Chapter Six

“You know, I don’t usually go out on excursions with patients. From what we’ve seen, I am convinced something traumatic happened to you that has cut you off from your memories of what happened to your daughter.”

Randolph smiled at her careful explanation without taking his eyes off the road in front of them. “I don’t mind a little field trip.”

Sanantha was glad the country road was nearly empty, and Randy was able to drive and talk safely. The road was still wet from the morning rains, and the jungle came right up to the edge of the road for long stretches, which gave them no room to maneuver in an emergency. She was also glad Young Nae had lent them this Land Rover. Her tiny Fiat coupe would have been a hazard out here.

She still had to draw him out. “I’m hoping that if we fill in some of the details by going to where she was bitten, we can either jog your memory or maybe get more clues as to what trauma you experienced.”

“I know we went over this before, but I’ve got to say how conflicted I am about filling in these details. I mean, as much as I want to come to peace with this, in a way I’m glad that I don’t remember the gory details. Just seeing her in a coma is bad enough. Revisiting her actual attack may prove to be too much.”

Finally, she had him talking about his feelings. Now she needed to keep his trust. “I understand, and let me say how sorry I am in advance for any pain this is going to cause you. That’s why I want to go over how important this is for you. It is going to be painful and you will come away sad. You will also come away knowing. That’s the key.”

She glanced up and saw a car making a turn onto the road in front of them. The car had plenty of room, if Randy slowed down for him. Randy didn’t. He speeded up and swerved around the car, passing it in the opposing lane. Thankfully, there was no oncoming traffic.

It was all Sanantha could do not to grab hold of the door handle and dashboard as they careened on the wet road. She managed to prevent any surprise from showing on her face as she took note of Randy’s expressions. He was not upset at the other driver. He just didn’t want to let the guy get in front of him.

The maneuver reminded her of the legal and ethical corners he and Young Nae cut off in their business dealings. She made a mental note to watch for more rule-breaking and risk-taking.

Randy glanced at her and continued as if nothing had happened. “You were saying I can expect some pain. I understand the theory. You want me to get to the day when I can resume my life without the emotional baggage.” He sighed and shifted gears to go up a grade. “I’m just looking forward to the day when all the hurt stops.”

“I know this is tough. I will be right here for you through it all. As unfair as it seems now, the ugly truth is, you can’t get past the pain until you free yourself from the baggage.”

He looked at her and nodded his resignation. “So it has to hurt more before it hurts less.”

“I wish there was another way.”

Randy nodded ahead. “We’re here.”

Randy pulled off onto a muddy dirt road at a sign that said ‘Kampong Kuala Dong.’ A few hundred yards down the road, the jungle opened up into a village. As they drove to the center of town, Sanantha noticed all the houses were identical wooden bungalows set in straight, parallel rows.

Randy parked in front of a general store and they got out. The pungent smell of wet tropical jungle warming in the morning sunshine brought back a flood of memories for Sanantha, memories from halfway around the world. While this jungle did not have the drone of insects the Caribbean had, the gentle breeze blowing through the trees created a very familiar pervasive background rustling sound.

She must have had a quizzical look on her face, because Randy started right in on an explanation. “This town, and hundreds of others like it, was built as a workers’ camp in the 90’s when the big chip manufacturers started building factories across Indochina. Workers would move from their farms to towns like this, and from here, they would be bussed everyday to the factories. They would send their pay back home to their families back in their villages. Young Nae employs most of the folks in this town in our plant ten miles down the main road. He still does the bus thing, but this town is now their actual permanent home, for their whole families.”

“This is where Desiree was bitten?”

“Yeah. Young Nae says she wanted to get away from everything, just to go hiking on her own for a while. He suggested this village as a remote but safe place. He brought her out here, and he got busy talking to folks in town while she went hiking. This area is not known for snakes. I mean kids play here all the time and no one gets bitten.”

Sanantha sensed a growing anxiety in Randy’s voice, and moved to intercept it. “So you weren’t here at the time?”

“No. I have been here before, but I was back at his beach house that day. At least that’s what Young Nae tells me. I don’t recall that day at all”

Sanantha looked around and noticed the town was very quiet, with only a few people on the streets. There had been no children playing among the houses when they drove in. “Isn’t today Monday? I thought Monday was the traditional day off in the work week. That’s why I thought it would be easy to find people here to talk to today.”

Randy looked around. “You’re right. It looks like a regular work day, with the kids off to school and the adults off at work. Odd.”

“Do you think these people speak English?”

“I don’t know.” He brightened a bit. “I guess we’ll find out.”

They walked into the general store and the first thing Sanantha noticed was the smell–an unpleasant combination of mildew, chili spices, dust, dried fish, and of course, the ever present cigarette smoke. The shelves that lined the walls and filled the floor were sparsely stocked with bags of basic foodstuffs and boxes of building materials. She noticed the plastic and cloth bags had no labels. She stepped up to the counter and called to the proprietor in the back room. “Excuse me! Hello?”

The short, thin, middle-aged man who came out had bronze skin, and was wearing a Budweiser T-shirt and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He shifted his toothpick to one side with his tongue. “Can I help you?” he asked with only a moderate accent.

“Oh, good—you speak English. Can you tell me, are the townspeople all off to work today, even though it’s Monday?”

“Yes. Overtime day. Boss man pay more for today.”

“So everyone works what—seven days a week?”

“Yah. Make good money.”

Sanantha and Randy exchanged a dubious look. “Thank you. I need to speak with someone who may have witnessed an accident here in your town a few months ago. Can you please direct me to a constable or other official I can speak with?”

The man looked the two of them up and down while he spoke. “We don’t have our own police here. We use the district sheriff. He’s in Raub, twenty kilo south on Highway 8. What kind of accident?”

“It was a snake bite. Maybe you remember it? A young white woman with dark hair, about four months ago.”

Randy cut in. “She was with Young Nae Yoon.”

The man blinked and startled at the mention of Young Nae’s name. “You gonna sue somebody?”

“No,” Randy continued. “We’re with Mister Yoon. I’m his business partner, Randolph Macklin. We just need to talk to someone who witnessed what happened. Did you see anything?”

He tongued his toothpick around for a moment. “I remember a white woman getting bit. Mister Yoon came and got her. Yeah, it was a big deal. Right after the New Year.”

Sanantha calculated out loud. “It’s early June now. Four months. Then you mean the Chinese New Year in February?”

“No. Regular calendar New Year. Five months ago.”

Randy and Sanantha looked at each other. “Are you sure?” Randy asked.

“Wait a minute.” With that the man disappeared into the back room. A moment later they heard a door slam.

“Did he leave?” Sanantha asked, incredulous.

Randy chuckled. “It seems so. He said to wait.”

Sanantha idly perused the goods in the store. The huge box full of cartons of Marlboro cigarettes behind the counter didn’t take long to spot. A rack of cellophane bags with dried food drew her attention. She realized she couldn’t tell if what she was looking at was a large dried mushroom or a small dried octopus.

They heard the door creak and footsteps. The man had brought with him a woman who Sanantha couldn’t help but think looked just like the man, complete with a Coors baseball cap, only female. Except instead of a toothpick in her mouth, she had a lit cigarette.

With no introduction whatsoever, she stated flatly, “January.” Her accent was much stronger than her husband’s. “My sister birthday.”

“So you saw the incident?” Sanantha asked.

“Oh yeah. Pretty lady. Mister Young really upset. Whole town stirred up.”

“Who found her after she was bitten?”

“Kids. Playing in woods. She moaning when they find her. She not moving anymore when they get her into town. Real shame.”

“You saw her, yourself, with Mister Young?” Sanantha pressed for personal verification to try to give Randy closure.

“Oh yeah. Pretty lady. Dark hair, dark brown eyes. Too bad.”

Randy frowned and interrupted. “Wait a minute. Brown eyes? You mean blue eyes, right? My daughter has blue eyes, like me.”

The shopkeeper’s wife squinted into Randy’s eyes for a second, then shook her head. “No. Brown eyes like yours,” she said pointing at Sanantha.

Randy looked at Sanantha. “Could this have been some other woman?”

Sanantha asked the shopkeepers, “Are there a lot of snake bites around here?”

“No,” answered the man. “Maybe once a year. We have snake bite medicine,” he volunteered brightly.

Sanantha shook he head. “Have there been any other times this year when a white woman was bitten by a snake?”

The shopkeeper and his wife looked at each other and then both looked at Sanantha as if she were making a bad joke. “No,” said the man. “Just the one.”

The woman added, “Tao only need one.”

“Excuse me?” Randy cut in. “Please explain what you mean by that.”

The man tried to explain. “The Tao, you know, ah, Nature. Yeah, Nature. Nature only took one life from us.”

Sanantha gritted her teeth. Here she was trying to find answers for Randy and these folks were bringing up more mysteries.

Randy pressed. “So you think the snake was doing Nature’s will?”

The wife spoke up. “Snake is Tao. Tao is snake. Real shame. Sad day.”

Sanantha noticed Randy frowning at the whole exchange, looking like he wasn’t making much sense of it.

“Thank you so much for your time. We’re so glad to have met you.” Sanantha held out her hand, and both the man and his wife each shook it in turn. “Have a great day,” she said as she took Randolph’s arm and led him out of the store.

“What was that all about?” he asked quietly.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it. It is natural for folks to comfort themselves in times of natural calamity by assuming the bad thing is somehow just God’s will-that it was meant to be, whether we can understand it or not. Back home in Haiti, snake bites were often explained away like this.”

They got into the car.

Randy still sounded worried. “There for a second, it seemed like the woman was saying Desiree got what she deserved.”

“No, I’m sure that’s not what she meant. Like I said, don’t read too much into how the native Malay culture interprets signs in nature.”

“What about the brown eyes?”

“Now that one.” She shook her head. “That one has me stumped. As much as I wanted to get you independent verification, it looks like we may have to go back and ask Young Nae about that.”