Stealing Buddha's Dinner (22 page)

After a while I couldn't help opening my eyes. Even before I adjusted to the dark I focused on the solid wood credenza that served as the altar. Among the candles, incense, trays of fruit, and vases of gladioli stood black-and-white portraits of my grandfather and uncle—both of them so young and handsome when they died— and Noi's mother. She looked stern and regal, the opaqueness of her
ao dai
matched by her round velvet hat. It had taken my father three years of letters, with American dollars hidden carefully between the pages, to get my grandfather's and uncle's ashes dug up from the burial ground in Saigon and sent to us in Michigan. Noi couldn't bear the thought of abandoning them in Vietnam. At least her parents' ashes were safe in Hanoi with her sisters.

It didn't scare me to think of them resting in the ceramic, floral-patterned urns. My father had always said that their spirits were with us and it seemed a comfort. Not a ghost, but something like memory, a respect for the past. It made sense, too, to offer fruit to the spirits and Buddha. At each mealtime Noi also set aside a plate for the ancestors; she would never let anyone go hungry. Buddha, of course, had more abstemious tastes and didn't need so much. Whatever Noi set on the altar took on a glow of greater resonance, turning an ordinary orange into a radiant globe. In the fall and winter there were apples, pears, tangerines, oranges, and grapefruit. Summer meant plums, peaches, nectarines, and cantaloupe. Bananas were year-round, if they were smooth and unspotted, and sometimes grapes if Noi could get them past Rosa's boycott. The most treasured fruits were mangoes, pomegranates, kiwis, and pineapples. Then, after a period of days that only Noi determined, she would take a piece of fruit from its wrought-iron tray and it would be transformed into human food again.

On Tet, Buddha's birthday, and the anniversary of her husband's and son's deaths, Noi added to the altar an expensive assortment of dried papaya, persimmon, and coconut, tins of cashews and pistachios, and plates heaped with
banh chung
rice cakes, red bean cake pastries,
cha gio,
noodle dishes, and fried shrimp chips. I would imagine my ancestors and relatives descending into the room. They would be more invisible than Wonder Woman's plane outlined in white. They would pick at the fruit, perhaps wishing for the kinds my father talked about having in Vietnam, like the one my father used to hack open on a tree stump with a cleaver.
Stinkyfruit,
he called it, sighing with remembered satisfaction.

While my grandmother meditated for hours, I would sneak away to read in the living room or pilfer whatever sweets I could find in the kitchen. I had taken to hoarding cookies and snack cakes, stashing them away in unused pots that sat in the back of the cabinets. When her meditations were done Noi would open her door to let me know I was free to join her again. She tried to teach me how to knit then, but my practice scarves kept curling into tough, chain-mail-looking shells. Before I went to bed I would ask Noi if it was all right for me to go to sleep. It had become a little ritual between us, and sometimes Noi jokingly answered,
“Khong duoc.” It's not okay.
Then I would have to leave the room and return, asking permission until she granted it.

The summer after my third-grade year, I helped Jennifer Vander Wal practice songs for her Sunday school musical. She was only in the chorus, and fiercely resented the girl who had gotten the lead female role of Susie, a vain character who had to learn her lesson that pride goeth before a fall. Still, Jennifer and I practiced every line of
Agapaopolis.
According to the songs, it was a wonderful place—part Candyland, part Disneyland, part heaven. Jennifer had tapes of the musical from Zondervan, a big Christian bookstore based in Grand Rapids, and we listened to the cheerful melodies for hours. “Agapaopo
lisss,
” we sang together. “A place you're wishing that you are!” The star of the show was a gentle young boy who spent the musical leading his friends toward the gates of Agapaopolis. Susie, on the other hand, tossed her hair about and pranced onstage. Jennifer sang Susie's lines with bitterness: “Looking out for good ol' number one, always looking out for good ol' number one. Think you're gonna make it into high society, but you've got a lot to learn about humility!”

One day Jennifer invited her best friends from school, Amy and Rachel, to play with us. They were also in the
Agapaopolis
chorus, and after a practice session—Jennifer loved to be the stand-in for Susie—we played four square in the Vander Wals' driveway. As we bounced a basketball back and forth to each other we compared notes on Clearbrook Christian versus Ken-O -Sha Elementary. At Clearbrook, the girls informed me, everyone liked Dandy Bars and only Jell-O brand pudding cups would do. “We like Swiss Miss,” I lied, citing the cheaper brand that my stepmother sometimes bought. Rachel, a tall girl with a close crop of brassy curls, said, “What's your favorite song?
We
like ‘There's Always Something There to Remind Me.'”

“I have the
Thriller
record,” I bragged, though really it was Anh's, paid for with some of her birthday money. Jennifer had disobeyed her parents when she listened to it, admiring the glow of Michael Jackson's white cuffs on the album cover. Her parents screened every element of media for possible dirtiness; they were suspicious of videos, music with good beats, and anything that might be associated with break dancing. Though my parents had their own worries about dirty music, they couldn't help liking Michael Jackson and his excellent dance moves.

“Wanna go listen to it?” I asked. “We can watch videos, too.”

“Can we?” Amy asked, looking to her friends for guidance.

“
I
have records we can listen to,” Jennifer said. I knew she meant the Christian ballads her parents collected for her. She always upped the moral ante around her Clearbrook friends. “Anyway, I want to practice
Agapaopolis
again.”

“You should see the ‘Billie Jean' video,” I said to Amy and Rachel. “It's totally awesome.”

“We're not supposed to listen to that song,” Rachel said primly, sending the basketball in my direction. “It goes against the Lord.”

I bounced it back. “How do you know?”

“You just know, just like you know the power of the Lord.”

“Not
everybody
knows,” Jennifer burst out contemptuously. “
Some
people aren't even baptized and they're going to hell.”

I threw the ball with greater force, sending Amy scrambling after it. When she tossed it back I held the ball, pausing the game. I couldn't stop myself from speaking. “If there's a God he can strike me down right now,” I said. The girls shrank back and exchanged looks. They waited, perhaps for God to indeed strike me down. For just a moment I waited, too. The cloud puffs in the blue sky shifted a little. A breeze rippled the leaves of the Vander Wals' birch tree, whose bark Jennifer and I had often peeled off to use as paper for our notes. I knew I would have to go home after this, leave Jennifer and her friends to their Kool-Aid and cookies, their dolls and their gossip, their
Agapaopolis.
Later, after Jennifer had had time to think the day over, she would tell me that God is forgiving. That He would give me so many chances to reach out to Him if only I just would.

When the premiere of
Agapaopolis
arrived, I declined Jennifer's invitation to come along to the church and watch. In spite of my curiosity to see the hated girl who played Susie, and to see the production whose songs I had practiced for weeks, I didn't want to sit in the audience with the rest of the Vander Wal family, surrounded by other Christians. I would be too outnumbered, the obvious outsider, nonbeliever, the black-haired possible devil.

Maybe because I was surrounded by so much Christianity, I often regarded Buddha as a stand-in for God. I prayed to him many times for things I wanted: Top 40 albums, new shoes, chocolate cake. I prayed for miracles, too: twenty-twenty vision, a pretty face, big bank accounts for my parents. Whenever God was cited—in the Pledge of Allegiance or on coins—in my mind I substituted the word
Buddha.

I prayed often during that
Agapaopolis
summer. As I ate ice cream sandwiches from Gas City or filched my favorite blue-hued Otter Pops from the freezer, I would pray for Rosa to realize she should buy me as many sweets as I liked. I prayed for prettier clothes, more money, my own bedroom filled with books and records and tapes. It was a summer of Laura Branigan's “Solitaire, ” the Police warning us about every breath we took, and David Bowie murmuring “shhhh” to his little China Girl. Crissy was off with her forbidden friends while Anh and I roamed, restless, turning up the radio whenever WGRD played Culture Club and Duran Duran. We played four square, Life, and pickle with Jennifer and our brothers. We watched MTV, wishing we could be as cool as Martha Quinn. All the while I prayed, yet none of my prayers were answered. I woke up with the same blurry vision, the same flat face punctured by the two dimples I hated, the same shortness that made tall people's elbows a constant danger.

So I decided to take it one step further. It was time to tempt Buddha's wrath and see what happened.

One late afternoon when Noi was out watering the garden, I slipped into her room. The day had gotten sticky with humidity, and the brightness of the outdoors made everything inside feel dim. I could tell it was going to be one of those nights when my siblings and I would sleep in the basement to stay cool. I didn't know where everyone was to make the house so empty: Vinh probably playing Transformers somewhere with Jennifer's brother; Anh hanging out at a friend's house; Crissy with her friends, maybe smoking in the parking lot behind Ken-O-Sha; my uncles at their jobs; my father at North American Feather; Rosa working downtown at the Hispanic Institute. For once, I was practically alone in the house.

As I studied the altar, I realized that fruit was all that Buddha had to eat. Except for holidays it was the same thing day in and day out—lunch was dinner, dinner was breakfast. My father had tried to explain that Buddha believed in simplicity and having as few things as possible. So I guessed that he was okay with just fruit—maybe he even preferred it. I couldn't comprehend that. Looking up at Buddha I wanted to ask,
That's all?
I didn't know what it was not to want.

For I could hardly name all the different meals I wished to have. Dinners of sirloin tips and Shake 'n Bake. Beef Stroganoff and shepherd's pie. Jeno's pizzas and thermoses of SpaghettiOs. Great squares of Jell-O bouncing through the air as they did in the commercials; Bundt cakes; chocolate parfaits; rounds of crusty lattice-topped pies. I wanted all the dinners from
Little House on the Prairie,
all those biscuits and salt pork, grease seeping into the fried potatoes. I wanted every packaged and frozen dinner from the grocery store: Noodle Roni, Hamburger Helper, Hungry Man, Stouffer's, Swanson, and Banquet. All the trays with separate compartments for Salisbury steak, whipped potatoes, and peas. I wanted to take it all, hoard it, hide it away. If I were a spirit, I would fill myself with meals culled from the city around me. People in their pretty houses would sit down to dinners of nothing. They would take their eyes off their plates for just one second and the food would be gone. They would open their refrigerators: empty. Their pantries would be cleaned out. Cupboards bare, the doors swinging open to emphasize the blank space. I would take from restaurants: Brann's, Big Boy, Charley's Crab—all the white American meals I longed to try. If I were a spirit, I would eat more than enough to get me through the night.

In Noi's room the shades were closed against the sun. The air smelled of her favorite sandalwood incense. I sat on the bed for a moment, listening to the quiet of the house. The heat pressed in on me and I shut my eyes, trying to meditate. But I could think of nothing but the altar. The burnished statue of Buddha rose above me. His always closed eyes, his gown of glimmering folds. He was nothing like the fat, happy Buddha statue we had in the basement. That Buddha, dyed a festive red, had an open mouth and eyes squished up in laughter. He sat with one knee raised, showing off his potbelly, not at all resembling this smooth Buddha with his face of radiant calm.

I leaned in close to take in the gazes of my grandfather and great-grandmother. How far these pictures had traveled to come back to us. My father had said the spirits of our ancestors could find us anywhere. In between their photographs two trays held plums, nectarines, and bananas in near-pyramids of offering. An afternoon snack for my ancestors, a dinner for Buddha.

With one fingertip I touched the stem of a plum, whose violet skin always looked dusty. For just a moment, I hovered over it. Then the fruit was lying in the flat of my hand. I looked up at Buddha. His eyes were still closed. Sometimes, when we wanted to scare each other, Anh and I talked about how one day Buddha's eyes would fly open, shooting out beams of light. I waited a minute longer, until I heard the sound of the basement door opening and sliding shut. Then I ran out of the room, pushing the plum into my shorts pocket as I hurried out the front door.

I crossed our yard to the Vander Wals'—Jennifer must have been at vacation Bible school—and shimmied up their plum tree. How many times had Jennifer and I sat up here among the leaves, dreaming up one of our clubs? In the full bloom of summer the leaf-thick limbs took us in and kept us hidden. I settled into my usual spot, where two sturdy branches seemed to create a lounge chair just right for my size. I pulled Buddha's plum from my pocket and examined it as I had when my sister and I were little, marveling at the mystery of fruit. I looked for some answer in its skin but found nothing. The guilt I felt was the same as shame. I knew that this was where the test would end—me in the tree with the stolen plum. My father had said that Buddha had given up all possessions of his royal birth and become enlightened. Buddha never claimed to be a god. He could not be tested. He had no wrath. He granted no miracles or wishes. He asked me to prove nothing.