It started with a discussion of how the Bay Area had changed so much in the last twelve years. When we first arrived, there were maybe two Vietnamese restaurants and one Vietnamese market, and people were excited when they met other Vietnamese. Now, they all agreed, there were too many Vietnamese in Silicon Valley. My uncles complained about the competition. Father said Vietnamese filled the ranks of the county social services with their friends and relatives, giving them special treatment, corrupting the whole system. It was his roundabout way of criticizing his sister, Huong, whom he felt relied too much on government subsidy. The comment riled his sister, and she wouldn't let it slide. After all, this wasn't Vietnam anymore.
My father said, “You shouldn't abuse the system like that. There are people more needy than you.”
Indignation swelled her eyes. “
What do you mean I shouldn't? Who are you to talk?”
Uncle Hun butted in:
“He's your big brother. You shouldn't talk to him in that tone.”
She wasn't listening, her eyes trained on my father. Her next shot came out slowly, drawing a careful bead on the mark. “
And
did
I
ever say anything about how you made your money?”
“No,” Grandma Pham repeated, over and over but no one was listening. “
Things
that went past shouldn't be called back. Let's not talk about it.”
“
That's
all right, Mom,” Aunt Huong said. “Let him talk.
Let's
get it out in the open.”
The eating stopped. Little cousins peeked in from the hallway, wondering what all the angry words were about. Grandma Pham shook her head in shame.
“
We didn't judge you so don't judge
us,” sneered Aunt Huong.
Mom shrieked, “
What do you mean judge? And did your father have a problem with borrowing from us?”
“
Don't talk like that!”
Uncle Hong growled, glaring at Mom. “
It's bad luck to speak harshly of the dead. Big Brother Thong, teach your wife not to talk like that.”
Mom whirled on Uncle Hong. “
Don't you stick your nose in where it doesn't belong. My business is my business, my family is my family.”
“Oh, yes. It certainly wasn't our sort of business.”
“Ah, then why don't you pay back the money you all owe me. Pay back the money your father owes me.”
Half-veiled accusations were flung back and forth. Somehow I had the feeling that they were holding back because all of us, nephews and nieces, were present. The uncles and aunts seemed to think that our family's dysfunctionality was karmic payback for whatever my parents did way back in Vietnam. And Chi, our main casualty, was the one person no one mentioned even in the heat of it. Tien looked at me and shrugged, then melted out with Kay, Huy, and Hien, not saying good-bye to the relatives.
“You and I are through!”
Mom lay into her in-laws like a curse, slicing the air with the edge of her hand. “
Don't telephone. Don't bring your face to my door again. Ever!”
she spat, the steel coming into her. For a moment, I saw my mother, the same woman who faced down a mutinous fishermen crew who wanted to take us to Thailand. She stormed out the door and drove home by herself.
The clan gathering was now short two wives-in-law, my mother and Aunt Chau, Uncle Hoang's wife. Uncle Hong started in by drawing a parallel between my mother's disrespect for Grandpa Pham's spirit and Aunt Chau's attitude toward the family.
“If you don't teach your wives manners,”
said Uncle Hong in general, but directing his comment to his younger brother Hoang,
“soon we'll be doing this whole ceremony by ourselves. Cooking, washing dishes, and all.”
“Maybe,”
Uncle Hoang said,
“you should do what Sister Anh said and mind your own business.”
“I did and look at what sort of a woman you married.”
“You shut up!”
Uncle Hoang barked.
“You dare tell me, your big brother, to shut up?”
“Big Brother, say that about my wife again and I'll tell you to shut up again.”
“You disrespectful bastard!”
Uncle Hong grunted, staggering to his feet.
Uncle Hoang stood. They looked as though they were about to trade blows. My father was still glaring, talking heatedly with his sister. The other aunts, Uncle Hien, and Uncle Hau tried to smooth things out, their placation adding to the din. I stopped listening. Grandma Le and Grandma Pham whispered, holding each other's forearms, offering apologies and condolences. Grandma Le moved to the door. No one seemed to notice. I put down my plate.
I walked Grandma out and helped her into the car. We could hear the ruckus from three houses away. Things sounded as though they had just accelerated. Uncle Hoang came out the front door and slammed it behind him. His two older brothers, Hong and Hun, tailed him outside, yelling at him, pointing fingers.
Halfway down the driveway, Uncle Hoang whirled around and shook his fist at them. Voice cracking, he yelled,
“Leave me alone. You have no right talking bad about my wife. You can't tell me what to do. Leave me alone!”
“I'm your goddamn older brother. I tell you what I feel like telling you. You shut your mouth and listen, stupid younger brother!”
“Hey!”
Uncle Hun shouted.
“Where are you going? Don't you walk away when your older brothers are talking to you!”
“What have you done for me? Father beat me. You beat me!”
“We taught you to be a better person then. And we're going to do it now! Come back here this instant!”
Uncle Hoang roared, his voice breaking into a shrill, shunting him thirty years back into his adolescence. He snatched rocks on the ground and hurled them at his brothers, screaming
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Goddamn you! Leave me alone!”
The rocks, wildly thrown, thunked into the garage, bounced off the roof, ricocheted off the wood sidings. Uncle Hun and Uncle Hong stopped short on the porch, wearing stupid expressions, not believing that their younger brother, whom they had whipped so many times, was stoning them.
By the time their senses came to them, Uncle Hoang was getting his range and started whizzing projectiles closer to his targets. A stone skipped off the cement and nailed Uncle Hong in the knee. Another went high and wideâBUP!âtaking out the porch light in a shower of glass. Uncle Hun ducked back into the house, Uncle Hong hobbling in right behind him. The door slammed. Uncle Hoang was still hurling rocks like a pitching machine gone berserk shooting at an empty batter cage. His flurry bounced off the door with the sounds of gunshots.
When he stopped, there was complete silence, as though none of it had ever happened. No one looked out the windows. All quiet inside. The pale streetlamps lit Uncle Hoang's face. It was wet. He was breathing hard, shaking. In disjointed motionsâan old man uncertain of his bearingsâUncle Hoang found his feet and moved slowly toward his Mercedes convertible, not seeing me standing in front of my car two driveways down. He fumbled with his pockets, got the keys, lowered himself inside, turned on the ignition, the headlights. He flipped on the turn signal to the empty cul-de-sac, pulled quietly from the curb, and went to his mansion alone.
Surprisingly, the neighbors hadn't lined the street to watch our spectacle. I coaxed the engine to life, realizing I probably would never come back. This was my last tribute to Grandpa Pham.
“What was Aunt Huong talking about? What was she saying about my parents?”
I asked Grandma as I drove her home.
“
You know what I miss about Vietnam, An?”
she asked quietly. I could never tell whether she was changing the topic or she was just old.
“
You miss your house, your neighbors?”
“Oh, yes, a little, but most of them are dead now.”
She took a pensive moment, staring out the window, the back of her head to me. “
I miss the rainwater I used to catch from my roof. It was so sweet. Cool and sweet.”
I nursed the Toyota through the neighborhood. Grandma threw up at any speed over thirty miles an hour.
“You should go back and finish the meal. Play with your cousins. Get to know your relatives. Sooner you forget about their arguments the better. Don't let the older folks' quarrels change your friendship with your cousins.”
“No, I'm tired. I don't need them anyway.”
“If you don't need your family-relatives, who do you need?”
“Nobody. I'll work hard. Make a fortune. Travel the world. Marry a beautiful Americanized Vietnamese girl.”
“Ah, I know you, An. You're too dreamy. Be careful what you do. Choose your life with your head, not your heart. You are like a butterfly. Beautiful. Quick to die.”
Spooked, I forced a chuckle. We drove the rest of the way in silence.
Auntie Dung and Uncle Hung had gone out dancing. Grandma said she was exhausted and wanted to go to bed. I brewed her a mug of bedtime tea and brought it to her room. Grandma was pulling the silver pins from her hair, the tall bun unscrolled, her mane of too much salt and not enough pepper rolling down to her ankles. She hadn't cut it since she was a slip of a girl, when her first husband passed away. All her stories, her sorrows, her happiness had chalked their marks in her hair, this lifelong rosary I'd seen down maybe four times in my life.
“Grandmaâthose things they were saying about us ⦔
“Sit, sit. Here on the bed, next to me. Have tea with Grandma. You want some candied coconut? Your aunt's friend gave some to me, but I can't eat them with my teeth.”
“Grandma! There is something I don't know. Those things the relatives scorned.”
“What about them? Doesn't matter what people say.”
“I know, I know. Tell me anyway. Tell me about my parents.”
She considered and reconsidered my request slowly, until I sighed in resignation and moved to leave. The porcelain lid of the mug rattled as she put her tea on the nightstand. Grandma took my hands. I had a strange feeling I was holding the jigsaw pieces and she was about to help me put them together.
Grandma paused, straightening her back a moment, the gesture of an elderly woman taking a deep breath, and began,
“This
is
what happened
⦔
III-Wind
I know they are up to no good when they pull alongside me, giggling madly like three imps. That and their red faces. A red-faced Vietnamese is a drunk Vietnamese. And three drunk Vietnamese scooting along on one motorbike spells trouble. I tell myself, Avoid. AVOID. But the road bowls straight into the horizon, banked on both sides by rice paddies as far as the eye can see. Few travelers. Oh, great.
For the umpteenth time, I wish I still had my pepper spray. I slow down, they slow down. I speed up, they speed up. They cut in front of me and slam on the brakes. I swerve, missing them by inches. They bark with mirth. Then they are behind me. As they pass, one of them kicks my rear pannier and sends me wobbling to the side of the road. As quickly as they came, they pull away. I heave a sigh of relief. A mile up ahead of me, they have stopped by the side of the road. I am thinking: Ambush. I slow down, considering my options. For once, Highway 1 is deserted. I can't outrun them on a loaded bike. In any case, I am in no mood for retreat. Pedaling slowly, I unzip the bag mounted on the front rack, and loosen the eight-inch fillet knife.
They are standing on the side of the road. I jump on the pedals to pick up speed. Maybe I can ram them. Knock them down. But
something isn't right with the picture. I choke on my laughter: they are pissing into the rice paddies. The driver of the motorbike shouts something unintelligible to me as I blow past. I look back and see them hastily tucking themselves in and piling on the motorbike. I ease off the pedals. There is no sense trying to outrun a motorbike, even one with three clowns on it. My old schoolmate, who had turned professional Vietnamese-American gangster, used to advise me, his bookish friend, “If trouble is coming, don't turn your back, because that's where it's gonna stab. Best to meet it with a grin. That way, you can see what's coming.”
I pull over and wait for them, my hand next to the open bag with the knife. They stop a couple of yards from me.
I wear my biggest grin.
“Hello, Brothers!”
“Fuck, it's
a
Viet-kieu!”
yelps the round-faced driver as though he'd come across a rat.
“I told you he looked like a Viet-kieu.”
“But he looks like a japanese. I don't like Japanese. Maybe he's a half-and-half,”
argues a short man with a shoe-brush mustache. “
Oy, you
.
Are you a half-and-half?”
“Nope
.
Whole undiluted fuhsauce, I am.”
I sniff my armpit, wrinkle my nose, and nod.
“Aiee! Pure concentrate.”
They bellow at the joke, warming to me. We strike up a conversation. They want to know where I rode from. The skinny guy asks me,
“Aren't you afraid?”
“No
,” I lie, grinning enthusiastically.
“In America, they have a saying: If you die, you die.”
I shrug.
“Haven't people attacked you?”
I nod.
“What did you do?”
I take out my knife, smiling, totally faking it.
“Mean like a tiger,”
says the leader. He chuckles and the others follow suit.
I grin.
“Either that or stay home and watch TV.”
They roar in appreciation. Sensing the shift in their mood, I slip the knife back into the bag. I tap cigarettes out of a pack of Marlboros
I'd saved for occasions like these. I offer one to the leader. His eyes catch the logo. I almost sigh aloud when he puts it between his lips. His compatriots follow suit. I don't smoke but I light up with them to keep things going smoothly. Soon we are sitting on a dike, feet dangling over water, blowing smoke out over the young rice stalks, talking about how people live in America.
Their alcoholic buzz has subsided by the time we finish the pack of Marlboros. They invite me to join them on their next round.
“Bierom!”
âhugging beerâexclaims the leader. His chums hoot in agreement. Vietnamese men spend a great deal of money at these hostess-bars where pretty girls sit on a patron's lap as he drinks his beer. The “frisking” limits, if any, vary, depending on the depth of the patron's pocket. I decline and we part on handshakes.
I push on alone, feeling suddenly very tired and feverish. Just barely oozing down the road. I haven't eaten much all day. Breakfast was a lump of sweet rice and peanut crumbs wrapped in banana leaves. After chipping one of my molars on a pebble, I tossed the rice to the birds. Lunch was a bowl of beef noodle soup I couldn't eat because the meat, carved off a fly-encrusted lump, was rancid. I am exhausted. I've eaten nearly all my emergency rations: three Hershey chocolate bars, a snack-sized pack of Oreos, and six little cheese wedges. The last bar of chocolate in my bag is squishy like toothpaste, and my mouth is so cottony I can't bring myself to lick the chocolate from the wrapper. It is blistering hot and the sun is melting into the horizon like a scoop of orange sherbet. I am salivating. Haven't had ice cream since I arrived in Vietnam. Didn't dare. If I weren't already drier than a shingle of beef jerky, drool would be dripping down my chin. Funny, a scoop of orange sherbet was all I could wrap my mind around. Not even the faintest hankering for double cheeseburgers, French fries, chocolate milkshakes, apple pie à la mode, anchovy pizzas, Polish sausage, and fresh-baked croissants. I have no appetite and feel a bit dizzy. The fifteen miles to Ky Anh village seem like a hundred.
Up ahead a cattle-drawn cartâwithout a driverâlabors along the side of the road, oblivious to the occasional truck thundering past.
Closer, I see that the dark lump on top of the load of bricks is the sleeping driver, hat shading his face. He is sleeping at the reins, trusting his bovine to keep both of them from turning into roadkill. I have stumbled on the quintessential portrait of Vietnamese industry. In Saigon, a white American tourist had asked me, “Don't take this the wrong way, but why are so many Vietnamese men lounging around all dayâdon't they have to go to work or something?”
I could see tour buses passing this cart all day and foreign tourists shaking their heads at this evidence of Vietnamese work ethics. I burst out laughing, waking the napping driver. His startled face melts into delight when he sees I am a cyclist.
“Aa-LO! Ow arr you? Wherre you prrom?” he shouts, pushing his army pith helmet back on his head.
“Viet-kieu
,
Brother
,
”
I reply. He looks a little crestfallen.
I grab onto the cart, giving the poor cow my extra weight.
“Brother, where are you going?”
“Home. Where did you bike from?”
I ask him about his load of bricks. Couldn't sell them, he says. His family made bricks by hand. This is a poor batch the builders rejected, so he is taking them back home. Maybe farmers will buy them at a discount.
A cyclist draws up alongside us. I see his silver hair and bow in greeting, then looking down, I nearly fall out of my seat. He has only one leg. His right leg ends above the knee, the dark nub sticks out of his shorts like a big salami. A crutch hangs on the bike frame. His left leg churns the crank in a jerking rhythm, hard on the downstroke, gliding with the momentum on the upstroke, a two-stroke engine running marvelously on one.
“Uncle, that's amazing!”
I blubber. “
I
'
ve never seen a one-legged man ride a bike before.”
He slows down and latches up to the cart next to me. “
Oy!”
he exclaims, very pleased for some reason.
“You speak Viet!”
“Yes, Uncle. I'm
a
Viet-kieu,”
I confess, and brace for his face to fall, but it doesn't.
“How far can you go on a bike?”
“Once I biked all the way to Ky Anh and back, twenty kilometers each way. But usually I only ride to the market, that's twelve kilometers round-trip.”
His handlebar basket sags with packets of instant ramen, a bottle of what looks to be kerosene or rice wine, a can of condensed milk, and a tin of tea.
“This Viet-kieu is going to Ky Anh,”
the ox driver tells the old man.
“
Ky Anh?”
repeats the old man in a tone I don't find encouraging.
“There
'
s nothing out there except a government-run motel. It's actually a barracks, but they'll overcharge you ten times for a bed.”
“I'm overcharged all the time,”
I point out nonchalantly.
“How far is it?”
“An hour and a half. It'll be dark soon,”
the old man says, gauging the sky. He looks me over, apparently having come to a decision.
“Come with me, Nephew. I'll put you up for the night. I live by myself. There's plenty of room and you're welcome to hang your hammock.”
Over two months in Vietnam, it's the first time someone's invited me home without his hands out. I accept the old man's generosity, bowing deeply.
“It
is
nothing.”
He waves off my thanks.
“Good, good. You'll like my beautiful villa.”
Uncle Tu's home is a hut. In the burlap-textured dusk, it rises above the rambling vegetable garden like a big bale of hay. It sits near a lake, fifteen minutes from the road. He leads me into his plot of heaven, going down well-tended rows of vegetables, poking at this and that the way people open windows and turn on lights. He palms the tomatoes ripening on the vines, prods the earth with his crutch, clicks his tongue, squashes a snail, and fingers the fat string beans dripping off the vines. In the provinces, both hut and garden are required to make a home. Land is too precious to feed weeds.
The hut's thatched walls and roof are supported by four stout corner posts. The twelve-by-twelve-foot packed dirt floor is swept so clean it resembles hardened clay. The old man sits me down on a crude wooden stool and fusses with a coal stove to brew the traditional welcoming-tea. First, he produces some twigs and wood shavings and arranges them carefully in the stove, which is essentially an eight-inch clay planting pot. He lights the starter pile with one match
and places a block of coal, the shape of a chocolate cake, into the stove. We have our tea in no time. He hops over to the pantry cabinet, an end table with long legs, its feet set in bowls of water to keep the ants off. He takes out a clay pot and holds it up tenderly like a bottle of wine.
“Clay-pot catfish, you like it?”
“Of course.”
He glows with pleasure. It is impossible to travel in Vietnam without encountering clay-pot catfish. If Vietnam ever got around to declaring a national fish, the catfish would be it. Vietnam's rivers and lakes teem with this hardy creature. Peasants raise catfish in family ponds as they raise chicken in their yards.
“Three days old, very, very tasty,”
he croons, smacking his lips as he sets it on the stove. He adds a bit of water and a dash of fishsauce. Then both of us settle down to watch it come to a boil. My mouth waters in anticipation.
That is the most wonderful thing about clay-pot catfish. It keeps well for weeks without refrigeration. The older the dish, the deeper the flavors, the more evenly the fish fat blends with the sauce of caramelized palm sugar, cracked pepper, and chili. In Uncle Tu's pot, I see he has splurged and added diced pork fat, whole red chilis, and scallions. The best thing about this dish is that even when all the fish is gone, the dredging is rich enough, especially if the fish head is saved, to be stewed again and poured over rice to make a poor man's mealâsomething I did many times when I was a boy.
“Uncle, where is your family? I rarely see old folks living by themselves.”
“All gone, Nephew. Lost them in the War, wife and son.”
“Do you have relatives nearby?”
“No. I have my relatives-neighbors. That's plenty. They are good people, I'm a lucky man.”
“Where are they?”
He hobbles to the door and bellows:
“Sonny! Sonny! Sonny!”
A small boy materializes at the door. He sees me, glances at Uncle Tu, then, remembering his manners, he bows to us both. Uncle Tu tousles the boy's hair and gives him two packets of instant noodles.
“Take this home to your mom, Sonny.”
The boy bows and runs home. Uncle Tu smiles after him.
“See,”
he says to me.
“I have family, my relatives-neighbors. Not so lonely.”
He spreads the food on an end table, scoops out the rice into bowls for both of us.
“Nephew, please eat,”
he says, formally starting the meal.
“Thank you, Uncle Tu. Please eat,”
I reply in kind.
We wolf down our plebeian meal of catfish, rice, pickled firecracker eggplant with shrimp paste, and steamed string beans from his garden, polishing off every morsel. It is without a doubt one of the best meals I've had in Vietnam. For dessert, we drink more tea and nibble on my gooey Hershey bar. He strings up an extra hammock for me. Our fabric beds now crisscross the hut, making diagonals, mine above his since I am more limber. He blows out the oil lamp and we go to bed. Uncle Tu doesn't stop talking. He has an insatiable appetite for details about the rest of the world. How do they live? What do Americans do every day? Is driving a car scary? How do cellular phones work?