Fire, teeth, water, tongue Nhu Diep Translated by Jordan Barger
For Ba, Má, my brothers, my sisters, my children
I was not born in this life, I came from another. This is not my only story, I also carry the stories of my forebearers and my fore-elders, a whole dynasty. Not only am I doing a split, I am also hanging by a thin thread. Between before and after, east and west, home and away, light and dark, sober and soaking wet, blood and water. Beginning and end. Try to walk in my shoes. Good luck.
(Ba) How far have you gotten? I don’t know. I’m about halfway? How long will it take? I don't know. It's a really long process. When I wrote yours, it only took me two months. Ba, that's not how it works here. I'm not going for Made in Vietnam. It’s a lot quicker in Vietnam, I'm just saying. You don't understand, I've spent ages on this... It's been so difficult. I need your permission. Is it okay if I write about it? But do you have to? Why can't you just write about something beautiful? But, Ba, it hasn't been like that. The visible beauty is only on the surface. I want to tell the truth, the one underneath the skin. Before you and Má are gone. Do I have your permission? So, you think it's important? Yes. Okay then. You have my permission.
The white house My first childhood memory is in a lush garden with fruit trees. I am with three of my ten siblings. Q and I have matching dresses that Má has sewn for us. A light material with flowers, thin shoulder straps, loops on either side. The green grass reaches up to my calf. We all have bowl cuts and stand in front of a white wooden house. The sun is shining and warm, we squint at the camera, and smile. Later on, I realized that this wasn’t exactly a memory from that time. It was just a photograph, one of many I had seen countless times. In the end, I experienced the events in the photo as real memories, sticking to my skin, forever in my possession. I had wanted these memories so bad that I overlooked one little detail in this picture: I'm pretty small. I'm only two years old. There’s no way it’s a real memory. I am a grown woman, 44 years old, when I ask Má about this picture for the first time. About the flock of children in front of the house, in the garden with sun-ripened fruit hanging over our black manes. We sit on a leather sofa in the living room, in my parent’s apartment. The sun shooting yellow rays through several glass sources: the sunroom, the living room window, and a glass of water in the windowsill. Má moves her frail body closer to me. With practiced fingers she pulls her shoulder length hair behind her ears and pins her hairclip in place. She is sitting in the sun beams, she herself beaming, filling in the details: The picture is from 1980. That white house is in Hermann Frangsgate in Hamar, the municipal housing we were given while we waited for a permanent home. This was our family’s third place after only a year in Norway. Before that, we lived in two different resettlement centers in Oslo. Má says that it was a ghost house, that it was dark inside, dirty and cold. Two adults and eleven children shared two bedrooms: all the older children shared bunkbeds in one bedroom, with parents and a newborn baby on mattresses on the floor in the other. There was no furniture in the house, no fridge or washing machine. Just an old stove standing alone in another cramped room. The bathroom was a bare, pitch-black basement with a shower and a toilet in the far corner. In winter it was so cold that the pipes burst. For long periods we had to resort to snow. We cooked snow. We drank snow. We rinsed our clothes in snow. We washed our hair, face, ears, hands and body in snow. All the while we were freezing. Má cooked soup from tails, necks and offal the Norwegians didn't want, which the butcher sold for cheap. She poured the broth into 13 bowls and stuck a piece of bread into each of our fists. The clothes we wore on our bodies were from the resettlement centers and neighbors, or my parents bought them at the flea market. If someone told us that some of the clothes came from estate sales, we refused to wear them. We believed in ghosts. We were afraid of being haunted in an already haunted house.
Waves We were rescued in 1978. the day after Christmas. There were 121 of us in an over-filled fishing boat, 80 children, everyone else elderly and adults. We travelled from Vietnam September 22nd 1978, leaving the coast of Quy Nho’n, in route to Hong Kong. Three fishing boats left the harbor at the same time that day. But only two boats finished the journey. The third sank, along with everyone on board. After five days in the South China Sea, we ran out of supplies. Then, we got even more hungry. Then, we got even more sick. Then, the boat got caught in a massive typhoon. Then, we lost the course. Then, we prayed to all the gods. On the seventh day, we were stranded on an island. We sheltered ourselves on the island Phú Qúy for three months. During this time, we made repairs, on each other, on the boat and prepared for another daring journey on the sea. We were lucky, because on the second attempt, it was only 24 hours before we were discovered. The crew of the Norwegian tanker Torvanger had celebrated hard on Christmas Eve, gotten so drunk that they had to postpone their journey by a day, and therefore, all because of that, they found themselves in the same place as us in that single moment, on the high seas. It was pure luck. They saw us, stopped the ship, climbed down the ladder, stretched out their hands to the men, women, fathers, mothers, the young, the old, and hoisted us up. They took my Ba and my Má by the hand. Then they carried all nine of my brothers and sisters and me up to the deck. The ship took us on to Bangkok, where we stayed in a hotel for six weeks while we waited for an answer from the Norwegian authorities on whether they would accept us. On February 13, we were put on a plane to Norway. On Wednesday, February 14, 1979, we landed at Fornebu and saw snow for the very first time. Then we went on to resettlement center number 9 and, shortly after, number 23 in Oslo. The following year, Little Brother arrived in that white wooden house in Hamar, the one that false memories made me think was warm and nice, the one that Má calls a hovel and a ghost house.
Baby N Ba and Má shared a lot of pictures from the journey while we were growing up, pictures of the crowded fishing boat taken from the upper deck, of the Torvanger crew, the cluster of people, like sardines in a can, pictures of us scattered across the big orange deck, of us inside the ship, of us squeezing into the camera lens, coal-black manes, crooked eyes, teeth, teeth, teeth. I was eight months old when we left. I was never in any of the pictures.
A chance encounter Ba was born in the small town of Phú Phong in 1942. His parents were Chinese, and his father left for Vietnam as an economic refugee at a young age. Fate led him to a girl who shared the same background as him, and who shortly afterwards became his wife. The couple made a living selling Chinese herbal medicine and had four sons. Ba was just a little boy when his father died, and his mother was left alone. He was allowed to go to school, but when he was 16, his mother gave him an envelope of money and told him to go out and make a life for himself. Ba bought and ran a small grocery store, which did not do well. He closed it and opened a new and bigger one across the street, which quickly became a success. Ba needed extra hands and thought it made sense to get married. But he was both picky and demanding: He hired a matchmaker to find a pretty wife from a decent family. After visiting many candidates without success, the matchmaker finally took him to Má's family. She was also of Chinese descent. Má grew up in a large family with four brothers and five sisters, and was only allowed to go to school until fifth grade. Her parents were not too keen on Ba. He lived in a small town, while Má lived in modern and fashionable Quy Nho'n. Má thought Ba was too dark-skinned and acted way too confident. Ba noticed that Má had too much of an underbite. But the two became a couple, and at the age of 20 they got married in the little town Ba came from.
The hand I didn't realize how important my parents were in Vietnam, how high their status was, until I extended my hand to a fortune teller outside the Quang Trung Museum on one of my trips back to the country. I asked him to read my future. On a bench behind him, in the shade under a tree, his friend lay with his eyes closed. Minutes later, he opened mine. The fortune teller told me that I would live a long time, more than 82 years, and with two children born in the year of the rooster and the year of the golden pig, my future would be bright. He then asked me to write down my full name on a piece of paper so he could read my handwriting too. I wrote down all four of my names while he watched. He commented that it was a long and powerful name, and read them out loud. Then the man lying on the bench jumped up and exclaimed: - Are you from that Chinese family, D? Do you know where you come from? Do you realize how rich and powerful and highly respected your family was here in Phú Phong? Everyone here still knows who you are! Then he went on to tell stories about my family, about Ba and Má. A brick business, a hardware store, a grocery store, an electricity company, even a pharmacy with a new European twist. Ba and Má worked hard and created many jobs. They were called the Rich Chinese of Phú Phong, with a large network and close ties to high-ranking generals and officers throughout the province. The American military police stationed in the country made good deals with Ba and Má. The man on the bench told us about the children who got so tall, about Ba's brothers who were lost in the war, those who left and those who stayed behind, those who survived, those who were immortalized in gold frames. As we were leaving, he called out to me: You all were nomba won! And gave me a thumbs up. Then the thumb became a hand that stretched up into the air and waved frantically.
The D Family Má gave birth to five sons and five daughters in Vietnam. It was Ba who chose the names for all my siblings. They were named after royalty, emperors, jewels, majestic animals and natural phenomena. I, on the other hand, was named after a famous writer Ba liked and who he thought was pretty. Ba and Má had created a family empire.
(Eldest Brother Dz) What do you remember from Vietnam? I was Ba and Má's eldest son, so they expected great things from me. But I was never good enough at anything, never got praise for anything. They sent me to my grandmother in Quy Nho'n when I was little, to go to private school. I was separated from my siblings and was only allowed to come home on holidays and weekends. I cried all the time and missed Má. The students who slept in the other room could hear me crying through the wall every night. And then I had to look after my siblings when I grew up. If you look at pictures from Vietnam, you'll see that it's always Má and I carrying my sisters and brothers in our arms. Almost never Ba. What else do you remember? I have a horrible memory from when we lived in Vietnam, but I don't know if it's a dream or if it actually happened. I remember Ba and Má took the younger children with them one night and left me home alone to look after the house. I was maybe ten or twelve years old. They were worried about burglars, so they gave me a bowl filled with various buttons. Then I could sit and announce the colors loud and clear so the thieves would hear that there were people at home. I sat alone in the big empty house and shouted out: "This one is blue! This one is green! This one is yellow!” I don't know if it's true, but it's stuck in my mind. Why don't you ask them if they remember it, if it actually happened? No, can't you do it yourself? No. Well, it's Ba and Má we're talking about. There's a good chance it happened. For sure.
Ruin When a rocket exploded outside his house in Phú Phong in 1975, Ba was seriously injured. He was sent to the hospital to have his shoulder stitched up and all the shrapnel piercing his body removed. After his hospital stay, he made an escape plan; he would take his entire family with him and flee to Saigon by plane. An impossible task, as almost everyone was trying to do the same thing. Instead, he drove Má, his children and relatives south to Nha Trang by car. After just one week, the communists took this city too, as they did with so many other cities. Ba was forced to drive everyone back to Phú Phong, where the communist regime had gained full control and ruled ruthlessly with prison sentences, executions and torture. One day, two guerrillas showed up at my parents' workplace. They produced a document authorizing them to seize their private property. The soldiers stayed in the house during the entire authorized period, ransacking it with a single goal: To find a hidden fortune and then confiscate it. They tore up the floor. They dredged up the well. They dug up the garden. They found gold and money in the walls, in the chimney, in rolled-up pieces of cloth and heavy mattresses, gold that Ba and Má had hidden. After four weeks, they left the house with every valuable possession. Everything my parents had earned and saved over two decades was seized and repossessed. Ba and Má lost absolutely everything.
Na Uy (Norway) Má went to the social welfare office with a baby on her arm and a bunch of kids following her and complained through an interpreter to no avail. Ba, who had never had to ask anyone for money before, begged the municipality for help. He was eventually granted a loan. With 5,000 kroner in his pocket, he went to a shop and bought appliances all by himself. Bringing something like that into his home was perhaps the only positive thing that happened behind the four walls of the white house. Ba was sent to a leather factory and Má to a primary school to work. Every day, Ba put on a mask, plunged his hands into chemical substances and tanned animal skins and decay. He sprayed, brushed and peeled off dead skin. Má dragged the mop behind her through the many corridors, washed floors and toilets, cried and cleaned up after others. It was fortunate for her that she got pregnant with my little brother so she could quit her job. Ba took a second job in a grocery store, and Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister, who were 14 and 15 at the time, carried the newspaper and accepted every odd job they could find to supplement their income. Má stayed at home with the youngest children. Ba was unhappy, Má was unhappy. We were all unhappy.
The yellow house I was five years old when we moved to Moss. My parents had gotten jobs at the lock factory TrioVing. None of the employees showed any interest or were welcoming, so Ba and Má strategically joined an existing community of Vietnamese who all punched the clock in the midst of Norwegian alienation. The Norwegians never managed, never even tried, to pronounce Ba's name correctly. Instead, they called him Birger. Ba became Birger, the slant eyed Birger of the lockbox department. On a fixed income, my parents borrowed money from the bank to buy a terraced house. Our own house with roof, floor, walls, windows, doors, frames, corners, everything belonged to us. The new home was 125 square meters and consisted of three floors and four bedrooms. My parents had a bedroom on the top floor, where Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister also had their own room, since they were the oldest. The rest of the children shared the living room downstairs: wall-to-wall carpeting, three bunk beds against one wall, another on the opposite side. On the free walls were desks in a row and a large wardrobe. The kitchen was also on the same floor, with a round dining table at the end of the room, and a stack of brown imitation leather stools against the wall, which were placed around the table when it was time to eat. The basement floor consisted of a living room the same size as the living room above, a bathroom, washroom and pantry. The living room downstairs was also covered with wall-towall carpet, with heavy brown leather furniture around a square table and a towering, beigepainted brick fireplace along the wall that we used as an altar. On the mantelpiece, all in a row: black and white pictures of our ancestors, a porcelain female buddha, a prayer pendant, red candlesticks, incense sticks stuck into small rice bowls, dishes full of ripe fruit, dishes full of plastic fruit, knick-knacks. On the wall above the TV hung a two-meter-long clock Ba had made with a circular saw. The clock was a faithful copy of the map of Norway.
It was in that row home that I passed my many young years. Six, ten, fourteen, seventeen, I went from being a child to becoming a young woman. There my root anchored, there my tree grew. There were the apples my parents thought fell too far from the trunk, and the apple that had to be shared fraternally between several people because we couldn't afford our own. There were the worn woolen garments that were passed around, there were the loud noises and dark voices, there was the night, there was the day. There were the fights. There were the wounds. There were the real everyday lives: the life my family got when we tried our luck. There was the house I wanted to escape from.
The name One of the first gifts the Norwegians gave us when we came to Norway was Norwegian names. And as a thank you for living in this country, we embraced them and put them to use. My name was Kari. Q was called Anne. Brother C was called Per. We never questioned this gesture, names from Norwegian folk tales. My little brother, who was born on Norwegian soil, was given a Norwegian name by Ba and Má. Since my parents had so much respect for the authorities, Ba sent his eldest daughter to the police station to get a solid homegrown name for their newborn. She accomplished the mission with flying colors. The debt of gratitude to the new country was paid with a youngest son who carried an all-Norwegian name, a red, white and blue royal name: H. The rest of us carried our gifted names for several years without them being able to stick completely. Then we went back to our original ones. I was eight years old when I went to the school office and asked them to remove my Norwegian name from the school's computer system. N would no longer stand next to Kari. N would stand on its own.
If only they knew, these Norwegians with Norwegian names, where our family name really comes from: a gift from one of the last Mikados, a blessing from a great and powerful emperor to my great-great-great-grandfather. A recorded and predetermined series of 18 names, each of which was to be used as a middle name for children from the same generation. That way you could see the connection they had to each other. Our names were anointed by the emperor himself.