The Beauty of Humanity Movement (117 page)

Once thirty people have wandered off happy with their bowls of pork and rice, it is finally the family’s turn to eat. T
cannot wait to taste that pig, but first his father, not normally a speech maker, stands and offers thanks to H
ng, for all he gives to them in his role as adopted patriarch, for the care he has offered three generations of their family.

“You don’t know this story, Maggie,” T
’s father says, “perhaps you’ve never heard it either, Ph
ng, but let me tell you about the happy day H
ng and I were reunited.”

T
wonders why his father has chosen to speak of this. It sounds like the kind of speech you would make if reminiscing about the dead.

“When the war ended, I came back to Hanoi after years in the countryside in search of a job,” his father begins. “I worked as a candle maker until the Russians set up a Ping-Pong factory that paid much better wages. And that is where I met Anh,” he says, glancing at T
’s mother. “We were lucky to find each other, but times were difficult. There was no rice for months, no meat. The real sadness for us, though, was that a child was slow to come. We went to visit herbalists and fortune tellers whom we could pay only with ration cards, which left us with even less to eat, and still no child.

“I began to wonder if this could be because my ancestors felt neglected. We had never built a shrine for my father, Ðạo, you see: my mother and I spent the first years praying for his return, and the next years having to defend him against my mother’s relatives, who blamed my father for our misfortune.

“It was H
ng who sent word to us in the village. I was nine or ten at the time, playing outside in the courtyard, when a man on a motorbike arrived at the house and, for no apparent reason, pressed a coconut into my hands. It was so light I was sure it was hollow. My mother shook it, then smashed it with a mallet, and there among the pieces of shell was a small folded piece of paper. It was a letter from H
ng with the sad news of my father’s death and a promise to honour him for the rest of his life.

“I knew I had to find H
ng. Eventually I found my way here, where he had kept the incense burning for my father. I do not quite
know how to put the feeling into words, but it was like arriving at the place where a river finally floods into the sea.

“And what do you think happened then?” Bình says, leaning into his toes. “Destiny finally smiled upon us. That is why we called him T
, our bright star. The one who heralded the arrival of Ð
i m
i.”