Then there was nothing. The wildfire swept past. Ashen, I pulled over. Without a word, Viet, his nephew, and I went home. At the house, I parked my bike just inside the gate. The tears came without warning and I had to turn away from my uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces. I cried into the wall, the sobs racking my shoulders. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide in this little house, in this crowded neighborhood. I wept uncontrollably, as I did when I heard my sister Chi had committed suicideâmy father cutting her free from a yellow nylon rope. I had known then, as I knew now, that I was weeping for her and I was weeping for myself because I was not there in the months before her death. Although we had lived in the same city, I had avoided her, too engrossed in my own life, my own problems.
This time my tears made my relatives ashamed for me. Yet, in this alley-world of theirs where there was no space, no privacy, they gave me both. My aunt said to her son,
“He got dust in his eyes. It's painful. Nghia, go upstairs and fetch him the bottle of eyedrops.”
When the eyedropper was in my hand, they dispersed. They never mentioned my shame, my unmanliness. Never asked me why. And in all my time here, they never once mentioned my sister's suicide
Never once spoke of her unspeakable act. The only thing they said, they said it thrice:
Poor Chi. Poor Chi. Poor Chi.
These wonderful, generous people, they gave me face when I deserved none.
I wept for my sister Chi. I wept for myself. I wept for the disparity between my world and the world of these people. And I wept for my sorry soul. When the tears eased, I bathed. In the breezeway behind the bathroom, a servant girl, washing dishes, sang to herself. A wall and two feet between us, I cried and she sang of monsoon rain in the countryside. I emptied the cistern of cold water over my head, one tin at a time.
Baptized, I went alone to a barâan expensive, exclusive, airconditioned oasis, carpeted and lavishly upholstered, with a guard at the door to keep the beggars out. And I drank myself into a stupor, watching crusty people through leaded glass.
Now, in the grip of the tequilaâthis toast to Tyle, my shipwrecked VikingâI sense a terrible doubt. I wasn't there when my sister needed me. I did not turn my life into a crusade for runaways. Did not volunteer to help the homeless or to counsel troubled people. For these starving children of Saigon, I have no intention of sacrificing my life to change theirs. Then, perhaps, my grief is but a compensatory facade.
I am drunk and I am tired. Whether my journey is a pilgrimage or a farce, I am ready and anxious to see this last leg through. Tomorrow I will head north to Hanoi.
Fallen-Leaves
Tonight, Anh was with her old friend Bich in downtown Saigon having tea and strawberry ice cream, a middle-class luxury she had come to adore.
Bich, I brought you some green mangoes. Ahhhh, Older Sister Anh, look at me craving green mangoes and fishsaucesyrup just like a peasant girl. They chortled madly. Remember how we could tell which one of your girls was in trouble when she started eating green mangoes like bread? They sang the chorus in unison: QuickâBrew the rootteaâCall the midwifeâCatch the Jeep before they take him back to the front lines. They were laughing, but they were holding hands, comforting each other, their weathered peasant fingers interlacing like roots, wrists bound by matching circlets of blood jade. Bich, you aren't going to Paris with Claude, are you? Yes, I am and I'll have him reserve plane seats for your family. No, Bich, we can't. We have too much here. Our family, our home. Listen, Older Sister Anh, we're leaving, all your girls are leaving. Uyen is leaving with Jack. He says Saigon will fall any day now. Ly and Paul are going to America with her family. We've come a long way. We can't lose everything again. You must come with us. Anh shook her head sadly.
They were women of the same harvest, strong women who did what they had to for the survival of their families. They knew pain and they knew joy
and all the selflessness that was required to take a person from that one place to the other.
Anh scanned the park lawn, wondering where her boy went. He wanted to go to the movies, but she didn't want to take him, not with all the recent bombings. He was a strange one, that An. Always burrowing into one fix after another, off in his own world, constantly getting into trouble.
An was angry when the crowdjostled him and his scoop of chocolate ice cream tumbled out of its sugar cone. He was reaching down when a woman stepped on it then cursed him for the mess on her sandal. An ran. He squirmed between adults' legs and popped out in front of the crowd. The heat of the fire on his face made him forget the taste of chocolate on his tongue.
He thought there ought to be a bittersweet odor of burnt meat, but there wasn't. Just gasoline fumes. People gathered to watch robes of flame dance brightly against a whitewashed backdrop of a wall. Black smoke billowed to the night sky. A blackened form silhouetted amid unfurling orange. A Buddhist monk aflame. His last sacrifice.
Hope-Adrift
The engine was running, but the sea had us in its palm. Our poor fishing vessel bobbed directionless, putting no distance between us and the mysterious ship in pursuit. The crew looked defeated. Mom muttered that it was terrible luck. First the net fouling the propeller, now this. She said to Dad, How could this be? The calendar showed today to be auspicious. All the celestial signs were goodâclear sky, good wind. She shook her head, looking at her Japanese flag, a patch of red on a white sheet, flapping noisily. Our hopes were pinned on that fraudulent banner.
We waited. Time sagged. I counted the waves surging beneath our keel. There was nothing to do. The men's lips were moving, mumbling prayers. Eyes closed, Mom had her jade Buddha in her palms. Miracle. Miracle. Our boat seemed to plead with the ocean. Please send a miracle.
It happened. The men stirred, but no one uttered a word. They looked hopeful, fearing that saying something might jinx whatever was happening. Another minute, I could tell that the ship was veering away from us. They cheered. Tai instructed us to stay hidden, knowing that the ship had us in its binoculars. Mom was shaking with
relief. Eventually, the ship went over the horizon and the men celebrated with a meal.
The ocean grew more restless by evening. We were exhausted, dehydrated, and hungry, but couldn't eat because food made us vomit. This was fine with the men who ate and drank our portions. The night was chilly. We put on our sweaters. Dad pointed out the constellations to the men. As soon as I fell asleep, a spray of water would wake me up. My face was crusty with salt. I wanted to get up and stretch my legs, but Dad forbade it. No standing. He didn't want to lose us overboard.
Clouds puffed into the sky the morning of our second day. A ten-foot sea rose up from nowhere. Stress was beginning to show among the crew. They were sullen and irritable with each other. Some of the men washed their faces with our dwindling supply of fresh water. They were also in the habit of rinsing their cups with fresh water before drinking. Dad protested. They cussed him. Tai, the leader, looked on without comment. Dad shrugged, resigned to the young men's foolishness. We couldn't afford a quarrel.
The sea continued to build through the afternoon. Occasionally, a rogue wave broke over us. We were drenched and cold. A shark nosed by our boat, the fishermen panicked. Some started lashing themselves to the boat, others had their knives in hand.
Tai asked his first mate, “Did you make an offering at the Shark Temple?”
“Yes, I did. I lit two batches of incense, just in case.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“You didn't drink the money, did you?”
“Fuck, no! I swear to heaven I made the offering!”
This mollified the crew, but they were still nervous. The weather worsened and the shark went away. The wind picked up. Shivering, we changed into our last set of dry clothing. As the sun slipped toward the water, flying fish took wing, shooting out of the waves like silver bullets. Long fins out tricking the wind, they skimmed the sea in straight lines, in curves, in banking dives like tiny, shiny jets on a raid. When golden rays caught them broadside, they shimmered like
splinters of the sun-gilded ocean shaken loose by a breaking wave. A pair kamikazed into our boat. They flopped about stunned. I asked Mom if she would cook them for dinner. She rolled her eyes at me and threw the fish back into the water, saying it was bad luck to let flying fish die in the boat, much less eat them.
Then dolphins came, arcing beside us. We waved at the visitors. Cheering, the fishermen took it as a very good omen and devoured the rest of our food, which was supposed to have lasted us a week. None of them had brought food. Apparently, they had drunk the money Mom had given them to buy their own supplies. Dad tried to stop them from eating everything. A nasty argument broke out and they nearly came to blows. Tai and Anh simply watched their rabble of a crew snarling at each other over bits of food. It dawned on us all then that unless we chanced on a boat with a kind captain, we were going to die at sea. There wasn't enough fuel to turn around and we were nearly out of food and water.
Just when the ocean was about to nibble the foot of the sun, we sighted a tall white ship, aft to starboard. Tai turned the boat around and pointed us at the ship. It was a French vessel, a beautiful white ship slicing across the ocean. Some sort of freighter-cruiser. We cheered. We screamed. We laughed, giddy. The men embraced each other, arguments forgotten. Salvation had never looked more beautiful than a tall white ship shouldering through waves in the sunset. Mom gathered her bags. Dad readied his flashlight, mentally reviewing his Morse code. Unwrapping a set of signal flags Mom had fashioned, Dad started signaling S-O-S. My brothers and I were hollering, yelling, waving as though it were the biggest parade boat we'd ever seen.
“We are very fortunate,” Dad told everyone. “It's a French shipâa friendly ship.” His face was lit up with what must have been memories of himself, the young son of an aristocrat who had thrived under French colonialism. Dad adored everything French, from their badsmelling cheese to their classical poets.
The fishermen were excited, too. They knew Dad was fluent in French and that France had given refuge to many Vietnamese since the fall of Saigon. As the ship drew closer, we screamed ourselves hoarse. I thought the ship had vaults full of chocolate and cookies and
roast chicken. I told my brothers as much, then we howled happily. We cheered so long and loud that we didn't notice the adults' hooray had tapered off. When we did, an ill-fitting quiet netted the boat. The men exchanged uncertain glances. Our tiny fishing boat chugged faithfully toward the ship. Someone muttered a curse. The others shook their heads in disbelief. Tai's broad face grew grim, a hint of anger. Dad was clearly worried, frowning in a state of shock. The ship did not change direction. It didn't slow. Was it speeding up? We were so close, they couldn't possibly not see us. The ship was going so fast, it would pass us within minutes. Go directly at them, Dad ordered Tai, make them stop. It looked as though we were going to ram the white ship's flank. Dad signaled them in French, then in English. No reply, not even a warning horn. We drew closer, dead set on a right-angle collision course.
At the last moment, Tai idled the engine and we coasted, inert, impotent, unable to reach out to beg for help. The ship sailed by, its white side rearing up in front of us like a great wall. It was so close, we wished we could just swim over and grab on, but the ship was going too fast. The current would have dragged us under. We shouted, waving. Dad worked his flashlight, spelling out our desperate plight with dots and dashes. Dad had us all stand up on the listing deck to show them we had women and children aboard. I could see people aboard the white ship looking at us through portholes. They did not wave back. The ship slipped past us, an untouchable dream. The fishermen looked on in silence. Nothing to say. I saw an officer standing on the upper deck at the stern of the ship, hands bracing on the rail, regarding us. He was white, perhaps French, and he wore a beautiful white uniform. Mom was moaning, Oh my God, oh my God. They are going to let us die. Chi had her arms around Mom. Auntie Dung was shouting, not giving up. The fishermen made drinking motions to the ship's officers, tilting imaginary cups and pointing into their mouths. We begged them to help us, they looked on without interest, our boat and our pathetic lives but flotsam in their wake. I was so angry I thought I could hit the officer on deck if I had my slingshot.
The ship hummed by, its stern receding from us. Suddenly, the ocean leaped up. A wall of waterâthe ship's wakeâmaybe two stories high, bore down on us. EVERYBODY DOWN! Tai shouted,
throwing the throttle into full forward. Hang on! The diesel stuttered under the urgent load. The boat nosed into the barrier of water, head-on like a car trying to scale a building it was supposed to hit. Up we went. Mom screamed. We screamed. Up, up. Up until we were sliding back on the deck. Up until I thought the boat would pitchpole backward. Then, in a breath, we teetered on the crest of the wave, looking down to the white trough. Down we plunged. Water foamed white, swirling energy. The bottom looked hard, asphalt-like. My stomach lurched up as we fell over the back of the wave. The boat slid sideways. Tai wrestled the tiller, fighting the ocean from rolling his boat. The cords in his neck stood out. Screams. The boat was lifting to port, about to pour us over starboard. I jammed my feet against the toe rail, grabbing on to Tien and Huy. Then the boat dropped into the trough, the sea blasting over the bow and abeam. The hull groaned. The wooden planks strained against the sea, creaking sick-like. A moment. The boat popped up like a plastic ball.
As we caught our breath, the boat climbed again. This time Tai was ready. He guided us over the series of waves, each smaller as the ship's wake diminished. When we looked up at the French ship again, it looked like an iceberg moving ponderously along its course, imperturbable, oblivious to us, to everything. An empty-stomach feeling wrapped itself around our small vessel. The white ship dwindled. Dusk folded around it until its mighty bulk was no more than a speck on the water, indistinguishable from the breaking waves.
Things grew desperate the third day. My brothers and I shared a can of water laced with sweetened condensed milk among the four of us. There were a couple of packets of instant ramen left for seventeen people. Without a stove to boil water, we crushed the dried noodles and ate them like crackers. Two gallons of water remained. The younger fishermen realized their mistake and accepted Dad's rationing, one sip for everyone. The weather fattened the dark clouds and fouled the waves up another few feet. The sea god was bouncing us mercilessly on his belly. Our inexperienced crew fretted. There was talk of turning around. Some suggested heading toward Thailand, though, of course,
with no bearings and only a compass, we had one chance in ten of picking the right direction.
When the argument grew heated among the crew, Mom got up unsteadily on her feet. “This is my boat,” she said, looking each man in the eyes. “I paid for it. I paid all of you to come with us. We agreed on Malaysia: we go to Malaysia! We are not going to Thailand unless I say so.”
“Big Sister,” Truong protested, “you shouldn't worry about Thai pirates. They wouldn't be out sailing in this bad weather. Our chances are better heading to Thailand.”
A murmur of assent from the others.
“No. We are not changing course,” she said, scanning their faces. “If you change course, I will not pay the second half of your fee.”
She had them where it counted. The gold was secure with Grandma in Vietnam, and without Mom's word, none of it would be transferred to the fishermen's families. The crew cast their eyes away from her, their resolve faltering before hers. So onward we plowed, dangerously low on fuel.
Our boat sat low in the water, sinking gradually. One day in a confused sea was enough to crack open wooden seams. The boat sipped enough water to wallow like a tub. The pump couldn't keep up with the leaks. By the time the crew noticed, the bilge was calf-deep in seawater. A panic bailing ensued and didn't stop while we were aboard. There was only enough room below for two persons, so the crew set up a frantic bucket relay to keep the boat afloat. The combination of rough seas, diesel exhaust, and cold water began to make even the tougher fishermen sick. Chi took her turn in the hold, bailing as hard as the men. We threw overboard all the excess weightâbaggage, net, anchors, lines. Incense sticks were lit and the praying began in earnest because our skipper admitted that there was a fair chance our boat might fall apart within twenty-four hours.
Toward evening, the men were muttering that the boat might not make it through the night. Turning around wasn't an option now. It was too late, without water and food. Our leaky boat was perilously low on fuel. We were so sick and exhausted, no one protested the talk of doom. It seemed we all came to a fatigued acceptance of the inevitable.
Our end was written all over a sky as impenetrable as stone. All day we hadn't seen a single shaft of sunlight. It was a day without shadow.
“SHIP! SHIP!” someone shouted. At once everyone picked up the call though no one else saw the ship. Then our arms oriented in one direction like compass needles. “Ship! Ship! Ship!” we sang, flushed with relief, thrilled. Mom prayed her thanks aloud as she lit joss sticks.
Tai took the helm and swung the boat back around, pointing it northwest toward the ship. It was just a dot, vanishing and reappearing on the crinkling gray ocean. One moment we saw it, the next we didn't. Tai ordered his first mate to open the engine's throttle completely. An all-or-nothing push. Big ships moved so fast that they could travel out of view within twenty minutes. Our tiny fishing vessel could easily slip under a ship's radar. When the ship grew to the size of a button at arm's length, Dad used his flashlight. Tai ordered the women and children to stand up and wave so that the ship's officers could see we posed no danger to them. We followed his instructions, but there was no cheering. The memory of the French ship was still fresh in our minds. Friend or foe, this ship must be our savior.
It was a huge freighter with a black hull and red trim, coming into hailing distance just as the last of the light bled from the day. It slowed and we cheered. The ship was an Indonesian freighter. It allowed us to come alongside and Dad used his flashlight to communicate with the dark-skinned sailors on its deck. Flashes of light reached out, back and forth between the vessels.