Months later Tâm heard about the boat people: Vietnamese escaping the country on fishing boats, trawlers, rafts, even sampans. Their goal was to cross the South China Sea to the Philippines or Malaysia. But the vessels were often rickety and overcrowded, and people with no experience piloted them. The journey itself could be treacherous during monsoon season, when sudden squalls might capsize boats and drown passengers. Some estimated that only half the refugees who fled survived the voyage. But these were desperate times for many, who, like Tâm, saw no future in Communist Vietnam. Time was running out.
Tâm was leaving the Binh Tay market two days later when she remembered Anh Phong and his father, Bác Quang, the fishermen who had picked up Tâm and Mai up the Mekong River and given them a ride to Saigon. They’d docked at a busy shipping canal off the Saigon River to sell their catch. It wasn’t far away from the market, she recalled. She hurried over. But it was midafternoon, and fish were bought and sold in the morning when they were fresh and the temperature cooler. No one was there.
She went back early the next morning, but again, she saw no trace of them. The next day either. She decided to try one more time before she lost all hope. It was on the fourth morning that she saw Bác Quang on the pier negotiating to sell his catch. He was piloting the same trawler. He had aged along with his boat. A sad dignity haunted his face, now craggy with deep lines, and reached to his eyes. She looked around for Anh Phong. He wasn’t there.
She waited while Bác Quang finished his business. Before he boarded the boat again, she approached. “Do you remember me, Bác Quang?”
He squinted. “You look familiar, but—”
“Seven years ago you brought my sister and me to Saigon after the Americans massacred our village.”
Bác Quang’s eyes widened. “Oh yes! I remember now. Both of you. Where is your sister?”
“I do not know.” Tâm felt her cheeks get hot. “We—we separated.” She hesitated. “How is your son?”
He swallowed. “The army drafted him. But he was a fisherman, not a fighter. He stepped on a land mine near the Cambodian border. Three years ago.” Bác Quang looked out at the water, the pain of his son’s death clearly still visible.
Guilt lashed Tâm’s soul. Anh Phong could have stepped on one of the inert land mines she had scavenged and given back to the Communists.
He cut in. “But you are limping. You were injured as well?”
She hung her head and nodded.
“So, what brings you here?”
Tâm looked up. “I must leave Vietnam. I am hoping to find someone with a boat. I thought—well—I thought you might know someone.” Her voice trailed off.
“Ah. I see.” He canted his head and examined her as if what she had just told him revealed a new dimension to her personality. “It is quite dangerous, you know.”
She nodded.
He sighed. “I can’t make any promise, but come back in two days.”