Out of the Dragon's Mouth (3 page)

Four

The next morning, Small Auntie shook Mai's arm. “Wake up, Mai.”

Minh, short and wiry with black bangs that hid his dark mischievous eyes, clambered out of the boat behind her and together they went to collect the food, Mai stumbling along with her eyes half-open. The sand was cool beneath her feet and the tang of the salty sea air revived her.

She could see a line of young girls and boys starting to form at the ocean's edge. Red Cross workers stood behind tables piled high with boxes of food. She twisted her long black hair around her fingers, hoping she wouldn't disappoint Small Auntie. What if they ran out of food before it was her turn? She felt the food tickets that she and Hiep had been issued when they arrived. Minh carried the tickets for the rest of the family.

“Don't ever lose these,” Small Auntie warned.

Small drops of perspiration gathered above Mai's parched lips. She closed her eyes to dispel the hunger that was rising in her stomach. A young man pushed forward, bumping her. At last it was her turn. The man at the table spoke in a language she did not understand, his gold tooth flashing in the sun. He repeated what he'd said and frowned at her. When she pulled her food tickets from her pocket and held them out, he shoved two long rolls at her.

Minh spoke to the man in his language, and he smiled and gave Minh his ration and an extra roll. Why had he done that? Mai wanted an extra roll too. One roll was not enough to quiet the angry roar coming from deep within her.

“What did you say to him, Minh?” Mai demanded, the hot sand stinging her toes as they walked away.

“I said, ‘You do a good job.' He liked that.”

“But what language was that? I didn't understand it.”

“Cantonese. He's from Saigon.”

“How did you learn it?”

“I traveled there many times with my father. I just picked up a few phrases. I'll teach you,” he offered.

“I'd like that,” Mai said, deciding that she might grow to like Minh.

Mai and Minh crawled up the side of their beached boat home. Minh handed his rolls to Small Auntie, and Mai and Hiep sat down to eat theirs. As Mai bit into hers, a sweet custard spurted out the end. She licked it off her fingers and took another bite. The custard hiding in the center of the roll spilled out into her mouth.

“Eat slowly, Mai. Your stomach is not used to such rich food,” Hiep warned.

“Mai, Minh,” Small Auntie called. “When you finish, take the children. The wood pile.” She pointed to a few twigs in the corner. Small Auntie sat on the deck of the boat suckling Nhu, who sighed contentedly.

Huong and Diep tagged behind Mai and Minh as they crossed the sand to the edge of the jungle, searching for wood for the cooking fire. They passed groups of men cutting down trees for tent poles. Mai had never gathered wood before; her father had hired servants for that. She missed her father and her home. She cried as she stumbled on a branch in the path and fell to the ground. Minh heard her cry and doubled back.

“All right?” he asked.

“I'm fine,” she said, ignoring his outstretched hand as she pulled herself up. She didn't want him to think she was helpless.

“Where are your parents?” Minh asked.

“They couldn't come. They're back in Vietnam.”

“I'm glad my parents came with me. I would have been afraid without them.”

“I was afraid.”

“You're brave.”

“No, they made me leave, but they'll be coming. They promised.”

“I like it here,” Minh said. “Lots of kids to play with. No school. You'll see. You'll like it too.”

“No school,” Mai said. “I miss going to school.” She
remembered how when they were in hiding, Mother had tried to give them lessons but was exhausted from working in Ông Ngoai's factory. Father, tired of hearing Mai's complaining, had sent her to a tutor, but it was expensive and dangerous to be seen out in public. Someone might report them. And then they would be taken to prison or even worse. So he'd stopped.

Would she ever get an education? She didn't want to be like the farm girls who spent their lives working in the rice paddies, bending over all day, burdened by a baby on
their backs, endlessly planting rice, their skin dark from
the sun. Or like the factory workers trapped inside all day. No, she was going to be somebody important.

“I don't miss it,” Minh answered. “Too much work.”

They walked on, searching the jungle floor for firewood. Much of it was bare. Small Auntie had told them that over four thousand refugees lived on this once-deserted island, and that more came every day, clambering dazed from crowded boats as she had. Families lived side-by-side under brown tarps where the beach met the edge of the jungle, away from the ocean's tide, sleeping in rice bag hammocks hung three-deep between tent poles, cooking over fires built with rocks in the sand, waiting, waiting in a world where privacy no longer existed and today was the same as yesterday.

Mai could smell the stench of the fouled water along the shore where makeshift toilets had been built on narrow platforms out over the ocean. She stepped around one of the piles of tin cans and garbage littering the sand. Their boat was in Trung Dao, the central beach where the UN and the Red Cross had their processing tents and the supply ship came.

“The rich refugees live down there,” Minh told her as they walked, pointing down the beach to the north end of the island. “It's called Bac Dao. They have so much money they hire the Malaysians to work for them. And there's the market.”

Mai could see men and women sitting in the sand with their goods spread out before them. “Have you ever shopped there?” she asked.

“Oh, Mother goes there a lot. Sometimes we save our food and trade for clothing or whatever we need.”

“Who lives down there?” Mai asked, pointing to the other end of the island.

“That's where a lot of the single people live. We call it Nam Dao, or the southern beach. I've never been there. It's hard to get to. No one lives on the other side of the island. Too many mountains and rocks.”

Mai bent over and picked up more twigs. The girls followed her and when they had each gathered an armful, they turned around and followed Minh back to the boat. Small Auntie smiled as she saw them approach.

“Put them over here.” She pointed to the cook fire, a hole dug in the sand and surrounded by three rocks. “Tonight we will take in what we don't use. Thieves.”

After a drink of cool water, Mai and Minh walked back to the shore to line up for the food rations for the noon meal. Minh coached Mai on her Cantonese as they approached the lines waiting for the ship's return. For this meal, Mai received a cup of rice, a can of sardines, and a can of vegetables to be shared with Hiep. In the evening Mai and Minh would collect a can of meat, a can of vegetables, and a cup of rice for each person.

On the Mekong Delta, she could catch a fish in the river or pluck a mango from a tree anytime she wanted. She had never seen food in a can before. What a strange idea. She smiled at the short man with the gold tooth. Then she care
fully spoke a phrase in Cantonese that she and Minh had
practiced.

“I am very hungry today, honorable one. Could you spare some extra food?” She showed him her ticket.

He smiled back and handed her an extra can of peas. She hugged them to her chest and hurried over to Minh, who was dropping the rest of their food in a torn cloth bag.

“It worked.”

“You were good,” he said, “but don't let anyone know.”

“I won't. Why would I do that?” She hated to be chastised by him, a boy four years younger, but she dropped her voice and peered behind her, hoping no one was looking.

“Tonight I'll teach you another phrase. This is fun. He thinks we're Cantonese.”

“What happens if he finds out?”

“Don't worry. You picked up the accent.”

The lines of children waiting their turn for food paid her no heed, busy laughing and talking as they whiled away the time. A few younger children sashayed through the waves at the edge of the beach.

Small Auntie handed her a bag of clothes when she returned. “Eat, and then take these and wash them in the ocean.”

Mai filled her bowl with rice, peas, and a few sardines. She tried to eat slowly, savoring each bite. Invigorated, she dragged the bag to the ocean's edge and stepped into the swirling waves. She had never washed clothes before. She pulled a pair of children's pants out and dipped it in the ocean. A wave came and the bag of clothes started to float out to sea. She ran to grab it, dropping the pants. She dragged the bag back to shore and stumbled into the water again, but it was getting deeper and the pants were floating away from her. Then suddenly they started floating back to her as the waves returned to the shore.

The ocean wasn't like the river she had played by. This water was different—salty and with a strong current that could sweep you out to sea if you weren't careful. She pulled the pants from the waves and knelt down and scrubbed them.

When she finished washing all the clothes, her raw knuckles stung from the salt water. The bag with the wet clothes in was twice as heavy as before. She trudged back to the boat grasping it in both arms, then rinsed the clothes again in a bucket of fresh water and laid them out to dry on the bow of the boat.

Small Auntie walked over to inspect them. She held one of the T-shirts up in both hands.

“You need to scrub harder, Mai. Look, this is still dirty. Haven't you ever washed clothes before?” She balled up the
shirt and carried it to the boat. “You can wash this again,
tomorrow.”

“Yes, Small Auntie.” Mai bowed, her eyes cast down, but inside she was not bowing. She had worked hard, but Small Auntie did not care. Tomorrow she would show her. That shirt would shine.

The children clamored around her to play, Nhu sitting on her lap while Huong and Diep sat on each side. She put her arms around them, comforted by their warm bodies. Minh came in from gathering wood.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “I was wondering where you were.” He pulled his string ball out of his pocket and started tossing it in the air. One of the girls grabbed it from him.

“Give it back,” Minh laughed, and she tossed it in the air.

“I was washing clothes.”

“Want to play ball?”

“I'm tired. Sit with us.” Mai pointed to the spot beside her.

“Here, let's draw in the sand.” Minh knelt down and drew a boat in the sand with a stick. Mai watched him, and then traced a picture of a house with her index finger.

“What's that?” Minh asked.

“My house, the one I used to live in.”

“I remember visiting your house. It was very big. Your family is very rich, aren't they?”

“Not any more, Minh. Who told you that?”

Minh hesitated. “My mother. She said your father was the richest man in the village and that you brought a lot of money out with you.”

“That's not true, Minh. The Communists took everything. We were lucky to leave with the clothes we were wearing.” Mai stared at him. “I remember you now. You were very small. You used to cry at the fireworks.”

Minh's face turned red. He still was afraid of loud noises.

The thought of Tet, of the scent of the yellow
mai
blossoms decorating their house, of the soft feel of her
á
o dai
—the pale pink silk dress with the flowing pants underneath that Mother had the tailor sew for her—made Mai homesick. Before the war, Tet had been the most fun. Mai could feel the excitement just thinking about it. It was the only time her father stayed home and even
he
helped clean the house.

Mai pictured her aunts, parading through the doorway hung with the beautiful
mai
blossoms and proudly presenting their best dishes: chicken, duck, and pork. Nine dishes would be spread on the dinner table; nine for luck, at the biggest meal of the year. Soon there would be lucky red envelopes with money in them for each of the children and fireworks exploding in the night sky. The whole family together, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents, celebrating the beginning of a new year. All the shops were closed and not even the poorest person begged, for if you begged on New Year's Day, you would be fated to beg the rest of the year. That's what Father had taught them.

The war had not stopped Tet. They still celebrated, but the aunts did not come, the fireworks did not explode, and there were fewer red envelopes for Mai to tuck in her pocket. Gone were the large platters of food. She was lucky to get some rice to eat. Mai longed for the day when the war would be over and they could all be together again.

“Mai, help us.” Minh had moved down to the water's edge with the girls and was scooping up the wet sand, packing it in piles. The girls helped him dig while Nhu waddled over and sat down in the water-filled hole. If Mai closed her eyes, she could pretend she was at home in her family's garden, surrounded by her brothers and sisters.

“Get her out of here,” one of the girls complained.

Mai opened her eyes and gently lifted Nhu out of the way. “Here, you can play over here.”

“You know, Mai, when I first saw you, I didn't think I'd like you,” Minh confessed.

“Oh, why?”

“You seemed angry. I didn't think you liked me.”

“I am angry, but not with you. I hate it here. All I want to do is get out.”

“But we're safe and we've got food. Isn't that enough?”

“How can you stand being a beggar? I'm glad Father can't see me now. He would be so ashamed.”

“Well, Mai, we've got to eat. And unless you've got a better idea, we'd better get down to the shore and stand in line. Hey, today's Thursday. Do you think it will be fish or chicken? And fresh vegetables. Let's get there early. Maybe they'll have bok choy.”