noted a hint of a smile at the corner of Ross's mouth as the man from the INS went pink.
His main task was to show that faced with the lethal fanaticism of the Khmer Rouge any proven anti-Communist like his client would have been destined on capture to torture and death. Even the fact of being a head teacher with a college degree would have guaranteed execution.
What he had learned in the night was that Norman Ross had not always been Ross. His father had arrived around the turn of the century as Samuel Rosen, from a shtetl in modern Poland, fleeing the pogroms of the Tsar, then being carried out by the Cossacks.
"It is very easy, sir, to reject those who come with nothing, seeking not much but the chance of life. It is very easy to say no and walk away. It costs nothing to decree that these two Orientals have no place here and should go back to arrest, torture and the execution wall.
"But I ask you, supposing our fathers had done that, and their fathers before them, how many, back in the homeland-turned-blood bath, would have said: "I went to the land of the free, I asked for a chance of life, but they shut their doors and sent me back to die." How many, Mr. Ross? A million? Nearer ten. I ask you, not on a point of law, not as a triumph for clever lawyer semantics, but as a victory for what Shakespeare called the quality of mercy, to decree that in this huge country of ours there is room for one couple who have lost everything but life and ask only for a chance."
Norman Ross eyed him speculatively for several minutes. Then he tapped his pencil down on his desk like a gavel and pronounced.
"Deportation withheld. Next case."
The lady from Refugee Watch excitedly told the Moungs in French what had happened. She and her organization could handle procedures from that point. There would be administration. But no more need for advocacy. The Moungs could now remain in the United States under the protection of the government, and eventually a work permit, asylum and, in due course, naturalization would come through.
Dexter smiled at her and said she could go. Then he turned to Mr. Moung and said: "Now, let us go to the cafeteria and you can tell me who you really are and what you are doing here."
He spoke in Mr. Moung's native language. Vietnamese.
At a corner table in the basement cafe Dexter examined the Cambodian passports and ID documents.
"These have already been examined by some of the best experts in the West, and pronounced genuine. How did you get them?"
The refugee glanced at his tiny wife.
"She made them. She is of the Nghi."
There is a clan in Vietnam called Nghi, which for centuries supplied most of the scholars of the Hue region. Their particular skill, passed down the generations, was for exceptional calligraphy. They created court documents for their emperors.
With the coming of the modern age, and especially when the war against the French began in 1945, their absolute dedication to patience, detail and stunning draftsmanship meant the Nghi could transmute to some of the finest forgers in the world.
The tiny woman with the bottle-glasses had ruined her eyesight because for the duration of the Vietnam war, she had crouched in an underground workshop creating passes and identifications so perfect that Vietcong agents had passed effortlessly through every South Vietnamese city at will and had never been caught.
Cal Dexter handed the passports back.
"Like I said upstairs, who are you really, and why are you here?"
The wife quietly began to cry and her husband slid his hand over hers.
"My name," he said, 'is Nguyen Van Tran. I am here because after three years in a concentration camp in Vietnam, I escaped. That part at least is true."
"So why pretend to be Cambodian? America has accepted many South Vietnamese who fought with us in that war."
"Because I was a major in the Vietcong."
Dexter nodded slowly.
"That could be a problem," he admitted. "Tell me. Everything."
"I was born in 1930, in the deep
His main task was to show that faced with the lethal fanaticism of the Khmer Rouge any proven anti-Communist like his client would have been destined on capture to torture and death. Even the fact of being a head teacher with a college degree would have guaranteed execution.
What he had learned in the night was that Norman Ross had not always been Ross. His father had arrived around the turn of the century as Samuel Rosen, from a shtetl in modern Poland, fleeing the pogroms of the Tsar, then being carried out by the Cossacks.
"It is very easy, sir, to reject those who come with nothing, seeking not much but the chance of life. It is very easy to say no and walk away. It costs nothing to decree that these two Orientals have no place here and should go back to arrest, torture and the execution wall.
"But I ask you, supposing our fathers had done that, and their fathers before them, how many, back in the homeland-turned-blood bath, would have said: "I went to the land of the free, I asked for a chance of life, but they shut their doors and sent me back to die." How many, Mr. Ross? A million? Nearer ten. I ask you, not on a point of law, not as a triumph for clever lawyer semantics, but as a victory for what Shakespeare called the quality of mercy, to decree that in this huge country of ours there is room for one couple who have lost everything but life and ask only for a chance."
Norman Ross eyed him speculatively for several minutes. Then he tapped his pencil down on his desk like a gavel and pronounced.
"Deportation withheld. Next case."
The lady from Refugee Watch excitedly told the Moungs in French what had happened. She and her organization could handle procedures from that point. There would be administration. But no more need for advocacy. The Moungs could now remain in the United States under the protection of the government, and eventually a work permit, asylum and, in due course, naturalization would come through.
Dexter smiled at her and said she could go. Then he turned to Mr. Moung and said: "Now, let us go to the cafeteria and you can tell me who you really are and what you are doing here."
He spoke in Mr. Moung's native language. Vietnamese.
At a corner table in the basement cafe Dexter examined the Cambodian passports and ID documents.
"These have already been examined by some of the best experts in the West, and pronounced genuine. How did you get them?"
The refugee glanced at his tiny wife.
"She made them. She is of the Nghi."
There is a clan in Vietnam called Nghi, which for centuries supplied most of the scholars of the Hue region. Their particular skill, passed down the generations, was for exceptional calligraphy. They created court documents for their emperors.
With the coming of the modern age, and especially when the war against the French began in 1945, their absolute dedication to patience, detail and stunning draftsmanship meant the Nghi could transmute to some of the finest forgers in the world.
The tiny woman with the bottle-glasses had ruined her eyesight because for the duration of the Vietnam war, she had crouched in an underground workshop creating passes and identifications so perfect that Vietcong agents had passed effortlessly through every South Vietnamese city at will and had never been caught.
Cal Dexter handed the passports back.
"Like I said upstairs, who are you really, and why are you here?"
The wife quietly began to cry and her husband slid his hand over hers.
"My name," he said, 'is Nguyen Van Tran. I am here because after three years in a concentration camp in Vietnam, I escaped. That part at least is true."
"So why pretend to be Cambodian? America has accepted many South Vietnamese who fought with us in that war."
"Because I was a major in the Vietcong."
Dexter nodded slowly.
"That could be a problem," he admitted. "Tell me. Everything."
"I was born in 1930, in the deep
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