Five

Four months went by. Mai continued to collect the food with Minh, wash the clothes, watch the children, and fall asleep at night under the Malaysian sky dreaming of the day their names would be called over the loudspeaker and she and Hiep would go to America.

America? Would they have to work in the rice fields? How would she go to school? She hid these worries inside her the way she hid her gold bracelet from Small Auntie. At night she dreamed of her family. Each morning when she awoke, she thought she was at home until she remembered, and then sadness filled her.

She remembered pleading with Father not to send her.

“It’s not possible. Your passage has been paid. The identification papers stamped. Now go to sleep. You’ll have to get up early.” Father had lit a cigarette and raised it to his lips.

There was no arguing with Father. Just do what he said. That night, she’d dreamed Father came to her with tears in his eyes and begged her forgiveness, assuring her they would never send her away. But the next morning, her mother had shown her the gold bracelets in the waistband of her pants before she stepped into them.

“Why must I wear all of these clothes? I’ll be too warm,” Mai had complained while her mother dressed her in three layers of clothing: three loose-fitting blouses and three pairs of pants.

“This is all you can take with you, Mai. You can wear the red blouse and black pants when you go to America. And,” Mother reminded her, “don’t tell anyone about the bracelets. They will bring you good fortune.” She touched her forefinger to a lock of Mai’s straight black hair dangling over her right eye and put her arms around her. Mai clung to her mother, feeling the softness of her body and smelling the odor of fish sauce on her breath, until her mother pulled her hands away. Mai would relive that goodbye embrace for a long time.

“You and Grandmother are going to take a xe loi to Father’s cousin’s house in Soc Trang near the mouth of the river. Just a shopping trip as usual. But you will stay there and wait for Hiep. He’ll be along tomorrow.”

I’ll never see them again, Mai had thought, her throat raw. She’d rolled up her sleeping mat and put it in the corner of the small room where they all slept.

Since those terrible days in 1975, they’d hidden in Rai Rang with Ông Ngoai, at his textile mill just a few miles from their home. Because Ông Ngoai wasn’t a wealthy landowner, the Communists had let him keep his factory. Mother and Father worked long hours stringing the looms and dyeing the thread. Mai could still smell the rotten egg odor from the vats of dye. She’d helped by watching Yen, the baby. Here, it seemed, they were safe. The workers wouldn’t report them, but their world had shrunk and they had to be careful.

Yen, now a girl of four, ran over to Mai.

“Goodbye, Yen. Be a good girl.”

Tuyet put her arm around Mai. “Goodbye and good luck. I’ll see you in America,” she whispered.

Quan, a skinny boy of ten, asked where she was going. “Just shopping with Grandmother,” she’d replied.

“Come on, Mai, xe loi’s here,” Mother called as a motorcycle with a cab attached behind it pulled up. Grandmother, a tiny woman bent like a twig, her gray hair pulled back behind her ears, was waiting outside, her shopping bag over her arm. Mai could hear Father’s teacup rattle when she walked to the door.

Mother thrust a red cloth bag at her. “Food for the journey,” she said. Were those tears in her eyes, Mai wondered?

Mai and Grandmother climbed into the xe loi, which flew down the dirt road with the steady purr of its engine and the choking dust filling the air.

Mai remembered watching everything she loved disappearing: the alleys she’d played in with her brothers and sisters, Ông Ngoai’s textile mill, its red tile roof gleaming in the sunshine, and most of all her beloved family.

A long time later, they entered Soc Trang. Grandmother had held Mai’s hand while they made their way through a maze of alleys to the two-story brick house, where a sweet-faced woman with four small children clustered about her bowed and motioned for them to enter. She poured them each a cup of tea while her children stood in a row and stared with their small, dark eyes.

“Goodbye, Mai. Cousin will take good care of you. And do what she tells you.” Grandmother rose. She touched Mai’s trembling hand.

“I will, Grandmother,” she’d answered, in a voice so low she could barely hear herself

“Here,” Cousin said. “Follow me.” She padded down a dark hallway to a drab, windowless room. “Be very quiet. The neighbors.” She nodded toward the outside wall, rolled her eyes, and put her finger to her lips.

Hiep had joined her the next afternoon.

Mai jumped up from her mat. “You’ve come. Why’d it take so long?”

“I had to leave later than I expected. Police around. Didn’t want to arouse suspicion.”

They left that night. When the house grew quiet and Mai thought she could not wait one more minute, a soft knock came at the door.

“Now,” Cousin whispered, pointing down the hallway. Hiep and Mai slipped outside without speaking.

“Follow me,” said Hiep, hugging the shadows.

Mai wiped her tears and stumbled after him until her legs throbbed with pain. They came to an inlet in the river. Above them, Mai saw the moon hanging like a gold medallion in the black satin sky.

A small wooden canal boat waited among the tall reeds. A young fisherman took Mai’s hand as she stepped aboard. Can we trust him? A trembling couple with a small boy emerged from a bamboo grove and joined them. The boat sank low in the water with the six of them. The fisherman stood at the stern, and, moving two poles slowly through the water, pushed away from the riverbank. Mai could hear the rapid pounding of her heart against her chest wall, and the dip, dip, dip of the poles in the water as the current took them down the river.

Several hours later, the fisherman guided the boat behind a small island and stopped. The boat bobbed in the water. Half-awake, Mai leaned against Hiep’s strong shoulder. Then the boat began crossing the river toward the old fishing trawler, with its long open deck and pilot house at the back.

Small boats appeared from all directions, headed toward the trawler like a swarm of bees to honey. When they reached the boat, a tattooed arm reached down and hoisted Hiep and her aboard. The captain, a one-legged man with a neat gray moustache, recognized them. Captain Le was a frequent visitor to their home; he was Father’s cousin and a veteran of the South Vietnamese navy who had escaped execution by the Communists because of his war injury.

Mai hadn’t seen Captain Le since they’d arrived on Pulau Tengah. She wondered what had happened to him. And she rarely saw Hiep anymore. He spent mornings at the Red Cross tent listening for their names to be called, then dug wells with Sang the rest of the day, and then disappeared after dinner.

One evening in early February, after she had helped Small Auntie wash the dishes, she and Hiep went for a walk along the beach. The sky was a black tent embroidered with silver sequins, the moon a sliver. The smoke of the cooking fires mingled with the salty sea air. Above her she could see the Silver River in the sky.

“I’m glad you stayed here tonight. Where do you go after dinner?” she asked Hiep.

“Oh, just hanging out with some of the guys I work with.”

“I miss you.”

“I’m just having fun, Mai.” He stopped and stared at the sky.

“But it’s not fun for me. I have to work all day for Small Auntie, and then in the evening, she still makes me tend to the children. Oh, Uncle Hiep, I want to go home. Why did we have to come here?”

“Now Mai, you know your father was right. We couldn’t hide forever. They’d find us. And then they’d kill us or send us to the re-education camp. It couldn’t stay like it was. You’ve got to be brave.”

Mai walked along next to Hiep, feeling the soft sand on her feet. Oh, how she missed her family. She would try to be brave, but it wasn’t going to be easy.