Beauty Rising

by Mark W. Sasse

  “Lots of American pilots shot down around here,” Tan woke me out of my trance. “You don’t have a camera?”

  “No.”

  “That stolen too?”

  “No.”

  “How come you spend so much money to come to Vietnam but only spend two days and don’t bring a camera?”

  “There was something I had to do.”

  “I know. You had to find banana trees by a lake in Tay Nguyen,” Tan laughed. I didn’t think it was particularly funny. “I never understand Americans. I like Americans. I do. Mr. Jason, he’s a good friend of mine. But sometimes I don’t understand him. On Tet New Year, he comes to my house for a meal, but he shows up wearing short pants and shirt with no sleeve. Very strange. That’s clothes for sleeping not for visiting. How come you don’t wear short pants? All Americans wear short pants. Maybe you are too fat,” he answered his own question.

  I had to keep reminding myself how grateful I was for Tan.

  “Let’s go. Nothing more to see here. We will go to Ba Dinh Square. Only one kilometer from here.”

  As I turned to walk back to the taxi, two sprawling trees ablaze with the color red stood staring back at me.

  “What kind of tree is this?” I asked.

  “Oh, this is the Phuong tree. Phuong tree one of the most beautiful trees in Vietnam. Many girls have name Phuong too. In English, we call it ‘flame tree’.”

  “It does look like it is on fire. Very beautiful.”

  “Just like Vietnamese women. On fire, and beautiful,” he started laughing uncontrollably. “What you think of Vietnamese women? You have a girlfriend?”

  “No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “You should meet a Vietnamese girl. You want a Vietnamese girl?”

  “No. I’m leaving Vietnam tomorrow.”

  “Why you don’t want Vietnamese girl? Lots of Vietnamese girls like American men.”

  “Even American men who have no money?”

  Tan started laughing uncontrollably again.

  “That’s right. You have no money. No chance to get Vietnamese girl. Vietnamese mothers okay with daughter marrying American man if he has money. But no money, no chance, especially someone big and fat like you,” he smiles and breaks off a small branch of the Phuong tree. “Here. This is a symbol of a Vietnamese girl you could have had if you had money.”

  I took the flaming red flower of the Phuong tree and put it into my shirt pocket as the only Vietnamese souvenir I could afford. Then we hopped into the car and began once again driving down the narrow streets dodging animals, bicycles, three wheeled trishaws, swarms of motorbikes and other cars which continually beeped their horns for no discernible reason.

  Ba Dinh Square revealed itself in an obvious way. I felt like the square’s expanse could have contained all of Lyndora. The massive open air square was divvied up into small sections of grass separated by cement sidewalks. Next to the vast lawn was a very broad avenue which authorities had permanently blocked to all motorized traffic. On the other side of the avenue stood the tallest structure in the square –– the granite columned mausoleum of Vietnam’s beloved ‘Uncle Ho’ – Ho Chi Minh. Ho, who had died of natural causes in 1969 during the Vietnam War, was permanently preserved – lying in state in a Sleeping Beauty-like glass case placed in a dimly lit chamber guarded by stoic soldiers. His skin looked pale and wax-like. The whole experience of standing in line and walking in a single file, silent parade past the body of the one who led them to freedom from the French, kind of creeped me out. It felt good to emerge from the darkness back into the sunshine. As we reached the other end of the square, we stopped to overlook the immense French built, mustard colored presidential palace.

  “Ba Dinh Square is the most famous square in Vietnam. It was right over by the mausoleum on September 2, 1945 that Uncle Ho stood up and declared our independence from the French. And you know, he borrowed the first line of the American Declaration of Independence to also be the first line of Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence.”

  “Really? Is that true?”

  “Yes. ‘All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.’”

  “Really? That’s true? I never heard that before.”

  “Yes. That’s true. Ho Chi Minh liked Americans. You know that day on September 2, 1945, there are American soldiers here too, in the crowd, listening to him declare independence. You see, two months earlier, American soldiers parachuted into Vietnam and trained Ho Chi Minh’s soldiers so they could better fight against the Japanese. American soldiers right here.”

  Another piece of trivia I never learned at Butler High.

  “You know something else. No one likes to talk about this, but it’s true. You know in Ho Chi Minh’s will, he wanted to be cremated. He didn’t want to have a mausoleum. He didn’t want to be preserved. No, he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted his ashes divided into three and spread out in each part of Vietnam – north, central, south.”

  I couldn’t help but think that maybe I should have done that to dad. Divided the ashes in three and dumped them in each region of Vietnam just to cover all the bases. But no. I had to accidently spill them over a thousand miles away from his intended resting place.

  My mother and Lyndora had nearly faded from my consciousness. I lived history. I understood American history more in two hours with a Vietnamese taxi driver than I did spending year after year sitting through social studies classes at Butler High.

  By 1 PM, we had visited the B52 site, Ba Dinh Square, Uncle Ho’s House on Stilts, the famed One Pillar Pagoda and the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Tan then treated me to Bun Cha – a famous Hanoi dish of charcoal grilled strips of pork in a spicy vinegar sauce with rice noodles. The twelve hour time zone difference really hit me after lunch, so I napped in the back seat of Tan’s taxi while he slept in the front seat enjoying his normal mid-day siesta.

  I dreamt I was back at the banana tree and I had the ashes in the Rubbermaid container. From behind one of the banana tree branches stood a Vietnamese girl wearing a conical hat and a long flowing white ao dai – their traditional long dress with pants underneath. I cocked my head to the side to see her face. She moved slightly, and I could tell she smiled at me. I wanted to get closer, but I held the ashes. I needed to do something with the ashes. She smiled again and waved for me to come. Her face was pale – almost ghostly white. Her skin had no blemishes. Her beauty drew me, and I wanted to be with her, but the ashes wouldn’t let me leave. So I quickly opened the red lid of the container and dumped them on the ground right next to me. As I took two steps toward the girl, I quickly looked back, and I had this sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. Those were not my dad’s ashes. No. They were not my dad’s ashes. ‘Mom’, I said looking at the pile of ashes on the ground. Then I remembered the girl and turned back towards her, but she was gone.

  Tan jiggled my belly back and forth.

  “Martin. Wake up. Time to go to prison.”

  I rubbed my eyes and shook off the bizarre feeling the dream left me in.

  “Here. See here? This is Hoa Lo prison.”

  Tall mustard yellow cement walls stood about fifteen feet tall right out my taxi window. The tops of the wall were sprinkled with colored broken glass and several strings of barbed wire. In the background, a large modern skyscraper dwarfed the prison.

  “During the war with the Americans, the American soldiers called this the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. But this prison not important to us because of that. This prison held many, many patriots who fought in the war of Independence from the French. Come. We see.”

  We walked through the arched doorway and came to the ticket seller who expected me to dish over the equivalent of three U.S. dollars to get in. However, Tan did some quick talking, supposedly about how I had no money. She eventually smiled, then laughed. The joke was obviously on me again.

  “Come on. It’s okay,” Tan finally said and we entered into the diml
y lit, grim prison chambers. Tan told me all about the heroic efforts of the Vietnamese political prisoners who escaped and constantly lived under threat of death. Death in this prison was by guillotine, which was still on display in one of the larger rooms.

  “Many Vietnamese patriots lost their heads here. But their cause was not lost. When we became independent from the French, all Vietnamese – both living and dead – rejoiced greatly. We all like to be free.”

  “You’re right,” I said as I looked over the long list of Vietnamese martyrs listed on the wall next to the guillotine.

  “That’s why it seem so strange when America comes to fight in Vietnam. We know America is the land of the free. Statue of Liberty. We only wanted to be free too – like America.”

  I paused for a moment and wondered how to respond.

  “Well, sometimes we perceive things differently from one another.”

  I sensed he didn’t know what the word perceive meant.

  “My dad. He came to Vietnam because he thought he was doing the right thing. He wanted to serve his country and promote freedom. But…”

  “Did he like Vietnam?” Tan asked.

  “He had a terrible experience in Vietnam. It changed his whole life.”

  “So your dad didn’t like Vietnam?”

  “Only the women,” I smiled at Tan.

  “Yes, Vietnamese women very beautiful. But you broke, remember,” Tan said as he burst out laughing again.

  As we entered one of the last rooms of the prison, we finally met the American soldiers. On the walls were pictures of many of the prisoners of war who had been captured in North Vietnam and collectively served many years at the Hanoi Hilton. There were pictures of the soldiers attending mass at the Catholic Church. There were pictures of the soldiers cleaning a turkey getting ready to celebrate American Thanksgiving. There were pictures of soldiers at rest and soldiers at play. It was a wonderful display of propaganda meant to show how well the American prisoners were treated.

  “See. American soldiers treated real well here. Real well,” Tan said.

  “So, all of these pictures are true?” I asked being a little skeptical.

  “Of course. We love Americans.”

  The Trip Home

  I was wide awake at 2 A.M. still on Lyndora time. Jason slept silently in his bed as I gazed at the ceiling from his sofa trying to take everything in. I dreaded going home and I loathed thinking about what life at home after dad would be like. In a strange way, I felt closer to dad now than I had since I was a boy. I thought about the photo of him and me at Conneaut Lake, and then I thought about the time we spent together at Nui Coc Lake in Thai Nguyen. Even though I miscalculated by a thousand miles, the connection felt remarkably strong. What would mom be like without dad to provoke her? Would she soften in her widowhood or had I already driven her into an embittered state by dragging up old wounds and going against her wishes? I wondered how my life would ever go back to normal, and if I actually wanted it to. I couldn’t imagine showing up at the stockroom with much enthusiasm. The thought of unloading hand mixers, TVs, gardening soil, and boxes of Tylenol seemed absurd. Is that what my life had really become? The world in Vietnam seemed so vibrant and alive, and I a mere hollow shell drifting back and forth between my couch, my work, my bed, and my bowling alley. What a waste my life has been, I thought. How could I go back to that house? Maybe I could move? Maybe I could get my own apartment? How about a new job? These thoughts flew in and out of my mind for hours as I kept replaying the last week and a half while trying to anticipate what the future had in store for me – a fatherless Martin Kinney Jr. I half-laughed out loud when I thought of the word fatherless – like I ever had a father to begin with.

  I dozed in and out for the next four hours and finally got out of bed at six. Tan was to be there at 6:15 to take me to the airport. After I came out of the bathroom, Jason was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, morning. You ready to take off?”

  “I guess so. Oh, and I’m sorry to tell you this,” I started to confess. “But when I sat on your toilet, the seat broke. I’m really sorry.”

  Jason started laughing.

  “I can’t even take a crap right these days.”

  Jason rolled in laughter then chimed in, “Don’t worry about it. These Vietnamese bathrooms are hardly meant for Americans. Those toilet seats are about as sturdy as a saltine. But I’m sure these little Vietnamese butts could sit on a saltine without cracking it.” He smiled and handed me an envelope. “I mean, you did notice the shower head, right? Metal fixture coming right out of the wall at a height of around five feet five. I have to hunch over just to get my hair wet.”

  His easy going attitude made me laugh, and I reached for the envelope.

  “What’s this?”

  “You are going to need a little cash.”

  “No, no, you’ve been-“

  “Martin. You need to pay the airport tax to get out of the country. Then you need a little cash for food or whatever.”

  “But”

  “Martin, it’s okay. It’s my pleasure to help you. Really.”

  “I don’t know what to say. You’ve been really kind to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “Tan told me about your father’s death and what you tried to do for him. I really respect that. I know it’s been a tough week for you, so I’m glad I could make it a little better.”

  “Thank you,” I said, appreciative of a level of kindness I never experienced in my own home. “I hope to come back to Vietnam someday. I was just starting to experience it.”

  “You should do that, and let me know when you are coming.” He looked down at his watch. “It’s almost 6:15. Tan will be waiting outside the main gate. We should go.”

  Tan wasn’t there. While we waited Jason bought me a small plastic bag filled with sticky rice, shaved pork and fried onions. I devoured it in about three bites.

  At 6:40, Tan arrived in his white and blue taxi apologizing for being late because of his breakfast. But he assured me that we would make it to the airport on time. I thanked Jason again for his kindness and we drove off, dodging a rapid river of motorcycles every inch of the way. After about twenty minutes of nudging our way through traffic, we entered the highway and before I knew it we were crossing that same Thang Long Bridge exiting the city. The Red River did have a tinge of red to its muddy water. I glanced back once to see the mass of cement houses of Hanoi surrounded by a smattering of high rises in each direction. Another fifteen minutes and we passed the toll booth and came to the final cross roads; straight went to the airport; on the right side of the road stood a green road sign “Thai Nguyen 50KM”. I thought of dad, and immediately my breathing picked up and I had a nervous twinge right through my stomach and a small swelling of tears in my eyes. He’s so far away. He’ll be so far away forever, was the only thing I could think. I started to second guess myself. Should I have really have brought his remains here? Why didn’t I just listen to Mom? He’s an American veteran who had his ashes poured in the heartland of communist Vietnam. Tan mumbled non-stop about various English questions to which I only grunted in reply. He answered all his own questions anyways so it didn’t matter.

  “Here you go, Mr. Martin.”

  “Tan, thank you so much for all of your help. I learned so much about Vietnam, and I couldn’t have survived without you.”

  “You’re welcome Mr. Martin. You write me an email, okay?”

  “When I get a computer, I will. And I’ll pay you back for all your taxi rides.”

  “No, no, no. It’s okay.”

  I nodded in appreciation again and then walked into Noi Bai Airport in search of my flight home. I flew from Hanoi to Bangkok to Tokyo to Los Angeles. Twenty seven hours including layovers. I kept wondering what I would find when I got home. On the flight to Bangkok I sat between two scrawny Vietnamese men. They both reminded me of Tan, as they talked non-stop to each other right over top of me. My la
rge frame did nothing to impede them. My flights were a frightening and uncomfortable time of anticipation. I was lonely. I missed my two-day old friends, and I missed Hanoi. On the long flight to LA from Tokyo, I sat next to a Catholic priest who was returning to San Diego from a youth conference in the Philippines. We talked civilly on and off throughout the flight. At one point the conversation turned to religion.

  “Do you believe in God?” he asked.

  I thought fast. I really didn’t want to get into it.

  “I was just in church last week,” I said slickly.

  For some reason that response satisfied him. I shuddered in horror to think of him probing deeper along those lines. I don’t think I could have told this story at that point.

  When we landed at LAX, everyone was herded into the immigration lines. I followed the crowd feeling incredibly out of place. When my turn came, I approached the immigration officer who stood behind a counter with a computer screen in front of him.

  “Can I have your passport?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said nervously and reached into the front pocket of my jeans – the same jeans that had lost the wallet out of the back pocket – and handed it to him.

  “Where are you coming from, sir?”

  “Tokyo.”

  “How long were you in Tokyo?”

  “Just two hours.”

  “Where did you come from before that?”

  “Bangkok.”

  “How long were you in Thailand?”

  “Just two hours.”

  The officer at this point looked up at me and had a perturbed look on his face.

  “Mr. Kinney. What I’m getting at is where were you spending your time overseas? I’m not asking about your layovers.”

  “Sorry. I was in Vietnam.”

  “And how long were you in Vietnam.”

  “Two days.”

  “And what other countries have you visited,” he persisted.