Across the Mekong River (10 page)

Months moved through seasons and another New Year passed--our third at Ban Vinai. In February, Uncle Boua surprised us all by marrying a widow he had met on a committee of parasocial workers. Khou, thirty-five years old and an herbalist, had lost her husband and two children during the war. It pleased me to see him happy once more, almost returning to his former self.

A mon
th after Nou’s eighth birthday, Yer gave birth to our third daughter, Houa. We now had six adults and four children in our home. Our cramped conditions many times led to tensions and frustrations, but we managed.

Shone wrote to me every month.
He reported that Minneapolis was a big city full of modern, tall buildings and thousands of people and cars. Their home had four rooms in a building where many other families lived. One month he enclosed a photograph of the family gathered in front of a tall red brick building wearing blue jeans and t-shirts as they stood next to a sickly looking tree on brown grass. Months later, another photo showed them bundled in thick jackets and standing in a sea of white.

Shone and Soua worked in a warehouse loadi
ng boxes of paper onto trucks. They were learning to speak English. With work and study, Shone assured me soon life would be much better. Other Hmong had settled in the area, so they were not too lonely. They did not like the cold weather that lasted for many months, but they had plenty of food. Sometimes he enclosed a little money. Always he mentioned his hopes for us to join them, but this took time. It was his half-way endorsements and unspoken details that gave me pause.

The summer monsoons arrived late that year, but with a strange fierceness. Relentless rain and winds turned the camp into a muddy bog, and the leaky barracks became damp and moldy. Water swirled and eddied down the paths. The stream became a raging river, washing away gardens and makeshift bridges. Flooded roads blocked the food trucks’ deliveries and vans of volunteer staff. Cholera, malaria, dengue fever, and tuberculosis spread through the camp as persistent as the swarms of mosquitoes.

I arrived at the clinic early one July morning to find a line of patients winding out the door onto the covered porch, huddling against the wall. Torrents of ra
in beat on the tin roof. Waterfalls poured off the eaves. A woman held a young girl of three or four in her arms, limp on her shoulder. A man had to support his wife to help her stand. She was drenched in sweat. As I edged my way in the door, a baby erupted into a deep, congested cough.

The tiny waiting area i
nside overflowed with families. The nurse assistant, a Hmong woman trained by the U.S. military during the war, registered patients and listened to their symptoms. Only Dr. Renard and two nurses were on duty.

I stood at the entrance to an examination room where an elderly man sat
on the bed with his shirt off. Dr. Renard’s forehead gathered in wrinkles as he held his stethoscope over the man’s sunken chest. The doctor was a tall, wiry man with intense, dark blue eyes, a curly mass of light brown hair, and a prominent, narrow nose. He had come to the clinic two years ago at the age of twenty-six after completing his medical training. Always thoughtful and careful in his treatment of patients, I had come to trust his powers.

H
e turned to me after a moment. “Pao, I’m glad you are here. Can you ask this gentleman how long he has had a fever?”

The old man shivered slightly as he answered, “The fever comes and goes, for a long time. My
brother performed a
hu plig
. I was better. But I am not so good now. My son brought me here.” He nodded toward an anxious looking, middle-aged man sitting in a straight chair in the corner.

Dr. Renard asked question
s about the man’s sleep and body functions. He listened carefully to the answers, then held the man’s eyes with his own and spoke directly to him as I translated, “Will you please do something for me, old grandfather? I want you to go to the hospital and get a picture of your chest. It will not hurt. Also, we need to take some blood for tests. Then I can decide what will make you better.”

The man looked at his son and then to me, his express
ion uncertain. I reassured him, “The doctor is a good man. You can trust him.” He shrugged in agreement.

Dr. Renard filled out
several forms to give the man. “Take these with you to the hospital for the tests. Come back tomorrow.” He patted the man’s arm, and we headed to the next examination room.

“I’m sure the blood test will show malaria, but the X-ray will elim
inate TB.” Dr. Renard sighed. “If only they would come to the clinic sooner.”

Many Hmong distrusted Western doctors and refused to
go to the clinic or hospital. They relied on traditional herbs or small amounts of opium to cure physical illnesses. If these did not work, a shaman was called to determine the source of the body’s imbalance. Uncle Boua had performed four soul calling ceremonies in the past month, but still two had died. A shaman can cure an unhappy spirit and restore the soul, but sometimes it is a person’s time to pass to the other world. The date cannot be renegotiated. I knew we needed every means of fighting the illnesses and evil spirits plaguing our people. I encouraged families to try the doctors. I had seen the miracles they performed with antibiotics, fluid replacement, and malaria drugs.

It angered me, that m
ost of the doctors in the camp considered our traditional Hmong practices nothing more than superstition. But Dr. Renard respected our beliefs and wanted to learn about our herbs and the role of the shaman. We shared long conversations on how to compliment Hmong practices with Western medicine.

By late afternoon
, the line of patients had temporarily receded. Dr. Renard and I hurried through the central market to a Lao restaurant for something to eat. Mostly aid workers and MOI staff filled the small cafe.

Dr. Renard sat down wearily and stirred sugar into his coffee as the owner brought us bowls of noodle soup. “There were two more cases of cholera yesterday, a woman
and her daughter. Conditions in the camp have to be improved. There is no other way to stop the spread of illness.”

“The Camp Council also works for this.” I sat through endless meetings and discussions with camp officials
and the Hmong representatives. Nothing ever changed.

He
looked up and frowned slightly. “I have had a very good offer from a hospital near Paris. Once they find a replacement for me at the clinic, I will return to France.”

The breath went out of me
for a moment. I had known at some point he would leave, but not so soon. “When?”

“I
n a few months.” He shrugged. “I have already been here a year longer than I planned.”

“You will be missed.”

“I will miss you as well.” He lifted his coffee cup with his large, slender hands and took a sip. “Have you thought about my suggestion? Once I am in France, I could sponsor your resettlement.”

On several occasions Dr. Renard had raised the possibility of helping my family move to France. This filled my heart with yearning, the way an old song raises
pleasant memories. When I had finished my studies at the French-run Lycée Pavie in Vientiane almost twenty years before, I planned to go to university in France. I dreamed of becoming an engineer and returning to Laos to improve the lives of my people. My mother and Uncle Boua had been wary of sending me so far away. But it was the war that destroyed my hopes. I traded my books for a uniform and gun.

“It would be a wond
erful chance,” I said at last. “But it is complicated with my family.”

“You speak fluent French.
You would not have trouble finding work.”

I could not ex
press my confusion and anguish. Thoughts of our future constantly occupied my mind. Five years had passed since the communist takeover of Laos without any sign of the regime’s collapse. As the centralized economy failed and poverty and discontent grew, the Pathet Lao tightened their hold. We could not go back to our country. We could not go on with this half-life, trapped in Ban Vinai like ghosts caught between two worlds.

Yet no one wanted to acknowledge the reality of our position. Uncle Boua said
he was too old to start over. He and Chor remained hopeful of returning to Laos. General Vang Pao continued to send letters and tapes from America urging our people to remain in Thailand, to continue the struggle. It was a delicate matter with Yer as well. She often talked about our village in the peaceful hills of Laos, an ideal that had not existed for more than twenty years. She held on to the vision of a simple existence free of war and persecution and suffering. We would be closer to our boys, she said, closer to the clouds and heavens. Even I sometimes indulged in these fantasies. It seemed so near we could almost touch it. Just across the Mekong River.

I received a letter from Shone in late September. I kept it hidden in my pocket for three days as I wrestled over how to broach the subject with my family. A Catholic group had helped Shone complete paperwork to sponsor our resettlement. They had a job lined up, housing, and financial assistance. The completed papers should arrive any day. My mind reeled with the immediacy of the decision. I had heard the American team was coming next month to conduct immigration interviews. I would need to petition for a meeting right away. If I did not act now, another year could slip away.

I walked through the cam
p, trying to sort my thoughts. All around the impossibility of our situation confronted me. A group of eight young men, about seventeen or eighteen years old, tossed dice and yelled out bets. The speakers of a large tape player boomed with the latest Thai hit, a love song about loss and yearning for the past. Three half-naked children played with sticks in a muddy gully filled with garbage and sewage. From the rooms of one barrack after another, eyes filled with despair glanced up at me. In the photo shop near the center, a Hmong family, dressed in their best traditional clothes and jewelry, posed before a painted backdrop of a mountain landscape in Laos. This was all we had of the life we left behind, a six-foot mural of mist-shrouded forests.

I climbed the hill to a quiet spot at the edge of camp a
nd sat on the damp weeds. Below was the sprawling camp and out through the fence the open countryside. The rains had turned the hills green and the trees heavy with leaves. Cascades of purple bougainvillea poured down a section of the barbed wire fence as if the stray vine was disguising our confinement.

My mind puzzled over our options
. When Dr. Renard had departed for France the week before, he told me his offer remained open. All I needed to do was write him. I longed to grab this chance to fulfill my abandoned dreams, but there were others to consider.

I took Shone’s letter from my
pocket and read it once more. He wrote with urgency of his excitement for our arrival. My dear brother and cousin Soua had worked for over a year and a half to find a way for us. I did not want our family split apart forever.

Fluffy white clouds skipped across the sky, forming and refor
ming into indeterminate shapes. I lay my head back on the ground like a young child and imaged a tiger, then a house. Perhaps it was a fleeting dream or the spirits playing a trick on me, but as the sun formed a halo around a misty cloud, wisps of silver light curled into the features of my boys’ faces. Fong and Fue smiled down on me through golden rays of sunshine. And then they disappeared to the east, swept across the river and home to Laos.

I made up my mind.

The next evening after dinner I brought out the letter. “There is good news,” I announced. Yer glanced up from her sewing as I unfolded the paper. “Kia and Shone have a new baby. They named him John.” Nou put down her school book and clapped her hands. Everyone smiled. Lia, now seven months pregnant, touched her large, round belly.

“What kind of name is this?” Uncle Boua scoffed.

“An American name. This is good,” Chor said.

“There is more, s
omething important that we must discuss.” I pressed the paper flat on my leg and took a deep breath. I explained about the church group and the completed paperwork.

Uncle Boua studied me for a moment.
“You will go?”

I nodded. “We must, Uncle. Please consider this carefully.
I do not want to leave without you.” Yer and Khou looked back and forth from me to Uncle. Nou came over and put an arm around my shoulders.

“I cannot start over again,” Uncle said, shaking his head.

“But Father, America has much to offer,” Gia interrupted.

Uncle put his hand up. “We will return
to Laos when the time is right. That is our home.”

Uncle’s stubborn refusal disappointed me. I did not want to choose
between members of my family. My loyalty was to all of them.

Chor leaned close.
“I’m leaving again next week. There will be a major victory soon. Perhaps you should wait until next year.”

“I have waited three years.
I want more for my children than life in this camp.”

Chor’s unw
avering confidence puzzled me. What had the resistance fighters accomplished besides losing more lives? And Gia, ripe with admiration, would no doubt follow his cousin to fight.