Listen, Slowly (2 page)

Bà waves me over. I go because I cannot displease her, ever. For once, Bà’s not wearing soft brown pajama-ish clothes but a tan travel suit, the fabric thick enough for the pant legs not to wobble. Mom bought it years ago and never could get Bà to wear it. Bà rarely leaves the house. She gets sick when a car goes over thirty mph, so she was pretty much sick during every car ride. Yet now she’s flying across the world. I’m getting the idea that nothing would have stopped her from going on this trip.

Bà really does have the best smile. Lines spread like outstretched fingers at the corners of her eyes and tiny spears circle her mouth the way I used to draw the sun’s rays. The skin on her hands has wrinkles shaped like puzzle pieces, clicking together just so. Her hair is mostly white now, really thin, she’s seventy-nine, you know, so the onion at her nape, what she calls her bun, is much smaller than the ones I used to make with her hair before napping with her.

She takes my palm and leaves a quarter of a lemon drop. Always a quarter because a whole one creates too much saliva and cuts the roof of her mouth, while a chopped piece releases just the right amount of sweet and sour. When I used to get put in time-out, Bà would sneak me a quartered drop. It made me giggle so much Mom switched to punishing me with multiplication tables.

“Ăn đi con.”
She tells me to eat.
“Bà biết mà, không sao đâu.”
She understands, no need to worry.

I wish I weren’t worrying about what could happen at a little beach back home, but I can no more stop those thoughts than I can talk Dad into putting me and Bà on a return flight right now.

Bà repeats,
“Không sao đâu.”
I nod to show her I understand. A lot of Vietnamese still floats around in my brain, though I’ve never told my parents. It’s the one thing I have over them. I know the cable channel code because they kept passing it back and forth in front of me. Not that I am ever left alone to watch anything. And I know all sorts of secrets about my aunts, uncles, and cousins. None at all interesting.

About that clan of relatives, where are they this summer? I asked, all right. The answer is so typical: everyone is busy. Busy making money, busy doing internships, busy studying for the LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, GRE, SAT. Busy, busy, busy. As the youngest grandchild, I’ve been ranked most available, meaning least important, meaning the only family member free to accompany Bà.

I used to speak entire paragraphs to her in Vietnamese, so they tell me. But Bà and I haven’t really talked since I started kindergarten. On the first day a boy laughed at me when I said, “I see car red.” Well, that was a direct translation. I stopped speaking Vietnamese. Bà never learned English.

Still Bà kept talking to me. I would listen and nod and smile really big, like a two-year-old. I wish I could talk to her now. I want to ask her so bad if she truly thinks Ông is alive. I would ask: Who is this detective? Why does he think Ông might be alive? What could he possibly have written to make her fly all the way around the world? When did she hire a detective? Why don’t I know anything? I will find a way to ask her. First, we need to be alone and calm, and when time has slowed, we will find a way to understand each other.

Bà hands me an old mint tin. I don’t have to open it to know it’s full of drops already quartered. I pop another in my mouth. She’s right, there’s no need for a whole one. Just the right amount of sour sweetness glides down my throat.

I sit still and hold her hand. A fragile hand where the thin skin is almost translucent and each finger bone seems to glow. I don’t squeeze but open my palm and cradle hers.

The connecting flight seemed to last forever. Finally, the captain announces we’ll be landing in thirty minutes and passengers start buzzing. Everyone wakes up, even Bà, and drags bags to the bathroom. While in line, men slick back their hair, and women put on makeup. Soon everyone looks like they’re playing dress-up, with the men having changed into suit jackets, and the women into skintight but long-sleeved and high-necklined
áo dàis
, not the most practical travel clothes. The dress, knee-length and split to the waist to create cumbersome back and front panels, is worn with flowy silk pants and high heels.

When the plane touches down, people cheer like they’re at a soccer game, some dabbing their eyes. Bà also. I don’t feel anything other than embarrassed that I’m landing in wrinkly, sour clothes.

We deplane, pushing an exhausted Bà in a wheelchair down a short corridor, wait in the immigration line and then go to baggage claim. Suddenly, it seems every Vietnamese overseas has landed. I wonder how many have been forced here like me. At customs, maybe because of how frail Bà looks, we are waved right through.

White spots circle my head as soon as we enter the tiny terminal. It’s so crowded and noisy I feel sick. Something else is off here. It takes a while to click in that every head has black hair and every face is kinda yellow. Is this yellow-skin thing for real? Mom and Dad always said the three red stripes on the old flag stood for Vietnamese in the North, Central, and South, and the yellow background stood for their united skin. If they were so united, why did they spend years and years fighting? I admit after a long, hot shower the bottoms of my feet do look kinda yellow, but all over, I’m tan, really.

It’s freaky to be in a place where
everyone
looks like me. Laguna is 99 percent white, but I am used to seeing other Vietnamese—we eat in Little Saigon all the time. Here though, it’s a hundred times more intense. And why does every employee look like they just stepped out of a magazine? All clean and sleek and poised. Girls in
áo dàis
, guys in pencil ties. Every girl is thin and flat chested, the present and future me. No big boobies in this land. Actually, anyone with big boobs would look ridiculous in a demure yet body-hugging
áo dài
, designed for slim frames.

It’s an old, crowded, small airport, but orderly. I’d been imagining chaos with screaming babies and stressed-out adults. But I admit most of what I know about Vietnam comes from PBS, especially from this documentary called
The Fall of Saigon
. Mom insisted I watch it so I’d understand—drumroll, please—my roots. The airport in the film was crammed with anxious people camping out with luggage waiting to flee during the final days of THE WAR. My parents and Bà and my aunts and uncles were all in Saigon then, but although I’ve bugged them plenty I’ve never heard them talk about what it was like, other than to drown me with the fact that they left to create opportunities for the younger generation. I’m supposed to be teary eyed and grateful, but details, please: How did they leave? What did they eat on the way? Where did they live at first? How did they start over?

Last year, I did a feature on the “Boat People” for the student magazine and had a thousand questions for my parents. Again, I got useless answers like: it was difficult at first, we worked hard, you kids should appreciate the life you have. They finally told me Bà and her children flew out two days before Saigon fell, and Mom left a few years after on a fishing boat. My parents later met at Berkeley. I tried to be relentless but charming in my questioning, like the reporter I might be one day, but Mom looked like she might cry, and she never cries, then Dad shooed me away.

So random roots are encouraged but specific roots are off-limits. Frustrating, my parents.

I’m pushing the luggage cart, and Dad is pushing Bà, who is slumped in her wheelchair. The noise and brightness have wiped her out. Not that I want her to feel sick, but if she’s already limpy in her first hour, she’s not going to last long here. I do a quick dance.

For every person who arrives, twenty are waiting with flowers, tears, screams. Ông is not here to greet us, as I predicted. I nudge Dad, careful to not sound chirpy. “He’s not here.”

“He’ll meet us tomorrow morning.”

My heart stops. “I thought you agreed he’s not alive?”

“The detective? Of course he’s alive. He’s going to convince Bà that Ông is truly gone.”

My head pounds. “We’re going to meet the quack detective?”

“Let’s keep the quack part to ourselves,” he whispers. “He started this, so he must end it.”

This one quack can clear up everything and get me and Bà sent home. I’m going to be extra nice to him.

As soon as we step outside my skin shrivels. The air is on fire. OOWWW! I actually feel like I’m being barbecued alive. Bà has completely drooped. I immediately sweat—it’s so strange to be wet and burning all at once. My pores open. My skin turns sticky and oily, like old ketchuped fries. I have to open my mouth to breathe. The PBS documentary showed people sweaty and shiny, but I never imagined they were almost frying.

“Dad, I feel really sick.”

“Just humidity. You’ll get used to it.”

Dad can handle a lot of pain. He bikes up Laguna’s big hill without pausing, flies down, then pedals back up and calls it fun. I would have to be rolling on the ground, flames sprouting out my ears, blood shooting out my nostrils for him to give me a modicum of sympathy. I keep gasping like a doomed fish on land. Nope, he does not notice.

A teensy cab comes our way. Bà sits up front because she gets carsick. Dad and I are squeezed in the back with luggage piled on us. At least we have air-conditioning.

Away from the airport, it’s green and more green rice paddies. This doesn’t seem right. The documentary showed the airport was right in the middle of the city. Bà stirs, reaches inside her bag, and pulls out Tiger Balm, her minty, cure-all ointment for every sickness. She rubs a tiny bit on her temples and holds the whole jar under her nose. Big sniffs. Her other hand twists a knob in the air. Dad agrees, of course. The air conditioner, which makes her even more carsick, goes off. Windows down. Invisible flames whip into the taxi. I feel like one of those desserts Mom blows a torch on.

Even during the Santa Anas, when all of Southern California feels like Texas (says another PBS documentary), Bà still would prefer fresh air because the stale and cold kind gives her a really bad headache. She does allow a fan, pointed away from her. Mom and I either sit around in wet tank tops or go to a hotel. Dad, of course, doesn’t even mention it.

I stick my head out. No, it doesn’t feel any cooler. Then I can’t believe it—right on the roadside, not behind a fence or anything, stands a real, live water buffalo. Chewing on grass, mud on its back, nostrils the size of golf balls, mega croissants for horns. When I was little, Bà taught me a song about a boy sitting happily on the neck of a water buffalo.
Ai nói chăn trâu là khổ, chăn trâu sướng lắm trứ, la la la, la la la la
. I never thought I would see one in the wild.

“Stop, Dad, tell him to stop. STOP!”

The driver understands that word for sure. We’re thrown forward. He talks too fast for me to understand. That’s probably best. Bà groans. I unbuckle and jump out.

“This is so cool!”

Dad closes his eyes, shakes his head. Bà groans some more, sniffing, sniffing Tiger Balm.

It’s very difficult to have fun in this family.

I
must have fallen asleep, face clinging to the leather seat. Very attractive! My ears actually wake up first to hundreds of
beep, beep, beep
s. We’re in the city. Tall buildings, jumbled electrical lines, tons of mopeds weaving between cars and buses. Every single driver is beeping. Who’s supposed to get out of the way? There’s no room to go anywhere. We inch forward, stop, inch forward, stop. Bà holds a plastic bag in front of her mouth. I might need one too.

There are lanes, but drivers invent their own zigzag ones while squeezing into any tiny opening. One moped goes the wrong way to turn left faster. It’s a girl with long, flowing hair. She has a bag with a little dog’s head sticking out, barking like it’s been kidnapped. Another moped jumps onto the sidewalk, slithers between things spread out for sale: fruit, blankets, coconuts, plastic toys, pots, flags. Wow, a gigantic, dead, pink pig with eyes wide open hunkers down in a cyclo, its driver pushing down hard to pedal. The pig has really long blond lashes. Dad says the driver is rushing the just-killed pig to the open market, where it will get cut up and sold. I’m not sure I want to know this much about where meat comes from.

Even the crisscrossy electrical lines act like the traffic. Just looking up at such a jumbled mess makes everything louder. The smells are in your face too: fishy, flowery, lemony, meaty, grilled corn, fried dough, ripe fruit. Each smell has fists and is smacking each other for more space inside my nostrils.

Yes, this is the Vietnam I’ve always imagined.

“So, Dad, where’s the helicopter tower?”

“What tower?”

“You know, where people pushed and shoved to get out at the end of THE WAR.”

“That’s in Sài Gòn, we’re in Hà Nội.”

Dad sounds impatient, but I can’t help having questions. “Why aren’t we in Saigon?”

“Bà wants to see her village,” Dad says, like it’s so much work to explain everything. “We’ll meet the detective in a hotel here, then it’s off to her village.”

“Saigon isn’t her village?”

“Have you not learned anything about Việt Nam?”

What does Dad think I’m asking about? Russia? There’s no reason for him to get uppity. He’s been thinking about Vietnam and its many confusing parts way longer than I have. “Where’s the gate the Vietcong crashed through?”

“In Sài Gòn, where do you think?” Dad raises his voice. “No one says Việt Cộng up north. Don’t say anything about politics at all.”

Now he tells me. We’re in the North, at a completely different airport, at the hub of the Communists. OMG! “Are they going to arrest us? Do they know Ông moved south and fought for the South?”

Dad really looks at me, as if finally understanding that I really don’t know. “Plenty of northerners did that,” his voice softening. “Nobody cares now. Just don’t talk about it.”

As soon as Dad backs down, I don’t know why, I get moody. “Fine! Where are the turquoise beaches then? You know, the white sand?”

“We’re not tourists.” Dad’s cranky again. “Stop being annoying, Mai.”