by Quan Barry
THERE WERE STILL TOURISTS WANDERING THROUGH THE OLD quarter when the van arrived back in the city a little after ten at night. The humidity hung in the air, the mugginess like being trapped in a net. Viet turned onto Hang Giay. Linh waved at the old woman on the corner selling postcards and potato chips. A small fire burned in a basket at her feet.
None of them noticed the shiny black car parked across the alley, its windows tinted, the great wooden doors leading into the courtyard reflected in the car’s glossy paint, the strange car the color of night. None of them gave it any thought as they arrived home, the car simply melting into the landscape.
Viet pulled up out front. The wooden doors looked darker than usual. Sometimes the doors still seemed like they were part of a living tree. On occasion the wood sprouted burls, grew new knots, an occasional twig forking out of the grain, the twig often topped with a small green leaf. Each morning the guard on duty checked the doors for growths, taking out a pocketknife to prune any.
Qui slid the van door open and climbed out, her white hair briefly scraping the ground. She fished the iron key out of her pocket and unlocked the gate. Linh finished putting her shoes on and jumped out of the front seat. Qui gave her a look. Linh sighed and turned to bow to Viet, placing one hand in the palm of the other. Uncle, she said. Thank you for expanding my knowledge of the world. He nodded. Yes, thank you, said Rabbit. Before climbing out of the van, she reached forward and patted his shoulder. For an instant she flashed on a woman in horrible pain, a body stuck inside another body, the pelvis starting to crack, Viet with both hands up in the darkness all the way past the wrist. Quickly Rabbit pulled her hand away. Thank you, she said again, then climbed out.
In the courtyard the parakeets began to caw the few words they spoke to everyone. Xin chao, said the female. Hello, said Linh. She reached her hand out, and the bird landed on her finger. Where is the other lady, said the male, the one named Apple? Rabbit looked around. Already she could hear the van motoring back down the street. She ran out through the wooden doors and looked in all directions. There was just the old woman on the corner with her small fire going. Rabbit rubbed her eyes. Tao was nowhere to be seen, though the faint smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air.
Rabbit closed the doors behind her, the sound like joints filled with water. Isn’t that how you prefer it, said the male bird, no word of thanks, no gratitude? Rabbit nodded. No, you’re right, she said, as if trying to convince herself.
Linh pointed to something in the sky. Is that the North Star? Rabbit and Qui both looked. They were surprised to see anything at all, the thing faintly purple and twinkling. No, it’s a satellite, Rabbit said. There’s too much light here for stars. Qui clapped her hands. It’s bedtime, said Rabbit. The three of them walked into the house. I never see anything, said Linh petulantly, her fatigue obvious. The three of them climbed the stairs. Be thankful for that, said Rabbit.
Even before she entered her own room, Rabbit could see a long shadow quivering on the floor. Not tonight, she thought, but there he was, the scratch rivering down his cheek. He was sitting on her bed, his legs knotted in the lotus position. His hands were in the fear-not position, both palms facing her, his right pointed to the sky, his left straight down. In the moonlight everything took on the same silvery hue as the room inside her head. You may never see me again, Son said flatly. Rabbit’s heart went cold. He never lied.
Quietly she closed the door. Tell me what to do, she said. He got up off the bed. Life will decide, he said. He turned to her and smiled. She was twenty-four years old. He was still a child. She went to him and got down on her knees. He put his arms around her. Outside the moon had slipped behind a bank of clouds, but the room was still strangely bright. It took her a moment to realize. The light was coming from him.
Rabbit closed her eyes. Gently Son kissed her on the forehead, on each cheek, then on the mouth. With his fingers he traced a path through her freckles. For the second time in a lifetime, Rabbit’s heart flooding.
What she will always remember long after the moment is over: the image of his hands in the fear-not mudra as he sat on her bed. The hand position derived from the story of the Buddha’s stroking the head of an elephant sent to kill Him, the elephant maddened by alcohol, but the great beast falling to its knees at the feet of the Buddha because of the Enlightened One’s radiance, His right palm open toward the sky signaling there is nothing to fear, His left lowered to pet the fallen head of His killer.
When she opened her eyes, Son was gone. The sliding door leading out to the balcony was open. There was just the taste of honey on her lips.
Qui knocked on the door and poked her head in. The female parakeet was sitting on her shoulder. The bird’s color looked startling in contrast to the white of Qui’s hair. Lady, said the parakeet. Are you all right? Yes, said Rabbit. She was still down on her knees. Tell the truth, said the bird. When Rabbit didn’t answer, Qui entered the room. She closed the sliding door, untied the mosquito net hanging from the ceiling, and draped it around the bed, then helped Rabbit up off the floor, undressing her before tucking her in and pulling the sheet up to her knees. Close your eyes, said the bird softly. Qui began stroking her hair. After a few minutes Rabbit reached for her. Light from the darkness. Comfort beyond anything imaginable, the sweetness erasing any bitterness she’d felt. The bird began to sing:
Beloved, stay with me. Do not go home!
Your leaving makes me weep inside
And the collar of my dress is wet with tears as if it has rained.
Oh my beloved, stay. Do not go home!
When Rabbit gets out of the van, she can hear bells ringing. In the distance the night sky is lit up with fireworks, the sky softly purple like a bruise. They are ten miles south of the City of Peace in the hamlet of My Kan. As they move about there is the feeling of walking through water, everything slow and deliberate, the earth spongy under one’s feet. Look at me, says Linh. She holds her arms out like a tightrope walker and tiptoes around as if she weighs nothing at all.
So, says Tao. Her voice is casual as if they have come all this way on a whim. In the sky a full moon sits at twelve o’clock with a halo around it, the halo so sharp and clear one could mistake it for a second moon. What happens next? The smoke billows in and out of her face without end, though she doesn’t appear to be holding a cigarette. Shhh, says Rabbit. She is already turning and walking out into the middle of the field. Overhead the dual moons shine like a double-yolked egg.
Rabbit stops and twirls around three-hundred and sixty degrees. Flatness in every direction. A small creek gurgles by the roadside. Nothing. No landmarks. No houses. No animals. Something is wrong with the earth and everything smells scorched. She twirls around again only faster. This time as she moves she catches glimpses of figures slipping over the horizon. The sound of fireworks intensifies. The burning smell gets closer. She twirls faster. The field fills with voices. Anger and fear. She is spinning so fast the world is a blur. Something swoops down out of the sky. Rabbit stops. Through the dizziness she can see the ruins of a building in the purple light. When she regains her equilibrium, she begins to walk toward it.
It’s a Catholic church. She can tell by the broken steeple lying on its side, the roof mostly missing, exposed ceiling beams running crosswise. Bowls of dried grass lie in piles where things have nested. Other pieces of the building are scattered in the tall weeds. An iron bell sleeps hidden in the brush. When she raps it with her knuckles, the metal rings as expected. Tap it twice, the metal doesn’t sound at all.
Rabbit picks her way inside. The wooden floor is cracked and furred with plant growth and animal droppings. By the door is a marble font filled with debris and a single plastic shoe. Nothing is left inside. The windows are all missing, just one shard of blue glass hanging in an alcove over the altar. Probably the remnant of someone’s holy robe or maybe the ocean somebody walked on.
Then Rabbit sees her. A small girl is standing in the doorway where the sacristy should be to the r
ight of the altar. The door itself is missing and the opening leads directly outside. The girl is no taller than Linh and completely naked, her impassive face smeared with dirt and maybe worse. The child’s ribs run up and down the sides of her chest like a ladder. There were more than four hundred of us in here, says the girl. She runs a finger through the filth on the altar. Though Catholic, we still celebrated Tet, she says. We were going to begin our feast after mass when the first knock sounded on the door. The last thing I ever ate was banh chung. Do you like banh chung? Rabbit pictures the small green squares of rice and bean curd wrapped in banana leaves. Very much, Rabbit says. The girl smiles.
Moonlight pours through the empty windows. The dirt and grime blaze silver, a magical dust coating everything. There were fewer than a hundred of us when it started, the girl says. We were giving each other the sign of peace. Even when the others began to arrive and beg us to let them in, people were still greeting the new arrivals with the traditional salutations. Security. Health. Happiness. May you live a hundred years. Gracious wishes for the new spring. Peace be with you. Behind them the night lit up with fires.
The first ones who came were a mother and her three children. The woman was what my father called shell-shocked. It was the little boy who told us they were killing the monks in Hue, lining them up and marching them outside the city. I still remember something he said. “I saw the monks in their orange robes floating peacefully along like suns.” My mother pulled me to her. One of the elders said out of the mouths of babes.
We took refuge in this church for nineteen days. After ten days there was nothing left to eat. The banh chung all gone. The fish and the chickens and the two pigs. More and more people coming. Telling us they were rounding up the civil service workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, the intellectuals. After the monks they went after the families of the southern soldiers, then anyone they suspected of having ties to the Americans. The girl puts her palms facedown in the grime on the altar. It was the Year of the Monkey, she says. Monkey is a trickster. Firmly the girl presses her filthy hands on her chest. When she pulls them away there are handprints on her skin, fingers splayed like the twinkling of stars. She smiles. Nothing was as it seemed, she says.
The northern soldiers finally found us. They told us to come out. They said they wouldn’t hurt us. They said they’d just send the bad ones among us to reeducation camps and then we would all be brothers and sisters. For nine days we had been praying to the Lady, someone among us always reciting a Hail Mary. When one person would tire, someone else would take up the thread, the words like a constant river. The girl stands drawing on her body with the dirt from the altar. She traces a circle around her belly button, and through the open roof the halo around the moon intensifies.
The soldiers threw a grenade through one of the stained-glass windows, she says. Three people died. She looks at Rabbit. Would you rather die instantly or piece by piece? In the sky the two moons are beginning to merge. Instantly, says Rabbit. The girl considers this.
When they took us outside, my father still had some old C4 on him. We had been using it to cook inside the church. Months before my brother had found a brick of it along a trail. We used it the way the Americans did. We’d shape small balls and light it on fire. The Americans were always heating their rations and leaving the metal tins lying around. We’d use the C4 when we didn’t have any firewood. The flames aren’t the color of regular fire, you know. The girl stops to think. I don’t know how to describe it, she says. Almost a gray-blue.
The girl claps her hands together, sending the dust on her fingers up into a small sparkling cloud. As she breathes her ribs expand and contract like bellows. They shot Ba right away, she says. Afterward they said he was an American stooge. The C4 proved it. Why would an innocent man have the trappings of the capitalist pig on his person? The soldier shot Ba through the neck, but I know he meant to shoot him in the head. His aim was bad because he was weak and hungry. I remember he didn’t look much older than my brother. When he shot Ba, none of us screamed. I don’t know why. Maybe we were too hungry. I just stood watching the life leak out of him.
The girl stops talking. She turns her head as if listening for something. The moon is a solid mass in the sky. The girl looks at Rabbit and backs out the open door of the sacristy, the dust glowing on her body. For a moment all Rabbit can see are handprints and a circle glittering in the doorway. By the time Rabbit gets there, the girl is gone.
In the field behind the church Rabbit can hear the sound of running water. In the distance a creek cuts along the edge of the land. Rabbit begins to walk toward it. She takes her shoes off and walks barefoot. The earth feels spongy beneath her feet. Her soles are stained a dark red, but with what she doesn’t know.
By the creek, Rabbit lets the history wash over her. The occupation of Hue and the surrounding countryside lasts a month. At first the Communists are almost reasonable, thinking they can hold the city. When it becomes evident they can’t, they begin gouging bottomless pits in the earth.
Then Rabbit hears it, the vein throbbing under her feet. What she has come here to find. She thinks back to the Black Tai in Anne-Marie. She can feel the nausea rising in her throat. It’s like nothing she has ever experienced. One could walk right over the spot and think nothing of it. In this tiny hamlet of My Kan, the number of people killed is three times the number of people who lived there, four hundred and twenty-eight dead, and they’re all right here where Rabbit is standing, though the government in Hanoi would deny it.
Rabbit can feel the earth being shoveled over them. Many of them are still alive when it happens, everywhere people drowning in earth. A handful will survive this moment, carrying the taste of dirt in their mouths with them forever. Toward the end two little girls are thrown in hand in hand, one shadowing the other, both their faces still as stone, one with a bullet through the stomach, the other intact, their feet small as the rose before it blossoms. The girls are obviously sisters, perhaps even twins, their eyes starry as the night sky from which they come. The young soldier in charge misbelieves what he sees, maddened by the blood and gore. I’ve already shot that one, he thinks. Look. Her own ghost already walks at her side.
From here it all grows stranger. Everywhere the dolorous ringing of bells. A roomful of jars filled with two-headed babies. Women in red ao dai flying through the air. A man playing a bone flute, the instrument as long as the man is tall, the music like the crying of seabirds, their voices calling Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Then Rabbit sees Her. It is the only time She has ever appeared to Rabbit in any form. The Lady robed in what appears to be a burlap sack, Her thousand arms wilted like the petals of a dead flower. In the sky the moon has separated again, the two moons distinct and some distance apart, the whole sky between them, each one shining in a different direction, light falling on opposing paths. Then the Lady arranges each of Her hands in the fear-not position, five hundred palms blossoming skyward, the others pointing to the earth, Her hands radiating from Her body like the brilliance of a star. Rabbit can feel her mouth filling with dirt. Everything grows dark. The last thing she sees is a small green bird sitting on each of the Lady’s many splendid shoulders.
In your travails on earth, do not forget the wisdom of the animals. Even the Conquering Buddha lived numerous animal lives as the Monkey King, the Deer King, the Goose King, the King of the Elephants, the King of the Rats.
RABBIT OPENED HER EYES. THE DISTANT RINGING OF BELLS lingered in the air. The heat in the room was unbearable. She could hear the wood swelling in the door jambs, tears raining down the mirror. Moonlight poured through the window hot as sunbeams. She threw back the sheets and got out of bed. For the moment nothing else mattered. After the darkness she’d witnessed in My Kan, she needed to see it, needed it to rise to the surface of the water with its ageless face and wrinkled carapace and bestow its good fortune on her. She pulled on some clothes and slipped downstairs and out into the courtyard.
From the color of
the night she guessed it was well after two. In the courtyard there was the smell of lemons. Something stirred in one of the trees. Lady, said the male parakeet, hopping out on a branch. May I serve you? Yes, said Rabbit. Swiftly the bird flew down off the bough and landed on her shoulder.
The strange black car with the tinted windows was still parked outside the gate, but she paid it no notice. For once the great wooden doors swung open silently as if oiled. On the right-hand door a small twig shot straight out of the wood, a furled green bud just at the tip where a leaf would open with first light.
Rabbit turned left on Hang Buom, the Street of Sails, and headed east to Hang Ngang. Everywhere people slept out on the sidewalk. On hot summer nights families dragged their mats down out of the upper floors of apartment buildings to sleep out in the open. At the end of the Street of Beautiful Women, Rabbit could see the water shining through the trees. The city was preternaturally quiet. Nothing moved, not a leaf or a blade of grass. Even the few fires they’d passed along the way burned as if frozen, their flames scarcely grabbing at the air. Rabbit began to wonder if something else were at play, if the world had stopped and she and the bird were walking outside of time. What if it doesn’t come to you, said the parakeet. Then that will be my answer, said Rabbit.
