my sale and then walk back to my house, in a daze, without saying goodbye to my friends. Maybe I should be more upset. Maybe I should be pulling my hair, screaming down the path, or sobbing in a heap at the feet of an elephant. But I’m not the girl I once was. I’m still only eighteen years old, but I’m many decades older in my heart.
I enter the single room that is my home. San-pa has returned and is stretched out on our sleeping mat, an arm draped over his eyes.
“Wife,” he says, acknowledging my presence.
“Husband,” I say, kneeling on the edge of the mat.
There must be something in the way I speak the word, because his arm drops to his side and he stares into my eyes. Despite everything, he can still read me very well. A second or two, and he understands that I know.
“I thought coming back for you would change everything.” His breath still smells sweet, yet his excuses for his drug use merely incorporate variations of the same familiar torments. “But you doomed us by having the human reject. Then you made it so we couldn’t fix our mistake and save our daughter.”
I have a lot of remorse for the things I’ve done, but I won’t allow San-pa to make me feel guilty any longer.
“I’m the one who suffered. I carried Yan-yeh within me. I gave birth to her. I was her mother, and I did everything I could to save her. I needed you, and I still need you.”
Tears pool in his eyes. “You did this to me.”
“I didn’t make you into the man you are,” I say sadly. “You’ve always been exactly who you are. A weak man. A pancake stealer.”
They’re such gentle admonitions when I could say so much worse, but they cut to the very heart of who San-pa is. His eyes go cold, and he rolls away from me.
I lie down next to him. A canyon of sorrow and regret fills the space between us. By the time he sneaks out hours later, I know what I must do.
Still dressed in my wedding clothes, I pack the rest of my belongings in my carrying basket. I need to be gone from the village before others rise, but I’m not hurried or frightened. I calmly rummage through San-pa’s basket to retrieve my hidden money. We don’t have any food, but I’ll be able to survive in the jungle as long as I have my knife. Beyond that, I don’t have a plan. I can’t go home. Maybe I’ll end up living in a lean-to next to Deh-ja. Even that would be better than this.