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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 5 DOUBLE ISSUE WINTER 2003 SPRING 2004
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SONG THAO ___________________________ THE
DANGLING LOVE Finally I got Ha as my wife. On the wedding
day, I felt like a somnambulist. I had embraced an enormous happiness. Ha was
like a twinkling star in the sky, and I, a dreaming boy, who unexpectedly
plucked that precious object. The sounds of fire crackers, of laughters, of congratulations and clattering of dishes
seemed to reverberate from afar. Only my inner pleasure evidently manifested.
I had married to the best human being whom I would cherish forever.
Once alone in our cosy pink room, I felt
awkward and puzzled, not knowing what to do on that nuptial night. Ha curled
up in one bed corner with a gloomy face, her head bent, her hands touched the
flap of her white wedding gown, her eyes stared at the light pink bedsheet. I tried to act naturally by caressing her new
hairdo, the bride’s hair on the wedding day. She had used to let her soft and
fragrant long hair flow down on her back. She brushed my hand away abruptly.
I felt more perplexed. I then proceeded toward the window and looked down on
the street. The rain had come down continuously. A cyclo
silently passed by. Its driver wore a large brim hat with an old, rumpled
military tarpaulin around his body. The wet road reflected the dim, yellow
streetlight. I silently asked myself: wasn’t I the new bridegroom in the
nuptial night? I turned to look at the
wedding bed. Ha remained sitting, as placid as a statue. Mustering courage, I
asked her to go to the bathroom first. Then, I moved toward another window.
The neighbor’s papaya tree was striving against heavy beads of rain. I saw Ha
through the pitiful fate of that papaya tree. I turned back, urging Ha to get
to the bathroom. This time, she stood up, opened her suitcase for her
nightgown. Hesistancy was shown in her walking
posture. The bathroom door clicked with a dry noise. I breathed out easily.
The situation seemed to improve. If Ha obstinately kept on sitting on the
bed, I would not know what to do. How strange are Vietnamese girls. They are like fragile crystal. I told myself to be
extremely careful. I felt that I was
blissful and truly ecstatic.
The white light poured out on the floor when Ha
stepped out from the bathroom. In front of me was Ha, fresh and tiny like a
subtle white cat. I fascinately stared at her, my
heart pounding. My wife. Not until then did I realize the intimate image of a
spouse. I lunged forward to embrace Ha, but she skillfully slipped from my
hands. Her long black hair fluttered as she flew to the bed. Her whole body
was shaken with sobs, which were obstructed by her curling knees. I stood
motionless. What could I do? I talked to myself again that I must be very
patient. It was a tremendous effort for an active person like me. I went to
the bathroom, slowly took a bath, trying to lenghthen
the time for Ha to overcome her emotional shock. When I came out of the
bathroom, Ha was still sitting on the bed with her face damp with tears.
Gently I wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks. She let me do it. I
caressed her lips but she gently moved my hand away. I asked her to lie down
to sleep and she obeyed submissively. Her eyes fixed on me, half afraid, half
defensive. I had seen those terryfying eyes of the
animals ready to be slaughtered at the wild beast restaurants. You probably
had been at the wild beast restaurant in Bien Hoa,
hadn’t you? I had gone there many times with my Vietnamese friends. The
caging wild animals, once being chosen and pointed out by a customer, all
appeared to have chilly horror-stricken eyes. My new, pitiful wife carried
the same look. I took off my bathrobe to prepare for sleep. Ha trembled when
she saw my body. She closed her eyes, face down on the pillow, both hands clasped between her thigh, legs pulled up, and
feet entwined. I repeated to myself:” This is your wife, don’t you know,
John?” I did not know until three days later that Ha
was still a virgin.
Please be patient, my friend, if I related to you this story in great
details, because those were the best days of my life. How could I forget
them? Now that you had returned to the states, I hope you could share my
happiness. How could I marry such a virgin girl in this country? When I was
in school, I had lots of girlfriends. It was not a strange thing in this
country that no sooner had you opened your mouth than your girlfriend went
ahead to jump into your bed. I considered myself as a pretty handsome young
man, with portrait drawing skill as an attribute. How could girls resist
being fascinated with me? All I had to do was to invite them home and have a
portrait sketched.
As you know, my friend, life in the states is so bountiful and
relaxed, therefore, people got bored easily. After finishing high school, I
became idle, I worked at odd jobs and indulged in
vicious activities: drinking, smoking and chasing after women. At that time
the war in Viet Nam was at its peak and required continuous increase of
American troops. Tired of my playful life with monotonous daily activities,
and triggered by adventures, I volunteered to join the Army and was sent to
Viet Nam. Some of my lightning-struck friends cursed me for my stupidity. I
had daringly jumped right into the war while they were participating in war
demonstrations, avoiding the draft and burning drafting papers.
My batallion was stationed in a small
district, more than 100 miles from Saigon. The Vietnamese countryside was
picturesque. You could see small rice paddies spreading like a square hankerchief surrounded by tiny dikes, interlaced with
placid ponds; you could see the thick bamboo hedges surrounding villages,
which were circled by small rough paths; you could see black, shiny water
buffaloes grazing pensively... This would urge you to take your brush for
painting. But it was so hot, a scorching heat that no matter how much water
you drank, you would still have the internal burning feeling. In addition,
the dust was unbearable, to live in this dusty atmosphere, one needed to have
very strong good lungs. The fidgetty stickiness
would kill your inspiration, even if you had the desire to paint. So, you had
to give up. Military operations went on continuously. I faced the war on the
front line, not the kind of war shown on TV or the mock practices in military
training schools. Death was hiding and surrounding you. It could occur as
easily as sleeping. I really felt the fear. Comrade’s bodies, enemies’
bodies; innocent people’s bodies, elderlies’s and
children bodies were scattered everywhere. Back in my country, life was so
peaceful, a human death was an event; over here, carcass was ubiquitous and
anybody could face death. Life was so uncertain: one lived and one could die
suddenly. That explained why I hastily clung to life day by day. Who could
tell tonight, tomorrow, I would be immobile like those quiet corpses.
Whenever on vacation leave to Saigon, I let pleasures take the lead. This occasion
might be the last time. I indulged in drinking and dancing with bar girls and
prostitutes. I’d spend all my salary. I knew it was wasteful, but who would
be certain to have more chances to spend? Like sharks, the bar girls and
prostitutes took every penny you got. Didn’t you remember the so-called
“Saigon tea”? I poured all my money into it. Awakened the following morning,
looking at the disgusting naked bodies next to me, I felt nauseated. I could
not pull myself out of this muddy way of life whenever I obtained my
vacation. While trying to escape the mundane life in the United States, I
fell into this absurd life in this remote land instead. Many times I thought
I’d become crazy.
Am I bothering you with my talk, my friend? I guessed you could not
avoid wearing your fatigues. But it was a different story for you guys, the
Vietnamese, because you were fighting for your country in order to protect
your property and your fellow countrymen. You had a purpose to trigger your
gun without making you crazy; whereas I became more and more frightened and
bored with the game that I wanted to walk out, to no avail. But my fate was
not that unlucky. All of a sudden, my battallion
commander got transferred to Saigon, he took me
along as he thought that I was a smart and resourful
person.
I met Ha during that time. The place where I worked was an old French
villa. The imposing building was located in the middle of a large garden
surrounded by multi-colored flowering beds and gravel covered paths; the
surrounding walls were covered with pink flowers. I particularly liked the
hundred-year-old tamarinds, with branches reaching up to my window on the
second floor. In the fall, whenever the fallen tamarind yellow leaves were
blown with the wind, I used to stand still in the room, watching the scenery
with fascination. I saw Ha for the first time in that enchanted scene. She
wore a light yellow ao dai,
her jet black hair streamed down to her shoulders, the white pants flowed
over her sandals embracing the tiny pink feet. She walked with a slight
hopping of a bird. Her face was tilted to the left as if, in so doing, she
could avoid reaching too high to stroke her hair. Blown by the wind, both
flaps of her ao dai wavely surrounded her legs while she kept on walking rhythmically.
I stock-stood beholding the real beauty in front of me. Oh, such a beauty in
such a splendid scenery. Whoever liked painting could not resist such a
temptation. The painting was done with all my passion and excitement.
To nose her out in a building with less than a hundred employees was
not as difficult as looking for a needle in a haystack. Before working time,
I put my painting, carefully wrapped in artistic paper, on Ha’s desk. At the end of the day, I approached her desk
and was given a thank-you smile by her. I completed another portrait with
that fresh and lively grin sticking on the portrait. She was deeply moved
when receiving the second painting and was apparently embarrassed. Taking
advantage of the occasion, I tried to win her over with perfumes, lip sticks
that most young women were craving for. Ha was completely different from
them. She flatly refused my gifts. I was mortified, yet became more
infatuated with her. And I played a dirty trick: at that time, a television
set was a dream of each Vietnamese family. I pretended to inform Ha that the
PX had got new TVs for sale, with a good deal. I told her that I had already
got one. It was a waste if I gave up my allocation; and if she wanted a TV
set, I would certainly help buy it for her. Commodities in PX were usually
sold cheaper for GI, and I had quoted only half the price for the TV set. She
seemed to hesitate and told me she’d answer the next day. Early in the
following morning, she came to my desk with a bundle of dollars, asking me to
buy it for her. I had blamed myself for accepting the money: the bait was
thrown, which made it difficult for the pitiful fish to refuse biting. But I
had defended myself for acting that way just because of my love for her. I
told her I’d buy it the next day and would bring it to her house. Ha appeared
hesitated and puzzled, then, without knowing what else to do, she wrote me
her home address. I was overjoyed. The following evening, I brought the TV
set to her house with an additional gift, a big box of candies for her
parents. They could not refuse it, of course. The PX carried a variety of
goods for which every Vietnamese was yearning. That was a good excuse for me
to be back and forth to Ha’s almost weekly. Each of
my visits was accompanied with an attractive present, and each time, I was
treated with a Vietnamese meal. They considered me as a family member,
especially her younger brothers and sisters whose bright eyes sparkled
whenever they received my gift. Only Ha kept a
distance with her indifferent attitude. Rather disappointed, I told myself
that I had to conquer the person I was deeply in love.
Hey friend, what was it in your mind? Merely looking at your eyes, I
knew that you were thinking ill of me. In reality, I had acted as a cheater. I
had used money, materialistic goods with the ultimate purpose to conquer her.
Refrigerators, television sets, record players, electric fans, cookies,
candies...were nothing to me, but to Ha’s family,
those represented a longing not easily accessible. My profit was Ha.
Undeniably I was a liar, but I truly loved her. Wasn’t my true love worthy of
an extenuating circumstance? When I asked for marrying her, her parents
embarrassingly promised to give me an answer later. She avoided meeting me. I
felt really sorry for her. I cleary recalled on
Sunday the following week, Ha’s parents said they
had agreed with my proposal. You knew how much I was happy. But why my Ha had
become so languish. I felt guilty, but tried to cover up my remorse with a
hope that everything would be OK.
Ha followed me back to the U.S. During the first days of separation
from her homeland, she was sobbing her heart out. Her weeping could go on and
on for days, just like the Vietnamese family ties could be considered as a
kind of strong glue. It glued together grandparents to parents and children,
even extended to uncles and aunts. When Ha was separated from that family
tie, she felt lost and insecure. Her love for her country was strangely
strong. Perhaps she might have affection for every blade of grass in Vietnam.
I realized that the more people belong to a poor country, the more they feel
attached to it. Poverty seemed to be a kind of yeast to incite patriotism. As
for me, citizen of a wealthy and large country, patriotism seems to be untastful. Even if I would travel all over the world, the
love for my country could not be equal to one small portion of hers. No
matter what I did to comfort her, Ha appeared withered like the papaya leaves
in a neighbor’s garden under heavy rain on my wedding night. I tried my best
to comfort Ha hoping to help compensate her losses.
The enormous loss like a whirlwind had happened: South Vietnam fell to
the Communists from the North. Ha seemed to lose her mind to that pitiful
land. She became distraught, and I was restless as well. I had gone through
hell and back. So did my friends: some got bloodily injured, others returned
home with mental problems, others were listed as missing in action, and there
were those who had sacrified their lives to protect
that distant land. How could these heavy losses happen? Even though I tried
to think so hard to understand it, I could not find a reasonable answer to
that illogical reality. The waves of Vietnamese refugees hastily escaped the
communists had arrived to different states in this country. In my city there
were several Vietnamese families who had been sponsored. Ha came to her
compatriots to assist them in the beginning stage of their new lives.
Surrounded by friends speaking the same mother tongue, Ha turned out to be a
completely different person; she looked rejuvenated, more articulate, and
vibrant. Sucesssive waves of boat people who kept
on arriving resettle in our city had created a bigger Vietnamese community.
Vietnamese restaurants began to open. Ha took me out enjoying different
Vietnamese dishes with particular pleasure. My friend, do you know what I
like best? Pho. When I was in Vietnam, I loved this kind of soup, which I now
enjoyed as if meeting an old friend. We discovered the taste of the old days
in Saigon.
A few months later, Ha asked me to start operating a Vietnamese
grocery store. I was then a sale representative for a vacuum cleaner company
and a hearing aid company. My business was pretty prosperous. What did you
say, my friend? You told me that those two products were not interrelated?
Were you kidding me? There was no need to say that in using my vacuum
cleaner, one could become deaf. Let me continue with my story. I did not want
to quit my job, nor did I want Ha to work hard in handling this business. But
she insisted on opening a grocery store so that she could have a chance to be
near her fellow countrymen daily. I yielded to her wish.
The store was pretty busy. Customers came in and out bustingly. Ha became animated and comfortable with
customers speaking her mother tongue. I had practiced to speak some simple
Vietnamese phrases for communication. Our life was pleasantly simple and
peaceful. It had lasted for several years until the day I saw Ha become
pensive, less talkative, less laughing and at times forgetful. It seemed she
got something extremely difficult to think about. Rarely did I pay close
attention to small things, but I had realized that her face was cloudy with
sorrow. Had I tried to squeeze out an answer, she brushed aside, saying there
was nothing to worry about. I respected her silence in a subtle manner. Until
the day I became stupefied to find a note addressing to me that she inserted
in a book on our bed. She had left me, and told me not to waste time looking
for her.
I still kept the store running with an expectation that Ha would have
a place to meet with her fellow countrymen in case she returned home. But
when could that precious day be materialized? What would you think, my
friend? Would she be willing to return to me? 2
When John asked me to marry him, I was not surprised but extremely
frightened. John was like a spider stretching its dense cobweb around the
bait, which was myself, without leaving a single
escape. The beginning of this trouble was my fault. If on the day he asked me
to let him buy me a television set, I could have flatly refused his offer. No
more connection for him. It was not because I regretted such a good deal, but
the reason I acccepted his offer was the thought of
seeing my parents’ happiness of owning an appliance they had always longed
for, and also my pity for my siblings being nightly rejected and chased away by our
neighbors when they came to their house to side watch their TV shows. The
television set indeed had upgraded our family’s standing in our neighborhood.
In a winding and crowded alley within a poor working neighborhood, people
watched one another with jealousy and competition. This home owned this, and
the other should have possessed that. None wanted to be inferior to the
others. My parents were not out of that circle.
My family was not originally from Saigon. We moved to this place when
I was twelve years old. The war had driven us off the countryside to the
city. My parents had to struggle to feed a household of five children among
them I was the oldest. I had planned many times to quit school or to look for
work in order to assist my parents; but they insisted on my achievement in
education for setting an example for my siblings. I could not figure out to
what level of success my parents’ expectation would be. To my guess,
obtaining a baccalaureate degree (equal to a high school diploma) was their
high expectation. Even though I studied very hard, I still failed to obtain
the basic degree to satisfy my parents’yearning.
One of my cousins, upon hearing of my failure in the examination, had tried
to secure me a job in an American agency where she was working. The job was
pretty easy and was well paid. I thought I was lucky. For me, life seemed
good and stable. But Hien became restless.
You asked me who Hien was. Let me gradually
tell you about our relationship. Hien was my
...man. Why did you laugh? I did not know how to call him, so I just ventured
to call him my lover. I knew that Hien loved me. At
that time, I was shy and Hien was even worse. We
had had affection for each other but did not know how to express it. Hien used to frequent my house to talk with my parents;
he also played with my brothers and sisters or helped me with my homework,
and he genuinely cared for me. Everybody thought we would eventually become a
couple. I didn’t understand why Hien kept on
beating around the bush, never explicitly declared his love to me. The
on-going relationship made me think that I had had a big brother, willing to
cater to a younger sister’s needs. I had great affection for Hien, too. What I expected him to do was to move forward.
But he couldn’t do that as if his hands were tied. Not until the day before
reporting to military duty did he shakily hold my hand to say farewell. Only
holding each other’s hand made us bewildered. We were just becoming perplexed
without knowing what to do. Upon graduating from Thu Duc
Reserve Military School, Hien got to be transferred
to Da Nang city. Exchanging letters gave us a
chance to reveal our love. To express one’s love a thousand kilometers away
seemed to be much easier than saying it within a half meter distance.
Affection being expressed in love letters had been as lively as love declared
verbally. It grew proportionally with time. When I disclosed the good news of
being accepted to work for an American agency, Hien
seemed to be disappointed. I sensed some feelings of bitterness
in our ensueing letters. As far as I understood, no
young man would feel pleased to see his own sweetheart work for the
Americans. You would certainly recall the bad reputation affixed to these
American employees. As for the women working for Americans, not everybody was
money-greedy, or was willing to sell her body, or becoming Americans’ lovers.
But society at large had looked down upon us with severely obvious contempt.
Many families had been broken up, many relationships became disintegrated,
and lots of cruel and malicious comments were spreading around.
I thought I could understand Hien’s state of
mind. He was no different than those people around him, and the distance over
one thousand kilometers made him irritated. I did not know how Hien learned about the fact that an American had
frequently visited my family. He wrote me a short letter with a critical and
disappointed tone with implication that he was aware of what was happening.
No more communication thereafter between us. I had written him many letters
to explain my situation but not a word of response from him. I became
extremely distressed. So let it be.
Meanwhile, John’s imposing figure increased its pressure on our family
life. Our family possessed most amenities available in the PX. Needless to
say, my friend, you can imagine how my parents, my sibblings
were so proud of these things. Ours was the most modern home in this
community. Even though poverty was no longer lingering in our family, it had
profoundly intergrated in my parent’s
personalities. The effects of earlier miserable days had made them take advantage
of John’s kindness. They had asked him help buy every item which could be
resold in the market for a profit. With extra money earned, we added on
another upper level of the house, our grocery bag had become increasingly
full with fresher foods. By the same token, friends had come to see us more
frequently than they used to; and filial piety was also manifested by lavish
anniversaries paying homage to our once forgotten ancestors.
My parents’s splendid smiles turned out to
be the locks that screwed my life. I could not stand taking away the joy from
those two dear faces that more than half their life were sunk deeply in poverty, nor could I rejuvenate
my own life by marrying John. I was frightened and perplexed like a death
criminal, being aware of the execution day could come some day, but still
could not overcome the terror when that dreaful
moment rushed in. I always knew that John’s help to my family was not without
a second motive, but his marriage proposal still made me irritated and
stupefied. I thought that my parents had implicitly agreed with that
proposal, even though they acted as if I was the one who had the right to
make the ultimate decision. They hinted to me that I should think of paying
back the debt to John. I wished that my love for Hien
was still strong enough to make the scale tilted to one side. The thoughts of
him made me constantly upset. How weak he was, as a soldier. He ran away
before being attacked. I loved Hien, but my love
was rejected. I had nothing for choice. His silence toward my letters meant
more than a brutal slap on my face. He despised me, and let it be. I proudly
accepted John’s marriage proposal. Everybody was glad. I was the only one who
was deeply tormented. I threw my life in the hand of a man for whom I had not
even had the slightest love. John was considered as a friend sounded
reasonable; but, taking him as a husband was deplorable. I had tried to
search out his positive characteristics for self-consolation. John was nice.
John loved me crazily. John was handsome. John was talented. John had painted
for me a romantic picture of fallen autumn leaves.
All of those beautiful thoughts regarding John vanished when I faced a
naked man on the wedding night. Bundles of curly hair running along his bulky
body really frightened me. My body curled up in a tremendous shock. My mind
became paralyzed. My body curved like a boiled shrimp, my hands tightly
squeezed between my thighs in a defensive posture. My tears streamed down
profusely. Oh my Hien, I cried hard, calling the
man I loved. I kept on crying throughout the night burrying
my face in the pillow.
In less than a year, I followed “him” to America. I cried from the day
of preparation for departure, I cried at the airport, while on the plane and
I continued to cry during the first few days in the new land. I bitterly
missed my parents and and my siblings. The memory
of years and months living in my homeland haunted my mind. Many times, I sat
motionless, letting my mind wandering, and dreams overwhelmed my sleep. I was
surrounded by my cherished past. I wearily stared at the pictures I had
brought with me. Every time I saw the news or pictures about Vietnam on
television, tears filled up my eyes. John respected my private state of mind.
He quietly comforted me when seeing me in distress. A lot of times, he was
surprised why I was so attached to my country and family. I knew that he
could never understand the feelings of an unfortunate woman who had been
coerced to be away from her loved ones. The daily materialistic life went on
without any deficiencies. Everything was beautiful, abundant and comfortable.
But why, I was always indifferent. I thought about the P.X. stuff Jonh had brought for my family. They were so unworthy in
this rich country, and I had to pay for those ordinary things with my whole
life! I thought of my parents’ bright eyes at the sight of those modern
gifts. Poor me!
My parents must have been thinking that I was savouring
the pleasures in this rich country. For them, my pictures taken in front of
the pretty house and its expensive furniture must have demonstrated my
happiness. The poverty that had unconciously taken
root in their mind had become an allergy to them. Avoiding poverty meant
happiness. While I was struggling among the strangers, you know what, it was very rare to encounter a fellow countryman
here at that time. On the street, if you met with an Asian, you turned
around, waiting for a Vietnamese word. Seeing a Vietnamese might bring you
great happiness. Not as now, fellow Vietnamese could be found everywhere.
Some of John’s friends looked at me as if seeing an alien from Mars.
They considered me a kind of barbarian. The reason was that they daily
watched television only to witness scenes of war in Vietnam, therefore they imagined
Vietnamese were barbarians who knew only one thing of killing one another.
And then my stupid, talkative husband contributed to that distorted image of
my country. He talked about the interesting meals he had enjoyed, such as
eating turtles, snakes, palmworms, balboa and
crickets. Sometimes he even boasted of having had eaten dog meat. Listening
to him, the women were so stupefied that they held their chest and threw up.
Men grinned disgustingly. Worse yet, in order to tease them, he gladly added
that dog meat really smelled good and tasted delicious. They gathered to ask
me if it was true that in Vietnam, everybody ate dog meat. I was dumbfounded
without knowing how to respond.
The 1975 event dreadfully hammered on my head. I was paralyzed in misery.
I felt like sick with bitter taste. I became unmindful as a phantom. Parents,
siblings, friends, my old house, familiar streets... Suddenly all of those
cherished memories left me far behind in infinity. Day in day out, I cried
and cried.
Waves of Vietnamese immigrants who came to resettle in my city had
drawn me out of the debilitating state. I felt comfortable surrounded by my
country people. I heartily supported the newcomers who just arrived to the
new land. I no longer felt lonely amidst the sea of strangers. We formed a
new community. Together we met, we talked, we cooked, we sang. And there were
people who quickly started Vietnamese restaurants. I happily took John to eat
at those restaurants. He recaptured the flavor of Pho. He loved Pho. He liked to eat Pho in the morning, in the
evening, on weekends, and on holidays.
What? Were you teasing me? I
did not know why I had called my husband “no”, which means “he” implying a perojative sense. You told me that you’d met many Vietnamese
women who married foreigners and they used that same appelation
to call their husbands, wasn’t it true.
I felt that a foreign husband seemed not to be wholly a husband. There
was something hesistant, some
thing unbalanced, something unfamiliar, something less understanding.
I didn’t know how to fully express it. Probably because our Vietnamese people
looked down upon the woman who married a foreigner,
and that attitude made me feel so uncomfortable that I just wanted to shove
him to the opposite side with a distant, lofty manner. Now, forget about it.
Do you want me to continue my story?
I felt like living among my fellow countrymen. My life, once I thought
to be totally lonesome had suddenly filled up with exhiliration.
I clung to the Vietnamese by demanding John to operate an Asian grocery
store. More than anybody else, John, as a good husband, knew how to meet his
wife’s desires. Only in a couple months later, the inauguration of our store
took place. Vietnamese customers crowdedly rushed in and out of the store.
That gave me the feeling of living in my own country. Customers talked to one
another and by words of mouth, more had flocked to our store. And one day, I
was surprised facing an unexpected customer. Hien.
Could you imagine the earth was that round? All of a sudden, Hien and I ran across each other, in my tiny store, in a
not so big city amidst such a big country like the United States. Do you say
I must have been very happy? I stood motioness,
pale and speechless due to astonishment instead of joy. I did not know how
long it took for me to recover. We could not talk much. I was afraid “he”would know and would create trouble. I gave Hien the name of a small restaurant, made an appointment
and told him to leave. He was quick-minded enough, in spite of his slow and
slumped posture. He quickly bought a bottle of fish sauce, paid John at the
counter, and left the store in an indifferent manner.
The next day, meeting with Hien, I had more
time to calmly observe him. Only the look and the smile reminded me of the Hien of the old days. Eight years of torture in the
Communist prisons, six years of hardships in the “new economic zone”, plus a
dangerous escape by sea witnessing his wife and children eternally lie down
at the bottom of the ocean, and days of tense waiting in the refugee camps,
all these catastrophes had heaped upon a human being, who could have endured
without being physically crumpled. In front of me now, stood a desperate,
withered man who looked like dead alive. Only myself
could revive him. The young love of twenty years ago had stirred up in me the
desire to return to Hien. The body of my young
years had been given to another person, and the left-over, I wanted to gather
for my love. I was not too greedy, was I, my friend? 3 Jonh’s store
had the front facade similar to any other Asian grocery store. The title of
the store, written in three languages: English, Chinese and Vietnamese, was
largely mirror-framed. The store was painted red. The two-door entrance was
slightly on the left. Looking in through the glass door, on the right, one
can see a row of electric rice cookers, together with white aluminium pots and pans overwhelming the earthenware pots
used for preparing herbal medicine. On the left side, even in a smaller area,
one found white bags of rice, orderly piled up according to their brand. When
entering the store, you could see the shelves equally spaced along the wall.
The shelves were packed with bottles, packaged, boxes and vases. Fish sauce
bottles were arranged next to soy sauce. Pickled turnips, fermented to-fu,
pickled mustard green were stacked together.
Colorful cans of food were nicely displayed. Tea, ginseng, and cookies were
loftily placed on higher racks. Beef jerkey,
pickled apricots, candies were hung up along the walkway. Close to the wall
was a freezer displaying all kinds of vegetables, pork cooked ham, pickled
pork ham and to-fu. Hidden in a corner were bunches of cutlery, mortar and
chisel, bowls and chopsticks, incenses and candles, and golden votive papers.
In addition, there was a freezer containing duck and chicken, meat and fish,
shrimp, squid and all other kinds of frozen seafood.
Customers pushed little carts up and down the narrow isles. A sour smell emanated all over the store. John, sitting
at the counter, was busy with his cashier machine to check out all the
merchandises slowly rolled in front of him. Tiredness appeared on his
unshaved face, he reluctantly tried to flash a smile to each buyer. New
customers curiously observed an American who was selling authenticVietnamese
spicey foods. Old customers greeted him very gently
for fear of hurting him. There were some ladies who friendly joked with him.
One teased him: “Hey, master, if you wanted another Vietnamese wife, I would
volunteer to be your matchmaker”. Lifting his face with a sorrowful smile,
John slowly answered in Vietnamese: “I have had a wife” The response, without Vietnamese
intonation, seemingly lost as a solitaire musical tune. Translated by THIEN
NHAT PHUONG · THE
WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467), VOLUME 5 DOUBLE ISSUE WINTER 2003 - SPRING 2004 Editorial
note: All
works published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge magazine double issue 3 &4 Winter 2003
& Spring 2004. (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright
© Thien
Nhat Phuong 1999, 2004. Nothing in this issue may
be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the permission of the
author/ translator/ artist/
The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge
magazine. Creating links to place The Writers Post or any of its pages within
other framesets or in other documents is copyright violation, and is not
permitted.
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