But when he reached Enbo's courtyard, having crossed the village square, no one answered when he knocked on the heavy wooden door. He knocked again, and again, but still no answer. It was deathly quiet inside, as if everyone in the house was actually dead. Gela felt foreboding rising ominously through his chest. Maybe Bunny's condition had taken a turn for the worse; or maybe he had already died. Gela began to yell, as if trying to push back the sudden dread that had ambushed him:
"Bunny! Open the door! Little brother Bunny, open up! I've come to see you! Uncle Enbo, please open the door! I've come to see little brother Bunny!"
Still there was no hint of a noise from above. He tried calling the names of Bunny's other family members: aunty Ler Kymcog, grandma Er Chiang. He tried calling for great uncle Jamcan Gonbo too, imitating Bunny's tone, but the house above remained ominously silent. Gela's fellow villagers, on the other hand, could hear his begging quite clearly, and listened with ears perked as his voice progressed from anxiety to mourning. More and more of them began drifting over to Enbo's courtyard hedge where they stood in a silent group, like vultures waiting to share a corpse after a sky burial.
It was not out of any compassion or tenderness that so many people gathered to watch such a spectacle; their lives were far too wretched and too cheap for that kind of sentimentality. Besides, they had been trained to always look for some kind of comfort in the suffering of others. Before long, the gang of kids turned up: Aga, the Wangtie brothers, Jimi harelip, and the new addition, Yangtze, younger brother of Suopo. These children were true vultures, raised with savage hearts in a new era. They took after their fathers and older brothers, who a dozen or so years ago had been released from their old social stations by the advent of Communism, and who had been playing tyrants in the village ever since. The kids joined in with Gela's shouting:
"Open the door!"
"Open the door! Open the door!"
"Open the door, open the door, open the door!"
"Open the door, open the door, open the door, open, open, open! door, door, door!"
Gela's yells turned to despair. The door of fate, which he thought had opened a chink of light to him, in actuality, was shut as tight as ever, just like the real door in front of which he was now standing. No amount of yelling would change that; it was never going to open for him. He laid his head against the door, which was pleasantly warm—a gift from the morning sun, though to Gela it felt like warmth was coming from something in the wood of the door. The door, which once was open to him, now was shut. He had no strength left to go on shouting—even if the spirit of fate itself were waiting for him behind that door, he still would have had no choice but to give up shouting.
But he couldn't stop either, not with so many unsympathetic people standing there, waiting for him to fail, for his energy to dry up and his will to buckle. In truth, that's exactly what they were all waiting for, though none of them had verbalised their shared desire. Anyway, Gela couldn't stop now. He thought of collapsing and dying on the floor in front of them, but he stayed on his feet, his head still resting against the door. He began to talk quietly to himself:
"Little brother Bunny, open the door, I've come to see you, I've brought you some venison …"
He paused for a second.
"Uncle Enbo … I know … they must have told you it was me who threw the firecracker at little brother Bunny … but I was on the mountain getting the meat when it happened."
Another pause.
"Grandma Er Chiang, I was on the mountain when the bus came!"
He kept on mumbling to himself, while the gang of boys heckled from behind him:
"Beg Brother Enbo to forgive you! You hurt his son!"
"Hey!" one of them shouted, "you up there, can you hear me? The person who hurt your little boy is outside—he's come to ask your forgiveness!"
Gela knew his heart was about to explode with hatred. At that moment, if he had a weapon powerful enough, he would have killed every person there without thinking. If he had that force in his hands, he would have felt no remorse, even if he had to kill them twice over. But he didn't have a weapon, let alone one powerful enough to kill so many people at once. He was a sheep facing a pack of wolves.
In the end, it was Sangdan who rescued him. She pulled his head into her chest and said into his ear: "Come on, we're going home, we're going home."
He felt ashamed to be in this state in front of his mother, so ashamed, he could barely stand. He didn't dare to look at her face. In front of the crowd, callous in their silence, he felt the same shame, mixed with anger. He couldn't even lift his head from the ground. He allowed his mother to take him home, holding him all the way.
"Ah-ma" , he murmured, "you know I was up the mountain getting the meat, I never had any firecrackers, I didn't hurt Bunny …"
"Shhh" she shushed him, "see how many people there are? So many people …"
When they emerged from the crowd, she said to him: "I know, I know, I know what you are trying to say." Then, her tears began to fall, splashing on top of Gela's head. Gela looked up at her. It looked as if she were saying something; her lips were trembling at a very high frequency, but no sound was coming out. Clearly she'd gone mute, as was usual when she was scared.
Gela felt as if someone were tearing his heart apart.
"Ah-ma," he said, "don't be angry, Ah-ma, don't be scared, ok?"
Sangdan's lips were still shaking, and the hint of clarity that had surfaced so recently on her face was gone, replaced by the old bewilderment and emptiness.
She kept clutching Gela's hand in hers even after they were safely home, as if he would disappear forever if she let go.
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