Authors: Thanhha Lai
“Now, now, let’s not get carried away. I already talked to the detective and I’ve hired three scouts to find Dad and drag him back to you.”
Why do I have a mom who knows everything?
“It’s so not fair. I can’t handle this much stuff happening. The guard has disappeared again and I swear every one of my fingerprints has burned off after all that Tiger Balming, and Bà is only taking little baby breaths. Who knows if she’s getting enough oxygen? I detest waiting and what if Bà cries and you know I’m only twelve and this is so Dad’s problem, not mine.”
“Mai, honey. Breathe. I will find Dad; he will come back. But the truth is no one knows what to do. You being there for Bà means you are doing the best thing for her.”
“But Mom, what if Bà needs something? What if I do something wrong?”
“Listen to me, you are enough. Sit with her, eat with her, tell her stories, take her on walks, most of all, when she’s ready to talk, listen to her. I really have to go, call you later. You’re my brave girl. Miss you, love you.”
So much for Mom’s help. I so don’t want to do this, but like Bà has said so many times,
“Cờ đến tay, phải phất.”
Flag in hand, must wave it. But I’ve got to eat first, lots. I can’t even wave my index finger right now.
I carry the basket, two bowls and two spoons inside the mosquito net. Not making a big deal of it, I serve myself and Bà and start eating. I chomp and slurp like the detective to inspire hunger in Bà. So far, she’s immune. How can she stand it? The sharp dill, the savory catfish, the burning scallions, the heavy fish sauce. I could eat the whole pot. I’m so over being sick.
Finally, even Bà can’t stand it anymore and stirs, sitting up. She eats half a bowl. That’s not enough sustenance for a two-year-old, but baby steps. Bà sighs and actually smiles at me.
“Shall we take a walk to aid digestion?”
She reaches out to pat my head. That’s her way of conveying she’s sorry for keeping me up all night. Life is swinging back in my favor; she’s feeling guilty. I can ask for anything right now. But control, I’m not one to take advantage.
We need to pay the
phở
merchant, and while there, we might as well eat a bowl or two with extra-hot broth to wilt an abundance of bean sprouts and basil.
I have a bongo belly full of
phở
, making it hard to stroll, especially because I’ve tucked the decrepit notebook into my waistband. I plan on whipping out the detective’s tiny words and distracting Bà should she get moody. Planning ahead, that’s the new me.
Three bowls of
phở
floated into me as easily as mango smoothies. Three because portions here are doll-sized to serve a size-zero population. How am I supposed to get beyond lanky in a land where ice cream is made of red beans instead of cream?
We’re walking toward the pagoda, Bà’s idea. Fine by me. In the middle of the village, under the three-hundred-year-old
cây đa
, people are sitting around, catching the midmorning breeze before going home with the day’s groceries. Cô Hạnh sees Bà and springs into action, scattering instructions while clearing a space on a bench. No doubt a pot of freshly brewed tea and some kind of seasonal, perfectly ripened fruit shall appear.
“Không sao, không sao,”
no worries, Bà tells the crowd, which hovers over her every move. I’m realizing
“không sao”
might be the most spoken phrase in Vietnamese. Everyone reassuring everyone else everything is all right. It’s difficult to be cranky while speaking such a polite and soothing language.
Út is here. I’m so happy I run over and almost hug her but stop myself.
“Phải giúp,”
must help, I whisper.
“Tìm người canh Ông,”
find person guard Ông.
Út looks skeptical.
Then I say the magical words,
“Ở Hanoi.”
Út jumps up, whips out her writing pad. “How do you know the man is in Hà Nội?”
So that’s how you spell Hà Nội? Who knew from seeing the name Anglicized.
I hand over the detective’s notebook. As much as he wrote, he must have put the answer in there. Út peers into the detective’s tiny handwriting like they contain diamonds. She’s very happy with me because I actually see her braces. The writing, though, proves too much for her. She marches over to Anh Minh, who’s sorta standing close to Chị Lan, who’s attached to Con Ngọc. Triangles are exhausting but I can’t stop obsessing over them.
While Anh Minh gets to work, brows scrunching, eyes laser sharp, scanning each line with his finger, Út and I examine the romantic dynamic in front of us. My heart is thumpy, happy. Suspense, drama are back in my life.
Út writes in perfect cursive, “If he calls himself Anh and calls my sister Em, our work has done.”
“Huh?”
Út rolls her eyes and writes some more. “That is how he tells her of strong feelings in his heart. If she answers, calling him Anh and herself Em, our work has truly done.”
“I CALL HIM ANH,” I print clear and big, like a laptop would. We’re in secret spy mode, so no whispering in broken Vietnamese.
“For you,
‘anh’
means he is like your older brother. For her, it means a strong heart for him she has.”
“WHAT DO THEY CALL EACH OTHER NOW?”
“Minh and Lan,” Út writes, and gives me a face like, duh!
I could write back, “YOU AND YOUR LANGUAGE ARE SOOOOO ANNOYING,” but I choose to rise above.
“SHOULD I CALL YOU JUST ‘ÚT’?”
“Or
‘mày’
to mean
‘you’
and
‘tao’
to mean
‘me.’
”
I stare at her, probably looking dumb, never having seen these words before.
“
‘Mày tao’
is for good friends.”
I really stare at her, shocked. I read it again. She did write “good friends.” She nods. I nod.
Mày tao
may be the two most beautiful words in Vietnamese.
“Ðây,”
here. Anh Minh yells and jabs a spot on the dusty page.
For real, in pencil, finely scripted, sits an address:
28–30 Ðường Ngô Thế Huệ
. OMG, we have an address. It’s like the sky opening up.
Út wastes no time. In her notebook she writes, “Follow my lead.”
What?
Suddenly, Út clutches one cheek and screams, so loud, as in crying-screaming.
“Owww! It’s jabbing my cheek. Owww! I’m bleeding.”
Everyone turns white, especially Út’s mom. Út falls to the ground, rolls in the dirt, blending it into the dirt already on her wrinkly T-shirt, and clutches her cheek tighter. Hisses of pain. Are those tears? Her eyes are squeezed too tight for me to tell.
All villagers offer opinions, of course.
“Death of me, she’s green as spring shoots.”
Út screams even louder.
“Blood, did she just spit blood?”
Yes, she did!
“Has she been coughing? Does she have a fever?”
Yes, and no.
“Not so near, she could be contagious
.”
Too late for the entire bunch, hovering for a close-up.
“My cousin had malaria once, shaking, shaking, his complexion was green like hers.”
Noooo! Could I be next? Mosquitoes adore me.
“SSHHH, step back!”
Reason has pronounced itself. Cô Hạnh makes everyone take five steps back. I do it right away. She squeezes Út’s mouth, tells her to spit—blood, not a lot at all, but definitely blood—then she pokes an index finger inside Út’s mouth, swivels it around, and nods twice. Poor Út, she will soon be drinking something potent and sludgy.
They get up. She sits Út down on a stool that miraculously appears. No doubt, Cô Hạnh has a great team working with her. Út drinks water, opens her mouth for inspection yet again, and finally Cô Hạnh talks. “
A wire from the many that surround her teeth has broken loose and is stabbing her inside cheek. It’s quite dangerous and uncomfortable if left untreated.”
“Yank it out,”
someone advises.
“No, cut the wire first then yank it out,”
someone else offers.
Út’s eyes stretch wide, liking neither idea.
“Chờ,”
wait, I say and take off down the dirt path, into the convoluted alleys between stacked houses, into Ông’s Brother’s house, flip open my suitcase, and there it is: dental wax, given for just this kind of emergency. Braces do break and the wax covers the end of the wire so it won’t poke someone to death before she can see an orthodontist.
I retrace my steps, breathing hard because my stomach is beyond full. I did not anticipate a track meet. Back with Út, I press the wax over the pokey wire. Emergency avoided. People nod, then wander off.
Hey! These are the same maybe-relatives who freely discussed the minute details of my emergency, but when they could be saying, “Yeah, you saved the day!” or “Imagine if you weren’t here!” they choose little head bobs? I’m sweaty, my legs hurt, my heart won’t stop ka-thumping. But whatever, this is not about me.
You’d think Út and her mother would be ecstatic, yet they’re huddled under a pomegranate tree near the pagoda and are whispering with force. I oh-so-casually ease near them. Spying, so my thing. Some might say they’re arguing while trying to hide it, but in this country where a child supposedly never ever disagrees with a parent, everyone has to keep up the PR.
End result: Út is going to Hanoi! Wow, I’m going to try this nonarguing but arguing method.
It turns out Cô Tâm and Cô Hạnh have a third sister, a dentist in Hanoi, who had put on Út’s braces. Cô Tâm at first refused to let Út go, but Út insisted teeth go back to being crooked very fast with a loose wire. Add to that, Cô Tâm has always felt guilty that she failed her first daughter in the teeth area. She then vowed to do better for her younger daughter, believing this nearly bald child would need all the help she can get.
Eavesdropping rules!
I, of course, want to go. But I don’t know how to ask because Bà needs me and I’m supposed to be magnanimous and nurturing and glued to her. Awful, pretending I don’t want to go when I do, really really bad. Út is going, and I know she’s up to something, so I have to go.
Út pulls me aside, writes quickly but still in perfect cursive, “Hold your cheekbone. It hurts. Must X-ray. Now.”
I whisper back,
“Không có đau.”
Not in pain.
“Not I either,” she writes.
I look at her like: then what’s the deal with your braces?
Út stares me down, eyes narrow and mean. “PRETEND,” she stabs the word onto the notebook.
Oh.
“Còn đau,”
still hurts. I stumble in front of Bà holding my cheek. She inspects my bruise. I know it looks like it’s healing just fine, not even purple anymore but light green and yellow, and the ball has completely deflated. But pain has no logic.
“Maybe the bone is broken underneath,”
someone says. Bless this maybe-relative!
“It’s on her face, better to be certain than have a lifetime of consequences,”
someone else says. Bless you too!
I grimace, moan. I’m sure Bà is thinking what I’m thinking: no one wants to explain to my perfect mom why my face has sunken in. Isn’t that what happens when your cheekbone breaks? Bà gently taps my cheek with her index finger. I yell,
“Ðau quá,”
such pain!
Now I have to go. Not that I want to leave Bà, but I have to get my face fixed. Bà understands and tells me to go pack. I hug her, even if I’m not supposed to.
Back at the house, she gives me the white envelope Dad gave her. It’s full of twenty-dollar bills. Oh yeah, I’m loaded. Bà makes me carry the cash in a home-sewn pouch fastened with three huge safety pins, tied around my waist and worn under my capris. I look like I have a stomach disease.
All sorts of maybe-relatives volunteer to chaperone us, but Anh Minh gets the job because he has yet another appointment at the American embassy.
We will take a van, which will drop us directly at the aunt/dentist’s house, where she will care for Út, then take me to get an X-ray. We will stay one night in the same room with her, then the same van will pick us up the next afternoon. We are to go nowhere without the aunt/dentist and to talk to no one but her and Anh Minh.
Still, the trip has such potential. I pack up everything and pretend I’m going home.
H
ow can a fifty-mile ride last this long?
I’m trapped, hours alone with Anh Minh and Út in the van, with nothing to do but learn the pesky little marks around vowels. We can’t even have the radio on. I’ve seen these annoying marks all my life but didn’t know they serve a purpose. Every night I used to copy a whole paragraph of Vietnamese, even though I had no clue what I was writing and the tiny accent marks drove me crazy. Dad really wanted me to do it. So of course I did, perfect daughter that I was.
We’re going through the countryside, passing pair after pair of girls holding ropes attached to a bucket, swinging it and drawing water to the crops. I wish I could be out there swinging a bucket, anything to escape Anh Minh, who’s cramming an entire year’s worth of Vietnamese lessons into my clogged head.
I don’t dare try to pout my way out of it, sensing I owe Anh Minh for a little exaggeration about thongs. The punishment is way harsh, but everyone knows payback sucks.
There are only nine tiny marks, but you should see the thousands of ways they can be combined. It’s the worst when one is combined with weird vowels, like
phượng
, which requires the manipulation of various parts I didn’t even know I had. We’re still dealing with the basic ones taught in kindergarten.
“Again, miss. Pay attention.
Ba
plus
dấu huyền
makes your tone go down.
Bà
.”
I try and sound like a serious sheep.
“
Ba
plus
dấu sắc
makes your tone go up.
Bá
has many meanings, depending on which word is combined with it.”
I try and sound like a surprised sheep.
Anh Minh sighs but perseveres. He is the most diligent human being I know, and remember, I know Bà and Dad and Mom and all those efficient maybe-aunts.
“
Ba
plus
dấu hỏi
makes your tone twist like a question mark.
Bả
means poisoned food.”