Have some pho, Madame said. It will make you feel better.
She had been cooking and the house smelled of sentiment, a rich aroma of beef broth and star anise I can only describe as the bouquet of love and tenderness, all the more striking because Madame had never cooked before coming to this country. For women of Madame’s rarefied class, cooking was one of those functions contracted out to other women, along with cleaning, nursing, teaching, sewing, and so on, everything except for the bare biological necessities, which I could not imagine Madame performing, except, perhaps, for breathing. But the exigencies of exile had made it necessary for Madame to cook, as no one else in the household was capable of anything more than boiling water. In the General’s case, even that was beyond him. He could fieldstrip and reassemble an M16 blindfolded, but a gas stove was as perplexing as a calculus equation, or at least he pretended so. Like most of us Vietnamese men, he simply did not want to be even brushed with domesticity. The only domestic things he did were sleep and eat, both of which he was better at than me. He finished his pho a good five minutes before I did, although my slow speed of consumption was not due to lack of will but because Madame’s pho had dissolved me and transported me back in time to my mother’s household, where she concocted the broth from the gray beef bones given by my father from his leftovers. Usually we ate the pho without the thin slices of beef that were its protein, we being too poor to afford the meat itself, except for those rare occasions when my suffering mother scraped together enough wherewithal. But poor as she was, my mother brewed the most wonderfully aromatic soup, and I helped her by charring the ginger and onion that would be plunked into the iron pot for flavor. It was also my task to skim the scum that boiled to the top of the broth as the bones simmered, leaving the broth clear and rich. As the bones continued to simmer for hours, I tortured myself by doing my homework by the pot, the aroma taunting and tantalizing. Madame’s pho harkened back to the warmth of my mother’s kitchen, which was probably not as warm as it was in my memories, but never mind—I had to stop periodically to savor not only my soup but the marrow of my memories.
Delicious, I said. I haven’t had this in years.
Isn’t it amazing? I never suspected she had this talent.
You should open a restaurant, I said.
The way you talk! She was clearly pleased.
Have you seen this? The General pulled a newspaper from the stack on the kitchen countertop, the latest edition of Sonny’s biweekly paper. I had not seen it yet. What disturbed the General was Sonny’s article on the major’s funeral, now a few weeks past, and the coverage of the wedding. On the major’s demise, Sonny wrote that “the police call this a robbery-homicide, but are we sure an officer of the secret police was without enemies who might want him dead?” And in regards to the wedding, Sonny summarized the speeches and concluded by observing that “perhaps it is time for the talk of war to cease. Isn’t the war over?”
He’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, I said, even though I knew that he had gone too far. But I agree he may be a little naive.
Is it naïveté? That’s a generous reading. He’s supposed to be a reporter. That means to report the facts, not to make things up or interpret them or put ideas in people’s heads.
He isn’t wrong about the major, is he?
Whose side are you on? Madame said, completely shedding the role of cook. Reporters need editors and editors need beatings. That’s the best newspaper policy. The problem with Son is that he is his own editor and he goes unchecked.
You’re absolutely right, Madame. The Auteur’s punch had unnerved me, knocked me out of character. Too much freedom of the press is unhealthy for a democracy, I declared. While I did not believe this, my character, the good captain, did, and as the actor playing this role I had to sympathize with this man. But most actors spent more time with their masks off than on, whereas in my case it was the reverse. No surprise, then, that sometimes I dreamed of trying to pull a mask off my face, only to realize that the mask was my face. Now, with the face of the captain readjusted for a proper fit, I said, The citizenry can’t sift out what is useful and good if there’s too much opinion circulating.
No more than two opinions or ideas on any one issue should be out there, the General said. Look at the voting system. Same concept. We had multiple parties and candidates and look at the mess we had. Here you choose the left hand or the right and that’s more than enough. Two choices and look at all the drama with every presidential election. Even two choices may be one too many. One choice is enough, and no choice may be even better. Less is more, isn’t it? You know the man, Captain. He’ll listen to you. Remind him of how we did things back home. Even though we’re here, we still need to remember the ways we did things.
In the good old days, Sonny would already be sweating in a holding cell. Out loud, I said, Speaking of the old days, sir, are we making any progress on winning them back again?
Progress is being made, the General said, leaning back in his chair. We have friends and allies in Claude and the Congressman, and they tell me they are not alone. But it’s a difficult time for getting support publicly, since the American people don’t want to fight another war. So we have to assemble ourselves slowly.
We need a network here and there, I suggested.
I have a list of the officers for our first meeting. I’ve talked to all of them in person and they are dying for the chance to fight. There’s nothing for them here. The only chance for them to regain their honor and be men again is to reclaim our country.
We’ll need more than a vanguard.
Vanguard? Madame said. That’s communist talk.
Maybe so. But the communists won, Madame. They weren’t just lucky. Perhaps we should learn from some of their strategies. A vanguard can lead the rest of the people toward where it is they don’t even know they want to go but should go.
He’s right, the General said.
The vanguard works clandestinely but sometimes shows the public a different face. Voluntary organizations and the like become the fronts for the vanguard.
Exactly, the General said. Look at Son. We need to make his newspaper one of those front organizations. And we need a youth group, a women’s group, even an intellectuals’ group.
We also need cells. Parts of the organization need to be secluded from one another so that if one cell is lost, others can survive. This is one cell right here. Then there are the cells Claude and the Congressman are involved in, which I know nothing about.
In due time, Captain. One step at a time. The Congressman is working on certain contacts to clear the way for us to send men to Thailand.
That will be the staging area.
Exactly. A return by sea is too difficult. We have to go overland back into the country. Meanwhile, Claude is finding us money. Money can get us the rest of what we need. We can get the men, but they will need weapons, training, a place to train. They’ll need transport to Thailand. We must think like communists, as you say. We must plan far ahead for decades. We must live and work underground, as they did.
At least we’re already acquainted with darkness.
We are, aren’t we? We had no choice. We have never had a choice, not really, not when it matters. Communism forced us to do everything we have done to oppose it. History has moved us. We have no choice but to fight, to resist evil and to resist being forgotten. This is why—and here the General picked up Sonny’s newspaper—even talking about the war being over is dangerous. We must not allow our people to grow complacent.
And neither must we let them forget their resentment, I added. That’s where newspapers can play a role, on the culture front.
But only if the journalists do their work as they should. The General tossed the newspaper back on the table. “Resentment.” That’s a good word. Always resent, never relent. Perhaps that should be our motto.
There’s a ring to it, I said.
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CHAPTER 9
Much to my surprise, Violet called me the next week. I don’t believe we have anything to talk about, I said. He reconsidered your advice, she said. I noticed that she actually used complete sentences with me this time. He’s tempestuous and doesn’t take criticism well, as he’s the first to admit. But after he cooled down, he thought there were some usable ideas in your notes. More than that, he respects you for standing up to him. Not too many people are willing to do that, which makes you an ideal candidate for what I’m proposing. We need a consultant who can get things right when it comes to Vietnamese matters. We’ve already researched the history, the costumes, the weapons, the customs, anything we could find in a book. But we’ll need that human touch you can provide. There are refugees from Vietnam in the Philippines who we’ll be using as extras, and we need someone to work with them.
From far away floated the susurrus of my mother’s voice: Remember, you’re not half of anything, you’re twice of everything! Despite all the disadvantages of my poor, muddled heritage, my mother’s endless encouragement and fierce belief in me meant that I never backed down from challenge or opportunity. Their offer was four months of paid vacation in a tropical paradise, six months if the shoot went over schedule, and perhaps not so much a paradise if the local rebels got a little too overconfident, and perhaps not so much of a vacation as a working jaunt, and perhaps not so much paid as underpaid, but the upshot was that I needed a respite from my American refuge. Remorse over the crapulent major’s death was ringing me up a few times a day, tenacious as a debt collector. Also always there at the crowded back of my mind, front and center in the Catholic chorus of my guilt, stood the major’s widow. I had given her only fifty dollars at the funeral, which was all I could afford. Even underpaid, I would be able to save money, given how my room and board would be included, and from this provide some support for the major’s wife and children.
They were innocents to whom wrong had been done, as I had once been an innocent child to whom wrong was done. And not by strangers, but by my own family, my aunts who had not wanted me to play with my cousins at family gatherings and who shooed me away from the kitchen when there were treats. I associated my blood aunts with the scars they inflicted on me during the New Year, the time all other children remember with such fondness. What was the first New Year I could remember? Perhaps the one when I was five or six. I huddled with the other children, solemn and nervous, facing the prospect of approaching each adult and making a little speech wishing him or her health and happiness. But although I forgot not a word, and did not stumble like most of my cousins, and radiated sincerity and charm, Aunt Two did not grace me with a red envelope. The entire maternal family tree was watching me, on its gnarled branches my mother’s parents, her nine siblings, my three dozen cousins. I do not have enough, this wicked witch said, towering above me. I am one short. I stood immobilized, my arms still folded respectfully across my chest, waiting for a magical envelope or an apology to appear, but nothing more was forthcoming until, after what seemed to be several minutes, my mother laid her hand on my shoulder and said, Thank your aunt for her kindness in teaching you a lesson.
Only later, at home, on the wooden bed we shared, did Mama weep. It did not matter that my other aunts and uncles gave me red envelopes, although when I compared mine with my cousins’, I discovered that my sums of lucky money were but half theirs. That’s because you’re half-blooded, said one calculating cousin. You’re a bastard. When I asked Mama what a bastard was, her face inflamed. If I could, she said, I’d strangle him with my bare hands. Never in my life has there been a day when I learned so much about myself, the world, and its inhabitants. One must be grateful for one’s education no matter how it arrives. So I was grateful, in a way, for my aunt and my cousin, whose lessons I remember much more than many nobler things that passed before me in school. Oh, they’ll see! my mother wept, squeezing me with such force I was nearly breathless, my face pressed against one comforting breast while my hand squeezed its plush other. Radiating through thin cotton fabric was the hot, rich muskiness of a young woman’s body after a humid day spent mostly on feet or haunches, preparing food and serving. They’ll see! You’ll work harder than all of them, you’ll study more than all of them, you’ll know more than all of them, you’ll be better than all of them. Promise your mother you will! And I promised.
I have shared this story with only two people, Man and Bon, censoring just the part about my mother’s breasts. This was at the lycée, at separate moments of intimacy in our early adolescence. When Bon heard it, we were fishing in the river, and he flung down his rod in fury. If I ever meet this cousin, he said, I’ll beat him until half his blood is coming out of his head. Man was more measured. Even at that age, he was calm, analytical, and precociously dialectical-materialist in his attitude. He had treated me to sugarcane juice after school, and we were sitting on a curb, little plastic sacks in hand, sipping through straws. The red envelope is a symbol, he said, of all that’s wrong. It’s the color of blood, and they singled you out for your blood. It’s the color of fortune and luck. Those are primitive beliefs. We don’t succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have to do. We fail because others understand this better than we do. They take advantage of things, like your cousins, and they don’t question things. As long as things work for them, then they support those things. But you see the lie beneath those things because you never got to take part. You see a different shade of red than them. Red is not good luck. Red is not fortune. Red is revolution. All of a sudden I, too, saw red, and in that throbbing vision the world began to make sense to me, how so many degrees of meaning existed in a single color, the tone so potent it must be applied sparingly. If one ever sees something written in red, one knows trouble and change lie ahead.
My letters to my aunt, then, were not written in such an alarming shade, even if the cipher I used to code my sub rosa reports disturbed me. Here was one representative example of Richard Hedd’s highly esteemed Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction:
The Vietnamese peasant will not object to the use of airpower, for he is apolitical, interested only in feeding himself and his family. Bombing his village will of course upset him, but the cost is outweighed ultimately by how airpower will persuade him that he is on the wrong side if he chooses communism, which cannot protect him. (p. 126)
From these kinds of insights, I reported on my decision to take the Auteur’s offer, a job I characterized as undermining the enemy’s propaganda. I also coded the names of the officers in the General’s vanguard. Just in case my letter would be read by any eyes other than those of Man’s aunt, I kept my tone upbeat about life in Los Angeles. Perhaps unknown censors were reading refugee mail, looking for dejected, angry refugees who could not or would not dream the American Dream. I was careful, then, to present myself as just another immigrant, glad to be in the land where the pursuit of happiness was guaranteed in writing, which, when one comes to think about it, is not such a great deal. Now a guarantee of happiness—that’s a great deal. But a guarantee to be allowed to pursue the jackpot of happiness? Merely an opportunity to buy a lottery ticket. Someone would surely win millions, but millions would surely pay for it.
It was in the name of happiness, I told my aunt, that I helped the General toward the next step in his plan, the creation of a nonprofit charitable organization that could receive tax-deductible donations, the Benevolent Fraternity of Former Soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. In one reality, the Fraternity served the needs of thousands of veterans who were now men without an army, a country, and an identity. It existed, in short, to increase their meager measure of happiness. In another reality, this Fraternity was a front that allowed the General to receive funds for the Movement from whoever wished to donate, which was not primarily the Vietnamese community. Its refugee members were hobbled by their structural function in the
American Dream, which was to be so unhappy as to make other Americans grateful for their happiness. Instead of these refugees, broke and broken, the main donors were to be magnanimous individuals and charitable foundations interested in boosting America’s old friends. The Congressman had mentioned his charitable foundation to the General and me at a meeting at his district office, where we presented him the idea for the Fraternity and asked if Congress might help our organization in some way. His district office was a modest outpost in a Huntington Beach strip mall, a two-story arrangement of shops on a major intersection. Drenched in café au lait stucco, the mall was bordered by an example of America’s most unique architectural contribution to the world, a parking lot. Some bemoan the brutalism of socialist architecture, but was the blandness of capitalist architecture any better? One could drive for miles along a boulevard and see nothing but parking lots and the kudzu of strip malls catering to every need, from pet shops to water dispensaries to ethnic restaurants and every other imaginable category of mom-and-pop small business, each one an advertisement for the pursuit of happiness. As a sign of his humility and closeness to the people, the Congressman had chosen such a strip mall for his headquarters, and in the windows were plastered white campaign signs with CONGRESSMAN in red and his name in blue, as well as his last campaign slogan: ALWAYS TRUE.