Anguli Ma Read online

  Chi Vu

  Anguli Ma A Gothic Tale

  Chi Vu

  Anguli Ma A Gothic Tale

  GIRAMONDO

  First published 2012

  from the Writing & Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney by the Giramondo Publishing Company

  PO Box 752

  Artarmon NSW 1570 Australia

  www.giramondopublishing.com

  © Chi Vu 2012

  Designed by Harry Williamson

  Typeset by Andrew Davies

  in 10/14.5 pt Minion Pro

  Printed and bound by Ligare Book Printers

  Distributed in Australia by NewSouth Books

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Vu, Chi.

  Anguli ma : a gothic tale / Chi Vu

  ISBN 978-1-920882-87-7 (pbk.)

  ePDF 978-1-922146-73-1

  epub 978-1-922146-74-8

  A823.4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

  For James

  The truly present moment has no connection whatever with the past or the future – it is independent of what has gone before or what will follow – it is a different dimension to the flowing of time.

  V.R. DHIRAVAMSA, The Way of Non-Attachment

  It is on disaster that good fortune perches.

  It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches.

  LAO TZU, Tao Te Ching

  The Monk

  His fingers are arranged into beautiful mudras. He lowers his eyelids and returns to the breath, and sinks into the perceptual world. The she-oaks and river red gums have within them light from the sun and nutrients from the soil. These are transformed into mottled bark, sinewy trunks and slender limbs, and roots like long black hair digging into the earth.

  In the sunlight, he stares at his hands which faintly remember blood. Tension leaves the monk’s body. He notices the slightly softer breathing, the ease flowing in his arms and legs, a softness to his gaze. He observes the dying down of his anger, and the diminishing of its light.

  Đào

  Anguli Ma had arrived the day before.

  “I am enquiring about the notice on the window of Bà Sáu’s grocery. I am in need of a room, nothing too expensive.” His eyes searched the landlady’s round face, her smooth unadorned neck.

  “The room out the back’s already taken; it was advertised more than five months ago.” That was when the girl had moved in, with nothing but her two large plastic bags.

  “Are you sure?” Anguli Ma said, and added with a lazy grin, “I’ll be honest with you, I’m a simple man so I don’t need anything that would make me worry unnecessarily.”

  That’s all very well, Đào thought, but there was still no room. She expected that he would become angry or at least mildly annoyed at having come out here on some outdated information. When she lifted her gaze, what she saw instead was his acquiesced frame beginning to turn away.

  “Where is your quê?” she asked.

  “My quê gốc is in the North,” he rounded out her question for her, “but my father was a teacher so we emigrated to the South in ’54.”

  Đào was somewhat impressed – his people were either wealthy, intellectuals or Catholics and had chosen to uproot from their quê gốc rather than live under the Communists.

  If he’d said they were ’45 migrants, then she might have thought differently. She herself did not witness the gruesome scenes of small children collapsed in the street during the famine time, of food vendors fighting back the hordes of starving peasants who snatched at their precious, dangling baskets. She had only heard the whispered stories, carried to the fertile South by those who managed to flee death. Đào shifted her weight to the other leg, adjusted the jade and gold bracelet on her left wrist.

  “And what do you do now?”

  “There’s a place around here in Braybrook offering work. I’m unsure if I have the kind of experience they’re looking for, having only been a sinh viên during the war. We just learnt how to read thick books and recite poetry, nothing of use for our new lives over here.” He looked down at Đào carefully to let his words sink in. He followed her own gaze down to her fingernails, which were discoloured by turquoise lint.

  “We can hardly be fussy about the way we earn our rice nowadays, can we?” Then he smiled at her conspiratorially, intimately, as though whatever differences they might have had in the old country, they were in the same boat now. Anguli Ma arranged his features to be amiable, uninvolved, as though he was describing someone else’s life and not his own.

  Đào could see that his face was that of a Northerner, with the taller nose and high cheekbones and forehead. This son of a teacher, this former student during the war, now reduced to manual labour.

  “The job available here is only for two or three months, then I’ll be heading north to do farming work outside of Brisbane.”

  “Is your family over here?” Đào felt herself softening.

  “No. I am alone unfortunately,” he replied.

  With that, Đào’s stomach had decided. She had an empty garage, which might be adequate for a short period, and she could allow this fellow to stay for a few months or so. And she would earn some extra money during this time too. Despite being impressed by his family background, Đào charged him a premium for a garage with a jammed car entrance and a warped wooden door on the side.

  Đào reached between the collected jars and bottles filled with bulbous pickled vegetables, vinegars, chilli pastes, fermented prawn paste, fish and oyster sauces. The paper labels on the damp, backlit bottles and jars were wrinkled. Her fridge was so crammed, she often couldn’t see what she’d bought only last week from tiệm Bà Sáu. Đào’s plump right hand squeezed between the plastic takeaway containers to the very back corner of her old fridge. Then she felt it, a small cellophane bag of birdseye chillies. Đào lunged at the bottles and jars, which made a glass squeaking sound, before she was able to reach the bag with the tips of her fingers. She gave a hard pull to retrieve her arm from the fridge. Đào trimmed a fresh chilli with a pair of scissors and crushed the fleshy slivers into some table salt, staining it with the chilli’s thin red juice.

  What a trio they made, Đào thought, three women in a drafty old house without their husbands, children, siblings, fathers or mothers, without any menfolk. And now this was about to change, somewhat. Her tenants waited as she returned to the table with a plate of sliced green apples and the chilli dipping salt. Đào placed the cut apples in front of them and told them about Anguli Ma.

  The young woman Sinh sat forward on her seat. Her slender arms rested awkwardly on the table, and her bright, dark eyes seemed to look at something high up on the wall that Đào couldn’t see. Sinh was nineteen, twenty in Vietnamese years because the period of gestation is counted, and had escaped by herself as a sixteen-year-old. Like Đào, she had a talent for finding things, and came across many useful items that people had discarded, or simply forgot and never looked for. Her dry, rough hands betrayed her occupation cleaning houses and motel rooms.

  The other tenant was an old woman who shared the studio room out in the backyard with Sinh. Bác was seated partially in the light. Strands of her grey hair were combed closely along her shiny scalp, while everywhere else her skin had the texture of a soft, dry paper bag. Bác’s face remained impassive when Đào told them about the new tenant who was going to stay in the garage.

  Đào decided to lighten things up, seeing that she had now given them news that would surely affect their daily routines. The landlady stared at Sinh’s sh
iny black hair which fell down to the middle of her back.

  “You’re very skinny, you’ve got to eat more,” Đào teased playfully. Sinh’s slender fingers picked up a slice of apple and dipped it into the chilli salt.

  “Your hair is very dark and very strong. Maybe it eats all the food that goes into your stomach.”

  Bác’s thin shoulders shook as she laughed at the idea of apple turning into long black hair.

  “But I eat everything I can,” Sinh replied.

  And it was the truth too, Đào had seen her empty a large bowl of rice, sometimes as many as three, in one sitting. But the girl could work hard as well, and it was this vigour that would ensure her survival beyond these threadbare years.

  The three women heard the sound of keys jangling outside the house, accompanied by muscular footsteps.

  “It must be the new stranger,” the old woman whispered.

  “Stranger now, but acquaintance later,” Đào reassured her tenants. “I had a long talk with him yesterday, having him around could be useful.”

  She noticed that Bác didn’t respond again, but continued looking at the plate of apples.

  “Don’t worry, he’s only staying for a month or two, if he’s no good he’ll be gone soon,” Đào reassured them.

  The side gate clicked. Sinh’s face was as fresh as an apple as she listened to the oncoming footsteps. Đào noticed the reflected white light on the girl’s shiny hair, as one strand seemed to defy gravity and stand up slightly.

  The women sat at the table in silence. Their ears followed the heavy, irregular footsteps as they walked down the side of the house. Outside the wind picked up and blew against all the external surfaces and the gaps between them. The house itself seemed to whisper and gasp with his approach, for the women could hear every creak and reverberation from its old frame.

  The door opened and the new tenant came in. He had a large bag over one of his shoulders. He was a tall and rather thin man who seemed to bear the weight of the heavy bag quite easily. He was no longer a youth and yet certainly not old.

  “Welcome, come in,” Đào said. “Why didn’t you come through the front?”

  “Hello, all,” he said after taking in the room and its occupants. “I like feeling at home,” he lowered the plastic bag onto the laminate table, “rather than being a guest.” His voice had the warmth of a guitar on a still, idle night.

  Through the clear plastic, the women could see the meat and bones pressed tightly against the bag. The marrow in the sawn bones was still rich and wet. The landlady estimated that he had brought twenty-five kilograms home.

  “Oh, so much meat,” Sinh said, holding a polite smile on her lips.

  “Work, they gave it to me. I’m at that place along the river.”

  The fridge turned itself on, and a corner of the plastic bag leaked droplets of blood onto Đào’s kitchen floor.

  Twilight came to the old house, chilling the air. Đào cleaved the leg of pork. The tongue of her cleaver met with the solid sponginess of the wooden chopping board. Her fingers submerged the meat in fish sauce, and she covered it with a plate to let it marinate. Then she filled her large pot with the bones and water. The gas stove whispered alive, and the cold steel of the large pot began to sweat.

  Đào wanted to be free of the sin of throwing food out, so she wrapped the extra cuts in individual plastic bags, to give to the women at her hụi game. Đào wiped her face and her hands on a clean piece of fabric and sat down. She opened the Nhân Quyền newspaper, flicked past the news stories and turned straight to the horoscopes.

  The pot boiled. Đào reduced the gas and skimmed off the layer of foamy muck that had floated to the top. The pot of soup would be their warm centre for the week. She would boil fresh rice noodles, and her tenants would have the thick soup ready to ladle into a bowl when they came home from their toils each day. Once inside, they would remove their coats as though unyoking an animal muteness, a constrained vocabulary of grunts and gestures. It was then that her house performed a kind of magic on her and her tenants, and they would be able to speak as humans once again, and fill themselves with food that their bellies were conversant with.

  Her son was going to ask her questions, that was for sure. Đào stared at the Buddha on the altar which silently dominated the living room, along with the television set and an old upright piano. Above the door hung a crucifix given to her by the local church, although Đào’s family did not convert when they were refugees, and were even less likely to do so now that they were safe and settled. The tall church-people had helped her to rent this house, with its large rooms and high ceilings. So Đào hung the crucifix above the door. Being quite short, she rarely saw the pained face of Jesus when she walked out of the room and could only catch a glimpse of His toes.

  While she waited, a quiet resentment arose in her. All these years Đào had made sacrifices for Trung. And look how he had turned out. Why did he lack motivation? What had she made these great sacrifices for? Trung had adapted much more quickly than she did, which is expected. But he had assimilated the laziness of the locals. If she had the tongue that he had she would be applying for better-paying jobs and wearing better clothes and driving a better car than that whooping-cough car of his, so that the neighbours could see they came from a good family. Instead, her son chose to wear ordinary pants and plain shirts. All the ‘label’ shirts she bought for him from the factory, at a heavily discounted price, he simply put in his walk-in robe. He opened only one of the long-sleeved cotton shirts, which hung like a formal stranger amongst his other short-sleeved shirts and windcheaters.

  Through the metal grilles and venetian blinds and the nylon lace over the windows, Đào watched him shaking his legs as he got out of the car. He went around stiffly to open the door for his daughter, Tuyết. The moment they were inside her house, Đào took charge.

  “Here, you watch the tivi okay?”

  Tuyết’s short haircut emphasised a sullenness in her jaw. She looked up at Trung, who nodded encouragingly. She turned back to her grandma blankly, acquiescing. Đào turned on the television, disappeared and then returned with a range of sateen cushions, which she put on the lounge next to the back pillow.

  “Stop sitting so close to the tivi! Move back!” Đào yelled.

  Tuyết moved back obediently, and was then arranged, along with the back pillow and cushions. The granddaughter appeared sleepy and tried to pull away from Đào.

  Đào began to reheat the soup for her son. The slimy green curry soup swirled in the large pot. She garnished the bowl with bean sprouts and Vietnamese mint from her garden. Then she presented the soup to the table, stood with her feet rooted to the ground and waited for him to taste it.

  “Is it all right?” Her hands tensed up.

  Trung tasted it silently, said it was delicious and moved the top of his head away from the vicinity of her hands. Đào continued standing there. She wanted for more to be said, more praise for her hard work and cooking skills. Nothing came back at her. Đào pursed her lips, disappointed, for her son was not in the habit of heaping praise on housework he disliked doing himself. Unable to express this displeasure, she began interrogating him.

  “When are you going to make a decision about your life? Other people’s sons have restarted their careers.”

  Trung became confused for a moment, but then replied, “It’s good to have a look at what is around…things are different over here…”

  Đào was back at the large pot, spooning the curry soup into a smaller, child-sized bowl.

  “You’re young,” she said from the stove, “you don’t understand how short our lives are. Turn your head this way and that, and then three years have already passed. We’ve been in this country for that long now, can you believe that?”

  During that time, Trung had been quietly evading the shadow of something he could not quite name.

  He lowered his voice. “Then, I don’t want to spend every minute of my short life…” he didn’t
say the rest, “working like a dog.”

  His daughter was absorbed in a noisy cartoon on the television, oblivious to their conversation. Then a newsbreak about a baby in the Northern Territory, either killed by its parents or taken by a dingo.

  Trung changed the topic. “Má, was that man who left the house when we arrived one of your hụi friends?”

  “No. He’s living here, for a month or two – in the garage.”

  Trung leaned forward. “Why did you rent out your house to a stranger? The girl and the old woman are okay, but why a man as well?”

  “I can use the extra money,” Đào said.

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  “Of course I know about him!”

  “What do you know about him?” he persisted.

  “He is a polite, well-spoken man.” Đào’s voice calmed down again, “His quê gốc is in the North and his father was a school teacher.”

  “But, what does he do over here?” Trung stirred his slimy green soup, and resumed eating.

  Đào raised her voice. “He’s a Vietnamese. Everyone over here is struggling the same way. We have all lost so much already. There’s no point having no tình người.”

  Trung looked indignant and replied, “We all need money over here, but there are limits…”

  “You see someone in need, so you help them. Come over here and everybody’s blood turns tepid.” Đào waited for his counter-attack.

  Trung got up and left his soup unfinished. “Let’s hope your granddaughter is safe with strangers around.”

  The Monk

  After meditating in the morning, the monk decides to leave his shelter to walk down to the river and the nearby park. His makeshift abode is behind an overgrown paddock, beyond the old blue-stone quarry next to the handful of factories on the escarpment. The distance is further than he first guessed, and upon arrival he finds the wind has picked up and grey clouds are looming on the horizon. The monk has another difficulty: he needs to do a shit. It is the middle of an overcast day and no one is around. He tries the brick public toilet, but finds it locked. So the monk makes sure he is discreet, and has a dump behind a shrub in a secluded part of the park. He is feeling lighter and happier for it; all the cells inside his body are singing, and at times he thinks enlightenment is worth it for the regular bowel movements. The joy of non-attachment to the contents of one’s intestines as well as one’s thoughts, emotions, convictions and conceptions. That was the thought, but the moment is already gone.