by Aimee Phan
1985
Cuc Bui
Paris, France
… God has blessed our family with so much. I pray every day that we are worthy of His gifts. I was afraid my sons would die in prison camp, and they survived. I feared our families would never escape the Communists, but the Lord was watching over us, and the boat captains agreed to my proposal. We were strangers in this beautiful cold country, but God provided us with our guardian angels, the Bourdains.
They have no reason to offer such kindness, yet they do. Monsieur Bourdain is the man I aspired to be in Vietnam. I gave up this dream long ago. Perhaps Yen will one day reach his status. He is doing very well at the law firm. But poor Phung, so like his mother in heart and head. Fortunately, he is not smart enough ever to understand my disappointment. He is grateful only for his wife and daughter, content with his small life, which relieves me.
I look forward to every visit we have with the Bourdains, because I know they are busy people. They do so much for the community, and their bright young son excels at his studies. I am proud to report that Xuan is also doing very well in his schooling, and Cam is performing capably. The three of them, friends since childhood, almost siblings. I hope they will remain close all their lives, long after their grandparents and parents have passed.
Hung Truong
Paris, France
Chapter Seven
CAM
PARIS, FRANCE, 1994
Cam held the last meringue mushroom in the air, attempting to locate its proper place on the bûche de Noël. The sugary confection already felt soft between her fingers, threatening to melt. The Christmas yule log had cooled to an ideal temperature, the frosting buffed, the detailed piping painstakingly sculpted. She simply needed to find a free space for the last piece of decoration and her hours of work would finally end, but her eyes could not settle upon the correct location. A good patisserie knew how to finish and walk away. But Cam, in only her second year of culinary school, had not yet mastered this skill.
“You’re not dressed yet?” her mother asked.
Reluctantly, Cam tore her eyes away to look at her parents, already in their church clothes, standing at the door.
“The buttercream took longer to set than I expected,” she said. “I can meet you at the church.”
Her mother nodded at the bûche de Noël with the same detachment she exhibited for all of Cam’s desserts. “It looks like you’re done now. We can wait a few minutes.”
Cam struggled not to exhale too loudly. Christmas Eve was hardly a good time for another argument with her mother, especially this year. “You don’t want to lose your seats. I can catch up with you. I don’t mind.”
Her fingers tensed around the cake pan as her parents conferred with each other. Finally, her father shrugged his shoulders and her mother nodded.
“We’ll ask Xuan to wait for you,” she said.
It annoyed Cam that her mother felt she needed an escort for the eight-minute walk to the church. Once the front door shut, Cam’s attention returned to the task at hand. Of all the pastries and desserts she’d prepared in the past two years, this was not a favorite of hers. So many hours spent mixing the flour, preparing the buttercream, meticulously dragging a fork over the frosted log, sprinkling the almonds, and finally placing the meringue mushrooms, and it still looked like every bûche de Noël she’d seen: an artfully decorated piece of poop.
It didn’t matter. She hadn’t spent most of her Christmas Eve preparing the holiday dessert for herself, but for the Bourdains. And though almost every member of her family (including Grandmère) suggested she simply go down the street and buy one of the dozens of bûches de Noël available at every patisserie, Cam needed to make it herself. Her teachers at the culinary institute were right: once you knew what was involved in creating something, you could trust no one but yourself for its successful outcome.
Cam’s mother found this perfectionist attitude tiresome. She thought desserts were a waste of time, and couldn’t understand why, if Cam had to reject a perfectly decent history program at the Sorbonne for culinary school, she couldn’t at least have picked an emphasis that was practical?
“I like desserts,” Cam tried to explain. “They make people happy.”
“Happy?” her mother echoed, her face aghast as the word dropped from her mouth. “Do you think if you went back to Vietnam and baked a lavender torte for some starving orphans who need protein and vegetables they’d be happy?”
Cam actually believed they would, but it was pointless to argue with her mother. She could never win. Her father never had, which was why he’d given up long ago. How could she explain that it was actually the difficulty in patisserie that excited her? The precision of using scales and measurements, maintaining oven temperatures, and respecting quality ingredients? There was something immensely satisfying in overcoming so many obstacles to successfully create a pastry. One minute mistake and the cream puffs deflate or the dough toughens. A finished product was an immense accomplishment, something patrons would never consider when passing a gleaming glass case of fruit tarts and croissants on their walks to work.
The elusive spot on the cake emerged, taunting Cam with its obvious existence all this time. She dropped the confection in place, pulled off her apron, and walked to her bedroom to change into the dress and shawl she’d laid out on her bed. As she finished pulling up her hair, she heard the wooden floors in the living room groan with her cousin’s arrival.
“I’m almost done,” Cam called out.
“You’ve been saying that all day,” Xuan said, with sleepy cheerfulness in his voice. Fresh from another catnap, he was enjoying one of the few holiday breaks Lycée Henri-IV offered its preparatory students. Xuan was in the middle of the intense CPGE courses for admission into the leading engineering grande école in the country, like Michel before him. But unlike Michel, he didn’t have expensive tutors guiding him through the preparatory courses. Michel was honest about how he got in, a trait she found admirable. He never apologized for who he was, to Cam or to anyone.
Cam walked to the living room as she hooked in her earrings. Xuan wore a bright-blue knit cap Grandmère had made for him years ago. It made him look like he was twelve, but he didn’t care. He yawned, scratched at his elbow, and glanced at the yule log.
“Nice work,” he said. The family’s beloved genius, Xuan still had trouble seeing food beyond the practical application of a brioche stuffed in his mouth so his stomach wouldn’t growl during his eighth hour of studying, but at least he was trying.
“It’s good practice,” Cam said. “I spend this much time on all of my desserts.”
Xuan looked at her doubtfully, but let it go. “Do you think they’re going to taste it?”
“If they do, they won’t be disappointed.”
He nodded. “Grandpère is walking with us.”
“He didn’t want to drive?”
“He said he wanted to walk. He wouldn’t leave his bedroom. Grandmère finally gave up. She told him to freeze for all she cared.”
Downstairs in Grandpère’s apartment, he’d forgotten the argument and wondered where Grandmère was.
“She’s meeting us at the church,” Xuan said, as he helped him put on his winter coat.
“But why would she leave without me? Why wouldn’t she ask me?”
“She probably just forgot,” Cam said. It was easier to lie than to further confuse him.
“I’m going to have to talk to your grandmère,” he said, carefully fitting the black fedora hat to his head. “I hope you, Cam, will be more respectful of your husband when you marry.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try! Do you hear that, Xuan? Why are there so many bossy women in this family? So insolent to their husbands. At least your mother has learned to be more obedient, isn’t that right?”
Eight months ago, Cam had returned home from a weekend pastry seminar in Lyon to a smiling, chatty Aunt Trinh helping her mother julienne vegetables for Sunday dinner. C
am assumed this was one of her aunt’s temporary upswings due to a change in medication, but instead, the balance prevailed. She started going out again, and several months ago she had returned to attending church. This was the first Midnight Mass and réveillon celebration Aunt Trinh felt well enough to attend in years.
Xuan refused to discuss his mother’s recovery with Cam, which wasn’t so unusual since he kept most of his thoughts to himself anyway. Cam had long ago developed a patient persistence in order to learn anything intimate about her cousin, such as Xuan’s boyfriend Jean, one of his classmates from Lycée Henri-IV. Cam understood why her cousin would want to keep this quiet from their family—they had enough to deal with—but she did long for the day when Xuan could finally think of himself first.
Outside, Grandpère automatically reached for Cam’s hand as they crossed the street. She linked arms with him and passed the basket holding the bûche de Noël to Xuan. Cam thought it was unfortunate that her affection for Grandpère had increased due to the solid, irrefutable fact that he was sick. Before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Cam had openly, loudly preferred Grandmère. Her grandmère, so sweet and patient, made sure everyone in the family was warm, properly nourished, and comfortable, while her grandpère, she remembered even as a small child, was grumpy, surly, and always sniping at Grandmère. But what Cam found most unforgivable was his unabashed preference for Xuan as a grandchild, just because he was a boy.
“But why does that matter?” Cam had asked her father when she was little. “Isn’t being a girl good, too?” Her mother and aunt were girls, and so was Grandmère.
“Grandpère grew up with different values in Vietnam,” he’d said. “He loves you, too, but he shows it differently.”
But because Grandpère was the head of their family, the difference scraped at her heart. At church and Vietnamese community events, Grandpère made sure to introduce his smart, studious grandson Xuan before anyone else, even Grandmère. He hardly ever addressed Cam directly. Most of the time, he’d bark at Grandmère or Cam’s mother to control that crazy girl—the one who wouldn’t sit still in church or wandered off during their walks around the 13th Arrondissement—before she embarrassed their entire family.
After Grandpère forgot about a teakettle he left burning on the stove one afternoon, Grandmère didn’t want to leave him home alone. Cam, her mother, and Aunt Trinh took turns spending time with Grandpère. Once an avid reader and letter writer, Grandpère would ask Cam to read to him from the newspaper and her cookbooks. Though she knew it was because of his memory loss, Cam enjoyed her grandpère’s rapt attention and questions. Unlike her mother and aunt, she never tired of answering them, no matter how many times he repeated himself.
The church had already filled to capacity by the time they entered, full of regulars and the lapsed who attended Mass only for Christmas and Easter. Cam noticed there was only room for two other people in her family’s pew. Cam’s mother waved at them. She would pressure them to squeeze in—dismissive of the twice-a-year worshippers invading their pew. That wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone, especially considering how hot the church already felt with so many bodies inside. Up on the second floor, where the choir also sat, Cam knew there’d be more room.
“You take Grandpère,” Cam said, placing his hand into Xuan’s. “I’ll go stand in the balcony.”
“Should we bother finding you afterward?” Xuan asked.
She ignored him and made her way through the crowded aisles and up the carpeted spiral staircase. People stood anywhere they could: slumping against the walls, sitting on the staircase, crowding around the archways. The balcony was not that different, but behind the choir, she saw him. His wool coat lay on the pew, saving her seat.
Pulling off her glove, she reached for his hand, and marveled at how cool it felt despite the stuffiness in the room. Michel turned his head and smiled at her.
“Merry Christmas, Cammie,” he said.
“Merry Christmas.”
* * *
She and Michel had bumped into each other at a bookstore in the Marais. She was looking for a birthday present for her American cousin Cherry and he was browsing for used copies of a Derrida he needed for class. They hadn’t spoken in years, though they still saw each other at church and the Bourdains’ annual Christmas réveillon. Michel took Cam to a brasserie for a drink and they ended up spending the night together.
Cam remembered the first time she saw Michel, or Petit Michel, as they called him back then. His hair was so blond it almost appeared white, and Cam—freshly arrived from Vietnam, where the only hair she ever saw resembled her own—was amazed that hair could be so bright, like angels’ hair.
Not everyone thought so. “That child looks like a ghost,” Cam’s mother commented in Vietnamese. “How can he be so pale?”
Though only a year older than Xuan and Cam, Petit Michel was the leader when the children played together. He told them what toys they could touch, and his favorites that they could not. When bored, Xuan and Cam would devise tricks to convince Petit Michel that some toys were actually more popular at their school playground than his electronic games, which confused and frustrated the baby-faced Bourdain.
“How would you know?” Petit Michel asked. “Did they even have toys in your country?”
“We had toys,” Xuan said defensively. “We just couldn’t bring them over on the boat.”
“They weren’t that great then,” Petit Michel said. “My parents taught me to take care of my stuff.”
Xuan called Petit Michel a pain, but Cam thought he was funny. She didn’t mind his bossy manner, because she could be bossy right back. There was nothing wrong with stating what you wanted. If more people did that, such as her grandmère or her father, there would be less misunderstanding, less unhappiness.
As they grew older, Petit Michel lost interest in his toys and allowed Xuan and Cam to play with more of them. When Petit Michel turned ten and decided he preferred reading, he put most of his toys in boxes and gave them to the Truongs. For Cam, he personally handed over his frayed Babar the Elephant, which she kept on her bed for years.
After meeting him one night over drinks, her friends criticized Petit Michel as morose, bland, but Cam believed there was great potential behind his aloof silences and indifferent cigarette drags. He simply needed time to understand what she already did. Her tenacity would work in her favor, as it had their first night together, when she pushed her way through his apartment, undressing him and herself, assuring him that no one in their families had to know about them, not yet anyway.
* * *
The Bourdains’ annual réveillon was always a lavish feast. After Midnight Mass, the family opened its home to fellow parishioners to eat, drink, and eat again until dawn. It was the only night of the year Cam’s family ever stayed out past ten o’clock, though by two in the morning, most of them could be found dozing in one of the upstairs bedrooms. As children, Cam and Xuan relished the challenge of staying up the entire night, running around the Bourdains’ spacious house, playing tag, and eating oysters and foie gras until their tummies ached. They never had opportunities to eat these French delicacies at home, and even now, when Cam ate oysters at a café with friends, they never tasted as salty fresh as the ones she remembered slurping off a cocktail napkin at a Bourdain réveillon.
Madame Bourdain spared no expense in decorating and catering for her biggest party of the season, her Christmas trees and nativity scenes growing more elaborate every year. This year, the Bourdains displayed their decorative masterpiece outdoors. Guests walked past and marveled at the life-size crèche in the pruned-back rose gardens.
“What is that supposed to be?” Grandpère asked, as the family stared up at the monstrous concrete statues draped in gold and silver twinkle lights.
“It’s the birth of Jesus Christ,” Cam said. “I mean, a re-creation.”
“It’s a spectacle,” Aunt Trinh said, looking both horrified and fascinated.
“It’s not that bad
,” Uncle Yen said.
“They only get more ridiculous,” Cam’s mother said. “Remember the actors they hired to play the wandering wise men last year? They had too much wine and started heckling the guests.”
“Maybe next year Madame Bourdain will rent an orphan to play baby Jesus,” Xuan said, smiling innocently at Cam’s chilly glare.
After Mass, Cam and Michel had separated to find their families in the tangled church crowd, agreeing to meet after dinner. Cam’s mother regarded her suspiciously after hearing her story about sitting up with the choir during mass. Now, she looked at everything and everyone at the party with annoyance.
Yet, Cam continued to smile, cooing with Aunt Trinh over the lush mistletoe draping the front doorway and the massive silver fir Christmas tree in the candlelit ivy-and-berry-trimmed atrium. Stationed by the front door, Monsieur Bourdain, wearing a fluffy red-and-white Santa hat, rang a jingle bell, and reminded the children to drop their shoes by the fireplace. Cam’s mother would not ruin this evening for her. At the end of the night, hopefully even she would be happy for her.
In the spirit of a community feast, the Bourdains invited guests to bring treats for the dessert table. When Madame posted the sign-up sheet on the church community bulletin board in early November, Michel suggested Cam bake one of the requested yule logs.
“It’s my father’s favorite,” he said. “He’s always complaining that the bûches de Noël we buy are so sloppy. He’d like your attention to detail.”
While the family searched for their table in the dining room, Cam walked through the parlor, where the caterers continued adding to the buffet. Stopping at the dessert table, Cam opened the basket and felt relieved to find that her yule log hadn’t been damaged in its travels. She lifted the cake and placed it on one of the last empty silver platters. Surrounded by poorly crafted tarts, imprecise petite fours, and lumpy sugar cakes in the shape of baby Jesus, Cam’s bûche de Noël brilliantly stood out as an artistic achievement.