Listen, Slowly

  I smell Chinese sausage, popping in its own fat. Yum. I swing my legs off the wooden plank, not dignifying it with the word bed. A đi văng is its official name, one of those words left by the French, divan. BTW, the French are responsible for all those pesky accent marks. Some time ago, Anh Minh started to tell me how and why but I blacked out.

  This đi văng is made of solid ebony wood and is passed down to the child who nurses the parents through old age. Why would such a bed be a prize? All it does is make you hurt.

  Before I can get up, Bà swoops over from somewhere and shakes her head. “Listen to your stomach, listen to what it needs.”

  On cue, my stomach instantly coils. PAIN! A whole den of snakes is doing somersaults in there. It’s as if they’ve awakened in a hostile environment and they’re beyond mad. If I could reach down my throat and yank out each twisty one, I’d do it. OOOWWW!

  Cô Hạnh appears with yet another bowl of hot compost. “Drink, you will feel pain lifting before the medicine even cools.”

  Before I can react she tilts back my head and holds my nose, so to continue my mortifying life I have to suck in a breath and thus swallow. And swallow some more. When she releases me, I’m thinking of all kinds of colorful words . . . but she’s right, I feel better. The contorting knots are turning back to plain old intestines. Even my cheek aches less. Wow, Cô Hạnh should totally package and sell this brew, but it would have to come with a personal tormentor to hold your nose and force it down your throat. As for her lice paste, that would have to be sold with a personal gripper to hold you still while your scalp burns.

  Út stands at the edge of the bed, rubbing her head. I had not noticed but her buzz has grown just enough to seem almost pixie chic. No, chic is too strong a word. She waves first. I wave back.

  Suddenly, my stomach rumbles, building up a sense of urgency. I jump off the bed and run to the bathroom. Cô Hạnh is right behind me. “Expel all you can, it’ll only help.”

  You’d think after an emergency trip to the bathroom, I would be allowed peace and tranquillity and a sliver of privacy.

  But no.

  Maybe-relatives, lots of them, have surrounded my plank, pushing Bà and Cô Hạnh to the back. They part so I can lie down, then hold Anh Minh in place as the official translator. Whispers grow louder, until all across the room they are debating the details of my . . . fine, I’ll just say it . . . diarrhea. With much regret, I understand every word. It’s excruciating to hear each analysis once, then I have to endure it again in translation.

  “Black and loose means the parasites are still in there,” so begins my personal translator. “They advise you must release until your offerin’ turns light brown, yellow is best. You want a tender consistency, not too firm or too soft. Too yellow could mean . . .”

  KILL ME NOW! If I can just be alone, pleeeassse, I promise to admire my parents out loud, I will never complain again, I will stay here and like it, I will speak only Vietnamese, I will be so perfect once home that my parents will beg me to stay overnight with Montana so I can get into trouble and be more human.

  “Often yellow does not eliminate until the following day, first a greenish brown . . .”

  I grab Anh Minh by the collar. “I will drink whatever and sleep however long, but I never ever want to speak of my bodily functions again, agreed?”

  I’m near tears. Anh Minh flusters and says, “I apologize for all of us. Of course you should have privacy.”

  I have him now. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?” I clutch my stomach and moan.

  He isn’t such a pushover. “I had plenty of time to email my roommate while waitin’ in Hà Nội, miss. His sister, your exact age, and her friends do not wear the revealing undergarment that you tricked the girls here into making.”

  “It got crazy, but I swear, some girls do wear them at my school. I’m not lying.” I clutch my stomach again.

  “You told the girls all Americans wear them.”

  “So sorry, really. I got carried away.”

  “I watch everythin’ I do and say because . . .”

  “Isn’t that tiring?”

  He looks puzzled, like no one has ever asked him that before. For once, he has no reply.

  “Do you have to worry and be so serious all the time? Can’t you just be you?”

  He laughs. “That line exists in just about every Hollywood movie. It is impossible to think of just me when the whole village has sacrificed for me to study overseas.”

  “That’s a lot of pressure.”

  He nods. There’s nothing else to say. The ever-present crowd is quiet for once, listening to our every word.

  It occurs to me Anh Minh doesn’t get to mess up ever or pout or throw a fit. If he’s so obligated to pleasing everyone, how does he know what he wants? I’m afraid to ask him though, that’s probably another really American-movie question.

  “I’m sorry.” That came out automatically. “Do you want me to apologize to the girls?”

  “That would be proper. They really want to stop wearin’ those unfortunate things but they don’t want to displease you.”

  “I hate thongs.”

  He laughs really hard. “Anyone with a normal anatomy would.”

  The crowd roars. They are beyond weird.

  Út comes pouncing in with one red fruit held up in reverence. Froggy’s basket occupies her other hand. Everyone stares at the fruit like at a gigantic ruby.

  “Is that quả sung? Is it ripe? Chú Tư gave you the first of the season?”

  Út beams, no need to speak her answers. Still holding the fruit high, she takes Froggy out of his basket and plants him on my chest. He’s really heavy and smells like a soggy mushroom. Has he gotten even fatter?

  “Ready?”

  I nod because the new me is trying to be agreeable. Út, though, is addressing her slimy beloved. She breaks open quả sung, which rips apart from the slightest tug and reveals deep red meat with tiny white seeds. Froggy actually lifts himself up. From this opened gift, a bunch of fruit flies do what they do, they fly out. As in out of the fruit. Froggy flicks each and every little snack into his wide, grinning mouth. I barely feel his bulky mass move; he’s that good.

  Everyone claps. Me too. That might be the coolest thing I’ve seen in Vietnam. I admit if I saw on PBS Nature a bunch of people clapping as a frog snaps up every bug that escapes from a fruit, I would think they need help. But here, with every maybe-relative elated, I would have to be made of steel to not join in.

  Cô Hạnh takes the plum-sized fruit and cuts it into dozens of tiny bites. Everyone gets a taste, oohing and ahhing about how it’s sweeter than sugar. Everyone except me. I’m still officially a worm-infested invalid.

  Út finally lifts the bug catcher off my chest. Ah, to catch a full breath. In front of me Út takes a bow, signaling that the PBS Nature episode was for my benefit.

  CHAPTER 20

  Vietnam is a land of contrasts. Either nothing happens or everything happens. Guess who just arrived and got everyone stampeding to the front yard? This includes Bà, who can’t run but she sure is moving it.

  DETECTIVE NABS RELUCTANT GUARD

  I might go into headline writing. Drama, suspense, that’s me.

  Told to stay put on the bone-grating plank, I wait for the room to clear, then sneak down to the first floor. Hiding to the side of the front door, I can see and hear everything. I’m the greatest spy on earth, oh yeah! Legs a little wobbly, but I can stand. My empty stomach is firm, nothing flipping around in there. My cheek has deflated to a golf ball. I’m going to tell Dad about that foul but miraculous med. But even Mom’s scouts are having trouble reporting about him. He has moved deeper into the mountain.

  Everyone, for once, hushes, standing back and watching the detective lead the guard to Bà. What is it about Vietnam that produces the thinnest men ever? The guard rivals the detective in wrinkles. His cheekbones protrude like two lightbulbs and, under his shirt, knots actually poke up on his shoulders. I can
’t possibly guess his age to know how to address him. Is he of Ông’s generation or Dad’s?

  The guard bows deeply and Bà nods her head. They look speechless to finally be breathing the same air. Even the effusive detective stands silent.

  Cô Hạnh, who must be the most efficient person on earth, comes running with a little rattan table and other people bring three chairs. A pot of tea, three cups, a plate of peeled, white fruit with lots of supershiny, oblong, black seeds. So hungry, my mouth waters even though I know the seeds are mashed into a fiery concoction that will burn lice and scalps off human heads.

  The three sit outside my door, with Bà and the guard staring right at but not seeing me. It’s so quiet I can hear breath and birds and the breeze against leaves. C’mon, speak!

  The detective talks first, of course. This will take a while. Bà sits up straight, hands folded on top of each other on the table. Her features hold steady, willed to stay frozen. But she can’t control her eyes. They seem hopeful and tired and firm all at once. “Please, allow me to listen,” she says.

  The guard clears his throat. I think he’s a little afraid of Bà, whose eyes are piercing him. He gains time by taking tiny sips of tea. My heart flip-flops like a just-caught fish. Talk, please.

  “To begin, allow me to say I never thought this day would arrive.” He takes more sips.

  I can understand. Thank you, universe! Every atom in my body lets out a sigh. Forced to fly across the world and spend weeks in this mosquitoey hotbed, at least I get to listen to the conversation of a lifetime.

  “Also allow me to say I understand our meeting carries the weight of mountains. To be clear, I never regarded your husband as an enemy. Something about his face made him as familiar to me as an older brother, as I was just out of school in the spring of ’68. We spoke the same accent. We ate the same rotten rice. We stayed in the dark tunnels for hours, and at times days, as bombs shattered the earth above our heads. I had come south for the attack at Tết and was told to stay. My assignment was to lengthen a section of the tunnel that led to a pond. We could not survive long without water. Even if we couldn’t cook for fear of releasing signs of smoke, we could survive by sipping.

  “By calculation, if I could dig thirty centimeters a day southeast from the storage chamber, angling up by thirty-five degrees to allow for flooding, I would reach the pond in six months. I was given a block of wood and a piece of metal as thick and long as my wrist with a pointy end. By chiseling into the earth, chipping away fingernail bits at a time, I found I could not meet the daily requirement even if I worked without pause day into day. This was during the height of the dry season and the clay earth in Củ Chị might as well have been cement, brilliant for holding up a tunnel but cruel to the joints and muscles that labored to remove it.”

  OMG, what are the chances of me meeting the second wordiest human on the planet? Yet here he is. At least I can understand most of what he’s saying. C’mon, what happened to Ông?

  “My commander took notice and brought help. A prisoner, shriveled and cracked, wearing the same brown set we wore, but his feet were bare. I suspect someone of high rank had admired the pants, shirt, and shoes he had once worn.”

  Bà straightens her back.

  “He was given the same metal piece, the same chunk of wood. One of us would rest in the storage chamber, a dugout big enough for several to lie down or stand up, while the other would disappear into the dark passage and scrape at the earth. Just the two of us, taking turns resting or digging by day, and if the universe had mercy on us there would be no sounds of helicopters by night and we could come up to cook and stand and breathe the clean beauty of natural air.”

  “Did you ever hurt him?” Bà asks, her voice sharp, taming down emotions.

  “Never. I was a guard in title only. Every other aspect, we were brothers. Every misery he suffered I suffered. I have no doubt I was assigned to dig an unimportant corridor because I had not shown enough bravery in battle. I was often criticized for thinking too much and dulling my mind from its singular purpose, which was to win at all costs.”

  “Let’s not talk of war. How was his strength?”

  “We had skin blanketing bones. We shared one sack of moldy rice and at night we would boil one palmful and remove the black floating bodies of whatever had infested it, then we added the edible greens we could find. Once in a while a villager would donate a sweet potato. Until this day, I cannot think of a more perfect food. We boiled it and drank the brown, sweet broth. Then we divided the potato into two equal parts. By taking tiny bites, not bites but scrapings, we could savor it until the last hint disappeared into our saliva. By will our halves lasted until the sun began to rise and we had to retreat back down. But those mornings, with sweet potato mashed into our taste buds and the memory of a breeze circling us, we felt as if we had been granted the sky. We dug with a bit more power as the sweetness lingered on our tongues and the mellow smoothness rested in our nostrils.”

  Bà smiles, just the tiniest bit.

  “He told me he was accustomed to having a steamed sweet potato every morning, without fail, half to eat at home, half to bring to work as a snack. I sensed it was his wife who saw to this routine, but he never referenced her, as if a real mention of her would soak up what little oxygen we had in that inferno of a tunnel and leave us breathless with sadness. I never imagined such a wife would be sitting in front of me all these decades later.”

  I know the sweet potato story. Bà told me that Ông had stomach troubles and sweet potatoes soothed and kept him full. I see her eyes blinking, as if remembering too.

  “He told me of his seven children. His oldest boy Mong would have turned fifteen that year, a boy kindhearted and shy and who now carried the family with his every step. Nhớ was next at thirteen, stubborn and wild but his saving trait was his devotion to his mother. His oldest girl Em would have been eleven, so smart she did her big brothers’ math work and still had time to jump rope. His next two girls, Ðếm and Từng, were nine and seven but might as well be twins. They were the same height, ate the same foods, read the same books, cried at the same moments, and had fits of laughter about occurrences no one else heard or noticed. He gave Hạt, who would have turned five, a tricycle in the weeks before he left. The boy rode it all day and all night, with the family falling asleep to the sound of squeaky little wheels going around and around. His baby boy, Mưa, was just talking and by then would have begun babbling sentences. The first time he told me their stories he had been separated from them one year eleven months and eighteen days. Each time he retold their stories he would recalculate their time apart.”

  Bà raises a hand as if she can’t bear to listen anymore. “How long was he with you?”

  “One dry season.”

  “You last saw him when?”

  “I never could learn his system of keeping a calendar by plucking the hairs on his toes and calves. It was close to the end of the dry season because we yearned for rain so much we tasted it in our own sweat.”

  “Saw him last when?”

  “My apologies for a habit of hoarding words. After all, they are free. That last night we had been breathing real air for just a few hours. It was our routine to drag ourselves to the pond and cook our rice. Water and air still seem to me the two most beautiful gifts on our earth. The previous night we had spent completely underground because helicopters circled all night. So we desperately needed to breathe. I still cannot fully describe the air in the tunnels. Of course, it was skin-peeling hot, but that, the mind will acclimate to. To say it stank with human waste and rotting flesh is just voicing the obvious. But I cannot describe what it was like to inhale stale, trapped, smokey, fragile oxygen. We simply did not have enough. Our chests hurt after each inhale and our minds clawed for more air, but there was none. It was a hunger that gnawed at every pore in our beings. That last night aboveground the air was particularly lovely, a breeze, such luxury is a breeze, and the sweet linger of roasted corn from some nearby hut.
We talked that just smelling it, never mind getting to eat it, was a gift from some spirit who remembered we were still alive. Then too soon we heard the helicopters again. I limped back to the tunnel and thought he was behind me. Neither of us could walk well from lack of food and air and from too long under the reign of invisible tunnel creatures that feasted on and inside us. He had a cough that wanted to devour his lungs and intestines. The cough persisted as long as I knew him. Only when I reached the tunnel’s secret entrance did I realize I had been limping alone. I went back for him but could not get him to stand, much less move. He said ‘Enough,’ that he was a human being not a mole, and that while he had learned to live without sunlight, he could not relinquish air. I pulled at him. By then, American planes were following their helicopters, and the first bombs could be heard.”

  Bà gasps. That gives everyone else permission to do so too. Except me. I’m confused. The Americans and Ông fought for the same side, the South, right? But if the Americans found Ông with the guard they would think he’s a Communist too, I think. The Communists were from the North but they were also in the South. Where is PBS when I need a review?

  “I pulled again and he slapped my hand. Red and blue flares reflected in the pond. The bombs were quite near, opening up like parachutes inside my eardrums. He pulled back his rot-thin pants to reveal feet and calves swollen with pus and darkened with insect bites. ‘Enough,’ he said again, and coughed so deeply I was surprised he still had lungs. The helicopters were now over our heads. I scrambled to the tunnel. I glanced back at him sitting by the water. The flares rained down to reveal the face of a man in a deep inhale.”

  “You left him out there?” Bà asks, and stands up. Oh-oh!!

  “I pulled but he . . .”

  While the guard fumbles for words, Bà leans over and slaps him across the face. SLAPS HIM!!! Bà never raises her voice, even when I deserve it, and now she has slapped the one person who knows about Ông? The guard’s mouth falls open. Everyone sucks in breath.