A Million Shades of Gray (15 page)

When they reached camp, Y'Tin immediately spotted Ami, already running toward them. He cried out to her, and once again he broke into a run. He tried to embrace her, but she fell to his feet and threw her arms around his legs, weeping and saying, “I knew you'd come back to me.”

He tried to lift her, but she clung to him. “Ami,” he said. “Ami!”

His mother finally stood up and caressed his face, rubbing it almost as if she were trying to clean something off of his cheeks. Then she burst into tears again and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I didn't know you'd come back,” she cried. “I don't know why I said that. I didn't know!”

Y'Tin held on to her the way he had when he was a young child. Before he and Y'Juen had escaped, he still thought of himself as a young
child. Now he was a young man. He laid his head against her shoulder and felt comforted, but he felt something else, too—sadness that he was no longer a boy. He already missed his childhood.

Finally, Y'Tin's mother stopped sobbing. “Come and let me feed you,” she said. She rubbed at his face again and even pulled at his skin as if trying to pull it off. It was actually a little painful. Before, when he was a boy, Y'Tin would have protested. But now he allowed her to pull at him.

“Don't pull off his face,” Ama said gently, taking hold of her arm.

“Let me feed you both.”

“I need to get back,” Y'Tin's father said. “We're planning an action for tonight.”

“But you just got back from an action yesterday!”

He leaned over and kissed her cheek, then turned to Y'Tin. “Spend some time with your mother. You can take a couple of days—I'll work it out with the commander. After that I'll be expecting you at the men's camp.”

Y'Tin heard a birdlike screech and saw Jujubee running toward him. He knelt and she ran into him, bowling him over. He had expected that, but then for some reason she rammed a finger up his nose.

“Ow! Why did you do that?”

“Because I love you!” she cried out.

That made sense only if you were Jujubee. Y'Tin held her to him and rocked back and forth with his eyes closed. He felt at peace holding her that way. He heard a jangling sound approaching, and he looked up and saw H'Juaih. As always, she wore twelve rings on each of her ankles. She smiled shyly. She had become shy only last year. Many times when she talked, even to her friends and family, she would look down at her feet and smile a fleeting smile. He stood up and she hugged him primly.

His father slapped Y'Tin's shoulder. “I'll need to go now. I'll see you in a couple of days.”

“Give him three days,” Ami said firmly. When she spoke that firmly, no one ever crossed her. Y'Tin knew his father wouldn't argue.

“All right, three days,” Ama said. He touched Ami's face before setting off. Even from the back, Y'Tin could tell how worried his father was. His shoulders slumped, and he walked with effort, like an old man.

As Ama walked off, Y'Tin looked around. Hundreds of people sat on the ground dwarfed by the giant trees. Here and there fruit hung from the
banana trees like decorations. Just a few meters away Dok was pulling at some bark while Geng stood with her eyes closed—Geng was very fond of sleeping.

There were as many people here as at the soldiers' camp. Kids, old people, mothers, and sick people. Directly opposite of where Y'Tin stood, he could see about fifteen people lying on the ground. He knew those were the sick people. Most of them probably had malaria. Scattered everywhere were bursts of color from the blankets. Blankets for the malaria patients to lie over and under, for the babies to sleep on, for the old people to wrap themselves in.

Ami said, “Come with me to our place. After I feed you, Y'Juen's mother will want to talk to you. You know how she acts like you're another son.” She lowered her voice. “But I know you don't love her the way you love your family.”

His family's “place” consisted of three bright red blankets laid on the ground. Flies buzzed around a covered pot—where had Ami gotten a pot? She filled a bowl with what looked like jungle potatoes in hot water and handed it to Y'Tin. He was a little disappointed there was no meat, but he didn't say anything. As he tried to drink from the bowl, Jujubee clung to his left
arm. “Jujubee, let him eat!” Ami cried out.

Jujubee clung stubbornly to him. “Never mind,” he said. “I'll use my right hand.” He actually liked the way his sister clung to him.

Once his stomach was full, he suddenly felt exhausted. He knew his mother would want to talk, but he needed to lie down. Jujubee and H'Juaih lay on either side of him, each one clutching an arm.

When he woke up, it was already getting dark, and neither of his sisters was still lying with him. In fact, his sisters were nowhere to be seen. His mother sat watching him, and he had a feeling she had been sitting that way for a long time.

“Are you hungry again?” she immediately asked.

“No, no, I'm still tired. How long has it been?”

“A couple of hours. Some of the people from other villages carry clocks, so now we're always thinking about time.”

Y'Tin's eyelids felt heavy and his head felt cloudy. “I need to rest,” he said, closing his eyes again.

He woke up in the middle of the night under a blanket with Jujubee. Her snoring was even louder than he remembered. She couldn't do anything halfway, even snore.

He ached for Lady. He wondered how she was
doing. He hoped she was still with the wild herd. In the wild, female elephants always traveled in herds, while the males usually went off on their own. He had heard that some handlers worked with male elephants, but he had never seen that himself. It could have been just a legend.

He had always expected that he would work with Lady until she died. Then he would travel to Ban Me Thuot, to Thailand, to America. After he was finished traveling, he would open an elephant-training school in Vietnam. People would come from all over the country to work with him. But now he had no idea what he would do, where he would go.

There was a rare break in the leaves, and Y'Tin could see the sparkling
mtu
. His mind drifted to a song his mother had sung to him often when he was growing up:

The moon shines over, over you

The sun shines over, over you

The clouds shine over, over you

My heart shines over, over you

He remembered how safe and protected that song had made him feel, with his mother's heart
shining over him. Even now, he would still feel comforted if she would come and sing to him. On the other hand, he was new to manhood, and he would not feel right asking his mother to sing for him. He had never seen a grown man make such a request of his mother.

He fell back asleep, and when he woke up, it was light out and his mother was sitting watching him again. She was holding a bowl, and as soon as he sat up, she said, “Eat more,” and handed it to him.

He lifted the bowl to his mouth and drank the water, then used his fingers to eat the potatoes. This morning the soup also had some green plants he had never seen. His mother was a big believer in cooking green plants. She thought green food was the secret to long life, but all Y'Tin cared about was meat.

Y'Tin looked around. Tomas stood next to Geng, talking to her. Y'Tin felt a rush of anger. He doubted that he would ever forgive Tomas and Y'Juen for turning on him.

Then his anger turned to this “commander” person who wanted to eat the elephants. He could not understand that at all. Elephants were part of the civilized world, just like houses and schools and books. If this commander was so smart, he
would know that. He would know that eating the elephants was the opposite of being civilized.

Y'Tin closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing back the past. After all, the shaman said that sometimes he could make things happen just by thinking about it. Y'Tin had never seen proof of this, but he did not think the shaman would lie. Y'Tin sat concentrating for a long time, but when he opened his eyes, his fate hadn't changed.

He saw that Tomas had left the elephants and was now leaning over someone covered head to toe in a blanket. That was his mother. Y'Tin wondered what Tomas thought about the commander's plan to eat Geng and Dok. Even if the soldiers ate two elephants, that would not feed them for long. Then they would be right back where they'd started. So what would they have achieved? Nothing—that was the truth. In short, he disliked the commander, and when he met him, he knew he would dislike him even more.

Y'Tin looked over at Y'Juen's mother. She was crying.
I hate Y'Juen,
he suddenly thought, and the thought surprised him. He had grown up with Y'Juen. But Y'Juen had turned on him.

High above, in the break in the leaves through
which he had seen the
mtu
last night, Y'Tin could see the blue sky. He stared at it and tried to soak in its beauty and let it soothe his bitterness.

He heard the sound of jangling and turned around to see his older sister.

“Y'Tin?” H'Juaih was looking at him.

“Yes?”

“Y'Juen's mother is sobbing,” H'Juaih told him.

“Yes, I know.”

“Y'Juen was supposed to go to the jungle north of here, carrying a message to another camp. He should have been back two days ago.”

“Ama mentioned it,” he said coolly.

H'Juaih looked confused, then her face fell. She was so compassionate that Y'Tin felt a rush of love for her.

“Y'Juen is good in the woods.” He spoke “good in the woods” in English. It was the phrase Shepard used to describe someone who was an expert at negotiating the jungle.

“I know. That's what Ami told her, but she can't stop crying. Will you talk to her?” Now he knew why his father looked so tired sometimes and why he had so many lines on his face. It seemed that every day that passed carried more and more to agonize over.

Y'Tin followed H'Juaih to the center of the camp. As they walked, Y'Tin began to dread that Y'Juen's mother would make the same suggestion that his father had—to go and search for Y'Juen. He was a natural candidate because he was such a good tracker and because everybody thought he and Y'Juen were best friends.

Y'Juen's mother was wrapped in a blanket. She was sobbing tearlessly, as if her eyes had run out of water. He hesitated, but then, as if she felt his eyes on her, she turned to him. “Y'Tin! Y'Tin!”

He squatted next to her, and she pulled him down and cried on him. They sat like that for a long time, until one of Y'Tin's legs fell asleep.
Holding her, feeling her ache for Y'Juen, he felt bad about how he and Y'Juen had fought. But the fact was, they had fought. He did not feel the way about Y'Juen as he had mere weeks ago.

Gut, heart, head. He searched for a feeling about whether Y'Juen was okay. But he couldn't find a feeling or a thought or an instinct to tell him. He didn't think it was time to panic yet, because in jungle time, a couple of days early or late didn't matter as much as it would have in a village. That's what his father had told him. When Ama had gone on missions with Shepard, he was never able to give the exact amount of time he would be gone. Sometimes he gave a time and it was wrong and other times it was right.

Y'Juen's mother did not say a word to him. She just held him and cried. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and exclaimed, “I'll go!”

She looked at him with confusion.

“I'll go search for him.”

Her face filled with bliss, and when she started to cry again, he knew it was because she was happy and grateful.

“I'll go with you if you want,” she said. “I'm not scared.”

Y'Tin stared at the trees. Some of them were as tall as their houses had been long. “You don't have to come,” he said. “I'll leave now, Auntie.” He'd called her that for as long as he could remember. That meant he'd known Y'Juen for as long as he could remember.

She took his hand and rubbed it as she stared gratefully at him.

“If he's out there, I'll find him,” he told her. In his head he thought,
Y'Juen is good in the woods, so he probably isn't lost.
If he'd been captured, Y'Tin wouldn't be able to help him. One second Y'Tin thought the most likely scenario was that Juen had just gotten sidetracked, and the next second he thought he might have gotten hurt. Right this moment, he felt Juen was merely sidetracked. But he had told Y'Juen's mother he would go in search of him, so he must. After all, it wasn't Auntie he had quarreled with, but Y'Juen.

Y'Tin trudged for an hour back to the soldiers' camp, where the men were busy eating. He saw his father sleeping and didn't wake him—he was probably exhausted from his mission the night before. But he spotted Y'Juen's father and went to him.

“Y'Tin!” he said warmly but tiredly, and Y'Tin wondered whether he had gone on the mission
as well. Or maybe there were separate missions going on all the time.

“I told Auntie I would go search for Y'Juen.”

“Y'Tin!” He pulled Y'Tin into a hug. “You're my second son. I wanted to go search for Y'Juen, but the commander wouldn't let me. All day soldiers are always asking him to let them go search for someone. He and I argued about it for an hour yesterday.”

“Can you tell me where Y'Juen was going?”

“Several kilometers northwest of here. There's another camp there. I haven't been there, so I can't tell you more. Here, take my gun.” He held out a rifle, but Y'Tin hesitated. It would just weigh him down, and he didn't know how to use it anyway. He remembered that mission he'd gone on, when he'd shot a bullet into the air. He had been lucky that he hadn't hurt anyone.

“No, I would probably just shoot my foot by accident,” Y'Tin said, forcing a laugh. “I'll go now.”