by Tatjana Soli
"The sons grow to adulthood and the woodcutter grows old, but the tien, being immortal, is as young as the day she stepped out of the picture. The villagers begin to gossip and finally the sons confront the father. When he tells them the truth, they refuse to believe him. Angry, the father unlocks the trunk and shows them the empty frame as proof, but still they scoff. When he leaves for work, the sons confront their mother, who denies it until they mention the frame. She begs them to show it to her, and when they do, she admits the truth and bids them farewell and returns inside the picture forever."
"Does the tien come back?" the younger girl asked.
"Yes. Actually, there is a tien in your village right now."
"Yes? Where?"
"Look for her. She has long golden hair."
"Who are you?" the older girl asked.
"I'm the ghost of this tree, don't you recognize me?"
"No."
"Every time you come by here, I know if you've been a good girl and caught fish for your mama."
"We've been bad today. We played and caught no fish."
Linh laughed. He reached in his pocket and took out a few coins. "Tell Mama you found these lost on the road. So you don't get in trouble to night at least."
The younger girl leaned over and touched him on the knee. "You're a ghost?"
Linh nodded slowly, in his best guess at a ghostly demeanor.
"Will you be here tomorrow?" she asked.
"I'll always be here. You just might not be able to see me."
At sunset, Linh lay back on the long, cool grass of the bank and inhaled the heavy scent of grapefruit blossoms in the evening air. He closed his eyes, remembering the smell of Mai's hair after she washed it, adding a few drops of citrus oil to the rinse so that at night the fragrance permeated their bed when she lay down, making the room a dark grove in which to find her.
He rationed himself only one thought of her each day; otherwise he would not be able to go on. He hoarded his memories like other men did cigarettes or chocolates.
Today was the third anniversary of her death, the period of official mourning over, but he felt he had lost her a hundred years ago and only yesterday. He panicked at times, unable to remember a detail of her face as clearly as before. Worried about the thousand small memories of body that had already vanished from his recollection. Time like a chemical pushing a print too far, a fog overcoming the detail. It pained him that he relied on a few poor photographs of her more and more; everything that made him love her absent from the pictures. The images felt disloyal, as if he were dreaming over a stranger.
The next morning he rose at dawn, again washed in the river, then set off toward Can Tho, hoping to bum rides there for his trip north.
Once he arrived, Linh went to a dirty outdoor cafe and sat at Mr. Bao's table. He had last seen Bao a little more than a month ago, yet he had put on the weight of a year.
"What took you so long?" Mr. Bao said.
"It took time to leave."
"There hasn't been anything as good as the Captain Tong piece since last we talked."
Linh lit a cigarette.
"Why aren't they with you?"
"Darrow is wounded. And they don't go where I direct; it's the other way around."
"You are their friend. Lead with sugar."
Linh hated Mr. Bao's stupid Confucian sayings, his peasant cunning. These were the kinds of drones the party was filling itself with.
Mr. Bao changed tack. "How is your wife's family?"
"I don't know. I imagine not so good, since they got in touch with me."
Mr. Bao nodded. "You must go do your duty to them. The same as your duty to your country."
Linh's anger flared. "What does your duty have to do with selling opium?"
Mr. Bao cracked a thin smile. "You forget your place."
"Darrow and Helen are in the village. Learning of Vietnam. I think this is a good thing."
"Agreed. Next time I see you, I have a shopping list: Wonder Bread, cigarettes, and maybe brandy this time."
Linh skirted his family's village, or what remained of it, never having returned since the night they were taken from him. His wife's sister, Thao, lived in a neighboring hamlet. As soon as they arrived in Saigon, her husband had been caught and inducted into the army; without an income she had been forced to return to the country. After she hadn't heard from her husband in more than a year, she had contacted Linh.
He didn't tell her that casualties among SVA soldiers were high. Officers threw poorly trained recruits into dangerous missions to please their American advisers while staying far away from any action themselves.
"Why does no one tell me if he's alive or dead?" she said. Always the practical one, not as beautiful or talented as her sister, Thao had made more out of less. "How can I remarry otherwise?"
She said that her husband's company had been patrolling the Iron Triangle region when last seen. The joke was that the main harvest of the area was mines; Linh guessed the body had been overlooked. After the false peace of An Giang, where he had left Darrow and Helen, the destruction in this area depressed Linh. Paddies choked in weeds. Starving water buffalo with washboard sides. He watched families bundling belongings, turning their backs on ancestral grounds. Clogged roads. Refugees formed an unrelenting river that poured into the coastal cities of Nha Trang, Danang, and Saigon. He was sorry he had acted so poorly with Mr. Bao.
Thao's village was in the process of being dismantled--huts torn down piece by piece and carted away to someplace with more luck. Some villagers packing to leave; others squatting among the ruins of their homes. The week before they had been subjected to a cordon-and-search, uncovering a substantial weapons cache under one hut, a large supply of rice under another. The huts and bunkers with supplies had been blown up, destroying their livelihood but sparing the people.
Thao's hut was still standing. Inside, she sat on the ground, haggard, her eyes red. She had two children, a girl of four, a boy still suckling at her breast. When Linh appeared in the doorway, Thao looked up at him, no surprise on her face.
"Good, you are here. We can still honor Mai's death anniversary."
"Are you okay?"
"We are alive, but for what?"
He put his arm around her shoulders. The shape of her face, the way she placed her hand on his, brought back with an ache his wife's absence.
"I'm ashamed," Thao cried. "Here you are, and I have no rice, no vegetables, not even incense to honor my sister."
"Get your things. We're leaving."
"For where?"
"I'm going to get a place for you in Saigon. I can look after you and the children better there."
She bowed her head. The baby had fallen away from the breast. Linh saw the nipple, raw and callused. From the thinness of the baby, he guessed she was going dry.
"How can you afford to take us in?"
"Americans pay well."
Thao handed the baby to the girl but left her shirt open. "You were always more practical than your brothers. Cling to the winners in war."
"We'll get doctors and medicine in Saigon," he continued. "We can buy milk."
She looked down at her breast, pressing it with a fingertip till a drop of milky-clear liquid formed. "I've eaten nothing for days."
This sudden contact with the world of women confused Linh; Thao's likeness to Mai inflaming him. He turned away so that she would not notice the heat in his face, as if she could sense the cramped, shaming tingle in his body. "Things will get better now."
She swayed as she got to her feet and spoke sharply to the girl, ordering her to ready the baby. She looked at Linh as she buttoned her blouse. "So you think he's dead?"
"If he is alive, he will find us in Saigon."
Thao gathered yellowed photographs of her and Mai's parents from the altar, a few chipped porcelain bowls, a jade hair comb, putting them in a basket.
"If he is dead," she said, shoving in clothes, "Mai would want us to marry."
"We need to catch the last bus. Tomorrow night we will be eating a steaming bowl of bun cha."
Thao let out a small laugh of relief and placed her hand on his thigh. He picked up her hand and held it clasped between his own two, then dropped it.
"I can try to get a singing job when I fill out again."
"Don't worry, Sister. I'll make sure you are safe. For Mai's sake."
Thao positioned herself in the doorway, in the most flattering light. "You get lonely for her?"
"War distracts me."
"Plenty of babies are born in the war. Haven't you noticed?"
Linh stood outside holding the small girl in his arms. He tried to still the shaking of his hands. Thao had never been like this before, and he knew that desperation made her throw herself at him in this way. Still, it sickened him. He looked off into the thicket of palms and wished he were back in the hamlet in An Giang.
Darrow had begun to radio Linh after three weeks, but Linh answered that he had business in Saigon and needed an additional week. After his arrival, the festival over, Darrow readied his plans to leave while Helen's mood turned darker and darker.
As a farewell, the village chief, Ho Tung, suggested a sightseeing trip. "You must see this, the heart of the province. Strangers do not know this." Two flat-bottomed pole boats appeared. Helen, Darrow, Linh, Ho Tung, and a couple of villagers to guide the boats made up the party. Helen sat in the forward position, her face turned away in brooding contemplation of the surroundings.
At first they went along various branches of the Mekong and Bassac. The rivers changed from green to red to brown, filled with the heavy alluvial silt brought down from the mountains. The boats angled next to seemingly impenetrable walls of water palm, and then one of the boatmen would edge the nose of the canoe into a crevice, push aside some vines, and suddenly they were traveling a thin ribbon of canal no wider than the canoe itself. The chief explained that only the locals could navigate here, the tides so unpredictable that four feet of water might drop down to mud within hours, stranding a boat.
The palms on each side brushed against the passengers, knocking Helen's hat off. The air was close and thick, filled with insects.
"Flies bothering you, love?" Darrow called good-naturedly, knowing her furor, feeling more comfortable in the knowledge that she was, after all, just like other women.
They passed lone thatched huts that fronted the water, doorways filled with chickens scratching in the dirt, naked babies, and old people pulling on pipes. The peasants here lived by harvesting fruit and flowers from deep inside the jungle and got around by boat. Travel on foot was impossible.
Everywhere they stopped, children and women rushed up to stare at the white faces.
Helen finished handing out the full bag of candy they brought long before they reached their destination, an island in the middle of a wide part of the Mekong made by two tributaries joining and depositing silt.
"The rivers in the delta change direction, get bigger or dry up. Land is created and then taken away. Everything always in a state of change," Ho Tung said.
"You look tired, Linh," Darrow said, grinning. Indeed, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his thinness had turned sharp. "Was she at least pretty?"
Linh smiled. He had observed them since his return, how Helen's eyes lingered on Darrow's face, questioning.
"Maybe you need to go back to the war to rest?" Darrow said.
"Maybe we go rest together," Linh said, and Helen burst out in laughter, the first since Linh had arrived.
When they tied the boats along the steep bank and climbed up, the heat was so intense Helen thought the rivers should be boiling. They drank water and ate cold rice for lunch, then the villagers stretched out under the trees to sleep.
"When will you return to America?" Ho Tung asked.
"Soon," Helen answered.
"Can you go to St. Louis, maybe? Check on my granddaughter?"
"It's a very big country," Helen said, and seeing the disappointment, added, "Give us her address."
Ho Tung smiled, relieved, his mission accomplished. The chief motioned for Darrow, Helen, and Linh to follow him to explore the interior. "There is a temple in the center of the island."
"Come on, then," Darrow said, grabbing Helen's hand.
They pushed aside the thick barrier of brush and edged along an overgrown path. Every inch of land filled with huge purple orchids. Abundant, dense, violent growth.
Linh lagged behind the others, but when he saw the flowers he stopped. "I'll wait back at the boats."
"No, come on," Darrow said. "It won't take long."
"I'd rather--"
"Come."
Flowers hung aggressively from trees and crowded on the ground and along rocks, thick and choking in a wild scramble for light in the semigloom of the overhead palm and rubber trees.
"This is an enchanted garden," Helen said, moving forward into the sea of flowers, her bad mood turned to delight.
She picked a small bloom and brought it to her nose, but there was only a faint scent of decay. She tucked the flower behind her ear anyway.
As she turned, Darrow snapped her picture. "There's my girl."
"No fair."
"Look over here again."
"No."
"Come on." Darrow took a step forward through the dense foliage.
"No!" Helen laughed and ran, crashing down the path through the flowers, trampling vines and leaves and petals.
"Come back," Darrow shouted, laughing, running after her.
Drenched, she ran as if in a downpour, sides heaving. Hearing the crash of footfalls behind her, she ran faster, careless, when suddenly a shadow passed in front of her face. She looked up into a huge banyan tree from which hundreds of orchids clung, choking the tree in a blaze of purple. One particular orchid hanging from a long branch seemed especially large and perfect. She took another step to reach for it, tripped over a tree root hidden in the underbrush, and fell down into the plants.
"You okay?"
Darrow stooped down next to her as she laughed and rolled onto her back. He bent over and brushed the dirt off her knees as Linh and the chief came up.
"Helen is hurt?"
Darrow shook his head. "Not yet."
She sat up, searching the ground for what poked into her back and picked up small white sticks. She brought them closer, her smile fading as she realized they were bones, and showed them to Darrow.
"Human?"
"This is a burial island," Ho Tung said, pleased.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Helen asked.
"They bury monks here. The first monk, a hermit, lived here by himself. When the villagers came to check on him after the monsoon, they find only his bones and a purple orchid growing out of the rib cage. The flowers are said to be a manifestation of his enlightenment. How do you say? They are 'right luck'?"
Helen dropped the bones on the ground.
Ho Tung waved his arms, motioning to Helen as he talked. "Keep. Brings right luck."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on," Darrow said. "You don't believe this hocus-pocus?"
Linh shook his head. "Right luck. Some women come here to pray because they want children. Or they have only daughters. Others come for forgetting."
"Forgetting?" Helen asked.
"Their sorrows. If they grieve so much they cannot bear the land of the living."
She stared at Linh, and he met her eyes. "I'll wait at the boats," he said.
"Me, too," Helen said. The mood broken, the small island now seemed gloomy and claustrophobic.
"No temple?" Darrow shook his head. "You two are no fun."
Helen swept the bones under a bush with her boot. She stood and dusted herself off. Ho Tung knelt with his hands together in mudra and chanted under his breath.
As if he had been waiting behind a tree for just this moment, an orange-clad monk stepped out into the middle of the path and bowed to them. Linh came back and talked at length with him.
/> "This is the hermit monk of the island," Linh translated. "He invites us to tea."
They sat in the small temple that was no more than branches strung loosely together overhead. The monk stirred twigs and placed his iron teapot over them, looking at the foreigners sideways, giggling.
"He says he has never seen white faces before. He asks why you are here."
Darrow shrugged. "The war. Tell him we're photographers."
"Who would want such pictures?"
Darrow chuckled.
"He asked, 'Which war?' "
A pause. "Between the North and South."
"He says there is always war, but why are the Westerners fighting Vietnamese war?"
"To give freedom."
The monk shook his head, rubbed his hands over his stubbled scalp. He talked rapidly to Linh, gesturing, then laughing. "That makes no sense. Why die for Vietnamese?"
"Tell him... it's complicated. Tell him it's geopolitics, the movement of Communism, the domino theory of the fall of Southeast Asia...."
The monk stood up and yawned, moved off to a tree, and relieved himself against it. Linh laughed. "He says your words mean as little as his piss does to this tree."
Darrow blinked and then laughed, and the monk laughed louder, till he was red in the face, and came back to sit down.
"We're making bigger and bigger mistakes because we can't admit we made the first one. We can't lose a war to a small Asian country."
The monk giggled and covered his mouth. "But you'll have to fight till every last Vietnam man is gone."
Darrow looked at the ground and nodded. "The first wise man I've met." The monk shook his head and poured tea.
"He is only a simple monk. He is afraid for the Westerners, that you will lose your own way by interfering with Vietnam's destiny."
The monk got up, bowed to them, and walked away.