The House on Dream Street (18 page)

Our destination turned out to be only a few minutes’ walk down the lane. Son’s friend, a prematurely balding man named Bac, was standing in the rain waiting for us. “Hello!” he said, taking my hand in both of his and shaking it passionately. He turned and did the same to Carolyn.

We followed Bac into a large, simply furnished room that had a mud-speckled motorbike in one corner, a wooden bed in the middle, and a blackboard hanging from a center wall, on which had been written, in English,
HE WALKS TO THE SHOP. HE WALKS FROM THE SHOP. HE WALKS AROUND THE SHOP
. Bac was an English teacher, and it quickly became apparent that having two Americans in his home was a very big deal. Not only were we the first Americans he had ever entertained, but we were the first ones he had ever met. He unrolled a straw mat on the concrete floor and invited us to sit down. Son and I sat. Carolyn perched on the only chair in the room, a large wooden armchair that sat against the blue mildew-stained wall.

Bac was anxious to tell us his story, which he did as soon as we were sitting down. “When I discovered English—your native language!—I fell in love,” he explained. Then he jumped up, pulled four glasses and a bottle of mulberry wine out of a cabinet, and poured some for each of us. Lifting his glass, he proposed a toast. “To both of you, my wonderful new American friends, whom I have the honor to welcome into my home.” I raised my cup for the toast, then took a sip. It tasted like melted Slurpee, but it felt good on my throat.

The morning passed slowly. Neither Bac nor Son mentioned Senator John McCain. Occasionally, Carolyn and I looked at
each other in confusion, but neither of us had the heart to interrupt the pleasure that Bac was getting from hosting us. The conversation meandered in different directions, with Bac and Son doing most of the talking. We heard about their days as students in the Soviet Union, how they always wanted to learn English more than Russian, and how, when they formed a band with a group of friends, they agreed to sing every song in English. I knew they weren’t just flattering us. I had heard Vietnamese make enough disparaging remarks about the Russians to realize that, despite Vietnam’s history of animosity with the United States, and despite the fact that the Soviet Union had been a solid friend, Vietnamese felt a much greater attraction for English and American culture.

With the mention of the band, Bac got up and pulled a guitar from underneath the bed. He handed a notebook full of sheet music to Son, who paged through for a moment, then announced, “We will play Abba for you. They are the most important international pop stars, so you will like it very much.” He looked at me. “You like Abba, don’t you?”

“Abba!” was all I could say in reply.

I can’t say that Abba sung by Vietnamese amateur musicians was really that much worse than Abba sung by Abba. Son and Bac began their serenade with an upbeat version of “S.O.S.,” slowed it down with “Knowing Me, Knowing You,” then slid right into “Dancing Queen.” They sang with merciless enthusiasm, their eyes half-closed. Bac handled the notes with spiritual appreciation, as if he believed himself a conduit for an angel’s hymns. Son was less devotional, but his voice carried the conviction of a member of the Communist Youth Brigade chanting slogans of revolution. Neither of them could actually carry a tune. The thin black minute hand of the chicken-faced clock on the wall had made significant progress before Bac finally slid the
guitar back beneath the bed. “I am in Vietnam,” he told us, “but, you see, my spirit is American.”

Carolyn and I offered him weak smiles.

Bac sighed, then added simply, “This is the happiest day of my life.”

It was nearly eleven when we heard the front door open. A white-haired man appeared in the doorway, clutching a cap in his hands. He was wearing a thick brown turtleneck sweater and a dark green army coat. “This the man who saved the pilot,” Son explained, ushering him into the room. “We will talk to him now.”

Looking at me, then Carolyn, the man made quick but solemn bows of greeting. He was an old man, but I couldn’t tell if he was closer to sixty or ninety. Deep wrinkles traced diagonal lines from either side of the bridge of his nose to the edge of his chin. But his body was supple, and he moved with grace.

Son and Bac made space on the mat, but the stranger refused to sit down. He slid his feet out of his shoes and squatted in his socks. Son lit a cigarette and handed it to him. The old man took a long drag, then began to speak.

He explained that in 1967 he was working as a cadre for the government. Although most of Hanoi had been evacuated because of the bombing of the city, his work was considered necessary and so he had remained in town. Walking home for lunch one day, he suddenly heard an airplane overhead and the sound of artillery fire. He looked up and saw the pilot parachuting toward the ground.

The old man’s voice was soft and carried the unmistakable quirk of a working-class Hanoian—a tendency to switch his “l’s” for his “n’s,” which made him pronounce his birthplace as “Haloi, Vietlam” instead of “Hanoi, Vietnam.” On top of that, he spoke quickly, mumbled, and used words I couldn’t identify at all. I could hardly understand a word he said. Luckily, Son was translating
for Carolyn. As I’d learned during our day at the Perfume Mountain, Son was a very conscientious translator. But I could understand enough of what I heard to know that something important got lost in the translation. This old man was not a government official speaking in the exacting style of modern political debate. Over the course of nearly thirty years, his vision of an American pilot falling into a lake had grown into an epic tale, its cadences less similar to the officious arguing of diplomats than to the mesmerizing chants of the Buddhists I’d seen worshiping in the pagoda. But Son approached his mission with a diplomat’s agenda and the condescension the educated classes, even in Communist society, reserve for those they consider beneath them. Son didn’t even bother to introduce the old man to us by name, referring to him instead as “this man,” as if his identity were irrelevant to his story.

“This man ran toward where he’d seen the pilot falling,” Son continued. “It took him only a few seconds before he spotted the pilot floating in the Truc Bach Lake. The pilot was struggling in the water. He couldn’t get the parachute straps off his back, and the weight was pulling him under. He was gasping for breath. Before this man had time to think of anything else, he grabbed a bamboo pole and held it out to save the pilot. The American took hold of the pole and this man pulled him onto the shore.”

Son’s translation may have sounded like a just-the-facts-please testimony at a criminal trial, but the old man’s presence conveyed much more. Because he couldn’t understand a word of English, he didn’t recognize the way that Son’s translation dehydrated his story. Every time he paused to let Son speak, he looked down at the floor, nodding slightly at the sound of the English words. His concentration was reverent.

Son took another swallow of his mulberry wine. “Within just a few minutes,” he said, “people were swarming around the
two of them. These people, these Hanoi citizens, were angry. They grabbed things from the pilot, snatched pieces of his clothing as if they wanted souvenirs. This man, however, only took one thing. He took a knife with a red handle. He did not steal a single thing.”

The difference between taking a knife with a red handle and stealing a souvenir was lost on me and Carolyn. “Why did he take the knife?” Carolyn asked.

Son translated the question into Vietnamese. The old man looked up at both of us and, as he spoke, fear, dug out of memory, hung on his wrinkled face. “He wanted to protect himself,” Son explained. “He was afraid this foreign pilot might try to hurt him.”

Son picked up his cup, saw that it was empty of wine, then said something to Bac in Vietnamese before telling me and Carolyn, “You will have some more wine.”

Bac poured more wine into my cup and I took a sip. The old man was still squatting motionless, staring at the mat beneath his feet.

“But why did he even bother to save the pilot?” I asked. “That man was the enemy. He ended up in that lake because he was bombing Vietnam.”

When Son translated my question, the old man looked at me and chuckled. He and Son exchanged a few words, then Son said, “Of course, he supported Vietnam’s fight for victory. But he could see that the young pilot was a human being, too. Watching him out there in the lake, this old man felt that he could not let him drown. He says that he cannot explain to you his reason why.”

All of us were silent. Despite the blandness of Son’s words, some flash of feeling from that long-ago moment did slip through. The ash on the end of the old man’s cigarette, forgotten now, dropped off. After a while, he looked up and spoke again.

“There was one moment,” Son translated, “right after this man pulled the pilot out of the water, when he looked into the pilot’s eyes and thought about the wife, the children, the elderly parents in America who must have been waiting for this young man to come home. That was the moment he says he stopped seeing the American as his enemy. After that, the crowds swarmed around them, then the police arrived and dragged the pilot away.”

The old man, Son translated, harbored a dream. He wanted to meet John McCain one more time before he died.

Carolyn leaned stiffly forward on her chair. “So many years have passed,” she said. “Why does he want to meet the senator now?”

After a minute of discussion in Vietnamese, Son replied. “When John McCain returned to Vietnam several years ago, this man read in the newspaper that the senator wanted to thank the person who saved him from drowning in the lake. Because of the senator’s interest, this man made efforts to meet him, but our government would not allow it. Now that he’s met you two American friends, he hopes that you can help him to make contact.”

Bac refilled our glasses with wine. I was starting to feel woozy. It was hard to turn it down, though. The sweet liquid cut the chill blowing through the open window and seeping up through the damp floor. The old man sat quietly, looking back and forth between me and Carolyn. He no doubt also hoped that the senator, one of the most powerful men in the most powerful nation in the world, might surely offer this poor and tired Hanoian a bit more financial security than he now enjoyed.

Carolyn’s face was flushed. I could tell that she was already working on a plan. Carolyn and I often differed in our reactions to Vietnam, but now we only had to glance at each other to
know we were in perfect agreement. Someone was asking a favor of us that, like a penance, we would actually have to try to accomplish.

Son looked at his watch. “This completes our allotted time,” he announced. “Our next engagement begins in ten minutes.” He stood up. The old man immediately sprang up beside him.

Carolyn was annoyed. “What engagement?” she asked. “We have to discuss how to arrange a meeting with the senator.”

“No problem,” said Son, waving her concerns away as if they were as insignificant as a fly. “You will speak to the senator about our friend here and we’ll make all the arrangements after that.”

Vietnamese regularly made the assumption that Americans had a direct line to power. Sometimes, people would address me by saying, “Tell your president . . .” None of my Vietnamese friends had chats over coffee with their prime minister, but somehow they assumed that a more open government would have more open doors. “It’s not that easy,” I said.

Son was already walking toward the door. “I suggest that you telephone him,” he said. Carolyn and I could do nothing but rush through our good-byes with the old man and Bac, then hurry off after Son.

The rain had finally stopped, but the runoff from roofs and tree branches kept a steady drizzle falling around us. The sky was still overcast, the ground still covered in mud. I picked my way carefully over the broken pieces of pavement that formed the only stable islands on the slippery path. In my mind, I was writing letters to John McCain’s office in Washington, planning a meeting here in Hanoi. Where might be a good location for such a meeting? By the shore of the lake?

Son opened the door of his house. Linh and her sons weren’t home, but a man was sitting on the bed, reading the
New Hanoi
newspaper. He was sixty-something, wearing a fedora, and had a
smart blue-and-white striped ascot tucked neatly into his wool blazer. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” he said in English, jumping up to shake our hands. “I am so happy to meet you two lovely young American women.”

“This is my uncle,” said Son.

“I’m sorry,” Carolyn said. “I need to go home now.”

Son looked at Carolyn and smiled knowingly. “You must stay. Believe me. This meeting will be for the mutual benefit of everyone involved.”

Carolyn looked at me, but I only shrugged. I was curious. Son, sensing the opportunity, hurriedly cleared the newspaper off the bed, then invited me and Carolyn to sit down. I crawled over to the side against the wall. Son crawled over and sat down, cross-legged, next to me. His uncle leaned against the headboard. Carolyn, treating her neck gingerly, lowered herself gently onto the edge of the bed.

“My uncle painted all the beautiful artwork you see here,” said Son, sweeping his arm across the room to encompass the lurid paintings of the Virgin Mary and the maiden in the woods.

The artist looked at me expectantly.

“They’re very beautiful,” I said.

“So, what’s this about?” Carolyn asked, shifting her body to look at Son’s uncle.

The uncle reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a photograph. “I’ve made a painting at home of this photograph. I know it will have great meaning for you and every other American.”

Carolyn examined the photo and then handed it to me. The black and white image had begun to yellow but remained clear. Eight Western men in military gear stood posed for a portrait. I looked up at Son’s uncle. “Who are they?” I asked.

He smiled broadly. “These men are Americans. That’s right.
Americans.
Like yourself. But, unlike you, they are not happy visitors to Vietnam. They are Poes and Meeas.”