by Julia Legian
Everyone was excited with the news. It didn’t matter to us if it was a boy or a girl.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He’s at the boatyard helping the neighbours,” Phuong answered.
“I have to go and tell Dad.”
I left the hut and took my time walking to the shore where Dad and the neighbours worked. I looked up at an unfinished wooden boat that stood on timber posts high above the ground but I couldn’t see anyone.
“Dad, are you there? Hello, Dad, can you hear me?”
His head appeared over the side of the boat. “What the hell do you want?”
Undaunted by his cold greeting, I gave him a huge grin. “Mum has a baby sis … sister for us,” I said, fear clutching at my chest as I spoke.
“What did you say,” he shouted. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a g … girl, Daddy,” I replied.
His face shuttered and he looked beaten. “Not another bitch! Are you sure it’s not a boy?”
I nodded my head.
He shook his head in bitter disappointment. “You go tell your mother not to come home with another girl or I’ll kill you all,” he shouted. “Now get lost.”
Mum was afraid to come home. She decided to stay with the midwife and wait for Dad to cool down. When she finally returned with teeny Ngoc, Dad refused to look at her. He swore at everyone including God, every minute of the day.
Dad came in one afternoon while Mum was sitting on the hammock breast-feeding Ngoc. He took one look at Ngoc and flew into a rage. “What a disgusting thing. That is not my offspring. There is no resemblance. You filthy woman, you must have been sleeping with our deformed neighbour; she looks just like him. You’re nothing but an unfaithful bitch.”
Mum fired a few rounds of her deadly venomous words at Dad. He walked away.
He stayed away a lot after that. We had no idea where he went or what he did and Mum heard from neighbours that he’d been drinking, going to the cock fighting and sleeping with promiscuous women. The neighbour said he was regularly staying with a popular hooker named Hien and that Dad was crazy about her. Mum said Hien was a man who had been trapped in an ugly woman’s body.
Dad only came home when he was drunk out of his head, needed a place to stay or wanted to pick a fight with Mum. He smelled like a garbage tip, vomited all over the house and took a leak wherever he felt like it.
Mum would begin her horrific sexual comments. She called Dad a loser and told him to run home to his mother to suck on her bosoms and kiss her behind and to beg for forgiveness.
“Cover your ears, girls. Be, stop using that filthy language in front of your children,” Grandma begged.
“Get out of my house, old bitch, if you don’t like the way I talk,” Mum yelled at her mother.
Hurt, Grandma replied, “I’m only here because of my precious grandchildren. If it wasn’t for them, I would not stay for one single second even if you paid me a million dollars in gold. They are innocents and they don’t deserve to live like this.”
“Precious my arse. If it wasn’t for them he wouldn’t have treated me this way. It’s all their fault.”
Grandma gently pushed us behind her.
Mum turned back to Dad, abusing him all over again.
Dad lunged at her, pulling her hair, smashing her head against the pole over and over until she fell to her knees. Then he grabbed a cooking pot and smashed it against her face. Dropping the pot, he picked up a razor sharp meat cleaver, aiming it straight at her heart.
Grandma rushed over and grabbed his arm but he swung her across the room, shaking her off like a feather. “Run Be, run. Get out of here quickly,” Grandma cried.
Mum got to her feet at lightning speed and fled, running as fast as her injured, bruised body would allow her. She didn’t come home for days and Dad left too. For a brief window of time we had peace and quiet. It brought me back to thinking about those happy days in Cau Di.
“Grandma, why do my parents fight all the time? Why does Mum hate Dad’s mother so much. How come we never see Dad’s mum or dad?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you when you grow older.”
“You always say that. C’mon Grandma I’m old enough to understand, please tell me, please, please.”
“Ok, tomorrow,” Grandma said again.
I was restless that night. I couldn’t wait for the morning to arrive.
“So Grandma, remember your promise yesterday?”
“Not today, my little princess. You’re too young to understand. I promise I will tell you everything someday.”
“It’s not fair, Grandma. You always do this to me,” I cried.
Chapter 4
We must have spent another two long agonising years or so living with my loony parents while Hanh’s health rapidly went downhill. The little money Grandma had was wasted on junk pills and on hopeless doctors’ fees. Hanh’s daily bizarre behaviour took its toll on Grandma. My sister was behaving like she was possessed. During the day, she would sit quietly and stare at people with a mean evil look, as if she was going to eat you alive. Then out of nowhere she would start screaming.
“Leave me alone, I don’t want to go with you,” Hanh yelled.
“Who’s after you, my love? Who did you talk to? Who wants to take you away?” Grandma asked.
“That long haired woman in white, Grandma. Please tell her to go away!” Hanh pointed to an empty wall.
Many times Grandma told the ghost to leave Hanh alone. Phuong and I thought Grandma was only humouring Hanh to calm her down.
Everyone was scared of Hanh and really afraid to come near her. She was frail and weak. She wouldn’t eat proper food; all she did was sniff kerosene from our lamp and eat raw rice. As soon as the sun went down she came alive.
She would start yanking Grandma’s hair, kicking, biting and calling her all kinds of vile names. She’d tell Grandma to go away and leave her alone.
Dad was rarely home and Mum was too busy feeling sorry for herself and spent all of her time in bed weeping over her tragic life. Grandma had to deal with Hanh on her own while also looking after the other kids. It came to the point she could no longer afford to feed and care for all of us.
Every night we went to bed with gnawing hunger pains, the kind of pain that rolls through your intestines and your stomach screams for food.
“Grandma, please give us some food to eat. We’re hungry,” we cried.
“Shhh, here my little darlings, drink this rain water. It will make you feel better,” Grandma said.
“No, Grandma. I don’t want to drink it any more. It doesn’t do anything. I’m still in a lot of pain,” I complained.
“Shhh, my little princess. How about you help Grandma to go around the neighbourhood tomorrow morning and borrow some rice so I can cook some porridge for you. You’re a smart little girl, I know you can get some for us,” Grandma said. She stroked my hair and asked me to chant Nam Mo A Di Da Phat until I fell asleep while she comforted my younger sisters.
The morning came and I went around asking people for some raw rice. I was the only one willing to go begging. I had no shame; I didn’t care if I copped abuse. I knew I had to do whatever it took in order for us to survive. A few people were kind and reluctantly gave me a small amount of rice, but most of them were not happy to see me. They threatened to break my legs if I ever set foot in their yards again.
By now we dressed in tattered clothes, walked barefoot and got cut by sharp objects. Our feet became infected and pus flowed out of the wounds around the clock.
“Loan, get those filthy maggots and flies away from your foot otherwise the infection will get worse and I’ll have to chop your legs off,” Grandma said.
“It’s okay, Grandma. I put the maggots there. I want them to suck on my wounds. It stings a little but it helps to take away the pain. Look, Grandma, can’t you see the swelling is going down?” Grandma shook her head.
Our shack suffered, too. With each tide the water eroded the sho
re more and crept closer to the structure to the point where the waves started beating against our wall. As the days went by and the sea threatened to pull the shack into the murky water, Phuong and I had to cling to the post that held up the structure, to try to keep it stable. We often slumped to the ground, exhausted and soaking wet and we fell asleep while still clinging onto the pole.
Grandma had had enough of the way we were living. She took Tien and Ngoc to My Tho for my aunties to take care of them. That was the first time I heard that my Mum had two younger sisters, Cuc and Thuy. According to Grandma, Aunty Cuc ran a successful business smuggling cigarettes and fabrics from Cambodia.
Dad had left home and come back more times than I could remember. At this point he decided to come home for good since he was broke and had fallen ill. None of his so-called lovers, not even Hien, that man trapped in the body of an ugly woman and supposedly his greatest lover, was prepared to look after him.
Mum was happy that her prince charming had returned. She stopped feeling sorry for herself and began sorting fish. Every night the fishermen went out to sea looking for fish. Each morning the poor women from the village and their children waited for them to come back with their catch. Mum woke up early at around 4.00AM and looked for a spot. She fought with the others like mad dogs for a place in the circle. The fishermen dumped their load in the middle and everyone jumped up to grab their share; then they started sorting the catch by size and type. There was no pay for this work. The owner of the fish decided how much of the leftover seafood, the poor quality stuff they could not sell as food but turn into fish sauce, to give to each worker. For the poor this was their daily food.
Sorting fish at the bay
To earn some money and impress Dad further, Mum started buying some of the lower quality fish on credit looking to sell it and make a small profit. Each day she got two heavy loads that she carried on her shoulders from house-to-house around the town, some days until midnight. On a good day she came home with fresh bread rolls and some candies. It was a gift from Heaven for us kids.
Most days, however, she came home in tears because she couldn’t sell her fish. Ice was very rare and expensive in the 70s; dearer than the fish. The ice dealer would not sell ice on credit and that meant most of the time Mum was left with rotten fish nobody wanted. She could not even turn her rotten seafood into fish sauce as that took hours and hours of cooking. She could hardly afford the wood for our daily cooking, let alone to make the sauce.
On the bad days she’d come home in tears and Dad would beat her up until she stopped crying. The debts mounted. On top of that we had Hanh and Dad’s medicines and other debts from his previously extravagant lifestyle - all of which weighed heavily on us. The debt collectors started to come knocking on our door demanding payment. They abused Mum for not paying. She cried and got down on her knees to beg for mercy and for more time. These days were tough on the whole family.
Chapter 5
Some people believe in curses and some don’t. Hanh had been sick for a long time. Whether her sickness came from sniffing kerosene and only eating raw rice or if that was just another consequence of a curse, you can decide for yourself.
Every evening Hanh turned into a vicious child. She attacked Grandma like a bloodthirsty wolf, scratching, biting and yanking Grandma’s hair out, and each time Grandma refused to fight back. Eventually Hanh got tired and returned to a frightened, weak child.
Grandma, being a faithful Buddhist, wanted to take Hanh to the man they called Tu Do. Apparently he could channel the spirit of Quan Cong - a military general of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, known as Zihuang by the Chinese people. She hoped this man could cure Hanh when nothing my parents and the doctors tried had worked. Grandma was convinced that Hanh would not survive without Tu Do’s help.
Grandma begged Dad numerous times for his permission to take Hanh to Tu Do. She told Dad that Hanh was cursed and she knew the person who could save her. “Mother Quan Am revealed him to me in my dreams,” Grandma said.
“Are you crazy? Don’t you understand I’m a Christian and I don’t believe in your Buddhism rubbish? Stop putting those stupid beliefs into your grandchildren’s heads! You really need to get your head examined,” Dad shouted.
“There’s only one God and all religions are the same. There’s nothing wrong with them praying to God and to Buddha,” Grandma replied.
Hanh’s condition worsened. During the day she no longer had enough energy to walk or talk but miraculously every day before the sunset she came alive and began to attack Grandma. However, her attacks lessened in force as she grew weaker.
One day my parents began to prepare for Hanh’s funeral. We all knew she didn’t have much longer to live. Grandma tried to comfort Hanh, telling her she would never give up on her and she would fight to the end for her.
Grandma again begged Dad to let her take Hanh to the healer. Dad swore at Grandma. He threatened to throw her out and have the healer arrested as a quack.
Hanh closed her eyes and appeared to stop breathing. She collapsed in Grandma’s arms. No matter what Grandma or my parents tried, she didn’t respond.
Dad ordered Mum to dress Hanh in the new set of clothes Mum had bought specifically for the purpose, so they could place her in the wooden box Dad had built as a coffin earlier that week. I saw tears running down Mum and Dad’s faces. This was the first time I saw them show some kind of emotion towards us girls. I guess in their own strange way they must have loved us after all.
Grandma cradled Hanh in her arms, rocking her back and forth. “She is not dead. She is still alive. It’s not too late to get her help,” she insisted.
Dad’s eyes darkened with anger. “Stop this childish behaviour. Can’t you see? She’s not breathing. She’s dead. Let her go, you crazy old witch.” He snatched Hanh from Grandma. “Here, dress her up.” Dad handed Hanh’s body to Mum. Mum dressed her and my parents placed Hanh into the box ready to be buried.
Grandma broke down and knelt before Dad. Frantically bowing her head before his feet, she pleaded with Dad. “Please let me have my grandchild’s body. You no longer have use for her. Let me take her to the healer,” she sobbed.
Although his face flushed red with anger, Dad could not ignore the respect Grandma had paid him. In our culture an older person would never, ever bow to a younger person unless it was an act of total desperation. At last he agreed. Grandma instantly hopped to her feet, half-dragging, half-carrying Hanh’s lifeless body and hurrying out the door before Dad had a chance to change his mind. Phuong and I ran after her. We ran to the house of one of Dad’s friends. We asked to borrow his boat to take Hanh to Roc Gung, on the other side of the bay.
Chu Thang, one of Dad’s good friends, had heard of the healer and he offered to go with us. We got into his boat and took off. Halfway there the weather suddenly changed. The sky turned black, the wind increased so that strong and furious waves battered at the boat.
“Grandma, the boat is going to sink! Look at the gigantic waves, Grandma, we’re all going to die. I’m scared, Grandma,” I cried.
She gave me her trademark serene smile and gently stroked my hair. “Shhh don’t talk nonsense. God will keep us safe, my darling.”
We escaped the rough seas unharmed and arrived safely on the other side of the bay. We could not take the boat all the way to Tu Do’s village. We had to anchor the boat at the end of the waterway and continue by foot through the jungle. Chu Thang carried Hanh’s body, sinking up to his knees in mud as he struggled along, while Hanh slipped in and out of consciousness.
“Oh, look, Grandma!” I dashed to a long, pointy metal object and hugged it with excitement.
“Loan, get the hell away from that thing, quickly!” Chu Thang yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Why Chu Thang? I didn’t do anything wrong,” I whimpered.
“It’s not you, my love. I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to shout at you. That thing is an unexploded bomb. You would not want
to disturb it, otherwise it would explode and we’d all be dead. It’s very powerful; it would kill all the people from here in this village to our village.”
“I’m sorry, Chu Thang, I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry, my love, just don’t go near it ever again. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. It will kill us all one day.”
Tu Do’s hut sat on the outskirts of the village hidden deep in the undergrowth of the jungle along with loads of other huts.
“Grandma, look - there’s a dark, tall man waving at us,” I said.
“Oh, hello, Tu Do. How are you, dear?” Grandma called.
Tu Do seemed old to me but Grandma told me later he was in his late thirties. He gave Grandma a hug and invited us inside. Chu Thang laid Hanh’s thin body at Tu Do’s feet, putting her onto the dirt floor. Tu Do’s family were not much better off than ours but they were very friendly, with his two daughters being my age.
People started flooding into the shack, pushing from behind us in an effort to see. I thought it insensitive to look at poor, dead Hanh. However they were not there to see Hanh so much as to watch Tu Do perform his ritual.
“Keep away, please give us some room.” Four young men politely pushed the crowd back so that Tu Do could have space. They dressed Tu Do in ancient Chinese warrior clothes, burned incense and chanted in a language I couldn’t understand. One of Tu Do’s followers handed him a sabre with a large blade and long handle. With their fingers they painted red and black stripes on his face as his body moved in rhythm to the chanting.
Tu Do stood up and headed for the door, his followers hurrying after him. The crowd of people parted to let us through. Hanh’s body remained in the same spot inside. A long roll of burning wood had collapsed into glowing red hot coals. Two of the men carried out a huge pot of hot water that they placed on the ground next to Tu Do. We watched as Tu Do plunged his hands into the pot and splashed the boiling water all over his body. He moved to the coals. He walked barefoot back and forth over them a number of times. He strode back into the house with the rest of us running behind him. He stopped in front of Hanh’s body. Tu Do’s voice took on a harsh tone. “Demon, I command that you get out of this child’s body now or I will destroy you! Get out right now!”
