Beyond the Blue

by Leslie Gould

  The loneliness washed over her again. What did Mom look like now? All bones and dust? “Okay,” she said, swinging her arms back and forth, growing more self-conscious. “I guess that’s all I can say for now. Bye.” She turned and ran quickly back to the gate. She crossed the street and headed toward home. Home.

  Hoa, the Vietnamese girl from school, stood on the sidewalk at the bus stop. Gen smiled as she ran by, and Hoa waved, a tiny wave. Two Vietnamese guys in their twenties driving a white Trans-Am pulled up to talk to Hoa. The Asian kids were in English as a Second Language classes at school. She only saw them outside in the park, in the halls, and in the cafeteria. They mostly kept to themselves, and the boys refused to respond, even if other kids tried to pick fights.

  Hoa flipped her hair over her shoulder and laughed as the car sped away. Gen knew that some of the Vietnamese girls married early; several of the ones at school had married by the time they were sixteen. Would Hoa marry soon? For years Gen had wanted to get to know her but hadn’t. What would Mom be doing now if she had lived? Would she help the Vietnamese students at the high school? Would she help Hoa apply to colleges next year?

  Gen ran down the middle of Sacramento Street, her street. In another year she would apply to colleges. In another two years she would be away at college, only to come home on some weekends, maybe during the summer. She would be out from under her aunt’s rules and her father’s sadness and her mother’s tragedy that shadowed everything she did. She turned down her own walkway and approached the house. Two pumpkins stood sentry on the porch. It wouldn’t hurt to go in for just a few minutes. Gen jogged around to the backyard and pulled the key from under the mat. She opened the door, let herself into the dark kitchen, and walked into the den, turned on the light, and sank into the old mauve couch. She picked up a copy of Parents magazine and leafed through it. Her father didn’t read it, but he’d never cancelled her mothers subscription. She wanted to curl up and take a nap, but Aunt Marie would start worrying soon. They would need to leave for the airport in an hour.

  A loud knock at the front door woke her. Dad! He must have gotten an earlier flight. She rushed down the hall. The front door flew open. Aunt Marie filled the entryway. “I thought you’d be here. Your dad’s in the hospital. He took an earlier flight—and then had a heart attack.”

  Wires ran from her father’s chest to the machine above the bed. Gen stepped closer; Aunt Marie stood behind her. A white thermal blanket covered him from the waist down. His pale lips moved when he saw her. “Hi,” he mouthed. His white hair stood up in bunches against the pillow.

  “You okay?” she asked. Please be okay.

  He nodded. The word orphan and the image of Aunt Marie’s guest room rushed through her head. The monitor beeped. Gen jumped. “Its all right,” her father said. “It keeps doing that. I don’t think it means anything.”

  Gen tried to smile. She would go to college and become a teacher. Nursing was definitely out. This hospital thing, this ICU scene, gave her the creeps. The nurse walked up to the bed.

  “How was your trip?” Aunt Marie asked. Gen had forgotten for just a moment that her aunt was in the room.

  “Fine.” Her father extended his arm to the nurse. She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his biceps.

  “Did you see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?” Gen regretted the question as soon as the words flew out of her mouth.

  Her dad nodded his head.

  “How was it?” the nurse asked.

  “Horrible,” he answered. “Absolutely horrible.”

  A week later Gen closed the low-fat cookbook and placed it on her father’s dinner-tray table. Aunt Marie had brought the book the day before, glowered at Gen, and said, “You two are going to have to change your diet. Your father isn’t a young man anymore.”

  Her dad had been moved to the recovery floor three days before. The nurse was down the hall filling out his discharge papers. He looked odd in slacks and a dress shirt after wearing a hospital gown all week. He glanced at the cookbook and then up at Gen. “Your mother always said that the Asian diet was the best way to eat.” He hardly ever spoke of Mom anymore. “She loved the food in Vietnam.”

  Gen nodded. Vi-et-nam. He had said it slowly, enunciating each syllable. Gen began filling a brown paper bag with her father’s things, the cookbook, his bathroom bag, the three new prescription bottles, the packet of instructions about diet and exercise.

  “It wasn’t the memorial,” he said. For a second Gen didn’t know what he meant. “The monument is well designed—all black and smooth, as if it forced itself out of the sloping hill. It was the people. Grief rushed along the granite like a raging river. I felt as if I were drowning.”

  He stood. “Where is that nurse?” His white hair stuck up in the back. He put on his jacket and sat back down. His eyebrows needed to be trimmed. He seemed older than fifty-three. “I thought I was dying as the plane landed. And then I thought about you. I begged God to let me live, literally begged him out loud as the other passengers stared at me. I couldn’t bear for you to go through what we went through after your mother died … not you alone.” Tears welled in his pale gray eyes.

  Gen sat down beside him on the bed.

  “None of this turned out for you the way I thought it would. The way your mother and I wanted it to.”

  Gen took his hand.

  “I’m sorry you’re stuck with just one parent. With me.” He tried to laugh.

  “Don’t say that, Daddy.”

  “I’m going to take better care of myself. I’m going to stick around for you.”

  Why was he talking this way? She put her forehead against his shoulder. He let go of her hand and pulled her close.

  Chapter 8

  Lan followed two white men on Front Beach, sure they were Americans. They stopped ahead of her and stared out across the South China Sea. She hurried her steps. “Hello,” she called out in English. They turned their grim, unshaven faces toward her. Their tall bodies cast long shadows across the hot sand. They wore shorts and white T-shirts. “Hello,” she said again. That was what Older Sisters boyfriend had taught her to say all those years before. The bigger man shook his head. Lan felt confused. Then he shook his finger at her and began to laugh. Lan stepped back. It was rude of him to shake his finger.

  “Russian.” He pointed to himself and then out to the South China Sea. “Oil.” They must work on oil derricks beyond the horizon. She offered to sell him a cup of coconut juice from her basket, but he shook his head again and then reached out to touch her hair. She ducked her head. The friend laughed. Lan turned quickly and hurried toward the street, away from the ocean. She loved the beach, the salty smell of the water, the activity of the fishermen, the breeze sailing in off the water, but today she wouldn’t stay.

  Lan glanced back toward the sea. The Russians stood leering at her, still laughing. She scrambled up the bank of sand to the hot sidewalk, turned, and stumbled into a young man on a bicycle. “So sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Lan?” She glanced up. It was Chinh, Mr. Vuong’s son. He was twenty-two, four years older than she was. He’d come from Saigon two months before. Ho Chi Minh City, Lan reminded herself. Others chided her when she called the city by its old name. Chinh had been staying with relatives. His father said that he came back to Vung Tau to help with the family’s dress shop.

  “Are you all right?” Chinh asked.

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “Do you want a ride?”

  “No. I’m just going to rest for a moment.” She sat down on the curb on one side of the tree-lined boulevard.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Lan nodded, peeking up at him from under her hat. He had lively eyes, big ears, and hair that looked as if he cut it himself. Did he know about what had gone on between her mother and his father? Mother no longer visited Mr. Vuong in the middle of the night, but sometimes they chatted as if they were old friends. Chinh’s father seemed to have his eye on a younger woman who sold jewelry on t
he square.

  The next week Lan stood under the mural of Ho Chi Minh next to Mr. Vuong’s shop. According to the market gossip, the government had charged him a tax that almost put him out of business, because the Communists saw a dress shop as an extravagance. It was rumored that Mrs. Vuong had family in the party and the tax had now been lifted.

  Chinh stepped out of the store and smiled at Lan. “Hello.” He bowed slightly. He was nothing like Mr. Vuong. “Let me take your yoke and baskets.” He reached toward her. She ducked her head under the pole as she handed it to him. Ripe mangoes rolled in the baskets, and their sweet scent filled the air.

  As they walked along, Lan hurried ahead to the side of the road to pick morning glory leaves to go with rice for dinner. Chinh caught up with her. “In Saigon there is nothing to forage.”

  “But your family is wealthy. You didn’t need to forage for food.” Lan tucked the leaves into one of the baskets.

  “Not so wealthy. My uncle works for the government. He helped the Viet Cong during the war. Still they live off little, and their apartment is very small. It was too crowded to have me there once their baby was born.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  Chinh hesitated. “Partly. I was going to a church, a home church. I wanted to learn about Christianity. The authorities infiltrated our group. In a sweep, they closed down ten home churches. They claim Christians use the mask of religion to preach against the state. They sent my pastor to prison.”

  “Did they want to send you to prison?”

  Chinh shrugged his shoulders. “My uncle rescued me and sent me here. Now my family wants me to go to America. Then I can send them money.”

  America. Lan wanted Chinh to take her to America. She slipped off her hat and fanned it in front of her face. In that moment the sky opened, and the afternoon rain flooded over them. They laughed and ran for cover under the awning of a noodle soup shop. Three barefooted neighborhood children joined them, two little boys and a girl. Chinh handed the yoke back to Lan and then lifted the little girl onto his shoulders. She swung her hand against the awning, causing the water to cascade to the dirt below. Chinh held on to the little girls ankles, steadying her as she reached.

  “Did you convert?” Lan asked as the rain slowed.

  Chinh nodded. “Yes.” His ears wiggled a little as he talked. He smiled again at Lan but not in the hungry way of his father. Still, she bowed her head and blushed. Chinh swung the little girl back to the ground, and the children raced through the muddy street.

  “I’ve heard you speaking French with a woman in the market.” Chinh took her yoke again.

  “I really can’t speak it.” Lan blushed.

  “But you were reciting the prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. I recognized it.”

  Lan nodded. “The nuns taught it to me years ago. Before the war ended.”

  “What else did they teach you?” He turned to her, his dark eyes intent.

  What else? It had been so long ago. She took a deep breath. “I can’t remember the exact French for this, but this is the translation. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.”

  Chinh remained silent for a moment. “That’s good,” he finally said. “Do you believe it?”

  “Some. Mother says to take a little from all of the religions, to take what works, to use whatever brings good luck.”

  Lan woke to the crackling sound of the loudspeaker. It was like another being, an annoying neighbor who wouldn’t shut up or a tropical bird that cackled and cawed, permanently chained to the palm tree outside the shack. Except Lan seldom heard birds anymore. The devastation to the jungles during the war had caused the birds to flee or die.

  Would Chinh flee? Would he take her with him?

  Mother rolled from her hammock. Her bare feet slapped against the hard dirt floor. “Get up, lazy girl.” She stood over Lan and smiled, showing the two gaps in her mouth where teeth had broken.

  “Why are you up so early?” Lan sat up and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “I feel better. Our luck is changing. I saw the way Chinh stared at you when he walked you home yesterday. You have done well to wait for a boy like Chinh.” Mother coughed, a deep hacking cough that had hung on for a couple of months. She took a deep breath and continued, “Your brother should care for us, but a nice young man like Chinh will do.”

  “Mother, don’t talk that way. He only walked me home.”

  “I see how the two of you exchange glances in the market. And I watch him. He searches for you with his eyes every day, every hour.” Mother coughed again and took a drink of water from the green plastic cup that sat on the floor beside her hammock.

  If it hadn’t been for the war, Lan would have a dowry. Her parents would negotiate to find a suitable match. Her future mother-in-law would have to approve of her. Could she cook? Care for a husband? Take on the responsibility of caring for her in-laws in their old age? Run a business? Would she honor her husbands ancestors as her own? Now, in their poverty, there would be none of those traditions.

  What would Chinh’s mother think of her? Did she know what used to go on between Mother and her husband? Lan knew Mother wasn’t the only woman Mr. Vuong had sought comfort with, not the only woman he’d given food and clothes to. Why couldn’t Chinh just be a young man she happened to meet in the market? Lan rose from her mat and went to the spigot outside to wash her face.

  Mother took the comb from the shelf and handed it to Lan. “You two must live here.”

  Lan shook her head and said, “Mother, you must not talk about what we do not know.”

  “It wouldn’t do for you to live with Mr. Vuong and his wife, although she may be leaving for Ho Chi Minh City soon.”

  “Why?” Lan ran the comb through her hair.

  “She’s going to take care of her brother’s new baby so the mother can go back to work.”

  “But Chinh said the apartment was too crowded.” Lan worked her hair into a single braid.

  “Too crowded for Chinh’s religious beliefs is what Mr. Vuong said. They could have had their electricity cut off because of his ties to Christianity. They could have all been imprisoned. It was foolish of the boy to become involved in that.”

  Lan looked through the door of the shack to the family altar.

  “At least Chinh has an education. He might actually have a sense for business, unlike his father.” Mother coughed again.

  Maybe hell have a better sense of loyalty. Lan handed the comb back to Mother, then stood and stretched her back. She wouldn’t admit it to Mother, but heaven, ciel, as the nuns had taught her, was smiling. Sur la terre comme au ciel. On earth as it is in heaven. Finally their luck was changing. Except for Mother’s cough. It seemed to be getting worse, not better.

  Chapter 9

  Mr. Curls hurried into the student center at Oregon State University with a guitar case slung over his shoulder. Gen had seen him on campus many times and was drawn to his quick, dazzling smile. She admired the way he moved with confidence and grace. Months ago she had nicknamed him Mr. Curls.

  The rain started just as she ducked through the door. It was Gen’s first Campus Crusade for Christ meeting even though she had been at OSU for nearly two years. She took a seat with the group of girls from her dorm who had invited her to attend. Mr. Curls was up front, but now he was Mr. Electric Guitar.

  Gen turned to the girl next to her. “Who’s that guy?”

  “Jeff Taylor. He’s a nice guy.”

  “What year?” Gen worked her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt.

  “Junior, I think. At least he should be.”

  After the meeting Gen overheard the man who led the singing tell Jeff happy birthday.

  “The Ides of March.” Gen smiled as she took a step toward Jeff.

  “Pardon?” He was polite. She liked that.

  “March 15. Today is the Ides of March.”

  He smiled at her—an open, spectacular grin. “Like
in Julius Caesar;” he said. “Beware the Ides of March.”

  She nodded. He knew. She liked it that he knew Shakespeare. He was handsome, really handsome, with brown eyes and dark, long eyelashes. But he didn’t seem to know that he was good looking, or maybe he didn’t care.

  “I’ve seen you around campus,” he said.

  “I’ve seen you, too.” Mr. Curls.

  “You’re a good student. I see you in the library a lot.” He stood tall, well over six feet.

  She laughed. “I don’t sound like much fun.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. I’m impressed by people who are good students.”

  “You’re good on the guitar,” she said.

  “Thanks, but I’m not that good. I just play for fun.” He gave her his full attention, didn’t glance around at anyone else.

  “What do you have planned for your birthday?”

  “I’m going home tomorrow, to my family’s cherry orchard outside The Dalles. My mom will cook dinner and bake a cake. The works.”

  She could tell that Jeff liked his family by the way he spoke, that he liked to go home. No pessimistic, college angst from him.

  One of the girls from Gen’s dorm tugged on her sweatshirt sleeve. “Want to walk with us?”

  “Okay.” Not really. She would rather talk with Jeff. Instead she said, “See you around.”

  Jeff smiled. “I hope so.”

  The next week Gen walked with the group of girls from her dorm to the Campus Crusade meeting. Gen heard steps and turned; Jeff ran to catch up with them.

  She smiled. “Where’s your guitar?”

  “I’m not playing tonight.” The two slowed their pace, falling behind the group. “I wanted to sit by you.”

  He walked her back to her dorm after the meeting and talked about Campus Crusade. He had been involved in the group since his freshman year. “I went to Sunday school and all that,” he said. “But I didn’t really understand until my first year here that God has a plan for my life.”