“Local men, like Eddie Vo?”
“Oh, yes. The young people are so easy to influence. So easy to manipulate.”
Frye considered. “What does Nha do for the resistance?”
“Many things, Chuck. Her English is nearly perfect and she is good with numbers. She helps me account for shipments, helps me deal with suppliers. At the university, she attempts to educate her peers.” Xuan sat down. “In my best dreams, I see her doing for our people what Li has done. A symbol of hope. She has the fierceness of the cause behind her. I did not indoctrinate her. It is her spirit. There are few of her kind among the younger people. They are our future.”
“Like Nguyen Hy?”
“Yes. His Committee to Free Vietnam is a good thing.”
“What about General Dien?”
Xuan shook his head slowly. “He is like a branch gone bad. He sucks nourishment from the soil and turns it into more disease. For years he collected money in the name of freedom, and little came of it. He is a wealthy man now. You can do the mathematics yourself.”
“Why hasn’t he been busted?”
“The people’s faith in him turned away over a long period. For a while, he was our apparent hope. The donations, the support? No one would accuse the general of being a thief. He made small advances for a short time. He always has a new plan about to be executed. The people cannot admit he is dishonest, it would demonstrate that they themselves are fools. The Vietnamese people are proud, Chuck. We will go to... unrealistic lengths sometimes, in order to save face. You should know that about us. The general is like your national debt. If we ignore Dien, our foolishness is not exposed. Slowly, people have seen that Nguyen Hy is the true expatriot leader. Support has gone to him. Now, only the very old still believe in Dien. But it is a fact, he is very powerful.”
“He did what he could to stop that kidnapping.”
Xuan nodded. “I am thankful for that. At heart, he is not evil, he is just greedy.”
“Why have you told me all this?”
Tuy Xuan looked at Frye, eyes magnified by his thick glasses. “Because you saved my life, and I want you to know what it is you saved. And because the more people who understand our struggle, the better. You are a fine young man. I am an old man with a bad leg. But to tell you about my tiny, insignificant battles does my heart good.”
“I never really knew that Benny and Li were involved in this. They never said one word about it to me.”
“And now you can see why. Things in our arena are dangerous, Chuck. They wanted nothing but to protect you. Bennett has two lives. In one, he is a businessman, a man of money and influence. But does he live in a great home? No. Does he wear expensive clothing or drive big cars? No. The other Bennett is a soldier and a patriot. Much of the costs of supplies, he bears himself. He will be angry, when he knows I’ve talked to you.” Xuan gave a little laugh, then placed his hand very lightly on Frye’s shoulder. “I believe that you should know. And Chuck, I know what it is to be... outside.”
“Outside of what?”
“Your family.”
“What makes you think I’m outside mine?”
Xuan folded his hands and smiled. “It is something that I see in your face. In the way you behave with your brother. In the way you looked at him at the Asian Wind and stood up to hug him. In the way you go to him and he does not go to you. You come from a powerful family, Chuck. But you are not among them. You are outside.” Xuan wiped his thick glasses again. “I mean no offense. I was outside my own family. I was considered too political. There came a time when I had to choose. I chose my country.”
And what is it that I’ve chosen, wondered Frye. A surf shop? A cave-house? A wife I couldn’t keep?
“No,” said Xuan. “You don’t have to choose. You are a country at peace. You are a generation of peace. Enjoy the fruits of that freedom.”
I’ve done some of that, Frye thought. Maybe too much. “Benny paid for it, I know.”
“Then make good with what he bought for you. Someday, I hope my people can say that. It will not be in my lifetime though. Peace and freedom are as far from Vietnam as the moon is from the earth.”
“We got to the moon, Xuan.”
Tuy Xuan smiled. “Yes, we did. What I’ve told you is for you, Chuck. Forgive my presumption about you and your family. Old men love the business of others, because their own is fading so fast.”
“If Thach’s men took Li, where are they now?”
“I think they are holding her. Where? Who can say? My guess is nowhere in little Saigon. We are a close community. We talk. I believe they are somewhere else.”
“Thank you, Xuan.”
“Shall we eat?”
Dinner was immense and unending. Frye took instruction on mixing the proper ingredients: easy on the fish sauce, use the greens to make your own soup, plenty of mint and cilantro and bean sprouts, stretch the rice paper just right and it will stick to itself and make a perfect roll. The rice cake was thick and sweet; Frye ate three helpings.
“Nha is a writer,” said Xuan. “She was very interested to talk to you about journalistic work.”
Nha explained that she was finishing her senior year at Cal State Fullerton, with a communications major. “I do enjoy the reporting,” she said. “But only when my heart is in the material. It’s difficult to care about football games.”
“Wait until you hit the rewrite desk on your first job,” Frye said. “You don’t know what boring is yet.”
“If I get a job I’ll be pleased,” she said. “It’s an overcrowded profession, I know.”
“Well, there’s one less reporter on the Ledger now,” he said. Nha and Xuan both blushed and looked away. “Anyway, it’s a good job. You’ll like it. You’ll learn to write fast and ask lots of questions. Think you have the personality for that, Nha?”
She smiled. Frye studied her creamy skin, the perfect red lips, her black hair tied with a white ribbon in a ponytail. “I can adjust. I’m very good at that.”
Xuan, fortified with wine, told of their escape from Vietnam, the long days on the boat, the near-starvation and final rescue by an Australian fishing crew. Frye watched the daughters glance anxiously among themselves, then lower their heads as Xuan mentioned the pirates who had attacked their leaking escape boat. “There were things too terrible to describe,” he said quietly, and that was that.
Nha excused herself and returned with an empty champagne bottle. She explained that while her family floated in the Pacific, nearly dead from thirst, they found this bottle floating past the ship. They’d prayed that it contained something drinkable. She shook a tiny scroll loose from inside and gave it to Frye. It said “To Whoever Finds This Note: We Hope You’re Having As Much Fun As We Are! Lance and Jennifer Gentry — Honeymooning in Hawaii — 6/82/.”
Xuan went on to say how they had arrived in California with no money, no work. Only a few friends and Li Frye were here to help them get started. Frye considered the nice house, the new dining room furniture and the lacquer paintings of Vietnam. A trade, he thought: your country for your life.
The girls all spoke English well; Xuan’s was fair, and Madame Tuy’s wasn’t good at all. They’ve come a long way, he thought: further than I’ll ever go. Xuan thanked him again for pulling him down at the Asian Wind, for saving his life. An exaggeration, thought Frye, but I’ll go with it. Dinner ended with a toast to him. It was Frye’s turn to look down, and he caught Nha’s steady gaze from the corner of his vision.
Something hit him as he sat there with this family, some glimpse of what his own was like when they were together, all those years ago. He wondered if they might be like this again, together without the swells of disappointment, without the unspoken battle lines, without the sharp memories of how it used to be and could never be again.