Beauty Rising (5 page)

I tried to ignore him.

“We fight Chinese – make them leave many times. We fight French. Make them leave. Then Americans. We fight Americans make them leave. But don’t worry. I love Americans. I have American friend. I take you there.”

As my driver droned on about Vietnam’s past, I couldn’t help but picture the wind carrying my dad’s ashes all over the heart of communist Vietnam. What a way to honor him! But, in fact, I was not honoring him. Not really. What was I actually doing here? Why was I so eager to fulfill this request? If dad had told me his story about the girl and Newbert and Johnson in his will, would I have jumped at the chance? Hardly. His voice. The sound of his voice enticed me, brought me close, and gave me a glimpse of how it might have been between us.

We had been driving for nearly an hour and a half when we finally glimpsed Hanoi from the top of a bridge over a river.

“This is Song Hong, Red River. And we go over Thang Long Bridge. Built by Russians. You know, America bomb us, but Russia build us bridge. But okay, I like Americans. In the past, I had to study Russian at form two. I hate studying Russian. Nobody wants to speak Russian. Everyone wants to speak English.”

At least I had a friend.

“This bridge – Thang Long Bridge. You know what it means? Ascending Dragon Bridge. Long time ago, Hanoi not called Hanoi. It called Thang Long. Ascending Dragon. You know why?”

I frankly didn’t care why.

“Why?”

“Because Vietnam emperor travelled along Red River and suddenly a mighty dragon comes out of the river and flies into the sky. So he called this place ‘Ascending Dragon’ and he made this his new capital. Now almost one thousand years, Hanoi be capital of Vietnam.”

The river looked muddy – muddy like a flooded B52 hole in a rice paddy. How anything good could rise out of such a filthy, muddy stretch of water I would never know.

We weaved through the chaotic streets of Hanoi with our taxi often being a stranded, motionless island surrounded by a constant stream of motorbikes, which flowed haphazardly on all sides. I missed my Lyndora streets. Tan continued his lecture on the historical significance of every intersection and building and temple that we passed. After another twenty minutes, we pulled over in front of a large complex of buildings fronted by a massive metal gate.

“My friend here. Foreign Language University. He teaches English. Come. He help you.”

I got out of the taxi and walked behind Tan up to the guard house. Tan spoke quickly to the guard who barked out some instructions and let us in. We walked past two four story, mustard yellow classroom blocks which had open windows with wood shutters tied back. Tan taught me all about the Vietnamese education system, but my mind didn’t wander far from the banana trees or the crowded festival with the girl in white.

“He’s right here.”

We walked up to a modest looking two story cement guest house painted yellow. Everything seemed to be painted mustard yellow in this country. Tan knocked on the first wooden door and after a few seconds a young, trim, white American peaked out with an eager smile.

“Tan. How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Hello Mr. Jason. I’d like you to meet another American.”

“Hi,” Jason reached out to shake my hand.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Martin.”

“Hi, Martin. Good to see you.”

“Martin had his wallet stolen in Thai Nguyen. Now he has no money. He had it in his back pocket. I told him he shouldn’t keep it there.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” I said feeling quite embarrassed. “Tan insisted that we come to visit you.”

“Oh yeah, no problem, man. Come on in. What can I do to help? That really stinks. You do have to be careful around here. Lots of thievery. I used to have this large plant outside, and one morning I came out and someone had climbed over the gate and tried to steal the whole plant. But it must have been too heavy, so they dug out the plant instead and left a big hole in the pot’s dirt. Whatever is not nailed down will be stolen around here.”

He paused. I tried to look sympathetic, but I hoped he saw a difference in significance between losing my wallet and a kidnapped plant.

“Yes,” Tan agreed. “Lots of young people using drugs. They need drug money. It’s terrible.”

“How can I help you Martin?” Jason asked.

“Is there any way that I could call America? I need to get in contact with my mom so she can wire me some money.”

“Oh, sure. I can set you up on my computer.”

“I don’t want to trouble you.”

“No, no trouble at all. It’s dirt cheap. Come on in.”

Within minutes I was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at a laptop computer screen which sat on the coffee table in front of me. Jason assumed at first that I knew what I was doing, which I didn’t. He soon caught on that I was computer illiterate and helped me type in my phone number, put on the headset, and told me to wait for someone to answer.

“It’s ringing,” I said.

Tan and Jason went over to a small couch and sat down. Jason started cutting some bright purple tropical fruit as they chatted.

“Hello,” mom answered.

“Mom, it’s Martin.”

“Martin, where are you calling from? It’s six in the morning.”

“Mom, I’m still in Vietnam. I need some help.”

“What did you do? You get lost? Do you even know where you are? And what exactly are you doing there anyway?”

“Mom, listen. My wallet was stolen.”

“Martin, you imbecile. Why did you have to run off across the ocean anyhow? You are such a fool.”

“Mom, can you just listen? I need you to wire some money to me.”

“You go against my wishes and have your father cremated, then you betray me by having his funeral in a church, then you run off around the world spending what little money your father left on some crazy scheme you dreamed up. You do all that without considering my feelings once, but now you have a problem and come running home to Mom. I’m tired of it Martin. You want to be grown up? You want to do things your own way? Well do it! I’m not sending you anything. You can figure it out yourself if you are so smart.”

“Mom-“

She hung up. I sat quietly for a moment until I realized that Jason had walked over behind the computer.

“Hey, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s just… my mother. It’s complicated.”

“Let me help you.”

“No. It’s okay. I appreciate you allowing me to make the call.”

“No really. I want to help. What do you need? You still have your passport, right?”

“Yes.”

“And how long are you staying?”

“I fly out the day after tomorrow.”

“So you need a place to stay for two nights, some food, money for airport tax, and transport to airport.”

“Yes, but,” I tried to stop him but he continued to overwhelm me with hospitality.

“No I insist. You can stay here if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch. Food is not a problem, and I am happy to give you some cash for the airport.”

“That is really kind of you, but,”

“And don’t worry about airport. I can take you. I go out there every morning looking for passengers,” Tan added.

Their kindness overwhelmed me. I was a complete stranger with nothing to offer them, yet they willingly offered everything to me while my own mother turned me away in ridicule.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Perhaps I would make it home after all.

Reverend Fox

Reverend Fox bit his upper lip, then motioned for me to sit down on the leather couch in his study. He was reluctant to speak, but I could tell he wanted to answer my question if only the right words would come.

On the Monday after the funeral, I felt very unsettled about what had transpired. Mom hadn’t spoken a word to me since she stormed out of the church after saying that inflammatory word. It didn’t make sense, so I decided to visit Reverend Fox to see if he could enlighten me. I also wanted to thank him for his kind gestures during the funeral. In fact, my mother’s blow-up was the only hitch of the entire funeral service. Not bad at all.

And so I sat staring back, waiting for a reply from Reverend Fox. He must have been in his early seventies, and he had a very kind, sincere face.

“Martin, some things in life can never be erased, at least not completely. They can’t be undone, and they can never be forgotten. However, they also aren’t meant to cripple you. They aren’t meant to hold you back or stop you from moving forward. And so as you grow and change and hopefully learn some lessons along the way, you become a better person who isn’t quite as likely to make the same mistakes you did as a youth. That’s the theory at least. And while I believe all of what I said is true, sometimes the pain you have caused – even long ago – is still there.”

I wasn’t quite sure I followed. I was the least theoretical person I knew. One has no time to ponder theories when living in the midst of a hurricane. But I nodded out of politeness.

“Okay. Thank you, Reverend for all of your help with the funeral. You’ve been very nice to us, and I’m sorry that my mother acted the way she did.”

I stood up and turned toward the door when Reverend Fox cleared his throat.

“It’s true. Your mother was talking about me. When I was the young assistant pastor here, before she married your father, I had an intimate relationship with her.”

“What? With who?”

“With your mother.”

I gazed back, a frozen sculpture unable to think or move. Reverend Fox added to the silence perhaps not knowing what else to say. He said enough for a simple minded person like me to spend a lifetime thinking about all the ramifications of his revelation.

“You had a relationship with my mother?”

“Yes.”

This certainly explained a lot, and I was sure that it explained things that I could not even comprehend.

“Martin, please sit down.”

I sat and remained quiet. If I was a true Kinney, I would be yelling obscenities right about now. I might have even hit him. But sitting was all I could do. I could sit and be quiet like the best of them. I could endure any torrent of abuse, any gale of ill weather, any ridiculous situation by just sitting and remaining quiet.

“Martin, I’m sorry. I never intentioned to burden you with this knowledge, but after meeting you and seeing the relationship you have with your mother, I – .”

He stopped and rubbed his eyes.

“Martin, you’re a good son. I can see the goodness in you. I believe you endured a lot, but all you had on your mind when you came to me the first time was to honor your father, someone who was difficult to love. Someone who was embittered by the past. I was part of that past, your mother’s and father’s past. What I’m about to tell you has long since passed from my consciousness. I’ve paid for my sins, and I know that I’ve been forgiven. So I made it a point of not going around the rest of my life beating myself up for the mistakes I made in my youth. But this funeral brought home another important point; the consequences of one’s actions may never fully be realized. Some people can’t forgive, can’t get over the bitterness and it eats them alive turning them into something much less than they were intended to be. So I feel obligated to you, Martin, to set the record straight. Do you want to know the full story?”