Free Only the Heart by Brian Caswell and David Chiem Page A

daughter’s shoulder, positioning her body between them. ‘The … exchange is for what I can offer … freely. Not for what you can take.” The pause is almost imperceptible, but there is a sudden coldness in her eyes. And in the words which follow. “And you must know that if you touched her, I would eventually find a way to kill you.”
    â€œWhat is to stop me from simply killing you now?” Slowly he draws a pistol from his belt and holds it up to her face. She refuses to look at it, holding his eyes with the power of her gaze.
    â€œNothing. But then I would be dead … And you would always wonder what you might have missed.”
    Another shout, and for the first time a faint sense of urgency flashes in his eyes. The moment of truth. No more time for mind-games. She holds her breath.
    Again his gaze flicks to Phuong, who has not moved. He licks his lips and touches her cheek.
    â€œYour mother loves you, child. Remember that. Always …”
    He draws his eyes away and looks around the shadowy space at the silent group, fixing his gaze for a moment on the bleeding man still kneeling on the boards with his bare feet in the water.
    Then turning towards the hatch he takes hold of the woman’s arm. “Fair exchange.”
    She turns without a word and allows herself to be guided up the steps. But at the top she pulls free, turns and looks back. For a long moment she drowns in her eldest daughter’s tears, then she shifts her gaze and stares steadily at her youngest child. She closes her eyes briefly in a silent gesture of farewell.
    Then she is gone.
    *
    TOAN’S STORY
    The ship that had scared them off was a container vessel out of Singapore, but the raiders were long gone before it changed direction and pulled alongside.
    With Tan dead, the boat was common property, but we were in no shape to make it as far as Malaysia. The pirates had damaged the steering gear when they came aboard, and they had left us with no food and very little water. If the Hang Soo had ignored our signal — seventy pairs of arms waving, and a fire made from deck-timbers and a large piece of weathered canvas — we would have been forced to drift in the middle of the sea until a storm finished us or until we died of hunger and thirst.
    But they did stop, and as well as helping repair the steering they left us with enough supplies to finish the trip, at least as far as the first landfall.
    Not that any of that registered with Linh or Phuong. Or with my parents.
    My mother had watched the whole ordeal in silence, and I think that was the hardest thing for her — watching Aunt Mai standing there resisting, while she said nothing, afraid that to offer support was to place herself and her children at risk.
    â€œI was never brave,” she said once.
    She was talking to my father, and she didn’t realise I was listening. It was years later, and that was what made me realise just how much the incident had affected her. She never spoke of it to any of us, even though it must have been eating at her.
    My father had been up on deck the whole time, trying to come to terms with the cold-blooded execution of Tan.
    And worse, he’d had to stand there helpless and watch them take his sister with them when they left.
    But what could he have done? Made the grand heroic gesture and ended up floating face down in the middle of the South China Sea? It wouldn’t have helped Aunt Mai. Besides, he had a family to think about. A family, and her last words to him.
    â€œTake care of them, Minh.”
    It was not a request. It was an order. To the last, she was the eldest sister. He told me once that she stepped aboard that pirate vessel with her head up and didn’t once look back. And all the time, her eyes were dry.
    *
    3 March 1977
South China Sea
8°N, 102°E
    MAI
    Dawn. Sai Rakdee sleeps facing the cabin wall and she watches him.
    Fair exchange … That was what he called it. And