“Not for television, no.” I looked to Jean-Paul, hoping that a plausible excuse for asking the man questions that were truly none of my business would occur to me. I sighed: where to begin? How much to impose? In the end, I said, “To tell you the truth, it’s personal.”
He cocked his head, looked at me expectantly, and waited for more.
“It’s about Tina Bartolini-Trinh,” I said.
“Ah, Nguyen Trinh, yes.” He dropped his eyes for a moment, a private smile on his face. When he looked up, he said, “A very long time ago, your father asked me what I saw in the neighborhood on a particular day. Is that what you want to know from me?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll tell you what I told Aclass="underline" I saw nothing out of place. No strangers, no wandering ninjas, no black-hooded gangsters. Just grass and flower borders and mulch.”
I smiled, a bit chagrined for having asked. “Thank you.”
“But that isn’t the only question to ask, is it?”
“No.”
“Maybe I can help: Did I know Trinh?” he said. “I did. Our families came from the same village. It was Trinh who introduced me to your mother, and it was your mother who enrolled me in the refugee employment program where I connected with Tosh. Later, when I wanted to start my own nursery, Tosh took me to your father, who helped me get a small business loan. And here we are.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I never knew exactly what it was that my mother did at the refugee center.”
“One mitzvah after another,” he said with a slight bow. “And so?”
“I heard Trinh’s father was a food broker in Vietnam,” I said.
“That’s one way to describe what he did,” Duc said. “Once again, one thing led to another. During the war against Japan, he made sure that supplies from the western Allies got to the resistance troops, chiefly the Viet Minh, who were fighting Japan. After the war, the French colonial government came back. They took over the Allied supply network, except now they were using it to fight the Viet Minh who were then fighting against the French for independence. No matter which side Trinh’s father chose, he would create enemies. I don’t know anything about his ideology, but he chose the side that offered the greatest economic security for his family.”
“The French,” I said. “And after them, the Americans.”
He nodded.
“A man named Van worked for Tosh before you,” I said. “Did you know him?”
“Thai Van, yes. Not very well, but yes.”
“It was because of something Van said or did to Trinh that Mr. Sato fired him,” I said. “Do you know what that was about?”
We had reached the division between pink and yellow roses. When Duc stopped and took small clippers from his pocket to snip off a perfect yellow rose, I wondered if I had asked one question too many, or ventured into a sensitive territory. But after Duc ran the stem through a thorn stripper, he handed the rose to me with a little bow and a sad little smile.
“I don’t know what happened between Van and Trinh,” he said. “I can’t believe that she would have been happy to see him so near her family, even if he said nothing to her.”
“Why?” I smelled the rose and passed it to Jean-Paul. I asked Duc, “Was Van dangerous to her?”
“Dangerous?” Duc said as we walked on. “I can’t say. Van was a bitter man, like his father. But dangerous?”
“Who was his father?” I asked.
“Thai Hung, a nationalist leader,” he said. “During the world war, Hung was an organizer in the resistance against Japan. After the Japanese defeat, he led a faction that opposed not only France but also Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh. Thai Hung believed Ho was trying to replace one form of European oppression, the French, with another, namely Ho’s Moscow-bred Marxism. To his way of thinking, Trinh’s father, at one time or another, was complicit with all of the oppressors of the people of Vietnam. That is, he was an enemy.”
“Did Van agree with him?”
He held up his hands; who knew? “Like his father, Thai Van was a committed nationalist who lost his country but would not give up his cause. Last I heard, he was part of a group that thinks it is the legitimate government of the Republic of Vietnam, in exile. They’re down south in Orange County somewhere. Little Saigon, probably.”
Duc leaned closer, as if to share a confidence. “There is an American expression: You can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy, yes?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I know in context the reference is to rural Americans when they go to the city,” he said. “But it could as easily refer to the inability of a man like Van to adapt to a new environment. When he saw how Trinh lived, he said that her willingness to become, if you will, an American, living with an American, the mother of an American, was a betrayal of her ancestors.”
“We have another expression,” I said. “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons.”
He thought about that. After a moment, he said, “Flowers I understand. People, not very much.”
Jean-Paul, still holding the perfect yellow rose, looked around at Duc’s flourishing little empire. He asked, “Were you a gardener in the old country?”
“No.” Duc chuckled softly. “But when I came here, there were no openings in my chosen field. Gardener’s helper was the best job I could find on the refugee center’s help-wanted list.”
“What was your field?” I asked.
“In Vietnam, I was a flyer,” Duc said, stooping to pull a weed. “VNAF-Vietnam Air Force.”
“What did you fly?” Jean-Paul asked with apparent interest.
“F-5s for the most part,” Duc said. “Light fighters.”
“Of course, American aircraft,” Jean-Paul said. “My father, when he was stationed at Nha Trang, trained VNAF pilots on the old F8F Bearcat. Single-engine, piston driven, but a good work horse. A bomber.”
I turned to him. “Your father was in Vietnam?”
“Bien sûr.”
“When?” I asked. The man was full of surprises.
“At about the same time your father was fighting communists in Korea, my father was fighting communists in Vietnam.” He slipped his hand through the crook of my arm. “He was there until maybe a year after Dien Bien Phu. I think he came home in 1955. The French left soon after, and then the Americans arrived.”
In French, Duc said, “Before my time.”
“And mine,” Jean-Paul said. “Do you still fly?”
Duc shook his head. “In 1975, I left Saigon in a commandeered fighter jet with my wife and children buckled into the co-pilot’s seat. When I landed on the Midway, I hung up my pilot’s wings. Thanks just the same, but I now prefer growing flowers to dropping bombs.”
Duc stopped in the middle of an area planted with magnificent deep red roses and spread his hands.
“Here we are, Maggie. Your father’s progeny.”
“Chryslers,” I said.
“This is where it all began for me,” he said. “Your father gave me cuttings from this rose, Tosh leased me a corner of his land and coached me, and little by little I went into business for myself. I acquired a field here, a field there, a bit at a time, and now I plant about forty acres.”
Jean-Paul said, “In France, we have an expression: Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.”
“Meaning?” I asked, as Duc laughed.
Duc answered, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
He walked us back to the office and offered refreshments. As warm and thirsty as we were, we needed to get home.
“Thank you for showing us around,” I said. “What you have accomplished is very impressive.”
“Yes,” Duc acknowledged as he walked us out to the truck. “But possible only because I had help. Now, if there is any way I can be helpful to you, I would be honored.”
“Can you help me find Thai Van?”