“I wouldn’t recommend eating them either. They’ll make you sick. Unless you fry them really well. I mean, you need to fry them down to the bones. Then you can eat them.” He bent down and rolled up the cuffs of his pants. “I’ve been that hungry before. I’ve been so hungry once I ate a cockroach. I guess these fish can’t be any worse.”
“You ate cockroaches?” I couldn’t help myself.
“Not cockroaches. A cockroach, kid. There’s a big difference. Hang on.” He scurried off toward the kitchen and came back a few a minutes later with a colander in his hand.
I felt the water beat harder against my waist as he came toward me.
“What did it taste like?”
“Oh, not much really. A bit like licorice.” He submerged the metal colander into the water. “Now we wait.”
When he pulled the colander out, two little fish were flopping inside. Their bones were visible through their skin.
“What do you want with them?” he said.
“To make them die.”
“Kill them you mean. And then cook them?”
“No.”
“Listen, I can’t take any part in that unless it’s for a good cause. If you’re not cooking the fish, maybe we can say it’s mercy killing, okay? Okay. And it is. God, what a shitty pond. What a shitty life. Let’s put them out of their misery.”
We dragged ourselves out of the water. I scooped a fish up inside my palm. It didn’t struggle, its heart throbbing lightly against my finger. The man pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. My fingers pressed in slowly against its slippery flesh. I smeared the dead fish on the ground between us. It smelled the way the pond did, but not any different alive than dead.
“Here.” He handed me the colander and looked away. I took the other fish and threw it back to the pond.
“One. I only wanted to kill one,” I said.
“You only wanted to rescue one,” he said.
10
A thin fog had been hanging above us for many days. I raised my finger as high as I could and stirred the air. It felt as though the sky was spinning above me, the tip of my finger at its center. I was wearing a grey dress, one I brought with me to the camp three years ago. It’d risen above my knees, but still fit me otherwise. When it started to rain, I went in the foyer and stood with my nose pressed against the glass door waiting for thunder. Mother had been acting restless and seemed absent. The other day, she had leaned too far out on the balcony, her body draped over it like a blanket. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was resting.
She was in the kitchen now, a knife in one hand, a white radish in the other. She stood there like a statue, both objects held out in front of her. I moved soundlessly around the kitchen as to not startle her. The clock showed it was past nine and we usually ate at seven. There was already a pan of fried rice and a pot of bone broth on the stove so I served myself. Mother didn’t notice. She continued to stare where there was nothing to look at. I had a feeling she was not with me at all. I ate soundlessly and rinsed off my bowl. At the sound of running water, she seemed to come back into her eyes.
“Wash your hands so we can eat,” she said.
I did as she told me. I wasn’t sure if she would believe me if I told her I’d already eaten. I got out a clean bowl from the cabinet and served myself again.
She sat with me at the table. Her face was pale, blue veins choked her throat. Seeing her so weakened, I decided to tell the truth. She didn’t have the strength to hit me.
“I already ate. Just now, I ate and you were standing at the sink like this,” I went over to the sink and imitated her position. It felt strange to say something to my mother instead of reacting to what she said to me.
She looked confused so I acted more dramatically. I slackened my body, grabbed a plate and a spoon at random and held them in front of me. I exaggerated, “You were like this for an hour.”
“Does it snow more or rain? You’ll need a coat. Dictionary . . . money . . . someone will hold on to it until you turn eighteen,” she said absently. “Bandages . . . why you always get hurt, I’ll never know. That’s silly, I won’t pack that since you can buy it at a department store. It’s America . . . ”
“I already ate. While you were standing—” I continued desperately to get her attention back to the sixty minutes she had lost.
“Your father—if he were alive—wouldn’t approve.” She put her hands on her knees and stared at her fingernails. “But you’re not here, are you? Damn you. I have to take care of everything. I am a mother and a father.”
“You were like this.” I turned the water on and off. She would not look.
“Last night, I dreamt you found a new young wife. You brought her to me and asked for my approval . . . ridiculous. This girl, this daughter, bound me to you forever, even if you’re just a ghost. Send her away, they say, it’s for her own good.” She paused and looked past me over my shoulders as if addressing someone else in the room, “Will you leave me alone now? I have a lot of work to do.”
“Mother—” I said.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
I didn’t know what to do so I went to bed and switched back and forth from sitting with my back against the wall and lying on my stomach to play with my fingernails. I didn’t really want to leave Mother in the kitchen. I was afraid time would slip from her again. If I were not there to catch the seconds that flew past us, they would be lost forever. At the same time I was scared that when she was fully herself again she would yell at me if I didn’t go away.
The satin sheets on our bed smelled old, like the armpits of a woman minutes from death. I hated the way the fabric felt on my legs, wrapped around me like giant slithery eels. I kicked and kicked to get it off me, but it clung on, magnetized to the tiny hairs on my legs. I thought about what my soldier had said and what Mother had mumbled incoherently. Maybe I was really going away, but how? With who? Was Mother coming with me? These thoughts overwhelmed me. A small part of me understood that Mother and I were the only unstable elements at the camp. We couldn’t stay here forever. We had come from elsewhere and after we came, nothing else had been brought here. We weren’t dusty or sand-colored. Water was limited so no one showered every day, but our faces were squeaky clean from frequent scrubbing with soap. While I only studied, the other children at the camp had duties just like adults. They washed dishes, delivered mail, cleaned shoes, and cooked even if they were not tall enough to peer inside the pot they stirred.
The rest of the camp’s inhabitants were imbued with a great sense of sacrificial honor, so there was rarely any public complaint. Still, I knew that cries and sufferings hummed on quietly at night. I hadn’t seen a smile in a long time. I was always unhappy too, but such sadness had embedded so deeply I didn’t see a point in feeling differently. My own smiles would curl awkwardly and writhe like a worm when poked by a dirty stick.
I blamed the weather for my mother’s erratic, half-comatose behavior and my own irritation, along with the malaise of the rest of the camp. Those who remained unchanged by the grey fog were the type who would still mind their dirty underwear if the sky was suddenly bloodied with death. I couldn’t sleep. Rolling back and forth in bed didn’t help, so I went out.
There were soft murmurs and footsteps heading toward the common hall, where soldiers saluted a photo of Ho Chi Minh every morning. In the thick fog, I couldn’t see the people’s faces, only their legs, which scrambled forward with more emotions than I could hear from their hushed voices.
“His bunk mate.”
“Did he leave . . . ”
“No. No note.”
“Come on. Let’s go.”
There was a line of people outside of the common hall, as organized and polite as usual, waiting their turn to see the face of death. Being small, I easily pushed my way to the front. On the walk here, I’d gathered from
broken pieces of conversation that a soldier had shot himself that morning. His lieutenant was in the process of determining if it was an accident, but everybody was already sure that it wasn’t. Nobody asked why.
There was nothing left to see in the empty hall, except a small hunchback woman carrying a bucket and mopping up the little bit of blood left. People stood by and watched the old lady on her knees push a rag around. Behind me, someone said she must be blind because she kept missing the same spot. I stood there, unable to move, entranced by the silence of the crowd and the squeak squeak sound of the old lady’s knees as she crawled round and round. I wondered if she was smelling for blood.
The little girl insisted I had made it all up. She hadn’t heard of any soldier who killed himself. If he existed, surely she would have heard of him. It angered me that she couldn’t let me have something if she wasn’t a part of it. I admitted I had thought of going to get her immediately but I hadn’t wanted to miss the scene.
They weren’t going to let his body stay like that for long. When she asked if I’d actually seen him, I was compelled to lie and say, yes I saw it, otherwise she would only laugh at me.
“So you saw an old lady clean the floor, she does that every day, so what,” she said. I was nearly brought to tears. I didn’t know when I was actually leaving, but both Mother and my soldier had made it seem urgent. I didn’t want the little girl to think this last thing between us was a lie. I wished that she had been there. I wished she’d heard the whispers, stood in a crowd of people next to me. Of course the adults refused to say anything. They lacked the vocabulary or empathy needed to explain things to children. Adults never wondered how much we knew, only assumed we wouldn’t understand. It made sense why they would pretend like it didn’t happen. If they acted empathetic, they would reveal that death was in some secret way enticing to them. If they were critical, they would be judged by their neighbors as cold and unfeeling.
I started to doubt myself. The little girl’s truth started to become my own. I couldn’t dismiss it. If she didn’t believe something, I had to question its reality as well. I’d grown dependent on her as a mirror to my happiness and a measure to my suffering. Feelings were not real until she validated them, gave them life. Since she didn’t seem interested in the dead soldier, I changed the topic.
“Let’s go see your mom soon. I think the sooner the better,” I urged.
“Sure.” She was unenthusiastic.
“She might not be there forever.”
“Where would she go?”
“A different place,” I said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know, somewhere farther and we won’t be able to walk there.”
“I can walk anywhere,” she said.
“You cannot.”
“Yes I can,” she said, her face half turned from me.
“Did you already go? You left without me?” I said.
“Don’t worry. Even if I get to the tent, she won’t be there if you’re not,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing happens in my life if you’re not there,” she said.
“Would you ever commit suicide?” I asked.
“You’re obsessed.”
“Would you?” I said.
“I won’t, unless you want to. I’m not sure what happens to us after death.”
“Nothing. Or maybe we become ghosts. I don’t want to be a ghost.” I remembered my mother’s dream about father.
“Hm.”
“Do you think you have to be someone’s ghost or can you just be a free ghost?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“My father is my mother’s ghost, I think. He’s always around.”
“Then I don’t think you can be a free ghost. There’s always someone, something you’re trying to float around.”
“Do you think that soldier’s ghost is still here?” I asked. I could feel her glare on me but I couldn’t help returning to the same topic. It was so vivid in my mind. I had seen almost nothing, but perhaps that was worse, to see a little instead of all. I imagined the pool of blood growing larger and larger so that eventually the old lady was soaked in it but she wouldn’t stop cleaning. She truly believed her cleaning helped. Then I imagined that it was me who was on all fours soaking up blood with a thin rag. I wondered if the old lady had protested when she was told to go clean it up or had she volunteered to? Maybe it made no difference to her.
“I want to be able to haunt people,” she said and looked at me. Her facial features were contorted. “If I could have a super power. That’s what it would be.”
“That’s not a super power at all,” I said. “Turning invisible, flying—”
She wasn’t listening anymore. She spun in small circles around me, pretending to be drifting. “I’ll haunt you. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life,” she whispered in my ears.
11
Soldiers at the camp started to talk to me. That morning in the bathroom mirror, I noticed for the first time that I was nearly as tall as my mother. I put on the old dress I’d brought to the camp; its hem was high on my upper thighs. I went to the kitchen. On the table was a single slice of cake with yellow candles shaped in the numbers one and two on top. I was twelve and was glad there would be no birthday party.
As I walked around the camp, men called after me. Their words, which I didn’t fully understand, were like arrows flying at me from all directions. I felt exposed and ashamed. One soldier waved for me to come closer. He was the only one standing in a group of men sitting with heads huddled together. As I walked toward them, I saw they were playing cards. The standing one fanned out the cards for me look at.
“What should I do next, baby-face?”
I mumbled a non-reply. Among the cards, he had three aces, a good hand if he played it correctly. My heart was beating hard. I was close enough to smell the smoke rising from his pores.
“Blow on it,” he put the cards to my mouth.
I shook my head. Fear had clogged my throat.
“Come on, blow for me baby,” he nudged my elbow. “I need a virgin’s luck. You are, aren’t you?”
He looked at the other men. Their eyes met and they roared with laughter. One of the man said, “Girls are monsters these days. Don’t underestimate her.”
“Not a chance. You know who her mother is, don’t you?” someone else said.
“I don’t care who her mother is. She can blow me too,” the one standing said. This remark was met with thunderous laughter.
“Alright, alright, settle down boys. Leave the girl alone,” a man with a cut on his lower lip said.
“You know I’m just teasing. I have great respect for the lieutenant and for your mother,” the one standing said. “Now get out of here.”
Before I could turn away, he had slipped a hand under my dress and pinched me on the space between my buttock and inner thigh.
I ran until I was out of their sight. Then I walked to the little girl’s apartment. I needed to tell her about the blend of guilt, shame, and pleasure that were congested in my chest. Out of habit I pushed the door open without knocking. Her father was sitting naked on a chair facing the door, his legs spread open. He did not seem startled at my presence. He said hello to me while continuing to stroke his large and swollen penis, slightly curved toward his stomach.
“She’s not here. She’s helping in the kitchen today,” he said. His hand went up and down steadily between his legs.
I said nothing. I was not able to open my mouth or move my feet. He stood up and went past me to close the door. I heard the lock click. Then he took my hand and guided me toward the bedroom.
“Are you alright? You seem a little flustered,” he said gently. “You want some water? Here, sit down.”
I nodded. He went away and brought back a glass of water. He sat
down next to me, held the nape of my neck, and put the glass to my lips.
“Drink,” he said.
I tried to swallow, but the water poured out too quickly down my neck. I could feel the front of my dress getting wet, but he did not stop pouring.
“Aw, look at you, you’re all wet,” he said. “Let me help you.” His voice lowered to a whisper. He put a hand on my chest and rubbed the fabric against me. I stared at the apple in his throat as he swallowed. “You were really bad to walk in on me like that. Really bad, you hear me? If your mother knew, she would punish you.”
I nodded. He told me to raise my arms so he could remove my dress. He hung the dress over the fan in the corner of the room and told me as soon as it dried I could leave. In one swoop, he picked me up and cradled me inside his arms. I wondered if that was how a baby felt? Then he sat down on the bed and ran his fingers all over my body, from my head to my toes. He kissed my face and licked the tears on my lashes. His hand was inside my underwear.
“Is this alright? Tell me to stop and I will,” he said.
No sound would surface from my throat. He rubbed me in circular motion and promised it would soon feel like the best thing that had ever happened to me. I remembered all the dreams I’d had about him. I remembered watching him from behind as he tickled the little girl’s toes three years ago. I remembered wishing it would happen to me. Then he placed me on the bed and demanded I lie on my stomach.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said while pulling down my underwear. He put his tongue between my buttocks. Then he stood up and suddenly I felt something hard against me, splitting me in half. I gasped for air and still no sound came out. He breathed heavily.
“Tell me to stop. Just tell me to stop and I will,” he said as he pushed into me.
My eyes were wide open but I could not see. In my mind, I looked at the little girl’s eyes, wide and rimmed with tears. My own were dry. I bit the knuckle on my thumb to prevent from crying out. I really believed he would stop if I asked. I wanted him to and I didn’t, dumbed by a mocking sense of my own power, my ability to stay silent.
If I Had Two Lives Page 8
