Trang threw a lump of grass onto the field’s bank. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” She sensed her best friend had changed; there was something mysterious about her.

  “So you want to stay here and rot on this rice field?”

  When Trang couldn’t answer, Quỳnh dropped her hoe. “Those nasty lenders have threatened violence, chị Hai. On top of that, they’re bringing our parents to court. I’ve heard the judges will likely order our parents to pay interest on the loans. Backdated until last year. If we can’t pay, our parents will be thrown into prison!”

  Tears stung Trang’s eyes. A few months ago, she’d told her parents that they could pack up and disappear, like their debtor had. But both her Ba and Má shook their heads. They were Buddhists and wouldn’t cheat. Besides, where would they go and how would they survive?

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Trang told her younger sister, “but I don’t want to become a me Mỹ.”

  “Yeah, you’re afraid of being called an American whore, but it’s you who cry when the lenders shout at our parents. . . . I don’t care what you decide, I’m leaving.”

  Trang looked at her sister, her feet sunk into the soil, sweat streaming down her face. “I’m the oldest child . . .” She sighed. “It’s my duty to help Ba and Má. I’ll go. You stay.”

  “If one of us is to leave for the big city, it should be me.” Quỳnh gave her hoe a hard kick. “I’m the one who can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “I can’t let you go alone. Sài Gòn is a dangerous city, em.”

  “And you think it’s safe here?” Quỳnh pointed in the direction where gunshots were echoing. “We might actually survive this war if we go to Sài Gòn, chị Hai. With so many Americans there, the VC won’t dare to make trouble. Come with me!”

  “But we can’t leave Ba and Má—” As Trang debated with herself, she felt as if she was making an impossible choice.

  “Shouldn’t grown-ups be able to take care of themselves? And don’t forget it’s them who got us into this mess.” Quỳnh picked up her hoe, swinging it down so fast she narrowly missed her own foot.

  That evening, Trang stood in Hân’s garden, eyes wide, listening to stories about Sài Gòn: its movie theaters packed with fashionable people, its wide boulevards filled with American cars, its French-style villas cleaned and dusted by teams of servants from the countryside, and its American men. “Those men who return from the battlefields are so wrecked,” Hân whispered, “we just need to make them laugh, and they’ll fill our pockets with American dollars.”

  “American dollars. That’s what we need.” Quỳnh grinned, rubbing her palms.

  “The good thing is that we don’t use our real names at work,” Hân giggled. “I call myself Mai, and I tell others I’m from Cà Mau.”

  “That’s so cool.” Quỳnh clapped. “A fake name, I like that!”

  “A name easy for Americans, with a flat tone, like Lan, Mai, Hoa. Or you could pick an American name. Suzy, Tina . . .”

  “That doesn’t sound bad at all.” Trang admitted. “But do you feel safe in Sài Gòn?”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s the safest place right now. I live near Tân Sơn Nhứt Airbase. It’s so well protected, a VC would pee in his pants if he got close.”

  “Tell us more about the bar—”

  “Dinner’s ready!” Hân’s mother poked her head out of the open window. “Trang, Quỳnh… come eat with us.”

  “Thanks, Auntie, but we need to go home,” Trang answered with a smile. From where she stood, she could see a beautiful sofa and a radio. When would she be able to buy such things for her parents?

  “Wait.” Quỳnh reached for Hân’s arm. “I’m going to Sài Gòn with you. When will you leave?”

  “Five o’clock in the morning, the day after tomorrow. From the bus station.” Hân turned to Trang. “I know you’re worried, but there are tens of thousands of girls like me there.”

  Trang bit her lip. In The Tale of Kiều, the beginning verse of which she had stitched onto the inside of her hat, Kiều sacrificed her own happiness to help her parents and younger siblings. Kiều’s struggle and courage were so remarkable that countless people, including Trang, memorized sections of the 3,254 verses about her life. Could Trang be half as brave as Kiều?

  Sài Gòn sounded exciting. Trang wanted to see the paved streets and the movie theaters. She’d pick a new name and no one would find out. “If we don’t like the work, we can leave at any time?”

  “You got that right.” Hân nodded.

  Walking home with Quỳnh, Trang agreed that both of them would give Sài Gòn a try. They passed Hiếu’s house and her heartbeat quickened. She poked her head over the fence, hoping to see him, but also fearing that he was there.

  “Let’s go.” Quỳnh pulled her away.

  “Should I tell him?” Trang whispered.

  “Don’t be so dumb, he’ll change your mind.”

  Hiếu’s square face, tall nose, and full lips filled Trang’s mind. She wondered what it’d be like to kiss him.

  She didn’t know how Hiếu felt about her, so a few months ago, when her mother and Quỳnh took her father to the hospital, Trang dressed up in her best clothes and solemnly said a prayer while holding The Tale of Kiều high above her head. Her right thumb opened to a page of the book and when she looked, it pointed at the passage starting with line 3095, which said:

  It’s priceless, chastity—by nuptial torch,

  am I to blush for what I’ll offer you?

  Misfortune struck me—since that day the flower

  fell prey to bees and butterflies, ate shame.

  For so long lashed by rain and swept by wind

  a flower’s bound to fade, a moon to wane.

  After reading the passage, Trang had clutched her chest and cried out. Many people around her believed in the fortune-telling magic of this epic poem, but she no longer wanted to. She didn’t know what this prediction for her future meant, but it sounded grim.

  She knew, though, that virginity was everything. In her village, if a girl didn’t bleed on her wedding night, her husband had the right to walk out of the marriage, leaving the girl and her parents ashamed for the rest of their lives.

  She didn’t like the idea of being around American men, but Hân appeared to be happy. In Sài Gòn she and Quỳnh would be drinking tea, nothing else. No man would be allowed to touch them.

  They passed their former home. Its brick walls gleamed in the sun. Trang had loved every corner of this house: the cool, spacious living room where she’d played hopscotch with Quỳnh; the bedroom where her hammock dangled between her bed and the window; the kitchen filled with the aroma of her mother’s cooking. She had to help her parents get their house back.

  Quỳnh wanted to tell their parents right away that they were leaving, but Trang needed one more day to think. She still had questions. The next evening, they went to Hân’s house again.

  When they returned home, thunder tore open the sky. Heaven dumped torrents of rain onto their two-room hut. Trang ran to the wooden cabinet—their most valuable possession. Inside were her tú tài practice papers and her beloved books: The Tale of Kiều, The Tale of Lục Vân Tiên, The Tale of Phạm Công and Cúc Hoa, all of them novels written in the lục bát poetic form, alternating lines of six and eight syllables. The cabinet had already been covered by a raincoat, but she wrapped it in another layer of plastic. Then she passed Quỳnh bowls and buckets. They arranged them around the house, catching the water that leaked through the roof.

  Trang looked at her father, who was on his bed, staring up at their family altar. His hands were clenched into fists. He was in pain, but didn’t utter a sound. Sitting next to him, their mother was mending Quỳnh’s shirt, which Quỳnh had torn while climbing their guava tree. Trang thought about the many years her mother had tended the field, taken care of her daughters, cooked, and cleaned. She’d been the pillar for her injured husband to lean on. A proverb said that rough seas make better seamen, but Trang knew wars made tougher women. Despite the challenges, her mother had always been determined that her two daughters be brought up properly. “Just like your banana plants, you need good soil,” she’d said. “And your soil is your education.”

  Her parents had embedded their dreams and hopes in the names they’d given their daughters: Quỳnh was a rare flower that bloomed only at night—the night-blooming cereus; its white petals radiated a beautiful, pure scent. Trang meant “graceful, gentle, virtuous.”

  Trang and her sister had wanted a virtuous life filled with knowledge. They’d sat underneath their mosquito net each night studying long after all the other oil lamps in their village had been extinguished. Each morning they got up before any rooster threw its song into the darkness. How unfair that the war had disrupted their chance for a better education.

  Quỳnh elbowed Trang. “You tell them about us leaving. You’re the older one.”

  “No, you should. You’re the smart one,” Trang said.

  Quỳnh shook her head but cleared her throat. “Ba, Má . . . remember our friend Hân? The one working in Sài Gòn? Well . . . she helped us find a job. Chị Hai and I are leaving for the city.”

  “What kind of a job?” Their mother looked up.

  “Secretaries for an American company,” Trang said. Hân had given her the idea.

  “But Sài Gòn . . . it’s too far away.” Their mother put down the shirt.

  “Just 250 kilometers, Má,” Quỳnh said. “We can be home in a few hours on the bus. We’ll visit as often as we can. And our salaries will be good.”

  Their mother looked at their father, as if begging him to stop the girls.

  Their father turned. His eyes were tired, his skin as pale as paper. “I remember Hân, she used to come by, but not since a long while. Why would she help you find a job?”

  “Because she’s my best friend,” Trang said. “She visits her mother often, and we just saw her.”

  The lines on her mother’s face deepened. “I don’t want to talk bad about anybody, but some neighbors have been whispering about Hân. A young woman like her, earning quite a bit of money in Sài Gòn . . .”

  “People are jealous.” Quỳnh laughed. “Hân earns well because she’s smart. She can speak English as fast as the wind.” She wiped her hands and reached into her pocket. “Here, see for yourself.”

  Quỳnh showed their parents a photo of Hân in her long pants and long-sleeved shirt, sitting in a whitewashed room behind a desk. Several Vietnamese people stood behind her. An older American man, wearing a suit, towered above them, smiling. Hân’s mother displayed a larger version of the same photo, in her newly painted living room.

  “Will you two be working here as well? What sort of an office is it?” Their father scrutinized the photo.

  “We’ll be working at another office. For an American shipping company,” said Quỳnh.

  “I don’t like the idea of you being around American men,” their mother said. “I’ve seen some of the things they’ve done around here.”

  Their father coughed. “Not all American soldiers are bad. Some of my former comrades were actually kind.”

  Trang recalled the occasions when American soldiers had distributed sweets to the children in her village. Once she’d seen two soldiers teach a kid how to ride a bike. As each soldier ran along each side of the bike, cheering the kid on, she realized they were just young boys themselves.

  “We won’t be around American men, actually,” said Quỳnh. “The boss in our office is a woman, the rest of the team is Vietnamese.”

  “As long as our girls work in an office, it should be fine. American companies are known for being professional,” their father said.

  “Please, don’t worry.” Quỳnh massaged their mother’s shoulder. “Chị Hai and I won’t have time to make trouble. We’ll have to learn lots of new things.”

  “But the war is spreading.” Their mother sighed. “I don’t want you out of my sight.”

  “Má, if the Communists reach Sài Gòn, we’ll run home,” Trang said, though she wasn’t convinced herself.

  “Má, please,” said Quỳnh. “We can’t just sit still and watch the lenders coming every day to threaten you. We’ll be careful.” She turned to their father. “Ba, you know Sài Gòn, tell Má we’ll be fine.”

  He looked away. “I wish I could go and work instead.”

  Their mother reached for his hand. “You’ve done your part. If you leave, who’ll keep me company, huh?”

  “Má is right,” Quỳnh said. “We need you home, Ba. As for chị Hai and me? We can overturn buffalos.” She flexed her arm muscles, then laughed. “Don’t worry, please . . . Haven’t you taught us that young birds leave their nest when they’ve grown enough feathers? We need to see the world and will take care of each other. And we’ll be staying with Hân and her friends.”

  Trang’s father said nothing. That meant he agreed.

  Trang gave her mother an envelope swollen with money. “We’ll return this to Hân when we get our first salaries. Her bus is leaving tomorrow morning. We’ll be joining her.”

  Her mother put down the envelope. She picked up the shirt but didn’t start to sew. She stared at it. After a long while, she stood up, stepped toward the altar. She lit three sticks of incense, bent her head, and offered silent prayers to Buddha and their ancestors. With incense sticks in her hands, Trang knelt down.

  When she finished her prayer, she joined her sister by her father’s bed. “Come on, Ba,” said Quỳnh. “Help us practice English. We need it for our job.” They’d learned English at school, but Trang hadn’t spoken it in so long, and English was one of her worst subjects.

  “Let’s see . . . What do you say when you greet your American boss for the first time?”

  “Hế lô,” Quỳnh said.

  “Hế lô is too casual. Say ‘hao đu du đu.’ ”

  “Hao đu du đu.” Quỳnh and Trang said in one voice.

  “How about ‘My parents send their thanks?’ ”

  “No need.” Quỳnh waved her hands. “We need to practice more useful words.” She tapped at her forehead. “Words like salary, bonus, hungry, thirsty . . .”

  “Sá-la-ri, bố-nợs, hấng-ri, thớt-sờ-ti . . .” Their father said.

  Quỳnh and Trang repeated.

  “That’s good, but for ‘thớt-sờ-ti,’ you need to say the ‘th’ better. Stick out your tongue and blow on it.” He showed them.

  Quỳnh and Trang followed what their father did. The next thing they knew, they were clutching their stomachs, doubled up with laughter.

  A Bird Finding Its Nest

  Lâm Đồng–Hồ Chí Minh City, 1984–1993

  Phong was on his knees, digging a patch of elephant grass. His twelve-year-old arms were as thin as firewood sticks. The sun punished him with its boiling heat but he didn’t care. He swore he’d just seen the shiny head of a large cricket. Holding a twig, he dug furiously. Kids in the neighborhood were staging a cricket-fighting contest that night. They wouldn’t let him participate, but his crickets would fight among themselves.

  Behind him was a sagging hut where he and Sister Nhã lived. When they were driven out of the orphanage a few years earlier and up into this village in the mountainous province of Lâm Đồng, Sister Nhã had hired local men with whom she worked, cutting down tree branches, bamboos, and rattan leaves to build the hut. It sat far away from the other huts that had been erected by the men, women, and children who had been chased out of their homes. Considered “bad elements of the society” by the Communist government, they were meant to settle here in the New Economic Zone to cultivate new land, to grow their own food.

  “Phong ơi,” Sister Nhã called from inside the hut.

  He ignored her. She’d been ill for a few weeks. She’d stopped going to the field, and he was secretly glad because it meant he didn’t have to work either.

  “Phong ơi, come inside. We need to talk.”

  “You want me to brew your herbal medicine again, Dì?” he called back, calling the Catholic nun “Auntie” the way he’d been taught. “Later!”

  “Please . . . Dì xin con.”

  Sister Nhã rarely begged him. He shook his head but dropped the twig and wiped his hands against his shorts.

  The hut was cool, darkish, and pungent with the bittersweet smell of medicine. Sister Nhã was a thin shadow on the bamboo bed. Her hands were clutching her stomach the way she’d been doing frequently in the past months. She’d lost a great deal of weight. It annoyed him that she wasn’t sleeping much at night and instead stayed up holding her rosary and praying.

  “I only have a minute.” He put the paper box that caged his crickets on the floor. He counted the brown insects again. Only three. He needed a few more. As he straightened his back, his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Sister Nhã was as pale as a hovering spirit.

  He felt her forehead with the back of his hand. She didn’t have a fever; she was cold and sweaty.

  “Does your stomach hurt, Dì?” He gazed at her hollowed face. She hadn’t been eating much. She’d cooked sweet potatoes that morning but just sat watching as he devoured them.

  She reached for his arm. “You’ve been a good boy, Phong. You’re my beautiful son.”

  No one had ever told him he was beautiful, except for Sister Nhã.

  He walked to the back of the hut. Next to the stove, which was just a hole dug into the ground, he knelt down, lifted a pot blackened with soot, and poured water into a cup. There had been days when he and Sister Nhã played cards and whoever won would get to decorate the loser’s face with soot. He’d laughed so hard as he gave Sister Nhã different types of mustaches. Sister Nhã almost always let him win. Her laughter had risen up alongside his, high and free, filling the belly of their hut as the soot filled the wrinkles on her face.

  He wished he could make her laugh again. For months Sister Nhã had been drinking the stewed liquid of roots and tree bark sold by a blind man at their neighborhood market, but it didn’t seem to help. Perhaps if they had money to go to a doctor, she’d get better.