The Spirit House Read online

  It was a good thing that Mom and Dad had missed this conversation. I stood up. “Come on, Bia,” I said, rescuing him from Dominic. “If you want another cigarette, I’ll go outside with you.”

  But Dominic got up too. “There’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he began. “Do you believe in spirits? Do you think—”

  “Dominic,” I said, giving him a look.

  Dominic sighed. But he was basically a good kid, not a serious pest, and he stayed inside.

  I was sure Bia would be glad to get away from Dominic’s questions. But in the brief flare of his lighter I could see that his face was still guarded.

  And then a bat whizzed overhead, and he flinched and spun around, almost dropping the lighter.

  “Just a bat,” I told him, surprised that someone as cool as Bia would be so startled by it. “They’re attracted by the neighbors’ pool.”

  “Bat?” he said, tossing the lighter casually in his palm, though his hand seemed to be shaking a little. “Your brother, Dominic. Know about Thai spirit. Really smart boy, huh?” he commented, his tone of voice more suspicious than complimentary.

  “A brain. And it gets him into trouble sometimes.”

  “Trouble?” he said warily.

  I wanted to lighten things up, so I gave him my Dominic spiel in simplified form, a humorous history of his exploits: At the age of two Dominic had effortlessly activated the fire alarm and sprinkler system at the newspaper where Dad worked, causing a tremendous uproar. He was only nine when he figured out how to make free long-distance calls by very precisely jiggling the buttons under the phone receiver a certain way—we had narrowly avoided getting into big trouble with the phone company. At ten, he had unleashed a devilish virus in the computer system at his elementary school. It had devoured the grade point averages of his entire class, and the principal had not been amused.

  I was basically just making conversation. But, to my surprise, Bia seemed fascinated and impressed—especially by the story about the school computer system and its effect on grades and records.

  “That true? Dominic, he really do that?” he asked.

  “Why would I lie? I told you, he’s a brain, a wizard. He can do anything.”

  “Wizard?”

  I explained.

  “Oh … wizard,” he said, his voice changing. “I see. Have wizard in Thailand.”

  “I didn’t mean it literally.”

  But he wasn’t listening now. “Dominic wizard,” Bia murmured, and took a last thoughtful pull on his current cigarette, staring past me. “Very good to know that. He say letter take one or two week from Thailand?”

  “That’s what he said. Why does it matter so much?”

  “No matter. Just mean …” He didn’t finish.

  “It means what? What were you going to say?” I asked him.

  “You like dancing, Julie?”

  “Huh?”

  “I really like. In Bangkok, big club, video, music, many light. All night, dancing.” He paused, watching me. “Meet many girl,” he added slyly.

  “How can you go dancing all night if you have to study all the time?” I asked him.

  “I really like,” he said. “We go dancing, Julie?”

  “Sure, I’d like to go dancing,” I said. “But we—”

  Another bat streaked by and he jumped again, as startled as the first time. “What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Aren’t there bats in—”

  “Julie!” Mom called, stepping out onto the deck. “I need some help. And Bia, you must be exhausted after flying halfway around the world. Don’t you want to get some sleep?”

  He turned and walked slowly toward her. On the deck he waied her and said, “Yes. Really sleepy. Thank you.”

  Inside the house, Dominic said, “Bia, I wanted to ask you about the—”

  “He’s tired, Dominic,” Mom said. “You’ll have plenty of time for all your questions later.”

  But Bia, who had resisted Dominic’s questions only a few minutes before, now seemed ready to answer him. “Yes? Please ask, Dominic.”

  “Do you have a spirit house, in Thailand?”

  Bia’s smile faded. “Spirit house,” he murmured. His eyes flicked toward his reflection in the glass door again. Or was he looking out into the yard?

  “Do you have a spirit house?” Dominic patiently repeated.

  “Everybody have.”

  “Does your spirit house look like this one?” Dominic showed him a picture in his library book about Thailand, and we all looked. The miniature house stood on a pedestal in a garden. It seemed to be made out of stone and was very elaborately carved, with a steeply sloping roof.

  “No,” Bia said. “My spirit house more small, made of wood. One in photo for temple.”

  “Why are there flowers piled up in front of it? How does it work, anyway?” Dominic asked him.

  “In Thailand, many spirit,” Bia said reluctantly. “Everybody have spirit house, make nice, give flower. Bad spirit go there, stay out of big house.”

  “So that means that spirit houses attract bad spirits, right? What kind of bad spirits?”

  Bia reached for the cigarettes in his shirt pocket, then glanced at Mom and instead put his hand to his neck, touching the delicate green pendant. “One spirit … called Phii-Gaseu,” he said. His voice dropped slightly.

  “What’s it like?” Dominic pressed him, oblivious to Bia’s hesitancy.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “Is okay. If Dominic want to know,” Bia said, and went on, rather grimly, his voice even quieter now. “Phii-Gaseu … look like lady head with … What the word? Oh, yes, like lady head with, uh, entrail?”

  “Yes, go on, entrails, intestines, guts. What about them?” Dominic urged him.

  Bia cleared his throat. “Look like lady head … lady head with no body and entrail coming from neck. Very bad spirit.”

  “Why does the bad spirit have to be a woman?” Mom predictably objected. “Aren’t there—”

  “Did you ever see one?” Dominic interrupted eagerly. “And aren’t you worried that we don’t have a spirit house? Doesn’t that mean spirits might come around and bother us?”

  “Don’t think have Thai spirit in America,” Bia said. But he glanced quickly out into the dark garden again. I remembered how startled he had been by the bats.

  “Yes, but maybe they followed you here, because you’re a Thai person,” Dominic suggested. “And because there’s no spirit house, maybe one of those ladies with intestines dangling out of her neck might start hanging around here. Don’t you think it might be a good idea if we had our own spirit house?”

  Bia firmly shook his head. “No. Not good idea. Forget it.”

  “Really?” Dominic said, disappointed. Then he thought of something else. “Bia, did you ever make a bargain with a spirit, ask it to do something for you? And if you did, did it actually come true? And did you—”

  “Really sleepy now,” Bia said abruptly. He waied Mom and Dad again, bowing more deeply this time, and strolled upstairs.

  As soon as Bia was gone Mom asked me, “What were you talking about out there? Did he tell you anything about himself? He’s such an appealing boy. But I wish he’d be a little less polite and a little more spontaneous.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that he loved game shows and made a habit of staying out all night at clubs. “He didn’t say much,” I said.

  “He seems worried about spirits,” Dominic said.

  “Oh, he was just embarrassed,” Mom said. “He must know we don’t have superstitions like that in this country.”

  “I still think he’s worried about spirits,” Dominic said. “And I know what to do about it.”

  3

  Gloria phoned the next morning, Saturday, before Bia got up. “How’s it going, Julie? Is the foreign student as bad as you thought? Are you okay?”

  “Sure, I’m okay,” I said. Of course I had complained to her and Lynette about the
awful foreign student Mom was inflicting on me. But now I didn’t know what to tell her. I was sure Gloria and Lynette would think Bia was gorgeous. When they met Bia they would probably go after him—they had no reason not to, since I was supposed to be going with Mark—and they were both very attractive and popular with boys. What if Bia liked them better than me?

  “Tell me all about him, Julie. I’m your friend. I’m here to sympathize with you.”

  I was holding the phone slightly away from my ear—Gloria’s voice carries. “Well, the foreign student got here. And now we’re all really busy getting him settled in. So, I have to go now, Gloria. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  We usually didn’t have a sit-down lunch together, but today, because of Bia, Mom decided we would all have sandwiches on the deck. Of course, I had to help her, and didn’t want to, and she immediately started criticizing me for sulking and for being sloppy with the mayonnaise. “You should pay attention to Bia,” she said. “He’s very neat about everything he does.”

  Before I could scream at her Bia appeared and began unobtrusively helping us. Mom and I had to stop bickering.

  And lunch was surprisingly pleasant. Bia told Dad how nice the yard was and asked him to name the various plants. He got them both talking about their jobs—Dad is a newspaper editor, Mom a professor of Women’s Studies at the university. He asked Dominic about computers. In front of Bia I didn’t grumble, and Mom refrained from criticizing my clothes and telling me I was wearing too much makeup. But I was sure we’d fall back into our normal patterns as soon as we got accustomed to his presence.

  Still, I could see that Mom and Dad were relieved that Bia was turning out to be so nice. I realized now that they must have been a little apprehensive about what it would be like to have this stranger living with us. Now they could begin to relax.

  They had gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to bring Bia over here. They hadn’t arranged it through the usual foreign-exchange student agencies. Bia had been recommended to them by a visiting lecturer at the university who had taught in Thailand.

  First they wrote to his family and his school, proposing to bring him over here for a year. After that they had to get his school records and present them to the principal of my high school. Then the principal had to fill out something called an I-20 form, which confirmed that Thamrongsak would be accepted as a student. That had to be sent to the American embassy in Bangkok, along with a signed guarantee from Mom and Dad that they would be responsible for all his expenses while he was in this country. Supporting him for a year wasn’t going to be cheap. And there were the immigration fees to be taken care of, and lots more lengthy forms to be filled out. They had even thought to send him a tourist guide to the city, so he’d know something about the place he’d be living in.

  It all took a lot of time and expensive phone calls, and Mom and Dad had to keep sending over money for postage and other details, since Bia’s family was so poor. They also had to buy him a round-trip ticket, which was complicated from this end and of course also cost a great deal.

  After all that, it must have been very satisfying for Mom and Dad to see how pleasant Bia was, how polite. Today there wasn’t even the usual discussion about doing the dishes when we finished eating. Bia automatically began carrying things in from the deck, and Dominic and I both wanted to help him.

  Dominic had spent the morning in his basement workshop. When the lunch dishes were finished, Bia asked to see Dominic’s computer, and the two of them went up to Dominic’s third-floor room. I wondered about that; Bia had shown no interest in computers until after I had told him that Dominic could do almost anything with them. I also felt a little jealous, hearing them laughing up there.

  At dinner on Saturday, Bia continued to answer Dominic’s detailed questions about the architecture of spirit houses and other customs relating to spirits. The location of the spirit house was very important, it seemed. It was decided before the main house even went up, when they laid the foundation. They would make measurements at that stage, to find a place on the property where the shadow of the main house would never fall.

  I wanted Dominic to lay off the spirit business. Bia didn’t like talking about it. And Mom and Dad thought it was silly. For once I agreed with them. “I really like your pendant, Bia,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He smiled at me in a way that seemed genuine, not studied. Was he relieved to get away from the subject of spirits? “Thank you. Real jade Buddha. Make good luck.”

  “It looks very expensive,” Mom said. “I must admit, I was kind of surprised to see you wearing something that seems so valuable. I mean, when your family is so …” Mom wasn’t quite tactless enough to say in so many words that his family was poor. But Bia got the message. His face went blank again.

  “Maybe it’s an heirloom, or a gift,” I said.

  “Yes,” Bia said, nodding at me. “Gift from my good friend, Chai.”

  And later on, in the backyard, he thanked me again for helping him with my family. “You are really good friend, Julie,” he said quietly. “I am not forget.”

  We ate breakfast late on Sunday, after waiting for Bia to get up—he was still adjusting to the twelve-hour time change. Then Dominic disappeared. It wasn’t long before Bia asked me where he was.

  “He’s probably down in his workshop in the basement,” I said. “That’s where he builds his gadgets. He started some new project yesterday.”

  “Yesterday Saturday,” Bia murmured, his face serious. “Saturday very bad day start some thing.”

  “Why? What difference does it make?”

  “Because, Saturday, it mean …” Then he shook his head, lifting his hand, as if it were too difficult to explain. “Maybe I go down. Say hello.”

  “Well, he usually doesn’t like people bothering him down there—it’s kind of his private place,” I told him. “The door’s probably locked. Why don’t we go for a walk?”

  “Walk?” he said doubtfully.

  “Well, you haven’t seen anything of the neighborhood yet. We won’t go very far.”

  We didn’t. Bia walked slowly, smoked continuously, and got out of breath on the slightest incline. I was surprised at how out of shape he was, when he seemed so well put together.

  “Do you think you’re going to like it here?” I asked him.

  “Not matter if like,” he said, looking straight ahead. “Matter for future.”

  “Why is coming here so important for your future?”

  “Study at American school. Learn English good. Make big, big difference in Thailand.”

  “What kind of difference?”

  “Better job. Maybe guide with tourist, or working at hotel. Need education, English, for good job like that.”

  “But since you’re such a good student, couldn’t you get a scholarship to college in Thailand, without having to come over here?” I asked him. “Especially after what your teachers said about you.”

  He didn’t seem to have heard me.

  “Didn’t they tell you what they said?” I asked him. “Your teachers gave you the highest recommendations. They said you were unusually brilliant.”

  “Many, many good student. Very, very few place in school, very small money for many student. That is life.” He shrugged, his mouth a hard line. And he wouldn’t say any more about it.

  If he’d looked the way he had in the photo, I wouldn’t have cared that he was so elusive; I would have assumed he was just shy and awkward and cautious about this new situation. But he wasn’t shy or awkward; he was smooth and cool and extraordinarily handsome. And I was very curious about the mystery he presented.

  Why had he forgotten about the photograph and the letter? Why didn’t he know what his teachers had said about him? And why, every once in a while, did he seem to be covering up a kind of nervousness? Was he really afraid of spirits, as Dominic believed?

  Or was he worried about something else?

  4

  Bia was as
leep when Mom and Dad left for work on Monday. As Dominic and I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, I thought about how I could get Bia to open up about himself. I hoped Dominic wouldn’t be hanging around us all day.

  Dominic put down the last pot and looked at his watch. “I wonder when he’s going to get up,” he said. “I need to get more data from him, about spirits and things.”

  “Oh, that spirit stuff,” I said. I knew Bia didn’t like talking about spirits. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to adopt an American point of view as quickly as he could. “Maybe you shouldn’t keep bugging him about spirits so much,” I said.

  “But it’s the most interesting stuff he’s said about Thailand!” Dominic protested.

  “Yeah, but you don’t understand, Dominic. It’s not good to encourage him to talk about it. He wants to be like American kids, to fit in. If people at school get the idea he believes in spirits, they’ll think he’s weird.”

  “Conformist!” Dominic accused me, with a look of scorn. “Anyway, your friends won’t know if he talks to me about spirits.”

  In a way, I knew Dominic’s attitude was better than mine, that learning about a foreign culture should have been more important to me than peer pressure. But it wasn’t. I was glad that Bia wanted to come across cool. And I didn’t doubt that he would, despite his fractured English. “Just don’t bug him,” I said. “Give him some time to adjust.”

  Dominic sighed. “All right, I won’t bug him,” he said. “I don’t have time to hang around waiting for him all day anyway. I have all this work to do on my new project. I want to finish it before school starts.”

  “What is this new project?” I asked him.

  “Oh, nothing,” he said, on his way out of the room. He was in his basement workshop with the door closed, absorbed in whatever it was he was building, when Bia finally came downstairs around ten.

  At the bottom of the stairs Bia said, in a hushed voice, “Your parent? At work?” He looked rakish and a little tough today, in black jeans and a black T-shirt with the words “Rome Club” scrawled across it in large white letters. Many of his shirts, I was noticing, had slogans or logos on them.