But then a young man came around the side of a house on a bicycle and drove past and the major hailed him. The young man stopped and the major said, “Do you know a girl named Nguyn thi Linh?”
The boy’s reaction was surprising to the major. He gave a short little sneering laugh. “I know the girl, to my regret. But I will not speak ill of the dead.”
The major’s breath stopped and he felt a chill, like a winter wind, at the news that Linh was dead. Somehow, though, he was not surprised. He knew that no living person could project her spirit in such a way as he had encountered. The chill soon passed, but his breath was just as hard to draw as he grew furious with the boy for his disrespectful words about this beautiful girl who had saved his life. The major very nearly stepped forward to strike the young man, but suddenly a calmness came over him. This was merely a jealous boy, one who had seen Miss Linh’s beauty and desired it and who was rejected by her. The major knew this as surely as if Miss Linh had suddenly bent near him and whispered the facts of the case into his ear.
The major said, “And do her parents live in this street?”
“The red house at the end,” the boy said and he did not wait for any further words but turned away and rode off on his bicycle.
The major walked down the block and at the end found a small wooden house perhaps once painted red but faded now into a mellower shade, a pink from some sunset. He went to the door and knocked, and after a time, a woman appeared. She was old and bent but slim and with a thin nose and she looked up into the major’s face with searching eyes.
“I am Major Trung,” he said. “May I come in?” These words sounded strange to the major as he said them; they were as if he needed to give no explanation here. But without asking anything of him, the woman nodded and opened the door and stepped aside, and when the major was in the room, his eyes went at once to a shrine set against a wall. The shrine held flowers and candles and incense curling its smoke into the air and in the center was a large photograph of the girl from the mountain road. Miss Linh was unmistakable in this photo—the round face, the wide mouth, the thin nose, like her mother’s.
He turned to the woman and said, “Is this your daughter?”
The old woman nodded and touched her eyes lightly with a handkerchief. “Yes, she passed into the spirit world four years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” the major said.
“We are all sorry,” the woman said. “The whole world should be sorry. This war took the sweetest daughter a mother could have.”
The major said, “Yes, madame, and she saved the life of this soldier just last week.” And with that, the major sat the old woman down and told her his story.
After he was done, the old woman simply nodded and turned her face toward the window. “I am glad to know that my daughter’s spirit has not forgotten this world,” she said.
Then the old woman lowered her face and such a stillness and sadness seemed to come over her that the major knew he could say no more. He rose and bowed to the woman and turned and bowed to the shrine of Miss Linh, saying a silent prayer of thanks, and he left the house on the street called Lotus and he wandered into the grove of trees nearby and sat down, because a great weariness had come over him. He spoke her name once more-"Linh"-and a pale light filled the grove of trees and he fell into a deep sleep.
When the major woke, it was very dark. He leaped to his feet with the fright of waking from a bad dream, but he could remember no dream and he realized where he was and what had happened. He had slept all day and into the night in the grove of trees near Miss Linh’s house and once again he felt a calmness come over him. He had to drive back to the base camp, but he knew that Linh’s spirit would be there in the mountains to protect him. So he walked back to his car, bowing to her house, which was dark with sleep now as he passed. In his car, his hands were steady and his heart was light, and he drove off without even thinking of his earthly lover, who no doubt was weeping now in another part of the city.
The night sky had no stars and no moon. All was black and the whole world for the major was the column of light his car pushed before him. But he drove across the plain and up into the mountains and the road rose and cut back and rose and the mountain on the one side and the chasm on the other were the same, deep black, and the major was calm. There was nothing in his head but a light rustling, like a summer wind moving banyan leaves or the panels of an aó dài rising behind a beautiful girl. He kept his eyes on the turns of the pavement in his headlights and at every turn he half-expected Miss Linh to appear before him. And he would stop on his own. He would go to her.
And the road went up and up until he passed the white road marker and the road leveled and he felt a change in the darkness, he could sense the difference in the dark of the chasm and the dark of the mountain, which rose on both sides of him now. This was near the place of Linh’s last appearance and his heart began to race. He felt like a boy carrying a flower across a schoolyard to a girl he’d been watching all year and now his courage was strong enough to move his legs but not strong enough to give him a voice or enough breath. The road descended gently and turned to the right, the place where he’d seen the rabbit kicking up its heels and disappearing, and then the sharp left and it was now, he thought, now, but the lights showed only the road, there was no young woman in an aó dài, and he slowed his car as he passed the place where she’d first appeared but there was nothing. The major felt a hot flush in his cheeks, the bloom of disappointment, and he thought, Perhaps it’s because I am not in danger this night. Then for a moment he even wished that the VC were doing their job, waiting to kill him, so that Miss Linh would have to come.
Even as this thought shaped itself, the road dipped and before him Miss Linh appeared in the far reach of his lights. The major cried out, wordless, a sound of pleasure like the yip of a dog about to be fed. And he slowed the car, pressed at the brake, and as he neared her, he could see her face, lovely, round, and the wide mouth was smiling, a smile he returned, broadly, and he pulled off the road and came to a stop.
The major leaped out of the car and stood where he was because she was coming toward him and he wanted to watch her move. She floated, this highland girl from An Khê, floated like the most beautiful of the Saigon girls, and the panels of her white aó dài lifted delicately, and she was smiling. Her thin nose seemed like the very best of the faces of Western women and the rest of Miss Linh’s face was the best of the Orient. The major trembled as she drew near and she stopped just before the car, in the brightest beam of the headlights, and she seemed so substantial to the major, a spirit that had all the delicious tangibleness of an earthly body. “Miss Linh,” he said, with a great sigh, as if he had been destined all his life to be on this mountaintop with her.
“Major Trung,” she said, and her voice was as soft as a summer wind moving through banyan leaves, and he knew it had been her voice rustling in his head all through his journey to this place.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said.
“And I’m glad you are here,” she said. “This was our appointed time.” And she smiled at him. Her lovely, wide mouth widened farther as the smile grew and the smile did not stop when it reached the edge of her mouth but pushed the mouth farther, quickly now, and the major’s hands clenched as the smile opened and the great tongue came out, red and soft, and it grew and filled his sight and licked forward and touched him, a lover’s tongue, wet and insistent and clinging, and the major’s feet left the ground, the tongue lifted him up and he was yanked forward and he had time for one glance at Miss Linh’s eyes gleaming in the light, enormous eyes, as big as twin moons, and then there was darkness all around him and the pain crushed along the back of him, from his head to his feet, though he died quite quickly, long before he was chewed into pulp and swallowed.
Now, if you’ve been listening to me and even took note of my claim that I know this story to be true, you may be surprised at this turn of events. You thought perhaps that I myself was the majo
r, and things would have turned out differently. But that is a foolish, romantic notion. I have no hesitation in telling you that. The major died horribly in the jaws of this enticing woman. And if you care about what I’m saying and you do not despise me for calling you foolish, even if I have no guile anymore and I call you this seriously, without charm, then you are a very rare American indeed, and I will tell you how I know this story to be true.
When Saigon was falling to the communists in April of 1975, I was working for your embassy and I kept waiting for my boss, an American foreign service officer, to come and get me out. He had left the week before and he told me to wait. But things happened—do not blame him—and it was getting very late—the communists were already in the outskirts of the city—and I knew I had to go from my apartment on Nguyn Hu Street to the American embassy because the last helicopters would soon be taking off.
So I went out and got in my car, an American car from the embassy. It was only a few blocks, but I thought that my having the embassy car would help validate my claim with the Marines at the front gate, for I knew there were many of my countrymen trying to leave at the last minute. I went only a couple of blocks, had barely gotten beyond the Continental Palace Hotel, when I sensed the craziness in the streets. People were running everywhere now, frantic, carrying whatever possessions they could on their backs and running, many of them in the direction of the embassy. So I turned into Gia Long and up at the far corner there was a great commotion. I slowed down, and even as I did, I saw her.
It was Miss Linh. I know it was her. The man who told me Major Trung’s story—his brother—actually showed me Miss Linh’s photograph, the one that had sat on the mother’s shrine. I knew her round face, the thin nose, and of course that wide mouth that I watched now with special attention. She stepped into the street before me and held up her hand. I stopped the car and I got out quickly and walked away at a right angle to her, peeking over my shoulder to see what she would do. She did nothing. She watched me walking away and she smiled. But just a faint smile.
I cut through some yards and made it into the next street and I headed for the embassy on foot, fighting my way through very heavy crowds now. When I came to the next comer, I could see back down to the intersection Miss Linh had prevented me from entering. Two vehicles were already on fire there and I could see people in the crowd waving clubs. Miss Linh had saved me. But you can understand how this gave me no peace of mind.
A helicopter pounded overhead and I had no time to think of ghosts. The evacuation would soon be over, I knew, and I ran hard until I was in the street of the embassy, and there my heart sank. The embassy gates were besieged by a vast throng of my people and I could tell the gates were barred and no one was going in. There were figures trying to go up the wall and I heard automatic rifle fire and these figures leaped back down. I turned my eyes to the roof of the embassy and a chopper was sitting there with its rotors still moving as a single-file stream of people was climbing into its belly. I could tell even from this distance that almost all of the people going into the helicopter were Americans.
And then the voice came softly into my ear, whispering my name. I spun around and it was Miss Linh, her round face hovering before me like a bloated summer moon. I reared back and gasped and she smiled and I didn’t want that mouth to widen any further. My voice spoke and I heard it as if from a great distance. “Is this our appointed time?” I asked.
Miss Linh nodded yes, the smile steady on her lips, and she took a step toward me and I squeezed my eyes shut, I could not bear to see her monstrous tongue. But I felt nothing for a moment and then another moment, and I opened my eyes and I did not see her. I turned around and Miss Linh was standing near me in the street, and as I looked at her, she raised her hand to an approaching car. The car was large and black, a limousine with American flags on the fenders licking at the rush of air. But Miss Linh held her ground and the car stopped and then she stepped to the back door and opened it. Inside was a very important American, the boss of my boss. He recognized me and he said to get in. I looked at Miss Linh. She smiled at me, a lovely wide smile that ended in a nod toward the gaping door. So I stepped into the car and I was taken away to America.
Are you confused again, my round-eyed friend? Look at me, look where I am, listen to how I speak compulsively to strangers, even strangers from this alien land, listen to the kind of treatment I expect even now, even from you who have pretended to listen to me this long with interest. How do I know the major’s story is true? Because as I sat in the darkness of the limousine and it drove away, I looked out the window and saw Miss Linh’s tongue slip from her mouth and lick her lips, as if she had just eaten me up. And indeed she has.
SNOW
I wonder how long he watched me sleeping. I still wonder that. He sat and he did not wake me to ask about his carry-out order. Did he watch my eyes move as I dreamed? When I finally knew he was there and I turned to look at him, I could not make out his whole face at once. His head was turned a little to the side. His beard was neatly trimmed, but the jaw it covered was long and its curve was like a sampan sail and it held my eyes the way a sail always did when I saw one on the sea. Then I raised my eyes and looked at his nose. I am Vietnamese, you know, and we have a different sense of these proportions. Our noses are small and his was long and it also curved, gently, a reminder of his jaw, which I looked at again. His beard was dark gray, like he’d crawled out of a charcoal kiln. I make these comparisons to things from my country and Village, but it is only to clearly say what this face was like. It is not that he reminded me of home. That was the farthest thing from my mind when I first saw Mr. Cohen. And I must have stared at him in those first moments with a strange look because when his face turned full to me and I could finally lift my gaze to his eyes, his eyebrows made a little jump like he was asking me, What is it? What’s wrong?
I was at this same table before the big window at the front of the restaurant. The Plantation Hunan does not look like a restaurant, though. No one would give it a name like that unless it really was an old plantation house. It’s very large and full of antiques. It’s quiet right now. Not even five, and I can hear the big clock—I had never seen one till I came here. No one in Vietnam has a clock as tall as a man. Time isn’t as important as that in Vietnam. But the clock here is very tall and they call it Grandfather, which I like, and Grandfather is ticking very slowly right now, and he wants me to fall asleep again. But I won’t.
This plantation house must feel like a refugee. It is full of foreign smells, ginger and Chinese pepper and fried shells for wonton, and there’s a motel on one side and a gas station on the other, not like the life the house once knew, though there are very large oak trees surrounding it, trees that must have been here when this was still a plantation. The house sits on a busy street and the Chinese family who owns it changed it from Plantation Seafood into a place that could hire a Vietnamese woman like me to be a waitress. They are very kind, this family, though we know we are different from each other. They are Chinese and I am Vietnamese and they are very kind, but we are both here in Louisiana and they go somewhere with the other Chinese in town—there are four restaurants and two laundries and some people, I think, who work as engineers at the oil refinery. They go off to themselves and they don’t seem to even notice where they are.
I was sleeping that day he came in here. It was late afternoon of the day before Christmas. Almost Christmas Eve. I am not a Christian. My mother and I are Buddhist. I live with my mother and she is very sad for me because I am thirty-four years old and I am not married. There are other Vietnamese here in Lake Charles, Louisiana, but we are not a community. We are all too sad, perhaps, or too tired. But maybe not. Maybe that’s just me saying that. Maybe the others are real Americans already. My mother has two Vietnamese friends, old women like her, and her two friends look at me with the same sadness in their faces because of what they see as my life. They know that once I might have been married, but the fiancé I had in my town in
Vietnam went away in the Army and though he is still alive in Vietnam, the last I heard, he is driving a cab in H Chí Minh City and he is married to someone else. I never really knew him, and I don’t feel any loss. It’s just that he’s the only boy my mother ever speaks of when she gets frightened for me.
I get frightened for me, too, sometimes, but it’s not because I have no husband. That Christmas Eve afternoon I woke slowly. The front tables are for cocktails and for waiting for carry-out, so the chairs are large and stuffed so that they are soft. My head was very comfortable against one of the high wings of the chair and I opened my eyes without moving. The rest of me was still sleeping, but my eyes opened and the sky was still blue, though the shreds of cloud were turning pink. It looked like a warm sky. And it was. I felt sweat on my throat and I let my eyes move just a little and the live oak in front of the restaurant was quivering—all its leaves were shaking and you might think that it would look cold doing that, but it was a warm wind, I knew. The air was thick and wet, and cutting through the ginger and pepper smell was the fuzzy smell of mildew.
Perhaps it was from my dream but I remembered my first Christmas Eve in America. I slept and woke just like this, in a Chinese restaurant. I was working there. But it was in a distant place, in St. Louis. And I woke to snow. The first snow I had ever seen. It scared me. Many Vietnamese love to see their first snow, but it frightened me in some very deep way that I could not explain, and even remembering that moment—especially as I woke from sleep at the front of another restaurant—frightened me. So I turned my face sharply from the window in the Plantation Hunan and that’s when I saw Mr. Cohen.
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories Page 12
