Windup Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi Page B

Chinese, blessedly protected by her clan and King. Tranh suppresses envy.
    “More like four for four.” He makes a pun of the homonyms. Sz for sz .   Four for death.   “They’ve got blister rust.”
    She waves a hand sourly. “Five for five.   They’re still good. Better than good. Picked just before.” She wields a gleaming machete and chops the durian in half, revealing the clean yellow slime of its interior with its fat gleaming pits. The sickly sweet scent of fresh durian boils up and envelopes them.   “See! Inside good. Picked just in time. Still safe.”
    “I might buy one.” He can’t afford any. But he can’t help replying. It feels too good to be seen as a buyer.   It is his suit, he realizes. The Hwang Brothers have raised him in this woman’s eyes. She wouldn’t have spoken if not for the suit. Wouldn’t have even started the conversation.
    “Buy more! The more you buy, the more you save.”
    He forces a grin, wondering how to get away from the bargaining he should never have started. “I’m only one old man. I don’t need so much.”
    “One skinny old man.   Eat more. Get fat!”  
    She says this and they both laugh. He searches for a response, something to keep their comradely interaction alive, but his tongue fails him. She sees the helplessness in his eyes.   She shakes her head. “Ah, grandfather. It is hard times for everyone. Too many of you all at once. No one thought it would get so bad down there.”
    Tranh ducks his head, embarrassed. “I’ve troubled you. I should go.”
    “Wait. Here.” She offers him the durian half. “Take it.”
    “I can’t afford it.”
    She makes an impatient gesture. “Take it. It’s lucky for me to help someone from the old country.” She grins. “And the blister rust looks too bad to sell to anyone else.”
    “You’re kind. Buddha smile on you.” But as he takes her gift he again notices the great durian pile behind her. All neatly stacked with their blotches and their bloody weals of blister rust.   Just like stacked Chinese heads in Malacca: his wife and daughter mouths staring out at him, accusatory. He drops the durian and kicks it away, frantically scraping his hands on his jacket, trying to get the blood off his palms.
    “Ai! You’ll waste it!”
    Tranh barely hears the woman’s cry. He staggers back from the fallen durian, staring at its ragged surface. Its gut-spilled interior. He looks around wildly. He has to get out of the crowds. Has to get away from the jostling bodies and the durian reek that’s all around, thick in his throat, gagging him. He puts a hand to his mouth and runs, clawing at the other shoppers, fighting through their press.
    “Where you go? Come back! Huilai!” But the woman’s words are quickly drowned. Tranh shoves through the throng, pushing aside women with shopping baskets full of white lotus root and purple eggplants, dodging farmers and their clattering bamboo hand carts, twisting past tubs of squid and serpent head fish. He pelts down the market alley like a thief identified, scrambling and dodging, running without thought or knowledge of where he is going, but running anyway, desperate to escape the stacked heads of his family and countrymen.
    He runs and runs.
    And bursts into the open thoroughfare of Charoen Krung Road.   Powdered dung dust and hot sunlight wash over him. Cycle rickshaws clatter past.   Palms and squat banana trees shimmer green in the bright open air.  
    As quickly as it seized him, Tranh’s panic fades. He stops short, hands on his knees, catching his breath and cursing himself. Fool. Fool. If you don’t eat, you die. He straightens and tries to turn back but the stacked durians flash in his mind and he stumbles away from the alley, gagging again.   He can’t go back. Can’t face those bloody piles. He doubles over and his stomach heaves but his empty guts bring up nothing but strings of drool.
    Finally he wipes his mouth on a Hwang Brothers sleeve and forces