Once Upon a Mulberry Field

by C. L. Hoang

  I’d never seen her more carefree or radiant than that afternoon, standing on the sidewalk among the crowd, relishing her favorite fruit drink. In the sunlight, her long hair shimmered like black silk against the exquisite lavender of her áo dài. It was an unforgettable sight, a soothing and welcome vision in the jungle heat of the capital.

  I drank my cold juice in one gulp—greedily, insatiably. It was delectable and went down smooth and easy, leaving a frothy mustache that I licked off in one big smack, much to Lee Anne’s delight.

  “Where to next—boss?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Sài-Gòn Zoo and Botanical Garden?”

  Squinting into the bright sunlight, I declared, “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  The Municipal Zoo and Botanical Garden were situated at the other end of Ðại-Lộ Thống-Nhất (Reunification Boulevard), a spacious, tree-lined avenue that originated from the imposing gates of the Presidential Palace and ran past the back of Notre Dame Cathedral and the sprawling US Embassy. It was a ten-minute taxi ride from downtown.

  Lee Anne insisted on paying for the tickets, and we went in through the turnstiles. After the crazy hubbub of downtown, we suddenly found ourselves in an oasis of peace and serenity. Behind the green copper gate, along the broad main walk stood a couple of stately buildings that appeared to belong to a time past.

  “The French founded the zoo and garden in late 1800s, short time after they conquered Việt-Nam,” Lee Anne said. “The buildings were added later, in 1920s.”

  On our left was the National Museum, a handsome multitiered structure that rose above the trees like an octagonal pagoda. Its architecture, according to my lovely guide, had been inspired by the Summer Palace in Peking. To our right, atop a wide stone staircase adorned with dragon sculptures, an ancient-looking temple beckoned to the faithful.

  “That is the Temple of Remembrance, dedicated to our earliest ancestors, the eighteen Kings Hùng,” Lee Anne explained. “Its design was copied from imperial mausoleums in the old capital Huế. Maybe Elise can tell us which one.”

  The air was suffused with burning incense, and from the bowels of the temple emanated the deep echo of a gong. We climbed the steps to the terrace fronting the main entrance and sat on a stone bench. Neither of us spoke for a while.

  “It’s heavenly in here. Do you come often?” I whispered.

  “As a kid, I came with my parents on special days.” She smiled at the memory. “We brought fruit and flowers for the ancestors’ altar, burned incense, and prayed for their blessings. But I could never sit still through the praying. I was itching to get to the zoo next.”

  “Why did you stop coming?”

  “The war,” came her answer, soft as a sigh. “It upset everything, and made life difficult for all. My parents were always busy coping. Then I was a kid no more.”

  “We must thank Mme Yvonne for allowing us to be kids again,” I said cheerfully. “If only for an afternoon.”

  “I need to thank her for a lot more.” Lee Anne’s gaze followed a pair of sparrows in a tree nearby. “She really saved us. Without her job, I don’t know what would happen to my family.”

  “You mentioned she’s an old acquaintance?”

  Lee Anne looked hesitant. “We have known each other since childhood. But it is a long and boring story for you.”

  “Don’t you know by now I never get bored listening to your stories?”

  “If you like, we can walk down to the lily pond,” she proposed. “I will tell you on the way.”

  We stood and headed down the steps.

  Like the sound of a stream in the distance, a soft breeze rustled the stands of century-old poinciana trees, sprinkling the pathway with bright red flowers.

  “Mme Yvonne is a remarkable woman with a heart of gold,” began Lee Anne.

  From what Lee Anne told me that day, I later researched the time period in question and was able to reconstruct some historical context to Mme Yvonne’s amazing story.

  Nobody knew exactly where her father had come from. Some French colony in the heart of the “Dark Continent,” Africa, was her mother’s best recollection. To escape the abject poverty of his homeland, he joined the multinational French Foreign Legion at a young age and wandered to far-flung corners of the French Colonial Empire. In 1939, at the onset of WWII, he was stationed with the 5th Regiment in Indochina.

  In Việt-Nam at that time, the Foreign Legion’s reputation had been seriously tarnished by the unethical and violent conduct of many bad apples among its rank and file. Widely circulated were horror stories of rape and pillaging committed by out-of-control members of the Legion, mostly in the countryside. A tragic consequence was the escalating number of fatherless children whose mixed-blood features clearly told of the brutality befallen their mothers. The mere presence of these kids was a prickly reminder of the country’s collective shame under foreign occupation, and thus they were considered dregs of society, to be relegated to its fringes. Those with dark skin like Mme Yvonne bore the brunt of the injustice.

  Mme Yvonne, however, always maintained that her family history was an exception rather than the sad norm. She claimed her Légionnaire father had actually married her mother and the two had lived together during his sojourn in Việt-Nam. When he left Indochina in 1940 to join the Free French Movement in North Africa to fight the Germans, he’d promised his Vietnamese wife, pregnant with their baby, that he would come back for them after the war. He never did.

  “She told me as a child she looked for her father’s return every day,” Lee Anne said, her voice filled with empathy. “Other kids made fun of her, but she never gave up hope, even now.”

  In 1954, when Lee Anne’s family came south and settled on the outskirts of Sài-Gòn, young Mme Yvonne and her mother had recently moved into the same neighborhood. Her mother was employed as a kitchen aid at a French catholic boarding school in the capital, Le Couvent des Oiseaux (The Convent of the Birds), and barely scraped together a living for the two of them. Every morning the young child, known to neighbors simply as Nhỏ Ðen (Little Black Girl), tagged along with her mother as she left for work, returning home by her side only after dark. At the school, Nhỏ Ðen helped out in the kitchen, and mother and daughter were allowed to partake of the food left over when the school cafeteria closed. The little girl received no formal education to speak of, though she learned to read and write in Vietnamese from her mother, along with a few greetings in French for her papa, should he ever come back.

  Since it was obvious she was an abandoned con lai (half-caste), most kids in the area wanted nothing to do with Little Black Girl, except to pick on her. Though five years younger, Lee Anne, herself a new kid on the block and lonely, felt sorry for the young outcast and befriended her. A close bond developed between the girls, who grew to be like sisters to each other.

  “We were both so grateful to have a friend who listened to our troubles,” Lee Anne said pensively. “My brother had died one year earlier and I was missing him so much, while she was crying every night, praying for her father’s return. At least now we could confide in each other and cry together.”

  Their young friendship lasted over a year until Yvonne’s mother died unexpectedly after a brief illness untreated due to lack of money. Overnight, Little Black Girl found herself alone in the world with nowhere to turn, at the worst possible time. There were rumblings of a new war on the horizon.

  Lee Anne bowed her head. “My parents wished they could take her in. But we, too, had big problems, and my father already struggled to support us. So we stood by helpless. It was awful.”

  In the end, the kind-hearted nuns at Le Couvent offered Nhỏ Ðen food and shelter in exchange for part-time help in the kitchen, to be increased to full-time when she grew older. It was their hope to allow her to take over her mother’s position.

  “The morning before she left for the school
, we hugged and cried and never wanted to let go,” Lee Anne said. “Then the sisters came to pick her up, and out of our lives she was gone. I never got to play with her again. Our family moved a few more times, and I lost contact with her.” She glanced up at me with a gentle smile. “Until we bumped into each other by luck at Bến-Thành Market, two months ago. Even after twelve years and a lot of change, we recognized each other immediately. Our hearts knew.”

  We had arrived at the lily pond—a picturesque, timeless setting right out of a Monet painting. Along the edge, wispy willows leaned out over the water, their graceful branches bowing low in deep sorrow. A mother duck navigated her young between the broad, flat leaves of the lilies, deftly paddling around the gold koi fish lurking beneath the surface. Overhead, a canopy of dense foliage provided welcome shade, while all around us carefree birds joined the last few cicadas in a late summer chorus.

  A low stone bridge arched over the pond, beckoning. We strolled to the middle.

  No longer able to contain my curiosity, I prodded Lee Anne. “Did you find out what happened with Mme Yvonne in the intervening years?”

  Her black eyes shone, sparkling pebbles of ebony. “Ah, that is the most exciting part of the story. You like to hear the rest now, I guess?”

  I rolled my eyes in response, which made her giggle.

  According to Lee Anne, it didn’t take long for the good nuns at Le Couvent des Oiseaux to realize their young charge was no average orphan. Blessed with a sharp, inquisitive mind and cheerful personality, it was clear Nhỏ Ðen had the potential to go further in life than the school kitchen. After discussion, the sisters agreed to try an experiment. They dressed her in an old school uniform outgrown by a former couventine—white shirt tucked inside a navy blue skirt—and placed her in a class several grades behind her age. She was seated alone in the back so as not to distract her younger classmates.

  Nhỏ Ðen, whose new baptized name was Yvonne, went on to exceed all expectations. Buoyed by an unquenchable thirst for learning and a single-minded determination to rise above her circumstances, she excelled and quickly made up lost ground, progressing through the grades faster than anticipated. This she accomplished while still working many hours in the kitchen to hold up her end of the bargain.

  Six years after the nuns took her in, Yvonne graduated from high school with the finest education her mother could ever have dreamed for her.

  Lee Anne nodded in admiration. “It is unbelievable, what she achieved. And that was just the beginning.”

  A survivor, young Yvonne sensed winds of change blowing. The French, though still present in Việt-Nam after Điện-Biên-Phủ, were relinquishing their lead role in this former colony to the newly arrived Americans. Armed with her academic knowledge of English and a foresight beyond her years, she sought employment with the USAID office in Sài-Gòn, one of the first locals to do so. The year was 1962.

  “It began a whole new life for her,” Lee Anne said. “Nhỏ Ðen does not exist anymore—except in her heart, because she keeps believing her father will one day come back for her.”

  Through her job at USAID, Yvonne met a nice, decent man—a government contractor from Atlanta, Georgia, who was running away from his own grief and loneliness after his wife of many years died. He was impressed with Yvonne’s charm and education, but it was her kind heart that captured him. There was but one inconvenient detail, a twenty-year gap between their ages. In time, however, his sincere affection won her over.

  Lee Anne breathed a happy sigh. “At last she has somebody who loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her. I am so happy for Yvonne. She deserves every good thing. She and Mr. Bill have been happily married for three years already.”

  In the center of the bridge, I rested my elbows on the low railing, wishing the sweet voice that so enthralled my imagination would go on forever. Fancy that. My very own Thousand-and-One Nights dream weaver, I told myself with a quiet chuckle. Only we were standing in a public park in the center of Sài-Gòn in broad daylight.

  “What a wonderful story,” I said. “And such a storybook ending. I’ve a feeling you’re a die-hard romantic. One of the few remaining.”

  “I think we are all romantics at heart,” she replied, looking out over the glimmering water. “Who does not wish for love and romance? Or a happy ending. Or peace. But for many of us reality is messy and cruel, and not at all our choice.” A sad smile trembled on her lips. “I see my husband maybe two days a month, and each time I am afraid it could be the last.”

  Surprised by her frankness, I couldn’t think of something proper to say, even as I ached to reach out and comfort her. For a moment, she seemed lost in thought, standing motionless and lonely on the stone bridge, her áo dài fluttering around her like ribbons of light. I leaned against the railing, still speechless, my eyes trained on the enchanting picture before me.

  Nothing stirred. We both froze in contemplation.

  A cool breeze wafted by. Lee Anne shuddered as if awakened from a dream. With one hand she brushed back her hair from her face, pointing with the other to the lilies on the water. “How beautiful they are,” she murmured.

  They were of a variety of colors—most in shades of white or pink, with a few reds or blues in their midst—rising pristine and luminous from the mossy water. A delicate fragrance permeated the air, sweet, but softer than jasmine.

  “So beautiful,” she repeated.

  Yes, just like you, I thought, and turned away—my chest about to burst.

  “These are really lotus flowers, not water lilies,” she said. “They look alike, but the lotus flower has larger petals and a big seedpod at its center.”

  I kept my voice casual. “Your Vietnamese name, Liên, doesn’t it mean ‘lotus flower’?”

  Her eyes widened. “How do you know?”

  “I have my sources.” Never good at playing coy, however, I quickly relented. “I made a mental note of your name the first time we met, and asked Bà Bảy when I got back to base. She’s the Mama-san who cleans our hooch. All this time, I meant to ask you, but—” whenever I’m with you, everything else slips my mind.

  She seemed pleased, blushing lightly. “In Vietnamese customs, parents give their children meaningful names that express their highest hopes for the little ones. The lotus flower is the symbol of purity—something that grows out of the mud, yet so beautiful and unspoiled. It also represents spiritual growth, in Buddhism.” She blinked and lowered her gaze. “I have not lived up to my name . . .”

  I interrupted. “I’m sure you have. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  She glanced up in grateful silence, then looked away.

  The day was winding down. The sun had slipped off its peak and the air felt lighter, fresher. I straightened. “I hate to be a party pooper, but I’d best get you back to Mme Yvonne’s. I’ve really enjoyed our afternoon together. It was the most wonderful time I’ve had in quite a while.” Taking in the scenic surroundings for the last time, I nodded. “Never in a million years could I have found this delightful spot on my own. I shall always remember it. Like this.”

  Her face lit up with a radiant smile, and she bowed her head graciously.

  “How do you say ‘thank you’ in Vietnamese? The correct pronunciation?”

  “Cám ơn,” she enunciated each syllable, all the while shaking her head as if to say, “There is no need.”

  I stepped toward her, bent down until my face was inches from hers. Looking in her eyes, I took both her hands in mine. “Cám ơn, Liên.” In the cool dampness over the lily pond, I felt her rushed breath on my face, mingled with the lovely scent of the lotus.

  It was after 2100 hours when I made it back to Biên-Hoà AFB.

  My head still spinning with all the sights, sounds, and smells from the day’s special outing, I threaded my way through rows of hooches toward my own. For the umpteenth time, I relived in my
mind the entire afternoon, moment by sweet moment.

  I almost passed our hooch, failing to recognize it as it was drowned in silent darkness. This was unusual since Bob always stayed up until lights-out at 2200 hours, scribbling love notes to Nancy and listening to his music.

  His favorite record of late was “Puff, the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary, which he played at all hours while singing along. A loyal fan of the popular folk-music group, Bob loved that song even more now as he looked forward to singing it to his baby.

  “It’s a real cute children’s song,” he once remarked. “I’ve told Nancy it’ll make a sweet lullaby when the baby fusses at night.” Then he laughed out loud. “Ya sure. Just not the way Daddy butchers it. We all know how atrocious that is.”

  The song title had also been borrowed to nickname the fabulous AC-47 gunship, call sign “Spooky,” to which Biên-Hoà had had the distinction of being the birthplace. Basically a WWII Skytrain transport made over, the AC-47 had been equipped to deliver crippling firepower from the air. At night, when its mini-guns all blasted at once at six thousand rounds per minute, the visual effect was that of a cone of fire pouring down from the sky on the enemy, like a dragon’s breath. Meanwhile, the guns’ thunder reverberated through the open cargo bay and intensified the eerie illusion for observers on the ground. By chance, one such awestruck eyewitness in the early days happened to be a reporter from the Stars and Stripes. His subsequent write-up in the Stars was so descriptive it instantly earned the new gunship its nickname Puff the Magic Dragon, Spooky for short, and made it a legend among our fighting men.

  As a proud member of the Air Force, Bob was taken lock, stock, and barrel by the newborn legend and by the song itself, whose lyrics were modified by the AC-47 crews to better suit their story of war. I once asked him, half-jokingly, if he’d consider naming a son of his “Puff.” That had him in stitches, though he never did give a categorical negative.