If You Lived Here (22 page)

swooping roofs of pagodas, neatly planted sugarcane fields, and farmers with their water buffaloes plodding through the rice paddies. It seemed so cruel that a pilot flying overhead would drop a bomb on all of that.

I gaze down through the window, through the bright harvest of clouds, to green and brown patches of farmland, an occasional stand of trees, a muddy river looping like handwriting across the earth.
Quê h
U:
ng.
My homeland.

The seat belt light comes on. The flight attendant announces in

Vietnamese and in English that Vietnam Airlines flight 790 has begun its descent into Hanoi. I glance over, adjust the blanket covering Shelley’s arms. Her head, leaning back against the headrest, bobs gently from side to side. Somehow I have managed to doze, on and off, in the time it took for us to travel all this way, but Shelley hasn’t slept since Wilmington. Through all those hours, she paced the aisles until a flight attendant told her that she’d be safer in her seat. And then, with less than three hours from Taipei to Hanoi, she fell asleep.

Each of us is half insane already and we haven’t even arrived yet.

The landing gear whistles its descent. Villages appear below, metal roofs glinting in the sun, dusty brown roads, a lonely tree, a factory with
HONDA
painted across its roof. I spoke to Khoi once, but only briefly, in the time between when he came back from Vietnam and my own departure. He told me the country had so many more cars now, and so many more motorbikes. Hanoi had become louder and richer than we ever could have imagined during those poor, silent years after the war ended. He talked about the noise, mostly. You couldn’t get away from it. These days, everyone has a radio, or even a TV. Cafés blast pop music out into the street. Vietnam sounds like a nation of the hard-of-hearing, Khoi said, the way they amplify everything full blast.

Khoi kept his word. He stayed away from my family. Through some friend of a friend, he heard that my father remains alive, but suffers from emphysema. Though Bo still manages to play Chinese chess some mornings at the veterans’ club, he’s grown weak and has trouble walking. And Lan has done well for herself, Khoi said, stressing the “well,” as if to convince me that life has gone on and all is forgiven. These days, Lan owns a café on Quang Trung Street, one in a series of three, the closest to Trang

Thi. She also has a new daughter. Well, not so new anymore. Fifteen or so, by now. Khoi didn’t say if Lan had remarried and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know too much. I worried that some small piece of stray information might scare me, might make me lose my resolve to go there myself.

The jet touches down on the runway. Shelley’s eyes flutter open. “Hello, Vietnam,” she says, gazing out the window. “Hello, my little boy.”

Over the next few minutes, passengers stand, stretch, gather their carry-ons, push toward the door. I press my face to the window, not quite ready to touch down yet, staring at the concrete tarmac, at the rice fields beyond, at the dusty red earth. I feel frightened, curious, happy, too, but mostly grateful that, despite all these years, despite everything I did, this place still exists.

The airport is new, marble floored, gleaming, and, according to the Hong Kong businessman walking up the jetway next to Shelley, something of a tourist attraction for local Vietnamese. We follow him down a series of cor-ridors to an open area where immigration officials stand studying passports and visas behind a row of chin-high desks. In front of each desk waits a line of passengers: tourists, mostly, looking fidgety and tired, and well-pressed businesspeople who have already transferred their cell phones from carry-on bag to breast pocket. On the far side of the room, diplomats and Vietnamese nationals move through lines of their own, swiftly passing on toward the baggage carousels to scout for their luggage. I feel envious, not for their speed, but for the confidence with which they enter this country.

You forget the things you don’t force yourself to remember. I have often thought, over the years, about the Hanoi trees, the way their leafy branches stretched wide, raining drops of shade like cool water down upon the streets. The trees have their place among the details of Hanoi I long ago decided to remember. But I’ve forgotten so much. Maybe I should say that there’s so much I never noticed at all. I was young then, and I knew nothing else. Now, in these first few minutes back, I begin to notice things I’d never thought to remember: the way a man holds a cigarette, pinched between his index finger and thumb, as if it’s a dart and

he’s about to throw it. I notice the cleaning women, squatting in pairs and trios outside the bathrooms, rags spread to dry across the edges of their buckets. In the gleaming confines of this modern airport, they still man-age to look like village women waiting out the afternoon heat.

And then, as we approach immigration, I notice the expression on the face of a soldier: eyes narrow, cool, patient, waiting. It occurs to me that I might be arrested for murder. I think of Gladys back in Wilmington, launching into one of her tirades about the government of Vietnam. Police state, she calls it. Commie dictatorship. Red. Red. Red. I try to recall the circuitous route back to the airplane, which will probably soon take off again. Can I beg my way back on? Will they let a coward have a seat?

Over the tops of the passport-control desks, I glimpse the luggage carousel and, farther on, windows and the sky overhead. Somewhere, not so very far away, my father struggles to catch his breath. I have come such a long way already.

Shelley’s firm hand takes hold of my arm. “It’s okay. Don’t worry,” she says, her voice tender and teasing.

“Maybe it better your mom come with you,” I tell her, though I know it’s a moot point now.

Shelley laughs, squeezing my arm. “Believe me. My mom and I are both relieved that you’re here and that she’s back in Wilmington.”

I smile. I’m not used to being needed, and I like it. But, I don’t feel competent. I whisper, afraid that someone might hear, “If I have problem, you go see my father.” I will write down his address.

Shelley shakes her head, refusing to acknowledge such a possibility. “Stop worrying,” she says. “How many Pham Thi Xuan Mais are there in Vietnam? You’re just like Jane Doe here.”

I close my eyes. “Nobody’s Jane Doe here,” I mutter.

The line begins to move. Shelley nudges me forward. “Mai,” she says. “We’re nearly there.”

As it turns out, nobody does make a connection between this Pham Thi Xuan Mai and the girl who let her niece stray too close to the lake in

Unification Park twenty-three years ago. The passport-control officer looks at my U.S. passport, glances at my face, then stamps my documents and sends me through. A moment later, Shelley follows. We load a luggage cart and walk through customs with barely a wave of our papers, then step out into the crowd. Women wearing pastel
áo dài
grip limp bou-quets of flowers. Small children perch on their fathers’ shoulders. Drivers hold up tour-company placards with foreign names written on them.

“Taxi!”

“Taxi!”

“Taxi, madame! I take you cheap.” Under his breath, the driver whee-dles in Vietnamese, “Lady, I’ve got air con. What’ll you pay?”

He is a short, thick man, reeking of cologne and something I recognize but can’t quite place. It isn’t a pleasant smell, but I find it comforting. Somehow, it reminds me of my father. The man edges closer. “Lady,” he says.

“Someone’s meeting us,” I mutter, but he doesn’t look convinced. His hand rests on our luggage cart. One word from me and he will whisk us away.

I look back toward the arrivals exit, out of which dazed passengers continue to trickle. Shelley huddles close, her hand on my arm. “What now?” she asks. She thinks I understand this scene, but I know so little of this Vietnam.

“What’s the lady’s name again?”

We look at the letter Shelley pulls from her pocket. “Mrs. Huyen. From IFS, International Family Services. Or, it might say Happy Family Tours.”

“Taxi, madame!” the stocky man persists.

We scan the area, our eyes ranging over the placards held in the air by various disembodied hands. Then, on the far side of the crowd, I spot a small hand-lettered sign that says, “Mrs. Marino Shely.”

“There!” I yell, pointing across the crowd. Without another glance, the taxi driver dashes off, already targeting a new fare. “Follow me,” I say to Shelley, who still hasn’t seen the sign. I push the luggage cart forward, plunging through the crowd, all the while calling in Vietnamese, “
Ch
Þ ê
i!

Ch
Þ ê
i! Cô Shelley Marino
d
ây! Ch
Þ ê
i!
” The Vietnamese slips from my mouth as easily as cramped passengers from a crowded plane. Hey, lady, Here’s Shelley Marino!

The young woman holding the placard can’t be older than twenty, and she looks back and forth uncertainly between the two of us. Finally deducing the obvious, she focuses on Shelley. “You are Mrs. Marino?”

Shelley nods, relieved, then puts her hand on my shoulder. “And this is my friend Pham Thi Xuan Mai.”

The young woman zeroes in on me. In a rush of Vietnamese, she says, “Oh, miss! I’m Hong Ngoc. My mother, Mrs. Huyen, sent me here to meet you. The other Americans in your group arrived last night. They’re waiting for you to go to the orphanage. My English is so bad. Can you explain it to Mrs. Shelley?” Her hand flutters around her mouth, hiding giggles.

We follow her out of the terminal toward the parking area, and, suddenly, the sun beats down like a weapon. The air feels thick and heavy, impossible to breathe. Hong Ngoc, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and gloves to her elbows, can handle the glare. But we can’t. I put my hand up to shield my eyes. “Do you have a car?” I ask.

“Oh, yes, of course.” It takes her a long minute to locate the driver, although in the end he is only a few feet away, leaning against the back of a gray Toyota van. When he fails to hear her call, she runs out to him, points back in our direction, and the two of them hurry toward us.

“This Mr. Lap,” she explains. He is a powerfully built man, stiff and unsmiling, who shakes our hands and scowls at our luggage. Within thirty seconds, he’s filled the back of the van and we are speeding out of the airport.

From our seat in the back, Shelley leans forward and asks Hong Ngoc, “Have you met my son yet? At the orphanage? A little boy named Hai Au?” The girl turns around to look at us. Her face is young and fresh and blank, as if nothing she’s experienced so far in life has left a great impres-sion. She nods eagerly, though it’s not clear that she’s understood. “Your group waiting,” she says. She holds the
MRS
.
MARINO
,
SHELY
placard in

one hand, fanning herself with it.

Shelley looks at me. I explain the plan for the morning and she checks

her watch. It is nearly ten
A
.
M
., though it’s the middle of the night for us. She runs a hand over her hair, which lies matted against her head. “I can’t meet my son without taking a shower,” she announces. “Those folks had a night to sleep. They can wait for us.”

Hong Ngoc understands this statement. She glances at Lap, who seems to understand as well.

“It’s always something,” he mutters in Vietnamese. Hong Ngoc offers Shelley an airy smile. “No problem.”

Then Shelley whoops, high and happy and hysterical. “I can’t believe I’m here!” The car makes the slightest veer toward the shoulder, then corrects itself. Hong Ngoc keeps smiling, but she looks at Shelley as if she’s trying to figure out what kind of crazy person they’ve just picked up. Lap has one eye on the road and one eye on the rearview mirror, fixed on Shelley. She grins. “Sorry about that. Sorry,” she assures us. “Oops.” She lets her head settle against the seat of the van and murmurs, “I just can’t believe it.”

I can’t believe it, either. I stare out the window at Vietnam. We have moved well past the airport now, beyond the police kiosks and the Sanyo billboards and into farmland stretching in every direction. Lap switches on the radio and the air fills with the roar of a crowd. A voice full of awe and pleasure says, “Spectacular! We won’t see that kind of defense very often.” It sounds like any announcer on ABC Sports, except that this guy is speaking Vietnamese. The road passes fields filled with fresh green rice. What do I call such a green in English? Vietnamese has no word for green. It’s just a place near blue on the spectrum.
Xanh lá cây.
The blue color of leaves. The blue color of fresh new rice. I never knew, or needed, another word for it. It was always there, just beyond the edge of the city, the blue of the rice fields, spreading to the horizon, as present and expected as the sky.

Somewhere in the center of the city, Lap pulls the car up in front of a set of glass doors that have
WELCOME TO LUCINDA HOTEL
painted in English on them. I don’t know where we are, except that this is a hotel

foreigners stay at when adopting their babies. We crossed the Red River on a bridge I’ve never seen before, plunged into the city through streets I didn’t recognize. Hanoi seems disguised, determined to confound me. But behind the plastic billboards reading
JAPANESE WATCHES
and
GOLD JEWELRY
, I manage to glimpse the familiar sloping tiled roofs of the city, peeking out.

This building is narrow, so narrow that the glass doors stretch nearly the width of the entire structure, which sits between its wider neighbors like the thin edge of a single sheet of paper stuffed between the hard cov-ers of a book. Just inside, Shelley and I stop in front of a wooden half-U-shaped desk with a sign that reads
RECEPTION
on it. We don’t see a soul. Hong Ngoc drifts off deeper into the building, calling back that she’ll find someone to help us.

“Well, this is nice,” says Shelley, taking in the place with a smile. “All this marble and glass. And air-conditioning!”

Lap, grunting, comes in from the car, his arms full of luggage. In order to let him pass, Shelley squeezes against one end of the reception desk and I squeeze against the other. Even then, he has to pull and shove just to get our luggage past the furniture and pile it at the base of the stairs.