The windows were peeled to the smell of exhaust and spices. I
shivered and pulled on my jacket, careful of my bandage-swathed arm. Outside,
pedestrians outpaced us, then the train picked up speed and Hanoi’s slums
dissolved into glimmering paddies. I looked at the passengers around me: an
elderly woman chewing peanuts, a man and his sleeping son, then a
twenty-something-year-old woman who said, “Hello. Where you from?”
“Canada,” I said. “Where are you from?”
She laughed. “Vietnam!” She told me her name was Phuong and
that she taught French in Hanoi. I asked her where she was going and she said,
“To home village for wedding.”
“Are you getting married?”
“My cousin get married. Where are you going?”
“Ninh Binh.”
“Then you come with me.”
“To Ninh Binh?”
“To wedding.”
“In Ninh Binh?”
“Near Ninh Binh.”
I studied her face, tried to read her intentions. Phuong’s
eyes looked sincere, so I said, “Great. I’ll come."
An hour later, we reached Ninh Binh where limestone karsts
tower stark and grey over rice paddies, their summits a tangle of verdancy. We
hired motorbikes and drove through the crumbling town, past farms, then onto a
dirt road. We arrived at a cluster of low pastel houses and dismounted. Phuong said,
“Follow me.”
We entered a courtyard shaded by the overhanging limbs of papaya,
banana, and mango trees. Inside, a mangy dog slept on a blue-tiled floor,
surrounded by the house’s only furniture: two beds, a table, and an altar
cluttered with Buddhas and photographs. Phuong pointed to one of the beds and
said, “You sleep there with grandfather.”
“With grandfather?”
“Yes. Grandmother sleep there.” She pointed to the other bed.
I offered to sleep on the floor and Phuong looked offended, so
I said, “Never mind. I’ll sleep with grandfather.”
Just then, a stooped man in faded olive drabs entered. We
bowed, shook hands, and smiled. While Phuong told him about me, I took off my
jacket, and like lightening, a dozen flies found my bandaged arm. The old man
spoke and Phuong said, “He ask what happen.”
“Motorbike accident,” I said. “I crashed into a waterfall.”
Phuong translated and her grandfather looked at me like I was
a fool. Clucking his tongue, he pulled a trunk from under his bed and began
rummaging.
“My grandfather fought the French,” Phuong explained. “He was
captured, tortured; they broke his knees with bottles.”
The old man straightened, and I have to admit, when he came at
me with a tattered Vietnamese flag and a rusty machete, I felt afraid. Then, he
put a corner of the flag in his mouth, held another in his left hand, and with
the machete, he cut away a long strip of red cloth. He dropped the machete and
fixed me with his cataract-clouded eyes. Smiling, he tied the cloth around my
wounded arm and spoke.
Phuong translated: “France, America, Canada, Vietnam—there is
no difference. Grandfather says we are all good friends now.”
