The Book of Salt - Monique Truong [90]
All these years in France, you say, and Lovey and Pussy are still Americans, after all.
Of course, they are, Sweet Sunday Man. Of course, they are.
18
ABOARD THE NIOBE, I held the red pouch that my mother had so firmly pressed into my hand, and I thought about the days' worth of water between us. Then I thought about the weeks, months, years, decades of water to come. Time for me had always been measured in terms of the rising sun, its setting sister, and the dependable cycle of the moon. But at sea, I learned that time can also be measured in terms of water, in terms of the distance traveled while drifting on it. When measured in this way, nearer and farther are the path of time's movement, not continuously forward along a fast straight line. When measured in this way, time loops and curlicues, and at any given moment it can spiral me away and then bring me rushing home again.
I know, Má, the pouch is red because red is the color of luck, not the bad kind, just the good. The color of faith trumping fate, of hope growing ripe, of fruits on an endless vine. Red is the color of what travels through our hearts, an internal river that we never have to leave behind. When Monsieur and Madame see red, they think anger, death, a site of danger, a situation requiring extreme caution and care. Ridiculous, overblown, entirely misunderstood. Red on my fingertips, Ma, means that I am still here. Red releases you thick from my body. Red is what keeps you near.
Má, I could use some good luck right about now, I thought, as I eyed the pouch nestled in my hands. Seasickness had been breaking my back four and five times a day, forcing me to stoop and bow before the commode, over the rails, into the dirty pots and pans. My paying of respect to the water and the wind was interrupted only by bouts of peeling potatoes, chopping onions, picking through the soaked-off husk of dried lentils and beans.
Yes, Old Man, those are not the chores of a cook, not even one on some leaky boat. But the Niobe is French, and I am Vietnamese, after all.
I was just the kitchen boy, a rank even lower than a garde-manger. At first I was not even allowed to touch the food, only the remnants of it on the cooking and serving vessels that were mine to wash and, to my misfortune, fill with whatever I had in my stomach that day. Once I was finally able to clean the dishes faster than I dirtied them, the Niobe's cook, a Frenchman named Loubet, asked me where I had worked before. "The Governor-General's kitchen in Saigon," Loubet repeated after me. For the rest of the voyage, Loubet woke up late, smoked his cigarettes, and stared at the sea through the greasy portholes. I, in the meanwhile, demonstrated for him all that I had learned in the Governor-General's kitchen: Work without glory. Appreciation without praise. Pleasure without recognition.
When the captain's compliments came back to the galley along with his empty dishes, Loubet smiled and murmured, "The Governor-General's kitchen in Saigon."
I should have known better, I thought. Ignorance or a claim to it, as I had told Bão, was always better for a man like me.
But the wisdom of this rule I again ignored when I told Bão about the red pouch. I told him that I had no doubt about what was inside of it. The pouch had come from my mother's money belt. A couple of hundred dồng, I told him, in grimy bills that have been pressed against her body since who-knows-how-long.