Free Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler Page B

B.J. asked. He looked to the bucket. It was still full. A moth floated on top, its wings extended. He hoped the Chinaman wasn’t going to expect him to fetch a new bucket every time a bug drowned.
     
    ‘Do things like that happen often?’ the Chinaman asked. ‘Is this a bad place to be?’
     
    It took B.J. a moment to understand that the Chinaman was talking about Ada and not the moth. And another moment to wonder how to respond. B.J. didn’t like questions unless he knew what answer was wanted. He had no idea what the Chinaman hoped to hear. Perhaps the Chinaman wanted to hear about Louis Bergevain, an inmate who’d been beaten to death three months ago when he’d become too ill to do his chores. Houston had told B.J. people might come around asking questions. B.J. was not to even say the word Bergevain. Not to Dr Carr or to anyone else who asked. The people with questions, Houston told B.J., might be very cunning, but he would not accept this as an excuse if he was disobeyed.
     
    He had not told B.J. the people with questions might be Chinese. This was very cunning, but B.J. would not be tricked. He said nothing at all.
     
    He watched the Chinaman cross the kitchen to the black stove and pick up the mush pot. The mush had coated the inside with a grainy him. The Chinaman scraped at it with his spoon, but it adhered to the pot’s sides. He scratched a tiny line clean with his fingernail. He stood staring into the pot.
     
    ‘Soak it first,’ B.J. suggested. It was a generous offer since it would use a great deal of water and the bucket would have to be filled that much sooner.
     
    ‘Perhaps that woman is just very difficult,’ the Chinaman suggested, setting the pot into the sink and ladling water into it. ‘Perhaps things like that happen only to her.’
     
    ‘Perhaps,’ said B.J. carefully. ‘And perhaps not.’
     
    ‘Which?’ asked the Chinaman.
     
    ‘One or the other,’ said B.J.
     
    ‘Shouldn’t a woman be in charge of the women?’ the Chinaman asked.
     
    ‘Yes,’ said B.J. ‘One is.’
     
    ‘Was she there at breakfast?’
     
    ‘Yes.’
     
    The Chinaman stood staring at B.J. He was considerably shorter; B.J. could see every detail of the top of his head, his scalp where the hair divided, the way it flowed into the rope of the braid. There was a red spot on the bare skin between the hair that flowed to the right and that which flowed to the left. A flea bite, B.J. thought. Not that this was the season for fleas. ‘If I wanted a woman’s help in the kitchen, could I request a particular woman? The way I can request you when I want water fetched?’ The Chinaman was speaking very carefully, just the way B.J. himself was speaking. B.J. understood suddenly that he was not happy asking questions. B.J. was not happy answering them. He looked for a way to rectify the situation. He changed all his answers into questions.
     
    ‘Fetching water is my job, isn’t it?’ B.J. said. ‘And not anybody else’s, is it? You say what job you have and the warden sends the person who does it, doesn’t he?’ Now all the Chinaman had to do was answer. Instead he asked another question and looked unhappy about it.
     
    ‘Are the new patients assigned jobs quickly?’
     
    ‘Sometimes. Aren’t they?’ B.J. stressed his last two words. The Chinaman still had not caught on.
     
    ‘Has the new woman been assigned a job?’
     
    ‘Has Sarah Canary been assigned a job?’ B.J. asked. His voice was getting louder. ‘Sarah Canary sings like an angel, doesn’t she? But she doesn’t talk. Does she? So I don’t think she does jobs. Do you?’
     
    The Chinaman waved his hands in a quick unhappy gesture to tell B.J. to be quiet or to go away, B.J. was not sure which. B.J. was sorry about this. He had only been trying to help. He returned to the dining room and his mush bowl. It was gone. Sarah Canary had two now. One was empty and clean as if she had licked it. The other was B.J.’s, He reached