Also by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Fiction
The Sympathizer

Nonfiction
Nothing Ever Dies:
Vietnam and the Memory of War

Race and Resistance:

Transpacific Studies:
Framing an Emerging Field (coedited with Janet Hoskins)

Grove Press
New York
 Copyright © 2017 by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Versions of the stories coUected here were originaUy pubUshed in the Mowing
publications: “Black-Eyed Women,” in Epoch. 64.2; “The Other Man”
(published as “A Correct Life”), in Best New American Voices 2007; “War Years,”
(published as “The War Years”) in TriQuarteriy, 135/136; “The Transplant” '
(published as “Arthur Arellano”), in Narrative, Spring 2010; “I’d Love You
to Want Me" (pubUshed as “The Other Woman”), in Gulf Coast, 20.1; “The
Americans,” in the Chicago Tribune, December 2010; “Someone Else Besides
You,” in Narrative. Winter 2008; “Fatherland," in Narrative, Spring 2011.
For all refugees, everywhere
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First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: February 2017

Published simultaneously in Canada

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-8021-2639-9
elSBN 978-0-8021-8935-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

Grove Press
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17 18 19 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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O efore Mrs. Hoa broke into our lives in the summer of
Q 1983, nothing my mother did surprised me. Her routine
was as predictable as the rotation of the earth, beginning with
how she rapped on my door every morning, at six, six fifteen,
and six thirty, until at last I was awake. When I emerged
from my bedroom, she was already dressed, invariably wear­
ing a short-sleeved blouse and skirt of matching pastels. She
owned seven such outfits, and if she had on fuchsia, I knew it
was Monday. Before we departed, she switched off the lights,
checked the burners, tugged on the black iron grills guard­
ing our windows, always in that order, and then, in the car,
ordered me to lock my door.
As my father steered the Oldsmobile and I sat in the back
reading a comic book, my mother worked on her makeup.
By the time we arrived at St. Patrick ten minutes later, she

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was finished, the flags of blush on her cheeks blending in “They’re just going to ask for a lower price.” I was thir­
with her foundation. Perfume was the last touch, a pump teen, beginning to be brave enough to Say what I had sus­
of the spray on either side of her neck. The dizzying scent pected for a while, that my mother wasn’t always right. “Why
of gardenias clung to me in Ms. Korman’s summer school do they haggle over everything? Why can’t they just pay the
classroom, where, for seven hours every day, I spoke only price that’s there?”
English. I liked school, even summer school. It was like being “Are you going to be the kind of person who always pays
on vacation from home, and at three o’clock, I was always a the asking price?” my mother demanded. “Or the kind who
little disappointed to walk the four blocks to the grocery store fights to find out what something’s really worth?”
my parents ovmed, the New Saigon Market, where English I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that in the New Saigon, my
was hardly ever spoken and Vietnamese was loud. chore every afternoon was to price the cans and packages. I was
My mother and father rarely left their posts, the cash on my knees, rummaging for the stamp pad on the shelfbehind
registers flanking the entrance of the New Saigon. Custom­ my mother, when Mrs. Hoa introduced herself. Like my mother,
ers always crowded the market, one of the few places in San she was in her late forties and dressed in monochrome, a white
Jose where the Vietnamese could buy the staples and spices of jacket, white pants, and white shoes, with bug-eyed sunglasses
home, jasmine rice and star anise, fish sauce and fire-engine- obscuring her face. As my mother bagged her purchases, Mrs.
red chilies. People haggled endlessly with my mother over Hoa said, “I’m collecting funds for the fight against the Com­
everything, beginning with the rock sugar, which I pretended munists, my dear.” I knew the basics of our history as well
was yellow kryptonite, and ending with the varieties of meat as I knew the story of Adam and Eve: the Communists had
in the freezer, from pork chops and catfish with a glint of marched from North Vietnam in 1975 to invade South Viet­
light in their eyes to shoestrings of chewy tripe and packets nam, driving us out, all the way across the Pacific to Cafifomia.
of chicken hearts, small and tender as button mushrooms. I had no memories of the war, but Mrs. Hoa said others had
“Can’t we just sell TV dinners?” I asked once. It was easy not forgotten. A guerrilla army of former South Vietnamese
to say TV dinners in Vietnamese since the word for television soldiers was training in the jimgles of Thailand, preparing to
was ti-vi, but there were no Vietnamese words for other things launch a coimterattack in unified Vietnam. The plan was to stir
I wanted. “And what about bologna?” the unhappy people against their Communist rulers, incite a
“What?” My mother’s brow furrowed. “If I can’t pro­ revolution, and resurrect the Republic of the South.
nounce it, my customers won’t buy it. Now go stamp the “Our men need our support,” Mrs. Hoa said. “And we
prices on those cans.” need good citizens like yourself to contribute.”

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My mother rubbed one ankle against the other, her mosquito-bitten men with matted hair wearing ragged tiger-
nylons scratching. A seam had opened behind her knee, but stripe fatigues; living on rainwater, wild boar, and aphids;
my mother wotdd keep wearing the same hose until the run practicing hand-to-hand combat skills by bayoneting jack-
nipped at her heels. “I wish I could help, Mrs. Hoa, but times fruit. From the backseat, I said, “How much are you giving
are hard,” my mother said. “Our customers are cutting back Mrs. Hoa.>”
on everything, what with the recession and the gas prices. And “Nothing,” she replied. “It’s extortion.”
our daughter’s in college. Her tuition is like a down payment “But they’re fighting the Communists,” I said. Also
on a house every year.” known as Chinese and North Koreans, with Cubans and San-
I struggle making ends meet, too.” Mrs. Hoa unclasped dinistas threatening infiltration and invasion from south of
and clasped the silver latch on her purse. A thin gold band our border, as President Reagan explained on World News
encircled her ring finger, and the red enamel on her nails was Tonight. “Shouldn’t we help them?”
as polished and glossy as a new car’s paint. “But people talk. “The war’s over.” My mother sounded tired. “There’s no
Did you hear about Mrs. Binh.^ People say she’s a Communist fighting it again.”
sympathizer, and all because she’s too cheap to give anything. I was outraged, for Mrs. Hoa’s appearance proved the
There’s even talk of boycotting her store.” war was not over, in that she had somehow followed us from
My mother knew Mrs. Binh, owner of Les Amis Beauty the old Saigon to the new one. What was more, I had read
Salon a few blocks farther west downtovm, but changed the Newsweek in the dentist’s office and knew we were in the midst
topic to the steamy June weather and the price of gold. Mrs. of an epic battle against the evil empire of the Soviet Union.
Hoa agreed about the temperature, smiling and displaying But if I was unhappy with my mother’s response, I was even
a formidable wall of teeth. She glanced at me before leaving more upset with my father’s.
my mother with this: “Think about it, dear. Taking back our “The war may be over,” he said, wiggling his little finger
homeland is a noble cause for which we should all be proud in his ear, “but paying a little hush money wordd make our
to fight.” lives a lot easier.”
“Idiot,” my mother muttered after Mrs. Hoa was gone. My mother said nothing, merely drumming her fingers
As we drove home that evening along Tenth Street, my mother on the armrest. I knew she would have her way with my father,
recounted the episode to my father, who had been too busy a bald man with the deliberate moves and patient eyes of a
at his own register to overhear the conversation. When she turtle. Late that night, hurrying from the kitchen to my room
mentioned the guerrillas, I imagined them to be unshaven, with a glass of water, I heard my mother working to persuade

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him behind their closed door. There was no time to eavesdrop. began talking during our evening bookkeeping, a time when
We had recently read “The Fall of the House of Usher” in she was usually completely focused on calculating the daily
Ms. Korman’s class, and the fear of seeing someone undead receipts. We worked at the dining table, counting cash, rolling
in the dark hallway made me rush past their door, just as my coins into paper packages the size of firecrackers, and stamp­
mother said, “Tve dealt with worse than her.” ing the New Saigon’s address onto the back of the personal
Dread was stronger than curiosity. I shut my door and checks, the Monopoly-money food stamps, and the yellow cou­
jumped into bed shivering, pushing aside my summer text­ pons from Aid to Families with Dependent Children. When
books, which were wrapped in brown covers I had cut from I added the sums with a humming mechanical calculator
a shopping bag and upon which I had scrawled “Math” and bigger than our rotary telephone, I never needed to look at
“American History.” Perhaps my mother was talking about the keypad. I knew every number’s place by heart. It would
the famine at the end ofthe Second World War, when she was be the only time I was ever good at math.
nine. Last year, an evening television report on the Ethiopian As we did the day’s reckoning, my mother reported on
famine had prompted my mother to mention this other fam­ the rumors of former South Vietnamese soldiers organizing
ine while I plucked the gray hairs from her head. “Do you not only a guerrilla army in Thailand but also a secret front
know a dozen children in my village starved to death.^” she here in the United States, its purpose to overthrow the Com-
said, even though I obviously did not know. “Older people, too, mimists. Grimmer than rumors was how unknown assailants
sometimes right on the street. One day I found a girl I used had firebombed a Vietnamese newspaper editor’s office in
to play with dead on her doorstep.” My mother lapsed into Garden Grove (he died), while another editor had been shot
silence as she stared at a point on the wall above the televi­ to death, along with his wife, in the doorway oftheir house in
sion, and I did not say anything. It was the kind of story she Virginia (the murderers were never caught). “They just said in
told all the time, and in any case, I was too distracted to ask public what a lot of people already say in private,” my mother
questions. She was paying me for every strand I found and said, wetting her fingers on a sponge. “Making peace with the
I was intent on my search, each gray hair bringing me one Commimists might not be such a bad thing.”
nickel closer to the next issue of Captain America. I wrote down figures in a ledger, never looking up. My
father and I worked in T-shirts and shorts, but my mother
wore only a nightgown of sheer green fabric without a bra.
In the days and nights that passed, my mother never brought She wasn’t aware of how her breasts swayed like anemones
up Mrs. Hoa, but the woman had unsettled her. My mother xmder shallow water, embarrassing me whenever I saw those

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dark and doleful areolas with their nipples as thick as my not watched it even once, then the country in which he lived
index finger. My mother's breasts were nothing like those of surely needed a revolution. But my mother would not have
the girls in my class, or so I imagined in fantasies that had agreed. She wrapped a paper band around the twenties and
been confirmed the week before when I had seen Emmy said, “I hate the Communists as much as Mrs. Hoa, but she’s
Tsuchida’s nipple through the gap between two buttons of fighting a war that can’t be won. I’m not throwing away my
her shirt, pink and pert, exactly like the eraser on the pencil money on a lost cause.”
in my hand. Without raising my gaze from the ledger, I said. My father ended the conversation by standing and sweep­
But you always tell me the Communists are bad people.” ing the cash, coins, checks, and food stamps into the vinyl
“O-ho!" my father said with a chortle. “So you do pay at­ satchel he carried every morning to the Bank of America.
tention. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s going on behind those My parents kept some of their profits in the bank, donated a
thick glasses of yours.” portion to the church, and wired another percentage to the
“The Commimists are evil.” My mother riffled through relatives in Vietnam, who periodically mailed us thin letters
a stack of twenty-dollar bills. She had never finished grade thick with trouble, summed up for me by my mother to the
school, her father forcing her to stay at home to care for her time of no food and no money, no school and no hope. Their
siblings, and yet she could count money by hand and add relatives’ experiences and their own had taught my parents to
figures in her head more quickly than I could on the calcula­ believe that no country was immune to disaster, and,so they
tor. “There’s no doubt about it. They don’t believe in God and secreted another percentage ofthe profits at home, just in case
they don’t believe in money.” some horrendous calamity wiped out the American banking
“But they believe in taking other people’s money,” my system. My mother wrapped blocks of hundred-dollar bills in
father said. He spoke often of his auto parts store, which ac­ plastic and taped them underneath the lid of the toilet tank,
cording to his brothers no longer had any parts to sell imder buried dog-tag-sized ounces of gold in the rice, and stashed her
Communist ownership. We had lived above the store, and jade bracelets, twenty-four-karat gold necklaces, and diamond
sometimes I wondered if a Communist child was sleeping rings in a portable fireproof safe, hidden in the crawl space im-
in my bed, and if so, what kinds of books a Red read, and demeath the house. To distract thieves, she devised decoys, plac­
what kind of movies he saw. Captain America was out of the ing a large glass vase heavy with coins high on a bookshelf by
question, but he must have seen Luke Skywalker crossing the front door, and a pair of gold bracelets on top of her dresser.
light sabers with Darth Vader. I had seen Star Wars a dozen Her fear of robbery was proved justified last October,
times on videotape, and if anyone was so deprived as to have when, on an otherwise forgettable Tuesday evening, someone

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knocked on the door. My father was in the kitchen, having just Pity overwhelmed me; I knew this was neither the first nor
turned on the stove, and I reached the door a few steps ahead of the last time someone would humiliate them like this. As if
my mother, already in her nightgown. When I peered through aware of my thoughts, the man pointed the gun at me word­
the peephole, I saw a white man who said, “I got mail for you, lessly, and I got down on my knees, too. Only my mother did
sir.” If he had spoken in Vietnamese or Spanish, I never would not sink to her knees, her back against the wall and her face,
have unlocked the door, but because he spoke English, I did. freshly peeled of makeup, very white. Her breasts und\ilated
He used his left hand to push his way into the house, a young behind her nightgown, like the heads oftwin eels, as she kept
man in his twenties v^dth feathered hair the color of old straw, saying no. The man was still aiming his gun at me as he said,
long enough to brush the collar of his frayed jeans jacket. Not “What's her problem, kid?”
much taller than my mother, he was slightly built; when he When my mother screamed, the sound froze every­
spoke, his voice squeaked like rubber soles on a gym floor. one except her. She pushed past the man, nudging the gun
“Get back,” he said. His forehead was slick with sweat, aside with her hand and bxrmping him with her shoulder as
and in his right hand was a gun. Even with the passage of she ran outside. He stumbled against the bookshelf by the
decades, I can still see that gun clearly, a black-barreled .22 door, knocking over the glass vase full of coins. Falling to the
revolver that he waved before him with a trembling hand as ground, it shattered, spraying pennies, nickels, and dimes
he stepped past the threshold, kicking at the jumble of shoes all over, the coins mixed with shards of glass. “Jesus Christ!”
we kept there and forgetting to close the door. My mother the man said. When he turned toward the door, my father
concluded later that he was an amateur, perhaps an addict leaped up and hurled himself against the man’s back, shoving
desperate for money. He pointed the gun past me, at her, and him across the threshold and then slamming the door shut.
said, “You understand English? Get on the floor!” Outside, the gun went off with a short, sharp little pop, the
I backed away, while my mother threw her hands in the bullet ricocheting off the sidewalk and lodging itself in the
air, saying, Khong, khong, khongl” My father had appeared, wall next to the mailbox, where a policeman would dig it out
halfway between the kitchen and the front door, and the man a few hours later.
fixed his aim on him, saying, “Get down, mister.” My father
got onto his knees, raising his hands high. “No shoot,” my
father said in English, his voice faint. “No shoot, please.” On Sunday morning before we left for church, my mother
I had never seen my father on his knees outside church, used a dab of Brylcreem and a black Ace comb to slick my
and I had never seen my mother tremble and shake with fear. hair and part it down the middle. I was horrified at the way

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I looked, like Alfalfa from Unit Rascals, but I didn’t protest,
when he said, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the
just as I hadn't said anything to her after the police brought
Holy Spirit,” and I could not help dozing in the hard-backed
my mother back home from a neighbor’s house. “I saved
pew while he sermonized, remembering Emmy Tsuchida’s
our lives, you coward!” she yelled at my father, who smiled
nipple and looking forward only to the end of mass.
weakly at the police sergeant taking down our report while
It was in the crowd jostling for the exit that Mrs. Hoa
we sat at the dining table. To me, as she yanked my ear, she
touched my mother’s elbow one Sunday, a few weeks after the
said, “What did I say about opening the door to strangers.?
break-in. “Didn’t you enjoy the father’s sermon?” Mrs. Hoa
How come you never listen to me.?” When the police sergeant
asked me to translate, I rubbed my ear and.said, “She’s just said. Her eyes were curiously flat, as if painted onto her face.
My mother’s back stiffened, and she barely turned her head
scared, officer.”
to say, “I liked it very much.”
The police never caught the man, and, after a while
there was no more reason to mention him. Even so, I thought “I haven’t heard from you yet about your donation, dear.
about him every now and again, especially on Sunday morn­ Next week, perhaps.? I’ll come by.” Mrs. Hoa was dressed
formally, in an ao dai of midnight velvet embroidered with a
ings during mass when I rose from kneeling. It was then
that I remembered how I had gotten off my knees to see my golden lotus over the breast. It must have been unbearably
hot in summer weather, but no perspiration showed on her
mother dashing by the living room window, barefoot on the
sidewalk before all the people in their cars, hands raised high temples. “Meanwhile, here’s something to read.”
m the air and wearing only her nightgown in the twilight, She produced a sheet of paper from her purse, the same
shouting something I could not hear. She had saved us, and fake alligator skin one with the silver clasp I’d seen last week,
and offered it to me. The mimeograph was in Vietnamese,
wasn’t salvation always the message from our priest. Father
Dinh.? According to my mother, he was already middle-aged which I could not read, but the blurry photograph said it
when he led his flock, including my parents, from the north all, gaunt men standing at attention in rank and file under
of Vietnam to the south in 1954, after the Communists had fronds of palm trees, wearing exactly the tiger-stripe fatigues
kicked out the French and seized the northern half of the I’d imagined.
“What a handsome boy.” Mrs. Hoa’s tone was uncon­
country. Fantastically, Father Dinh still had more hair than
my father, a tuft of white thread that shone under the fight vincing. She wore the same white high heels I’d seen before.
lUuminating the stained glass windows. His voice trembled “And you said your daughter’s in college.?”
“On the East Coast.”

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Harvard? Yale?” Those were the only two East Coast the Datsun was the Virgin Mary, her image reflected in the
schools the Vietnamese knew. My mother, who could not windshield from her picture on the dash, as dim as our hand­
pronounce Bryn Mawr, said, “Another one.” ful of fading color photos from Vietnam. My favorite featured
“What’s she studying? Law? Medicine?” a smiling young couple sitting on a grassy slope in front of a
My mother looked down in shame when she said, “Phi­ pink country church, Ba in his sunglasses as he embraced Ma,
losophy.” She had scolded my sister Loan during her Christ­ who wore a peach ao dai over silk cream pants, her abundant
mas vacation, telling her she was wasting her education. My hair whipped into a bouffant.
father had agreed, saying, “Everyone needs a doctor or a law­ “Nam XU,” my mother said, turning left onto Story Road.
yer, but who needs a philosopher? We can get advice for free Thinking she wanted a translation into English, I said, “A
from the priest.” nickel?”
Mrs. Hoa smiled once more and said, “Excellent!” After “Five cents is my profit on a can of soup.” As my mother
she was gone, I handed the mimeograph to my mother, who drove, she kept her foot on the brake, not the accelerator. My
shoved it into her purse. In the parking lot, crammed with head botmeed back and forth on the headrest like a ball teth­
cars and people, my mother pinched my father and said, “I’m ered to a paddle. “Ten cents for a pound of pork, twenty-five
following Mrs. Hoa. You and Long run the market by your­ cents for ten pounds of rice. That woman wants five hundred
selves for a few hours.” dollars from me, but you see how we fight for each penny?”
My father grimaced and rubbed his hand over his head. “Uh-huh,” I said, beads of sweat trickling from my arm-
“And what, exactly, are you planning to do?” pit. Looking back so many decades later, I wonder if she was
She knows where we work. I’ll bet she knows where we exaggerating or if I am now, my memory attempting to ap­
live. If s only fair I know the same things, isn’t it?” proximate what our lives felt like. But I am certain that when
“Okay.” My father sighed. “Let’s go, son.” I rolled down the window and flung out my hand to surf the
“I want to go with Ma.” breeze, my mother said, “A bus might come along and rip
“You, too?” my father muttered. your arm off” I pulled my arm back in and sighed. I yearned
I was curious about Mrs. Hoa, and helping my mother for the woman she once was in that old photograph, when
was an excuse not to spend my morning at the New Saigon. my sister and I were not yet born and the war was nowhere
My mother and I followed her in our Oldsmobile, heading to be seen, when my mother and father owned the future.
south. Mrs. Hoa drove a small Datsun sedan the color of an Sometimes I tried to imagine what she looked like when she
egg yolk, peppered with flakes of rust. Superimposed upon was even younger, at nine, and I could not. Without a photo.

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my mother as a little girl no longer existed anywhere, perhaps rear of the store. We stored enough long-grain rice in the loft
not even in her own mind. More than all those people starved to feed a village, stacked nearly to the ceiling in burlap sacks
by famine, it was the thought of my mother not remembering
of ten, twenty-five, and fifty pounds. The clean carpet scent
what she looked like as a little girl that saddened me.
of jasmine rice permeated the air as I sat astride a dike office
Mrs. Hoa turned off Story Road onto a side street, a sacks, reading about Reconstruction. I had reached the part
neighborhood of one-story homes with windows too small about the scalawags and carpetbaggers who had come from
for the walls. Well-worn Ford pickups and Chrysler lowrid-
the North to help rebuild, or perhaps swindle, the South,
ers with chrome rims were parked on the lawns. The front when I saw Mrs. Hoa at the doorway, wearing the white outfit
yard of Mrs. Hoa’s house was paved over, and her yellow
from her first visit.
Datsun joined a white Toyota Corolla with a crushed bumper By the way my mother gripped the sides of the cash
and a green Honda Civic missing a hubcap. After Mrs. Hoa
register as if it were a canoe rocking in the waves while Mrs.
walked inside, my mother cruised forward to inspect the
Hoa talked to her, I knew there would be trouble. I climbed
house, painted with a newish coat of cheap, bright turquoise,
down the ladder, made my way past aisles stocked with con­
the garage transformed into a storefront with sliding glass
densed milk and cellophane noodles, shrimp chips and dried
doors and a red neon sign that said nha may. The blinds
cuttlefish, lychees and green mangoes, ducking my head to
on the tailor shop’s windows and the curtains of the living
avoid the yellow strips of sticky flypaper dangling from the
room were drawn, showing their white backs. The man who ceiling, and reached the front of the store as my mother was
had invaded our house must have followed us home in the
saying, “I’m not giving you any money.” A crack showed in her
same way, but my mother did not seem to recognize this. foundation, a line creasing her cheek from nose to jawbone.
Instead, her voice was full of satisfaction when she spoke. “I work hard for my money. What do you do.!* You’re nothing
“Now,” she said, easing her foot off the brake, “we know
but a thief and an extortionist, making people think they can
where she lives.”
still fight this war.”
I stood behind a row of customers, one of them read­
ing the same mimeograph Mrs. Hoa gave me in church.
When Mrs. Hoa came to the New Saigon on Wednesday af­
Mrs. Hoa’s face had turned as white as her outfit, and red
ternoon of the following week, I was in the wooden loft my lipstick smeared her ochre teeth, bared in fury. She glared
father had hammered together above the kitchenware at the
at the customers and said, “You heard her, didn’t you.!* she

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doesn’t support the cause. If she’s not a Communist, she’s and when we reached our house, he went wordlessly inside to
just as bad as a Communist. If you shop here, you’re help­ start dinner, as instructed. My mother drove on to Mrs. Hoa s
ing Communists.” house, taking me with her because, she said, “That woman
Mrs. Hoa slammed a stack of mimeographs onto the won’t do anything crazy with you there.”
counter by the register, and with that, she left. My mother It was eight thirty when my mother parked the car in
stared at my father at the register across from her, and neither Mrs. Hoa’s driveway, behind the Datsun. Mrs. Hoa answered
said a word as the Datsun sputtered into life outside. The the door wearing an orange tank top and a pair of shorts in a
customers in front of me shifted uneasily. Within an hour, purple floral print. Her hair was pinned back in a bun and her
they would be on their telephones, all telling their friends, face, bereft of mascara, lipstick, or foundation was creviced,
who in turn would tell their fiiends, who then would tell more pitted, and cracked—it belonged to a woman years older. Her
people, until everyone in the community knew. My mother small breasts were no bigger than those of Emmy Tsuchida,
turned to the customers with her face as carefully composed and a map of varicose veins on her skinny thighs and shins
as the letters she sent to her relatives, showing no signs of led south to gnarled toes, the yellowing nails spotted with red
worry, and said, “Who’s next.?” dabs of chipped polish.
Throughout the rest ofthe day, my mother made no men­ “What are you doing here?" Mrs. Hoa said.
tion of Mrs. Hoa, and I thought that she woixld simply ignore “I want to speak to you,” my mother said. “Aren’t you
her, hoping she would not return. But the moment we got into going to invite us in?”
the car, my mother began talking about her counterattack, and Mrs. Hoa hesitated and then stepped back begrudgingly.
I realized that she had been simmering for hours, keeping We took off our shoes and picked our way past the loafers,
quiet for the sake of the customers. My mother would go to sneakers, pumps, and flip-flops jammed around the door.
Mrs. Hoa and demand an apology, for her accusation could Racks on wheels, crammed with hangers for girls’ clothes, hid
cost my mother her reputation and her business, given the the window, while a pair of bunk beds ran along two walls of
depth of anti-Communist fervor in our Vietnamese commu­ the living room. In the center was a long folding table, stacked
nity. My mother would call Mrs. Hoa a disgrace and slap her with notebooks and textbooks.
if she refused. My mother would point out the hopelessness “We’re having dinner,” Mrs. Hoa said. Other voices rang
and self-delusion of Mrs. Hoa’s cause, reducing her to tears from the dining room. An aerosol of grease clung to the air,
with logic. As my mother rehearsed her plans, my father said along with the warm, wet sock odor of cooked rice. Have
nothing, and neither did I. We knew better than to oppose her. you eaten yet?”

67
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“Yes.” If my mother was surprised at Mrs. Hoa’s polite­ leaned over the table to peek inside, we saw plastic sandwich
ness, she didn’t show it. “I'd like to talk in private.” bags filled with chevrons and the colorful badges ofVietnam­
Mrs. Hoa shrugged and led us past the dining room. At ese units. “Some of these uniforms are for the guerrilla army
the packed table sat eight or nine people with heads turned in Thailand, but others are for our men here.”
our way, little girls with bowl cuts, a quartet of grandparents, I wondered if she meant the rumored secret front, or the
and a man and woman around my mother’s age, the shadows men my father’s age and younger that I saw at Tet festivals,
imder their eyes so pronounced they looked as if someone veterans ofthe vanquished South Vietnamese army who wel­
had pimched them again and again. Just as crowded was Mrs. comed the New Year by wearing military uniforms and check­
Hoa s bedroom, the first one down the hall. An industrial ing tickets at the fairgrounds where the festivals happened.
steel-frame table, a sewing machine fastened to it, dominated “Your husband’s a soldier?” my mother said.
the middle of the room, while the velvet ao dai and the white “He’s a commando. The CIA parachuted him into the
jacket and pants hung from the bunk bed, blocking the win­ north in 1963. I haven’t heard from him since.” Mrs. Hoa
dow. Mrs. Hoa sat on the only chair, behind the sewing ma­ spoke without any change in inflection, clutching the box to
chine, and said, "What do you want.?” her chest. “The Americans sent my younger son’s division to
My mother glanced at the closet, doors removed to reveal Laos in 1972. He never returned. As for my eldest son, he was
hand-built pine shelves stacked with bolts of silk and cotton. in the army, too. The Communists killed him. I buried him
One ofthe two clothing racks behind Mrs. Hoa was htmg with in Bien Hoa in 1969. My daughter wrote to tell me the Com­
everyday clothing—women’s slacks and blouses, men’s suits munists scratched the eyes out of the picture on his grave.
and dress shirts—^while the other was hung with uniforms, My mother was silent, fingering a tiger-stripe camouflage
olive-green fatigues and camouflage outfits patterned with jacket hanging from the rack. At last, she said, “I’m sorry to
blotches of brown, black, and green in varying shades, the heat about your'husband and your sons.”
same kind issued to the marines who had liberated Grenada “Sorry for what?” Mrs. Hoa’s voice was shrill. “Whoever
not long ago. My mother said, “You tailor uniforms for the said my husband was dead? No one saw him die. No one saw
soldiers?” my youngest son die, either. They’re alive, and no one like
“American sizes are too large for Vietnamese men and you is going to tell me otherwise.”
the proportions aren’t right. Plus the men want their names I studied the patterns in the beige carpet, shapes of a
sewn on, and their ranks and units.” Mrs. Hoa reached under frog and a tree, trapped there along with odors of garlic and
the sewing table and lifted a cardboard box, and when we sesame, sweat and moisturizer. My mother broke the silence

68 6^?
 mjTnmNci/m rue mm
by opening her purse and digging inside. From the crumpling Her voice was urgent, and when she suddenly leaned
of paper, I knew she was opening the envelope with the day’s forward, I was afraid she was going to reach across the sewing
cash. She extracted two hundred-dollar bills and laid them on machine and grasp my hand. I willed myself not to back away
the sevdng table in front of Mrs. Hoa, smoothing the face of from her fingers, two of them bandaged as if she had pricked
herself with needles. I felt that I had to say something, and
Benjamin Franklin on each bill, the same way she ran her
palm over my hair before entering church. so I said, “I’m sorry.” I meant that I was sorry for all that had
“That’s it,’’ my mother said. “That’s all I have.” happened, not only to her but also to my mother, the accu­
I calculated the cans of soup, the pounds of rice, and the mulation of everything I could do nothing about. My apology
hours of standing on her feet that made those two hundred made utterly no difference, but Mrs. Hoa nodded gravely, as
dollars possible, and I was astonished that my mother had if understanding my intentions. In a subdued tone, she said,
surrendered the money. When Mrs. Hoa looked at the cash, “I know you are.”
I thought she might demand the five hundred dollars she’d Those were her last words to me. She did not say good­
asked for, but she swept up the bills, folded them, and dropped bye when we left, and indeed, did not even look at us, for as
them into the box on her lap. As she and my mother stared my mother closed the bedroom door, Mrs. Hoa was gazing
at each other after that, I thought about how years ago my down into the box, her bent head revealing a furrow of white
mother had bribed a general’s wife with an ounce of gold, buy­ roots running through her scalp, where the hair s natural
ing my father’s freedom from the draft. My mother had men­ color revealed itself along a receding tide of black dye. It was
tioned the incident one night to my father as they inspected a trivial secret, but one I would remember as vividly as my
another ounce they had just purchased, and he, glancing at feeling that while some people are haunted by the dead, oth­
me, had said, “Let’s not talk about that.” They would file this ers are haunted by the living.
incident with Mrs. Hoa under the same category of things When my mother exited the freeway, she surprised me
better left unspoken. for the second time. She pulled into the parking lot of the
“We’ll see ourselves out,” my mother said. 7-Eleven offthe exit, two blocks from home, and said, “You’ve
“You see how the Communists weren’t satisfied with been such a good boy. Let’s get you a treat.” I didn’t know what
killing my son once.>” Mrs. Hoa aimed her gaze at me. “They to say. My parents did not grant me so much as an allowance.
killed him twice when they desecrated his grave. They don’t When I had asked for one in the fourth grade, my father had
respect anybody, not even the dead.” frowned and said, “Let me think it over.” The next night he

70 71
 mTHlNUNCl/m
handed me an itemized list of expenses that included my
birth, feeding, education, and clothing, the sum total being
$24,376. “This doesn’t include emotional aggravation, com­
pound interest, or fixture expenses," my father said. "Now
when can you start paying me an allowance.?”
My mother stopped under the bright lights at the door
ofAe 7-Eleven, pulled a crisp five-dollar bill out ofher purse,
and handed it to me. "Go buy,” she said in English, motion­
M WmANT
ing me inside. Whenever she spoke in English, her voice
took on a higher pitch, as if instead of coming firom inside
her, the language was outside, squeezing her by the throat.
Anything you want.”
k-n ^ sidewalk and went in, the five-dollar
bill as shck as wax paper in my hand, remembering how my
mn any unexpected things had happened to Arthur Arel-
mother’s lips moved whenever she used the fingers of one
f m lano, and the transformation of his modest garage into
hand to count on the fingers ofher other hand. The 7-Eleven
a warehouse, stacked with boxes upon cardboard boxes of
was empty except for the two Sikh men at the registers who
counterfeit goods, was far from the most surprising. Written
gave me bored looks and returned to their conversation. Disin­
on the boxes were names like Chanel, Versace, and Givenchy,
fectant tinted the air. I ignored the bank of arcade games and
designers of luxuries far beyond the reach of Arthur and his
the racks ofcomic books, even though the covers oi Superman
wife, Norma. Their presence made Arthur uneasy, and so it
and Iron Man caught my eye and the electronic whirring of
was that in the week after Louis Vu delivered this unforeseen
Pac-Man caUed to me. Past the cleaning products and canned
wealth to the Arellanos, Arthur found himself slipping out
soups was an aisle stocked with chips, cookies, and candy. I
of his rented house at odd hours, stealing down the pebbly
glanced down the aisle, saw the glint ofgold foil on a chocolate
driveway past his Chevy Nova, and opening the garage door to
bar, and froze. While the clerks chatted in a language I could
ponder the goods with which he was now living so intimately.
not understand, I hesitated, yearning to take everything home
Even under the cover of night, Arthur resisted the urge
but unable to choose.
to pocket a Prada wallet or a pair of Yves Saint Laurent cuff
links, even though Louis ended nearly every phone call by
IZ
73