The Beauty of Humanity Movement

by Camilla Gibb

  “No, Daddy’s not coming.”

  “But where is he?” she asked.

  “Oh, Maggie,” said her mother, burying her face in her hands. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “He’s left us for the next life.”

  Because we left him, Maggie thought to herself, we left him standing on the tarmac at the air base.

  “Maybe his next life will be in Minneapolis,” Maggie finally said, trying to comfort first her mother, then herself—a pattern that, in retrospect, had already become entrenched.

  It wasn’t until she was older that Maggie learned the details that had surfaced that day. At sixteen, she sought out Paul Nguyn, discovering he now worked at Abbott Northwestern Hospital as a lab technician. They sat on stools in a dimly lit room, Paul wearing his lab coat and twisting a piece of paper in his hands.

  “So your mother never told you,” he said. “I suppose you were too young. The fact is, your father and I waited too long to leave.”

  “But why did you wait?” Maggie asked. “It was important to continue getting the stories out. I think we assumed that as long as there were still Americans in Saigon we would be okay. But then the city was surrounded, under attack from all sides.

  “Your father and I fled to the American Embassy. There were thousands of people already there, desperate, crawling over the walls. The embassy was getting people out as quickly as it could. When it was our turn, your father and I waited up on the roof in a terrible thunderstorm. But the next helicopter never came. We waited for hours and I remember your father finally saying, ‘It’s over.’

  “I knew he was right,” said Paul, throwing the twisted piece of paper into the trash can. “We went and hid in the bomb shelter. Hundreds of us crammed into this hot, dark tunnel. We had no plan, Maggie, just prayers. Within a few hours the soldiers stormed in and shone their lights into our faces. When they reached your father and put a gun to his head, he just held up his hands and said, ‘I’m done. I’m old and you have already taken my hands. My wife and daughter are safe in America.’”

  Why had her father given up when he had so much left to fight for? Paul Nguyn had survived; he even had his hands despite being taken from that bomb shelter to a re-education camp where he’d been imprisoned for four years.

  Maggie slid off the stool and reached for her knapsack.

  “Listen, he’d been through a camp once before,” Paul pleaded. “I just don’t think he could face it again. You have to understand, Maggie, re-education makes it sound so much more benign than it was—it’s the remaking of the individual, destroying him in order to rebuild.”

  But Maggie didn’t understand, she was angry. She couldn’t imagine what could be so bad that he would give up his life, his family, a future. But then perhaps this was why he had ensured their passage to America. So that she could be spared ever having to know.

  The Quiet Inside

  In the absence of Old Man Hng this morning, T and his father are forced to settle for an inferior bowl. The broth at Ph Hong Vit on Mã Mây Street is passable and the beef should be good because it is supplied by Ts mother, but still, they would feel disloyal if they said this ph was anywhere close in quality to Old Man Hng’s. Whenever they are forced to come here then, they make a point of complaining.

  “Not enough pepper, eh, T?”

  “And he can’t have trimmed the fat, do you see this oily film on the surface?”

  “I think it’s because he’s buying the cheap cuts again. It’s not Anh’s fault he’s cheap.”

  “Can you taste any star anise? I think he’s reusing the pods, because I don’t taste it at all.”

  “There’s hardly any heat in this chili paste.”

  “He cooked the noodles for too long. They’re like glue now.”

  “Dad? What is this?” T says, pinching a bean sprout between his thumb and forefinger. “Some kind of Saigon invasion!”

  “Thank you, Bình and son,” the proprietor interrupts. “I’ll be happy to charge you double today for your enjoyment of so many insults.”

  T is slurping his broth and watching a cockroach dart across the wall when his cellphone rings. The cockroach skips over the lip of the skirting board and falls to the floor. Friends in high places, he thinks, looking at the phone number as he lifts his feet.

  “Cao Mạnh T at your service,” he answers loudly in English.

  “Good morning,” says Miss Maggie Lý, sounding so American he has trouble picturing her Vietnamese face. “I was just wondering, T— yesterday, when you said if I ever needed the services of a tour guide? Well, I just might. Any chance you could stop by the hotel today?”

  Yes, okay, Miss Maggie’s request is a little bit inconvenient, but you do not say no to a request from the Metropole, as he says to his boss in a subsequent call. And how can he resist the intrigue? This is a chance to figure out just who this lady is and solve the mystery of her relationship to Old Man Hng.

  “The hotel contacts you directly now?” Ts father says, raising his eyebrows, impressed.

  T feels meeting Miss Maggie Lý was somehow fated. That life is about to improve measurably.

  The lobby of the Metropole is so quiet by comparison with the street that it takes a few moments for Ts ears to adjust. He stands and inhales the smells of burnt toast and coffee before making his way down a hotel corridor in search of Miss Maggie’s office. He checks to make sure his fly is pulled up, then knocks three times for luck on the door.

  So much art is stacked against the walls of Miss Maggie’s office that she can’t open the door the whole way. T is forced to squeeze past her as she holds the door open, his thigh brushing against hers, causing him to look down with some embarrassment.

  “I had no idea the hotel had so much art,” says T, finally casting his eyes about the room.

  “Everyone was surprised,” Miss Maggie says. “It’s my job to make sense of it all. It’s taken almost a year, but I’m close. Listen, how’s the old man doing? Did you get him home all right?”

  “He’s okay,” says T. “He did at least agree to take this morning off, but I’m sure he’ll be back to selling ph tomorrow.”

  “That’s good news,” Miss Maggie says, sitting down. “Listen, I really appreciate you coming. Here’s what I wanted to talk to you about. More and more hotel guests are being referred to me because they’re interested in contemporary Vietnamese art. I don’t really have the time to take them around the city and show them the various galleries and studios; I’d never get my work done if I did. It would be really useful if I had a guide I could call when these situations arise, and I thought you might be just the man for the job.”

  T cannot imagine the basis upon which she has reached such a conclusion, but then why question something so flattering? And look at that smile, so warm and inviting he can feel it in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps it is the Americanness of her direct gaze, but no girl has ever looked at him in such a way, as if she is in need of something only he can deliver.

  “Certainly,” he says, straightening up in his chair, though he’s not certain of anything at all.

  “Great,” she says, pulling out a map. “I assume you’re familiar with the Museum of Fine Arts, so I thought we could start by visiting some of the major galleries in the Old Quarter—I haven’t even been to all of them myself yet.”

  T picks up the map. None of the locations she has marked are familiar to him; his expertise is in relation to the more common tourist destinations. Still, he will do his best to serve Miss Maggie Lý and earn the possibility of more flattery in future.

  Miss Maggie stands up, shuffles around the table and behind Ts chair, reaching for her purse. “Ready?” she says, touching his shoulder.

  Ts whole arm radiates with warmth. He feels something in his lower body as well, something he is quite sure he shouldn’t, but it’s not every day that a lady touches your shoulder. He springs to his feet and follows her down the corridor, her black heels clickety-clacking on the tiled floor.

&nb
sp; As soon as they have stepped onto the street, T starts making conversation of the sort he learned during his first week in tourism college. “Hot today, isn’t it? Soon the rainy season will be upon us and sweep some of this humidity away. You’ve been here long in Vietnam? Where in the U.S. are you from exactly? Nice weather there?”

  “Midwest,” says Maggie, two steps behind him now, “lots of snow.”

  T is forced to conjure the map of the U.S. in his head. He thinks west as in wild west—Texas, mostly—but he’s not entirely sure about the mid.

  “Minneapolis,” she says, “Minnesota.”

  “Ahh. So you are a fan of the Minnesota Vikings?” T says, hoping to impress her with this knowledge, turning round to confirm the look of astonishment on her face.

  Maggie laughs. “Not really my thing,” she says. “But how do you even know that? Isn’t it all about soccer here?”

  “I just like to study facts, particularly about foreign countries. Do you know that football originated from the sport of rugby?”

  “Really,” says Miss Maggie in that way Phng is always warning T about.

  Miss Maggie follows T down the narrow path of sidewalk, squeezing between a wall of motorbikes to their right and a string of red plastic tables to their left. T would like to recite to her the rest of the names of the American football teams he knows, but his voice would be lost in the collective roar.

  Tourists always ask him, How can you think with all this noise? But truthfully? This is where he finds himself meditating. The more crowded the better. In Vietnam you are with family from childhood to death—and when family and neighbours are not watching, you can rest assured the government is.

  Twice each day the district report is broadcast over the loudspeaker, listing those who have committed crimes and infractions. Once T heard Phng named among those who were late in their payments for motorbike licence renewal, and he felt very ashamed for him.

  “You don’t honestly listen to that propaganda, do you?” he’d asked T. “We’re a city of three and a half million. How many Nguyn Phngs do you think there are in our district alone?”

  Phng was right; no one is paying very close attention to the report anymore. You don’t need to spy on your neighbour now and envy his brand new television and suspect him of accepting some bribe, perhaps from a foreigner, or of having some Vit Kiu traitors in his family sending him money from the U.S. Now, instead of reporting you to the district council, your neighbour will say, Friend, help me split this television cable, will you? Hey, friend, why don’t we pool our resources to buy a satellite dish?

  T steps off the sidewalk and onto the road. “Wait,” Maggie calls out. “We’re not going to cross here, are we?” She is pointing across the river of traffic between them and Hoàn Kim Lake. “Can’t we just walk to the top and cross up there?”

  “But this way is much quicker. Do you never come to the lake?”

  Maggie shakes her head.

  “You never cross the road?”

  “Not this one,” she says.

  “How do you come and go from the hotel?”

  “I take a taxi.”

  “Every day?”

  “At least twice a day.”

  “Ôi zi ôi,” says

  T. He guides Miss Maggie into the street by the elbow. It’s almost like floating, like walking on water. “Look straight ahead,” he says, “and whatever you do, don’t hesitate. You need to find the quiet inside.”

  Inside Ts quiet, he finds the girl of last Christmas in her fuzzy red-and-white outfit. Her lips like a butterfly, her skin dewy like a newly peeled potato. He doesn’t hear the traffic as he crosses the road, he hears her whispering in his ear instead: You can kiss me, you can touch me, if you’d like. Those same words slip out from between Miss Maggie’s perfect teeth just before he reaches the sidewalk.

  “Wow. My God,” says Miss Maggie. She holds her stomach for a moment, and T wonders if she’s about to be sick. Never mind, the lake air will refresh her. Hoàn Kim is at its most beautiful in the morning, and its most romantic, when young men sit with their girlfriends under the banyan trees while T envies them and the mist slowly dissipates into a chalky sky.

  “It’s beautiful,” she says, looking at the surface of the lake.

  It strikes T as very sad that Miss Maggie is only realizing this after a whole year in Hanoi. For all the changes that are happening in the city, the lake remains constant and still.

  “According to local legend, six centuries ago the turtle god rose from the water to relieve Emperor Lê Li of the magic sword he used to defeat the Chinese Ming. The city was born from this lake and so, in some ways, are its people. The lake is the city’s liquid heart.” Good line! T commends himself. Perhaps he should try that one out on the old man, admirer of poetry that he is.

  T and Miss Maggie walk side by side along the paved path that circles the lake while young couples share secrets on benches, men lean in over chessboards, an old married couple plays badminton, racquets in each hand, and middle-aged men and women march past them swinging their arms in the air like propellers. They are too late for the early morning legions who practise tai chi.

  T is relaying the history of the decisive battle that freed the Vietnamese from the Chinese in the fifteenth century as he and Miss Maggie walk past the Bridge of the Rising Sun. An old woman with baskets slung from a bamboo pole across her shoulders approaches and smiles at T with black-and-gold teeth. “Help an old woman and buy from me,” she says to him.

  T waves her away, keen to carry on with this important story, only to realize he is now talking to himself.

  “What is she selling?” Miss Maggie calls out from where she has stopped.

  “Sticky rice in banana leaf,” T says, walking back to join her. “With quail egg inside.”

  “I don’t sell to Vit Ki’êu,” says the woman with a country accent so muddy thick it is unintelligible to Miss Maggie. “Neither should you,” she says to T, sucking her blackened teeth.

  “She’s not buying in any case,” T tells the old woman, waving her away.

  “What did she say?” Miss Maggie asks, staring after the woman as she shuffles off.

  “She hopes you are very happy in Hanoi.”

  T is explaining the way the old guild system worked as they walk into the narrow, congested streets of the Old Quarter. Miss Maggie seems less interested in history, though, than in what is immediately in front of them. What’s that? she asks. What’s this?

  T wonders how it is that she looks so Vietnamese yet has such questions. Where has she been living for the past year? Does she never leave the hotel?

  “This is it,” Miss Maggie says, stopping in front of a building much wider than any other on Hàng B’ô Street.

  T double-checks the map. The gallery is bright white and stands out in marked contrast to the tube houses that flank it. He pulls open the carved wooden doors, revealing a vast space with high ceilings.

  As soon as they step across the threshold, they are greeted in English by a team of immaculate girls, hair parted in the middle and slicked back tightly, all dressed alike in white, long-flowing traditional áo dàis. The woman in charge, European with a thick accent, stands behind an ornate gilt-edged desk and clasps her hand over the mouthpiece of her cellphone to say she’d be happy to answer any questions they might have once she’s done with her call.

  “Please wander,” she says with a wave.

  T has never seen so much art in one place, except in the museum. He moves around silently, eyeing the paintings. Girl in áo dài. Water buffalo. Woman working in rice paddy. Pagoda. Bamboo bridge over river. Mist over mountain. Schoolgirl in áo dài. Boat on Halong Bay. Water buffalo … They look like postcards to T, the kind that tourists hand to him at the end of their trips, saying, “Would you mind sending these for me? I didn’t get a chance to buy stamps,” and pressing a ten- dollar bill into his hand.

  “It’s all a bit romantic, isn’t it,” Miss Maggie says in English. “And
kind of innocuous.”

  T doesn’t know the word. Like inoculation? A shot in the arm?

  The owner waves apologetically and rolls her eyes. Sotheby’s, she mouths at Miss Maggie.

  T and Miss Maggie wander in opposite directions around the room, the blur of images becoming wallpaper, until T spies something familiar. A painting of the Old Quarter by Bùi Xuân Phái. T recognizes it immediately because there are several of Phái’s paintings on the walls of Café Võ, which his father used to take him to see as a boy. Mr. Võ has the most extensive collection of Phái’s work because the artist paid for all his years of coffees with paintings.

  Ts father even has one of Bùi Xuân Phái’s drawings at home. It was a gift from the artist himself to Grandfather Ðạo, which Grandmother Amie somehow managed to hold on to. It’s an ink drawing on brown paper of a lady, just the black outline of her body, and apart from showing it to T, his father has always kept it rolled up—the nude was too naked for the Party, not to mention too bourgeois—though since Ði mi he has not felt the need to keep it locked up in the bedroom chest.

  T picks up a photocopied sheet of paper. The prices of the paintings are listed in dollars and have a great many zeros. But how can this be? Bùi Xuân Phái died in desperate poverty—the man didn’t even own a bicycle, just the canes on which he used to hobble about—but this painting is on sale for thousands of dollars.

  The owner is still on the phone by the time they finish their circuit of the room.

  The second gallery is only two streets away and the owner of this one is not on the phone. He greets Miss Maggie in a familiar way, then engages her in a conversation about a group of artists in Singapore, leaving T to wander about the room. More of the same. Girls in white áo dàis returning home from school. Woman in rice paddy. Sunrise over Halong Bay. Lady with lotus flower, boat on Perfume River, different lady with lotus flower.

  “It has a timelessness to it,” says Miss Maggie, coming to stand at his side. “An almost conspicuous avoidance of history.”