The Laughing Buddha
Sài Gòn, 1969
It poured the day Trang moved into the apartment with Dan. They left the windows open and stayed in bed looking out at the silvery blanket. The wind rushed in, trembling on Trang’s skin as Dan peeled off her clothes, gently. They made love to the murmur of rain.
After he’d rolled away from her and his breathing eased, she circled her finger on his stomach. She felt like the rain had brought him to her and he was a part of the water, pure and heavenly. Now that they were together, she believed the war could no longer touch them. “I am very happy,” she told him. She truly was. She didn’t know what being married was like but she felt Dan was her husband. From now on, she wanted to take good care of him.
“I’m very happy, too. Very . . .” He pulled her closer.
She rested her head on his forearm. The air was cool and he was warm. She could stay like this forever.
When her eyelids grew heavy, she told herself they hadn’t unpacked. Gingerly, she pushed herself up and covered Dan’s chest with his shirt.
“Have a nap, em . . .” Dan’s voice was raspy.
“I need to go market.” She looked around the empty apartment. Bags of belongings scattered on the floor. Unpacking could wait, but a home wouldn’t be complete without an altar. She needed the Laughing Buddha’s blessings. He’d brought her luck and she must continue to pray to him.
“Market?” Dan rubbed his eyes. “You want to buy food? I’ve got some chocolate in my bag . . .”
“I’m not hungry.” She kissed his forehead.
“I am, for my delicious mangoes.” He grabbed her breasts, which hung before him.
“You bad boy.” She slapped his buttocks and got out of bed. She pulled her dress over her head.
“You go now?” He sat up. “May I come along?”
“You? Market?”
“Why not?” He put his jeans on, hopping on one foot. “At least I can help you carry.”
She combed her hair. If Dan joined her, her neighbors would find out, and the news could spread to her village. Hiếu would know, but she no longer cared about him. Compared to Dan, Hiếu was a coward: he’d never dared to confess his feelings to her.
She hadn’t received any news about Hiếu and wondered if he’d been drafted. Hiếu’s father had sold their buffaloes and cows to pay for the bribes required to help his son escape the draft. But she’d heard that no young man could stay away from the army forever. With the fire of war burning, it needed more men as firewood.
“Don’t look so worried.” Dan smoothed the wrinkles on her forehead. “I’ll leave first . . . the back door . . . Where should I wait for you?”
She looked at the smile in his eyes and realized that during this turbulent time, propriety wasn’t important; love was.
“We’ll leave together,” she said. It was risky, but she was feeling excited to show off her man.
The market was overflowing with activity. Everyone was getting on with their lives despite the war.
Dan held her hand as they browsed stall after stall. People turned their heads, looking at him, whispering. Trang had wanted him to be a secret, but now, she felt pride surging through her. She wanted to shout out to the world that Dan was her boyfriend.
They stopped at a fruit stand. “This looks strange.” He picked up a rambutan, its long hair nesting against his palm. “You sure we can eat it?”
“The red color lucky.” She squeezed the fruit lightly, testing its firmness. She needed to buy five types of fruit, in five different colors, for the altar.
“Where did you find him? He is so very cute.” The seller—a middle-aged woman—asked Trang, studying Dan.
“How do I ask for a price?” Dan nudged Trang.
“Bao nhiêu một ký.”
He turned to the seller. “Bau nhiu mut ki.”
The woman laughed out loud. “For you . . . one dollar per kilo.”
“Năm chục đồng một ký, dì ơi,” Trang bargained.
“Nam chuc dung mut ki, zi oi,” Dan repeated.
The seller snorted and shook her head. She pushed a small bamboo basket into Dan’s hand. “Pick what you want . . . You’re too adorable.”
They came back from the market lugging a wooden altar, a ceramic Laughing Buddha, bags of fruits, bunches of ancestor money made from joss paper, flowers, and incense. At home, Trang taught Dan how to set up the altar, how to arrange the fruits onto a plate, how to pray with incense, and what to say as they burned the ancestor money to send it to the dead. Kneeling next to Dan, Trang whispered her prayers to the Laughing Buddha, asking him to protect Dan and keep his helicopter safe.
They started unpacking their bags, putting their clothes into the closet. Before it was done, Dan grabbed her by the waist, throwing her onto the bed.
In the middle of the night, they woke up and reached for each other. Dan was gentle and loving. When she worked at the bar, Trang’s body tensed up with fear whenever another man touched her, but it had learned to trust Dan. It had discovered the ability to relax, surrender, and demand pleasure. It knew how to sing under Dan’s touch. It taught Trang that when she was with Dan, she could forget about her own problems. No responsibility to her parents. No trace of shame. Only the overwhelming feeling that she was entitled to happiness. And she felt the passion between her and Dan was fueled by their mutual sense of being stranded between intimacy and strangeness, dream and reality, safety and danger.
When she woke up the next morning, Dan had put money into her purse. She understood that she could use it to buy food for both of them, to pay for water and electricity. And she understood that she could keep whatever was left. For that she was thankful.
Dan told her he was being transferred to another unit and would be away more often. She was anxious. Did being away more often mean he would be doing more dangerous missions? When she asked him, he just smiled and told her not to worry. She cooked a lavish meal, and as they ate that night, she explained why it was important to take off one’s shoes before entering a home, how one should invite older people to eat first, and how to hold chopsticks.
After dinner, he sat on the floor, next to a bucket of water. As she massaged soap into his hair, washing each strand, he told her about his family. He came from a city called Seattle. He had a sister, and he missed his mother very much.
Dan must love her. Why else did he tell her about his family? He never mentioned a wife or a girlfriend and she was sure he had none. She felt no need to ask; she trusted him to tell her the truth because he seemed so open.
Curfew time was approaching and he had to go back to the base, but she hung on to him. “Don’t go.” She had no idea what exactly he’d do on his missions and she didn’t want to know.
“I’ll be back, em.”
“Remember, you fly high. No joking.”
He nodded. “I fly high. No VC can get me.”
The following morning, Trang was so restless; she went out. Her feet were heavy as if she were lugging buckets of water. She passed Hân’s former building. Hân had found herself a boyfriend and moved with him to Đà Nẵng.
She knocked at the door of Quỳnh’s apartment. Quỳnh’s roommate opened it, let her in and climbed back into bed.
“Wake up, Sister. Come have breakfast with me.” She shook Quỳnh’s arm.
Quỳnh turned away. Her face was smeared with makeup. Her breath stank of liquor.
The room was as quiet as a book no one had read. Trang studied each piece of furniture, each item of clothes, knowing how much history was held within it, just like an unopened page. She lay down next to Quỳnh. She gazed at her sister’s bony shoulders but didn’t dare touch them, knowing how much Quỳnh needed sleep. She’d apologized to Quỳnh after their fight but the distance between them was expanding, a river swelling during the rainy season. Trang would have to cross that river to be close to her sister again, but she feared her secrets would drown her. She wondered what secrets Quỳnh kept.
What was her Má doing at this time of day? She must be feeding Ba breakfast or working in the field. She must be sad that her daughters hadn’t come home for a visit. There’d been regular reports about attacks by the VC along the highway to Kiên Giang, but people were still traveling. She should bring Dan home and introduce him to her parents. They’d be delighted to learn that such a wonderful man had fallen in love with their daughter.
She just hoped that Dan stayed safe.
She opened her eyes to see Quỳnh staring at her. The light, streaming from the window, was blindingly bright. The heat told her it was probably noon.
“Everything alright?” Quỳnh asked.
“Everything perfect.” She smiled.
“Your boyfriend, he still treats you nice?” Quỳnh turned onto her stomach, resting her cheek on her palm.
“I’m his princess.”
“Ha, tell me then, how much does he pay you per week?”
“It’s not about money with him, em.”
“Of course it has to be about money first, that’s why we are here, chị Hai. Don’t let him fool you.” Quỳnh sat up. “Remember that on top of the rent, electricity and water, he has to give you at least one hundred dollars per month. All soldiers must do that to be able to keep a girl to himself.”
Other bar girls had talked about this rule, but how could Trang ask Dan? Besides, she stayed with him because it made her feel good; their love was purer than money. She got out of bed, rolled her hair into a bun. “Come, let me treat you to bún thang.”
Over steaming bowls of noodle soup cooked with chicken, pork, and dried shrimps, she avoided mentioning Dan and gossiped about other bar girls.
Afterward, Trang went to the Hollywood. She pretended to be sick, running several times into the toilet to vomit, coughing constantly and so hard that she was told to go home. She passed by the market, bought a ripe, large, and thorny red gourd fruit. Back at her kitchen, she extracted the fruit’s red flesh, marinated it with rice wine and salt, then mixed it with the sticky rice she’d soaked the night before. She steamed both with coconut milk. In front of the Laughing Buddha, with her forehead touching the floor, she prayed for Dan’s safety. After the three sticks of incense had burned out, the door clicked open. Dan stood against the evening.
She rushed to him and enveloped him in her arms so tightly she was sure he wouldn’t be able to get free. He ripped away her pajamas and pinned her to the wall. With her clinging onto his waist, he made love to her urgently.
Later, on the bed, he tugged a lock of hair behind her ear. “Your Mekong Delta . . . beautiful. I see it from the cockpit of my helicopter, em.”
Cóc-pít? Was it the place where Dan sat when he flew his helicopter?
“You keep safe.” She caressed his lips. “You alway come back to me.”
“You bet.” He rolled her onto him.
She kissed the muscles of his chest, then moved her mouth lower. “You stay still. You close eyes.”
His chim was sleeping when she reached it, but it soon got up and grew.
“Oh, baby, where did you learn that?” he groaned.
She grinned. A few days earlier, she’d found a book with photos of a Western couple in the bar’s changing room. The couple was giving each other pleasure in ways she hadn’t known about. The expressions on their faces told her that sex wasn’t dirty and evil the way her work had made her believe. Sex was one of the greatest gifts someone could give his or her lover.
When it was Dan’s turn to give her pleasure, she closed her eyes and let the music of her body lift her up and bring her to faraway places so she could see the bluest mountains, the most enchanting clouds and the brightest stars.
Later, they ate dinner in bed, naked. The sticky rice melted into her with its deliciously fragrant salty-sweet taste. She fed Dan the soft grains, laughing as he bit into her fingers. The war was raging outside, people were dying, but here in her apartment, she felt like she belonged to a world of peace, of safety, protection, and complete trust. She was astonished that she could love a person beyond their language, skin color, and nationality, and that love was stronger and more powerful than any war. Love overcame fears and threats.
When Dan came back next time, he gave her a most special present: the sensitive plant. She’d described to him her rice field, how much she missed it, and now he brought her a piece from the countryside. As she watched the plant timidly open its leaves inside his C ration can, she felt herself blooming for him, too.
She had brought along from home a diary and now she penned her happy feelings on the pages. She translated her favorite love poems and read them to Dan. She wrote her own poems, too, not about love but about a world of peace where kindness and compassion grew and blossomed, its light overtaking the darkness of wars and violence.
Dan’s schedule was hectic, and he wasn’t allowed to leave Tân Sơn Nhứt as often as before. She missed him like a rice field missed the rain, like the sea missed its waves, like the stream missed its fish. She was hungry for him, and for his love. But she noticed as the weeks went by that he was becoming more quiet, distracted, lost during his short and occasional visits. She tried to convince herself it was normal, that couples ran out of things to talk about. She wanted to know what he’d seen or done during his flights but it was a forbidden topic.
One evening Dan came by, looking tired and withdrawn, answering her questions in mumbles. She tried to brighten the mood when they were eating dinner by telling him a funny story she’d heard at the bar. She was halfway into it and giggling when he dropped his spoon and stared at her, his face reddening. “Are you fucking other men?” he asked.
She flinched. His words cut into her, sharper than a knife. “Of course not. I loyal to you, anh.”
“Stay home then. You need money? Take it!” He threw his wallet onto the table.
Of course she needed money. Her parents’ debts were still to be paid. Since moving in with Dan, her income had been slashed to less than a third. If Dan had really wanted to help, she would have accepted it, but the way he behaved was so arrogant, she felt heat rushing to her forehead.
She put down her chopsticks. “You need to trust me like I trust you. I do nothing bad. I don’t go with men to private place.” She would never depend on him for money. She had to stay independent, save for her education. Besides, what would she do all day at home when he was away?
“If you want to work, find another job.”
“I tried, remember? I told you how hard it is.” Since meeting Dan, she’d been determined to find employment at an office. She’d spent weeks writing job applications, to no avail. She hadn’t gotten a single interview. There were too many unemployed people and the fact that she hadn’t graduated from high school didn’t help.
“Then try harder.” Dan walked away from the table, leaving behind his half-eaten bowl of phở.
He didn’t come for several days after this, and she blamed herself. She went over the argument they’d had countless times, telling herself that it was just a misunderstanding. But she sensed that it wasn’t. Quỳnh’s words echoed in her mind like a curse. They’re all like that at the start, but once they own you, they’ll drop their masks.
The next time he turned up, she showed him the many job advertisements she’d cut out of the newspapers and explained that she’d had no luck. Instead of listening to her, he picked up the Sài Gòn Daily News that she’d bought that morning. He stared at the article about an alleged Việt Cộng attack at a café in Sài Gòn, printed on the front page. He gazed at the photos of two Vietnamese men and a woman, their bodies mangled, bloodied. Suddenly he ground his teeth, then began tearing the newspaper into shreds.
“You okay, anh?” she asked him later, after she’d finished sweeping the torn paper into a corner.
“How can you even ask that question, given everything that’s going on outside?” He went to the toilet, slamming the door behind him.
She looked at the torn pieces of paper. The illusory world she’d built, that she’d believed existed, had crumbled. How naïve of her to have thought that her relationship with Dan would save them. Dan was right. She had been pretending that things were normal, when she should be angry about the war and sorrowful about its victims.
When Dan came out, he sat down next to her on the sofa. He muttered words of apology, pulled her into him, and buried his face into her hair.
“Tell me what’s going on, anh? Did you see things during your flights that upset you?” she asked later, after they had finished making love and she lay naked in his arms. When they first met, he’d told her that his helicopter only transported passengers, but she wasn’t so sure anymore.
He flinched as if she’d just splashed boiling water onto him. He jerked his body away, got up from the bed, and put on his clothes.
“Anh . . . please . . . you never talk to me anymore.”
“Be careful with your questions,” he glared at her, his belt jingling as he buckled it. “You don’t want me to think that you’re an undercover VC, do you?”
Fear ran through her veins. She opened her mouth but words were glued to her throat.
He left the bedroom, only to return to tell her that he was kidding, that he was sorry she hadn’t gotten his joke. By the time she was dressed, he’d gone, leaving some money on the table. She was seeing a pattern in his behavior. He would come to her distracted, nervous, and his temper would explode at something she said or did. Later, he would apologize, act tenderly, become again the man with whom she had fallen in love. Other times, though, he would remain quiet, brooding, but would cling to her as if she was keeping him from drowning.
She wanted to reach out to a friend who had an American boyfriend, who could help her understand Dan’s erratic behavior. But her friends all worked at the Hollywood. They would tell Quỳnh, and Quỳnh would insist that she leave Dan.
She sat on the floor, staring at the palms of her hands. She’d believed that Dan wouldn’t be pulled into the vortex of war, but now it seemed obvious that he was already in the middle of it. She imagined him roaming above her village’s rice fields, that the dead bodies scattered under his helicopter were those of her parents and her neighbors. She broke down crying.
Later, she knelt in front of Buddha, holding the sticks of smoldering incense above her head. She prayed for Dan, for his innocence to be protected. She prayed for him to remain the gentle boy she’d met, the person she’d fallen in love with. She prayed for her parents, her sister, and everyone she knew. She prayed for the monster of war to disappear.
The following week, she opened the door to see Dan with a grim look on his face. He brushed her aside, went to the fridge, and stood next to it, drinking one can of beer after another, talking to himself, swearing. When she served dinner, he stared at the bowl of tomato soup, cupped his palm against his mouth, and vomited, right there onto the floor.
“Don’t cook anything red!” he screamed as he washed up in the bathroom.
She stared at the soup, made from ripe tomatoes she’d sautéed with finely chopped shrimps. Perhaps the color resembled blood—blood that he’d seen or blood that he’d caused to spill. She shuddered. He was bringing the war into their apartment. Now she had to fight it head-on.
During his subsequent visits, the gulf between them grew larger and deeper. He stopped trying to speak or learn Vietnamese. All he did was eat, have sex, and sleep. He’d once enjoyed listening to her read aloud in bed but now violent sounds of American rock music replaced her voice. He drank constantly: beer, whiskey, and other hard liquors whose names she didn’t know. He smoked cần sa, calling it “grass.” There was no longer light in his eyes, just darkness.
Even his skin smelled different. It smelled of death and anger. She’d loved the taste of his mouth but now it stunk of tobacco and liquor, just like the men who frequented the bar. She’d imagined their love to be pure and delightful, like the sensitive plant’s flowers, but despite her efforts, the plant had withered. Picking up the shriveled leaves, she felt as if her dreams had shattered, too.
“I do nothing bad, em. I don’t kill anybody. Do you believe me?” Dan told her one day, as he was leaving the apartment, his hand already on the door’s handle.
She bit her lips. She had a thousand questions that demanded answers. “Stay and tell me more, please . . .”
“I can’t.” He shook his head and looked at her with desperation. “I need you to trust me, that I do nothing bad. Not on purpose.”
She gazed at his face. There were worry lines grooved into his forehead and dark pouches under his eyes. It seemed he’d grown ten years older in the past months. A lump rose to her throat. “Yes, I trust you, anh.”
He took her face into his hands and kissed her. The most tender and passionate kiss.
When he was gone, she paced the apartment. She’d heard his call for help. He was sinking and she could be his lifeline. Maybe she’d never get the chance to be a doctor, but here was a chance to save someone.
She tidied the apartment. She went out and bought a recipe book for Western dishes. She would show it to Dan and asked him what he wanted to eat. She came up with plans to spend time with him outside the apartment, to remind him of the fun they used to have. Not just markets, there were museums, parks, theatres, and cinemas. She would borrow a motorbike for them to ride around town.
But when Dan came, he shook his head at all her suggestions. He stared at the colorful pages of the cookbook as if they were blank. “Just make whatever you want,” he said.
He no longer complimented her cooking. He seldom smiled. He’d disappear for days, and when he visited her, he sat with his chair against the wall, his eyes on the door. He no longer ate on the street with her. He’d never carried weapons before but now a handgun was his companion.
On her way to work at the bar, Trang often came by Quỳnh’s apartment to pick her sister up. One day, she found her sister curled up against a corner of her room. The night before, Quỳnh had gone for a long-time with a soldier, who gagged her, tied her to the bed, and hit her.
“Stay away from such men, em . . .” Trang told Quỳnh, wincing as she applied eucalyptus oil onto the black and purple bruises on her sister’s arms.
“It’s like they are possessed by devils,” Quỳnh said.
“Who?”
“Those soldiers . . . The newly arrived ones are civilized. But when they go to the battlefield, it changes them.”
Trang nodded. She’d seen it happening with Dan. “I’ve been thinking . . . violence is a poison. When you commit violence or witness it, it rots you.”
“Yes . . . That’s why I fear those men, but I also feel sorry for them. . . . I mean, they think they come here to help us, but they’re making things worse. The bombings, the killings . . . all of that horror is being returned to them.”
“But the Việt Cộng aren’t any better. They’re brutal, too. . . . I wish all of the fighting would stop.”
“What will you do when the war ends, chị Hai?”
Trang inhaled the strong scent of eucalyptus into her lungs. The scent of her mother’s love. The oil had always been the first thing her mother used whenever she and Quỳnh had a flu, a stomachache, a headache, an insect bite. “I want to go home with Ba and Má,” she said. She no longer wished to be a doctor. She was failing her first patient. She would rather return to being a rice farmer, bringing seasons of life to her field.
“Yes, home . . .” Quỳnh said, her eyes distant.
Once again, Trang asked Quỳnh to move in with her. Dan had stopped spending the night at the apartment for a while now so Quỳnh could surely sleep there. But Quỳnh shook her head. “It’s him who’s paying the rent, I don’t want anything to do with him.” Quỳnh didn’t know about Dan’s erratic behavior. Trang had told her sister that Dan only transported people and wasn’t involved in any fighting, but Quỳnh still didn’t trust him.
At least Quỳnh agreed that she wouldn’t go into private rooms with her customers any more. She was popular enough to earn a decent income by just entertaining men at the bar. They’d managed to pay more than half of their parents’ debts. In a couple of months, they’d be free.
But it was getting harder to earn money at the Hollywood. Many GIs were boycotting bars that overcharged them and gave their girls Sài Gòn Tea without whiskey. While Trang tried to charm her customers into buying her drinks, she would think about Dan.
Dan, though, seemed to be so lost in his own world. He made love now as if she wasn’t even there.
When he didn’t visit for three entire weeks, Trang went to the base, looking for him. The longest he’d been away before was one week, for his R & R, to Taiwan, and he’d let her know in advance about his trip. At Tân Sơn Nhứt, she asked the armed guards about him but was told to go away. She feared he’d been killed.
She prayed to her Buddha every night. Then one morning, as she was washing her clothes, Dan stumbled in, drunk. She hardly recognized him: white bandages covered the top of his head. His left hand was in a cast and he limped. He’d lost so much weight, his cheeks were hollow. His eyes darted around constantly. He refused to let her touch him. He didn’t answer any of her questions. He gave her some money, just enough for the rent, and left in the same taxi that had brought him to her.
The next time he visited, it was raining. He sat on the bed, his head in the cradle of his arms, his knees to his chest. As the rain hit the window, his body jumped, as if each drop were a bullet.
“No need afraid. Rain is music, anh.” She hugged him from his back. “À ơi . . . trời mưa bong bóng bập bồng, mẹ đi lấy chồng con ở với ai,” she sang quietly, a lullaby to the rain’s rhythm. That night, she sang him countless lullabies, and he wept.
His injuries healed, and he went on missions again. He visited her from time to time, and their sex life resumed.
One day, she wasn’t home when he turned up. He came to the bar to get her; when he walked in, she was drinking Sài Gòn Tea with a new customer. Back at the apartment, she was making her way to the bathroom when he grabbed a chair.
“You were having such a good time with other men. You whore.” He flung the chair at her.
She ducked as the chair whizzed over her head, hitting the altar.
Watching the Laughing Buddha shatter into pieces, her legs gave way under her. “Oh Heaven, oh Earth,” she cried, kneeling, knocking her forehead on the ground. “Please forgive us, Buddha, forgive—”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Dan threw his can of beer at her. It hit her forearm, bounced off the wall, spattering liquid onto the floor.
She ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and pushed her body against it. She trembled. Buddha would be angry at Dan. Buddha could punish him, bring bad luck to him and to her for being with him. Nobody could avoid karma.
Dan continued to ramble. She heard the sounds of furniture being knocked against the wall. “Death is our business and business is good,” he shouted, over and over. On his last visit, she’d seen the phrase written on his T-shirt. She’d asked him what the English words meant and he said, “It’s who we are, you dumb cunt.”
Tears ran down Trang’s face, rinsing away any doubts she’d had. If she stayed with Dan, she could end up dead. He was lucky to have her and if he didn’t know it, it was his loss. Unlike other bar girls who brought clients to their beds as soon as their boyfriends went on missions, she’d been faithful. Unlike other women who demanded expensive gifts and monthly allowances, she’d hardly asked Dan for anything. How stupid of her to think that he loved her when he didn’t even know her real name. She knew his from his dog tags. Not Dan but Daniel. Daniel Ashland. But he’d never even thought to find out her name.
She took down the iron rod from which the shower curtain hung. Even though the rod was no match for Dan’s gun, she had to defend herself.
Things became quiet. Dan started to weep. After a while, he knocked at the door. “Baby, I am so sorry.”
“You get out! You leave!”
“What?”
“I don’t need you. You go now. You called me a whore. Fuck you!” She’d never said that word out loud before, but once she did, she realized it didn’t sufficiently express her anger. “Đù má mày! Mày chửi tao thì tao chửi ba má mày. Tao chửi tổ tiên của mày đó!” She ranted in Vietnamese, cursing Dan’s parents and ancestors. If Dan understood, he would kill her, but she no longer cared. She would prefer to be dead than to be insulted by the man she had shared her life with like a wife. How stupid of her to have trusted him. She had cooked for him, served him, given him her body and her mind, only to see him flick her away as if she was a mosquito.
“Honey, please . . . I swear to God I’ll never, ever behave like that again,” Dan told her through the door.
“You liar, you go away!” She gripped the iron rod tighter. Dan was no longer the gentle boy she’d known. Whatever he’d seen and done was rotting him.
“Baby, I need you. I’m a wreck, you’re the only one who can help me. Please, would you help me?”
She shook her head. As he broke into sobs, her grip on the rod eased. She slid onto the floor, tears rolling down her face. She recalled the first moment they met, the joyful memories they’d shared. With her blurry eyes, she saw her enemy: the war. It stood between her and Dan, like a gigantic monster. It was laughing at her, baring its teeth. If she gave up her fight, it would swallow her whole.
She opened the door, sat down next to Dan and embraced him.
After their tears had dried, he asked her to wash his hair. She understood the silent plea under his words. He needed her to wash away all the smoke and the death he’d seen underneath the blades of his helicopter. Wash away his sins.
“Your helicopter down? What happen?” she caressed the big scar on his leg.
He nodded, then stared into the distance, unblinking.
Several weeks later, she woke up, nauseated. She dashed into the bathroom and vomited.
“Your stomach hurt?” Quỳnh’s voice said. She had come over for a bowl of late-night rice porridge, which Trang had served with salted white radish and century eggs; after the meal, the two sisters had curled up in bed, talking about old times, and Quỳnh had ended up spending the night.
Trang gagged and threw up again.
“It can’t be your delicious food, I feel fine.” Quỳnh lowered herself down next to Trang on the bathroom’s floor. Her brows knitted in concentration as she pressed her fingers against the main veins on Trang’s throat, under her jaws, as well as on her wrist . “Your pulse,” she gasped. “It’s racing. Oh Heaven and Earth!”
Trang pushed herself up. She grabbed a towel and dried her face. “What?”
“You’re pregnant, chị Hai.” Quỳnh cupped her mouth with her hands.
“No, you’re wrong.” They’d always used condoms, but Dan had recently refused. He said he felt nothing with the rubber on. To avoid getting pregnant, Trang had started taking pills. But as Dan came by so rarely, she’d stopped the pills and washed herself after sex. She’d done it before. She hadn’t gotten pregnant. She couldn’t be pregnant now.
“Oh Heaven, oh Earth.” Quỳnh’s face was pale, drained of blood. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I?”
“Why are you so paranoid? Perhaps I’m sick with the flu or something. Besides, if I’m pregnant, Dan will take care of me. He loves me.”
“You’re such an idiot! These American men, they only want sex. They want sex and nothing else, you understand?”
“Shhh. You want the neighbors to hear?”
“You’d better not be pregnant.” Quỳnh held up Trang’s wrist, pressing her fingers against Trang’s vein again. “Oh Heaven and Buddha,” she whispered, “I can see the blood vessels on your neck. I can read it in your pulse. You’re truly pregnant.” She buried her face into her palms and howled; her cries painful as those of an animal being butchered.
Trang rushed to the sink and threw up.
On the bed, she shook Quỳnh’s shoulder. “Em, don’t you think you might be wrong?”
Quỳnh looked up, her eyes red. “I learned how to check a pulse from dì Vinh the midwife. She let me practice on her customers. I have no doubt you’re carrying a child, chị Hai. You’d better tell Dan about it.”
Trang brought both hands to her stomach. A child? She hadn’t wanted it, but perhaps it was for the best. Dan had said he needed her. A child would help him forget about all the troubles of this world. During the previous months, whenever they went out, he’d often beamed at small children, complimenting them on how adorable they looked.
“I’ll tell him soon.” She pulled up the blanket, covering Quỳnh’s chest and hers. “Let’s get some more sleep. I’m tired.”
She closed her eyes. Dan might have become hot-tempered, but he cared about her. Since that big fight, he’d behaved better. She felt the warmth of a new life sprouting in her stomach. Her baby. Her baby would be beautiful, inheriting her and Dan’s best features.
She couldn’t wait for Dan to come back, to tell him the fantastic news.
Trang counted each minute, until six days later, when Dan appeared at the bar. She ran to him. “News, I have news,” she shouted above the music.
He looked around, eyeing some soldiers.
“Anh, you not hear me?” she tugged at his arm.
“What?” He faced her. His hair was unkempt, his eyes were red and cloudy as if he hadn’t slept for days.
“I have news. Good news.” She clutched his hand, pulling him outside.
On the pavement, away from the bar’s entrance, everything was quiet. A peddler approached them, two baskets filled with mangoes and guavas dangling from a bamboo pole balanced on her shoulders. “Ai mua ổi mua xoài không?” she sang.
Dan leaned against the brick wall, lighting a cigarette. She coughed, fanning the smoke away with her hand.
He blew more smoke, eyeing a girl in a miniskirt who was walking past them.
“Dan.” She waited until he turned back to her, then took his hand, placing it on her stomach. “Baby. We have baby, anh.”
His eyes widened. “What the fuck?”
“Baby. Em bé. I’m pregnant. We have child, anh.”
He snatched his hand away from her stomach as if he’d touched a burning coal. He dropped the cigarette, grinding it slowly with the tip of his right shoe.
“Your baby.” She reached for him.
He lifted his head to look at her.
She had anticipated this moment and imagined many possible reactions from him: he could be overjoyed; he could be cautious; he could be upset.
Never had she imagined what happened next: she saw fear cross his face. As she stood there, stunned, he turned, and without a word, walked away from her.
“What did he say?” Quỳnh asked when Trang returned inside. The bar was busy as usual; too many girls were drinking, chatting, and laughing, as if it wasn’t their own lives they were gambling with. How stupid of Trang to have placed all of her bets on Dan; how naïve of her to have believed in the wonders of love.
Trang turned to her younger sister. The hope in Quỳnh’s eyes pained Trang; she realized how much Quỳnh had cared about her and wanted to protect her all along. With trembling lips, she faked a smile, avoiding Quỳnh’s gaze. She’d dried her tears and hoped Quỳnh wasn’t able to read her worry. “Oh, he’s very happy,” she said. “He assured me he’s going to take care of me and our child.”
“You’re lucky, chị Hai.” Quỳnh let out a big sigh, embracing her. “Tell him you need money to prepare for the baby’s birth. If he doesn’t give you his dollars, ask for PX stuff. Radios and watches are selling well these days. And liquor.”
Trang nodded. In the beginning, Dan had given her a few things from the military post exchange, but he hadn’t brought her anything for a long while. Standing in Quỳnh’s arms, Trang rested her tired bones against her sister and wished to travel back in time, to the days when she sat with Quỳnh under the banana plants waiting for their father. At least the waiting had been filled with hope.
She didn’t know what to do. In no case would she end her pregnancy: this baby was the fruit of the love between her and Dan. She had to nurture that love.
Dan might be upset because the news was so shocking. When she saw him next, she’d say she didn’t need extra money from him. She’d continue to work until she was ready to give birth.
She told herself that everything would be all right, but something twisted in her stomach. Since the incident with the chair, she’d replaced the altar and bought a new statue, but every time she prayed, she sensed the Laughing Buddha was no longer listening.
Three days later, she came home to find an envelope on the table. Only Dan and her sister had other keys, and Quỳnh had been with her all day. The envelope was stuffed with money. Money, but not enough for the time she’d spent with Dan. She waited one week, and then two. She went out to Tân Sơn Nhứt, but the guards wouldn’t let her onto the base. She understood it now: Dan was too much of a coward to face her.
Back at the apartment, she sat staring at her stomach. She realized that her involvement with Dan, just like his country’s involvement in Việt Nam, was a mistake. Both caused irreparable damage, leaving the Vietnamese to clean up the mess.
She lifted the mattress, and as she touched the envelope Dan had left behind that she’d hidden there, she flinched. These American bills were the reason that women like her were despised. She’d sold herself for these dollars and now they no longer meant anything. She lit her stove, wanting to burn the money, but extinguished the flame. She would need it to take care of her baby.