Authors: Thanhha Lai
I must look confused because Anh Minh repeats,
“Ông Ba,”
pointing at the detective and
“Ông Bà,”
pointing at Bà inside the house. I DO NOT HEAR ANY DIFFERENCE!
Anh Minh just won’t stop. “Ba, Bà, as distinctive as saying choose chose.”
Show-off! I shoot him my famous laser-death stare.
“If you allow me, miss, I would like to teach you the diacritical marks. Once you know how to pronounce them, and there are only nine for the twelve main vowels and the various ways to combine them, you will know how to say every word perfectly because the beauty of Vietnamese stems from every word bein’ spelled exactly the way it sounds. You will never mispronounce like a foreigner again.”
“I sound like a foreigner?”
“Uh, not . . . hum, barely . . .”
Just then Ông Bà, I mean Ông Ba, oh forget it, I’ll just go right back to calling him “the detective,” opens his mouth and releases ribbons of bubbles.
Anh Minh listens so intently veins start pulsating at his temples. “Miss, I apologize but I cannot fully translate his true words. They are beyond my humble English. Not to worry, I will persevere.”
That said, Anh Minh whips out a notebook and pen from his back pocket and takes notes. Of course the international scholar would have a notebook and pen ready. I bet he has a calculator on him too. On second thought, he probably calculates everything in his head. Seeing the notebook, the wordy, leathery one lets it all pop. Anh Minh looks like he’s listening to a love song, scribbling, scribbling. They deserve each other.
I might as well go inside.
Bà is sitting by the window, eating
cháo
, a hot rice porridge, this one cooked with catfish and dill, Bà’s favorite breakfast. A covered bowl waits for me.
Cháo
, not to be confused with
chào
, meaning hello, is starting to be my favorite too, light and savory. I’m jiggling my legs to keep away you-know-what. Bà wants to laugh but she’s always too polite.
Of course Bà would never worry about the buzzers craving her blood, pure and bland from decades of greens and grains. Anh Minh told me mosquitoes here love overseas visitors, whose blood is loaded with sugar. He said it like that’s a universal fact. True, mine has been doused with Hawaiian bread and cereal and corn chips and just plain corn, all of which you wouldn’t think have tons of sugar, but according to Mom, eating them is like spooning white sugar straight into your mouth. Well, I haven’t been eating any invisible sugars here (I don’t think), but the mosquitoes still adore me. How long before my blood turns salty?
I’m fitting Vietnamese words together to ask about the guard, but it’s taking forever because I can only speak like thirty words. My listening brain and my speaking brain do not like to share.
Bà notices, of course. She pats my hand and gives me that smile, the one that says she would give me the world if she could.
“Con khổ.”
I’m suffering, I tell her.
“Không chịu được,”
can’t bear it.
Bà takes my hand.
“Shsss, không sao,”
not to worry. She’s said it a million times, and each time I do feel better.
“When you can complain out loud, I know you’re still strong. When your pain has advanced beyond lament, when it’s unbearable to hear your own story, that’s when I know to truly worry
.
Though hidden in silence, your pain would still surface on your breaths, your eyes, your pores. I will know. Take long inhales, my child, you are more bendable than you realize.”
I have no idea if I’m bendable or not, I just want to go home.
“Muốn về,”
want home, I finally say it out loud. She nods the saddest nod.
“I know friends build your world at this age, you must miss them so. My child, lend me a bit more of your time. I am overjoyed you are by my side. Yet if my asking equals suffering, we have the option of contacting your father to begin arrangements to release you of your obligation.”
I shrivel to a speck of dust. What kind of a granddaughter would I be if I zip home when this is the only task Bà has ever asked of me? To load on the guilt, she looks anguished, truly anguished, for my pain.
“Không sao,”
no worries, I hear myself say. I don’t quite believe it, but Bà has always been able to soothe me with these two words.
“Không sao,”
I say again, more for her than for me. The words work their magic because her cheekbones pump up into the bottom of her eyes.
“Chờ được không?”
Can you wait? she asks.
I make myself nod yes, before honesty takes over.
We eat in silence. I chant
“không sao”
to myself over and over. Perhaps after a while, I will wholeheartedly believe it’ll be all right to wait. What can I do but wait? Things will happen in Laguna whether I stress or not. I wish I could force myself to stop thinking about HIM or Montana or the beach until I’m actually home. I hate waiting. Who wouldn’t? Especially when I have no idea how long the wait is. Is it still around two weeks? The detective coming here, twisty-browed and whispery, cannot be a good sign. That’s the worst part, not knowing. I don’t even know how to find out because I bet nobody knows. The only person who can wait for decades in absolute stillness is Bà.
She pushes her bowl away and asks if I’d like a story. When I was little, she’d tell me a story when I was sad. I’ve always loved her stories, even if they’re sadder than anything I could be feeling. I love the way she pulls words into a tight embrace.
“They came in white uniforms, the same crisp pants and hard-brimmed hat that Ông had always worn. The men came and stood hats in hands, eyes in the distance. They had to wrestle words from clogged throats. I heard clearly: ‘is now recorded as missing in action.’
“That day was the tenth in April, year of the horse 1966
.
“Later, when we fled war and country, I needed a birth day and month to request refuge. Your father and aunts and uncles knew their dates of birth, having grown up when the world tilted toward the West. I had remained planted in the East where the lunar year and the exact hour of entrance into this world marked a person’s fate
.
“No one could enter the United States without a date of birth, a space for that was reserved on every single form. There were endless forms. I was not the only one to stare at the blank spaces. Someone advised us to choose a date readily remembered
.
“The tenth day in each April
.
“The date stabbed me every time I was required to record it. This guaranteed continued remembrance. I didn’t choose the last day I saw him. That day remains solely mine
.
“I had reached out, just as Ông was leaving, to align the rim of his straw hat. He was not in uniform that day but dressed as a casual traveler. As if a change of clothes could camouflage fate. That day he went on a mission on Route 1, straight toward the claws of the Communists
.
“When I reached out I might have grazed my palm against his cheek. Our last touch. I’m no longer certain if we indeed met skin to skin those many years ago, and despite the years I have not been able to release the possibility
.
“I did not borrow a date of birth from your father or his siblings. Seven of them. Whose date would be best? To confess, the exact birth day and month of each child have never attached to my memories, though the year and hour of each have long become a part of my breaths
.
“Ông named each child after the closing line he wrote in every letter home. Written in the years when he was in a French school while I was being tutored at home. In the years before the Việt Minh turned its head and revealed the tail of the Việt Cộng while I was a youthful mother. In the year when the navy trained him in San Di-e-go while I managed our house and brood
.
“Always his letters closed with
Mong Nhớ Em Ðếm Từng Hạt Mưa.
This line was written in his very first letter home in the voice of a lonely boy sent to the city, a boy who stared at the spring rain as he longed for his bride-in-waiting
.
“The names embarrassed our children, your father especially. How could we have named a boy after drops the shape of tears, he argued? I had offered alternatives after each birth, but Ông clung to these names like roots to the earth. He wanted to look at his children and be struck by the core of his feelings in our times apart.”
I’ve always laughed at the names of Ông Bà’s children.
Mong Nhớ Em Ðếm Từng Hạt Mưa
means Longing Missing You Counting Each Drop of Rain. C’mon, who names their children after a sappy line in a letter? It’s romantic and all, but death on playgrounds. It’s even worse when attached to a title. Uncle Longing. Uncle Missing. Aunt You. Aunt Counting. Aunt Each. Uncle Drop. Daddy Rain.
Not that Montana’s parents did much better. Montana has an older sister named Wyoming. That was when their dad was into the wild, wild West and bought a horse ranch. A movie producer, he then figured out he didn’t know anything about and didn’t care for horses. Montana said he switched interest to his assistant, and they had a baby boy named People. For real, People. So Montana’s mom moved to Laguna and bought the grandest house she could find.
When I’m furious with Daddy Rain, I call him Thunder, Cloud, Typhoon, Monsoon. But just in my head. Dad has no sense of humor about this. When he got to the United States, Dad tried going by Rain, but that led to many problems among middle schoolers. So he came up with Ray, which has no connection to his given name but gave him some peace. At home, though, he has always been Mưa.
E
verything is still in shadows, and the really loud rooster next door hasn’t even started crowing yet, but I might as well get up. It doesn’t help that a constant seesawing snore blasts from the back room. The detective is staying over because he and Bà talked late into the night. All that talking and I know nothing more. If it had been my choice, I would have shooed him out the door to go do his job. But I have very little say in life right now.
All yesterday the detective ignored me and catered to Bà, who asked me to wait. I’ve been waiting! Dad sent word through Mom that a patient has had extreme complications and he can’t return to sort out the problem with the guard for a while. How long is “for a while”? Mom texted this news because she was in court and couldn’t talk. I dutifully texted her back saying the phone part isn’t working, but texting is fine. By texting, I can ignore her questions about a “friend.” Just imagining talking to Mom about HIM turns my stomach into a wave pool. In return, Mom ignored how I ended each text with “I wnt 2 go hme.” Texting, though, didn’t prevent her from leaving exasperated voice messages. I get that she’s worried, but I can’t talk to her. Not yet.
I’m forever creating possibilities in my crazed mind. One, Montana and HE somehow are together, and that will end my obsession. I’m not going to keep liking someone who goes for Montana. Two, they are not together, so I maneuver a way to find out how HE feels about me, but this will encourage Montana if she knows I like HIM. OMG, this one topic has ballooned in my mind for months and I’m right back to square one? I’m starting to bore myself, although I’m still really interested.
I force myself to get up.
I step onto the porch in Bà’s pajamas and socks. Whoa, it’s actually cool out. Not beach breezes but for once the air is not nibbling at my skin like thousands of miniature insects. Shadows are moving about. A hint of morning comes from the east, from California.
I love Laguna in June. That’s when we get this marine layer that covers the air in a gray, cool fog all morning. Montana hates it, saying all that grayness is depressing. Oh, but the air is so cool it’s like standing in water while keeping dry. I made a habit of getting up really early and sitting on the back porch, soaking up the fog until it burned off. If I was lucky, the fog wouldn’t lift at all and I would float among gray clouds all day.
My favorites are the days when you can literally watch the fog crawl in from the ocean. We’re up the hill, so I get to see thick puffs of white smoke expand into a blanket, hovering above downtown. It looks solid enough to walk on.
HE’s there, probably downhill skating too fast, curls whipping onto HIS helmet, eyes screaming behind sunglasses even on a cloudy day.
“Good mornin’, miss.”
I jump, squealing a little. My translator has got to stop sneaking up on me.
“Why are you up?”
“I never slept. I have the grandest surprise for you.”
“Let me guess. . . . Út wants to be my best friend and give me her obese pet?”
Anh Minh laughs. Even without sleep he’s upstanding, a shadow of shiny teeth and bright eyes, behind glasses no less. Is that much good mood good for you?
“What you are suggestin’ is, how do you say it, a tall inquisition? I have been up all night doin’ a much more humble task.”
He means a tall order, but I can’t correct him. He’s beyond corrections.
He unfolds pieces of paper, dark with tiny writing. I swear he gets his spine to straighten up even higher. Bet he rocks at every single class presentation. Of course he has a flashlight, making him the most prepared high schooler on earth.
“You look more Vietnamese in a matching outfit.”
“Really?”
“I would never lie, miss.”
He’s so earnest, all I can say is “I know.” I’m going to try my best to be good-natured like him.
“Now listen, this is what Ông Ba told me: ‘Ordinarily, the sorrow of her grandmother’s magnitude, rankin’ deeper than most familial displacement that war induces, touchin’ upon the tenderness of unrequited longin’, would, and should, sprout utmost empathy from even those whose hearts have deadened. And yet, I am deeply ashamed and shocked to report, the man with knowledge of her grandfather’s lonely days has refused all proper invitations to appear before the one who awaits his words most.’”
“The detective is even wordier in translation. How is that possible?” I ask.
“Miss, allow me to continue, it gets really good. ‘Let it be known that it was I who first found him, after searchin’ every alley and crevice of our beloved country durin’ its shattered remains after war and for years while the land and its people recovered. Indeed, it was I who rolled in every dusty corner, tracked down every friend, neighbor, office worker who knew her grandfather. He was an effusive man, capable of much laughter and friends. I needed years to complete the task.’”