If You Lived Here (45 page)

I slide from the bed to the floor, take his hand from his chest, and lay it against my cheek. He doesn’t resist. I ask him, “Can I hold you?”

He doesn’t open his eyes. He says, “Not yet.”

For the longest time, we don’t move at all. The room is dark but dappled with light. I watch him. I remember once, years ago, probably after we had to bury another person who died too young, I decided to memorize Martin’s body. I had photographs of him, of course, but I needed my hands to remember his features in case I ever lost him. Despite his laughter and protests, I finally succeeded in getting him to lie on the bed and be still. Then I straddled my legs across him, closed my eyes and set my hands on the top of his head. Little by little, my fingers traveled through his hair, down his brow, over his eyelids, along the bridge of his nose, across the curve of his mouth, over his chin and down his neck, along every surface of his body. I felt like I was reading him. You would think that after making love with someone for so many months or years you would really know their body very well, but you don’t know it absolutely.

You never can. That night, though, I saw my husband in a way I’d never seen him before. I learned his body as only a blind person could know it. Even now, after all these years, I can still close my eyes and travel in my mind over every muscle of his body, every shift of surface, every feature.

He looks asleep, but I know he’s not. I whisper, “When you say ‘not yet,’ do you mean the Vietnamese not yet? Like when people say ‘Have you ever been to Mars?’ and you say ‘Not yet,’ but, really, of course, you know it’s never going to happen. Is that what you mean, Martin, when you say ‘Not yet’?”

He doesn’t open his eyes, but he’s smiling now. His finger moves, ever so slightly, along my cheek. “I’m American,” he reminds me. “For Americans, ‘not yet’ just means ‘not
yet
.’”

We don’t say another word. I close my eyes. On the street below, the

honks of the motorbikes sound rhythmic, even kind of jazzy.

20
‌

Xuan Mai

pstairs, Dario confronts
me. “You go next week?”

Until this moment, he hasn’t mentioned it. We have taken my

bags to the new room, eaten

ph
d
down the block, and made it all the way

back to the Lucinda without mentioning the subject. Now, he asks. His eyes still have that sweetness in them, but they look wounded, too, as if he’s surprised, despite all evidence supporting it, that I would leave. I’m surprised that he’s so willing to let me see his disappointment. I mean, we’ve only just met. I think we’re supposed to play more sophisticated games than that. I read a book called
The Rules
, which Marcy, an expert at dating, had left by the register. I’ve also seen a lot of Sally Jessie on TV. Hasn’t he heard about “self-protection”? Hasn’t he heard of “playing hard to get”?

I play for both of us. “They got the baby,” I remind him. Then I turn away from him to close the door. My stomach feels full from the
ph
d
, satisfied in a way I never feel from eating Big Macs. I think of all the things I’d like to show him in Hanoi. “Have you ever eaten
bánh cu
'
n
rice pancakes?”

He nods. I sit down on the bed, crossing my legs. There’s room for him, but he prefers to stand.

“The kind with the rice paddy beetles in them?”

He nods again. It’s my city, but I can’t impress him with it.

He crosses his arms. From this angle, he’s all limbs and misery. He tries another tactic. “What about your father? You’re going to leave him now?” I shrug, say nothing, look a little tortured, maybe. To be honest, I’m not tortured at all. Dario doesn’t need to worry. If I had to, I would find an excuse to stay here. But I don’t need an excuse: I won’t abandon my father again. Bo understands that, but Dario doesn’t. I should tell him, but I’m so astonished by the look of pain on his face, and so pleased by it,

that I can’t quite give it up. “I don’t live here,” I say. “Why not?”

“I got a business back there.” “And anything else?”

I think of my store, my van, my house filled with cases of spring roll wrappers and chili sauce. I think of Gladys and Marcy. “Not really,” I admit. He smiles as if he’s won a point, takes a seat on the edge of the bed, picks up my hand.

“So stay,” he says. He holds my hand against his cheek, then kisses it, then kisses the inside of my wrist.

“Hey!” I say. My head is on the pillow now. He presses his lips against my ear. “Stay,” he whispers. “Stay. Stay.” Then, with each word, he moves his mouth to a different part of my body. Stay. Stay. Stay. Here. Then here. Then here. “Okay,” I finally tell him, and he can view it as acquiescence, if he likes. But I made this decision already. Maybe when I met him. Maybe when I saw my father. Maybe even when that plane touched the ground and I found that I could breathe again.

We lie naked together on the bed, not even under the sheets. Just naked, as if we have been lying naked on beds together for years and years and years. I feel both surprised to find myself in this position and surprised that I don’t feel more awkward about it. I stare at the ceiling, which is

pale yellow and seems to glow from the lights outside. “Do you know the heavens give each person one spectacular gift in life?” I ask.

Dario smoothes back my hair with the tips of his fingers. “No, but it’s interesting.”

“That’s what my father told me when I’m little girl. He has beautiful voice. You’ll hear it. And my mother had dark gray eyes. Very unusual in Vietnam. Silver eyes, my father called them. If you saw them, you wouldn’t forget them.” On this upper floor of the hotel, I can see the lighted windows of rooms across the street, but in my mind I see my mother.

“Your spectacular gift is your accent,” he tells me. I swat his arm. “Really!”

“But I like your accent.”

I relax again, smile at the ceiling.

“Okay,” he says. He turns on his side and rests his head in his hand. “What was heaven’s spectacular gift to you?” he asks.

I’ve known for days already. “I get two lives,” I announce.

He grins, runs a hand along my arm. “Very nice. And me? I can’t think of anything spectacular there.”

I turn to look at his beautiful face. “You get two lives, too.”

We doze. When I open my eyes, I’m surprised to see him gazing at me. Conscious, I can think of little else, but, like a dream that vanishes when you wake, in my sleep I forgot he existed. “What?” I ask.

“Go see your sister.”

My initial impulse would be to reject the idea out of hand, but I don’t. I glance at the clock. It’s nearly ten. My father said she keeps her café open late on weekend nights. “Now?” I ask.

“Why not?” He puts his hand on my cheek. “I’ll go with you or wait here.”

I look at him. “Wait here.”

I see my niece, Lien, first, wiping tables out on the sidewalk in front of the empty café. Without pausing, I walk up to her. When she looks up, she recognizes me immediately and freezes, the rag in her hand. “
Chào,

Liên,
” I say. The fact of her name on my tongue drags me from the past into the present.

“
Chào, cô,
” she stutters. In the context of our blood relationship, she should really call me “
dì,
” the term for a mother’s younger sister, but she calls me “miss,” instead.

“Could I sit down?”

She hurriedly pulls out a chair. She doesn’t take her eyes off me, as if I’m a ghost who could disappear again at any moment.

“Will you join me?” I ask.

Nervously, she perches on a chair. Now, the light from the café bathes her face, offering my first chance really to look at her. On some level, of course, I hoped and feared that I would see My Hoa in this girl, but I see no hint of that stubborn gaze that charmed and exasperated me so completely. Instead, I see my mother in Lien, my mother’s eyes.

“You look like your grandmother,” I tell her.

Her expression shifts to a smile. Clearly, she takes it as a compliment. I laugh. “You’ve heard about her, then?”

Lien nods. “She spoke beautiful French. She was almost like a princess, but her parents died—she saw them die!—and then she became a soldier at the front.” She leans toward me, warming to the subject now. “They met on the side of a mountain. They were in terrible danger and he protected her. They fell in love at first sight.”

I smile. Without my mother around to temper his exaggerations, my father’s stories have evolved into myth. But Lien’s version seems close enough. “She was lovely, too,” I tell her and her face crinkles with delight. Here’s the difference, then: My mother’s eyes always contained at least the hint of sorrow. But this girl has never known war. I imagine that a fifteen-year-old, in any culture, suffers all sorts of complicated emotions, but at this moment I see only joy there.

“Lien!” a voice calls from inside the café. We turn quickly, like thieves caught exchanging jewels, and see Lan striding toward us.

She shows no surprise to find me sitting here with her daughter. “Go wash up the dishes,” she orders and Lien scampers back into the café. “What do you want?” she asks.

Strangely, I don’t feel frightened now, maybe because I haven’t come to beg for mercy. I merely have a proposition for her. “Sit down,” I say.

To my surprise, she sits. For a while, we simply look at each other. It’s interesting, after all these years, to gaze at Lan’s face and have her gaze back at mine. “I have a suggestion to make,” I say.

She looks wary but also mildly curious. “What?”

“I’m planning to stay here. I might have to go back to the States to arrange my business, but, basically, I’m moving back to Vietnam. If you like, you can join your husband in Australia now. Lien can go to school there. I’ll take care of Bo in Hanoi.”

I am prepared for any reaction. She could throw back her head and laugh in my face. She could deride me with insults. After all these years, why should she trust me? But, she doesn’t do any of that. She calls over her shoulder back into the café, “Lien, bring us some tea.” Then, she turns to me and, for the first time, her face lacks any hostility. “I know you’ve suffered, too,” she says. “Khoi told me.”

It takes a moment for me to understand what she means, and then I’m stunned by Khoi’s betrayal. “I didn’t know he came to see you,” I stammer.

She shakes her head. “He didn’t. The news got around that he’d come back to Hanoi. I went to see him myself.”

I stare at the sidewalk beneath my feet. Lan continues. I notice the sound of struggle in her voice as she forces herself to speak. “Shelley didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already. Khoi told me, too. He said you moved to this little town where no Vietnamese live. You don’t have any friends. He said you kept yourself miserable there. He said you’ve spent your whole life like that.” I look up at my sister. She is doing the unthinkable. She has put aside her pain in order to acknowledge mine.

I shift in my seat. Above our heads, the leaves of the chinaberry tree twist in the breeze. My life sounds so pathetic. I ask, “Why did you say all those things to me the other day?”

She sighs. “I spent so many years rehearsing that speech. When I finally got the chance, I had to say it.”

Lien brings us tea and we sip in silence. We’ve said everything we’re

capable of saying tonight. I feel no sudden warmth between us—I may never feel warmth between us—but I experience a kind of comfort in this silence, at least. We’ve lost so much in our lives that I think we’ve grown to accept very little. I feel grateful, and maybe Lan feels grateful, too. We have this, I tell myself. We have
this
.

My father has consulted his calendar and discovered that Tuesday is the death anniversary of my mother’s paternal grandfather, Nguyen Thai Son. Seventy-three years. Seventy-three? That’s no auspicious number I’ve ever known. My father never knew Nguyen Thai Son. My mother never knew him either. We didn’t celebrate his death anniversary when I was a girl. But I have returned to Vietnam and, in my father’s eyes, any anniversary occurring during the period of my homecoming must, of course, become auspicious. So he decides that we will honor him on Tuesday. We will cook our feast, burn our offerings, and remember this man whom none of us knows a thing about. In this way, we bring the entire family together. Not just Nguyen Thai Son, but my mother, too. And My Hoa. And Lan. And me. My father insists upon it.