Kim Thuy - Mãn

ngã

falling

AT THE END OF THAT STAY, I cried for six hours in the horrible airplane cutting me off from him, from us, from me. I had lost my footing three times during the journey between airport and home … a step too high, a door too small, a word too long. Luckily, I arrived in the usual hubbub of every day: homework, dance class, hockey practice, restaurant. Life caught me when I fell and Luc’s letter on the desk in the workshop helped me regain my equilibrium. In the envelope, one sentence: “You have arrived,” written inside a pencil tracing of his left hand. He had sent it the day after I arrived in Paris, hoping it would cushion my landing in Montreal.

Over the next days and weeks, he sent me photos: of the street where he’d stopped to help an old lady lift her grocery bag off the sidewalk; of a newly installed doorknob; of a café table outside a refinery bordered by poppies in the background. We had tried to be ubiquitous by fitting our worlds together and moving the continents. We drew up scenarios for preventing the tornado that was engulfing us from ravaging the land and destroying the nests that we’d built, twig by twig, over nearly two decades.

sinh nhật

birthday

ON MY BIRTHDAY, a date Maman had chosen at random in the office where birth certificates were issued, Luc gave me a gift of twenty-four hours. He came to join me in Quebec City, where I was giving a culinary workshop. We spent the night measuring again and again his long femur against mine; counting the number of kisses it took to cover my body compared with his; and, above all, making fun of my impatience for his arrival. I had burst out of my hiding place behind the dressing gown hanging in the bathroom as soon as I heard the click of the door. Without a run-up, I flew into his arms.

Julie once took me to a class where one of the exercises consisted of climbing a ladder and falling backwards, to be caught in the arms of the other members of the group. I’d tried several times, in vain. If I were to do it again now, I would lean back eyes closed, with the same heedlessness that had allowed my body to collapse against Luc’s.

I am still angry with myself for having dozed off several times during that night, as if a life together were already established before us, entire and possible. I think Luc spent a sleepless night, because every time I half-opened my eyes, my gaze was met by his, waiting for it with the tenderness of certainty. At dawn, we went outside to smell the dew and the aroma of carrot muffins, my favourites except for the tarte Bourdaloue with pears and pistachios that we’d sampled together on the steps of St. Eustache church in Paris.

He left again the following afternoon, asking me to sew one of my hairs into the weave of his jacket and another into the bottom of the right-hand pocket of his jeans. On the station platform, he wrote on my palm that he promised to love the cold and the whiteness of sheets that mattered so much to me. And then, with no warning, he got down from the train to announce that he would take a taxi to give us half an hour more, and also to plan my return to France in response to an invitation from two restaurant owners in the countryside.

ruồi son

birthmarks

THAT VISIT AND THEN two more gave me time to kiss and baptize each of Luc’s beauty marks with the name of a place where we would exist without wounding any family or friends, our first raisons d’être. I counted each of those ruby spots as attentively and proudly as most Vietnamese, who conferred on them the role of good luck charms and saw them as precious because they were so rare on dark skin. I showed him the yellow colour of my palm and he talked to me about the grain , or texture, of my imberbe , or smooth-cheeked, skin, two words Luc had added to my vocabulary by placing them next to dependence and gluttony , old terms that had been given a whole new meaning.

va-li

suitcase

THE LAST TIME WE SAW each other in Paris, when we were hastily closing my suitcase, Luc asked: “If I showed up at your door next week, what would you say?” Instinctively, without even taking the time to stop what I was doing, I replied with one word, “Disaster,” kissing him. It was a real question and I hadn’t understood it.

đinh

nail

I DIDN’T KNOW THAT a lot of tears had flowed at his house, that unspeakable words had been flung and wounds inflicted. When I finally grasped the scope of his question and the impact of my reply, it was already too late. The final nail had been driven into the lid of my coffin when his wife, without reproaching me, announced her intention on the phone: “I’m staying. Do you understand? I am staying.”

I received that declaration when I was preparing red snappers to be steamed with ten condiments ( cá chưng ) for a wedding anniversary party. On the work table, vermicelli, cat’s ear mushrooms, shiitakes, soya beans in brine, minced pork, finely grated strands of carrot and ginger, sliced peppers: everything was ready but the lilies. I knotted them one by one so the petals wouldn’t come undone while they were being cooked. That repetitive act allowed me to hear in my head Luc’s voice whispering sentimental songs without anyone being aware. I was absolutely not expecting that call from his wife, which petrified me. I remember seeing my hands continue to remove the pistils from the flowers, to garnish the fish and place them in the enormous bain-marie with the big holes, but I’ve forgotten the rest, what came next.

xé lòng

heartbreak

MAMAN HAD BEEN EDUCATED by Catholic nuns all through her childhood. She knew a lot of stories from the Bible that she would tell me to back up a message or a lesson. That night, I took charge of cleaning and closing the kitchen. She stayed with me and slipped in the story of the Judgment of Solomon before disappearing up the stairs.

I washed the kitchen floor on my knees, holding a scrub brush and weeping profusely. I sharpened the knives on the whetstone. I went out back with a flashlight and removed the wilted flowers and dead leaves from the garden. And most important, I held my breath — to cut myself in half, to amputate Luc from me, to die partially. Otherwise, he would die entirely, torn in two, in seven, in shreds, making his children into collateral injured.

thu

autumn

MY SAFE HAVEN LAY IN cooking elaborate, time-consuming dishes. Julie supported me in these extravagant projects by lightening my schedule and cutting down on my usual tasks without my knowledge. For Tết, the Vietnamese New Year, I spent nights at a time boning chickens without tearing the skin, then stuffing and sewing them up. I also gave the local Buddhist temple a large plant covered with mandarin oranges hung one by one on the branches. Each fruit had a wish wrapped around its stem, intended for the one who would pick it on the stroke of midnight. For the Moon Festival in August, I made bánh trung thu , mid-autumn moon cakes that the Vietnamese savour while they watch the children walking down the street with their red lanterns lit by candles. The fillings vary according to taste and the time we spend on them.