The Unwanted (12 page)

When he was alive, my young uncle was the gem of the whole family, the only son of my grandparents' fourteen children who lived past his eighteenth birthday. He had entered the Vietnamese navy the day he turned nineteen. At twenty-one, he drowned while swimming one morning at the base. The report of his death devastated my grandfather. Coincidentally, I was born across town on that very same day. My grandfather, torn between the bad news and the good news, had taken my birth as an omen, believing that his young son's spirit had returned via my mother's womb. I then became his favorite grandchild.

The altar was given a prominent spot in the new house's living room, which was now being turned into my grandparents' bedroom, with their bed in one corner near the window, and a sewing machine a few feet away. The next room contained three beds for Loan, Jimmy, and me. Next to my bed was an armoire, set against the wall and locked at all times. My mother kept the key. Our bedroom also contained a chest of drawers for clothes. The last room on the back of the house, about ninety square feet, had just enough room to hold a bed for my mother and Lam and her small makeup desk.

While we were moving in, my aunt sat on top of a cardboard box, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Her legs in her black nylon pants swung restlessly as she watched my mother making Jimmy's bed from across the room. Some of her children sat beside her. Their dirty faces stared curiously at us.

Clearing her throat, she asked my mother, “Is that all of the stuff they allowed you to take with you? Did you lose the rest?”

My mother nodded, and my aunt responded with a heavy sigh.

“Everything?” she repeated her question. Again, my mother nodded.

“Unbelievable,” my aunt continued. “Oh, well, it is too bad, you could have asked me to hold some things for you before you ran off unannounced like your pants were on fire. But since you didn't, I hope you don't mind that I took some things from the house while you were away. Look at it this way, if I didn't, someone else would have. And why can't that be me, your own sister? I don't know what you are thinking, but I don't plan to give any of it back to you.”

“What things did you take?” my mother asked her.

“Just stuff.” She shrugged. “Mostly for the kids. I don't remember exactly every single thing. Why?”

“Did you find any of my jewelry?”

“Of course not,” my aunt snapped. “I didn't even know if you hid any in the house. Don't accuse me of stealing your precious jewels, unless you want me to start a war right here, right now.”

“I am not accusing you. I am asking you politely.”

“Well, don't even ask me politely. I didn't take your wealth to my house. If anything, I am now taking in your ill luck by living next door to you.”

My mother did not say anything more. The silence grew into an uncomfortable tension until my aunt spoke. “More important, what are you going to do now?”

“I don't know. Just start from scratch, I guess.”

“I am afraid that you may have to find a more suitable plan, sister.

You are not twenty-one anymore. Besides, no offense, but this time, your half-breed children will definitely hold you back.”

My mother stopped in the middle of making Jimmy's bed and turned around to look at my aunt. She lowered her voice. “Would you please modify your language if you are going to talk about my children? You let me do the worrying, since it is none of your concern. And please don't ever use that awful word again in front of the boys.”

“Why not?” my aunt insisted. “If you don't teach your kids the facts of life, someday somebody will. And when that happens, the words would not be this sweet to their ears.”

“What is a half-breed, Mommy?” Jimmy asked.

Before my mother could answer him, a cousin of mine spoke up. He was about seventeen years old. Sweating from the heat, his face was red and covered with acne.

“A half-breed is a bastard child, usually the result from when a woman has slept with a foreigner. Like you,” he said, facing Jimmy as if he were challenging my brother to a duel. His eyes were crossed. The two irises stared angrily at each other across the bridge of his nose.

“Enough!” my mother screamed. “How could you just sit there letting your children talk to us this way?”

My aunt shrugged once again. Her eyes hid behind a cloud of smoke. “I taught my children the freedom to speak their own mind. They aren't stupid, you know.” She frowned. “And look who should talk. You, their aunt, have always treated them like dirt. Frankly, I don't appreciate the tone of your voice. You can't talk to us like you still have money, sister. Times have changed.”

My mother resumed fixing the bed for my brother without saying another word.

“Listen, maybe you can stay mad at me since it is in your nature,” my aunt said, “but I can't be mad at you. You are, after all, my only sister. So, I welcome you to live here. I do want to be straight about one thing, though. You may think that you can choose to live your life whichever way you want. The truth is, it's not that easy anymore, not when we live side by side. What you do will reflect on my family by association. Ah, yes, something else you should consider. I'd like you to destroy anything that might link you to the past, because you never know what will come back to haunt you later. Of course, with something like these two big televisions here —” she pointed at my brother and me—“you can't hide them. But pictures and addresses can be very dangerous to keep around. The police come by at night and search the whole block. Think about it! I leave you alone to unpack. Let's go home, children.”

She got up to throw her still-burning cigarette out of the window, following it with a hefty spume of expectorates. Her children trailed after her as she left. Loan excused herself to the market to buy groceries, and my grandparents retired to their room. My mother lay down on Jimmy's bed as if exhausted.

Looking fresh and relaxed after a long bath, Lam walked in. His beard was shaven, and his skin was clean. Throwing his soiled clothes in a corner, and still wrapped in a wet towel, he sank to his hands and knees and crawled toward my mother, smiling. She sat up from the bed, looking tense.

“Please forgive me? I am begging you,” he said.

He reached out for her foot and pressed his lips against her skin. Like a wild cat, my mother jumped up and kicked Lam in his face. He fell backward and landed on his elbows. Slowly, Lam got up, adjusting his towel while my mother returned to her seat on my brother's bed. His hands folded into a fist as he spat some blood onto the floor.

“Stupid horse,” he said. “I would hit you so hard if you weren't big with child.”

My mother stood up and arched her back, pulling her blouse up to show her rounded abdomen. “Want to strike me?” she shrieked. “Go right ahead. Hit me right here. Help me get rid of your stinking mess.”

He pointed his finger at her. “I don't need you. But my name was in the registration, and so I am going to stay here whether you want me to or not. I suggest that you should wise up and learn to live with me, damned woman.” He walked outside, kicking a chair that blocked his path.

That night, after my mother locked herself in her bedroom, he crawled into Loan's bed. From where I lay in the dark, I could hear her quiet struggle, as she tried to push him away. After a period of heavy breathing, they exchanged words.

I heard Lam's voice rising with rage. “You did what? I can't believe it. Was that the old hen's idea?”

There was more silence, then he continued. However, his voice was much lower this time, full of regret. “How could you get rid of my baby?” he asked.

“Get off me.” Loan spoke in a whisper. “It was not the mistress's decision. It may have been her suggestion, but the choice was mine. I did it for me, so that I can be free from you.”

The sound of a slap exploded in the dark. Soon after, I heard Loan jump out of her bed, and her voice penetrated the night. “Hit me again, and I'll report you to the authorities. Follow me to my bed one more time, and I swear to the gods, I'll search for the most painful way to murder you.”

Her footsteps pounded toward my bed. I could feel the mosquito net above me being swept away, and soon her warm body slid next to me. Holding me in her trembling embrace, she cried softly in the dark. Back in her bed, Lam lay quiet through the rest of the night.

When I got up the next day, Loan had already left for the market alone. She did not return for dinner. My mother and Lam avoided one another like the plague. Staying in Loan's bed for most of the day, Lam snuggled under the sheet, reading a kung fu novel. My mother stayed inside her room to arrange her nail polish collection.

Jimmy and I ventured outside and saw our cousins playing in the dirt. At first, the boys pretended to ignore us, but it was not long before they ran over to touch us with the same astonishment that they would show to a pair of rare Christmas ornaments.

I learned that my aunt's oldest son, Le, was about Lam's age. He was handsome and a bachelor. His favorite pastime was playing the guitar on the steps of his house. The local girls would stop by every day and listen to his love songs. While he strummed, one of the girls was singing along with him as his mother sat a few steps away, watching with pride in her eyes.

The second son, Than, was my aunt's pride and joy, because he had graduated from college as an electrical specialist. He lived with his new bride, Orchid, in the farthest bungalow in the back next to the bathroom. Every time I walked by his room, I saw him peering at some large piece of stereo equipment through a thick pair of glasses. Than rarely showed interest in anything beyond the work on his desk. Following the wedding, and at my aunt's suggestion, Orchid had given up her teaching job to be an obedient wife.

The third son, Nghia, was the image of his father, and just like my uncle, he had a bad temper and unpleasant appearance. Even his mother was afraid of him. After two years of stumbling around in college, he left school at the age of twenty-four, jobless and loveless, and was again living at home. Nghia shared the second bungalow with his elder brother.

The next two daughters, Moonlight and Snow, had been away at college until that summer, after the fall of Saigon. They now lived in a room that once had been part of the kitchen. Even though the two girls were in their early twenties, which was considered late for marriage, they remained single. The combination of their poverty and their excessive schooling prevented proper suitors from approaching my aunt and uncle for their hands in marriage.

My aunt's next group of children was made up of five boys ranging from fourteen to nineteen who hung around each other like a flock of birds. They were the ones who examined my brother and me in amazement. With rough hands and dirt-encrusted nails they ruffled our hair and pinched our cheeks. My aunt's sixth child, Tri, was known for his reserved and polite manner. The next one, Tin, was the shortest and stockiest. He was the same cross-eyed boy who had defined
half-breed
to Jimmy earlier. He had a job in a factory making rice sacks, but such responsibility did not keep him from behaving like a teenager.

Tin jumped on my back, insisting that I had to carry him across the yard as a part of the initiation into his family. His weight crushed me to the ground. Each time I tried to get up, he would sit back down to shove my face in the dirt. And his brothers would laugh out loud with delight. After a while, when Tin realized that I was too weak to carry him, he changed his demand. Now he directed me to crawl on all fours from one end of the garden to the other, underneath his three younger brothers' outstretched legs. While I made my slow, painful way, the boys loomed above me, spitting on my back and poking my backside with sticks to force me to go faster. A few feet away, my brother was sharing my fate. But the moment he was hit with the sticks, Jimmy cried out to my grandparents for help. Fearing my grandfather, my cousins left him alone.

Nhon, my eighth cousin, was skinny and tall. His body reminded me of the shape of the bamboo tree. Hieu and Hanh were my ninth and tenth cousins, and were around my height and of similar build, even though both of them were at least two or three years older than I.

Underneath a rambutan tree that had bright red spiny fruits covering its thick branches, my brother joined my aunt's last four daughters and watched the scene in silence. The oldest girl in this group, Pink, was my age. Next to her stood the twins, Cloud and Wind. The youngest, Proud, was my brother's age. In fact, their birthdays were only two days apart.

Inside the house, my mother did not see us come running from the outside, looking like two rag dolls with torn clothes and bruises. My grandmother took Jimmy and me to clean up by the well as my cousins stood around and watched without making a sound. Afterward, my grandfather took us to the local public school, a few blocks away, to enroll us in summer school. I was assigned to third grade, class 3C, with Pink and Hanh. My brother would be in the first grade, class 1A, with the twins and Proud.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

C
an anyone recite for me Chairman Ho's teachings?” my teacher asked, looking at no one in particular through her thin-rimmed glasses. Her hair was a tangle of big curls, spilling down to cover most of her face, except for the shiny tip of her nose and two thin red lips. Her skin was oily and dotted with tiny red pimples. Behind the desk, her body, at least two sizes too small for her uniform, sat up straight in her wooden chair. On the blackboard, her name was written in white chalk. “Miss San,” it said. It was the first day of summer school, but the sun had already cooked the classroom to baking temperature.

From the last row, I raised my hand in the air with hesitance, and several pairs of dark eyes turned to stare at my face with curiosity. To my surprise, no one else in the class seemed to know the answer.

“Yes?” the teacher acknowledged me. As she looked straight at me, I noticed that one of her irises floated upward to hide behind her eyelid. Looking out that socket was the back of her eyeball in an almond shape, staring blankly at my face.

I stood up from my seat and recited the verses I had learned from the northern soldier on the military truck after the fall of Saigon.