Chapter 17: Chapter 16 – Our Life in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

Mom and I live in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) situated in Saigon. Hoa's family also lives in the zone. Their house is in the middle-class section, and our house sits between a mansion and a high wall.

Most inhabitants of the DMZ work hard to make a living. Our neighbors often gather at the neighborhood communal area near the mimosa tree, and make mundane conversations that bore you to death, so boring that it makes you pretend to have an urgent business, and politely rush off to avoid participation.

Coming back from school, I try to make my way through my lively neighbors' gathering in front of my house. 

Mrs. Tiny puts out her hand to stop me, saying. "I caught five turtles today from shallow water at the bay. Turtle meat gives you a long life."

I push my way through the crowd to get to my house, saying, "I have a long life ahead of me, so I don't need to eat turtle. OK, maybe sixty years from now. But thank you anyway." 

Miss Loan holds a tray piled high with roasted locusts out to me, saying, "Hi, Mai. Try some roasted locusts. They have a nutty, buttery taste of avocado, hazelnut, and chocolate. They are high in protein and low in fat and contain nutrients that give you energy and make your hair shiny. You can't go until you've eaten at least one of these."

I stare at the locusts. They have a slick body with powdery wings, hairy legs, beady eyeballs, and antennas extending above the head of the insect. I'm hard-pressed to lower one into my mouth by an antenna, keeping my eyes closed. I chew the locust one time and hold it in my mouth.

"It's so good, isn't it? You can eat another one for sure!" She says.

"No more, thank you," I say, ducking under her tray and running into my house. I spit the locust into the kitchen sink.

My neighbors scour the land for the furniture or TVs they need. I'm not interested in spending time looking for discarded items. But I've heard that some people have made interesting finds while scouring the land.  So I ask Hoa to go scouring the land with me, to see what interesting things we can find.

As we scour the woods in the DMZ, I find a rumpled army parachute stiff with dirt. I soak the parachute in a stream, spreading it out in the water, and scrub it clean of dirt with a rock. I wrap the washed parachute over a horizontal tree branch to dry.

Hoa says, "Look at what I found. An army combat helmet, with a POW and MIA Dog Tag with a chain, tucked inside the helmet. Do you want to keep them, Mai?"

I say, "Wow, a POW and MIA Dog Tag with the words 'Never Forgotten' engraved on it. I'll turn it over to the American Ambassador."

At home, I fold the dried parachute in half and sew it to make it into a big bag. Then I stuff remnant fabric pieces into it and sew the seam opening closed, to make a mattress. I lay the new mattress directly on top of my flimsy one, and my bed is bouncy.

The power in the DMZ is shut off at 9 p.m. Tonight is the "Food Night for the Dead," a ceremony when people offer food to their dear departed family members or relatives. 

My neighborhood kids hang out at the ceremony sites where the foods are placed, to steal and eat. I would never eat ghost-infested foods because ghosts are all air, and I don't want air to waft up and down my stomach.

On this special event "Food Night for the Dead" tonight, I stay in and read. I don't want to use the baby Suns for reading light, because my loitering neighborhood kids would want to find out where to get the glowing rocks and follow me to my bathing haunt. I decide to use the light from fireflies.

I catch fireflies and put them in a glass jar, which has a lid with nail-punched holes in it. When I hear a firefly ticking and see its light flashing among grass blades, I cup my hand over the firefly, and then reach the thumb and forefinger of my other hand through the cupped hand, and gently pinch the tail of the firefly. I put the fireflies in the jar, throwing in some green grass blades for them to munch on.

It's eerie to read ghost stories with the flickering light from the fireflies. There's an abandoned haunted house in the woods behind our house. As I read, I hear the ghosts' panic moaning running from the haunted house to the ground under my bed.

On this humid night, Mom and I like to watch the bright stars from our backyard. I stop reading and sweep the floor of the backyard clean so that we can lie down on it to watch the stars.

On the other side of the high wall, a pool shaded by mangosteen fruit trees is a breeding ground for mosquitoes. They lay eggs that hatch into larvae, which grow to become mosquitoes. I crush lemon leaves and fruits together and make an effective natural mosquito repellent.

Mom and I rub the repellent on each other. Smelling like lemon trees, we lie down on the floor and watch the bright stars in the dark sky.

Gazing at the glowing stars, I associate which star I was born under, which star for Dad, and which for Mom. Whether my star is lucky or unlucky, I cannot decide. I consider maybe it is lucky because Mom and I live together.

"Mom, tell me more about Grandma and Grandpa," I say.

Mom says in a choking voice, "Grandma and Grandpa were merchants. Grandma was fond of diamonds and had many of them, some as large as five carats. They owned a merchant ship sailing in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. On each trading run, the ship carried imported gourmet foods and liquors.

"South Korean Army and American Army units frequently carried out joint training exercises along the usual sailing course of Grandpa's ship. The North Korean Army had been threatening to fire bombs on them.

"Grandpa's sailors worried that his ship could not withstand North Korea's bombing. But Grandpa assured them that his ship could beat the system because it was bomb-proofed with sturdy materials made in the USA."

"Oh, no! Grandpa was too optimistic," I say.

Mom says, "When the ship moved across the sea channels of the North Korean Peninsula, a sea mine exploded. Grandpa and his men went down with the ship into the ocean."

I sob. "Then what happened to Grandma?"

Mom says, "On the day the bad news came, Grandma said to me, 'Thu, the VCs will come and steal our property. I have an idea to hide our property title and my jewelry inside camouflaged rocks.'

"How come the VCs had so much control of the district where my grandparents and you lived?" I say.

Mom says, "My parents and I lived in the Ben Suc village, near the DMZ. The VCs launched a major surprise attack on the American and Vietnamese soldiers maintaining an outpost in Ben Suc, on a day that the VCs called for a cease-fire, causing the American and Vietnamese soldiers to flee to the DMZ.

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"The VCs had kidnapped the village chief of Ben Suc, set up a full governing apparatus of their own in Ben Suc, and turned it into a strategic village for the VCs. In the first months after taking over Ben Suc, the VCs called several village-wide meetings. Every village's inhabitants were ordered to attend all the meetings.

"In the meetings, the VCs leaders usually opened with glowing praise for the good job the VCs did defeat the Americans and Vietnamese soldiers, emphasizing, in particular, the disabling of tanks and the downing of helicopters. Then the VCs leaders followed up their praise with impassioned speeches calling on the village people to work together with the VCs in order to totally regain freedom from the Americans."

I say, "So how were the rocks camouflaged to hide the property title and the jewelry?"

Mom says, "We collected rocks in the swampy creek on our land. I hollowed out the rocks, and Grandma put the jewelry and property title inside the rocks. She coated the rocks with a slimy-looking, brown-green paint, to make them look rusted and mossy. We buried the stuffed rocks among the protruding rotten roots of a bare tree at the edge of the creek."

I say, "So the VCs have been staying in your mansion without getting the property title?"

Mom says, "Three days after we had hidden the property title and the jewelry, The VCs came. I was outside the house and heard a voice say, 'You must hand over everything you own to our VC organization. Where's your property title?'

"Grandma said to them, 'I don't know where my husband put it.'

"Then A VC said, 'Take her away for interrogation.'"

I say, "Oh, poor Grandma. Where were you when the VCs were questioning Grandma?"

Mom says, "I was out at our backyard fence, chatting to a neighbor boy. I wanted to come to Grandma, but the boy held me back and said the VCs would take me away too if I came into the house. The next day, more bad news came from the VCs that Grandma had drowned while swimming across a canal to escape."

I sniff, brushing tears off my eyes, saying, "VCs stop taking my family away from me, already the first grandpa then grandma, then next my…"  I trail off, not wanting to imagine what might happen next. "But then the VCs might be lying. Grandma might not have drowned."

Mom sniffs. "Who knows? The VCs would do anything."

"How old were you when this happened?" I say.

"I was eighteen."

I say, "The VCs missed the hidden treasure. Grandma's jewelry was worth a lot of money. Why didn't you use the jewelry to buy a big modern house?"

Mom says, "The VCs walked around each room in the house with metal detectors, to search for gold. They made me stay in the same room where they were searching, giving me almost no food or drink for the entire time. Three VCs stood watching my eyes for my reactions each time a detector beeped."

"And after that, they confiscated the property?" I say.

"The VCs have been staying in the mansion since then."

"Where did you get the money to buy this house?" I say.

"I used the cash that my Grandparents left in the bank."

"Mom, why do you like to eat tamarinds so much?" I say.

Mom says, "Although they are only elongated pods with a woody shell, they contain edible brown pulp that tastes sweet and sour, and is full of vitamin C and antioxidants. Besides, they remind me of your dad."

Mom is beautiful and the best at crafts. She is also a bit fragile and absent-minded, and I think it is because Dad is not here.

"How did you meet Dad?"

Mom says, "The American Embassy in Saigon was hosting a Spring Fling party. I was walking on the beautiful cobblestone walkway in front of the embassy and stopped when I saw plump tamarind pods swaying on the tree by the embassy's fence.

"A voice said, 'Do you want me to pick some tamarinds for you?'

"I turned around. A gallant American Army Officer stood leaning against his jeep, looking handsome in the soft sunlight. I nodded."

I say, "So you got married to him just because he picked tamarinds for you. (Just kidding!) And how did Dad go missing?"

Mom says, "He often went on missions, and always came back. But he disappeared under suspicious circumstances when you were only a month old."

Now I'm sixteen. I'm desperate to know what Dad looked like and sounded like. Sometimes I ask Mom to draw a picture of him. I like to lie on my stomach, with my legs bent up at the knee, and draw Dad. I think I can remember Dad a bit, but I may be confusing my dreams with real memories. People say you can't remember things when you're that little.

I always think about the tragedy that befell my grandparents. I wonder how different our lives might have been if my grandparents were still alive. I can't help but imagine all those riches dispersed in the water, wealth evaporated in an instant, and Mom being thrown into rough circumstances. I work hard to help Mom out.

Lying on the hard floor, I think of money-making ideas in disjointed sequence, and what money can buy. I fall asleep before getting to my homework.

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