“What?”
“I’d like to meet her today. What do you say?”
“I don’t especially like the idea.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t babble. Who knows? I might get a good impression and help to change Mother’s mind about her.”
“When it comes to Mother. . I’ve given up. Later, when we all go abroad and if she lives happily among us, then she’ll understand it all. I have a goal.”
“I know. You’re planning to make money with the help of General Liam, right?”
Quyen whirled about to check Minh’s expression in order to make sure he wasn’t being sarcastic, but Minh wore a serious look. It was, after all, the expression of a man who had learned something about the world.
“Right,” Quyen replied, “and you remember how you used to attack and insult me because of that? Now you seem to have had a taste of real life in this world. This war, I’m afraid, will not end in our generation. It’s gone on for over sixty years already. In the Diem period I saw countless cases of rich and influential families slipping out of the country one after another, after first sending children to study abroad. We’ll leave here, too. And to do that we need money. From the time I graduated from college and entered the officer candidate school I’ve had my heart set on getting a connection of this kind. It’s an opportunity a field officer couldn’t dream of. Now, up where I am with General Liam, we can fold and unfold everything in Quang Nam Province. It is a rare chance. Our family needs dollars.”
“How much?”
“A million dollars, at least, I figure.”
Minh was not in the least surprised at the amount. A thousand discharge certificates would do. He had heard a rumor of a police superintendent’s wife who had staked several soldiers as a bet in a poker game. Or, a hundred passports to Europe would bring in a million dollars.
“How long will it take?”
“Well. . I’ll have to manage it before my boss gets promoted to a Cabinet position. Two more years, maybe.”
“I’ll help too. After all, it’s for our family.”
Minh’s voice was flat, and Quyen raised his hands and grasped Minh by the shoulders.
“You, you rotten one. You worried me so much. . if I’d known they’d make a man out of you like this I’d have sent you off to them a long time ago.”
Feeling a bit awkward at what he had said, Quyen looked at his watch once again.
“I have to get back. There’s an important document that has to be approved this afternoon. Anyway, it’s all turned out fine. Don’t worry too much, I’ll take care of everything. I’ll drop in again in the evening.”
Quyen unlatched the door. He was about to leave but stopped and took out his wallet from the pocket of his jacket.
“Here, have some spending money. And don’t stay out late.”
Quyen handed five ten-dollar notes to Minh.
“If you take these to Le Loi market you can get at least fifteen hundred piasters. Why don’t you get some little gifts for Lei and Mi?”
Minh quietly accepted the military currency. Quyen then left without a word to the other members of the family. Out through the window over the hedge Minh could see him getting into the Jeep. He murmured to himself, “Brother, I’m sorry.”
There was a sound of the engine turning and the Jeep took off.
“Is he gone?” asked Mi with a look of concern on her face. “Did you argue?”
“No.”
“Is it really going to be all right?”
“Big Brother will take care of it. You can forget about it now.”
“You must be hungry, eh? Lei will be home any minute. You can eat with her.”
“Sister, by any chance do you know where Big Brother lives?”
“Why should I trouble myself about such a thing? Lei may know, though. Once when Mother fainted she went there with Lieutenant Kiem to show the way.”
“Mother fainted?”
“Yes, on the day Big Brother packed up and moved out. You know, like she did with Father in the old days.”
The two of them went back out to the living room. Seeing the flowers in the front yard getting limp from the blazing sun, Mi headed outside with a sprinkling can to water the plants. Minh was stalking and swatting flies that had slipped inside the house.
“Are you really back home for good?”
“I said I am. .”
“I thought you’d never return, like my husband.”
“You’re not pleased to see me back, are you?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just you seem changed somehow.”
“I’m still the same old me.”
Mi gave Minh a searching look and whispered, “I’m proud of my husband. When the children grow up I’ll tell them about their father. He was on the district committee in Quang Nai Province. He came back from the jungle from time to time. That’s how she was born,” Mi said, pointing over at the three-year-old girl sleeping in a hammock. “Most Vietnamese women think the way I do — they’d rather see their husbands off in the jungle instead of staying home living in disgrace. I hate Quyen.”
Minh understood how his older sister felt, but he went on killing flies without revealing his own feelings.
“Quyen has contempt for me because my husband was on the other side.”
“That’s not true, Mi.”
“Then what is it? Mother’s asking for him every day and he goes and shacks up with a Korean bar girl. He thinks he owes us nothing because he throws us thirty thousand piasters a month. I thought you’d never come back.”
Minh felt an urge welling up inside to grab his sister and shake her, to scream that he was working in a cell of the Liberation Front. But he had to stifle such arrogance. Had he not been taught that at times one has to wear a disguise that brings snickers and scorn from one’s own countrymen? Minh tossed the fly swatter aside.
“Sister, I barely made it back alive. I suppose you wouldn’t be satisfied unless one of those yellow slips arrived notifying the family I’d been killed in action out in the jungle?”
“No, dear. I’m glad you’re back. You shouldn’t die. I just can’t stomach Quyen, that’s all.”
Mi rushed over to Minh with tears streaming down her face and grabbed his hands. She was feeling dejected at the fate that left her no choice but to live off her family. From outside could be heard the bell of a bicycle and the rattle of its chain.
“Lei’s back.”
Mi wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and hurried off to the kitchen. Lei pushed her bicycle into the yard, then took off her big hat and fanned her face with it. The heat had cooked a tinge of red onto her face.
“I called Big Brother earlier, did he show up?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“So, what did he say?”
“He said he’d take care of things.”
“Ah, I’m starving. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
“No, I was waiting for you.”
Mi hurried out. “Lei’s home. Hungry? I’ll make some fried rice, it’ll only take a minute.”
“No need to hurry, Sister. No more class after siesta today. It’s a Red Cross service day.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, the senior girls go to the hospitals on Friday afternoons to look after the patients, refugees mostly.”
“Why didn’t you go, then?”
“I decided to skip.”
Lei went around to the backyard to take a bath and soon the sound of the pump was heard. After a while she reappeared in shorts and a T-shirt, looking cooler with her hair wet. Mi brought out lunch. The three of them sat down together in the living room and ate fried rice.
“A friend of mine told me that front line units penetrated deep into Dong Dao yesterday. They planted their flag, too. Six were killed and the bodies were displayed along the road. Everybody is talking about it.”