Ticket to Childhood

by Nguyen Nhat Anh

  I remember the experience of learning the alphabet. The teacher read:

  O is like a chicken’s egg

  Ô is O with a hat on, and is O with a bushy little whisker

  But instead of concentrating on those helpful images, I thought of Uncle Nhien’s hat. It was dark blue, soft and floppy, with a stiff visor, like the circumflex, and made of wool. Nobody wears such a hat these days, but I liked to borrow it and twist it out of shape.

  Then my mind wandered to Ti’s grandpa. I thought of his beard. Other than its bushiness, it bore no resemblance to the O. It was so long that he had to hold it up, daintily, with one hand, like a Victorian lady lifting her skirt, to keep it out of his soup.

  So I was lost in the byways of my free associations when the teacher pointed at the letter and asked me to pronounce it.

  “Well, this is the letter … the letter …” I stammered.

  I knew the letter in question was either Ô or , but I couldn’t say for sure. The images of Uncle Nhien and Ti’s grandpa kept running through my mind, but I confused them. Seeing how embarrassed I was, the teacher said sympathetically:

  O is round like a chicken egg

  Ô is O with a hat on, which letter has a whisker?

  “It is the letter , teacher!” I answered, overjoyed.

  A wise man once remarked that every letter is like a human face. The first thing you must do in grade school is to get familiar with these faces, then remember their features, as you would with a group of friends who will keep you company for your whole life.

  It’s not a lot to ask, except of a dreamer like me.

  Instead of becoming more familiar as I stared at them, the letters kept dissolving into a crowd of strangers whom I couldn’t recognize.

  Years later, I stumbled upon The Vowels, a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, and I understood that he, too, had been led astray by his imagination:

  A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green: vowels.

  Not only did Rimbaud assign colors to the vowels, but he also saw a velvety black swarm of flies in the letter A; a vaporous whiteness—of clouds and sails—in the letter E; and idyllic green pastures, dotted with cattle, in the letter U.

  More wonderfully, each letter had a sound for him: a brassy trumpet in the letter O; a voluptuous hissing in the letter U; soulful keening in the letter I.

  Rimbaud quickly became my favorite poet.

  I didn’t know much about him—that, for example, he was a teenager when he wrote some of the masterpieces of French literature—but I figured that Rimbaud must have had the temperament of a rebel; the mind of a dreamer; and the grades of a problem child, just as I did.

  But I’m straying from the point again.

  My ramblings thus far simply reinforce the point that at the age of eight, I was a boy with muddled thinking.

  But I also want to say that one day, just like that, I stopped letting my mind wander, simply to prove that I could.

  Now, suddenly, I mastered my lessons in a demonic frenzy. I buried myself in books, forgetting to eat, disdaining play, ignoring Hai and Tun, and Ti’s desperate knocking at my door.

  I memorized my lessons as if my life depended on it.

  I digested the words as avidly as instant noodles.

  I recited my lessons out loud until I knew them all by heart.

  And by dinnertime, I felt full—as if I had gulped down a stack of books.

  Hearing me rattle off chapter and verse with complete fluency, my father rubbed his eyes, as at a miracle, and heaped praise on me. With a little less self-control, he might even have hugged me.

  “Incredible!” he said, stifling sobs of pride.

  But my mother was alarmed at the radical change in my behavior.

  “Are you ill, son?” she asked, touching her cool palm to my forehead. “Perhaps you need to see the doctor!”

  • • •

  During that period of my transformation from a slacker into a nerd, my teacher started palpating my skull.

  She started at the crown, with all ten fingers, going inch by inch, like a doctor checking for a tumor.

  “Did you have a fall, recently?” she asked me.

  “Yes, I did,” I replied. (I had been wrestling with Hai.)

  “Did your head hit the ground?”

  “Yes.”

  She applied pressure with her thumbs in a circular, trepanning motion, as if she intended to drill a hole through my temples.

  “How did you fall?” she continued. “On the front or on the back?”

  “The back, as I recall.”

  It might have been the back—who knows?—but it also might have been my left ear, or my forehead. When I wrestled with Hai, I crashed in every direction.

  “Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “Then you missed the nerve center!”

  My classmates regarded me like some kind of monster who had suddenly sprouted an extra nose, but they were in awe of me, too.

  Little Mui, always last, the class clown, was now getting the highest marks, and for the first time, I saw the perks of being a star—my success inspired the laughter of Trang the Flirt.

  Trang wasn’t a beauty. She was stuck up and pretentious. But her laughter enchanted me. It sounded like music—the voice of a siren. Whenever she laughed, I couldn’t help turning in her direction.

  To be honest, I still liked Tun better than Trang—I’m a sucker for dimples. But Tun did have one serious defect—her attraction to Hai. Thanks to Uncle Nhien’s cellphone, we’d had our two “dates,” but after the debacle with the “getting into bed” business, she went back to Hai, and I was crushed.

  So just as I had decided to focus on my studies, I decided not to care about Tun. I would ask Trang to go for a little walk, and have a little drink, and make sure that Tun saw us—and her feelings would be hurt!

  I got this idea while I was jealous, but quickly lost my enthusiasm for it.

  After several love affairs, I have learned that you can’t embark on a new romance while the injury to your heart from a failed one is still fresh. It’s like starting a war while the ruins of a lost battle are still smoldering. The wounds of love and war both need time to heal.

  • • •

  This whole intrigue began to bore me—Trang’s laughter included.

  Ditto, getting the best grades—once you have met a challenge, it ceases to motivate you. Excellence became as tiresome as mediocrity.

  I neglected my studies, and once again reduced my father to tears—this time, bitter ones. My mother was worried. (When wasn’t she, though?) And my teacher wondered if—freakishly—the nerve center of my brain wasn’t in my forehead, where most people have it, but in the back. (That would have explained a lot.)

  Only Hai, Ti, and Tun were happy about my work going downhill. In their eyes, my decision to renounce glory for ignominy was the selfless act of a high official who gives up his villa, his medals, and his motorcade, and becomes a monk. It depends how you define a hero. Heroism is different for kids and for adults.

  8. How we became killers

  As I said, there are several reasons why the draft of the paper that you’re reading will never be delivered at the UNESCO forum.

  The first reason is called Hai.

  The second reason is called Tun.

  The third reason, of course, is called Ti.

  “The third reason” visited me on a beautiful Sunday morning.

  She still had a missing tooth.

  “Why don’t you get an implant, Ti?”

  “I like my looks the way they are.”

  “I think it’s your husband who likes them.”

  “You’re right.” Her smile was ironic, but its light was girlish.

  At eight, Ti was nice, but slow-witted, and inarticulate. Now, I realized I had misjudged her.

  There are lots of intelligent people in the world, and lots of honest people. As a rule, the super-smart ones are glib and self-serving, while the congenitally honest tend to be simple-minded. What a pity for c
ivilization.

  Yet Ti was a special case. She was both honest and intelligent.

  She spoke her mind without playing games.

  She was devoid of ulterior motives.

  Her simplicity was a reflection of her goodness.

  “Did you come here because of my writing?” I asked her.

  “Yes, exactly,” she answered.

  “So you must know that I’ve decided to change the names of the characters?”

  “I’ve come because of that,” she said.

  “You can rest assured that there’s no girl named Ti with a missing tooth in my story.”

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “You don’t want me to shred my paper?”

  “Shred it? Hardly!” Ti said with vehemence.

  “So you want me to shred it and eat it?”

  She squirmed with discomfort.

  “How about burning it then?” Now I was working up a lather.

  “Please!” She implored. An opaline tear formed at the corner of each eye and left a track, like a snail’s slime, on her weather-worn cheeks. “I’ve come to beg you not to listen to Hai and Tun. Tell the truth about our childhood.”

  I stared at Ti, flabbergasted. What a dolt I was. Forty years ago, this loving creature had been my “wife,” and I’d never appreciated her. Now she was middle-aged, with five children, and I deserved a sharp knock on the head.

  “I’m sorry—” I said. “I’m sorry for everything.” How lame was that?

  “The best apology is to take my advice,” Ti answered.

  Moist eyes are beautiful, no matter how squinty they look dry.

  • • •

  My interview with Ti reminded me of how I had treated her forty years earlier.

  I shouted at her every day just to enjoy her timid compliance with my orders.

  One day, to relieve my ennui, I told her:

  “Let’s go on a treasure hunt.”

  “Where can we find a treasure?”

  “We’ll cross the sea. Treasure is usually buried on desert islands.”

  “But we’re so little. How can we cross the sea?”

  “You wimp!” I retorted. “Haven’t you ever been to the movies? We’ll build a raft out of bamboo.”

  “People who build rafts are adults.”

  I shrugged:

  “Age doesn’t matter. Guts matter. Do you have them or not?”

  “But adults don’t have to ask their parents for permission.”

  Ti’s objection cut me short. I couldn’t rebut it. (I guess her intelligent honesty was manifest even then, but I missed it.)

  “Fine!” I conceded grudgingly. “No raft, then. But we can search for treasure in the jungle or the mountains.”

  “Going into the jungle or up in the mountains amounts to the same thing,” Ti said, with a little wince of apology for shooting me down again. “Our parents surely won’t allow it.”

  “Our parents never trust us,” I said sullenly. “They’re always afraid we’ll get lost.”

  My anger was mounting.

  “They’re afraid of us getting eaten by sharks or tigers.”

  Perceiving my dejection, Ti became sad, too.

  “Just wait ‘til we grow up,” she said tenderly, patting my arm. “We’ll go anywhere we want without anyone stopping us.”

  Once again, Ti was the voice of reason. But the truth, as I discovered, is that the freedom of adulthood is oppressive in a different way. You can do anything, so rebellion has no meaning.

  Adults, of course, have their own parental authorities. Moral principles are their mothers, rules of law are their fathers. One parent cajoles and induces guilt, the other threatens and imposes punishment. Like kids, though, adults aren’t always obedient. That’s why religion was invented. People need a higher power.

  Well, I’ve been digressing again!

  I was talking about my treasure hunt with Ti.

  Of course we never embarked for an island, nor explored the jungle. When I looked at her, I saw a tiny creature paddling in a vast ocean of helplessness, and I realized we were in the same boat.

  But as I considered my limited options for adventure, I suddenly remembered the small garden behind Hai’s house.

  “Hey, Ti,” I said brightly, “I’ve got an idea! People sometimes bury treasure in a garden!”

  “A garden?” she echoed.

  “Yes, a garden. Just look over there! You see the plum trees behind Hai’s house?”

  Ti looked vaguely in that direction and squinted.

  “Yes, I see plum trees.”

  “I bet there’s a buried treasure there.” My voice was firmer than the conviction it expressed.

  “Who would have buried it?” Ti asked sensibly.

  “Don’t be silly—an ancient warrior. Or a pirate. Maybe an exiled king.”

  “Let’s dig it up, then!”

  Ti encouraged me, though not because she believed there was pirate gold or a king’s ransom under the plums. It got her off the hook for the desert island and the jungle. She could stay home, without upsetting her parents, avoiding—or at least postponing—some act of folly that she was sure I would, eventually, compel her to carry out.

  • • •

  The excavation crew consisted of our gang of four. We shared everything in life: our joys and sorrows; our beatings and our rewards; the boredom of school, which we bore stoically, as donkeys carry their loads. And we would share the treasure.

  We chose a sunny day to begin digging.

  Hai’s parents made no objection. They thought we had suddenly developed a wholesome interest in horticulture.

  “Bravo, boy,” Hai’s father said, tousling my hair.

  Hai’s mother teared up when she saw Tun lugging a water bucket: “Be careful, child, or you’ll stub a toe!

  After a week, there wasn’t an inch of ground that was left unturned. Like archeologists, we worked horizontally first, then vertically. We dug carefully under every tree and bush. But treasure was nowhere to be found. In vain, we waited for the telltale clang of a spade hitting wood or metal. Once in a while, we felt a surge of excitement when we felt something hard in the loam, but it always turned out to be a shard of pottery or a rusty piece of iron.

  Ten days after we had begun, the poor little garden was as pocked with holes as the moon’s surface. Then the trees started dying; the branches drooped, and the plums shriveled up.

  The next morning, Hai’s father didn’t stop to tousle my hair. He pointed at the front gate, like an angry God throwing Adam out of Eden, and told me to get lost.

  Hai’s mother just moaned.

  “The killers! The killers!”

  We hadn’t meant any harm, yet we had murdered the trees, and we had almost done in Hai’s mother.

  So Tun, Ti, and I beat a hasty retreat, leaving Hai behind, as he had nowhere else to go. A child’s home is like a rabbit’s skin—how can he slough it? Only adults have that power of self-transformation. In some cases (though not many, it’s true) they reinvent themselves. Or at least that’s what I’ve read.

  9. Does anybody have the time?

  The next day, Hai came to see me.

  I guessed from his angry look that he was about to curse me for destroying his family’s garden.

  But when he saw my face, his anger disappeared.

  “You got a beating too?”

  He said it with a little smirk that betrayed the satisfaction of someone in trouble comforted by seeing someone in worse trouble.

  “Obviously,” I said, touching a swollen cheek. “Your father was here last night. Majorly pissed off.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Hai. “I bet it wasn’t his only stop.”

  As if on cue, Tun and Ti appeared a few minutes later. Their faces were creased like linens just off a clothesline.

  Hai and I didn’t need to ask why they had been crying.

  “What did we do wrong?” I whinnied, in an injured tone.

  “You trashed my garden,�
� Hai said.

  I appealed to Ti:

  “We didn’t mean to, did we, Ti?”

  “No! And we were so careful!”

  Tun was on my side, too, as she naturally would have been—she was an accomplice to the crime.

  “Nobody meant any harm,” she said.

  Hai realized he was outnumbered, so he just sighed.

  I still secretly believed that if Hai’s parents hadn’t driven us away, we would sooner or later have found something. That’s how kids think: that somewhere in the world is a hidden treasure just waiting for them to discover it.

  Adults usually indulge kids in that fantasy—up to a point. For example, they will smile knowingly and say, “You are so right! There is buried treasure everywhere—the treasure of knowledge!” Knowledge Schmol­edge: treasure to an eight-year-old is a chest full of gold coins, or at least a stamp collection, a dagger with a jeweled hilt, some gaudy rings, old swords and muskets—that sort of thing.

  “Our parents buy lottery tickets,” I pro­tested. That’s treasure hunting—and about as likely to produce results as digging under a plum tree. So why were we punished?”

  “Why are they never punished for anything?” Tun sniveled.

  “My mother has lost the keys to her scooter five times,” Hai said, “and nobody says a word.”

  “My father keeps promising to quit drinking, but he never does!” Ti objected.

  Carried away by a flood of resentment, the four of us took turns listing our parents’ faults, and in a few minutes, they had mounted up to an impressive indictment of adult folly. You will forgive my hypocrisy (if you are a parent, that is) when I confess that I tell my own kids that I am the judge of their behavior, but they don’t dare judge mine—father knows best!

  The truth is: what mortal, child or adult, is without error? And who doesn’t try to cover his mistakes?

  But the deck is always stacked, and you know how. If a kid farts at the dinner table, he will get a slap, but if a grownup farts, everybody laughs it off—the kid first of all.

  And not only are kids punished for any little infraction, they are also punished unjustly. If the cat breaks a saucer, if your sister started it, if the dog ate your homework, if your father mislaid his pen, if grandma left the gas on, if the baby fell off the bed, and if Uncle forgot to flush … guess who gets blamed! In their impatience to punish the culprit, they never give you time to explain, and they don’t believe your excuses, anyway!