A-ma looks in our direction and cocks her head in disbelief. Until today, I’ve never been a troublemaker. I never cross my legs around adults, I accept my parents’ words as good medicine, and I always cover my mouth to hide my teeth when I smile or laugh. Maybe I colored my dream this morning, but I’m not a thief or a cheater in school. Unfortunately, the oily residue around my mouth shows that at the very least I ate some pancake, even if I didn’t steal it from the Dai woman’s cart.
A-ma and A-ba cross the courtyard. Seeing the confusion on their faces makes my cheeks burn red. I lower my eyes and focus on their callused feet as they talk to the vendor. Soon two other pairs of feet join us, taking spots on either side of San-pa: his parents.
“What is this all about?” A-ba’s voice is polite and even. He can be gruff at home, but he’s clearly trying to blow away the pancake seller’s anger with his polite Akha ways.
“I’ve had trouble with this one before.” The old woman gives San-pa’s ear a yank. “As a thief, wherever he goes, may he be eaten by a tiger. If he passes by water, may he slip into its depths. When he walks under a tree, may it fall on him.”
These are common, yet potent, curses, because they’re hexing him to suffer a terrible death, but the boy beside me doesn’t seem to care. He doesn’t even cover his mouth to hide his grin.
The Dai woman regards my mother with sympathy. “Now it seems he’s brought your daughter into his ring.”
“Is this so, Girl?” A-ma asks. “Why would you do such a thing?”
I raise my eyes. “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”
“Not wrong?” A-ma asks.
“He gave it to me. I didn’t know it was stolen—”
Others crowd around us to see what’s going on.
“Let’s not allow this little girl to be blamed,” the man I understand to be San-pa’s a-ba says. “You’ve been in trouble in this very place before, Boy. Tell everyone the truth.”
“I took it,” San-pa admits, but it doesn’t seem to cause him any pain. He’s so matter-of-fact it’s as though he’s talking about rainfall or how many eggs the chickens laid last night.
“He offered me a bite,” I chime in. “He wanted to share with me—”
But A-ma isn’t interested in my excuses. “Now the world is out of balance for both children,” she announces. “We follow Akha Law—”
“We adhere to Akha Law as well,” San-pa’s father states. “Every Akha on earth has a shared memory of what we can and cannot do—”
“Then we must perform cleansing ceremonies for these two children, our families, and our villages. The only question that remains is, will the ceremony be conducted with the children together or apart?” A-ma asks. A-ba is the head of our family, but A-ma, with her added status as midwife, conducts this negotiation. “The most propitious outcome would be if our two families could do it together.” To strangers like these, her voice must sound as smooth and warm as my a-ba’s during this confrontation—this unpleasantness can be wiped away, and we can all be friends—but I know her very well. What I hear is her disappointment in me and her concern for the situation. “May I ask on which day of the cycle your son was born?”
“San-pa was born on Tiger Day, the ninth day of the cycle,” his mother answers, trying to be helpful.
My family members shift their weight from foot to foot in response to this regrettable information. We Akha follow a twelve-day week, with each day named for a different animal. I was born on Pig Day. The world knows that tigers and pigs should never marry, be friends, or farm together, because tigers like to eat pigs.
A-ma reveals the bad news. “This one was born on Pig Day. Separate purification ceremonies will be best.” She courteously tips her head, causing the balls and coins on her headdress to jingle. Then she puts a hand on my shoulder. “Let us go home.”
“Wait!” It’s the pancake seller. “What about me? Who’s going to pay me?”
San-pa’s father reaches into an indigo satchel tied at his hip, but A-ba says, “A girl has only her reputation. As her father, I will pay the amount owed.” He pulls out a couple of coins from the paltry sum we earned today and drops them into the Dai woman’s hand.
I already felt bad. Now I feel awful. If Ci-teh had been here, I never would have gone behind that wall of tea, met San-pa, taken a bite of the pancake . . .
The Dai woman yanks San-pa’s ear one more time. “Let me see you going but never coming back.” It’s another familiar, but haunting, curse that again hints at a terrible death. Fortunately, she does not say the same words to me. San-pa’s parents begin to drag him away. He looks over his shoulder to give me one last grin. I can’t help it. I smile right back.
* * *
That last spark of connection sustains me all the way home. My family is clearly irritated with my actions, and they say nothing to me in a very loud way. We stop only once—to pick up the baskets we left on First Brother’s terraces. We arrive in Spring Well Village well past dark. The houses glow golden with open-hearth fires and oil lamps. When we step into our home, we’re all hungry, and the smell of the steamed rice First Sister-in-law has made is almost painful to inhale. But we still don’t get to eat. First Brother is sent outside to look for a chicken. Second Brother is given the job of pulling the ruma away from his evening pipe. Third Brother brushes a flat stone set into the hard-packed earth outside our door with the palm of his hand. A-ma sorts through her baskets, looking for herbs and roots, while First Sister-in-law stokes the fire. My young nieces and nephews gather around their a-mas’ legs, peeping at me, their eyes wide.
Second Brother returns with the ruma, who wears his ceremonial cloak—which is heavily decorated with feathers, bones, and the tails of small animals—and carries a staff made from a dried stalk of tule root. He is our intermediary between the spirit world—whether inside spirits like our ancestors or outside spirits who bring malaria, steal the breath from newborns, or devour the hearts of beloved grandfathers—and the world of human beings in Spring Well. Tonight he’s here for me.
My family gathers in the open area between the house and the newlywed huts, where my brothers sleep with their wives. First Brother holds the chicken by its legs. Its wings flap miserably, fruitlessly. The village elders—who lead us and care for us—step onto their verandas and descend the stairs. Soon other neighbors emerge from their homes and join us, because I’m not to be alone in my disgrace.
I see the blacksmith and his family, the best hunter and his family, Ci-teh and her parents, and Ci-teh’s brother and his wife—Ci-do and Deh-ja—who sleep in the newlywed hut outside his parents’ house. Ci-do has always been nice to me, and I like Deh-ja. The hair on Ci-do’s face and scalp has grown long and unruly, because men must not shave or cut their hair once their wives are five months into their pregnancies. Our entire village is holding its collective breath—as it does every time a woman is pregnant—until Deh-ja’s baby is born, when it can be determined whether it was a good birth, meaning a perfect baby boy or even a girl, and not a bad birth, marking the arrival of what we call a human reject.