Lady of the Realm

by Hoa Pham

  Hoa Pham is a psychologist, author and playwright. She has written seven previous books. Her novella Wave, published by Spinifex Press in 2015, has been optioned as a film, and rights for a translation have been sold to Vietnam. Hoa won the Best Young Writer Award from the Sydney Morning Herald for her novel Vixen. The Other Shore won the Viva La Novella Prize. Her play Silence was on the VCE drama list in 2010. Hoa is also the founder of Peril magazine, an Asian-Australian online arts and culture magazine.

  Hoa has received funding support from the Australia Council of the Arts and has been on an Asialink residency in Vietnam, and fellowships at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and the Goethe Institute Berlin. She has a doctorate in creative arts and also holds master degrees in both creative writing and psychology. She lives in Melbourne.

  OTHER BOOKS BY HOA PHAM

  Wave (2015)

  The Other Shore (2014)

  Silence (2010)

  Vixen (2000)

  Quicksilver (1999)

  49 Ghosts (1998)

  No-one Like Me (1998)

  Published in Australia by Spinifex Press, 2017

  Spinifex Press Pty Ltd

  PO Box 105

  Mission Beach Qld 4852

  www.spinifexpress.com.au

  women@spinifexpress.com.au

  © Hoa Pham, 2017

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

  Copying for educational purposes

  Information in this book may be reproduced in whole or part for study or training purposes, subject to acknowledgement of the source and providing no commercial usage or sale of material occurs. Where copies of part or whole of the book are made under part VB of the Copyright Act, the law requires that prescribed procedures be followed. For information contact the Copyright Agency Limited.

  Editor: Pauline Hopkins

  Cover design: Deb Snibson

  Typesetting: Helen Christie

  Typeset in Times New Roman

  Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Pham, Hoa, 1972– author.

  Lady of the realm / Hoa Pham.

  9781925581133 (paperback)

  9781925581157 (ebook)

  9781925581140 (ebook: pdf)

  9781925581164 (ebook: epub)

  Vietnam—Social life and customs—Fiction.

  Vietnam—Fiction.

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  FSC symbol (printer to insert)

  For Alister Air, my good heart, and to the memory of Prajna Monastery, Vietnam and Thích Nhất Hạnh where I finally came home.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  I have loosely based this novella on the following moments in history: the Vietnam/American War 1961–1975, and the exile of Thích Nhất Hạnh from Vietnam in 1966 (approximately 19 monks and nuns self-immolated during this period); the period of đổi mới in the 1980s in Vietnam to the opening up of Vietnam in the 1990s to 2000s to foreigners; and the destruction of Prajna Monastery by the Vietnamese government in 2009.

  What is called the Vietnam War in the West is known in Vietnam as the American War. I use the latter term to reflect the viewpoint of the protagonists.

  The Việt Minh was a communist political and paramilitary organisation originating in Northern Vietnam working to overthrow foreign influences in the country. Viet Cong was the term used by the US military for the forces they were fighting. There is some contention about the two terms and their usage. For my fictional purposes the Việt Minh describes the force in the North pre-1965 and the Viet Cong in the American War. The National Liberation Front is another term also used for the Viet Cong.

  Hồ` Chí Minh City is the official name for the city previously known as Saigon.

  PROLOGUE

  Looking back over the years, it seems that time stretches and contracts, depending on my experience of each moment. Some moments are etched in my memory, like the sunlight patterning the water in the river, ethereal moments captured only by my mind. Other longer stretches of time are a blur, marked only by rituals and meditative pauses that remind me that I am still alive. More poignant are the memories of what I have lost, assuaged only after years of suffering by the wisdom and compassion I have gained.

  Quan m listens to the sufferings of the world, as does the Lady of the Realm.

  The past is entwined with the present, as is the future. Being mindful of each moment can make peace possible. I’ve only experienced peace for a few years, but having this experience makes me hopeful that times of peace can come again.

  Unfortunately it will be too late for the dead.

  HIẾU,

  LOVE OF FAMILY

  SOUTH VIETNAM, 1962

  The story began long ago … it is old. Older than my body, my mother’s, my grandmother’s … For years we have been passing it on. So our daughters and granddaughters may continue to pass it on.

  TRINH MINH-HÀ

  Women, Native Other

  Once I was young and carefree of the world. Those times seem idyllic to me, but only in recollection.

  The Lady first called to me in a dream. I was pleasantly exhausted from another day of fishing with my family, the salt tang on my lips, caking my hair, covering my skin. I was wedged comfortably between my mother and my sister and fell into heavy sleep.

  My dream was underwater. I could breathe and I walked on the ocean floor surrounded by brittle corals and bones. When I looked closer I saw rib cages and human skulls among the debris. Fish brushed past me, indifferent to my presence. Then I saw human bodies floating by, bloated on the ocean surface. Fishermen from my village, their blood trailing in the water.

  Shocked awake, I sat up. I clutched at my mother’s heavy body wanting her to reassure me. But she was sound asleep. In the darkness my eyes teared up at the vision of the dead people. What was the goddess trying to tell me?

  I lay back down again and was sucked back into sleep.

  In the morning I went to the đình, the village square, where a wooden effigy of the Lady of the Realm was kept in the centre hall. Bowing to Bà, my grandmother, who tended the shrine, I clutched a bunch of purple wildflowers for the Lady, and a rice cake from my breakfast. Bà opened up the hall for me and bade me enter.

  I bowed to the wooden figurine shrouded in the shade of the morning sun. She wore a bright pink cloth veil made by my grandmother, and her serene face bore a half-smile. The hall always had a hush about it due to the meditating and worship for the Lady and I walked slowly on the hallowed ground.

  Bà stood behind me as I offered my flowers to the goddess. As I recounted my dream my fingers began to tremble and I wished to cry again.

  “Child that is a dire dream,” Bà told me. She enveloped me in her arms and I received the comfort I rarely received from my busy mother.

  “It’s a message from the goddess.”

  “But who would kill our people like that?” I asked innocently.

  “Invaders from the North. The Việt Minh want to control all of Vietnam,” Bà told me.

  “What do we do?”

  “I will tell our village head. We should post watchmen to look out while we are fishing and plan our hiding places. And we shall pray to the Lady of the Realm and thank her for her warning.”

  I nodded, reassured. The village head, Bác, was grandmother’s nephew and would do what she said. I b
owed again before the Lady, and prayed to her that my dream would not come to pass.

  But my stomach still cramped with misery from my dream and my tears still threatened when I went out to help gut the fish from the morning catch.

  “What’s wrong with you?” snapped my sister.

  “I had a nightmare,” I mumbled, knowing better than to ask for sympathy.

  “Hhhmph!” she dismissed turning her attention back to Học, the fisherman she had been flirting with.

  I turned back to the messy fish guts on my hands and wanted to vomit. Swallowing bile I willed myself not to be sick, though all I wanted to do was to curl up in bed.

  That afternoon was the day of my first bleeding. I first thought I had wet myself during our afternoon nap-time. I bled through my pants and snuck out to the river to wash them in shame. I was so miserable I did not notice Bà until she put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “You are now a woman Liên,” Bà told me proudly and patted me on the arm.

  At that moment, it was the last thing I would have wished on anybody.

  That afternoon I met up with Tài, my closest friend. He was standing in the river opening up the fish traps in the fast-running current.

  “What’s wrong Liên?” he asked, clambering up to me, after spotting my miserable hunched-up form by the riverbank.

  I reddened under his caring gaze.

  “I’m bleeding,” I whispered embarrassed under my breath. “Like a woman,” I added as he drew a shocked breath.

  He put his arm companionably around me as if nothing had changed. He flicked his fingers showering me with little droplets of water and I smiled.

  “You’re still Liên,” he said as if to reassure me. For the first time I looked at him side on and saw his profile anew. Just the other month his voice had broken, and I had teased him and his voice see-sawing like an opera singer. Now his chin was more manly and his voice settled deep. Then, as if aware of my gaze, he looked away.

  “I had a dream from the Lady,” I told him shyly. “The Việt Minh came and destroyed our village. They destroyed the statue of the Lady.” Tears started in my eyes.

  “Why would they come here? We have no gold. We’re just fishermen.”

  I smiled tentatively wanting to believe him.

  “So that is why they want me in the trees instead of on the river. I thought it was Bà’s will no more. Are you going to be the mouthpiece of the Lady after Bà?”

  I nodded.

  He grinned at me and ruffled my hair.

  “I always knew you were special, Liên,” he said and leapt up to jump back into the river to fix the fish traps. His easy acceptance warmed me as much as the sun did that day.

  The next morning we were woken up by a shout from Tài. A group of refugees were coming to the village! I ran with the others to the village đình to hear their news.

  They were bloody and wounded, a couple of men, four women and just one child.

  “The Việt Minh destroyed everything,” their leader told us. He had only narrowly escaped with his life by pretending to be dead.

  Carrying my breakfast offering in my hands for the Lady, I was shocked by the families straggled and bloody before us. The little boy stared at the breakfast cake in my hand.

  Impulsively, I gave it to him.

  The Lady would not mind, I thought. She looks after everyone and would not want him to go hungry.

  The head of the village, Bác, stared at me.

  “Liên,” he indicated that I should step forward.

  “Is this what you dreamed?”

  Confronted by the stark reality of the survivors, I could only nod.

  “Liên has been touched by the Lady of the Realm. She foresaw that this would happen.”

  I felt the attention of my village turn onto me and I wilted under their scrutiny.

  “She is a virgin,” whispered Học to one of the others. “That is why she has been touched by the goddess.”

  I felt my sister’s anger and jealousy next to me, like a slow heat.

  “What did you dream last night?” the head demanded.

  I shook my head miserably. I did not want my dreams to come true.

  “I dreamt of bones,” I whispered softly.

  “She dreams of bodies under the sea.” Thankfully Bà stepped in for me. Her tortoiseshell hairpin glinted in the sun as she spoke.

  Muttering arose like the whispering of waves amongst the village.

  “We have to take heed of this warning,” Bác said.

  The refugees did not want to stay long. The village head generously gave them a fishing boat so they could sail out into the ocean and make landfall elsewhere. They warned us that the Việt Minh were close and we should abandon the village and run.

  But Bác refused.

  “We will know when they come. This is the land that we were born in. We will not abandon it so easily. The Lady will warn us when we should flee.”

  He looked to me and I wished I deserved the faith that he placed in my dreams.

  Tai stood to one side, his arms crossed, frowning. There was none of his cocksure ease now. When the village meeting dissolved, he came to my side.

  “Liên, I did not know that you dreamed true.”

  I looked away from him. Other people were staring at me, then at the refugees, as if I myself had turned into the Lady.

  “I didn’t know either,” I admitted.

  Tài looked at me a moment longer then touched my cheek with a finger. “I’d better go back on watch,” he said, and ran back to the trees with his easy lope.

  I brushed my cheek with a wondering hand as Bà came up beside me protectively.

  “Liên needs to rest,” she told the curious villagers who used to scold me and regard me as no more than another of the village cats.

  I felt their eyes upon me as I walked slowly back to our dwelling alone.

  That night the refugees stayed in the village đình, sleeping under the watchful eye of the Lady of the Realm. My father stayed up late in the night talking to them, trying to discover what the Northerners were wanting. My mother, sister and I huddled in our house, waiting for his return.

  “We must pray to the Lady that they do not come here,” mother said. She brushed my hair gently, for the first time in months. Her tenderness touched me. Usually mother was too exhausted and had no time. But tonight she tended both my sister and me. When I haltingly told her about my period, she nodded and showed me how to knot the rags around my waist better to staunch the bleeding.

  Father came home frowning. He seemed to have aged since talking to the refugees.

  “Tell us more about your dream,” he rapped out to me impatiently.

  “I told Bác everything,” I said miserably. I did not want my dreams to come true, and I was getting cramps from my period.

  “You must tell us if you dream again,” Father told me. He turned to Mother and they whispered in the dark as if we could not understand. I lay next to my sister, wide awake, wondering what it was they hid from us. I feared to dream again. What would happen if all my dreams came true? I remembered the bloated face of Học floating by in the ocean.

  I had not seen my own family. What did that mean?

  “Lady …” I whispered in the darkness. Moving my lips silently I formed my own prayers to her while my parents finally fell silent and asleep.

  The next morning when I woke, my family were already clustered around me.

  “Did you dream?” my sister pounced in first. I shook my head.

  “You’re nothing special,” my sister jibed at me when mother’s back was turned.

  Mother gave me a cup of tea and my favourite rice cake with an egg yolk in the middle.

  When I came out to do my morning duties and visit the Lady of the Realm, half the village was clustered around the đình. The refugees were sitting in the sun, eating breakfast. Their eyes were wide open and they were exhausted as if they had not slept at all. Bác came over to me at once and bowe
d his head as if I was my grandmother.

  “Did you dream?” he asked.

  “No I did not,” I replied helplessly.

  He took me by the elbow and escorted me to the centre of the hall to the Lady of the Realm. Bà had shrouded her in white cloth. The offerings laid out for her were like a banquet – fish wrapped in banana leaves, fruit, flowers and sweets.

  Bà was waiting there, clipping her tortoiseshell hairpin into her bun. I was glad when Bác left me alone with her.

  “Did you dream, child?” Bà asked, and from her, the query was kind and gentle, not the interrogation of my family and my village. She was concerned about me not just the contents of my dream.

  I shook my head wanting to cry. I could feel the eyes of the other villagers and the refugees on me, as if I were the Lady of the Realm. I could not shake off the empty hugeness of the refugees’ eyes. They clutched at me as if for luck, touching me like they would touch her statue.

  “How is your bleeding?” Bà whispered to me as I stood up from bowing to the Lady of the Realm.

  “It hurts.”

  “Come with me and I’ll brew some herbal medicine for you.”

  I followed my grandmother to our now empty house. She sat me down and sorted through some medicinal herbs to boil.

  “Will the Lady of the Realm protect us?” I asked her.

  “She is protecting us by sending warnings to you, little Liên.” Bà said.

  “Why me?” I tried not to whimper.

  Bà turned from putting the herbs on to boil and touched my head lightly.

  “The Lady speaks most to those who listen for her,” she said cryptically and I frowned.

  I knew that I was Bà’s favourite and when she died, I was to succeed her as keeper of the Lady. My sister wanted a husband and my parents were too busy fishing.

  “Why didn’t she warn the other village?” I asked.

  Bà sighed and sat down next to me.

  “Perhaps she did and no one heard her.” Bà began plaiting some long grasses together with flowers to make a garland for the Lady.