Pacific Avenue (18 page)

“A siege, wasn’t it?” Sam asked.

“A massacre. House-to-house fighting, soldiers everywhere.
I was outside in the street—fortunately not too far away. I was trying to get
back, but I got shot. I crawled inside and Thu hid me.”

“You mean they searched your house?” Sharon sounded
horrified.

“We were in the theater. But yes, they searched. More
than once. Somehow, they knew a foreigner was attached to the place.”

“Where did you hide?” Sam asked.

Martin returned his question with another one. “Do you
know what water puppets are?”

Sam shook his head.

“They’re a folk tradition in the north of Vietnam,” Martin
explained. “Puppeteers stand in hip-deep water and manipulate the puppets with
the water surface as a stage floor. Each family of puppeteers has a unique
version. They hold their secrets so closely that they won’t even teach their
daughters, because women marry outside the family.”

“Is that the kind of puppets you had? I thought you
said Thu was managing the theater.”

“She was,” Martin said, “but we didn’t have water puppets.
Thu’s family wasn’t that kind of puppeteer. We wanted to do water puppets,
though, and we’d hired a young man named Minh who knew one tradition. He was
from the north, and his whole family had been wiped out in the war. He thought
he might as well teach us, under the circumstances.

“We built a tank under the stage and fixed the stage
floor to be removable. No one knew—we wanted the opening to be a surprise. No
one else but Minh knew it was there. We hadn’t filled it with water yet. That
was where we hid, in the tank.” Martin turned to Thu. “Why don’t you tell the
rest.”

“It was raining and very cold for Hue,” said Thu.
“Martin was delirious most of the time. I thought he was dying, but I didn’t
dare try to get help. I crept out once to get food and water and something to
keep us warm. The only food we had in the theater was a tray of traditional Tet
foods, dried fruits and vegetables, mostly sweet, and candied ginger. There
were no blankets, so I grabbed a bolt of gold velvet I’d bought to make robes
for kings and gods. I filled a couple of big vases with water, pushed it all
back into the tank, and then crawled in and set the flooring piece back down.”

She broke off, and gave Sam a rare direct-in-the-eyes
look.

“What happened then?” he asked. He was hoarse, as if
his voice didn’t want to work. I knew how he felt—I couldn’t have said a word.
Richard’s chair was pushed back from the group, his face remote and shadowy.

“For days, Martin tossed on the metal floor of the
tank, wrapped up in the puppets’ velvet. I wanted to warm him with my body, but
I was afraid I’d hurt him. I sat in the dark near him, nauseated from fear and
from having nothing to eat but sweets. The building shook from artillery. At
first I was afraid a shell would hit us, later I almost wished one would. Sometimes
I heard heavy boots running across the stage right above our heads, sometimes
gunshots. We had no way to know who was winning.

“When the noise finally stopped, I crept out into the ruins
of the street and found Americans. They medevaced Martin out.”

“What happened to Minh?” Sam asked.

“As I helped the men put Martin in the helicopter, I
saw in the dim light that the soldiers had machine-gunned even a puppet Martin
had left dangling on the stage. Minh was gone. I hope he got away, but we never
heard. We did all we could—everything beyond that is fate.”

“You went to Australia after that?”

“Yes, and then came here. Have you ever seen Australia?
It’s very beautiful.” Thu fetched a book of photographs, turning the subject
away from the tragedies of her country. Relieved at the change, we passed the
book around, admiring the pictures.

With dessert, Thu brought out an album of photos by
Martin, and we talked about photography, and arts in general, carving, and then
the puppets. As we scraped the last morsels from our dessert plates, Martin
bowed his head again. We all fumbled to follow suit, even Richard and I, who
had never seen grace said after meals, even when we ate with Martin.

“We give Thee thanks, almighty God, for all Thy benefits,
Who livest and reignest, world without end.”

“Thanks be to God,” replied Francine, Thu, and Eddie
together.

“May the souls of the faithful departed, through the
mercy of God, rest in peace.”

“Amen.”

We didn’t stay long after dinner. Thu wrapped up food
for us to take home, and we protested that it was too much even as we looked
forward to eating it. Sharon and Sam hugged everyone, bending to put their arms
around Martin. We all flocked onto the porch for good-byes. Joss and Dom called
“Bye-bye! Bye-bye!” for as long as we could hear—and maybe after, for all we
knew.

Part 4

Jamie was born July 23, two months early. It was a panicked
night, with Thu driving Richard and me across the bridge to Charity Hospital.
Sisters of Charity were the nurses, modern in skills, businesslike in their
manner, and dressed for the Middle Ages in long habits and tall white
headdresses winged like swans.

The nuns wouldn’t let Richard stay with me because we
weren’t married, but they let Thu stay for a while. I gripped her hand so hard
I was afraid I’d break it, and she never complained. I didn’t get to see Jamie
at all that night. They’d hustled her off to an incubator and took me to a
recovery room. I felt empty, and the emptiness was starting to fill with fear.
Thu wasn’t supposed to visit before I was settled in a ward, but she sneaked in
and stood beside me till they found her and made her leave.

“I would be stupid to tell you not to worry, but don’t
give up,” she told me before she left. “Like a dancer on a tightrope—don’t look
down.”

The sister stood adamant in her dark blue habit. Thu lingered
a defiant minute and touched my arm. Then she left, stopping once to wave.

“Mrs. Woodbridge,” the sister said, “Father Evans would
like to baptize your daughter now.”

“Would you choose a saint’s name for the baptism?”

“Catherine,” I said. I didn’t know many saints’ names,
but I did know there was a Saint Catherine. I tried to claim my baby by giving
her my own name. I was too tired to think anymore. As soon as they moved me to
a ward, I fell asleep.

I woke to sunlight and the sound of traffic from the
city streets, both coming in through open windows on one side of the ward.
There was a line of beds along each of the long walls—I didn’t try to count how
many. The walls were painted pale green, darker at the bottom to save
repainting, like the walls of a bus station. I could smell rubbing alcohol and
maybe floor cleaner—whatever else it was that made hospitals all smell the
same.

A doctor in a white coat came through the double doors
in the middle of the opposite wall. It was Sam.

“What are you doing here?” I yelped.

He made shushing gestures and bent to whisper to me.

“I crashed the party,” he said, looking around to make
sure no nuns were close enough to overhear.

I almost laughed. Then I remembered Jamie.

“Richard called in the middle of the night. He was so upset
that Sharon and I came down here. They wouldn’t let us in until visiting hours
tonight, but I knew you’d be half scared to death, so I put on my monkey suit.”
His gesture took in his coat and stethoscope, the professional getup that would
let him pass without question in a hospital. “I saw her, and she’s pretty
little, but she’s probably going to be okay.”

“The nuns made me have her baptized.”

“That’s nuns. Don’t let it worry you. She’ll have to
stay in the hospital awhile and she’s going to need a lot of care when she gets
home. Take care of yourself now, and don’t worry.”

Two nuns headed our way. Sam bustled out, looking like
someone who belonged, but he threw me a wink before he went through the double
doors.

There was nothing to read, nothing to do but wait. When
the doctor made his rounds, he said I could go home the next day, but that
Jamie would have to stay “for a while.”

In the afternoon, they finally let me go to the
nursery, but there wasn’t much to see and almost no light to see in anyway.
Jamie’s incubator was like some distant country with tubes and wires and
equipment everywhere. They wouldn’t let me hold her.
Will I ever get to? I
wish I could stuff her back inside me so I could grow her a little more.

In the evening, Sam came back in ordinary clothes,
Sharon with him.

“She’s still doing fairly well,” he reported. “How’s
the mama?”

“Tired. It’s scary.”

“Of course it is,” said Sharon. “What can we do for
you? You’ll be going home tomorrow—how can we help?”

I sighed. It was too much to think about. “I don’t
know, maybe see what Richard says. Did Mom and Dad come with you?”

“They were getting ready, but then Mom got a headache.
Dad said maybe later.”

My head felt disbelief, but my insides cramped with
shame.
I wish I hadn’t asked.
I picked
at my blanket and worked on not crying again. That wasn’t what Sharon and Sam
were here for.

“Get better, Sis,” said Sharon, watching me. “We’ll be
back to pitch in however we can.”

The Motleys came in then, but one at a time, as the hospital
required. “You missed out,” I told Eddie. “They already baptized her. You don’t
get to be a godfather after all.”

“Ah, doesn’t that sound like nuns? They couldn’t wait,
could they? Don’t worry, doll. I’m still her godfather, wait and see.”

He unpacked a basket of beautiful raspberries, blew me
a kiss and left.

The others came in for a quick hug and an update on Jamie.
“Sam says she’s going to be all right,” I told them all.

And then, Richard stood by the bed.

“I saw her,” he told me. “I mean, I guess I did. I
couldn’t see anything but machines.”

“That’s all I saw, too. They said I could visit her
more tomorrow before I go home.”

“I’ll come get you. Kathy?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m sorry about your parents.”

Tears started squeezing out of my eyes again. I took
Richard’s hand. There weren’t any chairs, so he stood by the bed until the
nurses made him go home. After that, I ate Eddie’s raspberries one at a time
while I looked out the window. The last of the evening left the sky, and the
neon signs of the city took the place of stars. When the berries were gone, I
wiped out the basket and tucked it away.

The hospital was all lit up now. Surely the Motleys
could see it all the way from Gretna.
They’re looking at us with hopeful
faces. Thu is lighting a candle, murmuring a short prayer for Jamie and me.

I wanted to cry again, but I made myself stop.
Don’t
look down, Thu said. Don’t look down.

The next day, Richard came in the Volkswagen to take me
back to Gretna. I gathered the few things I had and put them in the carrier the
hospital gave me. All except the little raspberry basket—I held that by the
handle.
I have to get the basket home without breaking it. Except I’m not
exactly going home, with Jamie still back here. It’s not like going from one
place to the other, more like being stretched between the two, thinner and
thinner.

When I got to Gretna, I went straight to bed.

For the next few weeks, I spent most of my time at the
hospital, and the rest asleep. Sometimes I did both—slept on a chair in the
hospital waiting room until visiting hours started again. Whenever I got a
chance, I cheated and sneaked in to look through the nursery window. Some of
the nuns let me do it, others would make me go away when they caught me. But I
always came back.

When Jamie got to five and a half pounds, the doctors
let me take her home. As hard as the past couple of months had been, wanting
Jamie to come home and agonizing over every setback, I wasn’t ready when the
time came. She seemed more like the hospital’s baby than mine. I hadn’t even
bought much for her—I’d been planning to do that in August and September, but
I’d spent every day at the hospital instead.

I phoned my parents to tell them she was home.

“Oh, honey, that’s great,” my dad said. “But you know
your mom hasn’t been well. She’s had a lot of headaches. I think we’d better
wait, in case she’s got something catching.”

His voice sounded stiff, a little cold. I gave up.
If
it means so much to them that Jamie’s a golden-brown baby instead of a pink
one, there’s nothing I can say. If they think my daughter is second-rate, they
can stay home, for all I care.

I didn’t have any energy to worry about it. I had other
problems—I couldn’t figure out how to do “mother” right. Because Jamie,
premature or not, was a feisty little thing. At first, I didn’t know what to do
with her. She wouldn’t sleep until she was exhausted with crying, and even
then, she slept for only a couple of hours—then she’d start crying again. I’d
check if she was hungry, if her diaper needed changing. Nothing. The library
books I’d read while I was pregnant hadn’t covered this. I was sure I was a
terrible mother. And Richard was no help at all.

Thu came over with a gift one afternoon about a week after
I brought Jamie home. She was in jeans and a T-shirt as usual, immaculate as
usual, her waist-length hair loose for once, a shimmering river of black silk.
I was still in my bathrobe with my hair uncombed.

I looked at Thu and started crying as hard as the baby.
The sink was full of dirty dishes, and the bed was unmade. All I’d had to eat
was a couple of crackers from a ripped package that spilled across the table. I
had spent most of the morning trying to feed Jamie, to comfort her. I didn’t
know how to make her happy like other babies, or even how to get her to stop
screaming.

“What’s this about?” Thu asked. She put her beautifully
wrapped present down beside the crackers.

“Oh, Thu, I don’t know. She cries all day and almost
all night. Maybe she ought to go back to the hospital. Maybe she’s sick. I
don’t know what to do.”

“Hmmm. Let me take you now, Jamie?” She picked the baby
up from her crib, but Jamie thrashed around and cried harder. “Do you have a
blanket or something?”

I gave her a small cotton blanket, and she wrapped
Jamie securely in it. The crying stopped. Jamie, wrapped like a papoose, looked
out with a surprised expression.

“What did you do?” I asked. If Jamie was surprised, I
was astonished.

“Didn’t they tell you some babies like to be wrapped
up?”

“They didn’t tell me much at all. Just to keep her warm
and feed her when she cries.”

“She doesn’t always want food when she cries.” Held
close to Thu, Jamie cooed sleepily.

“Or change her diaper, I guess.”

“That’s not all, either.”

“What, then?” I felt just as frustrated as before.

“What?”

“What does that mean?”

“Could it be a noise that doesn’t mean anything?”

“Well, I assume it’s Vietnamese. It didn’t sound like
French.”

“You didn’t understand it, so you believe it’s a
foreign language that you don’t know, right?”

“Well, yes.”
So?

“Same thing when Jamie cries. She means different
things, and she doesn’t speak your language. Like someone who comes here from a
foreign country with no English. Everything is strange, no one understands, and
she doesn’t know how to get what she needs.” Jamie was fast asleep.

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I reached out, and Thu
laid her in my arms.

“Learn her language. For now. Later, she’ll learn
yours. But until she can do that, study her expressions and the noises she
makes and see what they mean. I’ll help you. My two were incredibly different,
considering they’re twins. Dom was a cranky little boy, Joss was the opposite.”

“I’ll never figure it out.”

“You’ll probably understand Jamie better than I do in
no time. For one thing, she already knows your voice, from before she was
born.” She stroked Jamie’s head with a gentle finger.

“Thu?”

“Mmm?”

“What does it mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“What you said.”

“
Xin chào?
It
means hello. See how easy it turns out to be?
Xin chào,
Jamie.”

I wouldn’t have been one bit surprised if Jamie
answered her.

After that, things got better. I learned Jamie’s hungry
sound and her “something wrong” cry. I learned how to make her smile—at least
it looked like a smile to me. It
was
a
new language, not all that difficult. I noticed how she paid attention when I
really talked to her instead of making baby-talk noises.

When Richard understood what I was doing, he got interested
too. He liked to hold her and talk to her, tell her about things. His face was
beautiful when he looked at her.

But I didn’t trust him.
He said, “You don’t have to
keep it.” And I know what I heard the night I came home from Tex’s class. He
still hasn’t told his parents about us. He still doesn’t want to marry me. I
know how well he can act now, too.

I thought about having all my doubts out with him, clearing
the air—but how would I know he wasn’t acting if he told me there was nothing
to worry about? Since I wouldn’t believe him if he reassured me, why bring it
up?

In fact, I didn’t want to do anything to upset Richard,
because things were hard enough. Richard wasn’t mean, but he had a way of
turning away from me right after we’d been especially tender that never stopped
tearing me up.
He goes up and down, round and round, like the flying horses
of the Pontchartrain Beach carousel when I was little. Up and down, round and
round, but there’s no gold ring for me this time. No gold ring at all.