Part 16 (2/2)
”And you were how old? Three . . . four?”
”Three, the year my father went into the camp. Six when an army comrade of my father's came to Saigon and found us. He had just been released from the same camp. He told us my father had been dead for two years. To inspire other recalcitrant prisoners, he volunteered to be publicly beaten to death.”
”I see.”
”So we left. We arrived with the last big wave of boat people,” she said as though this were the end of the story rather than the beginning.
I didn't know how to respond to this. Like nearly all Americans, I had no frame of reference for what Bian had experienced, for how she had suffered. The closest I came were my own pop's years away at war, the first of which occurred in the early sixties, when I was too young to be frightened for him, or what his loss might mean for little Sean.
His second tour was in 1971--I was ten, friends had lost their fathers, other fathers had returned home missing body parts, and others came back mentally and emotionally different. So I knew. I will never forget the day we dropped Pop at Dulles International Airport for his flight to San Francisco, where he would catch the Southeast Asia express, the strained look on Mom's face, or how hard Pop squeezed me before he uttered his deeply felt parting advice--”Be good, do everything Mom says, or I'll come back and kill you.”
What followed was the year of long days and forever nights. Every night I offered the same shopworn deal as so many other kids in my shoes: Dear G.o.d, bring Pop home healthy, and I will never commit another sin.
Well, as I mentioned, Pop came back alive, albeit on a stretcher. Boy, was I ever relieved I had stipulated healthy healthy--had I stupidly gone for the more exclusive ”alive” or ”in one piece,” I would've lost the best part of my teenage years.
The point is, as Americans, we send our fathers off to war, they are away for a finite period, and while they are gone, we, their families, live in constant dread but also relative tranquillity. Except that they may never come back, they might as well be on an extended business trip.
”What about your mother?” I asked her.
”Still alive. Our boat was picked up about a hundred miles from the Philippines. The voyage was not . . . well, it wasn't pleasant.” She looked away a moment. ”We spent a few weeks in a hospital, then a settlement camp outside Manila before the American emba.s.sy arranged visas and flights to America. A lot of Vietnamese had come before us, mainly to Southern California, Louisiana, and here, around D.C. The State Department made our choice for us. This was where we ended up.”
The old woman emerged from the kitchen trailed by a skinny Vietnamese teenage boy with purple hair, nose ring, punk clothes, and wobbly arms hauling a large tray. His parents probably had a tale somewhat like Bian's, joining in the diaspora, fleeing a nightmare and coming here to provide this boy a better life, a good education, promising opportunities. Seeing him now, I'll bet they were having second thoughts.
He set the tray down on a folding stand, and he and the lady began laying out plates on our table. It was mostly boiled vegetables and starchy rice, with two plates filled with stuff that looked scaly and smelled awful. I gave Bian an accusing look. ”You said you hated fish.”
”I lied.” She laughed. ”I'm Vietnamese. Of course I love fish.”
At least the rice looked somewhat edible and smelled okay.
The owner mentioned something to Bian, who said something back. Bian said to me, ”She says there is no beer on the menu because she doesn't have a liquor license. But she keeps a hidden stock for favored customers in her fridge in the back. She'll bring it out in a moment.”
Things were looking up.
I smiled at the woman, then at Bian. ”Please thank her from the bottom of my heart for her hospitality. Tell her she is most gracious.”
Bian translated this, and the woman bowed. I added, ”Also, please tell her she has a lovely and very deceitful daughter.”
Bian looked away for a moment. Then she looked back at me. ”You're very observant.”
”And you have your mother's beauty.”
”Well . . . thank you.”
Her mother said something to her, and Bian patted her arm and said something in reply. Her mother looked at me a moment, then returned to the kitchen.
”What was that about?”
”Because she thinks you are a good man, she says she has a special surprise for you.” She added, smiling, ”I told her she's a terrible judge of men. She should poison your food.”
Bian's mother returned a moment later, carrying a dish upon which sat two Big Macs, still hot and steaming in their boxes. She set the plate in front of me, and two cans of holy water blessed by Pope Budweiser.
I stood and hugged her. She giggled, saying something to her daughter that probably translated as, ”Tell this round-eyed idiot to let go of me before I knee him in the nuts.”
I sat, and Bian's mother left us. Bian sliced off a piece of fish and, holding it up on her fork, said, ”Try a little of this. It's very good.”
”No . . . thank you.”
”You're sure? It's a freshwater fish. It tastes different.”
”Did it swim in scotch?”
She laughed.
We ate in silence for a few moments. She asked, ”How much do you remember about Vietnam? Not the country, the war.”
”For me, it was a TV war. You know what I mean, right?”
”No. Tell me about that.”
”It was the first war piped into America's living rooms. Somebody described that as like seeing a hologram of a war. But for one year of my life--the year of my father's second tour--I was glued to it. I wanted to see him on TV, but I really didn't. You know?”
”I don't know. All I had to do was step out in the backyard and watch the artillery flashes.”
”I had a friend who was watching CBS news one night. He actually saw his own father get shot.”
”Dead?”
”Wounded. They were in the middle of dinner, though. His mother actually vomited. But for most Americans it was--just as this war is-- that moment on the evening news between the trial of the month and the weather forecast.”
”Did TV and the media make it unpopular?”
”Wars are never popular.”
”You know what I'm talking about. I read in a history book that Walter Cronkite did more damage in one night than the entire Tet offensive.”
”I think the media and TV exposed a truth--an unwelcome truth, an unhappy one, but an important one. They were biased and irresponsible in many ways . . . but I also think they did more good than harm, told more truth than lies. On the big truth, they nailed it.”
”What big truth?”
”We had become involved in a war we didn't intend to win. Like s.e.x with neither partner able to o.r.g.a.s.m--eventually, somebody has to call it quits.”
”That's a very . . . unique explanation.”
”I'm thinking of writing a political science textbook.”
”They come wrapped in brown paper?” She took a bite of her fish, then reached across the table, grabbed my beer, and took a long swig.
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