The Tree of Love

Hồ Chí Minh City, 2016

The grass at the 30/4 Reunification Park was wet from the evening rain. A cool wind cut into Phong’s face. He took off his shirt and brought it to his nose. Bình had ironed it before their departure to Sài Gòn. He inhaled her touch. He hoped she’d gotten home safely with the children and hadn’t run out of money along the way. He wished he had made up with her before saying goodbye, told her he was sorry. But he’d been upset about the visa and how bossy she was. When Bình agreed to marry him, people whispered that she only did it for the chance to migrate to America. They were wrong. He knew she loved him.

He used to believe that he didn’t deserve love because his life was cursed. He used to believe that his parents had done something unspeakable and that he was being punished for it. The luck of his life had been meeting Bình. Her faith in him had enabled him to regain his confidence. Yet for years, he’d feared that she was just a beautiful illusion, and he would wake up to find her gone.

If the Khuấts’ scheme to use him as a ticket to America had been successful, he might never have met Bình. But she wasn’t waiting for him outside the Khuấts’ doorstep.

That day many years ago, when the man Khuất blocked his way with a large stick, Phong had taken a fighting stance. He only needed to demonstrate a few high kicks and powerful punches before the man slipped away from his view.

After leaving the Khuấts’ house, he’d gone back to the building where the American Consulate people had interviewed him. He asked them to let him reapply for a visa. He was told that once his application was rejected, his chance was small, but he could go to the Amerasian Transit Center to seek help.

Located near Đầm Sen Park, the Transit Center was packed with more than a thousand Amerasians by the time Phong arrived. Built and funded by the American government, it was managed by Vietnamese. The trẻ lai who stayed there had been homeless or came from the countryside. They were either waiting for their visa interviews, for their flights, or for another chance. Everyone’s case was different, but all hoped to leave. After registering and answering countless questions from Vietnamese officers, Phong was given food to eat and a room to share with five other boys.

As months passed and his efforts to reapply for a visa failed, his hopes dwindled. Apparently, many trẻ lai had been associated with fake papers and the American government decided to apply strict rules. Phong wasn’t sure what these rules were. Visa officers were the ones who decided. Those in the Center often talked about a visa officer known as Mr. Ten Percent, who rejected 90 percent of the visa applications he handled. They hoped to be interviewed by others who appeared to be more generous, but even so, some of them only granted visas to around 30 percent of their cases.

In 1997, the Center was shut down. Phong was twenty-five years old and once again homeless. He’d only worked odd jobs a few times during the last four years, and now he needed full-time employment. He went back to the bus station, only to find no job openings.

Sitting at the bus station for hours, he stared at the people arriving and leaving. Sài Gòn had rejected him like a body rejecting a foreign object. He knew that the Mekong Delta, which he’d visited countless times while working on the long-distance bus, was rich with rice harvests. The perfume of such harvests lingered in his mind and called to him. He got off the bench and hung on to the back of a truck, telling himself he would go as far as the truck would take him. After an entire day of traveling, the truck made its final stop. He jumped down. He was in Bạc Liêu, a small province on the Southern tip of the Mekong Delta. He wandered around. Noticing dark-skinned people like him, he learned that they were ethnically Khmer. They were poor but known to be hardworking. Their skin color made him feel he belonged.

He sold the four gold rings, which he’d sewn into the bottom of his bag during his stay at the American Transit Center. The money was sufficient for him to buy a plot of farmland, on which he built a small house using bamboo and coconut leaves. Once he had a roof over his head, he walked from house to house and told the farmers that he was Khmer, and could help with planting seasons and harvests. He worked hard and saved money. After a few years, he was able to buy an adjacent plot of land, where he planted rice and vegetables.

Bạc Liêu, his new home, was the cradle of cải lương music—Vietnamese folk opera; it was where the master musician Cao Văn Lầu composed his many well-known songs. Phong fell in love with the music because it mirrored life. In each song he saw the struggles and courage of ordinary working people. He realized that he needed music as much as food and air. He started going to cải lương plays in order to lose himself in the music and performances of traveling troupes. He heard Sister Nhã’s cries and laughter in the voices of the guitar with its carved fretboard, the moon lute, the pear-shaped lute, the two-string fiddle, the sixteen-string zither, and the monochord. During his first year in Bạc Liêu, he learned much of Cao Văn Lầu’s music by heart and started to play the đàn sến, a two-string plucked instrument.

One day, after attending the cải lương play Phạm Công Cúc Hoa with his Khmer friends, Phong stayed back with them at the Bạc Liêu Park. The night was dark, dimly lit by a street light. He was on the grass playing his đàn sến when a girl, sitting close by in another group of friends, responded with her singing. Her friends sang, too, but the girl’s response stirred something deep inside of Phong. In her voice he could see the rice plants bloom their first flowers; the storks stretching their wings, riding on a sunset; a school of fish dashing through a gushing stream. She breathed hope and life into an ordinary song.

As he was leaving the park, the girl approached him, saying she needed a đàn sến teacher. He recognized her voice instantly. She said her name was Bình, which he loved, since it meant Peace, just like her voice. Bình was short, shorter than his shoulder. In the dim light, he couldn’t see her face clearly to know her age. He said he wasn’t good enough to be a teacher, but he gave her his address.

He didn’t think she would actually show up and was surprised when she came two days later, in the late afternoon while he was working in his small garden. He was afraid she would turn away as the daylight exposed his skin color. But Bình behaved as if he was like her: fair and Vietnamese. She walked barefoot between the rows of corn, okra, and eggplant, complimenting how healthy they looked. She squatted down, touching the emerald lettuce heads and the red tomatoes as if to make sure they were real. “Not just a talented musician, you’re a wonderful gardener,” she announced.

When she left, he felt something had been born between them, like a seed being sown into fresh soil after the rain. He asked his friends about her and was relieved to find out that she was two years younger than him and unmarried. And she worked as a rice farmer, just like him.

For months afterward, she would visit him, not to learn, but to sing as he played the đàn sến. And to spend time in his garden. In between them, a tree of love started to flourish, gaining new leaves. Full moon after full moon, their music intertwined, growing roots into one another. He revealed his origins to her, and Bình said she admired him even more, knowing how much he’d gone through and how he’d managed to make a life for himself. She ignored the whispers of neighbors and friends. She didn’t care that her parents and brother disliked Phong. She told him he was a good man and she trusted him. She’d previously had a boyfriend who was abusive, and in Phong she found the respect that she needed from a man.

Phong had had enough experience with women during his years on the street and in the shelter to know that Bình was sincere.

Their wedding ceremony, hosted by his Khmer friends, was simple but joyful. They sang, laughed, and drank rice wine. That night, on the wedding bed he’d built by himself, Bình kissed his birthmark as she peeled away his clothes. She told him how handsome he was and how attracted she had been to his muscled arms, toned body, and full lips.

Still, when his children were born, he wanted them to have Bình’s fair skin, straight hair, and flat nose. He didn’t want them to face the prejudice he’d been subject to. But his father’s genes refused to fade, remaining alive in his children. Alive in their skin color, their facial features, the texture of their hair.

At least his children could have pure Vietnamese names. Tài meant “talent,” fit for a boy, while Diễm meant “elegant,” perfect for a girl. He especially liked it that his son had his middle name, Tấn; and Tấn Tài was also the name of his favorite singer: Lê Tấn Tài, whose vọng cổ songs enchanted Phong.

Alone in the 30/4 Reunification Park now, thinking of the woman he had married, the mother of his children, Phong wished he had his đàn sến instrument, so he could pour his emotions into music. He peered across the darkness, toward the Foreign Affairs Bureau. His eyes were moist, thinking about his Amerasian friends who had gathered with him in front of that office, petitioning their cases to anyone who listened. They’d spent many nights here, sleeping side by side, like fish in a clay pot.

Where were his friends now? Did they ever find peace?

The DNA test was faster and easier than Phong had imagined. It didn’t involve any blood taking, just the swabbing of the inside of his cheeks. Mr. Lương, who took his sample, worked for a travel agency. He said a laboratory in America would analyze Phong’s DNA and register his data with an organization called Family Tree. If any of Phong’s relatives, such as his father or mother, had done the same, their DNAs would be matched, and both parties would be informed. Phong learned that Amerasians in the U.S. had been sending free DNA test kits back to Việt Nam to help trẻ lai like him who were left behind.

“Please help pass along my sincere thanks,” Phong said, sitting at a table in Mr. Lương’s cramped office. “Do you know if many of them have been able to find their fathers?”

“Very few . . . I just read a statistic, that tens of thousands of con lai like you are still looking for their parents,” Mr. Lương said, and Phong wished the man would call him “trẻ lai” instead of “con lai.”

“For the few con lai that found their parents,” Mr. Lương pushed a cup of tea toward Phong, “the ending wasn’t always happy. I just want to tell you the truth, so you can prepare yourself.”

“Please . . . tell me more.” Phong had been in the dark for too long. The world had moved on and left him behind. If he could read and had been able to follow the news, things would have been different.

“Here’s a story for you,” Mr. Lương poured tea into his cup. “I know this con lai, a beautiful woman . . . around your age. She made it to America. She had her father’s address and photos, so she wrote him long letters. No answer. Finally she got up the courage, traveled to his city, and went to his house. She knocked on the door. When a man opened it, she knew that it was him. She told him who she was and you know what happened?”

Phong shook his head.

“The man slammed the door. In her face! He screamed for her to get off his property. He said if she didn’t leave right away, he’d call the police for trespassing.”

Phong shuddered. The woman had lost her father twice: the first time when he abandoned her, and the second time when he rejected her.

“She had no choice but leave.” Mr. Lương shook his head. “She swore never to contact her father again. For years she hoped he’d reach out to her. But nothing.”

Mr. Lương refilled his cup. “Sad stuff like that happens, Phong. So don’t have high hopes.”

Phong drank his tea. If he didn’t have hope, not just his hands but his heart would be empty. “Do you know why the father didn’t want to accept the daughter in this case?” he asked. Sister Nhã had taught him to always look past people’s actions and try to understand their reasons.

Mr. Lương shook his head. “A lot of vets just don’t want to accept their kids when they are found. There could be many reasons. For example, some of those men had no idea that they had fathered children in Việt Nam. Or they are traumatized and want nothing to do with their past. Searching for family members is more complicated than people think.” He looked at his watch. “Shit . . . I’m running late for a meeting in town.” He put Phong’s DNA samples into an envelope.

“But if I find my father via DNA testing, it would mean he’d accept me, right? Because he registered his own DNA test?” There were many more questions Phong wanted to ask.

“Maybe. But people do these DNA tests for lots of reasons. And your father doesn’t need to do the test himself; you might be able to locate him via the DNA results of one of his relatives, like his siblings or children.” Mr. Lương folded the consent form for Phong’s DNA test, which Phong had signed with his finger prints. “Recently an Amerasian here in Sài Gòn found his father this way; his DNA results matched those of his father’s sisters. I was happy for him at first, but not for long, because shortly after, he learned that the father had already passed away.”

Phong gazed into his empty cup. Filling it now was the possibility that his father, who must be in his sixties or seventies now, had died. Suddenly he was afraid to learn the truth.