Listen, Slowly

  It’s an old, crowded, small airport, but orderly. I’d been imagining chaos with screaming babies and stressed-out adults. But I admit most of what I know about Vietnam comes from PBS, especially from this documentary called The Fall of Saigon. Mom insisted I watch it so I’d understand—drumroll, please—my roots. The airport in the film was crammed with anxious people camping out with luggage waiting to flee during the final days of THE WAR. My parents and Bà and my aunts and uncles were all in Saigon then, but although I’ve bugged them plenty I’ve never heard them talk about what it was like, other than to drown me with the fact that they left to create opportunities for the younger generation. I’m supposed to be teary eyed and grateful, but details, please: How did they leave? What did they eat on the way? Where did they live at first? How did they start over?

  Last year, I did a feature on the “Boat People” for the student magazine and had a thousand questions for my parents. Again, I got useless answers like: it was difficult at first, we worked hard, you kids should appreciate the life you have. They finally told me Bà and her children flew out two days before Saigon fell, and Mom left a few years after on a fishing boat. My parents later met at Berkeley. I tried to be relentless but charming in my questioning, like the reporter I might be one day, but Mom looked like she might cry, and she never cries, then Dad shooed me away.

  So random roots are encouraged but specific roots are off-limits. Frustrating, my parents.

  I’m pushing the luggage cart, and Dad is pushing Bà, who is slumped in her wheelchair. The noise and brightness have wiped her out. Not that I want her to feel sick, but if she’s already limpy in her first hour, she’s not going to last long here. I do a quick dance.

  For every person who arrives, twenty are waiting with flowers, tears, screams. Ông is not here to greet us, as I predicted. I nudge Dad, careful to not sound chirpy. “He’s not here.”

  “He’ll meet us tomorrow morning.”

  My heart stops. “I thought you agreed he’s not alive?”

  “The detective? Of course he’s alive. He’s going to convince Bà that Ông is truly gone.”

  My head pounds. “We’re going to meet the quack detective?”

  “Let’s keep the quack part to ourselves,” he whispers. “He started this, so he must end it.”

  This one quack can clear up everything and get me and Bà sent home. I’m going to be extra nice to him.

  As soon as we step outside my skin shrivels. The air is on fire. OOWWW! I actually feel like I’m being barbecued alive. Bà has completely drooped. I immediately sweat—it’s so strange to be wet and burning all at once. My pores open. My skin turns sticky and oily, like old ketchuped fries. I have to open my mouth to breathe. The PBS documentary showed people sweaty and shiny, but I never imagined they were almost frying.

  “Dad, I feel really sick.”

  “Just humidity. You’ll get used to it.”

  Dad can handle a lot of pain. He bikes up Laguna’s big hill without pausing, flies down, then pedals back up and calls it fun. I would have to be rolling on the ground, flames sprouting out my ears, blood shooting out my nostrils for him to give me a modicum of sympathy. I keep gasping like a doomed fish on land. Nope, he does not notice.

  A teensy cab comes our way. Bà sits up front because she gets carsick. Dad and I are squeezed in the back with luggage piled on us. At least we have air-conditioning.

  Away from the airport, it’s green and more green rice paddies. This doesn’t seem right. The documentary showed the airport was right in the middle of the city. Bà stirs, reaches inside her bag, and pulls out Tiger Balm, her minty, cure-all ointment for every sickness. She rubs a tiny bit on her temples and holds the whole jar under her nose. Big sniffs. Her other hand twists a knob in the air. Dad agrees, of course. The air conditioner, which makes her even more carsick, goes off. Windows down. Invisible flames whip into the taxi. I feel like one of those desserts Mom blows a torch on.

  Even during the Santa Anas, when all of Southern California feels like Texas (says another PBS documentary), Bà still would prefer fresh air because the stale and cold kind gives her a really bad headache. She does allow a fan, pointed away from her. Mom and I either sit around in wet tank tops or go to a hotel. Dad, of course, doesn’t even mention it.

  I stick my head out. No, it doesn’t feel any cooler. Then I can’t believe it—right on the roadside, not behind a fence or anything, stands a real, live water buffalo. Chewing on grass, mud on its back, nostrils the size of golf balls, mega croissants for horns. When I was little, Bà taught me a song about a boy sitting happily on the neck of a water buffalo. Ai nói chăn trâu là khổ, chăn trâu sướng lắm trứ, la la la, la la la la. I never thought I would see one in the wild.

  “Stop, Dad, tell him to stop. STOP!”

  The driver understands that word for sure. We’re thrown forward. He talks too fast for me to understand. That’s probably best. Bà groans. I unbuckle and jump out.

  “This is so cool!”

  Dad closes his eyes, shakes his head. Bà groans some more, sniffing, sniffing Tiger Balm.

  It’s very difficult to have fun in this family.

  CHAPTER 3

  I must have fallen asleep, face clinging to the leather seat. Very attractive! My ears actually wake up first to hundreds of beep, beep, beeps. We’re in the city. Tall buildings, jumbled electrical lines, tons of mopeds weaving between cars and buses. Every single driver is beeping. Who’s supposed to get out of the way? There’s no room to go anywhere. We inch forward, stop, inch forward, stop. Bà holds a plastic bag in front of her mouth. I might need one too.

  There are lanes, but drivers invent their own zigzag ones while squeezing into any tiny opening. One moped goes the wrong way to turn left faster. It’s a girl with long, flowing hair. She has a bag with a little dog’s head sticking out, barking like it’s been kidnapped. Another moped jumps onto the sidewalk, slithers between things spread out for sale: fruit, blankets, coconuts, plastic toys, pots, flags. Wow, a gigantic, dead, pink pig with eyes wide open hunkers down in a cyclo, its driver pushing down hard to pedal. The pig has really long blond lashes. Dad says the driver is rushing the just-killed pig to the open market, where it will get cut up and sold. I’m not sure I want to know this much about where meat comes from.

  Even the crisscrossy electrical lines act like the traffic. Just looking up at such a jumbled mess makes everything louder. The smells are in your face too: fishy, flowery, lemony, meaty, grilled corn, fried dough, ripe fruit. Each smell has fists and is smacking each other for more space inside my nostrils.

  Yes, this is the Vietnam I’ve always imagined.

  “So, Dad, where’s the helicopter tower?”

  “What tower?”

  “You know, where people pushed and shoved to get out at the end of THE WAR.”

  “That’s in Sài Gòn, we’re in Hà Nội.”

  Dad sounds impatient, but I can’t help having questions. “Why aren’t we in Saigon?”

  “Bà wants to see her village,” Dad says, like it’s so much work to explain everything. “We’ll meet the detective in a hotel here, then it’s off to her village.”

  “Saigon isn’t her village?”

  “Have you not learned anything about Việt Nam?”

  What does Dad think I’m asking about? Russia? There’s no reason for him to get uppity. He’s been thinking about Vietnam and its many confusing parts way longer than I have. “Where’s the gate the Vietcong crashed through?”

  “In Sài Gòn, where do you think?” Dad raises his voice. “No one says Việt Cộng up north. Don’t say anything about politics at all.”

  Now he tells me. We’re in the North, at a completely different airport, at the hub of the Communists. OMG! “Are they going to arrest us? Do they know Ông moved south and fought for the South?”

  Dad really looks at me, as if finally understanding that I really don’t know. “Plenty of northerners did that,” his voice softening. “Nobo
dy cares now. Just don’t talk about it.”

  As soon as Dad backs down, I don’t know why, I get moody. “Fine! Where are the turquoise beaches then? You know, the white sand?”

  “We’re not tourists.” Dad’s cranky again. “Stop being annoying, Mai.”

  Who’s annoying?

  I wake up to a really loud knock. Dad and Bà, already dressed, should have awakened me. We checked in around noon yesterday and went right to sleep. Now it’s morning. That’s jet lag for you. We’re all in one tiny room in an antiquated hotel because Dad feels guilty living in luxury. Mom is not here to make him. Every seventy-five dollars saved buys one of his patients a bike, so she can whoosh to school instead of walking two hours to and two hours from. I’m all for that, but couldn’t Dad at least get a hotel with Wi-Fi? I won’t even ask about room service although I’m starving.

  No matter, I’m sure the trip is wrapping up. The quack is here. I mean that in the friendliest way.

  Dad opens the door while Bà pushes me into a bathroom the size of a closet. I try to get really close to Bà so she can hear my hunger growls and feel sorry for me, but no, in I go. When there’s something superserious that adults in my family want to discuss, they always banish the kids. This is old-world child rearing, where it’s not required that every family member be made to feel important.

  The most I can do is crack the door and peek.

  The detective is the most leathery, wrinkly, skinny old man ever. When he steps into the harsh fluorescent light, I can see the bones shaping his eye sockets and jawline. He bows at Bà and smiles, brows wiggling like gray caterpillars doing the salsa. Both say it’s been too long, that the years have been kind to them. Really?

  While he talks some more, a lot more, I can see yellow teeth blackened at the roots like rotten corn kernels. On him, they somehow look right. I’m hearing Vietnamese but not understanding a thing. I squint, listen harder. Dad keeps trying to interrupt but the detective can’t control the hundreds of words gushing from his mouth. Bà is enthralled. I keep squinting, as if that might help me understand.

  Finally, the detective takes a breath.

  Dad jumps in, his voice urgent, angry even. “This man let my father go? He was his guard?” Yeah, I can understand.

  More sentences disappear into the air.

  “Not acceptable,” Bà says. “Urge him to come to me.”

  Blah, blah, blah from the leathery man.

  “He last saw my father alive?”

  More ghost words. I should have kept learning Vietnamese. But who knew I’d be listening to Bà’s most important conversation ever through a cordial yet incomprehensible prune?

  “I have money. Is that the problem?” Bà loves to hand out money. She says you might as well spend it when you have it because who knows what man with big dreams will rise up and claim everything that was yours for his cause.

  “My mother has crossed the world. This man can certainly get in a van and come to her.”

  How the wrinkly one can go on and on. Finally, Dad cuts in. “So it’s not money but his thanh liêm?” His what? I’ve never heard anyone say thanh liêm. Dad must be repeating what the detective said. I can’t stand people who use five-dollar words. When I use my five-dollar SAT words, it’s not like I want to. Mom has branded them on my brain and they pop up automatically. I’ve been programmed to devour one new SAT word a day, all to satisfy some contest in Mom’s mind.

  The detective accepts a white envelope from Dad and puts it inside a leather notebook so worn it looks like it might decompose in his hands. He takes out a stump of a pencil and writes superslowly. As he’s going out the door, Dad adds, “Use every method to bring him to our village.”

  Wait, what just happened? I didn’t even get to show off my friendly side and the detective left? Did Dad confront him? I come out of exile.

  “He told Bà that Ông is truly gone, right?” I put an up beat in my tone because even though Bà doesn’t understand English, she’s known for guessing the message behind your words.

  “The nerve of that quack,” Dad says, ignoring me. “He’s very good, I’ll give him that.”

  “Ông isn’t here, so that means what I think it means?” I repeat, still sounding cheerful.

  “Things have gotten much more complicated. Now there’s a guard who, of course, Bà insists on meeting.” Dad is beyond frustrated. “So you’re here until she does.”

  Gallons of blood flood my heart. It hurts to breathe. I stop being cheerful. Alarm rings out when I ask, “What guard? Did he see Ông alive? When?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Exactly what?”

  No one explains. Dad paces, while Bà sits with her back straight and hand irons her silk blouse. She’s worried, and I probably caused half of it. I can’t take it anymore, the hunger, the jet lag, the confusion, the guilt. I slam my body on the bed and scream and scream into a pillow.

  A hand pats the back of my head. It’s Bà. She did this when I was little to get me to sleep. One part of me wants to shout it’s her fault I’m stuck in a hot, crowded, sweaty, loud country while another part of me craves her gentle hand on my head.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dad has dragged me here, and after one little day, he’s abandoning us. We’re in front of the hotel waiting for our vans. One will take Dad toward some mountain; the other will take me and Bà to her village. Without him, who am I supposed to argue with? Or is it whom? Why do I care?

  I have a much bigger problem. The guard. Maybe I’m overpanicking. Surely, the detective knows where the guard lives and it’s a matter of putting him in a bus or a van. So I should be at the beach in five or six days, tops. I would be so pleasant if other people’s needs didn’t keep squashing mine.

  “I won’t learn another SAT word.”

  “That’s your mom’s crazy idea, not mine. You’ll have your brain filled with Vietnamese anyway.”

  “I won’t learn Vietnamese.”

  A sigh. “Then be mute.”

  Ugh. “I’ll start making B’s.”

  “If you can stand it, go ahead.”

  UGH!! “I’ll start wearing eyeliner.”

  “Then get raccoon eyes.”

  “I’ll wear—”

  “Listen, Bà has sacrificed everything for us. We’ve raised you to be considerate, so act like it. Be good, listen to Bà. The detective has to find the guard and that might take two weeks. I should be back before then.”

  Dad might as well have whammed a boogie board into my gut. “What do you mean ‘two weeks’?”

  He fake smiles. “It’s not that long if you don’t obsess over it. I’ll meet you in the village.”

  “Why two weeks?” I hate it when my voice gets all wavy, and this is no time to cry. I’ve got to plot. For six days I could fake patience, but two weeks? I start chewing off split ends, gnawing at each strand like I’m grinding a steak. How can I be so obnoxious that everyone will be disgusted and toss me back home?

  Right then, Dad’s cell chimes Mom’s ringtone. She must be going crazy, not having gotten us live since we left. Dad answers the phone, cooing, and I’m sure Mom’s cooing back. I used to think they were so romantic. What was wrong with me? Finally, Dad tosses me the phone.

  “Mai.” No one says my name the way my mom does, like she’s packed all the hope in the world into my one syllable. I didn’t even know I missed her until now. The tears come and there’s nothing I can do about them.

  “You’re fine,” Mom murmurs. “I know you can do this for Bà, and you’ll be so proud of yourself. Deep breaths in, now out. From what I understand, the guard is reluctant to come see Bà. It’ll all get smoothed out, but that takes time. So hang in there, sweetie. Two weeks aren’t that long. Can I hear your voice?”

  I can’t. My throat is clogged and tears keep gushing.

  “You’re being so helpful and brave, and try to enjoy your time there because you have no idea what you’ll find or whom you’ll meet. Be open, love, can you do that for me?”
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  I wish Mom would stop being so sugary. If she yells and tells me I’m a spoiled baby, I could get sassy. As it is, I just keep crying.

  “Listen carefully. Wait until Dad is gone, then look inside the zippered bag that’s velcroed inside your luggage. I left you a surprise.”

  I love surprises. The tears stop even though I don’t even want to feel better. It’s a cheap trick; Mom knows I can’t resist surprises.

  “I think you’re going to love it. Now before I let you go, your SAT word for the day is one of my favorites. Ephemeral, e-p-h-e . . .”

  I jerk the phone an arm’s length away, surprised but not really. Mom is Mom. I should have expected her SAT attack. I toss the phone back to Dad.

  Dad whispers with Bà, then gives her a white envelope just like the one the detective got. Hey, where’s mine? I think about not waving bye, but as our van pulls out, I do wave. I miss him already. We talked and Dad agreed that should the detective bring the guard to the village before two weeks, he would return immediately. So I choose to believe it won’t be two weeks. Glass half full, that’s me. It can’t be that difficult to find one guard in a country the size of Florida.

  I’m told Bà’s village is eighty kilometers from Hanoi. One mile = 1.6 km, so divide 1.6 into 80, where I move the decimal point and make it 16 into 80, where 6 times 5 is 30 and 10 times 5 is 50 so 16 times 5 is 80 and put back the decimal point, so about 50 miles. It’s geeky, but I live for conversions. I have no idea how long it takes to go fifty miles here. The traffic in the city crawls along, but maybe once we reach the highway it’ll be faster.

  It doesn’t matter because I’m prepared for a famine. After yesterday, I’ve made sure I shall never be hungry again. Am I the only twelve-year-old who knows that line? Mom and Bà love Scarlett O’Hara. So do all Vietnamese women, according to this other PBS documentary where a professor talks about how the whole country is obsessed with love, war, suffering, and resilience. How does he know how all Vietnamese feel about anything? Do I count? I’m not so into suffering, war neither.