Quan Barry - She Weeps Each Time You're Born

All week Son’s mother Phuong had been telling their neighbors that his sister was getting married. Son didn’t know if Sang knew the truth or not. Dr. Kao said it would look less suspicious this way, the men and women traveling separately. Just try to relax, the doctor said, as the group of men walked through the festival. One of the sun-dark men tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. All the same the doctor patted him on the back.

People were gathering along the riverfront. There was talk of fireworks, but nobody believed it. The government couldn’t even protect its citizens. The year before just one province west, in An Giang, the Khmer Rouge had crossed the Cambodian border, killing more than three thousand Vietnamese in a single night. The night it happened, Rabbit lay burning with fever on the floor of the floating house, her small arms cradling her head, her hands frantically rubbing her ears. In the border city of Ba Chuc there had been only two survivors.

The sky was ablaze with the Autumn Moon, the brightest moon of the year. The doctor had conceded there would be a lot of light. It’s a risk, he’d said, but we don’t have enough money for more than two bribes. They were counting on guards stationed around the city to leave their posts, the whole world drunk on rice wine. None of the adults had told the children what they were planning. For the past two weeks the men talked of Malaysia and Hong Kong. There was always a series of numbers in the air, the discussion dragging on into the early hours of the morning. Weight. How many days. Fuel. Water. Everything that could be planned was planned. The doctor anticipated the worst but knew, if it came, it would be like nothing they could imagine. Son could tell his uncle Hai didn’t like the doctor and that the feeling was mutual, but for now they needed each other.

Tonight as they walked the streets, the doctor was dressed like everyone else. There was a hole in the knee of his pants, and for the first time his wrist was without its watch. All over the south, professionals like Dr. Kao had been replaced by northerners with little or no training. Ever since reunification, southerners were being pushed out of their jobs and forced to eke out a living on the streets. In the moonlight, Dr. Kao looked just as ragged as the rest of them.

The men who didn’t speak Vietnamese were careful not to talk. Son wondered what would happen if people realized they were Cambodian. At one point one of the Cambodians bumped into a woman carrying a baby. The woman stopped and demanded an apology. The man acted as if he were drunk and stumbled on without saying anything.

Under an archway festooned with lanterns the Cambodian with only one sleeve bumped his head. He slapped himself on the cheek and laughed. There was something childish about him. Walking the festival streets he genuinely seemed to have lost all his cares. Son kept his eye on the man. They had already lost him twice in the crowds as he’d stopped to gawk at various vendors. Mooncakes and exotic fruits. Black-market items openly displayed. American toothpaste. Potatoes. Sesame oil from Thailand. White silk gloves that ran all the way up a woman’s arm.

The man with one sleeve stopped again. Son squeezed his father’s hand and nodded to where the man was standing peering at a collection of jars. The seller was squatting in front of some newspaper she’d laid on the ground. When the man stopped to look, she reached deep in a sack and began rooting around in it, pulling out a live snake, in the sticky evening air its body twisting on itself like an amulet. The woman held it up by squeezing the sides of its head, the trap of its jaws sprung wide, its teeth tiny and mouse-like. She held it out for approval, and the man with one sleeve ran his finger over its cool length, its skin patterned and dark. People were starting to stop and stare. They seemed unsure of what to make of a grown man stroking the underbelly of some common snake, then clapping his hands together, delighted.

In a loud voice the woman launched into her patter. Look at you. A stiff wind would carry you away. The man didn’t blink. Quickly Dr. Kao came forward and handed the woman a few bills. Cam on , she said, taking a rusty knife out of the waistband of her pants and laying the thing down in the street, all the while pinching its head, its tongue flitting like a ribbon. Even after she’d hacked through the throat, the tongue still flickered in and out, eyes glassy and black. At the first sign of blood, the man with one sleeve covered his eyes. Son could see his bottom lip quivering.

The woman kicked the head into the gutter and made an incision down the length of the body, the snake still wriggling. A small crowd had gathered to watch. With her fingers the woman dug in the stringy wet meat, then pulled out a glistening sac the size of a pea and motioned for Dr. Kao to pour himself a glass from one of the jars where dead snakes were kept preserved in a clear rice wine, the snakes bleached and curled tight, eyes pale as marbles. Then slowly, as if squeezing a boil, the woman milked something green and inky into the doctor’s plastic cup, each drop falling like a tear. When she was finished, she dropped in the crushed sac.

Dr. Kao touched his elbow with his free hand in the traditional way. Một, hai, ba, DÔ! someone shouted. Một, hai, ba, DÔ! the doctor said, and downed it, his face smooth as if he were drinking water. When he lowered the cup, the gall bladder was gone.

The woman twisted her fingers inside the snake and snapped out another organ. She dropped it in a second cup, which she herself filled, the wine turning a dull pink. The moon was just beginning to rise over the cityscape. The woman offered the glass to Son’s father. Một, hai, ba, DÔ! the crowd shouted. In the silver light An’s blue eye looked cloudy. He seemed as if he might faint. The chanting grew louder.

Son snatched the cup out of his father’s hands. On his face the deep scratch throbbed from the night out at the Dragon’s Head. He closed his eyes and threw his head back. The thing hit his teeth but he didn’t gag. He rolled the heart around in his mouth. It tasted like a hot coin. Son thought of the place where his father and all the other men had come from. That first night in Rabbit’s house the men’s stories of fields lined with skulls with the flesh still on them. He swallowed as hard as he could, the heart beating all the way down. The crowd roared.

Son lowered the cup. The bleached moon hung in the sky. The man with the bloody diamond on his face patted him on the back. Son still couldn’t believe the man was Rabbit’s father, that someone like Rabbit even had a ba . He wondered about the places his father and Tu had been, his father who they had all assumed was dead. Tu took the cup from Son and handed it back to the woman. He put an arm around him, and together they moved through the crowd.

Qui rowed the three of them up to the floating house in the last rays of the sun. Downriver a heron skulked in the tall grass by the water’s edge. The second boat was full of their possessions. They would all ride together in the first and pull the second one behind. Son’s sister Sang was standing on the front porch, her heavily made-up face a soft pink, skin coated as if with frosting. From her seat in the boat, Rabbit thought Sang looked as if she were posing for a portrait, her black hair piled high, lips the same blood-red as her dress.

Phuong hurried out the door carrying one last sack. It made a strange rattling sound as she walked. Her face was smudged with what looked like ashes. Child, she said to Sang. Take this. In the fading light Phuong held the sack out to her daughter. Sang stamped her bare foot. It made a damp squishy sound. Mother! she said. She hated it when Phuong used the word meant for children. Sang was fifteen years old. She was old enough to have a baby. She knew how it was done.