BEN THANH MARKET HAD BEEN IN existence for about a hundred years—since the time of the French occupation. In the muted darkness, the entrance to Ben Thanh resembled an old schoolhouse or country church. The yellow, rectangular structure boasted an arched entry, above which rose a square face that bore an immense black-and-white clock. Inside this entry, the market opened into a sprawling labyrinth of stalls and passageways. At a height of some thirty feet, a vaulted ceiling was supported by yellow girders and protected merchants and shoppers from the city’s unpredictable weather.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of locals and tourists populated Ben Thanh, browsing for bargains in Ho Chi Minh City’s most famous and popular market. Closet-size stalls offered eel, pig stomach, skinned oxtail, sea snails, lemongrass, dried shrimp, coffee beans, dragon fruit, and loaves of fresh bread. Beyond the food stalls, vendors sold lacquer platters, teak chopsticks, traditional Vietnamese clothes, tea sets, bronze animals, sunglasses, T-shirts, and about anything else imaginable.
Gathered outside the entry to Ben Thanh were the Vietnamese who made a livelihood from pleasing tourists. Drivers leaned against dozens of cyclos, or bicycle taxis. Entrepreneurial tour guides scanned the area for confused travelers. Women moved quickly about, selling bottled water, bags of potato chips, and candy bars.
Sitting near the entry, atop an old bench, a hunched woman who looked two decades older than her fifty-one years held a child on her lap. The woman wore a traditional conical hat, which was made by sewing palm leaves onto a peaked bamboo frame. Her clothes were simple blue pants and a shirt—an outfit that Westerners might think to be pajamas. The woman’s face was thin and sunspotted and bore ripples of wrinkles. Several of her front teeth were missing. Those that remained were stained and crooked, jutting from her gums like the rocks at Stonehenge.
The child was seven years old. She wore shorts and a tank top, revealing legs and arms as thin as the handle of a tennis racket. Her elbows and knees were much wider, inflamed by a disease beyond her understanding. Short and parted in the middle, her hair was held fast by rusty pins. Her face, narrow and pleasant, was dominated by large, almost oversize eyes. Half of a coconut shell sat on her lap. Several gold-colored Vietnamese coins occupied the bottom of the coconut. Beneath the coconut was a worn blanket, which was flowered and full of patches.
“We’ll get going soon, Tam,” the woman, Qui, whispered, stroking Tam’s cheek. “The river misses you.”
Tam nodded absently. “A pretty sky.”
Qui glanced above. At first she saw streetlights that drew countless insects. But higher, several stars managed to penetrate the glow of the city. “Yes,” she replied, “but not as pretty as you.”
“Or you, Little Bird.”
A bearded foreigner walked past, and Qui tried to capture his attention. Switching to English, she said, “You want good book? The Quiet American? Lonely Planet Vietnam?”
The man paused, his eyes darting from an orderly pile of books at Qui’s feet to the sickly form of Tam. “My money’s gone,” he replied, lifting full plastic bags. “Too many souvenirs.”
Qui stroked Tam’s arm. “Please. Maybe you have few Vietnamese dong left? Or U.S. dollar? My granddaughter so sick. Please help me.”
The foreigner looked more closely at Tam. He saw how her body was wasting away, how her eyes didn’t seem to fix upon him, but drifted about. He wondered what was wrong with her. “I don’t think I have anything left,” he said, avoiding Qui’s gaze.
“Please, please look in your pocket,” Qui replied, placing her hands together as if praying. “I must buy more medicine for granddaughter. Please help her. Please, kind sir.”
Setting his bags down, the man unzipped his fanny pack and groped inside it. He produced several nearly worthless Vietnamese coins, and placed them into Tam’s coconut. “I’m sorry. It’s all I have.”
“Thank you,” Qui replied. “You are good man. You have good heart. Maybe tomorrow you come back and buy book?”
“Maybe.”
Qui took her hands, placed them outside Tam’s, and again appeared to pray. “May Buddha smile on you.”
The man said good night and disappeared into the chaos that was Ho Chi Minh City. Tam groaned and instinctively reached for her blanket. The coconut fell to the ground, coins scattering. Knowing that she’d stayed too late, Qui carefully lifted Tam from her lap, set her granddaughter on the bench, and began to gather the coins.
Qui then placed two straps around her shoulders and tossed a bag-like canvas device over her head. The contraption rested against the middle of her back. After setting her books and the coconut in a pouch that she wore against her belly, she nodded to a nearby cyclo driver and the man stepped toward Tam. He lifted her gently, positioning her within the bag, so that her legs encircled Qui’s waist and her arms draped down upon Qui’s chest. Tam’s blanket, held tight in a small fist, swung to and fro.
Qui thanked the driver, drew a deep breath, and began to walk. The night was humid, but not too hot. Along the wide road near Ben Thanh Market, buses—either sleek havens for tourists or ancient contraptions for locals—belched fumes as they lumbered past scooters and cyclos. Many pedestrians and scooter drivers wore cotton masks so as to spare their lungs from the soot that permeated the air. Qui had once tried placing one over Tam’s face, but Tam hadn’t liked breathing through the fabric. And if Tam wouldn’t use a mask, neither would Qui.
After a few blocks, Tam’s weight—nominal as it was—caused Qui’s back and knees to ache. Though the pain slowed her down considerably, Qui was accustomed to it. In some ways, she welcomed the pain, for Tam suffered so much, and it was better that her precious granddaughter not be alone in her misery.
Thinking of this misery, Qui asked Tam how she felt.
“My front hurts,” Tam replied.
Qui knew that Tam’s belly and chest were aching, that she was finding it difficult to breathe. Two weeks earlier, Qui had used every bill and coin she possessed to take Tam to a hospital. Several doctors had spent hours with them, and many tests had been run. Qui had left the hospital with Tam on her back and had cried, just as she did now. Soon Tam would be taken from her. No matter how much she loved her, treasured her, and wanted to protect her, Tam would be taken. Stolen forever.
Her tears dropping like rain from a statue’s face, Qui continued onward.
“Will Momma kiss me tonight?” Tam asked, as she did every day.
Qui sniffed, pretending that something was lodged in her throat. “She’s . . . still in Thailand. Working hard so we can buy your medicine. She loves you so much, Tam. She and I love you so very much.”
Tam didn’t respond, and Qui wondered what she was thinking. Was her sweet, innocent mind able to guess that her own mother had abandoned her, and probably would never come back?
As she did many times each day, Qui prayed that her daughter would return. She begged Buddha to be compassionate, to send her daughter home so that Tam could hold her again before she died.
Qui turned toward the canal that stretched below their home. She tried to quiet her despair, for soon Tam would look upon her face, and her granddaughter could never see such tears. Qui had told Tam that someday she’d fall into a sleep that would magically take her into a different world, into a realm where children weren’t sick, where they swam in warm seas, where they awoke each morning nestled between their mother and father. Tam believed in this realm, and Qui could never destroy this belief. So she could cry only when Tam’s eyes couldn’t find hers.
The buildings of modern-day Ho Chi Minh City disappeared. Tin shanties soon encroached upon narrow passages, and Qui tried to ignore a variety of ever-present sounds—a baby’s wail, children laughing, moans of pleasure. Tam asked about these noises, and Qui told her stories that had been repeated scores of times. After a few more blocks, just as Qui felt she could go no farther, her feet fell on planks that lay perched above brown water. She followed these planks until arriving at a vinyl tarp that covered the ent
rance to their room, which sat on stilts above the canal.
Perhaps seven paces wide as well as long, the room was mostly empty. Bamboo mats covered the tin floor. Plastic garbage bags full of crumpled balls of newspaper comprised a bed. Stacked neatly in the corner were metal plates, an iron pot, and a pan. A tiny, wood-burning stove was also present, as was a trio of potted plants. Hanging below the room’s lone window were two sheets, an extra set of clothes for Qui and Tam, some pajamas, and a small towel. A square hole in the floor served as a toilet. Near the hole was a plastic bucket with a rope attached to its handle.
Qui carefully knelt on the bamboo mat and removed Tam from the sling. Tam groaned at the pain that movement brought. Moving as swiftly as she was able, Qui plucked a sheet from the wall and placed it over the garbage bags. She then lowered the bucket into the canal below, hauled the bucket up, and dipped a corner of the towel into the murky water. She lifted Tam, setting her on the far side of the makeshift bed.
“Let me clean the day from you,” Qui said, kneeling next to Tam, using the damp towel to wipe soot from her forehead. Tam smiled faintly, and Qui leaned closer. “You like that, don’t you?”
“Rub my back, Little Bird.”
“I have to clean you first, sweet child. I can’t let you go to sleep so dirty.”
“My blanket?”
“Oh, sorry about that. Here it is.” Qui started to clean Tam once more but quickly stopped. “My wits have left me,” she muttered, reaching into her pocket to produce a plastic bottle with several pills in it. She set a pill aside and stood up, dipping a cup into a wide bowl in which she collected rainwater. After Tam had swallowed her medicine, Qui wiped her closed eyes with the damp cloth.
“I love you,” Tam said tiredly, holding her blanket against her cheek.
“I know, sweet child. And do you know how much I love you?”
“How much?”
Qui continued to clean Tam’s face, thinking of tonight’s response. “Remember the gecko that lived with us?”
“He was green.”
“Remember how he’d wait in that corner of the ceiling? Wait for a bug to come crawling toward him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I love you like that gecko loved his corner.”
“That much? Really, Little Bird?”
Qui fought back a sudden shudder, glad that Tam’s eyes were closed. “Yes, that much, my precious child.” Setting the towel aside, she lay down next to Tam, drawing her close, so that Tam’s last memory of the day would be of shared warmth.
AS SHE STRODE TOWARD THE BAGGAGE claim area of Ho Chi Minh City’s new international airport, Iris felt as if she were inside a giant white shoe box. Almost everything seemed colorless. The lone exception was a row of potted flowers that stretched down the long corridor. Thousands of pots held bright flowers, and Iris couldn’t imagine how they were all watered.
After having her passport stamped for the first time and passing through customs, Iris waited for Noah, and the unlikely traveling companions descended toward the baggage area. It was late, almost eleven o’clock local time, and most of the airport’s shops and stalls were closed. Scores of Vietnamese waited next to her as she eyed the conveyor belt for her two bags. Most of the luggage on the belt came in the form of cardboard boxes. The boxes glistened with clear packing tape and were often covered in Chinese markings.
Iris and Noah found their bags, and she followed him outside, trying not to notice how he limped. Beyond the orderly confines of the airport, chaos unfolded. Hundreds of people stood in a waiting area, restrained by a chain-link fence. Many eyes fell on the two Americans, and immediately people offered them hotel rooms and taxi services. Iris nodded to a smiling driver, asking how much the fare would be. The price quoted seemed reasonable, and they followed him to a car that looked as if it had just finished competing in a demolition derby. The headlights, doors, and rear bumper had all been smashed.
The car’s inside was surprisingly clean and undamaged. Iris and Noah settled into the backseat and the driver turned the key. The car and its radio jumped to life. A high, almost feminine-sounding male voice seemed to try to keep pace with plucked guitar strings, violins, and the metallic clash of drums and symbols. Iris had studied Spanish in high school and believed that she had a good ear for foreign languages. But the sounds she listened to now totally baffled her. She recognized nothing.
The taxi merged onto a busy road and Iris forgot the music. She’d read about the four million motor scooters on Ho Chi Minh City’s streets, and now it felt as if all of them suddenly descended upon her. The scooters were everywhere, darting around their taxi, driving directly toward them, running red lights, crossing roads as if daring the approaching traffic to obliterate them. The scooters carried about anything the mind could conceive. Entire families crammed together on the black seats—often with a baby in the front, a father behind, then an older child, and last a mother. The families laughed and chatted, weaving in and out of trucks and cars, missing other vehicles by less than an inch. Some scooters had reinforced racks behind their seats, and these carried refrigerators, baskets of live pigs, steel girders, televisions, crates of Tiger beer, wedding cakes, pets, and engine parts. Many of the drivers wore masks, though the fabric didn’t stop them from talking to one another, from asking directions as they dodged potholes and fallen debris.
Construction work was being done on the street, and sparks flew as boys wielded welding torches. A soldier held an assault rifle at the corner of a busy intersection. Buildings no more than fifteen feet wide rose up almost ten stories. A train rumbled across the street and their taxi stopped. Scores of scooters eased around the taxi, moving so slowly that drivers and passengers were able to reach out and touch the car, using it to balance their overloaded vehicles. The dozens of people who were no more than an arm’s length from the taxi were clad in traditional dresses, suits, fashionable club attire, and collared shirts.
After the train lumbered past, the scooters surged forward and a haze of exhaust enveloped the taxi. The grit seeped into the car and Iris instinctively held her breath. She saw Noah flinch as the taxi bounced over the tracks and wondered if he’d forever think about roadside bombs.
As they approached the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, the buildings changed from mold-ridden, teetering piles of concrete to gleaming glass structures and steel high-rises. The streets were wider, the potholes a memory. To Iris’s surprise, she saw dozens of uniformed workers hanging strands of Christmas lights on trees and building facades. From her research, she recognized the broad, white building that was Reunification Palace, and she imagined the famous North Vietnamese tank that smashed through its iron gates during the fall of Saigon. Somewhere nearby was the U.S. Embassy, which at the time was inundated with desperate South Vietnamese and Americans who were being rescued by helicopter from its rooftop.
Though Iris had traveled around the world through the thousands of books she’d read, she had never physically been abroad, had never felt her pulse race at the sight of her surroundings. She looked for comforting sights but saw none. Squares and parks were filled with statues of a triumphant Ho Chi Minh. Rivers were lined with shanties and bore what looked to be floating shacks. Nothing made sense, and despite her best efforts, she felt panic rise within her. Was coming to Vietnam a mistake? she wondered. How can I possibly hope to open his center when I’ve never even been overseas?
Needing to talk, she turned to Noah. “What do you think of it all?”
Noah watched a man chop off the top of a coconut and put a straw into the hole he’d made. Though also surprised by the sights around him, Noah felt numb to this new world. He was tired from the long flight, the seven beers he’d consumed, and a series of near-sleepless nights. A part of him recognized that these streets were vastly different from those of Baghdad, that here people seemed happy, eager to explore the night. But he didn’t care. He felt dead, and even though the world around him teemed with life, no sight could pull him from the dept
hs of his own misery. His mother had been wrong to send him here. Nothing could cure his pain.
“Why did your father start the center?” he asked, noting that a glaze of tropical sweat already covered her forehead.
“I don’t really know,” she replied over the wails of a woman on the radio. “He never talked much about what happened in the war. But I think something bad . . . something terrible happened with some children. I think maybe he saw some die. And . . . as impossible as it sounds . . . he wanted to try to make up for that.”
The taxi pulled against the curb and the driver said, “We at Rex Hotel.”
Iris paid the man, ensured that a porter found their bags, and followed Noah into the lobby. The walls were covered with intricate bamboo renderings of birds and flowers. Iris had read that the CIA operated out of the Rex during the war and wondered about all that had occurred within its walls. After speaking with the receptionist, she handed over their passports and followed the porter to their room. He opened a door, stuck their key into a specialized slot in the wall, and the lights and air conditioner turned on. The room’s interior looked to have been made entirely of thin slices of bamboo. Intricate bamboo lamps and chairs, tables, and bed frames dominated the layout.
The porter showed them how to work the shower, radio, telephone, and television. Iris tipped him and he left. Noah walked to the window, peering out. Iris hadn’t showered in more than twenty-four hours and could hardly wait to freshen up. “Can I take the first shower?” she asked, feeling awkward about sharing a room with him, but not having much of a choice, as the hotel was completely booked. She’d made her reservation long before she knew he was coming with her, and she didn’t want to send him to another hotel.