Come Landfall: A Novel

Eight: Hidden Voices

eight Hidden Voices Dear Bodhisattva, My mother told me that you are much wiser than we are, and sometimes we do not know that the answer to our question has been given. Speak to the Bodhisattva, my mother said, and she will not speak back but will tell you what you need to know. I never knew what she meant by that. Now I think I know. I asked for Daddy to see me, to hear me, and not just the memory of my sister. This is the answer. There is someone else now to hear me—Joe. He is so handsome. He has black hair with little curls. He is twenty years old, and a policeman. Daddy was five years older than mother when they married. I have only talked to him a few times, but he hears me. Bodhisattva, Daddy would be very angry with me if he knew about Joe. He wants me to marry a Vietnamese or Chinese boy, you know all these things in your wisdom. Can you tell me what to do in your special way of giving an answer? She folded up the letter and took off on her bicycle down Oak Street. When she zipped across the highway and down the road by the school shuttered for summer, she saw the Bodhisattva standing tall, her beatific eyes downcast, her left hand holding the pitcher that forever come l andfall 111 poured water, her right hand up in mystic gesture—palm out, thumb to index finger in a circle. How beautiful she was, how welcoming in her tranquil gaze. Cam rolled to a stop at the temple and set her bicycle against a railing. She approached the wise goddess. A disembodied voice, soft and low, addressed her: “Cam Nguyen.” “Yes?” “Why do you come here all alone?” The question lingered in the rose trellis behind the Bodhisattva. Cam bowed her head. “To tell you something, Bodhisattva. To give you a letter.” She looked back up. “Place it there,” the voice instructed. “I will read it.” Starlings coursed from behind the roses and swooped deliriously over the temple. Cam stepped forward, put the letter down, took out the matches, and struck one. She touched it to the letter, which curled red like a lotus flower. “Child, what are you doing?” From behind Quan Am stepped Monk Thich Thien Thai in his saffron robes, bald-headed and round-faced. Cam pressed her hands together, bowed. “This is the way you offer your supplications?” “To the Bodhisattva, yes, Monk,” she said. He laughed, his round face as beatific as a shining boy’s. “This is bad of me?” she said. “Look and you will see, listen and you will hear. If you want an answer , you will receive an answer. It does not matter how you ask your question.” He made a short bow, and headed to the temple, climbing the steps to its front door. At the landing, before entering, he called down: “Remind your father we still have many pledges to be met.” “Don’t tell him you saw me come here,” she implored. “Please, Monk.” 112 Roy Hoffman “This is good you are here.” He disappeared in the door. She stood in front of Quan Am and closed her eyes. “Please, Bodhisattva , forgive me if I have offended you, but I no longer care about Daddy. I only want the love of Joe.” In response she heard another voice: “So you’re the firebug?” She opened them to see Joe standing at the edge of the temple grounds. “Thank you, Bodhisattva,” she whispered. “They’ve been waiting for this,” he said, nodding toward the trailer park. “I think they had the precinct number on speed dial.” “Am I under arrest?” “Yeah, that your bike? Come on and I’ll throw it in the trunk. I’m taking you in.” He opened the back door of his cruiser and Cam climbed in, and he went around and cranked up the car. The police scanner crackled, and Cam heard the reports of the crises that plagued their little town—a call to EMS from a man suffering from asthma, a teen scuffle near the seashell emporium. And one firebug, she knew, at the Buddhist Temple. She awaited news of her transgression, the happiest criminal in Biloxi just to be captive in Joe’s car. Around the bend from the temple he pulled over...