The Foursome

Chapter Four

“This is not a good idea,” I said to Addie as our buggy rattled along the dirt road toward home.

“Why not?”

“Well—for one thing, we’d be lying to Papa.”

“Papa doesn’t need to know.”

“You don’t think he’ll find out?”

“I think if we’re discreet we can buy some time.”

“It’s not just that. It’s . . .” I shook my head. How could she not acknowledge the obvious? “Addie, they’re joined together.

Have you thought about what that means? If things were to progress between you and Chang—what then? The entire county would

be shocked. The entire world.”

Addie shrugged, her expression serene. I studied her profile, searching for some trace of doubt. If it was there, she hid

it well.

“Anyway,” I went on, “let’s be honest. Eng isn’t interested in me. They both want you.”

“No, they don’t,” she said with a light laugh.

I gave her a long look. “Yes, they do.”

She tugged at the edge of her lace collar, smoothing a curled hem. “I’m friendlier, Sallie. You scowl too much.”

This is how it was with her. She spoke partial truths to get her way.

“I think Eng really does like you,” she said. “You just have to give him a chance.”

“Please, Addie. He doesn’t know me. And I don’t know him.”

“Which is exactly why you should see him again.”

I sighed. “It would be scandalous, meeting them alone.”

“You can’t always live in fear of what people think, Sallie.” She shook her head, wisps of dark hair coming loose from her

bun. “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up like Mama.”

Few people knew the intensity of my sister’s personality, the steel of her resolve. I often felt like a caboose, pulled along

by her engine. Was I destined to spend the rest of my life trailing after her, my own wants obscured by the sheer force of

hers?

We would have to be vigilant to avoid Papa’s notice and Mama’s sharp eye. But as Addie predicted, Papa was busy with the sweet

potato harvest, and Mama was shut in her bedroom with a headache.

Contemplating the dresses in my wardrobe, I chose the newest one, a maroon calico with a row of tiny buttons up the front.

I’d slept with rags in my hair overnight, and now, seated at my dressing table, I unwound them one by one. My hair fell in

loose, uneven coils around my face.

Studying my reflection in the looking glass, I tilted my head. Lifted my chin. The girl staring back looked just as she always

had: plain, soft-featured, with a scatter of freckles across her cheeks and corncob teeth. Her face was round, her nose unremarkable,

her hair a muted red, neither copper nor bronze, her eyes pale blue beneath nearly invisible brows.

I dusted my face with rice powder, trying to obscure the freckles, dabbed beeswax on my lips for shine, pinched my cheeks

until a blush rose. Inspected myself again. There was no magic in the powder or the pinches, no great transformation. This

was it. I was as pretty as I would ever be.

Careful, or you’ll end up like Mama.

It was cruel of Addie to say it.

Mama had always been a large woman, but in recent years she’d grown so immense that she rarely left the house. Even in our

rural county, where idle ladies of a certain age tended toward corpulence, her size was remarkable. In our family, we didn’t

discuss it. But once, sitting on the porch, I overheard two of Papa’s friends as they left the house after an evening of cards.

“That woman could be a sideshow act,” one said. “She’s the size of four normal ladies, at least.”

The other laughed. “No wonder he keeps her indoors.”

Over the years, Mama had become a recluse. Her bedroom, at the end of a long hallway on the ground floor, was like a cave,

its drapes drawn against the sun. Now and then she ventured out to the parlor or the dining room, where she sat in a chair

that had been built to accommodate her.

The space Mama took up wasn’t just physical. Her moods wafted through the house like fog on a river. She sighed, tsked loudly,

and jangled the little silver bell she kept by her side with brisk impatience. She complained endlessly about her headaches,

her rashes, the pain in her joints.

Had she ever been happy?

I was afraid to ask.

It was a mystery how my parents had managed to conceive five children. For as long as I could remember, they’d occupied their

own bedrooms. On the rare evenings Mama joined us for supper, she and Papa exchanged polite observations about the weather

and crops from opposite ends of the long oak table. Sometimes, passing her chair, he’d pat her shoulder, as if reassuring

an elderly aunt. Their disagreements were brief and brittle. Mostly, they lived separate lives: Papa up at dawn, managing

the farm; Mama sequestered in her room.

I understood why she’d stopped going out. When you appear a certain way, you don’t have to do much to reinforce what people already believe. Your body tells a story before you speak. It draws stares and whispers, judgment disguised as sympathy.

How can that poor woman live like that?

How can her family bear it?

What a pity. Bless her heart.

When I made my way downstairs, Addie had already asked the stable boy, Henry, to saddle two mares and tie them to a post beside

the barn. As the horses stood patiently chewing grass, Henry lifted Addie into Daisy’s sidesaddle, tightened the girth and

checked her reins, then did the same for me on Glory.

It was a warm day. Sweet William, fragrant red, nodded beside the barn; the air smelled of fresh-cut hay. We guided the horses

past the orchard, down the meadow, and into the deep-tangled woods, twigs and fallen branches crunching under their hooves.

A spray of sparrows rose across the sky.

Emerging into the open after several miles, we could see the Thompsons’ dilapidated farmhouse in the distance, its front door

swinging on its hinges. Wisteria climbed the peeling columns. And there were Eng and Chang, standing in the overgrown circular

drive beside a black buggy, dressed in tailored suits and polished shoes.

I still wasn’t used to the sight of them, their proximity to each other. Out here in nature, it was a bit like encountering

a mythical creature—a centaur, say, or a unicorn.

When we reached them, Chang stepped forward, with Eng just behind.

Chang raised his hand to Addie, and she took it and slid from the saddle.

He smiled at her. “You came.”

“Of course we did. I said we would.” Addie patted Daisy on the neck.

“I wasn’t sure we could trust your word.”

“Nor I yours.”

“Both of us are gamblers, apparently.”

Eng helped me down from Glory, and the brothers led the horses to a post in the yard. After tying them off, Chang clasped

his hands. “Let’s take a stroll.”

Addie walked beside Chang. I matched pace with Eng. We passed a weathered barn with mossy sills, a cluster of apple trees,

a covered well with a bucket and rusted tin dipper hanging on hooks, a gate sagging under a tangle of vines.

Eng reached into his coat pocket and drew out a handful of peanuts. He cracked one, dropped the shell, and popped the nuts

into his mouth.

“My brother’s naughty habit,” Chang said.

Eng was unbothered. “We are outdoors, are we not?” He offered his palm to me. “Want a few?”

“No, thank you.”

“You don’t like peanuts?”

“Peanuts are animal feed. Do you always carry them around?”

“I’ve developed a taste. I’m surprised they’re not more popular.” Cracking another shell, he gestured toward the blue-green

hills. “So have you always lived here?”

“Our whole lives,” I said.

“I suppose when you have all this, there’s no reason to go anywhere else.”

Addie leaned past Chang to make a face. “Surely Paris is more exciting.”

“That’s true. But we’ve had enough excitement for a while.” Eng cracked another nut with a light pop.

“Siam is like this, yes?” I asked. “We read that somewhere.”

“In some ways,” Chang said. “In others, it’s very strange.”

“What’s most strange?”

“Your food, I suppose.”

Addie laughed. “I imagine we’d find your food strange.”

“Americans think everything about us is strange,” Eng said.

It was early afternoon. The twins had brought a flask with two small tin cups, and pound cake wrapped in a tea towel. We perched

on the rickety porch of the abandoned house, drinking punch and eating cake.

For a few moments we sat in silence listening to grasshoppers rasp in the tall grass. A copse of trees flung faint shadows

across the pasture. In the distance, the spire of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church rose against a puff of cloud and a wide blue

sky.

“So how did the two of you become an act in the first place?” Addie asked. “We heard that a king put a bounty on your head

when you were born.”

“That’s right,” Chang said. “But the bounty was eventually forgotten.”

“And you were discovered by a merchant.”

“Robert Hunter. He petitioned King Rama to let him take us on a world tour.”

“The king denied the request but asked to see us in Bangkok,” Eng said. “He sent a boat, and our mother and sister came too.

We brought fermented duck eggs as a gift—can you imagine? Duck eggs! We’d never been beyond our village. We didn’t know our

generous gesture would be taken as a joke.”

“We were so poor,” Chang added. “Our father and five of our siblings died in a cholera epidemic when we were young. Eng and

I supported the family by raising ducks and selling the eggs.”

“It must have been a shock to see Bangkok,” I said.

“It was,” Eng said. “The canals were jammed with boats. Do you remember, Chang? Temples, pagodas, those floating houses. Bridges thirty feet high.”

Chang nodded. “They gave us haircuts and we bathed indoors for the first time. A servant washed the mud from our feet and

trimmed our toenails.”

“And the next day they carried us through the streets in a covered hammock,” Eng said. “We couldn’t see anything, just the

glow of daylight through the curtains. And ugh—the air was stuffy with smoke and spice. I thought I’d be sick.”

“Then they lowered the hammock to the ground and opened the drapes, and we were in an enormous courtyard,” Chang said.

“A white elephant was chained by the foot, just ahead of us,” said Eng. “Its huge ears were flapping in the wind.”

“And the king sat way up high on a platform,” Chang said, shaking his head at the memory. “Like a fat baby on a golden throne.

Tall yellow silk curtains on either side.” He mimed running his fingers down the silk.

“Then they ordered us to crawl toward the throne,” Eng said.

“What?” Addie and I exclaimed.

“Not just us,” said Chang. “The courtyard was full of men. Hundreds of them, sprawled on their bellies, inching forward on

their elbows. Groveling like dogs. All you could hear was the rustle of cloth against stone.”

“The air smelled of their sweat. And incense, dense enough to choke you,” Eng said.

Chang turned to his brother. “Remember the birds?”

“Swallows,” said Eng, almost smiling. “Thousands of them darting overhead like a storm cloud.”

“We cared more about those swallows than the king.”

“Yes. Because their arrival meant spring was near, and we’d be able to sell our eggs again at the outdoor market.”

As they spoke, I tried to picture it—the narrow canals, the white elephant, the swarming birds, the fat baby on a gilded throne. It seemed like a scene in a fable.

For a moment they were quiet. Then Chang said, “And that was that. A gong sounded, and the curtains around the throne were

pulled shut.”

“We were sent back with gifts for the village,” said Eng. “I don’t remember them all, but one was a china tea set painted

with a pink cityscape. I wish we still had it, but we needed the money. Within a few months, we’d sold everything.”

“Were you glad you went?” Addie asked.

“Yes, of course,” Chang said.

“It was strange,” Eng said. “And degrading, I suppose. But we didn’t know enough to feel degraded.”

“In the village, we were just In and Chun. The double boys,” Chang said. “No one treated us differently. In Bangkok, we were

treated like—like freaks. It was the first time we felt—”

“Like monsters,” Eng finished. He poked at the strip of cartilage joining them. “Still, if we hadn’t been born this way, we’d

probably still be on that riverboat on the Meklong, selling duck eggs. We’ve traveled the world. Gotten rich.”

“All because of this small band of flesh,” said Chang.

“Eng is a good man, Sallie.” Addie and I were back at home, sitting on the porch, stitching tiny pastel flowers on pillowcases

in circular wooden frames.

I picked at a loose thread.

“He’s a gentle soul. Sensitive.”

“Don’t condescend to me, Addie, I can see him clearly enough.”

I knew that in Addie’s mind Eng was the weaker, less dynamic twin, nearly irrelevant to her plans. But there was still the fact of him. His presence. He intruded in her fantasies of the future like an unwelcome guest.

“Well . . .” She smoothed the fabric and inspected her stitches. “I just think you should give him a chance. Let’s see them

again, as they asked.”

“Or maybe we end it now.”

She set down her embroidery. “Don’t forget, Sallie, our prospects are limited.”

“Mine, perhaps.”

She pursed her lips. “Not just yours.”

I winced inwardly. She wasn’t wrong. The consequences had touched us both. Addie still received callers, but more and more

they were second sons without inheritance, or widowers with children—men who, not long ago, wouldn’t have dreamed of courting

her.

“You know I’d take it back if I could,” I said. “What else would you have me do?”

It was an opening, and she seized it. “Agree to meet Eng and Chang again. For me. As a kind of . . . recompense.”

A lump rose in my throat. “You are asking me to give up my life for you.”

“Oh, Sallie. Don’t be dramatic.”

“And that’s not even addressing the fact that those men are attached.”

She shook her head, dismissing this minor obstacle. “I’m suggesting a way out of a predicament that benefits us all.”

I stabbed my needle into the cloth. “Addie—”

“Let’s weigh the options.” She held out her palms like a scale. “You can try to find a decent farmer who will marry you, despite . . .

everything,” she said, raising one hand. “Or”—she raised the other—“you can rejoice in the fact that fate has offered you

a viable alternative.”