Only the Heart (20 page)

EPILOGUE

ONLY
THE HEART …

6 July 1996
Ho Chi Minh City
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

TOAN'S STORY

Twenty years.

The heat is like a wall as I step through the doors of the arrival lounge and look out on the country of my birth for the first time in all those years.

It's strange. I mean, I guess I expected to feel … something. But apart from the heat, and the knot in my stomach which has been there since we flew out of Sydney, nothing has changed.

I'm not pushing the baggage trolley. That isn't my role in this production.

My only burden is a small urn, not much bigger than a coffee mug. But it holds a precious cargo, just the same.

An old woman's final wish is law, so it became my duty to bring her home.

After ten years in exile, Grandma is finally making the trip that was denied her in life.

But it is
her
home. It is no longer mine. I look around me and I taste the air. I am like a stranger here, a traveller in a foreign land. I never expected to feel this way, but there is no sense of loss. Only a confirmation of who I am. Who I have become.

My Aunt Chi and her family are standing in the huge hall, shouting with excitement. Seven children, eight grandchildren, and she stills looks slim, and far too young for such a part. I think she has my father's eyes.

I stop to wait for Kieu and Cassie. None of the waiting crowd has seen them, except in photographs, and I want to be the one to introduce my family to … my family. Finally they come through the doors, Kieu pushing the trolley, Cassie riding, as excited as any five-year-old.

They catch up and my daughter jumps off, running to wrap her arms around my leg. Not exactly the solemn procession that might be expected for the return of a grandparent's ashes, but I don't think Grandma would mind. She loved Cassie and spoiled her completely.

I guess we all do. Me, because she's my only daughter and I'm an easy mark. Kieu, because
I
do, and she doesn't want to be the ogre. Linh, because Cass is the nearest thing she'll ever have to a daughter of her own, so she intends to make the most of it. And my parents, because they believe it's a grandparent's inalienable right to pay their children back for years of abuse by turning the next generation into spoiled brats who will make their life hell.

Since the stroke, my father hasn't been able to travel — except the weekly trip to the hospital for therapy. Otherwise he would have been the one carg his mother's ashes. Of course, my mother never leaves him alone for more than an hour at a time. And with Diem and Quyen virtually rung the business, she doesn't have to.

We pass the barrier, the crowd converges, and Cassie is whisked away. But she doesn't cry. All relatives are potential conquests, and no one is immune to her charms. She still believes in fairies too.

I return kisses and match smile for smile, but my eyes are on the doors. Finally they open and Linh's wheelchair emerges. Miro stops pushing for a moment and looks around. It is his first time out of Australia and he wants to drink it all in.

But my cousin's patience hasn't improved with age. She works the wheels with ten years' experience and drives the chair towards the knot of relatives, shouting a warning but making no attempt to slow down.

And Miro is left alone, standing there inside the doors. Just as he's always left alone in the end.

I know she'll never give in and marry him, and in spite of his objections she'll never stop trying to “set him up” with one “hot” date after another. She's stubborn — what can I say?

But he seems happy enough with the arrangement.

Just friends …

I guess there are plenty of marriages with less than that going for them.

Then we make our way outside and the tin-can sound of a scooter rises above the noise of the crowd. It moves like a memory across my path and for a moment the years drop away. But only for a moment. I am tired from the trip and I can feel the sweat on my hands. I grip the urn more lightly.

Not long now.

Soon she will lie next to my grandfather, and I will say the words to give her spirit rest. Though a medium of Quan Yin should have no need of words to give her peace.

Thanh has written a poem of farewell, and he asks that I read it to her when she is at her final resting place. He's printed it out for me; I've got it folded up in the pocket of my shirt.

But it isn't really necessary. I know it by heart.

To Vo Kim Tuyet, 1919-1996

Our years, like leaves,
Drift and fall away;
Piling up, memory upon memory,
Joy upon sadness,
Until the smile and the tear
Become One

And the One becomes All.

Our dreams, like children,
Grow from a song of the heart;
We know the melody,
But we cannot tie it down
To sounds the ear can taste.
And yet it lives within us

Through our dreams,
Through our children.

And the words are the years,
Drifting like leaves;
And the rhythm is a pulse,
The beat of life and death.

For the song is the journey,
And the journey is a song

That only the heart can sing …

First published 1997 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 1997 (twice), 1998 (thrice), 1999, 2000 (twice), 2001, 2002 (twice), 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013

www.uqp.com.au

© Brian Caswell
© David Chiem

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Typeset by University of Queensland Press

Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia

Caswell, Brian
Only The Heart

For secondary school students.

I. Chiem, David Phu An. II. Title (Series: UQP Young Adult Fiction)

A823.3

ISBN 9780702229275 (pbk)
ISBN 9780702256639 (pdf)
ISBN 9780702256646 (epub)
ISBN 9780702256653 (kindle)