That night, his mother recorded another tape message. She sat on the floor bythe glass sliding doors that looked out onto the bayou. Their apartment wason the second floor, and a metal railing stopped you from walking out andfalling. Tuấn wondered why they even bothered putting a door there, butmaybe that was the way things were in this country.“I am in another country,” he often whispered to himself to feel theheaviness of the words fall out. “Out there, far far away,” he would go on butonly in his head, “is a large piece of land called Vietnam with differentpeople, different trees, different houses, and that is where cha is and hecannot just walk out of it. Vietnam is not like a room, it’s like a school andyou can’t leave because there are different rules in school and you can’t gountil thầy giáo says so, so we are waiting for thầy giáo to say he can go or forcha to sneak out and not let thầy giáo know.”As his mother rewound the cassette tape and began addressing theenvelope, Tuấn asked, “When is cha coming?”“Soon,” she said, sealing the envelope. She pressed her fingers against it tomake sure it was tight. She crossed her legs and patted them. Tuấn climbedonto her lap.“Would he like it here?” Tuấn asked.“Sure he will,” she replied. Her voice was certain. How could he everdoubt her?“What do you think he will like the most here?” Outside, the moon shinedonto the bayou and reflected there, a mirror image.“Us.”On Tuesday the next week, Bà Giang let them play outside. Ngọc wanted toplay hide-and-seek, but Trúc said it was a baby’s game, so Ngọc didn’t wantto play it anymore.Then Trúc said, “I have an idea! It’s called ‘I’m Not American.’ ”“That’s not a game,” Tuấn said.“We played it all the time back in Saigon,” Trúc said. “You wouldn’tknow. You’re from Mỹ Tho. Your family is all country bumpkins.”“Hey!” Tuấn hollered back.“How do you play?” Ngọc asked.Trúc reached into her pocket and pulled out a red ribbon. She held it up,and the sunlight made it shimmer. “Easy. If you wear this,” she said, “you’rethe American.”“This is stupid,” Tuấn said. “I’m not playing.”“If you’re not playing, you’re just ngu and we don’t like you.”“Play, Tuấn!” Ngọc said. “He’ll play! How do we play?”“So,” Trúc began, “if you’re the American, you wear this. The only waynot to be the American anymore is to tie it on someone else. So you chase usaround. When you catch someone, you knock them to the ground and tie itaround their wrist.” She pulled Tuấn’s arm and demonstrated. She tied adouble knot. “Ta-da!” she said.“Then what?” Ngọc asked. “Then you run away, dummy.” She gave Tuấn a shove. “You’re It,dummy!”Ngọc burst out laughing.Trúc began running and yelling, “The Americans are killing our people!The Americans are killing our crops!”“Not the Americans!” boomed Ngọc. “Not the Americans!”“The Americans are killing our people! The Americans are killing ourcrops!” Trúc repeated.“Not the Americans!” Ngọc boomed again, this time with more fakehorror. “The Americans!”They did this for several minutes, running around dumbly while Tuấntrailed behind. They’d run around Bà Giang’s apartment when Tuấn saw Đinhat the window. He had been watching all along. Caught, the boy hid behindthe curtains, but Tuấn had already seen him and saw him still watching frombehind the thin fabric.“What you doing, American?” Trúc tapped him on the shoulder. “Do youwant to play or kiss your American friend over there?” She made kissingnoises and pointed to the window. She stared down at Tuấn, her tall bodycasting a shadow.“Stop calling me American!” He threw out his arms to push her, but Trúcwas already ahead of him. In the next instant, he tumbled on the dirt andfound himself facing the bayou.It was then that he heard Ngọc screaming, “Stop, you guys! Stop it!” Hishigh-pitched squeal pierced the air. “Stop it! Stop! You both ruined it. Thisisn’t fun!” He stomped toward the apartment. Tuấn and Trúc stayed wherethey were until they heard the door slam.“I’m not playing anymore,” Tuấn said, untying the ribbon. He rubbed hischeek. There was no bruise, just dirt. “You can be the American.” He flickedthe ribbon toward her, but it fell slowly to the ground like a feather. He beganwalking away. His body ached. He felt that there should have been a bruisesomewhere. He’d have to check when he got home. “I’m người Việt,” hebegan muttering. “My father teaches the great, honorable literature of ournation….” “Your father’s probably dead,” Trúc yelled. “They probably killed him.He’s probably gone.”Without thinking, Tuấn turned back and ran into Trúc. When he got toher, he kept on going until they reached the bayou and they fell into the water.“He’s not dead!” he screamed. “He’s coming. He’s coming for us. Youdon’t know him. He’s coming for us!”He tried to slow his heavy breathing as Trúc stared back at him seriously.Whatever had just happened, he didn’t know he had that in him. It made himfeel powerful, until he heard Trúc laughing.“American lover, American lover,” she sang as if it was the nastiest thinganyone could call someone. “American lover.”“You’re not my friend!” Tuấn screamed as he got up.“I was never your friend,” she said back, laughing. “Why would you eventhink that?”—It was the one-year anniversary of Versailles. They—or most of them—hadbeen there for one full year. To celebrate, they had a party.“Because we’ve been here one year,” said the mustached man into themicrophone. “Because our community is full of love. Because we are, all ofus here, survivors.” He stood on a crate in the middle of the road. “Today wecelebrate Versailles! Today we celebrate the true Republic of Vietnam!”Everyone cheered. A gun was fired into the air. There was confetti. Tuấnheard it all from their apartment.For the past week, everyone in Versailles decorated their homes as if itwere Tết. Paper streamers hung like moss from trees. Pots of marigolds(because no one sold mai vàng plants in New Orleans) sat outside doors toinvite good luck. Lanterns swung in the light breeze on laundry lines. Tuấndidn’t know what an anniversary was, but he hoped there would be more inthe future.At noon, he changed into his swim trunks and, together with his motherand brother, walked toward the water, where the celebration had already started. Someone played Vietnamese music from a recording. A group ofteenage boys played đá cầu in a wide circle, joking while the beanbagbounced off their shoes. The smaller kids splashed in the bayou. Trúc andNgọc waded in by themselves, a cloud of mosquitoes and gnats swarmingtheir heads.Tuấn had just touched the bayou when Trúc bent down and splashed waterinto his face. “Hey, American!” she said. “What are you gonna to do,American?” She splashed him again.Tuấn spat out the dirty water and coughed until the taste of mud and stickswas gone. “I’m not American,” he said. “I’m not talking to you anymore,either. Get away.” Turning toward the forest on the other side of the water, hesaw a boy sitting by himself. Đinh, who else?Trúc grabbed him by the arm. “But we’ll forgive you,” she said. “Justprove you’re not American. Prove you’re not like him.” She pointed to Đinh.His back was turned to them. He didn’t notice them.“This is ngu,” Tuấn said and tried to walk away, but Trúc pulled him back.He looked to the adults. They were talking and listening to music. His motherwas sitting in a plastic lawn chair beside Bà Giang, who fanned herself with anewspaper. They wouldn’t even hear him even if he wanted to cry for help.“Listen,” Trúc said, tapping Tuấn’s cheek. They looked eye-to-eye. “Yousee Fredric over there? You see him all by himself?” She let go of Tuấn’s armand dipped her hands into the water. “Put this down his shirt,” she said. Asmirk lit up her face. A guppy swam in her hands.“Give me your hands,” Trúc said. “No, make it a bowl.”Tuấn looked into his hands. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel much. The fishmoved but didn’t tickle. “I don’t want to do this,” he said. “I don’t want to.”He tried to sound firm and mean the way Trúc always did.“Đi,” Trúc commanded. “We’ll watch you.”He walked out into the bayou toward the other shore. It surprised him thatthe water wasn’t that deep, only up to his belly button at its deepest in themiddle. Passing the lone tree that grew out of the water in the middle of thebayou, he looked up and expected to see a bird, but there was nothing. Heremembered the boat they left Vietnam on and the water they sailed through. The water in New Orleans acted differently. Out on the shores of Vietnamand beyond, the water had been violent, shaking anything that lay atop it. Buthere, the water didn’t move; it stayed still, lazy. In the distance, ducks floatedwithout a single care in the world like they were on vacation.He found himself just behind Đinh. He dropped the fish into the water andit swam away. He smiled. Back in school, in Vietnam, the teachers told himabout releasing captured animals for karma. It was like helping out one smallthing so that someday, perhaps in the next life, the universe would return thatgenerosity. Maybe if I let this go…he thought, but didn’t finish the sentence.Tuấn took several more steps before Đinh turned around and saw him.Their eyes met. They said nothing.“It’s okay,” Tuấn said. “I’m your friend!” he added. He dusted some of thedirt off one side of the log and straddled it to take a seat. He inched his waytoward Đinh but not too close. Đinh reminded him of a small animal, abutterfly, perhaps, that flies away when it’s scared. He wiped his hands on hisshorts. “I’m Tuấn,” he whispered. Then, “I know your name. Your name’sĐinh. Đinh-Fredric.”The sun sat high in the sky. In the evening, the sun would begin its descentbehind the trees, making silhouettes out of them before turning them intoshadows. But now it just sat there, the same way the two of them sat on thelog, avoiding looking at anything for too long.He heard his name being called in the distance. He looked back. Hismother had gotten up. With one arm she held Bình, with the other she heldher hand above her eyes and looked out into the water. “Tuấn,” she called.“I don’t like it here,” Đinh interrupted.It surprised Tuấn. The boy was barely audible. “My mother came here tofind cha. He came here, she said. She said she had a letter from him. But shelied and he isn’t here.”How funny, Tuấn thought, that he didn’t have his father here, either. Whata coincidence! They were the same! They were exactly alike!“Tuấn,” his mother called again.Đinh picked up a twig and bent it, snapping it into two then throwing it away. Tuấn wanted to tell Đinh about his own father, about the man who missed
the boat, the man who they were waiting for. He wanted to tell him about the
tape messages—in themselves, like letters—his mother made. And how they,
too, were waiting. He imagined they could wait together.
“My cha,” Tuấn started, but Đinh threw his twig down, turned around, and
started walking toward the other shore.
“Whatever happened to your cha isn’t going to happen to my cha,” he said
accusingly. “Mày không biết!” he said, almost yelling now, almost crying.
“You don’t know anything.” He got up and walked through the water toward
Versailles.
Tuấn watched him and saw his mother meet Đinh in the bayou. The boy
pointed to the woods and continued on his way toward Versailles.
As she waded her way to him (Tuấn could hear the water splashing), he
slid down the log until he settled onto the dirt.
“There you are!” said his mother when she was behind him. “You got your
mother worried.” Bình giggled in her arms. She sat down on the log beside
Tuấn. The baby grabbed Tuấn’s hair and stroked it playfully. “What you
doing all the way out here?”
Tuấn looked up at his mother. The sun made her glow beautifully. He
wiped his nose. He hadn’t realized he was crying.
“Nothing,” he replied, embarrassed.
“Don’t lie to your mother,” she said. “People don’t go somewhere for no
reason.”
She looked out into the woods. For a few seconds, something caught her
attention, and they, the three of them, sat in silence. Tuấn looked where his
mother was looking and saw what she was seeing: white flowers on the top of
a tree. There were no other flowers on the tree, but there was that bouquet,
there, growing on the edge of a branch. Tuấn smiled.
“Did you pick flowers back in Vietnam,” he asked, “when you were a little
girl?”
She looked down at him, as if remembering he was there.
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Mẹ used to keep this flower book. I pressed
flowers into it. Later, I wanted to know what flowers they were. So I went to the library, the small one in Mỹ Tho. I met your father there. He was a
librarian and he helped me find a book about flowers not just in Vietnam but
all over the world.”
“Where’s that flower book now?” Tuấn asked.
His mother stood up and let out a small sigh. When Tuấn looked up, she
turned away to hide her frown. “Let’s go home, Tuấn.”
Tuấn jumped up with a smile, the widest and brightest he could make to
make her smile again. “Let’s go home!” he exclaimed.
They waded through the water toward shore.