A night like this runs about twenty-five dollars. Many Vietnamese men drink up half of what they make, treating each other to round after round of beer, liquor, whatever is at hand. Their women make do with the money left over, splurging on things for themselves, like material for a new dress, bowls of noodle soup at the market, maybe a cyclo ride.
The Nguyen women are mysteries to me. Thuy is the dutiful daughter. Viet's wife, Mo, is the respectful and obedient daughter-in-law. Together Thuy and Mo devote half of their days to cooking, cleaning, and caring for the entire clan, sharing labor and responsibilities. Mo dotes on her two children. Thuy has a passion for Western clothing. Her husband is a tailor. She likes to sew new clothes fashioned after styles she sees in Western magazines.
The oldest daughter, Hanh, teaches English for a living. Her husband was a Vietnamese Nationalist soldier who was exposed to Agent Orange during his tour of duty. He died eleven years ago when Han, their only child, was four. Han suffers from mental disorders, retardation, and epileptic seizures. Her spine is deformed and she has a clawed hand, which the family covers with a knitted mitt tied so securely she cannot tear it off.
Hanh is an aging orchid, a gentle beauty who cannot understand why her womb birthed such pain in her only child. She is poor, and without her family there would be no way she could care for Han. At thirty-six, her prospects for a second marriage are dim. Vietnamese men, even much older ones, prefer to marry young women, certainly not an older woman with a handicapped child.
Moving in the rhythm of their lives, I grow fond of them all. I hear their quiet arguments. Through their amiable ways, I learn about myself and what would have been. But it is Hung who unwittingly shows me his Saigon, a Saigon that I could never forget. Hung and I are the same age, both artists after a fashion. Rebels even, by our own reckoning. He takes me into the depths of the city, parades me on the back of his beat-up'68 Vespa through every hole and dive. He introduces me to Son.
I believe there are only a handful of men like Son in the world. Likable men who embrace vices in such measure and style that it is difficult to hate them. Son is a womanizer, a photographer, a pimp, a Taoist, a poet, a Buddhist, a drunk, a Catholic, a polygamist, a philosopherâa dreamer. One of the two living Vietnamese Green Berets and a survivor of four plane crashes, he believes he is blessed, living a roguish life at top volume like a child, almost innocent by amorality. Together, Hung and Son show me every vice, depravity. They seek generously to share their world with me, never realizing that their diverting marvels are my wounding horrors.
Dying-Angels
The stars gleamed around an emptied moon. A cool breeze rolled off the ocean over the surf, across a road that paralleled the beach, and into the coconut field, combing up the foothills where we hid among the sounding crickets. We hunkered down in the brush, twenty yards of coconut palms separating us and the road. Tien huddled with Huy on my right, whispering so softly I could not make out his words. Bundled in a blanket at my feet, Hien, the four-year-old, wheezed through his snot, eased from crying into slumber by Mom's sleeping pills. She crouched nearby, keeping one eye on us, the other on the road, where Auntie Dung and Chi waited to flag down Dad. We had been hiding since dusk, nearly six hours in one spot. I was crumbling with fear that my friend Hoa had told someone who might have gone to the police. Mom thought I had eaten something bad. She kept urging me to go up the hill and empty my bowels. I wanted to confess. I was sure Dad had been caught. It was 11 p.m. He was two hours late.
Sounds of shuffling. Chi came hunched over, then Auntie Dung and Dad. He checked on us and reassured us, patting each in turn. We lay on the sand and waited. Midnight came and went without sign of the boat. Dad said that they had agreed to wait an hour
beyond midnight for the fishermen. We waited, but I could tell Mom and Dad were very worried, their panic rising with every minute.
I prayed with all my heart that we wouldn't get caught, that my big mouth hadn't brought the police on the entire family. The wind shook loose a star and it flashed down the sky. Chi, lying beside me, said each star was an angel, and a falling star was a dying angel. She said angels died to balance the world's good and evil. I counted three disappearing and, feeling very sick, I kept the omen to myself.
Standing ahead of us and wearing dark clothes almost indistinguishable from the trunks of the palms, Chi and Auntie scanned the ocean for signs of the boat. Huy, Tien, and Hien dozed side by side. Mom and Dad crouched a few feet from me, arguing about why the boat was over an hour late. Dad said to Mom that they should stick with the plan and abandon the beach. Mom shook her head, saying she had a strong hunch that the boat was on its way. He gave in as he usually did when she had a strong feeling about something. Another hour ticked by. Dad became jittery, constantly fumbling with the flashlight intended for signaling the boat if it ever came.
“We've got to go back now,” he whispered to Mom. “We wait anymore and sunrise will catch us out on the road.” The plan was for everyone but Dad to return to Grandma's house. He would hide out somewhere else until Mom sent word that everything was all right.
“They're coming. Just bear it out a little longer,” Mom said calmly. She had entered her strange state of total conviction based on her gut feeling. Nothing could sway her.
Chi and Auntie came back, pointing at a blotch of darkness edging into the bay. It was very faint, its outline blending with the rippling water. Wringing the flashlight, Dad groaned that it might be a patrol boat or worseâone in disguise. Mom urged him to flash them. At last, Dad held out the flashlight covered with a cardboard cone he fashioned to focus the beam. One short flick of the button. The torch stabbed out at the darkness, giving us a sudden jolt of exposure.
No reply. Chi woke Huy and Tien. We had to run soon, either to the beach or into the hills, but we were moving for sure. Wait. Dad aimed the flashlight again and gave it another flick. Nothing. Mom was mumbling now, not so sure anymore. Dad wrung the flashlight in
his hands. Mom and Dad eyed each other. The third flash was to be last, that was the plan. No reply meant the mission was aborted. The boat hadn't moved for five minutes. Dad raised the flashlight and sent the last beam out to the ocean.
A light winked back from the boat, twice. Dad flicked out the code: shortâlongâshort. Back came longâshortâshort: everything fine. Dad gave the word and we dashed to the beach. Dad carried Hien. Everyone except Huy and Tien had a bag to carry. I ran after them, bringing up the rear.
A fallen branch tangled my feet and I pitched face first into the sand with a yelp. Disoriented, I fumbled for my bag, digging the sand out of my eye. Terrified of being left behind, I wanted to call out but I didn't dare. I was flailing when a hand lifted me by the elbow.
It was Chi. “I've got your bag,” she whispered. “Hold onto my hand.”
I clung to it fiercely with one hand and knuckled sand out of my eyes with the other. We crossed the road and stumbled to the beach. Men ran out of the waves toward us. They came out of the night ocean, swimming, running like fish growing legs, becoming men. The water exploded moonlight around them. I was terrified, unsure of who they were until they were upon us. Our young fishermen were as frightened as we were. Silently, they grabbed our luggage and tugged us into the waves. Three men swept up Huy, Tien, and Hien, piggybacking them into the water. Mom, Dad, Auntie, and Chi ran into the surf and began to swim for the boat. I splashed in after them. It wasn't as cold as I'd anticipated. Maybe I was so scared I couldn't feel the sting. Although the boat was only fifty yards from shore, it seemed a mile off. I kicked and windmilled my arms as hard as I could, but the waves kept nudging me back to shore. I fell behind. Panic set in as my limbs began to tire. No. I don't want to be left behind. I shouted for them to wait, but saltwater filled my mouth. The only sound was me sputtering.
A dark form turned back toward me. It was Tai, the captain. With me clinging to his neck, he plowed over the swell like a fish. He heaved me into the boat and climbed in, the last one aboard. There was barely any room to sit. The boat wasn't much bigger than the ones Chi and I found abandoned on the beach. It was ten meters,
roughly thirty feet, about the length of five big beds placed end to end. Dad was talking furiously with Tai and Hanh, the first mate. Mom hissed for them to get going.
Someone started the engine. It rattled, coughed. Nothing. He tried it again and again. Same result. Mom was clutching the jade Buddha pendant around her neck. A sick silence engulfed us. Dad looked afraid, his face so very gaunt in the moonlight. We crouched helplessly, watching the man inside the tiny engine house mid-deck. On the fourth try, the engine heaved to life, and the pilot pointed us out to the dark.
Huddling on the smooth wooden deck, I steadied myself against the gunwale as the boat rose and dipped with the waves. I flattened my palms against the smooth planks and felt the engine vibrating, clacking like a big baby rattle. Hien was snoring, drugged to the whole experience. Huy and Tien changed into dry clothes and, already bored, curled up to sleep. I was cold, tired, but I was too scared and excited to sleep. I had never been in a boat before.
The fishing boat had four sections. The foredeck was used to store sailing gear. It was also the head, the toilet a gallon tin can. We crowded just aft, on the holding deck where the fish usually go. There wasn't enough room for everyone to lie down so we took turns. I sat against the shallow gunwale, hugging my knees to save space, worried that one good lurch of the boat could pitch me overboard. Behind me was the engine house. It provided access to our stash of food, water, and diesel below deck. One man always stayed inside to keep an eye on the engine and the seawater sloshing in the bilge. Most of the crew congregated in the stern cockpit. It was slightly larger than the mid-deck, but, with the pilot and the big tiller, two men had to sit on the roof of the engine house.
Dad was arguing with Tai at the stern, furious about the two extra young men whom he had never met. They weren't part of the plan. He didn't trust them. Seventeen people were too much for a tiny boat. How could we clear land before sunrise? Tai shrugged, they were his cousins. He pointed at the beach, saying that he had forgotten about the tide change. The grounded boat wouldn't budge until the tide returned. Dad was angry that the new deckhands were too inexperienced. They were both seventeen. Tai was twenty-five and
his first mate, Hanh, was twenty-two. The crew milled about, rearranging bags of provisions and jugs of water, looking uncomfortable.
A faint seam of violet was opening on the horizon when everything happened at once. Without enough room to sit on deck, the men started to throw their fishing net overboard, pretending to be laying out their net in case someone was watching from ashore. As the net was paid out to port, the boat was turned slightly in the same direction to keep the net from fouling the propeller. Within minutes, the engine died. The man in the engine house was frantic, shouting that it sounded as though something inside the engine broke. The boat slowed, then stopped, bobbing in the swells like a cork. The men scrambled, trying to figure out what happened.
“The net is caught in the propeller!” a crewman cried. Our inexperienced pilot had not kept the boat on a steady port curve. When a large swell had gone under the keel, he overcorrected to starboard, swinging the stern directly into the net-curtain. The propeller sucked up the lines until it choked.
Someone pointed to a pinpoint lightâa patrol boatârounding the peninsula behind us to port. “Down, down! Everybody down,” ordered Tai. “Keep working the net like you're fishing.”
We lay down. I peeped over the side at the white dot in the distance. It seemed to just hover on the water. Not coming closer, not going away. Waiting. One of the men slipped over the side with a knife to cut the propeller loose. Another followed with a flashlight. We bobbed in the waves, helpless. A man surfaced, sputtering that the other man was tangled in the net. Three more went over the side with knives. An eternity sloshed by. They all came up. The rescued man was pulled onboard, coughing seawater, his leg bleeding from a superficial cut. Someone muttered that blood attracted sharks.
Two men went back down to hack the net from the propeller. They couldn't get it off. The strands were too strong, wound too tightly around the shaft. There wasn't a knife sharp enough among them, though they all had knives to fight Thai pirates. Six men, all capable divers, took their turns against the net. Tai, the best swimmer and strongest man aboard, was under hacking madly until they pulled him aboard like a dead fish. Mom burrowed into her bags and produced a
cooking knife she had impulsively seized from the family altar the day before during prayer. Hanh slid into the water with it. Mom was in the throes of her “feeling” again, whispering to everyone that her “prayer-sent knife” was equal to the job. The outline of the patrol boat came toward us slowly from port. Standing on the foredeck, a pair of crewmen made a show of pulling in the net.
Tai surfaced on the starboard side, hidden from the patrol boat. The knife was sharp, he gasped. It was cutting through the net. Tai relayed the blade to Tieu, who slipped overboard to take his turn underwater. The patrol boat was only a few hundred yards off. A pair of crewmen stood, fussing with the net. The rest of us lay flat on deck, out of sight. The patrol boat slowed, then veered slightly from us, heading to shore. The sun's crown was nudging out of the water, its aurora blossoming a nub of orange. Figures of men were visible on the other boat. They must have thought we were fishermen since our net was out and we weren't making for the open sea.
A quiet cheer went up when Tieu surfaced and announced that the propeller was freed. They waited until the patrol boat was well out of sight and started up the engine. Again we headed out, this time toward the sunrise. There was no doubt among the crew that, had our boat been running, the patrol would have given chase. Our misfortune saved us.
Afternoon of our first day on the ocean, we sighted a small freighter. Although the fishermen claimed it was a good sailing day, sunny, moderate wind, average seven-foot waves, we were seasick. Except for Dad, who seemed to be holding up, Mom, Chi, Auntie, and us boys vomited, making the deck slippery. I felt horrible. My stomach fisted. Sour mush gushed out of my mouth. I broke out in a cold sweat, curling up in my own fish-smelling fluid. The sun yoyoed across the sky. It was hot, white, and roundâlike the pearls Mom had sewn into the crotch of my pants for safekeeping. My skin hurt, burning. I couldn't keep food down. None of the women and children could. The men, on the other hand, were in high spirits, joking and singing as though we were all on a holiday.
It was a long time after they sighted the ship that I could distinguish it from the sea behind us. No one could tell what type of ship it was.
With neither radio nor binoculars, there was no way to tell from which country the ship hailed. The men agreed that it must be a Vietnamese or a Russian ship because we hadn't gone far since dawn. At full speed, our fishing boat made eight, maybe nine knotsâa little under ten miles per hour. We couldn't have been more than fifty miles offshore. Tai took the tiller and swung us away from the direction of the ship, but, a few minutes later, it seemed as though the ship had changed course. It was coming closer, and now we could make out its bow, pointing straight at us. Dad told Mom to make a Japanese flag. One of the men dove below and brought up her satchel. Mom started working furiously, digging out her red dress and a white sheet she brought in case we needed it for bandages. She couldn't thread a needle in the lurching boat, so she used safety pins. In minutes, we had a Japanese flag, a red dot on a white sheet. They hoisted it high at the stern. Tai kept us steady on course. Then all we could do was sit and wait.
The younger crewmen started to panic. There was talk of getting rammed or captured. Manh, who couldn't swim, was terrified. I didn't know enough to be scared until I saw Dad's face. The last time he looked like that, we were imprisoned and he nearly got executed. Mom shut her eyes tightly, head bowed, and prayed and prayed so hard I was sure we were as good as caught. I thought what a shame it was since I was just beginning to feel less seasick. And it was such a nice day to be out on the oceanâwater, sky, and sunshine all the way around as far as my eyes could see.