The Refugees(48)
“This, ladies and gentlemen, a punji trap.” Mr. Ly spoke in English, beckoning for the group to halt. The two dozen tourists, all Westerners, stepped close to the bamboo trapdoor. He spun it on its hinge until it was vertical, revealing a pit as deep as a grave and as long as a coffin, a dozen sharp wooden stakes embedded in the earth. “Step on trapdoor, you fall in.”
After a couple of tourists took photographs, Mr. Ly waved the group forward. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and gray slacks with polished brown leather shoes, whereas at home he typically lounged in shorts and, perhaps, an undershirt. What was strangest to Phuong was seeing her father joke and chat with the tourists. Whenever he spoke to Phuong at home, it was mostly to call for another beer, or to have her fetch him his cigarettes, or to request a particular dish for dinner.
“And this, an original tunnel.” Mr. Ly stopped and pointed at a square hole the size of a sheet of paper, covered with a wood board and a scattering of leaves at the foot of a eucalyptus tree. “Here, guerrillas live for years and attack Americans anytime.”
The tourists were almost all Americans, but this history did not seem to offend them. Instead, they seemed fascinated, raising their cameras as he lifted the board to show the narrow, dark entrance. In the distance, from the shooting range, a machine gun fired a burst of rounds, each bullet costing a dollar, according to their father. Phuong was bemused at how these tourists would want to spend their money and their day here, instead of at the beach, or at a fancy restaurant, or in a hammock at a rustic riverside café. The reason for such behavior, her father said, was that the foreign tourists knew only one thing about this country, the war. These tunnels, then, were a must-see on their itineraries.
“Later we see new tunnels, made big just for you. Last time an American go in this one, he can’t get out. He too fat!” To illustrate his point, Mr. Ly extended his arms and joined his hands, creating a large hoop in the air. “Anyone want to try?”
The tourists grinned and shook their heads, the smallest of them as tall as Phuong’s father. Phuong was afraid he might call on her to slide into the tunnel, but when no one volunteered, her father scowled and raised his fist. “This is how we win our victory!” he cried. A camera flashed. “We reunite our country through courage and sacrifice!”
Two more cameras flashed as their father held his pose.
“Did he just say what I think he said?” Vivien whispered.
“He doesn’t really mean it. It’s only an act.”
But Phuong suspected that for the tourists, act was fact. Foreigners that they were, they could not tell the difference between a Communist and a man the Communists had exiled to a New Economic Zone. In a few days, or a week, or two weeks, they would leave, their most vivid memory about this day being the funny experience of crawling on their knees through a tunnel, with a vague memory of the passionate little tour guide and his somewhat quirky English. We’re all the same to them, Phuong understood with a mix of anger and shame—small, charming, and forgettable. She was worried her sister might see her in this way as well, but when her father waved the tourists onward and Vivien followed, she appeared to be concerned only with brushing away the small cloud of mosquitoes hovering around her.
On Vivien’s penultimate night in Saigon, she and her father drank four flasks of milky rice wine at a Chinese restaurant in Cho Lon. After returning home, he went for a walk with his wife to clear his intoxicated head while Hanh and Phuc settled down on the blanketed floor of the living room, their bed next to the motorbikes. Upstairs, after Vivien closed the door to the room that Phuong shared with her parents, she pulled one of her crimson suitcases out from underneath Phuong’s narrow bed. The suitcase had been loaded with gifts from Vivien and her mother, from jeans and shirts to medicines and makeup, even shampoo and conditioner that had been bottled in the United States and were hence more valuable than the same brand bottled in a local plant. Now the suitcase was packed with souvenirs, a porcelain doll in a silk ao dai for Vivien’s mother, hand-carved teak replicas of cyclos for her brothers, a bottle of rice wine with a cobra floating in it for her stepfather, and, for her friends, T-shirts emblazoned with Ho Chi Minh’s avuncular face. But when Vivien opened the suitcase, she took out neither these mementos nor her own belongings. Instead, after rummaging underneath them, she dug out a small pink bag, somewhat crumpled from its journey, and presented it to Phuong.
“I’ve got one last thing for you, little sister,” Vivien said. “I wasn’t sure I should give it to you, but I thought I’d come prepared.”
Printed on the bag in cursive writing was Victoria’s Secret. Inside were a black lace brassiere and black lace panties, a wispy thong rather than one of the scratchy, full-bottomed cotton affairs that Phuong’s mother bought for her in packages of a dozen.
“I can’t wear these!” Phuong said, blushing. “They’re scandalous!”
“Go on, try them on.” Vivien pulled the nearly non--existent panties from the bag and pressed them into Phuong’s hands. “I can’t imagine you in those granny things you have.”
For a moment, Phuong hesitated. But Vivien was her sister and a doctor, and there was no need to be shy. She quickly stripped off her rayon pajamas and her cotton underwear, and just as quickly slipped on the brassiere and panties. Vivien nodded approvingly and said, “Now you look sexy. Some boy’s going to be very lucky to see you in those.”