“Chú oi!”

Over me a haloed figure stood silhouetted against the sun’s glare. A girl’s face slowly came into focus. I pushed myself up, my back warmed by the stone well in the rising morning heat. The helping girl looked down at me.

“Why’re you sleeping out here?”

“A centipede crawled on my face last night.”

The girl slowly sat down on her haunches. The briny air fanned my face.

“So, I turned on the light,” I said. “No electricity. Used my Zippo and guess what I saw on the floor? Cockroaches. Bigger than my big toe.”

“So? Every house has them, chú.”

She called me uncle. I was only twenty-three. I couldn’t tell her age though, for she had a thin body of a child and a woman’s face. Her long-lashed eyes brooded. A small mouth that seldom smiled. When she did, a dimpled smile brightened her face. Sometimes she laughed. Fluty laughs. She wore her usual red kerchief around her head. “Daddy made me wear it so sand won’t get in my hair,” she once said to me. “So I don’t have to wash it every day.” She wore her hair past her shoulders, sometimes in two plaits.

“I forgot to ask. What’s your name?” I said.

She said nothing.

“Everyone has a name,” I said, bringing my knees to my chest and plugging a cigarette between my lips. She watched me click open my Zippo, her gaze following my hand. I blew the smoke upward. “You remember my name?”

“Yes, chú.”

“Say it.”

“Minh.”

I blew a series of small rings toward her. I saw her smile.

“That’s pretty,” she said, lifting her face to see where the rings went.

“You forgot your name? You not yourself today?”

“That’s not funny.”

I tapped the ash and saw it drift and cling to her peach-yellow blouse in gray specks.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Let me.”

She shrank back. “Daddy smokes too,” she said, flicking her gaze at me. “But he never takes the cigarettes out of his mouth. He has ashes all over his shirts. They burn holes in them.”

I flicked open the Zippo then clicked it shut. “What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a fisherman.”

She held herself still, hands clutching the hem of her blouse to hold the scattered ashes. She looked up at me and grinned mischievously.

I shook my head. “What do I call you?”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“I don’t even know how old you are.”

“Do you have to know?”

“Sure, if you want to be my friend.”

“I have friends. And we don’t care how old we are. We never ask.”

I rolled my eyes and took a last drag. I looked at the long, salmon burn on her left cheek. “How’d you get burned there?” I asked, pointing to my cheek.

She shook her head.

“It’s a different culture here, eh,” I said.

“What’re you saying? Aren’t you Vietnamese too, chú?”

“Yeah, I am. But I left Vietnam when I was seven.”

“You told me you’re from America?”

“I grew up over there.”

“How come you speak Vietnamese so well?”

“Because my parents are Vietnamese,” I said, grinning, and it seemed to irk her.

“Are you really from America?”

Now I stared at her as I lit another cigarette.

“Prove it,” she said.

I was about to tell her to forget it, but then, with a sigh, I dug my driver’s license out of my wallet. “Here.”

She leaned forward, her eyebrows knitted in appraisal.

“Can you read English?” I asked.

Her lips stopped moving. She flipped the plastic sleeve, stopped at the next one. Her head canted to one side. “Who is she?”

“My girlfriend.”

“She’s pretty. Her hair’s not yellow though.”

“She’s a brunette.”

“What’s her name?” She perked up.

“Do you have to know?”

She pushed away my hand. “You’re mean,” she said sharply. “I hate you.”

On the table that sat under the eaves of the rear veranda was a brass pail. It was half-full with well water. A tin can floated in it. I dipped the water with the can, rinsed my mouth, gargling, and brushed my teeth. With the water left in the pail, I washed my hair.

“You don’t have long hair like me,” she said. “Why waste water?”

“I got sand in my hair,” I said, combing its wet strands back with my fingers. “I was down on the beach last night. So windy. You should wash your hair every day too.”

“Easy for you to say, chú. Clean water here is treasured like rice to every family.”

“Where’d you get your water?”

“From a public well.” She glanced toward the lodging house’s well. “It has a pump like that one and it’s always crowded there. I go there very early in the morning, but not this morning.”

As I wiped my face with my hand, I could see a disturbed look in her eyes. Then she stamped her foot.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“You didn’t ask me why I didn’t go to the well this morning.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

She pointed at the empty pail. “Where’d you get the water from?”

“From that well. The landlord, she always leaves a pailful on the table. Every morning.”

“You want another pail, chú?”

“Um, yes. I’m thinking of washing myself. It’s getting hot.”

“Try the pump. See if you can get any water.”

I laughed. At first she just looked at me, sullen. Then she laughed a small, clear laugh. I said, “Guess I can’t wash myself until we get the electricity back, eh? Such a shame they don’t have a winch for the well. If you can’t use the electric pump during the outage, you can haul water by hand with a crank. Next time bring a bucket and I’ll get you water from the well here to take home. No wait.”

“Why’re you so kind, chú?”

Her sourness piqued me. “Haven’t you been around nice people?” The tone of my voice caused her to avert her eyes, then her lips curled into a cynical smile.

“You guessed wrong, chú. People here are nice. Daddy is nice, very nice.”

“And Mom?”

She gave me a dark look. “Just Daddy,” she said finally.

“What about Mom?”

She heaved, disturbed. Her eyelashes batted.

“Where is she?” I said.

“Daddy said never talk about her. Said he doesn’t know her.”

The way she rushed the words kept me from asking any more questions. I glanced at the empty pail then up at her. “Guess I’ll be heading into town later on. At least they have electricity there.”

“It’ll be back on before evening, chú. Around here, nobody likes even days.”

“Now I know. I’d better stock up water and wash myself on odd days then.”

She unknotted her kerchief and knotted it again. It fluttered in the breeze coming in steadily now from the sea. “I must get going,” she said, opening the safety pin on her blouse’s front pocket. She took out a wad of money in rolled-up bills and counted them. Nodding, she stuffed them back into her pocket and fastened it with the pin. “I’m going to the market. You want anything there, chú?”

“Why are you so kind?”

“Chú!” She stomped her foot.

“Can you get me two packs of cigarettes?” I took out my wallet. “I wonder if . . .”

“They have the kind of cigarettes you smoke, chú.”

“How d’you know what kind I smoke?”

“I saw the pack.”

I placed the money in her hand. “Do you cook?”

She didn’t answer as she carefully added my bills to her bundle of cash. Her long, tapered fingers had dirt under the nails, some bitten down. At the inn she ran errands, cleaned the lodge. But cooking? She had a stick-thin body. A child, or rather a teenager, or perhaps a woman already. She was fastening the safety pin, smoothing the front of her blouse. I couldn’t help noticing the teensy shapes of her breasts. She lifted her eyes with a provocative gleam.

“I cook, chú. Are you surprised? I cook for Daddy.”

“You have time?”

“I make time stand still.”

“Really?”

“When Daddy comes home from the sea he’s too tired. He’s out to sea before sunrise, back at sunset. Well, you know how long each day is for a fisherman, chú?”

“I’m beginning to know.”

“I help the woman owner here during the day. I take care of Daddy in the evening.”

“Where is Mom?” I asked again.

“She’s not with us.”

The girl crossed the back court, passed the well and slipped down the dirt path overgrown with cogon grass so tall it hid her from view, then she reappeared walking on the sand where patches of spider flowers bloomed yellow. Her figure grew smaller as she crossed the pumpkin patch, the pumpkins bright orange against the glare of white sand.