Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (12 page)

"I am tea girl because I am rape by your black
soldiers. I am good Catholic girl, Mr. Cuddy. I hear stories from the
French time, about the Morocco black French. They rape and kill
peasant girls in the village. Stories say, that not happen in the
city, but it happen to me. I am too tall for Vietnam man. I think, I
find America man to love me. America black soldiers find me."

"I'm sorry."

"No. I want to tell you these things. You will
see. I am tea girl because my family not want me after the America
black soldiers have me. I am lucky. I am pretty and I am different
because I am tall. I not have to eat rats or snakes, to steal to
live. I get many gift from PX. I have many America white soldiers. I
get ma tuu, the marijuana, to help forget.

"Then I meet my husband. He is different. He
want to buy dinner, not drink. He bring me flowers to my apartment.
He is honorable man, my husband. He walk with me in the streets. The
old women say things in Vietnam words, names they have for the
America invaders and women like me with them. My husband know these
things, and still he walk with me.

"One day, I find out, I am pregnant. With my
daughter. The other tea girls, they say, 'Claudette, you take this
herb, it make the baby go away quick. Quick, before the America
soldier see the baby inside you.' I do not want abortion, Mr. Cuddy.
I want the baby of the man I want to be my husband. You know what
happen to the children of America soldier and Vietnam woman in
Vietnam?"

I'd seen the kids wandering Saigon, though there
weren't so many of them when I was there. Stringy, sallow girls with
blue eyes that didn't slant quite right. Husky, mocha boys with broad
noses and ripply hair. Ostracized, even beaten or stoned by the
relatively homogeneous Vietnamese.

"The children of the mothers who stay in
Vietnam, they have nothing. The America soldiers are fathers but not
husbands. They come to Vietnam and leave, but the mothers stay and
the children stay and they have nothing.

"But my husband find out I am pregnant, he is
happy. He say, 'I will marry you, Claudette. I will take you back to
The World in the plane.' The other girls, they say, 'Claudette, all
the soldiers say that, so you will still bum-bum with them until near
time baby come.' But my husband is different. He find out I am
pregnant, he take me out to big dinner. Celebration. We coming home
to my apartment, we see two QC."

"QC" was short for "Quan Canh, the
South Vietnamese military police.

"My husband, he want to tell them how he is
happy. They curse at him in Vietnam words. He know some words, he
hear other girls use. He get mad, he punch one QC. The other hit him
with stick and break stick. I scream and use my" — her hands
fluttered up — "nails to scratch his face. QC use his stick
that is broke to hit me in face. My . . ." This time her hand
fluttered toward her glass eye, but stopped and came back to her lap.
"They run away from us. I get other America soldier to stop, get
ambulance, to get . .

She stopped, took a breath. "I am in hospital. I
do not lose my baby, but my eye is . . . gone. Not in my head. My
husband come see me. He have bandage around his head, and he cry. My
husband cry for my eye, Mr. Cuddy. He is honorable man, and he
'sponsor' me. I must see government officials, Vietnam men and
America men, every day for many day. I must give some money, then
same ones more money. But I get out, my daughter still inside me. I
come to The World. And you know what I find?"

"No."

"I find The World is strange place. In Vietnam,
new wife go to house of the mother of her husband and work for
mother. Work hard. What the mother want new wife to do, new wife must
do, no questions. Here, the father of my husband is not please with
new Vietnam wife. The friends of my husband not please with new
Vietnam wife. But the mother of my husband is a beautiful woman. I
have so little English, I say to her, 'What need you done?' She say,
'You talk like I do, I first come to America. You pregnant,
Claudette. You . . . eye. You sit. I work for you.' I love my
husband, and I love the mother of my husband, who make me call her
'Amatina.' Her name from Italy. So when my daughter is born, and she
has the beautiful eyes, the violet eyes, we give her name 'Amatina,'
too."

Claudette Danucci swallowed with difficulty. "We
call my daughter 'Tina,' because the mother of my husband say she
cannot tell who we want when we call 'Amatina'. The mother of my
husband teach me the things of Italy my husband like. In Vietnam, I
learn to cook with mint and basil, cilantro and nuoc mam from the
fish. From Amatina, I learn to cook with mozzarella and oregano, but
also the fish, the anchovy, they use too. From Amatina, I learn to
behave for the father of my husband, and even he start to like
Vietnam wife of his son. And daughter of his son, with the eyes of
his wife from Italy. Six, seven year ago, when Amatina . . . get
sick, my daughter and me, we take care of her here, in this house.
When Amatina . . . die, we take care of the father of my husband, who
has the heart attack in his house and cannot care for himself. We are
family, Mr. Cuddy. Like in Vietnam, I teach my daughter respect for
the family of her father."

"Even though her father's family was a crime
family."

Claudette Danucci fired up. "What is crime, Mr.
Cuddy? What is crime when you are rape by America 'protectors' and
beat by your own police and rob by your own government? What is crime
when your whole country is victim?"

I didn't have an answer for her.

"When did your daughter move to Boston?"

She lost the fire. "Year ago."

"She . . .” Danucci stopped, thought, and
started again. "She want to be model in pictures. Many people in
Boston tell her she is beautiful for model."

"How did you feel about that?"

"I did not like it. A daughter stay with her
family until she find a husband. That is still the best way."

"How did your husband feel?"

"He did not like it, too. The city is . . . not
safe, he say."

"Your daughter stayed for a while with her
uncle?"

"Yes, but then my husband say, 'Tina, you must
stay in the house of my father on Falmouth Street. Cousin Ooch, he
protect you there.' "

"Tina agreed to that?"

"Yes. She even say that is better. Vincent
apartment is not so large, and in Falmouth Street she can live for no
money." George Yulin had said Mau Tim had lived for a while with
Oscar Puriefoy, too, but after Claudette Danucci's experience with
black soldiers, I wasn't about to bring it up. "When did your
daughter change her name?"

The good eye wandered, the glass one staying fixed on
my left shoulder. "She all the time ask me about Vietnam. About
what we do there, names we have for things. She asked me Vietnam word
for 'violet,' for her eyes. I tell her ‘mau tim'."

Everyone else so far had pronounced it "mahow
tim." Danucci said it more like "maw teem".

"When my daughter was little girl, I would call
her mau tim when only she and me there because my husband want her to
be all-America. Then she ask me last year, Vietnam word for model,
but she already know it is 'mau' because she say, she look it up in
dictionary. It is same word, but say different."

Claudette Danucci looked up at me. "She decide
to use that name, not Amatina or Tina. My husband not like this,
too."

"Why did she change her last name to Dani?"

The good eye closed, the glass one's lid again only
halfway down. "I think she want to . . . break away. In Vietnam,
when girl decide to leave village to go to city, her mother say,
'That is my Saigon daughter.' My daughter want to break away from
family, live alone in city."

"The way her uncle did?"

Both eyes opened. "The brother of my husband is
a lawyer. He decide his name to be different for business."

"
Mrs. Danucci, I'm sorry to have to ask you
these — "

"Ask."

"Did your daughter ever mention someone named
Shawn to you?"

"Shawn?"

"Yes. Maybe a boyfriend from school?"

"No. My husband very strict with our daughter
when she live here."

"How about after that?"

"After?"

"Did you speak with your daughter much after she
moved to Boston?"

"Yes. I talk with her on telephone all the time.
I see her sometime for lunch when I drive to Boston."

"Did she mention any boyfriends then?"

The head lifted. "No."

"Did she seem happy to you?"

Reluctantly, I thought, Claudette Danucci said, "Yes.
Pretty happy."

"She enjoyed modeling?"

"She say, 'It is boring. You must hold things
and stand stupid.' But yes, she most of time like the things she do,
the people she know, her friends."

"Did she seem happy at the agency?"

Claudette Danucci cocked her head.

"
I mean, was she satisfied with Lindqvist and
Yulin representing her?"

"Oh." Danucci seemed to think about it.
"She say, people tell her she must go to New York for modeling."

"Visit there, or live there?"

It was obviously a question Danucci had already
thought about. "Live, I think."

"Did your daughter talk with you about that?"

"No. But I think . . ."

"Yes?"

"I think maybe she decide to go there."

"To New York?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because on phone . . .” For the first time,
the good eye completely filled, and she reached into the cuff of her
dress for a hankie. She sobbed very quietly into the cloth for a
moment, then wiped that eye. The glass one stayed at half-mast, the
more hardened mourner at a funeral.

"I am sorry, Mr. Cuddy."

"I understand."

"The day . . . the day she die, we talk on
phone. She seem excited."

"What did you talk about?"

"The trip of her father to Philadelphia, the
dinner my husband and I take her to the next night in Boston. She was
very busy on a . . . shoot somewhere that week, so I must catch her
up on all family things. She tell me she have something exciting to
say at dinner. Something she decide to do."

"Move to New York?"

The hand fluttered. "I am afraid yes."

"Afraid?"

"The dinner is suppose to be happy time. A
birthday for our daughter and her father and me. I do not want her to
. . .destroy the happy time with her . . . news."

Suddenly fierce, Claudette Danucci passed the
hankerchief across her face. "Mr. Cuddy, in Vietnam, I am call
'Viet Kieu' because I am Vietnam woman who come here to America. In
Vietnam, the children eat sand to fill their belly with something. In
Vietnam I cannot hope to work in a house one-half beautiful like the
one I live in here with my husband. I have beautiful car my husband
give me. I have five hundred dollar to spend on beautiful handbag
that maybe go with three dress I wear. Five hundred dollar, a whole
family live for year in Vietnam. Whole family, wait in Vietnam
office, sleep on floor, on dirt outside, for month, two month, to
come here to America."

Her voice surged. "I tell you these things so
you will understand, Mr. Cuddy. I see hard things in my life. But
nothing so hard like when I sit in my living room and the telephone
ring and the brother of my husband from Boston tell me my daughter is
dead. I give up all I have, I give my other eye, for my daughter to
live again. Do you understand this?"

She was riveting, the good eye on me and the glass
eye on me, too. "Yes."

"When I sleep, I dream. Before my daughter die,
if I dream of things in Vietnam, bad things, hard things, I dream of
these things in Vietnam words. When I dream of things here, in
America, good things, beautiful things, I dream in America words. Now
my daughter is dead, and I dream in Vietnam words, all things in
Vietnam words."

"Mrs. — — "

"You promise me, Mr. Cuddy. You find the one
kill my daughter?

"Mrs. Danucci — "

"You find him, you tell me."

"Mrs. — — "

"You promise!"

I promised.
 
 

-10-

THERE WAS AN AWKWARD MOMENT AS CLAUDETTE DANUCCI
STOOD and moved toward the door to the den. Awkward, because Vincent
Dani had knocked and then come in without waiting for an answer,
saying "Claudette?" His brother's wife just shook her head,
stumbling a little as she passed. Dani gripped her at the shoulders,
steadying her. His hands lingered a beat longer than necessary, his
eyes a beat longer than that as she patted his left hand and went out
the door, shutting it gently behind her.

Turning to me, Dani had the look of a cat caught
drooling at the family canary. He stiffened, saying, "If I were
you, Mr. Cuddy, I would not upset my brother's wife."