by Quan Barry
A couple was sitting on one of the stone benches beside the lake. The woman was straddling the man’s lap, her dress hiked up over her thighs. Rabbit breathed a little easier. Time had not stopped for these two lovers on the stone bench, each of them rubbing their arms up and down the other’s back. Rabbit thought of the palest shade of blue, a memory of a man’s ring on her skin. On the bench the woman threw her head back and moaned.
On the other side of the Bridge of the Rising Sun she could see Jade Island where Ngoc Son Pagoda rose just behind the trees. A little farther down the path she chose a bench and sat down, the smell of lemon just at her ear. I will never leave you, said the parakeet. Hush, she said. I know. Rabbit began to scan the lake. Even when you should, you won’t.
They could see things floating on the surface of the water. Plastic bags, empty soda cans, candy wrappers, all manner of trash blowing down out of the Old Quarter and into Hoan Kiem Lake. In the moonlight everything looked like something else. They sat watching the surface for any changes. After a while Rabbit said do you know the legend of the lake? No, lied the bird. Please teach me.
There isn’t much to it, Rabbit said. The Golden Turtle God gave young Prince Le Loi a magical sword called Heaven’s Will. The prince used it to defeat the Chinese. When the battle was over, the Turtle God reappeared and snatched the sword out of the prince’s hand and carried it back to the watery kingdom of the gods. And that’s why they call it Lake of the Restored Sword, said the parakeet, but just then in the water the animal lifted its great head, neck ridged where the thick skin folded up on itself, its aged face somehow full of both benediction and indifference. The turtle moved as if bearing a great weight. In the moonlight the animal was as long as a man. As it came forward, it wagged its ponderous head from side to side, swimming right up to the edge of the lake and stopping as if to speak. The animal floated in the dark water, its eyes glistening. Lady, is this all you wanted, said the parakeet. I don’t know, said Rabbit.
It was a soft-shelled turtle, its carapace without scales, its back leathery rather than infused with the intricate series of plates like its hard-shelled cousins. All throughout Asia the soft-shelled turtle was preferred for eating, its shell smooth, almost pliable at the edges where the upper shell met the lower shell. In Chinese medicine the turtle was associated with the liver and kidneys. Nobody knew how old the turtle of the Lake of the Restored Sword was. Some of the local people said a hundred years. Some said it swam these very waters two thousand years ago when the Buddha walked the earth.
Uncle, said Rabbit. She remembered how as a child she addressed everybody as em, even her elders. The turtle extended its head, its wrinkles disappearing as the skin grew taut, its head and neck almost annelid in nature, not the bulbous head of a tortoise but something more like an eel, smooth and gelid. In the moonlight she could see the open sores on its back, each one the size of a dinner plate, the inflamed skin pink and suppurating. It’s dying, whispered the parakeet. No, said Rabbit. It’s just manifesting the world it lives in.
Rabbit sat for a long time simply looking at the animal, the moon casting everything in a silvery light. The local people believed a sighting of the turtle would bring you good luck. At New Year’s the shores of Hoan Kiem Lake were crowded with people straining for a glimpse. And if I never see you again, thought Rabbit, would I still be me? Nearby a fish jumped in the water.
Suddenly a moonbeam came pouring through the trees. For an instant the turtle appeared healed of every sore, the skin of its back smooth and healthy looking. Then the animal retracted its head and turned to swim back toward the center of the lake. As it began to submerge down into the dark waters, Rabbit could see the sores still oozing on its back.
Lady, said the parakeet. Rabbit opened her eyes. Had she fallen asleep? The moon was shining in the heavens, another moon on the water. It was almost like the dream she’d just had—two moons at opposite ends of the sky.
Someone was sitting on the other end of the bench. Neither she nor the parakeet had seen him sit down. He turned to her and smiled. Even in the shadow of the trees she could see it. I have been waiting for you, the man said. If we are to have any chance at all, we must leave tonight.
Rabbit rubbed her eyes. After all this time. More than half her life. It was true. Life is a wheel. A small red diamond shining on the edge of the man’s scalp.
Life is a wheel. The way we end up where we begin. From here everything rises—the worn path, the moon with its long bright ears. Imagine water traveling back up into the sky, the sound of it climbing like a question. Who would we be if we had stayed?
LINH WAS STARTING TO STIR IN THE BACKSEAT. THERE WERE goose bumps on her arms, the AC on the highest setting even though the sun was still rising. Rabbit didn’t know what to tell her when she woke up. In the rush to leave they had left almost all of their possessions behind. Rabbit herself wasn’t sure where they were going or how they would get there. For the past few hours the moon followed their every move, but it was starting to fade. Outside, the terraces were scattered with dry rice, the hills stubbled with stalks. Dry rice grew easily. The local people prepared the land by burning it and then threw the seed out on the bare ground. The yield was only a quarter of the harvest from a traditional paddy, but it was the way people had grown rice for thousands of years when traditional paddies weren’t possible.
They were almost to Nam Xoi. Tu said there was a small gatehouse on each side of the Laotian border with a soldier in it, and they wouldn’t need any paperwork. The soldier would simply check to make sure they weren’t smuggling any illegal timber from the old forests, that there were no small logs tied to the car’s undercarriage.
In the east the sky was a soft pink. In the backseat Qui sat bright as the moon. When they saw each other for the first time, she and Tu had simply bowed to one another before hurrying together up the stairs to gather Linh from her bed and carry her down to the car. My contact is waiting for us in Vientiane, Tu had said breathlessly as if there were nothing else to explain. I don’t know how long he’ll wait. Qui’s face remained smooth and untroubled, as if she’d always known that one day he would arrive on their doorstep and whisk them away.
The first hour on the road he told them everything about his years in a relocation camp on the Bataan Peninsula and how the Philippine government was in the process of closing the camp and sending the refugees home, repatriating people in, of all places, Cambodia, where the new cease-fire was holding.
Through the years he had moved all throughout Asia. Always east. After the boat hit the mine, he and some of the others had drifted on the wreckage to an island where the people robbed them before calling the authorities. He spent the first four years in a UN refugee camp in Thailand, then another three in Malaysia before being moved to Morong. I thought you were dead, he said. He looked over at Rabbit and tried to smile. An, Phuong, and Sang went straight from Thailand to the U.S. because An had a cousin in Orange County, he said. In the early morning light Rabbit could see what the effort to smile was costing him. Me, I’m former Vietcong, he said. The Americans will never let me in.
Rabbit could sense Qui in the backseat hanging on Tu’s every word. Qui was even more beautiful than the night she had taken Tu in her arms on the floor of the floating house in Ba Nuoc. Behind the wheel Tu looked straight out the window, but somehow his eyes weren’t on the road. For the moment the rising sun and the setting moon were both in the sky at once. There were thousands of people in the camps waiting for a slip of paper, Tu whispered, the birthmark on the edge of his hair shining like a ruby. Almost twenty years, half my life. He glanced at Rabbit. I still get letters from An in California. He sends money. Tu took a deep breath. All these years so many of us trying to get out of Vietnam, he said. An says the American people don’t even know.
With Tu just an arm’s length away, Rabbit didn’t need to ask what had happened to the others. If she closed her eyes and let herself drift off into the light, her ears softly throbbing, she could see
Hai floating in the water with one of his legs blown off. Phuong screaming uncontrollably. The doctor’s wife and the little girl slipping under the surface without a sound, the wife still working her necklace of beads. Pieces of the boat burning in the fog. In the vision Rabbit couldn’t see Duc anywhere. Just the boat’s steering wheel floating on the ocean, Arun’s body drifting nearby, a smile fixed on his face. Three of the Cambodians were still alive and trying to lash together large pieces of wreckage. Rabbit scanned the vision for Huyen, but she knew that was how the old woman would have wanted it. The instant erasure. No fuss.
Then the days dragging on for those left living. The sun burning them all until their skin bubbled. Phuong and Sang clinging to each other. Phuong moaning I want to die and Sang holding tighter to her mother all the while in the rags of her red ao dai. An with a look of madness, grieving for his lost son. None of the remaining Cambodians able to speak Vietnamese. Everyone growing quiet and quieter. Qui and I spent a year in a reeducation camp, said Rabbit. Did it work, said Tu lightly. Were you reeducated? Rabbit snickered. We spent the year weaving baskets.
Then Rabbit had a vision of Tu’s life in the camps. She saw an endless series of threadbare tents like a maze, the smell of human excrement burning in metal drums, the clamor of ten thousand people living in a few acres. During the day some of the men were let out to try and find work. Some of the local people cheated them. Some of the local people were generous. There were two faces Rabbit didn’t recognize, a woman with the trademark pink cheeks of someone from the mountains of Sapa, the capillaries in her skin broken from years of living at ten thousand feet above sea level. A girl stood by the woman with the same thick smile as Tu. There was something else about the girl’s face, an intensity in the eyes, a smattering of freckles. They were carried away by one of the epidemics, said Tu, as if sensing her vision. There were epidemics all the time. His voice was calm, but Rabbit could tell it was hard-earned. Thuy was my wife for eight years. Rabbit glanced in the rearview, but Qui’s marble-white face was inscrutable as ever. Tu continued. Chi was six when they both died.
In the backseat Linh opened her eyes. They were only a few minutes from the border. Are we home yet, she said sleepily. Qui put her arm around her. The front of Qui’s shirt was strangely dry considering she hadn’t had time to nurse an orphaned baby. All they had brought with them was the pale blue rice bowl and the sack of bones.
From the backseat the male parakeet began to flap his wings. Lady. There was an urgency in his voice. Lady, I have something to tell you. Rabbit hadn’t wanted to bring them along, but Qui had insisted in her own silent way. Rabbit remembered being a little girl and watching Binh grow smaller as Huyen paddled away to the floating market to trade the bird for the red ao dai. Okay, Rabbit had said. The birds can come.
The parakeet fluttered into the front seat and landed on Rabbit’s shoulder. Lady, he said. I may never have the chance to speak with you again. The scent of lemon was almost gone from his wings. Hush, said Rabbit, not here. What, said Tu. The border was just up the road. What’s not here, Tu said.
Most of what little traffic there was was coming from the other side into Vietnam. People herded animals and carried goods to sell in Nam Xoi. A few pulled carts loaded with produce. Occasionally the guard would stop one of the large carts and poke around. A few battered trucks were driving into Laos. The guard waved each truck through without stopping them.
When their turn came, Tu rolled down the window. Over the sound of a passing truck Rabbit didn’t hear what Tu said, but she saw him slip some bills into the guard’s hand. For a moment the guard turned and walked away openly counting the money. He stopped and came back a second time. Rabbit heard the guard ask something about the parakeets. If they were the endangered red-breasted variety. They’re green, Linh said, her dimples blazing full force. Her charm didn’t faze the guard. Maybe they’re females, he said. Only the males of that species are red. Brother, I never thought of it that way, said Tu, handing the guard some more money. But they talk just like people, said Linh. Say something, said the guard to the male bird. Xin chao, said the bird. Xin chao, said the guard, and waved them through.
Nobody was standing in the gatehouse on the Laotian side. Tu breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t budgeted for a third bribe.
Looking back to the Vietnamese side Rabbit could see a small figure standing all alone by the guardhouse. Even from where she sat on her way into another country, she could see the scratch running the length of his face.
Twenty minutes later they got out of the car to stretch and get their bearings. The landscape was otherworldly. Towering green hills shot dramatically up out of the ground, a dragon’s back undulating out of the earth, the road winding among the limestone karsts. Rabbit reached out and took the male parakeet off Linh’s shoulder. She walked a little ways up the road. What is it, she said. The bird looked at her with its black eyes. There was no understanding in its face. Xin chao, it said. Xin chao. Xin chao. Then it began cawing.
Tu said they would drive all the way to Vientiane, the City of Sandalwood on the banks of the Mekong. Vientiane Avenue was said to be wide as a river. At the Temple of the Emerald Buddha they would meet his contact who would accompany them into Thailand. Somehow An had arranged everything from the States. Tu said he was the unofficial mayor of Little Saigon. An was the one who had sent Tu the newspaper article from the Viet Herald Daily News in Orange County, in it a story about a psychic in Hanoi who had helped the government discover where a busload of northern veterans had driven off a bridge near Dak To as they were touring old battle sites. In the article one government official was quoted as saying, “Without her, the northern martyrs would forever walk the earth.” An had written in the margins: Cô ta còn sống bao lâu trước khi chính phủ phản bội cô ta? She lives. And: how long before the government turns on her?
Rabbit had known this day was coming. In Vietnam there were voices everywhere she looked. Northern martyrs, southern soldiers. The ethnic tribes. Children. The French. The Americans. The Cambodians. The Chinese. She couldn’t turn her back on them, but it would only be a matter of time before word spread of what she’d found at My Kan. Southerners would flock to the wooden doors on Hang Giay begging her to find their loved ones and tell them who was responsible. The government would put her under house arrest as they had done to a local poet who had penned a song about the southern dead. Rabbit closed her eyes. How could she leave? There will always be souls who need to be found, Tu had said. No matter where you go.
By the roadside she could see Laos stretching out before her. The country was less developed, the terraced hills a brighter shade of green. In the distance water buffalo lumbered through the landscape, everywhere the tops of palm trees like fireworks. Rabbit walked back to the others. This is because of those people in My Kan, isn’t it, Linh said. Rabbit didn’t say no. She knew that when the guard Tong arrived at the big wooden doors on Hang Giay this morning, he would tell his superiors she was missing. Maybe an official had already spoken with Viet. Maybe they already knew about Tao with her child-sized feet and the four hundred and twenty-eight bodies lying in the field by the ruined church. The government doesn’t care about the southern dead, does it, Linh said. They want to pretend it never happened. Nobody said anything. The front of Qui’s shirt remained dry. They got back in the car. The parakeet sat dumbly on Rabbit’s shoulder. An hour later Rabbit felt something wet sliding down her arm. The bird had defecated on her.
Another hour passed before they saw the first of them. The sun was already strong in the east. Qui tapped Tu on the shoulder and pointed. What is that, said Linh. Rabbit could see a series of them off in the distance, each one monolithic like a sentinel. Tu looked surprised. I’ve only heard about them, he said. During the American war the Communist rebels used this area. He glanced at his watch but didn’t slow the car down. The Americans fought a secret war here, he said. Today there are no Hmong left in Laos because of it.
Fifteen minut
es later they came around a turn in the road. The hills were dotted with them as far as the eye could see. Tu couldn’t hide the wonder in his face. Okay, he said. He began looking for a place to pull over.
It took twenty minutes to walk up into the heart of it. At one point Rabbit glanced over at Qui. Something about her seemed different. The front of her shirt was crisp and dry, her face slightly animated, not as stony as usual. It took Rabbit a while to figure out exactly what it was. One of Qui’s arms, the one closest to the window where she’d been sitting, was slightly pink from the sun.
When they got to the first one, Rabbit could see that it was taller than a man, the stone gray and weathered. There were hundreds of them. Some of them looked broken but many were intact. Some lay on their sides so that you could peer into the musty darkness. We’re on the Plain of Jars, said Tu. Jars, repeated Linh incredulously. Tu nodded. Nobody knows who put them here, but they’re thousands of years old. Rabbit brushed one with her hand. It was the size of a small boulder, a circular hole carved in the top. Each one was lidless and cold to the touch. Some say they were built to catch the monsoon rains, said Tu. Others say they form maps of the stars. Linh picked something off the ground and handed it to him. Yes, he said. The thing gleamed in his fingers as if it had been polished. The land here is littered with bones.
Linh tugged Qui’s sleeve. I need a bathroom, she said. Qui nodded and the two of them walked off to find a spot. Whose bones, said Rabbit. Tu shook his head and handed her the fragment. The thing was small and tapered like it might have been part of a foot. It’s probably from the war, said Tu. Rabbit ran her fingers along the tip. Usually direct contact gave her an instant image, the picture so clear, the voice as if screaming.
Rabbit closed her eyes. She stood holding the bone and waiting for its story to come. She could feel the sun moving through the sky. Whole universes being born and falling dead. I can’t hear anything, she said. Maybe it’s too old, said Tu. Rabbit squeezed the bone even tighter in her palm. She sniffed it, then put it to her lips and slipped it in her mouth. It was sour and gritty and silent.
