leave Vietnam forever, my family and I would sit on the floor in our house in Hanoi, eating beef for dinner.
By a few minutes before nine, My Hoa was ready. I stuffed some rice wrapped in a banana leaf into my bag and set her into the rattan child’s seat on the back of the bicycle. I tied a piece of pink mosquito netting over her face to keep the dust out of her eyes, then walked the bike through our courtyard, out the front door, and down the alley to the street. The sun had not even appeared above the roofs of the houses to the east and my clean shirt already stuck in patches to my back. We rode down past Hoan Kiem Lake, then out Ba Trieu Street. At the gates of Unification Park, I heard my name, turned, and saw Khoi. He was perched on his bicycle, with one foot on a peddle and the other foot touching the ground to keep himself balanced. Hanoi boys always sat that way, leaning their elbows on the handlebars while they waited for a train to pass or for a mother or sister to finish bargaining for a piece of fish. Khoi, though, had a grace that made even a pause on a bicycle look beautiful. That one toe seemed to hold him to the earth. At that moment, he was nothing but light and air to me. I felt that if I reached out to touch him, he would disappear.
My Hoa, who was not a little girl to wait for anything, marched through the front gates of the park, assuming Khoi and I would follow, which we did. She was still young enough to believe the world belonged to her and, in recent weeks, had become more and more able to express it. At home, she appropriated everything. She had an old burlap rice sack in which she kept a collection of different colored bits of string, a tattered book of poetry, three of her grandfather’s socks, my comb, a pencil, seven chopsticks, and a neatly folded piece of newspaper containing a lock of her mother’s hair. Khoi, who called her “little princess,” made dolls for her out of kindling sticks, fabric scraps, and wire. Every evening before going to bed, My Hoa would lean all the dolls against the wall, sit down on the floor, and stare at them. She called them “my people.”
The three of us walked down the shady main path of the park and
headed toward the swings. Every few seconds, I glanced at Khoi, wanting to memorize how he held his hands in his pockets and the way his rubber sandals kicked up dust from the path. Today, he walked along beside me in the park. Tomorrow, he would be no more real to me than a ghost, than someone dead. Letters did not arrive from America, so what was the difference, really, between going to America and being dead? The thought of it made my mouth go dry. I had to turn, then, and look at My Hoa, telling myself that, even without Khoi, I would still have my niece. I would still have something precious left.
My parents worshipped learning. Throughout my childhood, my father memorized poetry, and my mother, who could never hope to travel, continued to work on her French. On her side, those values made sense, because she came from an educated family. But my father was the son of farmers; he claimed he could trace his proletarian lineage back to the time of the apes. My mother’s ideals had rubbed off on him, though, and he believed in them as avidly as any convert. That’s why I don’t imagine that either of them would be impressed by the fact that I own a little grocery in Wilmington, North Carolina. How does that elevate me? they would want to know. How does that help to improve the world?
Well, I would just say that this business suits me. I appreciate the clar-ity of my responsibilities. I appreciate the limits, too. And I like the way my position entitles me to observe the little dramas of society—my customers, Gladys and Marcy, the guests on Oprah —without having to get involved in any of them. Lately, it’s become a little harder to keep a distance, though.
One afternoon, about a week after my first visit to Hannah Ellis, Shelley walks through
By a few minutes before nine, My Hoa was ready. I stuffed some rice wrapped in a banana leaf into my bag and set her into the rattan child’s seat on the back of the bicycle. I tied a piece of pink mosquito netting over her face to keep the dust out of her eyes, then walked the bike through our courtyard, out the front door, and down the alley to the street. The sun had not even appeared above the roofs of the houses to the east and my clean shirt already stuck in patches to my back. We rode down past Hoan Kiem Lake, then out Ba Trieu Street. At the gates of Unification Park, I heard my name, turned, and saw Khoi. He was perched on his bicycle, with one foot on a peddle and the other foot touching the ground to keep himself balanced. Hanoi boys always sat that way, leaning their elbows on the handlebars while they waited for a train to pass or for a mother or sister to finish bargaining for a piece of fish. Khoi, though, had a grace that made even a pause on a bicycle look beautiful. That one toe seemed to hold him to the earth. At that moment, he was nothing but light and air to me. I felt that if I reached out to touch him, he would disappear.
My Hoa, who was not a little girl to wait for anything, marched through the front gates of the park, assuming Khoi and I would follow, which we did. She was still young enough to believe the world belonged to her and, in recent weeks, had become more and more able to express it. At home, she appropriated everything. She had an old burlap rice sack in which she kept a collection of different colored bits of string, a tattered book of poetry, three of her grandfather’s socks, my comb, a pencil, seven chopsticks, and a neatly folded piece of newspaper containing a lock of her mother’s hair. Khoi, who called her “little princess,” made dolls for her out of kindling sticks, fabric scraps, and wire. Every evening before going to bed, My Hoa would lean all the dolls against the wall, sit down on the floor, and stare at them. She called them “my people.”
The three of us walked down the shady main path of the park and
headed toward the swings. Every few seconds, I glanced at Khoi, wanting to memorize how he held his hands in his pockets and the way his rubber sandals kicked up dust from the path. Today, he walked along beside me in the park. Tomorrow, he would be no more real to me than a ghost, than someone dead. Letters did not arrive from America, so what was the difference, really, between going to America and being dead? The thought of it made my mouth go dry. I had to turn, then, and look at My Hoa, telling myself that, even without Khoi, I would still have my niece. I would still have something precious left.
My parents worshipped learning. Throughout my childhood, my father memorized poetry, and my mother, who could never hope to travel, continued to work on her French. On her side, those values made sense, because she came from an educated family. But my father was the son of farmers; he claimed he could trace his proletarian lineage back to the time of the apes. My mother’s ideals had rubbed off on him, though, and he believed in them as avidly as any convert. That’s why I don’t imagine that either of them would be impressed by the fact that I own a little grocery in Wilmington, North Carolina. How does that elevate me? they would want to know. How does that help to improve the world?
Well, I would just say that this business suits me. I appreciate the clar-ity of my responsibilities. I appreciate the limits, too. And I like the way my position entitles me to observe the little dramas of society—my customers, Gladys and Marcy, the guests on Oprah —without having to get involved in any of them. Lately, it’s become a little harder to keep a distance, though.
One afternoon, about a week after my first visit to Hannah Ellis, Shelley walks through
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