Chapter 31
“We should go, Calla, we should really—”
Vivi barely had a chance to get the words out before she witnessed the ravine overflow.
Her mind leapt to the colors used by Théodore Géricault in The Raft of the Medusa. Samuel had a print of the painting in his condo, right next to his bookshelf. Sometimes, thrashing on his bed, she’d dream
about the scene, a lesser night terror that nevertheless filled her with fitful unease when she woke. Now she saw Géricault’s
raft as if it was in front of her. A dark-skinned man waving a flag. Another sitting elbow to knee in bleak resignation, his
other hand resting over a fallen sailor as the waves meted destruction in all directions. Despair, infamy, the terrible might
of nature. Art as premonition.
Through the open entryway, water began seeping into the house by the ravine.
There was a crumbling toward the back door, something large falling onto the roof. They heard another enormous crash. Dread
mounted in her gut. They should have waited to come.
Vivi shouted, “We need to hurry.”
Calla turned a dull gaze onto her sister. “But the offering.”
Vivi saw Tam, standing on the edge of a river so many years ago. Contemplating the forked paths of ruin and misery.
“We’ll take it with us,” she said.
Vivi slid the panels back together and wrapped the screen in a scrap of the torn tapestry. Then she shoved the bundle under
her poncho and sloshed through the rooms toward the doorway. In minutes, all this—the last of her great-grandmother’s life—would
be swept away. At the threshold, she turned to give Calla an impatient tug of the head.
Calla’s hair dripped onto her shoulders, her shoes sopping from the churn of water at her feet. In her hands, she held a paintbrush
that she’d taken from the sill.
“Come on!” Vivi yelled.
She kicked water at Calla. Dark droplets bloomed on Calla’s poncho. Calla was staring at her in befuddlement, as if they’d
wandered into the wrong timeline. Vivi had never seen her sister so uncertain. Usually, she barreled ahead, ready to seize
circumstance and damn consequence. But now, at a time when urgency would have been welcome, Calla remained troublingly stagnant.
“Calla!”
A refrain of worry washed through Vivi: She can’t swim well, she’s afraid of going underwater, I will lose my sister in this country, I will lose everything.
“Don’t let me do this alone,” Vivi said.
Their gazes met.
After one last second of hesitation, Calla dropped the paintbrush and began to follow her sister. There was no time for relief.
They drew their ponchos closer and ran into the waiting storm.
Vivi traced the flood’s unrelenting progress up her body: licked ankles, lapped shins, kneecaps massaged by cold. How many
minutes had passed since she saw the ravine overflow? She felt the confusion of displacement. It seemed impossible that she’d
ended up in Long Xuyên, holding her sister’s hand through a wailing storm. Just a moment ago, she was a child running in the woods, heartbeat pounding as the ravens swooped overhead. Parents still alive, sister tagging along after her every move, a shadow that bent and twisted in time with her.
The edge of the screen jabbed against her ribs, hauling her back to reality.
Higher ground. They had to get to higher ground.
But nothing was higher than the house, not in this remote spot. They could try to climb a tree, but it had been so long since
they’d climbed, and a misstep would be treacherous. Vivi was still weak from her recent illness, unable to shoulder her sister
for long.
Calla shivered, insubstantial, dazed. As Vivi pulled her along, Calla didn’t resist, but nor did she appear to be moving of
her own momentum. If Vivi let her go, Calla would drop right where she stood. Between her sister’s weight and the ungainly
folding screen pressed against her chest, Vivi struggled.
“You have to try,” she shouted.
The flood mixed with the soil and took on a reddish amber tinge. Around them, falcons of wind whistled and hooted up through
the canopies.
Later, Vivi would learn that a category-four tropical storm had hit Long Xuyên, rare and punishing, the first in decades. The town was unprepared. The deluge led to flash floods and, more disastrously,
mudslides that carried shanties full of frightened families away. Roads were impassable. Cars and livestock floated aimlessly
down the street.
She knew they needed to keep their heads above water. If they could wait out the storm, they could get through this. Once
the water stopped rising, the flood would eventually drain away. Then all they had to do was plant one foot in front of the
other to find their way home.
In the meantime, the directive was simple: just don’t drown.
And yet, when Vivi glanced at Calla, she knew that it was not simple at all.
With a hard yank, Vivi pulled Calla toward the back of the house.
Calla made a yelp of protest, but Vivi ignored her, wiping water from her eyes to survey the yard.
A tower of bricks had been stacked against the side of the house.
It was a miracle that they hadn’t yet washed away.
If the sisters could climb onto the bricks, they might be able to reach the edge of the roof, then pull themselves up.
Parts of the roof had begun to crumple inward from the fallen tree they’d heard earlier.
It wouldn’t hold for long, but they only needed to buy time.
“You go first!” Vivi shouted.
Calla hoisted herself onto the tower, then gazed down at Vivi, unsure of what to do next.
Vivi swallowed her frustration and boosted her the rest of the way, Calla crashing onto the roof, stunned by the force behind
the push.
By that time, the screen had grown slippery in Vivi’s hands. With a grunt, she tossed it up to Calla, freeing herself of its
weight. The wood clattered on the roof. Vivi could almost see the paint melting away in the rain. Or maybe that was an illusion
from the blur of water in her vision. Tam’s offering was, in the end, such a small and easily destructible thing.
Had it all been worth it? She didn’t have time to ask the question in the moment, but she did for many days—years—afterward.
The answer would always elude her.
Vivi fumbled onto the bricks, fighting to grab at the fascia of the roof.
Calla shook herself. She leaned down and held her hand toward Vivi. “Come on. I’ve got you.”
Then she began to pull Vivi up. As she did, the folding screen began sliding down the edge of the roof on the other side of
her. Calla turned toward it, still holding her sister’s hand. With her other hand, she stretched her fingers toward the screen.
Her face whitened with the effort of dragging Vivi up and simultaneously reaching for the screen.
Calla’s grasp finally met a corner of the screen.
Her body made a sort of crucifix on the roof—one person, torn between two desires.
Vivi wanted Calla to save the art, those panels they’d traveled so far to find, the mystery they’d nearly given their lives for.
But more than that, Vivi wanted Calla to save her.
The rain loosened the clasp of their hands, but didn’t break it. There was a sliding sensation under Vivi’s feet. Gravity
falling away. All at once, the pile of bricks crumbled under her, flotillas of red taken by the flood.
The only thing keeping Vivi aloft was Calla. And Calla couldn’t hold on to both Vivi and the folding screen. She’d need two
hands to haul her sister up.
“I can’t lose everything again,” Calla said, a plea in her voice.
Tr?n tìm. Was this the end of seeking? If it was, Vivi wouldn’t beg. She’d done enough of that.
“You never lost me,” Vivi said. “You never could.”
The storm seemed to quiet. Or maybe Vivi was the one who’d muted the sounds of the swelling flood, the crack of lightning,
the wind that howled and snapped. It was just her, staring up at her sister. Waiting for Calla’s decision.
Above her, Calla swallowed. There was an apology in her expression. Then, with a strangled cry, she let go.