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Talking Story |
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From The Asian Reporter, V17, #29 (July 17, 2007), page 7.
Crumbs and shards
There’s a baker one block off Saigon’s Boulevard Le Loi. His face is cracked deep, like dry season soil. Sun-baked, brick red. He shakes hands hard when we greet. His name is Old Mr. Minh.
Ong Minh’s pastries are heaven — filigree buttery flakes fall off my chin, all over my neatly pressed white shirt. Divine.
In truth, I know nothing about heaven. My focus is closer. My goals are earthier, most start with an F — like fun, like family and friends, like fine red wine, and of course: food. Yes, all those. To excess if possible.
Ong Minh cooks good coffee too. Dark-roast highland Dalat beans. His pretty daughter sets a delicate cup and saucer in front of me, on my tiny table in front of their little patisserie. I wish her good morning. She smiles and withdraws. It’s hard imagining life better than this. All my F-needs fulfilled. Okay, almost all.
At the mouth of our side street, out on Le Loi Boulevard, Viet Nam is agitated. All business. Men on gnatty Hondas, ladies in a hurry, bright boys and determined girls riding iron Chinese bicycles. But back here, at Old Mr. Minh’s shop, people seem slower. Spirits are calmer.
Back here, walls lean at slight angles. Discolored colonial stucco. Leafy creepers and inching ivy inseparable from sooty Imperial French masonry.
Suddenly, harsh voices and heavy shoes from the loud mouth of our alley, catch my attention. That slight grandma and her school girl to my right, those two office guys I just shared cigarillos with, notice too. We all turn to look.
Americans. Large white boys in dingy Ts, in baggy shorts, with long-long limbs, and lots of leg hair, are coming here. Back here. I blink once, maybe twice, at my lovely croissant. We share slow sighs all around.
Grandma brushes errant crumbs off her girl’s blue uniform, she bids Ong Minh good day. They go. On their way out our alley, they pass those three strangers then they pass a blind sidewalk singer and his shoeless poor boy also on their way in.
The three Yanks stand around grandma’s uncleared little table. They fill so much space. They are impatient. They are hot and hungry and want everybody in our alley to know it. Like they know it.
They smell of last night’s alcohol, now sour. Their sweat is sharp: too much meat, not enough soap and water.
I wish I were more cordial. I want to be more kind. Maybe tell them Old Mr. Minh’s modest daughter is our only server, maybe mention how hard she works. But aduh’illaaah — I cannot. Oh Lord, I am weary. Tired of it. Of them.
I think I should go. My office buds are feeling it too. We flick eyes at each other. No one’s at ease anymore. But leaving’s so wrong. How can we acquiesce to this? To them. That’s how arrogant monsters are made.
By their bad manners and our passive ones.
Were it not for our Arab brothers, not as nice as us, not as duplicitous as Asians’ve always been, Americans would not now doubt themselves — would never know how deep our resentment. How at risk everyone’s humanity.
Back in our alley, I cannot move. Not to retreat nor to correct.
But life goes on.
Hai Ung, the blind musician with his peely plywood six-string, assisted by his skinny kid with his tin tip-cup, have set up under Old Minh’s rain tarp.
"Oh sh*t, not THAT again," says one of the strangers. He clearly does not like Hai Ung and wants everyone to know it. Like he knows it.
I look at our local fellas, they look at me. They are men, and me too. This neighborhood belongs to them, to that good baker, to this singer with no eyes but with a voice as haunting as Hank Williams. This is getting bad.
Ong Minh’s daughter’s back. She stands between those big foreigners, her hands clenched against her tum. She can speak some English. She really can. She studied. She’s just a little too shy to try. And they make her nervous. "Goo mo’ning," she finally says soft.
"YOU HAVE SOME MENUS?" the one with the bad beard says.
She doesn’t. Old Mr. Minh doesn’t. He does baked goodies. The best. He sets them out every morning inside his glass case. The same ones. I think these guys don’t know that. I know for sure Old Minh’s baby girl doesn’t know that they don’t know.
"What will you have?" she says, real well too. Clear pronunciation. Good accent.
The guys leer at her slender brown arms, her elegant neck, her damp shoulders and more. They sneer at each other. I dare not look at my Viet buds. This is going to go ugly, real soon.
"You must have a look at Mr. Minh’s pastries," I say. Words happen before I intend. They just come out. Three extra-large stinky Ts turn to look at me.
"He’s the best. His pâté chaud is heaven. Please. Have a look. Go on." I look at each. Face to face to face.
They gather their endless legs, they get their big-big feet underneath. They go.
Ong Minh’s daughter quickly retreats to her kitchen. I’ve embarrassed her.
It’s quiet again. We’re like a bout between rounds.
You realize it can’t last.
Hai Ung’s skinny kid, tin cup outstretched, is at their table when those big white boys return. "HEY, GET OUTTA HERE," the greasy long-hair guy says. "I told you yesterday: YOU’RE NOT GETTIN’ A F*CKING THING FROM ME." The music stops. The Viet guys jump up. Old Minh’s daughter freezes, tray piled with pastries.
No one moves. Not to attack nor to take back.
Back here, back in our alley, you can almost hear our old dank walls ache in, toward one another, over us.
Out there, on Boulevard Le Loi, vigorous Viet Nam goes on and on and on.
Ong Minh’s daughter deliberately claps little porcelain plates, one after another after another in front of our strangers. Sharp as broken glass she looks at each. In the eye. Two croissant almondine she sets before each. Regarding all like badly misbehaved, obviously unloved, surely undisciplined 10-year-olds.
"Mr. Hai Ung is a working man," I say to the big white boy needing shampoo. He looks at me, glad to be unglued from our angry sister.
"He is blind. This is his life." To the bad beard boy I say: "Look at your two good arms and two good legs. And thank God.
"No one in this alley can even imagine your wealth, boys. Please have a seat. Have your breakfast. Enjoy quietly. Please."