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hand, Thanh lashes at the food in the center of the long table, never failing to
pick up marinated sliced pork, slices of cucumber, clumps of rice, strands of
fried limp noodles, and she does so without excusing herself for crossing over
someone, or snatching a piece already in the grasps of another's chopsticks. Ly
Van sits there with her bowl of rice cupped in her palm, waiting to take after the
melee is over.
I ask, "When are we going back? I miss Dad. I miss home."
Mother and Ba Nguyen look at each other from across the table.
Mother opens her mouth wide to speak, but Ba Nguyen intervenes and says,
"Tomorrow. We go back tomorrow. We have two homes. It is only fair."
dark broth.
Thanh dips into the tureen and plucks an eyeball from beneath the
"
The noises Ba Nguyen and his mistresses make keep me up. Their
hands smooth over each other's skin, reshape bones, and arms and legs twine
like rope. Their disjointed hushed breaths fuse into hisses and finally there is
one breath rising and falling, one breath fills the room. In the dark, they start
off as three; they twine and become one swathed in sweat, saliva, semen, and
sheets.
I go to the kitchen for a glass of water. In the dimness of the kitchen
Mother is at the large chopping table, cleaver in hand. A child's clothes are on
the floor. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand
before turning the child onto his back and begins. Blood covers the whole table
and drips onto the floor, collecting in large pools. She sees me. Mother stares at
me for a long time while she tries to catch her breath.
"He always bothered me. He was a bad child," she explains.
She grips the boy's wrist, holds up his arm so that she can get a clean
swing at his elbow. She hacks at it several times before it gives. Still holding
the forearm by the wrist, she turns it over in her hand, observing the meat, the
blood. Tossing the forearm to the floor, Mother takes the stump at the elbow,
and chops at the boy's shoulder.
"
Home, and we share a bed again. The moonlight shines through my
bedroom window and the geckos are swollen from eating so much. Ba Nguyen
and I sit facing each other with our legs tucked underneath us, only he has his
hands on his knees to support the weight of his voice carrying him forward. I
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