Viet Nguyen - The Sympathizer

The train ride through our cities and towns great and small continued, but I had gotten off at Ban Me Thuot, my hometown, hill town, town of red earth, Highland country of the finest coffee beans, land of booming waterfalls, of exasperated elephants, of the half-starved Gia Rai in their loincloths, barefoot and bare breasted, land where my mother and father died, land where my umbilical cord was buried in my mother’s meager plot, land where the heroic People’s Army struck first in its liberation of the south during the great campaign of ’75, land that was my home.

That is my American Dream, said the Poet, that no matter the clothes I wear or the food I eat or the language I speak, my heart will be unchanged. This is why we gather here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Though we cannot be home in reality, we can return in Fantasia .

The audience applauded sincerely and enthusiastically for our diasporic poet laureate, but he was a wise man who knew that we were gathered here for another purpose besides hearing him. Ladies and gentlemen, he said, raising his hand to still the crowd, may I present to you another American Dream, our very own Vietnamese fantasy. .

Now known by just one name, like John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Mary, she stepped onstage clad in a red velvet bustier, a leopard-print miniskirt, black lace gloves, and thigh-high leather boots with stiletto heels. My heart would have paused at the boots, the heels, or the flat, smooth slice of her belly, naked in between miniskirt and bustier, but the combination of all three arrested my heart altogether and beat it with the vigor of a Los Angeles police squad. Pouring cognac over my heart freed it, but thus drenched it was easily flambéed by her torch song. She turned on the heat with her first number, the unexpected “I’d Love You to Want Me,” which I had heard before sung only by men. “I’d Love You to Want Me” was the theme song of the bachelors and unhappily married males of my generation, whether in the English original or the equally superb French and Vietnamese renditions. What the song expressed so perfectly from lyric to melody was unrequited love, and we men of the south loved nothing more than unrequited love, cracked hearts our primary weakness after cigarettes, coffee, and cognac.

Listening to her sing, all I wanted was to immolate myself in a night with her to remember forever and ever. Every man in the room shared my emotion as we watched her do no more than sway at the microphone, her voice enough to move the audience, or rather to still us. Nobody talked and nobody stirred except to raise a cigarette or a glass, an utter concentration not broken for her next, slightly more upbeat number, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” Nancy Sinatra sang it first, but she was merely a platinum princess whose only knowledge of violence and guns was derived secondhand from the mob friends of her father, Frank. Lana, in contrast, had grown up in a city where gangsters were once so powerful the army fought them in the streets. Saigon was a metropolis where grenade attacks were commonplace, terror bombings not unexpected, and wholesale invasion by the Viet Cong a communal experience. What did Nancy Sinatra know when she sang bang bang ? To her, those were bubble-gum pop lyrics. Bang bang was the sound track of our lives.

Moreover, Nancy Sinatra was afflicted, as the overwhelming majority of Americans were, with monolingualism. Lana’s richer, more textured version of “Bang Bang” layered English with French and Vietnamese. Bang bang, je ne l’oublierai pas went the last line of the French version, which was echoed by Pham Duy’s Vietnamese version, We will never forget . In the pantheon of classic pop songs from Saigon, this tricolor rendition was one of the most memorable, masterfully weaving together love and violence in the enigmatic story of two lovers who, regardless of having known each other since childhood, or because of knowing each other since childhood, shoot each other down. Bang bang was the sound of memory’s pistol firing into our heads, for we could not forget love, we could not forget war, we could not forget lovers, we could not forget enemies, we could not forget home, and we could not forget Saigon. We could not forget the caramel flavor of iced coffee with coarse sugar; the bowls of noodle soup eaten while squatting on the sidewalk; the strumming of a friend’s guitar while we swayed on hammocks under coconut trees; the football matches played barefoot and shirtless in alleys, squares, parks, and meadows; the pearl chokers of morning mist draped around the mountains; the labial moistness of oysters shucked on a gritty beach; the whisper of a dewy lover saying the most seductive words in our language, anh oi ; the rattle of rice being threshed; the workingmen who slept in their cyclos on the streets, kept warm only by the memories of their families; the refugees who slept on every sidewalk of every city; the slow burning of patient mosquito coils; the sweetness and firmness of a mango plucked fresh from its tree; the girls who refused to talk to us and who we only pined for more; the men who had died or disappeared; the streets and homes blown away by bombshells; the streams where we swam naked and laughing; the secret grove where we spied on the nymphs who bathed and splashed with the innocence of the birds; the shadows cast by candlelight on the walls of wattled huts; the atonal tinkle of cowbells on mud roads and country paths; the barking of a hungry dog in an abandoned village; the appetizing reek of the fresh durian one wept to eat; the sight and sound of orphans howling by the dead bodies of their mothers and fathers; the stickiness of one’s shirt by afternoon, the stickiness of one’s lover by the end of lovemaking, the stickiness of our situations; the frantic squealing of pigs running for their lives as villagers gave chase; the hills afire with sunset; the crowned head of dawn rising from the sheets of the sea; the hot grasp of our mother’s hand; and while the list could go on and on and on, the point was simply this: the most important thing we could never forget was that we could never forget.

When Lana was finished, the audience clapped, whistled, and stomped, but I sat silent and stunned as she bowed and gracefully withdrew, so disarmed I could not even applaud. As the Poet introduced the next performer, all I heard was bang bang , and when Lana returned to the table reserved for the performers, with the seat next to her left empty by the singer who had replaced her, I told Bon I would be back in ten minutes. I heard him say, Don’t do it, you stupid bastard, but without further thought I began my walk across the lounge. The hardest thing to do in talking to a woman was taking the first step, but the most important thing to do was not to think. Not thinking is more difficult than it sounds, and yet, with women, one should never think. Never. It simply won’t do. The first few times in approaching girls, during my lycée years, I had thought too much, hesitated, and, as a result, flailed and failed. But even so, I discovered that all the childhood bullying directed at me had toughened me, making me believe that being rejected was better than not having the chance to be rejected at all. Thus it was that I approached girls, and now women, with such Zen negation of all doubt and fear the Buddha would approve. Sitting down next to Lana and thinking of nothing, I merely followed my instincts and my first three principles in talking to a woman: do not ask permission; do not say hello; and do not let her speak first.

I had no idea you could sing like you do when I first met you, I said. She looked at me with eyes that evoked those on ancient Grecian statues, empty and yet expressive. Why would you? I was only sixteen.