I was desperate, “Well, do you want to hear a secret?”
At this, she brightened.
“Years ago, I found a case under my mother’s bed. It was unlocked so I opened it.” I said.
“What was inside?”
“A gun.”
“What did you do?”
I scratched my head, “I just put it back. What else can I do?”
“You’ve got to steal it!” Excitement sprung her up. “You have to.”
“For what?”
“Anything! It’s a gun—” she floundered for a reason. “For protection.”
“But I’m leaving soon. I don’t know when exactly, but Mother’s been putting things aside—”
“Exactly,” she said. “So you can’t be punished. You’ll already be in America. Give it to me as a gift.”
“Alright,” I said.
I went home with a slight regret that I’d given away my biggest secret. For all the years at the camp, knowing the location of the gun was a consolation, enough to give me a sense of control, a feeling that I floated above the camp. My mother, my soldier, the little girl, all were impermanent. Destructible.
At the same time, I was relieved that the little girl had asked something of me. I went to the bedroom. Mother wasn’t there. All I had to do was grab the case and walk out. I had gone in and out of this bedroom countless times. I convinced myself this wasn’t any different.
I knelt beside the bed and looked underneath. The case was there, coated with years of dust. I pulled it out, checked inside; everything was intact. I heard Mother moving around in the kitchen. I snapped the case shut, put it under my arm, sprinted down the stairs, and walked as quickly as I could toward the armory without raising suspicion.
The little girl and I had decided that the utility closet at the armory was the best spot to hide the gun. The arsenal room was always locked and hadn’t been cleaned in years. Nobody would need to go into the utility closet. If anyone stopped me on the way there, I could say I’d found the gun somewhere and was bringing it to the armory to return it.
I waited in a nearby bush for the soldier guarding the armory to change shifts, take his lunch, or step away for anything at all. It felt like hours went by as I watched him yawn, scratch, pick his nose, take his gun out of its holster, and put it back. Eventually, he walked behind a copse of trees. I heard him unzip his pants right before I slid through the door. Inside the utility closet, I darted my eyes about to search for the perfect spot. I knew that if I didn’t get out soon, I would have to wait a few more hours for another opportunity. In the end, I decided anywhere in the room was good enough, so I put the case on the floor in the corner and stacked a few brooms and mops on top.
The soldier was on his way back as I was leaving.
“Hey!” he shouted.
I ran.
“This is not a place to play hide-and-seek!” He sounded angry but didn’t come after me.
I didn’t stop running even after I was way out of his sight. Now only the little girl and I knew where the gun was. I was happy, having fulfilled a difficult task. It also helped me look forward to leaving since it was only a matter of time before my mother would discover the case was gone. I didn’t wonder what the little girl might do with it, assuming that like me, she only wanted the knowledge of the gun being within reach and that once I was gone, it would be hers alone.
13
The little girl and I decided to burn all the letters we’d written each other, the pictures she drew, the books I read to her. We were happy to have come up with this plan. Since I was leaving the next day, it seemed a monumental gesture that would also protect our secret world. We’d decided to meet at the sugarcane field after dusk to make sure that we would be alone. She had gathered a bundle of branches. I brought matches and gasoline.
We squatted in front of the fire while its shadow danced on our faces. To our left, the sugarcane had grown taller than us, their bundles of long leaves like the hair of a woman rustling in the wind. While the little girl was absorbed in stoking the fire, I secretly tore out a page from my notebook and put it in my pants pocket. It was a drawing she’d given me, a favorite of mine.
Impulsively I threw a match that was almost dead toward the field. Its embers landed on a leaf, glowed briefly, and extinguished. I hurried toward it with a bottle of water just in case. The little girl caught my wrist. She walked toward the field with the gasoline.
“What are you doing?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She was consumed by the calmest rage I’d ever seen. She walked methodically down each row, dripping the gasoline alongside her.
“Throw the flame into it,” she commanded.
I hurled the lit matches forward with so much energy it might have been myself burning. Fire, stoked by the wind, licked the field row by row. Smoke rose and formed various black shapes, a large stain in the clear sky above us. The skin on my arms and legs began to warm. For a moment, I couldn’t move, spellbound by the blinding blaze, the smell of dying plants filling my nostrils. My leg got caught on an inflamed plant and brought me back to myself. I knew it would hurt much more later, but I couldn’t feel the pain yet, my heart and mind racing at the same speed. I brushed my shin where it was burnt and stomped my foot repeatedly.
“Let’s go!” I screamed. The little girl was a distance ahead. She turned to look at me, her eyes drilling into me, daring me to stay with her to the end.
Someone screamed Fire! Fire! I could hear the footsteps of a crowd approaching. The little girl was still amongst the field and coughing into the inside of her shirt.
“I have to go now,” I yelled to her. She said nothing. “I have to go,” I yelled again, and turned to run. I ran and ran, as fast as I could, eyes burning with smoke.
As soon as I got back inside my building, I went to the bedroom to change out of my shorts and put on a long skirt to cover my burn, which had already bubbled. In the bathroom, I shakily dabbed cold water on my hot cheeks. I didn’t dare check my reflection in the mirror, afraid of any evidence the fire had left on my face, afraid to see the little girl staring back through my own eyes. I tried to tell myself that I had no other choice but to leave her there. In my ears was still the crackling sound of sugarcane stalks.
I left the bathroom to look for Mother in the kitchen. I needed to make sure she wouldn’t link me to the commotion going on outside. She was resting her head on the dining table. Beside her was a tape player. Quietly, I pulled out a chair and sat down next to her. Since she didn’t react, I assumed she was sleeping. I placed my hand on her back to gently wake her, but she didn’t move. Suddenly, I realized that she might be the only person I had left in the world. After tonight, I didn’t know what would happen to the little girl.
“Mother, Mother.” I shook her more roughly. I was overcome by the dread that I would never see her eyes open again. She stirred and sat up. Her skin under her eyes looked swollen, her lips dry. “I’m sorry, I thought you were dead,” I said.
She pulled me into her arms and cried. I couldn’t see her face, only felt a slight quiver from her body. Her skin was colder than usual. We stayed like that for a while, the heat from my body passing onto hers and I hoped, stilling her chill.
The smell of beef and spices wafted into my bedroom from the kitchen and woke me up. The bedside clock told me it was two thirty in the morning. At the foot of the bed was a small suitcase and next to it my backpack. I slid off the bed, eyes half open, and walked to the kitchen. There were two pans and two pots on the stove. Mother alternated her stirring between them.
“You’re awake,” she said. “Good. I was just going to call you. Have some breakfast. You have to leave in two hours.”
“In two hours?” I said. I noticed Mother was wearing the same clothes as the night before. She hadn’t gone to bed.
“I made your favorite things. There are red beans for dessert—
”
“I’m not hungry.”
I saw that she was sad so I asked for the sweet beans. Right away, she became lively and added more sugar to the pot. When she gave it to me in a bowl, I stirred it around with a silver spoon. It was still too hot to eat. I put a spoon full in my mouth, scalding my tongue.
“Can I stay?” I asked. I wanted to cry, but no tear would come.
She shook her head. “You need to go to school, have friends and teachers. A normal life.”
The camp had erased my memory of my before-home, before-school. I had no concept of normal outside from lessons with my soldier and being with the little girl. America was another abstraction.
“When am I coming back?” I said.
“I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Can I say bye to my friend?” I didn’t want the little girl to think I’d disappeared during the night to avoid her. I thought about how I’d broken her finger bones from hitting them with a tree branch, how she’d treated me kindly even so. I thought about how she always said I would leave her. The sweet beans tasted like when I’d bite the end of a pen and bitter ink would fill my mouth.
“There’s not enough time,” Mother said. I heard someone opening the front door. “He’s already here.”
I got dressed, put a few books in the backpack I came to the camp with. I left the little girl a note on the doorstep with the vague return address of America. The black van that had driven me to the camp years ago was parked in front. My soldier was waiting for me in the driver’s seat. Mother hustled me into the back of the car. She kissed me before I left.
As soon as the car began to move, I felt a heavy drowsiness and was glad to be lulled to sleep once again.
When I woke up, my soldier told me we weren’t far from China’s border. Once we got there, someone else would take me to the airport. Years later, I understood that Mother had made sure nobody saw me enter the camp and nobody saw me leave; that the erasure of my records in Vietnam would be complete when I boarded the plane. I didn’t answer my soldier. My anger was such that I was afraid if I opened my mouth I would scream. He pretended not to notice my resolved silence and continued to instruct me on what to do at the airport, since I would have to fly alone.
“When you get to New York, someone will be there to pick you up. It’s not hard, so don’t be scared,” he said.
I told myself that once I got to the US, I would turn around, take a different plane back to Vietnam, go get the little girl so we could leave the camp together for good. We’d talked about escaping together so many times that being forced to go without her was unthinkable.
We stopped at a checkpoint. My soldier handed the patrol our passports and some papers. The patrol asked for the back window to be lowered so he could see my face. Afterward, he waved us through. We continued on a stretch of dusty freeway as the only passenger car. Both of the lanes to our left and right were occupied by freight trucks, their surface as gritty as the wind.
After a while, we started down a winding, muddy path. I climbed into the front passenger seat and cracked open the window. The smell of fresh air and water invigorated me. Up ahead in front of a waterfall, I spotted another car. My soldier slowed us down to a halt. He stuck his arm out the window and waved. When we got out, the other man stayed at a distance. My soldier helped me remove my luggage from the backseat. I searched my head for something cruel to say to him for taking me away, but I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, only the sound of water cascading down. I was nearly as tall as him, my head where his chin was. There was nothing I could say that would salve how I felt. He opened his arms for a hug. I came close, punched his stomach with all the force I could muster. He stepped back. A gentle look came into his eyes. He held my chin, lifted my face, and pressed his lips on my cheek, the corners of our mouths touching.
“Just in case you forget,” he said.
PART TWO
1
On a Tuesday at 4:05 P.M. in 2012, I saw him on a subway platform in New York City. I didn’t recall his features, but when the stranger looked at me, I turned my head the other way. My soldier, if alive, would be in his late forties or early fifties, I guessed. I could not tell the exact age of the man on the platform. He was heavier than I imagined my soldier might be, his cheeks full and perspiring, yet there was something familiar about him. His skin color was patchy, pale around the jaws and mouth. He’d probably just shaved that morning. When he lifted his chin and looked at the train schedule, he seemed impatiently youthful. On the other hand, his shoulders were relaxed and his legs planted firmly on the ground. He occupied space with the resignation and certitude of a man whose time had passed. I followed him onto the subway car, with the same instinct and privacy of someone recalling a dream. I stood, still with my back to him, and looked at his reflection in the train’s window in front of me. I didn’t have a lot of time to decide. In a few minutes, we would arrive at the next station. If he got off, what would I do?
Sitting next to him was a young woman with long, slender legs. They reminded me of my own wrists. Her large eyes opened and closed as slowly and gently as the fluttering of insect wings. I thought she and the stranger may make eye contact but they did not. The train pulled to a stop, a shuffle of new bodies came in and replaced those who left. The stranger crossed and uncrossed his arms. He was relaxed and thinking about something more distant than his surroundings in the subway car. The longer I looked at him, the more he began to take the contour of an actual memory. I thought of my soldier and my memory of his face already started to fade—replaced by the stranger’s. Two more stations passed. I’d missed my stop, so it felt like something was decided. A voice from the speaker notified the passengers that we were approaching the next station. The stranger had given up his seat and moved to stand in front of the doors. When the subway pulled to a standstill, he got off. I hurried out in front of him and then slowed my steps to let him pass, exit the turnstile, and walk up the stairs to the street.
It was half raining, half snowing outside. My blood had long ago adapted to this cold. The stranger didn’t seem comfortable with the weather, bracing himself against the grayness. We walked for a while with a measured pace, and I kept about five feet behind him. When he turned the corner of a bakery, where a Vietnamese couple sometimes gave me French baguettes in exchange for occasional proofreading service, I thought I’d lost him, but the back of his head emerged again in the throng of people coming upstream toward us.
I would have been happy to keep walking behind him, but he eventually stopped in front of a building made of stone slabs, set back into an alleyway. He was looking for the right key on his keychain when I touched him on the elbow.
“Yes?” he said. It was too difficult to detect an accent in so small a sound.
My tongue could not decide what syllables to produce. And in what language? I just stood there, frowning at him.
“Are you okay?” he said.
Too many words.
I walked away. Raindrops had hardened into snowflakes. When did it get all white? I heard him close the door. Perhaps I should have left, but I didn’t. From across the street I could see the light switch on in his apartment. He sat down on a sofa and leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He looked like a different man now than the one I saw on the platform. I began to worry whether I’d actually lost him in the crowd and had mistakenly followed another stranger on the street. He looked like any man, tired after a day of work, thinking about what it was he had forgotten to do.
On the wall in my bedroom, hundreds of news articles were pinned—shaped like a reverse S by accident, similar to how Vietnam looked on a map. I laughed at the simplicity of my subconscious. Nobody had ever seen the inside of this room, ribbons of pages torn apart and glued together again, names and phrases highlighted, my own thumbprints smearing the corners of photographs
. The thought of someone discovering this wall of haphazard fact-finding about my mother made me feel absurd. It was worse than a shrine a teenager had for his favorite band. Reading about my mother was like getting lost in fiction. It was impossible to tell what was true and what wasn’t.
The information consumed me and allowed me momentarily to forget about my own life. Various online news sources gave conflicting information about her. I spent hours looking up words, translating the Vietnamese too sophisticated for my abilities into English and then vice versa, changing the English articles into Vietnamese to see how the words would feel. I tried to cross-check facts, printing them out and adding them to my collection on the wall, but the more I read, the more she became a character in a story, removed from what I remembered of her.
Vietnamese politics were both overly complicated and at the same time banal. People disappeared and, if they were lucky, they might reappear a few years later, hundreds of miles from where they were last seen, with missing fingers, one blind eye, pretending to go on with their lives, or worse—being grateful their country had given them a second chance. I watched video after video of the lucky ones on Vietnam National TV network, men and women apologizing for the lies they had told about the motherland, enunciating every word because their lives depended on it. Their faces were gaunt and sickly, similar to the color of the video’s background, which was always the same—white square tiles washed by a bluish light.
For years, I had the habit of keeping up with these videos of the returned and looking at pictures of those who died in mysterious circumstances. I was constantly afraid to find a picture of my mother’s face, soft and dented like red clay, her eyes scorched with their last image of violence. I comforted myself with the last word about her from a relative. She had left the camp two years after I did. She was safe. “How?” I’d asked him.
If I Had Two Lives Page 10