Inheriting the War

by Laren McClung

  Hey, Mai says. He feels her hand on his shoulder. You okay?

  The exit is only twenty yards ahead. Huan creeps faster. When he sees sunlight poking along the walls, an adrenaline boost propels him forward, fingers digging through the clay earth until he reaches the surface. Then he remembers Mai is behind him and helps pull her out.

  At the next tunnel-crawling station, which the guide warns is even smaller and longer than the first, Huan decides to sit out. Mai offers to keep him company and he doesn’t argue.

  They sit at a rusted picnic table, next to a B-52 crater pit the size of a small fishing pond.

  I’m not claustrophobic, Huan says.

  Yeah, Mai says. Neither am I.

  No really, Huan says. It was very unreasonable down there.

  I agree.

  Huan takes a long drink of the bottled water he bought at a vendor’s cart. The water tastes cloying, metallic, and Huan suspects it is a used bottle refilled with tap water. A skinny boy carrying a pail of soft drinks sneaks up to them, tapping Huan on the shoulder. Coca? he asks, grinning and nodding vigorously.

  Huan shakes his head and looks away. But the child is persistent. He runs to Huan’s other side and asks again.

  No buy, Huan says firmly.

  It doesn’t work. He won’t leave, even when Mai sternly scolds him in Vietnamese. The boy pants loudly and steadily through his mouth. Whenever he feels Huan glancing his way, his posture straightens, his arms struggling to raise his scratched pail higher.

  Help me, the boy says. Buy fresh Coca. Help me.

  When the child nudges him again with the pail, Huan slams his water bottle down on the table, startling the boy and Mai.

  I don’t want your stupid drink, Huan says fiercely. Get the hell away from us.

  The child jolts in shock, his mouth dropping open. Huan realizes the boy probably doesn’t understand what he said, it is just the yelling that scares him. The boy’s eyes turn red, his jaw begins to shake. But instead of tears, the child lets out a terrible howl.

  You look down? the boy screams, dropping his pail. No better! You no better! The child is shaking violently, like he is suffering a seizure.

  Mai stands up, trying to put a hand on the child’s arm, but he ignores her, angry with her, too, continuing to scream. Tourists wander out of the gift booths, staring. The boy is crying in such terror. Finally, one of the tunnel guides rushes from the gate and grabs the boy by the arm, dragging him away, howling.

  The boy’s pail has fallen over in the rage, his soft drink cans scattered over the dusty ground. Mai begins picking them up.

  I can’t leave my hotel room, Huan says.

  You didn’t have to yell at him, Mai says, setting the pail on the table.

  I know, Huan says. It was stupid.

  Then why are you doing it?

  I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here.

  You didn’t want to come?

  No. I was talked into it. I knew better, too, that’s what pisses me off. Finding the past doesn’t make anyone feel better when it’s just bad.

  What’s bad?

  Are you kidding? They hate me.

  Who?

  You’ve seen it. Cops, little boys, everybody.

  Mai shakes her head. They don’t even know you.

  They don’t have to. They hate Amerasians. They wish I didn’t exist.

  You can’t blame them for not wanting to be here. They didn’t do this.

  I did?

  Yes. Whoever said learning about your past is supposed to feel good? This is you, Huan, about how you feel. You’re the one who hates them.

  Huan sees two Vietnamese guides taking a cigarette break. They never wanted me, Huan says.

  You don’t know why your parents gave you up.

  I’m supposed to accept that? It’s different for you. You know your mother died and didn’t abandon you on purpose. I have nothing to go on.

  Do you really want answers? Then go to the orphanage tomorrow. I’ll go with you.

  It didn’t help going to the adoption center.

  That was your fault. Do you know how many orphans would love to know their histories? Remember Kim? She has no idea. And look what happened to her—married to a man she doesn’t respect, with kids she doesn’t want. You’re taking it for granted.

  Right, I should be more grateful.

  Mai stands up suddenly. Forget it.

  I’m sorry, Huan says. Really, I’m being a jerk. I don’t mean to snap.

  I know, Mai says, looking up. There’s our group. We should go.

  Across the woods, Huan can see the guide beginning to pull their travel companions from the hole in the ground. They poke their heads out and emerge into the sunlight, disoriented, panting for air. His mother is one of the last to surface. Her hair is disheveled, face pink with perspiration. She looks around frantically, until she sees Huan. Her relieved smile is genuine. Huan finishes his water and rejoins the group.

  In the morning, they take a ferry and bus ride to the Delta, which, Leah says, is often referred to as the rice bowl of Vietnam. Out of the city, the air is fresh, the landscape clean and unspoiled. The tour charters a banana boat ride through local estuaries, where villages of wooden huts balance precariously on tall stilts and half-naked children splash in the yellow water. They visit a floating market and gaze at sampans overloaded with colorful vegetables, fruit, and fish.

  Huan sits between Mai and his mother on the boat. While Gwen and the other tour members exclaim wonder over the various sights, Mai remains silent. Huan observes his friend, who seems absolutely unaffected by the scenery around her. In retrospect, Huan realizes that Mai hasn’t really expressed any great pleasure or disappointment in their last few days of sightseeing. She has declared no favorite landmark. Except for food, she has purchased no souvenirs.

  During the bus ride through the rice paddies, Huan’s mother spots a peasant family plowing a field with a water buffalo. Though Huan pleads with her not to, his mother convinces Leah to stop the bus to take pictures. Some of the other tourists think it is a good idea, too, pulling out their own cameras. The peasants appear irritated, confused by all the attention. His mother squints behind her camera, fiddling with the zoom function, trying to capture the perfect photographs. When she reboards the bus, smiling with satisfaction, Huan can’t even look at her.

  For lunch, they feast on a home-cooked meal at a family’s sugarcane plantation. The food is diverse and sumptuous, probably not what this albeit wealthy family has for lunch every day. Everything, the housemistress joyously boasts, is fresh from the Delta: catfish, mangoes, rice, cabbage, pork, poultry, and, of course, sugar.

  The tour group is encouraged to spend time exploring the grounds of the plantation estate. Huan stands at the balcony, looking down at the winding rows of sugarcane. Huan’s mother approaches him, tapping him on the shoulder hesitantly.

  I talked to Sophie this morning, Gwen says. She said that they won’t expect you, but if you change your mind, you are welcome.

  Okay, Huan says.

  So I think you should. I think you want to, and if my being there will be distracting, then I’ll stay with the tour.

  Huan considers this. You sure?

  His mother blinks in surprise, and Huan realizes she really does want to come. Yes, she says. Of course.

  I’ll see you tonight, Huan says.

  Huan finds Mai outside, silently watching the laborers shuck sugarcane. Do you want to go? he asks.

  Mai looks at him in confusion, then remembers. Oh.

  You don’t have to, Huan says. The afternoon activities they would miss include visiting a snake farm, a silkworm factory, and a Buddhst pagoda. Maybe she’d rather do that.

  No, Mai says. I’ll go.

  They make plans to meet up with the group that evening for the ferry ride back to Ho Chi Minh City. Huan’s mother insists he take her camera, in case he might want to take pictures. Leah arranges for a motorbike taxi to take them to the orphanage, whic
h is near the Vinh Long province.

  They drive past Delta villages, where the poverty is even worse than the homeless they see in the city. Young girls slap wet clothes against large rocks in the river. Small children run after their taxi, fading in the clouds of dust the motorbike kicks up.

  After following a long dirt road for nearly twenty minutes, the taxi driver slows. Unlike the adoption center, the orphanage doesn’t appear to have been renovated since Huan left. Only half a gate remains as the entrance to a run-down building connected to a chapel. Vegetation stretches over the chipped concrete walls.

  Inside, Mai talks with a younger nun, Sister Trieu, who takes them inside to the prayer room to wait for Sister Phuong. She is one of the few remaining nuns who worked at the orphanage when Huan was still there.

  Mai sits in a wooden chair, waiting, while Huan paces around the room.

  Where are the kids? Huan asks. It is too quiet. He can hear his own footsteps and breathing.

  Maybe it’s not an orphanage anymore, Mai says.

  An older nun comes in with Sister Trieu. They converge in the middle of the room. The three women talk, and Huan listens. Occasionally, the older woman looks at him, but then returns to speaking to Mai.

  Mai turns to Huan. Sister Phuong says she remembers you.

  Huan nods and smiles obediently.

  Sister Phuong points at Huan’s face and laughs.

  Mai smiles. She says you’ve grown into your big ears.

  They confirm it is the orphanage, but it is on the second floor. Sister Phuong invites them to come upstairs with her to look around.

  In a small office stuffed with neglected bookshelves and filing cabinets, Sister Phuong peers over a large record book fingering each name down the list, turning each page slowly.

  Mai and Huan sit across from her and wait. The office door is open, and Huan can hear the children moving around on the floor. They are remarkably quieter than the orphans at the adoption center, not much laughter or yelling, children’s usual markers. Maybe it’s naptime. One young girl passes their door. Her shoulders hunch over, her feet shuffle across the floor. She isn’t curious enough to look in at the new visitors.

  Ah, Sister Phuong says, looking up triumphantly. She gestures for Huan and Mai to come to her side and look.

  The print is faded and nearly legible. Huan looks at Mai.

  It’s your name, Mai says, her eyes lifting from the book. You weighed six pounds when you arrived. They estimated you were only a few days old.

  Huan stares at where the nun’s finger is still pointing, the first evidence of his existence. Though he realizes the information is sketchy and unreliable at best, he believes it.

  They walk through the nursery, where Sister Phuong says Huan lived. It is a large room with rows and rows of wooden cribs. Several nuns tend to the crying children. Some of the babies are strong enough to stand, their small hands gripping the rails. Most, however, are not.

  Sister Phuong asks if they’d like to hold a baby. It occurs to Huan that the older nun may think he and Mai are a couple, perhaps wanting to adopt. But Mai wants to. She holds a baby girl close to her chest, caressing the child’s face and cooing into her ear.

  What do you think the chances are of this baby getting adopted? Mai asks, looking at Huan.

  I don’t know.

  Mai presses her lips against the child’s forehead. The baby struggles in Mai’s near-suffocating embrace. Yes, you do, she says. The Babylift is over.

  The taxicab is supposed to pick them up at four o’clock, but it is late. Since Mai and Huan have already said their good-byes, they stand at the orphanage gate by the side of the road, waiting.

  You know she really can’t remember me, Huan says.

  What do you mean?

  You saw the book. There were a dozen more on the shelves. There were hundreds of babies. Do you really think she remembers one baby from over twenty-five years ago?

  Mai glares at him. I think she was very nice.

  I’m not saying she wasn’t nice.

  Why would she lie to you? What good does it do? You were here, you know they took care of you and found you a good home, and you still want more?

  Why are you so upset?

  You have so much to be grateful for. And all you’ve done since coming here is complain.

  Okay, enough. Stop acting like you’re so fine with everything here.

  Excuse me?

  I don’t love it here. And neither do you. If you did, you wouldn’t be living in China or Japan. We both have a right to be pissed. This country orphaned you, too.

  Just because I’m not disowning this country every other minute doesn’t mean I don’t have a problem with it.

  I know, Huan says. He takes a breath. Then why don’t you ever talk about them? Why can’t you just tell me?

  Mai shrugs, looking away. I don’t know.

  They sit on the dusty ground, leaning against the concrete wall, shoulder to shoulder.

  I haven’t said anything, Mai says, because I’m not sure.

  Huan waits for several breaths until he speaks again. Why haven’t you come to Vietnam until now? You must have had chances.

  I meant to. I think I got scared. I didn’t want to go alone, or even when Gordon offered to come with me. When Gwen called, I knew this was my chance. She looks at Huan. I knew I could come here with you and your mom. Even if I wasn’t completely ready.

  Is it hard for you to be here? Huan asks hesitantly. For all the years he’s known Mai, she has never talked about this, beyond admitting a few facts. But now that she has seen so much of his past, he feels more comfortable asking about hers. He thinks she might want him to.

  No, Mai says. She pauses for a long time.

  My mother was from the North. No one knew who her family was when she died. So our neighbor used the money my mother left behind and some of her own to put me on a boat escaping from Saigon. She attached a note on me that I should be adopted by an American family. I still have it. The social worker gave it to me a few years ago.

  Huan knows very little of the boat refugee experience except what he has read in textbooks. The escapes were difficult, horrifying even, especially if they were caught by the Communists, or worse, Thai pirates.

  Do you remember the boat ride?

  I remember sleeping a lot. They kept telling us kids to sleep so we wouldn’t think about how hungry we were. We got sick. I don’t even remember how we got to the refugee camp.

  Do you remember your mother?

  A little. I was very young. We used to sleep in the same bed. When she was still alive, she used to comb my hair, which she let grow long because she thought it was pretty. When she died, our neighbor cut it off. It wasn’t practical. I cried so much. I thought I looked like a boy.

  You’re lucky that you knew her.

  Mai glances sideways at him, annoyed. Huan, you have a mother.

  Huan pulls away from her. I know that.

  Then why does it matter if your biological mother willingly gave you up or not? Why do you only care about the people who’ve rejected you?

  I don’t.

  Your mother tries so hard. Mai shakes her head. It might feel suffocating sometimes, but all that effort—it’s for you.

  The taxi has still not arrived. Huan looks back at the dilapidated convent and orphanage, his first home. Can I ask you another favor? he says.

  What? Huan hands her his mother’s camera. He jogs over to stand in front of the orphanage and waits for her to take the picture.

  Huan can never really complain about his parents. They always showed him love, even during his angry years when he threw their devotion into their faces, sneering that they treated him like a charity case, their trendy Vietnamese baby whose life they rescued. How could they really love him? They didn’t even know him.

  They forgave him for all of this. They continued to love him, even when he couldn’t believe or accept it. Though the workers at the orphanage and adoption center looked afte
r hundreds of babies, Huan realizes they aren’t to blame either.

  It is Sunday night in Ho Chi Minh City, and the youths of the town are out to celebrate. They don their best clothes, buff their motorpeds to a shine, and prepare to coast the streets. There is no speed or weaving through the streets tonight, no near accidents trying to rush from one place to another. No destination. The pleasure is in the journey, in the twenty-kilometer-per-hour ride.

  It is Huan’s idea to go out. It isn’t on the itinerary. His mother is tired from their day in the Delta, but it is their last night in Ho Chi Minh City. Tomorrow they leave for central Vietnam. Huan hears from the hotel concierge that downtown on Sunday night is not to be missed. They are on vacation. Surprised but pleased, Gwen agrees to go out with him and Mai.

  They sit at a sidewalk café on a busy boulevard, with an unobstructed view of the cruisers loitering on the streets. Children effortlessly balance on the back of motorbikes without holding on, smiling and waving at passing friends and family. High school girls with bobbed black hair sail through traffic on bicycles, their brilliant white ao dai fluttering behind them. Street musicians strum mandolins and whistle into flutes for spare change. Teenage boys ignite firecrackers in the alleys, splashing smoky colors into the ink night.

  I’m sorry you didn’t come, Huan says to his mother. Mai has left to browse at the gift shop next door. That I didn’t let you. It would have been nice.

  I’m just glad you went. Gwen smiles at him. He thinks this isn’t enough of an apology, but she is his mother. She knows who he is.

  Mai returns with a gift bag. She shows them a deep red jade bracelet she has purchased. It is smooth, unblemished, with flecks of gold in it.

  It’s beautiful, Gwen says. It will look lovely against your skin.

  It’s for a friend, Mai says. But thank you.

  Though it is getting late, the streets still grow crowded. They share the roads generously, so different from during the day when people viciously maneuver for room. For cruising, the more, the better. Huan’s mother cannot resist any longer. She must come closer and take pictures.