FROM THE BE River, Maia and Na returned to Ho Chi Minh City, where Na said the Maos usually spent their weekends. As they neared Ox Alley, the two women could hear what sounded like the monotonous knocking of a wooden gong. They saw smoke and smelled barbecue and a whiff of blood and rotting meat.
“Charlee Camel,” Na said matter-of-factly.
Maia maneuvered the Minsk through the narrow maze of the alleyway to the Winter Night Café. At the gate, they met JP, bleary-eyed with a hangover on a Sunday morning, and No-No, slinking through the Ochna integerrima hedge meowing oddly. The orange stray had grown lanky in the days they were away.
JP hugged Na, hesitated, and then awkwardly shook Maia’s hand. He updated them on what had happened following Charlee’s death on the very morning Maia and Na left the Mekong Delta. He had recorded and sketched the string of events in minute detail in his travelogue. The camel’s death had altered the travelers’ route. Instead of continuing to the southernmost tip of Vietnam and sailing across the Indian Ocean to Africa, they decided to travel overland, taking the northbound train from Ho Chi Minh City.
“I love trains,” Na said. “Where are they going?”
“What are they looking for?” Maia asked.
JP shrugged. “Before traveling to the city, the fruit boy carved the camel with a single cut. He knew exactly where the joints were, and his knife slithered along the seams.” JP vigorously sliced the thin air between them with an imagined butcher knife to punctuate his story.
The outdoor café had been transformed into a scene of gong tapping and incense burning, sedating everyone except No-No, who prowled the garden, investigating the division of labor. Not only Uncle Mao, but also the entire Mekong cast, plus the extras from Ox Alley, were there. Mama Mao, Auntie Mao, and the neighborhood women clustered near the well by the guava tree. Uncle Mao, Xuan, and the Public Security Trio assembled beside the man-made fishpond. Under the starfruit tree, the travelers set their wooden crate, pitched their motley tents, and built a hearty campfire.
JP led them to the fire, where the man with the carved serpent staff poured Maia and Na steaming cups of dark lumpy tea.
Remembering Charlee towing her grandmother’s hearse upstream, Maia wanted to express her sympathy, but the man hushed her.
“The camel no longer carries the burden.” He swung his walking stick to and fro and tapped the ground, raising a cloud of dust to attract No-No’s attention. The man watched intently as the orange kitten leaped upon the serpent’s tail and growled from deep within.
“What are you looking for?” Maia asked.
The man eyed her. “Mirrors for my teaching of the eternal return.”
“What does that mean?”
“To affirm life in all its spectacles, to shout at the end, da capo!”
“How do you do that?”
“Self-creation! Compose life, guess its riddles, and redeem its coincidences.” He searched her face. “Is your mirror clear and smooth?”10
Just then the fruit boy appeared before them. He twirled the stolen rearview mirror from Xuan’s red Honda Dream. Light reflected from the campfire.
“No, no. Not that shifty child.” The man squinted as if distracted by the glare.
JP whispered in Maia’s ear, “Maybe Old Seeker is not seeking anything but himself.”
Na walked up to the water-damaged crate. “Who’ll cart the box, then? What’s in it?” She snapped off a piece of decayed wood and peeked inside. “It’s empty!” No-No followed, sniffed, and poked a paw between the crack.
“I’m told it’s a stolen spirit from Bangalang,” JP said. “You communicate with spirits, don’t you?”
“Only if they want to talk. Maia carries her father’s ashes. I see him—a big black man.”
“Big Al from Love City who works in passport?”
Maia left the bantering between JP and Na to look for her Uncle Mao. When she passed the group of women sitting on their haunches around the well, she heard someone call out, “Our helper!”
Mama Mao motioned Maia to join them among the baskets of foodstuffs, spread out as if the vendors from the market had gathered at the café to sell their produce. There were baskets of lotus seeds, leaves, and roots, sacks of lily bulbs, chrysanthemums, and dandelions, boxes of black and white fungus, jars of dried figs and red dates, and some vessels of strange ingredients that Maia did not recognize. Mama Mao handed her a large bamboo sieve of fresh mixed herbs and asked, “Con còn biết lặt rau không?”
Sitting down with the women, Maia realized what sounded like the tapping of a wooden gong from afar was Auntie Mao pounding a pestle into a mortar. She had not looked up but continued to smash the mixture of spices, turning it into a saffron pulp that hinted at cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves.
“Camel, seven styles!” Mama Mao announced and then listed the seven dishes:
wolfberry, lily bulb, and fungus salad with camel for sleepless nights
for strength, five-element soup of eye, ear, tongue, tail, and hoof
chrysanthemums and camel blood pudding feed the yin
camel stewed with lily flowers and cloud ears feed the yang
eight treasures of camel in lotus leaves rid toxins
tuckahoe with camel dumplings calm the mind
glutinous rice wine and camel balls bring unity
Mama Mao concluded, “The seven courses will regulate the Qi: clear fire, invigorate blood, brighten eyes, soften hardness, dispel wind, and promote elimination.”
Mama Mao chanted the dishes and their functions, and Auntie Mao pounded out her hypnotic rhythm. When Mama Mao fell into a meditative silence, the pestle and mortar beat continued.
“How did you meet Uncle Mao?” Maia asked Auntie Mao.
Her aunt kept pounding the pestle into mortar.
Beside the man-dug fishpond, Uncle Mao, Xuan, and the Public Security Trio sat on low wooden stools and plucked hair off the camel hide spread out on the ground. The five men drank, smoked, and argued about the contents of the mysterious crate.
“Smugglers and contrabands,” Comrade Ty said. The Public Security Trio made up their minds and urged Chief Mao to confiscate the box and escort the foreigners from the country.
“You knew my mother.” Maia interrupted the debate.
Uncle Mao looked up from the putrid camel hide. “You’re almost the exact replica of her.”
Xuan and the Public Security Trio stopped plucking. The pestle and mortar sound continued, filling the silence.
“Your mother was well taken care of,” Uncle Mao said. “But she couldn’t wait. I would’ve taken care of her.”
“Like the birds?” she asked.
Xuan recited a parable he had heard:
The marsh pheasant has to take ten steps for a peck of food
and a hundred steps for a drink,
but it does not want to be fed in a cage.
Although it might live well in a cage,
it would not wish to be confined.11
Uncle Mao’s face was expressionless. “After liberation in 1975, we had the responsibility to rebuild our country. Your mother wished she’d been born earlier or later, but she was caught in between. We met when she was only a few years older than you are now.” He paused and studied Maia as if weighing whether he should say more.
She stood her ground.
“She suspected the boat with the men wouldn’t sail out to sea,” he said. “And it didn’t. Anyone who didn’t escape was captured and interned in Song Be.”
“There’s no prison somewhere before the Be River empties into Lake Waterfall Dreams,” Maia said, repeating Auntie Mao’s vague direction. She felt the men’s stares. She suppressed the turmoil of emotions that rose from each new detail of her mother’s life. She observed the man before her—Uncle Mao, Chief Public Security Mao, and Warden Mao—all the same man. She knew she would have to sift through his story, but for that moment, she listened.
“I helped her in prison,” he said. “I helped her after she was out. I arranged her passage to Vung Tau because that was her last wish.”