The Guilt and the Shame! you bellowed, louder than you intended.
For a moment, everyone in your vicinity looked at you but, seeing that there was nothing to see, went back to their business of getting buzzed and trying to get laid without appearing to do so.
The bartender adjusted his turban and said, stiffly, I don’t know what that is, his professionalism being called into question by his ignorance.
It’s easy, you said. One part tequila, one part vodka, no ice, no garnish, no nothing. It should look like holy water and taste like Hell.
That sounds disgusting, said the bartender.
And, sipping the Guilt and the Shame for the first time, you admitted that it was disgusting, but how else should such a pairing taste? A few doses of the Guilt and the Shame and you wouldn’t remember a thing the next day, your head a coconut with the top sliced off, so someone could insert a straw and drink the contents of your mind while blowing bubbles into it. With a double Guilt and Shame in your hand—you always got a double, being a man of two minds—you wandered through OPIUM looking for Lana, but all you saw were servers wearing sexy cheongsams that ended midthigh and walls decorated with framed prints of black-and-white photographs from the nineteenth century: an aristocrat with curled fingernails the length of knife blades, bare-breasted women in indigenous clothing, an old lady smoking a cigar the size of a corncob. Are those Africans or Asians? a giggling young thing next to you asked another giggling young thing. I dunno, the other one said, resting her chin on the head of her ceramic Buddha. But they’re cool.
You looked over a mural that covered an entire wall. It was mesmerizing, a photorealistic black-and-white painting of your half-naked countrymen and -women kneeling on the earth in what appeared to be a rubber plantation, wiry and grimy, wearing only tattered pants and headbands to keep the sweat out of their eyes. Their backs were to the painter, or to the viewer, their concentration focused on the woman striding among them, wearing a close-fitting vermilion dress that hugged an incredible form. In contrast to the rest of the mural, she was in full, blazing color, and she appeared to be the most beautiful woman in France, otherwise known as Catherine Deneuve. Why she had been transposed to a rubber plantation, only the painter knew. The only non-photorealistic detail about the entire mural was that Catherine Deneuve did not have sweat stains in the armpits of her dress or on the sternum-sticking front of her dress, for even the most beautiful woman in France, and therefore the world, must sweat like everybody else. What a spell she cast, Catherine Deneuve, and indeed La France herself, her spectacle hypnotizing you until you felt a tap on your shoulder. It was Bon. Standing next to him was a slim woman in a minimalist, micro-miniskirted affair that was to “dress” what “bikini” was to “bathing suit.” Her slender form struck you even more than the form of Catherine Deneuve, hers being a shiv that wedged between your ribs and came extremely close to your lungs and heart. A black silk veil covered everything beneath her caramel-brown eyes. A hand with long, delicate fingers and manicured nails as polished as an adulterer’s lies rose from her side to sweep the veil off her face. You stepped forward, saying her name, ready to bestow bisous on her cheeks. She, in turn, drew back her elegant hand and slapped you so hard across the face you saw hammers and sickles, your ears ringing so loud you could barely hear your ever-present ghosts laughing their incorporeal asses off.
You bastard, Lana said, with an emphasis on “bastard.” I’ve waited a long time to do that.
The last time you saw Lana, in her apartment in Los Angeles, only a few hours before you killed Sonny, the two of you had swung along the electric dialectic between Hegel and Marx, Spirit and Being, Ideal and Material, Mind and Body, Making Love and Having Sex. She was like one of the forbidden red books that Man had shared with you clandestinely in your study group, beginning with The Communist Manifesto and Mao’s Little Red Book. Books like those inflamed the mind, energized the body, burned the hands that opened them, holding secret knowledge that paradoxically could be shared with everyone. You know you want it, Lana had said. I know you want it. And so you opened her. Both of you faced the mirrored doors of her bedroom closet, actors and spectators at once. You looked at each other’s reflections and each other’s gazes in the mirror, everything backward and yet still making sense. Seeing yourselves in this glassy scene, yourselves and yet not yourselves, made you hard as a mirror. When your mirror shattered, you lost not only your sense of sight but your sense of touch, every extremity numb, including your toes and fingertips. You collapsed, still conjoined, the remnants of your shattered self inside her, and with her eyes closed, language reinhabited her.
You bastard, she whispered, with an emphasis on “bastard.” I knew you’d be good.
Did Lana not remember that night? Or did she remember it all too well? It was difficult to ask, not just because of Bon being present but also Loan, who was saving a table on the second floor of OPIUM.
Your cheeks are so red, Loan said on seeing you. You’re as excited as I am to see Lana!
You mumbled something inarticulate that simply made you seem starstruck, although in this case the star, Lana, was not a superstar whom everyone would recognize, like Cher, or Olivia Newton-John, or Karen Carpenter, but a distant star in a galaxy that required an ethnic telescope to see. All the Vietnamese knew Lana, while anyone not Vietnamese had no idea who she was, although that did not stop the people in OPIUM—men and women—from looking, simply because she exuded a star’s heat and light.
You were hot just sitting next to her, and this, along with your exhaustion and your light-headedness and the memory of the Boss and the Ronin and Le Cao Boi, their faces permanently painted on the walls of the cave of your mind, combined with the Boss’s ill-gotten cash, led you to call over one of the waifish servers in her sexy scarlet cheongsam and order a bottle of the finest Champagne. We have a lot to celebrate, you said, and then leaned over and whispered, I work for the Boss, I should get the employee discount, to which she smiled stiffly, adjusted the chopsticks in her hair, and said she would see what she could do.
What are we celebrating? Loan said. Besides being here with Lana?
You lit Lana’s cigarette, which she had been holding in the air for a minute, waiting, and said, Yes, we are celebrating Lana arriving at last in Paris. We are also celebrating you two lovebirds.
Bon flushed with embarrassment but said nothing, preferring to tug at his tie while Loan squeezed his other hand.
Congratulations, Lana said, leaning forward to shine her light on them. You deserve it, Bon.
You could tell she remembered the last time she had been in a dimly lit situation with Bon, when you and he had seen her perform at Fantasia in Los Angeles. There he had confessed the loss of the loves of his life and had wept, the only time he had ever wept in the presence of an adult besides his wife and me.
Loan, Lana went on, you are a beautiful woman and I am so happy for the two of you.
Bon said, Uh—
Are you happy, Bon? Loan said.
Bon flushed even redder. Am I—am I— Emotion embarrassed him and made him stutter in a way that death and killing never did. Am I—uh—
You nudged him under the table with your foot, and when he looked at you, you gave the most imperceptible of nods, and he said, Yes—yes—happy—and, you know—uh—we all have to move on . . .
Yes, you must move on, Loan said, taking his hand. But that does not mean that you have to forget Linh and Duc. You never have to forget Linh and Duc, not that you ever would. They are always a part of you and therefore always a part me, dear Bon!
This flash-bang grenade of emotional explicitness thrown into Bon’s lap left him shell-shocked. As for you—you poor, dumb, crazy, ugly bastard—you suddenly and unexpectedly started to weep uncontrollably, making everyone uncomfortable. What the fuck was wrong with you? Your body shook as the tears gushed out and you sobbed, God, sorry, I don’t know—what—
ugh—
You stood up to make a dash to the bathroom, but Bon leaned across the table, grabbed you by the hem of your jacket, and muttered, Sit down, you sad bastard. We’re all friends here.
Lana put her hand on your arm. It’s okay, she said. Let it out.
Not that you could have stopped. Where were these tears and sobs coming from, except from some false bottom in your soul? Beneath the false bottom, in unfathomable darkness, deeper than the pit of Hell, dwelt not fire but water, the profound well of your feelings, especially for your mother, the only woman whom you ever truly loved, a woman whom you would have died for, but no one gave you the chance. There was no other woman for whom you could have said the same thing, unlike Bon. Seeing the scar in the palm of his hand that signified your blood brotherhood, you knew he would die for you but that he would also do the same for Loan, as he would have sacrificed himself for Linh and Duc, if given the chance. As for you, you would die for Bon, and you would die for Man, even now, even after all he had done to you, because you were still blood brothers. Your love for these men, a love that might one day kill you, also let you know you were worthy of life.
I love you, Bon, you said.
It was something you neither wanted nor planned to say, and his stricken look told you that you had spoken the unspeakable, but so what? You had uttered so many obscenities in your life and committed so many sins that not even Bon’s dis-ease or the mocking laughter of your ghosts made you regret saying out loud what should have been performed only as inarticulate acts of manly camaraderie.
All right, Bon said, patting your hand. It’s all right.
The server came back at that moment with the Champagne and an ice bucket, and the next minute passed in awkward silence as she uncorked the bottle and poured four flutes of Champagne, all while you wept, sobbed, breathed deeply, huffed, snuffled, sniffed, and, finally, eased shut the trapdoor covering your soul’s false bottom. Um, the server said, perhaps taking pity on you, I just wanted to say that you do get the employee discount. She handed you the cloth napkin she would have wrapped the bottle with and left you to wipe away tears and blow the snot out of your nose.
Well, said Loan.
Sorry, you said, or maybe whimpered. So sorry. Really, very sorry.
Bon picked up his flute. I guess we should toast.
I have a toast, Lana said.
You all turned to look at her expectantly. She raised her flute, and so did everyone else. Here’s to you, she said to you, which surprised you and brought a hopeful smile to your face. Congratulations, you bastard. You’re a father.
To your credit, you neither passed out nor ran for the nearest exit. You simply gawked at Lana, swiveled your head left and right to look at the expressions of astonishment on Loan’s and Bon’s frozen faces, then turned back to an unmoving Lana. You’re a Father was the title of the most horrifying horror movie you could imagine, unless it was one of the sequels like You’re a Father Part 2, 3, or 4, or, if you were Catholic, You’re a Father 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12. You knew yourself, and you had no desire to continue the cycle of abuse otherwise known as life. Your greatest contribution to the propagation of the human species was not to propagate yourself, even if your mother badly wanted a grandchild. Imagine how wonderful it would be if you brought a child into the world! On every occasion she had said this, you had smiled, caressed her hand, and lied. Of course, yes, one day, surely! Now doomsday had at last arrived and all you could blurt out to restart time and space was: But I used a condom!
Lana sipped her Champagne and said, Maybe you bought a bad condom.
If the rubber in that condom came from a French rubber plantation, then the French had fucked you yet again. You opened your mouth and Lana said, Don’t you dare ask if there might be another candidate. You’re the only asshole there is.
You shut your mouth and looked to Bon for help, but he swallowed all of his Champagne and said, It’s not the end of the world. Some of us want children.
Well, Loan said, smiling brightly. Boy or girl?
Girl.
A boy would have petrified you, because he would surely one day grow up to slay you, which you admittedly deserved, but a girl was not much better, perhaps worse, because you would have to do things like braid her hair, avoid discussing her menstruation, and contemplate her one day meeting someone exactly like you and marrying the rotten bastard. You breathed deeply to calm yourself down. What did normal people say in situations like this?
How—how old is she?
Three years old.
She’s here?
She’s in Los Angeles with my parents.
What’s her name?
Ada.
Ada. A slightly unusual name that Westerners could pronounce, and a completely foreign name that Vietnamese people could still wrap their tongues around. A-d-a. A Morse code of a name. Long A, hard d, short a. Three letters. A palindrome. The same whether left to right or East to West. Ada, the grandchild whom your mother had always wanted and whom you had finally given to her, too late.
Do you have a picture?
Ada was a little girl with pure black hair that framed her face and ended at her chin. You hated children, which was not a prejudice but rather a logical reaction from years of childhood exposure to the little trolls, who were nothing but monstrous adults-in-grooming. But this girl—everything about her face was round, from her eyes to her cheeks to the tip of her nose. Her eyes were dark, her lips pink, and her skin fair. If she had been fully white, her skin color would just be called white. But since she descended from you, and you were half white, she was only one-quarter white. Her semi-whiteness was not what interested you, however. What was most striking about her to you, besides the chubby cuteness that even you could recognize, was whom she resembled.
Your mother.
Ada, you said. Ada.
That’s her name, Lana said.
After the bottle of Champagne was finished, and after you had drained your third chalice of Guilt and Shame, and after Bon told Lana the short version of what had brought the two of you to the City of Light, and after Lana asked why you had gone to France and not the United States and you said because you wanted to visit the land of your father, and after she asked why you had never let anyone know you were here and you had honestly said because you didn’t think anyone cared whether you lived or died, which made her bite her lip and look away, you and Bon made a break for the men’s room. Facing the urinals, you informed Bon of the recent deaths, which fazed him not at all. They weren’t exactly the best people, he said, shaking off their fates and zipping his pants. But that’s a mess we have to clean up.
Right, you said, although you had no intention of cleaning anything up, which actually just meant making things even messier by continuing the war with the Mona Lisa and Saïd.
But first, we have to take care of the faceless man. Tonight.
You looked in the mirror and the sight of your reflection somewhat surprised you. Half the time now, you expected to see no one there, that your body would be as invisible as your soul. What you also saw, besides yourself and Bon washing hands, were your grinning ghosts, standing behind you and drilled with holes, still dripping with the perpetual stuff of life. But you did not see the Boss, Le Cao Boi, or the Ronin, or your father, or the communist agent.
He’ll be there, Bon said, wiping his hands. I know it.
I don’t have a gun, you said, which was your only gambit to avoid killing Man.
Bon shrugged, put his foot on the edge of the sink, and pulled up the hem of his pants to reveal a small pistol strapped to his ankle. My backup, he said, giving it to you. You should always have a backup. Have I taught you nothing?
You drove the Boss’s Bavarian behemoth to the theater, Bon and Loan in the back seat holding hands, Lana next to you. The Boss had a cassette tape of her songs, and as you drove, you listened to her cover of the son
g that had compelled you, when you heard her sing it in the Fantasia of Los Angeles, to take the fateful steps that led to her and ultimately to Ada. “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).”
Does she know I’m her . . . father? you said, finding it hard even to say the word.
I don’t have so much as a picture of you, Lana said. But she has asked about you.
She has?
Just who and where her father is, why everyone else has a father but not her.
What do you say?
My parents have forbidden me to say your name to her.
Madame. And the General, who had stuffed the muddy sock of these words in your mouth just as you were about to board the plane for Thailand and the invasion: How could you ever believe we would allow our daughter to be with someone of your kind? You are a fine young man, but you are also, in case you have not noticed, a bastard.
So I’ve been erased from her life? you said, still able to taste the foulness.
I tell Ada that her father is a soldier who went to take his country back, who gave everything he had to liberate his people. And that maybe one day he’ll come back to us and we will give him a hero’s welcome. When I say that she smiles and I hold her close. And feel sorry for you. Not because of what might have happened to you, but because you would never know what it feels like to hold your little girl, to hold her when she was a baby, to cuddle her fat little body, to squeeze her and make her giggle, to have her kiss you whenever you ask for it, to hear her say, Daddy, I love you, like the way she says, Mommy, I love you.
“Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).”
You’ve missed all those things and you’ll never get them back. But that doesn’t mean you have to miss what she is like now, what she’ll be like next year and the rest of her life.
You want me to—
Not for me, you bastard. For her. She deserves to know her father and make up her own mind about you. Otherwise she’ll grow up hoping her heroic papa might come back one day. Or else she’ll believe that he’s in France and never bothered to let anybody know he was still alive and that he had abandoned her. Don’t do that to her.
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