Inheriting the War Page 27

  The younger Vietnamese Americans need to reach out that hand, too, even as they feel the deep need of filial piety. They wish to acknowledge the suffering and the pain of their parents and grandparents. If they do not, who will? They live in a country where most Americans know nothing about the Vietnamese people, or about Vietnamese Americans, where Americans care little to remember the Southern Vietnamese who they supposedly fought the war for. So the younger Vietnamese Americans feel that burden to carry on their parents’ memories. One day, perhaps, they can let that burden go, but it will be much easier to do so when Vietnam helps to carry that burden by officially acknowledging that every side in that war had its reasons, that every side had its patriots, that we cannot divide the past into heroes and traitors.

  As for me, I remain a refugee. My memory begins when I arrived in the United States at age four and was taken away from my parents to live with a white family. That was the condition for being able to leave the refugee camp in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. That experience remains an invisible brand stamped between my shoulder blades. I have spent my life trying to see that brand, to make sense of it, to rework it into words that I can speak to myself, that I can share with others. As painful as that experience was, what I learned from it was not to dwell only on my own pain. I needed to acknowledge that pain, to understand it, but in order to live beyond it, I also needed to acknowledge the pain of others, the worldview of others. This is why I cannot say “Black April,” because it is one story of one side, and I am interested in all stories of all sides.

  DEBORAH PAREDEZ is the daughter of a Vietnam veteran. Her work explores the workings of memory and the voices of women bearing witness to war and violence. She is the author of the poetry volume This Side of Skin and the critical study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry, Feminist Studies, RHINO Poetry Journal, Callaloo, and elsewhere. She teaches poetry and ethnic studies at Columbia University and is co-founder and co-director of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latina/o poets.

  LAVINIA WRITING IN THE SAND

  After Vietnam

  Second-hand newlywed bed rocked

  by his arched back, gasps for more

  air, quickened buckling, then

  collapse. This is the first time

  his body ricochets

  with the crooked electricity,

  the first time she sees him

  this way, spasm-gripped

  as the seizure intercepts his sleep.

  Lucky for him, she’s fresh

  from nursing school, knows

  enough to take him into her

  arms, still his jaw to keep him

  from biting his tongue, turn

  his face against the choking.

  This is the bed they made

  for me. Evenings as a girl

  I’d watch him drift off

  in the recliner, her voice

  from the kitchen, Make sure

  your father doesn’t swallow

  his tongue. These days

  they say it’s not possible

  to do such a thing, but

  I’ve seen the body flailing

  dusk after dusk after dusk

  and the whole house gone

  silent.

  A HISTORY OF BAMBOO

  The bamboo out back

  is taking over—infantry

  charging—steady invasion

  from the neighboring city lot.

  Each week another advance

  nearer to the bedroom window

  the view now only green

  reed and yearning

  stalk. There is no stopping

  the deep-running roots

  the garden guide instructs

  unless a trench is dug

  to uproot the system.

  In Laos, a farmer digs

  for bamboo shoots

  and his spade strikes

  a cluster bomb

  startled from its mud-cradle.

  At night the hollow poles rise

  and answer to the wind.

  Who knows how many

  more will surface by morning.

  Note: Between 1964 and 1973, the US military dropped 2 million tons of explosive ordnance on Laos; 10–24 million cluster bombs or unexploded ordnances (UXOs) remain scattered across the country, killing hundreds each year.

  SUZAN-LORI PARKS is one of the most acclaimed playwrights in American drama today. She is the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, is a MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient, and in 2015 was awarded the prestigious Gish Prize for Excellence in the Arts. Suzan-Lori teaches at New York University and serves at the Public Theater as its Master Writer Chair. Other grants and awards include those from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is also a recipient of a Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Award, a CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, and a Guggenheim Foundation Grant. Her father is a Vietnam Veteran and US army officer who reached the rank of colonel.

  FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS (PART 1)

  FATHER: Hi honey, Im home.

  MOTHER: Yr home.

  FATHER: Yes.

  MOTHER: I wasnt expecting you. Ever.

  FATHER: Should I go back out and come back in again?

  MOTHER: Please.

  He goes back out and comes back in again.

  MOTHER: Once more.

  FATHER: Yr kidding.

  MOTHER: Please.

  He goes back out and comes back in again.

  MOTHER: Yr home.

  FATHER: Yes.

  MOTHER: Let me get a good look at you.

  FATHER: I’ll just turn around.

  MOTHER: Please.

  He turns around once Counterclockwise.

  MOTHER: They should of sent a letter. A letter saying you were coming home. Or at least a telephone call. That is the least they could do. Give a woman and her family and her friends and neighbors a chance to get ready. A chance to spruce things up. Put new ribbons in the hair of the dog. Get the oil changed. Have everything running. Smoothly. And bake a cake of course. Hang streamers. Tell the yard man to—tidy up his act. Oh God. Long story. Oh God. Long story. I woulda invited the neighbors over. Had everyone on the block jump out from their hiding places from behind the brand new furniture with the plastic still on it and say—WHAT? Say: “Welcome Home” of course. And then after a few slices of cake and a few drinks theyd all get the nerve to say what theyre really thinking. For now itll stay unthought and unsaid. Well. You came home. All in one piece looks like. We’re lucky. I guess. We’re lucky, right?

  Hhhhh.

  FATHER: They sent a letter saying I was coming home or at least they telephoned. Maybe you didnt open the letter. I dont blame you. It could have been bad news. I see yr unopened envelopes piled up. I dont blame you. I dont blame you at all. They called several times. Maybe you were out. Maybe you were screwing the yard man. If you had known I was coming you woulda put new ribbons in the hair of the dog, got the oil changed, baked a cake and invited all the neighbors over so they could jump out of their various hiding places behind the brand-new furniture purchased with the blood of some people I used to know—and some blood of some people I used to kill. Oh God. Long story. Oh God. Long story. And theyd shout at me—WHAT? “Welcome Home” of course. And then after a few slices of cake and a few drinks theyd get the nerve to say what they really think: “Murderer, baby killer, rascist, government pawn, ultimate patsy, stooge, fall guy, camp follower, dumbass, dope fiend, loser.”

  Hhhhh.

  MOTHER

  FATHER

  (Rest)

  MOTHER: I can’t understand a word yr saying.

  FATHER: I dont speak English anymore.

  MOTHER: I dont blame you. SIT DOWN, I’LL FIX YOU SOMETHING.

  He sits. She
takes a heavy frying pan and holds it over his head. Almost murder. She lowers the pan.

  MOTHER

  FATHER

  (Rest)

  He sits. Again she raises the frying pan and holds it over his head. Almost murder. She lowers the pan.

  FATHER: Where are the children?

  MOTHER: What children?

  Sound of the wind and the rain.

  FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS (PART 3)

  Father, surrounded by his Soldiers, stands at the door.

  The Family is at dinner.

  FATHER: Hi, honey, Im home.

  The family stares.

  1ST SOLDIER: When you hear the word “war” what comes to mind?

  FATHER: Dont start that talk here. Im home.

  2ND SOLDIER: You dont mind if we wait here do you?

  FATHER: Do what you gotta do. Im home.

  Father sits in his easy chair. His soldiers wait.

  FATHER: Come on, Junior. Lets watch some game shows.

  MOTHER: Yr not hungry?

  SISTER: Mother and me made a welcome home pie for you. See the writing: “Welcome home from the wars, Father!”

  (Rest)

  Yr not even looking.

  FATHER: All I wanna do is watch some goddamn game shows.

  JUNIOR: All thats on is war movies.

  FATHER: Fine.

  MOTHER: Who are yr friends, honey?

  FATHER: Turn up the volume, Junior.

  JUNIOR: Im gonna be a soldier just like yr a soldier, right, Pop?

  FATHER

  FATHER

  FATHER: You betcha.

  Junior turns up the volume and the Soldiers in the doorway make loud war sounds. Father leans back and relaxes.

  PLAYING CHOPSTICKS (FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS, PART 7)

  A Soldier Dad in army uniform, like he’s just come in from jungle combat.

  He’s still got a camouflage suit on, and dark paint covers his face. Maybe even jungle twigs and branches stick out from his helmet and clothing.

  He sits on a campstool, a Kid sits with him.

  The Soldier Dad is teaching the Kid to use chopsticks. They are moving a mountain of rice into another pile, far across the other side of the stage, making another, hopefully identical mountain.

  The Soldier Dad is great with chopsticks. The Kid is hopeless.

  Somewhere offstage someone plays the piano.

  Theyre playing “Chopsticks” over and over.

  SOLDIER DAD: You wanted yr dad to bring you back something from over there. I brought you something, right?

  KID: Right.

  (Rest)

  Whats “gonorrhea”?

  (Rest)

  SOLDIER DAD: Thats something for adults, Kid. Lets stick to our chopsticks.

  KID: I heard Mom telling Grandmom that you brought her some “gonorrhea” home from the war.

  SOLDIER DAD

  SOLDIER DAD

  SOLDIER DAD: I brought you something nice and yr acting like you dont like it, Kid. Here. Watch Dad do it.

  Soldier Dad effortlessly picks up a piece of rice and walks over to the other side of the stage where he arranges it carefully on the pile.

  SOLDIER DAD: The idea is to pick up the rice with the chopsticks, carry it over here and put the rice down. And put it down in such a way as we remake the rice mountain over here.

  KID: Right.

  SOLDIER DAD: Its good practice.

  KID: For what?

  SOLDIER DAD

  KID

  Soldier Dad smacks Kid upside the head.

  The move comes so fast and seemingly out of nowhere.

  Like a flash flood.

  The Kid’s head snaps horribly back, but then, just as quickly, the Soldier Dad’s anger is spent.

  The Kid doesnt cry or anything.

  SOLDIER DAD: Try it again. Go on. You gotta learn it.

  The Kid tries moving the rice with the chopsticks again.

  SOLDIER DAD: Not much better. Ok, a little better, but, watch.

  Soldier Dad moves several pieces of rice, all one at a time, very quickly and with great fanfare, talking as he moves them.

  SOLDIER DAD: Soldier Dad can move them quick. Soldier Dad can hold the chopsticks in his right hand and move rice, and he can hold them in his left hand too. Makes no difference. Soldier Dad can hold the sticks behind his back, doesnt have to look, its just that easy. And every piece of rice gets put in place!

  The Kid watches with mounting awe and mounting anger.

  Offstage the piano gets louder.

  SOLDIER DAD (Yelling to the offstage piano): CUT THAT OUT, HUH? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FUCKING THINK WITH YOU FUCKING, FUCKING THAT MUSIC UP??!!

  The music stops.

  KID

  SOLDIER DAD

  KID: You want me to try it again?

  SOLDIER DAD: Yr mother used to be a concert pianist.

  KID: You want me to try it again?

  SOLDIER DAD: Yeah. Go ahead.

  The Kid tries moving the rice again. He’s much better this time—like a miracle happened—and now he’s actually pretty good.

  SOLDIER DAD: Wow! Great job, Kid!

  KID: Thanks.

  SOLDIER DAD: Chip off the old block after all. I was worried. I’d been away for so long and you—you couldnt do the rice thing.

  (Rest)

  It was the only thing I brought you back and you couldnt do it and I was worried. But you can do it. My Kid’s my Kid. Good. So let’s get to work, huh?

  The music starts up again and the Kid and Soldier Dad get back to work. Each is amazing at moving the rice. And they are enjoying themselves. It is horrible to see them enjoying themselves doing such a pointless task. But they are building a monument together—and this monument will be a fortress against the future pain. And the music, playing all the while, seeps into the walls of the fortress, seeps in and holds it like stone.

  FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS (PART 11: HIS ETERNAL RETURN—A PLAY FOR MY FATHER)

  During this play we hear a war news-in-brief soundtrack, laced with military band music thats played at a slower than normal speed. The action is as follows: A never-ending loop of action—5 Servicemen walk downstage together. All wear military uniforms from the same side of the same war, but not necessarily the same branch of Service. They stand upstage and walk very vibrantly and heroically downstage. Theyre returning home as heroes. As they reach centerstage, 5 women, their Servicewives, stand up from the audience, and run toward the men. Just as the Servicemen reach the downstage edge, the Servicewives meet them. The Servicemen pick up their Servicewives, twirling them around very joyfully.

  Before each wife returns to the ground a Child comes onstage and, racing towards its respective Mother and Father, jumps for joy.

  This action repeats. New Servicemen walk downstage, new wives leap up from the audience and rush into their arms, new Children run in to cheer.

  The action repeats eternally. Long after the audience has emptied of Women; long after the Men have grown out of the desire to be hugged and kissed and welcomed; long after the Children have become less cheerful and more sensible and have taken up trades, like accounting or teaching or real estate or politics; long after the Children’s Children have outgrown joy and have all grown-up and moved away. Forever.

  ANDREW X. PHAM is the author of Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam (1999) and The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars (2009). He is also the translator of Last Night I Dreamed of Peace (2008). Catfish and Mandala, his travel memoir, won the Kiriyama Prize, the QPB Prize, and the Whiting Writers’ Award. It was also named a Guardian Prize Shortlist finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The Eaves of Heaven, his biography of his father, was a National Book Critics Circle finalist, an Asian Pacific American Librarian Association Honorary Book of the Year, and one of the Washington Post’s Top Ten Books of the Year.

  THE FALL OF SAIGON

  Sixteen years of fighting had
reduced the war to a troublesome liability. We accepted it like an offshore storm that never left. The battles, the bombs, the highway ambushes, the countryside insurgency, the draft cycles, and the ever-mounting casualties had become the ebbs and flows of a long, long war. We never expected victory—our leaders were too corrupt for that—and yet defeat never entered our minds. We convinced ourselves that the ever-present, powerful Americans would never desert us. We had become too dependent, lazy, blind, and selfish to save ourselves.

  The end came swiftly. The cities didn’t fall; they tumbled, one after another in quick, horrific succession. On March 13, 1975, the first to go was Ban Me Thuot, a key hold in the Central Highlands. Five days later, Pleiku was lost. In three more days, the enemy overran Quang Tri. Hue, the capital of central Vietnam, was abandoned two days after that. President Thieu and his staff of incompetent generals accelerated the downfall with their order to abandon the 1st and 2nd Corps. The stalemate was over. The tide had turned permanently. Within three weeks, eight provinces were forfeited; 40,000 troops were massacred during the retreats. It was devastating, but no one could predict that the Viet Cong would sack Saigon’s presidential palace in another twenty-six days.

  My brother Hong was working at the Forestry Service of Phu Bon, a province in the Central Highlands. When the VC took the province seat, he escaped to Bao Loc on an L-19, a two-seater propeller plane; it was sheer luck that he had caught his army pilot friend in time. Had he tried to escape by road, he would have been among the tens of thousands of civilians who perished in the forest on their exodus to the coast. From Bao Loc, he caught a bus into Saigon. Hong walked through the door of my father’s house empty-handed. He had lost his home and everything he owned. Days later, my brother Hung, a high school principal, fled Ham Tan, a mere sixty-five miles from Saigon. The news Hong and Hung brought home was terrifying.