Anyway, we weren’t there just to shop. On the long bus-ride from the coast, I’d overheard my uncle whispering to Aunt Hoa. They were sitting in the seat directly in front of mine, trying to keep their voices down, and speaking in Chinese instead of Vietnamese so that they wouldn’t standout. It seemed like half the population of Malaysia could speak Chinese, but Vietnamese …That would have been a dead give away. Growing up with my grandparents, we had all been bilingual from the day we could speak at all, and I guess that was the only reason they had been able to risk bringing us along in the first place.
I was listening, but my uncle caught me in the corner of his eye and stopped in mid-sentence, winking at my aunt and changing the subject. Whatever they were discussing was a surprise, and eavesdropping was going to do me no good. So I just sat back in my seat and concentrated on not being bus-sick.
Now, surrounded by the sights and sounds and smells of the city, I watched them bartering with a gold-dealer, trying to raise the price he was offering for one of my aunt’s last precious pieces. It was a buyer’s market and my aunt looked disappointed, but they accepted the money and left the shop. There was really no alternative.
The supermarket was like something out of a story. I don’t suppose it would have been anywhere near as big as your average K-mart, but to my eight-year-old eyes, which had never seen a K-mart, it was magical. I kept stopping in the middle of the aisle to stare at all the rows of products they had for sale, and my aunt had to keep moving me along. Toan was more interested in rung up and down the polished floor and sliding to a stop.
I watched my uncle smiling, and I noticed the look he gave my aunt. There had been so little time to enjoy just being a family. And I guess they were savouring the thrill we were going to get when they unveiled their surprise. The real reason they had brought us along.
That afternoon was the first time Toan or I ever saw a movie …
*
28 July 1977
Janganoon, Malaysia
TOAN
Up on the screen, giant faces shout in Chinese. The film is a comedy and very funny, if the reaction of most of the audience is any indication, but in the centre of the eighth raw, surrounded by the shadowy figures in the darkness, two young children sit silently, mouths open, oblivious to the laughter all around them, staring at the apparition that appeared out of nowhere a few minutes earlier.
With an effort of will, Toan tears his eyes from the vision and stares at Linh. She is rapt, barely breathing, and he can see the coloured reflections dancing in her eyes, and moving like living shadows across the pale skin of her face. They have stepped out of the real world of hunger and death, and left their fears at the door. Here in the dark is a world of magic and warmth and laughter. And escape.
A chord is struck, a connection forged.
The villain falls, the audience cheers. And as Toan turns back towards the huge, grimacing figure, the seed is sown. The audience laughs, he laughs with them, but the magic is at work within him, growing …
*
TOAN’S STORY
I don’t know when I first thought I might like to try acting. It wasn’t something I grew up thinking about, even though I was totally hooked on movies.
Funny thing is, I was never particularly impressed with the tv but that was where I ended up getting my start. I watched it, of course; it was one of the first things my parents bought in Australia, once we’d set ourselves up in our new home.
As usual, my father had his reasons for buying it, apart from just entertainment.
“If we are going to fit in,” he told my mother, “we have to speak the language, and the sooner the better. I want the children surrounded by it, at home as well as at school. They have to hear it spoken all the time.”
So we got tv. And we watched it even before we could understand a word of what was being said. It even became our electronic babysitter, at times, when my parents were working in a factory eighteen and nineteen hours a day in the early times, desperately trying to set up a future for us all. But for all the time I sat in front of it, between doing the chores and the compulsory hours of homework, it never affected me the way movies did. I never forgot the effect of that first experience in Janganoon, and I never lost the thrill of hiding inside the breathing dark of the theatre and giving myself willingly to the world of dreams that came to life on the wide screen before me.
There must have been some grain of a desire there somewhere, because I remember the feeling, like a movement in the pit of my stomach, when I read the ad in the Vietnamese newspaper.
My dad was always keen for us to fit in, to speak English as well as anyone in the street, but that didn’t mean we were allowed to skimp on our own languages. We had classes on weekends, we read the Vietnamese newspapers, and we had to be able to quote from them on demand. My father took after his father; he had never believed in the concept of free time.
That was how I came across the ad. Stuck in between offers of “by the hour“ piece-work in home sewing or ironing that the slave-drivers of the clothing trade used to hook their desperate victims, this ad stood out, because although it was in Vietnamese, like the others, the paper had run it under an English logo: Creative Casting and Management.
They were advertising for a kid about my age to take a lead role in a new television series. He had to be able to speak English — that was me! — and Vietnamese — that was me, too! He also had to have acting experience.
Well, two out of three wasn’t too bad …
I phoned and made the appointment.
12
TOUGH
11 August 1977
Pulau Bisa
CANG
He stands alone, watching her.
Behind the wall of one of the huts she slips her fingers into the pocket of her shirt and pulls out a small photograph, staring at it for a long time before she returns it carefully to its hiding place.
“Someone special?” He has moved silently up behind her, and his voice, though quiet, causes her to jump. For a moment she stares at him, as if deciding whether to answer. Then she relaxes.
“My mother. She …” The words run out. She stares away from him, her gaze sweeping above the roofs and the squalour to rest on the untouched majesty of the forest beyond.
He waits, but she says nothing more. Finally, he moves around to face her, pausing until she tears her eyes away from the distance and holds his stare.
When he speaks his voice is quiet, the words barely audible.
“My mother died when I was thirteen. My father was already dead. The war … “He pauses. There is no need to explain further. Finally, he continues, “She was … friendly with an American.” The word is like a curse, and the venom in his voice touches something inside her. “A G.I. He took her to a bar on Tu Do Street. Just a few drinks … I was alone at home, waiting for her. There was trouble. A fight. She never came home … Can I see?”
He holds out his hand. Again she hesitates, but then she reaches back into the pocket and draws out the photograph.
“My father took it, before he …”
He accepts the offering and looks at it.
“She’s beautiful.” He holds it out to her.
’Was beautiful.“ The photo disappears into her pocket. “Do you want to kiss me?”
The question is sudden and he is unprepared. She reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder.
“Because I couldn’t stop you, you know. If you wanted to kiss me, or …” With her free hand she takes hold of his wrist and places his right hand on her breast. “I probably couldn’t even scream. Not that anyone would listen. They never listen, do they! And they never fight back.” A bitterness creeps into her words.
He remains motionless, staring down at her, immobilised by conflicting emotions.
“Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”
No answer.
“I am beautiful. Like my mother. They took her because I was … she was beautiful.“ Her eyes are liquid and u
nblinking, and in them he sees his own image. Reflected. Distorted. Something in his chest begins to ache. “I couldn’t stop you. If you wanted to … I wouldn’t-”
Before she can finish he steps towards her, taking her face between both hands and holding her gaze. “You are,” he whispers the words — “beautiful. Your mother must have loved you very much.”
Leaning forward, he kisses her forehead, then steps back.
“You’d better go home.”
For a moment she hesitates. Then the tension drains from her frame and she slumps against the wall of the hut.
“You’re not so tough, Cang.” She looks down at her breast, where his hand had rested. “You’re not so tough at all …”
Then she turns and runs away down the alley. His eyes follow her until she disappears behind a row of huts.
“Oh, yes I am, little girl … “He speaks the words to the silent sky.
And the world mists over.
*
LINH’S STORY
The only time the camp was really quiet was in the early hours after midnight, before the moon set, when everyone was asleep and even the forest was silent-except for the rustle of the occasional small night-creature.
On this night the moon was full and the breeze was barely moving the leaves on the trees.
And on this night I was out alone for the first time.
I tried to avoid going to the toilets after dark, but this time it was unavoidable. I won’t bore you with the details, but there were times when the conditions in the camp left you with no choice but to give in when “nature called”. Things weren’t exactly hygienic most of the time.
It was a fair walk from the hut, and I was supposed to wake one of the others to go with me, which was embarrassing, especially if they were tired and grumbled all the way, like Son or Hoang usually did.
For a moment I thought of waking Toan. He was no protection, but he was company. Then I thought I’d try Phuong, but she’d come back that evening in a foul mood and I didn’t want to risk it.
Besides, I was almost nine. Wasn’t I old enough to go to the toilet without someone holding my hand?
I got up and made my way quietly outside.
Being little more than a hole in the ground, the toilets had to be filed in and moved regularly — always a safe distance from the living quarters. And my trek this time took me around behind the administration block, then along the water’s edge for about a hundred metres.
For a moment the camp had ceased to exist, and I stood looking up at the sky, breathing in the cool silence and letting my mind wander.
Darkness was a blanket covering the world — and me — with silence, and I stopped to listen. I was alone and there was no one to tell me what to do. Or ask me why I didn’t smile, or try to make me talk. The sky understands. The trees accept without question. The night is a friend who takes the burden of your pain without asking you to explain.
That was when I heard them.
There was little cover along that part of the shore. I crouched behind a small bush, hoping it would hide me.
I knew who they were. I’d secretly followed my sister a number of times, and I’d watched her with these people.
It was like she was there, and yet she wasn’t. Sometimes they carried on like idiots, sometimes they just sat around quietly, but Phuong never changed; she always stood there on the edges of the group, part of it yet separate. And mostly she looked at Cang, as if the others were nothing more than an extension of him.
So I watched him too.
Among his own, he didn’t look like the monster the stories painted him to be. He was the leader and he was tough, but he hardly had to raise his voice, and I never once saw him even threaten violence. They just did as they were told.
But there in the moonlight at the edge of the water, I saw another side.
Inside a circle of his gang-members, Cang stood calmly facing a man about his own age, who stood maybe ten centimetres taller than he did, and held himself like a fighter, fists held loosely in front of him.
Cang didn’t raise his voice, but the tone in his words chilled me. And from where I was hiding I could see his eyes, cold in the light from the moon, like the eyes of a predator.
“I’m still deciding whether to let you live,” he was saying. “Convince me.”
Then the fight began.
If you could call anything so one-sided a fight. The bigger man lunged and kicked, trying to land a blow or wrestle Cang to the sand, but Cang cut through his defences with cold, clinical jabs that stopped him in his tracks or jolted his head back.
He was playing with him, and the circle moved to keep them always in its centre, as the man staggered or fell to his knees with pain and exhaustion. Whether through bravery or stupidity, or perhaps because he was beyond thinking at all, the big man kept trying to break through, but his attempts were getting weaker.
Then Cang ducked under a swinging fist and took his opponent in a head-lock, dragging him into the water further and further, until they were waist-deep. The man was beyond fighting, and he barely struggled as the gangleader forced his head under the water.
He held him down for what seemed like forever, and I knew that he was going to drown the man. I knew the way you know, before you open a door in a nightmare, exactly what’s on the other side.
Then he raised the man’s head so that their faces were almost touching, and whispered something that I could not hear. But the look in the man’s eyes said it all.
I was frozen with terror, unable to breathe. There was a scream in my throat that refused to allow itself a voice, but perhaps I made a sound, because just as he began to push the man’s head down for the last time I saw his head turn.
The others were watching the action, so it was just him. He didn’t scan the dark shoreline, he just looked straight at me, like he knew I was there. And I knew that no bush could protect me from the power of that cold stare.
But I couldn’t run. I crouched there like a rabbit and felt him staring into my terror.
Then something happened that I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
For a moment the power in that gaze faltered and he blinked. Then the tension melted from his shoulders and he drew the man out from under the water, dragging him to his feet and holding him up a she sagged at the knees.
“Come on! Finish him. Give the crabs a feed …”
One of the circle spoke the words, then stepped back as his leader fixed him with a glare that threatened a similar fate.
No one else spoke as Cang dragged the man to shore and laid him roughly on the sand.
Then one of the gang stepped across and aimed a kick at the man’s side, but Cang was quicker. He blocked the kick with his own leg and delivered a stinging, openhanded slap across the boy’s face that sent him staggering. Shocked, the boy looked up into those dead eyes.
Cang’ s voice was like ice.
“Even when you’re big enough, Hai —” he turned and looked down at his beaten opponent, then back at the boy — “you still won’t have the guts. No one touches him.”
The last instruction was for the wholegroup, but his eyes never deviated. The boy held his gaze for amoment then looked away.
Cang turned and stood over the man on the ground.
“Okay,” he said. “You convinced me. I guess you live.”
He looked once in my direction, then he turned and the group followed him down the beach. Away from me.
I stayed behind my bush until they were well out of sight The man was throwing up in the sand, but I didn’t approach him.
I was shaking, and I could still see those eyes. Dead and cold. Except for that one brief moment, they were the emotionless windows to a lost soul, and they were a chilling reminder of something I had been trying so desperately to forget.
*
TOAN’S STORY
There weren’t too many official visitors to the camp. I guess, given the choice, there would be very few people who would will
ingly make the trip. Besides, I don’t think many of the “boat-people” were particularly interested in visitors from the mainland, anyway. Not unless they were offering something that might help make life bearable which isn’t usually the official visitor ‘s role. Official visitors tend to observe, and that doesn’t feed anyone’s crying baby.
The one exception to the rule was the diplomats and officers from the foreign embassies and consulates, who made the trip at irregular intervals. You see, it wasn’t their job to observe. They were there to select. To check the credentials of prospective refugees, and decide if they might make a suitable new citizen for the United States, or Canada, or France. Or Australia. They held the keys to freedom in the briefcases they carried, and every family held its breath, waiting for the chance to taste the dream.
For many, it really didn’t matter which embassy they were from. Some families had relatives in a particular country, but few people even talked about preferences. What did we know about any of the countries? Except that they weren’t Vietnam, and they definitely weren’t Pulau Bisa.
When it was your turn — when your file made its way up to the top of the pile — you joined the queue and waited. Whole families stood patiently in the hot sun, hoping to get as far as the interview and pass the test before the time ran out and the hope disappeared again. Perhaps for months.
It had to be the whole family, because they wouldn’t even talk to you if anyone was missing. I guess they had to take a photograph to add to the file, so that they could identify everyone later. There were so few people with i.d. or papers of any kind, that they had to be careful. People were so desperate, they might try any trick to escape.
So you queued and waited, and swallowed the disappointment when the officials packed their briefcases and took the boat back to their life on the mainland, and you listened to the grumbling and the crying of the babies. And you went about surviving until next time.
I remember the day Kieu’ s family was chosen. It was a day of mixed emotions for me. They were saved. They were heading for Australia, that mythical land of freedom and plenty on the other side of the ocean, far from the smells and the heat of Pulau Bisa, so of course I was happy for them. And they had been there longer than us. But there was more than a twinge of jealousy involved too. I recall looking at her sleeping next to me on the floor of Quyen’ s hut, wondering why it couldn’t be my family that was going.
Only the Heart Page 11