Fire Summer. Thuy Da Lam
to the floating market. Beyond, small thatched-roof sampans were anchored some distance apart. They were homes of those who made their living dredging silt from the delta’s riverbed. On a sampan where wisps of smoke rose, a young girl on her haunches cooked the family’s afternoon meal. When she stood up, the wind blew her sun-bleached clothes against her thin body and tousled her shoulder-length hair. She tilted into the wind like a carved figurehead guiding the sampan.
“During the war, we didn’t sing quan hò and fall in love in the field,” Xuan said. “We followed the Party’s three delays.”
If you don’t have a child, delay having one.
If you aren’t married, delay getting married.
If you aren’t in love, delay love. 3
“Did you?” Maia asked.
“The trail had just been bombed,” Xuan said, “so our unit spent the night at a way station. She was sixteen with eyes like longan seeds. She was scrubbing white cloths against a river boulder when we arrived. I offered her the sandalwood soap my mother had given me. She tossed me a marble stone from the river. I strung my hammock for her, but she said I needed the rest. The following night, she guided us through the jungle, white cloth flitting through the trees like fireflies.”
The loud popping noise of a tugboat’s engine signaled people to gather at the riverbank. They rolled up their pants legs and waded into the murky water with bundles of fruits and vegetables. A pickup truck with a mound of red dirt, an old sky blue Vanagon, motorcycles of various models, and rusty bicycles all jostled forward as the ramp lowered. Xuan pushed the Honda Dream onto the ferry, signaling her to keep close. They wedged themselves between a motorcycle with a brace of ducks tied by their feet from the handlebars and a bicycle with a basketful of rambutans on the rear rack. As the tugboat pulled the barge across the river, a cool breeze touched Maia’s cheeks. The breeze bore the smells of the Nine Dragons and the people around her. Their skin, eyes, and hair resembled hers. She was among her people, yet she felt a world away.
Nearby, a blind man strummed on a recycled aluminum guitar and sang “Nắng Chiều,” a prewar ballad of late afternoon light. A woman hawked bright fiery flowers, whose ethereal scent intermingled with the pungent living river. “Flowers from Sadec,” she called, weaving through the crowd and coming up to Xuan. “A yellow rose for the girl?”
Xuan bought a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, which the woman wrapped in a decade-old sheet of newspaper and then placed in the Honda Dream’s front basket.
“Flowers for the dead,” he murmured.
They ferried across the Mekong.
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