Things We Lost to the Water: A Novel

by Eric Nguyen

  Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira

  Le peuple en ce jour sans cesse répète

  Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira

  Malgré les mutins tout réussira!

  It was a revolution song, Mateo said. Did Ben like it? Something by Edith Piaf, a little song by Edith Piaf, the Edith Piaf, Mateo said, as if there were multiple Edith Piafs roaming the streets singing revolutionary songs. Ah ça ira. Ah ça ira…it will be fine, it will be fine. Because it will be. Because they believed it. Because they suffered.

  “We’ve all suffered,” said Sergei, seriously now. They’ve never been in a war, but they’ve gone hungry, thirsty, sexless. And they’ve seen things—the very nature of humanity and human evil and what people were capable of doing and what people were incapable of having, which was, in the end, they theorized, the cause of all evil. They’ve seen it all and they concluded: they wanted no more suffering. For themselves. For the world. For the universe!

  L’univers, Ben repeated in his head. Pour nous-mêmes, pour le monde, pour l’univers!

  They passed a hand-rolled cigarette around. When it got to Ben, he inhaled and let the smoke stream out unhurriedly. As it passed his lips, he tasted something earthy and green, and it put him at ease and made his muscles relax. He didn’t cough this time and it made him proud. He was becoming French. No, Parisian! Life was beginning again. Here was what he’d been waiting for.

  “What makes you communists?” asked Ben finally after the cigarette went around the circle a second time.

  “It’s the belief that all men are equals,” said Sergei. “You and me, we’re the same. I’m not better than you. You’re not better than me. We’re all the same.”

  “Except for those no-good putains in the government!” Mateo exclaimed. He jumped up, joyous, and positioned himself in a fighting stance, hands up, legs ready to leap. “We should make them do work for us! Show them what hard labor is! If not, we ship them all to—”

  “Siberia!” said Sergei.

  “Siberia!” Michel repeated.

  “Siberia!” everyone said. They lifted hands in the air and cheered, and Sergei stood with his hands on his hips and danced as if “Siberia” were an old folk song. He fell down when he was done and took a drink of wine as the others clapped—Bravo, bravo, bravo!

  “And then we start from scratch,” said Mateo. “We’ve suffered so much! This is what we deserve! We deserve this much! At the very least!”

  Outside, the sun had risen fully. Ben heard cars starting, the squeak of doors opening, the hacking cough from an old man or woman. The pigeons were gone. The window behind the ledge was open. A woman leaned out with a cleaning rag.

  The Spaniard gripped Ben by the shoulder. “Mon ami, we’ve all suffered here. Tell us, how have you suffered?”

  How had he suffered?

  The words repeated themselves in Ben’s head, the sound of them swirling in a drunken haze. How had he suffered? How had he suffered? He had suffered, that was for sure, yet how—how had he suffered? How could he explain in a different language? He took a sip of his wine and went deep into his memory, a labyrinth of infinite clean-cut hedges, trying to find the moment he was most disappointed, most mad at the world. The images flashed in his mind. There were so many, but to pick the one—that was the challenge. He saw hues of flesh, mouths moving, stars shining faintly.

  Then it struck him. Of course, he thought. It was a long story, but he could sum it up. Slowly, he conjured the words in French in his head, and, sloppily, he began to speak.

  “My father,” he said. Mon père. “Mon père was left behind in Vietnam.” Au Viêt-Nam. “When we came to the States, my mom made these cassette tapes for him. She talked to him to tell him about life in America. She did this for years,” he said. “For years.”

  The others nodded.

  Ben continued. “At the end of the tapes, she’d point to the recorder and tell us to say goodbye to our dad. I was still little back then, but for whatever reason, for the longest time I thought our dad lived in the recorder. I thought my dad was the recorder. It wasn’t until I was in school that I knew what a father even was.”

  The wine came to him again, and he emptied it into his glass.

  “A few months ago,” Ben went on, “my dad died. My brother and mom, they board a plane to Vietnam. When they come back, my brother, he says our dad was married to this other woman. This small, quiet, fragile woman who taught poetry and didn’t have children or couldn’t have any children, I don’t know. Anyway, my brother said they lived in this big-ass house with marble floors and photos of the places they went to together and potted plants in every corner, all healthy and green. Nothing like how we grew up. Also, they had a lot of food. Tons of it. A whole walk-in pantry. They had giant meals each night and every morning and every afternoon. Nothing like we had growing up—canned soup, instant ramen. My mom—ma mère—worked all day cleaning people’s hands, their feet, scrubbing calloused heels, inhaling fumes from nail polish removers. She’d come home tired, her head hurting. She couldn’t take care of us. We had nothing growing up. Not a thing.”

  How he was doomed to be disappointed his entire life, Ben thought. And just when he was beginning to like the idea of his father! How his disappointment led him across the world. At the airport, waiting in line to board the plane, he was half tempted not to go. The reason he wanted to go to Paris was to know more about his father, a French literature professor, to connect with him in some deep way. But going, he knew then, would not get him what he wanted. As the flight attendant scanned his ticket, he told himself he was wrong for thinking this—wrong and stupid—and boarded the plane.

  Now Ben looked out the window, then around the room. How empty it was here. How dusty and dark. He pictured his mother moving to Versailles and entering the apartment for the first time. How empty it would have been back then, too. How it would take a lifetime to make a place lived in. He remembered for the longest time they didn’t have a kitchen table and how for some time they had only one bed and then his mother got a bed and he and Tuấn had to share one.

  He wondered what Tuấn was doing now, alone in that duplex house of his, and how he’d made it a home in no time. When Ben lived there, he felt like it was home.

  And now where was he? What had he chosen? That thought came to him often when he realized all of a sudden he was in another country, on another continent, away from where he grew up. But now the question—What had he chosen?—felt heavy, a weighted item you palmed. He should write to Tuấn, he thought. Why hadn’t he done that since he got here? But then he realized he forgot the address; perhaps he never even knew it.

  He felt sleepy. He finished the rest of his wine, stood up, and shook his head. He needed to lie down.

  “Are you okay?” Michel asked, reaching out his hand.

  “What? Oh, yes.” Ben reached out his and smiled. “I’m fine. Just sleepy.”

  * * *

  —

  Ben and Michel became quiet lovers. Michel was a kind man who had grand ideas. The man gave Ben chills and made his heart drop, and he felt like it was love or something like love. For love, he thought, one would sacrifice anything. He would stay with Michel and his friends for the rest of the week.

  They spent the mornings with wine and coffee and conversations. They went to work in the evenings—Michel, a bookseller; Mateo, a busboy; Sergei, a professional beggar. They kept their money in glass jars, plastic cups, bottles. Communists didn’t trust the bank. The commune money was used only for certain things like supplies, revolutionary literature, food, alcohol, and cigarettes. Communists wanted revolution, but they also needed to eat. They had the entire four-story apartment building to themselves. There was a hole in the roof, and when it rained the top floor became soaked. When Michel said that he was sorry, that he wanted to give Ben a better life, and that he was working toward tha
t, Ben said he grew up poor so it didn’t make a difference.

  “Of course! I knew you would understand!” Michel said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  The apartment was all they needed. They were self-sufficient. They had fire, food, shelter; they collected rainwater for showers and were conveniently a block away from a metro stop and a public restroom. They would survive, Michel was sure; they would thrive.

  Ben, against all reason, trusted him, and, within two weeks, left the Austrians. They would miss him, they said. He had been so kind. The girl said she was happy he found love. She squealed gleefully when he told her and looked like she wanted to talk with him genuinely about it the way Ben imagined girls gossiped over boys in high school. Michel was happy to have not only a lover, but also, more important to him, another revolutionary.

  “You will join us, no?” Michel asked one night, his head on Ben’s shoulder. “Join us, the communists?”

  It was funny. No one in America would have so happily called themselves communists. What would his mother think, his mother who ran away from the Việt Cộng, barefoot peasant revolutionaries who changed the course of a country and, consequently, the lives of millions? What would all those people think of this?

  “Oui,” Ben said, “bien sûr.”

  He lay back into the bed and closed his eyes.

  He woke up later that night, hearing his mother’s voice. It sounded like it came on the wind, like it traveled over land and water to tell him something—something important, something to be remembered and kept. But when he opened his eyes, there was only the wall lit by moonlight, a warm arm on his chest. The night was bitterly cold, and he got up to put more wood bricks into the fireplace. He got back to bed and bundled himself tightly, pushing up against Michel for warmth. New Orleans nights were never this cold. And what had he chosen?

  V

  August 2005

  Bà Giang will not leave her apartment. Vinh and Hương stop by on their way out. In a moving box, they’ve packed only what is necessary: food, bottled water, a family photo album, ID cards, passports, the boys’ birth certificates, and all of their naturalization papers.

  “I can’t. I’m too old,” says Bà Giang. “These bones!” She pushes down on her cane to get up from the couch. It is the same corduroy couch she’s had since moving to Versailles. The color’s faded from navy blue to dirty cobalt. With her other arm, she holds her cat, a rescue kitten named Đường—Sugar. It’s white, though Bà Giang swears she’s only that way because her last owner dropped her in a tub of bleach. Đường can’t see, either.

  “And besides, Đường can’t travel. Bác sĩ says so,” Bà Giang adds. “She’s losing her hearing, too!” She holds up the cat adoringly.

  “But the news reports!” says Hương. “Haven’t you heard? What are you watching, Bà Giang?”

  Hương pokes her head inside and sees an old Paris by Night video playing. Women in áo dàis dance with pink umbrellas and sing, Sài Gòn đẹp lắm, Sài Gòn ơi! Sài Gòn ơi!

  Hương walks in, turns off the VCR, changes the channel. The weather reporter wears a poncho and holds his microphone with both hands, though nothing is happening yet. The screen cuts to a map of the Gulf with a spinning red disc moving toward the boot shape of Louisiana.

  “There!” says Hương. “It’ll be here tomorrow, Bà Giang.”

  “Oh, a hurricane,” replies Bà Giang, like she dropped a handkerchief and Hương was kind enough to pick it up. “I’ve seen plenty of those. It’ll just pass.”

  “It’s getting stronger; the weatherman says so.”

  The screen cuts back to the weather reporter. He has a different hat now. It’s red and doesn’t match his yellow poncho.

  “Those men don’t know a thing. But if you’re worrying about me, I’ll tape the windows.”

  “Bà Giang!”

  Outside, Vinh presses down on the horn. It’s nearly midnight. They are going to pick up Tuấn and his girlfriend, who gets off her job at midnight. They are planning to go to Baton Rouge.

  “Hương ơi! I’ve survived the collapse of a country. I’ll survive this. I’m sure I’ll survive anything. Believe it or not, người Việt are like cockroaches. We’ll survive a nuclear bomb!” She laughs, turns the VCR back on. The singing, dancing women spin, spin, spin!

  The horn sounds again.

  “We have to go, Bà Giang. I can’t leave you here. I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “You’ll live just fine,” says Bà Giang. “I promise.”

  * * *

  —

  Addy pedals faster. Tuấn had called her at the restaurant.

  “My mother says it’ll be a direct hit,” he said.

  “Really?” She was folding napkins, holding the phone on her shoulder. She eyed the television. A cartoon was playing. Goofy the dog.

  “Just to be safe, she said she’s coming to pick us up.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Baton Rouge. We’ll get a motel.”

  Addy turned down the volume and plugged a finger into her ear. “What? I can’t hear.”

  “Baton Rouge,” said Tuấn. “We’ll get a motel.”

  When Addy asked Sebastian if she could leave early, he refused. “You know how long my family’s been here?” he asked.

  “A gazillion years, Sebastian!” Addy answered. She’d heard it too many times. Sebastian was a proud New Orleanian, but Addy never understood being proud of coming from a place: you didn’t have any choice in the matter, it just happened. “A gazillion fucking years!”

  “Close. Two hundred,” he said. “We don’t let no freakin’ hurricane drive us out. We’ll be fine. This city floats. We’re practically a rubber duck.”

  She went back to her napkins. There was only one table of guests. Outside, the streets were empty. She tried to remember if any of the animals were acting strangely. A documentary on TV once said animals had a sixth sense about the weather.

  “Watch the animals,” said a Utah park ranger, a canyon yawning behind him. “They know everything.”

  She looked out the window. A plastic bag drifted by and disappeared around the corner.

  At midnight, when the restaurant closed, she rushed out, a baseball cap her only shield from the rain.

  Now Addy slows as she approaches Mr. Franklin’s Grocery. From the street, she can see him in there alone and standing behind the counter with a book.

  Some bottles of water to bring with us, she thinks. A little water wouldn’t hurt anybody.

  * * *

  —

  The water comes rushing at him. At first he tries to swim, but the waves push at him, forcing their way past his lips, down his throat. He tastes the sea and the salt; he tastes it all. On the water’s surface, in the distance, a boat. He whips his arms in the water. He needs to move or else he will die.

  Ben wakes up panicking.

  It was just a dream. A dream! Thank God! Thank all the gods, any of them! Another dream. He sits up and flicks on the light.

  He’d been having dangerous dreams all week. They always involved water. They felt so real that, for a split second, between the dreaming and the waking, he confused them for memory.

  In this dream, he was on a boat.

  “Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice,” they were chanting. Someone had to be sacrificed for the safety of the others. In the middle of the chanting, he—a small boy—was dropped into the ocean.

  “Ça va bien? Qu’est qu’il se passé?” asks Michel, massaging Ben’s back. He touches Ben’s forehead, then goes to the bathroom. Ben hears the squeaky faucet turning on, then off. To think they lived in an abandoned apartment without water or electricity for nearly two months before the city found them and kicked them out. That he put himself through that seems silly now, perhaps even dangerous. Michel comes back with a wet towel.
He places it on Ben’s head. “Fièvre,” he diagnoses.

  “Impossible,” says Ben. “I don’t get sick. It’s the nightmares. They get me worked up.”

  Michel gets ready for work as Ben goes to the window, opens the shutters. It’s so quiet and his dream was so loud. The water, especially. But it’s an ordinary day here now, safe and ordinary.

  Michel comes out of the bathroom, tightening his tie. “Today is your day off, non?” he asks.

  “Oui. J’irai au marché. Nous avons besoin des pommes, des oranges, et des tomates.” Ben has to undo the knot and retie it. Because the kids at the collège won’t take him seriously without a properly tied tie.

  * * *

  —

  Tuấn is packing when the door opens. It’s Addy.

  “They’ve been repeating the same thing all day,” he reports to her. “Higher ground,” he says.

  “Higher ground,” the radio parrots.

  “Sebastian says to stay,” she tells Tuấn, walking to the bathroom. With the door open, she peels off her waitress clothes. Her black skin glistens with sweat. She smiles at Tuấn and pulls on shorts and a tank top.

  She was a friend of his brother’s. For a year, he went to the restaurant where she worked the late-night shift. He got off his shift late and ate dinner alone in a booth. At first he thought she didn’t recognize him, until one day she came up to him with his credit card and receipt and said, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. SBZ himself.”

  It made him blush. He was never one of the Southern Boyz, and he wondered how far that rumor traveled and how long something like that stayed in the air.

  “Let me tell you something,” she had said and sat herself down across from him.

  I’m in for it now, he was thinking. If she remembered the Southern Boyz, surely she remembered the type of guy he was back then. “People change,” he was ready to say.