Across the Mekong River (23 page)

Out of the blue she said, “I forgot to tell you. I think I saw your cousin Blia the other day at th
e gas station down on Florin.” She paused. “I’m not sure, because this girl was really pregnant.”

It stopped me short.
My elation drained away. I ran a finger over the flowered pattern of the comforter. I felt sick over Blia’s unhappy situation. She was miserable with Bee and his family and had no way to escape. “She is pregnant,” I said at last, “and married.”

Mary’s
mouth flew open. “When did this happen?”

“Do you remember the guy in the pizza parlor last spring?”
Mary nodded. “They got married a few months ago.”

“But she’s only
fifteen. I didn’t even think that was legal.”

“It’s complicated.”

Mary stared at me, clearly concerned, waiting for the rational explanation I couldn’t provide. I was weary trying to keep up with the explanations and pretenses always afraid I might say the wrong thing and give away the divisions of home and school. My competing worlds had stretched me until I could no longer meld one with the other into a whole. I thought of how relieved I felt telling Pete about my mother’s illness. Something inside me shifted. A thread worked loose, a silkworm cocoon unraveling layer by layer, miles of lies falling away and collapsing in a pile at my feet. I couldn’t do it any longer. Tears pooled in my eyes and dribbled down my cheeks.

Mary drew
close and put a hand on my arm. “Laura, what’s wrong?”

I looked at her unable to continue with anything but the tr
uth, whatever the consequences. “My name is Nou.” A small sob escaped like the yelp of an injured dog. “There’s so much you don’t know. My family is Hmong. From Laos. There was a war. We had to leave.”

A flicker of confusion passed over her face. “But you’re from Minneapolis.”

“That’s where we lived when we first came to America.” Through a shower of tears, I began my family’s story until the words poured out, my voice rising and falling through the years. Distant, vague memories suddenly became vivid and real as I relived my fear of the communist soldiers who occupied our village in Laos and the long trek out that had taken the lives of so many family members and friends. I told her of my brothers who had drowned in the river that fatal night, how we didn’t have any pictures of them and I couldn’t even remember their faces now. I recounted the years in the refugee camp with all its hunger and hardships until finally the opportunity to come to America arrived.

She shook her head,
tears spotting her face. “It’s so awful.” She hugged me close. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“It was so hard in Minneapolis.
Kids made fun of my cousins and me because we didn’t speak English. They called us terrible names and said we looked funny and had strange names. I could tell you so many stories.” Mary offered me tissue from the box on her nightstand, and I blew my nose. “When I came here I decided it was safer to be American, to call myself Laura. I wanted to start over and fit in.”

“I don’t und
erstand.” She sat back, crossing her arms around her middle. “You’re my best friend, and for two years you didn’t say anything?”

“If I had told you when we first met, would you have become my friend?”

Her voice grew indignant. “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that. I don’t care where you’re from.”

I sw
allowed hard and met her gaze. “But how could I have known? My life is completely opposite from yours. My family hardly has any money. We live in an ugly apartment on the other side of the freeway. My clothes are from thrift stores. I’m not anything like the other kids at school.”

Mary sighed.
“I pretty much figured all that out already.”

“Our Hmong culture is so …” I searched for
a word, but couldn’t find one. “People don’t understand our customs. They think they’re weird.”

“You think I’m like that?”

“No. You and your family have been wonderful. I was miserable not telling you. But the longer I waited, the harder it got.”

“Why now?”

“I can’t do it anymore. I want to share everything, be completely honest. I don’t like the person I’ve become.” I felt desperate to make her understand, to be forgiven.

W
e sat a long time not speaking. Mary stared out the window, biting her lower lip. I silently prayed to whatever spirits or powers might exist that she would forgive me.

“Are you mad?” I asked at last.

“A little. I hate that you didn’t trust me.” Her voice broke as tears trickled down once more.

“I’ve n
ever had a best friend before.” I began crying.

She threw her arms around me. “I’ll get over it.”

“Just be my friend.”

“Always.”
She pulled wads of tissue from the box and dabbed at her nose. “So what else haven’t you told me?”

We talked for h
ours, before and after dinner. Mary peppered me with questions about my family and culture. I told her about the humiliating incidents in Minneapolis that had made me wary and untrusting. At times she grew testy with flashes of anger that I had kept so much from her. We talked of Blia’s unhappy marriage and the expectations for Hmong girls to marry young and start of new life with the husband’s family. I confided to her about Dang and how it worried me that he might envision a similar future with me. She agreed. I should tell him I couldn’t see him any longer.

It might take time to navigate the change in our fri
endship, but we would be fine. And I would tell my story to Pete. I didn’t want to pretend anymore.

On Saturday night, Mary and I reached the gym with only minutes to the start of the game. My excitement floated in the hot, steamy air. The floor vibrated beneath us as the opposing teams thumped a dozen basketballs up and down the court practicing setups and shots. Throngs of fans stood in the aisles and milled along the front of the stands. The pep band played the school song with pounding drums and blaring horns. Three hundred people sang and swayed as we climbed up the bleachers to find seats. My heart beat wildly as I searched the blue and gold jerseys. Pete turned and flashed me a smile.

The few basketball games I had attended had proved remarkab
ly boring and mysterious to me. But tonight it didn’t matter as long as I could watch Pete careening down the court and tossing the ball through the hoop. I strained to keep track of his long limbs in the jumble of bodies. After two overtimes, our team won the game eighty-two to seventy-eight.

Mary and I waited in the cour
tyard outside the locker room. Pete and Kevin emerged in high spirits.

“Are we the greatest or what?” Kevin whooped, throwing his arm around Mary and kissing her hard on the lips.

“You picked the right game,” Pete said, gently slapping my palm in a high five. His fingers lingered for a moment. “Kevin has his car.”

It was already after ten. “I have
to be home by eleven thirty.” I shrugged. “I’m sorry.” I had argued with Father, but he had been insistent.

“It’s okay. Shall we get something to eat?
I’m starving.”

We drove to a McDonalds where Pete and Kevin inhaled hamburgers while Mary and I sipped cokes
and nibbled fries. It seemed like only minutes before it was time to go home. Pete and I sat in the back seat of Kevin’s Honda. He took my hand, his palm warm, and it didn’t matter that the night was over. It was already perfect.

I directed Kevin to my street, wondering what they all must think o
f the deserted, run down area. “You can drop me off on the corner,” I said as we came up on the Short Stop. “I don’t want my dad to see me.” I didn’t mention my cousins or Dang.

Kevin pulled
over, and Pete got out with me. “Can I walk you part way?” I nodded. We walked across the street, staying in the shadows away from the street lights.

“I’m
glad you came,” he said softly. “Maybe we can try again next week.”

“It was a great game.” I shivered in the icy wind.
“Thanks.”

He bent over, put his arm around my shoulder, and gently kissed my lips. We bo
th giggled at our awkwardness. He kissed me again, longer and deeper. And in that moment, nothing else mattered.

He stepped back, grinning. “I’ll stay here until you walk the rest of the way.”

I covered the half-block to my apartment and turned to find Pete standing where I left him. He waved one last time. When the sound of Kevin’s car had died away, I climbed the metal stairs to our apartment.

I was surprised to find my father sitting at the dining room table p
ouring over the farm accounts. Usually he was in bed early, but he must have stayed up to check on me. For a moment, I worried he might have seen me with Pete, that somehow he knew I had not told him the truth.

He looked up and gave me a rare smile. “You’re home on time.” He str
etched his arms over his head. “Did you have a good time? Who won the game?”

I sat down, suddenly excited to share the details of the game as I used to share books and things I had
learned in school. The young girl still existed inside me, the part of me that adored her father and longed to bridge the gap to connect once more. As I began to tell him about the game, we were interrupted by the sound of feet pounding up the stairs. The door to our apartment flew open. Uncle Soua stood in the entrance, his face ashen.

“Pao, help me.”

My father jumped to his feet. “What’s happened?”

Soua looked at us dazed. “Blia’s been shot.
Bee is dead.”

Uncle Soua’s words—shot, dead--lingered in the air, but I could not connec
t them with any reality I knew. It was not possible to comprehend this image of violence here in America, where we had come to be safe. I read the same disbelief in Father’s eyes as he looked about wildly. A cold chill of fear raced through my body.

PAO

Two Saturdays after the shooting, the family worked in the fields preparing for the new crops. We were still stunned by the terrible events. I tried not to give in to the feeling of hopelessness pressing on me, even though it seemed that violence followed our people wherever we went. We could not escape. But in a few weeks sunlight would penetrate the soil sufficiently to welcome tender new plants of tomatoes, corn, peppers, cucumber, squash, and beans, sown and nurtured in our greenhouse. I told myself to concentrate on the resurgence of life. I should enjoy the luxury of quiet hours and uncomplicated labor where my mind could wander.

Uncle Boua turned to me from the next row where he knelt, cl
earing spent onions and weeds. “Is Soua coming this afternoon?” he asked.

“Yes.
They should be back from visiting Blia soon.” I glanced at the far end of the field where my wife and others were removing the last of the Chinese broccoli and beets. The shock of Bee’s death hung about us like the haze rising from the ground in the early morning hours. It was a sad and shameful thing for Soua and Yer to bear, and we all mourned for them.

Blia and Bee had been with a friend in a liquor store parking lot, sit
ting on the hood of their car. Another car drove through the lot, fired three shots, and tore off into the traffic. The bullet that burst through Bee’s chest, killing him in seconds, had continued on, slashing Blia’s neck as she tried to duck. She had lost a great deal of blood and two days later went into early labor. Now she and the baby were recovering.

“Did you hear they arrested two boys last night?” I asked.

He stopped his digging for a moment. “Ia said they’re Vietnamese, fourteen and fifteen years old. How is it possible they had a car and guns? Where are their parents?”

“They stole the car.
Who knows how they could get hold of guns. Bee’s friend was in a fight with one boy’s brother last week. I don’t know if Bee was involved or not. They’re from a rival gang.”

“
Such a waste of young lives.” He sighed as we inched our way up the row.

I methodically turned the soil and pulled bunches of weeds from the clods of dirt, thinking how out of place the cheerful, yellow dandeli
ons seemed. “After the funeral tomorrow, I will go with Soua to negotiate with Bee’s family. Blia and her child must come home.”

Uncle paused again.
“Will they agree?”

“It has be
en unhappy from the beginning.”

He shook his head slowly.
“These gangs are destroying our young men. This makes four deaths in recent months.”

My chest grew tight as I thought of the evils besetting our people each day, h
eaping more tragedies upon us. In Laos we knew our enemy, the face of communism. But the enemy here was amorphous, a creeping fungus, slowly choking us to death.

“I don
’t know what to think,” I said. “Parents who come to the community center are lost, unable to control their children. Sometimes their kids speak so little Hmong, they can hardly talk to them.” I waved my trowel in the air, cutting at my frustration. “I interpreted for a family last week. The boy, only fifteen, goes to this Kennedy High, where Bee went. He told me they need the gangs for protection. If they don’t join, they’ll be beat up and hurt. His mother cried and begged him to stop, to be a good son again. The boy said he couldn’t get out, even if he wanted to. The father sat in silence, ashamed.” I hit the ground hard with my trowel. “The boy spewed so much anger.” I thought of his words and how they had struck a chord within me. He told me he couldn’t talk to his parents. They didn’t understand him. Their ideas came from the past as if they still lived in Laos. It frightened me. I could not help but wonder if there were things I did not know about my own children. Did Nou feel this estrangement from her mother and me? Did this cause the distance between us?

Uncle straightened to stretch his back. “Our children
no longer respect their elders. They have no appreciation for our past and what we have sacrificed. How many of them really understand what it’s like to have your life and land threatened by enemies carrying guns and false faces, to be without food or shelter?”

I nodd
ed, full of the same thoughts. Most of our children had not experienced life in Laos and the horrors of the war. They were little children when we left, or were born in the refugee camps or America.

Uncle stood and carried his basket of weeds to the whe
elbarrow at the end of the row. He returned with heavy steps. “What do these gangs think they can accomplish but more violence and death?”

“They see all the wealth around them, flashy c
ars, nice clothes, big houses. They want to have these things too. They prove how tough they are by selling drugs and robbing stores. I asked one boy, why he wanted to get in trouble and maybe go to jail or die. I told him to work hard in school and get a good job, respect his parents. He just laughed in my face, said I didn’t get it. Said he was never going to belong here.” I shook my head.

Uncle’s eyes flashed. “We can’t give up. Our children must succeed.
First they learn English, and some will go to college. They will have good jobs. It takes time. Someday Americans will understand what the Hmong are made of and respect us.”

I sighed, hoping he was right.
I could not allow myself to give up. I only hoped to keep my own children safe.

That night I lay in bed with Yer. I reached out for her and she did not stiffen or pull away. The conversation with Uncle Boua had stripped away the protective layers of logic, and my fears lay exposed to the night air. I wanted to explain how I needed the comfort of her warm body to heal the cold eating at my heart. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her still, how dear she was to me, how hard it was when she slipped away from me. But I did not know how to form these words with my lips, so I simply stroked her long silky hair, hoping she understood.

She turned on her side to face me and put an arm lightly acros
s my stomach. “I’m glad Blia and the baby will come home to live. Her mother has been so lonely.”

“It is better for everyone.”

“Bee’s parents are not good people, yet I feel sad for them. It is terrible to lose their only son.”

The words floated around
us with the ever-present memory of our own boys. I did not want Yer to start again on this path.

Yer snuggled closer.
“We are lucky our children are doing well and not getting into trouble.”

“They are in good schools, free of gangs.”

“I can picture Nou’s future now. I’m sure Dang’s people will come soon to arrange a marriage. I see the way he looks at her.”

“Are
you sure Nou is ready to marry? I would like her to finish high school. She wants to go to college if we can find the money.”

“All that t
alk. What does school have to do with being a good wife or mother? As soon as Dang wants to marry, her big ideas will fly away. He is a smart boy. He will get a good job. Nou doesn’t need to worry.”

“Nou is stubborn.
If we push her too hard, she might resist.”

“You’ll see,” Yer assured me.

So many worries swirled in my head. I could not say why I did not leap at the thought of marrying Nou to a good boy from a respectable family who had a bright future. He was the husband every father would want for their daughter. But I did not believe Nou would be that quick to jump at an offer for marriage. She wanted to continue her education. I was proud of her intellect and ambition. Marriage and children could easily deny or postpone those dreams. I did not want her to suffer the same disappointment I had felt all my life. Yet every day I saw her traveling in a different direction from her Hmong upbringing. I felt saddened by the way she addressed me at times, the flat, insincere tone of her voice, and the words, the truth, she seemed to hold back. I was never sure how she spent her time at school and with her friends. Soon the gulf between us might be too great. If a marriage to Dang kept her safe and saved the honor of the family, perhaps it was best.