by Leslie Gould
Was it because she thought God might call her to follow in her mother’s footsteps? Was she afraid of finally understanding her mother?
Maybe it didn’t matter. She would never go anyway. When the offering plate came around, she dropped in her allowance money and then glanced at her watch. It was 8:45. She wiped her eyes on the shiny fabric of her jacket, eased out of the pew, slipped through the front door of the church, and hurried next door to the library. She pulled a book on the Incas from the stack and sat at a table, leafing through it mindlessly.
Her father found her there, staring at a photo of a clay vessel painted with flowers and parrots. Guilt gripped her. She had never lied to him before, not like this.
“You seem tired,” he said.
“Not really.”
Neither spoke as they drove home, but when her father pulled the car into the driveway he asked, “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
She drew in a breath. “I wasn’t at the library, not the whole time. I was at the church next door. A missionary who used to be in Vietnam spoke there tonight.”
He reached out and touched her shoulder. She turned toward him. “I’m sorry I lied.”
“I’m sorry you lied too.” They sat in silence for a moment. “How was the meeting?” he said.
“Really sad.” Without explaining, she headed to the dark house.
That night after her father had shut his bedroom door, Gen dug in the bottom of her sock drawer and found the figurine of the Vietnamese girl holding the wooden doll. Gen held the carving under the light of her lava lamp. The tip of the nose had chipped off. The figurine smiled back at Gen, and she clutched it close, thinking of that last night with her mom.
She would pray for Kim and for the nameless Vietnamese girl. She would pray about what God might want from her someday, trust that it would be something she could do, something that wouldn’t bring her father more stress and grief. She gripped the carving tightly as she prayed.
Chapter 6
Twelve-year-old Lan pulled her torn plastic poncho closer as she huddled beneath the makeshift tarp that stretched over the shacks outdoor cooking area. A curtain of rain fell, dripping through holes in the tarp.
It had been nearly a year since the shrapnel from the land mine pierced her lung, but she still struggled for breath when smoke from the factories and oil refineries hung in the air. She hoped Mother brought more food, maybe some fish for the soup, or vegetables, or bean curd.
Lan struggled to her feet to heat the broth from last night over the charcoal stove. Saliva filled her mouth. She swallowed hard. She added dark green morning glory leaves that she had pulled from beside the road and a handful of cooked rice from breakfast. She watched intently until the tiny jumps of liquid grew into exploding bubbles, spurting broth toward the top of the soup pot. She turned down the heat. Mother was late.
The relentless rain continued. Not the hot, sun-heated rain of the afternoon, but a constant cool rain that left her chilled.
She hadn’t been back to school since the accident. It had taken months for her to heal. An infection had kept her in bed and sent Mother off to borrow money to buy the medicine. Now Mother owed money and needed her help.
“Hello, Lan.” A shy neighbor stood at the edge of the yard in the last light of the day. He was young, just twenty. His wife, Nhu, was expecting their first baby.
Lan stood. The young man hung his head. “I need a shovel. Do you have one?”
Why would they have a shovel? Lan stifled a giggle as she imagined grabbing one four years before when they left the rubber tree grove and then carrying it all the way to Vung Tau. Did he want to dig a latrine? Perhaps his was full.
She smiled. Nhu had sat with Lan after the land mine accident. Nhu reminded Lan of Older Sister—pretty, talkative, outgoing, cheerful, ready to help. The way Older Sister acted before her American boyfriend left. The young wife had talked constantly of her baby even though she was just a couple of months pregnant then. How smart he would be. How tall. What a good job he would have someday. Remembering Older Sister and home had made Lan want to cry. They would all be there if it hadn’t been for the war. But she had been thankful for the company of the neighbor woman, thankful for the chatter, thankful to be included in Nhu’s hopes for her child.
Lan shook her head. “No. No shovel here.” She wished Nhu had come instead of the man. He was hard to talk to. She squatted to stir the soup. She thought of the husband she hoped to have someday; he would know how to carry on a conversation.
“Is your mother home?” he asked.
Lan shook her head again. The light was too dim to see the neighbor’s eyes. She held the wooden spoon over the pot as she turned her head toward a rustling at the edge of the yard. She expected Nhu, but it was Mother. Her yoke hung across her shoulders, and her two baskets swung as though empty.
“What is it?” Mother’s conical hat bobbed as she spoke. “Is it time for the baby?”
The neighbor shook his head. “The baby came already. A boy. But he’s dead. I must bury him.”
Lan’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Lan, go ask old Mr. Nguyen for a shovel. Bring it to us as quickly as you can.” Mother put her arm around the neighbor and led him toward the street. His shoulders shook.
A sob escaped from Lan. Why? Why did Nhu’s baby die?
It took half an hour to find Mr. Nguyen drinking rice wine in the soup shop down the street. Timidly she asked to borrow the shovel. “Speak up,” he shouted. He stood when he found out that Nhu’s baby had died. He bumped the table and then knocked over the red plastic chair behind him. He shuffled back to the shack he shared with his four grown daughters and pulled the shovel out from the dark corner behind his hammock.
A sliver from the decaying handle pierced the pad of Lan’s hand as she carried it through the rain. The metal blade of the shovel dripped orange rust into the mud. She stood in the doorway of the neighbors’ shack. Rain ran down her face and matted her hair where she had tried to brush it away from her eyes. Under her useless poncho, the rain had plastered her thin shirt and pants to her skin. Finally Mother turned and saw her. Lan jerked her eyes away from the sleeping mat where the man crouched beside his wife and dead baby.
As she handed Mother the shovel, Lan opened her mouth to speak and then shut it again quickly.
“What?” Mother asked. “What is it?”
Lan shook her head.
“Go ahead,” Mother said. “Ask me.”
Lan opened her mouth again, paused, and then carefully formed her words. “Did you bring any food? I’m hungry.” She longed for something more than thin broth and rice.
Without answering, Mother turned away from Lan and walked back toward the grieving couple.
Lan slowly opened her eyes. The shack was dark except for the ribbon of moonlight that trespassed through the crack in the wall. In her dream she’d been running through the grove of rubber trees.
The rain had stopped; the silence must have awakened her.
She reached over for Mother under the mosquito net. She wasn’t there. Lan regretted asking Mother if she had brought food. It was obvious she hadn’t, and Mother had taught her better than that. She had taught her to honor others, to show compassion to those who hurt. Lan sat up on her mat and hugged her skinny knees to her chest, squeezing away the panic. She wrapped her arms around her thin body and felt the scars on her back. The threads of her still-damp cotton top separated between her fingertips as she touched the scar tissue. It wouldn’t be long until her only shirt was full of holes.
Lan’s stomach growled. Soon the loudspeaker would crackle with the five-thirty morning reveille. When Mother came back, she would yank the comb through Lan’s hair to pull out the lice, and then they would go to the market to sell fruit.
Where was Mother? What if something happened to her? She heard a rustling in the corner. Rats. Why did they come every night? There was no food. Lan thought of Nhu’s dead baby. She struggled to breathe in the humid nig
ht. Que ta volonté soit faite, she silently recited, remembering the prayer the nuns had taught her. Thy will be done.
Footsteps fell in the doorway. Lan stiffened. Quietly Mother slipped through the door, carrying a bag in one hand and a bundle under her other arm.
“Lan, you should be asleep.” Mother stepped out of her flip-flops.
“Where were you?”
“Getting food.” Mother put the bag that she carried next to Lan’s sleeping mat.
“I’m sorry I asked about something to eat when I brought the shovel. I shouldn’t have.” Lan peeked up at: her mother.
Mother squatted beside Lan and put an arm around her. “Hush, hush,” she said. “You were hungry.”
Lan pulled in a deep breath.
Mother still held the bundle in her other hand.
“Where did you go? What’s in the package?”
“I went to Mr. Vuong’s. He had rice for us—and some vegetables, even some bean curd. I went to pick it up after I finished helping the neighbors.”
Lan thought of Mr. Vuong, the clothes merchant in the square. His shop stood next to the new mural of Ho Chi Minh. She’d seen the way Mr. Vuong leered at Mother. He was old with greasy hair. She imagined her mother breaking the curfew, sneaking to the shop, and then hurrying back, walking in the shadows, perhaps barefoot so no one, especially their Communist cell leader, would hear the slap of her flip-flops against her feet.
“Here.” Mother handed Lan the bundle of silk. “He sent pants and a top for you.”
Lan unwound the clothes. This wasn’t the first time Mother had come home in the middle of the night with food. It was the first time she had brought clothes. Lan had heard Mother talking with the other women who worked in the market about men, about how few there were after the war, about how none of the women would find a husband.
“We’ll do the best we can,” said the woman who sold hats. Sometimes she spoke French to Lan, and Lan would repeat what she said, thinking of the nuns, remembering what they had taught her.
Mr. Vuong had stared at Lan last week with the same hungry expression she’d seen him give Mother. She had blushed and darted around the corner. “Your daughters growing up,” Mr. Vuong had said to Mother.
“No, no. She’s only ten,” Mother had lied.
“She’s pretty, like you.” The tone of his voice frightened Lan. She wondered what expression passed across his face.
“No, no.” Mother’s voice had sounded strained. “She’s just a child.”
“Why do you go to his store in the middle of the night?” Lan asked as Mother stretched down on the mat beside her.
“Hush. Let me sleep. I’m sick from exhaustion, and it’s almost time to get up.”
“Why do you go?” Lan asked again, her voice louder.
Mother rolled away from her daughter and toward the wall. “I am the widow of a captain of the South Vietnamese Army. We have no future. I go to Mr. Vuong because I love you. You’ll understand someday. Now go to sleep.”
In the morning Lan cooked the rice but refused to eat it. Mother, her eyes red and heavy, scowled at her, squinting against the bright sun as Lan squatted by the stove, but said nothing. Lan worked Mrs. Le’s fruit stall in the market while Mother sold lychee nuts on the beach. At noon Mother took the money Lan had earned to help pay their debts and sent her home to rest.
It was after sundown when Mother returned. Lan hadn’t started dinner. Mother sighed and squatted to start the stove. She bent over to light the charcoal, but it was gone, and the bag was empty. She dug in her money pouch and counted the nearly worthless bills in her hand. She went into the shack, curled up on the mat, and fell asleep. The next day she brought a bag of charcoal. Lan refused the rice again.
Mother ignored Lan and ate her dinner in silence.
The next morning Lan rose too quickly and, feeling faint, bent down. When Lan could finally stand upright, Mother shook her head. “Stay home and rest. Eat the rice while I’m gone,” she muttered. “All I need is for you to get sick again.”
That evening Mother brought half of a smelly fish to cook with the rice. Lan wondered if Mother had been able to pay any money on their debt. Lan intended to refuse the rice again, but Mother grabbed her tightly by the arm while dinner cooked. “Don’t insult me with your principles. Don’t be a stubborn idealist like your brother. If you don’t eat, I’ll lose you, too. You’re all I have.”
“You have Mr. Vuong.”
Mother spit in the dirt.
Lan ate the fish and rice.
Chapter 7
Aunt Marie, I’m going for a run.” Gen opened the front door and welcomed the cool upturn of autumn air. “I’ll be back in an hour!” The district meet for cross-country was next week; she was on the varsity team.
“Genevieve!”
She sprinted down the walkway to the street, not wanting her aunt to comment on her running shorts.
“Genevieve! You didn’t comb your hair,” Aunt Marie shouted.
Gen forced a smile and ran her hand through her short hair. “It’s fine,” she called back.
“How long will you be gone?” Aunt Marie stood on the porch with her hands planted on her hips.
“An hour.” Gen headed down the middle of the street and flinched as she heard the front door slam. Thank goodness her father would return in a few hours from his conference in Washington, D.C. She couldn’t stand another night at Aunt Marie’s. She turned onto the sidewalk on Fremont Street and headed east.
The crisp air filled Gen’s lungs. The branches of the maple trees that lined the street lurched in the wind, and soggy leaves littered the sidewalk. Where was she headed? Home. It was two miles from Aunt Marie’s. Last night when Gen had asked if Aunt Marie would take her home this morning just a few hours before her dad returned, her aunt had answered firmly, “No. I am responsible for you. I’ll take you home, with your father, after we pick him up at the airport.”
The chain-link fence across the street caught Gen’s attention. It had been six years since she’d gone inside the gate. She sped across the street and ran through the entrance of the cemetery and then turned onto a pathway lined with holly trees, their scraggly, haunting branches pointed toward the ground. She passed the Gypsy graves and estimated twenty-five with the same last name, all crowded together. Many of the markers were large crypts made of concrete and marble. She imagined the extended families, all of them related somehow, and then thought of the generations, both dead and alive, and the ones to come.
The wind lifted the tiny twigs of a nearby birch tree as loneliness swept over her. She ran faster, away from the crypts, away from the endless family, away from the loneliness that raced beside her, toward the mausoleum. She slowed. There it was. Sally Jane Hauer. She stopped. Mama. The wind of loneliness stirred again; it seeped through her skin, wrapped around her bones, crawled along the base of her spine.
A green plastic pot of soggy chrysanthemums sat on the concrete pad against the sandy-colored marble stone. Had Dad brought them? All these years she assumed he didn’t stop at the cemetery. Had she been wrong?
“I graduate next year.” She said it out loud. She hadn’t meant to. “I’m sixteen, a junior. I’m getting an A in chemistry. I’m thinking about becoming a nurse like you, or maybe a teacher. I’ll probably go to OSU, down in Corvallis; it’s only a couple of hours away.” After a short pause she said, “I just got my driver’s license. I’m running cross-country—it drives Aunt Marie nuts.” Gen laughed just a little. “She says it’s crazy for a girl to run. Everyone says I look like you, except for my short hair.”
Beloved Mother. It sounded so old-fashioned. She couldn’t keep her eyes away from the other half of the marker. Beloved Father. Why had her father put his name on the marker? “Dad’s coming home from Washington, D.C., today. He didn’t say whether he was going to see the Vietnam Memorial or not. We watched the dedication on TV—I think you would like it.” Gen raised her arms over her head, took a deep breath, and then dangled
her hands at her side. The loneliness eased. “I can’t figure out the Vietnam thing,” she said. “How I feel about it. The war. You going there. You dying there. Sometimes I think I understand why you went. Other times I don’t.
“Dad says that the U.S. never should have pulled out of Vietnam when they did, that we should have seen it through, made sure the South stayed democratic. He said that you didn’t think the U.S. should have ever gotten involved, that Ho Chi Minh won the election and should have been the leader after defeating the French. He said that you thought that Ho Chi Minh cared about the people of Vietnam.
“I did a report on Vietnam last spring. Dad told me to include that Kennedy got us into Vietnam with good reason. He said that Vietnam was one more domino to the Russians and if it wasn’t for the U.S. the whole world would be Communist.”
Gen paused for a second. “It was the most he’d said at once for a long time. He’s a good dad. He loves me. He loves you, too. He still misses you.” She paused again, glanced back at the Gypsy crypts, and then continued. “I miss you too. We’re doing okay, but it still feels like everything fell apart after you died. I try to be nice to Aunt Marie, really I do.” She crossed her fingers behind her back.
Gen didn’t feel foolish talking to the slab of marble. Mom couldn’t hear her; at least that’s what Aunt Marie would say. Still, it felt good to speak out loud.
What would Mom want to know? “There are kids at my school from Vietnam. Lots of them. Some fled at the end of the war, but most escaped by boat with their families. Things are really bad in Vietnam right now. Not enough food or medicine. The people who fought for the South are in reeducation camps, and they can’t work. It would make you sad.”