Old Tu in Sai Gon

Then she learned Dad was dead.

A twelve, thirteen-year-old child hearing that her father is dead does not understand death the way adults understand it. She only sees an empty chair in the house, a voice gone, a hand that used to stroke her head never touching down again. That loss did not immediately become tears. It became a hollow space, and the older she grew, the wider it got.

When the mother and daughter were preparing to leave the hospital, a nurse asked whether they knew that young man.

The young man no longer had identification. No phone. No relatives. After the accident, everything on him was either lost, broken, or could not be verified right away. He lay in the recovery room, body wrapped in bandages, face pale, silent as if he had been pulled out of this world but had not fully died.

Ngoc looked at him.

A boy only nineteen, twenty years old.

She had just lost her husband. Her daughter had just lost her father. She should have had the right to hate everything connected to that accident. But looking at that boy lying there, no one coming to claim him, no one asking, she said to the nurse:

“If he has no one left, I’ll take care of him.”

Mai listened to this point, her hand still holding Old Tu’s hand.

Old Tu went on, his voice lower:

“For a whole year, Minh lived like a vegetable.”

Ngoc came to care for him every day.

She handled her husband’s funeral, handled her daughter, handled papers, handled hospital money, then turned back into Minh’s hospital room. At first it was conscience. After that it became habit. Then from some point no one knew, it became a promise she did not tell anyone. Every day she wiped his face, massaged his hands and feet, changed towels, read him a few nonsense stories, though Minh did not wake. Vy was still small then, many times standing outside the door watching her mother care for a stranger and not understanding why.

Until one day, Minh felt a hand pull him out of hell.

Later he told it like that.

In that long darkness, he could not hear voices clearly, could not see anyone’s face, only saw himself falling forever into a place full of metal breaking, brakes screaming, wind howling under the ravine, someone calling his name without sound. Then there was a hand. Warm. Patient. Not letting go.

Minh held that hand tightly.

Then he opened his eyes.

The first person he saw was Ngoc.

She cried.

“Good,” she said. “It’s all right now.”

But the happiness did not last long.

The next day, Minh had a fit.

At first it was convulsions. Then he began screaming. His two hands clawed everywhere, clawing at the bedsheet, at the wall, at his own flesh. His eyes were wide open, but he did not recognize anyone. Ngoc sat there, holding him tight, saying it was all right, hold on, I’m here, I’m here.

Minh opened his mouth and bit into her upper arm.

Bit very hard.

Until it bled.

After that fit, when he woke again, Minh saw Ngoc’s arm being bandaged. He cried. A twenty-year-old young man crying like a child, saying sorry, telling her not to come anymore, saying he was not worth it.

But it did not happen only once.

It happened many times.

Day after day.

Some days Minh clawed Ngoc’s neck. Some days he bit her shoulder. Some days he kicked over the medicine tray, screamed until his voice went hoarse, then fainted. Ngoc’s body was full of bruises, scratches, teeth marks. Vy grew up in hospital corridors, used to the smell of medicine, used to the sound of her mother suppressing pain, used to that young man being both frightening and pitiful.

Minh said he wanted to die.

The doctors said there was a large hematoma in Minh’s brain, along with injuries after the accident. It caused violent disorder episodes, made him lose control when strongly provoked. He needed surgery. But it could not be handled completely inside the country. To have a better chance, he had to go abroad, and the cost was very high.

The next day, Ngoc came to the hospital and did not see Minh.

She ran everywhere looking for him.

The hospital room. The hallway. The bathroom. The canteen. The back yard.

Then a bad instinct pulled her up to the rooftop.

The highest place in the hospital.

She saw Minh standing there, near the edge of the wall, his patient shirt flapping hard in the wind. He looked down at the world below, his face wet with tears.

Ngoc called:

“Minh, come in.”

He did not turn back.

“I want to die.”

Ngoc stepped forward very slowly.

Minh went on, his voice breaking:

“I don’t want to torment you anymore.”

The wind on the rooftop was very strong. Below was the city, vehicles, people moving around, normal life to the point of cruelty. Ngoc walked over, not knowing where she found the strength. She hugged Minh from behind and pulled him back. Minh shook hard. Both of them fell onto the rooftop floor, and she held him tightly like holding someone just swept away by water.

They looked at each other.

In that moment, all normal positions tangled up. She was a woman who had just lost her husband. He was the survivor from the accident that had killed her husband. She cared for him. He hurt her. She saved him. He wanted to die because he did not want to make her suffer. Their lives should have stood on two sides of hatred, but instead they had been thrown into the same hole.

Then they kissed.

That night, on the hospital rooftop, between the cold wind and the city lights far away, a boundary was crossed.

That night, on the hospital rooftop, after Ngoc pulled Minh back from the edge, both of them fell onto the cold cement. The wind blew hard, the faraway city lights shining up like dim stars.

No one said anything.

Ngoc held Minh tightly from behind, her arms squeezing hard as if afraid he would disappear. Minh turned back. They looked at each other in the dark. In that instant, every boundary broke apart.

Minh bent down and kissed Ngoc.

The kiss at first was trembling, full of hesitation. But then it became deeper, more desperate, like two suffering bodies trying to cling to each other so they would not fall farther into the abyss.

They kissed in silence, only hard breathing, soft moans, cloth rubbing against cloth. Ngoc pulled Minh into a hidden corner where the light did not reach. Minh shakily took off the patient shirt, Ngoc took off her outer jacket. Two naked bodies touched each other under the cold wind.

There were no dirty words. No curses. Only rushed breathing, moans held back in the throat, and the contact of flesh full of hunger.

Minh lay down on the cement floor, and Ngoc sat over him. She slowly lowered herself, letting Minh slowly enter her. Both of them moaned softly when their two bodies joined as one. Ngoc moved slowly, her two hands braced on Minh’s chest, eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Minh raised his hand, stroked Ngoc’s cheek, pulled her down to kiss him. The two of them kissed with abandon while their bodies were still locked tightly together. Ngoc’s rhythm gradually became faster, but still full of feeling, like she was trying to fill the empty space in both their hearts.

Hard breathing. Soft moans. Skin hitting skin in an even rhythm. No one said anything. There was only the contact of two suffering bodies, finding their way back to each other, trying to break the invisible fence that had held them on two sides of hatred for too long.

Ngoc came first, her body shaking hard, biting Minh’s shoulder to keep from crying out. Minh held her tight, thrust up hard a few more times from below, then also came inside Ngoc. The two of them clung to each other as if afraid that if they let go, they would lose each other forever.

They lay there for a long while, still wrapped around each other, kissing softly, touching each other in silence.

That was not pure sex.

It was two people trying to find back a little warmth, a little hope, a little feeling of still being alive after both had thought they had died inside that accident.

After that day, the way they addressed each other changed.

No one said clearly where it started. No one dared call it love right away either. But Minh agreed to surgery. Ngoc sold the house she was living in, sold whatever could be sold, borrowed whatever could be borrowed, and took Minh for treatment. Vy, still too young then to understand all of it, only knew her mother had chosen a road that outsiders would look at and call insane.

The surgery saved Minh from the nearest death.

But it did not return him to the way he was.

After that, Ngoc, Vy, and Minh moved to the current house in the small alley. The pale green house, a little over two meters wide, six meters long, damp, low, cramped, but it was a place where they could keep living. Minh became healthier, clearer, could do odd jobs, then hired labor, then delivery work. But the sickness did not end. Each time he was strongly emotional, each time the past was touched, each time something pulled him back to the moment of the accident, that fit came again.

No longer every day like before.

But it still came.

And because of that, Minh could not work a normal job. Could not sit in an office, could not endure a harsh manager, could not stay too long in a pressured place. He chose delivery work. The streets were tiring, sunny, dusty, dangerous, but at least when he was not all right, he could stop. Could disappear for a few hours. Could get home before hurting anyone.

Minh repaired the small storage space under the stairs himself.

An empty room. Smooth walls. No sharp things. No hard things that could be picked up and used to hit someone. A door with frosted glass so Ngoc could look in. Each time he felt himself going wrong, Minh crawled in there, locked it from inside or let Ngoc close it from outside. He screamed, punched the wall, cried, bit into his sleeve, did anything so the storm would pass without touching anyone else.

When Mai heard to this point, she lowered her face.

In her head came back the image of Ngoc’s hand placed on the glass, and Minh’s hand on the other side placed right at the same spot. Two hands unable to touch, but still finding each other. An image crooked, painful, and leaving a person not knowing where to begin judging.

Old Tu said that when he was badly sick, when he thought he had been abandoned by his children, that was also the time Minh lay in the hospital, half alive and half dead. No one could find anyone. Each person was locked inside a disaster of their own, then the years poured concrete over it, making them all think there was no path through anymore.

On the day Vy turned eighteen, Minh bought a small cake.

The house was cramped, only three people. Ngoc cooked a few simple dishes. Vy blew out the candles. Minh sat across from her, his face a little awkward, then said today was both his daughter’s birthday and the small wedding of him and her mother.

No marriage registration.

No party.

No relatives.

Only a cake, a meal, a woman who had sold her whole house to save him, a girl who had grown up beside him, and a young man carrying in his head a dark mass that would never fully clear.

From then on, Vy called Minh stepfather.

But in her heart, perhaps that position was not as straight as the word written on paper. Minh was both the man of her mother, the person her mother had saved, the person who had watched her grow up, and a living wound in the house. That family was strange. Outsiders looking in would surely say many poisonous things. But strange did not mean false. They still lived. Lived on cheap rice, delivery money, bank salary, the nights Ngoc sat outside the glass door, the evenings Vy came home from work carrying banh mi, the days Minh tried to run enough orders so he would not feel useless.

“But he didn’t dare meet his father,” Old Tu said.

His voice by then was fully choked.

“Vy said he knew his father was still alive. Knew his father once expected things from him. Knew his father loved him most, sent him to school, wanted him to become a proper person. But now he sees himself as ... as an old bird dragging two stones. Can’t fly. Can’t drop them either.”

Old Tu raised his hand to cover his eyes.

“He was afraid his father would be disappointed.”

Mai was silent.

The old man went on, tears running through his fingers:

“He took a woman old enough to be his mother as his wife. He’s sick. He runs deliveries. He lives in that tiny alley. He thought if he acted like he was already dead, it would be less unfilial. Dead, then no need to come back. No need to let his father see. No need to hear his father ask why.”

Old Tu cried.

Not loud crying. It was the tears of an old man who had swallowed too much, until his throat could not hold it anymore. His shoulders shook, his hand still held tight by Mai. His whole life he had once thought he had lost his son. Now, meeting him again, he knew his son was not lost, but had lived a painful life under the same sky without him knowing at all.

Mai sat beside him and said nothing.

She did not know what to say either.

There are things people cannot comfort with a few sentences of “it will be all right.” Because clearly, it was not all right. It had not been all right for a very long time. It was only propped up by empty rooms, by frosted glass, by hands placed over each other without touching.

Mai gently squeezed Old Tu’s hand.

He did not pull away.

Outside in the yard, night covered the rental block. Hung still had not come home. Motorbikes far away, a dog barking, people calling to one another at the end of the alley, all of it grew smaller.

In the ground-floor room, Mai and Old Tu sat beside each other, very close, without crossing anything more.

Only an old man who had just cried for his child.

And a woman quietly beside him, listening to all that pain, like before when she once sat beside him in the gym, listening to him tell little nonsense stories so both of them could forget that their lives had long been dark.

Mai shifted closer to Old Tu. He also unconsciously raised his hand and held her shoulder. Two bodies touched. And then, suddenly, both of them cried.