The Lotus and the Storm by Lan Cao Page B

Carried on this back alone is a mass of muscles, regal and arrogant.
    A back walk is an uncommonly effective form of massage. When I make my way up the plates of his back and press my heels against a stray knot, James lets out a long, low moan. Sometimes it is a painful grunt—“Ouch!”—which James tells us is what Americans say when they feel pain. My sister and I laugh. What a funny word, we both think. I wonder why people from different countries produce different sounds of hurt, when what comes out of our mouths when pain is inflicted is purely reflexive. Why would pain, universally felt, not have its own universal expression? When James asks us what the Vietnamese yell out when we are hurt, we teach him the word,
oui yaaah.
It is more open-mouthed, more emotional. “Oui yaaah,” he would mutter, and chuckle when I step on the knots along the length of his back.
    I practice my elementary English with him when I make my way up and down his back. “Where are you from?” I ask in as casual a tone as I can. We watch an array of American shows on the English language channel—
The Wild Wild West, The Beverly Hillbillies,
and
Combat!, Combat!
being our father’s favorite. I try to emulate the breezy American way of talking.
    Sometimes he answers in Vietnamese. “I am from New York.”
    â€œWhere in New York?” I ask, although my sister and I already know the answer. We are learning the rudiments of conversational English.
    â€œLong Island,” he says, making a motion with his hands to describe something long and narrow. Switching to English, he explains, “I grew up on a farm. Faaarm.”
    â€œMoo, moo. Oink, oink?” I say.
    â€œNo, no. Po-ta-toes. Long Island potatoes are famous.”
    Sometimes my sister and I sing a song about a boy who herds buffaloes that roam the green rice fields. Sometimes James tells us about a man named Old MacDonald who has a farm. We love the sound he makes. “Ee ai ee ai oh.” He points to the tip of Long Island, the southern fork, where the family farm is located. He points to the ocean he crossed to get to Vietnam. Ocean travel, even if it is by air, on a plane flying over an ocean far below, changes a person, James says. “If you ever travel across an ocean, you will see what I mean,” he says.
    We have never crossed an ocean. According to James, it makes some people crazy or afraid and others curious. He has become curious, longing to learn our cries, our language. James doesn’t speak our language fluently, by any means, but he does speak it enthusiastically. He has managed to make himself understood, in an elementary way, in our mother tongue. My sister considers it a most impressive feat. James has command of quite an inventory of practical, serviceable words. In addition, he has mastered our six tones, though not in the back-and-forth necessary for smooth conversation. In conversation, his Vietnamese becomes atonal. But in controlled moments of recitation, James enthralls us with his skill, unleashing the six tones of the word
ma,
which, depending on how it is uttered—with a level pitch, a steep rise, a soft curve or a sharp one, a slow fall, a deep drop—may mean
ghost, mother, graveyard, horse, but,
or
seedling
. When he finishes, he takes a bow and we applaud, especially when he makes a mistake.
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    One day I am home early. Our mother is at the table in the upstairs dining area with Uncle Number Two. He is not my uncle by blood, unlike Uncle Number Five. But as my father’s close friend, he is entitled to this honorific. We call him by a word that signifies not just a familial relationship to our father—a brother—but also an elevated status: our father’s elder brother.
    Our mother loves the foods of many countries but especially those of France. The pastries on the table are from the famous Givral bakery, consecrated by the hands of a