by Aimee Phan
Yen’s apartment was located in the 5th Arrondissement, where he said some Vietnamese immigrants had lived for years. Many of the newer refugees had settled in the 13th Arrondissement, farther from the city center.
“It’s ugly over there,” Yen said, his Vietnamese tinged with French so Hoa had to listen carefully. “Ugly, but cheap. Tall square buildings, like in the Soviet Union. I think they’ll leave eventually. Move somewhere nicer when they can save up money.”
Hoa only had to assume the someplace nicer was Yen’s neighborhood, which was pretty tree-lined streets dotted with three- and four-story apartment buildings. Some of the houses had small iron-fenced gardens in front, brown and skeletal this time of year, but Yen’s did not. Instead, the front space contained a metal bench and an empty stone washbasin, which Yen explained was a birdbath. They could fill it with water for the sparrows in the summer. Hoa didn’t understand why people would want to attract bird droppings, remnants of which littered the ground along the building’s front door.
His apartment stairwell was narrow, so only one person could fit going up or down. They struggled to squeeze their belongings up the stairs. The stairwell smelled of dust, stale perfume, and incense.
Hoa’s body relaxed as the apartment’s heat enveloped her limbs. She wiggled her toes, feeling them again. The bright-yellow walls were bare except for a small metal crucifix hanging by the window. The living room had a dark-green sofa, an unvarnished wood dining room set for four, several folding chairs, an inflatable mattress, and a pile of blankets and pillows in the corner. Down the hall, they could see a small bedroom with a twin bed and a fire escape outside its window. Another bedroom with a few cardboard boxes on the floor gave access to the single bathroom. The kitchen, with one broken burner, could fit only two people in its floorspace. Yen admitted he rarely cooked at home.
“It’s yours, Mother,” Yen said, swinging his arms around her, a hug so deliciously warm. “I was saving it for you.”
* * *
At the church, the Truongs took up an entire pew, which Hoa didn’t mind at all. She hated shaking hands with strangers during the peace greetings halfway through the Mass. Some strangers, who perceived her as such a cute, old Oriental lady, actually had the gall to hug and kiss her twice on the cheeks. She realized it was French custom, but Hoa was not French. One old woman, probably older than Hoa, once patted her head. Had Hoa not been in a church, she could have reacted more appropriately.
Several rows ahead, the Bourdains sat in their usual pew. It wasn’t officially reserved for them, but no one ever seemed to sit in their spot, even in summers when the Bourdains were away at their vacation home in the south. During the sermons, which Hoa couldn’t understand anyway because the priest spoke so quickly, she’d observe the backs of the Bourdains’ heads. The father, Michel, was completely bald, not a single hair on him. Hoa had previously only seen Buddhist monks that hairless, but his was God-given. And poor Petit Michel, still a child, Hoa could already tell by the inordinately large forehead what would happen to his hair. Émilie’s hair, curly and shorn close against her head, as usual, looked impeccable. Hoa never thought short hair looked good on a woman until she met Madame Bourdain.
At the end of Mass, Hoa usually stayed behind to offer a prayer to Mary while the rest of the family waited outside with the Bourdains and chatted with parishioners. Hoa enjoyed the solitary five minutes alone in the cavernous church. It meant more to her than the entire Mass, her time alone with the Lord. But lately, Trinh had been joining her, sometimes even praying longer than Hoa. She couldn’t understand it. Trinh hadn’t even been born Catholic. She was baptized as an afterthought during Xuan’s ceremony, more to please her new family than to answer a true conversion of faith.
“She’s more devoted to God,” Yen had said, after Hoa sourly noted that Trinh took almost twenty minutes after one Mass for extra prayer. “How can you not like that?”
Hoa had no problem with her new commitment to Catholicism, it was the way Trinh chose to express this recent dedication. Praying loudly enough for everyone in their pew to hear her. Nodding and responding to the readings, as if the priest were speaking only to her. Weeping during the sacrament of Eucharist. At their last visit for reconciliation, Trinh took nearly an hour in the confessional so the priest was unable to meet with others waiting in line behind them.
Hoa quietly gave her prayers, closing her eyes, concentrating on her words. She humbly requested the usual: safety and happiness for all of her sons, their wives, and her grandchildren, especially for Sanh’s family whom she could not watch over; the patience to endure the hardships to come; and warmer weather in Paris. After crossing herself, she slowly opened her eyes and tilted her head to the left.
Trinh’s head was still bowed, nearly touching her knees, her fingers clasped together, choking her white rosary in prayer. Hoa stood.
“We’ll be waiting for you outside,” she said as she gathered her handbag and coat. Hoa did not wait for or expect a response.
The first week the Truongs arrived in France, they barely left the apartment. Yen had saved two weeks of vacation leave for his family’s arrival. During the days, the women cooked meals from the ingredients they could find from the Chinese grocery stores, while the men sat in the living room and exchanged stories. At night, the wives slept in the bedrooms with the children, and the men stayed up late playing tien len at the dining room table.
Hoa didn’t realize until Ngoan brought it up at the grocery store that Trinh and Yen had yet to sleep in the same room together. Since arriving in France, Ngoan had attempted to make a fresh start with Trinh. With Tuyet gone, they now only had each other as sisters.
“We can take a walk around the neighborhood if you and Yen want some time alone,” Ngoan said, as they rummaged the shelves looking for rice flour and cornstarch to make banh cuon. Hoa, a few steps ahead of them in the aisle, examined the contents of a can of asparagus.
“A walk sounds nice,” Trinh murmured. “We should all go.”
Ngoan shook her head, believing Trinh didn’t understand. “But don’t you and Yen want to be alone?”
Trinh fussed with her mittens, a pair she borrowed from Yen, too large for her bony fingers. “There is no rush. We now have all the time we could possibly want.”
Several weeks later, Yen took Trinh to a weekend retreat in Provence with some of the senior associates from his law firm. Yen confirmed that only spouses were invited, so Xuan would be staying home with the family. Early Sunday morning, they returned while Hoa was feeding the grandchildren breakfast. Trinh immediately walked toward Xuan, knelt in front of him, and clutched him in an embrace more appropriate for a year’s absence than only two nights.
“Did you miss us?” Trinh asked, practically smothering the poor child, her voice cracking with sobs. “Did you miss me?”
And though Hoa knew the boy had enjoyed a fine weekend (Phung and Ngoan had taken the children to a play park a few blocks away where the children swung on the swings and scrambled on the jungle gym for hours), Xuan nodded, imitating his mother’s tears, and asked her never to go away again.
* * *
The Bourdains lived in the 16th Arrondissement in a recently renovated estate surrounded by lawns and gardens larger than the structure itself. It was rumored the grounds were once owned by the mistress of a French aristocrat.
When the Truongs had their first brunch at the Bourdains’ new home, Hoa admired the pillar structures and oval windows on the front veranda and told Émilie that they reminded her of their old house in Nha Trang.
“Really?” Émilie asked, her forehead creasing in disbelief. “How is that?”
A French architect who worked with Hung’s grandfather had designed their home in Nha Trang, but Hoa couldn’t find the words in the language to explain. How to say architect? Pillars? After a few confusing phrases that only seemed to deepen Émilie’s forehead creases, Hoa turned to Hung to translate.
Hung shot her a scornful glance onc
e he realized what she wanted him to say. “Why do you need to talk about that old house? We haven’t seen it in years.”
And without waiting for her response, Hung turned to Émilie and smiled. “My wife is getting sentimental, Madame Bourdain, please forgive her. Your house, of course, is the most beautiful house we’ve ever seen.”
Hoa may have had trouble conjuring the phrases, but had no difficulty understanding Hung’s affected French. He wouldn’t even look at her again, too busy folding lavender chicken into his mouth. That home had been his grandfather’s greatest achievement. Hung used to recall the details of the house room by room, telling his grandchildren that one day they’d go back and see it for themselves.
Usually, sponsors cut ties once the refugee families settled into their new homes and jobs. But the Bourdains refused to fade from their lives. They seemed genuinely disappointed when one of the Truongs was unable to attend monthly brunch. Though they spent every summer on the Riviera, the Bourdains always called upon their return to the city, asking to arrange their next meeting.
Hoa was sure the Bourdains never meant to disrespect or disparage the Truongs in any way. They’d done so much for their family. But that, Hoa realized, was part of the problem. They owed their immigration from Pulau, adjustment to Paris, the support of their parish, and the arrangement of Phung’s first job to the Bourdains. There were only so many times a person could express gratitude before the words became grating to say and hear.
The Bourdains had met Yen during his first year in France at an Easter luncheon celebration hosted by their parish. Michel was interested that Yen was from Vietnam, since his father had been a naval officer stationed in the former French colony. When they learned Yen was struggling to arrange for his family’s immigration, the Bourdains volunteered to assume responsibility as sponsors.
“Our ancestors caused such injustice to your people,” Michel had said at the Truongs’ welcome party during a toast to a crowd of his closest friends and business associates. “We never should have left you with the Communists. We abandoned you then, but we will not do it again. We are honored to help the people of our former colony.”
Hoa didn’t understand the toast until after the party, when Phung explained it at home. Ngoan was seething: “Do they think we enjoyed their control?” she asked. “Do they think they were so much better than the Communists, the Americans?”
Hung sternly told his family they needed to forget their countries’ past differences. “France may once have been our colonizer, but now it is our grandchildren’s country,” he said. “We need to respect their new home.”
Since Hoa ate quickly, she waited for others to catch up by noting any changes in her brunch companions. The men looked relatively the same, only healthier with fuller diets and paler because of the country’s dearth of sunlight. Ngoan had chopped off her hair the first year they moved to France, finding the bob more practical, and had kept it short ever since. Hoa and Trinh, on the other hand, preserved their long hair. But while Hoa always wrapped hers in a clean, discreet bun, Trinh never pulled hers back, allowing it to swing past her waist, no matter how tangled and wiry it became in the summertime.
During the first year, the men—who’d attended French school in Vietnam—often engaged in conversation with the Bourdains, while the women, freshly enrolled in language classes at the Vietnamese Community Center, would smile and nod their heads. By the time Hoa and her daughters-in-law had learned enough to understand most of what they were saying, it seemed too late to enter the dialogue. Their end of the table was hardly acknowledged. Only Trinh was bold enough to occasionally enter their discussion of current events, though often it embarrassed Hoa and the other Truongs, especially if Trinh misunderstood the conversation and said something of little logic.
“The Africans ought to live in Paris rather than La Courneuve,” Trinh announced in the middle of the men’s discussion of recent skirmishes between Algerian youths and the police. “If they lived in a better neighborhood, they would get along with the rest of society.”
“Yen should control his wife’s tongue a little better,” Hung privately grumbled to Hoa. “She sounds like a foolish woman, offering opinions on things she knows nothing about.”
“Madame Bourdain talks all the time,” Hoa said.
“Émilie has an education. She earned her privilege to speak.”
While Trinh followed her husband’s advice to stay quiet on political matters at the brunch table, she found other topics that interested her. During one Sunday sermon, the priest spoke of miracles. For the next few weeks, Trinh would bring home books from the local library on Catholic miracles, especially Lourdes, the sacred Virgin Mary sanctuary located in southwestern France, only a train ride away. At brunch that afternoon, Trinh asked the Bourdains if they’d ever visited the sanctuary.
“It’s been years,” Émilie admitted, as she signaled for the housekeeper to bring out more coffee. “Petit Michel wasn’t even born yet. It is beautiful. I hear they’ve remodeled and restructured the baths so that it is available to everyone.”
“Everyone?” Trinh repeated. “Not only those with physical handicaps?”
“Yes,” Émilie said. “Our friends the Martins went last year and took baths.”
“Why do people need to take baths in Lourdes?” Cam asked, tugging at Ngoan’s sleeve as her mother picked at the uneaten pile of roasted carrots on her plate.
“They’re special baths, dear Cam,” Émilie said, smiling at the girl. Émilie had a special affection for Cam, since her own daughter, Joan, had died as an infant. “The water was blessed by the Virgin Mary many years ago when she came down to visit three special children. Now, people go to Lourdes to bathe in that spring. Miracles happen in those waters. Those whose legs were crippled now walk. The blind can see.”
“The miracles don’t happen all the time,” Michel said, shifting in his seat. He exchanged a glance with Yen, who sheepishly smiled back.
“No,” Émilie conceded. “It’s not only the water. You need to have faith when you bathe in it.”
“It sounds like salvation,” Trinh said, whose eyes had never left Émilie. “We should go. Yen?” She tapped her husband’s hand with her linen napkin. “We should go to Lourdes.”
Yen nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Maybe in the summer.”
Trinh frowned. “But summer already ended.”
Émilie shook her head. “It’s overcrowded in the summers anyway. The lines can last all day. We could go next month, before the pilgrimage season ends. Michel’s office owns a time-share nearby where we can stay.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Hung spoke up. “But it’s too generous.”
“No, it isn’t,” Michel said. “It sounds like a wonderful idea. Émilie and I have wanted to go back for years and this is a perfect opportunity. Let us take you, our treat.”
The Truongs all looked to the patriarch, waiting for his reaction. Hung took a long time wiping his mouth with his linen napkin. “It’s a very kind offer,” he finally said, standing. “Thank you for such a tremendous gift.”
The men shook hands, Michel throwing over his other arm to pat Hung on the back. The gesture reminded Hoa of dinners they hosted in Nha Trang, friends and colleagues from Hung’s hotel who needed favors from her husband. Now Hung was on the other side of the handshake.
The children finished their plates and quickly excused themselves to play in Petit Michel’s room. As the men were about to step out for cigars Michel had recently purchased in Spain, Hoa suddenly remembered what was in her handbag.
“Excuse me, I brought a little treat,” Hoa said. She picked up her purse from the floor and opened it on her lap. The aluminum foil felt cool as she struggled to unwrap the shrimp toasts onto her soiled plate. She stood and nodded as she presented the plate in front of Monsieur and Madame Bourdain. “They may be a little cold,” she said apologetically.
“Thank you, Madame Truong,” Michel said, his blond mustache widening with his
smile. “You are so kind. But I’m afraid I must pass. The last time I ate them, I did feel a little ill.”
“A little!” Émilie said, looking both aghast and amused. “He complained of it all week. You have to remember our French stomachs, Madame Truong. They can’t handle the spices and oils that your people use all the time.”
Hoa’s eyes dropped as Michel handed the plate back to her. Twelve cold shrimp toasts, misshapen by their travels in her handbag. She knew what Hung’s face wanted to tell her. She did not need to acknowledge it.
Another hand reached over and grabbed one of the shrimp toasts from Hoa’s plate. “I’ll have one,” Ngoan said. “I can never pass up something Mother has made.”
Hoa smiled, her shoulders relaxing. She began rewrapping the rest, when Ngoan put out her hand to stop her.
“Leave them out,” Ngoan said, not caring that she spoke Vietnamese at the table. “It’s the best thing I’ve had all day.”
* * *
Although Hoa didn’t work like Yen and Phung, or volunteer at the community center like Hung, she kept herself busy and productive. In the mornings, she and Ngoan made breakfast in her ground-floor apartment. Hoa would prepare for Hung and Phung thermoses of crabmeat soup or baguette sandwiches for lunch, while Yen usually ate at cafés with his colleagues. The children were fed and Trinh walked them to the elementary school eight blocks away.
Ngoan still worried about allowing Trinh to take the children to school. Trinh had the habit of getting lost on the metro, and she hadn’t really improved in the last five years. But Hoa assured Ngoan they’d be fine, since no public transportation was involved.
“Trinh needs to feel like she’s contributing,” Hoa reminded her. “She doesn’t like to cook or clean. This is what she can do.”
“Anyone can walk,” Ngoan grumbled.
“Exactly,” Hoa said. “Even Trinh.” So far, she hadn’t managed to lose the children.
After the house was empty, Hoa proceeded to clean each apartment. None of the family bothered to lock the doors inside the building anymore. Hoa liked this part of the day, organizing her children and grandchildren’s belongings, holding and dusting the items that mattered to them. She felt hopeful when she found a technical college brochure on Phung’s dresser and disappointment when she later emptied the crumpled paper out of the wastebasket. She knew when Cam had tired of her coloring books and had moved on to reading chapter novels. Or when Xuan outgrew his fear of murderers lurking on the fire escape and dismantled the barrier of pillows and stuffed animals along his bedroom windowsill.