The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [109]
"It is time for you to come home to Việt-Nam," Anh Minh writes. "No matter what he may have said to you, he is our father, and he is going to die."
My brother goes on to say that the Old Man has had a stroke, that he has lost all movement on his right side and is now confined to his bed. So it is true, I think, the Old Man's god can strike a man down. But from the sound of it, his god has yet to slay him. Yes, I am afraid, the Old Man is still very much alive. Forgive me if it has been easier for me to think of him as deceased. Since my first night on the Niobe, I can sleep only after I have eased his coffin into the sucking clay, after I have pushed Father Vincente aside to deliver my own version of the last rites. Otherwise, how could I leave her behind? Imagine brushing my lips along my mother's cheeks. Imagine her telling me to go if I must but for her sake "Don't look back." Then imagine him still breathing in the very next room. Forgive me if I am unable.
"He is our father," I read Anh Minh's words over again. Liar, I think. Whose version of this story should I believe? That my dear mother had a lover, who was her scholar-prince if only for a short while, who gave her shadow-graced embraces, who left her with me, her last son. Or that the Old Man is my father and that in spite of that fact he stood in front of his house, one that I will never again see, and he lied to me so that he could see me dead inside. As they say, Old Man, blood is thicker than water. But in our case, you have mired the seas with so much refuse and malice that no ship, Old Man, can navigate those waters and bring me back to you again. When your day comes and goes, believe me, I will not be wearing white.
The Old Man is breathing in air. He is breathing in dirt. It does not matter much to me anymore. My mother has finally had the courage to leave him. I did not have to read it in the body of my brother's letter to know. I have known for many days now. Anh Minh's letter only confirmed the reason for my mother's nightly visits. We said our good-byes in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The city, as it did today, had covered itself in a mantle of white. She was dressed in her gray áo dài, and I was bundled into two of my sweaters and my only winter coat. We sat on a park bench and chatted about nothing in particular, like two people who have spent their entire lives together. The snow around us was just beginning to melt, and she shivered with cold. I sat with her until the rising sun took her away. The visits continued until one day I saw her, but I was wide awake. In the hopes of easing my sorrow, she had taken the form of a pigeon, a city-worn bird who was passing away. Death, believe me, never comes to us first in words.
"God has given Má wings," Anh Minh writes. Succinct as always, I think. What he means is that our mother was no longer afraid. After years of saying her rosary, she went to sleep one moonless night and saw heaven vivid on the horizon. She stepped out from under the eaves of his house with a resolve that is the truest gift of faith. Her husband, a false prophet, could never follow her to where she was going. Her four sons, well, that is up to them. With that her final thought, her body became one with the earth, and her soul rose to heaven. A flourish of white.
"Amen," writes Anh Minh.
"Amen," I read aloud.
Startled by the sound of my own voice, I look up from my brother's letter. The kitchen is empty. My Mesdames must have left it long ago. I hear voices coming from the studio. In here, there is no one but the stove and the copper pans.
22
AS USUAL, I have to let myself in. What he does with his Saturday nights, he will never tell me. He is clean, freshly shaven, and has on a pressed