44– Dead. Dead. Dead.
The incoming tide rushes into my head. Ah-ku is dead. The sonorous voices swell and break over my head. Ah-ku is dead.
Sweat is pouring down the sides of my face. The electric fans are working at full capacity overhead, but the air in the pavilion is stale and muggy from the warmth of so many bodies tonight. Six hundred members of the Soka Association are chanting, seated in rows of white plastic chairs. A hundred more are standing in the aisles and back of the pavilion. Beside me in the front row are the rest of the family, a group that now includes Dave and Kan Jieh, who looks serene, rubbing her prayer beads between her wrinkled hands. A stab of resentment pierces my heart. She has done her duty by her Madam. This morning, she’d shocked us when she returned our u
