Dragon House by John Shors Page B

sight. He wondered why he hadn’t been told that she’d be arriving. His informers were getting sloppy. That would have to change. “I responsible for this area,” he finally replied. “Why you come here?”
    “I am sure, Captain, that you know the answer,” Thien answered in English, a trace of defiance in her voice. “She came to finish what her father started.”
    “Your father, the American war criminal?”
    “The what?” Iris asked, stepping back.
    “You Americans think you understand everything. That you can save or destroy world when and where you want.” Sahn’s fists clenched as he remembered meeting the big American, the man who’d once fought in Vietnam. He had hated the man immediately. “Where is war criminal?” he asked, glaring at the foreigner.
    Thien walked to Iris’s side. “Do not listen to him,” she said, taking her hand.
    “Where is he?”
    “He is dead,” Thien replied. “And he was no more a criminal than you or I.”
    Sahn heard the American sniff but didn’t think she was crying. “Again, why you here?”
    Iris shook her head. “To open the center. That’s all.”
    “To right a wrong?”
    “No. But to . . . but to do a right.”
    Sahn wondered if he should demand to see the center’s licenses and official letters. But he knew that Thien would have everything in perfect order. He’d already asked to see the papers several times, and she’d always been ready. And she’d bribed him so that he’d go away. “You think you save children?” he asked, looking at Iris.
    “I don’t know.”
    Grunting, Sahn peered about, pretending to scrutinize his surroundings when they were really nothing more than a collection of blurred images. He’d return later and demand another payment, he decided. Better to ask then, at which point Thien would expect to hand out a new bribe. “You no wanted here,” he said to the American. He then turned and strode out the front entrance.
    Iris watched him leave, feeling small and beaten. She looked to Thien. “Why did he say those things?”
    Thien squeezed her hand. “I do not know, Miss Iris. But there is no need to fear him. We have official permission to open our center and have the blessing of high-ranking officials. He knows this. And I give him a few dollars every week just so that he will not make trouble for us.”
    “You . . . bribe him?”
    Thien nodded, her ponytail bobbing through the back of her hat. “Pay no attention to what he said about your father. Your father made many, many people happy here.”
    “That was awful . . . to hear. Just awful.”
    Thien saw the sadness in Iris’s face and wanted it to depart. “Do you want to do something good tonight?”
    “Now?”
    Thien took a steel bowl from a nearby shelf. She then scooped some of the meal that she’d prepared into the bowl. She placed two spoons in her pocket. Opening a chest in the corner of the kitchen that Iris had assumed contained utensils, Thien removed an old Polaroid camera. She hung it about her neck. “Come, Miss Iris,” she said. “Follow me.”
    Soon Iris and Thien were outside. In one hand Thien held the bowl. In the other she gripped Iris’s fingers. She led Iris forward, singing softly as they entered the chaos of the night. Iris tried not to think about the policeman’s words, instead gazing at her surroundings. Earlier that day, Thien had taken her down a seemingly countless number of streets and alleys. At first Iris had been afraid of the strange sights, sounds, and smells. But as the day had progressed she’d seen scores of people smile and wave at her, as if they knew her, as if they’d missed her. Iris had waved back, saying hello in Vietnamese, the way Thien had taught her.
    Now, as Thien led her along once again, Iris wondered where they were headed. Who’s Thien bringing the food to? she asked herself. What good is she going to create, and why did that awful man say those things to me? As she thought about the last question in