Inside Out and Back Again (3 page)

he says,

where the rich go

to flee Vietnam

on cruise ships
.

I’m glad we’ve become poor

so we can stay.

Early March

Father left home

on a navy mission

on this day

nine years ago

when I was almost one.

He was captured

on Route 1

an hour south of the city

by moped.

That’s all we know.

This day

Mother prepares an altar

to chant for his return,

offering fruit,

incense,

tuberoses,

and glutinous rice.

She displays his portrait

taken during T
t

the year he disappeared.

How peaceful he looks,

smiling,

peacock tails

at the corners

of his eyes.

Each of us bows

and wishes

and hopes

and prays.

Everything on the altar

remains for the day

except the portrait.

Mother locks it away

as soon as her chant ends.

She cannot bear

to look into Father’s

forever-young

eyes.

March 10

On weekdays

Mother’s a secretary

in a navy office,

trusted to count out

salaries in cash

at the end of each month.

At night

she stays up late

designing and cutting

baby clothes

to give to seamstresses.

A few years ago

she made enough money

to consider

buying a car.

On weekends

she takes me to market stalls,

dropping off the clothes

and trying to collect

on last week’s goods.

Hardly anyone buys anymore,

she says.

People can barely afford food.

Still,

she continues to try.

March 15

Brother Khôi

is mad at Mother

for taking his hen’s

eggs.

The hen gives

one egg

every day and a half.

We take turns

eating them.

Brother Khôi

refuses to eat his,

putting each under a lamp

in hopes of

a chick.

I should side with

my most tolerable brother,

but I love a soft yolk

to dip bread.

Mother says

if the price of eggs

were not the price of rice,

and the price of rice

were not the price of gasoline,

and the price of gasoline

were not the price of gold,

then of course

Brother Khôi

could continue hatching eggs.

She’s sorry.

March 17

Every Friday

in Miss Xinh’s class

we talk about

current news.

But when we keep talking about

how close the Communists

have gotten to Saigon,

how much prices have gone up

since American soldiers left,

how many distant bombs

were heard the previous night,

Miss Xinh finally says no more.

From now on

Fridays

will be for

happy news.

No one has anything

to say.

March 21

This year

I have afternoon classes,

plus Saturdays.

We attend in shifts

so everyone can fit

into school.

Mornings free,

Mother trusts me

to shop at the open market.

Last September

she would give me

fifty
ng

to buy one hundred grams of pork,

a bushel of water spinach,

five cubes of tofu.

But I told no one

I was buying

ninety-nine grams of pork,

seven-eighths of a bushel of spinach,

four and three-quarter cubes of tofu.

Merchants frowned at

Mother’s strange instructions.

The money saved

bought

a pouch of toasted coconut,

one sugary fried dough,

two crunchy mung bean cookies.

Now it takes two hundred
ng

to buy the same things.

I still buy less pork,

allowing myself just the fried dough.

No one knows

and I feel smart.

Late March

I see them first.

Two green thumbs

that will grow into

orange-yellow delights

smelling of summer.

Middle sweet

between a mango and a pear.

Soft as a yam

gliding down

after three easy,

thrilling chews.

April 5

I don’t know

any more about Father

than the small things

Mother lets slip.

He loved stewed eels,

paté chaud
pastries,

and of course his children,

so much that he

grew teary

watching us sleep.

He hated the afternoon sun,

the color brown,

and cold rice.

Brother Quang remembers

Father often said

tuy
t sút
,

the Vietnamese way

to pronounce the French phrase

tout de suite

meaning
right away
.

Mother would laugh

when Father followed her

around the kitchen

repeating,

I’m starved for stewed eel,

tuy
t sút, tuy
t sút.

Sometimes I whisper

tuy
t sút
to myself

to pretend

I know him.

I would never say
tuy
t sút