THE REVERSE CURRENT - The Rejection of Anna

The red dust at

Rejection of

The red dust at

Junction was just as

I had left it, except now it felt like it belonged to someone else’s life.It was early spring in 1997.

We came down from the

Highlands in a sleek, cream-colored

Toyota sedan that

Hsu had arranged for

Evelyn’s trip.

The car smelled of new leather, expensive petroleum, and

Evelyn’s jasmine water.

As the tires crunched off the asphalt onto the rutted dirt lane of the

Pass, the dust billowed up, coating the glossy fenders in a dull, rust-colored film.I was driving.

My hands were clean, my knuckles smooth.

I wore a light wool jacket that didn’t smell of rain or stale grease.Beside me,

Evelyn leaned against the passenger door, looking out at the chaotic, sun-baked strip with quiet fascination.

She watched the border guards in their grey caps, the bare-chested haulers pulling wooden hand-carts, the stray dogs sleeping in the ditches.

To her, it was an exotic border post, a colorful backdrop on the edge of her father’s influence.To me, every timber post on the street was a ghost

I owed money to.”Is this where you lived?” Evelyn asked softly, her hand reaching over to touch my arm.

Her fingers were cool, her gold ring catching the glare of the afternoon sun. “Where you sat on the low stool?””Around the bend,” I said.

My voice sounded thin, tight in my own chest. “At the

Lodge.”I hadn’t wanted to stop here.

I had tried to persuade

Hsu to let us take the western route through the valley, but the military had closed the river bridge for repairs, forcing all south-bound traffic through the

Junction.We pulled up in front of the lodge.The two-story timber building looked smaller than

I remembered.

The grey plaster on the walls was peeling in wider patches, showing the black bamboo laths underneath like old ribs.

The red paper lanterns under the eaves were completely shredded by the winter winds, hanging in dirty, tattered strips.The sedan’s engine died with a soft, expensive shudder.The screen door creaked open.Anna stepped out onto the porch.

She was carrying an iron kettle, her dark hair pinned back with the same bone pin.

She wore her dark blue padded jacket, the cuffs frayed at the wrists.

She looked toward the car—toward the gleaming chrome grille, the dark tinted glass—her face set in that sharp, defensive squint she used for strangers with money.Then

I opened the door and stepped out into the red dust.Anna froze.

Her hands stayed locked around the handle of the iron kettle.

For a second, a flicker of something raw and exposed flashed across her dark eyes—a sudden, violent jolt of recognition that made her shoulders drop an inch.”Leo,” she said.

Her voice didn’t carry across the yard; it just fell flat into the dirt between us.”Anna,” I said.

I stood by the open car door, my hand resting on the warm roof, feeling foolish in my clean wool jacket. “I… we were passing through to the lower customs post.

The river road is down.”Evelyn climbed out from the passenger side.

She smoothed the front of her ivory linen trousers, looked around the dusty yard, and then smiled warmly at

It was a genuine smile—open, polite, untainted by the bitterness of the border.”Hello,” Evelyn said, stepping around the hood of the car. “I’m

Evelyn.”Anna’s eyes shifted from my face to

Evelyn.I watched it happen.

Anna’s mind work, calculating the silk scarf around

Evelyn’s neck, the fine leather sandals, the clear, unworked skin of her wrists, and then back to the cream-colored sedan.

Anna didn’t look angry.

She looked like a woman who had just reached into a dark drawer expecting to find a tool and found nothing at all.Then, with a speed that made my stomach turn,

Anna’s face closed up.

The raw look vanished, replaced by a wide, loud, exaggerated grin—the kind of cheerful, heavy-handed mask the border women put on when they wanted to pretend everything was fine.”Well, look at you!” Anna wiped her hands vigorously on her apron, stepping down off the porch with heavy, quick strides. “Look at the gentleman!

Hsu’s big manager come back to visit the ditch!”She reached out and slapped my shoulder—a hard, friendly, rustic blow that rattled my collarbone.

It was the way an older sister greets a younger brother who made good in the city, loud and devoid of any soft edges.”And you brought a lady!” Anna turned to

Evelyn, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial, country chime. “Miss

Evelyn, you must be exhausted.

That road from the ridge will shake the teeth right out of your head.

Come inside, come inside!

Don’t stand out here in the dust.””Thank you,” Evelyn said, looking at me with a soft, pleased expression, clearly relieved by the warm welcome. “Leo told me how kind you were to him when he first arrived.””Kind?” Anna laughed, a dry, barking sound that didn’t reach her eyes. “I gave him a stool so he wouldn’t freeze on my porch!

He worked hard for every bowl of noodles he ate, didn’t you,

Leo?””Anna, we don’t need to stay,” I said, my voice tight. “We can drive down to the government hostel near the garrison.””Nonsense!” Anna cut me off, her hand waving through the dusty air as if swatting a fly. “The hostel is full of drunk border clerks and river traders.

You’re staying here.

I’m giving you the best room—the one above the kitchen.

It’s clean, it’s warm from the stove pipe, and the roof doesn’t leak.”My heart dropped straight into my boots.The room above the kitchen.She looked straight at me as she said it.

Her grin stayed wide, her chin tilted up, but her dark eyes were cold and sharp as chipped flint.

It was a deliberate, brutal blow—handing over the very room she had offered me six months ago, offering it now as a bridal suite for the

Minister’s daughter.Evelyn didn’t notice a thing. “That’s so sweet of you,

We’d love that.”The room above the kitchen smelled of old pine, woodsmoke, and dry lavender.It was clean.

The bed was made with fresh, rough cotton sheets that

Anna must have spent the afternoon ironing with a heavy brass box filled with coals.

The floorboards were swept bare, without a single speck of red dust.Evelyn sat on the edge of the mattress, taking off her leather sandals, rubbing her small, pale feet. “She’s wonderful,

Leo,” Evelyn said, looking up at the low timber ceiling. “So strong.

Running a place like this by herself… it must be terrifying.””She’s used to it,” I said, standing by the small louvered window that looked out over the rear yard.”You should give her some extra money when we leave tomorrow,” Evelyn added, pulling her hair brush out of her satchel. “For the room.

And for the tea.””She won’t take it,” I muttered.”Of course she will.

Everyone takes money,

Leo.”I didn’t argue.

Evelyn didn’t understand the

She thought money was a gift, a polite gesture between comfortable people.

She didn’t know that out here, giving a woman like

Anna extra money was just another way of reminding her that you owned the floor she wiped.Below the window, a dry mountain wind gusted up from the valley, rattling the loose shingles on the lean-to.I looked down into the dark yard.Anna was standing near the well, next to the old wooden cobbler’s bench where

I used to sit.

The lean-to was dark, its canvas awning flapping uselessly in the wind.She was holding an empty zinc bucket.

She wasn’t drawing water.

She was just standing there in the cold draft, staring at the low wooden stool where the iron last used to sit.The wind whipped her dark skirt against her knees, tearing at her hair, pulling loose strands from her bone pin.Then she raised her left hand.

Very slowly, with the back of her sleeve, she wiped her face—once, twice—across her cheekbones.

She didn’t bow her head.

She didn’t drop the bucket.

She just wiped her eyes in the freezing wind, her posture rigid, her spine straight as a surveyor’s stake.A sudden, suffocating wave of guilt hit me so hard

I had to grab the wooden window frame to keep my balance.It wasn’t that

I loved her.

My heart was completely consumed by

Evelyn, by her clear eyes, by the intoxicating, golden world she had pulled me into under the tamarind tree.But

Anna had sat with me in the dark.

She had dropped a bowl of hot dumplings next to my knee when

I was a sick, starving fugitive with blood on my heel.

She had offered me a quiet, decent life in the dirt, and

I had used her porch as a stepping stone to climb into a silver

Jaguar.I had left

Elena to drown in the reverse river, and now

Anna standing in the red dust with an empty zinc bucket.”Leo?” Evelyn’s soft voice called from the bed behind me. “Are you coming to sleep?

The light’s blowing out.”I turned away from the window.Evelyn was lying under the rough cotton sheet, her dark hair spread across the white pillow, her eyes shining in the dim yellow glow of the lard lamp.

She looked like an angel that had dropped into a coal mine.I walked over, blew out the flame, and slid into the dark beside her, pulling her warm, soft body against my chest.Outside, below our floorboards, the kitchen stove pipe hummed in the wind, carrying the faint, bitter smell of woodsmoke up through the cracks in the wood, burning my throat all through the night.