The Reeducation of Cherry Truong (4 page)

“It won't take long,” Cherry says. “I'm staying here.”

“Staying where? What are you talking about?”

“Here, Vietnam,” she says, struggling not to stammer. “I'm going to defer medical school for a year. I want to live here with Lum for a while. I need some time to think.”

Cherry knows her mother is no longer confused because there is a cool silence on the line. She presses her ear into Lum's cell phone, but there is only transpacific static.

“You did this on purpose,” she finally says.

“Mom—”

“You wanted to humiliate me.”

“What does this have to do with you?”

“Don't be stupid. Everything you do is because of me.” She is yelling. Cherry holds the phone away from her ear. “We sent your brother away to protect your future. Daddy made me give him up for you.”

“That's not true.”

“What do you think you're going to do there?”

Cherry's head feels like it's spinning. “I'm not sure yet.”

“Not sure yet?” her mother repeats mockingly. “You think you can live off your brother and the Trans' hospitality forever?”

“I'll get a job.”

“You? You've never worked a day in your life, all so you could study.”

“I'm hanging up,” Cherry warned.

“I made this mistake,” she says. “I thought I was so smart and that is how I ended up with your father.”

“Mom.”

“You watch,” she says. “You'll regret this, too.”

Cherry closes the phone. A few seconds later, the phone shakes in her hand. Her parents' number appears on the caller ID. She watches it vibrate several times before it clicks over to voice mail. The phone is silent, recording her mother's message, but Cherry can imagine the words.

 

1980

Cuc Bui
Paris, France

… Do you remember that fisherman's pathetic map? It was so old and tattered. He got it wet several times until Cambodia became Vietnam, and then all the countries bled into the China Sea. It wasn't helping anyway. We couldn't see anything but water. We still blamed him, nonetheless.

You looked so ill during the boat ride. There weren't enough rations, and you kept giving the sardines to the children so they wouldn't starve. If I had known how much you would suffer, I wouldn't have insisted that you come with us. I hope you believe it was worth it. I think it was.…

Hung Truong

Pulau Bidong, Malaysia

 

Chapter One

HOA

P
ULAU
B
IDONG
, M
ALAYSIA
, 1979

Hoa struggled to ignore him, her eyes concentrating on the damp towel hanging in front of her, her movements quick and methodical. It was impossible: Bac Nhut was not asleep, he was watching her. Hoa had caught the old man's eyes fluttering as she adjusted her canvas partition, his mouth too delicately closed, his head conveniently propped in her direction. Their families and neighbors were away at the mess hall for lunch, leaving the old pervert free to leer without witnesses.

She was not afraid of her neighbor, only repulsed. Hoa felt confident she could defend herself from his thin, weak limbs if he dared touch her. Sometimes she wished he would—her desire to strike him, to expose his depravity, overwhelmed her usually complacent nature. For weeks, Bac Nhut pretended to nap in his shanty when Hoa returned from bathing, even though she altered her shower time every day. Revolting. Back in Vietnam, she'd tell her husband. No, she realized. In Vietnam, this wouldn't happen. They had walls back home.

In the camp, since no one was better than anyone else, they had to get along. This, even her husband had to agree. If she complained about the old man's lewd behavior, word might get back to the Malay guards and she would be branded a snitch. Punishment, gossip, suspicion. Refugees from every zone would snub her, and Hoa couldn't endure embarrassing her family like that.

She refused to look at him, though his gaze crept along her still damp arms and legs. Usually, Hoa hung up the laundry like the others to serve as makeshift walls and further protection, but today their few clothing items were clean. So she concentrated on changing her garments behind a crate of Coca-Cola bottles, dressing efficiently, calmly. He would not have the pleasure of knowing the discomfort he caused her. He should be ashamed of himself. She was not some young, thin tramp asking to be ogled. Deplorable man. At his age. Their grandchildren sat next to each other at camp school.

A long shadow grew over the sand and Hung emerged atop Zone A. Hoa smiled in relief, but ducked her head as her husband moved toward the shelter, his scowl deepening. She put on her blouse, pulling up her waist-length hair and began combing. When she peered to the side, she saw that Bac Nhut had shifted his body to face the back of his tent.

Their shelter was a four-meter-long thatched roof supported by water-rotted wooden stakes, too small of a space for Hung to properly stalk around. Not even a chair to sit on, only bamboo mats and army blankets on the soft dirt for beds. The new arrivals in Zone C had it worse—plastic blue tarp shelters barely supported by skinny tree branches. The Malaysians treated the refugees worse than their dogs. While others eventually adjusted to their new surroundings, Hung refused to do so. He stood, resting one arm on a sapling post, glaring at everything.

Hung was eight years older than Hoa, but no one looking at them would ever know. Almost sixty, Hung hardly had a white hair, while Hoa discovered more in her bun each day. His face remained soft and moist, while Hoa's complexion had dried out years before.

“How was the meeting?” Hoa asked.

“They may not have an answer until next month,” Hung said. “Five of us, no problem. But with ten, they need to talk to the French delegation again.”

Her comb caught in a large wet tangle at the nape of her neck. She patiently picked through it, ignoring the soreness in her scalp. “We have been here well over a year,” she said.

“Do you think I've forgotten?”

Hoa took a deep breath. “I'm only saying, maybe it will be easier if we leave in groups. Perhaps the officials are right. Who wants to sponsor ten people together? Too much responsibility.”

“If we traveled this far together, it shouldn't be so difficult to complete it. Please, Hoa, you know nothing about this.”

Despite his age, Hung stood as tall and rigid as when she first saw him at their engagement ceremony. His puffed-up chest and thin-lidded eyes supported the impression that Hung looked down on everything around him. Hoa suspected that this was one of the reasons their immigration applications kept getting delayed. Always mindful of dressing neatly in his wrinkled slacks and sun-bleached dress shirt—rather than the tank tops and shorts the other men on the island wore—Hung felt quite proud of his reputation as a snob. He
did
think he was better.

Hoa remembered when Bac Le, who departed with his family last week for America, had suggested to Hung that he slip some money to the delegation officials. Hung's solemn lecture on the dangers of bribery embarrassed both families. The Les departed without saying good-bye.

“What do the boys think?” Hoa asked. Their sons Phung and Sanh also had attended the interview.

“So passive,” Hung said. “Why did you raise such weak sons? Yen would have argued alongside me.”

Hung never hid his preference for their middle son, whom he boasted inherited his strength and persistence. He regularly derided his other sons as Hoa's creations—too feminine and indecisive. They hadn't seen Yen in five years. He left Vietnam to go to law school in France and claimed refugee status when the war ended. Last month, the Truongs had an offer to immigrate to Australia, but Hung declined. He wished to seek asylum in only one country.

“Sanh was so rude to the French delegate,” Hung continued. “Hardly speaking at all, claiming he's forgotten his French. The liar.”

“Maybe he wasn't feeling well.”

“I don't care. He knows how important this is. And the only time he spoke was to ask how their resettlement process compared to the States'. Can you believe that?”

Hoa put down her comb. “Why was he asking about the States?”

“Who knows what goes on in a liar's head? He keeps crying that he wants to leave and the French are taking too long. But if we have to wait, we have to wait. God will look out for us.”

The other refugees were returning from the mess hall. The Malays probably served smelly chicken again. The Vietnamese would rather eat their rations. Soon the shelter would swim with the popping sizzles of cooking oils, the sharp aroma of contraband fish, and the relentless
snap snap
of the women chewing betel nuts. Hoa briefly shut her eyes in disappointment. She only wanted a few minutes alone. She had not been truly alone, and calm, since they left Vietnam.

That was months ago. Her prayer room—a closet, the only space that was solely hers in their house in Saigon—had probably already been cleared out by her sister-in-law, wiped clean of Hoa and the rest of the escaping Truongs. She could hardly recall this sanctuary, her thoughts cluttered by more recent, tangible memories: huddling under a plastic tarp and thin, mud-crusted blankets during the monsoon season in Zone C; paltry rations that consisted mainly of canned sardines and a scoop of rice; waking up to rat bites on her legs; dirty latrines; the taunts and insults of the Malay guards.

Still, some of their neighbors accepted this as their new home, so desperate to resettle in any place that wasn't Vietnam. They opened hair salons and noodle shops within the township, and joined church choirs. Even when paperwork cleared for immigration, some felt reluctant to leave. Their son Phung said it was because their people could acclimate to anything. They'd lived with war and displacement for centuries. Their history allowed them to make anywhere home.

“This isn't a home,” Hoa reminded her husband. “Please, we have to leave. I don't care what country we go to first.”

Hung lifted his hand and Hoa instinctively turned her head. He didn't finish. There were others around. The last time he struck her within eyesight of the camp gossips, he'd endured dirty looks and pointed whisperings for weeks. Hoa exhaled, calmly facing him.

“What kind of mother are you?” he spat. “So selfish about your own concerns. Do you not want to be with your son? What would God think of your behavior?”

She didn't move as he stomped out of their shelter. She'd learned not to run after him. After so many years together, she realized it was better when he left.

*   *   *

During the afternoons, the Vietnamese liked to go bathing and to wash laundry at Pantai Beach or at the waterfall. Hoa knew her family preferred the beach, which reminded her sons of their old home in Nha Trang. A warm breeze tossed whispers of sand along Hoa's feet. Women crouched near the shore, wringing shirts and underwear clean. Naked children stomped in the water, shrieking as the prickly waves engulfed their feet, joyously throwing chunks of dirty plastic and misshapen aluminum cans at each other.

Only immediate family could live together in the camp. Phung's family was in Zone E, Sanh's family in Zone B, and Yen's wife and son in Zone D. People could request zone transfers, but they were rarely granted. Refugees preferred to stand in line for their immigration requests. Hoa didn't like her family spread all over Bidong Island; it only spanned two kilometers in diameter, but at times could feel much larger. A day could pass and she wouldn't see one of her sons or grandchildren. Her daily trips to the beach or to their shanties made sure this didn't happen.

Hoa's feet began sinking as her steps slowed for her thoughts. Hung was mistaken. Hoa did miss Yen. Though she never flaunted it outright like Hung, Hoa also preferred her middle son. This did not mean she didn't love her other boys. She'd long ago given up her own comforts for her sons and then their wives and then their children. But Yen was special. She knew this even during her pregnancy, when the fortune-teller rubbed her belly and prophesized the child's greatness.

“He is your reward,” the woman had said while Hoa poured their tea. “For all your suffering and pains, he will make them all worth it to you.”

Hoa bowed her head in response. She'd only agreed to see the fortune-teller out of respect for her in-laws. But as the years passed, and more calamities fell upon their country and their family, she realized how immune her middle son was to the bad luck. Yen, whose outstanding test scores and charisma earned him a full scholarship to a French university, was now waiting for them in Paris. He was a successful lawyer, and preparing a new home for them. It was something Hoa reminded herself of, every day, something to focus on that was positive and hopeful.

Three familiar children separated from the playgroup to wade through the waves toward her. Hoa held her conical hat with both hands so the breeze wouldn't take it.

“Grandmother, look,” Cam said, her dripping hands holding up a blue-tinted ghost crab. “Can we eat it?”

Hoa pretended to inspect the small crustacean thoroughly, as Cam's younger cousins, Xuan and Lum, peered behind her. Their dark, wet hair lay pasted on their deeply bronzed skin, their small breaths panting from running to her. “I don't think it's large enough, child. Throw it back in the water and give it a few more weeks to grow.”

Cam stared wistfully at her prize for a slow moment before bending over and releasing the creature back into the sea. “What if I can't find it again? What if it floats all the way to Vietnam?”

That was how they kept children from playing too far into the ocean. The strong current could carry you away from your family, back to Vietnam, where the Communists would shoot you. Remembering their stretched-out weeks on leaky boats, staring out at the sea and sky that loomed larger each passing day, the children obeyed, never straying far.