Only the Heart (4 page)

4

V
ỰỎ
T BIÊN

9 March 1986
Boundary Park, Australia

LINH'S STORY

Uncle Minh took my grandmother out to Cabramatta, and from there he was going to show her where they're building the new house. The twins went with them, but Toan couldn't go along; he was working, and he was probably going to be away all day. I couldn't go either. I had more important things on my mind.

With everyone either out working or showing the old lady around, it left me free to see Miro alone, without “the eyes” watching every move.

I don't know how he puts up with it. I really don't. In all the time we've known each other, I don't think we've had more than a couple of days together without someone from the family tagging along.

I'm almost eighteen, but they still treat me like a kid. I tell them this isn't Vietnam. That they do things differently in Australia. But maybe that's the point; if it was Vietnam — or if he was called Vinh or Tang or something, instead of Miroslav — maybe they'd ease off. But it's not, and he isn't, and they always seem to find an excuse to send along a chaperone.

Luckily, a lot of the time it's Toan, and he's cool.

He always manages to discover urgent things to occupy him for three or four hours, until we can get back and pick him up: One on one at the stadium, a movie, a new machine at Timezone. Even the occasional trip to the library.

He gets on really well with Miro. Which is more than you could say for the olds.

They don't actually say anything, but you can tell that they… I don't know…I guess they act uncomfortable when Miro's around.

Okay,so he's pushing one-ninety centimetres and he's as blond as I am dark, and maybe they don't think we look so hot together, but he really tries.

He just seems to pick the wrong topics to start conversations about. He'll say something and there'll be this nervous silence, either because no one has a clue what he's talking about, or because they do, and it isn't something that you talk about with kids in the room. You get the picture.

So he clams up, and sips his ginseng tea (which he really doesn't want, but is too polite to refuse), while my Aunt Hoa makes a point of talking to her husband in Vietnamese, or tidying up the table in front of Miro, like he's stopping her from doing the housework or something.

I guess I can understand where she's coming from. She's my aunt, but I'm more like a daughter to her. She just wants to do the right thing.

And it's not like Miro and I don't get comments sometimes when we're together in the street. She's probably worried about what might happen if we really get serious.

I wish I could make her see that it's already too late to worry about that.

Anyway, at least for one day they were all out and we had a breather.

*

TOAN'S STORY

My grandmother was very impressed with the new house. It's nowhere near finished, of course, but even without the roof on you can see how it's going to turn out. Two storeys of luxury, on the high side of the street, with curved balconies looking out over Greenvale.

We've come a long way from the refugee hostel at Cabramatta, or the Housing Commission townhouse in Auburn. And even further from Rach Gia. And I'm sure when she watched us go all those years ago, she never expected anything like this. She probably didn't expect to ever see us again.

I remember looking back and waving as we walked away. I didn't know what my parents knew, so it wasn't anything special to me, going off down the street, waving back to my grandmother. A little while and we'd be back.

We stopped at the corner and I looked back for the last time. She seemed so small, standing there in front of that building. My grandfather's building. The symbol of his success in his chosen country.

It's funny how the circle turns …

*

27 February 1977
Rach Gia

GRANDMA

Toan is nervous. It is the eve of the New Year celebrations, and for the first time in his young life he has been given the honour of speaking the traditional words of respect to the oldest member of the house.

Youngest to oldest. The circle turns.

“May you be granted long life and health … “He pronounces the words precisely and formally, then breathes out with relief when the ordeal is over. She smiles and inclines her head slightly.

“Good boy, Toan.” She reaches out, touching his head, and from the table beside her she picks up the small envelope — red, for luck. The boy smiles in anticipation, and she hands it to him. His eyes register pleasure and he turns away. Then she looks towards his brothers, who stand a few steps away watching the ritual.

“Son … Hoang … Are you going to wish an old lady a few more years of health?”

The twins step forward, the words are spoken and the gift received.

But when they leave, Toan lingers.

“Can't you come with us?”

She touches his cheek with the backs of her fingers, and notices how ancient they look. As if they are the fingers of an old and fragile woman. How fast the years have slipped by …

“Your Aunt Loan will stay with me.”

“But the celebrations … The firecrackers …”

“I have seen firecrackers, child. And dragon dancing. And streets full of people. There is plenty to see from my window. Nobody wants an old woman slowing them down.”

He looks at her for a moment, holding her gaze. He touches her hand.

“I do,” he says, then turns and runs from the room, holding her small gift out in front of him.

For a few seconds she stares at the empty doorway. Then slowly she turns towards the corner of the room.

On a simple shelf, halfway up the wall, a candle bums, and three sticks of incense smoke lazily. She moves across to stare at the picture of her husband. The last one, taken when he turned seventy. It stands beside the statue of Quan Yin, and she acknowledges the goddess with a slight movement of her head, before she speaks to him.

“He's still a baby, Chau. He doesn't know what they have planned for him. He doesn't understand.” From behind the glass of the frame, her husband's face looks out at her, his eyes less tired, somehow, than she remembers them.

“He's so young.”

Quan Yin looks on, her porcelain face gentle and impassive …

Later, she stands and watches as her family walks away. She waves slightly, but her son is lost in thoughts of his own and Hoa, his wife, stares straight ahead, her tension betrayed, as always, l1y the stiffness in her neck.

Of the three boys, only Toan turns around to return her wave. He is smiling and excited by the New Year celebrations. Oblivious to what the next week will hold for him. For them all.

The old woman shakes her head.

Vựỏt biên
.
The two words that they have be waiting for. The code that tells them the escape is on.

Two days ago a young man arrived at the shop asking for directions to Ha Hiep, and in return for the information, he bought a small bag of fruit, paying with a note of the old currency.

It was the sign.

Sure enough, folded inside the note was a slip of paper, with two words written on it.

Vựỏt biên …
Crossing the borders …

The phrase that has been spoken in whispers around the house for months, and shouted in the street just once, l1y children who knew no better, but soon learned to regret it. Two words that mean she might never see her son again. Or her eldest daughter. Or five of her grandchildren.

Secret notes. Codes and passwords. It is all so … desperate.

Turning, she makes her way back inside, and climbs the stairs to the top of the house. From there, she can follow their progress for a minute or so longer.

Standing at the window, she watches until the distance eats them up, but she does not turn away. This room has always be her favourite. How often has she sat here and watched the children playing in the street below?

From the roof, the speaker throws out a tuneless noise, and the walls shake to the sound of a government announcement.

The Party wishes all citizens good fortune during this New Year period …

She feels as empty of emotion and goodwill as the message.

*

26 February 1977
Ho Chi Minh City

LINH'S STORY

The day before the New Year celebrations were due to begin, we arrived in the capital, on the bus. It was designed to hold about thirty people, but of course it was overcrowded. And it smelled of diesel fumes. I spent most of the journey leaning sideways against the back window, with my eyes closed, trying to fight my motion-sickness.

It was better when we arrived at the terminus and got out. We had a half-hour walk to my uncle's house, but at least I could breathe without wanting to throw up, and the queasy feeling in my stomach eased slowly to a dull ache. Besides, I was interested in what was going on around me, and that took the edge off what I might have been feeling.

The first thing I noticed as we made our way into the centre of the city was the way the place had changed since the ending of the war. There were still soldiers on the streets, of course, but they were soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, not Americans.

I remembered the dark skin of the negroes, and the strange, white faces of the other GIs. I had never understood what they were doing there, and no one had ever offered any explanations, except that they were our allies, and that we needed them.

This time they were no longer around, and I missed them. I couldn't tell you why; I guess it was just that I'd never seen the capital without them being there as an important part of it. But whatever the reason, the place didn't seem as alive or exciting. It just wasn't the same.

And there was a … quietness about it. Things still bustled, of course; it was an overcrowded city, after all. It was just … I don't know … something in the way everyone went about their everyday business. The way they moved and spoke. Carefully. Uncertainly.

At least, that's how I remember it. Maybe that's just how I was feeling. Maybe I'm reading more into the experience than was actually there. What we remember isn't always exactly the way it was, in spite of what people might like you to believe, and everything we went through in the year or so that followed — and everything I've done or heard or learned since — must have coloured the way I remember that short trip through what was once a familiar and well-loved city.

One thing I do remember clearly is the banners that hung down from some of the bigger buildings.

It was the lead-up to New Year, and the traditional decorations had sprung up everywhere of course, but along with the red lanterns and good-luck streamers, and the messages of goodwill, were the flags. Red too, but with the golden star prominent in the centre.

And the faces. Huge, unsmiling, hanging from the sides of government buildings and from wires strung across the street.

Ho Chi Minh I recognised, but there were others too. Though I doubt they were actual people. Looking back, I think they were most likely just pictures of what the artist thought soldiers of the People's Army should look like. I would have asked who they were, but I was too busy forcing my feet to keep up with the rest of my body. My mother could be quite sympathetic, at times, but only when she deemed it necessary. And youngest daughter ‘s travel-sickness didn't rate.

When we got to my uncle's house, I went straight to bed without eating.

A couple of hours later my mother and sister came in. They were talking quietly, so of course I was interested in what they were saying. I was still feeling sick, but I didn't make a sound. Partly because I was never really interested in sympathy, but mainly because I knew it would stop them talking if I did.

I didn't moan much as a kid, and I think they must have thought I'd drifted off to sleep, because they began talking about things they'd never have mentioned if they'd realised I was there listening.

Phuong, my sister, was thirteen, and beautiful, and since our father had disappeared, she had been my mother's main support. She helped keep me under control, worked in the shop, and generally acted five years older than she was. So, my mother treated her like an adult.

And I guess that was why she finally told her what was going on.

Between November and February, twenty-five boats had been stopped attempting to car people to freedom out of Rach Gia. It was becoming harder to slip away unnoticed — or rather, the bribes were getting more expensive. But a couple of days earlier the word had come down. It was time to escape. We were to use the New Year celebrations as a cover, sneaking out along the river while everyone's attention was on the festivities.

Unfortunately, the price for a place on the boat had gone up, and the gold which Uncle Minh had given my mother to pay for the three of us was no longer enough. He'd had to find the extra gold to cover the five of them, and there just wasn't enough to go round. Not if we were going to have anything left to start our new life with.

At the last minute my father's older brother had offered to help. He had never really got on with my mother, even before my father disappeared, but family was family, and if his brother's children could be helped …

We had come to the city to pick up the gold.

It might sound strange that my mother would bring us both along on such a mission, but you have to understand her thinking. When half the country makes a living out of watching the other half, everything comes down to appearance. A mother taking her daughters to the capital to visit her husband's relatives before New Year raised fewer suspicions than a woman making the journey on her own.