Late Blossom

by Laura Lam

  I learned that evening that high cheekbones and a broad mouth, together with a tall, slim body, were considered ideal for a woman in the West. A tan was taken as an enviable sign of health. This was radically new to me.

  “You clearly don’t believe me, do you?” he said with an amusing look at me.

  “No, I kan’t believe your words. Yew just flatter me because yew are a man.”

  I felt much more at ease with him toward the end of the evening. We had several amusing conversations and good laughs.

  We arranged to meet again the following week, and I would begin English lessons with him. He was looking forward to a cross-cultural friendship and to understand more about the Vietnamese people. He could speak some Vietnamese and thought he could improve it by speaking it more often. He gave two kisses on my cheeks, bidding me goodbye. I felt them all the way home.

  Much later he admitted that when he first met me he was deeply moved by the mixed expressions in my eyes, or, as he described it, “a little sadness, a little sorrow, a little happiness, a lot of affection, and unyielding determination.” We began seeing each other once a week. My English improved rapidly, although I had great difficulties with English grammar and pronunciation. Our friendship was platonic and he was always happy to see me. He shared his feelings of loneliness and how terribly he missed his two daughters back in America. The war itself was one subject we never talked about. Finding a suitable meeting place was difficult. I was reluctant to go to that same restaurant and afraid of being seen in the city centre by someone who might recognize me. I would not go to his living quarters either, as that would be improper and unwise for a young and single woman. We usually ended up at one of the hospital’s cafeterias.

  Robert was aware of my reservations. It took me a long time to get used to being seen with him. On one occasion we went to the botanical gardens. I was quite nervous the whole time. There he took more than a dozen photographs of me. I had never smiled in a photo before and when they had been developed, I was amazed by how I looked.

  By this time, after a particularly bitter incident with my mother, I had run away from home and was staying at Ngoc Phuong Buddhist temple. Robert would take me back there in a taxi. The driver was instructed to drop me off at a distance from the temple. Robert would wait in the taxi until he was certain I had safely entered the building. He never took me back during daytime. The daylight contributed to my intense anxiety at being seen with a white man by the Vietnamese. Because of this, whether we met in the morning or in the afternoon, I would always go back in the evening.

  We discussed the different cultures and lifestyles of East and West. He said that I lived in time and he lived in space, that self-denial was my secret while self-assertiveness was his strength. He was full of curiosity and interest in Eastern philosophies and Buddhism. He introduced me to American literature. I began with Hemingway’s short stories and toward the end of the year I decided that Pearl Buck was my favourite author. A Nobel laureate, she had been born and raised in China by her missionary parents. Her novels revealed the lives of Asian people and had a special appeal to me.

  It was a surprise to find out that we were mentally well matched, despite having grown up in two contrasting cultures. Physically Robert kept his distance, but what seemed to be politeness was a misleading indication of his true feelings.

  * * *

  One evening, we sat quietly having a drink on the rooftop of the army restaurant. It was the first time I had seen Robert in civilian clothes – white shirt and navy patterned trousers. I commented on his clothes. He suddenly looked more serious and said to me, “Jasmine. I want to speak to you about something that has been on my mind for several weeks. Would you mind?”

  Intrigued by his sombre look, I smiled, mischievously, “Yes, Lieutenant, I am ready to listen to anything that you wish to say.”

  He told me somewhat awkwardly, “I believe that I have fallen in love with you. I didn’t really expect this.”

  In shock, I instantly responded, “Oh dear! Oh Robert! I never expected this to happen either, between you and me.” Without warning, I found myself in the most delicate situation. Robert added that he was conscious of the fact that he was already married, he feared that by declaring his love for me I would break off our friendship.

  I felt troubled and overwhelmed. I got up from the table and walked away, not realizing I had left my shoes behind.

  I stared into the city lights. Why was I afraid of a man’s declaration of love? Was it because he was already married? But hadn’t I earlier decided I might have to become a bargirl serving American GIs? My heart and mind were filled with contradictions.

  Robert had got up too and now stood behind me, arms around my shoulders. He said softly, “I’m very sorry, Jasmine. I know it’s impossible.”

  I turned to look at him. The sight of his sad and tender eyes moved me and I stepped closer to him, saying with a trembling voice, “I am sorry too. I like you very, very much.”

  My face was against his chest. Confused by a violent torrent of emotions, I found myself saying, “You know that my life is already full of problems.” The moment I said that to him it was as if a giant needle pierced my chest. Perhaps I already loved him but was consciously forcing myself to deny it, and the pain of the mental tension became physical.

  I had never expected to fall in love with a white man. I had a strong need for meaningful friendships and affection and these were much more important to me than satisfying any sexual need or desire. Although Robert never talked to me about his wife, she was always there in my mind, and in fact her very presence served as a useful and convenient barrier for me.

  I became conscious of something else too – that I had led a man on, then cruelly frustrated all his desires. That night I said to Robert that perhaps it would be better for us not to meet for a while. He said little, but the following day I received a letter from him delivered to the Buddhist temple. In it he described my heart as a “sweet flower” and said it was impossible for him to part with it.

  I went to see him again and we resumed our meetings, now only twice a month. He continued to pour out his emotions by writing to me, as if he had found a real soul mate. Each of these letters was beautifully written and contained mostly his feelings and affection for me and my country. In response, I wrote to him - mostly in verse, and sometimes a few short notes. My message to him was always of longing and affection, with an underlying sadness. It was impossible to lie about my feelings. The desire to see each other had been strengthened and we soon resumed our former schedule of meeting once a week.

  I began to understand him better – his emotions and sensitivity to the war-shattered environment surrounding us. He had a deeply felt need for peace and harmony in a world of aggression, conflict, greed, and vulgarity. I worried about the negative long-term effects of military life on him. I knew that he desired the comfort of my presence and affection. He was alone in a foreign country.

  Since I had stopped keeping a diary, much of the expression of my emotions was transferred to Robert. I found him highly perceptive and intuitive. He could appreciate the depth of my feelings better than anyone I had known.

  Every time I read his letters my feelings intensified and his images appeared vividly in my mind: the handsome lieutenant, the sensitive gentleman, the charming tutor, the dear friend, the romantic dinner partner, and the sensual body. I yearned to be close to him, for us to shed our clothes, to have his lips touching mine, to have his bare chest against my bare breasts, to feel part of him inside me, to melt and disappear with him into the earth. My desire for him tormented me. I took deep breaths, I stood under cold showers, I knelt in front of Quan Yin. I tried very hard to bury him inside my heart, not wanting him ever to emerge again.

  Robert invited me to a formal dinner party, offering to buy me an evening dress. I told him I could easily sew one for myself. He wanted to take me to a silk shop to buy the fabric. I told him, “Oh no, I don’t tink so. Not dis time.” He
asked me what I meant but I didn’t tell him. He was disappointed, wanting to buy something special for me.

  The elder sister of one of my classmates owned many long evening dresses. She agreed to lend me one, a beautiful white dress with lace around the bodice. It fit me perfectly.

  On the night of the party I arrived at the Bachelor Officer Quarters. Robert was waiting for me. The atmosphere was festive. He greeted me with a happy smile, “Here you are! My princess.” He stretched out his arms for me. He showered me with kisses.

  The evening proved happy, full of good food and laughter. There was nothing deep or serious to take us below the fragile, glittering surface. I loved that evening gown and the next day when I returned it, my friend’s sister ended up selling it to me.

  A few months later Robert invited me to another formal party. I went to see my friend’s sister again. I told her I could not wear the same party dress a second time, as I was going out with the same “boyfriend”. This time I chose a white dress with soft pink lace from the waist up to the neckline. I had never been to a formal dinner party before I met Robert, and I had never heard anyone saying that I was beautiful. It took me months to half-believe that I might be attractive. He would say, “beautiful young lady”, “my beautiful sweetheart”, or simply “beautiful”. My response was to laugh nervously.

  Robert devoted much of his attention to me. He told friends how proud and happy he was to have known me. His affection and genuine caring were enough to convince me that I had become a real part of his life. I once overheard him saying to a friend that upon leaving Viet Nam he would be leaving his heart behind. I wasn’t certain what this implied. Every time he called me “my sweetheart”, “my princess”, or “my angel”, the word my tore me apart because I knew I could never really be his, given our life circumstances.

  Dear Quan Yin, I feel ashamed of myself that I love a foreigner. But he loves me dearly. Looking at our astrological signs, we are highly compatible – when a cat meets a snake, there is true happiness. Can you please bring us together in our next life?

  It was Robert who finally convinced me that I was a worthy person. For years I’d thought I was mentally inferior to other people, despite efforts to improve myself. By forcing me to change my own self-perception, he induced other profound changes in me – my whole view of life, my perception of Westerners, my hopes and dreams, what I wore, the way I walked …

  I constantly worried about him. Ngoc Phuong was not just an ordinary Buddhist temple. It was a major centre of secret opposition to the government and the Americans. I knew Robert wasn’t conscious of the danger. No one else in his position would have thought of this, since we were in the capital, not in a war zone.

  I knew of individual Americans being killed or hurt, and I felt a pang of sympathy. Each of them could have been Robert. And the soldier in this poem could have been him too.

  Fate of an American soldier

  The American soldier is stumbling in the mud

  He pulls one leg up, the other one sinks deeper

  Everybody, please come and watch him!

  His neck and his head are covered with mud

  He screams in anger, his hands are clawing and tearing at random

  The more he writhes violently, the deeper he sinks

  Beat him, beat him harder, the American aggressor

  Beating the American until his body is fully submerged,

  From head to toe…

  This was my fear, the fear of a young woman in love, in a city about to be engulfed by war.

  REVOLUTIONARY CELL

  Bong! Bong!

  I am the temple bell, on the peak of a mountain

  Bong! Bong!

  When you hear my sound, a new dawn arises

  Bong! Bong!

  When you hear my sound, please smile a half-smile

  Bong! Bong!

  When you hear my sound, please look with compassion On all that live…

  Anonymous

  I failed the Second Baccalaureate exam. This was a personal disaster, but at least it provided grounds for the end of the struggle with my mother over my education, and precipitated my surrender to the inevitable. My father could see I was in much distress even though I tried not to show it. He asked if I wanted to take the entrance exam for a two-year training program to become a registered nurse. I wasn’t interested. With my fear of blood, I felt that this kind of work would not be suitable for me. He said he would explore some other career possibilities for me through his government contacts.

  I telephoned Uncle Nam and told him the exam result but he didn’t seem upset. He said calmly,“ It was a very tough exam and I know that you would have done your best. Tomorrow let me arrange for you to take a special English exam at the USAID language centre. If you pass the test, they will send you to the United States for vocational training, and on return they will recommend you for a job with the Americans. Would you like to try that?”

  An arrangement was made by Uncle Nam, and I took the English test the following week. Unfortunately my score wasn’t high enough for me to be accepted. This didn’t surprise me, as I had not done well in my English classes while in high school. I enrolled in a typing course but could only get my speed up to nine words per minute. I tried a second time but still there was no improvement. The instructor thought I had problems with hand coordination and told me to quit.

  Now in the category of unskilled labourers, I returned to the road to sell bread. The ARVN soldiers whom I had known came back. They asked me where I had gone for so long. “We all missed you, sweetheart,” they said.

  Phuong was discharged from the American hospital. My mother expected her mother to pay special respects to my family. She maintained that I had given up a great deal of time from studying and sewing in order to help save Phuong’s life. Phuong’s mother came to our house but she failed to convince my mother that she was sufficiently appreciative. Her physical appearance was an added irritant to my mother – fancy clothes, long red fingernails, curly hair, and heavy makeup. Phuong’s mother and the children were living in moderate material comfort – provided by Americans GIs. Phuong’s father had been admitted to a mental institution for life, while her mother tried to support the family on her own. Without skills, and with good looks, she became intimately involved with American men for the family’s survival. This strained the motherdaughter relationship and upset Phuong, who viewed her family situation with shame and a loss of face.

  When Phuong’s mother left the house, my mother started making rude remarks about her, “All she cared about was her own sluttish appearance. You should have no more to do with that lot.” I told her that Phuong was my friend and it was my duty to help her, regardless of what her mother did or didn’t do. This just added fuel to my mother’s fire. For once I had asserted myself.

  Amazed at my defiance, she turned to the only resort she understood – violence. She went into one of her rages and nearly killed me. She raced through the house, grabbed a kitchen knife and came at me with it. I ran into the alley. Knife in hand, she chased after me until I was nowhere in sight. Her screams brought out the neighbours. She retreated into the house where her ranting and cursing continued. I thought my mother had become an insane woman.

  Once I was safely out of her reach, I slowed down to a walking pace, thinking where to go. Only one destination made sense as a refuge – Ngoc Phuong Buddhist temple.

  The temple was only three kilometres from our house. It would still take me over two hours on foot, as I avoided traveling on the city streets, in case my mother sent someone to follow me. Instead I took a circuitous route along footpaths off the main roads. The temple was near the edge of a hilly rural area in the northeast of Sai Gon, known as Go Vap, or Stumbling Hill. I walked through an area where they grew fungi for export. Dozens of large bamboo trays, containing many varieties of mushroom and tree fungus, were placed in each front yard to dry in the sun. It was extremely hot that day. My eyes were blinded by the blazing sun. I passed t
hrough a large field of tall areca trees and a betel leaf plantation. Then clumps of fruit trees appeared. The delicious aroma of ripened guavas, longans, custard apples and tangerines filled the air. Comforted, I moved northward along the dirt roads until Ngoc Phuong appeared.

  Sister Dieu Thai came into view. She was sitting in the lecture hall listening to a poetry reading. She came out to say hello and saw tears in my eyes. She immediately took in the situation.

  “You can stay at the temple tonight, can’t you?” She asked while we were walking along a path in the vegetable garden at the back. I had met Sister Dieu Thai three years earlier. She had been an orphan. Her Indian father had abandoned the family and her mother died when she was a child. She lived at the temple and taught at a private kindergarten.

  The temple took me in. I believe now that my act of defiance, such a significant step in my slow escape from a chaotic and repressed childhood, would not have been possible if Robert had not persuaded me of my worth. I now had new ground on which I could stand and try to build a future self.

  That was July and the middle of the monsoon season.

  That evening, after a light vegetarian meal, Dieu Thai and I went out for a quiet walk around the temple. We talked about my situation and what I could do to make a living. If the temple did not let me stay for a longer period, the only option left for me would be to become a bargirl. I refused to return to my parents’ home.

  While Dieu Thai and I were deep in conversation, the sky suddenly turned black, dark clouds quickly filled the horizon, and lighting flashed. Large and heavy raindrops began spattering on the roof tiles, accompanied by powerful gusts of wind. Branches and leaves yielded to the wind and we heard cracking noises. We started to run, nearly blown off the ground. Once inside, blasts of wind kept coming, one after the other. Bamboo shades rattled against the windows. Rainwater came bursting through cracks into the dormitory. Kerosene lamps were blown out. In the dark, we tried to close the French shutters but the wind forced them open again. Crashes of thunder and lightning continued to hammer the earth. The rain poured down like a waterfall. The kerosene lamps were re-lit, I knelt behind one of the dripping windows, looking out through an open crack. I watched the white curtains of rain moving downward. The sky kept roaring, moaning and screeching. How I wished to be swallowed and melted by the storm! I wanted to disappear from the earth, to end living.