Radiant

by Christina Daley

  After a moment of silence, he said, "I…don't know."

  "It's all right if it's not your thing," Mary said. "Art's really subjective."

  Carter shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I'm trying to think of what to say. Ben made this with his hands."

  "Well, and some power tools," Mary said.

  "But this was just metal and glass once," he said. "Raw materials. No form. No purpose. But Ben saw something in his mind. And the chemicals in his brain arranged to tell his hands to craft these uninteresting materials. This is the result. We are looking at what he saw before he made the work. I am…speechless."

  Mary stared at him. He may have been speechless, but he had an eloquent way of saying so.

  Carter looked around. "It's that way with all of these works. They are all glimpses into the immaterial. The manifestations of information. It's too wonderful." He turned to her. "You should have your painting among these. The one of Saturn's rings."

  "Are you kidding?" Mary smirked. "These guys are professionals."

  "Does that matter?" he asked.

  Mary looked around. "Maybe not."

  "And there's no competition here," he added. "Everyone is celebrating the art together."

  Mary crossed her arms and wondered over to a painting hanging on the wall. It was an abstract piece showing a woman looking at the sky.

  Carter followed her. "I apologize. I have offended you."

  "No," she said. "You didn't. It's just as you said. Art shows what's inside. And that's scary. Showing my paintings would be like…like cutting my arm open in front of a crowd and showing them what color I bleed."

  Carter didn't say anything.

  Mary sighed. "I don't want people seeing the inside of me."

  They both looked at the painting, not speaking. At last, he asked, "Why do you paint at all?"

  Ironically, Mary felt like this conversation was exposing a little too much. "Because I wouldn't know what else to do."

  He said nothing. Then, he smiled and nodded. "I understand now."

  Carter moved on to look at other works, and Mary went in the opposite direction. As she admired a sculpture made of several glass-blown pieces, Ben came and handed her a soft drink. "Enjoying yourself?"

  She nodded as she took a sip. "It's awesome. And Ba looks like she's having a good time."

  "I'm glad," he said. "Your friend seems to be enjoying himself, too."

  Mary looked around and saw Carter staring at a canvas featuring a nude woman. She laughed. "He's not my friend. Just a guy who goes to my school."

  "Really?" he chuckled. "You brought him to an art show. With your grandmother. And he's just a guy?"

  She smirked. "What're you sayin'?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing. Some things are spoken louder without words. I was actually just talking with him before I came over here."

  "About what?" Mary asked.

  "He asked me about my art and how long I'd been doing sculptures and such," Ben said. "It was strange. I started telling him how I was just getting back into it, but then I told him about Anna. Sometimes, it's still hard for me to talk about what happened. But it was really easy to talk to him."

  Mary remembered the time Ben told her about his wife and the bank robbery. She and Ba were in the store buying art supplies, but he was looking really depressed. Ba asked him what was wrong. It was the fifth anniversary of his wife's death that day. And just needing someone to talk to, he spilled his guts to Mary and Ba. Mary remembered Ba hugging him and giving him tissue like he was her own son.

  Mary looked back at Carter, now admiring a wooden mask. She remembered how George told stories when Carter visited Agape the first time. She also remembered their "opt-out" conversation in the art room. She had told him things that she hadn't told anyone before. Like Ben said, it was easy to talk to him.

  "He's going through some stuff right now," she said. "I thought getting him around something beautiful would be good for him."

  "You didn't need to bring him here to get him around something beautiful," Ben said.

  Mary looked at him.

  He smiled. "But I am glad you came anyway."

  She smiled, too.

  "Excuse me, Ben?" one of the gallery employees came and asked. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's someone asking about your sculpture. I think she wants to buy it."

  "It's not for sale," Ben said. "But I'll talk to her anyway. Excuse me, Mary."

  "Sure," she said, and she moved on as well.

  Back to Table of Contents

  - 13 -

  Lapse

  They spent about an hour and a half at the show. When it was close to dinnertime, Mary's stomach was growling.

  "I think it's time to eat," Ba said. "How about soup?"

  "Oh yeah!" Mary said.

  They thanked Ben and congratulated him before heading out. As they stepped outside, Mary was surprised at how cool it felt. Then again, it wasn't unusual for the temperature to move up and down quickly this time of year. Mary had a sweater in her bag, but she had left that at Agape.

  "Man, it got cold fast," she said as she hugged her arms.

  Ba joked, "It's because you're too skinny! You need more fat like me to keep warm."

  Carter was wearing his black sweater. He removed it and handed it to Mary. "Here, you can wear this."

  "But won't you be cold, too?" Mary asked.

  "I'll be fine."

  Desperate for relief from the biting air, Mary put on the sweater. It warmed her instantly, as if it had been sitting in the sun all day. "You're really warm," she chuckled.

  He smiled and didn't say anything.

  They took another cab to a part of town called "Little Asia." Chinese shops and restaurants sat on one block, and Korean businesses occupied the next one over. A couple Thai places and Japanese joints were sprinkled about as well. Not far away was a huge grocery store that was owned by Vietnamese people. There were smaller shops inside the grocery store, like a hair and nail salon, a cell phone store, a bookstore that only sold volumes in Viet, a clothing store, and an impressive food court. Tucked into the corner of the food court was a little booth that always had lines. They sold different kinds of soup, including Mary's favorite, bún bò Huế. Most non-Viet people knew about the traditional noodle soup called phở, which was often mispronounced like "foh." It actually sounds like "fuh."

  "I've not had this before," Carter said. "What's in it?"

  "Noodles and beef, similar to phở," Ba explained. "But it's a different style from the central part of Vietnam."

  "It's also pretty spicy, because they put hot chili paste in it," Mary said. "We can ask them to leave it out if you want."

  "I'll be fine," he said. "I'll have mine the same way you have yours."

  They placed their orders, and the woman at the counter gave them a number to put on their table. Soon, their soups were brought out to them, along with a plate full of shredded cabbage, herbs, and the wicked hot little chili peppers that could burn holes in your intestines.

  Carter watched Mary and Ba for a moment as they broke apart their disposable chopsticks and began eating. He took his chopsticks as well, but his fingers fumbled about to hold them. He tried picking up some noodles, but they just slipped back into his bowl.

  "We can get you a fork," Mary said.

  But he shook his head. "I just need some practice." He watched her hands and arranged his in a similar way. When he tried for the noodles again, he managed to get one into his mouth before the others splashed back into the broth.

  Mary and Ba laughed.

  "Maybe I do need a fork," he chuckled, wiping the splatters from his face with a napkin.

  "I'll grab one," Ba said. "I want to buy some soybean drink, too."

  She stood and headed for the counter. Mary took the bottle of red sauce that came with the other condiments and squeezed a little into her soup.

  "What is that?" Carter asked.

  "Chili sauce," Mary said. "Do you want to try it? It's pr
etty hot, so just heads up."

  "Yes please." He took the bottle and added a little to his broth. He tasted it with a spoon.

  Mary waited for him to start crying.

  "It's good," he said. And he squeezed a bunch more in.

  "Are you nuts?" Mary cried. "You're making it like a nuclear bomb!"

  Carter stirred the soup with his spoon until it was bright red and took another taste. "I like it."

  Mary stared at him. Then, she picked up one of the atomic grade chili peppers from the condiment plate. "Try this."

  Carter bit into it like a pickle. "These are good, too. Can I put it in my soup also?"

  Mary was too shocked to answer.

  "Here you are, Carter," Ba said as she returned with his fork and three cans of soybean drink. "Oh, so you like the peppers?"

  He nodded as he bit into another.

  Ba chuckled. "You're like Jean-Marc. He loved spicy food, although it gave him bad heartburn some times. Oh, Jean-Marc was my husband. Mary's grandfather. He was such a fun man. He probably would have challenged you to see if you could eat as many peppers as him."

  Carter chuckled. "He sounds like a wonderful person. How did you meet him?"

  "We met in Vietnam, during the war," she said. "He was working in Saigon for a French-owned company, and I was making my family nervous. All of my sisters had husbands and children, and I was thirty-seven-years-old and still not married. My mother tried matchmakers and everything, but nothing worked. They said I was too stubborn and that no man wanted me. I was also told that I was too skinny and wouldn't be able to have strong children." She looked at her expanded waistline and laughed. "That was a long time ago!"

  "But you still found each other," Carter said.

  Ba nodded. "My parents had a store in the front of our house. We sold all kinds of food. I worked there sometimes, when I wasn't at my part time job as a receptionist for the college. One day when I was watching the store, this Frenchman came and asked me which were the good cakes to buy. We sold these cakes that the American soldiers and other foreigners really liked. So I told him which ones, and he asked me to wrap them up and he paid for them. But then he handed the cakes back to me and said, 'These are for you.' I still remember. I was wearing my pink silk áo dài because I was supposed to be going out with a friend later that day. You know the one, Mary. I gave it to you last year when you turned sixteen."

  It was buried deep in the bowels of Mary's closet. "I still have it, Ba," she said.

  "An áo dài?" Carter asked. "That means 'long dress,' doesn't it?"

  "You see that dress shop over there?" Ba asked. "Those long tunics with the flowing trousers. Those make up the áo dài." She looked at Mary. "You only wore it once to your cousin's wedding. I wish you would wear it again."

  Another cousin needed to get married then, Mary thought. Mary didn't do dresses. Or pink.

  "Anyway, Jean-Marc was wonderful," Ba continued. "He courted me for a while and then came and asked my father if he could marry me. My parents didn't agree at first. He wasn't Vietnamese, and he was a little strange. He was very passionate about many things, and he loved art. He painted as a hobby and taught me how. But my parents finally gave us their blessing. A foreign and odd husband was better than no husband at all. And they saw that we loved each other very much. But a couple months later, things started to get really bad. It was 1975, and the Americans were leaving. Jean-Marc's company pulled all its workers, and I went to France with him. When we got there, we tried to find out if my family made it out, but I never heard from them again."

  Mary remembered the first time Ba told her this story. She was about six or seven years old, and Mom had scolded her for something stupid. Mary screamed that she hated her mother and ran up to the roof to cry. Ba came up shortly after to put her arm around her, and she told her this story. She told her how important family was, and that Mary should never say she hated anyone, especially her mother. You never know if something will happen and you never see that person again.

  Ba continued. "When we got to Paris, I was so looking forward to meeting his family. I was hoping that they would love me like my family had loved him. But when they saw me, they were furious! Jean-Marc hadn't told them that he had gotten married, let alone married a Vietnamese girl. His mother actually told him to 'return' me, like I was something he had bought at a store. I felt awful. He was already the odd duck of the family, and I felt like I just made everything worse for him. I had a little money before I had left Saigon. Just enough for one plane ticket to America. I had never been before, and I didn't know which city I was going to nor what I would do once I got there. I knew some English, but not very much. I just didn't want to be the cause of so much trouble for him. So, I left."

  Carter leaned forward in his chair. "What happened?"

  She chuckled. "Jean-Marc followed me. He was angry. Not with me, but with his family. He said he was done trying to please them. 'America should be far enough to get away from them' he said. So we lived here. And you know what else he did? Instead of having me change my last name to his, he changed his to mine! Isn't that funny? Imagine that. A tall, dark, and very French man answering to 'Mr. Phan.' He was so silly."

  Carter smiled. "And you were happy together?"

  "Oh yes." She sighed. "But then the lung cancer came. He had been a heavy smoker all his life. We tried all the treatments available at the time, but the cancer won in the end. Mary's mother took it terribly. She's very passionate, just like him. More so when she was younger. When Jean-Marc died, she didn't know how to deal with it, and she made some bad decisions. She dropped out of college and started living with her boyfriend at the time, of whom I didn't approve. He was very mean to her. When they broke up, she lived with some friends and then more men. I don't know how many men she'd been with in all. She never told me. I stayed up nights crying and thinking about her. And then one day, she came home. Just like that. She was pregnant and she was crying. But she was safe. She told me how sorry she was and how much she wanted to be a good mom and get her life back together. And she did. She went back to school and studied nursing. Now she works with cancer patients. I suppose how her father died had a lot to do with that decision."

  Ba took Mary's hand and smiled. "But this little one here, she's my miracle baby. She brought my daughter home to me. And now she's a smart, talented, and beautiful young lady herself."

  Carter looked at Mary. She blushed but didn't look back at him.

  Carter looked at Ba again. "Thank you for telling me your story."

  Ba chuckled. "You're welcome, dear. And thank you for listening. Well, I feel like a little dessert. What about you two?"

  Mary looked at her watch. Half past seven. "We should probably head back. I said that I'd get you home by eight."

  Ba chuckled. "Oh, it'll be all right if I'm a little late. There's a great café on the way back, and they have the best desserts."

  Carter seconded dessert, so they hopped on the bus and headed for the café. Mary glanced at her watch frequently. When they arrived, they sat down at one of the little round tables. A waitress came. "Welcome folks! What can I get for you?"

  "I think I would like some crème brulée," Ba said. "Oh Carter, they have very good crème brulée. You can try some of mine if you want to get something else."

  The waitress looked puzzled. "I'm sorry ma'am. We don't have the crème brulée anymore."

  Ba looked surprised. "Not anymore? When did you take it off the menu?"

  "I think it was about two years ago," she said. "Is there something else I can get for you?"

  Mary's alert went up. This wasn't good.

  "Two years ago?" Ba said. "But we had that just last week!"

  Mary was now on high alert. Ba's memory had lapsed. Calmly, she took hold of her grandmother's hand. "It's all right, Ba. Let's get something else, all right?"

  "We have a really great tiramisu," the waitress suggested.

  Suddenly, Ba slapped her hand on the table. "But I don
't want tiramisu. I want crème brulée! We've had it here for years. Why did they take it off the menu? Is it a new chef?"

  "Ba, please—" Mary tried.

  "I-I'm sorry," the poor waitress stuttered. "I can ask my manager."

  "You do that!" Ba snapped. "And you should be ashamed of yourself. Two years. Like I don't know what I had just yesterday."

  "Okay, Ba. Come on." Mary stood and helped her grandmother from the table.

  "Where are we going?" Ba asked.

  "We're going home. They'll have crème brulée there. Better than this place. Come on." As she ushered her grandmother from the café, Mary mouthed her apologies to the waitress. Carter followed.

  By the time Mary got her outside again, Ba was calm. She took a deep breath. "What a wonderful night. Oh, Mary! Look at all the stars!"

  Mary breathed a small sigh of relief. The spell had passed. "It's a great sky, Ba. Look, the bus is here. We'd better get on."

  The bus ride back was uneventful, thankfully. They arrived at Agape about a quarter past eight. Mary and Carter accompanied Ba to her room. A nurse met them there to administer Ba's medicine and get her ready for bed. They waited in the small sitting area in her suite until the nurse returned with Ba in her nightclothes. Mary kissed her goodnight and then left with Carter.

  "We should catch this bus," she said. "The next one doesn't come for another twenty minutes."

  They boarded and sat across from one another. As the bus rolled down the street, Carter spoke for the first time in a while. "Mary? What happened tonight at the café?"

  "Ba had a lapse in her memory," she explained. "It's confusing for her, you know? She takes medicine for it, but the lapses still happen once in a while. This was a small one, so it wasn't too bad."

  "I see." He was quiet for a moment, but then he asked, "What does a 'big' one look like?"

  Mary thought about what to say next. "She hasn't been at Agape for very long. She used to live at home with us. But between Mom's crazy schedule and my school, it was hard to keep up with her medicine. And it was harder to keep an eye on her all the time." She shifted her weight. "It was just small things at first. Like forgetting keys or leaving clothes down in the laundry room for days. But then it got more serious. Leaving the stove on. Forgetting to lock the door. Heading downstairs to get the mail but along the way forgetting where she was going or what she was doing."