Grandfather told him that the needles were inserted by his captors under the foreskin of his penis. Any sound made caused another needle to be inserted. This continued until the man made no murmur, no sound. The lesson would then be over until the next day.
Cutter learned the lesson in one night when he was four years of age. He'd had the flu and his grandfather had stayed home with him while his family was out celebrating Tet. Most nights thereafter, until his grandfather's death, Henry was instructed in his heritage by the war hero.
As a boy, Henry had loved Saturdays. Once a week on this day, he had the honour of accompanying his grandfather to the local market. There, neighbours and stallholders would pay their respects to Grandpa. Small children would stare at Henry in awe or curiosity as he led the war hero through the bakeries and vegetable stands. Grandpa's eyesight was very poor and he wore his usual huge dark glasses to protect his scarred eyes. He walked slowly; Henry knew his grandfather had terrible arthritis in multiple old injury sites on his arms and legs. Yet his bearing was regal – stallholders would crow to their neighbours with pride when he had purchased from their store.
And then the accident had happened.
It was a wet day, much like this one, Cutter thought now, as he patted at his nose, already sore from blowing it too much. It was a well-worn memory, and he leaned back against his pillow to think it through. His grandma had required medication for one of the babies, he recalled, Chinese medicine from Thanh Kha's store above Dutton Lane. Henry had led his grandfather through the marketplace and into the narrow side street. Slowly, they climbed the stairs to the apothecary's small shop – the living room of an apartment above the market.
At times, at night, the musty smells of the medicinal powders and roots still came to Cutter before he dropped into dreamless sleep.
That morning, Dr Kha's family was eating a late breakfast in the room behind the shop. Cutter remembered that on that day he had been walking as carefully as his grandfather, his groin aching deeply from an extended lesson the night before. As they were leaving, Mrs Pham came out of the gloom of the narrow stairway and greeted them with a bow.
'Please be careful,' she had warned, looking down at young Henry. 'The stairs are wet with the rain this morning.'
Cutter's grandfather had been wrong about being immortal.
You had to give it to him though – he had made no sound as Henry had shoved him hard in the back as he was shuffling down the steep stairway. In fact, the only sound Cutter heard before the stallholders came running was the dull splat when Grandpa's head had split open like a melon on the concrete below.
Cutter thought he could hear the sound now; it caused his penis to harden under the thin bedsheet and set him to coughing again. His grandma stood slowly and came to his side, bending down to feel his forehead with her soft, papery hands.
Cutter always came home when he was sick. He loved the memories.
16
JOSS CARRIED HIS old schoolbag with him when he left his mother's house. He sat directly behind the driver on the bus, shifting from time to time to adjust the position of the knife in his pocket. It seemed to prod for his attention; he couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd have to fashion some kind of holster; it wasn't as though he could just wear it in his belt as he had overseas.
He looked down at his schoolbag – just like any sports backpack, really. It seemed hot in his lap, and he wondered whether any of the other passengers could tell that it had travelled from the past, from another world.
Inside the bag, the boy from the streets waited to get out.
Joss changed buses again at Wynyard, but this time he crossed the road to catch a train to Cabramatta. He swung his backpack over his shoulder and jogged to the platform. The knife thumped against his thigh as he ran.
How does one go about making an anonymous call to the police, Isobel wondered. Can't send a fax or email, of course. Traceable. Her mobile? She always used a prepaid mobile phone because she knew how easy it was to find out someone's identity when they subscribed to a plan. Still, she'd heard that even though a prepaid number wasn't registered, the phone still acted as a satellite tracking system when it was switched on. If police had a number that was of interest, they could find the phone, even if they didn't know whose it was.
How ridiculous, she thought, and snorted as she sipped her coffee. She felt like she was in a spy movie or something. The woman from the next table looked up from her novel and stared.
Isobel got the file out of her shoulder bag and read it through again briefly. She'd found Henry Nguyen and had done a work-up on the Donatio file for Shields as well, and all before two o'clock. I am pretty good at this stuff, she reminded herself.
Nguyen had no Centrelink file that she could find, but she'd been able to find his Medicare record. There was also no hiding his criminal past. From age eighteen – it would take a bit longer to get any juvenile files – it seemed he had spent more time in than out of gaol. Violent crime and robbery. She chewed at her lip, worried Joss could be right – that this man could have been the one who'd attacked them at Andy Wu's. Still, she figured, maybe Joss would have a record, too, if he'd not been rescued from that life.
But that was crazy. It can't be him, she told herself. Joss was just shaken up by the robbery. God knows, she still was. And Joss also had his memories of Africa, of the massacre, to contend with. She could easily see how Andy Wu's blood could've triggered memories of his friend Fuzzy's death. Fuzzy made him think about Cutter, and he had just projected Nguyen underneath the mask of the devil at the home invasion.
There was no way Joss could recognise someone underneath that balaclava – there just wasn't any face to see.
The memory of Joss's panic at the movies yesterday surfaced briefly. It did seem a coincidence that they had run into this guy just after the home invasion, but it must just have been spooky chance. She pushed her doubts aside with the remainder of her coffee, not allowing them to fully register. She could not let herself believe that Joss was right about this guy. She'd collected this information just to placate her husband – to give Nguyen's details to the police and let them rule him in or out of this thing.
Isobel left the last bite of her toasted sandwich and stood up. She waited at the lights outside the cafe with a couple of dozen other people and crossed the street when they got the 'walk' signal. Then she stepped into one of the payphones opposite her work for the first time ever.
'Honey, I really don't think all this is necessary,' Isobel said to her husband in their bedroom that evening. She used her reasoning voice, trying to speak calmly, holding at her side the baseball bat Joss had given her. 'The police have his details now, and if he's implicated in any way, they'll pick him up.' She sighed, looking at his face. Nothing she said made any difference, she thought. He was just waiting for her to finish.
She was right.
'Show me again,' he said.
She gripped the very end of the bat with one hand as he had demonstrated, her other hand in the middle, as though she were holding a javelin. She lunged forward at an imaginary attacker, holding the bat at face-height.
'Remember,' he said, 'You can go for the face, throat, or the balls. Don't go for the chest. Winding him is no good. An eye socket will do.'
He looked her straight in the face, but she felt he wasn't really seeing her.
'Don't forget,' he continued, 'you don't want to hesitate. You don't want to listen to anything anyone's got to say. You'll have one chance only and you've gotta put every bit of strength you have behind it. And don't miss.' He paused, then held his fingers up to emphasise each point. 'One, use all your force; two, don't hesitate; and three, don't miss. Now, show me again.'