But that wasn’t what was hard to watch on the little TV in the kitchen at Mao’s. There were more people who wanted to leave Saigon than there were helicopters. Hundreds would be left behind in the embassy’s courtyard. Dozens of Vietnamese clung to the skids of the last two helicopters to leave; they fell to their deaths as the choppers lifted away. The television just kept showing it. “Those poor people,” the cook had said, seconds before Sao threw up in Ed’s sink.
“They’re not people, not to most Americans-they’re gooks!” Xiao Dee was shouting.
Ah Gou was watching the TV instead of the scallions; he chopped the first digit off the index finger of his left hand. Kaori, still in tears, fainted; the cook dragged her away from the stove. Danny took a dish towel and began to twist it, tightly, around Ah Gou’s upper arm. The tip of Big Brother’s finger lay in a pool of blood with the chopped scallions.
“Go get Yi-Yiing,” the cook said to Sao. Ed took a wet towel and wiped the girl’s face. Sao was as insubstantial-looking as her fainted twin, but she had stopped throwing up, and, like a ghost, she drifted away to the dining room.
When the swinging door to the dining room opened, Danny heard one of the businessmen say, “What kind of crazy, fucked-up place is this, anyway?”
“Ah Gou cut off his finger,” he heard Sao say to Yi-Yiing.
Then the door swung closed and Danny didn’t hear how Sao or Tzu-Min or Yi-Yiing answered the businessman, or if any of the women had tried. (Mao’s was a crazy, fucked-up place that night when Saigon was falling.)
The door to the dining room swung open again, and they all came into the kitchen-Yi-Yiing with young Joe, Tzu-Min and Sao. Danny was mildly surprised that the three businessmen types and the two couples weren’t with them, though there was no room for anyone else in the chaotic kitchen.
“Thank God they all ordered the guinea hen,” the cook was saying.
Kaori had sat up on the floor. “The two couples are having the guinea hen,” she said. “The business guys ordered the ravioli.”
“I just meant the couples,” Tony Angel said. “I’m feeding them first.”
“The business guys are ready to walk out-I’m warning you,” Tzu-Min told them.
Yi-Yiing found the tip of Ah Gou’s finger in the scallions. Xiao Dee wrapped his arms around Ah Gou while the cook poured vodka on the stump of his left index finger. Big Brother was still screaming when Yi-Yiing held out the fingertip, and Tony Angel poured more vodka on it; then she put the fingertip back where it belonged. “Just hold it on,” she told Big Brother, “and stop screaming.”
Danny was sorry that Joe was watching the television; the ten-year-old seemed transfixed by that image of the people clinging to the helicopters’ skids, and then falling off. “What’s happening to them?” the boy asked his dad.
“They’re dying,” Danny said. “There’s no room for them on the helicopters.”
Ed was coughing; he went out the kitchen door. There was an alley back there-it was used for deliveries, and for picking up the trash-and they all thought that Ed was just stepping out for a cigarette. But the dishwasher never came back.
Yi-Yiing took Ah Gou out the swinging door and through the dining room; he held his severed fingertip in place, but now that Danny was no longer tightening the towel around his upper arm, Big Brother was bleeding profusely. Tzu-Min went with them. “I guess I’m going to give everyone in the emergency room my cold, after all,” Yi-Yiing was saying.
“What the fuck is going on?” one of the businessmen shouted. “Is there anyone working here, or what?”
“Racists! War criminals! Fascist pigs!” Ah Gou yelled at them, still bleeding.
In the kitchen, the cook said to his son and grandson, “You’re my sous chefs now-we better get started.”
“There are only two tables to deal with, Pop-I think we can manage this,” Danny told him.
“If we just ignore the business guys, I think they’ll leave,” Kaori said.
“Nobody leaves!” Xiao Dee shouted. “I’ll show them what kind of crazy, fucked-up place this is-and they better like it!”
He went out into the dining room through the swinging door-his ponytail in that absurd pink ribbon possibly belonging to Spicy-and even after the door swung shut, they could still hear Little Brother from the kitchen. “You want to eat the best food you ever had, or do you want to die?” Xiao Dee was yelling. “Asians are dying, but you can eat well!” he screamed at the businessmen.
“The guinea hen is served with asparagus, and a risotto of oyster mushrooms and sage jus,” the cook was explaining to Danny and young Joe. “Don’t slop the risotto on the plates, please.”
“Where are the guinea hens from, Pop?” Danny asked.
“From Iowa, of course-we’re out of almost everything that isn’t from Iowa,” the cook told him.
“You want to see how your mushroom and mascarpone ravioli gets made?” Xiao Dee was asking the businessmen types. “It’s done with Parmesan and white truffle oil! It’s the best fucking ravioli you’ll ever have! You think white truffle oil comes from Iowa ?” he asked them. “You want to come out in the kitchen and see a bunch of Asians dying? They are dying on TV right now-if you want to see!” Little Brother was shouting.
Tony Angel turned to the Japanese twins. “Go rescue the business guys from Xiao Dee,” he told them, “both of you.”
The cook accompanied the Yokohamas to the dining room, where they served the two couples the guinea hens. “Your pasta will be coming right along,” Tony told the businessmen; he’d wondered why the business guys had so quietly listened to Xiao Dee’s tirade. Now he saw that Little Brother had taken the bloody cleaver with him into the dining room.
“We need you back in the kitchen-we want you like crazy back there! We’re dying for you!” the Japanese twins were telling Xiao Dee; they had draped themselves on him, being careful not to touch the bloody cleaver. The businessmen types just sat there, waiting, even after the cook (and Xiao Dee, with Kaori and Sao) had gone back into the kitchen.
“What are the fascist pigs drinking?” Xiao Dee was asking the Yokohamas.
“ Tsingtao,” Kaori or Sao answered him.
“Bring them more-keep the beer coming!” Little Brother told them.
“What goes with the ravioli, Pop?” Danny asked his dad.
“The peas,” the cook told him. “Use the slotted spoon, or there will be too much oil on them.”
Joe couldn’t get interested in being a sous chef, not while the television kept showing the helicopters. When the phone rang, Joe was the only one whose hands weren’t busy doing something; he answered it. They all knew there was no maître d’ in the dining room, and they thought it might be Yi-Yiing or Tzu-Min calling from Mercy Hospital with a report on whether or not they could save Ah Gou’s finger.
“It’s collect, from Ketchum,” Joe told them.
“Say that you accept,” his grandfather told him.