The Touch

Ba

Ba felt refreshed in the warm, humid air of the outdoors. He had never been able to adjust to air conditioning. He stepped ahead of the Doctor and the Missus and opened the rear door to the Graham for them. It was a proud moment for him to be able to lead these two safely from the Foundation. He would have freed anyone had the Missus asked, but it was especially pleasing to aid the Doctor. It lessened the weight of his debt to the Doctor for Nhung Thi; it helped to balance the scale between them.

Once they were inside, he got in the driver's seat and made a U-turn into Park Avenue's downtown flow at the next cross street.

"I don't think it would be wise to take the Dr. Buhner back to Toad Hall just yet, Ba," the Missus said from the back seat.

Ba nodded. The same thought had occurred to him. "I know a place, Missus."

"Then take us there."

"Now hold on, everybody!" the Doctor said. "Just hold on a minute! I'm a free man and I want to go home!"

"Alan," the Missus said softly, "you haven't got a home anymore. It's gone. They burned it."

"I know that! I mean Monroe. That's where I live. I'm not going to hide from anybody!"

"Alan, please. I know you've been pushed around a lot lately, but Ba and I have just gone to a lot of trouble to get you out of the Foundation. A little legal finagling could put you back there in no time—or worse. If something has happened to McCready, they could blame it on you and you could wind up in Bellevue!"

There was silence in the rear. Ba thought he knew what might be going through the Doctor's mind. It seemed not only cowardly, but an apparent admission of guilt to run and hide. But the Missus was right—better to seek shelter until the storm passed.

Still, he could not help but sympathize with the Doctor, who must be feeling that his life was no longer his own. And truly it wasn't. Ba had now been privileged to meet two men with the Dat-tay-vao, and neither had been fully in control of his life. For the Touch has a will of its own, and knows no master.

The Monday night traffic was thin. He reached Canal Street quickly and followed it east between Little Italy and Chinatown, then turned downtown on Bowery until he came to a tiny sidestreet where refugees from his country had collected during the seventies. They all shared the kinship of strangers far from home, but none so close as those who had risked the open sea together in his boat. Most of his fellow villagers had settled in Biloxi, Mississippi, still living as fishermen, only now in the Gulf of Mexico instead of the South China Sea. But one or two had straggled to the Northeast. He stopped now before the ramshackle tenement that housed one of the elders of his former village.

The trip had taken less than fifteen minutes. Ba set the emergency brake and turned in his seat.

"You will be safe here," he told the Doctor.

Dr. Bulmer looked up and down the dark, ill-lit street, then up at the rickety building. "I'll have to take your word on that, Ba."

"Come," he said, stepping out and opening the door.

"Go, Alan," said the Missus. "If Ba says it's all right, then you can take it to the bank."

Ba glowed with pride at her words as he watched them embrace and kiss.

"All right," the Doctor said. "But just for tonight. Twenty-four hours and that's it. Then I'm coming home."

As the Doctor stepped out of the car, Ba closed and locked the door behind him. He didn't like leaving the Missus alone here on the street, but the motor was running and he would only be a few minutes.

He guided Dr. Bulmer into the building and up the flaking stairway to the fourth floor.

"Chac is an old friend," he said as they climbed. "If my fishing village still existed, he would have been an elder there."

"What's he do now?"

"He sells newspapers."

"What a shame."

"Better than what was in store for him at home. The communists wanted us to work for them in exchange for a ration of rice. We call that slavery. We have always worked for ourselves."

"You work for Mrs. Nash."

Ba did not pause or look back at the Doctor. He knew the question and knew the answer. "When I work for the Missus, I work for myself."

"I hear you," the Doctor said. And by the tone of his voice, Ba knew that he understood and there was nothing more to be said.

They reached the fourth-floor landing. Ba knocked softly but persistently on the door that read 402. His watch said 11:16. Chac might be asleep—he rose daily at four and was on the street in less than an hour. He hated to disturb the older man's sleep, but the time of his arrival was not of his choosing and Chac would understand.

A voice spoke from the other side of the door. "Who's there?"

Ba announced himself in the Phuoc Tinh dialect. There came the clicks of locks and the rattle of chains, and then the door was pulled open and Ba felt himself embraced by the shorter, older man.

"I cannot stay," Ba said, fending off offers of food and drink. He heard a child cough in the back room. He glanced questioningly at Chac.

"My grandson, Lam Thuy. He's almost three now. He stays here while Mai Chi and Thuy Le work at the restaurant. Here. Sit and let me make you tea."

"The Sergeant's wife awaits me below. But I have a favor to ask."

"Anything for Ba Thuy Nguyen! You know that!"

Ba smiled, warmed by the elder's approbation. "A friend needs shelter for a few days—shelter from the weather and from all eyes except those of this household."

Chac nodded. "I understand perfectly. It shall be done. This is he?"

Ba brought the Doctor forward and spoke in English for the first time. "This is Dr. Bulmer. He did all that could be done to make Nhung Thi's last days peaceful."

"Then he shall be as one of us," Chac replied, also in English.

He shook the Doctor's hand and brought him forward, welcoming him into his home.

"I must go," Ba said, feeling the urgency to get back down to the street where the Missus waited unprotected. But first there was something he had to tell the Doctor.

He drew him aside as Chac bustled toward the kitchen to make tea.

"Doctor," he said in a low voice, leaning very close. "Please not to mention the Dat-tay-vao to anyone."

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "I hadn't planned to. But why not?"

"Not time to explain now. All will be made clear later. Please do not mention the Dat-tay-vao here. Please?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Okay. Fine with me. But, listen"— he touched Ba's arm—"thanks for tonight. And take good care of that lady."

Ba gave him a slight bow.

As he left the apartment, he heard the child coughing again. Louder.