A Good Scent from a Strange Moutain Part 4

But our lieutenant let us do it. He was sitting on the tree trunk, his elbows on his knees, leaning forward smoking a cigarette. He was right next to me and I knew he wanted to be somewhere else. He was pretty new, but he seemed to know what he was doing. His name was Binh and he was maybe twenty-one, but I was eighteen and he seemed like a man and I was a private and he was our officer, our platoon leader. I wanted to speak to him because I was feeling the fear pretty bad, like it was a river catfish with the sharp gills and it was just now pulled out of the water and into the boat, thras.h.i.+ng, with the hook still in its mouth, and my chest was the bottom of the boat.

I sat trying to think what to say to Lieutenant Binh, but there was only a little nattering in my head, no real words at all. Then another private sitting next to me spoke. I do not remember his name. I can't shape his face in my mind anymore. Not even a single feature. But I remember his words. He lifted off his helmet and placed it on the ground beside him and he said, "I bet no man has ever set his foot in this place before."

I heard Lieutenant Binh make a little snorting sound at this, but I didn't pick up on the contempt of it or the bitterness. I probably would've kept silent if I had. But instead, I said to the other private, "Not since the dragon came south."

Lieutenant Binh snorted again. This time it was clear to both the other soldier and me that the lieutenant was responding to us. We looked at him and he said to the other, "You're dead meat if you keep thinking like that. It's probably too late for you already. There've been men in this place before, and you better hope it was a couple of days ago instead of a couple of hours."

We both turned our faces away from the rebuke and my cheeks were hotter than the sun could ever make them, even though the lieutenant had spoken to the other private. But I was not to be spared. The lieutenant tapped me on the shoulder with iron fingertips. I looked back to him and he bent near with his face hard, like what I'd said was far worse than the other.

He said, "And what was that about the dragon?"

I was too frightened now to make my mind work. I could only repeat, "The dragon?"

"The dragon," he said, his face coming nearer still. "The thing about the dragon going south."

For a moment I felt relieved. I don't know how the lieutenant sensed this about me, but somehow he knew that when I spoke of the dragon going south, it was not just a familiar phrase meant to refer to a long time ago. He knew that I actually believed. But at that moment I did not understand how foolish this made me seem to him. I said, "The dragon. You know, the gentle dragon who was the father of Vietnam."

The story my father told of the gentle dragon and the fairy princess had always been different from the ones about ghosts that I sought in the candlelight to chill me, though my father did believe in ghosts, as do many Vietnamese people and even some Americans. But the story of how our country began was always told in the daylight and with many of our family members gathered together, and no one ever said to me that this was just a made-up story, that this was just a lovely little lie. When I studied American history to become a citizen here, there was a story of a man named George Was.h.i.+ngton and he cut down a little tree and then told the truth. And the teacher immediately explained that this was just a made-up story. He made this very clear for even something like that. Just cutting down a tree and telling the truth about it. We had to keep that story separate from the stories that were actual true history.

This makes me sad about this country that was chosen for me. It makes me sad for a whole world of adults. It makes me sad even for Lieutenant Binh as I remember his questions that followed, all with a clenched face and a voice as quick and furious as the rifles at our sides. "Is this the dragon who slept with the fairy?" he demanded, though the actual words he used at that moment of my own true history were much harsher.

"He married a fairy princess," I said.

"Who married them?" the lieutenant said.

I couldn't answer the question. It was a simple question and it was, I see now, an unimportant question, but sitting in that clearing in the middle of a forest full of men who would kill me, having already fired my rifle at their shapes on several occasions and felt the rush of their bullets past my face and seen already two men die, though I turned my face from that, but having seen two men splashed with their own blood and me sitting now in a forest with the fear clawing at my chest, I faced that simple little question and I realized how foolish I was, how much a child.

The lieutenant cried, "Is this the fairy princess who's going to lay eggs?"

And in a moment as terrible as when I first felt the fear of my adult self, I now turned my face from the lieutenant and I looked across the clearing at the tree line and I knew that someone out there was coming near and I knew that dragons and fairies do not have children and the lieutenant's voice was very close to me and it said, "Save your life."

I don't know if some time pa.s.sed with me sitting there feeling as crumbly and dry as the tree trunk I leaned against. Maybe only a few seconds, maybe no seconds at all. But very soon, from the tree line before me, there was a flash of light and another and I could only barely s.h.i.+ft my eyes to the private sitting next to me and his head was a blur of red and gray and I was as quick as my rifle and over the trunk and beside my lieutenant and we were very quiet together, firing, and all of the rest is very distant from me now. Half of our platoon was dead in those first few seconds, I think. When air support arrived, there was only the lieutenant and me and another private who would soon die from the wounds he received in those few minutes in the clearing.

Not many months later the lieutenant came to me where we were trying to dig in on the rim of Saigon and he said, "It's time." And all the troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam were streaming past us into the city, without leaders now, without hope, and so I followed Lieutenant Binh, I and a couple of other soldiers in his platoon that he knew were good fighters, and I did not understand exactly what he meant about its being time until we were in the motorboat of a friend of his and we were racing down the Saigon River. This was the last little bit of my childhood. I was holding my rifle across my chest, ready to fight wherever the lieutenant was leading me. But the lieutenant said, "You won't need that now."

He was taking me and the others into the South China Sea and when I realized I was leaving my country and my wife and my unborn son, I was only able to turn my face to him, for I knew there was no going back. He looked at me with a quick little smile, a warm smile, one man to another, and a nod of the head like he thought I was a good fighter, a good man, a man he respected, and all of that was true, and he thought he was helping me save my life, and maybe that was true, but maybe it wasn't true at all. You must understand, though, that I did not choose to leave.

My son, I love you. Your mother does not love me now and you have a new father. Has she told you about me? Are you reading this? I pray you are; with all the little s.h.i.+ny pebbles of my childhood faith that I can find in the dust, I pray it. And I am writing to tell you this. Thousands of years ago a gentle and kindly dragon grew lonely in the harsh wide plains of China and he wandered south. He found a land full of beautiful mountains and green valleys and fresh, clear rivers that ran so fast in their banks that they made a singing sound.

But even though the land was beautiful, he was still lonely. He traveled through this new country of his and at last he met a beautiful fairy princess. She, too, was lonely and the two of them fell in love and they decided to live together as man and wife and to love each other forever. And so they did live together in the beautiful land and one day the princess found that she had laid a hundred eggs in a beautiful silk pouch and these eggs hatched and they were the children of the dragon and the princess.

These children were very wonderful, inheriting bravery and gentleness from their father and beauty and charm and a delicacy of feeling from their mother. They grew and grew and they were fine, loving children, but finally the dragon had to make a very difficult decision. He realized that the family was too large for them all to live together in one place. So he called his family to him and told them that even though he loved them all very much, he would have to divide the family into two parts. His wife would take fifty of the children and travel to the east. He would take the other fifty children and travel to the south. Everyone was very sad about having to do this, but they all understood that there was no other way.

So the princess took fifty of the children and went far away to the east, where she became the Queen of the Ocean. And the dragon took fifty children far away to the south, where he became the King of the Land. The dragon and the princess remained with the children until they were adults, wise and strong and able to take care of themselves. Then the dragon and the princess vanished and were reunited in the spirit world, where they lived happily together for the rest of eternity. The children married and prospered and they created Vietnam from the far north to the southern tip and they are the ancestors of all of us. Of you, my son, and of me.

For a time in my life, the part of me that could believe in this story was dead. I often think, here in my new home, that it is dead still. But now, at least, I do not wish it to be dead and it does not make me feel foolish, so perhaps my belief is still part of me. I love you, my son, and all I wish for you is that you save your life. Tell this story that I have told you. Try to think of it as true.

A GHOST STORY.

Let's say I got onto a bus, a Greyhound bus, and you saw me coming down the aisle, an Oriental man. Your eye wouldn't be practiced enough to know by looking at me that I'm Vietnamese-I'm just Oriental at first glance-and you certainly wouldn't know that I have a special story to tell, a story about ghosts. All you see is a late-middle-aged sort of shabby Oriental man, a little frayed at the collar and cuffs, his hair a little s.h.a.ggy over the ears, and he's heading your way and there is a seat next to you. As he approaches, would you raise your newspaper to cover your face or maybe turn to look outside even though we are sitting in the New Orleans bus station and there's nothing to see out there but a sidewalk and a driver throwing some suitcases into the baggage compartment? This way he would know he wasn't welcome in that seat, and being an Oriental gentleman, he would know how to take the hint and walk on past and sit someplace else. Or would you keep your eyes on him as he approaches and maybe even give him a little smile so he knows he's welcome to sit in that empty seat? It's just far enough to Biloxi that it's good to sit next to someone for the trip. Biloxi is where I go to see my daughter about once a month, and if you would keep your eyes on me to let me know it's okay for me to sit next to you, I would tell you a true story about Vietnam.

This happened in the central highlands, not far from the city of An Khe in the year 1971. One day in late spring a Vietnamese Army major named Trung visited his mistress in the city and they spent the afternoon in a garden and the early evening in her bed, where they made love with the pollen of the flowers still clinging to their faces and arms. Afterward, the room was full of a pale light and they fell asleep. But when the major awoke, it was very dark. He had slept much too long and he leaped from the bed cursing and sweating and he threw on his clothes. He was stationed in a base camp on the other side of the mountains and he had a meeting with the base commander first thing in the morning. The major had to return to the camp now, in the middle of the night. His lover was very frightened for him. In the daylight the road through the mountain belonged to the Republic. But at night the communists could come out of the forests whenever they wished, making this trip very dangerous. Nevertheless, the major had no choice. He kissed his lover good-bye and went out to his car.

He was frightened, but he was a serious officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, a very brave man, and before he opened the door to his car, he held his hands out in front of him and he vowed to master the tiny tremor in them. He would not leave until both his hands were absolutely still. The moon was very bright, but there were many clouds and they pa.s.sed over the moon and the major could not see his hands. But he waited patiently until the clouds parted and he could clearly observe that his hands had become motionless before him. Then he got into the car and drove away, not even looking back to the window of his lover's house, where her face could be seen weeping.

The major drove very fast and he was soon on the road that wound up into the tops of the mountains, and whenever the moon was free of the clouds, the major, in fear of the communists, turned off his headlights and leaned forward to follow the twisting road by the silver light. This light of the moon that would have been very bright to show the bodies of two lovers entwined was only barely bright enough to guide him through the mountains. But the major knew what danger he was in, and when the moon disappeared and the road could not be distinguished from the deep chasms just beyond, it was only with great reluctance that he turned on his headlights.

He drove on like this, turning and twisting up and up and at each turn his hands tightened on the steering wheel for fear of a roadblock, a hundred rifles pointed at him, beginning to fire, shattering gla.s.s, the end of his life. But he finally reached what he knew was the highest point of the mountains. He saw a white road marker in the beam of his headlights, a jagged stone sitting at the turning of the road, and then he was in a pa.s.s with the road leveling off for a time, the trees mounting darkly on both sides of him, and the only chasm for the moment being the darkness before him, beyond the reach of his lights. The road began to descend, though gently for now, and he followed a turn to the right and something flashed before him in the light, his heart seized up, but it was a rabbit das.h.i.+ng across the road. He could see the final high kick of the long hind legs as the animal leaped into the darkness of the trees, and the major even laughed aloud, in relief but also in scorn at his own moment of fear.

The road turned sharply to the left and the moon appeared in a break in the clouds, but its light was snagged and slivered by the surrounding trees. The major knew that in a mile or so he would be through the pa.s.s and the road would cling once again to the side of the mountain and wind its way down, with a chasm on one side. He glanced at the tree-striped face of the moon, and when he brought his eyes back before him, a woman appeared in his lights, standing in his lane of the road and he was rus.h.i.+ng toward her and he could hardly believe she was there, a slim young woman in a beautiful white ao dai, and she raised her hand to him, a clear gesture telling him to stop, and all of this happened in a few seconds, but as this lovely woman held her ground, her hand raised, and the major rushed toward her, he thought of the Viet Cong and their tricks and he would not stop his car in this mountain at night for anyone and he swerved sharply, his tires crying out on the pavement, and he went around her, the wheel heavy in his hands, and he yanked at it and he was back in his lane and there was nothing in his lights but the road.

A trick, he thought, a trick, using a local girl to lure me into a trap. And then she was before him again, or another girl, perhaps a sister-how could it be the same girl? he was hurtling along the road, leaving her behind-but a beautiful young woman in a white ao dai was before him and she raised her hand and this time he could see her face, for some reason her face was very clear-round, smooth skinned, a thin nose as if she had French blood, and her mouth was wide. Pleasing at first glance but the mouth grew wider, the mouth widened even as he watched it in his headlights and his hands prepared to swerve around the girl-it was the same girl as before, he was sure of it-but the mouth was growing wider and wider, a great crack in this beautiful round face, and the mouth opened, gaping wide, like the chasm of the mountainside, and a tongue came out, huge, bloating as it came, swelling as wide as her face, as wide as her shoulders, undulating forward from her mouth, red and soft and as wide as the road now, and the monstrous tongue licked at the car and the car lifted up, and the major's eyes and his head were filled with a vision of the tongue and then all was darkness.

He drifted into consciousness and he felt himself lying on the ground. He opened his eyes and gasped, for the young woman's face was before him, bending over him, and there was moonlight on the face and he stared at her mouth, a wide mouth but a human mouth, and it opened and no great tongue came out, only words. "Major Trung," she said, and her voice was very soft, softer than his lover's kiss, even when his lover touched his tongue with hers. The young woman said, "You must sleep for a time now. There is an ambush ahead. I am Nguyn th Linh of the street called Lotus in An Khe. You will see me again. I wish for you to be alive." The major tried to answer, but he could not speak. The darkness rushed back upon him and he fell unconscious.

When the major woke for the second time, the road was still dark, though there was a faint silver glow in the air. He raised himself onto his elbows and looked around. He was lying beside the road, and his car, which he expected to find crashed into the trees, was sitting just off the road, as if it had been carefully parked there. The major stood up and he was surprised to find not a single pain in his body, no bruises, no scratches, nothing whatever to show that he had crashed his car and had been thrown out. He looked at his watch and found that he'd been unconscious for two hours. He decided that he'd had a hallucination. The strain of the drive through the mountains, the pleasures of the afternoon, the flower pollen-perhaps one of the flowers was a rare thing, producing a drug that worked on him so that he had parked his car and had gotten out and slept and dreamt all of the rest about the girl in the white ao dai, this girl Nguyn thi Linh of the street called Lotus. That was it. A kind of lotus had affected him and had named itself in the very dream it provoked.

So the major got into his car and drove on. He still had time to make it back to the base by dawn, and he smiled at this strange narcotic fantasy that he'd experienced. But he did not go a mile before he found a terrible Sight. Along the road were the bodies of many men, dead soldiers strewn from the forest and down the slope and across the highway. He pulled his car over and stepped out into the stench of blood and cordite. He needed to take only a few steps until he recognized a man's face twisted upward from the ground in the agony of a death two hours old. This was the wreckage of one of the major's own night patrols, clearly ambushed and destroyed in this spot, just as the young woman had warned in the major's dream. But now he was not so sure it was a dream. Just in case, he bowed low and spoke aloud his thanks to the woman in his vision. Then he got back into his car and returned safely to the base.

This is a simple enough ghost story, and if you have turned your face to the bus window while I spoke and if it is clear to me that I have been boring you, as I can do to people-my daughter's American husband, for instance-then I will stop right there and let that be the story for you. But there is more. If you've looked at me while I've spoken and there is a light in your eyes and no condescension, then I will tell you more, for I know this story to be true.

The next week, when the major returned to An Khe, he did not go directly to his lover's house. First of all he went to the street called Lotus. It was a narrow street at the edge of the city on a little rise so that it looked out over the tops of banana trees, across a plain, to the mountains. The street was very quiet, though the sun was not yet high. The major heard the sound of the wind and the muttering of chickens and that was all. He faced a stretch of modest wooden houses with slate roofs and he thought he would knock on the nearest door and ask about the girl.

But then a young man came around the side of a house on a bicycle and drove past and the major hailed him. The young man stopped and the major said, "Do you know a girl named Nguyn thi Linh?"

The boy's reaction was surprising to the major. He gave a short little sneering laugh. "I know the girl, to my regret. But I will not speak ill of the dead."

The major's breath stopped and he felt a chill, like a winter wind, at the news that Linh was dead. Somehow, though, he was not surprised. He knew that no living person could project her spirit in such a way as he had encountered. The chill soon pa.s.sed, but his breath was just as hard to draw as he grew furious with the boy for his disrespectful words about this beautiful girl who had saved his life. The major very nearly stepped forward to strike the young man, but suddenly a calmness came over him. This was merely a jealous boy, one who had seen Miss Linh's beauty and desired it and who was rejected by her. The major knew this as surely as if Miss Linh had suddenly bent near him and whispered the facts of the case into his ear.

The major said, "And do her parents live in this street?"

"The red house at the end," the boy said and he did not wait for any further words but turned away and rode off on his bicycle.

The major walked down the block and at the end found a small wooden house perhaps once painted red but faded now into a mellower shade, a pink from some sunset. He went to the door and knocked, and after a time, a woman appeared. She was old and bent but slim and with a thin nose and she looked up into the major's face with searching eyes.

"I am Major Trung," he said. "May I come in?" These words sounded strange to the major as he said them; they were as if he needed to give no explanation here. But without asking anything of him, the woman nodded and opened the door and stepped aside, and when the major was in the room, his eyes went at once to a shrine set against a wall. The shrine held flowers and candles and incense curling its smoke into the air and in the center was a large photograph of the girl from the mountain road. Miss Linh was unmistakable in this photo-the round face, the wide mouth, the thin nose, like her mother's.

He turned to the woman and said, "Is this your daughter?"

The old woman nodded and touched her eyes lightly with a handkerchief. "Yes, she pa.s.sed into the spirit world four years ago."

"I'm sorry," the major said.

"We are all sorry," the woman said. "The whole world should be sorry. This war took the sweetest daughter a mother could have."

The major said, "Yes, madame, and she saved the life of this soldier just last week." And with that, the major sat the old woman down and told her his story.

After he was done, the old woman simply nodded and turned her face toward the window. "I am glad to know that my daughter's spirit has not forgotten this world," she said.

Then the old woman lowered her face and such a stillness and sadness seemed to come over her that the major knew he could say no more. He rose and bowed to the woman and turned and bowed to the shrine of Miss Linh, saying a silent prayer of thanks, and he left the house on the street called Lotus and he wandered into the grove of trees nearby and sat down, because a great weariness had come over him. He spoke her name once more-"Linh"-and a pale light filled the grove of trees and he fell into a deep sleep.

When the major woke, it was very dark. He leaped to his feet with the fright of waking from a bad dream, but he could remember no dream and he realized where he was and what had happened. He had slept all day and into the night in the grove of trees near Miss Linh's house and once again he felt a calmness come over him. He had to drive back to the base camp, but he knew that Linh's spirit would be there in the mountains to protect him. So he walked back to his car, bowing to her house, which was dark with sleep now as he pa.s.sed. In his car, his hands were steady and his heart was light, and he drove off without even thinking of his earthly lover, who no doubt was weeping now in another part of the city.

The night sky had no stars and no moon. All was black and the whole world for the major was the column of light his car pushed before him. But he drove across the plain and up into the mountains and the road rose and cut back and rose and the mountain on the one side and the chasm on the other were the same, deep black, and the major was calm. There was nothing in his head but a light rustling, like a summer wind moving banyan leaves or the panels of an ao dai rising behind a beautiful girl. He kept his eyes on the turns of the pavement in his headlights and at every turn he half-expected Miss Linh to appear before him. And he would stop on his own. He would go to her.

And the road went up and up until he pa.s.sed the white road marker and the road leveled and he felt a change in the darkness, he could sense the difference in the dark of the chasm and the dark of the mountain, which rose on both sides of him now. This was near the place of Linh's last appearance and his heart began to race. He felt like a boy carrying a flower across a schoolyard to a girl he'd been watching all year and now his courage was strong enough to move his legs but not strong enough to give him a voice or enough breath. The road descended gently and turned to the right, the place where he'd seen the rabbit kicking up its heels and disappearing, and then the sharp left and it was now, he thought, now, but the lights showed only the road, there was no young woman in an ao dai, and he slowed his car as he pa.s.sed the place where she'd first appeared but there was nothing. The major felt a hot flush in his cheeks, the bloom of disappointment, and he thought, Perhaps it's because I am not in danger this night. Then for a moment he even wished that the VC were doing their job, waiting to kill him, so that Miss Linh would have to come.

Even as this thought shaped itself, the road dipped and before him Miss Linh appeared in the far reach of his lights. The major cried out, wordless, a sound of pleasure like the yip of a dog about to be fed. And he slowed the car, pressed at the brake, and as he neared her, he could see her face, lovely, round, and the wide mouth was smiling, a smile he returned, broadly, and he pulled off the road and came to a stop.

The major leaped out of the car and stood where he was because she was coming toward him and he wanted to watch her move. She floated, this highland girl from An Khe, floated like the most beautiful of the Saigon girls, and the panels of her white ao dai lifted delicately, and she was smiling. Her thin nose seemed like the very best of the faces of Western women and the rest of Miss Linh's face was the best of the Orient. The major trembled as she drew near and she stopped just before the car, in the brightest beam of the headlights, and she seemed so substantial to the major, a spirit that had all the delicious tangibleness of an earthly body. "Miss Linh," he said, with a great sigh, as if he had been destined all his life to be on this mountaintop with her.

"Major Trung," she said, and her voice was as soft as a summer wind moving through banyan leaves, and he knew it had been her voice rustling in his head all through his journey to this place.

"I'm so glad you're here," he said.

"And I'm glad you are here," she said. "This was our appointed time." And she smiled at him. Her lovely, wide mouth widened farther as the smile grew and the smile did not stop when it reached the edge of her mouth but pushed the mouth farther, quickly now, and the major's hands clenched as the smile opened and the great tongue came out, red and soft, and it grew and filled his sight and licked forward and touched him, a lover's tongue, wet and insistent and clinging, and the major's feet left the ground, the tongue lifted him up and he was yanked forward and he had time for one glance at Miss Linh's eyes gleaming in the light, enormous eyes, as big as twin moons, and then there was darkness all around him and the pain crushed along the back of him, from his head to his feet, though he died quite quickly, long before he was chewed into pulp and swallowed.

Now, if you've been listening to me and even took note of my claim that I know this story to be true, you may be surprised at this turn of events. You thought perhaps that I myself was the major, and things would have turned out differently. But that is a foolish, romantic notion. I have no hesitation in telling you that. The major died horribly in the jaws of this enticing woman. And if you care about what I'm saying and you do not despise me for calling you foolish, even if I have no guile anymore and I call you this seriously, without charm, then you are a very rare American indeed, and I will tell you how I know this story to be true.

When Saigon was falling to the communists in April of 1975, I was working for your emba.s.sy and I kept waiting for my boss, an American foreign service officer, to come and get me out. He had left the week before and he told me to wait. But things happened-do not blame him-and it was getting very late-the communists were already in the outskirts of the city-and I knew I had to go from my apartment on Nguyn Hu Street to the American emba.s.sy because the last helicopters would soon be taking off.

So I went out and got in my car, an American car from the emba.s.sy. It was only a few blocks, but I thought that my having the emba.s.sy car would help validate my claim with the Marines at the front gate, for I knew there were many of my countrymen trying to leave at the last minute. I went only a couple of blocks, had barely gotten beyond the Continental Palace Hotel, when I sensed the craziness in the streets. People were running everywhere now, frantic, carrying whatever possessions they could on their backs and running, many of them in the direction of the emba.s.sy. So I turned into Gia Long and up at the far corner there was a great commotion. I slowed down, and even as I did, I saw her.

It was Miss Linh. I know it was her. The man who told me Major Trung's story-his brother-actually showed me Miss Linh's photograph, the one that had sat on the mother's shrine. I knew her round face, the thin nose, and of course that wide mouth that I watched now with special attention. She stepped into the street before me and held up her hand. I stopped the car and I got out quickly and walked away at a right angle to her, peeking over my shoulder to see what she would do. She did nothing. She watched me walking away and she smiled. But just a faint smile.

I cut through some yards and made it into the next street and I headed for the emba.s.sy on foot, fighting my way through very heavy crowds now. When I came to the next comer, I could see back down to the intersection Miss Linh had prevented me from entering. Two vehicles were already on fire there and I could see people in the crowd waving clubs. Miss Linh had saved me. But you can understand how this gave me no peace of mind.

A helicopter pounded overhead and I had no time to think of ghosts. The evacuation would soon be over, I knew, and I ran hard until I was in the street of the emba.s.sy, and there my heart sank. The emba.s.sy gates were besieged by a vast throng of my people and I could tell the gates were barred and no one was going in. There were figures trying to go up the wall and I heard automatic rifle fire and these figures leaped back down. I turned my eyes to the roof of the emba.s.sy and a chopper was sitting there with its rotors still moving as a single-file stream of people was climbing into its belly. I could tell even from this distance that almost all of the people going into the helicopter were Americans.

And then the voice came softly into my ear, whispering my name. I spun around and it was Miss Linh, her round face hovering before me like a bloated summer moon. I reared back and gasped and she smiled and I didn't want that mouth to widen any further. My voice spoke and I heard it as if from a great distance. "Is this our appointed time?" I asked.

Miss Linh nodded yes, the smile steady on her lips, and she took a step toward me and I squeezed my eyes shut, I could not bear to see her monstrous tongue. But I felt nothing for a moment and then another moment, and I opened my eyes and I did not see her. I turned around and Miss Linh was standing near me in the street, and as I looked at her, she raised her hand to an approaching car. The car was large and black, a limousine with American flags on the fenders licking at the rush of air. But Miss Linh held her ground and the car stopped and then she stepped to the back door and opened it. Inside was a very important American, the boss of my boss. He recognized me and he said to get in. I looked at Miss Linh. She smiled at me, a lovely wide smile that ended in a nod toward the gaping door. So I stepped into the car and I was taken away to America.

Are you confused again, my round-eyed friend? Look at me, look where I am, listen to how I speak compulsively to strangers, even strangers from this alien land, listen to the kind of treatment I expect even now, even from you who have pretended to listen to me this long with interest. How do I know the major's story is true? Because as I sat in the darkness of the limousine and it drove away, I looked out the window and saw Miss Linh's tongue slip from her mouth and lick her lips, as if she had just eaten me up. And indeed she has.

SNOW.

I wonder how long he watched me sleeping. I still wonder that. He sat and he did not wake me to ask about his carry-out order. Did he watch my eyes move as I dreamed? When I finally knew he was there and I turned to look at him, I could not make out his whole face at once. His head was turned a little to the side. His beard was neatly trimmed, but the jaw it covered was long and its curve was like a sampan sail and it held my eyes the way a sail always did when I saw one on the sea. Then I raised my eyes and looked at his nose. I am Vietnamese, you know, and we have a different sense of these proportions. Our noses are small and his was long and it also curved, gently, a reminder of his jaw, which I looked at again. His beard was dark gray, like he'd crawled out of a charcoal kiln. I make these comparisons to things from my country and Village, but it is only to clearly say what this face was like. It is not that he reminded me of home. That was the farthest thing from my mind when I first saw Mr. Cohen. And I must have stared at him in those first moments with a strange look because when his face turned full to me and I could finally lift my gaze to his eyes, his eyebrows made a little jump like he was asking me, What is it? What's wrong?

I was at this same table before the big window at the front of the restaurant. The Plantation Hunan does not look like a restaurant, though. No one would give it a name like that unless it really was an old plantation house. It's very large and full of antiques. It's quiet right now. Not even five, and I can hear the big clock-I had never seen one till I came here. No one in Vietnam has a clock as tall as a man. Time isn't as important as that in Vietnam. But the clock here is very tall and they call it Grandfather, which I like, and Grandfather is ticking very slowly right now, and he wants me to fall asleep again. But I won't.

This plantation house must feel like a refugee. It is full of foreign smells, ginger and Chinese pepper and fried sh.e.l.ls for wonton, and there's a motel on one side and a gas station on the other, not like the life the house once knew, though there are very large oak trees surrounding it, trees that must have been here when this was still a plantation. The house sits on a busy street and the Chinese family who owns it changed it from Plantation Seafood into a place that could hire a Vietnamese woman like me to be a waitress. They are very kind, this family, though we know we are different from each other. They are Chinese and I am Vietnamese and they are very kind, but we are both here in Louisiana and they go somewhere with the other Chinese in town-there are four restaurants and two laundries and some people, I think, who work as engineers at the oil refinery. They go off to themselves and they don't seem to even notice where they are.

I was sleeping that day he came in here. It was late afternoon of the day before Christmas. Almost Christmas Eve. I am not a Christian. My mother and I are Buddhist. I live with my mother and she is very sad for me because I am thirty-four years old and I am not married. There are other Vietnamese here in Lake Charles, Louisiana, but we are not a community. We are all too sad, perhaps, or too tired. But maybe not. Maybe that's just me saying that. Maybe the others are real Americans already. My mother has two Vietnamese friends, old women like her, and her two friends look at me with the same sadness in their faces because of what they see as my life. They know that once I might have been married, but the fiance I had in my town in Vietnam went away in the Army and though he is still alive in Vietnam, the last I heard, he is driving a cab in H Chi Minh City and he is married to someone else. I never really knew him, and I don't feel any loss. It's just that he's the only boy my mother ever speaks of when she gets frightened for me.

I get frightened for me, too, sometimes, but it's not because I have no husband. That Christmas Eve afternoon I woke slowly. The front tables are for c.o.c.ktails and for waiting for carry-out, so the chairs are large and stuffed so that they are soft. My head was very comfortable against one of the high wings of the chair and I opened my eyes without moving. The rest of me was still sleeping, but my eyes opened and the sky was still blue, though the shreds of cloud were turning pink. It looked like a warm sky. And it was. I felt sweat on my throat and I let my eyes move just a little and the live oak in front of the restaurant was quivering-all its leaves were shaking and you might think that it would look cold doing that, but it was a warm wind, I knew. The air was thick and wet, and cutting through the ginger and pepper smell was the fuzzy smell of mildew.

Perhaps it was from my dream but I remembered my first Christmas Eve in America. I slept and woke just like this, in a Chinese restaurant. I was working there. But it was in a distant place, in St. Louis. And I woke to snow. The first snow I had ever seen. It scared me. Many Vietnamese love to see their first snow, but it frightened me in some very deep way that I could not explain, and even remembering that moment-especially as I woke from sleep at the front of another restaurant-frightened me. So I turned my face sharply from the window in the Plantation Hunan and that's when I saw Mr. Cohen.

I stared at those parts of his face, like I said, and maybe this was a way for me to hide from the snow, maybe the strangeness that he saw in my face had to do with the snow. But when his eyebrows jumped and I did not say anything to explain what was going on inside me, I could see him wondering what to do. I could feel him thinking: Should I ask her what is wrong or should I just ask her for my carry-out? I am not an especially shy person, but I hoped he would choose to ask for the carry-out. I came to myself with a little jolt and I stood up and faced him-he was sitting in one of the stuffed chairs at the next table. "I'm sorry," I said, trying to turn us both from my dreaming. "Do you have an order?"

He hesitated, his eyes holding fast on my face. These were very dark eyes, as dark as the eyes of any Vietnamese, but turned up to me like this, his face seemed so large that I had trouble taking it in. Then he said, "Yes. For Cohen." His voice was deep, like a movie actor who is playing a grandfather, the kind of voice that if he asked what it was that I had been dreaming, I would tell him at once.

But he did not ask anything more. I went off to the kitchen and the order was not ready. I wanted to complain to them. There was no one else in the restaurant, and everyone in the kitchen seemed like they were just hanging around. But I don't make any trouble for anybody. So I just went back out to Mr. Cohen. He rose when he saw me, even though he surely also saw that I had no carry-out with me.

"It's not ready yet," I said. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay," he said, and he smiled at me, his gray beard opening and showing teeth that were very white.

"I wanted to scold them," I said. "You should not have to wait for a long time on Christmas Eve."

"It's okay," he said. "This is not my holiday."

I tilted my head, not understanding. He tilted his own head just like mine, like he wanted to keep looking straight into my eyes. Then he said, "I am Jewish."

I straightened my head again, and I felt a little pleasure at knowing that his straightening his own head was caused by me. I still didn't understand, exactly, and he clearly read that in my face. He said, "A Jew doesn't celebrate Christmas."

"I thought all Americans celebrated Christmas," I said.

"Not all. Not exactly." He did a little shrug with his shoulders, and his eyebrows rose like the shrug, as he tilted his head to the side once more, for just a second. It all seemed to say, What is there to do, it's the way the world is and I know it and it all makes me just a little bit weary. He said, "We all stay home, but we don't all celebrate."

He said no more, but he looked at me and I was surprised to find that I had no words either on my tongue or in my head. It felt a little strange to see this very American man who was not celebrating the holiday. In Vietnam we never miss a holiday and it did not make a difference if we were Buddhist or Cao ai or Catholic. I thought of this Mr. Cohen sitting in his room tonight alone while all the other Americans celebrated Christmas Eve. But I had nothing to say and he didn't either and he kept looking at me and I glanced down at my hands twisting at my order book and I didn't even remember taking the book out. So I said, "I'll check on your order again," and I turned and went off to the kitchen and I waited there till the order was done, though I stood over next to the door away from the chatter of the cook and the head waiter and the mother of the owner.

Carrying the white paper bag out to the front, I could not help but look inside to see how much food there was. There was enough for two people. So I did not look into Mr. Cohen's eyes as I gave him the food and rang up the order and took his money. I was counting his change into his palm-his hand, too, was very large-and he said, "You're not Chinese, are you?"

I said, "No. I am Vietnamese," but I did not raise my face to him, and he went away.

Two days later, it was even earlier in the day when Mr. Cohen came in. About four-thirty. The grandfather had just chimed the half hour like a man who is really crazy about one subject and talks of it at any chance he gets. I was sitting in my chair at the front once again and my first thought when I saw Mr. Cohen coming through the door was that he would think I am a lazy girl. I started to jump up, but he saw me and he motioned with his hand for me to stay where I was, a Single heavy pat in the air, like he'd just laid this large hand of his on the shoulder of an invisible child before him. He said, "I'm early again."

"I am not a lazy girl," I said.

"I know you're not," he said and he sat down in the chair across from me.