The Beauty Of Humanity Movement Part 22

"People like you make me want to quit my job."

"Actually," says T's father, seizing this opportunity, "we were wondering how much you pay to rent this place."

"Rent?" he bellows. "I own the d.a.m.n building."

T's father proceeds carefully, scratching his chin. "Do you have any idea what the rents are like around here?" he asks. He lowers his voice and whispers: "I bet you could make fifty times the amount of money you make selling ph if you were to rent out the s.p.a.ce."

"A guy said that to me once," says the owner, "but it turned out he wanted to open a nightclub. I don't want a nightclub in here, or some kind of opium den. My wife, kids and grandkids live upstairs."

"What about renting it to another ph cook?" T's father asks. "Keeping it as a restaurant."

The owner leans his chin on his broom handle. "Do you have anyone in mind?"

"Old Man Hng," T's father says.

"I thought he was strictly a street seller."

"His fortunes have recently changed."

"Oh yeah?" says the owner, and T knows his father has this old b.a.s.t.a.r.d by the b.a.l.l.s.

The Afterlife.

For the first time ever, T's father asks him to drive the motorbike. T pushes it out into the alleyway and his father climbs on board behind him, saying, "My eyesight is not so good at night anymore." A great surge of pa.s.sion for his family comes into T's throat, the recognition of his duty as eldest and only son.

They are off to see the old man at the hospital. Lan is there at his side as she tends to be more often than not, lifting Hng's spirits with her presence. T has responded to Hng's request for a notebook and pen, and day by day he is making notes, recording the words she feeds him line by line. They grow silent when T and his father approach the bed, sharing secrets.

This evening T recounts the story about the owner of the shop on Ma May Street, and Old Man Hng chortles with satisfaction. The end of his time in hospital is in sight now that they have removed his cast.

"I'd like to see the shop as soon as I can manage," he says. "Me and my a.s.sistant cook."

T is taken aback. Did Hng not teach him the recipe? Train him as apprentice? "Did you not like my ph?" he asks.

"You made a fine bowl," says Hng, "but it takes a particular type of person."

"I'm not the right type of person?" T asks, truly offended now.

"Your life needs to depend on it," says Hng. "Only a very poor person who needs a better life will marry himself to this kind of work. You have other choices, T.

"Want to see my leg?" he asks then, throwing back the covers and looking proudly at his yellow matchstick. He agitates to get up, reaching for Bnh's arm. "Get my shoes for me, will you, Bnh? They're under the bed. Latest fas.h.i.+on, eh, T?"

"Are you sure you're ready to walk?" Bnh asks.

"I'm supposed to exercise it every day."

"That's different from walking on it."

"He's right, Hng," says Lan, putting her hand on Hng's chest. "Give it a day or two."

Hng sighs, rolls his eyes, collapses backward. He's clearly not used to all this attention, all the fuss, being told what to do, but from the smile that returns to his face when he settles into his pillow, T thinks he is actually quite enjoying it.

Lan pats the papery, parched skin of Hng's hand. "Bad dream," she says gently, touching his cheek. She strokes his mole with her leathery fingertips. "Do you ever think that without this mole your life would have turned out differently? You might not be here, for instance."

"But then I wouldn't be here with you," says Hng. "Maybe that is why I was born with it."

Maggie leans against the frame of the doorway of the ward, holding a brown paperwrapped package to her chest. She doesn't want to interrupt: Hng is staring intently at the old woman sitting at his side. She is wearing faded black communist-era clothes and the same black slippers Hng always wears, or used to. Her thin grey hair is pulled back in a bun, and they could be brother and sister if it weren't for the way she is looking at him.

It's a look of old love, of something knowing and decades deep. Something she wishes her parents could have shared.

The woman kisses Hng's forehead, then slumps back in her chair. "Oh, Hng," she says, immediately heaving herself forward to wipe away a tear clinging to the old man's lower lashes. "You old fool. I've known you for almost forty-five years; I don't think it's a sin if we're not married. Do you even know if it has enough room at the back? Not that we need much, but we'll probably only have room for one altar."

They are planning a future together, as much of a future as they have left.

Maggie asks the young man who is soon to be Hng's apprentice to give the old man the package when his visitor leaves.

"But she never leaves, Miss Maggie. He is never on his own." She will hold on to her father's framed picture for the time being, then. She has the others at her apartment, delivered in person two days ago by the dealer in Hong Kong, unwrapped by Simon shortly thereafter. There will be another occasion, a more appropriate one to give the old man this picture-at the grand opening of his new shop. The past will be revealed and given a place to hang in the present.

Ph Nhan Van.

The pots are new, and so is the stove over which Hng is perspiring as he greets people on Ma May Street through the open window. Despite his limp, he can stand here for hours in these new shoes; they make him feel as if he could walk on the moon. In truth, his keen apprentice does much of the walking for him. Dong does the market run every morning, takes deliveries, carries the steaming bowls to tables, keeps the shop clean, swept and tidy.

Hng admires his establishment every morning. He basks in the heavenly white of the newly plastered walls. Look at that fine fridge standing there. He likes its gleaming newness and won't ever remove the manufacturer's sticker. And hasn't Bnh done an exquisite job of restoring the old wooden shutters and the latticework around the door? He's even created cupboards in the backroom for him and Lan according to Hng's description of the closet he once admired in a room at the Hotel Metropole. Bnh has also built a chest big enough to hold two altars: o and Lan's grandmother are now getting acquainted. There have been no complaints from either of them so far.

Hng is particularly proud of the sign. PH NHan VN it says on the outside of the building, words painted by a local artist in exchange for one hundred bowls of ph. That artist sits now with colleagues and professors from the Hanoi University of Fine Arts at a table permanently reserved for them. A framed picture of two Indochinese tigers entangled in battle hangs on the wall above their heads-an inspired work by Ly Vn Hai, an alumnus of the school, Maggie's father-a sober reminder of the brutality waged between brothers in earlier times.

The second reserved table is for family. This morning, Bnh, having discovered a particular talent for faces, is sketching Maggie's portrait. T is collecting the empty bowls, helping out as he does each morning, having recently quit his job in order to introduce Hng to such capitalist concepts as improved margins and net profit per bowl. Phng, who holds the dubious distinction of being Vietnam Idol's runner-up, is wearing headphones and tapping a pencil against a bowl. Maggie is reading a note from the charming young professor with the French name who sits at the next table. Lan, Hng's ap.r.o.ned partner in the restaurant and all things, thinks she has been discreet as the go- between, dropping the note into Maggie's hands. She might think no one in this new family of hers has noticed, but Hng watches Maggie's eyelids flutter as she looks over at the professor and bites down the smile of a woman newly in love.

Hng has his moments of wondering whether this is the afterlife or the present life. But then he asks himself, Does it matter?

Author's Note.

WHAT I REFER TO HERE as the Beauty of Humanity Movement-a liberal interpretation for fictional purposes-is more commonly known as the Nhan VanGiai Phm affair, after two publications Nhan Van (Humanism) and Giai Phm (Fine Works).

This controversial chapter in Vietnamese history was first exposed to the West through the writings of Hoang Van Chi in The Nhan Van Affair and Hundreds of Flowers Blooming in the North, published in 1959 by the Congress of Cultural Freedom in Saigon.

o is an entirely fictional creation. The group of men involved in publis.h.i.+ng the journals was, in fact, led by the great revolutionary poet Phan Khoi, who only appears as a minor character in this novel. I have attributed the essence of some of Phan Khoi's lines to o, notably: "We believe absolutely in communism, the most wonderful ideal of mankind, the youngest, the freshest ideal in all history," and, "But if a single style is imposed on all writers and artists the day is not far off when all flowers will be turned into chrysanthemums," (page 132). The crimes of the Party listed on page 137 were articulated by Phan Khoi in one of his editorials.

Neil L. Jamieson's Understanding Vietnam (University of California Press, 1993) offers a thorough account of literature and communism in Vietnam, for anyone interested in reading more about the subject.

Very few Vietnamese novels have been translated into English. The exception is the work of the North Vietnamese writer Dng Thu Hng, whose novels were, in the 1990s, the first by a Vietnamese writer to be published in the U.S. These novels, which continue to be banned in Vietnam, offer rare insight into the conditions in Vietnam, and particularly Hanoi, in the 1980s.

Acknowledgements.

WITH LOVE AND THANKS to Heather Conway, Ha Qung Phng, Trn Th Lan, Drew Harris and Sherifah Mazwari for the shared experiences in Hanoi.

With grat.i.tude to Maya Mavjee, Nita p.r.o.novost, Jane Fleming, Martha Kanya-Forstner, Anne McDermid and Martha Magor for the editorial guidance and interest throughout the course of writing this book, and to the Canada Council for the Arts for support.

With thanks to Kris Risk for encouraging me to change directions and Chris Kelly for unfailing friends.h.i.+p and the occasional s.p.a.ce in which to write. Thanks to the staff of Hanoi 3 Seasons, Kim's Cafe and Mimi's on Gerrard Street East for the ph and to Anh of Hidden Hanoi for sharing recipes and stories.

And to Sir Edward Fennessy (19122009) for always being my grandpa.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

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The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life.

Sweetness in the Belly.